Cassell's Family Magazine/A Missing Witness/Chapter 4

OR nearly a week after Philip's departure poor Elsie was disconsolate, and we, too—mother and I—were downcast and unhappy, not only because it was depressing to see Elsie suffering, with swollen eyes and a red nose as if she had influenza, abjuring her smart dresses, and shunning any sort of amusement as though she were absolutely widowed, but for the reason also that we felt the loss of our friend far more than we had anticipated, feeling now in his absence how much happiness we had owed to his constant kindness, his cheerful companionship, and the encouragement he gave us in overcoming our little difficulties. But the sense of bereavement wore off little by little; Elsie recovered her good looks, and paid more attention to her toilette, smiling again as she bent over her work when she realised how much more agreeable it is to speculate on the good things that life may yield than to deplore the accidents which cannot be undone. Little mother as usual was the bravest of us all, though she had an additional cause for depression in her secret anxiety upon my father's account; but happily her fears for his welfare were not of long duration.

On Saturday night as we sat at supper, tired and very silent, we heard the postman coming down the road, knocking now on one side, then on the other, and the sound growing more and more distinct every time. Mother and Elsie were both on the alert, though Phil had told us it would be a week at least before the ship touched at a port from which he could write to us The postman reached our house, the little gate squeaked, and before he could knock, Elsie had opened the door.

“It's only for you, mother,” said she despondently, as she brought in the letter.

Mother glanced at the address with a flush of joy, broke the envelope quickly and read the letter through with absorbing interest and, as I could tell by the light in her face, keen delight.

“It is from your father,” she said with a significant glance at me as she slipped the letter in her pocket. “He is quite well, and he sends his love to you both.”

They were much about the same words in which she had summarised news from him a hundred times before; but Elsie looked up from the pattern she was pensively tracing in bread-crumbs on the tablecloth in perplexity. Never before had a letter from my father come to the house. Hitherto little mother had received them, as she told us, through an agent in London, to whom she habitually went once a month. Why they should be sent in this roundabout way, why mother should take a whole day in fetching them, and why she invariably returned late at night looking fatigued and weary, we had never—at any rate, of late years—tried to ascertain. It had been part of that mystery upon which we instinctively felt it would be unkind to question little mother.

“But, mother, dear, it's an English stamp. I looked, hoping” A sigh completed Elsie's sentence.

“It is forwarded by the agent,” said little mother in a lowered voice, “to save me the trouble of calling upon him again,” she added, dropping her eyes and colouring; for she knew that I must now see through the subterfuge; and harmless as it might be to disguise the truth, the falsehood was repugnant to her.

“Oh, the agent—I see,” said Elsie, and she returned to her pattern of crumbs—the idle employment of an absent mind.

Letters from him came quickly after that—two or three a week, and little mother grew brighter each time; she seemed to be getting younger and more buoyant every week.

Elsie, recovering her sense of humour after the second letter from Phil at Malta, commented upon the fact to me in private:

“I'm afraid,” said she, “that our papa is turning over a new leaf. He used to write only once a mouth; now he cannot miss a single mail from Africa. Perhaps some kind friend—the agent, maybe—has told him how nice little mother looks, or what a comfortable home she has made, and he meditates making us a comfortable prop for his declining years. Or, perhaps he wants to borrow something.”

But towards the end of January the parcels post brought a beautiful little box for mother that father himself had made for her—he had been a pattern-maker in years gone by, and was very skilful in all kinds of wood-working—and inside, tacked to the bottom, were three little packets, one for each of us. Those addressed to Elsie and me were inscribed: “With father's love, and many a hope that the enclosure may not be found too late for a New Year's gift,” and inside each was a sovereign. Mother's packet contained a bank-note and a message that brought tears into her eyes. Maybe, he offered her a new money-box for her savings in place of the one she had emptied for him on Christmas Eve.

“Now I am sure something will happen,” said Elsie to me, when we were alone. “Think, for ten years he has neglected us altogether, writing to mother a dozen letters in the year and sending none of us even a miserable little twopenny birthday card; and now, all of a sudden, comes a shower of letters for little mother and a downpour of New Year's gifts for all of us! It's a propitiatory offering, that is what it is, Dolly. Our dear papa is paving the way to our hearts with gold, and before long he will walk home along that road, and I can only hope he will walk straight and not have a very red nose.”

Something did happen, but not for five or six weeks after that, and then it was not at all in keeping with Elsie's expectations.

One morning early in March, little mother, after reading her letter at the breakfast-table, appeared so painfully embarrassed that, breaking through my usual reserve, I bent towards her, and said:

“There's no ill news, dear, from father?”

She buried her face in her hands, and replied faintly—

“Your father is no more!”

