Story 2—Chapter 2.
Truslow Manor.
Truslow Manor, where the curate and his wife lived, and Biddy had come to take care of the baby, had belonged in days gone by to the ancient family of Truslow.
There were no Truslows in Wavebury now, but traces of them were still left there, for in the church there was not only an antiquely carved pew called the “Truslow Pew,” but also a tablet in the chancel bearing the date 1593, which set forth the virtues of a certain John Truslow in the following terms:—
“The body of John Truslow here doth rest,
Who, dying, did his soule to Heaven bequest.
The race he lived here on earth was threescore years and seven,
Deceased in Aprill, ’93, and then was prest to Heaven.
His faith in Christ most steadfastly was set,
In ’sured Hope to satisfy His debt.
A lively Theme to take example by,
Condemning Deth in Hope a Saint to dye.”
Notwithstanding this the people of Wavebury did not hold the memory of the Truslows in much veneration; they had been “a bad lot,” it was rumoured, and the old manor-house, which still bore their name, was looked on with suspicion as a place which had possibly witnessed many a deed of darkness. But the days both of its wickedness and grandeur were now over, and it stood in the fields with a forlorn and deserted air, although its mullioned windows and panelled rooms and tall chimneys gave it a look of decayed dignity. One wing of it, however, had completely disappeared; at the back, which was near the road, it was hemmed in by mean sheds and outbuildings, and the front was approached, not by a stately avenue, but by a little wicket gate leading through a field without a footpath. Small and needy farmers had been its only tenants for years, but when Mr and Mrs Roy came to Wavebury they took a fancy to the old house, and arranged to hire five rooms in it. Terms being satisfactorily settled with Mr Shivers, their landlord, who with his wife continued to occupy the other part of the house, they took up their abode with much comfort and contentment, and, when Biddy arrived, had been living there for nearly two years. They were fond of Truslow Manor, and found only one little drawback to it, which, they were accustomed to say to each other, was hardly worth mentioning; for the present, therefore, we will not mention it either.
Biddy looked out of her window with some curiosity the morning after her arrival; she wondered what she should see by daylight. Not much, but everything was in startling contrast to Buzley’s Court. A field, a row of tall elms growing at the end of it, which cut off any further view; a flock of geese, a flock of turkeys, a little black donkey, a foal, and a rough pony—that was all. She afterwards discovered that there was a gate at the end of the field, and that a little sluggish river, called the Kennet, flowed along under the row of elms; a narrow footway crossed this, and led directly through the churchyard into the village, or if you liked to turn to the left, it brought you at last into the high-road at the back of Truslow Manor. In dark evenings this way into the village was not without its perils, for an unwary traveller might easily step over the edge of the path as he crossed the river and find himself in its muddy bed.
Biddy soon knew this way to church very well; and amongst the many strange customs at Wavebury, she thought it curious that there should be two services every day, though the congregation was seldom more than two or three in number.
“Whenever you like to go to church, Biddy,” said her mistress, “I will always take the baby.”
So Biddy went sometimes, though she never ceased to wonder why the prayers should be read when there was scarcely anyone to listen to them. Once, indeed, there were only herself and Mr Roy in the church, and as they walked home together after the service she felt obliged to apologise.
“Please, sir,” she said, hurriedly drooping one knee as she walked, “I’m sorry you had to read all them long prayers jest for me.”
Whereupon Mr Roy tried to make her understand why he should still have read them, whether she had been there or not. Biddy did not feel very clear about it at the end of the explanation, though she was conscious that he “talked very kind,” and she fell back on the thought that after all it was the country, and quite different from London.
But this difference was “borne in upon her” most strongly of all when she went for the first time to the downs which closely surrounded Wavebury. Passing up the long straggling village with its thatched cottages, she came suddenly on them stretching away in the distance, pathless, and, as far as she could see, endless. Then she stood bewildered. Such lots of space everywhere; so much sky over her head; such a great green carpet under her feet, spread over the gentle rising and falling of the hills. All green, except for the scattered flocks of sheep, and the cairns of grey stones, and the groups of stunted thorn trees, bent and twisted and worried by the wind into a thousand odd shapes.
