“You will show them to me?” asked
this young man who had no dead wife in his
Elisa Minden, and her lover gave graceful
life. Something was roused in her meek youth
consent. There was further amiable talk, and
and passive innocence, and she wondered why
then the whole party, guided by Mr. Orford
she had so quietly accepted her father’s holding a candle, made a tour of the house and arrangement of a marriage with this elderly
looked over the fine rooms.
scholar and why Philip Hoare had let her do it.
Mrs. Hoare took occasion to whisper
Her thoughts were quite vague and amounted
to the bride-to-be that there were many
to no more than a confused sense that alterations needed before the place was ready something was wrong. But she lost her for a lady’s use and that it was time these were satisfaction in the tea-drinking and the put in hand—why, the wedding was only a pleasant company and the warm room with the
fortnight off!
drawn curtains and the bright fire.
And Elisa Minden, who had not had a
She rose up, saying they must be mother to advise her in these matters, returning, as there was a great store of suddenly felt that the house was dreary and mending she had promised to help her aunt
old-fashioned and an impossible place to live
with; but Mrs. Hoare would not help her out,
in. The very rooms that had so pleased her
but protested, laughing, that there was time
good father—a set of apartments for a lady-—
enough for that, and the good doctor, who was
were to her the most hateful in the house, as
in a fine humor and no mood to go out into the
they, her lover told her, had been furnished
bleak streets even as far as his own door,
and prepared for Flora Orford, twenty years
declared that now was the time they must be
ago.
shown over the house.
She was telling herself that
“Do you know, Humphrey,” he said,
immediately after her marriage she must go
“you have often promised us this, but never
away and that the house must be altered
have done it? In all the years that I have
before she could return to it, when the party
known you, I have never seen but this room
came crowding to the threshold of the library
and the dining-room below—and as to your
or private cabinet, and Mr. Orford, holding the closet—or particular cabinet—”
candle aloft, led them in.
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6
This illumination was not sufficient,
obvious fright were out of proportion to her
and Orford went very quickly and lit the two
discovery.
candles on the mantelpiece.
“Why. child.” said Mrs. Hoare, “it is a
It was a pleasant apartment, lined from floor
silk petticoat, as all can see.”
to ceiling with books, old, valuable and richly
“A gift for you, my dear,” said the
bound books, save only in the space above the
cheerful doctor.
chimney-piece, which was occupied by a
“A gift for me!” cried Elisa. “Why,
portrait of a lady and the panel behind the
this has been scoured and turned and mended
desk. This was situated in a strange position,
and patched a hundred times!” And she held
in the furthest corner of the room, fronting the up the skirt, which had, indeed, become like
wall, so that any one seated there would be
tinder and seemed ready to drop to pieces.
facing the door with the space of the room
The scholar now spoke: “It belongs to
between.
Mrs. Boyd,” he said quietly. “I suppose she
The desk was quite close to the wall,
has been in here to clear up my litter and has
so that there was only just space for the chair left some of her mending here.”
at which the writer would sit, and to
Now, there were things about this
accommodate this there were no book-shelves
speech which made a strange impression on
behind it, but a smooth panel of wood, on
every one: first, it was manifestly impossible
which hung a small picture. This was a rough,
that the good housekeeper would ever have
dark painting and represented a man hanging
owned such a garment as this that was a lady’s
on a gallows on a wild heath. It was a subject
dress, and such as would be worn for a ball;
out of keeping with the luxurious room, with
and secondly, Mr. Orford had only a short
its air of ease and learning, and while Mr.
while before declared that Mrs. Boyd only
Orford was showing his first editions, his entered his room when he was in it, and then Elzevirs and Aldines, Elisa Minden was of a necessity, and for a few moments.
staring at this ugly little picture.
All had the same impression; this was
As she looked she was conscious of
some garment belonging to his dead wife and
such a chill of horror and dismay as nearly
as such cherished by him—all that is, but
caused her to shriek aloud.
