The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories Page 20

  “George! dear George! I knew your step. Whatever brings you home?”

  There was no answer, except the sound of the footsteps, but she leaned out, and by the rays, cast outside from the kitchen window, which was well lighted within, and stood far back, at right angles with the house door, she saw the form of the visitor. Rather dimly to be sure, but there was no mistaking it for any other than Captain Ordie, and he wore his regi­mentals. She watched him leave the broad path, and halt at the entrance to the portico, which was situated on the side of the house. She spoke again:

  “George, you did not hear me. Don’t knock—baby’s ill. Wait a moment, and I will let you in.”

  She sprang to the door. Her lamp was not one suitable for carry­ing, and she would not stay to light a taper: she knew every stair well, and sped down them. But she was awkward at the fastenings of the front door, and could not undo them in the dark. She ran into the kitchen for a light. The servant, sitting up in obe­dience to her orders, was lying back in a chair, her feet stretched out upon another. She was fast asleep and snoring. A large fire burnt in the grate, and two candles were alight on the ironing-board under­neath the window, one of them guttering down. Servants will be wasteful.

  “Martha! Martha!” she exclaimed, “rouse up. My husband’s come.”

  “What!” cried the woman, starting up in affright, and evidently forgetting where she was, “who’s come?”

  “Come and open the hall-door. Captain Ordie is there.”

  She snatched one of the candles from the table, and bore to the door again. The servant followed, rubbing her eyes.

  The door was unlocked and thrown open, and Mrs. Ordie drew a little back to give space for him to enter. No one came in. Mrs. Ordie looked out then, holding the candle above her head. She could not see him anywhere.

  “Take the light,” she said to the maid, and she stepped outside beyond the por­tico, and looked about. “George!” she called out, “where are you? The door is open.” But Captain Ordie neither ap­peared nor answered.

  “Well, I never knew such an extraor­dinary thing!” exclaimed Mrs. Ordie. “Where can he have gone?”

  “Ma’am,” said the servant, who began now to be pretty well awake, “I don’t understand. Did you say any body was come?”

  “My husband is come. Captain Ordie.”

  “From Mrs. Beecher’s?” asked the woman.

  “Mrs. Beecher’s, no! What should bring him at Mrs. Beecher’s? He must have come direct from Portsmouth.”

  “But he must have come to the door here from the Beechers’,” continued the servant. “He couldn’t have come any other how. The gates are locked.”

  In her wonder at his appearance, this fact had not struck Mrs. Ordie. “One of them must have been left unfastened,” she said, after thinking. “That was very careless, Martha. It is your place to see to it when Richard’s out. Papa once turned a servant away for leaving the gates open at night.”

  “I locked both the gates at sundown,” was the woman’s reply. “And the key’s hanging up in its place in the kitchen.”

  “Impossible,” repeated Mrs. Ordie. “The Captain came in by the upper one, the furthest from here. I heard him the minute he put his foot on the gravel, and knew his step. You must have thought you locked it. George!” added Mrs. Ordie, in a louder tone. “George!”

  There was no answer. No sound what­ever broke the stillness of the night.

  “Captain Ordie!” she repeated, “Cap­tain Ordie!”

  The servant was laughing to herself, taking care that her young mistress did not see her. She believed that Mrs. Ordie had been doing what she did—dropping asleep; and had dreamt she heard some­body on the gravel.

  “I know what it is,” cried Mrs. Ordie, briskly. “He has never been here before, and finding the door was not immediately opened to him, has gone on to the Beech­ers, thinking this the wrong house.”

  She ran down the narrow path as she spoke, which branched off from the portico, round by the kitchen window; and the maid followed her, first stopping to put the candle inside the hall. It was light, now they were out.

  But nothing was to be seen of George Ordie. The curate’s house, a small one, was closed, and presented the appearance of a dwelling whose inmates were at rest; the blinds were drawn before the windows, and all was still. Mrs. Ordie ran over probabilities in her mind, and came to the conclusion that he could not have gone there. The Beechers were early people, and had no doubt been in bed an hour ago; and had her husband knocked there, he would be waiting at the door still, for they had not had time to come down and let him in.

  “It could only have been fancy, ma’am,” cried Martha.

  “Silence,” said Mrs. Ordie; “how can it have been fancy? I heard my husband, and saw him.”

  “Well, ma’am, I argue so from the gates being fast. He couldn’t have got over ’em because of the spikes.”

  “The gates can not be fast,” returned Mrs. Ordie, “and it is foolish in you to persist in the falsehood—only to screen your own carelessness.”

  “I wish you’d just please to come and look at the gates,” retorted Martha.

  “I will,” said Mrs. Ordie, starting off with alacrity, anxious to convict Martha to her face. “It is an utter impossibility that Captain Ordie could have come in at a high, locked gate, with spikes on the top; he would not attempt to do so.”

  “That’s just what I say,” answered Martha. “I dreamt t’other night,” she muttered to herself, as she followed her mistress, “that a man came down that there path with lovely gownd pieces to sell: I might just as well have riz up the house, and had him routed for.”

  They gained the broad walk, and pro­ceeded round towards the gate. Mrs. Ordie put out her hand and tried it. It was locked. Martha sniffed.

  “Why, it is like magic!” uttered Mrs. Ordie.

  “I was positive and certain about its being locked, ma’am. And that’s why I said it must be fancy. I think it couldn’t have been nothing else.”

  Mrs. Ordie was indignant. “Is this gate fancy?” she said, shaking it, in her anger.

  “No, that’s a real gate.”

