Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “It is a slack season of the year.”

  “Maybe,” shortly answered Mr. Dare. “Slack as it is, there’s some business astir, but people are going elsewhere to get it done; those, too, who have never for years been near anyone but us. The truth is, Herbert, you fell into bad odour with the town on the day of the trial; and that you must know. Though acquitted of the murder, all sorts of other things were laid to your charge. Quaker Lynn’s stroke amongst the rest.”

  “Carping sinners!” ejaculated Herbert.

  “And I suppose it turned people against the office,” continued Mr. Dare. “My belief is, they won’t come back again as long as you are in it.”

  “That’s precisely what I meant you had hinted to me” said Herbert. “Therefore, I thought I had better leave it. Pattison says he can get me this berth, and I should like to try it.”

  “You’ll not like to turn merchant’s clerk,” repeated Mr. Dare with emphasis.

  “I shall like it better than being nailed for debt here,” somewhat coarsely answered Herbert. “It is not so agreeable at home now, especially in this office, that I should cry to stay in it. You have changed, sir, amongst the rest: many a day through, you don’t give me a civil word.”

  Again Mr. Dare felt that he had changed to Herbert. When he found that he — Herbert — might have cleared himself at first from the terrible accusation of fratricide, had he so chosen, instead of allowing the obloquy to rest upon himself and his family for so long a period, he had become bitterly angry. Mrs. Dare and the whole family joined in the feeling, and Herbert suffered.

  “As to civility, Herbert, I must first get over the soreness left by your conduct. You acted very badly in allowing the case to go on to trial. If you had no objection to sit down quietly under the crime yourself, you had no right to throw the disgrace and expense upon your family.”

  “If it were to come over again, I would not do so,” acknowledged Herbert. “I thought then I was acting for the best.”

  “Pshaw!” was the peevish ejaculation of Mr. Dare.

  “Altogether,” resumed Herbert, “I think I had better go away. After a time, something or other may turn up to make things smoother here, and then I can come home again; unless I find a better opening abroad. I may do so; and I believe I shall like living there.”

  “Very well,” said Mr. Dare, after some minutes’ silence. “It may be for the best. At all events, it will give time for things here to blow over. If you don’t find it what you like, you can only return.”

  “I shall be sure not to return, unless I can square up some of my liabilities here,” returned Herbert. “You must help me to get there, sir.”

  “What do you want?” asked Mr. Dare.

  “Fifty pounds.”

  “I can’t do it, Herbert,” was the prompt answer.

  “I must have it if I am to go,” was Herbert’s firm reply. “There are two or three trifles here which I will not leave unsettled, and I cannot go over there with pockets absolutely empty. Fifty pounds is not so great a sum, sir, to pay to get rid of me.”

  Old Anthony Dare knit his brow in perplexity. He supposed he must furnish the money, though he did not in the least see how it was to be done.

  The matter settled, Herbert took his hat and went out. The first object his eyes alighted on outside was Sergeant Delves. That worthy, pacing through the town, had brought himself to an anchor opposite the office of Mr. Dare, and was regarding it, lost in a brown study. The sergeant was in a state of discomfiture, touching the affair of the late Anthony Dare. He had lost no time in “looking after” Miss Caroline Mason, as he had promised himself; and the sequence had been — defeat. Without any open stir on the part of the police — without allowing Caroline herself to know that she was doubted — the sergeant contrived to put himself in full possession of her movements on that night. The result proved that she must be exempt from the suspicion; or, as the sergeant expressed it, “was out of the hole;” and that gentleman remained at fault again.

  Herbert crossed over to him. “What are you looking at, Delves?”

  “I wasn’t looking at anything in particular,” was the answer. “Coming in sight of your office naturally brought my thoughts back to that unsatisfactory business. I never was so baffled before.”

  “It is very strange who it could have been,” observed Herbert. “I often think of it.”

