Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  He opened the door again without a word. He knew quite well that she had thrown in that little shaft about ringing for the servants, because it would not be pleasant to him that the servants should intrude upon them then. Outside the door, about to knock at it, was Deborah West.

  “I must go home,” she whispered. “Mr. Verner, how sadly she is meeting this!”

  The very thought that was in Lionel’s heart. But not to another would he cast a shade of reflection on his wife.

  “It is a terrible thing for any one to meet,” he answered. “I could have wished, Miss West, that you had not imparted it to her. Better that I should have done it, when it must have been done.”

  “I did it from a good motive,” was the reply of Deborah, who was looking sadly down-hearted, and had evidently been crying. “She ought to leave you until some certainty shall be arrived at.”

  “Nonsense! No!” said Lionel. “I beg you — I beg you, Miss West, not to say anything more that can distress or disturb her. If the — the — explosion comes, of course it must come; and we must all meet it as we best may, and see then what is best to be done.”

  “But it is not right that she should remain with you in this uncertainty,” urged Deborah, who could be obstinate when she thought she had cause. “The world will not deem it to be right. You should remember this.”

  “I do not act to please the world. I am responsible to God and my conscience.”

  “Responsible to — Good gracious, Mr. Verner!” returned Deborah, every line in her face expressing astonishment. “You call keeping her with you acting as a responsible man ought! If Sibylla’s husband is living, you must put her away from your side.”

  “When the time shall come. Until then, my duty — as I judge it — is to keep her by my side; to shelter her from harm and annoyance, petty as well as great.”

  “You deem that your duty!”

  “I do,” he firmly answered. “My duty to her and to God.”

  Deborah shook her head and her hands. “It ought not to be let go on,” she said, moving nearer to the study door. “I shall urge the leaving you upon her.”

  Lionel calmly laid his hand upon the lock. “Pardon me, Miss West. I cannot allow my wife to be subjected to it.”

  “But if she is not your wife?”

  A streak of red came into his pale face. “It has yet to be proved that she is not. Until that time shall come, Miss West, she is my wife, and I shall protect her as such.”

  “You will not let me see her?” asked Deborah, for his hand was not lifted from the handle.

  “No. Not if your object be the motives you avow. Sleep a night upon it, Miss West, and see if you do not change your mode of thinking and come over to mine. Return here in the morning with words of love and comfort for her, and none will welcome you more sincerely than I.”

  “Answer me one thing, Mr. Verner. Do you believe in your heart that Frederick Massingbird is alive and has returned?”

  “Unfortunately I have no resource but to believe it,” he replied.

  “Then, to your way of thinking I can never come,” returned Deborah in some agitation. “It is just sin, Mr. Verner, in the sight of Heaven.”

  “I think not,” he quietly answered. “I am content to let Heaven judge me, and the motives that actuate me; a judgment more merciful than man’s.”

  Deborah West, in her conscientious, but severe rectitude, turned to the hall door and departed, her hands uplifted still. Lionel ordered Tynn to attend Miss West home. He then procured some water for his wife and carried it in, as he had previously carried in the wine.

  A fruitless service. Sibylla rejected it. She wanted neither water nor anything else, were all the thanks Lionel received, querulously spoken. He laid the glass upon the table, and, sitting down by her side in all patience, he set himself to the work of soothing her, gently and lovingly as though she had been what she was showing herself — a wayward child.

  CHAPTER LXII.

  TYNN PUMPED DRY.

  Miss West and Tynn proceeded on their way. The side path was dirty, and she chose the middle of the road, Tynn walking a step behind her. Deborah was of an affable nature, Tynn a long-attached and valued servant, and she chatted with him familiarly. Deborah, in her simple good heart, could not have been brought to understand why she should not chat with him. Because he was a servant and she a lady, she thought there was only the more reason why she should, that the man might not be unpleasantly reminded of the social distinction between them.

  She pressed down, so far as she could, the heavy affliction that was weighing upon her mind. She spoke of the weather, the harvest, of Mrs. Bitterworth’s recent dangerous attack, of other trifling topics patent at the moment to Deerham. Tynn chatted in his turn, never losing his respect of words and manner; a servant worth anything never does. Thus they progressed towards the village, utterly unconscious that a pair of eager eyes were following, and an evil tongue was casting anathemas towards them.