Elsie was on her feet in an instant with an exclamation of sympathy.

“Oh, poor mother!” she cried, dropping on her knees, throwing her arms round little mother, and laying her pained face against her arm, “poor dear little mother!”

She could not feel affection for my father, whom she scarcely remembered, and had secretly regarded with contempt for his long neglect, but that did not lessen her sympathy for mother. And it was she who cried now for his loss; not a tear nor a sob came from mother, but she kept her face hidden in her hands. The news shocked me, for I had seen him so lately—that handsome, strong man; he had held me close in his arms, and I had reason to believe that he loved my mother and us, his daughters, dearly. I had hoped for some happy outcome from the mystery that surrounded him, figured him living with us, sharing our home, bringing joy to little mother as a compensation for her past sufferings. To hear now that he was dead stunned me like an actual blow, and as usual stupefied me and rendered me incapable of offering mother consolation.

“Poor little mother!” murmured Elsie again.

Mother kissed her wet cheek hurriedly but with fervour, and then, disengaging herself quietly from Elsie's embrace, rose, and, hiding her face once more in her hands, passed quickly out of the room.

“Oh, Dolly, what shall we do for her?” Elsie asked, turning to me. I shook my head, not knowing, myself, what to do or say. “Shall we go up to her?”

“No, that can't be the best thing,” said I; “mother wants to be alone, or she would not have left us. When she has cried and feels better, she will come down. Better wait, dear.”

“I shall never forgive myself, Dolly, for the unkind things I've said and thought of father. After all, he may have been a good man. He must have been good once for mother to have loved him so long and constantly in her abandonment.”

Then in her contrition she got up, and as an act of penance began to clear the breakfast things away and tidy up the room—she who always left duties of that kind to us. I could only sit there and wonder. Had father returned to Africa to die? I didn't think that probable, from the quickness and regularity with which his letters had followed his visit to us at Christmas. If he had died in England, would mother go to his funeral? Would she then confide in us and clear up the mystery? How had father died? Suddenly, it must have been; for only a few days had elapsed since she received a letter from him. Once or twice lately she had told us in a hesitating way that father was not quite so well, but not in such a tone as to suggest the possibility of his dying. Yet it occurred to me that for more than a week she had seemed nervous and preoccupied: was it that she had a pre sentiment of his death? I asked myself. Had it been wholly unexpected, she would surely have dropped the letter, instead of slipping it in her pocket before she spoke; she would have turned to us white with the shock that seemed to stop the pulsation of my own heart. But she had hesitated before telling us, and her face had flushed as she hid it in her hands. Now as I thought of my father being dead, the sense of loss wrung my heart, and I could not restrain my tears; but, while she was in the room at least, little mother had shown no sign of grief. What did these anomalies mean?

“Oh, don't you cry too, Dolly dear,” said Elsie, coming to my side and slipping her arm round my waist, as I stood staring out of window and sniffing. “It's awful to think that I am the only unfeeling one in the family.”

“It's all right, Elsie. I shall get over it as soon as I begin to work.” So I sat down resolutely to the skirt I had to unpick, and Elsie sat down opposite me and looked on—sympathetically.

Father had certainly not left England, I determined, continuing my reflections. But if he had been dangerously ill, would not mother have gone to see him? It struck me then that she might have done so that day when she went to London to execute, as she told us, a commission for father. I had not thought of that before; but it seemed now to me that probably the commission was but a pretext.

“I suppose we shall have to go into mourning, Dolly,” said Elsie mournfully.

I nodded. Would mother grieve as she had loved—secretly and long?

“I hope Phil won't mind,” Elsie broke in again. “Do you think black will suit me?”

I nodded once more.

“If Miss Smith has still got that little black bonnet we saw in her window, I shall have it; but she'll have to put strings to it: they make me look so much older and less frivolous. Oh, we haven't pulled down the blinds!”

Those dreadful blinds! they had not been drawn half an hour before neighbours, who had shown no interest whatever in our welfare before, began to drop in to express their sympathy and gratify their curiosity. Little mother, who had come down with bent head and downcast looks, but still with no apparent evidence of great grief, fled to her room with her work to escape them, leaving it to Elsie to answer all questions, She, having no reason to think otherwise, affirmed that my father had died quite suddenly in Africa, where he was engaged in superintending a mining operation. The news spread quickly, and in the afternoon one or two friends called, whom mother was compelled to see. They congratulated mother on “bearing up” so well, and one of them, more outspoken than the rest, declared that a worse calamity might have befallen us, and hinted that mother, with her youthful looks, her prettiness, her nice home and increasing business, might very well expect to find a second husband before long, at which little mother blushed up to the eyes like a young girl.

