Cassell's Family Magazine/A Missing Witness/Chapter 6

S I was trying to go to sleep that night, I felt my ear pinched, and, turning, found Elsie in her dressing-gown bending over me.

“I've come to have a talk,” she whispered, setting her night-light on the dressing-table.

“It's very late, Elsie, and I want to go to sleep, dear,” I remonstrated.

“I dare say you do; so do I. But I can't till I've had a talk. Sit up, brown owl.”

I sat up: it was useless to oppose Elsie.

“That's right,” said she, giving me another pinch on the ear as she seated herself on the bed beside me. “Now tell me what all this means.”

She spoke very low, little mother's room being on the same floor.

“Which all?” I asked.

“'Which all'! I don't know if that's English, but I'm sure it's an evasion. You know what I mean. Why was poor little mother so awfully panic-stricken by the visit of that sandy wretch?”

“I—I can't quite tell.”

“Yes you can, and you shall. Don't tell me you don't know. What's the good of your being an owl, staring at nothing down your little hooked beak and looking wise, if you can't think a little deeper than others? You have got to speak or shriek—now then,” tightening her thumb and finger on a small piece of my arm, “which do you prefer?”

”You may pinch me if you like; I may shriek, but I won't talk lightly about grave things,” said I, losing my temper.

“Oh, Dolly,” said she, with a little tremor in her voice, “don't you know your own sister yet awhile? Can't you see just a little way under this frivolous skin of mine? Don't you know that while I've been joking all the evening my heart has been aching to see how hard it is for little mother to forget her secret. Tell me what it is, dear—even if I am a fool.”

I returned the pressure of her hand, and collecting my thoughts, so that I might in some degree ease her mind and yet conceal the facts that mother had told me to keep secret, I said—

“I can only imagine an explanation, Elsie, that may be far from the truth.”

“Tell me what you imagine, all the same.”

“Mr. Redmond, I think, was in love with little mother once upon a time.”

“He said so. I heard him when he was in the passage call her his old sweetheart, and he dared to call her Olive—that man! Mother could never have loved him.”

“The proof of that is she married father. I believe Mr. Redmond never forgave her that, and, in spite of all his professions of friendship, still bears her malice.”

“After all these years, Dol?”

“Yes. You would more easily understand that, Elsie, if you had been downstairs this afternoon. His talk was one long boast of conquest and triumph. I can conceive the bitter resentment such a man would feel towards one who defeated the object he had, perhaps, most set his heart upon achieving.”

“Yes, yes. Go on, dear.”

“From what I have read in history and stories, it seems to me that, next to love, vengeance is the strongest passion in men s hearts. When Mr. Redmond”

“Don't call him 'Mr.'”

“When Redmond found that all hope of making little mother his wife was gone, he may have promised himself that if ever the day came when he could humiliate and punish her, he would punish her without pity or remorse. He may even have told her so. Why, this very afternoon he said that if anyone but father had married mother he would have killed that man. And by her fear, it is only too plain that mother has reason to know he keeps his word in such things.”

“What do you mean, Dol? Why, surely you don't think that he would attempt would—would”

Her faltering tongue refused to utter the horrible suspicion that flashed upon her; but I knew what was in her mind.

“No, I don't think he would attempt any act of violence. He values his own life too much for that. And there are punishments more lasting and more terrible even than death.”

“Oh, do speak plainly, Dol!”

“Has it ever occurred to you, Elsie, that perhaps a long while back, when we were children—ten years ago—our father may have been tempted to do something wrong—something that compelled him to leave us and. seek refuge right away from civilised people in Africa?”

Elsie nodded assent readily.

“That might have given Redmond an opportunity for persecuting little mother. He might have called upon her always like to-day, with expressions of sympathy and friendship for 'po'r George,' and yet at the same time preyed upon mother's apprehensions, and gratified little by little his thirst for vengeance in the terror he inflicted. He may have known where father was, and kept little mother under the constant threat of betraying him.”

“Oh, Dol, dear Dol!” said Elsie, with a little sob of sympathy, “it must have been that. And perhaps, when that persecution became unendurable, she carried us away stealthily, just as she proposes we should go now, to escape him. Oh, that explains all. And I dare say the poor little soul thinks that as he has found us out now so he will again, and there can be no sense of peace and security for her. And yet,” pausing for a moment, “if father is dead, what is there now to fear?”

