CHAPTER VI.

Two mornings after, Ricardo, whilst on his way to his professional duties, met Mrs. Battleby on the staircase, with a very stiff lip.

“May I make so bold as to ask, Sig-nor,” she commenced, “’ow long the Doctor means to be a’curing Hannah Stubbs?”

Ricardo stopped short, looking much like a school boy detected in some forbidden pleasure.

“_How long?_” he stammered. “Really, Mrs. Battleby, that is a strange question to put to me! How should I know? I am not a medical man, and if I were, it is a thing on which I should find it impossible to speak with certainty. A long time, Doctor Steinberg anticipates, I suppose, since he offered to pay you for the investigation by the week. Surely, you are not tired of your agreement already.”

“I didn’t say so, Sig-nor,” replied the landlady, with the same stiff manner, “but Hannah Stubbs, she is a very young girl, placed under my charge, as you may say, by ’er mother, and I think it is only proper as I should know what sort of physic it is, as Doctor Steinberg is a’treating ’er with!”

The Professor actually trembled. Had this woman obtained any knowledge of their proceedings, and was she about to draw back from her bargain, and forbid the girl visiting them any more?

“What a very strange lady you are!” he answered (Mrs. Battleby would have flown in his face, had he called her a “woman”). “I know nothing of medicines. How can I say if it be one thing or another? You must ask the Doctor! But it seems to have done Hannah good already. You should be satisfied with that!”

“Perhaps I should be, if I were sure of it,” said Mrs. Battleby oracularly, “but I ain’t sure. I was kep’ up late last night, and she was sayin’ some very queer things in ’er sleep, as I didn’t quite like! You gentlemen must be keerful what you do with a young gal like Hannah, for she ain’t too strong in ’er ’ead, as any one can see.”

“Of course we will be--we are, very careful,” replied Ricardo, as he shuffled down the stairs as quickly as he could.

This unexpected interview with his landlady kept haunting him all day.

Whilst he was attempting to instil the liquid Italian accents into the ear of the high-born, but dull Lady Alethea De Ruben, his thoughts were wandering back to Soho, and he was speculating what Mrs. Battleby meant by her sudden interest in Hannah Stubbs, and whether she intended to make a fuss about the girl visiting two men by herself, or to try and strike a higher bargain for her services.

Ricardo felt as if he were prepared to pay any price within his means, sooner than part with Hannah Stubbs, before she had fulfilled his dearest wishes, by bringing his dead wife back to him. Better a crust of dry bread and a glass of water, he thought, than to lose the knowledge which seemed just within his grasp. To know Leonora pure and good, and that after years of purgatory he might be reunited to a faithful wife--or to have the stain of innocent blood lifted from his brow--the mark of Cain wiped out for ever! One of these two things it must be, and he thirsted to ascertain which! He was so self-absorbed and _distrait_, that even Lady Alethea perceived the difference in her tutor and asked him kindly if he were ill.

“O! nothing! nothing! only a slight headache, dear Lady Alethea,” he murmured, as he made a violent effort to collect his wandering thoughts, and fix them on the Italian grammar.

On his way home that evening, he called for Karl Steinberg, and asked him to walk back with him, whilst he confided his fears and asked what steps they should take, to prevent such a calamity as the loss of Hannah’s services.

“It merely means,” replied the Doctor, “more money. Mrs. Battleby has perceived the satisfaction we feel in Hannah’s society, and judges wisely, that it does not all proceed from giving her medicine! My friend! these women are too sharp for us! Their brains are very light, but they make up for that deficiency by the cunning of the lower animals. After all, when you come to consider it, why should we interest ourselves because a maid-of-all-work is anæmic, hysterical? Had we not better make a clean breast of it at once, and tell the good woman what we do with Hannah during her evenings with us?”

“Not for the world,” cried the Professor, hastily, “the more ignorant the mind, the more opposed it is to anything it cannot understand! We should not only lose Mrs. Battleby’s patronage (if I may call her concession by such a name), but Hannah’s also. For she would, of course, tell the girl everything, and she would refuse to sit with us any more.”

“I see!” replied Steinberg, thoughtfully, “then my advice is to take no notice whatever of Mrs. Battleby’s hints, which were probably only thrown out in order to make you betray yourself. She is curious, my dear friend--all women are--she fancies there must be something more going on than the curative process, and thought to bully you into telling her what it is. Keep your own counsel! She may suspect, but so long as the door of your inner chamber is kept locked, she cannot find out!”

“How I wish I was rich enough to hire this girl as my own servant,” observed Ricardo, “and defy Mrs. Battleby, or leave her lodgings altogether! Then I would take a little house of my own, and people might say what they liked!”

