by Simon Stern
“What is it you want, my boy?” asked Mr. Stainton, glancing as he spoke at the child’s poor thin legs, and short, shabby frock, and shoes wellnigh worn out, and arms bare and lean and unbeautiful. “Is it anything I can get for you?”
Not a word—not a whisper: only for reply a glance of the wistful brown eyes.
“Where do you come from, and whom do you belong to?” persisted Mr. Stainton.
The child turned slowly away.
“Come, you shall not get off so easily as you seem to imagine,” persisted the new owner, advancing towards his visitor. “You have no business to be here at all; and before you go you must tell me how you chance to be in this house, and what you expected to find in this room.”
He was close to the doorway by this time, and the child stood on the threshold, with its back towards him. Mr. Stainton could see every detail of the boy’s attire—his little plaid frock, the hooks which fastened it; the pinafore, soiled and crumpled, tied behind with strings broken and knotted; in one place the skirt had given from the bodice, and a piece of thin poor flannel showed that the child’s under habiliments matched in shabbiness his exterior garments.
“Poor little chap,” thought Mr. Stainton. “I wonder if he would like something to eat. Are you hungry, my lad?”
The child turned and looked at him earnestly, but answered never a word.
“I wonder if he is dumb,” marvelled Mr. Stainton; and, seeing he was moving away, put out a hand to detain him. But the child eluded his touch, and flitted into the hall and up the wide staircase with swift noiseless feet.
Only waiting to snatch a candle from one of the sconces, Mr. Stainton pursued as fast as he could follow. Up the easy steps he ran at the top of his speed; but, fast as he went, the child went faster. Higher and higher he beheld the tiny creature mounting, then, still keeping the same distance between them, it turned when it reached the top story and trotted along a narrow corridor with rooms opening off to right and left. At the extreme end of this passage a door stood ajar. Through this the child passed, Mr. Stainton still following.
“I have run you to earth at last,” he said, entering and closing the door. “Why, where has the boy gone?” he added, holding the candle above his head and gazing round the dingy garret in which he found himself.
The room was quite empty. He examined it closely, but could find no possible outlet save the door, and a skylight which had evidently not been opened for years. There was no furniture in the apartment, except a truckle bedstead, a rush-bottomed chair, and a rickety washstand. No wardrobe, or box, or press, where even a kitten might have lain concealed.
“It is very strange,” muttered Mr. Stainton, as he turned away baffled. “Very strange!” he repeated, while he walked along the corridor. “I don’t understand it at all,” he decided, proceeding slowly down the topmost flight of stairs; but there all at once he stopped.
“IT IS THE CHILD!” he exclaimed aloud, and the sound of his own voice woke strange echoes through the silence of that desolate house. “IT IS THE CHILD!” and he descended the principal staircase very slowly, with bowed head, and his grave, worn face graver and more thoughtful than ever.
CHAPTER III
SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION
It was enough to make any man look grave; and as time went on the new owner of Walnut-Tree House found himself pondering continually as to what the mystery could be which attached to the child he had found in possession of his property, and who had already driven tenant after tenant out of the premises. Inclined at first to regard the clerk’s story as a joke, and his own experience on the night of his arrival a delusion, it was impossible for him to continue incredulous when he found, even in broad daylight, that terrible child stealing down the staircase and entering the rooms, looking, looking—for something it never found.
At bed and at board he had company, or the expectation of it. No apartment in the building was secure from intrusion. It did not matter where he lay, it did not matter where he ate; between sleeping and waking, between breakfast and dinner, whenever the notion seized it, the child came gliding in, looking, looking, looking, and never finding; not lingering longer than was necessary to be certain the object of its search was absent, but wandering hither and thither, from garret to kitchen, from parlour to bed-chamber, in that quest which still seemed fresh as when first begun.
Mr. Stainton went to his solicitors as the most likely persons from whom to obtain information on the subject, and plunged at once into the matter.
