Of all days in the week, Saturday was the one most longed for by Ella Winter. The reason was that it always--or nearly always, for now and then there was a breakdown or a delay somewhere--brought her a letter from Edward Conroy. These letters were her greatest comfort in her perplexities and troubles. She read them and re-read them till she knew all their sweetest passages by heart. How she longed for his return that she might tell him everything!--for in truth she sometimes felt that the burden laid upon her was almost more than she could bear without help. Were he but here to share it with her! Absence had enabled her to read her heart in all its entirety, had endeared his image to her more day by day. Mr. Conroy was not expected in England until spring; but towards the end of November there came a letter, the contents of which filled his mistress with unexpected delight. Conroy's mission in Spain was nearly at an end, and he might be expected home in three or four weeks--in time, it might be, to eat his Christmas dinner. He did not tell her that latterly her letters had filled him with so much uneasiness that he had requested his employers to relieve him of his duties abroad, or that he had wisely made up his mind to ascertain for himself, and as quickly as possible, the exact state of affairs at Heron Dyke.
Little by little the popular excitement in connection with the murder and robbery at Heron Dyke began to subside, especially as all the efforts of the police resulted in no fresh discoveries. People had talked and wondered till there was nothing left to talk and wonder about. Fresh topics and other interests began to claim their attention. The newspapers had ceased to comment on the case, and there seemed every probability of its adding one more to the long list of undiscovered crimes.
One day Mrs. Toynbee, who had been shopping in the town, brought home a piece of news. Some one had told her that Dr. Jago was about to leave Nullington, the reason for his departure being that he had bought a more lucrative practice elsewhere. This set Ella thinking. Would it not be well, she asked herself, to see this man before he went away, and try whether she could not elicit from him something of that which she wanted to know? He had attended her uncle to the last; he must be acquainted with all that took place inside Heron Dyke during the time she was away; if any fraud had been at work it could hardly have been kept a secret from him. She disliked Dr. Jago, but it seemed to her that she ought not to let him go away without seeking an interview with him.
Next morning she finally made up her mind; so the pony-chaise was ordered round, and she was driven into Nullington. Calling at the Vicarage on her way, she took Miss Kettle into her confidence.
"Am I doing right, Maria, think you?"
"Yes, I think you are."
"Then you must accompany me. You have no objection?"
"Not the least in the world."
Dr. Jago was at home; and the young ladies, leaving the carriage with the groom, were shown into his consulting-room. Turning round from a case he was packing, the doctor changed colour, as if from annoyance, when he saw his visitors. The transitory expression passed, however; he greeted them civilly, apologising for the disorder of the place, and invited them to sit.
"I hear that you are about to quit Nullington, Dr. Jago," began Miss Winter, as she took the chair he placed.
"True, madam," he replied. "I have purchased a more lucrative practice in London. What can I have the honour of doing for you?"
"I have called to ask you a few questions, Dr. Jago. I hope you will be able to answer them."
The Doctor bowed.
"I was abroad, as you are aware, at the time my uncle died," she began; "but you saw him, I believe, in your medical capacity, up to the day of his death?"
"Yes," he replied. "I saw Mr. Denison daily; and I was with him when he died."
"The end, when it did come, was very sudden."
"Both sudden and unexpected," returned the Doctor. "I was utterly taken by surprise. I knew, of course, that Mr. Denison's disorder could have but one termination, but I had no thought that the end was so near. The heart suddenly failed in its action, and--and all was over. Only a few hours before, when I was with him, I had detected no cause for fear."
"You are aware that previously to last Christmas--in October I think it was--Dr. Spreckley, who had attended my uncle for twenty years, and who ought to have known his constitution if it were possible for anyone to know it, gave it as his decided opinion that Mr. Denison could not live far into the new year--if so long as that."
"Mr. Denison himself informed me of that opinion."
"And yet your skill prolonged his life until nearly the end of May?"
Dr. Jago bowed again, but said nothing.
"Then you, although a much younger practitioner than Dr. Spreckley, must have pursued a very much more efficient mode of treatment with your patient than that adopted by him?"
Dr. Jago shrugged his shoulders, leaned forward in his chair, and smiled faintly. "I have not the slightest wish in the world to disparage Dr. Spreckley," he said, "but it may be that he is a little old-fashioned in his ideas; it may be that he has hardly grown with the times. Medicine has made great strides during the last twenty years, and a middle-aged country practitioner, unless he be a great reader and a man of inquiring mind, would find many things taught, and many theories demonstrated in the schools of London and Paris, which were hardly as much as mooted when he was a young man."
All this seemed only fair and reasonable. In any case, Miss Winter was not prepared to refute it. She paused for a moment or two before she spoke again.
"It may or it may not have come to your notice, Dr. Jago," she said, eyeing him steadily as she spoke, "that there are certain reports flying about the neighbourhood--reports unpleasant to all concerned, but which you could no doubt put an end to if you chose to do so."
"Reports! About what, Miss Winter?" he asked quickly.
Ella paused: it seemed somewhat difficult to frame words for what she wanted to say.
"I hardly know how to put it," she said with a frank smile. "People have in some way picked up a notion that there was some deceit or fraud at work in connection with my uncle's death."
"Oh, have they?" was all the answer the Doctor made, speaking carelessly.
"It is said that for some months before Mr. Denison died he was immured away from everyone except three or four people; that he was kept under lock and key; that all his old friends were denied access to him. Also, that at the very time my letters from home informed me he was growing stronger day by day and week by week, a strange woman, some London nurse, was in the house, in regular attendance on him. People naturally ask why there should have been all this mystery unless there was something to hide. They even go so far as to hint that the master of Heron Dyke did not live to see his seventieth birthday."