“And what they liked would be, to spread a pretty tale of scandal about you and this country girl. I, too, wish that I were rich enough to settle her down in rooms of her own, where we could visit her at stated periods, and hold our séances, but it is impossible! I can only manage to support myself--much less another person. Attached to the Hospital as I am, I have my lodgings free, but I fear my salary as House surgeon would not go very far in an establishment of my own.”

“Never mind, Steinberg! We will not anticipate evil, but do as well as we can with the means before us! This is our séance evening! From the progress we have already made, I anticipate great things to-night.”

They hastened their steps as he spoke, and in a short time, they found themselves once more closeted with Hannah Stubbs.

Mrs. Battleby was evidently very curious on that occasion, and very unwilling to leave them alone. She brought up the tea-tray herself, and took it down again, and insisted upon conducting Hannah to their presence--a thing she had never done before.

“’Ere is Hannah, gentlemen,” she commenced, as she shouldered the red-cheeked maid into the room, “I’ve bin a’arsking ’er what the physic as the Doctor gives ’er tastes like, and she can’t remember nothink about it, but says as ’ow it allays makes ’er go to sleep, which seems very cur’ous to me.”

Steinberg having been in a measure prepared for an onslaught of this kind, had primed himself with a list of names, unintelligible to the landlady.

“Hannah is perfectly right, Mrs. Battleby,” he said, gravely. “In order to cure the very unusual form of hysteria to which she is subject, I am compelled to treat her with Ilex aquifolium, Conium maculatum, and Æthusa cynapium, which drugs, though most valuable in themselves, always have the effect of producing a quiescent state in the patient, after which they are unable to recall what has passed. But I trust--more, I am sure--that my treatment will eventually dispel her symptoms. But ‘Rome was not built in a day,’ Mrs. Battleby, as doubtless you know well, and I warn you that to effect a complete cure in this case, will take some time. That is why I proposed to recoup you for the loss of her services.”

“O! yes, Sir, I understand perfectly well,” replied Mrs. Battleby, looking round the room the while, as though she would spy out the truth of the Doctor’s specious argument. “But in course as I am sure neither of you gentlemen won’t forget Hannah, she’s but a child as you may say, and knows nothink of the world, and I ’opes you will be very careful of ’er!”

“Of course, of course! You could not trust her to better hands than those of my friend Doctor Steinberg,” said the Professor, as the landlady was at last persuaded to leave them to themselves.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Steinberg in French, “I do believe the old woman imagines we intend to seduce this poor child! Heavens! what an idea! With all the beautiful women you see in Town, to fancy one ever bestowing a thought in that way upon this ungainly, uncouth girl! Your landlady is not so cute in this as in most things, Ricardo!”

“I only hope she may not prove to be _too_ cute,” replied his friend, “I fear she smells a rat, as the English say--that is, that she has a strong suspicion what we are about, and if that is so, she will put a stop to it.”

Their colloquy was interrupted by seeing Hannah suddenly leave her seat and going to the séance chamber, pass in to the darkness beyond, without a word, closing the door after her.

“Why! what is she about, now? This is quite a new departure,” exclaimed the Doctor, “shall we follow her, or remain here?”

“I think we had better remain here, and lower the gas,” said Ricardo, “perhaps James will tell us what to do. Fancy! Hannah going into that dark room of her own accord! She has refused even to look into it before!”

“She did not go of her own accord,” replied the Spirit Voice, “I sent her. Lower the gas more. Leave only a glimmer! That’s right! Now open the séance room door a little, and take your seats at the further end of the room and wait! Some one is coming to see you to-night!”

The two men did as was desired of them, whilst the Professor was putting up an inward prayer that the “some one” who was coming, might prove to be Leonora.

“No! it isn’t,” answered the Voice, which now appeared to proceed from the dark chamber which they thenceforth called the “cabinet”--“don’t you be in such a hurry to see Leonora, Professor! You’ll have more than enough of her, when she does come. It is not any one whom you know, as far as I am aware, but it is not the medium. Mind that!”

And then the Voice ceased, and for half an hour all was silence. Then Steinberg, nudging the Professor, whispered,

“What is that?”

Ricardo glanced towards the cabinet, and perceived a faint filmy figure standing beside the half-opened door.

“Can it be James?” he whispered back again. They were too much awed to speak aloud.

The figure shook its head.

“Who are you? Cannot you come nearer to us? Cannot you give us your name?” urged Steinberg, and in his anxiety to learn more, he left his seat and approached the cabinet. The figure instantly disappeared.

“Forgive me!” he said, as he rejoined his friend, “I have stupidly been the means of that figure disappearing. I ought not to have left my chair, but my curiosity got the better of me. I hope it will come again.”

A few minutes’ patience was rewarded by the same apparition standing in the doorway, and holding out, as it seemed, its hand toward the Doctor.

