Part 5

“‘Now, ma’am, do let me cook you a bit of something nice, for you’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, and you’ll bring yourself down to death’s door at this rate.’

“And she’d answer,--

“‘No, thank you, Mrs. Browser: I couldn’t touch it. I feel sometimes as if I’d never care to eat or drink again.’

“And Mr. Greenslade, he was just as bad. They didn’t eat enough to keep a well-grown child between the two of them.”

“What-aged people were they?” I asked.

“Well, sir, I can hardly say; they weren’t young nor yet old. Mr. Greenslade, he may have been about fifty, and his lady a year or two younger; but I never took much count of that. But the gentleman looked much the oldest of the two, by reason of a stoop in his shoulders and a constant cough that seemed to tear his chest to pieces. I’ve known him shut himself up in the parlour the whole night long, coughing away fit to keep the whole house awake. And his breathing, sir--you could hear it half a mile off.”

“He was _assmatical_, poor man! that’s where it was,” interposed Mr. Browser.

“Well, I don’t know what his complaint was called, Browser; but he made noise enough over it to wake the dead. But don’t you go interrupting me no more after that fashion, or the gentleman and lady will never understand the half of my story, and I’m just coming to the cream of it.”

“I assure you we are deeply interested in what you are telling us,” I said, politely.

“It’s very good of you to compliment me, sir, but I expect it will make matters clearer to you by-and-by. You’re not the first tenants of Rushmere I’ve had to tell this tale to, I can tell you, and you won’t be the last, either. One night, when I couldn’t sleep for his nasty cough, and lay awake, wishing to goodness he’d go to bed like a Christian, I made sure I heard footsteps in the hall, a-creeping and a-creeping about like, as though some one was feeling their way round the house. ‘It can’t be the mistress,’ I thought, ‘and maybe it’s robbers, as have little idea the master’s shut up in the study.’ So I opened the door quickly, but I could see nothing.”

“Exactly my own experience,” I exclaimed.

“Ah, sir, maybe; but they weren’t the same footsteps, poor dear. I wish they had been, and she had the same power to tread now she had then. The hall was empty; but at the same time I heard the master groaning and cursing most awful in the parlour, and I went into my own room again, that I mightn’t listen to his wicked oaths and words. I always hated and distrusted that man from the beginning. The next day I mentioned I had heard footsteps, before ’em both, and the rage Mr. Greenslade put himself into was terrible. He said no robbers had better break into his house, or he’d shoot them dead as dogs. Afterwards his wife came to me and asked me what sort of footsteps they seemed; and when I told her, she cried upon my neck, and begged me if I ever heard a woman’s step to say nothing of it to her husband.

“‘A woman’s step, ma’am,’ I replied; ‘why, what woman would dare break into a house?’

“But she only cried the more, and held her tongue.

“But that evening I heard their voices loud in the parlour, and there was a regular dispute between them.

“‘If ever she could come, Henry,’ Mrs. Greenslade said, ‘promise me you won’t speak to her unless you can say words of pity or of comfort.’

“‘Pity!’ he yelled, ‘what pity has she had for me? If ever she or any emissary of hers should dare to set foot upon these premises, I shall treat them as house-breakers, and shoot them down like dogs.’

“‘Oh no! Henry, no!’ screamed the poor woman; ‘think who she is. Think of her youth, her temptation, and forgive her.’

“‘I’ll never forgive her--I’ll never own her,’ the wretch answered loudly; ‘but I’ll treat her, or any of the cursed crew she associates with, as I would treat strangers who forced their way in to rob me by night. ’Twill be an evil day for them when they attempt to set foot in my house.’

“Well, sir, I must cut this long story short, or you and your good lady will never get to bed to-night.

“The conversation I had overheard made me feel very uncomfortable, and I was certain some great misfortune or disgrace had happened to the parties I was serving; but I didn’t let it rest upon my mind, till a few nights after, when I was wakened up by the same sound of creeping footsteps along the passage. As I sat up in bed and listened to them, I heard the master leave the parlour and go upstairs. At the same moment something crouched beside my door, and tried to turn the handle; but it was locked, and wouldn’t open. I felt very uneasy. I knew my door stood in the shadow, and that whoever crouched there must have been hidden from Mr. Greenslade as he walked across the hall. Presently I heard his footsteps coming downstairs again, as though he had forgotten something. He used to wear such thick boots, sir, you might hear his step all over the house. His loaded gun always stood on the first landing; when he reached there he stopped, I suppose it was his bad angel made him stop. Anyway, there was a low cry of ‘Father, father!’--a rush, the report of the gun, a low groan, and then all was still.