Dr. Jago, despite his evident efforts, could not avoid changing countenance as Miss Winter spoke. His face turned sallow; his eyes fell. Suddenly he rose and opened the door.
"Is that you, James?" he called out. But no one answered.
"I beg your pardon," he said, resuming his seat, and quite calm now, "I thought I heard my servant knock. About this business, Miss Winter. If one were to take heed of all the idle tales set afloat by ignorant and foolish people, one would have little else to do. The late Mr. Denison was an eccentric man in many ways, as you yourself must be well aware. He was a man of strong individuality and of crotchety temper; a man who did very few things in quite the same way as ordinary people do them. There were, besides, certain peculiar features in connection with the disposition of his property, which were well known in the neighbourhood, and which acted as a magnet to the curiosity of the world. These points being granted, we have at once a foundation for the most ridiculous fancies and the most exaggerated gossip; but if we quietly set ourselves to sift these rumours, what do we find?"
Ella did not speak.
"If you will allow me, Miss Winter, I will take the case as stated in your own words. You say that for some months before Mr. Denison died he was immured away from everyone except three or four people, and kept, as it were, under lock and key. Granted; but it was done entirely at his own request. You perhaps remember something of that queer crotchet he had in his head that the precincts of the Hall, and even the Hall itself, were haunted by spies set on to watch him by certain people--his relatives, I believe, but of that I know little. This notion seemed to take fuller hold of him as his birthday drew nearer. He insisted on having his rooms shut in from the rest of the house; he decreed that only a very few individuals, those whom he could implicitly trust, should have access to him. None of the ordinary servants were to go near him; for aught he knew, he would declare, they might be spies. It was an hallucination I combated as far as I was able; but contradiction, especially on this point, only irritated him. More than once it brought on one of his fits of passion, and so undid, or partially undid, the good I was striving to do him in other ways."
This was quite feasible, probably true, and Miss Winter bowed her head in acquiescence. The Doctor resumed.
"As regards Mr. Denison's old friends being denied access to him, I must take on myself a certain measure of blame for what may seem a somewhat arbitrary proceeding. From the first I gave Mr. Denison to understand that if he adopted my mode of treatment, perfect quiet and seclusion were essential to its success, and he agreed with me without the slightest demur. But I did not at first deny him the sight of friends: it was only after the visits of some of them, when I saw how much it excited him, that I was obliged to do so. I begged him to allow his rooms to be closed to all visitors: had he admitted one he must have admitted others: I showed him how essential it was that he should be kept strictly, perfectly quiet; and he agreed. He would agree to anything, he said, if I could only succeed in keeping him alive over his seventieth birthday; and I certainly did succeed in doing that."
"Did he require the services of a nurse?"
"Undoubtedly."
"And was it necessary that she should be a stranger?"
"In my opinion he ought to have been supplied with a properly trained nurse long before I sent for one. An old woman, had in haphazard from the neighbourhood, would have been useless. No one, except we medical men and those invalids who have tried them, know how invaluable is a really qualified nurse in a sick-room."
"I believe that," said Ella, hastily. "But--why was it that the fact of this nurse having been at Heron Dyke was never mentioned to me? Neither in the letters I received from home, nor when I returned to it, close upon the departure of the nurse, was she as much as named to me."
Dr. Jago shook his head.
"I cannot enlighten you there," he answered. "I did not keep the fact from you. I neither wrote you letters nor saw you on your return. There could be no reason whatever, so far as I know, why you should not have been privy to it. What reason could there be? Possibly it may have been one of old Aaron's crotchets--for he had as many as his master--that you should not be told."
Possibly it had been: but Miss Winter still felt in a fog, plausible though all this was.
"Can you assure me, Dr. Jago, that the seeing one or two of his oldest friends would have been absolutely detrimental to my uncle? Say--for instance--the Vicar."
"Papa thought it very strange: he thinks it so still, that he was always denied admittance," interposed Maria, speaking for the first time. And the Doctor turned sharply to her with a slight frown, as though he had forgotten her presence.
"I cannot say it would have been fatally detrimental, but it might have been," he observed, in answer to Miss Winter. "He himself knew the danger of excitement, and he was as anxious as I was to guard against the possibility of it. With regard to the other report you have mentioned, Miss Winter--that Mr. Denison did not live over his seventieth birthday--it is, upon my word, too ridiculous a one to refute. Mr. Denison was seen by many people later and talked with--talked with face to face. Webb the lawyer saw him, and spoke with him about his will. Those other lawyers, men from London, had an interview with him. He was seen by no end of people, musicians and others, on his birthday night. In the face of these facts, how is it possible--pardon me the remark, Miss Winter--for you to give ear for a moment to so absurd a rumour?"
She sat in thought, not answering.
"Where was the deception--where the fraud?" he resumed. "Indeed, where was the necessity for employing any? The great object of Mr. Denison's life was attained. He had outlived his seventieth birthday, and the property was his own to will away. Fraud! It is an assertion that brings with it its own contradiction."
There was nothing more to be said, nothing more, evidently, to be learned from Dr. Jago: and with civil adieux on both sides, the ladies took their departure, the Doctor attending them to the pony-carriage and handing them into it. At that moment Dr. Spreckley passed on horseback; he stared profoundly, as much as to say, "What on earth do you do at that man's house?"--and he almost forgot to salute them.