By the end of the week our mourning dresses were made; then mother said, in that tone of hesitation which always perplexed me—it being so contrary to the energetic, decisive manner in which she settled what was the right course to take in ordinary affairs—that she felt she must go to London and break the news to Aunt Laura of her brother's death. Then I was convinced that her real object was to attend my father's funeral; and, thinking how dreadful it must he to see the earth close over one so dearly loved—to stand beside the grave, the only mourner, maybe, and with not a soul to con sole her in her desolation—I went into her room the next morning as she was dressing to go, and putting my arm round her said—

“Little mother, let me go with you. I know where you are going.”

She looked at me in astonishment, repeating my words slowly.

“Papa is to be buried to-day,” I said.

Such a strange look succeeded the expression of astonishment on my mother's face as I said this that I thought for an instant she would laugh outright; then, curving her brows in vexation with herself and self-reproach, she kissed me, saying—

“Oh, Dolly, dear, you make me ashamed of myself. You do not know all, and I can not tell you. I must not take you with me, and I may not tell you why. But you shall know, dear—only keep our secret a little longer.”

Had father returned to Africa and died there? Had mother really gone to see our aunt, as she told us? It seemed so, for when she returned at night she told us that Aunt Laura had strongly advised that we should leave Wood Green, on the ground that we could live more cheaply farther from London, that it would be better for our health to be quite in the country, that we should gain more where competition was not so keen, and so on. As we really enjoyed very good health, and only suffered now and then from overwork, these reasons, I thought, were very inadequate for giving up the business we had established with such long and patient struggles; to me it looked like leaving the substance to catch the shadow, like the dog in Æsop's fable, and I said so. But Elsie, who was mad for any sort of change, and regarded the future only in the rosy tints of hope, found a new name for me—“Little Stick-in-the-mud”—and made fine fun of my objections; and mother, ordinarily the most prudent, long-sighted, and careful soul in the world, supported all her arguments in favour of Aunt Laura's scheme and made light of mine; so I had nothing to do but to withdraw from my position and yield to them. And the end of it was that little mother went the next day to pay our rent, and gave notice to the landlord that we should leave at midsummer.

Elsie's exuberant delight at the prospect of leaving “horrid Wood Green” for the undiscovered El Dorado where everyone was sure to be nice, and where Phil would certainly establish his practice, and be hand-in glove with the rector, and the squire, and all the best families, was understandable enough; but I could not make out what had so entirely changed little mother's disposition.

Soon after this mother paid another visit to Aunt Laura, and came back with the news that she had found the very place to suit us—Great Farleigh, a charming little town in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where good dressmakers were in great request; and she had even gone so far as to take a cottage for us on the outskirts of the town which would be vacant at quarter-day.

Elsie caught me by the waist and waltzed me round the room, “to shake up my wits,” she said, and I was too dumfoundered to resist.

Little mother, however, cautioned us not to let all the world know of our project, lest any unforeseen accident should prevent us leaving Wood Green; and it was quite as well she gave us this prudent counsel, as the event showed.

One afternoon towards the end of May, Elsie, who had been to Tottenham to purchase some trimmings, came in breathless and flushed with vexation. Her little white nose and pretty, curved upper lip were beaded with perspiration, and her brows were knitted in angry indignation.

“It's a shame!” she cried, throwing down her parcel and wrenching off her gloves. “No decent-looking girl can go anywhere now without being persecuted. The police ought to do something.”

“What is it, dear?” asked mother.

“Oh, some horrid man—a nasty, piggy man—has been following me all the afternoon. There he goes—a hateful wretch!” she added, drawing back out of sight.

I just saw a stout, florid, middle-aged man with yellow whiskers looking across at the window as he passed on the opposite side of the way, and that was all. Little mother, drawing herself up like a hen in defence of her chick, marched boldly to the window with a look that was intended to annihilate the insolent aggressor, but she was too late; she only saw his broad back as he marched along, swinging a gold-headed walking-stick in one hand and his glove in the other rakishly.

“He was in the tram when I got in. I never saw him before in my life,” Elsie pursued; “but he kept staring at me all the way, and coming a little nearer whenever a passenger got out, and not looking at me nicely, but in that offensive, impudent way—you know, dear.” She did not address herself to me, for my appearance does not subject me to experiences of this kind, but to little mother, whose looks are much more attractive in spite of her being so much older. “And when I got out at Tottenham he got down, and hung about Rotherham's till I had done my shopping and came out. 'Nice afternoon for a walk, miss,' he said, with a detestable, oily grin. Of course, I took no notice—I should like to know what a girl should do? But I saw a tram that I thought was just about to start, so I ran and jumped in. The wretch hailed the conductor with his stick, and, following leisurely, got in and planted himself exactly opposite. If I had got out he might have followed, and the people would have laughed, so I stayed there, and looked him straight in the face. He had not impudence enough to speak after that; but when the conductor came round with the tickets he told him to take for the young lady opposite, nodding to me. 'If that person chooses to take two tickets for himself he may, but I pay for my own ticket,' said I. Then, of course, there was a grin all round, and I would have given anything if the tram had turned over and smashed everybody.”