“Father is dead, but we are no longer children, and it may be in his power to punish mother through our humiliation. Say that we are just three poor women struggling to earn a living, what chance should we have if it were whispered that father was a—I dare hardly say the word myself—a thief?”

“That is the truth. Oh, it must be that! It explains all—why little mother, instead of being glad when she heard I was engaged, looked so frightened, and wished Philip had spoken to her before making his offer. If he had, she would have told him the truth if if there really was a disgrace upon our name don't you think so?”

“I feel sure she would.”

“And now we know why she said that Philip and that man must not meet, for to injure us he might tell Phil. But that seems hardly consistent with her feeling that she herself ought to tell him, does it?”

“Oh—no, dear, it doesn't.”

“Perhaps she thinks that now father is dead it doesn't so much matter what he did. The sins of the father oughtn't to be visited upon the children beyond a certain period, I think. Still, I should feel bound to tell Phil myself; I couldn't marry him with that secret in my heart. I should feel that I was getting a husband under false pretences. I must tell him.”

“You can't, until we know for certain what it is you have to tell.”

“That's just like you, little meddler! Just as one begins to think the tangled skein is nicely unravelled, you pull a loose end and show that it's more tangled than ever. The best you can do now is to show how it ought to be unravelled.”

“I'm doubtful, Elsie, whether either of us ought to try to unravel it; whether we ought not to rest content with a fairly reasonable explanation of the circumstances that mystified us. Little mother has never yet done wrong, and if it were right that we should know more she would tell us. That we are not quite right in seeking to discover her secret is clear from the fact that for the last half-hour we have been talking in whispers.”

“Dolly,” said Elsie, springing up from the bed, “you are simply detestable when you get into one of these logical fits. Nevertheless;” she added, after a moment's pause and in a relenting tone, “you're a dear, good little brown pitcher, and I know”—slipping her arms round my neck and laying her cheek beside mine—“oh, I know that it will all come right when Phil returns. Oh, dear, dear Phil, come quickly to us,” she prayed in a gentle murmur.

Elsie looked particularly radiant and mischievous when she came down the next morning.

“Dol,” she whispered, “do you think that sandy horror will come again to-day?”

“I'm afraid he will.”

“I hope he may.”

“Why?”

“I've had an inspiration. Oh, I've got such a lovely plan to get rid of him. If Sindbad the Sailor had only thought of it, the Old Man of the Sea wouldn't have stuck on his shoulders half an hour.”

“Elsie, dear,” said I gravely, dreading I knew not what, “for little mother's sake you must not be rude to him.”

“No; but I think I shall put an effectual check upon his being rude to me.”

Mother's step upon the stairs ended the discussion.

“I've been looking at my skirts, mother dear,” said Elsie, when we were planning out the day's work at our breakfast; “they all want re-braiding, and they ought to be done before we go into our new home.”

“There is a great deal that must be done if we can only find time to do it,” said little mother.

“And there's no time like the present, is there, Dolly?” said Elsie with a touch of sarcasm in her voice as she imitated my manner. “How are your skirts, dear?”

“Just as bad as yours.”

“Then I'll braid every one of them for you.”

“You!” said I; and little mother and I looked at her in mild astonishment. “Why, it will take you days and days.”

“If it takes me weeks and weeks I will do them,” she answered; and in proof of her sincerity she spent the whole morning in ripping the braid from my poor skirts. That was easy enough, but when it came to machining the new braid I fully expected she would leave the work for me to complete, she having taken a repugnance to the machine since she read in a lady's letter to one of the papers that it gave women round shoulders, or red noses, or something equally disheartening to a girl with a nice regard to her pretty figure and delicate complexion. But I was at fault in this suspicion, for when I returned in the afternoon from taking some work home I heard the machine going before I reached the door, and as I passed the window I saw Elsie hard at work. “Wonders will never cease,” thought I, as I let myself in. But when I opened the door of our sitting-room her unusual industry was accounted for and her mysterious hint of the morning explained—for there, with his back to the chimney-piece, stood Mr. Redmond, his hands thrust in his pockets, his under-lip thrust up as far as it would go, savagely glaring down at Elsie. Little mother sat close at hand sewing meekly, but he hadn't a word to say to her to-day—or, if he had anything to say, he had already discovered the impossibility of trying to make himself heard while that dreadful rattle was going on. Oh how I laughed when I went upstairs to take my things off! When I went down he was still standing in the same position, still glaring down at Elsie, and still with his mouth shut in grim silence as the machine rattled on. I dared not look at Elsie or little mother for fear of losing countenance.