Miss Winter sat in deep thought as they drove away. That Dr. Jago had displayed nervousness, not to say agitation, when spoken to, she had not failed to observe; it had served to deepen her conviction that something was hidden which it was intended that she, of all people in the world, should never know. And although his assertions afterwards had seemed perfectly reasonable and convincing, she could not get rid of an uneasy suspicion that the Doctor, metaphorically speaking, had been throwing dust in her eyes. Any way, she was as far off as ever, if not farther, from arriving at the truth.
"What do you think of Dr. Jago?" she abruptly asked Maria.
"I don't like him at all, Ella. His words are plausible enough, indeed too plausible, but he seems thoroughly insincere. He is a man whom I should always mistrust. Have you questioned your servants?"
"Only old Aaron. And I can get nothing from him. His reasoning is in substance the same as Dr. Jago's. Maria, I feel sure that some trickery was at work."
"I should ask the maids, Phemie and Eliza, whether they noticed anything strange. They must have been about the house much during all the time."
"I think I will. It has crossed my mind to do so, but I feared they would only make my questions into a source of gossip."
Miss Kettle paused.
"Tell me exactly what it is that you suspect."
"I do not know what to suspect, except that I have a strong idea of some unfair play having been enacted. There lies my difficulty. But that it seems so impossible, and so dreadful an idea besides, I might say that my uncle did not live to see his birthday."
Maria shivered slightly.
"Oh, Ella!"
"It is the bent my fears are taking," whispered Miss Winter. "And in that case, you know, I am not the owner of Heron Dyke."
"No, no, Ella, I cannot believe that," said Maria. "Your fears are making you fanciful."
That same evening, Miss Winter had the two maids, Phemie and Eliza, before her, and questioned them of matters respecting the Squire's last illness. What they had to tell was little more than she had heard from Priscilla Peyton. For several weeks or months previously to the 24th April, no one in the house, except the four people who were admitted behind the green baize doors, ever saw or heard anything of the Squire.
"Had you reason to think he was very ill?" asked Miss Winter.
"Ma'am, we could tell nothing," replied Phemie. "He might have been dead and buried for weeks and weeks, for all we saw or heard of him. Eliza and I used to say how strange it was: often we listened, often and often, but never got to hear him; never so much as heard him cough. Before that Mrs. Dexter came in November, I sometimes took his sago or his beef-tea to him, but never afterwards."
"How was it that you never mentioned to me that Mrs. Dexter had been here? Was it accident?
"No, ma'am, it was Aaron;" and Miss Winter could not help smiling at the turn of the sentence. "The day before you were expected home, he ordered all in the house not to talk of Mrs. Dexter: he thought it might trouble you to hear that the Squire was so ill as to need a nurse from London."
"I suppose you never penetrated beyond the green baize doors, after they were put up?"
Phemie glanced at her fellow-servant.
"Eliza did, ma'am, once. You had better tell of it, Eliza."
"Tell me all, Eliza; do not be afraid," said Miss Winter kindly, for the girl looked confused.
"If you please, ma'am, I was in the passage one day, and saw both the doors on the jar," began Eliza. "I thought it no harm to go in a few steps; but I went cautiously, thinking Mr. Stone must be there. However, I saw nobody; and then I thought Mrs. Dexter must have left them open by mistake, before she went out. She had gone into Nullington in a hurry, saying she must see Dr. Jago."
"Well? Go on, Eliza."
"I ventured in a little farther, and a little farther," continued Eliza, speaking freely now. "Everything was silent. I said to myself that perhaps the Squire was asleep, and then I thought that I should like to see him once again. The first room I came to was Mrs. Dexter's; it had been made into a chamber for her. I turned the handle softly, pushed open the door, and peeped in. There was her bed in one corner, and by the fire-place was her little round table and an easy-chair. From this room I went to the next, which was Mr. Denison's sitting-room. The door opened without making any noise. I peeped in. There was no one there. The Squire's chair stood by the hearth, but it was empty, and there was no fire in the grate; it had the look of a room, ma'am, that had not been occupied for ever so long, and somehow I turned away with a chill at my heart. The next room was the Squire's bedroom. I don't think I should have ventured to open the door of this, but I found it open already. It was standing ajar. I listened for the sound of Mr. Denison's breathing, supposing that he was asleep, but I could hear nothing. Then I pushed the door a little further open and looked in. If you'll believe me, ma'am, he was not there. No one was there."
"He must have been somewhere in the room, Eliza."
"He was not, indeed, ma'am. The room was empty. I could hardly believe my eyes. I walked across it to the window and back again. The room was all tidy, like one that is not in use; not as much as a book was about, or a chair out of place. The bed was made and the curtains folded upon it."
This news sounded wonderful. Ella could not speak.
"I felt quite frightened, ma'am. I said to myself what has become of the master? and I can't fathom the mystery of where he could be, to this day."
"There was a room beyond my uncle's--a dark, unused room," spoke Miss Winter. "Did you enter that?"
"No, ma'am. I tried the door of it, but it was locked, and the key gone. But the Squire, ma'am, would not be in there--in a locked-up lumber-room. I said to Phemie afterwards----"
Eliza stopped suddenly and coloured. Her mistress bade her continue.
"Well, ma'am, when I was telling Phemie of this strange thing, I said to her that the thought had come over me when I saw the empty bed and no trace of him in the room, that it looked just as if the master had been spirited away like Katherine Keen."
To this Miss Winter said nothing.
