Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by Google Books (Oxford University) Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=aBsCAAAAQAAJ (Oxford University) THE MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE. A Novel of Incident. By the Author of "In the Dead of Night," "Brought to Light," etc. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. 1880. [_All Rights Reserved_.] CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAPTER I. WINTER AT HERON DYKE. II. DR. DOWNES' SNUFF-BOX. III. "PATCHWORK." IV. THE TWENTY-FOURTH OF APRIL. V. MR. CHARLES PLACKETT CALLS UPON THE SQUIRE. VI. SUDDEN TIDINGS. VII. THE MISTRESS OF HERON DYKE. VIII. WHAT DOROTHY SAW IN THE SHRUBBERY. IX. ON BOARD THE "SEAMEW." X. RESCUER AND RESCUED. XI. NOTHING VENTURE, NOTHING WIN. XII. HUBERT STONE'S RETURN. THE MYSTERIES OF HERON DYKE. CHAPTER I. WINTER AT HERON DYKE. The mellow autumn months darkened and died slowly into winter. The wild winds that are born in the bitter north blew in stronger and fiercer gusts, and the majestic monotone of the sea grew louder and more triumphant as the huge tides broke in white-lipped wrath against the shuddering sands. There came tidings of fishing boats that never found their way back home, of great ships in the offing that made signals of distress, of dead bodies washed up here and there along the shore. The Easterby lifeboat was ever ready to brave the fiercest seas; while miles away across the seething waters, at once a signal of warning and of hope, the ruddy beacon of Easterby lighthouse shone clear and steady through the darkest night: it was like the eye of Faith shining across the troubled waters of Life. At Heron Dyke, to all outward seeming, the winter months brought little or no change in the monotony of life within its four grey walls. And yet there were some changes; all of which, unimportant as they might seem if taken singly, had a distinct bearing on events to come. The two housemaids, Martha and Ann, to whom Aaron Stone had given warning in his anger at what he called their folly, were not forgiven. They left the Hall at the expiration of the month's notice, giving place to two strong young women who came all the way from London; and who, never having been in the country before, were supposed to be superior to the ordinary run of superstitious fancies, which so powerfully affect the rural mind. Aaron took care that Martha and Ann should be clear of the house before Phemie and Eliza arrived at it: there should be no collusion with the new-comers if he could prevent it. All went well at first. Phemie and Eliza felt dull, but were sufficiently comfortable. They had plenty to eat, and little to do. Not having been told that the Hall was supposed to be haunted, to them the north wing was the same as any other part of the house, and they neither saw nor heard anything to frighten them. The deaf and stolid cook kept herself, as usual, to herself, and said nothing. Indeed, it may be concluded that she had nothing to say. Had a whole army of apparitions placed themselves in a row before her at the "witching hour o' night," it would not have affected her; she utterly despised them, and the belief that could put faith in them. Old Aaron chuckled at the success of his new arrangements. "We shall be bothered with no more cock-and-bull stories about grisly ghosts now," thought he. But, though the new maids were safe enough from hearing gossip inside the house, they were not out of it. Aaron, however good his will might be, could not keep them within for ever: they must go to church, they must go into the town; they claimed, although strangers in the place, a half-holiday now and then. And the first half-holiday that Phemie had, something came of it. The girl made the best of her way to Nullington. Small though the town was, it had its shops; and shops have a wonderful fascination for the female heart. Into one and into another went Phemie, making acquaintance with this vendor of wares and with that. Mysterious things were talked of; and when she got back to the Hall at night, she had a rare budget of strange news to tell Eliza. The Hall was haunted. At least, the north wing of it was. A young woman. Miss Winter's maid, had mysteriously disappeared in it one night last winter, and had never been heard of since. The two previous housemaids had been nearly terrified out of their wits afterwards. They had heard doors clash after dark that were never shut by mortal hands; they had heard a voice that sobbed and sighed along the passages at midnight; and they had been once awakened by a strange tapping at their bedroom door, as if some one were seeking to come in. More dreadful than all, they had seen the deathlike face of the missing girl staring down at them over the balusters of the gallery in the great entrance-hall: and it was for being frightened at this, for speaking of it, they were turned away!