ROGER MONK.
I’d never seen such a scene before; I have not seen one since. Perhaps, in fact, the same thing had never happened.
What had done it nobody could imagine. It was as if the place had been smoked out with some deleterious stuff; some destructive or poisoning gases, fatal to vegetable life.
On the previous day but one, Tuesday, there had been a party at the Manor. Squire and Mrs. Todhetley did not go in for much of that kind of thing, but some girls from London were staying with the Jacobsons, and we all went over to a dance there on the Friday. After supper some of them got talking to Mrs. Todhetley, asking in a laughing sort of way why she did not give them one? she shook her head, and answered that we were quiet people. Upon that Tod spoke up, and said he had no doubt the Squire would give one if asked; would like to do it. Had Mrs. Todhetley gone heartily into the proposal at once, Tod would have thrown cold water on it. That was his obstinacy. The girls attacked the Squire, and the thing was settled; the dance being fixed for the following Tuesday.
I know Mrs. Todhetley thought it an awful trouble; the Squire openly said it was when we got home; and he grumbled all day on Saturday. You see, our servants were not used to fashionable parties; neither in truth were their masters. However, if it had to be done at all, it was to be done well. The laundry was cleared out for dancing; the old square ironing-stove taken away, and a few pictures were done round with wreaths of green and hung on the yellow-washed walls. The supper-table was laid in the dining-room; leaving the drawing-room free for reception.
It was the Squire thought of having the plants brought into the hall. He never could say afterwards it was anybody but him. His grumbling was got over by the Tuesday morning, and he was as eager as any of us. He went about in his open nankeen coat and straw hat, puffing and blowing, and saying he hoped we should relish it—he wouldn’t dance in the dog-days.
“I should like to see you dance in any days now, sir,” cried Tod.
“You impudent rascals! You must laugh, too, must you, Johnny! I can tell you young fellows what—you’ll neither of you dance a country dance as we’d used to do it. You should have seen us at the wake. Once when we militia chaps were at the Ram, at Gloucester, for a week’s training, we gave a ball there, and footed it till daylight. ‘We bucks at the Ram;’ that’s what we called ourselves: but most of us are dead and gone now. Look here, boys,” continued the pater after a pause, “I’ll have the choice plants brought into the hall. If we knock up a few sconces for candles on the walls, their colours will show out well.”
He went out to talk to Roger Monk about it. Mrs. Todhetley was in the kitchen over the creams and jellies and things, fit to faint with heat. Jenkins, the head-gardener was back then, but he was stiff yet, not likely to be of permanent good; so Roger Monk was kept on as chief. Under the pater’s direction the sets of green steps were brought in and put on either side of the hall, as many sets as there was space for; and the plants were arranged upon them.
I’d tell you the different sorts but that you might think it tedious. They were choice and beautiful. Mr. Todhetley took pride in his flowers, and spared no expense. Geraniums of all colours, tulips, brilliant roses, the white lily and the purple iris; and the rarer flowers, with hard names that nobody can spell. It was like a lovely garden, rising tier upon tier; a grove of perfume that the guests would pass through. They managed the wax-lights well; and the colours, pink, white, violet, green, orange, purple, scarlet, blue, shone out as the old east window in Worcester Cathedral used to do when it sparkled in the morning sun.
It went off first-rate. Some of the supper sweet dishes fell out of shape with the heat; but they were just as good to eat. In London, the thing you call “society” is made up of form and coldness, and artificialism; with us county people it is honest openness. There, any failure on the table is looked away from, not supposed to be seen; at the supper at Squire Todhetley’s the tumble-down dishes were introduced as a topic of regret. “And to think it should be so, after all the pains I bestowed on them!” added Mrs. Todhetley, not hesitating to say that she had been the confectioner and pastry-cook.
But it is not of the party I have to tell you. It was jolly; and everyone said what a prime ball-room the laundry made. I dare say if we had been London fashionables we should have called it the “library,” and made believe we’d had the books taken out.
Getting ready for company is delightful; but putting things to rights the next day is rather another thing. The plants were carried back to their places again in the greenhouse—a large, long, commodious greenhouse—and appeared none the worse for their show. The old folks, whose dancing-days were over, had spent half the night in the cool hall, admiring these beautiful plants; and the pater told this to Roger Monk as he stood with him in the greenhouse after they were put back. I was there, too.
“I’m glad they were admired, sir,” said Monk in answer. “I’ve taken pains with them, and I think they do the Manor credit.”
“Well, truth to say, Monk, it’s a better and brighter collection than Jenkins ever got. But you must not tell him I say so. I do take a pride in my greenhouse; my father did before me. I remember your mother spending a day here once, Johnny, before you were born, and she said of all the collections in the two counties of Warwick and Worcester, ours was the finest. It came up to Lord Coventry’s; not as large, of course, but the plants in the same prime condition.”
“Yes, sir: I’ve seen the conservatories at Croome,” returned Monk, who generally went in for large names.
“The late Lord Coventry—Yes! Here! Who’s calling?”
Tod’s voice outside, shouting for the Squire, caused the break. He had got Mr. Duffham with him; who wanted to ask about some parish business; and they came to the greenhouse.
So that made another admirer. Old Duff turned himself and his cane about, saying the colours looked brighter by daylight than waxlight; and he had not thought it possible the night before that they could do it. He stole a piece of geranium to put in his button-hole.
“By the way, Monk, when are you going over to Evesham about those seeds and things?” asked the Squire, as he was departing with old Duff.
“I can go when you like, sir.”
“Go to-morrow, then. Start with the cool of the morning. Jenkins can do what has to be done, for once. You had better take the light cart.”
“Very well, sir,” answered Monk. But he had never once looked in the Squire’s face as he answered.
The next morning was Thursday. Tod and I were up betimes to go fishing. There was a capital stream—but I’ve not time for that now. It was striking six as we went out of the house, and the first thing I saw was Jenkins coming along, his face as white as a sheet. He was a big man once, of middle height, but thin and stooping since his last bout of rheumatism; grey whiskers, blue eyes, and close upon fifty.
“I say, Tod, look at old Jenkins! He must be ill again.”
Not ill but frightened. His lips were of a bluey grey, like one whom some great terror has scared. Tod stared as he came nearer, for they were trembling as well as blue.
“What’s up, Jenkins?”
“I don’t know what, Mr. Joe. The devil has been at work.”
“Whereabouts?” asked Tod.
“Come and see, sir.”
He turned back towards the greenhouse, but not another word would he say, only pointed to it. Leaving the fishing-rods on the path, we set off to run.
Never had I seen such a scene before; as I told you at the beginning. The windows were shut, every crevice where a breath of air might enter seemed to be hermetically closed; a smell as of some sulphurous acid pervaded the air; and the whole show of plants had turned to ruin.