Looking back towards the village, where part of the land had been cultivated, she could see the oxen ploughing, their horned heads clearly outlined against the sky, and—stranger sight still—long rows of women in flapping sun-bonnets bending patiently to their labour in the fields. Beyond these, a little collection of thatched roofs, and grey church, and yellow stacks, made up the village of Wavebury; after that, downs again as far as the eye could reach.
It was, indeed, a “lonesome” place, and there was something “terr’ble” in its solitude compared to the comfortable closeness and crowding chimneys of Buzley’s Court; but, fortunately for Biddy, her busy life at Truslow Manor did not leave much leisure for dwelling upon this. As time went on she and her mistress, drawn together by one common interest, became really attached to each other; the baby’s crumpled red hand, which could just hold one of Biddy’s fingers, kept her a willing prisoner in its feeble yet mighty grasp, and all went on well. For Mrs Roy was not disappointed in her hope of finding her little nurse a support and comfort, and valued her opinion highly with regard to the baby’s ailments; true, it was sometimes rather irksome and annoying to hear so often that “our” Johnnie, or “Julia,” or “Stevie” had cut their teeth and felt their legs exactly in the same way as dear little Dulcie. Mrs Roy naturally felt it impossible that there should be another baby the least like Dulcie; but she was wise enough to conceal this, and to allow Biddy’s confidences about Buzley’s Court and the Lane family to flow on unchecked.
So, despite the strangeness of many things in Wavebury, and their contrast to all she had been used to, Biddy was happy, and soon began to feel at home there; but she did not cease to wonder at some country customs, and amongst them the fact which specially struck her, that nearly all the women worked in the fields as well as the men. When in her errands to and from the village she passed these tramping along the roads, she stared at them with astonishment that did not lessen with time. Everything about them was so curious. Their deeply lined faces were red with wind and weather and old before their time—made harsher, too, than nature intended, because all the hair was tucked away under the cotton sun-bonnet, which were the most feminine-looking of their garments, the rest of which gave a general effect of coarse sacking ending in heavy boots.
Biddy singled out one of these women as an object of almost fearful interest, and got into a way of watching for her as she passed Truslow Manor every morning to her work. She was tall and very powerfully built, her features were coarse and swollen, and there was something repelling and yet fascinating to Biddy in her cunning, shifty glance. The way in which she strode along the road, too, swinging a rake, or hoe, or pitchfork in her hand, gave an impression of reckless strength which made the little nurse-girl shudder, and yet she felt unable to remove her gaze as long as the woman was in sight.
One day as Biddy was hastening home from an errand in the village she saw this well-known figure coming towards her with its usual rolling movement, and to her surprise it came to a stand in front of her, and, leaning on the handle of its pitchfork, surveyed her with a sort of leer. Biddy stopped too, and they looked at each for a minute in silence. Then the woman spoke:
“You be the new gal yonder?” she said with a jerk of her head.
“I’m Mrs Roy’s nurse,” replied Biddy, trembling a little, yet with some dignity.
The woman chuckled hoarsely.
“You don’t sleep much at nights, I reckon?” she continued.
“Yes, thank you,” said Biddy, who had been taught to be always polite; “the baby doesn’t cry scarcely any.”
For all answer the woman gave a loud stupid laugh and strode away, leaving Biddy standing in the road much discomfited. She stared after her for a moment and then hurried back to Truslow Manor, and told her mistress of the meeting.
“Oh!” said Mrs Roy quickly, “that was only poor Crazy Sall. She’s half silly, and she has dreadful fits of drinking, besides. You mustn’t mind anything she said to you, and you must promise never to speak to her again, or take any notice of her at all.”
“I won’t, mum,” said Biddy; and indeed she did not feel anxious for Crazy Sall’s further acquaintance, though the failing mentioned by her mistress did not surprise or shock her, she knew too many people in the neighbourhood of Buzley’s Court who were troubled in the same way.
