“It’s not very grand, I grant you; but any port in a storm.”
Tom arrived, was doubly welcome, and was charmed with Briarwood, chaffed us unmercifully, and derided our fears until he himself had a similar experience, and heard the phantom horse plunging in the verandah, and that wild, unearthly and utterly appalling shriek. No, he could not laugh that away; and seeing that we had now a mortal abhorrence of the place, that the children had to be kept abroad in the damp till long after dark, that Aggie was a mere hollow-eyed spectre, and that we had scarcely a servant left, that—in short, one day, we packed up precipitately and fled in a body to Cooper’s Hotel. But we did not basely endeavour to sub-let, nor advertise Briarwood as “a delightfully situated pucka built house, containing all the requirements of a gentleman’s family.” No, no. Tom bore the loss of the rent, and—a more difficult feat—Aggie bore Mrs. Starkey’s insufferable “I told you so.”
Aggie was at Kantia again last season. She walked out early one morning to see our former abode. The chowkidar and parrot are still in possession, and are likely to remain the sole tenants on the premises. The parrot suns and dusts his ancient feathers in the empty verandah, which re-echoes with his cry of “Lucy, where are you—pretty Lucy?” The chowkidar inhabits a secluded go-down at the back, where he passes most of the day in sleeping, or smoking the soothing “huka.” The place has a forlorn, uncared-for appearance now; the flowers are nearly all gone; the paint has peeled off the doors and windows; the avenue is grass-grown. Briarwood appears to have resigned itself to emptiness, neglect, and decay, although outside the gate there still hangs a battered board, on which, if you look very closely, you can decipher the words “To Let.”
MRS. RAYMOND.
“I am just going to leap into the dark.”—Rabelais.
CHAPTER I.
We had come home from India on three months’ furlough, taking return tickets, and, after the manner of Anglo-Indians, stayed to the very last moment of our leave; in fact, if the cab that conveyed us across Paris, from the Gare-de-l’Ouest to the Gare-de-Lyons, had broken down—a not impossible contingency, for our cocher was drunk—we would have missed not merely our train, but our steamer, and Charles would have had to forfeit I don’t know how much pay, and go to the bottom of his grade.
Charles is in the Civil Service; we are middle-aged people without any family, and are comfortably off, and think very little of running home. We were just in time to get our luggage weighed, swallow some soup, and climb into the carriage ere it started. We rattled through France all night; next afternoon we were at Turin; that same evening, cramped with two days’ sitting in the train, and nearly black with dust, we found ourselves in Genoa. “No time to go to the hotel,” was the unwelcome intelligence; “we must go on board at once.” Our steamer lay off in the harbour, and sailed in two hours.
“Just touch and go,” grumbled Charles; “never saw such a shave. All your fault, Louisa.”
Charles was put out. He wanted to have a tub and his dinner; and, moreover, he hated to be fussed and driven about by porters, being accustomed to the grand leisure of an important Indian official. I never argue with Charles when he is hungry, therefore I scrambled out of the boat in silence, and went to my own cabin—secured months previously. I wondered if any of our friends had turned up? Colonel and Mrs. Hatton were going back in our steamer, Mrs. Clapp, and young Brownlow of the Secretariat, who had come home with us. We would be a nice little party, and all sit at the same table. When I was dressed I went up on deck; it looked crowded, and I was immediately accosted by half a dozen Indian friends, and soon engaged in exchanging items of news. It was a bright starlight night, and Genoa looked lovely, rising from her harbour, but it was unpleasantly chilly. I was afraid of my neuralgia, and presently beat a retreat downstairs, and seated myself at a central table with my gold eye-glasses and blotter, and began to write a letter. As I sat there alone, listening to the tramping overhead—the sailors weighing anchor—I heard a saloon door clap, and some one came over and took a seat directly opposite me, with the evident intention of sharing the saloon inkstand. I am rather near-sighted, and peered across the table over my spectacles, and saw a strikingly handsome man, who was deliberately opening his writing-case. Dark, with regular features, black hair and moustache, and slender hands. He looked at me searchingly. His eyes were the keenest I ever saw; rather narrow, but piercing as cold steel. We both wrote away industriously for some time in dread silence, and then he addressed me with some little civility about the ink. He had a well-bred voice, and a slightly foreign accent. We discussed the dust of the journey, the beauty of the night—for I am not of the usual order of ancient British matrons, and when I am spoken to politely, I reply in kind. This gentleman was more than polite; he was absolutely fascinating. From Genoa we drifted to India, but he and I had never been in the same parts, and, after all, we had not much in common beyond Bombay.