"Was it discovered that you had been in?" she asked.
"No, ma'am, never; and this is the first time I have talked of it, except to Phemie. I pulled the baize doors to after me when I came out, and they shut with a snap. By-and-by, back came Mrs. Dexter; she asked at once in the kitchen for the Squire's beef-tea, and took it away with her. But, ma'am, what I cannot imagine is, where the Squire was all the time."
Miss Winter could not imagine, either, and lost herself in unfathomable conjecture. After a few more questions, she dismissed the maids, charging them not to speak of this.
The girl, Betsy Tucker, grew worse rather than better; and, notwithstanding all that skill and good nursing could do for her, Dr. Spreckley began to despair of her recovery. Miss Winter was startled one afternoon when Adèle came to her and said Mrs. Keen was asking to be admitted.
"Show her in, Adèle," said Miss Winter, in a low tone. She was afraid the girl was dead.
"No, ma'am, and I don't think she is any worse," replied the landlady, in answer to the dread question. "If anything, she's perhaps a little better. She don't wander quite so much, and that I take to be a good sign. What I have made bold to interrupt you about, Miss Ella, is another thing."
"Sit down while you tell it me," said Ella.
"Thank you, ma'am. This morning, Betsy, who was quite herself, though very weak, asked me to put the small trunk, which came with her from the Hall, upon the bed, so that she might find something," began Mrs. Keen, taking the chair indicated. "It was a pocket she wanted; and we were some time finding it, what with her hands being feeble and me not knowing what it was like--white or coloured. Out of the pocket, when we had found it, she drew this tiny packet, ma'am, and asked me would I take it myself up to the Hall and give it safely to Miss Winter?"
The little packet was neatly folded in tissue-paper, tied round with narrow pink ribbon. Ella, rather wonderingly, opened it. Amidst some folds of cotton wool lay a gentleman's sleeve-link. It was of malachite and gold, of curious and very uncommon workmanship. Miss Winter had never, to her knowledge, seen it before. "What is it?" she asked. "Why do you bring it to me, Mrs. Keen?"
The landlady explained. "Betsy's mind is in trouble about it, Miss Ella," she began; "in great trouble. It seems that the morning poor Hubert Stone was found, Betsy, after all was quiet, and the police and other people had gone, was outside there. She saw something shining on the gravel, and picked it up. It was this trinket; she thought it very lovely, she tells me; and on the impulse of the moment she picked it up and put it in her pocket, thinking it would be a pretty present for her sweetheart, who is no other than David Beal, the joiner's son. And I suspect, ma'am, though she has not said as much, that it was just to be near him she took a situation over here."
"Very possibly," assented Miss Winter. "But she ought not to have concealed or kept this."
"It is that which is tormenting her now, ma'am. She couldn't rest till I had brought it to you and told you all. The girl says, and I can but believe her, that in the night, when she was in bed, she saw the wrong she had done, and repented of it, but was afraid then of confessing. All kinds of foolish fancies visit us in the night, as you know, Miss Ella, and she says an idea came into her mind that if she confessed what she had done and produced the trinket, she might, perhaps, be accused of having been mixed up with the robbery. So she wrapped and tied it up, and has kept it hidden in her pocket till now. All her cry since she came into her right mind is, 'If Miss Winter will but forgive me!'"
"Yes, yes; tell her I forgive her, Mrs. Keen. It seems to me that when we do wrong, our own conscience brings to us our worst punishment. And I am truly glad that the girl is getting better: I will call and see her to-morrow. Have you disclosed this to anyone, or shown the link?"
"Indeed no, ma'am; not even to Susan. It was not my place to do so."
"Keep it quite secret still," said Ella. "For aught we can tell this link may afford some clue to elucidate what is, as yet, so dark."
The landlady took her leave, and Ella locked the trinket safely up for the present. On the following morning Mrs. Toynbee received a letter calling her away from Heron Dyke. Her sister in London had met with an accident, and begged her to come up for a few days, if she could be spared.
"Go by all means," said Ella, in answer to Mrs. Toynbee's tearful looks, as she put the letter into her hand. "Take the mid-day train. Lonely? Well, perhaps I should feel a little lonely under recent circumstances if left to myself; but I will get Maria Kettle to stay with me. It will do her good: she is anything but well."
Maria was suffering from the effects of a severe cold, caught one bitter night when returning home from visiting a sick pensioner. Ella drove to the Vicarage and brought her away. Maria would have said no, but her father said yes.
The next day she seemed not at all better, but very poorly and feverish. Whilst Ella was dressing for dinner Maria came to her room, asking to be excused from dining: she felt hardly well enough to go down, especially as they should not be alone.
Only Mr. Daventry would be there. Ella had met him that morning and invited him to come: she was uneasy about many things, and wanted to talk to him. "You shall lie down here, Maria," said she, pushing her dressing-room sofa close to the fire, "and have some tea sent up. Adèle shall get it for you."
Maria lay down on the sofa, wrapping a shawl about her head, and drank the tea. After that, she fell asleep. Ella was glad to hear it, as it left her evening free for Mr. Daventry.
The old lawyer took his departure at nine o'clock. For a few minutes Ella sat over the fire, musing on the advice he had given her--to be still for the present; not to take action on any point. From this reverie she was aroused by the sharp and sudden opening of the door. Maria Kettle stood there, staggering in, rather than walking, her face white, her eyes full of terror.
"Oh, Ella!" she gasped.
