THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.
ByISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object in Life,” etc.
A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE.
T
omhurried wildly through his boyish toilet and rushed into the dining-room, expecting to find the breakfast party round the table.
He pulled himself up with an astonished whistle, for the room stood empty, the table unspread, the fire unlit, while everything wore that indescribable air of desertion and neglect which rooms seem to bear each morning till human life has again passed through them with the new day.
“Something must have gone wrong with my ticker,” was Tom’s natural conclusion. But no, the watch was honestly at work, having now advanced to a quarter to nine. Besides, the daylight of the February morning assured him that it could not be much earlier.
“Clementina has ‘slept in’ herself,” he decided, “and everything will go wrong together.”
By way of making a move in the right direction, he went into the hall and performed vigorously on a little gong which stood there. Clementina usually did this twice—a wakening peal and a breakfast peal, with an interval of half an hour. To warn everybody that things were not going on us usual, Tom promptly repeated his performance.
It did not bring Clementina upon the scene, dishevelled and in deep self-humiliation. The first appearance was Miss Latimer, who came downstairs, her usual prim self, saying—
“What is the matter? I have been up for a while, but I had forgotten to wind my watch, and the house was so quiet that I thought I had mistaken the time, and in hope Mrs. Challoner is resting I did not wish to rouse her.”
“I don’t think Clementina can be up herself,” said Tom.
Miss Latimer glanced round the dining-room.
“Perhaps she is ill,” she said. “She looked rather pale last night. She seems a very sympathetic person.”
Miss Latimer called down the kitchen stair, but there was no answer save that the cat came forward, mewing in the appealing fashion common to cats when they feel themselves unfairly deprived of human society.
“Clementina must be still in her room,” said the old lady, and she bustled up to the topmost storey, Tom following at her heels.
One or two vigorous knocks produced no effect, so they tried the door. It was locked, and the key was evidently not in the lock on either side.
Miss Latimer and Tom looked at each other aghast.
“We must go downstairs at once and set the house going,” decided the old lady, “and we must not make any noise nor fuss till we have seen Mrs. Challoner.”
As they passed downstairs, Lucy came out of her room, with the white, deeply graven face which tells of restless vigil. After a sleepless night she had slept heavily towards morning, and had only awakened with the sound of Tom’s gong.
“We are all rather behind-hand,” Miss Latimer said, “and something is the matter with Clementina.” That was the utmost she would say until she and Tom had lit the fires.
They found time to exchange a few whispered cogitations as they bustled about in the kitchen, into which they would not allow Lucy to intrude.
“I don’t believe Clementina is in her room,” said Miss Latimer, “and I hope not, for it means something bad if she is.”
“I do believe she has got frightened over our talk last night and has run away!” Tom remarked. “Who would have thought she would make tracks like this?”
“Where can she be?” asked Miss Latimer. “I remember Lucy saying she was so sorry for her because she knew nobody here, and didn’t seem inclined to make friends.”
“I hope she hasn’t committed suicide,” said Tom.
“Why should she commit suicide?” asked Miss Latimer quite sharply. It was her own fear.
“People do sometimes, though nobody knows why,” Tom said. And he went and took a nervous peep into the cellar and scullery, which revealed nothing worse than the general air of desertion which hung over all the premises.
Of course, such a development could not be long concealed from the mistress of the house. As soon as Lucy had drunk a cup of tea and a faint shade of colour had come into her face, they told her that Clementina was nowhere to be found. Lucy was not flurried nor worried as she would have been a few weeks before. At present her soul had withdrawn into that sacred pavilion of sorrow where the petty clash of common troubles scarcely sounds. If things had gone wrong with Charlie, why wonder that everything else went wrong? Rather it seemed natural and just what might be expected!
It was useless to call in outside aid till they had thoroughly explored the house. They went carefully through every room and closet, leaving Clementina’s locked chamber till last, as it had to be broken into, though its door offered very little resistance to Tom’s strong young arm.
Miss Latimer was right. The room was empty! The bed had not been slept in. Clementina’s box stood in its accustomed place. It was locked, but the key was left in the lock.
Lucy opened a little hanging cupboard.
“She has gone away in all her best clothes,” she said. But why had she gone? And where?
“Is anything missing?” asked Miss Latimer.
Of course that could not be ascertained in a moment. Lucy felt little misgiving on this matter.
“Whatever this means,” she said, “we know that Clementina comes of respectable folk—Mrs. Bray’s Rachel answers for that.”
It was now impossible for Lucy to go to her class. It was equally necessary that Tom should present himself at the office, though he hoped that, when “the governors” heard about the sad news of yesterday and the trial of to-day, they might speedily release him. He undertook to conduct little Hugh to the Kindergarten, and to convey Mrs. Challoner’s excuses to the Institute, which last commission he accomplished with such simple directness that Lucy presently received a kindly hand-delivered note from the Principal, bidding her not to return to her duties till she felt fully equal to them—they would secure a satisfactory proxy.