A wreck complete. Colour was gone; leaves and stems were gone; the sweet perfume was gone; nothing remained, so to say, but the pots. It was as if some burning blast had passed through the greenhouse, withering to death every plant that stood in it, and the ripening grapes above.
“What on earth can have done this?” cried Tod to Jenkins, when he was able to speak.
“Well, Mr. Joseph, I say nothing could have done it but the——”
“Don’t talk rubbish about the devil, Jenkins. He does not work in quite so practical a way. Open the windows.”
“I was on by half-past five, sir, not coming here at first, but——”
“Where’s Monk this morning?” again interrupted Tod, who had turned imperative.
“The Squire sent him over to Evesham for the seeds. I heard him go by in the light cart.”
“Sent him when?”
“Yesterday, I suppose; that is, told him to go. Monk came to me last evening and said I must be on early. He started betimes; it was long afore five when I heard the cart go by. I should know the rattle of that there light cart anywhere, Mr. Joe.”
“Never mind the cart. What has done this?”
That was the question. What had done it? Some blasting poison must have been set to burn in the greenhouse. Such substances might be common enough, but we knew nothing of them. We examined the place pretty carefully, but not a trace of any proof was discovered.
“What’s this?” cried out Jenkins, presently.
Some earthenware pot-stands were stacked on the ground at the far end of the greenhouse—Mrs. Todhetley always called them saucers—Jenkins had been taking two or three of the top ones off, and came upon one that contained a small portion of some soft, white, damp substance, smelling just like the smell that pervaded the greenhouse—a suffocating smell that choked you. Some sulphuric acid was in the tool-house; Tod fetched the bottle, poured a little on the stuff, and set it alight.
Instantly a white smoke arose, and a smell that sent us off. Jenkins, looking at it as if it were alive and going to bite him, carried it at arm’s length out to the nearest bed, and heaped mould upon it.
“That has done it, Mr. Joseph. But I should like to know what the white stuff is. It’s some subtle poison.”
We took the stack of pot-stands off one by one. Six or eight of them were perfectly clean, as if just wiped out. Jenkins gave his opinion again.
“Them clean saucers have all had the stuff burning in ’em this night, and they’ve done their work well. Somebody, which it must be the villain himself, has been in and cleaned ’em out, overlooking one of ’em. I can be upon my word the stands were all dusty enough last Tuesday, when the greenhouse was emptied for the ball, for I stacked ’em myself one upon another.”
Tod took up his perch on the edge of the shut-in brick stove, and surveyed the wreck. There was not a bit of green life remaining, not a semblance of it. When he had done looking he stared at me, then at Jenkins; it was his way when puzzled or perplexed.
“Have you seen anybody about here this morning, Jenkins?”
“Not a soul,” responded Jenkins, ruefully. “I was about the beds and places at first, and when I came up here and opened the door, the smoke and smell knocked me back’ards. When I see the plants—leastways what was the plants—with their leaves and blossoms and stems all black and blasted, I says to myself, ‘The devil must have been in here;’ and I was on my way to tell the master so when you two young gents met me.”
“But it’s time some of them were about,” cried Tod. “Where’s Drew? Is he not come?”
“Drew be hanged for a lazy vagabond!” retorted old Jenkins. “He never comes on much afore seven, he doesn’t. Monk threatened last week to get his wages stopped for him. I did stop ’em once, afore I was ill.”
Drew was the under-gardener, an active young fellow of nineteen. There was a boy as well, but it happened that he was away just now. Almost as Jenkins spoke, Drew came in view, leaping along furiously towards the vegetable garden, as though he knew he was late.
“Halloa, Drew!”
He recognized Tod’s voice, turned, and came into the greenhouse. His look of amazement would have made a picture.
“Sakes alive! Jenkins, what have done this?”
“Do you know anything about it, Drew?” asked Tod.
“Me, sir?” answered Drew, turning his wide-open eyes on Tod, in surprise at the question. “I don’t as much as know what it is.”
“Mr. Joe, I think the master ought to be told of this,” said Jenkins. “As well get it over.”
He meant the explosion of wrath that was sure to come when the Squire saw the ravages. Tod never stirred. Who was to tell him? It was like the mice proposing to bell the cat: nobody offered to do it.
“You go, Johnny,” said Tod, by-and-by. “Perhaps he’s getting up now.”
I went. I always did what he ordered me, and heard Mrs. Todhetley in her dressing-room. She had her white petticoats on, doing her hair. When I told her, she just backed into a chair and turned as white as Jenkins.
“What’s that, Johnny?” roared out the Squire from his bed. I hadn’t noticed that the door between the rooms was open.
“Something is wrong in the greenhouse, sir.”
“Something wrong in the greenhouse! What d’ye mean, lad?”
“He says the plants are spoiled, and the grapes,” interrupted Mrs. Todhetley, to help me.
“Plants and grapes spoiled! You must be out of your senses, Johnny, to say such a thing. What has spoiled them?”
“It looks like some—blight,” I answered, pitching upon the word. “Everything’s dead and blackened.”
Downstairs I rushed for fear he should ask more. And down came the pater after me, hardly anything on, so to say; not shaved, and his nankeen coat flying behind him.
I let him go on to get the burst over. When I reached them, they were talking about the key. It was customary for the head-gardener to lock the greenhouse at night. For the past month or so there had been, as may be said, two head-gardeners, and the key had been left on the ledge at the back of the greenhouse, that whichever of them came on first in the morning might get in.
The Squire stormed at this—with that scene before his eyes he was ready to storm at everything. Pretty gardeners, they were! leaving the key where any tramp, hiding about the premises for a night’s lodging, might get into the greenhouse and steal what he chose! As good leave the key in the door, as hang it up outside it! The world had nothing but fools in it, as he believed.
Jenkins answered with deprecation. The key was not likely to be found by anybody but those that knew where to look for it. It always had a flower-pot turned down upon it; and so he had found it that morning.
“If all the tramps within ten miles got into the greenhouse, sir, they’d not do this,” affirmed Tod.
“Hold your tongue,” said the Squire; “what do you know about tramps? I’ve known them to do the wickedest things conceivable. My beautiful plants! And look at the grapes! I’ve never had a finer crop of grapes than this was, Jenkins,” concluded the pater, in a culminating access of rage. “If I find this has arisen through any neglect of yours and Monk’s, I’ll—I’ll hang you both.”
The morning went on; breakfast was over, and the news of the strange calamity spread. Old Jones, the constable, had been sent for by the Squire. He stared, and exclaimed, and made his comments; but he was not any the nearer hitting upon the guilty man.
About ten, Roger Monk got home from Evesham. We heard the spring-cart go round to the stables, and presently he appeared in the gardens, looking at objects on either side of the path, as was his usual wont. Then he caught sight of us, standing in and about the greenhouse, and came on faster. Jenkins was telling the story of his discovery to Mr. Duffham. He had told it a good fifty times since early morning to as many different listeners.
