Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 3

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

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There were some repairs I had mentioned it would be necessary to have executed before I came to live at Nut Bush Farm, but when I found Miss Gostock intended to do them herself—nay, was doing them all herself—I felt thunderstruck.

On one memorable occasion I came upon her with a red handkerchief tied round her head, standing at a carpenter's bench in a stable yard, planing away, under a sun which would have killed anybody but a n***o or my landlady.

She painted the gates, and put sash lines in some of the windows; she took off the locks, oiled, and replaced them; she mowed the lawn, and offered to teach me how to mow; and lastly, she showed me a book where she charged herself and paid herself for every hour's work done.

“I've made at least twenty pounds out of your place,” she said triumphantly. “Higgs at Whittleby would not have charged me a halfpenny less for the repairs. The tradesmen here won't give me a contract—they say it is just time thrown away, but I know that would have been about his figure. Well, the place is ready for you now, and if you take my advice, you'll get your grass up as soon as possible. It's a splendid crop, and if you hire hands enough, not a drop of rain need spoil it. If this weather stands you might cut one day and carry the next.”

I took her advice, and stacked my hay in magnificent condition. Miss Gostock was good enough to come over and superintend the building of the stack, and threatened to split one man's head open with the pitchfork, and proposed burying another—she called him a “lazy blackguard”—under a pile of hay.

“I will say this much for Hascot,” she remarked, as we stood together beside the stream; “he was a good farmer; where will you see better or cleaner land? A pattern I call it—and to lose his whole future for the sake of a girl like Sally Powner; leaving his wife and children on the parish, too!”

“You don't mean that?” I said.

“Indeed I do. They are all at Crayshill. The authorities did talk of shifting them, but I know nothing about what they have done.”

I stood appalled. I thought of my own poor wife and the little lad, and wondered if any Sally on the face of the earth could make me desert them.

“It has given the place a bad sort of name,” remarked Miss Gostock, looking at me sideways: “but, of course, that does not signify anything to you.”

“Oh, of course not,” I agreed.

“And don't you be minding a*********s; there are always a lot of stories going about places.”

I said I did not mind stories. I had lived too long in London to pay much attention to them.

“That's right,” remarked Miss Gostock, and negativing my offer to see her home she started off to Chalmont.

It was not half an hour after her departure when I happened to be walking slowly round the meadows, from which the newly mown hay had been carted, that I heard the rumour which vexed me—“Nut Bush Farm haunted,” I thought, “I said the whole thing was too good to last.”

“What, Jack, lost in reverie?” cried my sister, who had some up from Devonshire to keep me company, and help to get the furniture a little to rights, entering at the moment, carrying lights; “supper will be ready in a minute, and you can dream as much as you like after you have had something to eat.”

I did not say anything to her about my trouble, which was then indeed no bigger than a man's hand, but which grew and grew till it attained terrible proportions.

What was I to do with my wife and child? I never could bring them to a place reputed to be haunted. All in vain I sauntered up and down the Beech Walk night after night; walked through the wood—as a rule selected that route when I went to Whittleby. It did not produce the slightest effect. Not a farm servant but eschewed that path townward; not a girl but preferred spending her Sunday at home rather than venture under the interlacing branches of the beech trees, or through the dark recesses of the wood.

It was becoming serious—I did not know what to do.

One wet afternoon Lolly came in draggled but beaming.

“I've made a new acquaintance, Jack,” she said; “a Mrs. Waite—such a nice creature, but in dreadfully bad health. It came on to rain when I was coming home, and so I took refuge under a great tree at the gate of a most picturesque old house. I had not stood there long before a servant with an umbrella appeared at the porch to ask if I would not please to walk in until the storm abated. I waited there ever so long, and we had such a pleasant talk. She is a most delightful woman, with a melancholy, pathetic sort of expression that has been haunting me ever since. She apologised for not having called—said she was not strong and could not walk so far. They keep no conveyance she can drive. Mr. Waite, who is not at home at present, rides into Whittleby when anything is wanted.

“I hoped she would not think of standing on ceremony with me. I was only a farmer's daughter, and accustomed to plain, homely ways, and I asked her if I might walk round and bid her good-bye before I went home.”