Elisa, who had heard him call Flora Orford a
The room seemed to her to be full of
wicked woman.
an atmosphere of terror and evil beyond
Elisa put the silk down quickly—there
expression.
was a needle sticking into it and a spool of
Never had such a thing happened to
cotton lying on the chair beneath—and looked
her before: her distaste at her visit to the tomb up at the portrait above the mantelpiece. “Is
early in the afternoon had been as nothing to
that Mrs. Orford?” she asked. He gave her a
this.
queer look. “Yes,” he said. In a strange silence She moved away, barely able to all glanced up at the picture. It showed a disguise an open panic. As she turned she half
young woman in a white gown, holding a
stumbled against a chair, caught at it, and
crystal heart that hung round her neck; she had noticed, hanging over the back, a silk skirt of dark hair and a pretty face.
peach-colored silk. Elisa, not being mistress of As Elisa looked at the pointed fingers
herself, caught at this garment.
holding the pretty toy, she thought of the
“Why, sir,” cried she hysterically, tablet in St. Paul’s Church and Mr. Orford’s
“what is this?”
words: “She is no near to you that if she could All turned to look at her: her tone, her
stretch out her hand she could touch you,” and
Crimes of Old London: The Scoured Silk 7
without any remark about the portrait or the
closet, the discovery of the scoured silk.
sitter, she advised her aunt that it was time to
“But I must know something of his
go home. The four of them left, and Mr.
first wife, Philip,” she concluded. “I could
Orford saw them out, standing framed in the
never go on with it, if I did not. Something has warm light of the corridor and watching them
happened to-day I hate that house—I almost
disappear into the gray
darkness of the street.
hate-him.”
It was little more than an hour
“Why did you do it, Lizzie?”
afterward when Elisa Minden came creeping
demanded the young soldier, sternly. “This
down the stairway of her home and accosted
was a nice home-coming for me—a man who
her cousin, who was just leaving the house.
might be your father—a solitary one who
“Oh, Philip,” said she, clasping her
frightens you.”
hands, “if your errand be not a very important
Miss Minden stared at her cousin. She
one, I beg you to give me an hour of your
did not know why she had done it. The whole
time. I have been watching for you to go out,
thing seemed suddenly impossible.
that I might follow and speak to you
“Please, you must come with me
privately.”
now,” she said.
The young soldier looked at her keenly
So overwrought was she that he had no
as she stood in the light of the hall-lamp, and heart to refuse her, and they took their warm
he saw that she was very agitated.
cloaks from the hall and went out into the dark
“Of course, Lizzie,” he answered streets.
kindly, and led her into the little parlor off the It was snowing now and the ground
hall where there was neither candies or fire,
slippery under foot. Elisa clung to her cousin’s but leisure and quiet to talk.
arm; she did not want to see Mr. Orford or his
Elisa, being a housekeeper, found a
house ever again, and by the time they reached
lamp and lit it, and apologized for the cold.
the doorstep she was in a tremble; but she rang But she would not return up-stairs, she said,
the bell boldly. Mrs. Boyd herself came to the
for Mrs. Hoare and the two girls and the
door, and she began explaining that the master
doctor were all quiet in the great parlor, and
was shut up in his cabinet, but the soldier cut she had no mind to disturb them.
her short.
As she said this she looked anxiously
“Miss Minden wishes to see you,” he
at the pleasant face of her cousin as if she
said, “and I will wait in the hall till she is
appealed to his kindness. She made no ready.”
explanation, neither did he ask it, as to why
So Elisa followed the housekeeper
she had selected him for her confidence down to her basement sitting-room. The instead of her father or aunt.
manservant was out and the two maids were
“You are in trouble,” said Captain quickly dismissed to the kitchen.
Hoare, quietly.
Mrs. Boyd, a placid soul near seventy
“Yes,” replied she, in a frightened years, waited for the young lady to explain way. “I want you to come with me now to Mr.
herself. Elisa Minden, flushed and paled by
Orford’s house—I want to speak to his turns, feeling foolish and timid, put forth the housekeeper.”
object of her coming.
“Why, what is this, Lizzie?”
She wanted to hear the story of Flora
She had no very good explanation: Orford—there was no one else whom she there was only the visit to the church that
could ask—and she thought that she had a
afternoon, her impression of horror in the right to know.
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“And I suppose you have, my dear,”
“And the man?” asked Miss Minden,
said Mrs. Boyd, gazing into the fire; “though
after a little.
it is not a pretty story for you to hear and I
“The man she loved, my dear? Well,
never thought I should be telling it to Mr.
