CHAPTER XI.

A VISIT FROM MRS. CARLYON.

Dr. Spreckley felt like an angry man. When he read Squire Denison's curt note--curt as to the part of his dismissal--his first impulse was to go up to the Hall and demand an explanation from his old friend and patient. He had been forced into a corner as it were, had been driven into telling a certain disagreeable truth, and now he was discarded for having done so, and a young practitioner of less experience and no note, was taken on in his place! It was very unjust. But Dr. Spreckley never did anything in a hurry. He put the Squire's note away, saying, "I'll sleep upon it."

On the morrow he found that Dr. Jago was really in attendance on the Squire. Dr. Spreckley met him on his way thither in a hired one-horse fly, and received a gracious wave of the hand by way of greeting. "I'll not interfere," exploded the old Doctor in the bitterness of his heart; "I'll never darken Denison's doors again. Unless he sends for me," he added a minute later. "And for all the good _he_ can do him"--with a contemptuous glance after Jago--"that won't be long first."

Meanwhile, at the Hall, the Squire was soothing and explaining the change to Ella, who regarded it with dismay.

"I don't like Dr. Jago, Uncle Gilbert. And Dr. Spreckley was our friend of many years."

"And why don't you like Dr. Jago, lassie?"

"I don't know. There's something about him that repels me; it lies in his eyes, I think. I never spoke to him but once."

"When you know more of him, you will like him better," returned the Squire. "I am not sure that _I_ like him much, personally. But if he cures me--what shall you say then? Come now!"

"I would say then that I should like him for ever," replied Ella, laughing.

"Well, child, he is hoping to do it. And I think he will."

"Is this true, Uncle Gilbert?"

The Squire patted her cheek.

"What a disbelieving little girl it is! Jago is a wonderfully clever man, Ella; there's no doubt of that: he has studied in foreign schools, and he is about to try an entirely new kind of treatment upon me. He thinks it will turn up trumps, and so do I!"

Ella drew a long, relieved breath.

"Oh, I am so glad, dear uncle! I will make him welcome whenever he comes."

"It is a month to-day since I was outside the house," went on the Squire. "Jago tells me that he shall get me out again in three or four days. The man is a man of power; I see it--I feel it. Give him opportunity, and he will make a great name for himself. We will go about again as we used to, Ella; you and I. Why not?"

Ella's heart leaped; she believed the good news. Her uncle had seemed very poorly indeed lately, but she did not suspect he had any incurable malady, or that he was in any danger.

Dr. Jago came to Heron Dyke day after day. In a short while the Squire was walking about the grounds, leaning on Ella's arm or on Hubert Stone's; and he would be seen again driving through Nullington, his niece seated by his side. Ella had grown to think kindly of Dr. Jago; but that old vague feeling of dislike or distrust she could not quite get rid of. "There is a look in his eyes I never saw in the eyes of anyone else," she said to herself. "He interests me, and yet repels me."

"The Squire will last out yet to will away his property; ay, and longer than that," cried the gossips of the neighbourhood, as they watched the improvement in him. "It will take more than two doctors to kill a Denzon."

And thus October came in. About the middle of that month the Squire sent an invitation to Mrs. Carlyon. It was partly in answer to a letter received from her--in which she told them that a certain projected plan of hers, that of going abroad for the winter, was still in abeyance, for she did not much like the idea of going alone. Higson would attend her of course; but who was Higson?--what she needed was a friend.

"She shall take you, Ella," said the Squire, after the letter of invitation was despatched.

"Take me, uncle! Oh dear, no!"

"And why not, pray, when I say yes?"

"I could not leave you, Uncle Gilbert."

"Oh, indeed! Could you not, lassie?"

"Suppose you were to be taken ill--and I ever so many hundred miles away! Oh, uncle dear, how could you think of it!"

"Well, I hope I am not likely now to be taken ill. Jago is doing me a marvellous deal of good. Don't fear that. I should like you to go abroad for the winter, lassie, and if Gertrude Carlyon goes, we--we will see about it."

Mrs. Carlyon arrived in due course. It had previously been arranged that, if she did go abroad, she should come to them for a short visit first. It seemed to her that she saw a great change for the worse in Mr. Denison; but she was discreet enough to keep her thoughts on the matter to herself, and chose rather to congratulate him on looking so well.

"Ay," said he, complacently, "the new doctor understands me."

"And don't you think Dr. Spreckley did?" asked Mrs. Carlyon.

"Not of late. Spreckley could not do for me what this man will do."

On the second day of her visit, when they were alone, the Squire questioned Mrs. Carlyon about her plans for the winter.

"Have you decided on them, Gertrude?" he asked.