“Wus than a sausage-chopper!” he growled, as Elsie stopped for a moment to alter the tension. “Steam ingines I like, mortar mills I don't mind, but one o' them things would drive me mad if I”

Here the machine began again, and Mr. Redmond's under-lip went up once more in morose silence.

“Well, ain't it about time for tea, missy?” he asked, when the next break in that terrible clatter occurred

Certainly, it you wish it,” said Elsie, rising quickly. “Will you take my place, Dol? We must get this done to-night.”

I took her place at the machine, and Mr. Redmond, who had, perhaps, hoped for a chance of conversing, grunted despondingly. I myself felt uneasy. Never before had Elsie offered to get tea. What further inspiration had she for putting an end to Mr. Redmond's visits? The foreboding of evil consequences became so alarming that at last I quitted my work and went into the kitchen.

“Elsie,” I said hurriedly, seeing her with the teapot in her hand, “you won't put anything in it?”

“Well, dear, I must put something in; but I promise you that what I do put won't hurt anyone.” And she tilted the pot for me to see the scattering of tea-leaves at the bottom. Indeed, when little mother began to pour out, the water was scarcely coloured.

“You must let it stand five minutes, dear,” said Elsie, who was cutting the bread and butter—and oh, how she scraped it and dug out the holes: there was scarcely enough butter left on to give a shine to the bread—“if you stir it perhaps it will be better.”

But for all the stirring and standing it grew no stronger, and Mr. Redmond gulped it down with a wry face and only in sufficient quantity to wash down the chaffy bread and butter.

“Your livin' ain't what you may call extravagant,” he observed. “Don t seem to indulge in luxeries to a great extent.

Little mother said something about times being very hard, and then, seeing his cup empty, she timidly ventured to ask if he would take another.

“Not me,” replied Mr. Redmond in an injured tone, as he pushed back his plate with the unfinished bread and butter upon it, and glanced aslant under his squared brows at Elsie suspiciously. Then he tilted back his chair and thrust his hands in his pockets, and the chink of his money as he turned it over diverting his thoughts to another channel, his countenance brightened, and he began to tell us how he had been “weighing up” his new contract, and counted upon making a profit of “four figures” out of it; how it was in his mind to turn his business into a limited company, retaining a position as managing director with a salary that would enable him to keep a “brome,” furnish a palatial residence in “fust-class” style, and take a wife—this with a side-glance at Elsie, whom this vision of luxury might be supposed to dazzle. He was dilating on this theme and really seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the sound of his own voice, when Elsie, begging to be excused, seated herself at the machine and rattled him into abrupt silence. He started to his feet and stood for two minutes looking as if he would willingly annihilate the machine and Elsie too; then, unable to stand it longer, he snatched up his hat, stuck it on his head fiercely, and, holding forth his hand to Elsie, shouted, “I'm goin' missy!” Elsie inclined her head without stopping the machine. “As if,” she said indignantly later on, “as if I should dream of taking the hand of any man with his hat on.” And he left us, discomfited and savage.

Elsie dropped her work, turned round in her chair, and burst into laughter at the success of her stratagem the moment the street door closed; but mother, in alarm, raised her finger as she re-entered the room.

“He may be listening outside,” she said.

“What does it matter, dear?” replied Elsie, catching little mother's hand and drawing her to her side. “We want him to understand that he is an intruder and unwelcome. If a man can behave like a cur he must expect to be treated like a cur; one can't be very polite with an animal of that kind. If he is offended he won't come again.”

But whether James Redmond was offended or not, he did come again. If he had not heard Elsie's laughter he must yet have seen through her design; it merely served, maybe, to strengthen his stubborn purpose. Was he to be beaten by that slip of a girl? he may have asked himself. There could be but one answer to that question in the mind of that dogged man, and that answer was emphatically “No.”

