The Reluctant Widow

Chapter VII

Elinor lost no time on the following morning in acquainting both the Barrows with what had occurred during the night. Barrow instantly professed himself ready to swear through an inch board that he had secured every door and window against intruders, but Mrs. Barrow said in a very wifely spirit that he took no care for anything, and if her eye was not upon every task none was performed.

“But it is true that when I went to find and lock the door I could not discover any that was unbolted,” Elinor said. “Indeed, I have been puzzling my head over it, for I cannot imagine how anyone can have entered the house. Is there some door I do not know of? And yet—”

“Never trouble your head, ma’am!” Mrs. Barrow told her robustly. “Depend upon it, the man climbed in through one of the windows! But I am put about that such a thing should have happened, and I wish you had roused me, for I would have sent my fine gentleman about his business very speedily.”

“There was not the least need for me to rouse you. I do not mean to say that the gentleman caused me annoyance, for he was very civil and quite as taken aback as I was myself.”

“Well, it queers me who it may have been, ma’am,” Mrs. Barrow declared. “Not but what—I wonder, was it the Honorable Francis Cheviot, perhaps? Him as is son to Lord Bedlington, which is uncle to poor Mr. Eustace.”

“I do not know. It was stupidly done of me, but I forgot to ask him what his name was.”

“A dentical fine gentleman?” said Barrow. “Nursed in cotton, as they say?”

“N-no. At least, I do not know. He had an air of fashion, but he did not look to be a dandy precisely. He was dark, and quite young. Oh, he spoke with a slight foreign accent!”

“Oh, him!”said Barrow disparagingly. “That’ll be the Frenchy, that will. I’ve seen him before, but I disremember that he ever came climbing in at the window.”

“A Frenchman! Why, yes, he uttered a French oath, now you put me in mind of it! Pray, who is he?”

“He came with Mr. Francis one time,” mused Barrow. “He had some outlandish name but I don’t know what it was. Came to England in a basket of cabbages, he did.”

“Came to England in a basket of cabbages!”

“Adone-do, Barrow!” said his wife indignantly. “It was no such thing, ma’am!”

“It was what Mr. Eustace told me,” argued Barrow. “The Frenchy being naught but a baby, and went into the basket as snug as a mouse in a cheese, I dare say.”

“It was a cart full of cabbages, and to be sure he did not come all the way to England in it! It was at the start of that nasty revolution they had, ma’am, and they do say there was no way for decent folks, and the quality and such, to get away but by smuggling themselves out of the town in all manner of disguises, and such shifts.”

“Ay, no end to the outlandish tricks them Frenchies get up to,” nodded Barrow. “Not but what I don’t believe all I hear, and I always reckoned that was a loud one.”

“An émigré family! I see!” Elinor said. “I should have guessed it, indeed.”

“I don’t know what kind of a family it might be,” said Barrow cautiously, “but what should take him to come visiting Mr. Eustace at that hour of night? I never saw him above a couple of times in my life, and for all he’s a Frenchy he came in at the front door like a Christian.”

“I think he said that he was visiting friends in the neighborhood.”

Barrow seemed inclined to cavil at this. He scratched his chin. “Well, he’s not visiting his lordship, that’s sure. Nor he’s not at the Priory, for old Sir Matthew, he’s tedious set against all Frenchies. And he won’t be at Elm House, for a decenter couple of ladies than Miss Lynton and Miss Elizabeth you won’t find, and to be having gentlemen to stay is what they wouldn’t do. And if it’s the Hurst he meant, Mr. Frinton and his lady has gone up to London and won’t be back this se’nnight.”

“Likely he came from the Hill,” suggested Mrs. Barrow comfortably. “I’m sure it’s no matter.”

“Ay, likely he did,” agreed Barrow. “There’s no saying what they’ll do, them as live on the Hill.”

Having expressed himself suitably as a Weald man, he seemed to think the problem settled, and went off to make an inventory of all the silver in the house.

Elinor let the subject drop and was soon immersed in household details with Mrs. Barrow. But when that lady had sailed off kitchenward her thoughts reverted to the episode, and while she set about the several tasks that lay nearest to her hand she found herself still puzzling over it.