“Who is the child supposed to be, Mr. Timpson?” he asked, making no secret that he had seen it.
“Well, that is really very difficult to say,” answered Mr. Timpson.
“There was a child once, I suppose?—a real child—flesh and blood?”
Mr. Timpson took off his spectacles and wiped them.
“There were two; yes, certainly, in the time of Mr. Felix Stainton—a boy and a girl.”
“In that house?”
“In that house. They survived him.”
“And what became of them?”
“The girl was adopted by a relation of her father’s, and the—boy—died.”
“Oh! the boy died, did he? Do you happen to know what he died of?”
“No; I really do not. There was nothing wrong about the affair, however, if that is what you are thinking of. There never was a hint of that sort.”
Mr. Stainton sat silent for a minute; then he said,
“Mr. Timpson, I cannot shake off the idea that somehow there has been foul play with regard to those children. Who were they?”
“Felix Stainton’s grandchildren. His daughter made a low marriage, and he cast her adrift. After her death the two children were received at Walnut-Tree House on sufferance—fed and clothed, I believe, that was all; and when the old man died the heir-at-law permitted them to remain.”
“Alfred Stainton?”
“Yes; the unhappy man who became insane. His uncle died intestate, and he consequently succeeded to everything but the personalty, which was very small, and of which these children had a share.”
“There never was any suspicion, you say, of foul play on the part of the late owner?”
“Dear, dear! no; quite the contrary.”
“Then you cannot throw the least light on the mystery?”
“Not the least; I wish I could.”
For all that, Mr. Stainton carried away an impression Mr. Timpson knew more of the matter than he cared to tell.
“There is a mystery behind it all,” he considered. “I must learn more about these children. Perhaps some of the local tradespeople may recollect them.”
But the local tradespeople for the most part were new comers—or else had not supplied “the house.”
“There is only one person I can think of, Sir,” said one “family” butcher, “likely to be able to give you any information about the matter.”
“And that is——”
“Mr. Hennings, at the Pedlar’s Arms. He had some acquaintance with the old lady as was housekeeper both to Mr. Felix Stainton and the gentleman that went out of his mind.” Following which advice, the new owner repaired to the Pedlar’s Arms.
“Do I know Walnut-Tree House, Sir?” said Mr. Hennings, repeating his visitor’s question. “Well, yes, rather. Why, you might as well ask me, do I know the Pedlar’s Arms. As boy and man I can remember the old house for close on five-and-fifty years. I remember Mr. George Stainton; he used to wear a skull-cap and knee-breeches. There was an orchard then where Stainton-street is now, and his whole day was taken up in keeping the boys out of it. Many a time I have run from him.”
“Did you ever see anything of the boy and girl who were there, after Mr. Alfred succeeded to the property—Felix Stainton’s grandchildren, I mean?” asked the new owner, when a pause in Mr. Hennings’ reminiscences enabled him to take his part in the conversation.
“Well, Sir, I may have seen the girl, but I can’t bring it to my recollection: the boy I
do remember, however. He came over here two or three times with Mrs. Toplis, who kept house for both Mr. Staintons, and I took notice of him, both because he looked so peaky and old-fashioned, and also on account of the talk about him.”
“There was talk about him, then.”
“Bless you, yes, Sir; as much talk while he was living as since he died. Everybody thought he ought to have been the heir. But if you want to hear all about him, Sir, Mrs. Toplis is the one to tell you. If you have a mind to give a shilling to a poor old lady who always did try to keep herself respectable, and who, I will say, paid her way honourable as long as she had a sixpence to pay it honourable with—you cannot do better than go and see Mrs. Toplis, who will talk to you for hours about the time she lived at Walnut-Tree House.”
And, with this delicate hint that his minutes were more valuable than the days of Mrs. Toplis, Mr. Hennings would have closed the interview, but that his visitor asked where he should be able to find the housekeeper.
“A thousand pardons!” answered the publican, with an air; “forgetting the very cream and marrow of it, wasn’t I? Mrs. Toplis, Sir, is to be found in Lambeth workhouse—and a pity, too.”