  The owner of the eyes and tongue was wanting to hold a few words of private colloquy with Tynn. Could Tynn have seen right round the corner of the pillar of the outer gate when he went out, he would have detected the man waiting there in ambush. It was Giles Roy. Roy was aware that Tynn sometimes attended departing visitors to the outer gate. Roy had come up, hoping that he might so attend them on this night. Tynn did appear, with Miss West, and Roy began to hug himself that fortune had so far favoured him; but when he saw that Tynn departed with the lady, instead of only standing politely to watch her off, Roy growled out vengeance against the unconscious offenders.

  “He’s a-going to see her home belike,” snarled Roy in soliloquy, following them with angry eyes and slow footsteps. “I must wait till he comes back — and be shot to both of ‘em!”

  Tynn left Miss West at her own door, declining the invitation to go in and take a bit of supper with the maids, or a glass of beer. He was trudging back again, his arms behind his back, and wishing himself at home, for Tynn, fat and of short breath, did not like much walking, when, in a lonely part of the road, he came upon a man sitting astride upon a gate.

  “Hollo! is that you, Mr. Tynn? Who’d ha’ thought of seeing you out to-night?”

  For it was Mr. Roy’s wish, from private motives of his own, that Tynn should not know he had been looked for, but should believe the encounter to be accidental. Tynn turned off the road, and leaned his elbow upon the gate, rather glad of the opportunity to stand a minute and get his breath. It was somewhat up-hill to Verner’s Pride, the whole of the way from Deerham.

  “Are you sitting here for pleasure?” asked he of Roy.

  “I’m sitting here for grief,” returned Roy; and Tynn was not sharp enough to detect the hollow falseness of his tone. “I had to go up the road to-night on a matter of business, and, walking back by Verner’s Pride, it so overcame me that I was glad to bring myself to a anchor.”

  “How should walking by Verner’s Pride overcome you?” demanded Tynn.

  “Well,” said Roy, “it was the thoughts of poor Mr. and Mrs. Verner did it. He didn’t behave to me over liberal in turning me from the place I’d held so long under his uncle, but I’ve overgot that smart; it’s past and gone. My heart bleeds for him now, and that’s the truth.”

  For Roy’s heart to “bleed” for any fellow-creature was a marvel that even Tynn, unsuspicious as he was, could not take in. Mrs. Tynn repeatedly assured him that he had been born into the world with one sole quality — credulity. Certainly Tynn was unusually inclined to put faith in fair outsides. Not that Roy could boast much of the latter advantage.

  “What’s the matter with Mr. Verner?” he asked of Roy.

  Roy groaned dismally. “It’s a thing that is come to my knowledge,” said he— “a awful misfortin that is a-going to drop upon him. I’d not say a word to another soul but you, Mr. Tynn; but you be his friend if anybody be, and I feel that I must either speak or bust.”

  Tynn peered at Roy’s face. As much as he could see of it,
for the night was not a very clear one.

  “It seems quite a providence that I happened to meet you,” went on Roy, as if any meeting with the butler had been as far from his thoughts as an encounter with somebody at the North Pole. “Things does turn out lucky sometimes.”

  “I must be getting home,” interposed Tynn. “If you have anything to say to me, Roy, you had better say it. I may be wanted.”

  Roy — who was standing now, his elbow leaning on the gate — brought his face nearer to Tynn’s. Tynn was also leaning on the gate.

  “Have you heered of this ghost that’s said to be walking about Deerham?” he asked, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Have you heered whose they say it is?”

  Now, Tynn had heard. All the retainers, male and female, at Verner’s Pride had heard. And Tynn, though not much inclined to give credence to ghosts in a general way, had felt somewhat uneasy at the ale. More on his mistress’s account than on any other score; for Tynn had the sense to know that such a report could not be pleasing to Mrs. Verner, should it reach her ears.

  “I can’t think why they do say it,” replied Tynn, answering the man’s concluding question. “For my own part, I don’t believe there’s anything in it. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Neither didn’t a good many more, till now that they have got orakelar demonstration of it,” returned Roy. “Dan Duff see it, and a’most lost his senses; that girl of Hook’s see it, and you know, I suppose, what it did for her; Broom see it; the parson see it; old Frost see it; and lots more. Not one on ’em but ‘ud take their Bible oath, if put to it, that it is Fred Massingbird’s ghost.”