"Not quite," she said. "I suppose, though, I shall go abroad, probably to the South of France. This climate tried my chest severely last winter."

"Ay, I remember. Best for you to go out of it for the next few months."

"An old friend of mine, Mrs. Ord, had decided to accompany me, and now circumstances have intervened to prevent it. That is why I hesitate. I don't care to go so far without a companion."

"You shall take Ella. Come now."

Mrs. Carlyon looked up eagerly.

"Take Ella! Are you in earnest?"

"Never more so. Why not? I had meant to make you and London a present of her for the winter: if you go abroad, so much the better. It will be the greater change for her--and she needs change."

"I shall certainly no longer hesitate if I may have Ella," spoke Mrs. Carlyon, gladly. "But--I should probably stay away four or five months."

"If you stay away six months it would be all the better. To tell you the truth, Gertrude," he continued, seeing Mrs. Carlyon look surprised, "I do not intend my pretty one to be here during the dark months, and you must take her out of my hands. She has never been quite the same since that curious affair up yonder"--pointing over his shoulder in the direction of the north wing.

Mrs. Carlyon began to understand.

"You mean--about Katherine Keen?"

"Ay. Since the girl disappeared----"

"What a most extraordinary thing that was!" interrupted Mrs. Carlyon. "Can you in any way account for it, Squire?"

"There's no way at all of accounting for it. Bodikins, no!"

"I meant, have you any private theory of your own--as to what can have become of her?"

"I know no more what could have become of her than _that_," returned the Squire, touching his stick, and then striking it on the ground to enforce emphasis. "It has troubled me above a bit, Gertrude, I can tell you. She was as nice and inoffensive a young girl as could be. Only the day before she disappeared she ran all across the garden to me to put my umbrella up, because a drop or two of rain began to fall. You can't think what a modest, kind, good little thing she was."

"I always thought it," assented Mrs. Carlyon. "And I esteem her mother; she is so hard-working and respectable. What a trial it must have been for her, poor woman! I shall call and see her before I leave."

"Ay. Why not? Well, it is altogether a very mysterious and unpleasant thing to have happened in this old house, and my pretty lassie, I see, does not forget it. She seems to mope, and to get a bit melancholy now and then. I fancy her eyes are not so bright as they used to be; she doesn't talk so much, or sing so much about the house. It's just as if there was always something hanging over her."

"Of course she must have a change," spoke Mrs. Carlyon.

"She was all the better for her visit to London in spring, but she was not long enough away," went on the Squire. "You know how lonely we are here. My health won't allow of my seeing much company, and Ella doesn't seem to care about extending her acquaintances. It will be horribly dull for her here this winter, with nobody in the house but a sick and cantankerous old man. I wish she could get right away out of England for six or eight months. She would come back to us next spring as merry as a blackbird. Why not, now?"

"I need not say how glad I should be to take Ella with me," said Mrs. Carlyon. "But there's one question--would she go?--would she leave you?"

"Odds bodikins!" cried the Squire, angrily, "is the child to set up her will against mine--and yours? It is for her good--and, go she must."

"Do you think you are in a state to be left for a whole winter alone?" debated Mrs. Carlyon, remembering how greatly she at first thought him changed. "Will Ella think it?"

"I! why I am twenty per cent, better than I was a month ago. There's no fear for me. And, if I became ill at any time, couldn't you be telegraphed to? I say that Ella must have a change for her own sake; and what I say I mean. Come now!"

"Yes; it would no doubt be better for her," assented Mrs. Carlyon, slowly: but, Mr. Denison thought, dubiously.

"Look here, Gertrude: for a woman you've got as sharp a share of sense as here and there one," cried he, lowering his tone as he bent forward towards her. "People have set up all kinds of superstitious notions about the affair; the women here hardly dare stir out of their kitchens after dusk. I find a notion prevails that Katherine is still in the house--is seen sometimes at her window at night. Now, as she can't be in the house alive, you--you must see what that means--folks are such fools, the uneducated ones. But, I put it to you, Gertrude--with this absurd nonsense being whispered about the house, whether it is fit the lassie should spend her winter in it? Eh, now, come!"

He glanced keenly for a moment at Mrs. Carlyon, as if to see whether his words impressed her. And they certainly had.

"No, it is not," she assented, speaking firmly, "and I will take her out of it. But--you speak of the young women-servants, I suppose, Gilbert? It is not at all seemly that they should be allowed to say such things. See Katherine at her window! How absurd! What next?"

"And profess to hear weird sounds about the passages, whisperings, and such like," added the Squire, as if he had pleasure in repeating this.

