Johnny Ludlow, Fifth Series

“What became of the cup which had contained the arrowroot?” inquired David Preen, looking at Flore. “Was it left in the bedroom?”

“That cup, sir, I found in a bowl of water in the kitchen, and also the other one which had been used. The two were together in the wooden bowl. I supposed Madame Fennel had put them there; but she said she had not.”

“Ah!” exclaimed David Preen, drawing a deep breath.

He had come over to look into this suspicious matter; but, as it seemed, nothing could be done. To stir in it, and fail, would be worse than letting it alone.

“Look you,” said David Preen, as he put up his note-book. “If it be true that Lavinia cannot rest now she’s dead, but shows herself here in the house, I regard it as a pretty sure proof that she was sent out of the world unjustly. But–”

“Then you hold the belief that spirits revisit the earth, monsieur,” interrupted Monsieur Dupuis, “and that revenants are to be seen?”

“I do, sir,” replied David. “We Preens see them. But I cannot stir in this matter, I was about to say, and the man must be left to his conscience.”

And so the conference broke up.

The thing which lay chiefly on hand now was to try to bring health back to Ann Fennel. It was thought well to take her out of the house for a short time, as she had such fancies about it; so Featherston gave up his room at Madame Carimon’s, and Ann was invited to move into it, whilst he joined us at the hotel. I thought her very ill, as we all did. But after her removal there, she recovered her spirits wonderfully, and went out for short walks and laughed and chatted: and when Featherston and David Preen took the boat back to return home, she went to the port to see them steam off.

“Will it be all right with her?” was the last question Mary Carimon whispered to her brother.

“I’m afraid not,” he answered. “A little time will show one way or the other. Depends somewhat, perhaps, upon how that husband of hers allows things to go on. I have done what I can, Mary; I could not do more.”

Does the reader notice that I did not include myself in those who steamed off? For I did not go. Good, genial little Jules Carimon, who was pleased to say he had always liked me much at school, invited me to make a stay at his house, if I did not mind putting up with a small bedroom in the mansarde. I did not mind it at all; it was large enough for me. Nancy was delighted. We had quite a gay time of it; and I made the acquaintance of Major and Mrs. Smith, the Misses Bosanquet and Charley Palliser, who was shortly to quit Sainteville. Charley’s impression of Mrs. Fennel was that she would quit it before he did, but in a different manner.

One fine afternoon, when we were coming off the pier, Nancy was walking between me and Mary Carimon, for she needed the support of two arms if she went far—yes, she was as weak as that—some one called out that the London boat was coming in. Turning round, we saw her gliding smoothly up the harbour. No one in these Anglo-French towns willingly misses that sight, and we drew up on the quay to watch the passengers land. There were only eight or ten of them.

Suddenly Nancy gave a great cry, which bore a sound both of fear and of gladness—“Oh, there’s Edwin!”—and the next moment began to shake her pocket-handkerchief frantically.

A thin, grey, weasel of a man, whose face I did not like, came stalking up the ladder. Yes, it was the ex-captain, Edwin Fennel.

“He has not come for her sake; he has come to grab the quarter’s money,” spoke Mary, quite savagely, in my ear. No doubt. It would be due the end of September, which was at hand.

The captain was elaborately polite; quite effusive in his greeting to us. Nancy left us and took his arm. At the turning where we had to branch off to the Rue Pomme Cuite, she halted to say good-bye.

“But you are coming back to us, are you not?” cried Madame Carimon to her.

“Oh, I could not let Edwin go home alone,” said she. “Nobody’s there but Flore, you know.”

So she went back there and then to the Petite Maison Rouge, and never came out of it again. I think he was kind to her, that man. He had sometimes a scared look upon his face, and I guessed he had been seeing sights. The man would have given his head to be off again; to remain in that haunted house must have been to him a most intolerable penance; but he had some regard (policy dictating it) for public opinion, and could not well run away from his wife in her failing health.

It was curious how quickly Nancy declined. From the very afternoon she entered the house it seemed to begin. He had grabbed the money, as Mary Carimon called it, and brought her nice and nourishing things; but nothing availed. And a fine way he must have been in, to see that; for with his wife’s death the money would go away from him for evermore.

Monsieur Dupuis, sometimes Monsieur Henry Dupuis, saw her daily; and Captain Fennel hastily called in another doctor who had the reputation of being the best in the town, next to Monsieur Podevin; one Monsieur Lamirand. Mary Carimon spent half her time there; I went in most days. It could not be said that she had any special complaint, but she was too weak to live.

