Bluebeard's Cupboard
'O most lame and impotent conclusion!'--_Shakespeare_.
Agatha was naturally very vexed when she heard from her sisters what
had happened. She was sometimes laughed at by her friends for her
devotion to the clergy, and all her hopes of doing good were centred in
the country church and its organizations.
'It is most unfortunate,' she said; 'I was hoping that perhaps some of
them might call before Sunday, but really after such an encounter they
may totally ignore us. It was not right to do such a thing, Elfie,
without permission. I can't think how Gwen could have allowed it.'
'Well, really, I am not up in propriety and etiquette in such matters,'
was Gwen's rather impatient response. 'We are not in town now, thank
goodness! In the country you are supposed to have a little freedom.
If they don't wish people to try the organ, they should not leave it
open, or they should chain a bulldog to the organ stool. Wasn't that
her suggestion, Clare? My dear Agatha, don't fuss yourself. This old
woman must be quite a character, and would abuse anybody, I feel
certain. We didn't tell her who we were, so if she comes to call on
you, we will keep out of the way. She seemed half blind, so I don't
expect she would recognise us again.'
'Jane says she lives alone with her brother, who is unmarried,' said
Clare, 'and she is quite a Tartar in the village, though she is very
good in relieving the villagers' wants.'
'What does Jane know about it?'
'Oh, she gets her gossip from Mrs. Tucker, who also told her that Miss
Miller sees better through her green glasses than most people do
without any glasses at all!'
'Mrs. Tucker talks a lot of rubbish, I expect,' said Gwen, rather
loftily; then, changing the conversation, she said, 'I am going to
unpack my books now. Who will come and help me? I am longing to fill
up those empty bookshelves in Mr. Lester's study. What a good thing he
left them as fixtures!'
'I will help you, if you like,' said Clare. 'Are you going to take
sole possession of that study, may I ask?'
Gwen looked across at her rather queerly.
'Not if you dispute it,' she said, with a little laugh. 'Agatha is in
love with the drawing-room. She has already arranged a corner for
herself there; her writing-table in the west window, her work-basket
and books in the corner by it, and her pet canary is now singing
himself hoarse at the view he has from the window.'
'Yes,' Agatha replied, 'it is an ideal old maid's corner, and that is
where you will always find me, when my housekeeping duties are not
keeping me away.'
'I wish we could have a sitting-room each,' said Clare; 'we get so in
each other's way.'
'You can share the study with me when you want to be quiet,' said Gwen.
'I won't have you there if you talk!'
'You're quite the owner of it already, then? And what are you going to
do, Elfie?'
'Oh, I shall be everywhere. Agatha never minds my music. I shall be
practising a good deal, and if I'm voted a bore, I shall take my violin
up to the bedroom. You and Gwen are the blue stockings, so the study
will be given over to you.'
This seemed satisfactory. Gwen was a great reader, and possessed
already a most valuable library. She wrote essays for some periodical
occasionally, but would never bind herself to any steady contributions,
and she was never so happy as when deeply engrossed in some ancient
histories of Egypt or Nineveh. The buried past had a fascination for
her, and perhaps she of all the others had most reason for regretting
the departure from London, for her constant visits to the reading-room
at the British Museum had been a keen delight and pleasure to her.
When quite a schoolgirl she used to say, with that masterful toss of
her head, 'I am quite determined that I will understand and master
every "ology" under the sun!'
And Gwen and her 'ologies' had been a perpetual joke in her family ever
since. She had dabbled in a good many sciences--geology, astronomy,
architecture, physiology, botany, natural history, and archaeology all
had their turn, and she certainly seemed to get a good deal of interest
and amusement out of them all. She announced to Clare, as a little
later they were seated on the study floor surrounded by pyramids of
books, that she intended to give her thoughts now to gardening and
agriculture.
'I have some delightful old books on horticulture, which I shall read
up,' she said enthusiastically; 'and there is an old Dutch writer
amongst them who gives the most minute directions for laying out a
flower and vegetable garden. I have told Agatha I shall take the
garden into my charge. I am certain I shall succeed with it.'
'Do you ever doubt your capability for doing anything?'
Clare put the question gravely.
'No, I don't think I do, except teach a Sunday school class!' said
Gwen, laughing.
