The Woman in Black Page 2

  here Captain Carruthers paused to ejaculate: “Is the fellow quite off his head? Has he gone clean daft? Oh, my poor friend, you must be far gone, indeed! A man like you, too! Who could even have dreamed it? To think what the best of us may come to?”

  Then he perused the letter for a long time in silence; but soon resumed reading it aloud.

  In short, there is only one thing wanting to enhance the happiness I enjoy, and that is the presence of my old friend Ashleigh to shed the light of his countenance over our happy home to the end that he may behold a true picture of matrimonial felicity as manifested in the life of his college chum, with the hope that he may renounce his former prejudices against marriage, and finally settle down with—

  “Damn settling down!” exclaimed the indignant captain. “That idea is repugnant to me, and always will be. It suggests the prosiest, dreariest, most abject moral and intellectual suicide.”

  Then, thrusting the letter into one of his pockets, he proceeded to cut up some tobacco with his penknife, rolled it in the palms of his hands, and having thus prepared it to his satisfaction, he filled a short briar-root pipe with the pungent herb and struck a light. “Ah, that’s a little better!” he muttered after the first puff or two.

  “Nothing but this could have steadied my nerves after that idiotic letter. Happy, is he? but it’s early yet. Only a few days after the wedding. Let him wait a bit. He’ll soon be telling a different tale, I warrant. “Well, poor fellow, I’m sure I hope he will be happy with all my heart, for if ever a man deserved to be, he does. I’ll go and see him, hanged if I don’t, and be introduced to this paragon of a wife, when the war is over! God grant I may not prove a hostile element to their happiness, a drop of poison in their cup!”

  Here he relapsed into silence, and was soon lost in thought. At length, as he was knocking the ashes out of his pipe, he saw his three brother officers, who shared his tent, returning. He rose to meet them, and some desultory conversation ensued.

  It seemed to be their opinion that the war was very near its end; and it was not many weeks after this talk that Captain Carruthers and his three companions found themselves among the passengers on board the S.S. ——— on their way home.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  CHAPTER II

  AT HOME AGAIN

  Nothing had ever so much surprised the inhabitants of Little Fuddleton and its neighbourhood as the sudden determination of Sir Ashleigh Carruthers to abandon the comfortable home and position that he had lately inherited, with its accompanying ease and comfort, for a life of danger and privation. “It is inconceivable, my love,” said a portly matron to her marriageable daughter, “that a man in his position, with everything around him to make life worth living and after all we have been doing to keep him at home, and I am sure we did our best, should fly in the face of Providence, throw up all his friends and against their joint advice persist in his own course. He is, to say the least, a very perverse man—very.”

  “Still, if he obeyed the call of duty, mother,” pleaded the daughter.

  “Rubbish! Don’t talk to me about the call of duty!” interrupted her mother. “I have a notion that duty begins at home. There are other duties for a man in his position in the country besides risking his life on the battlefield. There are plenty of others ready to do that; impecunious men, soldiers of fortune, and the like, but why a man of his stamp should want to meddle in military matters is a puzzle to me.”

  “Why, mother, even princes go to battle,” rejoined the daughter.

  An inarticulate sound of contempt by the mother terminated the conversation.

  Sir Ashleigh had been away three years and was almost forgotten; but when a newspaper one day informed the countryside that the war was at an end and peace had been declared, it was natural people who had known and heard of Sir Ashleigh should recall him to their minds, and, in addition, that many mothers and daughters should feel a more or less tender interest in his return, safe and sound.

  Would it be worth while in that case to re-weave meshes in which they had already tried to enclose him? Most likely he would now be more inclined to settle down; he had had his experience of danger and privation; and, perhaps, the prospect of settling and submitting to the tender ministrations of a charming and affectionate wife would prove more attractive.

  At length the day dawned for the arrival of the local hero.