“And,” continued Mrs Roy, looking earnestly at Biddy, “I want you to promise me another thing, and that is, never to stop and listen to any gossip when I send you into the village.”
Biddy promised that too; but it was not quite so easy to keep this promise as the first, for she was a sociable character, and in London had become quite used to enjoying fragments of chat on door-steps and elsewhere. When, therefore, in the baker’s shop at Wavebury, which was also the post-office, she sometimes found a busy knot of talkers, it was natural to her to stand open-mouthed and drink in the conversation. Really anxious to obey her mistress, she struggled hard with this bad habit, but it was so strong within her that she was not always successful, and lately she had caught a chance word now and then which was at once dreadful and attractive—the word “ghost.” Not only several times at the post-office, where the speakers had nudged each other and become suddenly silent when she appeared, but once she was certain she had heard Mrs Shivers say it to Mrs Roy. They were talking earnestly together, and when Biddy threw open the door and bore in a trayful of clattering cups and saucers they stopped, but not before she had plainly caught that one terrible word. Her curiosity now reached an almost unbearable pitch, but it was soon to be further enlightened.
One bright morning, when she had been at Wavebury for nearly two months, she was walking up and down near the house with the baby in her arms, waiting for Mrs Roy, who had carefully warned her meanwhile not to go out of the sunshine or to stand still, and to keep within sight of the windows. Her walk, therefore, was rather a limited one; it lay backwards and forwards between the farmyard gate and the kitchen door.
On her way she passed and repassed an open cart-shed where Mr Roy, whistling cheerily, was engaged in his favourite pursuit of carpentering. He had cast aside his black coat, and for his better convenience wore a short blue-flannel boating-jacket; about his feet the yellow-white shavings curled in larger and larger heaps every minute, as he bent over his carpenter’s bench in the all-absorbing enjoyment of measuring, smoothing, and planing. The shed was also occupied by two goats and a family of cocks and hens, some turkeys were perched on the empty wagon at the farther end, and an inquisitive pig looked in now and then in a friendly manner. These all eyed their human companion thoughtfully from time to
time, but without any alarm, for they had now discovered that both he and his various edged tools were perfectly harmless.
Up and down went Biddy in the sunshine, keeping up a low murmur of conversation with the baby, casting a glance at her busy master, and catching a scrap now and then of a gossip going on at the kitchen door between Mrs Shivers and Mr Peter Sweet, landlord of the village inn.
She did not take much heed of this until suddenly this sentence, uttered in the loud tones of Mr Sweet, sounded clearly in her ear: “And so the Truslow ghost’s been, seen again!” Biddy started; she could not help quickening her steps, so that she soon got back again to the kitchen door, where Mr Sweet’s broad back was turned towards her. She could not see Mrs Shivers, but she knew it was her voice that said:
“Jest as the clock strikes ten—crosses the Kennet at the end of the field.”
Biddy felt rooted to the spot. She must hear more about it, and she glanced round to see if Mr Roy noticed where she was standing. No. His earnest face and pursed-up mouth looked more engrossed than ever. Neither of the speakers could see her, for between her and them there was a small piece of thick yew hedge. So, secure in her wrong-doing, Biddy lent an attentive ear and forgot her duty, the baby, and everything else. She could hear every word.
“It’s my belief,” said Mrs Shivers, “and it’s what I’ve always held to, that it’s one of them old Truslows, as was a wicked lot, come out of his grave to see the place where he committed a crime. It’s likely he murdered some one in this very house, and that makes him oneasy. Some gambling quarrel, I make no doubt it was, for they say you may see a party of men playing cards in the drawing-room here any night after twelve. It’s only naturable to think it.”
“Well,” said Mr Peter Sweet reflectively, “I don’t say as you mayn’t be right, for it do seem to come straight out of the churchyard as it were. But what bothers me is, why it should go on all-fours. I don’t suppose them old Truslows were in the ’abit of doing that in their lifetime. And then there’s summat white on its head that flaps like a couple o’ large ears. What would that be?”
