Mrs. Henry Wood

“ Jane Preen found it pleasant; had found it so long ago; and she introduced Oliver to it, who liked it because he sometimes met Emma Paul there. It took a very short time indeed after that first meeting by the Inlets for him to be over head and ears in love with her. Thus some weeks went on.
More pure and ardent love than that young fellow’s for Emma was never felt by man or woman. It filled his every thought, seemed to sanctify his dreary days at Duck Brook, and made a heaven of his own heart. ”

“ It was a bleak October evening. Jane Preen, in her old shawl and garden hat, was hurrying to Dame Sym’s on an errand for her mother. The cold wind sighed and moaned in the trees, clouds flitted across the face of the crescent moon. It scarcely lighted up the little old church beyond the Triangle, and the graves in the churchyard beneath, Oliver’s amidst them. Jane shivered, and ran into Mrs. Sym’s.
Carrying back her parcel, she turned in at the garden gate and stood leaning over it for a few moments. Tears were coursing down her cheeks. Life for a long time had seemed very hard to Jane ”

“ When tea was over, Mr. Preen shut himself into the Buttery; Mrs. Preen retired to the kitchen to look after Nancy, who had to be watched, like most young servants, as you watch a sprightly calf. Jane and Oliver went out again, Jane taking the way to the Inlets. This time she sat down facing the brook. The dark trees were behind them, the clear stream flowed past in a gentle murmur; nothing but fields beyond. ”

“ People did not dig up gardens at midnight. Slipping out of bed, she drew the blind aside and peeped out.
The night was light as day, with a bright, clear, beautiful moon: the hunters’ moon. Underneath the summer-apple tree, close at this end of the garden, bent Mr. Barbary, digging away with all his might, his large iron spade turning up the earth swiftly and silently. Katrine’s eyes grew wide with amazement. ”

“ Mr. Barbary had taken to old Joan with the house. A little, dark, active woman, she, with bright eyes and a mob-cap of muslin. She was sixty years old; quick, capable, simple and kindly. We don’t get many such servants now-a-days. One defect Joan had—deafness. When a voice was close to her, it was all right; at a distance she could not hear it at all.
“How long is it that you have been ailing, Cousin Edgar?” asked Miss Barbary, one day when they were sitting together.
“Oh, some few weeks, Cousin Katrine,” he answered in a tone to imitate hers—and then laughed. ”

“ Barbary next day at breakfast. Sick unto death she looked. The very bright night had given place to a showery morning, and the rain pattered against the window-panes.
“I have a headache,” answered Katrine, faintly.
“Better send Joan to the Manor to say you cannot attend to-day.”
“Oh, I would rather go; I must go,” she said hastily. For this good girl had been schooling herself as well as she knew how; making up her mind to persevere in fulfilling the daily duties of her life in the best way she should be able; lest, if she fell short abruptly, suspicion might turn towards her father. ”

“ This was a favourite resort of Jane Preen’s, a slight relief from the dullness at home. She generally sat by the stream, but to-day faced the road, for she was looking for Oliver. It was not a frequented road at all, but I think this has been said; sometimes an hour would pass away and not so much as a farmer’s horse and cart jolt by, or a beggar shambling on foot. ”

“ The warm and glorious sunbeams lay on Church Leet, as if to woo the bare hedges into verdant life, the cold fields to smiling plains. Even the mounds of the graveyard, interspersed amidst the old tombstones, looked green and cheerful to-day in the golden light.
Turning slowly out of the Vicarage gate came a good-looking clergyman of seven-or-eight-and-twenty. A slender man of middle height, with a sweet expression on his pale, thoughtful face, and dark earnest eyes. It was the new Vicar of Church Leet, the Reverend Robert Grame. ”

“ The Squire’s will was good to interrupt at every second word, but Mr. Corles begged him to listen to the end.
“Oh, that’s all very well,” cried he at last, “all true, I dare say; what I want to know is, how you came to pitch upon that customer as being my son.”
“But he was your son, sir. He was young Mr. Todhetley.”
“Nonsense!” retorted the Squire. “Was this he?” drawing Tod forward.
“No, sir; certainly not.”
“Well, this is my only son; except a little who is not yet much more than out of his petticoats. Come! what do you say now?”
Stephenson looked again at one and the other of us. ”

“ Hamlyn. “Is she young?—good-looking?”
“Oh, I think she is a lady,” replied the girl, her accent decisive. “And she’s young, as far as I could see, but she had a thick veil over her face. Her hair is lovely, just like threads of pale gold,” concluded Penelope, as Mr. Hamlyn’s step was heard.
He took his wife into the dining-room, apologising for being late. She, giving full range to the fancies she had called up, heard him in silence with a hardening haughty face.
“Philip, you know who that woman is,” she suddenly exclaimed during a temporary absence of Japhet from the dining-room. ”

“ I can hardly believe that a respectable woman, as Hall undoubtedly is, would deliberately unlock a fellow-servant’s box with a false key. Whence did she get the key to do it? Had she previously provided herself with one? The lock is of the most simple description, for I have seen the trunk since, and Hall might possess a key that would readily fit it: but if so, as the woman herself says, how could she know it? In short, Johnny, it is one woman’s word against another’s: and, until this happened, I had deemed each of them to be equally credible. ”