“La! sir, I trembled so in my bed, you might have seen it shake under me.”

“I’ve seen it shake under you many a time,” said Browser.

“Perhaps you would like to tell the lady and gentleman my exact weight, though I don’t see what that’s got to do with the story,” replied his better half, majestically.

“I don’t think I should ever have had the courage to leave my room, sir, unless I had heard my poor mistress fly down the staircase, with a loud scream. Then I got up, and joined her. Oh, it was an awful sight! There, stretched on the floorcloth, lay the dead body of a young girl; and my mistress had fainted dead away across her, and was covered with the blood that was pouring from a great hole in her forehead. On the landing stood my master, white as a sheet, and shaking like an aspen leaf.

“‘So, this is your doing!’ I cried, angrily. ‘You’re a nice man to have charge of a gun. Do you see what you’ve done? Killed a poor girl in mistake for a robber, and nearly killed your wife into the bargain. Who is this poor murdered young creature? Do you know her?’

“‘Know her!’ he repeated, with a groan. ‘Woman, don’t torture me with your questions. _She is my own daughter!_’

“He rushed upstairs as he spoke, and I was in a nice quandry, left alone with the two unconscious women. When my poor mistress woke up again, she wanted me to fetch a doctor; but it would have been of no use. She was past all human help.

“We carried the corpse upstairs between us, and laid it gently on the bed. I’ve often wondered since where the poor mother’s strength came from, but it was lent her for the need. Then, sitting close to me for the remainder of the night, she told me her story--how the poor girl had led such an unhappy life with her harsh, ill-tempered father, that she had been tempted into a foolish marriage by the first lover that offered her affection and a peaceful home.

“‘I always hoped she would come back to us,’ said Mrs. Greenslade, ‘for her husband had deserted her, leaving her destitute; and yet, although she knew how to enter the house unobserved, I dreaded her doing so, because of her father’s bitter enmity. Only last night, Mrs. Browser, I awoke from sleep, and fancied I heard a sobbing in my room. I whispered, “Who is there?” And a voice replied “Emily!” But I thought it was a dream. If I had known--if I had but known!’

“She lay so quiet and uncomplaining on my knee, only moving now and then, that she frightened me; and when the morning broke, I tried to shift her, and said,--

“‘Hadn’t I better go and see after the master, ma’am?’

“As I mentioned his name, I could see the shudder that ran through her frame, but she motioned me away with her hand.

“I went upstairs to a room Mr. Greenslade called his dressing-room, and where I guessed he’d gone; and you’ll never believe, sir, the awful sight as met my eyes. I didn’t get over it for a month--did I, Browser?”

“You haven’t got over it to this day, I’m sometimes thinking, missus.”

“That means I’m off my head; but if it wasn’t for my head, I wonder where the business would go to. No, sir--if you’ll believe me, when I entered the room, there was the old man dead as mutton, hanging from a beam in the ceiling. I gave one shriek, and down I fell.”

“I don’t wonder at it,” cried Janie.

“Well, ma’am, when I came to again, all was confusion and misery. We had the perlice in, and the crowner’s inquest, and there was such a fuss, you never see. Some of Mrs. Greenslade’s friends came and fetched her away; but I heard she didn’t live many months afterwards. As for myself, I was only too glad to get back to the shop and my old man, and the first words I said to him was,--

“‘No more charing for me.’

“And now, sir, if I may make so bold, what do you think of the story?” demanded the landlord. “Can you put this and that together now?”

“It is marvellous,” I replied. “Your wife has simply repeated the scene which we have heard enacted a dozen times in Rushmere. The footsteps were a nightly occurrence.”

“I heard the voice!” exclaimed Janie, “and it whispered ‘_Emily_.’”

“The handle of my servant’s door was turned. The report of the gun was as distinct as possible.”

“That is what everybody says as goes to Rushmere, sir. No one can abide the place since that awful murder was committed there,” said Mrs. Browser.

“And can you account for it in any way, sir?” demanded her husband, slyly. “Do you think, now that you’ve heard the story, that the noises are mortal, or that it’s the spirits of the dead that causes them?”

“I don’t know what to think, Browser. There is a theory that no uttered sound is ever lost, but drifts as an eddying circle into space, until in course of time it must be heard again. Thus our evil words, too often accompanied by evil deeds, live for ever, to testify against us in eternity. It may be that the Universal Father ordains that some of His guilty children shall expurgate their crimes by reacting them until they become sensible of their enormity; but this can be but a matter for speculation. This story leaves us, as such stories usually do, as perplexed as we were before. We cannot tell--we probably never _shall_ tell--what irrefragable laws of the universe these mysterious circumstances fulfil; but we know that spirit and matter alike are in higher hands than ours; and, whilst nature cannot help trembling when brought in contact with the supernatural, we have no need to fear that it will ever be permitted to work us harm.”