They made way for Monk to come in, nobody saying a word. The pater stood inside, and Monk, touching his hat, was about to report to him of his journey, when the strange aspect of affairs seemed to strike him dumb. He looked round with a sort of startled gaze at the walls, at the glass and grapes above, at the destroyed plants, and then turned savagely on Jenkins, speaking hoarsely.
“What have you been up to here?”
“Me been up to! That’s good, that is! What had you, been up to afore you went off? You had the first chance. Come, Mr. Monk.”
The semi-accusation was spoken by Jenkins on the spur of the moment, in his anger at the other’s words. Monk was in a degree Jenkins’s protégé, and it had not previously occurred to him that he could be in any way to blame.
“What do you know of this wicked business, Monk?” asked the Squire.
“What should I know of it, sir? I have only just come in from Evesham. The things were all right last night.”
“How did you leave the greenhouse last night?”
“Exactly as I always leave it, sir. There was nothing the matter with it then. Drew—I saw him outside, didn’t I? Step here, Drew. You were with me when I locked up the greenhouse last night. Did you see anything wrong with it?”
“It were right enough then,” answered Drew.
Monk turned himself about, lifting his hands in dismay, as one blackened object after another came under view. “I never saw such a thing!” he cried piteously. “There has been something wrong at work here; or else——”
Monk came to a sudden pause. “Or else what?” asked the Squire.
“Or else, moving the plants into the hall on Tuesday has killed them.”
“Moving the plants wouldn’t kill them. What are you thinking of, Monk?”
“Moving them would not kill them, sir, or hurt them either,” returned Monk, with a stress on the first word; “but it might have been the remote cause of it.”
“I don’t understand you!”
“I saw some result of the sort once, sir. It was at a gentleman’s place at Chiswick. All the choice plants were taken indoors to improvise a kind of conservatory for a night fête. They were carried back the next day, seemingly none the worse, and on the morrow were found withered.”
“Like these?”
“No, sir, not so bad as these. They didn’t die; they revived after a time. A great fuss was made over it; the gentleman thought it must be wilful damage, and offered twenty pounds reward for the discovery of the offenders. At last it was found they had been poisoned by the candles.”
“Poisoned by the candles!”
“A new sort of candle, very beautiful to look at, but with a great quantity of arsenic in it,” continued Monk. “A scientific man gave it as his opinion that the poison thrown out from the candles had been fatal to the plants. Perhaps something of the same kind has done the mischief here, sir. Plants are such delicate things!”
“And what has been fatal to the grapes? They were not taken into the house.”
The question came from the surgeon, Mr. Duffham. He had stood all the while against the end of the far steps, looking fixedly at Monk over the top of his cane. Monk put his eyes on the grapes above, and kept them there while he answered.
“True, sir; the grapes, as you say, didn’t go in. Perhaps the poison brought back by the plants may have acted on them.”
“Now, I tell you what, Monk, I think that’s all nonsense,” cried the Squire, testily.
“Well, sir, I don’t see any other way of accounting for this state of things.”
“The greenhouse was filled with some suffocating, smelling, blasting stuff that knocked me back’ards,” put in Jenkins. “Every crack and crevice was stopped where a breath of air could have got in. I wish it had been you to find it; you’d not have liked to be smothered alive, I know.”
“I wish it had been,” said Monk. “If there was any such thing here, and not your fancy, I’ll be bound I’d have traced it out.”
“Oh, would you! Did you do anything to them there pot-stands?” continued Jenkins, pointing to them.
“No.”
“Oh! Didn’t clean ’em out?”
“I wiped a few out on Wednesday morning before we brought back the plants. Somebody—Drew, I suppose—had stacked them in the wrong place. In putting them right, I began to wipe them. I didn’t do them all; I was called away.”
“’Twas me stacked ’em,” said Jenkins. “Well—them stands are what had held the poison; I found a’most one-half of ’em filled with it.”
Monk cast a rapid glance around. “What was the poison?” he asked.
Jenkins grunted, but gave no other reply. The fact was, he had been so abused by the Squire for having put away the trace of the “stuff,” that it was a sore subject.
“Did you come on here, Monk, before you started for Evesham this morning?” questioned the Squire.
“I didn’t come near the gardens, sir. I had told Jenkins last night to be on early,” replied Monk, bending over a blackened row of plants while he spoke. “I went the back way to the stables through the lane, had harnessed the horse to the cart, and was away before five.”
We quitted the greenhouse. The pater went out with Mr. Duffham, Tod and I followed. I, looking quietly on, had been struck with the contrast of manner between old Duff and Monk—he peering at Monk with his searching gaze, never once taking it off him; and Monk meeting nobody’s eyes, but shifting his own anywhere rather than meet them.
“About this queer arsenic tale Monk tells?” began the Squire. “Is there anything in it? Will it hold water?”
“Moonshine!” said old Duff, with emphasis.
The tone was curious, and we all looked at him. He had got his lips drawn in, and the top of his cane pressing them.
“Where did you take Monk from, Squire? Get a good character with him?”
“Jenkins brought him here. As to character, he had never been in any situation before. Why? Do you suspect him?”
“Um-m-m!” said the doctor, prolonging the sound as though in doubt. “If I do suspect him, he has caused me to. I never saw such a shifty manner in all my life. Why, he never once looked at any of us! His eyes are false, and his tones are false!”
“His tones? Do you mean his words?”
“I mean the tone his words are spoken in. To an apt ear, the sound of a man’s voice, or woman’s either, can be read off like a book; a man’s voice is honest or dishonest according to his nature; and you can’t make a mistake about it. Monk’s has a false ring in it, if ever I heard one. Now, master Johnny, what are you looking so eager about?”
“I think Monk’s voice false, too, Mr. Duffham; I have thought himself false all along. Tod knows I have.”
“I know that you are just a muff, Johnny, going in for prejudices against people unreasonably,” said Tod, putting me down as usual.
Old Duff pushed my straw hat up, and passed his fingers over the top of my forehead. “Johnny, my boy,” he said, “you have a strong and good indication here for reading the world. Trust to it.”
“I couldn’t trust Monk. I never have trusted him. That was one reason why I suspected him of stealing the things the magpie took.”
“Well, you were wrong there,” said Tod.
“Yes. But I’m nearly sure I was right in the thing before.”
“What thing?” demanded old Duff, sharply.
“Well, I thought it was Monk that frightened Phœbe.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Duffham. “Dressed himself up in a sheet, and whitened his face, and went up the lane when the women were watching for the shadows on St. Mark’s Eve! What else do you suspect, Johnny?”