At eleven o’clock the sound of hoofbeats on the carriage drive made her look out of the window. She saw the Honorable Nicholas Carlyon trotting up to the house on a stylish bay, a crossbred dog, half lurcher, half mastiff, bounding along beside his horse. He caught sight of her and waved his whip, calling out, “How d’ye do? Ned told me I should come over to see if you were tolerably comfortable.”

“I am much obliged to you both!” she returned. “Do but take your horse to the stables and I will come down and let you in!”

By the time he had done this she was already standing on the porch. He came striding along, and at once pulled off his hat and said, “Good morning, ma’am! Shall you object to Bouncer? I will leave him outside if you wish, only if I do I dare say he will be off hunting, and the thing is that Sir Matthew Kendal’s preserves abut onto this land, and he don’t above half like to have Bouncer on them.”

“No, indeed, that would never do,” she said. “I have not the least objection to him, for you must know I have been used to dogs all my life. Pray bring him in with you!”

He looked gratified and called the dog to heel. Barrow, who happened to be crossing the hall at that moment, looked with a good deal of reproach at his mistress and gave it as his considered opinion that if Master Nicky was to bring His dogs in, spanneling the floors, there could be no sense in summoning the gardener’s wife up to scrub them. The intelligent hound, however, lifted a lip at him, and he made off, muttering.

“My brother has gone off somewhere in his chaise, Mrs. Cheviot,” announced Nicky, following his hostess into the bookroom. “Oh! You do not like it when one calls you by that name! Well, you know, I have been thinking, and if you should not dislike it excessively I believe I should call you Cousin Elinor. For you are our cousin, are you not?”

‘“By marriage, I suppose I must be,” acknowledged Elinor. “I do not dislike you to call me so, at all events—Cousin Nicholas.”

“Oh, no! I wish you will not call me Nicholas!” he protested. “No one ever does, except John sometimes, when he reads me one of his lectures! Ned never does so. Why, how you have changed everything here already! I declare, this is first-rate!”

She invited him to sit down by the fire. He declined partaking of any refreshment but was anxious to know if there were any way in which he could be of use to her. “For you must know that I am quite at leisure,” he told her. “And Ned said I could make myself useful.”

She did not feel that his assistance in sorting linen would be of much practical help, but it occurred to her that he might be able to throw light on the identity at least of her midnight visitor. She described the encounter to him, therefore. He listened with much interest and at the end said that his cousin Eustace had been a very loose screw and that any friends of his were likely to prove ugly customers. But he was less concerned with the Frenchman’s name than with the manner of his entry.

“Too smoky by half, Cousin!” he said. “A fellow don’t go creeping into a man’s house at midnight if he’s up to any good. Depend upon it, Eustace was concerned in some devilry or other!”

“I hope you may be wrong!” she said. “For if you are not I dare not think of the odd persons who may seek to gain admittance here in the expectation of finding him!”

“Very true. Are you quite sure there was no door left open?”

“I could not find one. It is the strangest thing! I own I cannot be at my ease over it.”

“I’ll tell you what it is, Cousin Elinor!” said Nicky, his eyes sparkling. “I should not be at all surprised if there were a secret way into the house we do not know of!”

She regarded him in considerable dismay. “No, pray do not put such uncomfortable notions into my head!” she begged.

“Yes, but I dare say there is,” he insisted. “You know, it was used to be said that Charles the Second hid in this house after Worcester. Ned says that’s all fudge, and he was never within ten miles of Highnoons, but only fancy if it were so!”

“Only fancy!” echoed Elinor in a hollow tone.

Nicky jumped to his feet and began to walk round the room inspecting the walls. “I dare say there may be a sliding panel somewhere, just as I saw in some old house or another, with a passage into the garden.”

“It is not in this room,” said Elinor firmly. “He did not enter here—and I wish you will not talk in such a way! I shall not sleep a wink all night!”

“No, indeed! I should think you would not!” Nicky agreed. “We must find it, of course! By Jove, this is capital sport!”

Nothing would do for him but to be allowed to search the house. Elinor went with him, torn between amusement at his enthusiasm and a horrid fear that he might indeed discover a hidden door. The dog Bouncer accompanied them, hopeful of rats, but presently grew disgusted with the lack of sport and lay down, yawning cavernously. Nicky tapped all the paneling in the ground-floor rooms without producing the hollow note he so ardently desired to hear, and Elinor was just beginning to breathe again when he insisted on going upstairs. She felt that it was unlikely that a secret way into the house should be found in any of the bedrooms, but Nicky said he had seen one that started from a cheese room at the very top of a house.