Mr. Orford had him arrested as a thief for
Orford’s second wife!”
breaking into his house. He was wild—that
“Not his wife yet!” said Miss Minden.
fellow—with not the best of characters. Well,
“There, there, you had better ask the
he would not say why he was in the house;
master himself,” replied Mrs. Boyd placidly.
and Mr. Orford, being a justice of the peace,
“Not but that he would be fierce at your had the power, and he was just condemned as speaking of it, for I do not think a mention of a common thief. And there are few to this day
it has passed his lips, and it’s twenty years
know the truth of the tale, for he kept his
ago, and best forgotten, my dear.”
counsel to the last, and no one knew from him
“Tell it me and then I will forget,”
why he had been found in the squire’s house.”
begged Miss Minden.
“What was his end?” asked Miss
Then Mrs. Boyd, who was a quiet,
Minden in a still voice.
harmless soul with no dislike to telling a tale
“Well, he was hanged,” said Mrs.
(though no gossip, as events had proved—she
Boyd. “Being caught red-handed, what could
had kept her tongue still on this matter for so he hope for?”
long), told her the story of Humphrey Orford’s
“Then that is a picture of him in the
wife.
cabinet!” cried Elisa, shivering, for all the
It was told in very few words.
great fire. She added, desperately: “Tell me,
“She was the daughter of his did Flora Orford die in that cabinet?”
gamekeeper, my dear, and he married her out
“Oh, no, my dear, but in a great room
of hand, just for her pretty face. But they were at the back of the house, that has been shut up not very happy together that I could ever see:
ever since.”
she was afraid of him, and that made her
“But the cabinet is horrible,” said
cringe, and he hated that, and she shamed him
Elisa. “Perhaps it is her portrait and that
with her ignorant ways. And then one day he
picture.”
found her with a lover, saving your presence,
“I have hardly been in there,” admitted
mistress, one of her own people—just a Mrs. Boyd. “but the master lives there—he common man. And he was just like a creature
has always had his supper there, and he talks
possessed; he shut up the house and sent away
to that portrait, my dear. ‘Flora, Flora!’ he
all the servants but me, and brought his lady
says, ‘how are you feeling tonight?’ and then
up to town, to this house here. And what
he imitates her voice answering.
passed between her and him no one will know,
Elisa Minden clapped her hand to her
but she ever looked like one dying of terror.
heart.
And then the doctor began to come-Dr.
“Do not tell me these things or I shall
Thursby, it was, that is dead now—and then
think that you are hateful, too, to have stayed she died, and no one was able to see her even
in this dreadful house and endured them!”
when she was in her coffin, nor to send a
Mrs. Boyd was surprised. “Now, my
flower. ’Tis likely she died of grief, poor fond dear, do not be put out,” she protested. “They
wretch. But of course she was a wicked were wicked people, both of the
m, and got woman, and there was nothing to do but pity
their deserts, and it is an old story best
the master.”
forgotten; and as for the master, he has been
And this was the story of Flora Orford.
just a good creature ever since we have been
Crimes of Old London: The Scoured Silk 9
here, and he will not go talking to any picture found they had been missed and there had to
when he has a sweet young wife to keep him
be explanations. Elisa said there was
company.”
something that she had wished to say to Mrs.
But Elisa Minden had risen and had
Boyd, and Philip told of Mr. Orford’s
her fingers on the handle of the door.
rudeness and the quarrel that had followed.
“One thing more,” said she
The two elder people were disturbed
breathlessly; “that scoured silk—of a peach
and considered Elisa’s behavior strange, but
color—”
her manifest agitation caused them to forbear
“Why, has he got that still? Mrs. pressing her for an explanation. It was no use Orford wore it the night he found her with her
addressing themselves to Philip, for he went
sweetheart. I mind I was with her when she
out to his delayed meeting with some
bought it—fine silk at forty shillings the yard.
companions, at a coffeehouse.
If I was you, my dear, I should burn that when
That night Elisa Minden went to bed
I was mistress here.”
feeling more emotion than she had ever done
But Miss Minden had run up-stairs to
in her life—fear and disgust of the man whom
the cold hall.
hitherto she had placidly regarded as her
Crimes of Old London: The Scoured Silk by Marjorie Bowen Page 2