“You must not go home yet, Lolly,” I cried, alarmed; “what in the world should I do without you?”

“Well, you would be a lonely boy,” she answered, complacently, “with no one to sew on a button or darn your socks, or make you eat or go to bed, or do anything you ought to do.”

I had not spoken a word to her about the report which was troubling me, and I knew there must be times when she wondered why I did not go up to London and fetch my wife and child to enjoy the bright summer-time; but Lolly was as good as gold, and never asked me a question, or even indirectly inquired if Lucy and I had quarrelled, as many another sister might.

She was as pleasant and fresh to look upon as a spring morning, with her pretty brown hair smoothly braided, her cotton or muslin dresses never soiled or crumpled, but as nice as though the laundress had that moment sent them home—a rose in her belt and her hands never idle—for ever busy with curtain or blind, or something her housewifely eyes thought had need of making or mending.

About ten days after that showery afternoon when she found shelter under Mr. Waite's hospitable roof, I felt surprised when, entering the parlour a few minutes before our early dinner, I found Lolly standing beside one of the windows apparently hopelessly lost in the depths of a brown study.

“Why, Lolly,” I exclaimed, finding she took no notice of me, “where have you gone to now? A penny for your thoughts, young lady.”

“They are not worth a penny,” she said, and turning from the window took some work and sat down at a little distance from the spot where I was standing.

I was so accustomed to women, even the best and gayest of them, having occasional fits of temper or depression—times when silence on my part seemed the truest wisdom—that, taking no notice of my sister's manner, I occupied myself with the newspaper till dinner was announced.

During the progress of that meal she talked little and ate still less, but when I was leaving the room, in order to go out to a field of barley where the reapers were at work, she asked me to stop a moment.

“I want to speak to you, Jack,” she said.

“Speak, then,” I answered, with that lack of ceremony which obtains amongst brothers and sisters.

She hesitated for a moment, but did not speak.

“What on earth is the matter with you, Lolly?” I exclaimed. “Are you sick, or cross, or sorry, or what?”

“If it must be one of the four,” she answered, with a dash of her usual manner, “it is 'or what,' Jack,” and she came close up to where I stood and took me sorrowfully by the button-hole.

“Well?” I said, amused, for this had always been a favourite habit of Lolly's when she wanted anything from one of the males of her family.

“Jack, you won't laugh at me?”

“I feel much more inclined to be cross with you,” I answered. “What are you beating about the bush for, Lolly?”

She lifted her fair face a moment and I saw she was crying.

“Lolly, Lolly!” I cried, clasping her to my heart, “what is it, dear? Have you bad news from home, or have you heard anything about Lucy or the boy? Don't keep me in suspense, there's a darling. No matter what has happened, let me know the worst.”

She smiled through her tears, and Lolly has the rarest smile! It quieted my anxious heart in a moment, even before she said: “No, Jack—it is nothing about home, or Lucy, or Teddy, but—but—but—” and then she relinquished her hold on the button-hole, and fingered each button on the front of my coat carefully and lingeringly. “Did you ever hear—Jack—anybody say anything about this place?”

I knew in a moment what she meant; I knew the cursed tattle had reached her ears, but I only asked: “What sort of thing, Lolly?”

She did not answer me; instead, she put another question.

“Is that the reason you have not brought Lucy down?”

I felt vexed—but I had so much confidence in her good sense, I could not avoid answering without a moment's delay.

“Well, yes; I do not want her to come till this foolish report has completely died away.”

“Are you quite sure it is a foolish report?” she inquired.

“Why, of course; it could not be anything else.”

She did not speak immediately, then all at once: “Jack,” she said, “I must tell you something. Lock the door that we may not be interrupted.”

“No,” I answered; “come into the barley field. Don't you remember Mr. Fenimore Cooper advised, if you want to talk secrets, choose the middle of a plain?”

I tried to put a good face on the matter, but the sight of Lolly's tears, the sound of Lolly's doleful voice, darkened my very heart. What had she to tell me which required locked doors or the greater privacy of a half-reaped barley field. I could trust my sister—she was no fool—and I felt perfectly satisfied that no old woman's story had wrought the effect produced on her.

“Now, Lolly,” I said, as we paced side by side along the top of the barley field in a solitude all the more complete because life and plenty of it was close at hand.