“Good God, there is a large loft here which was very likely used as a cheese room in former times!” Elinor cried, quite aghast.

“Is there, by Jupiter?” Nicky exclaimed. “I’ll go up there this instant!”

She did not accompany him, and he presently reappeared, slightly cast down at having been unable to discover even as much as a priest’s hole in the cheese room. He put Elinor so forcibly in mind of the schoolboy brothers of several of her late pupils that she very soon abandoned all formality with him, an arrangement which seemed to suit him very well. His conviction that the large cupboard built into the wall of her bedchamber was just the place where one might reasonably expect to find a hidden trap door provoked her into apostrophizing him as an odious boy, a form of address to which he seemed to be accustomed, for he grinned and said, “I know, but what sport if it were so, Cousin Elinor! Only consider!”

“I am considering it,” she said. “And let me tell you, Nicky, that if you are trying to make my flesh creep you are wasting your time. Recollect that I have been a governess, and governesses, you know, have no romantic notions and seldom indulge themselves with swooning or the vapors!”

“Oh, don’t they just!” he retorted. “My sisters once had one who was forever swooning! We told her the Hall was haunted, and Gussie—my sister Augusta, you know—dressed up in a sheet, and Harry and I clanked chains and made the most famous groaning noises! She did not stay with us above a month.”

“I am astonished she stayed with you so long,” said Elinor. “I had thought my lot a hard one, but I perceive I have considerable cause to be thankful that at least I was never hired to instruct your sisters.”

He laughed. “Oh, we should not have served you so, for you are not at all like a governess. May I go in this room?”

“Do, by all means!” she said cordially. “If you should find any skeletons behind the wainscoting, do not hesitate to call me! I shall be in the stillroom, at the end of the corridor.”

She parted from him and went off to check the stores. She was engaged in arranging a row of preserve jars on a shelf when she heard Nicky shout to her in a voice of great excitement. She stepped out into the corridor, saying calmly, “You have discovered a skull. How delightful it is, to be sure!”

“No, no, I have not, but only come and see, Cousin Elinor! I’m not gammoning you! Only come!”

“Very well, but I do not scruple to tell you that my expectations are high, and nothing less than a skull will do for me.”

He led her into a small, square apartment, wainscoted to the ceiling and containing little besides a bed, a carved chest, and two chairs. “You’re quizzing me, but you will not do so when you have seen what I have discovered! Now, look about you, Cousin! You would not suppose that there was anything out of the ordinary here, would you?”

“I should not,” she agreed. “But having closely inspected this house I am aware that there is a concealed cupboard on the right of the fireplace. In fact, it is by no means perfectly concealed, and has been used, I fancy, as a wardrobe.”

“Yes,” he interrupted, in no way damped. “But do you know what is in that cupboard?”

She looked at him suspiciously. “Nicky, if you have placed something horrid there just to see me go into strong convulsions—”

“I tell you I’m not bamming, ma’am! Why, is it likely I would do such an unhandsome thing?”

“Yes,” said Elinor frankly. “Extremely likely!”

“Well, I would not. Watch!”

He stepped up to the panel which formed the door of the cupboard, and slid it back. Elinor looked warily inside, but the cupboard was empty. She glanced inquiringly at Nicky, and found that his innocent blue eyes were fairly blazing with excitement.

“For heaven’s sake, tell me instantly what it is!” she

“Watch!” he said again, and stepped into the shallow cupboard and dropped onto his knees and with some difficulty prized up a triangular section of the oaken boards that formed the floor. These were so cunningly joined together that when the trap door they formed was in place only a close inspection revealed the fact that the floor was not solid. With starting eyes Elinor watched the section come up and a dark, narrow cavity appear at her feet. _

“It is. easier lifted from below,” Nicky explained, propping the triangular section up against the wall.

“Easier lifted from below!” echoed Elinor, in a failing voice.

“Yes, for I have tested it. I dare say in the old days they may have had some contrivance for opening it on this side, for you can see how the boards have shrunk so that I can get my nails under them, and that cannot have been so when the place was used in earnest. Look, Cousin Elinor, do you see? It is a secret stair, going down the big chimney stack!”

