Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/95

Rh untimely end. What secrets this dead man had carried with him into the shadow-land, who shall say? There might be one, perhaps, which even Mr. Peters, with his utmost acuteness, could not discover.

the very day on which Mr. Peters treated Kuppins and the "fondling" to tea and watercresses, Dr. Tappenden and Jane his daughter returned to their household gods at Slopperton.

Who shall describe the ceremony and bustle with which that great dignitary, the master of the house, was received? He had announced, his return by the train which reached Slopperton at seven o'clock; so at that hour a well-furnished tea-table was ready laid in the study—that terrible apartment which little boys entered with red eyes and pale cheeks, emerging therefrom in a pleasant glow, engendered by a specific peculiar to schoolmasters whose desire it is not to spoil the child. But no ghosts of bygone canings, no infantine whimpers from shadow-land—(though little Allecompain, dead and gone, had received correction in this very room)—haunted the Doctor's sanctorum—a cheerful apartment, warm in winter, and cool in summer, and handsomely furnished at all times. The silver teapot reflected the evening sunshine; and reflected too Sarah Jane laying the table, none the handsomer for being represented upside down, with a tendency to become collapsed or elongated, as she hovered about the tea-tray. Anchovy-paste, pound-cake, Scotch marmalade and fancy bread, all seemed to cry aloud for the arrival of the doctor and his daughter to demolish them; but for all that there was fear in the hearts of the household as the hour for that arrival drew near. What would he say to the absence of his factotum? Who should tell him? Every one was innocent enough, certainly, but in the first moment of his fury might not the descending avalanche of the Doctor's wrath crush the innocent? Miss Smithers—who, as well as being presiding divinity of the young gentlemen's wardrobes, was keeper of the keys of divers recesses and cupboards, and had sundry awful trusts connected with tea and sugar and butchers' bills—was elected by the whole household, from the cook to the knife-boy, as the proper person to make the awful announcement of the unaccountable disappearance of Mr. Jabez North. So, when the doctor and his daughter had alighted from the fly which brought them and their luggage from the station, Miss Smithers hovered timidly about them, on the watch for a propitious moment.

"How have you enjoyed yourself, miss? Judging by your