'I sometimes feel I am incapable of living even,' said Clare dreamily.
Gwen stared at her. These two understood each other better than one
would have thought possible with such opposite characteristics. Clare
admired Gwen's intellect, and there were times when Gwen knew that
Clare had depths of which she knew nothing. Reason and practical
common sense had full sway in the one, imagination and mysticism in the
other, and none of these qualities were tempered with real religion.
'You must be in the blues!' exclaimed Gwen, with a laugh.
'No,' said Clare, looking up, 'I am not, at all. I am longing to be up
and doing, and leave some mark behind me as I go. Is that Browning you
have in your hand? Just let me look up a passage!' Gwen laughed again
as she handed across the book.
'No hope for any more help from you, if you once get hold of him!'
And for an hour Clare sat amongst the piles of books with her fair head
resting against the carved cupboard, and not a word or sign could Gwen
get out of her.
Elfie spent her time in helping Agatha to unpack, and it was a very
tired little party that gathered round the drawing-room fire that
evening.
'I wonder,' said Clare, 'if we shall find we have made a mistake in
coming here. It seems so very quiet, and different to either London or
Dane Hall. When we used to stay there with Aunt Mildred, there was
always such a lot going on that it didn't seem quite like the country.'
'My dear Clare,' said Agatha quietly, 'you would be much happier
yourself, and would make others happier too, if you always made the
best of your circumstances. I remember you used to complain at Dane
Hall of the frivolity and empty-headedness of aunt's visitors, and
would say it was a mere waste of life to live as we did!'
'Oh, don't be so prosy, Agatha!' Clare returned impatiently. 'If you
were dropped into a workhouse ward, you would look round and remark how
comfortable you were, and how at last you had found your vocation!'
Elfie laughed aloud at this, but Agatha leant back in her chair and
looked into the glowing coals in front of her with a smile that showed
she was not destitute of humour. 'I daresay I might,' she said. 'I
always love a community of old women, and if I could have chats with
them, I am sure I should enjoy myself.'
'Well, I only wish I could be so easily contented,' said Clare, in a
tone that showed she would be very sorry for herself if she were. She
soon went off to bed, and Elfie followed, and then the two elder ones
drew their chairs together and had a confidential talk over ways and
means.
Agatha, though apparently apathetic at times and of a yielding
disposition, had not always been so. When she first came home from
school, she had all the bright hopes and restless longings of a young
girl, and her aunt did all in her power to make life pleasant and
bright for her. She went out into society, and was a general
favourite, owing to her sweet temper and extreme unselfishness. Then
one came on the scene who attracted her heart from the first. He was
an earnest, whole-hearted Christian man, a vicar of an East End parish,
and it was his influence that made Agatha view life in a different
light. She vexed her aunt at first by gradually withdrawing from
gaieties, and it was only with great difficulty that she was given
permission to visit in the slums. The vicar was soon her betrothed,
and Agatha had a few months of perpetual sunshine. But hard work, and
a not very strong constitution, soon brought about a serious
break-down, and he was ordered to the south of France to recruit his
health. The parting was a sad one, and Agatha had wild thoughts of
marrying then and there, and going with him as his wife and nurse. But
this Miss Dane strenuously opposed, and poor Agatha had to bear the
strain of five months away from the one who needed her so badly. He
died, and for a time she was broken-hearted; but gradually she came to
prove the reality and comfort of her religion, and then, taking up the
interests of those around her, she had cheerfully buried her own
sorrow, and became the mainstay of her aunt and her household. Perhaps
Agatha felt most keenly being shut out from her aunt's dying room, she
certainly uttered with heartfelt fervour morning and evening, 'Forgive
us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us.'
And she had never trusted herself to mention her cousin's unjust
dealing to anyone; even her sisters had little idea how deep her
feelings were about it.
The next few days were very busy ones. Saturday brought Captain Knox,
to stay with them till Monday, and Clare showed him over house and
garden in the best of spirits. 'It is rather strange,' he said, as he
sat at dinner with them that night, 'but one of my sisters knows a lady
in this neighbourhood, and she thinks you will like her. She lives
somewhere on the outskirts of Brambleton. A Miss Villars. She is a
charming woman, I hear, very comfortably off, but rather eccentric in
the way she spends her money. My sister wrote to her when she knew of
your arrival here, so you may have a visit from her soon.'