  Several of the neighbouring magnates, amongst whom were the vicar and his wife, assembled on the platform to meet and welcome him home. As the train steamed in, slowed and stopped, the door of a carriage opened, and a tall, thin man, bearded and bronzed, dressed in khaki, stepped out, and was effusively welcomed by a score of his former acquaintances. He had neither expected nor desired such an ovation, for, being a retiring and reserved man, he had given no notice of his coming, and hoped to steal upon them all unawares. But Dame Rumour, whose tongue will clack, had been too much for him, and his desire was defeated. The vicar proceeded to monopolise our hero and insisted on driving him home in his carriage.

  “You see, Sir Ashleigh,” he observed, “that it was impossible you should be permitted to steal a march upon us as you evidently wished. You are too important a personage to be allowed to return like an ordinary man.”

  “Yes, indeed,” broke in the vicar’s wife, “the interest which we all take in Sir Ashleigh and his movements renders that quite impossible.”

  “Well, I’m sure I ought to feel very pleased and proud to find myself the centre of so much unlooked-for attention,” said the captain, trying to acknowledge his thanks for what he least of all desired. “Ah, here we are!” he exclaimed, as the gates of Tudor Hall stood before him, “pray, step in and have a look at the old place; I am anxious to see how things have been going on during my absence.”

  “Oh, I should like it beyond all things!” said the vicar’s wife.

  The three left the carriage and were soon inside Tudor Hall. Two old servants, a man and his wife, who had been left in charge during the Squire’s absence, having heard nothing of the reports afloat in the village about their master’s return, opened their eyes with astonishment as they saw the arrival of the vicar’s carriage and Sir Ashleigh alight.

  “Well, Somers,” said Sir Ashleigh, “you are surprised to see me again, eh?”

  “Ay, Sir Ashleigh, I be surely!” said the man.

  “And you, too, Mrs. Somers?” said the captain to the old woman. “Lord, love you, Sir Ashleigh—yes; it’s taken all the breath out of me a’most, and kind of a knocked me all of a ’eap like,” she returned.

  “Well, neither of you evidently ever expected to see me again; but now that I am back safe and sound, do you think you could manage to give us all a cup of tea?” inquired Sir Ashleigh.

  “Well, Sir Ashleigh, we’ll do our best.” And the old couple, after showing them into a room which commanded a view of the garden and park, retired.

  The vicar and his wife, after glancing at the old family portraits on the wall, were soon seated, and the lady’s tongue began to demonstrate its wonderful activity and staying power.

  “What adventures you must have had during the long time you have been away, Sir Ashleigh! What delightfully thrilling things you will have to tell us! Well, I suppose you must long for a little rest now, and will be more ready to settle down steadily to the useful and pleasant life of a country gentleman like your dear good father before you. Now, do you know what I should do if I were in your position?”

  “Well, what would you do?” enquired the captain carelessly.

  “Why, first of all,” proceeded Mrs. Graves, “I should look very closely and carefully around me for some really nice girl; don’t be too particular about money, if she is the right sort, clever, pretty, and amiable, and marry her. You must make up your mind to marry some day—you really must, you know—all men in your responsible position do. It’s only right; the county expects it of you.”

  At this moment, old Mrs. Somers entered, placed the tea things, and retired
.

  “And so, I am to marry to please the county, eh? Good, very good! Ha! ha! ha!” and Ashleigh roared with laughter. When he had sufficiently recovered himself to be able to articulate, he continued:

  “I’ve been hitherto sufficiently simple to think that men married to please themselves.”

  “Well, Sir Ashleigh,” said the lady, rather put out of countenance by the boisterous laughter of the squire, “I don’t, of course, mean to exactly say—”

  “My dear,” interrupted the vicar, who, like many others in his position, had a very shrewd knowledge of how to make the best of both worlds, and especially of the one in which he occupied a very pleasant position, “don’t you think you had better leave Sir Ashleigh to manage this matter for himself? He will doubtless go the way of the majority in due course. All I can say at present is that, when he has chosen his future partner for life, I shall be very happy to officiate.”

