Bred in the Bone; Or, Like Father, Like Son: A Novel

by James Payn

CHAPTER XXXVII.

WITCHERY.

Carew of Crompton was really dead, as men said, "at last," not that he had been long dying, or was an old man, but that he had eventually succumbed to one of those deadly risks to which he had so often voluntarily exposed himself. On the occasion which had been fatal to him he had started from home one frosty morning at the gallop, with a cigar in his mouth, the reins on his horse's neck, and both his hands in his pockets, and had been pitched off and broken his neck within half a mile of his own door. His chaplain, who had dispatched the news to Mrs. Basil, had been riding by his side at the very moment. "He was a good friend to me," was the laconic remark that poor Parson Whymper had added to the bare intelligence.

To judge by the regretful excitement in the Midlands, Carew might have been a good friend to every body. The news was at once telegraphed to town, and appeared in the evening papers. The public interest in his mad freaks had of late years grown somewhat faint—his extravagances were, perforce, on a less splendid scale—but his death revived it. "So that mad Carew has killed himself, after all," was the observation frequently overheard that evening, as acquaintance met acquaintance on their homeward way from business. "Well, he's had his whack of most things," was the reply of the philosophers; "He has not left much to tempt his heirs to be extravagant, I reckon," of the cynics; "He was a deuced good fellow at bottom, I believe," remarked those who were secretly desirous of earning the same eulogium for themselves; "He was altogether wrong at top," answered the charitable.

Solomon Coe came home to his new abode in such a state of elation that it even made him communicative to his wife. Mrs. Basil happened to be with her in the drawing-room, but he only acknowledged her presence by a hasty nod. "Well, what d'ye think, Carew of Crompton, that was your father's landlord and mine"—Solomon never said "ours" with reference to property—"has broken his neck at last!"

Of course the very name of Carew was a sore subject between man and wife, on account of Richard Yorke's connection with him; but it suited Solomon's purpose on this occasion to ignore that circumstance. It would be necessary for some time to come to allude to the Crompton property more or less, and it was just as well to begin at once; it was also less embarrassing to do so in the presence of a third person.

"Yes, Solomon, I knew Mr. Carew was dead," said Harry, gravely. The next instant she turned scarlet with the consciousness of her thoughtless indiscretion.

"Oh," grunted her husband, annoyed at what he deemed her sulky manner, when he himself was so graciously inclined to be conciliatory, and also displeased to find his news anticipated, "you've been buying an evening paper, have you? You must have more money than you know what to do with, it seems to me."

Harry was thankfully accepting this imputation in silence, when Mrs. Basil's soft voice was heard. "No, Sir; it was I who told your good lady. I had a letter from Crompton by the afternoon's post."

"The devil you did!" cried Solomon, turning sharply upon her. "How came that about?"

"I was housekeeper at Crompton, Sir, in old Mrs. Carew's time, for some years, and one of the servants wrote to let me know of the accident."

"Housekeeper, were you?" said Solomon, with interest. "That must have been a good place, with deuced good pickings, eh?"

"Solomon, Solomon," remonstrated his wife, in a low voice, "Mrs. Basil is quite a lady. Don't you see that you offend her?"

It is more than probable that, under ordinary circumstances, Mr. Coe would have resented this rebuke with choleric vehemence; but he had his reasons for being good-humored in the present instance. "You must excuse my country manners, Mrs. Basil," said he. "As my wife will tell you, I must always have my joke; but I mean no offense. So you were housekeeper at Crompton, were you? Well, now, that's curious, for Mrs. Coe's father and I myself, as you heard me saying, have had a great deal to do with Carew. You knew him well, of course?"

"Yes, Sir; I did."

"And the place too, of course. It was a very fine one, was it not?
Plenty of pictures, and looking-glasses, and things?"

"It was very richly furnished."

It was curious to mark the difference of manner between questioner and respondent. Solomon, usually so reticent and reserved, was grown quite voluble. Mrs. Basil, on the other hand, naturally so apt in speech, seemed to reply with difficulty. She was weighing every word.

"The estate, I suppose, was out of your beat; you did not have much to do with that?"

"I used to walk in the park, Sir, most days."

"Ay; but the property generally? The friend who writes you to-day don't say any thing about that, I suppose—whether any of it is to be sold or not, for instance?"

"The report—of course, being a servant, she can only speak from report—is that Mr. Carew's affairs are in a sad state. Every thing, I believe, is to be sold at once. The whole estate is said to be—I don't know if I use the right term—mortgaged."

"Just so," replied Solomon; "yes, yes. That is so, no doubt." There was a slight pause; Mrs. Basil courtesied, and was about to leave the room. "Stop a bit, ma'am," said Solomon. "My wife tells me that you are a lone woman—a widow. Perhaps you'd like to take a bit of dinner with us to-day?"

Harry began to think her husband was intoxicated. He did get occasionally so when any particularly good stroke of business was in course of progress, and on such occasions his manner was unusually affable; but she had never seen him half so gracious as at present. Hospitality, though he did sometimes bring a mining agent or a broker home to dinner, was by no means his strong point. Mrs. Basil looked doubtfully at her dress, which, though homely, was perfectly well-made and lady-like, and murmured something about its being almost the dinner-hour, and there being "no time."