This little analysis was evidently too much for Mr. and Mrs. Browser, who, with a look of complete mystification on their countenances, rose from their seats, and wished us respectfully good-night; leaving Janie and me to evolve what theories we chose from the true story of the Invisible Tenants of Rushmere.

AMY’S LOVER.

It was five o’clock--five o’clock on a dull November afternoon--as I, Elizabeth Lacy, the wretched companion of Lady Cunningham, of Northampton Lodge, in the town of Rockledge, stood gazing from the dining-room windows at the grey curtain of fog which was slowly but surely rising between my vision and all outward things, and thinking how like it was in colour and feeling and appearance to my own sad life. I have said that I was the “wretched” companion of Lady Cunningham: is it very ungrateful of me to have written down that word? I think not; for if a wearisome seclusion and continual servitude have power to make a young life miserable, mine had fairly earned its title to be called so. I had withered in the cold and dispiriting atmosphere of Northampton Lodge for four years past, and had only been prevented rupturing my chains by the knowledge that I had no alternative but to rush from one state of bondage to another. To attend upon old ladies like an upper servant--to write their letters, carry their shawls, and wait upon them as they moved from room to room--this was to be my lot through life; and if I ever dreamed that a brighter one might intervene, the vision was too faint and idealistic to gild the stern realities which were no dreams.

I daresay there are plenty of people in this world more miserable than I: indeed, I knew it for a fact even at the time of which I speak; and the few friends I possessed were never tired of telling me that I was better off than many, and that I should strive to look on the bright side of things, and to thank heaven who had provided me with a safe and respectable home, when I might have been upon the parish. Did not Job have friends to console him in his trouble? Do not we all find in the day of our distress that, whatever else fails, good advice is always forthcoming? Well! perhaps I _was_ ungrateful: at all events, I was young and headstrong, and good advice irritated and worried, instead of making me any better. I knew that I was warmly clothed, whilst beggars stood shivering at the corner of the streets, and that beneath the care of Lady Cunningham no harm could happen to me, whilst women younger than myself broke God’s holy laws to put bread in their mouths. And yet, and yet, so perverse is human nature, and so perverse was mine above all others, that, engaged on my monotonous round of duty, I often envied the beggars their liberty and their rags; and even sometimes wished that I had not been reared so honestly, and had the courage to be less respectable and more free. Perhaps one reason why my life chafed me so fearfully, was because I had not been brought up to it. Five years before, I had been the child of parents in good circumstances, and loved and made much of, as only daughters generally are. My father, who held the comfortable living of Fairmead in Dorsetshire, had always managed to keep up the household of a gentleman, and my poor delicate mother and myself had enjoyed every luxury consistent with our station in life. She had had her flower-garden and her poultry and her pony-chair, and I my pets and my piano and--my lover. Ah! as I stood at the wire-blinded windows of Lady Cunningham’s dining-room that sad November afternoon, and recalled these things, I knew by the pang which assailed me at the thought of Bruce Armytage, which loss of them all had affected me most. My father and mother, who from my youth up had so tenderly loved and guarded me, were in their graves, and with them had vanished all the luxuries and possessions of my early days. But though I stood there a penniless orphan, with no joy in my present and very little hope in my future, the tears had not rushed to my eyes until my memory had rested on Bruce Armytage; and then they fell so thickly that they nearly blinded me; for mingled with his memory came shame as well as regret, and to a woman perhaps shame is the harder feeling of the two. His conduct had been so very strange, so marvellously strange and unaccountable to me, that to that day I had found no clue to it. When he first came down and took lodgings in Fairmead--for the purpose of studying to pass his examination for the law, he said--he had seemed so very, very fond of me that our engagement followed on the avowal of his love as a matter of course. But then his family interfered; they thought, perhaps, that he ought to marry some one higher than myself, though my father was a gentleman, and no man can be more; at any rate, _his_ father wrote to say that Bruce was far too young (his age was then just twenty) to fix upon his choice for life, and that no regular engagement must be made between us until he returned from the two years’ foreign tour he was about to make. My father and mother said that old Mr. Armytage was right, and that in two years’ time, both I and my lover would be better able to form an opinion on so serious a matter. Bruce and I declared it was all nonsense, that fifty years of separation could make no difference to us, and that what we felt then, we should feel to our lives’ end. And they smiled, the old people, whilst our young hearts were being tortured, and talked about the evanescence of youthful feelings, whilst we drank our first draught of this world’s bitterness. How seldom can old people sympathise with the young! How soon they become accustomed to the cold neutral tints of middle age, and forget even the appearance of the warm fires of youth at which they lighted those passions which time has reduced to ashes! It was so with my parents: they were not unkind, but they were unsympathetic; they rather hoped, upon the whole, that I should forget Bruce Armytage; and, in order to accomplish their end, they pretended to believe it. But he went, with the most passionate protestations upon his lips, that as soon as he returned to England, no earthly power should keep us separate; and he never came back to me again! My father and mother had died rather suddenly, and within a few months of each other; our home had been broken up, and at the age of nineteen I had been sent forth upon the world to earn my own living; and, at the age of three-and-twenty, I was at the same trade, neither richer nor poorer than at first, but with all my faith in the constancy and honour of mankind broken and destroyed; for Bruce Armytage had never found me out, or, as far as I knew, inquired after me. His family had permitted me to leave Fairmead and enter on my solitary career without a word of remonstrance or regret; since which time I had had no communication with them, though at that period my pride would not have forbidden my sending an account of my trouble to Bruce, believing that he cared for me. Correspondence between us during his foreign tour had been strictly prohibited, and I had no means of ascertaining his address. For a while I had expected he would write or come to me; but that hope had long died out, and the only feeling I had left for him was contempt--contempt for his fickleness and vacillation, or the pusillanimity which could permit him to give up the woman he had sworn to marry because his father ordered him to do so. No! filial obedience carries very little weight with the heart that is pitted against it; and as I thought of it and him, I bit my lip, dashed my hand across my eyes, and hoped the day might yet come when I should be able to show Bruce Armytage how greatly I despised him.