--which was shamefully unjust. All this disquieting news, with the observations made on it, had Mistress Phemie contrived to pick up in the course of one afternoon's shopping, and to bring home to Eliza. The two servants had now plenty to talk about in the privacy of their own room, and talk they did; but they were wise enough at present to keep their own counsel, and to wait with a sort of dread expectancy for what time might bring forth. Would they hear strange sobbings and sighings in the night? would a ghostly face stare suddenly out upon them from behind some dark corner when they least expected it? The dull depths of these girls' minds were stirred as they had never been stirred before. They half hoped and wholly dreaded the happening of something--they knew not what. Meanwhile they began to go timorously about the house, to shun the north wing most carefully after dark, and to keep together after candles were lighted. Old Aaron, silently watching, was not slow to mark these signs and tokens, though he took no outward notice. While his wife Dorothy, watching also in her superstitious fear, drew in her mind the conclusion that the girls were being disturbed as the other two girls had been. It fell out one afternoon, about three weeks after Phemie had brought her strange tidings from Nullington, that Eliza was sent to the town on an errand by her mistress, Mrs. Stone: for, to all intents and purposes, Dorothy Stone acted as the women-servants' mistress, whether Miss Winter might be in the house, or whether she was out of it. Eliza was later in starting than she ought to have been, and she was longer doing her errands--for she took the opportunity to make purchases on her own account--and it was dusk before she turned back to Heron Dyke. It was a pleasant evening, cold but dry, with the stars coming out one after another, as she went quickly along the quiet country road, thinking of her mother and sisters far away. She turned into the park by the lodge on the Easterby road, stopping for a couple of minutes' gossip with Mrs. Tilney, the gardener's wife. How pleasant and homelike the little lodge looked, Eliza thought, full of ruddy firelight, for Hannah Tilney would not light the lamp till her husband should arrive. The elder girl was making toast for her father's tea, the younger one was hushing her doll to sleep, while Mrs. Tilney herself was setting out the tea-cups, and the kettle was singing on the hob--all awaiting the return of the good husband and father. Bidding the lodge goodnight, Eliza went on her way. It was quite dark by this time, and although the hour was early she did not much like her lonely walk through the park. She was not used to the country, and the solitude frightened her a little; fancy whispering that a tramp might be lurking behind every tree. She pictured to herself the light and bustle of London streets, and was sorry she had left them. Leaving the carriage-drive to the right when she got within two or three hundred yards of the Hall, she turned into a shrubbery that led to the servants' entrance. It did seem very lonely here, and she hurried on, glancing timidly from right to left, her heart beating a little faster than ordinary. Suddenly a low scream burst from her lips. A dark figure, emerging from behind a clump of evergreens, stood full in her path, and placed its hand on her arm. Eliza stood still; she had no other choice; and trembled as she had never trembled before. It was a woman: she could see that much now. "Won't you please let me speak with you?" cried a gentle voice, which somehow served to reassure Eliza. "My patience!" cried she, anger bubbling up in the reaction of feeling, "how came you to frighten me like that? I was thinking of--of--all kinds of startling things. What do you want?" "You are one of the new maids at the Hall," rejoined the figure, in low, beseeching accents, "and I have been trying for weeks to get to speak to you." "Who are you?--and what do you want with me?" demanded Eliza. "I am Susan Keen." "Susan Keen," repeated the servant, not remembering at the moment why the name should seem familiar to her. "Well, I don't know you, if you are." "My sister lived at the Hall, Miss Winter's maid, and she disappeared in her bedroom one night last winter," went on poor Susan, with a kind of sob. "It was full of mystery. Even Mr. Kettle says that." "Oh yes, to be sure," cordially replied Eliza, her sympathies aroused now. "Poor Katherine Keen! Yes. What _did_ become of her?" Susan shook her head. It was a question no one could answer. "I want you to help me to find out," she whispered. The avowal struck Eliza with a sort of alarm. "Good gracious!" she cried. "I want you to help me to find some traces of her--my poor lost sister," continued Susan--"some clue to the mystery of her fate----" "But what could _I_ do, even if I were willing?" interrupted the housemaid. "You are inside the house, I am outside," replied Susan, with a sob. "Your chances are greater than mine. Oh, won't you help me? At any moment, when least expected, some link might show itself; the merest accident, as mother says, might put us on the right track. Have you no pity for her?" "I've a great deal of pity for her; I never heard so strange and pitiful a tale in all my life," was the reply. "Phemie was told all about it when she went into Nullington. But, you know, she may not be dead." "She is dead," shivered Susan. "Oh, believe that. I am as sure of it as that we two are standing here. At first I didn't believe she was dead; I couldn't: but now that the months have gone on, and on, I feel that there's no hope. If she were alive she would not fail to let us know it to ease our sorrow--all this while! Katherine was more loving and thoughtful than you can tell." "It's said she had no sweetheart: or else----" Eliza was beginning. But the other went on, never hearing. "If she were not dead, she would not come to me so often in my dreams--and she's always dead in them. And, look here," added the girl, in awed tones, drawing a step nearer, and gently pressing against Eliza's arm: "I wish some one could tell me why her hair is always wet when she appears. I can see water dripping from the ends of it." Eliza shuddered, and glanced involuntarily