"WHAT TALES ARE THESE?"
"Now tell me," said Mr Bevan, they were walking in the garden after
luncheon, "tell me, Cousin Fanny"--Miss Lambert, had vanished with the
Böllinger--"don't you think your father is a little
bit--er--extravagant?"
"He may be a bit extravagant," murmured Fanny, plucking a huge daisy and
putting it in her belt. "But then--he is such a dear, and I know he
tries to economise all he can, he sold the carriage and horse only a
month ago, and just look at the garden! he wont go to the expense of a
gardener but does it all himself; it would be disgraceful only it's so
lovely, with all the things running wild; see, here is one of his garden
gloves."
She picked a glove out of a thorn bush and kissed it, and put it in her
pocket.
"He does the garden himself!"
"He and James."
"You don't mean----"
"Mr Isaacs' man, they have dug up a lot of ground over there and planted
asparagus. James was a gardener once, but as I have told you, he had
misfortunes and had to take to the law. He is awfully poor, and his wife
is ill; they live in a little street near Artesian Road, and father has
been to see her; he came with me, and we brought her some wine; I
carried it in a basket. See, is not that a beautiful rose?" she smiled
at the rose, and Charles could not but admire her beauty.
"And then," resumed Fanny, the smile fading as the wind turned the
rose's face away, "father is so unfortunate, all the people he lends
money to won't pay him back, and stocks and shares and things go up and
down, and always the wrong way, so he says, and he gets into such a rage
with the house because he can't mortgage it--it was left in trust for
me--and we _can't_ let it, so we have to live in it."
"Why can you not let it?"
"Because of the ghost."
"Good gracious goodness!" gobbled Charles, taking the cigar from his
mouth. "What nonsense are you talking, Cousin Fanny? Ghost! there are no
such things as ghosts."
"_Aren't_ there?" said Fanny. "I wish you saw our one."
"Do you really mean to try to make me believe----" cried Charles, then
he foundered, tied up in his own vile English.
"We did let it once, a year ago, to a Major Sawyer," said Fanny, and she
smiled down the garden path at some presumably pleasant vision. "It was
in May; we let it to him for three months and went down to Ramsgate to
economise. Major Sawyer moved in on a Friday; I remember that, for the
next day was Saturday, and I shall never forget that Saturday.
"We were sitting at breakfast, when a telegram was brought, it was from
the Major, and it was from the South Kensington Hotel; it said, as well
as I can remember, 'Call without a moment's delay.'"
"Of course we thought 'The Laurels' were burnt down, and you can fancy
the fright we were in, for it's not insured--at least the furniture
isn't."
"Not insured!" groaned Charles.
"No; father says houses never catch fire if they are not insured, and he
wouldn't trust himself not to set it on fire if it _was_ insured, so
it's not insured."
"Go on."
"Let us sit down on this seat. Well, of course we thought we were
ruined, and father was perfectly wild to get up to town and know the
worst, he can't stand suspense. He wanted to take a special train, and
there was a terrible scene at the station; you know we have Irish blood
in us: his mother was Irish, and Fanny Lambert, my great-grandmother,
the one that hung herself, was an Irishwoman. There was a terrible scene
at the station, because they wouldn't take father's cheque for the extra
twenty-five pounds for the special train. 'I tell you I'm _ruined_,'
said father, but the station-master, a horrible little man with
whiskers, said he couldn't help that. Oh! the world is horribly cold and
cruel," said Fanny, drawing closer to her companion, "when one is in a
strange place, where one doesn't know people. Once father gets to know
people he can do anything with them, for every one loves him. The wife
of the hotel-keeper where we stayed in Paris wept when we had to go away
without our luggage."
"I should think so."
"You see we only took half of the money we got from Mr Isaacs to Paris;
we locked half of it up in the bureau in the library for fear we would
spend it, then when the fortnight was up we hadn't enough for the bill.
Father wanted to leave Boy-Boy, but they said they'd sooner keep the
luggage. They were very nice over it, the hotel-keeper and his wife, but
people are horrid when they don't know one.
"Well, we came by a later train, and found Major Sawyer waiting for us
at the South Kensington Hotel. He was such a funny old man with fiery
eyes and white hair that stood up. We did not see Mrs Sawyer, so we
supposed she had been burnt in the fire; but we scarcely had time to
think, for the Major began to abuse father for having let him such a
house.