“You know what they say about the place, Jack?”

This was interrogative, and so I answered. “Well, no, Lolly, I can't say that I do, for the very good reason that I have always refused to listen to the gossip. What do they say?”

“That a man haunts the Beech Walk, the long meadow, and the wood.”

“Yes, I have heard that,” I replied.

“And they say further, the man is Mr. Hascot, the late tenant.”

“But he is not dead,” I exclaimed; “how, then, can they see his ghost?”

“I cannot tell. I know nothing but what I saw this morning. After breakfast I went to Whittleby, and as I came back I observed a man before me on the road. Following him, I noticed a curious thing, that none of the people he met made way for him or he for them. He walked straight on, without any regard to the persons on the side path, and yet no one seemed to come into collision with him. When I reached the field path I saw him going on still at the same pace. He did not look to right or left, and did not seem to walk—the motion was gliding—”

“Yes, dear.”

“He went on, and so did I, till we reached the hollow where the nut-bushes grow, then he disappeared from sight. I looked down among the trees, thinking I should be able to catch a glimpse of his figure through the underwood, but no, I could see no signs of him, neither could I hear any. Everything was as still as death; it seemed to me that my ear had a spell of silence laid upon it.”

“And then?” I asked hoarsely, as she paused.

“Why, Jack, I walked on and crossed the little footbridge and was just turning into the Beech Walk when the same man bustled suddenly across my path, so close to me if I had put out my hands I could have touched him. I drew back, frightened for a minute, then, as he had not seemed to see me, I turned and looked at him as he sped along down the little winding path to the wood. I thought he must be some silly creature, some harmless sort of i***t, to be running here and there without any apparent object. All at once, as he neared the wood, he stopped, and, half wheeling round, beckoned to me to follow him.”

“You did not, Lolly?”

“No, I was afraid. I walked a few steps quietly till I got among the beech trees and so screened from sight, and then I began to run. I could not run fast, for my knees trembled under me; but still I did run as far nearly as that seat round the 'Priest's Tree.' I had not got quite up to the seat when I saw a man rise from it and stand upright as if waiting for me. It was the same person, Jack! I recognised him instantly, though I had not seen his face clearly before. He stood quiet for a moment, and then, with the same gliding motion, silently disappeared.”

“Someone must be playing a very nice game about Nut Bush Farm,” I exclaimed.

“Perhaps so, dear,” she said doubtfully.

“Why, Lolly, you don't believe it was a ghost you met in the broad daylight?” I cried incredulously.

“I don't think it was a living man, Jack,” she answered.

“Living or dead, he dare not bring himself into close quarters with me,” was my somewhat braggart remark. “Why, Lolly, I have walked the ground day after day and night after night in the hope of seeing your friend, and not a sign of an intruder, in the flesh or out of it, could I find. Put the matter away, child, and don't ramble in that direction again. If I can ascertain the name of the person who is trying to frighten the household and disgust me with Nut Bush Farm he shall go to jail if the magistrates are of my way of thinking. Now, as you have told me this terrible story, and we have reduced your great mountain to a molehill, I will walk back with you to the house.”

She did not make any reply: we talked over indifferent matters as we paced along. I went with her into the pleasant sunshiny drawing-room and looked her out a book and made her promise to read something amusing; then I was going, when she put up her lips for me to kiss her, and said—“Jack, you won't run any risks?”

“Risks—pooh, you silly little woman!” I answered; and so left my sister and repaired to the barley field once more.

When it was time for the men to leave off work I noticed that one after another began to take a path leading immediately to the main road, which was a very circuitous route to the hamlet, where most of them had either cottages or lodgings.

I noticed this for some time, and then asked a brawny young fellow. “Why don't you go home through the Beech Walk? It is not above half the distance.”

He smiled and made some almost unintelligible answer.

“Why are you all afraid of taking the shortest way,” I remarked, “seeing there are enough of you to put half a dozen ghosts to the rout?”

“Likely, sir,” was the answer; “but the old master was a hard man living, and there is not many would care to meet him dead.”

“What old master?” I inquired.

