"But what is it that people have been saying, Mrs. Cramp?" struck in the Squire. "These boys have heard something or other."
"What"s said is, that there"s something queer about the lady," replied Mrs. Cramp. "I can"t make it out myself, Squire. Some people say she"s pig-faced."
"_Pig-faced!_"
"Well, they do. Last night I heard she was black. And, putting two and two together, as one can"t help doing in such a case, I don"t like that report at all."
The Squire stared--and began thinking. He believed he knew what Mrs.
Cramp meant.
"Well, I went there, and rang," she resumed. "And they opened the door a couple of inches and talked to me over the chain: some sour-faced woman-servant of middle age. I told her I had come to see my tenant--her mistress; she answered that her mistress could not be seen, and shut the door in my face."
Mrs. Cramp untied her white satin bonnet-strings, tilted back her bonnet, caught up the painted fan, fellow to the one Coralie was handling, and fanned herself while she talked.
"As long as it was said the lady was pig-faced and hid herself from people"s eyes accordingly, I thought little of it, you understand, Squire; but if she is black, that"s a different matter. It sets one fearing that some scandal may come of it. The Miss Dennets would drop down in a fit on the spot if they heard _that_ person had got into their house."
Coralie laughed.
"Ah, my dear, you careless young people make jokes of things that would fret us old ones to fiddle-strings," reproved Mrs. Cramp. "The four Indians may be with her, you know, and most likely are, concealed in cupboards. You don"t know what such desperate characters might do--break into your house here some dark night and kill you in your bed. It is not a pleasant thing, is it, Squire?"
"That it"s not, if it be as you put it," a.s.sented he, growing hot.
"Look here, Mrs. Cramp," interposed Tod. "If the lady has never been seen, how can it be known she is black, or pig-faced?"
"I"ve never treated the pig-faced report as anything but rubbish,"
answered Mrs. Cramp; "but I"ll tell you, Mr. Joseph, how it has come out that she"s black. I heard from Susan Dennet yesterday morning, and she asked whether any letters were lying at home for her or Mary. So I sent my servant Peggy last evening to inquire--a stupid thing of a girl she is, comes from over beyond Bromyard. Peggy went to the kitchen-door--and they have a chain there as well as to the other--and was told that no letters had come for the Miss Dennets. It was growing dark, and Peggy, who had never been on the premises before, mistook the path, and turned into one that took her to the latticed arbour. Many a time have I sat there in poor Jacob"s days, with the Malvern Hills in the distance."
"So have I, Mary Ann," added the Squire, calling her unconsciously by her Christian name, his thoughts back in the time when they were boy and girl together.
"Peggy found her mistake then, and was turning back, when there stood in her path a black woman, who must have followed her down: black face, black hands, all black. What"s more, she was wrapped round in yellow; a _shroud_, Peggy declares, but the girl was quite beyond herself with fright, and could not be expected to know shrouds from cloaks in the twilight. The woman stood stock still, never speaking, only staring; and Peggy tore back in her terror, and fell into the arms of a railway-porter, just then bringing a parcel from the station. "Goodness help us!" she shrieked out, "there"s a blackamore in the path yonder:"
and the girl came home more dead than alive. That is how I"ve learnt the mysterious lady is black," summed up Mrs. Cramp; "and knowing what we do know, I don"t like it."
Neither did the Squire. And Mrs. Cramp departed in a flutter. We all liked her, in spite of her white stockings and shoes.
Some few months before this, a party of strangers appeared one morning at Worcester, and took handsome lodgings there. Four fashionable-looking gentlemen, with dark skins and darker hair; natives, apparently, of some remote quarter of the globe, say Asia or Africa, whose inhabitants are of a fine copper colour; and one lady, understood to be their sister, who was darker than they were--almost quite black. Two rather elderly and very respectable English servants, man and wife, were in their train. They lived well, these people, regardless of cost: had sumptuous dishes on their table, choice fruits, hot-house flowers. They made no acquaintance whatever in the town, rarely went abroad on foot, but took an airing most days in a large old rumbling open barouche, supplied by the livery stables. Worcester, not less alive to curiosity than is any other city, grew to be all excitement over these people, watched their movements with admiration, and called them "The Indians." The lady was seen in the barouche but once, enveloped in a voluminous yellow mantle, the hood of which was drawn over her face. It transpired that she was not in good health, and one evening, when she had a fainting-fit, a doctor was called in to her. His report to the town the next day was that she was really a coloured woman, very much darker than her brothers, with the manners and culture of a lady, but strikingly reserved. After a sojourn of about two months, the party, servants and all, quitted their lodgings, giving the landlady only an hour"s notice, to spend, as they gave out, a week at Malvern. They paid their bill in full, asked permission to leave two or three of their heaviest trunks with her, and departed.