“Why didn't you get down, dear?” asked little mother.

“I did, mother, and he got down too; and I've had almost to run here from Hornsey to keep him at a distance. Hark! what's that?”

Someone had stopped before the door.

“It's he, mother,” I said, catching sight of him from my side of the room as he put his hand on the gate. “He's coming in.”

In effect, the gate creaked, and an elaborate knock on the door followed.

Mother motioned us to stay, and went quickly to the door, white with resentment, and prepared to give battle. We listened in breathless expectation, for little mother when she is angry is simply withering to the offender.

The door opened, and a faint exclamation was all we heard on the part of little mother.

“Well, there!” cried a fat, thick voice in return. “Jimmy Redmond, you're right again! If I didn't think so, there. I ses to myself, ses I, 'If that gal's mother ain't my old sweetheart Olive, I ain't J. R.' And it is so. Well, how are you, Olive? Bless me, if you ain't looking just as nice and pretty as you did ten years ago; and how's po'r George?”

“George—George is dead,” stammered little mother feebly.

“Dead—you don't say so. I see you're in mourning. Po'r old George dead, eh? Well, it's a happy release, as you may say, for him and all parties. You couldn't wish as”

Mother interrupted him, saying something in so low a tone that the words were inaudible to us.

“Oh, I understand,” replied Mr. Redmond in a hushed voice. “Not a word. I always was your friend, and you'll find me behave as such now that your loss must have made you feel the need of a friend. I'm still a single man, you know,” he added roguishly; “but come,” perceiving maybe that this sally failed to enchant little mother, “you will give me a cup o' tea after this long chivvy, and let me explain things to that pretty daughter of yours. I should have done so at first, only she was that stand-offish. Remember, Olive,” he pursued, maybe as a hint to mother, who still kept him standing in the passage, “I always was a friend, and I always mean to be—for the sake of po'r George,” he added, lowering his voice again.

Little mother, with fearful apprehension straining her white face, opened the parlour door, and silently ushered in this friend whose very presence I felt was a menace.

The moment he entered the room I understood why Elsie had called him a piggy man: his eyes were small and slaty-blue with yellow lashes, and he glanced from the corners of them to the right and left without moving his head; two red lines marked the place of his eyebrows; a short, snub nose and the animal expression,'gross and cunning at the same time, of his red face, completed the resemblance to a pig. Sandy tufts of whisker broadened his face, but his lips and chin were shaven, which was certainly not to his advantage, for his upper lip was long, and his jaw being underhung, the lower lip closed over the upper, adding stubborn purpose to a general appearance which was brutal enough without that.

“So I've run you down after all, eh, missy?” said he, regarding Elsie from the corner of his eye with an exultant twinkle in it. “I knew I should; for when I set my mind on a thing it's got to be done. If you'd known that before you might have saved yourself a long run.”

He offered his hand in a forgiving spirit to Elsie, but she declined to take it.

“There are two ways of claiming acquaintanceship,” said she, rising quickly and looking him severely in the face. “One is inoffensive; the other—is unpardonable,” and with the slightest inclination of her proud little head she passed him and left the room.

James Redmond did not budge from his position, but jerking his head towards the door, he said—

“The gal's got your spirit, Olive. She's you all over. You used to serve me just exactly like that when you was a young gal; and I liked you all the better for it. Things as is easy to do never tempt me; but where there's obstacles to overcome, and a job to be done as others would say was impossible, I tackle on. I go at it, I stick to it, and I do it—somehow. That's my sort. And who's this other little missy?” he asked, turning reluctantly from the contemplation of his own merits to cast a sidelong glance at mine.

“My other daughter, Dolly,” replied little mother timidly.

“Well, she don't take after you, anyhow,” he observed with a brutal laugh. “I warrant she won't refuse to shake hands with me.”

I gave him my hand. I should have done so without the prompting of mother's appealing eyes, because I already feared this man, and dreaded the consequences of making him an enemy.

“I didn't recollect you had two of 'em,” he pursued, dropping my hand from his flabby grasp with indifference, “but I remembered the other. I used to take stock of her as she went to school, with her long thin legs, her pigtail shining like gold in the sun, and her chin up in the air as proud as a May queen. Why, even then she used to cut me—and she only a kiddy. I liked her for it then, just as I like her for it now. Used to say she'd grow up a smart, nice girl—and she has. Jimmy Redmond, you're right again!”