  “Never so baffled before,” continued the sergeant, as if there had been no interruption to his own words. “I could almost have been upon oath at the time, that the murderer was in the house; hadn’t left it. And yet — —”

  “You could have been upon oath that it was I,” interrupted Herbert.

  “That’s true. I could. But you had yourself chiefly to thank for it, Mr. Herbert Dare, through making a mystery of your movements that night. After you were cleared, my mind turned to that girl; and that, I found, was no go.”

  “What girl?” interrupted Herbert.

  “The one in Honey Fair: your brother Anthony’s old sweetheart. It wasn’t her, though; I have proofs. Charlotte East had her at her house that evening, and kept her till twelve o’clock, when she went home to bed in her garret. Charlotte’s going to try to make something of her again. And now I am baffled, and I don’t deny it.”

  “To suspect any girl is ridiculous,” observed Herbert Dare. “No girl, it is to be hoped, would possess the courage or the strength to accomplish such a deed as that.”

  “You don’t know ’em as we police do,” nodded the sergeant. “I was asking your father only a day or two ago, whether he could make sure of his servants, that they had not been in it — —”

  “Of our servants?” interrupted Herbert, in surprise. “What an idea!”

  “Well, I have gone round to my old opinion — that it was some one in the house,” returned the sergeant. “But it seems the servants are all on the square. I can’t make it out.”

  “Why on earth should you suppose it to be any one in the house?” questioned Herbert, in considerable wonderment.

  “Because I do,” was the answer. “We police see and note down what others pass over. There was odds and ends of things at the time that made us infer it; and I can’t get it out of my mind.”

  “It is an impossibility that it could have been a resident of the house,” dissented Herbert. “Every one in it is above suspicion.”

  “Who do you fancy it might have been?” asked the sergeant, abruptly, almost as if he wished to surprise Herbert out of an incautious answer.

  But Herbert had nothing to tell him; no suspicion was on his mind to be surprised out of. “If I could fancy it was, or might be, any particular individual, I should come to you and say so, without asking,” he replied. “I am as much at fault as you can be. Anthony may have made slight enemies in the town, what with his debts and his temper, and one thing or another; but no enemies of that terrible nature — capable of killing him. I wish I could see cause for a reasonable suspicion,” he added with emotion. “I would give my right arm” — stretching it out— “to solve the mystery. As well for my sake as for my dead brother’s.”

  “Well, all I can say is, that I am down on my beam ends,” concluded the sergeant.

  Meanwhile Henry Ashley was getting little better. He had fallen into a state of utter prostration. Mental anguish had told upon him physically, and his bodily weakness was no doubt great: but he made no effort to rouse himself. He would lie for hours, his eyes half-closed, noticing no one. The medical men said they had seen nothing like it, and Mr. and Mrs. Ashley grew alarmed. The only one to remonstrate with him — he alone held the key to its cause — was William Halliburton.

  William’s influence over him was very great: he yielded to no one, not even to his father, as he would yield to William. Henry gave the reins to his tongue, and said all sorts of irritating things to William, as he did to every one else. It only masked the deep affection, the lasting friendship, which had taken possession of his heart for William.

 
; “Let me be; let me be,” he said to William one day, in answer to a remonstrance that he should rouse himself. “I told you that my life had passed out with her.”

  “But your life has not passed out with her,” argued William; “your life is in you, just as much as it ever was. And it is your duty to make some use of your life; not to let it run to waste — as you are doing.”

  “It does not affect you,” was the tart reply.

  “It does very much affect me. I am grieved to see you hug your pain, instead of shaking it off; vexed to think that a man should so bury his days. It is an unfortunate thing that no one is cognizant of this matter but myself.”

  “Is it though!” retorted Henry. “You are a fine Job’s comforter!”

  “Yes, it is. Were it known to those about you, you would not for shame lie here, and indulge regrets after an imprudent and silly girl.”

  Henry flashed an angry glance at him from his soft dark eyes. “Take care, my good fellow! I can stand some things; but I don’t stand all.”