“Nothing else, sir; except that I fancied Mother Picker knew of it. When Tod and I went to ask her whether Monk was out that night, she looked frightened to death, and broke a basin.”
“Did she say he was out?”
“She said he was not out; but I thought she said it more eagerly than truthfully.”
“Squire, when you are in doubt as to people’s morals, let this boy read them for you,” said old Duff, in his quaint way. The Squire, thinking of his plants, looked as perplexed as could be.
“It is such a thing, you know, Duffham, to have one’s whole hothouse destroyed in a night. It’s no better than arson.”
“And the incendiary who did it would have no scruple in attacking the barns next; therefore, he must be bowled out.”
The pater looked rueful. He could bluster and threaten, but he could not do much; he never knew how to set about it. In all emergencies he would send for Jones—the greatest old woman going.
“You don’t seriously think it could have been Monk, Duffham?”
“I think there’s strong suspicion that it was. Look here:” and the doctor began to tell off points with his cane and fingers. “Somebody goes into the greenhouse to set the stuff alight in the pot-stands—for that’s how it was done. Monk and Jenkins alone knew where the key was; Jenkins, a trusty man, years in the employ, comes on at six and finds the state of things. Where’s Monk? Gone off by previous order to Evesham at five. Why should it happen the very morning he was away? What was to prevent his stealing into the greenhouse after dark last night putting his deleterious stuff to work, leaving it to burn, and stealing in again at four this morning to put all traces away? He thought he cleaned out all the tale-telling earthen saucers, but he overlooks one, as is usually the case. When he comes back, finding the wreck and the commotion consequent upon it, he relates a glib tale of other plants destroyed by arsenic from candles, and he never looks honestly into a single face as he tells it!”
The Squire drew a deep breath. “And you say Monk did all this?”
“Nonsense, Squire. I say he might have done it. I say, moreover, that it looks very like it. Putting Monk aside, your scent would be wholly at fault.”
“What is to be done?”
“I’ll go and see Mother Picker; she can tell what time he went in last night, and what time he came out this morning,” cried Tod, who was just as hasty as the pater. But old Duff caught him as he was vaulting off.
“I had better see Mother Picker. Will you let me act in this matter, Squire, and see what can be made of it?”
“Do, Duffham. Take Jones to help you?”
“Jones be shot,” returned Duff in a passion. “If I wanted any one—which I don’t—I’d take Johnny. He is worth fifty Joneses. Say nothing—nothing at all. Do you understand?”
He went off down a side path, and crossed Jenkins, who was at work now. Monk stayed in the greenhouse.
“This is a sad calamity, Jenkins.”
“It’s the worst I ever met with, sir,” cried Jenkins, touching his hat. “And what have done it is the odd thing. Monk, he talks of the candles poisoning of ’em; but I don’t know.”
“Well, there’s not a much surer poison than arsenic, Jenkins,” said the doctor, candidly. “I hope it will be cleared up. Monk, too, has taken so much pains with the plants. He is a clever young man in his vocation. Where did you hear of him?”
Jenkins’s answer was a long one. Curtailed, it stated that he had heard of Monk “promiskeous.” He had thought him a gentleman till he asked if he, Jenkins, could help him to a place as ornamental gardener. He had rather took to the young man, and recommended the Squire to employ him “temporay,” for he, Jenkins, was just then falling sick with rheumatism.
Mr. Duffham nodded approvingly. “Didn’t think it necessary to ask for references?”
“Monk said he could give me a cart-load a’most of them, sir, if I’d wanted to see ’em.”
“Just so! Good-day, Jenkins, I can’t stay gossiping my morning away.”
He went straight to Mrs. Picker’s, and caught her taking her luncheon off the kitchen-table—bread-and-cheese, and perry.
“It’s a little cask o’ last year’s my son have made me a present of, sir; if you’d be pleased to drink a cup, Dr. Duff’m,” said she, hospitably.
She drew a half-pint cup full; bright, sparkling, full-bodied perry, never better made in Gloucestershire. Mr. Duffham smacked his lips, and wished some of the champagne at gentlemen’s tables was half as good. He talked, and she talked; and, it may be, he took her a little off her guard. Evidently, she was not cognizant of the mishap to the greenhouse.
A nice young man that lodger of hers? Well, yes, he was; steady and well-conducted. Talked quite like a gentleman, but wasn’t uppish ’cause o’ that, and seemed satisfied with all she did for him. He was gone off to Evesham after seeds and other things. Squire Todhetley put great confidence in him.
“Ay,” said Mr. Duffham, “to be sure. One does put confidence in steady young men, you know, Goody. He was off by four o’clock, wasn’t he?”
Earlier nor that, Goody Picker thought. Monk were one o’ them who liked to take time by the forelock, and get his extra work forrard when he were put on to any.
“Nothing like putting the shoulder to the wheel. This is perry! The next time I call to see your son Peter, at Alcester, I shall ask him if he can’t get some for me. As to Monk—you might have had young fellows here who’d have idled their days away, and paid no rent, Goody. Monk was at his work late last night, too, I fancy?”
Goody fancied he had been; leastways he went out after supper, and were gone an hour or so. What with the fires, and what with the opening and shutting o’ the winders to keep the hot-houses at proper temperture, an head-gardener didn’t sit on a bed o’ idle roses, as Dr. Duff’m knew.
Mr. Duffham was beginning to make pretty sure of winning his game. His manner suddenly changed. Pushing the empty cup from him, he leaned forward, and laid hold of Mrs. Picker by the two wrists. Between the perry and the doctor’s sociability and Monk’s merits, her eyes had begun to sparkle.
“Don’t be alarmed, Mrs. Picker. I have come here to ask you a question, and you must answer me. But you have nothing to fear on your own score, provided you tell me the truth honestly. Young men will do foolish things, however industrious they may be. Why did Monk play that prank on Easter Monday?”
The sparkle in the eyes faded with fright. She would have got away, but could not, and so put on an air of wonder.
“On Easter Monday! What were it he did on Easter Monday?”
“When he put himself and his face into white, and went to the churchyard by moonlight to represent the dead, you know, Mrs. Picker.”
She gave a shrill scream, got one of her hands loose and flung it up to her face.
“Come, Goody, you had better answer me quietly than be taken to confess before Squire Todhetley. I dare say you were not to blame.”
Afore Squire Todhetley! O-o-o-o-o-h! Did they know it at the Manor?
“Well,” said Mr. Duffham, “you see I know it, and I have come straight from there. Now then, my good woman, I have not much time.”
Goody Picker’s will was good to hold out longer, but she surrendered à coup de main, as so many of us have to do when superior power is brought to bear. Monk overheered it, was the substance of her answer. On coming in from work that there same blessed evening—and look at him now! at his work on a Easter Monday till past dark!—he overheered the two servants, Molly and Hannah, talking of what they was going out to watch for—the shadows in the churchyard. He let ’em go, never showing hisself till they’d left the house. Then he got the sheets from his bed, and put the flour on his face, and went on there to frighten ’em; all in fun. He never thought of hurting the women; he never knowed as the young girl, Phœbe, was to be there. Nobody could be more sorry for it nor he was; but he’d never meant to do harm more nor a babby unborn.