At this juncture the housemaid came bustling into the room with a little note for me--a dear little cocked-hat note--which seemed to speak of something pleasant, and at the writer of which I had no need to guess, for I had but one friend in Rockledge who ever sent such notes to me.

“Waiting for an answer,” said the bearer curtly; and I tore it open and devoured its contents.

“Dear Lizzie,--I think you will be _very much_ surprised to hear that your little friend Amy is engaged to be married! However, it is quite true, although the business was only settled this morning; and the young gentleman has promised to spend the evening with us, and to bring a cousin whom he is anxious to introduce. Will you come and take tea with us also? The doctor has only just told me that Lady Cunningham dines out to-night, or I should have sent before. Do come, Lizzie. Amy is crazy to see you and tell you all her secrets, and you know that you are always sure of a welcome from your affectionate friend,

“Mary Rodwell.”

The perusal of this little epistle threw me into a perfect whirl of excitement and delight, which would have appeared extraordinary to any one who had not been acquainted with the maddening monotony of my daily existence. These Rodwells, the family of the good old doctor who attended Lady Cunningham, were my only friends in Rockledge, the only people with whom I ever caught a glimpse of a happy domestic life, such as had been once my own. To spend the evening at their large, old-fashioned house, which rang from basement to attic with the sound of happy voices, was the only dissipation by which my days were ever varied, and a relaxation all the more precious because, on account of Lady Cunningham’s requirements, it came so rarely to me. And on the afternoon in question, when I had allowed myself to become absorbed by fanciful thought, the cordial and unexpected invitation warmed my chilled spirits like a draught of generous wine. All things seemed changed for me: I no longer saw the grey fog nor remembered my mournful past, but in their stead pictured to myself the brightly-lighted, crimson-curtained room at Dr. Rodwell’s house, and heard the ringing laughter and merry jests of his many boys and girls. In a moment I had shaken off my despondency--my eyes sparkled, my heart beat: I was in a flutter of anticipation at the pleasure in store for me.

“Is there any answer, miss?” demanded the housemaid, who had been waiting whilst I read my note.

“Yes, yes; I will go, of course. Say I will be there in half-an-hour,” I replied, for my evening, in consequence of Lady Cunningham’s absence, was at my own disposal. “And, Mary, please bring me up a jug of hot water; I am going to take tea with Mrs. Rodwell.”

“Well, I’m very glad of it, miss; it’s a shame you shouldn’t have a holiday oftener than you do,” returned my sympathising hearer as she departed with my answer.

I must say that, during my years of servitude, I had nothing to complain of respecting the treatment I received from the hands of servants. I have read of needy companions and governesses being cruelly insulted and trampled on by their inferiors; I never was. From the first they saw I was a gentlewoman, and to the last they treated me as such.