“Good God!” she said faintly.

“I knew you would be surprised!” He nodded. “I wonder if Ned knows of this.”

She regarded him with a fulminating eye. “If I find that your—your odious brother knew of such a thing and left me here at the mercy of any marauder who has a fancy to steal into the house at dead of night—oh, it is too abominable of him! Where does that horrid little stair lead?”

“I don’t know yet I would not explore it until you had seen it, for it is your house, after all, and it would be rather too bad if I were to keep all the fun to myself.”

“That was thoughtful of you. I am so much obliged to you!” Elinor said feelingly. “I wonder if there is any hartshorn in the house?”

“Oh, now you are quizzing me again! But do not let us be wasting time! Shall I go first?”

“Down that dreadful stair?” gasped Elinor. “Do you imagine, you horrid creature, that I am going to set foot on it?”

He looked at her in a little surprise. “Will you not indeed? Oh, you are thinking that it is bound to be dusty! Well, I dare say it may be, but I shan’t regard that. Do you stay here and I will soon find where it leads!”

She started forward and clutched his sleeve. “Nicky, for heaven’s sake do not venture down there without even a candle! You do not know what you may discover!”

“Fudge! I am sure there is enough light for me! It must lead into the garden, of course, but how is it we have not seen the door? There is nothing to be afraid of, Cousin Elinor!”

“You cannot know that! You may fall and break your leg, or find something there—Oh, I wish you will not go!”

He grinned at her. “Don’t I hope I may find something, that’s all! If there is a skull, I will fetch it up to you!”

“Do not dare do anything of the sort!” she said, shuddering. “If you are set on going down, only let me call Barrow to go with you!”

“Barrow! No, I thank you! I don’t mean to tell him of this!” said Nicky, disappearing through the gap.

Elinor waited at the top, quite sick with apprehension and calling from time to time to know if he were still safe. He assured her that he was and that there was light enough penetrating through the opening for him to see his way. She retired to a chair and sank into it to await events. It seemed an age before he reappeared, but he did so at last, and stepped into the room, brushing the dust from his clothes. “It is the most famous thing!” he informed her. “It is just as I supposed! The stair goes down the chimney stack—it is the bakehouse chimney, you know. And there is a door at the bottom, only it is so covered over with creepers you would never see it unless you searched particularly for it! I wonder how they hid it in the old days.”

“I wonder,” said Elinor, gazing at him in a fascinated way. “I suppose there is no difficulty in opening the door from outside?”

“Oh, not the least in the world! There is a latch. You have only to part the creepers and you may see it as plain as anything! Cousin Elinor, I was never more pleased with anything in my life! It is first-rate! Why, we have nothing like this up at the Hall!”

“How wretched for you!” said Elinor.

“Well, I do think it is unfair that a paltry fellow like Eustace should have such a bang-up thing, when I dare say he never made the least use of it! Only think what Harry and I could have done if we had had such a passage up at the Hall!”

“I prefer not to think of it,” said Elinor. “But I wish with all my heart you had got it up at the Hall!”

“Yes,” he said wistfully. “But it is of no use to be thinking of that. Only it does seem rather too bad that I never knew of it till now. By Jupiter, I wish Harry were here! If he had but seen this when we were boys he would have thought of something famous to do with it, for he was always the most complete hand, you know! Why, we might have given Eustace the fright of his life! Harry is one of my brothers, you understand. He is in the Peninsula, and I do wish he were not! You would like him excessively!”

“I am sure I should,” said Elinor sympathetically. “He sounds to be a delightful creature. But meanwhile I shall be obliged to you if you will instantly find a hammer and some strong nails and secure that hidden door!”

“Nail it up! But Cousin Elinor, do you not realize that the man you found in the house last night must have entered by this way?” he exclaimed.

Elinor closed her eyes for a pregnant moment. “Yes, Nicky, I do realize that,” she said. “And since I have not the least desire that he should repeat his visit, I wish you will secure that door!”

“Well, I am by no means certain that that is what we should do,” he said, frowning. “The more I think of it the more I’m persuaded there is something dashed smoky about the business. Only consider, Cousin! A man who must needs come creeping into a house by a secret stair can be up to no good!”

“Very true. There is a want of openness about such behavior that strikes one forcibly, and makes me, at least, disinclined to pursue the acquaintance.”