The two ladies’ investigations had bewildering results—quite of a piece with the bedroom key being taken away, and the keys left in the trunk. The tiny store of household silver was safe, and Lucy, running her eye over other household gods, missed nothing. The domestic arrangements had apparently been in good order until very near the end. But such movements as Clementina must have made during the previous day were most unaccountable. She had put butter among the loaf sugar, and had placed the saucepans on the dresser shelves! There was not a single potato in the house, though the day before she had asked for money to buy a week’s supply. The nice clean damask tablecloth and napkins which had been used at supper the night before were found crumpled up and thrust away with the blacking brushes. The bellows was in the bread-basket!
“One would think she had gone out of her mind!” ejaculated Miss Latimer. And then a thought flashed upon her. She paused. She would not at once give it utterance.
Tom got back, breathless, by noon. The principals of the firm were shocked to hear of the uncertainty of their young partner’s fate, and deeply sympathetic with the poor wife, who might so well be “widow.” They bade Tom give her all the help he could, and come to themfor any service they might be able to render. On his way back Tom had looked in at Mr. Somerset’s lodgings to bid him not fail them, for they were in new trouble. He could only get a word or two with Mr. Somerset then, for there was fresh affliction there too, though it was but simple affliction. Mr. Somerset’s old landlord had passed quietly away in the night.
Tom found Lucy and Miss Latimer wrapped in big aprons, with dresses tucked up, busily getting things into their accustomed routine. His appearance reminded them of the expediency of dinner—a necessity which women are too apt to forget for themselves. Mrs. Challoner commissioned him to go and “order” some steak, but Tom said he should bring it, to make sure of it, and armed himself with a black leather bag.
The butcher greeted him cheerily.
“Fine morning, sir. There, that’s a capital cut, just what Mrs. Challoner will like. Take it yourself, did you say, sir? Well, as you please.” And then the butcher gave his head a knowing wag, and said, “Guess there’s trouble with that servant of yours? I reckoned there would be. She was a queer one, that. A little off her chump, I should say.”
“She’s run away,” said Tom, “but what did you ever see queer about her?”
The butcher laughed.
“I thought at first that she was a real old sort. Prime cut, as one might say. And when she used to be a little faddy, I thought it was just her particular goodness. She was always ready enough to pass the time of day, and her and me were good friends—though I do remember she did once ask me why I came knocking at her kitchen door and running away, but I was busy that day, and let it pass as, maybe, her sort of joke. But about a week ago, she asked me why I made faces at her; and my missus spoke quite sharp to her, telling her not to put such stories about. But last night, sir, I thought it was turning serious. For she came into the shop and said I was a-putting poison on the meat—she believed I had rubbed lucifer matches on it. I wasn’t here at the time, and my missus was glad to say anything to pacify her, thinking she’d been drinking—though she doesn’t look one of that sort.”
Tom stood aghast! Here, then, when and where nobody had thought of looking for it, the whole mystery stood explained. Clementina was the demented person who had sent the blank letter and the black-edged letter. She had imagined the runaway knocks, and what else? Might not the smashed china and the escaped gas be traced to the doings of the same wild hand?
“If I were in your place,” went on the butcher, “I should be thankful she has taken herself away. It’s my belief she is mad. There’s many a one who, in the end, kills somebody, who has shown no more signs of it beforehand. It ought to be somebody’s public duty to look after such before they do mischief, if there’s nobody of their own that cares enough for them to keep them out of harm’s way.”
Tom went home full of this news. It was very astonishing to Lucy, but Miss Latimer was in a measure prepared for it, as she owned the idea had already crossed her mind, though she little expected it would have such swift corroboration.
Lucy’s first thought was an immense thankfulness that Hugh’s life had been preserved from all risks; her second, a remembrance of the child’s instinctive shrinking from Clementina; her third, a wave of pity for this disordered mind, for there could be no lingering doubt that Dr. Ivery’s diagnosis was correct.
“If she is insane,” said Lucy, “it is no blame of hers. We must think only of what has become of her, and of how we should act on her behalf. Knowing of her through Rachel, and hearing of her as a lonely woman with no near relatives, I don’t know with whom to communicate, except Rachel. Rachel may know something more. We must telegraph to her at Bath.”
Rachel’s answer came quickly.
“Astonished. Gillespie, brother lives at Inverslain, Sutherland. Relations in Hull, address unknown. My mistress very ill.”