Ella sprang to her feet, her pulses quivering. "You are worse, Maria!" she cried, "sit down here."
"No, it is not that--not that," moaned Maria, sinking back in the large arm-chair, but recently vacated by Mr. Daventry. "I have seen Katherine Keen."
"Katherine Keen!" breathed Ella, her lips suddenly becoming dry. "Impossible!"
"I should have said the same myself ten minutes ago," returned the sick girl, as she strove for composure. "But when I tell you, Ella, that I have seen her, and that I am in possession of my senses, I think you must believe me."
Ella Winter shivered, as though a cold wind were passing over her. Kneeling down, she put her arm round Maria's waist. "Tell me about it," she whispered.
"I got warm after I had the tea, and soon fell fast asleep," said Maria, in a voice hushed and trembling. "I knew nothing more until I awoke, suddenly and completely, with the strange feeling, which most people have experienced at one time or another, that some one was bending over me. My eyes opened widely, as though of their own accord; and there, bending down and gazing earnestly into my face, was the face of Katherine Keen."
"Maria!"
"I recognised it in a moment. The room was bright with firelight, and I could not be mistaken. There was the fair hair, with the soft appealing eyes and the sad and serious look in them that I remember so well."
"Did you speak?"
"For a moment or two we gazed at each other; then I think my lips formed her name, but whether any sound came from them I cannot tell. The next thing I knew was that she was no longer there. I started up and saw a black-robed figure vanish through the open doorway and the door close noiselessly behind it. For an instant I thought I should have died."
"Black-robed," repeated Ella mechanically, remembering that this apparition had been always so described.
"She was in black from head to foot. Something black covered her head, which she held with the fingers of one hand under the chin. With her disappearance I sprang to the door, opened it, and rushed into the corridor."
"After her! You had courage, Maria."
"I had no courage. I was too terrified to remain alone, and was hastening to you. She was not to be seen; she had disappeared. A lamp was burning at the farther end of the passage, but the passage was quite empty, quite still; not a sound in it, save the beating of my own heart. Oh Ella! I have heard the mysteries of Heron Dyke spoken of, but I never thought to witness anything myself."
"Yes, Heron Dyke has no doubt its unhappy mysteries; has had them for some time now," sighed Ella, catching up her breath with a sob. "And I know not how to solve them."
"Mind, Ella, you have promised to come to me in London during the autumn, and to stay for a fortnight at least," had been Mrs. Carlyon's last words to her niece when she was leaving Heron Dyke: and, in making the promise, Ella Winter had fully intended to fulfil it. But the autumn was drawing to a close, Christmas would be here before long, and the visit had not been paid. Circumstances had prevented it.
But in those circumstances there seemed to be a lull now; and Mrs. Carlyon took advantage of it. She wrote a pressing letter to Ella. The cold weather was setting in, she said, her cough was becoming troublesome, and she had nearly made up her mind to go to Hyères; but nothing would induce her to go anywhere, until she had seen her niece again.
By return of post Mrs. Carlyon received an answer. Ella would pay the visit at once. On the following day she and Maria Kettle, whom she begged leave to bring with her, would quit the Hall for Bayswater.
Change, as Miss Winter knew, would be good for Maria. It might not be amiss for herself. Truth to tell, Miss Winter had been more disturbed by her friend's positive assertion of having seen Katherine Keen, than she cared to acknowledge even to her own mind. Maria Kettle had a fund of practical good sense, she was not at all romantically inclined; and Ella could not pooh-pooh her account, strange though it might be, as she probably would have done that of an uneducated or superstitious person.
Maria's account did not stand alone: it was impossible for Miss Winter not to recall how strongly it was corroborated. She herself had never forgotten her visit to Katherine's room, when she found the face of the looking-glass so mysteriously covered up. There had followed the positive assertions of the two maids, Ann and Martha, that they had seen Katherine--and both of them had known her well--looking down at them over the balusters of the gallery. After that came Mrs. Carlyon's fright; although in her case no face had been seen, but only the presence of a mysterious something which had brushed past her in the dusk and vanished. Neither could Betsy Tucker's revelation, that she had heard footsteps in the corridor outside her bedroom on the night of the storm, and had seen the handle of her door turned, and the fright to the girl in consequence, be entirely ignored: for after it came to Miss Winter's ears, she had made inquiries of her servants, and could not learn that any one of them had been in the corridor that night. They had all been too much terrified by the storm, they declared, to quit their beds. Ella did not, would not, think much of this incident. The old house was full of strange noises, especially in stormy weather, and she herself, by giving way to her fancies, could readily have got into the way of believing that she heard footfalls and whispers and rustlings, for which she could not account, almost every night of her life.
But the strange assertion made by Maria Kettle was a very different matter; Ella could not help attaching more weight to it than to all that had gone before: and the extraordinary belief of poor Susan Keen, that her sister was alive and in the house, occurred unpleasantly to her mind. Could it be? Could it by any possibility be true that Katherine Keen was still alive, that she was hiding somewhere in the old Hall, and came out into the dark corridors on occasion to frighten people? Was it in very truth she herself, and not her spirit, that had been seen at different times? Ella's heart ached as it had never ached before. No, not even when the girl disappeared and could nowhere be found; though from that day life had never been quite the same to her. The dreadful uncertainty as to what had become of Katherine had added tenfold to the pain of losing her, and now, after the lapse of so long a time, it seemed as if the uncertainty would never be cleared up. But what if she had been alive all this time; alive, and close by? What if she had never quitted the roof of the Hall? Ella Winter's good sense urged her to reject such a theory as utterly untenable, certain difficulties presenting themselves palpably before her; but it urged her equally to reject that other theory of supernatural visitations. Between the two she knew not what to think. That Katherine had really been seen the evidence seemed conclusive. But had she been seen in the flesh, or in the spirit?