His brows were still knit. “Why should he have done so, if he did not know that Eustace was dead and you here in his place? Or do you suppose that he was not a friend of Eustace’s at all, and wished to get into the :house without his knowing of it?”

She thought it over. “No,” she said at last. “He must have perceived the light shining under the door into the bookroom and thought that your cousin was there, I have no doubt that he was coming toward that room when I stepped out of it. Indeed, he must have heard me walking about in the room! Had he not wished to be seen he must have hidden himself, for he certainly had time enough to have done so. I am persuaded he expected to see your cousin.”

Nicky’s eyes had begun to sparkle again. “Jupiter, only fancy if we should have stumbled on some plot he and Eustace were hatching between them! I wonder what it can have been. Depend upon it, he came by the secret way so that the servants should not know of his visit! Tell me again just what he said to you!”

She complied with this request to the best of her ability. He listened attentively, questioning her closely upon the various heads of her narrative. He shook his head over it “It’s deuced odd!” he said. “Mind you, though I own I don’t see what he would be at, I don’t believe he was so innocent as you think! Well, if he were he would not have been on such terms with my cousin as he described! Said he had been ultimate with him, did he not?”

“Yes, decidedly. In fact, he spoke of being aware of the confusion your cousin’s affairs must be in, and he offered to assist me in getting his papers into order.”

Nicky looked fixedly at her. “He did, did he? Now, why should you need the help of some stranger when it is perfectly well known that my cousin had any number of relatives whom you would apply to if you needed help? By Jove, you have hit upon it, ma’am! Your precious visitor came here to get something from Eustace, and his wanting to go through his papers proves it! Oh, this is famous! Let us go downstairs at once and hunt for what it may be!”

“No, that you shall not!” declared Elinor roundly. “Your brother left all those papers in my charge, and no one must look at them but himself and the lawyer who is joined with him as an executor to your cousin’s will! Besides, it is nonsense! What could there be that anyone should want?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll swear there is something! Of course, it may not be a paper. I wonder if Eustace had stolen something of value. He was always under the hatches, and—”

“I will not allow it to be possible!” said Elinor. “Do you wish me to believe that your cousin was a common thief? Such a notion must be absurd!”

“Well, he stole Harry’s best fishing rod once,” argued Nicky. “Harry drew his cork for it, what’s more, and he ran to my aunt saying how brutally he had been used. He was the most cow-hearted fellow imaginable!”

“I dare say, but there is a difference between a boy’s borrowing what does not belong to him, and—”

“He didn’t borrow it! He stole it and swore he had no notion where it was! Only Harry had a pretty strong guess where he had hidden it, and he found it. If you don’t believe me, you may ask Ned! And though it is not a thing we speak of in a general way, it was for stealing that he was expelled from Eton. At least, he would have been, only that Ned prevailed on them to let him remove him with nothing said as to the cause.”

“Good God!” said Elinor bitterly. “A pretty husband I was married to, to be sure!”

“Oh, he was a shocking fellow!” said Nicky cheerfully. “So you see—”

“I do not care how shocking he may have been. I will not permit you to tamper with his papers!” said Elinor, with resolution. “It would be most improper in me. Besides, I do not set the least store by all this nonsense! You have refined too much upon what must have some quite simple explanation.”

“I’ll lay you odds you are wrong!” offered Nicky. “Of course, if you think I should not look at Eustace’s papers I will not do so. I think I should go back to the Hall, and tell Ned what we have discovered. I dare say he may have returned by this time.”

“Yes, I think you should,” said Elinor thankfully. “But I wish you will secure that door before you go!”

“No, no, we must on no account do so!” he replied. “I am in great hopes that that fellow will come back again. Indeed, I would wager a pony he will, and we don’t wish to scare him off!” He smiled engagingly at his fascinated hostess. “Now, do we, Cousin Elinor?”

“Certainly not!” she said, rising nobly to this occasion. “If he should come again I will offer him refreshment. If only I had thought of it earlier! I do trust my inhospitality may not have given him a distaste of this house!”

“I knew you were a right one!” Nicky said. “But do be serious, ma’am! You see, if I am in the right of it, and I do think I may be, he will come to get whatever it is he wants, and we must lie in wait for him and catch him red-handed. I know Ned would say so!”