  “But it is not,” said Tynn. “It can’t be. Leastways I’ll never believe it till I see it with my own eyes. There’d be no reason in its coming now. If it wanted to come at all, why didn’t it come when it was first buried, and not wait till over two years had gone by?”

  “That’s the point that I stuck at,” was Roy’s answer. “When my wife came home with the tales, day after day, that Fred Massingbird’s spirit was walking — that this person had seen it, and that person had seen it— ‘Yah! Rubbish!’ I says to her. ‘If his ghost had been a-coming, it ‘ud have come afore now.’ And so it would.”

  “Of course,” answered Tynn. “If it had been coming. But I have not lived to these years to believe in ghosts at last.”

  “Then, what do you think of the parson, Mr. Tynn?” continued Roy, in a strangely significant tone. “And Broom — he have got his senses about him? How d’ye account for their believing it?”

  “I have not heard them say that they do believe it,” responded Tynn, with a knowing nod. “Folks may go about and say that I believe it, perhaps; but that wouldn’t make it any nearer the fact. And what has all this to do with Mr. Verner?”

  “I am coming to it,” said Roy. He took a step backward, looked carefully up and down the road, lest listeners might be in ambush; stretched his neck forward, and in like manner surveyed the field On either side the hedge. Apparently it satisfied him, and he resumed his close proximity to Tynn and his meaning whisper. “Can’t you guess the riddle, Mr. Tynn?”

  “I can’t in the least guess what you mean, or what you are driving at,” was Tynn’s response. “I think you must have been having a drop of drink, Roy. I ask what this is to my master, Mr. Verner?”

  “Drink be bothered! I’ve not had a sup inside my mouth since midday,” was Roy’s retort. “This secret has been enough drink for me, and meat, too. You’ll keep counsel, if I tell it you, Mr. Tynn? Not but what it must soon come out.”

  “Well?” returned Tynn, in some surprise.

  “It’s Fred Massingbird fast enough. But it’s not his ghost.”

  “What on earth do you mean?” asked Tynn, never for a moment glancing at the fact of what Roy tried to imply.

  “He is come back: Frederick Massingbird. He didn’t die, over there.”

  A pause, devoted by Tynn to staring and thinking. When the full sense of the words broke upon him, he staggered a step or two away from the ex-bailiff.

  “Heaven help us, if it’s true!” he uttered. “Roy! it can’t be!”

  “It is,” said Roy.

  They stood looking at each other by starlight. Tynn’s face had grown hot and wet, and he wiped it. “It can’t be,” he mechanically repeated.

  “I tell you it is, Mr. Tynn. Now never you mind asking me how I came to the bottom of it,” went on Roy in a sort of defiant tone. “I did come to the bottom of it, and I do know it; and Mr. Fred, he knows that I know it. It’s as sure that he is back, and in the neighbourhood, as that you and me is here at this gate. He is alive and he is among us — as certain as that you are Mr. Tynn, and I be Giles Roy.”

  There came flashing over Tynn’s thoughts the scene of that very evening. His mistress’s shrieks and agitation when she broke from Miss West; the cries and sobs which had penetrated to their ears when she was shut afterwards in the study with her husband. The unusual scene had been productive of gossiping comment among the servants and Tynn had believed something distressing must have occurred. Not this; he had never glanced a suspicion at this. He remembered the lines of pain which shone out at the moment from his master’s pale face, in spite of its impassiveness; and somehow that very face brought conviction to Tynn now, that Roy’s news was true. Tynn let his arms fall on the gate again with a groan.

  “Whatever will become of my poor mistress?” he uttered.

  “She!” slightingly returned Roy. “She’ll be better off than him.”

  “Better off than who?”

  “Than Mr. Verner. She needn’t leave Verner’s Pride. He must.”

  To expect any ideas but coarse ones from Roy, Tynn could not. But his attention was caught by the last suggestion.

  “Leave Verner’s Pride?” slowly repeated Tynn. “Must he? — good heavens! must my master be turned from Verner’s Pride?”