“ Preen drove on in silence until they were opposite the Commandery gates in the lower part of Sidbury. Then he spoke again.
“What made you drive through Friar Street on Saturday last, instead of going the direct way?”
“Through—Friar Street?” stammered Oliver.
“Through Friar Street, instead of High Street,” repeated Mr. Preen, in a sharp, passionate accent.
“Oh, I remember. High Street is so crowded on a market day; the back streets are quiet,” said Oliver, as if he had a lump in his throat, and could not make his voice heard. ”

“ How or where Gervais Preen had lately lived, no one knew much about; some people said it was London, some thought it was Paris; but he suddenly came back to Worcestershire and took up his abode, much to the general surprise, at this old farmhouse at Duck Brook. It was soon known that he lived in it rent-free, having undertaken the post of agent to Captain Falkner.
“Agent to Captain Falkner—what a mean thing for a Preen to do!” cried Islip and Crabb all in a breath.
“Not at all mean; gentlemen must live as well as other people,” warmly disputed the Squire. “I honour Preen for it.” ”

“ What must she do? How could she throw the suspicion off herself? She could not run out of the house and say, “Jane Cross has fallen accidentally over the stairs; come and look to her”—for no one would have believed it to be an accident. And there were the pieces, too, she had clutched out of the gown! Whilst thus deliberating the gate-bell rang, putting her into a state of the most intense terror. It rang again. Trembling, panting, Matilda stood cowering in the kitchen, but it did not ring a third time. This was, of course, Thomas Owen.
Necessity is the mother of invention. ”

“ A mild young man, he, we understood, not at all clever enough to set the Thames on fire.
Mr. Preen finished his breakfast and left the room, carrying the letter with him. Jane went at once into the garden, which in places was no better than a wilderness, and ran about the sheltered paths that were out of sight of the windows, and jumped up to catch the lower branches of trees, all in very happiness. She and Oliver were intensely attached to one another; she had not seen him for three years, and now they were going to meet again. To-morrow! oh, to-morrow! To-morrow, and he would be here! ”

“ I could not take my eyes from her terrified face.
“I do not comprehend it,” resumed Captain Amphlett, looking more helpless than a rudderless ship at sea. “Are you sure, sir, that there is no mistake; that he was really going to London?”
“Not at all sure; only that he said it,” returned Mr. Barbary in a half mocking tone. “One does not inquire too closely, you know, into the private affairs of young men. We have not heard from him yet.” ”

“ Hubert, the heir, about twenty-five now, came forward to greet the stranger as they entered the Hall. No repulsion about him. Robert Grame’s hand met his with a warm clasp. A young man of gentle manners and a face of rare beauty—but oh, so suspiciously delicate! Perhaps it was the extreme slenderness of the frame, the wan look in the refined features and their bright hectic that drew forth the clergyman’s sympathy. An impression came over him that this young man was not long for earth.
“Is Mr. Monk strong?” he presently asked of Mrs. Carradyne, when Hubert had temporarily quitted the room. ”

“ Was it Edgar Reste that was being put out of the way; buried for ever from the sight of man? Her father must have killed him; must have done it in a passion! Katrine Barbary cried out with a loud and bitter cry.
Fascinated by the sight of terror, she was unable to draw her eyes away. But the next moment they had caught sight of another object, bringing equal terror, though of a different nature: some one, who had apparently crept in at the gate unheard, was standing at the corner of the garden hedge, looking on. ”

“ If Jane Cross was another, why, perhaps she had frightened herself into a fit. All the more reason that somebody should see after her.
“Come along, Matilda; don’t be foolish; we’ll both get over the wall.”
It was a calm, still summer evening, almost dark now. All the lot of us went out to the back garden, I whispering to them what the girl had said to me.
“Poor thing!” said Mrs. Todhetley, who had a sort of fellow-feeling for ghosts. “It has been very lonely for the young women; and if Jane Cross is subject to fits, she may be lying in one at this moment.” ”

“ Blair’s house in Seaboard Terrace, its brightness and beauty were dimmed.
“For you see, Johnny,” observed the Squire to me, his face and tone alike gloomy—outward things take their impress from the mind—“with that dreadful affair at the next door jaundicing one’s thoughts, the sea might as well be grey as blue, and the sky lowering with thunder-clouds. I repeat that I don’t like mysteries: they act on me like a fit of indigestion.”
The affair just was a mystery; to us, as to all Saltwater. ”

“ Harry Carradyne is the right and proper heir, and no child of mine, as I hope, must or shall displace him.”
Mrs. Hamlyn treated her husband to one of her worst looks, telling of contempt as well as of power; but she did not speak.
“Listen, Eliza. I cannot bear injustice, and I do not believe it ever prospers in the long run. Were your father to bequeath—my dear, I beg of you to listen to me!—to bequeath his estates to little Walter, to the exclusion of the true heir, rely upon it the bequest would never bring him good. ”

“ Valentine refused to believe it—as he had refused with Jane.
“Bless the boy!” exclaimed Mrs. Cramp, staring. “What on earth makes him say such a thing?”
“Because I am sure of it, Aunt Mary Ann. Fancy strong-minded Juliet throwing herself into an eel pond! She is gadding about somewhere, deep already, I daresay, in another flirtation.”
Mrs. Cramp, waiting to collect her scattered senses, shook her head plaintively. “My dear,” she said, “I don’t pretend to know the fashion of things in the outlandish world in which you live, but over here it couldn’t be. ”