“Mr. Hascot: it's him as walks. I saw him as plain as I see you now, sir, one moonlight night, just this side of the wood, and so did Nat Tyler and James Monsey, and James Monsey's father—wise Ben.”

“But Mr. Hascot is not dead; how can he 'walk,' as you call it?” was my natural exclamation.

“If he is living, then, sir, where is he?” asked the man. “There is nobody can tell that, and there is a many, especially just lately, think he must have been made away with. He had a cruel lot of money about him—where is all that money gone to?”

The fellow had waxed quite earnest in his interrogations, and really for the first time the singularity of Mr. Hascot's disappearance seemed to strike me.

I said, after an instant's pause, “The money is wherever he is. He went off with some girl, did he not?”

“It suited the old people to say so,” he answered; “but there is many a one thinks they know more about the matter than is good for them. I can't help hearing, and one of the neighbours did say Mrs. Ockfield was seen in church last Sunday with a new dress on and a shawl any lady might have worn.”

“And who is Mrs. Ockfield?” I inquired.

“Why, Sally Powner's grandmother. The old people treated the girl shameful while she was with them, and now they want to make her out no better than she should be.”

And with a wrathful look the young man, who I subsequently discovered had long been fond of Sally, took up his coat and his tin bottle and his sickle, and with a brief “I think I'll be going, sir; good night,” departed.

It was easy to return to the house, but I found it impossible to shake the effect produced by this dialogue off my mind.

For the first time I began seriously to consider the manner of Mr. Hascot's disappearance, and more seriously still commenced trying to piece together the various hints I had received as to his character.

A hard man—a hard master, all I ever heard speak considered him, but just, and in the main not unkind. He had sent coals to one widow, kept a poor old labourer off the parish, and then in a minute, for the sake of a girl's face, left his own wife and children to the mercy of nearest Union.

As I paced along it seemed to me monstrous, and yet how did it happen that till a few minutes previously I had never heard even a suspicion of foul play?

Was it not more natural to conclude the man must have been made away with, than that, in one brief day, he should have changed his nature and the whole current of his former life?

Upon the other hand, people must have had some strong reason for imagining he was gone off with Miss Powner. The notion of a man disappearing in this way—vanishing as if the earth had opened to receive him and closed again—for the sake of any girl, however attractive, was too unnatural an idea for anyone to have evolved out of his internal consciousness. There must have been some substratum of fact, and then, upon the other hand, there seemed to me more than a substratum of possibility in the theory started of his having been murdered.

Supposing he had been murdered, I went on to argue, what then? Did I imagine he “walked”? Did I believe he could not rest wherever he was laid?

Pooh—nonsense! It might be that the murderer haunted the place of his crime—that he hovered about to see if his guilt were still undetected, but as to anything in the shape of a ghost tenanting the Beech Walk, long meadow, and wood, I did not believe it—I could not, and I added, “if I saw it with my own eyes, I would not.”

Having arrived at which decided and sensible conclusion, I went in to supper. Usually a sound sleeper, I found it impossible that night when I lay down to close my eyes. I tossed and turned, threw off the bedclothes under the impression I was too hot and drew them tight up round me the next instant, feeling cold. I tried to think of my crops, of my land, of my wife, of my boy, of my future—all in vain. A dark shadow, a wall-like night stood between me and all the ordinary interests of my life—I could not get the notion of Mr. Hascot's strange disappearance out of my mind. I wondered if there was anything about the place which made it in the slightest degree probable I should ever learn to forget the wife who loved, the boy who was dependent on me. Should I ever begin to think I might have done better as regards my choice of a wife, that it would be nicer to have healthy merry children than my affectionate delicate lad?

When I got to this point, I could stand it no longer. I felt as though some mocking spirit were taking possession of me, which eventually would destroy all my peace of mind, if I did not cast it out promptly and effectually.

I would not lie there supine to let any demon torment me; and, accordingly, springing to the floor, I dressed in hot haste, and flinging wide the window, looked out over a landscape bathed in the clear light of a most lovely moon.

“How beautiful!” I thought. “I have never yet seen the farm by night, I'll just go and take a stroll round it and then turn in again—after a short walk I shall likely be able to sleep.”

So saying, I slipped downstairs, closed the hall door softly after me, and went out into the moonlight.

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