  “Where’ll be the help for it?” asked Roy, in a confidential tone. “I tell you, Mr. Tynn, my heart’s been a-bleeding for him ever since I heard it. I don’t see no help for his turning out. I have been a-weighing it over and over in my mind, and I don’t see none. Do you?”

  Tynn looked very blank. He was feeling so. He made no answer, and Roy continued, blandly confidential still.

  “If that there codicil, that was so much talked on, hadn’t been lost, he’d have been all right, would Mr. Verner. No come-to-life-again Fred Massingbird needn’t have tried at turning him out. Couldn’t it be hunted for again, Mr. Tynn?”

  Roy turned the tail of his eye on Tynn. Would his pumping take effect? Mrs. Tynn would have told him that her husband might be pumped dry, and never know it. She was not far wrong. Unsuspicious Tynn went headlong into the snare.

  “Where would be the good of hunting for it again — when every conceivable place was hunted for it before?” he asked.

  “Well, it was a curious thing, that codicil,” remarked Roy. “Has it never been heered on?”

  Tynn shook his head. “Never at all. What an awful thing this is, if it’s true!”

  “It is true, I tell ye,” said Roy. “You needn’t doubt it. There was a report a short while agone that the codicil had been found, and Matiss had got it in safe keeping. As I sat here, afore you come up, I was thinking how well it ‘ud have served Mr. Verner’s turn just now, if it was true.”

  “It is not true,” said Tynn. “All sorts of reports get about. The codicil has never been found, and never been heard of.”

  “What a pity!” groaned Roy, with a deep sigh. “I’m glad I’ve told it you, Mr. Tynn! It’s a heavy secret for a man to carry about inside of him. I must be going.”

  “So must I,” said Tynn. “Roy, are you sure there’s no mistake?” he added. “It seems a tale next to impossible.”

  “Well, now,” said Roy, “I see you don’t half believe me. You must wait a few days, and see what them days ‘ll bring forth. That Mr. Massingbird’s back from Australia, I’ll take my oath to. I didn’t b
elieve it at first; and when young Duff was a-going on about the porkypine, I shook him, I did, for a little lying rascal. I know better now.”

  “But how do you know it?” debated Tynn.

  “Now, never you mind. It’s my business, I say, and nobody else’s. You just wait a day or two, that’s all, Mr. Tynn. I declare I am as glad to have met with you to-night, and exchanged this intercourse of opinions, as if anybody had counted me out a bag o’ gold.”

  “Well, good-night, Roy,” concluded Tynn, turning his steps towards Verner’s Pride. “I wish I had been a hundred miles off, I know, before I had heard it.”

  Roy slipped over the gate; and there, out of sight, he executed a kind of triumphant dance.

  “Then there is no codicil!” cried he. “I thought I could wile it out of him! That Tynn’s as easy to be run out as is glass when it’s hot.”

  And, putting his best leg forward, he made his way as fast as he could make it towards his home.

  Tynn made his way towards Verner’s Pride. But not fast. The information he had received filled his mind with the saddest trouble, and reduced his steps to slowness. When any great calamity falls suddenly upon us, or the dread of any great calamity, our first natural thought is, how it may be mitigated or averted. It was the thought that occurred to Tynn. The first shock over, digested, as may be said, Tynn began to deliberate whether he could do anything to help his master in the strait; and he went along, turning all sorts of suggestions over in his mind. Much as Sibylla was disliked by the old servant — and she had contrived to make herself very much disliked by them all — Tynn could not help feeling warmly the blow that was about to burst upon her head. Was there anything earthly he could do to avert it? — to help her or his master?

  He did not doubt the information. Roy was not a particularly reliable person; but Tynn could not doubt that this was true. It was the most feasible solution of the ghost story agitating Deerham; the only solution of it, Tynn grew to think. If Frederick Massingbird —

  Tynn’s reflections came to a halt. Vaulting over a gate on the other side the road — the very gate through which poor Rachel Frost had glided the night of her death, to avoid meeting Frederick Massingbird and Sibylla West — was a tall man. He came, straight across the road, in front of Tynn, and passed through a gap of the hedge, on to the grounds of Verner’s Pride.