In less than three weeks it was all over. The end, when it came, was quite sudden. For a day or two she had seemed so much better that we told her she had taken a turn at last. On the Thursday evening, quite late—it was between eight and nine o’clock—Madame Carimon asked me to run there with some jelly which she had made, and which was only then ready. When I arrived, Flore said she was sure her mistress would like me to go up to her room; she was alone, monsieur having stepped out.

Nancy, wrapped in a warm dressing-gown, sat by the fire in an easy-chair and a great shawl. Her fair curls were all put back under a small lace cap, which was tied at the chin with grey ribbon; her pretty blue eyes were bright. I told her what I had come for, and took the chair in front of her.

“You look so well this evening, Nancy,” I said heartily—for I had learnt to call her so at Madame Carimon’s, as they did. “We shall have you getting well now all one way.”

“It is the spurt of the candle before going out,” she quietly answered. “I have not the least pain left anywhere—but it is only that.”

“You should not say or think so.”

“But I know it; I cannot mistake my own feelings. Fancy any one, reduced as I am, getting well again!”

I am a bad one to keep up “make-believes.” Truth to say, I felt as sure of it as she did.

“And it will not be very long first. Johnny,” she went on, in a half-whisper, “I saw Lavinia to-day.”

I looked at her, but made no reply.

“I have never seen her since I came back here. Edwin has, though; I am sure of it. This afternoon at dusk I woke up out of a doze, for getting up to sit here quite exhausts me, and I was moving forward to touch the hand-bell on the table there, to let Flore know I was ready for my tea, when I saw Lavinia. She was standing over there, just in the firelight. I thought she seemed to be holding out her hand to me, as if inviting me to go to her, and on her face there was the sweetest smile of welcome; sweeter than could be seen on any face in life. All the sad, mournful, beseeching look had left it. She stood there for about a minute, and then vanished.”

“Were you very much frightened?”

“I had not a thought of fear, Johnny. It was the contrary. She looked radiantly happy; and it somehow imparted happiness to me. I think—I think,” added Nancy impressively, though with some hesitation, “that she came to let me know I am going to her. I believe I have seen her for the last time. The house has, also, I fancy; she and I will shortly go out of it together.”

What could I answer to that?

“And so it is over at last,” she murmured, more to herself than to me. “Very nearly over. The distress and the doubt, the terror and the pain. I brought it all on; you know that, Johnny Ludlow. I feel sure now that she has pardoned me. I humbly hope that God has.”

She caught up her breath with a long-drawn sigh.

“And you will give my dear love to all the old friends in England, Johnny, beginning with Mr. Featherston; he has been very kind to me; you will see them again, but I shall not. Not in this life. But we shall be together in the Life which has no ending.”

At twelve o’clock that night Nancy Fennel died. At least, it was as near twelve as could be told. Just after that hour Flore went into the room, preparatory to sitting up with her, and found her dead—just expired, apparently—with a sweet smile on her face, and one hand stretched out as if in greeting. Perhaps Lavinia had come to greet her.

We followed her to the grave on Saturday. Captain Fennel walked next the coffin—and I wondered how he liked it. I was close behind him with Monsieur Carimon. Charley Palliser came next with little Monsieur le Docteur Dupuis and Monsieur Gustave Sauvage. And we left Nancy in the cemetery, side by side with her sister.

Captain Edwin Fennel disappeared. On the Sunday, when we English were looking for him in church, he did not come—his grief not allowing him, said some of the ladies. But an English clerk in the broker’s office, hearing this, told another tale. Fennel had gone off by the boat which left the port for London the previous night at midnight.

And he did not come back again. He had left sundry debts behind him, including that owing to Madame Veuve Sauvage. Monsieur Carimon, later, undertook the payment of these at the request of Colonel Selby. It was understood that Captain Edwin Fennel had emigrated to South America. If he had any conscience at all, it was to be hoped he carried it with him. He did not carry the money. The poor little income which he had schemed for, and perhaps worse, went back to the Selbys.

And that is the story. It is a curious history, and painful in more ways than one. But I repeat that it is true.

WATCHING ON ST. MARK’S EVE

Easter-Day that year was nearly as late as it could be—the twenty-third of April. That brought St. Mark’s Day (the twenty-fifth) on the Tuesday; and Easter Monday was St. Mark’s Eve.