When a problem is put before you, which you find it impossible to solve, however anxious to do so, it is sometimes wise to lay it by for a while and turn the attention to other things, trusting to "the unforeseen" to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Thus did Ella Winter in the present case. She was puzzled and distressed; and was growing a little bit nervous besides. Appetite failed; the long dark nights oppressed her, sleep gave place to wakeful restlessness, and she began to be afraid of sleeping alone. Therefore it was with a sigh of relief that she answered Mrs. Carlyon's invitation: and for the first time in her life she was not sorry to lose sight of the chimneys of Heron Dyke as the carriage whirled her and Maria Kettle away to the station.
Mrs. Carlyon had a surprise in store for her niece, as Ella discovered on the second evening after her arrival in London. Knowing her aunt's fondness for company, but being herself in no humour to enjoy it, Ella had pleaded for no large parties during her stay; that they should dine quietly en famille, and spend rational evenings. To this Mrs. Carlyon had readily agreed, stipulating, however, that the rule should be relaxed in favour of two or three people who might be called friends of the family.
"In short, my dear," Mrs. Carlyon had said, when talking of it the day of Ella's arrival, "I promise not to introduce you to a single stranger except one."
"Except one!" repeated Ella.
"Yes, except one. A very nice old gentleman who is between sixty and seventy years old. You won't surely object to him!"
Ella laughed. She thought she must not hold out against any gentleman of that age, but rather welcome his acquaintance.
But Miss Winter was very considerably taken aback when, on the following evening, her aunt led her up to a little, lean, finical-looking old man, who wore the attire of a bygone age, a brown wig, a long bottle-green coat, and curiously fine-frilled cambric linen, and introduced him: "Mr. Gilbert Denison of Nunham Priors."
For a moment or two Ella could find no word to say. She had unconsciously pictured Mr. Denison as a very truculent sort of individual; as what her uncle would have been with all the more disagreeable points of his character intensified; as a man who employed spies, and who would shrink from nothing in his endeavours to do his kinsman harm. Yet here before her she saw a very harmless-looking old gentleman indeed, with a puckered-up, comical, yet honest and kindly face, and dark, vivacious eyes that seemed brimming over with amusement at her evident discomfiture.
Mr. Denison took her hand with an old-world air of gallantry, and touched it with his lips.
"Enter the First Robber," he said, with one of his whimsical smiles. "I hope my ferocious appearance does not frighten you, young lady. You will get used to me better by-and-by, my dear. Why do you look so surprised? I cannot tell you how pleased I am to meet you."
He made room for her on the sofa by his side.
"Say now, I am not the sort of looking person you expected to find."
Ella smiled charmingly. Somehow she had taken a great and sudden fancy to him.
"I had always thought of you as being so different," she said.
"As an ogre, no doubt," he rejoined, with a comical nod. "I know. Poor Gilbert! he had his curious fancies, and one of them was to abuse me: I'm as sure of that as if I'd heard him. My dear, I cannot tell you how pleased I am to meet you. Confess now, that you had expected to see some dangerous kind of fellow in me: one that bites, eh?"
"No, indeed," returned Ella. "I am surprised because I had no expectation of seeing you."
"And you find me a worse hobgoblin than you imagined?"
"I do not find you one at all," she said, taking the place beside him.
"Well, well; a certain personage is said not to be so black as he is painted; let us hope that it will prove so in the present case. Ah! what a pity it is that Frank's not here to-night!" he added, abruptly.
"Your son, Mr. Denison?" asked Ella, her serious dark-blue eyes bent full upon him.
"Yes, my son; my will-o'-the-wisp, my ne'er-do-weel, the plague of my life," answered Mr. Denison. In his short, sharp sentences, and abrupt turns, Ella was put strongly in mind of her uncle.
"I should have been greatly pleased to meet him," she said. "Is he away from home?"
"Away from home!" exploded the old gentleman. "He's nearly always away from home. I never know to a thousand miles where to lay my finger on him. He might be a gipsy for restlessness. He is always gadding about from Dan to Beersheba. An incorrigible young fellow--a rolling stone that will never rest anywhere. I wish to goodness he would get married to some woman who knew how to tame him and make him settle down at home!"
Ella felt amused; her face showed it. Mr. Denison shook his head and frowned.
"Now, why couldn't Frank have married you, for instance?" he suddenly asked, after a brief pause.
This amused her more. "Dear Mr. Denison, I fear it would be altogether beyond my powers to tame so inveterate a roamer," she quietly said.
"Not at all--not at all. You are just the sort of woman to do it."
It seemed rather doubtful to Ella whether this ought to be taken as a compliment.
"It would have been so satisfactory, you know, to have had all the property in a nutshell--yours and mine," added the old gentleman. "Not that Frank need covet money: I shall be able to leave him some. But Heron Dyke ought to have been his--after me; he is nearer to it than you are. My dear, you have too much good sense, as I can see, to take offence at an old man's crotchets, and I am speaking to you as friend speaks to friend."
"I hope you will always so speak to me," warmly interrupted Ella.
"So I wish Frank could have known you--and taken a fancy to you, my dear. But I fear it is too late in the day to hope for anything so desirable. Frank never was particularly wise, and I have a sort of suspicion that what he would call his affections are engaged elsewhere: have thought it for some little time."