Mr. Duffham released the hands. Looking back in reflection, he had little doubt it was as she said—that Monk had done it out of pure sport, not intending ill.
“He might have confessed: it would have been more honest. And you! why did you deny that it was Monk?”
Mrs. Picker at first could only stare in reply. Confess to it? Him? What, and run the risk o’ being put into ancuffs by that there Jones with his fat legs? And she! a poor old widder? If Monk went and said he didn’t do it, she couldn’t go and say he did. Doctor Duff’m might see as there were no choice left for her. Never should she forget the fright when the two young gents come in with their querries the next day; her fingers was took with the palsy and dropped the pudd’n basin, as she’d had fifteen year. Monk, poor fellow, couldn’t sleep for a peck o’ nights after, thinking o’ Phœbe.
“There; that’s enough,” said Mr. Duffham. “Who is Monk? Where does he come from?”
From the moon, for all Mrs. Picker knew. A civiler young man she’d not wish to have lodging with her; paid reg’lar as the Saturdays come round; but he never told her nothing about hisself.
“Which is his room? The one at the back, I suppose.”
Without saying with your leave, or by your leave, as Mrs. Picker phrased it in telling the story a long while afterwards, Mr. Duffham penetrated at once into the lodger’s room. There he took the liberty of making a slight examination, good Mrs. Picker standing by with round eyes and open mouth. And what he discovered caused him to stride off at once to the pater.
Roger Monk was not Monk at all, but somebody else. He had been implicated in some crime (whether guilty or not remained yet a question), and to avoid exposure had come away into this quiet locality under a false name. In short, during the time he had been working as gardener at Dyke Manor and living at Mother Picker’s, he was in hiding. As the son of a well-known and most respectable landscape and ornamental nursery-man, he had become thoroughly conversant with the requisite duties.
“They are fools, at the best, these fellows,” remarked Duffham, as he finished his narrative. “A letter written to him by some friend betrayed to me all this. Now why should not Monk have destroyed that letter, instead of keeping it in his room, Squire?”
The Squire did not answer. All he could do just now was to wipe his hot face and try to get over his amazement. Monk not a gardener or servant at all, but an educated man! Only living there to hide from the police; and calling himself by any name that came uppermost—which happened to be Monk!
“I must say there’s a certain credit due to him for his patient industry, and the perfection to which he has brought your grounds,” said Mr. Duffham.
“And for blighting all my hot-house plants at a blow—is there credit due to him for that?” roared out the Squire. “I’ll have him tried for it, as sure as my name’s Todhetley.”
It was easier said than done. For when Mr. Jones, receiving his private orders from the pater, went, staff in hand, to arrest Monk, that gentleman had already departed.
“He come into the house just as Dr. Duff’m left it,” explained Mrs. Picker. “Saying he had got to take a short journey, he put his things into his port-manty, and went off carrying of it, leaving me a week’s rent on the table.”
“Go and catch him, Jones,” sternly commanded the Squire, when the constable came back with the above news.
“Yes, your worship,” replied Jones. But how he was to do it, taking the gouty legs into consideration, was quite a different thing.
The men were sent off various ways. And came back again, not having come up with Monk. Squire Todhetley went into a rage, abused old Jones, and told him he was no longer worth his salt. But the strangest thing occurred in the evening.
The pater walked over to the Court after tea, carrying the grievance of his destroyed plants to the Sterlings. In coming up Dyke Lane as he returned at night, where it was always darker than in other places because the trees hid the moonlight, somebody seemed to walk right out of the hedge upon him.
It was Roger Monk. He raised his hat to the Squire as a gentleman does—did not touch it as a gardener—and began pleading for clemency.
“Clemency, after destroying a whole hot-houseful of rare plants!” cried the Squire.
“I never did it, sir,” returned Monk, passionately. “On my word as a man—I will not to you say as a gentleman—if the plants were not injured by the candles, as I fully believe, I know not how they could have been injured.”
The pater was staggered. At heart he was the best man living. Suppose Monk was innocent?
“Look here, Monk. You know your name is——”
“Hush, sir!” interposed Monk, hastily, as if to prevent the hedges hearing the true name. “It is of that I have waited to speak to you; to beseech your clemency. I have no need to crave it in the matter of plants which I never harmed. I want to ask you to be silent, sir; not to proclaim to the world that I am other than what I appeared to be. A short while longer and I should have been able to prove my innocence; things are working round. But if you set the hue-and-cry upon me——”
“Were you innocent?” interposed the Squire.
“I was; I swear it to you. Oh, Mr. Todhetley, think for a moment! I am not so very much older than your son; he is not more innocent than I was; but it might happen that he—I crave your pardon, sir, but it might—that he should become the companion of dissipated young men, and get mixed up unwittingly in a disgraceful affair, whose circumstances were so complicated that he could only fly for a time and hide himself. What would you say if the people with whom he took refuge, whether as servant or else, were to deliver him up to justice, and he stood before the world an accused felon? Sir, it is my case. Keep my secret; keep my secret, Mr. Todhetley.”
“And couldn’t you prove your innocence?” cried the Squire, as he followed out the train of ideas suggested.
“Not at present—that I see. And when once a man has stood at a criminal bar, it is a ban on him for life, although it may be afterwards shown he stood there wrongly.”
“True,” said the Squire, softening.
Well—for there’s no space to go on at length—the upshot was that Monk went away with a promise; and the Squire came home to the Manor and told Duffham, who was waiting there, that they must both be silent. Only those two knew of the discovery; they had kept the particulars and Monk’s real name to themselves. Duff gave his head a toss, and told the pater he was softer than old Jones.
“How came you to suspect him, Johnny?” he continued, turning on me in his sharp way.
“I think just for the same things that you did, Mr. Duffham—because neither his face nor his voice is true.”
And—remembering his look of revenge when accused in mistake for the magpie—I suspected him still.
THE EBONY BOX.
I.
In one or two of the papers already written for you, I have spoken of “Lawyer Cockermuth,” as he was usually styled by his fellow-townspeople at Worcester. I am now going to tell of something that happened in his family; that actually did happen, and is no invention of mine.
Lawyer Cockermuth’s house stood in the Foregate Street. He had practised in it for a good many years; he had never married, and his sister lived with him. She had been christened Betty; it was a more common name in those days than it is in these. There was a younger brother named Charles. They were tall, wiry men with long arms and legs. John, the lawyer, had a smiling, homely face; Charles was handsome, but given to be choleric.