"I was awfully frightened, and father listened to the abuse quite
meekly, you see he thought Mrs Sawyer was burnt. Then it came out that
there had been no fire, and I saw father lift up his head, and put his
chin out, and I stopped my ears and shut my eyes."
"I suppose he gave it to old Sawyer."
"Didn't he! Mrs Sawyer told me afterwards that the Major had never been
spoken to so before since he left school, and that it had done him a
world of good--poor old thing!"
"But what was it all about--I mean what made him leave the house?"
"Why, the ghost, to be sure. The first night he was in the house he went
poking about looking for burglars, and saw it or heard it, I forget
which; they say he did not stop running till he reached the police
station, and that's nearly a mile away, and he wouldn't come back but
took a cab to the hotel in his pyjamas. But the funny thing is, that
ever since the day father abused him, he has been our best friend; he's
helped us in money matters lots of times, and he always sends us hares
and things when he goes shooting. The ghost always brings us luck when
she can--always."
"You believe in Luck?"
"I believe in everything, so does father."
"And this ghost, it's a 'she' you said, I think?"
"It's Fanny Lambert."
"Oh!"
"My great-grandmother."
"Tell me about her," said Charles, lighting a new cigar and leaning back
luxuriously on the seat.
The seat was under a chestnut tree, before them lay a little
wilderness, sunflowers unburst from the bud, stocks, and clove pinks.
In its centre stood a moss-grown sun-dial bearing this old dial
inscription in Latin, "The hours pass and are numbered." From this
wilderness of a garden came the drone of bees, a dreamy sound that
seemed to refute the motto upon the dial.
"She lived," said Fanny, "a hundred, or maybe two hundred, years ago;
anyhow it was in the time of the Regency--and I wish to goodness I had
lived then."
"Why?"
"Oh, it must have been such fun."
"How do you know about the time of the Regency?"
"I have read about it in the library, there are a lot of old books about
it, and one of them is in handwriting, not in print. You know in those
times the Lamberts lived here at 'The Laurels,' just as we do, that's
what makes the house so old; and the Prince Regent used to drive up here
in a carriage and pair of coal-black horses. He was in love with Mrs
Lambert, and she was in love with him. I don't wonder at her."
"Well, you ought to wonder at her," said Charles in a hectoring voice,
blowing a cloud of smoke at a bumble-bee that had alighted on Fanny's
dress, and was rubbing its hands together as if in satisfaction at the
prosperous times and the plenty of flowers.
"Don't blow smoke at the poor thing. Isn't he fat!--there, he is gone.
Why ought I to wonder at her?"
"Because she was married."
"Why shouldn't she be married?"
"Ahem!" said Charles, clearing his throat.
"Why?"
"I meant to say that she should not have loved the Prince."
"Why not? he was awfully good to them. Do you know George, Fanny's
husband, must have been very like father; he was like him in face, for
we have a miniature of him, but he was like him in other ways, too. He
would sit up at Crockfords--what _was_ Crockfords?"
"A kind of club, I believe."
"He would sit up at Crockfords playing cards all night, and he killed a
man once by hitting him over the head with a poker; the jury said the
man died of apoplexy, but he kept the man's wife and children always
afterwards, and that is just what father would have done."
"I know," said Charles, "at least I can imagine him; but, all the same,
I don't think you know what marriage is."
"Oh yes, I do!"
"What is it, then?"
"It's a blessed state," said Fanny, breaking into a joyous laugh; "at
least I read so in some old book."
"We were talking of the Prince Regent, I think," said Charles rather
stiffly.
"Were we? Oh yes, I remember. Well, they loved each other so much that
the old book said it was a matter of common rumour, whatever that means.
One night at Crockfords Mr Bevan--he was an ancestor of yours--flew into
a frightful temper over some nonsense--a misdeal at cards I think it
was--and called George Lambert a name, an awfully funny name; what was
this it was? let me think----"
"Don't think, don't think, go on with the story," cried Charles in an
agony.
"And George Lambert slapped Mr Bevan's face, and serve him right, too."
"What is that you say?" cried Charles, wattling like a turkey-cock.
"I said serve him right!" cried Fanny, clenching her little fists.