“I can readily believe he would,” said Elinor sardonically.

Nicky replaced the trap door and shut the cupboard. “I do not see that there is anything more we can do here at this present,” he said. “Let us go downstairs again, Cousin. And you must not say a word of this to the Barrows, you know, for besides that we do not wish anyone to know what we have discovered, ten to one they would take fright and run away, leaving you alone here, and that would not do at all.”

“At last you have uttered a sentiment with which I find myself in profound agreement!” said Elinor. “But do not delude yourself into fancying that I mean to spend another night in this house with that dreadful door unsecured, for nothing would induce me to do so! Though, to be sure, I have not the least expectation of receiving another such visit from that man!”

He followed her down the stairs. “Well, if you have not, you cannot have the least objection to my leaving that door open,” he said reasonably.

She entered the bookroom and sat down by the fire. “I should not, I know,” she confessed. “But females have such unaccountable fancies! You will think me as paltry a creature as your cousin, I dare say, but I must Own that there is something very disagreeable to me in the thought that there is a way into this house which is used by one who you have assured me must be an ugly customer. In fact, even now in broad daylight I find I cannot be easy in my mind, and quite dread being obliged to go upstairs.”

“Oh, you need be under no apprehension, ma’am!” he assured her. “There can be no fear of anyone’s entering that door during the daylight! But I’ll tell you what! While I ride back to the Hall to tell Ned about this, I’ll leave Bouncer to guard you. You will be quite at your ease then, for he is pretty fierce, I can tell you! He took a bite out of the blacksmith’s leg only the other day. He is a splendid dog, and only quite young yet!”

She looked dubiously at the dog, which was stretched out before the fire fast asleep. “Well, if you think ... But perhaps he will not stay, if you go.”

“Yes, he will. I have been training him to do all manner of tricks! Here, Bouncer! Here, boy!”

The hound awoke and sat up, dipping his ears and panting fondly at his master. Nicky patted him invigoratingly. “Good dog, Bouncer!” he said. “Now you stay here and guard her! Do you understand, sir? Sit! That’s it! On guard, Bouncer, mind!” He straightened himself, regarding his pet proudly. “You can see how he understands me, can you not?” he said.

“I’ll be off at once. Don’t put yourself to the trouble of coming to the door with me! And don’t be in the fidgets, will you, Cousin? I shall be back almost directly and I will bring Ned to you.Sit, Bouncer! On guard!”

He left the room as he spoke, taking the precaution of shutting the door behind him. The faithful Bouncer bounded over to it, sniffed long and loud at the crack, uttered a whine, and scratched at the panel. Finding it immovable, he returned to the fire and lay down with his head on his paws and his eyes fixed on Elinor.

She leaned back in her chair, really a good deal upset by the discovery of the secret stairway and feeling the need of a period of quiet during which she might compose her mind. Common sense assured her that Nicky’s theories could be nothing more than the products of an ardent imagination, but try as she would she could not hit upon a more reasonable explanation of the Frenchman’s presence in the house on the previous night. He had not seemed to her at all the sort of young man to have made use of the secret door from a high-spirited desire to give his host a fright; nor could she believe him to have been a common housebreaker. Some motive he must have had, but what this was she was much inclined to think no one but himself would ever know. That he would return in the same manner seemed to her to go beyond the bounds of probability, yet however irrational it might be, she could not think of that secret stair without feeling her pulses beat fast with trepidation.

She did her best to shake off such foolish fears and told herself she would be better employed in sorting the linen than in sitting thinking herself into nervous spasms. She got up out of her chair and would have walked over to the door had it not been unmistakably brought home to her that the intelligent hound at her-feet was laboring under some confusion of ideas. He too rose, and with bristles lifting all along his back and his lips curling away from a set of admirable teeth, placed himself before her, growling.

Elinor stood still, looking down at him doubtfully. “Good dog!” she said, in what she hoped was a reassuring voice. “Lie down, sir!”

Bouncer barked at her.

“You stupid creature, he did not mean you to keep me chained to my chair!” scolded Elinor. “Lie down this instant!”

Bouncer stood his ground and went on growling in a sort of crescendo which could not be regarded as other than menacing. Elinor sat down again. Pleased with his success, Bouncer followed suit, lolled his tongue out, and panted gently.