  “Now, I’ll be bound that Mrs. Graves has someone in her mind’s eye already,” said Ashleigh, with twinkling eyes.

  “Well, Sir Ashleigh,” she said, with that half shy and half mysterious smile so common to ladies affected with the terrible disease of match-making, “I may know several very nice and very superior girls in our parish who would make unexceptionable wives. There is one in particular, an exceedingly charming girl whom I happen to know”—here she leaned towards the squire, and whispered in his ear—“is dying of love for you.”

  “Dying to be mistress of Tudor Hall, rather. Ha! ha! ha! Poor girl, I pity her!” laughed the squire.

  “Not any more tea, thank you!” Then, turning to her husband, who had sense of humour enough to enjoy the scene between his put-everyone-right-wife and his strong-willed host, she said rather icily, “I think, my dear, we had better think of returning home. Goodbye, Sir Ashleigh! So glad to see you home again safe and sound. I hope we shall see a good deal of each other in the future.”

  Sir Ashleigh accompanied his visitors to their carriage, and after he had closed the door upon them, said to himself: “The same old game! Why can’t such women leave a man alone? When I do want to marry, I will let the woman I care for know it.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  CHAPTER III

  THE SQUIRE BORED

  The next morning, after bath and breakfast, both of which the captain enjoyed thoroughly, he lit his briar-wood pipe, which had been his constant friend and companion through many a bivouac on the wild veldt, and while quietly puffing and blowing a cloud of fragrant smoke, which he complacently watched curling to the roof, he began a review of things in general as they affected him particularly. Everything had not gone on quite smoothly during his absence. The garden had been neglected and become a wilderness. The Hall had been allowed to suffer; for instance, the rain had come through the roof; and through the want of fires the walls and pictures had been injured. Rats had infested the place, and worse still, burglars had effected an entrance, after poisoning his favourite house dog, and had got off with a large portion of the family plate.

  The old man and his wife were quite useless; and he felt that he himself must look after the safety of his house and property. Plumbers must be employed to attend to the drains, which had got out of repair; builders must be engaged to repair the roof of the hall; and gardeners set to work to put the garden, in which the squire took great interest, right. More servants were wanted, and, in short, a host of minor, but necessary matters must be put into shape. As he smoked, this is the form his thoughts took:

  “Well, it is a dreary, worrying outlook. . . . Nothing but expense and trouble . . . and all for one solitary man, who could do without it all if necessary. . . .” And here, the advice of Mrs. Graves recurred to him. “Should he take it? . . . Would it be wise to do so? Should he marry and settle down like an ordinary Philistine? Such a thing was within the bounds of possibility . . . but, by Jove, I don’t intend to be hurried, let alone rushed into it! . . . After all, I am romantic enough to refuse to marry without love, and, at present, my heart is quite my own. Marriage is a large order; and a man is an egregious ass who enters on it lightly. . . . I know that the course of true love never did run smooth; and I’ll avoid all the worry and trouble attending it as long as I can. . . . Still, if I really loved a woman, I should be willing to encounter difficulties and dangers to secure the object of my passion These well-meaning idiots want to make it too easy for me; but I am not quite such a fool as to fall into a pit dug for me under my very nose.”

  Thus the squire soliloquised before the fire in the breakfast room, and, later, he walked over part of his estate, occasionally stopping for a chat with one of his tenants, and talking over necessary repairs and improvements.