"What is Dorothy Stone about, to allow it?"

"Dorothy is worse than they are: she always was the most superstitious woman I ever knew. Not a step dare she stir about the house now after dark. Old Aaron is in a rare rage with her; threatens to shake her sometimes," added the Squire with a grim smile.

"There _can't_ be anything in it, you know, Gilbert."

"I don't know," he answered: and Mrs. Carlyon stared at him. "After the disappearance of Katherine into--into air, as may be said, one may well believe any marvel. Eh, now?" continued the Squire. "At any rate, Gertrude, it seems to me that we may forgive these poor ignorant people who do believe. But, to go back to the question: Heron Dyke is getting an ill name for mystery, see you, and I do not choose that my innocent lassie shall pass the winter in it."

"Quite right; I perceive all now, and I will take her out of it, Gilbert. At least for two or three of the dark months."

"Two or three months won't do," cried the Squire, testily. "It would be of no use. She must not come back until the days are long and bright."

"Well, well, I see how anxious you are for her," said Mrs. Carlyon; who, however, could hardly feel it right to let him be so long alone. "In any case, you would like her to be home before your birthday."

The Squire did not answer. He seemed to be struggling with some inward emotion, and a curious spasm shot across his face. Mrs. Carlyon half rose from her chair, but sat down again.

"Why before my birthday?" said he, at length. "It's no more to me than any other day. I never make a festival of it as some idiots do--as if it was something to rejoice over. She needn't come back for my birthday unless I send for her. I shall be sure to send if I want her."

"If you became worse--or weaker--you would send?"

"Ay, ay--why not? Don't we always want our dear ones with us in sickness? Not but, what with Jago's treatment, I seem to have taken a new lease of life. Look here: I should like the child to see Italy."

"And so she shall. And she will enjoy it, I am sure, provided she can make her mind easy at leaving you. Ella is not like other girls; she is more reasonable," added Mrs. Carlyon. "Look at some flighty young things--thinking of nothing but of getting married."

"Bodikins! the women are generally keen enough after that, nowadays. Ella never seems to care for the young fellows. Young Hanerly wanted her, came to me about it; but she'd have nothing to say to him. Whomsoever she marries, he will have to change his name to Denison. None but a Denison must inherit Heron Dyke."

The thought occurred to Mrs. Carlyon--and it was on the tip of her tongue to say it--that Ella's husband might not inherit Heron Dyke. If the ailing man before her did not live to his next birthday, it must all pass away from Ella. But she kept silence.

"I suppose you never by any chance hear from your cousin Gilbert?" she presently asked, the train of thought prompting the question.

Mr. Denison's face darkened; a cold, hard look came into his eyes. He turned sharply round and faced his questioner, but she was directly regarding the smouldering logs on the hearth.

"Hear from my cousin Gilbert!" he said in deep harsh tones. "And pray why should I want to hear from him? I would sooner receive a message from--from the commonest beggar. He would never have the impudence to write to me. Body o' me! Gilbert, forsooth! He has his spies round the place night and day, I know that; watching and waiting for the moment the breath will go out of me. But they will be deceived--they and their master: yes, Gertrude Carlyon, I tell you that they will be deceived! I am not dead yet, nor likely to die. I shall live to see my seventieth birthday--I know it, I feel it--and not one acre of the old estates shall go to that man!"

He spoke with strange energy. It was evident that the old hatred towards his cousin still burned as fiercely in his heart as it had done forty years before.

"I am afraid that son of his will prove no credit to the name he bears," Mrs. Carlyon remarked after a pause: and the Squire looked up but did not speak. "I am told that some time ago he had a terrible quarrel with his father. They separated in anger, and he has not been home since. He is supposed to have enlisted as a common soldier and gone out to India."

Mr. Denison gave a sort of savage snarl.

"Ay, ay, that's good news--rare news," he said. "I would give that boy a thousand pounds to keep him away from his father if I only knew where he was--two thousand to anyone who could point out his grave. An only son too. Ah, ah! Rare news!"

At that moment Dr. Jago came in. When he saw the Squire's face, he looked anything but pleased.

"Madam," said he to Mrs. Carlyon, "this must not be. If Mr. Denison is to get permanently better, he must be kept free from excitement. It might counteract all the good I am doing him."

Mrs. Carlyon proposed a walk to Ella that lovely October afternoon, after making an inquiry or two in the household about the unpleasant topic touched on by the Squire. The air was mellow and gracious; and they took their way to the sands, seating themselves on the very spot where Ella had once sat with Edward Conroy. Never did she sit there but she thought of him; of what he had said; of his looks and tones. She wondered whether he was in Africa; she wondered when she should hear of him.