There is a superstitious belief in our county, and in some others—more thought of in our old grannies’ days than in these—that if you go to the churchyard on St. Mark’s Eve and watch the gate, the shadows, or phantoms, of those fated to die that year, and destined there to be buried, will be seen to enter it.

Easter Monday is a great holiday with us; the greatest in all the year. Christmas-Day and Good Friday are looked upon more in a religious light; but on Easter Monday servants and labourers think themselves at liberty to take their swing. The first day of the wake is nothing to it.

Now Squire Todhetley gave in to these holidays: they did not come often, he said. Our servants in the country are not a bit like yours in town; yours want a day’s holiday once a month, oftener sometimes, and strike if they don’t get it; ours have one or two in a year. On Easter Monday the work was got over by mid-day; there was no cooking, and the household could roam abroad at will. No ill had ever come of it; none would have come of it this time, but for St. Mark’s Eve falling on the day.

Tod and I got home from school on the Thursday. It was a despicable old school, taking no heed of Passion Week. Other fellows from other schools could have a fortnight at Easter; we but a week. Tod entered on a remonstrance with the pater this time; he had been planning it as we drove home, and thought he’d put it in a strongish point of view.

“It is sinful, you know, sir; awfully so. Passion Week is Passion Week. We have no right to pass it at school at our desks.”

“Well, Joe, I don’t quite see that,” returned the pater, twisting his lip. “Discipline and lessons are more in accordance with the season of Passion Week than kicking up your heels at large in all sorts of mischief; and that’s what you’d be at, you know, if you were at home. What’s the matter with Johnny.”

“He has been ill for three days, with a cold or something,” said Tod. “Tell it for yourself, Johnny.”

I had no more to tell than that. For three or four days I had felt ill, feverish; yesterday (Wednesday) had done no lessons. Mrs. Todhetley thought it was an attack of influenza. She sent me to bed, and called in the doctor, Mr. Duffham.

I was better the next day—Good Friday. Old Duff—as Tod and I called him for short—came in while they were at church, and said I might get up. It was slow work, I told him, lying in bed for one’s holidays. He was a wiry little man, with black hair; good in the main, but pompous, and always carried a gold-headed cane.

“Not to go out, you know,” he said. “You must promise that, Johnny.”

I promised readily. I only wanted to be downstairs with the rest. They returned home from church, saying they had promised to go over and take tea with the Sterlings; Mrs. Todhetley looked grave at seeing me, and thought the doctor was wrong. At which I put on a gay air, like a fellow suddenly cured.

But I could not eat any dinner. They had salt fish and cold boiled beef at two o’clock—our usual way of fasting on Good Friday. Not a morsel could I swallow, and Hannah brought me some mutton-broth.

“Do you mind our leaving you, Johnny?” Mrs. Todhetley said to me in her kind way—which Tod never believed in. “If you do—if you think you shall feel lonely, I’ll stay at home.”

I answered that I should feel very jolly, not lonely at all; and so they started, going over in the large carriage, drawn by Bob and Blister. Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley, with Lena, in front, Tod and Hugh behind. Standing at the window to watch the start, I saw Roger Monk looking on from the side of the house.

He was a small, white-faced chap of twenty or so, with a queer look in his eyes, and black sprouting whiskers. Looking full at the eyes, when you could get the chance, which was not very often, for they rarely looked at you, there was nothing wrong to be seen with them, and yet they gave a sinister cast to the face. Perhaps it was that they were too near together. Roger Monk was not one of our regular men; for the matter of that, he was above the condition; but was temporarily filling the head-gardener’s place, who was ill with rheumatism. Seeing me, he walked up to the window, and I opened it to speak to him. “Are you here still, Monk?”

“And likely to be, Mr. Ludlow, if it depends upon Jenkins’s coming on again,” was the answer. “Fine cattle, those that the governor has just driven off.”

He meant Bob and Blister, and they were fine; but I did not like the tone, or the word “governor,” as applied to Mr. Todhetley. “I can’t keep the window up,” I said; “I’m not well.”

“All right, sir; shut it. As for me, I must be about my work. There’s enough to do with the gardens, one way or another; and the responsibility lies on my shoulders.”

“You must not work to-day, Monk. Squire Todhetley never allows it on Good Friday.”