around. "Sometimes she calls me as if from a distance, and then I awake," resumed Susan. "She wants me to find her--I know that; but I never can, though I am looking for her continually." "This poor thing must be crazed," thought the bewildered woman-servant. "And I've fancied that you might help me. I've come about here at night, wanting to see you, and ask you, for ever so long. You can watch, and look, and listen when you are going about your work in the house, and perhaps you will come upon her, or some trace of her." "Good mercy! You surely can't think she is _in_ the house!" exclaimed Eliza. "I am sure she's in it." "What--dead?" "She must be dead. She can't be alive--all these weary weeks and months." "I never heard of such a belief," cried Eliza. "What it is that's thought--leastways, as it has been told to me and my fellow-servant, Phemie--is, that it is her spirit that is in the house, and haunts it." "Her spirit does haunt it," affirmed poor Susan. "But she is there too." Eliza felt as if a rush of cold air were passing over her. "Something wrong was done to her; she was killed in some way; and I'd sooner think it was by a woman than a man," went on Susan, dreamily. "It all happened in the north wing. And then they carried her away for concealment to one of the dark unused rooms in it, and left her there, shut up--perhaps for ever. That's how it must have been." "Dear me!" gasped Eliza, hardly knowing, in her dismay, whether this was theory or fact. "And so if you could watch, and come upon any clue, and would kindly bring it to us, me and mother, we'd be ever grateful. Perhaps you know our inn--the 'Leaning Gate'--as you go from here to Nullington." "Stay a moment," said Eliza, a thought striking her: "does your mother think all this that you've been telling me?--does she want me to watch?" "Mother does not know I've come to you, or that I've ever had thought of coming, else she might have stopped me," answered the girl candidly, for poor Susan Keen was truth itself. "But she knows Katherine must be in the house, dead or alive; she says that. Good-evening, and thank you, and I'm sorry I startled you." She walked away at a swift pace. Eliza looked after her for a moment, and then ran home shivering, not daring to glance to the right or to the left. When the last fine days of autumn were over and the cold weather was fairly set in, Squire Denison had ceased to drive out in his brougham, and was seen no more beyond the suite of rooms that were set apart for his personal use. Early in November, his lawyer, Mr. Daventry, was sent for, and received certain final instructions respecting his will. About the same time a fresh inmate came to Heron Dyke, and took up her abode there for the time being. The person in question was a certain Mrs. Dexter, a professional nurse, who had been sent for from London by Dr. Jago's express desire. She was a plain-looking middle-aged woman, whose manners and address were superior to her station in life. A woman of few words, she seldom spoke except when some one put a question to her. She went quietly and deftly about her duties, and employed all her spare time in reading. A sitting-room was allotted her next Mr. Denison's, and she never mixed with the servants. No one at the Hall, unless it was Hubert Stone, knew that Mrs. Dexter was an elder sister of Dr. Jago's wife. It might be that the treatment pursued by that undoubtedly clever practitioner, and which at present seemed to succeed, was of too hazardous a nature to be entrusted to, or witnessed by, an ordinary nurse. Then came another movement. Within a few days of Mrs. Dexter's arrival at the Hall, the carpenter, Shalders, was sent for from Nullington. Receiving his orders, he proceeded to put up two doors covered with green baize, one in each of the corridors leading to Mr. Denison's rooms. The household wondered much; the neighbourhood talked; for Shalders had a tongue, and did not keep the measure a secret. It was to ensure himself more quiet that the Squire had had it done, said Shalders. Day and night these doors were kept locked. Four people only, each of whom had a pass-key, were allowed to penetrate beyond them: Dr. Jago, Mrs. Dexter, Aaron Stone, and Hubert. Anything that took place on the other side of those mysterious doors was as little known to the rest of the inmates of the Hall as if they had been a hundred miles away. In Nullington, people could not cease wondering about these baize-covered doors, and were generally of opinion that Squire Denison was growing more crazy every day. Ella never failed to write to her uncle once a week, and once a week the Squire dictated to Hubert a few lines of reply. In these notes he always told her his health was improving; that he grew better and stronger. For weeks after he had ceased to leave his own rooms, he wrote to Ella--in his unselfishness, let us suppose--about his drives out, and how the fresh crisp winter air seemed to give him strength. Ella expressed a strong desire to be back at home by New Year's Day; but the Squire's answer to her request, while kind, was yet so peremptory in tone that she was afraid to mention the subject again. He told her she was not to make herself uneasy about him, and that, now she was abroad, she had better enjoy herself, and see everything that was worth seeing: when he wanted her back at the Hall he would not fail to send for her, but till that time she had better continue on her travels. If the body of the letter seemed hard to Ella, there was no lack of loving messages at its end. "You are always in my