CHAPTER XIII.

THE LAST MYSTERY SOLVED.

"It's not a bit of use your making any objection, my dear. I've set my mind on it, and I mean to do it. Why should you wait till I'm dead? I may live for a dozen years to come, and the income will be of far more use to you now when you are setting up housekeeping than it would be later."

The speaker was Lady Maria Skeffington, and the person to whom she was laying down the law in this peremptory fashion was her god-daughter, Maria Kettle--or rather Mrs. Cleeve. Maria and Philip had moved into a pretty little house near Homedale; they were furnishing it and beginning life on their own account. Maria had a large apron on, and her gown-sleeves turned up at the wrists; she was making herself as busy as a bee this morning, with her two maid-servants, when interrupted by her godmother.

Lady Maria sat down on the sofa, causing Maria to sit by her side, and began to talk. After a little gossip touching the sayings and doings of the neighbourhood, she went on to tell Maria that she had always intended to bequeath to her two thousand pounds at her death: but that, as Maria was now married, and help would be useful to her and her husband, she had decided to make over that sum to her without delay. It was well and safely invested, and would bring in one hundred pounds yearly, secured to Maria herself.

Overpowered by the unexpected kindness, Maria remonstrated. It was too much, she said: and why should Lady Maria deprive herself of this much yearly income before her death?

"Not another word, child, if you love me. Don't I tell you I have already decided? After that, argument is useless--a mere waste of breath."

Maria knew of old that when once her godmother had made up her mind to any particular course nothing could move her from it. In such a case submission was the only policy. She turned and kissed her. "You are far kinder to me than I deserve, dear Lady Maria! Philip will scarcely know how to thank you sufficiently."

"Philip is not so high-flown as you," rejoined her ladyship, drily. "He knows the value of money; he would never think of refusing such a gift."

Maria said nothing, but she smiled to herself to hear Philip spoken of as one who knew so well the value of money. Though, indeed, his late experiences had perhaps taught it him.

"And now, my dear, I want you to put on your bonnet and accompany me to the Hall," continued Lady Maria. "My barouche is at the door, and I am going to call there. The drive will do you good this bright, brisk morning."

The young wife would rather have been left to the arrangement of her household gods; but she could not refuse her godmother, especially at the moment when she had been so generous to her. So she made herself ready, and they were soon bowling along the road to Heron Dyke. Lady Maria was still full of the marvellous revelation that Edward Conroy was Edward Denison, though some two or three weeks had elapsed since the fact became known abroad.

"I was talking to Dr. Downes about it yesterday, my dear. He agreed with me that it was like one of those romances one gets out of the library. What a good thing it is that the young man is so charming; and indeed I think we might all have seen something in him above an ordinary newspaper reporter."

"It is a romance," agreed Maria, "and a very delightful one. Have you seen Mr. Denison?"

"I saw him when I was at the Hall the other day. A charmingly quaint old man, who put me so much in mind of the late Squire!--And, my dear," added Lady Maria, lowering her voice, lest the servants on the box in front of her should hear, "what do you think Dr. Downes told me--that the ghost which has been supposed to be haunting the north wing has turned out to be crazy Susan Keen."

"It is so," answered Maria.

"The poor half-witted girl has been in the habit of creeping into the Hall at night, to look for her sister, the Doctor tells me. The appearances that were set down to the dead girl, the mysterious noises, and all the rest of it, have been traced to her."

"Susan confessed it voluntarily," remarked Maria. "It is a sad thing--though of course it is well that it should have been discovered."

"Well, Maria, what I should do with the girl is this--put her into an asylum. Dr. Downes agreed with me that many a one has been confined for less cause: though he thinks there will be no further trouble of this sort with her in future."

"Never again in future," said Maria, shaking her head. "Her mother will take right good care of her. She has had a little bed put up for her beside her own, and does not trust her out of her sight."

"Here we are!" cried Lady Maria, as the coachman drove into Heron Dyke. "What a commotion the place seems in! What can be going on, I wonder?"

Mr. Denison found himself so comfortable under the old family roof-tree that he let Nunham Priors take care of itself for a while, and stayed on. Before a week had gone over his head, he was projecting no end of improvements: this must be done, and the other must be done: some for embellishment, some for use; and all, of course, for the convenience and benefit of his son and daughter-in-law, who would inhabit the place. Energetic as ever was the old Squire when once he took a thing into his head, Mr. Denison was not content with projecting: he set about doing. Calling Mr. Tiplady to his counsels, and after him a clever builder of reputation, the alterations were begun forthwith. Heron Dyke was, of course, his own, and he could do what he would.