"Then I'm sure there can be no chance for me," cried Ella, merrily.
"Well, well; anything's better than his bringing over a black woman for a wife, and that's what I used to be afraid of at one time," continued Mr. Denison, nodding his head and his brown wig.
"I hope Frank will find his way back home in spring," he resumed, after a pause. "If you are in town about that time, Mrs. Carlyon and I must contrive to bring the pair of you together. There may be a chance yet. I don't suppose the young dog has forgotten how to make himself agreeable to the ladies, and he is considered not at all ill-looking--very much like what I was when younger."
This tried Ella's gravity a little. "As I think I said before, I shall be pleased to make your son's acquaintance," she said, demurely.
"But whether Frank comes home or not, my dear, I must have you down at Nunham in spring. You will find many things there that you have never seen before and will have little opportunity of seeing elsewhere. You are intelligent as well as sensible, and I feel sure that you will be interested."
Next to picking up a bargain in the auction-rooms, nothing delighted Mr. Denison more than to secure an appreciative listener while he descanted on the rarity and value of some of his favourite curiosities; and this he found in Ella. Ella on her part was very glad to have met him. He was a man to esteem and like, despite his eccentricities: and she felt thankful to know that the breach in the family, which had existed so many years, was healed at last. Her face flushed as she recollected that if the fear, tormenting her latterly, had grounds, Heron Dyke was not hers, but Mr. Denison's.
She did not see him again during her stay in London, for he went away to Nunham Priors. Ella was by no means certain, had he remained, that she should not have imparted to him all her doubts and fears. He and she were alike honest, wishing always to act rightly.
Her own stay in London only extended to a week: she did not like to spare more time from home at present. The week passed pleasantly and quickly; and both she and Maria Kettle returned to the Hall in better health and spirits than they were in when they quitted it.
Gossip in remote hamlets and small country towns, more especially if the subject of it be some well-known personage, grows and spreads with a rapidity unknown to the rankest tropical weed, and Nullington was no exception to the rule. It had now become matter of common talk in the town, that there was something mysterious and unexplained with regard to Squire Denison's death. How or whence such an idea originated, or what the mysterious something might be, people did not care to ask; and if they did there was nobody to answer. Facts that are only half known, or that are wildly guessed at, have always more fascination for ordinary minds than uncompromising truths that stand boldly out in the light of day, and which anyone can examine for themselves.
The Nullingtonians seized on the rumour with avidity, and one may be sure that it suffered nothing from loss or diminution in its transit from mouth to mouth. It was not long in reaching the ears of Nixon, the agent whom Mr. Plackett had formerly employed to report to him respecting the state of Mr. Denison's health, and the general progress of matters at the Hall. Nixon had been away from Nullington for a time, possibly prosecuting inquiries elsewhere, and these rumours greeted him on his return. Putting aside any pecuniary benefit he might gain, Nixon was naturally a man of prying and inquisitive disposition; nothing pleased him better than worming out the secrets of other people. He went about the town asking guarded questions of this person and the other, trying to put the various fragments of gossip together and trace them to their fountain-head. Altogether, he contrived to make out something like a coherent whole: upon which he favoured the London firm, Messrs. Plackett, Plackett and Rex, with a long and confidential letter.
The letter brought down Mr. Charles Plackett, Nixon meeting him by appointment at the railway station. The two had some private conversation together.
"What we cannot understand in your report is this one item," observed Mr. Charles Plackett: "that Miss Winter herself suspects some fraud has been at work, and is as anxious to have matters investigated as we could be."
"I assure you, sir, I believe it to be so," affirmed Nixon. "My information on this point came from a sure source."
"Well, I intend to go to see her," said Mr. Charles Plackett.
Nixon opened his eyes.
"To go to see her, sir! What, at Heron Dyke?"
"Yes. Why not? It is the only step I can take: and, whether it brings forth fruit or not, I shall at any rate see how the land lies with regard to herself. If she is, as you think, anxious for the investigation, she is a good and honourable young lady; that's all I can say."
Mr. Charles Plackett took a fly and drove over to Heron Dyke. He sent in his card to Miss Winter, and was at once admitted. Ella was alone. Maria Kettle had returned to the Vicarage, and Mrs. Toynbee was not yet back from London. Ella knew that the Placketts were Mr. Denison's solicitors, and she supposed this gentleman had come to bring her some message from him. That idea, however, was at once dispelled.
"I am come here this morning, Miss Winter, upon rather a curious errand," began Mr. Plackett in his cheerful, chirruping way. "But before going any farther, it may be as well to say that I am come without the knowledge of my esteemed client, Mr. Denison, of Nunham Priors. In fact I am adopting a most unusual course with a lawyer; I am venturing to intrude upon you entirely on my own account."
Miss Winter bowed. "I shall be pleased to hear anything that you may have to communicate," she said frankly.
Mr. Plackett paused. "I am somewhat non-plussed in what way to begin," he confessed, with a smile.
"A difficulty, I should imagine, that does not often arise with gentlemen of your profession," observed Ella, courteously.
The little lawyer laughed. "I believe you are not far wrong there, Miss Winter. Perhaps my best plan will be to plunge at once in medias res. I may say, then, that some disquieting rumours have reached our ears--and when I say 'ours,' in this instance I mean my own--having reference to certain events which took place in this house during your absence abroad. The events I allude to are the illness and death of the late Mr. Denison. What we have heard would almost lead us to imagine that deception of some kind, if not fraud itself, was at work in the case; and--and----"
He paused. Ella waited.