Edgar Stainton turned away, heart-sick. Was this all wealth had done for his people and those connected with them?
CHAPTER IV
BROTHER AND SISTER
Mr. Stainton had expected to find Mrs. Toplis a decrepit crone, bowed with age and racked with rheumatism, and it was therefore like a gleam of sunshine streaming across his path to behold a woman, elderly, certainly, but carrying her years with ease, ruddy cheeked, clear eyed, upright as a dart, who welcomed him with respectful enthusiasm.
“And so you are Mr. Edgar, the son of the dear old Captain,” she said, after the first greetings and explanations were over, after she had wiped her eyes and uttered many ejaculations of astonishment and expressions of delight. “Eh! I remember him coming to the house just after he was married, and telling me about the dear lady his wife. I never heard a gentleman speak so proud; he never seemed tired of saying the words, ‘My wife.’ ”
“She was a dear lady,” answered the new owner.
“And so the house has come to you, Sir? Well, I wish you joy. I hope you may have peace, and health, and happiness, and prosperity in it. And I don’t see why you should not—no, indeed, Sir.”
Edgar Stainton sat silent for a minute, thinking how he should best approach his subject.
“Mrs. Toplis,” at last he began, plunging into the very middle of the difficulty, “I want you to tell me all about it. I have come here on purpose to ask you what it all means.”
The old woman covered her face with her hands, and he could see that she trembled violently.
“You need not be afraid to speak openly to me,” he went on. “I am quite satisfied there was some great wrong done in the house, and I want to put it right, if it lies in my power to do so. I am a rich man. I was rich when the news of this inheritance reached me, and I would gladly give up the property to-morrow if I could only undo whatever may have been done amiss.”
Mrs. Toplis shook her head.
“Ah! Sir; you can’t do that,” she said. “Money can’t bring back the dead to life; and, if it could, I doubt if even you would prove as good a friend to the poor child sleeping in the churchyard yonder as his Maker did when He took him out of this troublesome world. It was just soul-rending to see the boy the last few months of his life. I can’t bear to think of it, Sir! Often at night I wake in a fright, fancying I still hear the patter, patter of his poor little feet upon the stair.”
“Do you know, it is a curious thing, but he doesn’t frighten me,” said Mr. Stainton; “that is, when I am in the house; although when I am away from it the recollection seems to dog every step I take.”
“What?” cried Mrs. Toplis; “have you then seen him, too? There! what am I talking about? I hope, Sir, you will forgive my foolishness.”
“I see him constantly,” was the calm reply.
“I wonder what it means!—I wonder what it can mean!” exclaimed the housekeeper, wringing her hands in dire perplexity and dismay.
“I do not know,” answered the new owner, philosophically; “but I want you to help me to find out. I suppose you remember the children coming there at first?”
“Well, Sir, well—They were poor Miss Mary’s son and daughter. She ran away, you know, with a Mr. Fenton—made a very bad match; but I believe he was kind to her. When they were brought to us, a shivering little pair, my master was for sending them here. Ay, and he would have done it, too, if somebody had not said he could be made to pay for their keep. You never saw brother and sister so fond of one another—never. They were twins. But, Lor! he was more like a father to the little girl than aught else. He’d have kept an apple a month, rather than eat it unless she had half; and the same with all else. I think it was seeing that—watching the love they had, he for her and she for him, coming upon them unsuspected, with their little arms round one another’s necks, made the old gentleman alter his mind about leaving the place to Mr. Alfred; for he said to me, one day, thoughtful like, pointing to them, ‘Wonderful fond, Toplis!’ and I answered, ‘Yes, Sir; for all the world like the Babes in the Wood;’ not thinking of how lonely that meant——
“Shortly afterwards he took to his bed; and while he was lying there, no doubt, better thoughts came to him, for he used to talk about his wife and Miss Mary, and the Captain, your father, Sir, and ask if the children were gone to bed, and such like—things he never used to mention before.