“We must go on as we have begun,” said Elsie, when mother ventured to remonstrate, “or he will certainly discover what you, for some strange reason, dear little mother, feel he ought not to know.”

And so she persevered with her machining; only she varied her performance by exasperating intervals of silence, arranging her work just long enough to lure him into speaking, and then setting the machine in motion the moment he opened his lips. It would have tried the patience of a saint. James Redmond saw through that trick before long, and was not to be caught by it after. He simply stood jingling the money in his pockets and keeping his wicked little eyes on Elsie and his capacious mouth resolutely shut. Day after day he came, but he declined to take tea with us. There was a limit even to his endurance.

As quarter-day drew near we began to make preparations for departure. We put an advertisement in a trade journal, and had the good fortune to find a dressmaker who bought all the furniture we wished to sell at a valuation, and gave us ten pounds for our business. Then bit by bit we sent away to Aunt Laura those things—pictures and the like—which were so dear to little mother by association with the happy days of the past. And this she did without attempting to conceal the fact from James Redmond, lest secrecy should lead him to suspect her motive and excite his curiosity. He could not fail to see the change in our little sitting-room, he whose eyes were trained to “taking stock” of everything, as he termed it.

One afternoon, when Elsie was out, he said, drawing his hand over his great square chin:

“I don't see so many of them picters and things po'r George used to be so proud on. I suppose now he's dead, po'r feller, you don't care to see 'em a-hanging about you?”

“On the contrary,” replied little mother quietly, “they are the only things we shall take away with us.”

“Oh, you're goin' away?”

Mother inclined her head and continued stitching with a firm finger, I was glad to see.

“I knew you was goin' a fortnight ago; an' if your landlord hadn't told me as you'd given him a quarter's notice I should have thought you'd got a reason for goin' as you didn't want me to know, seein' as you've never mentioned a word of it to me before.”

“I saw no necessity to tell you,” said little mother quietly.

“You saw no necessity for tellin' me.” He repeated her words slowly, as if to gain time for consideration. “Perhaps you don't see any necessity to tell me where you are goin' when you leave here?”

“No,” replied little mother, laying her work on her knee and looking him steadily in the face. “I do not intend to tell you where I am going or when,” and as he made no reply save a nod, she took up her work again.

Oh! he looked a bully as he stood there regarding her through his narrowed lids, with his lips pressed together and his hands thrust in his pockets, silent and calculating. I believe he was “weighing up” the relative advantages of open bullying or cautious inquiry, and he must have decided that the latter course was the more advisable, for when he spoke it was with affected reproach in his tone.

“Well, considerin' that I was always po'r George's best friend, and yours too, Olive”

Little mother stopped him at once; rising quickly with the work in her hand, she said with firmness—

“You were never my friend.”

“Then why didn't you bang the door in my face at the very fust?” he asked quickly.

“Because I feared you. You made my life unendurable at Waybourne; it is still in your power to injure my children if you can no longer injure me. But it shall end now. Here is my daughter: tell her what happened to her father ten years ago. You can do no more: do your worst, and end the pretence of friendship for me, for George, and his children.”

The big cunning man measured the little lady in black, with her white face and dark eyes flashing the dangerous light of desperation, measured her strength with his own, always with that cool business eye to his own advantage, and then he said—

“I ain't going to quarrel: there's nothin' to be got out of it. I never did quarrel with anyone in my life, and I ain't goin' to begin with you.'Tain't wuth my while. I'm off.” He took up his hat, and walked in silence to the door, where he turned to add: “Maybe you'll never see me cross your threshold again; only, lay your life on this: if I do, you won't get rid of me so easy. I ain't got nothin' more to say to you, but you can tell little missy that you and her's the only ones that's ever crossed me in my life, the only ones that ever dared make a fool of me and a mocking-stock; and that if ever I find it wuth my while, I'll make her remember it and repent of it to her dying day.”

Of course we did not deliver that message to Elsie; but the threat left an uncomfortable impression on our minds which lingered after he was gone, and was not wholly to be effaced by removing. I knew that little mother dreaded still more than I his power to harm us.