  Workmen were called in and had to be looked after. In time, this began to prove monotonous, and Carruthers began to think of some other way of passing the day. He did not care to see too much of his neighbours, and although the old Hall possessed a fine library of choice books, he could not read all day. Then it suddenly struck him that he had received an invitation to visit his old college chum, Vincent Cholmondeley and his wife at their home, the Grange. He at once made up his mind to start tomorrow and make a day of it. The next day was Sunday; that would suit him as well as any other. He knew the country round about well and had often walked there in his boyish days, although it was a good distance off. Since he had been away, however, a new line of railway had been finished which would take him to within ten minutes’ walk of his friend’s place, and he thought he would use it. He accordingly took a return ticket to Slowboro, the village near the Grange, and left by the morning train. These rural trains did not run frequently, but he managed to reach his destination by one o’clock. He made sure that Vincent and his wife would already be at luncheon, and that he would join them. He sauntered leisurely from the station, and soon found himself before the gates of the Grange. He rang the bell, whereupon the porter’s wife issued from the lodge and opened the park gates. She was an elderly woman, hale and well preserved. As she admitted Carruthers, he noticed that she looked very hard at him as she dropped a curtsey. Where had he seen her before? On inquiry whether his friends were at home, he received a negative answer. They were still on the Continent, she said, and it was uncertain when they would return.

  She did not know where they were; but letters were to be forwarded to the Paste Restante, Paris.

  “Would the gentleman like to go in and leave a letter?” the woman inquired.

  “Well, my good woman, that is just what I should like to do. I am an old friend of Mr. Cholmondeley, and should like to look over the house.”

  “I am sure you are quite welcome to do so, Sir Ashleigh,” she said with a curtsey.

  “You seem to know my name,” remarked the squire. “Your face, too, seems familiar to me.”

  “Oh, I know you very well, Sir Ashleigh; though I can’t expect you to remember me! My maiden name was Sarah Parsons. I was employed in your father’s house as nurse to you, sir, when you were quite a little boy.”

  “What! You are Nurse Sarah!” exclaimed Carruthers. “Why, of course; I remember you now. I felt sure that I had seen you somewhere.”

  “Yes, Sir Ashleigh, I married Mathews, your father’s head gardener, and we set up for ourselves and reared a large family of children. Most of them are in service. My eldest boy went out to South Africa and wrote home that he is in the same regiment as Captain Carruthers.”

  “What, your son, Private Mathews! I know him well. How strange! We will talk over this another time.”

  “As you please, Sir Ashleigh. Will you step into the house and take a little snack and a glass of home-brewed ale?”

  “Well, nurse, I think I will accept your kind offer,” he answered.

  Captain Carruthers walked on to the house, entered first one room and then another, and finally seated himself at an escritoire in the drawing-room and penned a brief letter to his friend, which he left on the blotter just as Mrs. Mathews was returning from preparing a little lunch for him
in the breakfast-room. As she was leaving him there, Carruthers called her:

  “Stay, nurse, don’t run away, but sit down and tell me all the family news you can, whilst I appease my hunger.”

  Thus encouraged, she seated herself and unlimbered her tongue, giving her guest many an anecdote of his early life—of course, with the most elaborate detail.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  CHAPTER IV

  PHYLLIS BROWN

  Carruthers remembered some of the anecdotes which told against himself, and laughed heartily when his old nurse retailed some of these pranks of his youth. Mrs. Mathews made inquiries about her son, and was delighted when the Captain informed her that the young fellow was alive and well, and was by that time on his way home. The fond mother favoured Carruthers with a long account of her boy’s illnesses, “all along of that waxination business,” and other particulars to which he listened with exemplary patience. She also advised the captain, “when he did think of entering the marriage state, which she hoped would not be long first, never to have none of his children waxinated.”

  By this time the captain had finished his light luncheon, and expressed his readiness to be conducted over the house and grounds.

  While they passed from room to room Mrs. Mathews did not spare her companion a single legend or story concerning the house and family, to which he made a show of listening. After some hours had passed, Sir Ashleigh looked at his watch, and informed his guide that he had some friends residing in the adjacent town of Abbotswood, and that, finding himself so near, he thought he would call on them. He pressed a sovereign in the old nurse’s hand, and was hastening away before she had nearly finished her thanks.

  “If you’ll take my advice, Sir Ashleigh, you won’t attempt to walk to Abbotswood on foot. You’ll not be able to reach it before nightfall, and—and—”