There did not seem much help there. Presently Tom, glancing round the dining-room, exclaimed—
“I do miss something! I miss the railway time-table which Mrs. Grant left behind her. It was on the mantelshelf last night. Clementina has taken it with her. She has gone somewhere by train!”
“Let us hope she has gone straight back to her own village,” said Miss Latimer.
“We must at once telegraph to the brother,” insisted Lucy. “‘Gillespie, Inverslain,’ does not seem much of an address to Londoners; but I daresay it is a little place, and that he is known there.”
“There’s no Inverslain on any railway line,” Tom discovered, busily turning over an old “Bradshaw.” Thereupon Lucy gave him a sovereign and despatched him to the post office to discover how a sufficiently lucid message could best reach a remote Highland hamlet, bidding him not grudge any charge which might be made for porterage.
He brought her back her change, having had to make a liberal deduction from the sovereign, since “Inverslain” was reported to be a tiny Highland “clachan,” twelve miles from any telegraph office.
Tom had also bought an evening paper, and had privately scanned its columns with great care to see whether they might contain any item which could possibly refer to the hapless Clementina. He found none. But he found something he did not expect, to wit, a paragraph relating the finding of the spar and sail of the absenteeSlains Castle. The sad suggestion had now become public property.
Mr. Somerset had arrived in Pelham Street while Tom was at the telegraph office. He and the two ladies discussed the conversation which had gone on the evening before, and the probabilities of Clementina having taken alarm at Tom’s idle suggestion that some of the “professors” of “clairvoyance” should have a chance to cover themselves with glory by discovering the origin of the mysteries. Of course, the Highland woman’s own faith in second-sight and prenatural powers would make such an idea very terrible to her, since she knew the mysteries were of her own making.
“But if she be mad, could she realise this?” asked Lucy.
“Oh, dear, yes,” said Mr. Somerset. “You must remember that madness seldom attacks the whole of the brain at once. Generally it leaves part in perfect working order for awhile, so that those in ignorance of the peculiar groove taken by the disease might long remain unwitting of it. Generally, of course, the malady slowly increases its conquest, though its progress may be very slow, and maybe occasionally arrested at special stages. It is quite probable that Clementina may not remember all she has done, and also that she may believe her actions to have been quite intelligible and praiseworthy. Dr. Ivery explained all this to me yesterday, when we had little idea where the trouble lay.”
They were sitting dismally enough taking their tea when a telegram arrived. It was far too soon for it to be a possible response to Lucy’s message to Inverslain. It was addressed to “Mrs. Challoner,” and by the sudden flash of light and life across her face, the watchers could see that a wild hope sprung up within her that it might concern the great anxiety and sorrow which she was holding in such resolute silence. But no. The light and life died out. Yet she said with a sigh of relief, “Let us be thankful for this,” and handed the telegram to Mr. Somerset who read aloud—
“‘Clementina Gillespie here. Very unwell. Will write to-morrow about box and wages.—Micklewrath, Dock Street, Hull.’”
“Then she is safe with those relations of whom Rachel telegraphed,” said Miss Latimer, drawing a long breath. “At any rate, the terrible responsibility is removed from us.”
Lucy had already risen from the table and gone to her desk.
“I must now write an explanatory note to the people at Inverslain and tell where their sister is,” she said. “It will still be in time to catch the night mail, so it will follow hard after the telegram.”
“She is thinking of the relatives’ anxiety and distress; these Hull people are thinking only of a ‘box’ and ‘wages,’” whispered Tom aside to Mr. Somerset.
“Well,” whispered Mr. Somerset, “what would you have? It’s hard that everybody is not like her, that’s all. We would not wish her to be as so many are.”
“It is so good of the Institute people to let me stay away awhile,” said Lucy. “How could I have gone there to-morrow with nobody at home to doanything for us? Now I shall be free to do my own work till I can get some arrangement made.”
She did not speak of relief from labour because of the aching yearning of her heart. That would not have kept her from work. She would have asked, “Why should it?” If Charlie were really gone, then her toil was more needed than ever, and if she stopped it to mourn for him, when would she begin again, for when would she cease to mourn? When would she be able to draw a line and say, “Henceforth I can endure”? No, her endurance must begin at once. She did not feel this in herself as strength, she thought rather this was a weakness that dared not pause lest it should never be able to recommence!
“We will go on together, my dear,” Miss Latimer assured her. “We women, who have known the great common bond of working for our bread, will surely stand by each other.”
“I wish Charlie was here to thank you,” she answered. Her face was calm and her voice was sweet, but no tears nor lamentations could have conveyed such an impression of agony.
“I know now how the martyrs smiled on the rack,” said Tom, as he walked home with Mr. Somerset.
“I never thought that I should wish to see a woman cry,” answered that gentleman, “but I am sure that tears would be a blessing to Mrs. Challoner now.”
(To be continued.)