  “An imprudent, silly girl, who does not care a rush for you,” emphatically repeated William: “whose wild and ill-judged affection is given to another. Was ever infatuation like unto yours!”

  “Have a care, I tell you!” burst forth Henry. “By what right do you say these things to me?”

  “I say them for your good — and I intend that you should feel them. When a surgeon’s knife probes a wound, the patient groans and winces; but it is done to cure him.”

  “You are a man of eloquence!” sarcastically rejoined Henry. “Pity but you could flourish at the Bar, and take the anticipated shine out of Frank!”

  “Answer me one plain question, Henry. Do you still indulge a hope towards Anna Lynn? — to her becoming your wife?”

  With a shriek of anger, Henry caught up his slipper, and sent it flying through the air at William’s head.

  “What’s that for?” equably demanded William, dodging his head out of the way.

  “How dare you hint at such a thing? I told you there were some things I wouldn’t stand. Is it fitting that one who has figured in such an escapade should be made the wife of an Ashley? If we were left by our two selves upon the earth, all else gone dead and out of it, I wouldn’t marry her.”

  “Precisely so. I have judged you rightly. Then, under this state of things, what in the name of fortune is the use of your lying here and thinking about her?”

  “I don’t think about her,” fractiously returned Henry. “You are always fancying things.”

  “You do think about her. I can see that you do. I should be above it,” quaintly continued William.

  “Go and pick up my slipper.”

  “Will you come down to tea this evening?”

  “No, I won’t. You come here and preach up this morality, or divinity, or whatever you may please to term it, to me; but, wait and see how you’d act, if you should ever get struck on the keen edge as I have been.”

  “Come! let me help you up.”

  “Don’t bother. I am not going to get up. I — —”

  At that moment, Mr. Ashley opened the door. His errand likewise was to induce Henry to leave his sofa and his room, and join them below. Henry could not be brought to comply.

  “No. I have just told William. I cannot think why he did not go back and say so. He only stops here to worry me. There! get along, William; and come back when you have swallowed enough tea.”

  Mr. Ashley laid his hand on William’s arm, as they walked together along the corridor, and brought him to a halt. “What is this illness of Henry’s? There is some secret connected with it, I am sure, and you are cognizant of it. I must know what it is.”

  Mr. Ashley’s tone was a decided one; his manner firm. William made no reply.

  “Tell me what it is, William.”

  “I cannot,” said William. “Certainly not without Henry’s permission; and I do not think he will give it. If it were my secret, sir, instead of his, I would tell it at your bidding.”

  “Is it of the mind or the body?”

  “The mind. I think the worst is over. Do not speak to him about it, I pray you, sir.”

  “William, is it anything that can be remedied? By money? — by any means at command?”

  “It can never be remedied,” replied William earnestly, “Were the whole world brought to bear upon it, it could do nothing. Time and his own good sense must effect the cure.”

  “Then I may as well not ask about it if I cannot aid. You are fully in his confidence.”

  “Yes. And all that another can do, I am doing. We have a daily battle. I want to rouse him out of his apathy.”

  “Oh, that you could!” aspirated Mr. Ashley.

  CHAPTER XV.

  A LOSS FOR POMERANIAN KNOLL.

  Pomeranian Knoll had scarcely recovered its equanimity after the shock of the departure of Herbert Dare for foreign parts, when it found itself about to be shorn of another inmate. The word “shock” is used to express the suddenness of the affair, rather than in its enlarged and more ordinary sense. Herbert, what with one thing and another, had brought a good deal of vexation upon the paternal home; Helstonleigh also had not been holding him in extensive favour since the trial; and that home was not sorry that he should absent himself from it for a time. But it certainly did not bargain for his announcing his departure one night, and being off the next morning. Yet such was the course he pursued: and in that light his departure may be said to have been a shock to the town. Mr. Dare had known of it longer; but he had not proclaimed it any more than Herbert had: it may be that Herbert feared being stopped, if the intended journey got wind.