thoughts," he wrote. "I see your face in the firelight; I hear the rustle of your dress behind my chair; half a dozen times a day I could swear that I heard you singing in the next room. When you come back to me in spring, my darling, I will never let you go away again." To Ella his letters would read almost like a contradiction. He could write thus, evidently pining for her, and yet would not allow her to return. She comforted herself with the reassurance that he must be better. Not the faintest hint was given to her in any one of the letters that Mrs. Dexter, a sick-nurse, had taken up her abode at Heron Dyke. Hubert Stone received several private notes from Ella, asking for full and special information respecting the state of her uncle's health. The writer of them little thought how they were treasured up and covered with kisses. To each of them Hubert wrote a few guarded lines of reply, confirming the general tenour of Mr. Denison's own letters. Miss Winter, he said, had no cause for uneasiness: Mr. Denison was certainly stronger than he had been for two years past. A few old friends of the Squire called at the Hall occasionally and inquired respecting his health. Now and again he would see one or other of them for a few minutes, and talk away as if nothing were the matter with him. But after the middle of December no visitors of any kind were admitted. They were told that the Squire was much as usual, but that his medical man, Dr. Jago, enjoined perfect quiet as indispensable to him. When Dr. Spreckley heard this, he differed completely. "I always told Mr. Denison that he ought to see more company than he did," said Spreckley. "He wanted rousing more out of himself. The sight of a fresh face and a little lively conversation never failed to do him good." It was a marvel to Dr. Spreckley that the Squire still lived. He wondered much what treatment was being pursued, not believing that any treatment known to him could keep him in life; he marvelled at other things. "Hang it all!" cried the Doctor one day to himself. "I can't see daylight in it. Shut up in his rooms from people's sight; green-baize doors put up to keep out the household! what does it mean? Are they treating him to a course of slow poisons? Upon my word, if it were not that the object is to keep the Squire in life, I should think there was a conspiracy to send him out of it, and that they don't want to be watched at their work. But it is a strange thing that he yet lives." That was, to Dr. Spreckley, the strangest thing of all. Morning after morning, as he arose, did he expect to hear the news of the Squire's death; but winter wore on, and the old year died out, and still the tidings came not. Dr. Spreckley marvelled more and more; but he said nothing to anybody. CHAPTER III. DR. DOWNE'S SNUFF-BOX. That winter in Norfolk was an exceptionally severe one. Lady Cleeve, whose health had been waning for some time past, felt the cold more severely than she had ever done before, and was rarely out of her own home. Trusting her son so thoroughly, the twelve hundred pounds had now been transferred to him, as promised, and stood in his name in the books of Nullington Bank. And to Philip life seemed to have become well worth living. The fact that he could draw cheques now on his own account--ay, and find them duly honoured--was a new and delightful item in his experience. His sunny, debonair face might be seen everywhere with a smile upon it: he had a kind look for this neighbour, meeting him in the street: a pleasant word for that one. He carried fascination with him; and, whatever might be his faults, it was impossible to help liking Philip Cleeve. "A thousand pounds will be quite enough for Tiplady," he decided, after some mental debate, carried on at intervals. "If the old fellow lets me join him at all, he'll take me for that: money's nothing to him." This, you perceive, would leave Mr. Philip two hundred pounds to play with: a very desirable acquisition. But the partnership question remained as yet in abeyance. Mr. Tiplady was very much engaged with some troublesome private affairs of his own at this period, was often from home; and for the time being seemed to have forgotten his talk with Lady Cleeve about the partnership. Philip was particularly careful not to refresh his memory. His mother felt anxious now and then that no progress was being made: she spoke to Philip about it, only to have her fears pooh-poohed, and be put off in that young gentleman's laughing, easy-going style. "A month or two more or less cannot make any possible difference, mother," he said one day. "Besides, I don't think it would be wise to bother Tiplady just now. It will be time enough to speak when he has got through his law-suit with Jarvis." It did not take Philip Cleeve very long to make a considerable hole in the two hundred pounds: set aside in his own mind as a margin to be used for whatever contingencies might arise. In the first place, his IOU to Freddy Bootle for his losses at cards in October had to be redeemed, Freddy having lent him the money to square up: although it might have stood over for an indefinite period as far as Freddy was concerned. This of itself ran away with a considerable sum. Then Philip discovered that he had been in the habit of dressing less well than was desirable, and so replenished his wardrobe throughout. After that, chancing to be one day at the jeweller's, he took a fancy to a gold hunting-watch and a couple of expensive rings. The latter articles he would draw off and slip into his pocket when going into his mother's presence; while