But they did not go to Malvern. It was not discovered where they did go.
Nothing more was seen of them; nothing certain heard. The trunks they had left proved to be empty; some accounts owing in the town came in to be paid. All this looked curious. By-and-by a frightful rumour arose--that these people had been mixed up in some dreadful crime: one report said forgery, another murder. It was affirmed that Scotland Yard had been looking for them for months, and that they had disguised themselves as Indians (to quote the word Worcester used) to avert detection. But some observant individuals maintained that they were Indians (to use the word again), that no disguise or making-up could have converted their faces to what they were. Nothing more had as yet been heard of them, saving that a sum of money, enough to cover the small amount of debts left behind, was transmitted to the landlady anonymously. Excitement had not yet absolutely died away in the town.
It was popularly supposed that the Indians were lying concealed in some safe hiding-place, perhaps not far distant.
And now, having disclosed this strange episode, the fame of which had gone about the county, you will be able to understand Mrs. Cramp"s consternation. It appeared to be only too probable that the hiding-place was North Villa: of the lady in the yellow mantle, at any rate, whether her four brothers were with her or not.
II.
I sat, perched on the fence of the opposite field, as though waiting for some one, whistling softly, and taking crafty looks at North Villa, for our curiosity as to its doings grew with the days, when a fine, broad-shouldered, well-dressed gentleman came striding along the road, flicking his cane.
"Well, Johnny!"
At the first moment I did not know him, I really did not; he looked too grand a gentleman for Benjamin Rymer, too handsome. It was Ben, however.
The improvement in him had been going on gradually for some years now; and Ben, in looks, in manner, ay, and in conduct, could hold his own with the best in the land.
"I did not know you were down here," I said, meeting his offered hand.
Time was when he would not have presumed to hold out his hand to me unsolicited, boy though I was in those old days: he might have thought nothing of offering it to a nabob now.
"I got down yesterday," said Ben. "Glad enough to have taken my M.D., and to have done with London."
"I thought you did not mean to take a physician"s degree."
"I did not, as I chiefly go in for surgery. But when I considered that my life will probably be spent in this country place, almost as a general pract.i.tioner, I thought it best to take it. It gives one a standing, you see, Ludlow. And so," he added laughing, "I am Dr. Rymer.
What are you sitting here for, Johnny? Watching that house?"
"Have you heard about it?" I asked.
"Coralie--Miss Fontaine--told me of it when I was with her last evening.
Is there anything to be seen?"
"Nothing at all. I have been here for twenty minutes and have not caught a glimpse of any one, black or white. Yesterday, when Salmon"s boy took some grocery there, he saw the black lady peeping at him behind the blind."
"It seems a strange affair altogether," remarked Ben. "The sudden appearance of the people at Worcester, that was strange, as was their sudden disappearance. If it be in truth they who are hiding themselves here, I can"t say much for their wisdom: they are too near to the old scene."
"I wonder you don"t set up in London," I said to Ben as we walked onwards.
"It is what I should like to do of all things," he replied in a tone of eagerness, "and confine my practice wholly to surgery. But my home must be here. Circ.u.mstances are stronger than we are."
"Will it be at Oxlip Grange?" I quietly asked.
Ben turned his head to study my face, and what he read there told tales.
"I see," he said, "you know. Yes, it will be at Oxlip Grange. That has been settled a long while past."
"I wish you every happiness; all good luck."
"Thank you, Johnny."
We were nearing the place in question when Mrs. Cramp turned out of its small iron gate, that stood beside the ornamental large ones, in her bewitching costume of green and purple. "And how are you, Mr. Benjamin?"
she asked. "Come down for good?"
"Yes."
"And he is Dr. Rymer now, Mrs. Cramp," I added.
"I am glad to hear it," said she warmly, "and I"ll shake your hand on the strength of it," and she gave his hand a hearty shake. "At one time you said you never would take a doctor"s degree."
"So I did," said Ben. "But somebody wished me to take it."
"Your mother, I guess,"--though, for my part, I did not suppose it was his mother. "Any way, you"ll do well now."