"Oh, never mind your gown" (which, by-the-by, Solomon pronounced "gownd"); "we're quite plain people ourselves, as my wife will tell you. You shall take pot-luck with us. Where's Charley? That boy's always late."

But at that very moment the young gentleman in question entered the room, at the same time as did the servant with the announcement that dinner was on the table.

The astonishment of the domestic at seeing her mistress taken down to the dining-room by the new lodger was only exceeded by that of Charley, as, with his mother on his arm, he followed the strangely assorted pair. "I knew she was a witch," he murmured, "with her human skull and her Joanna Southcott; but this beats old Margery's doings at Gethin."

"Hush, hush!" whispered his mother, for Charley's high spirits and audacity always terrified her when exhibited in his father's presence: "they have found they have a common acquaintance, and so made friends."

"Father didn't know Swedenborg, did he?" answered the young man, slyly. "My belief is, he has fallen in love with her. I saw a black cat on the stairs. She can make any body do it, as I was telling Aggey" (the young rogue had been to Soho since the morning); "I shall be the next victim, no doubt. It's no use saying to myself, 'Thou shalt not marry thy grandmother.' Her charms are too powerful for the rubric. You'll see she'll not say grace."

Mr. Charles was right in that particular of his diagnosis of their new guest. Mrs. Basil did treat that devotional formula, which Mrs. Coe never omitted to pronounce, in spite of her husband's contemptuous shrugs, with considerable indifference. She sat opposite to Charley, and more than once, when he looked up suddenly, he caught her gaze fixed earnestly upon him. Those wondrous eyes of hers yet shone forth bright and clear; her cheeks were still smooth; and, though her brow had many a wrinkle, they were the footprints of thought and care, rather than of years.

The conversation, as was natural where the company and the guest were strangers to each other, turned upon the topics of the day, and the objects in the room, some of which, as we know, were sufficiently remarkable. At Charley's request Mrs. Basil once more narrated the story of the skull; and then epitomized, with caustic tongue, the biography of poor Joanna. Up stairs, she said, she had one of that lady's "seals"—a passport to eternal bliss—which she would bestow as a present upon the young gentleman opposite. Her cynical humor delighted Charley, and won the approbation of his father—not the less so, perhaps, since he saw it annoyed his wife.

Poor Harry was a simple well-meaning woman in her way, and, had the circumstances of her life been less exceptional, would have earned the reputation of a good creature and steadfast chapel-goer. But our lives do not always fall in the places most suitable to our dispositions; the restive are often compelled to run in harness; and the quiet low-action goers, who would welcome restraint, are left without guide, and with no course marked out for them. Thus it was with Mrs. Coe. The situation in which Fate had placed her it was altogether beyond her powers to fill. She knew that Mrs. Basil was rapidly ingratiating herself with her husband, and so far was furthering their common plan; but, notwithstanding its supreme importance, she shrank from the means that were bidding fair to accomplish her own end. She shuddered at her husband's vulgar ejaculations of assent and approval; at her son's thoughtless laughter; at this woman's sparkling and audacious talk, which seemed so purposeless, and yet was so full of design and craft. She had feared her and shrank from her at Gethin, and she feared her now. And yet how necessary was her assistance! Of her own self she was well aware that she could do nothing to avert that coming peril from her husband and her son, the shadow of which had darkened all her married life, and was now deepening into blackest doom. It was absolutely necessary that Mrs. Basil should obtain the confidence of Solomon, and perhaps of Charley also, and yet this unlooked-for and swift success of hers was far from welcome to poor Harry. It really almost seemed that there was truth in what her son had spoken in jest—that there was witchcraft in it.

Solomon was now talking earnestly to Mrs. Basil in low tones, while Charley looked toward his mother with raised eyebrows, and a comic expression, which seemed to say, "She's got him, you see; I did see a black cat on the stairs."

If she could have overheard her husband's talk, it would still have been inexplicable to her.

"Then you think this sale at Crompton will take place directly after the funeral?"

"I should certainly imagine so—yes."

"There is something—you needn't tell my wife, because I wish it to be a surprise for her—that I should like to buy at it; something I have long had my eye on."

"Some piece of furniture, I suppose. Well, you must be prepared to give a good sum, I fear. From the curiosity of the thing—the reputation, I mean, of poor Mr. Carew—it is likely things will fetch more than their price."

"Perhaps so. But I should like to know, as soon as possible, when the sale comes off. From your connection with the place, you will be able to get news of this before the general public—I mean the exact date."

"No doubt. I will write to-morrow, and beg that the information may be sent me."

"I should feel much obliged if you would, Mrs. Basil."

"I'll write this very night. You wish to know the day on which the sale of the furniture may be fixed?"

"Yes; and of all the other things: of the estates as well, for instance; there may be some land that may prove a good investment. Don't make a fuss about it, but say you have a friend who is interested. The catalogue of effects, with the dates appointed for the sale of each, will, of course, be settled down there. I want to have an early copy."

"That is very simple," said Mrs. Basil, making a memorandum in her pocket-book: "you shall be among the very first to get one, Mr. Coe—you may rely on that."