of the existence of the watch she knew nothing. Not for a great deal would he have had Lady Cleeve suspect that he had touched a penny of the twelve hundred pounds. Yes, he was not without faults, this Master Philip. For some little time past, he had taken to be more from home than usual, in the evening, and to return to it later. Lady Cleeve did not grumble; she but thought he was at the Vicarage, or at the house of some other friend. He was more often at The Lilacs than she was at all aware of. Not that she would have objected: she rather liked Captain Lennox; and she knew nothing of the high play carried on there, or of the unearthly hours that it sometimes pleased Mr. Philip to come in. It was not play, though, that made Philip's chief attraction at The Lilacs. It was Mrs. Ducie. His pleasant evenings were those when cards were not brought out, when the time was filled with conversation and music. On such occasions Philip left at the sober hour of eleven o'clock, and had nothing to reproach himself with next morning; unless it were, perhaps, that when in the fascinating company of Mrs. Ducie, he almost forgot the existence of Maria Kettle. Yet it was impossible to say that Margaret Ducie gave him any special encouragement, or led him on in any way. She was probably aware of his admiration for her, but there was nothing that savoured of the coquette in her mode of treating him. She was gracious and easy and pleasant, and that was all that could be said: and she drew an impalpable line between them which Philip felt that it would not be wise on his part to attempt to overpass. Meanwhile life was rendered none the less pleasant, in that he could now and then pass a few sunny hours in her society. Early in December, Mrs. Ducie went up to London to stay with some friends, purposing to be away a month or two; and after her departure Philip did not find himself at The Lilacs quite so often. One day, however, he chanced to meet Captain Lennox in the street, who gave him a cordial invitation for the evening, to meet some other men who would be there. "I expect Camberley and Lawlor and Furness," said Captain Lennox. "You don't know Furness, I think? Married a wife with four thousand a year, lucky dog! Come up in time for dinner." Of course Philip accepted. Indeed, it was a rare thing for him to decline an invitation of any kind. Company pleased him, gaiety made his heart glad. Play, that evening, began early and finished late. The stakes were higher than usual; the champagne was plentiful. The clock struck five as Philip stood at his own door, fumbling for his latch-key. He had one of his splitting headaches, and his pockets were lighter by seventy pounds than they had been eight hours previously. Seventy pounds! All that day he lay in bed ill, and was waited upon by his mother, who had no suspicion as to the real state of affairs, or that he had been abroad late. Her own poor health obliging her to retire early, rarely later than ten, she supposed Philip came in at eleven, or thereabouts. His headache went off towards dusk, but the feeling of utter wretchedness that possessed him was still left. He was a prey to self-remorse, not perhaps for the first time in his life, but it had never stung him so bitterly as now. In the evening, when he had dressed himself, he unlocked his desk and took out his bank-book. He had not looked at it lately. After deducting, from the balance shown there, the amount lost by him at cards the previous evening, together with two or three other cheques which he had lately paid away, he found that there now remained to his credit at the bank the sum of nine hundred and thirty-five pounds. In something less than three months he had contrived to get through two hundred and sixty-five pounds of his mother's gift--of the gift which had cost her long years of patient pinching and hoarding to scrape together. At the same rate how long would it take him to squander the whole of it? As he asked himself this question he shut up his bank-book with a groan, and felt the hot tears of shame and mortification rush into his eyes. He was still sitting thus when a letter was brought him. It proved to be a note of invitation from Maria Kettle, written in the Vicar's name, asking Philip to dinner on the 12th of January, her father's birthday. A similar note had come for Lady Cleeve. The Vicar always kept his birthday as a little festival, at which a dozen or more of his oldest friends were welcome. The sight of Maria's writing touched and affected Philip as it might not have done at another time. His heart to-night was full of vague longings and vain regrets, and perhaps equally vain resolves. He would give up going to The Lilacs, he would never touch a card again, he would cease to seek the society of Margaret Ducie--and, he would ask Maria to promise to be his wife. At this very Vicarage dinner, opportunity being afforded, he would ask her. He was very quiet and subdued in manner during the next few days, spending all his leisure time at home. Some two years previously he had taken a fancy to teach himself German, but had grown tired of it in a couple of months, as he had grown tired of so many other hobbies in his time. He now hunted out his books again, and began to brush up his half-forgotten knowledge. His mother was delighted at the new industry: it gave her so much more of him at home. The evening of the twelfth arrived, and Lady Cleeve and Philip drove over to the Vicarage in a fly. The brougham of fat, good natured Dr. Downes was just turning from the door after setting down its