Hill could not believe his ears. Surely such luck had never befallen a miserable man! For here was Louis Roe offering to take Willow Cottage off his hands: to become his, Hill’s, tenant for a short time. The double rent; this, and that for the old house he was returning to; had been weighing upon Hill’s mind as heavily as David weighed upon it. The man had saved plenty of money, but he was of a close nature. Squire Todhetley was a generous man; but Hill felt conscious that he had displeased him too much to expect any favour at present.
“What d’ye want of the cottage?” asked Hill, suppressing all signs of satisfaction. “Be you and Harriet a-coming to live down here?”
“We should like to stay here for a few weeks—say till the dead of winter’s over,” replied Roe. “London is a beastly dull place in bad weather; the fogs don’t agree with Harriet. I had thought of taking two or three rooms at Birmingham: but I don’t know but she’ll like this cottage best—if you will let me have it cheap.”
It would be cheap enough. For Hill named the very moderate rent he had agreed to pay the Squire. Only too glad was he, to get that. Roe promised to pay him monthly.
North Crabb was electrified at the news. Mr. and Mrs. Roe were coming to stay in the cottage where poor David Garth had just died. No time was lost over it, either. On the following day some hired furniture was put into it, and Harriet herself arrived.
She was looking very ill. And I’m sure if she had appeared with a beard as well as her husband, her face could not have seemed more changed. Not her face only, but her manners. Instead of figuring off in silks and ribbons, finer than the stars, laughing with every one she met, and throwing her handsome eyes about, she wore only plain things, and went along noticing no one. Some people called it “pride;” Miss Timmens said it was disappointment. The first time Tod and I met her, she never lifted her eyes at all. Tod would have stayed to speak; but she just said, “Good morning, gentlemen,” and went on.
“I say, Johnny, there’s some change there,” was Tod’s remark, as he turned to look after her.
They had been in the place about a week—and Roe seemed to keep indoors, or else was away, for no one ever saw him—when a strange turn arose, that was destined to set the neighbourhood in an uproar. I was running past the school-house one evening at dusk, and saw Maria Lease sitting with Miss Timmens by fire-light. Liking Maria very much—for I always did like her, and always shall—I went bolt in to them. James Hill’s wife was also there, in her mourning gown with crape on it, sitting right back in the chimney corner. She had gone back to Hill then, but made no scruple of leaving him alone often: and Hill, who had had his lesson, put up with it. And you would never guess; no, not though you had tried from then till Midsummer; what they were whispering about, as though scared out of their seven senses.
David Garth’s ghost was haunting Willow Cottage.
Miss Timmens was telling the story; the others listened with open mouths. She began at the beginning again for my benefit.