"Frankly speaking, Miss Winter, I have heard a report that these rumours have reached yourself; and I am here to ask you--but pray do not answer the question unless you feel fully at liberty to do so--whether that is a fact?"
"Yes, it is," she freely answered. "I have heard the rumours."
"Ah! Just so. Thank you very much for your frankness. I presume, however, that you attach very little importance to them?"
"On the contrary, I attach very considerable importance to them. I do not say they are true--far from it; on the other hand, I do not know but they may be. The doubt renders me very uneasy."
"Really now! I'm sure there are not many young ladies like you, for truth and candour. But--pardon my presumption--may I ask whether you have been able to trace the rumours to any foundation? Perhaps you have not tried to do so?"
"I have tried," replied Ella. "I have used every effort to track them back to their source, though it is not much, of course, that it lies in my power to do."
"And the result,--if I may dare to ask it?"
"There is no result. None. I cannot discover whether they are worthy of belief, or whether they are fabrications. That certain unnecessary precautions were observed during my late uncle's illness--green baize doors put up to shield him from the household; friends never admitted to him; a mysterious kind of professional nurse had down from London to attend him--is true. But those about him, Dr. Jago and old Aaron Stone, explain all this away with perfect plausibility."
Charles Plackett mused. "No, of course not; there was not much you could do," he remarked, apparently speaking to himself.
"An individual, whom I will not name, warned me that Heron Dyke was not legally mine," resumed Miss Winter. "I was startled, as you may suppose; but I could elicit nothing further. Nothing but what I tell you--that I held Heron Dyke by fraud."
"Dear me!"
"I did not know whether to believe it, or not; I do not know now. I carried the tale to Mr. Daventry, and I spoke also to my uncle's old friend, the Vicar of Nullington. Neither of them attached the smallest credibility to the charge; they almost ridiculed it. Mr. Daventry says that nothing whatever could deprive me of Heron Dyke, save my uncle's not having lived to see his seventieth birthday. And several persons saw him and conversed with him subsequently to that date."
"I did, for one," remarked Mr. Charles Plackett. "Well, I don't see that there's much to be done. You say you will not give up the name of the individual who----"
"No," she interrupted. "And if I did give it, the end would not be answered. He--he--is no longer here; he could not be questioned."
"It is one of the most puzzling questions I ever had to do with, madam. Heron Dyke is a fine property. You would not like to give it up."
"I would give it up to-day if I were sure it were Mr. Denison's. I wish I was sure--one way or the other. If it is not mine it must be his, and he would have every right to it. Does he know of this doubt?"
"Not a word."
"I met him a short while ago, when I was in London. He came to my aunt's, Mrs. Carlyon. I took a great fancy to him."
Mr. Charles Plackett smiled. "And he took a fancy to a certain young lady--if I may say as much. He called at our office the next day, before returning to Nunham Priors. What do you think he said, Miss Winter?--that he did not so much regret the loss of Heron Dyke now, when he saw what charming hands held it."
Ella rather shrank from the compliment. "I and my interests are as nothing, Mr. Plackett, in comparison with arriving at the truth. If fraud and deception have been at work, it is to the advantage of everyone that they should be exposed and frustrated."
Mr. Plackett gazed on her glowing face admiringly. "If everyone thought and acted like you, my dear young lady," he said, "I am afraid that the occupation of us poor lawyers would soon become a thing of the past."
"That would be a catastrophe indeed," responded Ella, with a laugh.
A little more conversation ensued. One word leading to another, Ella confided to him what the servant Eliza had told her--that she had penetrated beyond the green baize doors, on one lucky occasion when they were left unguarded, and had found the Squire's rooms empty: Mr. Denison was nowhere to be seen in them. Nay, more; the rooms and the bed appeared to be unoccupied.
Mr. Plackett, though evidently much surprised, could still make nothing of it. He sat fingering his grey hair--a habit of his when in thought. Ella finished by inquiring what more she could do.
"I really fail to see at present that there is anything more you can do," he answered. "And I am quite sure that not one person in a thousand would do as much as you have already done."
"Are you sure it was my uncle you saw," she inquired, speaking on the moment's impulse, "when you were here two days after his birthday?"
Mr. Charles Plackett paused, revolving the question. "I thought I was sure," he said. "Although I had only seen Mr. Denison twice before, and that some years previously, he certainly seemed to me to be the same individual, naturally much wasted and changed by illness. One thing I perfectly remembered: the beautiful cat's-eye ring he wore. Yes, I think it could have been no other than Mr. Denison--and no other temper than his. You heard, probably, of the passion he went into?"
"And threw away his beef-tea, and broke the cup. Truly I cannot imagine anyone doing that, save my uncle."
"I must say that I have not been so thoroughly puzzled by any case for a long while," remarked the lawyer, as he rose to depart.
And puzzled Mr. Plackett was destined to remain; at least for some time yet to come. If Miss Winter had looked to benefit by his advice, she was disappointed. He had no advice of any consequence to offer. He could only thank her again for her frankness, and say that he would consult with his client, Mr. Denison, and, with her permission, write to her in the course of a few days. Then, declining refreshments, he left the Hall, much more disquieted in his mind than when he had arrived at it.
But within an hour of the lawyer's departure, Miss Winter had something else to think about than his promise to write to her. There came a telegram from Edward Conroy. He had reached London, and hoped to be at Heron Dyke on the morrow.