He laughed pleasantly; as much as to say, what Squire Todhetley allowed, or did not allow, was no concern of his; and went briskly away across the lawn. And not once, during the short interview, had his eyes met mine.

Wasn’t it dull that afternoon! I took old Duffham’s physic, and drank the tea Hannah brought me, and was hot, and restless, and sick. Never a soul to talk to; never a book to read—my eyes and head ached too much for that; never a voice to be heard. Most of the servants were out; all of them, for what I knew, except Hannah; and I was fit to die of weariness. At dusk I went up to the nursery. Hannah was not there. The fire was raked—if you understand what that means, though it is generally applied only to kitchen fires in our county—which proved that she was off somewhere on a prolonged expedition. Even old Hannah’s absence was a disappointment. I threw myself down on the faded sofa at the far end of the room, and, I suppose, went to sleep.

For when I became alive again to outward things, Hannah was seated in one chair at the fire, cracking up the coal; Molly, the cook with the sharp tongue and red-brown eyes, in another. It was dark and late; my head ached awfully, and I wished them and their clatter somewhere. They were talking of St. Mark’s Eve, and its popular superstition. Molly was telling a tale of the past, the beginning of which I had not heard.

“I can’t believe it,” exclaimed Hannah; “I can’t believe that the shadows come.”

“Did ye ever watch for ’em, woman?” asked Molly, who had been born in the North.

“No,” acknowledged Hannah.

“Then how can ye speak of what ye don’t know? It is as true as that you and me be a-sitting here. Two foolish, sickly girls they was, both of ’em sweet upon the same young man. Leastways, he was sweet upon both of them, the deceiver, which comes to the same thing. My sister Becky was five-and-twenty that same year; she had a constant pain and a cough, which some said was windpipe and some said was liver. The other was Mary Clarkson, who was subject to swimmings in the head and frightful dartings. Any way, they’d got no health to brag on, either of ’em, and they were just eat up with jealousy, the one of the other. Tom Town, he knew this; and he played ’em off again’ each other nicely, little thinking what his own punishment was to be.”

Hannah gently put the poker inside the bars to raise the coal, and some more light came out. Molly went on.

“Now, Hannah, you mustn’t think bad of them two young women. They did not wish one another dead—far from it; but each thought the other couldn’t live. In natural course, if the one went off, poor thing, Tom Town, he would be left undivided for the other.”

“Was Tom Town handsome?” interrupted Hannah.

“Well, middling for that. He was under-sized, not up to their shoulders, with big bushy red whiskers; but he had a taking way with him. He was in a shop for himself, and doing well, so that more young women nor the two I am telling of would have said Yes to his asking. Becky, she thought Mary Clarkson couldn’t live the year out; Mary, she told a friend that she was sure Becky wouldn’t. And what should they do but go to watch the graveyard on St. Mark’s Eve, to see the other’s shadow pass!”

“Together?”

“No; but they met there. Awk’ard, wasn’t it? Calling up their wits, each of ’em, they pretended to have come out promiskous, just on the spree, not expecting to see nobody’s shadow in particular. As they had come, they stopped; standing back again’ the hedge near the graveyard, holding on to each other’s arms for company, and making belief not to be scared. Hannah, woman, I don’t care to tell this. I’ve never told it many times.”

Molly’s face had a hard, solemn look, in the fire’s blaze, and Hannah suddenly drew her chair close to her. I could have laughed out loud.

“Just as the clock struck—ten, I think it was,” went on Molly, in a half-whisper, “there was a faint rustle heard, like a flutter in the air, and somebody came along the road. At first the women’s eyes were dazed, and they didn’t see distinct, but as the gate opened to let him in, he turned his face, and they saw it was Tom Town. Both the girls thought it was himself, Hannah; and they held their breath and kept quite still, hoping he’d not notice them, for they’d have felt ashamed to be caught watching there.”

“And it was not himself?” asked Hannah, catching up her breath.

Molly gave her head a shake. “No more than it was you or me: it was his shadow. He walked on up the path, looking neither to the right nor left, and they lost sight of him. I was with mother when they came home. Mary Clarkson, she came in with Beck, and they said they had seen Tom Town, and supposed he had gone out watching, too. Mother advised them to hold their tongues: it didn’t look well, she said, for them two, only sickly young girls, to have run out to the graveyard alone. A short while after, Tom Town, in talking of that night, mother having artfully led to it, said he had gone up to bed at nine with a splitting headache, and forgot all about its being St. Mark’s Eve. When mother heard that, she turned the colour o’ chalk, and looked round at me.”