Charles had served in the militia once, and had been ever since called Captain Cockermuth. When only twenty-one he married a young lady with a good bit of money; he had also a small income of his own; so he abandoned the law, to which he had been bred, and lived as a gentleman in a pretty little house on the outskirts of Worcester. His wife died in the course of a few years, leaving him with one child, a son, named Philip. The interest of Mrs. Charles Cockermuth’s money would be enjoyed by her husband until his death, and then would go to Philip.
When Philip left school he was articled to his uncle, Lawyer Cockermuth, and took up his abode with him. Captain Cockermuth (who was of a restless disposition, and fond of roving), gave up his house then and went travelling about. Philip Cockermuth was a very nice steady young fellow, and his father was liberal to him in the way of pocket-money, allowing him a guinea a-week. Every Monday morning Lawyer Cockermuth handed (for his brother) to Philip a guinea in gold; the coin being in use then. Philip spent most of this in books, but he saved some of it; and by the time he was of age he had sixty golden guineas put aside in a small round black box of carved ebony. “What are you going to do with it, Philip?” asked Miss Cockermuth, as he brought it down from his room to show her. “I don’t know what yet, Aunt Betty,” said Philip, laughing. “I call it my nest-egg.”
He carried the little black box (the sixty guineas quite filled it), back to his chamber and put it back into one of the pigeon-holes of the old-fashioned bureau which stood in the room, where he always kept it, and left it there, the bureau locked as usual. After that time, Philip put his spare money, now increased by a salary, into the Old Bank; and it chanced that he did not again look at the ebony box of gold, never supposing but that it was safe in its hiding-place. On the occasion of his marriage some years later, he laughingly remarked to Aunt Betty that he must now take his box of guineas into use; and he went up to fetch it. The box was not there.
Consternation ensued. The family flocked upstairs; the lawyer, Miss Betty, and the captain—who had come to Worcester for the wedding, and was staying in the house—one and all put their hands into the deep, dark pigeon-holes, but failed to find the box. The captain, a hot-tempered man, flew into a passion and swore over it; Miss Betty shed tears; Lawyer Cockermuth, always cool and genial, shrugged his shoulders and absolutely joked. None of them could form the slightest notion as to how the box had gone or who was likely to have taken it, and it had to be given up as a bad job.
Philip was married the next day, and left his uncle’s house for good, having taken one out Barbourne way. Captain Cockermuth felt very sore about the loss of the box, he strode about Worcester talking of it, and swearing that he would send the thief to Botany Bay if he could find him.
A few years more yet, and poor Philip became ill. Ill of the disorder which had carried off his mother—decline. When Captain Cockermuth heard that his son was lying sick, he being (as usual) on his travels, he hastened to Worcester and took up his abode at his brother’s—always his home on these visits. The disease was making very quick progress indeed; it was what is called “rapid decline.” The captain called in all the famed doctors of the town—if they had not been called before: but there was no hope.
The day before Philip died, his father spoke to him about the box of guineas. It had always seemed to the captain that Philip must have, or ought to have, some notion of how it went. And he put the question to him again, solemnly, for the last time.
“Father,” said the dying man—who retained all his faculties and his speech to the very end—“I declare to you that I have none. I have never been able to set up any idea at all upon the loss, or attach suspicion to a soul, living or dead. The two maids were honest; they would not have touched it; the clerks had no opportunity of going upstairs. I had always kept the key safely, and you know that we found the lock of the bureau had not been tampered with.”
Poor Philip died. His widow and four children went to live at a pretty cottage on Malvern Link—upon a hundred pounds a-year, supplied to her by her father-in-law. Mr. Cockermuth added the best part of another hundred. These matters settled, Captain Cockermuth set off on his rovings again, considering himself hardly used by Fate at having his limited income docked of nearly half its value. And yet some more years passed on.
This much has been by way of introduction to what has to come. It was best to give it.
Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson, our neighbours at Dyke Manor, had a whole colony of nephews, what with brothers’ sons and sisters’ sons; of nieces also; batches of them would come over in relays to stay at Elm Farm, which had no children of its own. Samson Dene was the favourite nephew of all; his mother was sister to Mr. Jacobson, his father was dead. Samson Reginald Dene he was christened, but most people called him “Sam.” He had been articled to the gentleman who took to his father’s practice; a lawyer in a village in Oxfordshire. Later, he had gone to a firm in London for a year, had passed, and then came down to his uncle at Elm Farm, asking what he was to do next. For, upon his brother-in-law’s death, Mr. Jacobson had taken upon himself the expenses of Sam, the eldest son.
“Want to know what you are to do now, eh?” cried old Jacobson, who was smoking his evening pipe by the wide fire of the dark-wainscoted, handsome dining-parlour, one evening in February. He was a tall, portly man with a fresh-coloured, healthy face; and not, I dare say, far off sixty years old. “What would you like to do?—what is your own opinion upon it, Sam?”
“I should like to set up in practice for myself, uncle.”
“Oh, indeed! In what quarter of the globe, pray?”
“In Worcester. I have always wished to practise at Worcester. It is the assize town: I don’t care for pettifogging places: one can’t get on in them.”
“You’d like to emerge all at once into a full-blown lawyer there? That’s your notion, is it, Sam?”
Sam made no answer. He knew by the tone his notion was being laughed at.
“No, my lad. When you have been in some good office for another year or two maybe, then you might think about setting-up. The office can be in Worcester if you like.”
“I am hard upon twenty-three, Uncle Jacobson. I have as much knowledge of law as I need.”
“And as much steadiness also, perhaps?” said old Jacobson.
Sam turned as red as the table-cover. He was a frank-looking, slender young fellow of middle height, with fine wavy hair almost a gold colour and worn of a decent length. The present fashion—to be cropped as if you were a prison-bird and to pretend to like it so—was not favoured by gentlemen in those days.
“You may have been acquiring a knowledge of law in London, Sam; I hope you have; but you’ve been kicking up your heels over it. What about those sums of money you’ve more than once got out of your mother?”
Sam’s face was a deeper red than the cloth now. “Did she tell you of it, uncle?” he gasped.
“No, she didn’t; she cares too much for her graceless son to betray him. I chanced to hear of it, though.”
“One has to spend so much in London,” murmured Sam, in lame apology.
“I dare say! In my past days, sir, a young man had to cut his coat according to his cloth. We didn’t rush into all kinds of random games and then go to our fathers or mothers to help us out of them. Which is what you’ve been doing, my gentleman.”
“Does aunt know?” burst out Sam in a fright, as a step was heard on the stairs.
“I’ve not told her,” said Mr. Jacobson, listening—“she is gone on into the kitchen. How much is it that you’ve left owing in London, Sam?”
Sam nearly choked. He did not perceive this was just a random shot: he was wondering whether magic had been at work.