The new conservatory, recently built by Miss Winter, was all very well, but not large enough; it was to be considerably lengthened and widened.

"I don't like walking down a greenhouse, my dear, where the space allowed for the paths is so narrow one's coat-tails must brush the plants on either side," he remarked to Ella.

The kitchens and some other portions of the domestic offices must be rendered more commodious, in accordance with modern requirements. A new road was to be driven through the shrubbery, and the old, narrow, inconvenient road, rarely used, on the side of the house, blocked up and planted over.

On the morning that was to witness the call at the Hall of Lady Maria Skeffington and Philip's wife, the workmen were busy with this last-mentioned work, when Frank Denison came hastily into the room where his father sat, talking to Ella, Mrs. Carlyon, and Mrs. Toynbee. Frank's countenance wore a startled expression, and he looked grave and pale. Ella's thoughts flew to the men: she feared some accident had happened.

"What is it?" she cried, rising from her seat. "Are any of the men hurt?"

"No, no, the men are all right," he answered. Then, after a pause, he held something out to Ella. "Do you chance to know this?" he asked. "Can you tell to whom it belonged?"

It was a small gold locket, dented in on one side and much discoloured, as if it had lain for some time in a damp place. Ella recognised it with staring eyes, and began to tremble with a fear she did not wait to define.

"This was Katherine Keen's; it was my present to her on her birthday, and she had it on the night she was lost. Oh, Edward, where did you find it?"

"I fear," he replied, "that we have found _her_."

"Found her! Katherine?"

Mrs. Carlyon put Ella back with her hand.

"Sit down, my love," she said. "Frank"--turning to him--"do you say you have found Katherine Keen?"

"I believe so. It can be no other."

"Dead?"

"Oh yes, poor girl."

"But where?"

"In that old well just beyond the wood-room. The men have been uncovering the well this morning, and--and--they have found some one lying in it. She had this locket round her neck."

Ella sat down, white and silent, and hid her face amid the sofa-cushions. Mr. Denison caught up his stick, and hurried out. The news had already got wind. People were running to the spot; and it was just then that Lady Maria's carriage drove in. They had indeed found poor Katherine Keen.

We must trace back to the time of Katherine's disappearance. This old well, situated not far from the door of the wood-room, had supplied the Hall with water for more than a hundred years. But at length, for some unknown cause, the spring had begun to fail, the water in the well gradually becoming lower, until what was left lay so deep down that it was not worth the labour of drawing up. After that, the old well was left to itself for several years, the woodwork above it. decaying and rotting slowly in summer sun and winter rain. It lay, as has been said, on the unfrequented side of the house.

"I'll have this altered," said the Squire one day as he chanced to pass that way, and stood to look at it; and he at once gave orders that the woodwork should be removed and the well filled up.

His wishes were not long in being carried out. The old woodwork disappeared, a quantity of earth and rubbish was collected to be shot into the well, and a large flag-stone, big enough to cover the whole of the orifice, was brought to the spot. The work was in progress one February afternoon, when the snow began to come down thick and fast, which caused the men to cease working until the morning, only a portion of the filling-up rubbish being then shot in.

Except the actual fact of the catastrophe itself, what else happened on that fatal night could only be matter of conjecture. The inference was, that Katherine, on reaching her bedroom and beginning to undress, lifted up a corner of the blind, and, peering out, saw her sister standing below gazing up at the window, a dark figure outlined against a snowy background. The snow by this time had ceased to fall, and a bright moon was struggling through the broken clouds. Katherine must then have hurried downstairs with the intention of seeing her sister and sending her back home. Although the house was being locked up, she would get out easily, and unseen, by the wood-room window, replacing the loose bar as a matter of precaution. This done, she no doubt ran round by this unfrequented way where the well was, and fell headlong into it, the two screams heard, one loud, the other fainter, escaping her in the act of falling. Whether she cried out afterwards, and there was no one to hear, or whether she fell senseless, or whether she was killed at once, must remain matter of supposition. After that, so far as was known, all was silence.