“So when he made the will Mr. Quinance drew out I was not surprised—no, not a bit. Though before that time he always spoke of Mr. Alfred as his heir, and treated him as such.”
“That will never was found,” suggested Mr. Stainton, anxious to get at another portion of the narrative.
“Never, Sir. We hunted for it high and low. Perhaps I wronged him, but I always thought Mr. Alfred knew what became of it. After the old gentleman’s death the children were treated shameful—shameful. I don’t mean beaten, or such like; but half-starved and neglected. He would not buy them proper clothes, and he would not suffer them to wear decent things if anybody else bought them. It was just the same with their food. I durstn’t give them even a bit of bread-and-butter unless it was on the sly; and, indeed, there was not much to give in that house. He turned regular miser. Hoarding came into the family with Mrs. Lancelot Stainton, Mr. Alfred’s great grandmother, and they went on from bad to worse, each one closer and nearer than the last, begging your pardon for saying so, Sir; but it is the truth.”
“I fear so, Mrs. Toplis,” agreed the man, who certainly was neither close nor near.
“Well, Sir, at last, when the little girl was about six years old, she fell sick, and we didn’t think she would get over the illness. While she was about at her worst Mrs. May, her father’s sister, chanced to be stopping up in London, and, as Mr. Alfred refused to let a doctor inside his doors, she made no more ado but wrapped the child up in blankets, sent for a cab, and carried her off to her own lodgings. Mr. Alfred made no objection to that. All he said as she went through the hall was,
“ ‘If you take her now, remember, you must keep her.’
“ ‘Very well,’ she replied, ‘I will keep her.’ ”
“And the boy? the boy?” cried Mr. Stainton, in an agony of impatience.
“I am coming to him, Sir, if you please. He just dwined away after his sister and he were parted, and died in December as she was taken in the July.”
“What did he die of?”
“A broken heart, Sir. It seems a queer thing to say about a child; but if ever a heart was broken his was. At first he was always going about the house looking for her, but towards the end he used to go up to his room and stay there all by himself. At last I wrote to Mrs. May, but she was ill when the letter got to her, and when she did come up he was dead. My word, she talked to Mr. Alfred! I never heard any one person say so much to another. She declared he had fir
st cheated the boy of his inheritance, and then starved him to death; but that was not true, the child broke his heart fretting after his sister.”
“Yes; and when he was dead.”
“Sir, I don’t like to speak of it, but as true as I am sitting here, the night he was put in his coffin he came pattering down just as usual, looking, looking for his sister. I went straight up stairs, and, if I had not seen the little wasted body lying there still and quiet, I must have thought he had come back to life. We were never without him afterwards, never; that, and nothing else, drove Mr. Alfred mad. He used to think he was fighting the child and killing it. When the worst fits were on him he tried to trample it under foot or crush it up in a corner, and then he would sob and cry, and pray for it to be taken away. I have heard he recovered a little before he died, and said his uncle told him there was a will leaving all to the boy, but he never saw such a paper. Perhaps it was only talk, though, or that he was still raving.”
CHAPTER V
THE NEXT AFTERNOON
Mr. Stainton was trying to work off some portion of his perplexities by pruning the grimy evergreens in front of Walnut-Tree House, and chopping away at the undergrowth of weeds and couch grass which had in the course of years matted together beneath the shrubs, when his attention was attracted to two ladies who stood outside the great iron gate looking up at the house.
“It seems to be occupied now,” remarked the elder, turning to her companion. “I suppose the new owner is going to live here. It appears just as dingy as ever; but you do not remember it, Mary.”
“I think I do,” was the answer. “As I look the place grows familiar to me. I do recollect some of the rooms, I am sure, just like a dream, as I remember Georgie. What I would give to have a peep inside.”
At this juncture the new owner emerged from amongst the bushes, and, opening the gate, asked if the ladies would like to look over the place.