It was low water, and where the vanished tide had been was now a tract of firm yellow sand with hardly a pebble in it; excellent to walk upon. Not till the solitude of the shore was about them did Mrs. Carlyon say a word to her companion on the subject that she had to break to her--their journeying together abroad.

Ella was astonished, hurt; perhaps even a little indignant. Could her uncle really wish her to leave him and to go away for so long when he needed companionship and care? Mrs. Carlyon quietly soothed her, persuaded, reassured her; and finally told her that it was _best it should so be_.

Allowing her niece to go in alone, Mrs. Carlyon turned her steps towards the little inn--the Leaning Gate. She had her curiosity about the doings of that past snowy night in February, just as other people had. The conversation with the Squire and with Dorothy Stone only served to whet it, to puzzle her more than ever, if that were possible; and to enhance her sympathy for poor Katherine's family.

Mrs. Keen was waiting upon a customer who had halted at the inn for the day; Susan had taken her work into the garden. Mrs. Carlyon found her there seated on a rustic bench; she was hemming some new chamber towels. It was a large and pretty garden, filled with homely flowers in summer and with useful vegetables. A great bush of Michaelmas daisies was in blossom now, near the end of the bench. Susan sat without a bonnet, and the sunlight fell on her smooth brown hair, so soft and fine, just the same pretty hair that Katherine had: indeed, there had been a great resemblance between the sisters. She looked neat as usual--a small white apron on over her dark gown, a white collar at the neck. When she saw Mrs. Carlyon she got up to make her courtesy, and the tears filled her mournful grey eyes. That lady sat down by her and began to speak in a sympathising tone of the past trouble.

"It is not past, ma'am," said Susan, in answer to a remark; "it never will be."

"My good girl, I wanted to talk to you," said Mrs. Carlyon; "I came on purpose. What I have heard about you grieves me so much----"

But here she stopped, for Mrs. Keen came running from the house to greet the visitor. The landlady was a comely woman with ample petticoats and a big white apron.

Naturally, there could be only the one theme of conversation. The tears ran down Mrs. Keen's ruddy cheeks as they talked. Susan was pale, more delicate-looking than ever, and her eyes, dry now, had a far-off look in them. How greatly she put Mrs. Carlyon in mind of Katherine that lady did not choose to say.

"I can understand all your distress, all your trouble," spoke she in a sympathising tone. "And the _uncertainty_ as to what became of her must be harder to bear than all else."

"_Something_ must have interrupted her when she had just begun to undress; that seems to be evident, ma'am," said the mother. "She had taken off her cap and apron, her collar and ribbon--and all else that she had on disappeared with her. The question is, what that something could be. Susan thinks--but I'm afraid she thinks a great deal that is but idleness," broke off the mother, with a fond pitying glance at the girl.

"What does Susan think?" asked Mrs. Carlyon.

Susan lifted her white face to answer. The vacant look it mostly wore was very perceptible now; her tone became dull and monotonous.

"Ma'am," she said, "I think that when Katherine had just got those few things off, somebody came to her door, and--and----"

"And what?" said Mrs. Carlyon, for the girl had stopped.

"I wish I knew what. I wish I could think what; but I can't. Some days I think he must have taken her out of the room, and some days I think he killed her in it. It fairly dazes me, ma'am."

"Whom do you mean by 'he'?" again questioned Mrs. Carlyon, wondering whether the girl had anyone in particular in her mind.

"It must have been some stranger, some wicked man that we don't know--or a woman," answered Susan, slowly. "Miss Winter had gone down then, and was out of hearing."

"But there was no stranger at Heron Dyke that night, either man or woman," objected Mrs. Carlyon. "Only the women-servants, old Aaron, the Squire, and Miss Winter."

"Somebody might have been hid in the house. She'd not go out of the room, ma'am, of her own accord."

"Not unless she had something to go for," said Mrs. Carlyon; "though I do not see what it was likely to be," she slowly added. "Or, if she did go out, why did she not go back again?"

"Ma'am," spoke the landlady, "against that theory there's the fact that she left the candle behind her. Miss Winter found it burnt down to the socket. If she had gone out of the room she would have taken the light with her."

"It is a great mystery," mused Mrs. Carlyon. "What could have become of her? Where can she be?"

"She was hurt in some way, or else frightened," said Susan. "Screams of terror, those two were, that I heard."

"With regard to those screams," returned Mrs. Carlyon, "the singular thing is that no one else heard them; no one in the house."

"Tom Barnet heard them, ma'am, the coachman's boy," interposed the mother, smoothing down the sleeve of her lilac cotton gown. "I can't think there's any doubt but that the screams came from Katherine. I'd give--I'd give all I'm worth to know where she is, dead or alive."