“Left owing in London?” stammered he.
“That’s what I asked. How much? And I mean to know. ’Twon’t be of any use your fencing about the bush. Come! tell it in a lump.”
“Fifty pounds would cover it all, sir,” said Sam, driven by desperation into the avowal.
“I want the truth, Sam.”
“That is the truth, uncle, I put it all down in a list before leaving London; it comes to just under fifty pounds.”
“How could you be so wicked as to contract it?”
“There has not been much wickedness about it,” said Sam, miserably, “indeed there hasn’t. One gets drawn into expenses unconsciously in the most extraordinary manner up in London. Uncle Jacobson, you may believe me or not, when I say that until I added it up, I did not think it amounted to twenty pounds in all.”
“And then you found it to be fifty! How do you propose to pay this?”
“I intend to send it up by instalments, as I can.”
“Instead of doing which, you’ll get into deeper debt at Worcester. If it’s Worcester you go to.”
“I hope not, uncle. I shall do my best to keep out of debt. I mean to be steady.”
Mr. Jacobson filled a fresh pipe, and lighted it with a spill from the mantelpiece. He did not doubt the young fellow’s intentions; he only doubted his resolution.
“You shall go into some lawyer’s office in Worcester for two years, Sam, when we shall see how things turn out,” said he presently. “And, look here, I’ll pay these debts of yours myself, provided you promise me not to get into trouble again. There, no more”—interrupting Sam’s grateful looks—“your aunt’s coming in.”
Sam opened the door for Mrs. Jacobson. A little pleasant-faced woman in a white net cap, with small flat silver curls under it. She carried a small basket lined with blue silk, in which lay her knitting.
“I’ve been looking to your room, my dear, to see that all’s comfortable for you,” she said to Sam, as she sat down by the table and the candles. “That new housemaid of ours is not altogether to be trusted. I suppose you’ve been telling your uncle all about the wonders of London?”
“And something else, too,” put in old Jacobson gruffly. “He wanted to set up in practice for himself at Worcester: off-hand, red-hot!”
“Oh dear!” said Mrs. Jacobson.
“That’s what the boy wanted, nothing less. No. Another year or two’s work in some good house, to acquire stability and experience, and then he may talk about setting up. It will be all for the best, Sam; trust me.”
“Well, uncle, perhaps it will.” It was of no use for him to say perhaps it won’t: he could not help himself. But it was a disappointment.
Mr. Jacobson walked over to Dyke Manor the next day, to consult the Squire as to the best lawyer to place Sam with, himself suggesting their old friend Cockermuth. He described all Sam’s wild ways (it was how he put it) in that dreadful place, London, and the money he had got out of amidst its snares. The Squire took up the matter with his usual hearty sympathy, and quite agreed that no practitioner in the law could be so good for Sam as John Cockermuth.
John Cockermuth proved to be agreeable. He was getting to be an elderly man then, but was active as ever, saving when a fit of the gout took him. He received young Dene in his usual cheery manner, upon the day appointed for his entrance, and assigned him his place in the office next to Mr. Parslet. Parslet had been there more than twenty years; he was, so to say, at the top and tail of all the work that went on in it, but he was not a qualified solicitor. Samson Dene was qualified, and could therefore represent Mr. Cockermuth before the magistrates and what not: of which the old lawyer expected to find the benefit.
“Where are you going to live?” he questioned of Sam that first morning.
“I don’t know yet, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson are about the town now, I believe, looking for lodgings for me. Of course they couldn’t let me look; they’d think I should be taken in,” added Sam.
“Taken in and done for,” laughed the lawyer. “I should not wonder but Mr. Parslet could accommodate you. Can you, Parslet?”
Mr. Parslet looked up from his desk, his thin cheeks flushing. He was small and slight, with weak brown hair, and had a patient, sad sort of look in his face and in his meek, dark eyes.
James Parslet was one of those men who are said to spoil their own lives. Left alone early, he was looked after by a bachelor uncle, a minor canon of the cathedral, who perhaps tried to do his duty by him in a mild sort of manner. But young Parslet liked to go his own ways, and they were not very good ways. He did not stay at any calling he was put to, trying first one and then another; either the people got tired of him, or he of them. Money (when he got any) burnt a hole in his pocket, and his coats grew shabby and his boots dirty. “Poor Jamie Parslet! how he has spoilt his life” cried the town, shaking its pitying head at him: and thus things went on till he grew to be nearly thirty years of age. Then, to the public astonishment, Jamie pulled up. He got taken on by Lawyer Cockermuth as copying clerk at twenty shillings a-week, married, and became as steady as Old Time. He had been nothing but steady from that day to this, had forty shillings a-week now, instead of twenty, and was ever a meek, subdued man, as if he carried about with him a perpetual repentance for the past, regret for the life that might have been. He lived in Edgar Street, which is close to the cathedral, as every one knows, Edgar Tower being at the top of it. An old gentleman attached to the cathedral had now lodged in his house for ten years, occupying the drawing-room floor; he had recently died, and hence Lawyer Cockermuth’s suggestion.
Mr. Parslet looked up. “I should be happy to, sir,” he said; “if our rooms suited Mr. Dene. Perhaps he would like to look at them?”
“I will,” said Sam. “If my uncle and aunt do not fix on any for me.”
Is there any subtle mesmeric power, I wonder, that influences things unconsciously? Curious to say, at this very moment Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson were looking at these identical rooms. They had driven into Worcester with Sam very early indeed, so as to have a long day before them, and when breakfast was over at the inn, took the opportunity, which they very rarely got, of slipping into the cathedral to hear the beautiful ten-o’clock service. Coming out the cloister way when it was over, and so down Edgar Street, Mrs. Jacobson espied a card in a window with “Lodgings” on it. “I wonder if they would suit Sam?” she cried to her husband. “Edgar Street is a nice, wide, open street, and quiet. Suppose we look at them?”
A young servant-maid, called by her mistress “Sally,” answered the knock. Mrs. Parslet, a capable, bustling woman of ready speech and good manners, came out of the parlour, and took the visitors to the floor above. They liked the rooms and they liked Mrs. Parslet; they also liked the moderate rent asked, for respectable country people in those days did not live by shaving one another; and when it came out that the house’s master had been clerk to Lawyer Cockermuth for twenty years, they settled the matter off-hand, without the ceremony of consulting Sam. Mrs. Jacobson looked upon Sam as a boy still. Mr. Jacobson might have done the same but for the debts made in London.
And all this, you will say, has been yet more explanation; but I could not help it. The real thing begins now, with Sam Dene’s sojourn in Mr. Cockermuth’s office, and his residence in Edgar Street.