master. Lady Cleeve went into a room to take off her warm coverings, and Philip waited for her in the little hall. "What, you here!" he exclaimed, as Captain Lennox entered. "Ay. Why not?" "I should have fancied this house would be too quiet for you," returned Philip. "There will be no Camberley--no high play here." Captain Lennox stroked his fair moustache, and looked at Philip with an amused smile. "My good sir, do you suppose I must live ever in a racket? Mr. Kettle was good enough to invite me, and I had pleasure in accepting. As to Camberley--his play goes a little further at times than I care for." A pretty flush mounted to Maria's cheek as she met Philip; his laughing hazel eyes seemed to have a meaning in them, the pressure of his hand was more emphatic than usual. They had not seen much of each other lately. No direct words of love had yet passed between them, but there was a sort of tacit understanding on both sides that one day they would in all probability become man and wife; needing no assurance in set phrases that they would be true to each other and wait till circumstances should be propitious. Of late, however, Philip's visits to the Vicarage had been few and far between. Rumours had reached Maria of evenings spent in the billiard-room of the Rose and Crown, and of his frequent presence at The Lilacs. When Maria thought of Margaret Ducie's attractions, her heart grew sad. The dinner guests numbered a dozen--all pleasant people. One or two handsome girls were there, but Philip had eyes for Maria only. "How nice she looks!" he thought; "how pure, how candid! What is it that constitutes her nameless charm? It cannot be her beauty." No, for Maria had not very much of that. It was the goodness that shone from every line of her countenance. Dinner over, the Vicar and a few of his guests retired to his study for a sober hand at whist, leaving the drawing-room free for music and conversation: and so the evening passed on. Ten o'clock struck, and Philip's momentous words to Maria were still unspoken. At last the watched-for opportunity came. In her search for some particular piece of music, Maria went downstairs to what she still called her schoolroom, and Philip followed. A single jet of gas was lighted, and she was stooping over an old canterbury when he put his arm round her waist. She had not heard his footsteps, and rose up startled. "Oh, Philip!" she cried, and sought to push his hand away. "Do not repulse me, Maria," he whispered, a strange earnestness in his generally laughing eyes. "I am here to tell you how truly and tenderly I love you. I am here to ask you to be my wife." "Oh, Philip!" was all that poor Maria could reiterate in that first moment of surprise. "You must have known all along that I loved you, and I ought perhaps to have spoken before," he continued. "But I cannot be silent longer. Tell me, my dearest, that you will be mine--my own sweet wife for ever!" Maria's face was covered with blushes. Her eyes met Philip's in one brief loving glance, but no word did she speak. He drew her to him and kissed her tenderly twice. His arms were round her, her head rested on his shoulder, when there came a sound of footsteps outside the door. An instant later, Philip was alone. How brief a time had sufficed to seal the fate of two persons for weal or woe! Philip felt intensely happy now that the ordeal was over--although he had never anticipated a refusal from Maria. No more gambling, no more dangerous visits to The Lilacs, or evenings in the billiard-room; life would be full of other and sweeter interests now. His mother would rejoice in his good fortune, and all would be _couleur de rose_ in time to come. 'Twas a pity that an unwelcome thought should intrude to mar the brightness. Somehow Philip began to think of the money he had drawn from the bank. "What a fool I was to break into the thousand pounds!" he exclaimed, his mood changing to bitterness. "I might have confined myself to the extra two hundred. That would not have so much mattered, while the thousand was enough for Tiplady. But to have lessened _that_ by--how much is it--sixty or seventy pounds! If I could but replace it! If we had but gold-fields over here as they have yonder," nodding his head in some vague direction, "where a man may dig up to-day what will last him to-morrow. No such luck for me. _I_ can't pick any up." A bustle in the hall--and Philip left the room. Lady Cleeve was passing out to her fly, which waited for her, escorted to it by good Dr. Downes. She had already stayed beyond her time: Philip would walk home later. He helped to place his mother in it, wished her goodnight, and returned to the rooms with the old Doctor. At eleven o'clock the party broke up: late hours were not in fashion at the Vicarage. As Philip wished Maria goodnight, he whispered that he should be with her on the morrow: and the warm pressure of his hand and the love-light that sat in his eyes were more eloquent than any words. Dr. Downes was fumbling with the sleeves and buttons of his overcoat in the hall: his own man generally did these things for him. "Let me help you, Doctor," said Philip: and buttoned the coat deftly. "Thank you, lad," returned the Doctor. "Would you like a lift as far as I go?" Philip thought he would, and got into the roomy old brougham, and chatted soberly with the old physician on the way. He got out of it when they came to the side-turning that led to the Doctor's house, said goodnight, and strode onwards. Dr. Downes took snuff. A bad habit, perhaps, and one less general now than in the years gone by. He