Fated to Be Free: A Novel

by Jean Ingelow

He had done everything he could think of, and knew not how to devise anything further, and yet this secret, if there was one, would not come forward and look him in the face. He had searched the house in the first instance for letters and papers; there were some old letters, and old papers also, but not one that did not seem to be as clear in the innocence of its meaning as possible; there was even one that set at rest doubt and fear which he had hitherto entertained. He had found no closets in the wall, no locked chambers; he had met with no mysterious silences, mysterious looks, mysterious words. Then he had gone to meet the bereaved mother, that if she had anything to say in the way of warning to him, or repentance for herself, he might lay himself out to hear it; but no, he had found her generally not willing to talk, but all she did say showed tender reverence for the dead Melcombes, and passionate grief for her boy who had been taken, as she said, before he was old enough even to estimate at its due value the prosperous and happy career he had before him. He tried Laura. Laura, though sincerely sorry for poor little Peter's death, was very sentimental; told Valentine, to his surprise, that it was mainly on her account they had wintered on the Continent, and with downcast eyes and mysterious confusion that made him tremble, at first utterly declined to tell him the reason.

When he found, therefore, that Mrs. Melcombe did not care at present to return to England, and was far better able than he was to arrange her journey when she did, he might have come home at once, but for this mystery of Laura's. And when, after cultivating his intimacy with her for nearly a month, he at last found out, beyond a doubt, that it related to a love affair which Amelia had not approved of, he felt as if everything he approached, concerning the matter of his father's letter, melted into nothingness at his touch.

He acknowledged to himself that he should have been deeply disappointed if he had discovered anything to justify this letter; and when the full, low sunlight shone upon his large comfortable old house, glorified the blossoming orchard and set off the darkness of the ancient yews, he felt a touch of that sensation, which some people think is not fancy only. Everything about him seemed familiar. The old-fashioned quaintness was a part of himself. "The very first time I saw that clean, empty coach-house," he reflected, "I felt as if I had often played in it. I almost seemed to hear other boys shouting to me. Is it true that I never let off squibs and crackers in that yard?"

He walked nearer. How cheerful it all looked, swept up with extra neatness, and made orderly for the new master's eyes!

"By-the-bye," he thought, catching sight of a heavy old outhouse door, "there is the ghost story. Having examined all realities so far as I can, I will try my hand at things unreal—for even now, though I am very grateful to Providence for such a house and such an inheritance, once show me a good reason, and over it goes, as it should have done at first, if my father could have given me one. That door seems just the sort of thing for a ghost to pass through. I'll look at the book Laura told me of, and see which door it was."

So the house being now open, and Mr. Melcombe observed by his servants (who alone were there to give him welcome), he entered, ordered breakfast, which was spread for him in the "great parlour," and having now got into the habit of making investigations, had no sooner finished his meal than he began to look at the notes he had made from what Mrs. Melcombe had told him of the ghost story.

It was a story that she had not half finished when he recognised it—he had read it with all its particulars in a book, only with the names and localities disguised.

"Oh, yes," she answered, when he said so. "It is very well known; it has always been considered one of the best authenticated stories of its kind on record, though it was not known beyond the family and the village for several years. Augustus Melcombe, you know, was the name of the dear grandmother's only brother, her father's heir; he was her father's only son, two daughters born between died in infancy. That poor young fellow died at sea, and just at the time (as is supposed) that he expired, his wraith appeared to the old woman, Becky Maddison, then a very young girl. I am sorry to say the old woman has made a gain of this story. People often used to come to hear it, and she certainly does not always tell it exactly the same. People's inquiries, I suppose, and suggestions, have induced her to add to it; but the version I am giving you is what she first told."

Mrs. Melcombe mentioned the book in which Valentine would find it, and repeated from memory the impressive conclusion, "And this story of the young man's appearance to her had been repeatedly told by the girl before his family became alarmed at his protracted absence. It was during the long war, and the worst they feared was that he might have been taken prisoner; but more than three years after a member of the family met by accident, when some hundreds of miles away from home, a naval officer who had sailed in the ship to which this young lieutenant belonged, and heard from him, not without deep emotion, that at that very time and at that very hour the youth had died at sea."

"There is only one mistake in that version," continued Mrs. Melcombe, "and that is, that we do not know the exact time when the young man died. Cuthbert Melcombe was not told the month even, only the year."