Steinberg, not daring to move again, stared through his glasses at the outstretched arm, and then sinking suddenly towards the Professor, he leant heavily upon his shoulder, and exclaimed,

“My God! It is Mrs. Carlile!”

“And who is Mrs. Carlile?” asked Ricardo, who had never heard the name before.

“A patient and friend of mine! She had her hand amputated--I performed the operation under chloroform--and she never recovered from the anæsthetic. Look! don’t you see her arm is without a hand! Good Heavens! I never thought I should feel a thing like this! Have you any brandy? Can you get it? I feel as though I should faint!”

The figure had retreated again by this time and Ricardo procured Steinberg what he asked for. As soon as he had drunk the stimulant, his courage returned.

“Come back!” he cried, “dear Mrs. Carlile, my poor friend, come back and assure me of your forgiveness! Tell me that you know it was an accident due to the chloroform. It made me so unhappy! I did not sleep for weeks afterwards, thinking you might attribute your untimely death to my negligence. Poor girl! It was a crushing blow to me at the time.”

The figure appeared for the third time, and waved its left hand and nodded its head, and the Professor declared he distinctly saw it smile. As for the Doctor, he was too prostrate for the moment to see anything.

They waited for some time after that, in hopes that the spirit of Mrs. Carlile might return, but all was darkness. At last, just as they were thinking of breaking up the séance, a white-robed form again made its appearance on the threshold of the cabinet.

“Mrs. Carlile!” cried the Doctor, in a fervent voice, “speak to me! Convince me of Immortality, and your forgiveness at one and the same time.”

But there was no response. The spirit, whoever it might be, could not speak, but the head was turned towards the Professor.

“Perhaps she could communicate better with you than with me!” said Steinberg. “Speak to her, Ricardo, ask her to give me some unmistakable token of her friendship and belief!”

“Do not be afraid of us!” commenced Ricardo, in his gentle voice. “If you are Mrs. Carlile, give my friend here some sign that you have forgiven the past!”

“That you are reconciled to your cruel fate,” interposed the Doctor, “that you did not mourn too much at leaving your husband and your infant children--that you know now that all things are ordered for the best and by a Wiser Law than ours.”

But the figure kept its head turned in the direction of the Professor. At last, as though with a violent effort, it pronounced the word “Paolo” and immediately disappeared. Ricardo sank on his knees in an attitude of prayer.

“Leonora!” he cried, “Leonora! I have found you at last.”

Steinberg was about to address him, when they were startled by a sudden and violent knocking at the outer door.

“Who is that?” asked Steinberg, whilst he whispered to his friend, “Calm yourself, Ricardo. Some one is asking for admittance. What is to be done?”

The Professor started to his feet.

“They cannot--shall not--come in,” he exclaimed. “It is an outrage! I gave strict orders that we were never to be disturbed. Tell them so, Steinberg! And at such a moment, too!” he added, as he wiped the beads of sweat from his brow.

“Who is it? What do you want?” demanded the Doctor, of the intruder.

“It’s me, Sir,” replied the voice of Mrs. Battleby, “which there’s a lady downstairs as wants to see Hannah Stubbs most particular! Will you please to open the door, Sir?”

“No! Mrs. Battleby, I cannot! The lady must call another time! My patient is asleep from the effects of the medicine I have given her, and I cannot have her awakened. It might be dangerous!”

“I won’t waken her, Sir, if you’ll kindly let me have a look at her, so as I may tell the lady as I see her asleep with my own eyes!”

“You must tell her so on my authority,” replied Steinberg, “I cannot have Hannah disturbed on any account!”

“What! not when I, as is her own mother’s friend, ask to look at her for a moment as she is asleep. Well! all I can say, Sir, is that I never ’eard tell of sich a thing--not in my borned days--and I can’t believe as any gentleman as calls ’isself sich, would keep a pore gal from ’er friends, when they arsks to see ’er.”

“If the lady is a lady, she will not wish the girl to run the risk of danger from being roused, as your loud talking is likely to do now,” replied Steinberg, angrily, “and if you do not go away, or hold your tongue, Mrs. Battleby, and any harm comes to my patient from your intrusion, I shall report your behaviour to the Hospital authorities. How do you suppose I can administer such drugs as Colium maculatum and Æthusa cynapium, if the patient is to be disturbed whilst under their influence. If Hannah Stubbs dies from your violence I will have you indicted for man-slaughter.”

“Lawk-a-me!” exclaimed the landlady, as she stumbled down the stairs again, “that would be a pretty thing to bring against Martha Battleby, as never hurted a wurrum in ’er life! But I believe as you’re capable of that, or any other villainy,” she continued, as she reached the kitchen again.