took it out of a gold box, one of great value, presented to him by a grateful patient, Lord Lytham: and this box, being rather proud of it, the old Doctor was fond of exhibiting in company. The first thing he did, arrived at his own fireside, his coat and comforter off, was to put his hand in his pocket for his snuffbox. It was not there! Had the Doctor found himself not to be there, he could hardly have felt more surprise. That he had not dropped it in the carriage, he knew, for he had never at all unbuttoned his overcoat: still he sent out and had it searched; and made assurance doubly sure. "Well, this is a strange thing!" ejaculated the Doctor. "When did you have it last, sir?" asked Granby, his faithful servant of many years. "A few minutes before I left the Vicarage," said Dr. Downes, after pausing to think. "The Vicar took a pinch with me; we were standing before the fire; and I distinctly recollect putting the box back into my pocket. After that, I shook hands with one or two people, and came away." "Suppose I send Mark to the Vicarage, sir?" suggested Granby. "He'd run there in no time: they'll not be gone to bed." "It is sure not to be there," said the Doctor testily, as Granby came back from despatching the boy. "How could it leave my pocket after I had put it there?" "Perhaps it did, sir--when you were getting on your coat to come away. Who knows? You are not clever at putting on that coat, sir--if you'll forgive my saying so--and turn and twist about like anything over it." "Young Cleeve helped me. And the coat's tight and awkward. I suppose--I suppose," added Dr. Downes, slowly and thoughtfully, "that Cleeve did not take the snuffbox to play me a trick?" "Well, sir, I should not think he would play such a trick as that, though he is a gay and careless young spark." "Oh, you think him so, do you, Granby?" "I'm sure he is, sir," amended Granby. "He's more than that, too--a regular young spendthrift: and it's a pity to have to say it of Lady Cleeve's son. Half his time he is at the Rose and Crown playing billiards, and the t'other half he is playing cards for high stakes at Captain Lennox's, with my Lord Camberley and other rich folk." "Why, Granby, how the deuce do you know all this?" "Why, sir, all the town knows it. Leastways about the time he spends in the billiard-room. And Captain Lennox's man happens to be an old acquaintance of mine, so we often have a chat together. It's James Knight, sir, who once lived with Sir Gunton Cleeve, and perhaps you may remember him." "But--billiards, and cards, and high stakes--how does young Cleeve find the money for it all?" debated the Doctor. "Ay, sir, that's the puzzle of it. Lady Cleeve can't give it him. Anyway, he has it, and sits at the Captain's card-table with a heap of gold and silver piled up before him." Dr. Downes fell into a rather unpleasant reverie. He knew nothing of the money that Lady Cleeve had placed to her son's account in the bank, and he wondered where Philip's means could come from. "Camberley and Lennox, and those rich fellows, may stake ten-pound notes if they choose to be so idiotic," cogitated the Doctor. "But such recklessness in Philip means ruin. What possesses the lad? Takes after his father, I'm afraid: _he_ rushed into folly in his young days. But he pulled himself up in time." Mark came back from the Vicarage, bringing no news of the gold snuffbox. The Vicar, much concerned, searched in the hall himself; he spoke of the pinch he had taken from the box, and he saw Dr. Downes return the box to his pocket. Dr. Downes sat looking uneasily into the dying embers of his fire as he revolved the news. "Is it possible," he presently asked himself, "is it possible that Philip can have _stolen_ the box? Stolen it to make money of for his cards and billiards?" CHAPTER III. "PATCHWORK." The Reverend Francis Kettle and his daughter Maria sat down to their breakfast-table somewhat later than usual: the dinner-party of the previous evening had made the servants busy. The thoughts of each were preoccupied: the Vicar's with the strange loss of Dr. Downes' gold snuffbox, of which he spoke from time to time; Maria's with the proposal of marriage made to her by Philip Cleeve: the most momentous proposal a young girl can receive. Presently Mr. Kettle found leisure to take up a letter, which had been lying by his plate unopened. "Oh," said he, "it is from Mrs. Page." Maria glanced up with a smile. "In trouble as usual, papa, with her servants?" "Of course. And with herself, too," added the Vicar, as he read the short letter. "She wants you to go to her, Maria." Mrs. Page was the one rich relation of the Kettle family: first cousin to the late Mrs. Kettle. She lived in Leamington, in a handsome house of her own, and with a good establishment; and she might have been as happy there as any wealthy and popular widow lady ever was yet. But, though good at heart, Mrs. Page was intensely capricious and exacting; she lived in almost perpetual hot water with her servants, and changed them every two or three months. This week, for instance, she would be rich in domestics, not lacking one in any capacity; the next week the whole lot would depart in a body, turned away, or turning themselves away, and Mrs. Page be reduced to a couple of charwomen. But her goodness of heart was undeniable; and many a Christmas Day had Mr. Kettle received from her a fifty-pound note, to be distributed by himself and Maria amongst their poor. Every now and then she would send a peremptory summons for Maria; and the Vicar never allowed it to be disobeyed. "She is getting