Early next morning came the workmen. More snow had fallen in the night, erasing all footprints of the previous evening, covering the bottom of the well with a white surface. The men made sharp haste to finish their task, knowing and suspecting nothing; and Katherine's fate had remained undiscovered until now.

Aaron's habitual crustiness had something to do with the nondiscovery. Chancing to meet the men as they quitted the work before time that evening, he sourly demanded whether the work was accomplished and the well filled up. Afraid of him, not caring to incur his stinging reprimands, both the men answered that it was quite finished. Therefore Aaron never gave a thought to the well in regard to Katherine's disappearance; and as for the Squire himself, and the rest of the household, they did not so much as know that the work was just then about. While the fact of its being impossible, or assumed to be, that Katherine could by any manner of means have got out of the house, served yet more to divert thoughts from the truth. And the two workmen, deceived by the white surface inside, on which they had both looked down in the morning, never, then, or later, supposed the well could have anything to do with the girl's disappearance.

Thus the last and longest mystery was solved. Such had been poor Katherine's unhappy fate. Susan would never more wander in the park after nightfall, or within the Hall to look for her; she would never hear her sister's voice calling to her again, never fancy that the moonlight playing upon the window of Katherine's room was her apparition standing there.

The wedding was a very quiet one. Without show or parade, Ella Winter became the wife of that erratic gentleman, Francis Edward Conroy Denison, the indisputable heir of Heron Dyke. Old Mr. Denison insisted upon giving the bride away; and a hamper of his choicest china arrived from Nunham Priors to deck the breakfast-table. Lady Maria's nephew, the young Earl of Skeffington, had asked leave to be the best man.

Aaron stood behind his mistress's chair at breakfast; to deny him this privilege would have broken his heart; but it was the last service he would render at the Hall. He and his wife were about to retire to a pretty little cottage near the Leaning Gate: Mr. Denison, at Ella's wish, had given it to them for life, and she had furnished it.

Frank and his bride, now Mrs. Denison, as her uncle had always wished her name to be, started on their way to the Continent. During their absence, which might extend to two or three months, the alterations at Heron Dyke would be completed, and their establishment put upon a proper footing.

What more is there to tell? All are left happy. The years go round, and as yet no sorrow falls. The young Squire, as Frank Denison is now called, is in Parliament, so that he and his wife are much in London during the earlier portion of the year. Mr. Denison travels often from Nunham Priors to stay at Heron Dyke, where his pleasantest days are passed. When Ella's baby came, he was a little grumpy in his comical way at its being a girl, instead of the boy he had expected: though he acknowledges that it is not impossible the boy may put in an appearance later.

Much unity, friendship, and intimacy exist between Ella and her husband and the Cleeves. Philip is so steady as to justify his mother's never-changed fond opinion of him; his talents for business and his application to it surprise even Mr. Tiplady: while his laugh is as genial and his manners are sunny and pleasant as ever. Little Freddy Bootle often runs down to see them, and is ever a welcome guest at the Hall. Mrs. Carlyon comes sometimes, and the baby bears her name, Gertrude.

Even old Aaron is tolerably happy--for he can grumble to his heart's content. He could not cease from doing that. Partly at Dorothy, though she does not mind it, partly at his friends in general. He is a great man of an evening in the sanded parlour of the Leaning Gate, or the Fisherman's Arms. A special chair is placed for him, and he, between the intervals of growling at the world, tells anecdotes of forty years ago to the deferential company smoking around.

Mrs. Keen, active as of yore, is assisted in her duties by Susan. Time has laid its healing hand upon their sorrows. Poor Susan will never be quite bright, and that half-dazed look is sometimes to be seen on her face still; but no sweeter-tempered or more gentle girl is to be met anywhere; and now that the mystery of her sister's fate no longer weighs upon her brain, there is a sort of peacefulness and soft serenity about her which are very attractive. Her greatest treat is to go up to the Hall and see the baby, little Gertrude; and the nurses avow that that youthful tyrant is never so much on her good behaviour as when allowed to rest for a few minutes in Susan's loving arms. But as soon as ever daylight begins to die in the woods round Heron Dyke, when the long corridors of the old house grow dim and the wide staircases become the homes of shadow and mystery, then does Susan resolutely set her face homeward. She who used to haunt the Hall after nightfall, when trying to find the ill-fated Katherine, will not go near it except in broadest daylight.

THE END.

________________________________________________________ BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS AND ELECTROTYPERS, GUILDFORD.

_S. & Sons_.