“And Tom Town died?”

“He died that blessed year; the very day that folks was eating their Michaelmas gooses. A rapid decline took him off.”

“It’s very strange,” said Hannah, musingly. “People believe here that the shadows appear, and folks used to go watching, as it’s said. I don’t think many go now. Did the two young women die?”

“Not they. Becky’s married, and got half-a-dozen children; and Mary Clarkson, she went off to America. Shouldn’t you like to watch?”

“Well, I should,” acknowledged Hannah; “I would, too, if I thought I should see anything. I’ve said more than once in my life that I should just like to go out on St. Mark’s Eve, and see whether there is anything in it or not. My mother went, I know.”

“If you’ll go, I’ll go.”

Hannah made no answer to this at first. She sat looking at the fire with a cross face. It had always a cross look when she was deep in thought. “The mistress would think me such a fool, Molly, if she came to know of it.”

“If! How could she come to know of it? Next Monday will be the Easter holidays, and we mayn’t never have the opportunity again. I shouldn’t wonder but the lane’s full o’ watchers. St. Mark’s Eve don’t often come on a Easter Monday.”

There’s no time to go on with what they said. A good half-hour the two sat there, laying their plans: when once Hannah had decided to go in for the expedition, she made no more bones over it. The nursery-windows faced the front, and when the carriage was heard driving in, they both decamped downstairs—Hannah to the children, Molly to her kitchen. I found Tod, and told him the news: Hannah and Molly were going to watch in the churchyard for the shadows on St. Mark’s Eve.

“We’ll have some fun over this, Johnny,” said he, when he had done laughing. “You and I will be on to them.”

Monday came; and, upon my word, it seemed as if things turned out on purpose. Mr. Todhetley went off to Worcester with Dwarf Giles, on some business connected with the Quarter Sessions, and was not expected home until midnight, as he stayed to dine at Worcester. Mrs. Todhetley had one of her excruciating face-aches, and she went to bed when the children did—seven o’clock. Hannah had said in the morning that she and Molly were going to spend an hour or two with Goody Picker after the children were in bed; upon which Mrs. Todhetley told her to get them to bed early. It was something rare for Hannah to take any holiday; she generally said she did not want it. Goody Picker’s husband used to be a gamekeeper—not ours. Since his death she lived how she could, on her vegetables, or by letting her odd room; Roger Monk had it now. Sometimes she had her grandchild with her; and the parents, well-to-do shopkeepers at Alcester, paid her well. Goody Picker was thought well of at our house, and came up occasionally to have tea in the nursery with Hannah.

I was well by Monday; nothing but a bit of a cough left; and Tod and I looked forward to the night’s fun. Not a word had we heard since; but we had seen the two women-servants whispering together whenever they got the chance; and so we knew they were going. What Tod meant to do, he wouldn’t tell me; I think he hardly knew himself. The big turnips were all gone, or he might have scooped one out for a death’s head, and stuck it on the gate-post, with a candle in it.

The night came. A clear night, with a miserable moon. Miserable for our sport, because it was so bright.

“A pitch-dark night would have had some sense in it, you know, Johnny,” Tod remarked to me, as we stood at the door, looking out. “The moon should hide her face on St. Mark’s Eve.”

Just as he spoke, the clock struck nine. Time to be going. There was nobody to let or hinder us. Mrs. Todhetley was in bed groaning with toothache; old Thomas and Phœbe, neither of whom had cared to take holiday, were at supper in the kitchen. She was a young girl lately had in to help the housemaid.

“You go on, Johnny; I’ll follow presently. Take your time; they won’t go on the watch for this half-hour yet.”

“But, Tod, what is it that you are going to do?”

“Never you mind. If you hear a great noise, and see a light blaze up, don’t you be scared.”

“I scared, Tod! That’s good.”

“All right, Johnny. Take care not to be seen. It might spoil sport.”

The church was about half-a-mile from our house, whether you crossed the fields to it or took the highway. It stood back from the road, in its big churchyard. A narrow lane, between two dwarf hedges, led up from the road to the gate; it was hardly wide enough for carriages; they wound round the open road further on. A cross-path, shut in by two stiles, led right across the lane near to the churchyard gate. Stories went that a poor fellow who had hung himself about twenty years ago was buried by torchlight under that very crossing, with never a parson to say a prayer over him.