old now, Maria, she is nearly the only relative left of your poor mother's, and I cannot permit you to neglect her," he would say. But he did not choose to append to this another reason, which, perhaps, weighed greatly with himself, and add, "She is rich, and will probably remember you in her will if you do not offend her." "The servants all went off the day before yesterday, Maria; and she says that she is feeling very ill, and she wants you to go to her as soon as convenient," said Mr. Kettle, passing the letter to his daughter. "But I cannot go, papa." "Not go!" "I do not see that I can. There is so much work at home just now." "What work?" "With the parish----" "Oh, hang the parish!" put in the Vicar impulsively, and then coughed down his words. "The parish cannot expect to have you always, child." "It is a hard winter, papa, as to work; many of the men are out of it entirely, as you know; and that entails poverty and sickness on the wives and children. I have not told you how very many are sick." "Some of the ladies will see to them. You cannot be neglecting your own duties always for their sakes." "Once I get to Leamington, papa, there is no knowing when I may be allowed to return. Mrs. Page kept me six months once; I well remember that." "And if she wishes now to keep you for twelve months, twelve you must stay." "Oh, papa!" "You are taking a lesson from Ella Winter's book," said the Vicar. "She did not want to leave home in the autumn; but it was all the better for her that she should. Her case, however, was different from yours, and I do not say she was wrong in wishing to remain with her uncle, so old and sick. I am not old, and I am not sick." But Maria thought her father was sick, though not of course with the mortal sickness of the Squire; ay, and that, if not old, he was yet ageing. His health certainly seemed breaking a little, his eyesight was failing him; now and then his memory misled him. He displayed less interest than ever he had done in parish work, leaving nearly everything to the curate, Mr. Plympton, and Maria. His liking for old port was growing upon him and he would sit all the evening with the bottle at his elbow, and was roused with difficulty when bedtime came. Altogether Maria would a vast deal rather not leave home; but she saw she should have to do it. Perhaps, in her heart, she shrank also from being away from Philip. "I'm sure, papa, I can't think how things in the parish will get on without me," she said, as she laid down the letter. "Think what a state they were in when we returned in the summer." The Vicar felt half offended. "Get on?" said he. "Why, bless me, shan't I and Plympton be here? As to the state they fell into during our stay abroad, was not I away myself? One would think, Maria, you were parson and clerk and everything." Maria smiled her sweet smile. She knew her father set little store by her work in the parish, not in fact seeing the half she did, and she was glad it should be so. "And I should not, child, let you neglect Mrs. Page in her need--your mother's own cousin--for all the parishes in the diocese. So you can write to her this morning, or I will write if you are busy, and fix a day to go to her." Barely had they finished breakfast when Dr. Downes came in. The loss of his snuffbox grieved and annoyed him. Not so much for its value, not so much that it was the gift of a long-esteemed friend and patron, but for the uncertainty and suspicion attending the loss. That the box must have been cleverly filched out of his pocket he felt entirely convinced of; it could not have got out of itself. All night long, between his snatches of sleep, had he been pondering the matter in his mind; and he had come to the uneasy conclusion that Philip Cleeve had taken it--either to play him a foolish trick, or to convert the box into money for his own use. But this latter doubt the Doctor would keep to himself and guard carefully. Mr. Kettle met the Doctor with open hand. It was not the Vicar's way to put himself out over things; but he was very considerably put out by this loss. "I met that young blade, Philip Cleeve, in walking over here," observed the Doctor, as they were all three once more examining minutely every corner of the little hall--for, in a loss of this kind, we are apt to search a suspected spot over and over again. "I took the liberty of asking him whether he had purloined the box in joke when he was helping me on with my great-coat last night. It must have been then, as I take it, that it left my pocket." Maria was rather struck with the Doctor's tone; unpleasantly so: it bore a resentful ring. "Philip would not play such a joke as that, Dr. Downes," she rejoined. "What did he say?" "He said nothing at first; only stared at me, and asked me what I meant. So I told him what I meant: that my gold snuffbox had left my pocket last night in a mysterious and unaccountable manner, and I had been hoping that he had, perhaps, taken it, to play me a trick. He blushed red with that silly blush of his, assured me that he would not play so unjustifiable a trick on me, or on anyone else, and walked off, saying he had to catch a train. So there I was, as wise as before.--And the box is not here; and it seems not to be anywhere." "Shall you have it cried?" asked Mr. Kettle, as they returned to the breakfast-room. "Why, yes, I shall. Not that I expect any good will come of it. Rely upon it, that box has not been
{'title': 'The Mysteries of Heron Dyke: A Novel of Incident. Volume 2 (of 3) by T. W. Speight', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}