  A week or two after this, Signora Varsini received a letter with a foreign post-mark on it. The fact was nothing extraordinary in itself: the signora did occasionally receive letters bearing foreign post-marks; but this one threw her into a state of commotion, the like of which had never been witnessed. Thrusting the letter into the deepest pocket of her dress when it was delivered to her, she finished giving the music lesson to Minny, which she was occupied upon, and then retired to her room to peruse it. From this she emerged a short time after, with a long face of consternation, uttering frantic ejaculations. Mrs. Dare was quite alarmed. What was the matter with mademoiselle?

  “Ah, what misère! what désolation! what tristes nouvelles!” The letter was from her aunt in Paris, who was thrown upon her death-bed; and she, mademoiselle, must hasten thither without delay. If she could not start by a train that day, she must go by the first one the next. She was désolée to leave madame at a coup; her heart would break in bidding adieu to the young ladies; but necessity was stern. She must make her baggage forthwith, and would be obliged to madame for her salary.

  Mrs. Dare was taken — as the saying runs — all of a heap. She had not cared to part with mademoiselle so soon, although the retaining her entailed an additional expense, which they could ill afford in their gradually increasing embarrassments and straitening means: but the chief point that puzzled her was the paying up of the salary. Between thirty and forty pounds were due. There appeared, however, to be no help for it, and she applied to Mr. Dare.

  “You may as well ask me for my head as for that sum to-day,” was that gentleman’s reply, thinking he was destined never to find peace on earth. “Tell her you will send it after her, if she must go.”

  Mrs. Dare shook her head. It would not be of the least use, she was sure. Mademoiselle was not one to be put off in that way, or to depart without her money.

  How Mr. Dare managed it he perhaps hardly knew himself; but he brought home the money at night, and the governess was paid in full. On the following morning there was a ceremonious leave-taking, loud and suggestive on the part of mademoiselle. She saluted them all on both cheeks, and promised to write every week, at least. A fly came to the door for her and her luggage, and George Dare mounted the box to escort her to the station. Mademoiselle politely invited him inside; but he had just lighted a cigar, and preferred to stop whe
re he was.

  “I say, mademoiselle,” cried he, after she was seated in the railway carriage, “if you should happen to come across Herbert, I wish you’d tell him — —”

  Mademoiselle interrupted with a burst of indignation. She come across Monsieur Herbert! What should bring her coming across him? Monsieur George must be fou to think it. Monsieur Herbert was not in Paris, was he? She had understood he was in Holland.

  “Oh, well, it’s all on the other side of the Channel,” answered George, whose geographical notions of the Continent were not very definite. “Perhaps you won’t see him, though, mademoiselle; so never mind.”

  Mademoiselle replied by telling him to take care of himself; for the whistle was sounding. George drew back, and watched the train off; mademoiselle nodding her farewell to him from the window.

  And that was the last that Helstonleigh saw of Mrs. Dare’s Italian governess, the Signora Varsini. Helstonleigh might not have been any the worse had it never seen the first of her. Mrs. Dare, after her departure, suddenly remembered that mademoiselle had once told her she had not a single relative in the world. Who could this aunt be, to whom she was hastening?

  And Henry Ashley? As the weeks and the months went on, Henry began to rouse himself from his prostration; his apathy. William Halliburton made no secret of it to Henry that it was suspected he was suffering from some inward grief which he was concealing, and that he had been questioned on the point by Mr. Ashley. “You know,” said William, “I shall have no resource but to tell, unless you show yourself a sensible man, and come out of this nonsense.”

  It alarmed Henry; rather than have his secret feelings betrayed for the family benefit, he could have died. In a grumbling and discontented sort of mood, he went about again, and resumed his idle occupations (such as they were) as usual. One evening William enticed him out for a walk, took possession of his arm, and pounced into Robert East’s, before Henry well knew where he was. He sat down, apathetic and indifferent, after nodding carelessly to the respectful salutation of the men. “I must give just ten minutes to them, as I am here,” observed William. “You can go to sleep the while.”