"Look here----" said Charles, then suddenly he became dumb, whilst the
breeze wandered with a rustling sound through the desolate garden,
bearing with it from some distant street the voice of a man crying
"Herrings," as if to remind them that Highgate was no longer the
Highgate of the Regency.
"Well?" said Fanny, still with a trace of defiance in her tone.
"Nothing," answered Charles meekly. "Go on with your story."
Fanny nestled closer to him as if to make up, and went on:
"The Prince was in the room, and every one said he turned pale; some
people said he cried out, 'My God, what an occurrence!' and some people
said he cried out, 'Gentlemen, gentlemen!' And the old Marquis of Bath
dropped his snuff-box, though what that has to do with the story I don't
know.
"At all events, the Prince left immediately, for he had an appointment
to meet Fanny, and have supper with her. He must have said something
nasty to her, for instead of having supper with him, she took a carriage
and drove home here. She seemed greatly distressed; the servants said
she spent the night walking up and down the blue corridor crying out, 'O
that I ever loved such a man!' and 'Who would have thought men were so
cruel!' Then, when her husband came back from fighting a duel with Mr
Bevan, she was gone. All her jewels were gone too; she must have hidden
them somewhere, for they were never found again.
"They found her hanging in a clothes closet quite dead; she had hung
herself with her garters--she must have had a very small neck, I'm sure
I couldn't hang myself with mine--and now she haunts the corridor
beckoning to people to follow her."
"Have you ever seen her?"
"No, but I am sure I have heard her at nights sometimes, when the wind
is high. Father O'Mahony wanted to lay her, but I told father not to let
him, she's said to be so lucky."
"Lucky, indeed, to lose you a good tenant!"
"It was the luckiest thing she ever did, for the hotel was awfully
expensive."
"Why did you not take apartments, then?"
"Oh, they are so lonely and so poky, and landladies rob one so."
"Is your father a Roman Catholic?"
"He is."
"What are you?"
"I am nothing," said Fanny, proclaiming her simple creed with all the
simplicity of childhood, and a smile that surely was reflected on the
Recording Angel's face as he jotted down her reply.
"Does your _father_ know of this state of your mind?" asked Charles in a
horrified voice.
"Yes, and he is always trying to convert me to 'the faith,' as he calls
it. We have long arguments, and I always beat him. When he can find
nothing more to say, he always scratches his dear old head and says,
'Anyhow you're baptised, and that's one comfort,' then we talk of other
things, but he did convert me once."
"How was that?"
"I was in a hurry to try on a frock," said this valuable convert to the
Church; "at least the dressmaker was waiting, so I gave in, but only for
once."
"What do you believe in, then?" asked Charles, glancing fearfully at
the female atheist by his side, who had taken her garden hat from her
head and was swinging it by the ribbon.
"I believe in being good, and I believe in father, and I believe one
ought always to make every one as happy as possible and be kind to
animals. I believe people who ill-treat animals go to hell--at least, I
hope they do."
"Do you believe in heaven?" asked Mr Bevan in a pained voice.
"Of course I do."
"Then you are _not_ an atheist," in a voice of relief.
"Of course I'm not. Who said I was?"
"You did."
"I didn't. I'd sooner die than be an atheist. One came here to dinner
once; he had a red beard, and smoked shag in the drawing-room. Ugh! such
a man!"
"Do you believe in God?"
"I used to, when I was a child. I was always told He would strike me
dead if I told a lie, and then I found that He didn't. It was like the
man who lived in the oven. I was always told that the Black Man who
lived in the oven would run away with me if I stole the jam; and one
day I stole the jam, and opened the oven door and looked in. I was in a
terrible fright, but there wasn't any man there."
"It's very strange," said Charles.
"That there wasn't a man there?"
"I was referring," said Charles stiffly, "to such thoughts in the mind
of one so young as you are."
"Oh, I'm as old as the hills," cried Fanny in the voice of a _blasé_
woman of the world, making a grab at a passing moth and then flinging
her hat after it, "as old as the--mercy! what's that?"
"Miss Fanny!" cried the voice of Susannah, who was lowing like a cow
through garden and shrubbery in search of her missing mistress, "Miss
Fah-ny, Miss----"
"That's tea," said Fanny, rising, and leading the way to the house.