That fear was in her face as she scanned the crowd upon the platform at King's Crops from the carriage window; it was there again in her anxious eyes as we reached York. Was he there, employing his stealthy cunning to track us down to our new home? I am sure that question was in her mind.

We had to wait some time at York, and we could number all the passengers who got into the train for Farleigh. Assuredly Mr. Redmond was not amongst them, and when I pinched mamma's hand as the train slid out from the station, she returned the pressure with a little smile of recognition and a sigh of relief; for now we felt sure that we were safe.

“I suppose we shall have to stay at an inn, and work hard for some time to get our house finished and fit to put flowers in,” Elsie observed regretfully.

“No, dear; I think we shall find everything ready for us,” said little mother, adding with some hesitation, “Aunt Laura promised that should be arranged.”

Elsie glanced at mother and then at me questioningly and in silence; then she said—

“Aunt Laura has behaved lately in a way that is simply wonderful. The only time we have ever seen her she seemed too confirmed an invalid to think of anything but her tea and her medicine; and it struck me that she was rather more selfish and indifferent to the wants of other people than most invalids. And now she suddenly becomes a benefactress with, a marvellous power of organisation. How has she done all this for us—and why?”

“Aunt Laura may be physically infirm, but”

“Well, anyhow, I think we have treated her very shabbily.”

We reached Great Farleigh just in time to relieve little mother's embarrassment, and all our thoughts were directed to getting our many packages out of the carriage on to the platform.

“However we are to find our way to our unknown home with all these little odds and ends, I don't know,” said Elsie, regarding the effects with which we were surrounded in dismay.

“Be thee Mrs. Heatherly, deäm?” asked an old man with a strong Yorkshire accent, coming up and touching his cap to mother.

Little mother replied “Yes,” without seeming at all astonished.

“John Evans sent me to fetch thee and thy looggage. Ahve got a cart and a Galloway ootside.”

“Who on earth is John Evans?” whispered Elsie.

I shook my head, being scarcely less perplexed than she; and Elsie continued—

“I shouldn't be in the least surprised to find it's Aunt Laura in disguise.”

The town of Great Farleigh stands on a hill, and the road to it from the station is long and circuitous; but every step was full of interest to us. It was a queer old dog-cart, and Elsie and I sitting behind had to hold on tight as we ascended the steep hill; but the movement and the delightful freshness of everything filled one with a happiness that was almost hysterical.

“Farleigh Green,” said our driver as we reached the top of the hill, and the Galloway broke into a shambling trot.

“Where? where?” we cried, Elsie and I turning round in our perilous seats and craning our necks to catch a sight over the driver's burly shoulders.

Suddenly our driver, pulling up short, rose and shouted—

“Well don! Well don, Taylor! Soon roon, maister!”

Some men were playing cricket on the green, and one had made a hit that stirred up ail the fire in the old Yorkshireman. Catching his enthusiasm we stood up also, and saw him who had been told to “roon”—a well-knit athletic man, in a grey flannel shirt and cap, running with giant strides across the road before us. He picked up the ball, hurled it, and sent a wicket thing with three sticks flying in the air.

“Out! out! Well don, mister,” shouted the driver, sitting down; and then, touching the Galloway with his whip, he remarked, “Ah's the best cricketer in th' whole county. Com oop, Peg.”

The best cricketer stood now by the roadside, and as we passed he lifted his cap, looking up at little mother.

“Who—who is that gentleman?” she asked, her very ears reddening as she spoke.

“What! doesn't thee know him, mum? Why, that's John Evans. He ain't a gentleman, though,” he added in a tone of pride; “he's a jiner.”

John Evans had not moved from the side of the road. He was looking towards us now, and we at him, eagerly curious to know who this mysterious John Evans could be.

A straight, well-knit, broad-shouldered man of five-and-forty or thereabouts, with a close-clipped brown beard and moustache, and a strikingly good face—that we both saw. But where had I seen that broad white, forehead—those soft, well-sunk, intelligent eyes? We were leaving him quickly behind, but he was not yet too far away for me to see the smile that broke over his face. And that smile revealed him to me. It was so he had smiled on me that Christmas night, only his face was shaven then, and haggard and grey with fatigue and starvation.

John Evans was my father.