“That’s hid from us,” answered Mrs Shivers solemnly, “by the merciful workings of Providence.”
“It’s never seen after it crosses the Kennet?” resumed Mr Sweet.
“No one ever stops to see it,” replied Mrs Shivers; “everyone’s too scared. Why,” (in a lowered voice), “the last gal as was here she met it as she was going with a message to the rectory. She jest turned and rushed back to the house, and come into the kitchen in vi’lent ’isterricks.”
“Very natural,” said Mr Sweet approvingly. “Now, what does the curate think on it?”
“Oh, he jest laughs,” said Mrs Shivers rather contemptuously. “You know his way. But Mrs Roy, I can see she’s timid about it, though she won’t hear it talked on. She’s afraid this new gal will get frightened away like the other.”
At this moment, when Biddy’s ears were strained to the utmost, and her eyes had grown large and round with horror, her mistress’s voice calling her from the other side of the house roused her with a guilty shock. She recovered herself as well as she could and went hurriedly away, but the knowledge which she took with her destroyed her peace of mind for many a day. Things hitherto familiar and friendly now became full of terror, and the comfort of her life was gone. Even her own shadow, cast by the flickering fire and dancing in grotesque shape on the ceiling, made her shudder; and when at night she peered timidly out of her lattice, and saw the row of elms standing dark against the sky at the end of the field, she shook with fear. Turning hastily from this to the shelter of the bed-clothes she would find no refuge, but a place full of restless fancies; for now, instead of dropping at once into a dreamless slumber, she remained broad awake and seemed to hear fragments of the ghost story over and over again. The “old Truslow,” the flapping ears, the terrible adventure of the last nurse-girl chased each other through her poor little worried mind and would not be forgotten. Crazy Sall’s words came back to her, and she heard her repeat mockingly: “You don’t sleep much at nights, I reckon?”
Biddy became very miserable, for even sunshine and the baby in her arms were powerless to drive away those dark fancies entirely, though they then became easier to bear. It was not only the consciousness of knowing about the ghost, but to know it alone and not to talk of it to anyone! That was doubly dreadful. Sometimes she thought she must tell her mistress or Mrs Shivers, but then she remembered she would also have to confess her disobedience. She could not do that, for Mrs Roy would never trust her again, and perhaps send her away. What would mother say then? A good place and seven pounds a year lost! It was impossible to risk it.
So she kept silence, but it was a heavy burden to bear, and under its weight she became downcast and gloomy, a different Biddy from the briskly alert one of two months ago. The baby was the first to notice this. She missed her nurse’s cheerful voice, and looking up in her face found there a settled sadness instead of the usual ready smile. This she resented in her own fashion, and cried dismally, wrinkling up her tiny features in disgust, and when this had happened once or twice Mrs Roy’s attention was also drawn to the change.
“Are you quite well and happy, Biddy?” she asked. “You don’t look so bright as you used to.”
Biddy twisted up the corners of her apron and hung her head on one side, but made no answer.
“Are you quite happy, Biddy?” persisted her mistress.
Biddy would have given worlds to say, “I’m terr’ble afraid of the ghost,” but her tongue refused to utter the words, and after waiting a moment Mrs Roy turned away. But that night she said to her husband in mournful emphatic tones:
“Richard, I hope it’s only my nervousness, but I do believe that somehow or other Biddy has heard something about that.”
No one was quite happy and comfortable at Truslow Manor just now, for latterly the baby had been ailing; she had evidently caught a chill and was feverish and fretful. “How could Dulcie have taken cold?” Mrs Roy wondered many times in the day, while the conscience-stricken Biddy stood speechless, and thought of that conversation at the kitchen door. Mr Roy was made uneasy too by his wife’s anxiety, and also felt deeply incapable of making any suggestion about the origin or treatment of Dulcie’s illness; everything seemed a little ruffled and disturbed in its usual even flow.