'Is she an old maid?' asked Elfie; 'because we have seen one, and, I
was going to say, don't want to see another.'
Clare related their adventure in the church, and Captain Knox was much
amused.
'I do not think there is anything queer about Miss Villars, except that
she is a very religious woman.'
'Is that queer?' questioned Clare, a little wistfully.
'No,' Agatha said very quietly; 'it ought not to be.'
'But it is in the sight of the world,' retorted Captain Knox; 'that is,
if your religion in an aggressive one.'
'Well, of course it ought not to be aggressive,' said Gwen briskly.
'Religion is a matter to be lived, not talked about. It only concerns
oneself, and no one else.'
'That is a very selfish creed,' said Agatha. 'If you possess something
good, you ought to wish to pass it on.'
'But not to thrust it on people who don't want it. I am thirsty, and
like a glass of water, but need I insist upon your drinking it, when
you are not thirsty at all?'
'Gwen loves an argument,' said Captain Knox good-naturedly.
'I am not good at arguing,' said Agatha, 'only, knowing that thirst can
be a blessing, I think we should try to make people thirsty.'
'How do you mean?' asked Clare with interest, 'thirst is not,
generally, a very happy experience.'
'Doesn't it say, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they shall be filled"?'
'Oh, come, Agatha, we don't want a sermon with our dinner. You are not
given to preach, so don't be trying to show us that you know how to be
aggressive.'
Gwen's tone was a little scornful, and Agatha said no more; but as
Clare was pacing up and down in the verandah with Captain Knox, a
little time after, she suddenly said, 'I think I am a thirsty person,
Hugh, only I never can tell what it is I am thirsting for; tell me, are
you perfectly satisfied with yourself and with life?'
Captain Knox looked down at the sweet, pensive face of his betrothed.
'I shall be, Clare--on our wedding day.'
Clare frowned. 'You never will be in earnest about anything; you
always turn my thoughts into ridicule.'
'Indeed I do not. But I am a plain, matter-of-fact soldier, and live
on earth; you are in dreamland half your time, or in the clouds.
Clare, darling, I cannot bear the thoughts of Africa sometimes; how
shall I be able to stand being away from you so long? And time is
slipping away so fast; only a fortnight more before I am off.'
'You will come down again before you start, of course?'
'Oh yes, I certainly intend to do so; but I have a lot to do in
town--it may be only the last day that you will see me.'
Clare sighed, but said nothing, and then Captain Knox said suddenly,--
'Is Agatha very religious, Clare?
'No, I don't think so--not particularly. She is fond of church and all
that, but she doesn't often speak out as she did at dinner to-night.
Now, don't let us be gloomy; come indoors, and I will show you
Bluebeard's cupboard in the study, It is well worth looking at, for it
is beautifully carved, and I am going to try and copy it. You know how
I love carving.'
She took him to the study, and there, by the aid of a lamp, they
examined the old oak cupboard in the deep recess at the side of the
fireplace.
'The strange thing is that there seems to be no lock or opening at all
to it,' said Clare. 'I have spent hours in trying to find out where it
is opened. Do you think one day I shall touch a spring, the doors will
fly open, and there we shall see his headless wives?'
She was laughing now, and full of animation. Captain Knox passed his
fingers lightly across the carving.
'I expect one of these carved bits is movable,' he said. 'It is a
handsome bit of handicraft. What is this along the bottom, a scroll
with writing?'
'That is what I say it is; Gwen says not, but I am sure those
hieroglyphics mean something.'
It looks like Arabic characters,' said Captain Knox with interest. 'I
believe it is so. Here, stop a minute; let me copy these in my
notebook. I shall be studying Arabic on my way out, and if I find I
can translate this, I will let you know.'
'Perhaps it is a clue to the mystery,' said Clare, with shining eyes;
'I am dying to know what this cupboard contains. Mrs. Tucker said she
never saw it opened the whole time she was here; but Mr. Lester told
her once that he prized this cupboard more than anything else in the
house. She thinks, foolish woman, that it is full of gold! I only
hope she won't spread that notion about Brambleton. The next thing
will be that we shall have thieves in the house, and perhaps be all
murdered in our beds!' Captain Knox laughed at her fears, and soon
after, they joined the others in the drawing-room.