"She is inside Heron Dyke!" cried Susan, her voice taking a sound of awe.

"Nonsense," somewhat impatiently rebuked Mrs. Carlyon. "You ought to know that it cannot be, Susan."

Susan lifted her patient face, a pleading kind of look on it.

"Ma'am, she's there; she's there. I've seen her at the window of her room in the moonlight; it's three times now."

"Run in, Susie; I thought I heard the gentleman's bell," spoke her mother, and Susan gathered up her work and went. But Mrs. Carlyon saw it was only a ruse to get rid of her.

"She is growing almost silly upon the point, ma'am," Mrs. Keen began; "thinking she sees her sister at the window. I believe it's all fancy, for my part; nothing but the reflection of some tree branches cast on the window-blind by the moon."

"Why don't you forbid her going up to Heron Dyke in the dark?" sensibly asked Mrs. Carlyon. "It cannot be good for her."

"Because, ma'am, I'm feared that if I did, her mind would quite lose its balance," replied the mother. "I do stop her all I can; but I dare not do it quite always. The going up there to watch the windows for Katherine has become like meat and drink to her."

Mrs. Carlyon sighed. Throughout the interview the landlady had never ceased to wipe her tears away; they rose in spite of her. It was altogether a very distressing case, and Mrs. Carlyon wished it had occurred anywhere rather than at Heron Dyke.

"I suppose Katherine had no trouble? She was not in bad spirits?" she remarked.

"She had no trouble in the world that I know of; there was none that she could have. Susan met her in Nullington the morning of the very day it happened, and she was as blithe as could be. Miss Winter was making some underthings for the poor little neglected Tysons, and found she had not got enough material to cut out the last, so she sent Katherine for another yard of it, charging her to make haste. Well, ma'am, Susan met her, as I tell you; and, as Katherine was going back to the Hall, she saw me standing at the door here. 'I hear you have heard from John, mother,' she called out; and her face was bright and her voice cheerful as a lark's; 'Susan says she will bring me up the letter this evening.' 'Come in for it now, child,' I answered her. 'No,' she said, 'if I came in I should be sure to stop talking with you, and Miss Winter is waiting for what I've been to fetch. You'll let Susan bring it up this evening, mother.' 'If the weather holds up,' I answered, glancing at the skies, which seemed to threaten a fall of some sort; 'but her cold hangs about her, and I can't let her go out at night if rain comes on.' With that she nodded to me and ran on laughing; she used to think it a joke, the care I took of Susan. No, ma'am," concluded the mother, "my poor Katherine was in no trouble of mind."

Mrs. Carlyon went back to the Hall full of thought. One thing she could not understand--how it was, if Katherine had screamed, that she should have been heard out of doors, and not indoors. And Mrs. Carlyon, that same evening, when she was dressing for dinner, sent Higson for Dorothy Stone, telling the maid she need not come back; and she put the question to Dorothy.

Mrs. Stone went into a twitter forthwith. The least allusion to the subject invariably sent her into one. No, the cry had not been heard indoors, she answered. Neither by the master nor Miss Ella, who were shut up in the oak sitting-room, nor by her and the maids in the kitchen. But the north wing was ever so far off, and she did not think they could have heard it. The only one about the house was Aaron, and he ought to have heard it, if any scream had been screamed.

"And he did not hear it?" spoke Mrs. Carlyon.

"Aaron heard nothing, ma'am," replied the housekeeper. "The corridors and passages, above and below, were just as silent as they always are, inside this great lonely house at night; and that's as silent as the grave. Aaron was locking up, and could well have heard any scream in the north wing. He was longer than usual that night, as it chanced, for he got his oil, and was oiling the front-door lock, which had grown a bit rusty. Had there been any noise in the north wing, screaming, or what not, he could not have failed to hear it: and for that reason he holds to it to this day that there was none; that the screams Susan Keen professed to hear were just her flighty fancy."

"And do you think so, Dorothy?"

"Ma'am, I don't know what to say," answered the old woman, pushing back her grey hair, as she was apt to do when in a puzzle of thought. "I should think it was the girl's fancy but for Tom Barnet. Tom holds to it that the two screams were there, sure enough, just as Susan does; the last a good deal fainter than the first."

"There's the dinner-gong!" exclaimed Mrs. Carlyon, as the sound boomed up from below. "And none of my ornaments on yet. Clasp this bracelet for me, will you, Dorothy. We will talk more of this another time. Dr. Jago dines here to-night, I hear: what a fancy the Squire seems to have taken to him!"