“You know I have to take the service over at Cherril to-night,” said Mr Roy to his wife one morning. “They’ve asked me to dine there afterwards. You won’t mind my leaving you? I shall get back by ten.”
“Oh, no!” replied Mrs Roy readily, though in truth she was not fond of spending the evening at Truslow Manor alone. “I shall have Biddy down to sit with me; and I do think baby seems better to-day. It’s a long walk for you, though, Richard, and there’s no moon.”
“Oh, I’ll take a lantern!” said the curate, and accordingly he started off that afternoon on his six-miles walk thus provided.
Biddy and her mistress spent the evening together, talking softly over their needlework, so as not to disturb Dulcie’s sleep in the cradle near. The glowing fire, the cheerful room, and Mrs Roy’s kind chat were almost sufficient to drive away Biddy’s usual terrors; at any rate she forgot them for a time, and was peacefully happy. But this did not last long. Suddenly the baby’s breathing became hoarse and difficult, and Mrs Roy, kneeling at the side of the cradle, looked up in alarm at her nurse.
“Oh, Biddy,” she cried, “what is the matter with her? See how she struggles for breath!”
“Lift her up, mum,” suggested Biddy, “perhaps she’ll be more easy-like.”
But Dulcie was not easy-like. On the contrary, her tiny face grew almost purple, she gasped, clenched her fists, and seemed on the point of choking.
“Biddy,” said Mrs Roy calmly, but with despair written on every feature, “I believe it’s croup!”
Biddy stood speechless. Here was a case outside her experience; she could offer no suggestion—not one of the Lane babies had ever had croup.
“Get hot water,” said Mrs Roy, “and then run as fast as you can for the doctor. Take a lantern. Run, Biddy, run—” for the girl stood motionless—“every minute is of consequence.”
But Biddy did not stir; she only gave one miserable despairing glance at the clock. Three minutes to ten! It would be crossing the Kennet just as she got there.
“Biddy, Biddy,” cried her mistress, “why don’t you go?”
Poor Biddy! She looked at Dulcie struggling for breath in her mother’s arms, and fighting the air with her helpless little hands. It was pitiful, but she could not move; she only gazed horror-stricken, and as if turned into stone.
“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs Roy in tones of anguish, “why doesn’t Richard come home? What shall I do?”
Biddy’s heart was touched; she clasped her hands and exclaimed, almost unconsciously:
“Oh, mum, it’s the ghost! I’m dreadful feared of meeting it!”
The secret was out now, but Mrs Roy scarcely noticed it at all. If the room had been thronged with ghosts she would not have minded them just then—her whole heart was full of Dulcie.
“Send Mrs Shivers then,” she said, “and bring the hot water at once.”
Recovering the use of her limbs Biddy quickly had a hot bath ready; but, alas! She came back from the kitchen with the news that Mr and Mrs Shivers were both out, and had taken the lantern.
“Then, Biddy,” said her mistress looking up as she knelt by the bath, where the baby was now breathing more quietly, “there is only you. I can’t leave her, and if this attack comes on again I don’t know what to do. Most likely you’ll meet Mr Roy long before you get to the village. Send him on if you do, and come back yourself. Only go, for my sake!”
Her beseeching eyes were full of eloquence, but still Biddy hesitated.
“Nothing can hurt you,” continued Mrs Roy in a pleading voice; “and I shall bless you all my life long. Oh, Biddy, you wouldn’t let Dulcie die!”
To go and meet the ghost, or to let Dulcie die—they were equally dreadful to Biddy. As she thought of the first, icy-cold water seemed to be trickling slowly down her back; and as she thought of the second, a great aching ball came into her throat and her eyes filled with tears.
“I’ll go, mum,” she gasped out. “Don’t you lose heart.”
Mrs Roy gave a trembling sigh of relief as Biddy’s sturdy form moved towards the door.
“Put on my thick grey shawl hanging in the passage,” she said; “and oh, Biddy, make him understand that he must come as quickly as ever he can.”