Needless to say that the lady, who was so desirous of interviewing Hannah Stubbs, existed in her brain only, and that her sudden irruption upon the “foreign gents” as she sometimes designated Ricardo and his friend, had been induced solely from her intense curiosity to find out what these nightly visitations on the part of her “slavey” meant.

“Which I don’t believe, Mrs. Blamey,” she confided to her crony, “as it’s for the purpuss of curing that gal of her highstrikes, not if you was to tell me ever so! They’ve got some designs on the pore gal, mark my words! I never did think much of foreigners, for they’re a wicious, immoral lot, as ’ow could you expect anythink else from a nation as lives on frogs and sour wine. Not but what I ’olds the Sig-nor to be a quiet, and respectable gentleman,--least-ways ’e ’ave been so ’itherto, but that there German doctor with ’is long ’air, and his glasses, is enough to demoralise the best man living. We hadn’t nothink of these evenin’s alone with gals on pertence of curin’ their illnesses, before ’e came. The Sig-nor, ’e allays was a Mystery, and I’ve said as much before,--but a gentleman as is a Mystery with ’is books and ’is larning, is a very different thing from a gentleman as is a Mystery with gals. Hannah Stubbs, she’s hignorant and hidle, but she ain’t no more hill than you or me! We all ’ave our crosses in this life, Mrs. Blamey, but we don’t go and sit alone with gents to cure ’em, and I don’t like it, and that’s the fact!”

“And I don’t blame you for one, Mrs. Battleby, ma’am,” replied her friend, “I never did like secret ways and never shall. Where there’s secrets and mysteries, I says, there’s summat wrong. And how you could have stood being locked out of your own room for so long, beats me! It’s a puffect insult to a lady of your position, the mistress of her own ’ouse, and left a widder with an independency, and though I’m only an ’umble and down-trodden wife, _I_ wouldn’t have stood it, not if I entered under their very eyes!”

“But it was a sort of agreement-like, Mrs. Blamey, as the Sig-nor was to ’ave them three rooms to ’isself, and open or shut, they’re ’is. And ’ow could I enter when he keeps the key in ’is pocket, night and day.”

“And ain’t there no other keys in the ’ouse as would fit that room, Mrs. Battleby, ma’am?” insinuated Mrs. Blamey. “Couldn’t you try anyways, or get another key fitted whilst the gentleman is hout, and so look into it without his knowing nothink about it.”

“Well, so I could, to be sure!” exclaimed the other, “but I never thought of trying yet. But it seems to me a plain duty, Mrs. Blamey, to find out what they’re going to do with that there pore gal! Why! ’oo knows? that Doctor might be Jack the Ripper--which many said ’e was a doctor--and going to cut up Hannah into bits. And whatever should I say to ’er mother, which was my friend when we was little gals together, if her daughter disappeared under my roof and wasn’t never ’eard of again?”

“It is your dooty, Mrs. Battleby, there’s no doubt of that, and if so be you’re afeared to enter the room by yourself, why, I’ll go with you as soon as look at you.”

“Bless you, Mrs. Blamey, I ain’t afeared, no more than of a black beadle, but now you’ve put it straight afore me, I will find out what them two is a’doing with that gal, as sure as my name’s Martha Battleby! You never know what men are, till you find them out, and though these look so respectable and dull, they may be villains for all that. Keep a gal in the dark, indeed, and give ’er summat to make ’er go to sleep--I’ve ’eard summat like that afore, Mrs. Blamey, and no good come of it! So if there ain’t a key in the ’ouse as will fit that door, I’ll ’ave one made, afore I’m a day older. Good-night, and if I discovers any of their willainies, you’ll be the first to ’ear of it, you may depend on that!”

Consequently, as soon as the Professor had departed on his round of teaching the following morning, Mrs. Battleby sent Hannah on an errand, and commenced her tour of inspection. As was to be expected, a common house had common locks to the doors, and she soon found that the key of her own bedroom proved an “Open Sesame” to the séance chamber.

On her first view of the interior, Mrs. Battleby screamed aloud, so gloomy and funereal was its aspect. But when she had somewhat recovered her nerve, its appearance inspired her with but one notion----all this want of light and air meant the Devil, and nothing else! They were practising Sorcery in this mysterious little chamber, and had dragged the poor gal, with her dancing tables and chairs, and her “shadders” and “woices” into it, with themselves. And yet, after all, the landlady was not sufficiently sure to feel brave enough to accuse her lodger of mal-practices. So she resolved to wait for the next opportunity, and find out what she could for herself. She had the resolution to hold her tongue about her intentions--not only to the Professor, but to Hannah and her next-door neighbour, and when the Signor’s door had been locked upon the succeeding séance, Mrs. Battleby knelt outside in the darkness, with her ear applied to the keyhole.