The first Sunday of his stay there, Sam went out to attend the morning service in the cathedral, congratulating himself that that grand edifice stood so conveniently near, and looking, it must be confessed, a bit of a dandy, for he had put a little bunch of spring violets into his coat, and “button-holes” were quite out of the common way then. The service began with the Litany, the earlier service of prayers being held at eight o’clock. Sam Dene has not yet forgotten that day, for it is no imaginary person I am telling you of, and never will forget it. The Reverend Allen Wheeler chanted, and the prebendary in residence (Somers Cocks) preached. While wondering when the sermon (a very good one) would be over, and thinking it rather prosy, after the custom of young men, Sam’s roving gaze was drawn to a young lady sitting in the long seat opposite to him on the other side of the choir, whose whole attention appeared to be given to the preacher, to whom her head was turned. It is a nice face, thought Sam; such a sweet expression in it. It really was a nice face, rather pretty, gentle and thoughtful, a patient look in the dark brown eyes. She had on a well-worn dark silk, and a straw bonnet; all very quiet and plain; but she looked very much of a lady. Wonder if she sits there always? thought Sam.
Service over, he went home, and was about to turn the handle of the door to enter (looking another way) when he found it turned for him by some one who was behind and had stretched out a hand to do it. Turning quickly, he saw the same young lady.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Sam, all at sea; “did you wish to come in here?”
“If you please,” she answered—and her voice was sweet and her manner modest.
“Oh,” repeated Sam, rather taken aback at the answer. “You did not want me, did you?”
“Thank you, it is my home,” she said.
“Your home?” stammered Sam, for he had not seen the ghost of any one in the house yet, saving his landlord and landlady and Sally. “Here?”
“Yes. I am Maria Parslet.”
He stood back to let her enter; a slender, gentle girl of middle height; she looked about eighteen, Sam thought (she was that and two years on to it), and he wondered where she had been hidden. He had to go out again, for he was invited to dine at Lawyer Cockermuth’s, so he saw no more of the young lady that day; but she kept dancing about in his memory. And somehow she so fixed herself in it, and as the time went on so grew in it, and at last so filled it, that Sam may well hold that day as a marked day—the one that introduced him to Maria Parslet. But that is anticipating.
On the Monday morning all his ears and eyes were alert, listening and looking for Maria. He did not see her; he did not hear a sound of her. By degrees he got to learn that the young lady was resident teacher in a lady’s school hard by; and that she was often allowed to spend the whole day at home on Sundays. One Sunday evening he ingeniously got himself invited to take tea in Mrs. Parslet’s parlour, and thus became acquainted with Maria; but his opportunities for meeting her were rare.
There’s not much to tell of the first twelvemonth. It passed in due course. Sam Dene was fairly steady. He made a few debts, as some young men, left to themselves, can’t help making—at least, they’d tell you they can’t. Sundry friends of Sam’s in Worcester knew of this, and somehow it reached Mr. Cockermuth’s ears, who gave Sam a word of advice privately.
This was just as the first year expired. According to agreement, Sam had another year to stay. He entered upon it with inward gloom. On adding up his scores, which he deemed it as well to do after his master’s lecture, he again found that they amounted to far more than he had thought for, and how he should contrive to pay them out of his own resources he knew no more than the man in the moon. In short, he could not do it; he was in a fix; and lived in perpetual dread of its coming to the ears of his uncle Jacobson.
The spring assize, taking place early in March, was just over; the judges had left the town for Stafford, and Worcester was settling down again to quietness. Miss Cockermuth gave herself and her two handmaidens a week’s rest—assize time being always a busy and bustling period at the lawyer’s, no end of chance company looking in—and then the house began its spring cleaning, a grand institution with our good grandmothers, often lasting a couple of weeks. This time, at the lawyer’s house, it was to be a double bustle; for visitors were being prepared for.
It had pleased Captain Cockermuth to write word that he should be at home for Easter; upon which, the lawyer and his sister decided to invite Philip’s widow and her children also to spend it with them; they knew Charles would be pleased. Easter-Day was very early indeed that year, falling at the end of March.
To make clearer what’s coming, the house had better have a word or two of description. You entered from the street into a wide passage; no steps. On the left was the parlour and general sitting-room, in which all meals were usually taken. It was a long, low room, its two rather narrow windows looking upon the street, the back of the room being a little dark. Opposite the door was the fireplace. On the other side the passage, facing the parlour-door, was the door that opened to the two rooms (one front, one back) used as the lawyer’s offices. The kitchens and staircase were at the back of the passage, a garden lying beyond; and there was a handsome drawing-room on the first floor, not much used.
The house, I say, was in a commotion with the spring cleaning, and the other preparations. To accommodate so many visitors required contrivance: a bedroom for the captain, a bedroom for his daughter-in-law, two bedrooms for the children. Mistress and maids held momentous consultations together.
“We have decided to put the three little girls in Philip’s old room, John,” said Miss Betty to her brother, as they sat in the parlour after dinner on the Monday evening of the week preceding Passion Week; “and little Philip can have the small room off mine. We shall have to get in a child’s bed, though; I can’t put the three little girls in one bed; they might get fighting. John, I do wish you’d sell that old bureau for what it will fetch.”
“Sell the old bureau!” exclaimed Mr. Cockermuth.
“I’m sure I should. What good does it do? Unless that bureau goes out of the room, we can’t put the extra bed in. I’ve been in there half the day with Susan and Ann, planning and contriving, and we find it can’t be done any way. Do let Ward take it away, John; there’s no place for it in the other chambers. He’d give you a fair price for it, I dare say.”
Miss Betty had never cared for this piece of furniture, thinking it more awkward than useful: she looked eagerly at her brother, awaiting his decision. She was the elder of the two; tall, like him; but whilst he maintained his thin, wiry form, just the shape of an upright gas-post with arms, she had grown stout with no shape at all. Miss Betty had dark, thick eyebrows and an amiable red face. She wore a “front” of brown curls with a high and dressy cap perched above it. This evening her gown was of soft twilled shot-green silk, a white net kerchief was crossed under its body, and she had on a white muslin apron.
“I don’t mind,” assented the lawyer, as easy in disposition as Miss Betty was; “it’s of no use keeping it that I know of. Send for Ward and ask him, if you like, Betty.”
Ward, a carpenter and cabinet-maker, who had a shop in the town and sometimes bought second-hand things, was sent for by Miss Betty on the following morning; and he agreed, after some chaffering, to buy the old bureau. It was the bureau from which Philip’s box of gold had disappeared—but I dare say you have understood that. In the midst of all this stir and clatter, just as Ward betook himself away after concluding the negotiation, and the maids were hard at work above stairs with mops and pails and scrubbing-brushes, the first advance-guard of the visitors unexpectedly walked in: Captain Cockermuth.
Miss Betty sat down in an access of consternation. She could do nothing but stare. He had not been expected for a week yet; there was nothing ready and nowhere to put him.