Biddy threw the heavy shawl over her head and shoulders, and stepped out through the dark porch into the darker field. Mrs Roy had said there was no moon that night, but there was—a small pale one, just enough to make everything look dimly awful. The wind was high, rattling the bare branches of the trees, and chasing the clouds hurriedly along; it blew coldly in Biddy’s face as she left the warm shelter of the house. She could see the track across the field and the white gate at the end of it, and the row of dark elms tossing their arms wildly. Towards these she set her face, and, bending down her head, ran steadily on. “Go back, go back!” the wind seemed to shout as it pressed against her with its strong outspread hands; “Go on, Biddy, for my sake!” whispered Mrs Roy’s pleading voice behind her. And these two sounds were so distinct that in the middle of the field she stopped uncertainly. But the little voice from Truslow Manor and the thought of Dulcie’s danger were stronger than the wind, and drove her on again till she stood with trembling knees close to the river, her hand touching the latch of the gate. What, oh! What was that, looming towards her, shapeless and awful, across the bridge! A cow, perhaps?—it was too low; a dog?—it was too large. On it came, slowly, nearer and nearer, and Biddy could see that where its head should have been there was something that napped about loosely; the rest of it was a formless, moving piece of darkness. Biddy could not stir—she clung in an agony to the gate-post and stared without making a sound. To run away would be impossible, even if her limbs had not been useless from terror: it would be far worse to feel this creature at her back than to face it. So she stood for a minute, which seemed a lifetime, and then, recovering her voice, uttered a shrill, despairing scream. At the sound the thing stopped, reared itself, as it were, on its hind-legs, and swayed about uncertainly in front of her. Still clinging to the gate, Biddy thought of her mother and began to say her evening prayers; her knees were giving way, and she felt she must soon sink upon the ground.
Then—oh, blessed moment!—there suddenly sounded out of the darkness, at the back of the awful figure, a cheerful human voice and a firm human footstep. Mr Roy’s lantern flashed in the surrounding gloom.
“What’s the matter? Who’s this?” he said in comfortable human accents, and held the light full in the ghost’s face. What did Biddy see? Not the spectral features of any strange old Truslow, but the earthly and familiar ones of—poor Crazy Sall!
Dulcie did not die. When, a little later, the curate came hastening back with the doctor, she was quite well and sleeping calmly in her cradle. It had not been croup, the doctor said, and Mrs Roy had alarmed herself without cause. Nevertheless Biddy had earned her mistress’s undying gratitude by her conduct that evening, and she was quite as much praised and thanked as if she really had saved the baby’s life.
“For it was so brave of her, you know, Richard, because she could not tell then that it was only poor Crazy Sall.”
Only poor Crazy Sall, returning half-tipsy from the public-house!
Cunning enough to know that in this condition she could not safely trust her unsteady, reeling steps over the narrow bridge, it had occurred to her on one occasion to crawl on her hands and knees. This once done, it was often repeated, and, as surely as the night was dark and she had freely indulged at the village inn, the Truslow ghost might be seen crossing the Kennet at ten o’clock. Each fresh beholder adding some gruesome detail to the dimly-seen form in its flapping sun-bonnet, the ghost bit by bit took shape, and at last was fully created. Who can tell how many years longer it might have lived but for Biddy’s scream and her master’s flashing lantern?
The whole village felt the discovery to be mortifying; and after everyone had said that he, for one, had never given credit to the ghost, the subject was discreetly dropped. There was silence even at the inn, where for years it had been a fruitful source of much conversation and many solemn opinions.
Mr Sweet did indeed refer to it once, for meeting Mrs Shivers he ventured to say derisively: “You and yer old Truslows, indeed!” But she was immediately ready with such a pointed and personal reply about “a couple of long ears” that he retreated hastily and felt himself to be worsted.
So the Truslow ghost vanished from Wavebury, and very soon from most people’s memories also, but Biddy had not forgotten it when she was quite an old woman.