[CHAPTER IV.]
MR. CHARLES PLACKETT IS PUZZLED
"Mind, Ella, you have promised to come to me in London during the autumn, and to stay for a fortnight at least," had been Mrs. Carlyon's last words to her niece when she was leaving Heron Dyke: and, in making the promise, Ella Winter had fully intended to fulfil it. But the autumn was drawing to a close, Christmas would be here before long, and the visit had not been paid. Circumstances had prevented it.
But in those circumstances there seemed to be a lull now; and Mrs. Carlyon took advantage of it. She wrote a pressing letter to Ella. The cold weather was setting in, she said, her cough was becoming troublesome, and she had nearly made up her mind to go to Hyères; but nothing would induce her to go anywhere, until she had seen her niece again.
By return of post Mrs. Carlyon received an answer. Ella would pay the visit at once. On the following day she and Maria Kettle, whom she begged leave to bring with her, would quit the Hall for Bayswater.
Change, as Miss Winter knew, would be good for Maria. It might not be amiss for herself. Truth to tell, Miss Winter had been more disturbed by her friend's positive assertion of having seen Katherine Keen, than she cared to acknowledge even to her own mind. Maria Kettle had a fund of practical good sense, she was not at all romantically inclined; and Ella could not pooh-pooh her account, strange though it might be, as she probably would have done that of an uneducated or superstitious person.
Maria's account did not stand alone: it was impossible for Miss Winter not to recall how strongly it was corroborated. She herself had never forgotten her visit to Katherine's room, when she found the face of the looking-glass so mysteriously covered up. There had followed the positive assertions of the two maids, Ann and Martha, that they had seen Katherine--and both of them had known her well--looking down at them over the balusters of the gallery. After that came Mrs. Carlyon's fright; although in her case no face had been seen, but only the presence of a mysterious something which had brushed past her in the dusk and vanished. Neither could Betsy Tucker's revelation, that she had heard footsteps in the corridor outside her bedroom on the night of the storm, and had seen the handle of her door turned, and the fright to the girl in consequence, be entirely ignored: for after it came to Miss Winter's ears, she had made inquiries of her servants, and could not learn that any one of them had been in the corridor that night. They had all been too much terrified by the storm, they declared, to quit their beds. Ella did not, would not, think much of this incident. The old house was full of strange noises, especially in stormy weather, and she herself, by giving way to her fancies, could readily have got into the way of believing that she heard footfalls and whispers and rustlings, for which she could not account, almost every night of her life.
But the strange assertion made by Maria Kettle was a very different matter; Ella could not help attaching more weight to it than to all that had gone before: and the extraordinary belief of poor Susan Keen, that her sister was alive and in the house, occurred unpleasantly to her mind. Could it be? Could it by any possibility be true that Katherine Keen was still alive, that she was hiding somewhere in the old Hall, and came out into the dark corridors on occasion to frighten people? Was it in very truth she herself, and not her spirit, that had been seen at different times? Ella's heart ached as it had never ached before. No, not even when the girl disappeared and could nowhere be found; though from that day life had never been quite the same to her. The dreadful uncertainty as to what had become of Katherine had added tenfold to the pain of losing her, and now, after the lapse of so long a time, it seemed as if the uncertainty would never be cleared up. But what if she had been alive all this time; alive, and close by? What if she had never quitted the roof of the Hall? Ella Winter's good sense urged her to reject such a theory as utterly untenable, certain difficulties presenting themselves palpably before her; but it urged her equally to reject that other theory of supernatural visitations. Between the two she knew not what to think. That Katherine had really been seen the evidence seemed conclusive. But had she been seen in the flesh, or in the spirit?
When a problem is put before you, which you find it impossible to solve, however anxious to do so, it is sometimes wise to lay it by for a while and turn the attention to other things, trusting to "the unforeseen" to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Thus did Ella Winter in the present case. She was puzzled and distressed; and was growing a little bit nervous besides. Appetite failed; the long dark nights oppressed her, sleep gave place to wakeful restlessness, and she began to be afraid of sleeping alone. Therefore it was with a sigh of relief that she answered Mrs. Carlyon's invitation: and for the first time in her life she was not sorry to lose sight of the chimneys of Heron Dyke as the carriage whirled her and Maria Kettle away to the station.
Mrs. Carlyon had a surprise in store for her niece, as Ella discovered on the second evening after her arrival in London. Knowing her aunt's fondness for company, but being herself in no humour to enjoy it, Ella had pleaded for no large parties during her stay; that they should dine quietly en famille, and spend rational evenings. To this Mrs. Carlyon had readily agreed, stipulating, however, that the rule should be relaxed in favour of two or three people who might be called friends of the family.