  “Then don’t tell me again that my hus­band is fancy. How could I have seen and heard him if he were not come? Cap­tain Ordie!” she called out, once more. “George! where can you have gone to?”

  “If he is on the premises, he must be on ’em,” logically argued the servant. “Because there’s no outlet out of ’em, but by these gates.”

  “Come to the other gate,” said Mrs. Ordie.

  They retraced their steps round the cir­cular path, Mrs. Ordie looking in all direc­tions for a gleam of scarlet, and reached the other gate. It was also locked. Then she went and tried Mr. Beecher’s gate; it was likewise fast; and then she went to their own garden, at the back of the house, and looked and called. She even went into the summer-house, but there was no trace of Captain Ordie. The servant walked with her, half-amused, half­-provoked.

  “Can he have slipped in-doors,” mur­mured Mrs. Ordie, “that first time when we had gone down to the Beechers?” And she went in, looked in the sitting-rooms, ascended the stairs to her own room, where the light was, taking the op­portunity to glance at her child, and then looked in the kitchen. But Captain Ordie was nowhere to be seen, and she had never been so much perplexed and puzzled in all her life.

  “Then he must have gone on, as I thought, to Mr. Beecher’s,” was her last solution of the enigma. “They were pos­sibly up, and let him in directly. And they are keeping him there till morning, that he may not disturb us, knowing that baby is ill.”

  “But about the gate,” interrupted the servant, returning to her stumbling-block, “how could he have got through it?”

  “I know he did get through it, and that’s enough,” responded Mrs. Ordie. “He may have managed to climb over it, not finding the bell. Soldiers have ven­turesome spirits. I will go and fetch him. You stop here, Martha, and listen to baby.”

 
; Once more Mrs. Ordie sped to the cu­rate’s. She knocked at the door, and stood back to look up at the house. “They have put him into their spare bed,” she soliloquized; “Mrs. Beecher has kept it made up this fortnight past, ex­pecting their invalid from India. My good­ness! I never thought of it! they have no doubt come together, in the same ship. George may have gone up to Calcutta, and finding James Beecher was coming, have got leave, all in a hurry, and accompanied him.”

  But there was still no sign of light or life in the house, and Mrs. Ordie picked up some bits of gravel, and threw them at Mrs. Beecher’s bed-room window. This brought forth the curate, in his nightcap, peeping through the curtains.

  “It is I, Mr. Beecher,” she called out. “Have you got Captain Ordie here?”

  “Make haste, Anne,” cried the curate, turning his head round to speak to his wife. “It’s Mrs. Ordie. Perhaps the child is in a fit.”

  “My husband is come,” repeated Mrs. Ordie. “He is here, is he not?”

  “Yes, directly,” answered the curate, imperfectly understanding, but opening the casement about an inch, to speak.

  “Is she really worse, Louisa?” exclaim­ed Mrs. Beecher, who now appeared at the window. “I will just throw on a few things, and be with you.”

  The curate, believing the matter to be settled, drew in his nightcap, and closed the casement. But Mrs. Ordie’s voice was again heard. “Mr. Beecher! Mr. Beecher! I want you.”

  “Dress yourself, my dear,” cried Mrs. Beecher to him, in a flurry. “I dare say they want you to go for Mr. Percival. If the baby is really worse, and it is not Louisa’s fancy, I shall never boast of know­ing children again. It looked as cool and well in the evening as it need look. She is calling again.”

  Mr. Beecher reopened the casement. “I am putting on my clothes, Mrs. Ordie. I am coming.”

  “But you need not do that. Has your brother come?”

  “Who?”

  “Your brother: James Beecher.”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “There’s a ship in, as my husband has arrived. Tell him I am here.”

  “We’ll be down in a minute,” called out Mr. Beecher, retiring from the window, and making desperate haste. “Anne, Cap­tain Ordie’s come.”

  “Captain Ordie!” exclaimed Mrs. Beecher.

  “Mrs. Ordie says so.”

  “Then we shall have James here to-­morrow. How very unexpected Captain Ordie’s arrival must have been to his wife! And to find his child ill!”

  Mrs. Ordie waited. Mrs. Beecher came down first, in a large shawl, and her bon­net tied over her nightcap. They began to speak at cross purposes.

  “Is he coming? Have you told him?” impatiently asked Mrs. Ordie.

  “My dear, yes. But he had gone up­stairs in slippers, and his shoes were in the back kitchen. Louisa, you should not have come out yourself, you should have sent. Has not Captain Ordie’s arrival taken you by surprise?”

  “I never was so much surprised,” an­swered Mrs. Ordie, standing still, and not offering to stir. “I heard his footstep first, and knew it even in the distance. I am so glad! He must have come with James Beecher.”

  “Ay, we shall have James here to-mor­row. But, my dear, let us not lose time. Is the child very ill?”

  “She is not worse, there is no hurry,” answered Mrs. Ordie, planting her back against a tree, as deliberately as if she meant to make it her station for the night, and gazing up at the casement which she knew belonged to their spare bedroom. Mrs. Beecher looked at her in surprise. “Will he be long?” she added. “There’s no light.”

  “He will be here directly,” said Mrs. Beecher; “he is finding his shoes. I sup­pose Kitty put them in some out-of-the-way place, ready for cleaning in the morn­ing.”

  Another pause, and the curate ap­peared.

  “O Mr. Beecher! you need not have got up,” was Mrs. Ordie’s greeting. “I am sorry to give you all this trouble.”

  “It is no trouble,” he rejoined. “Do you want me to go for Mr. Percival?”

  “You are very kind, but we shall not want the doctor to-night: at least I hope not. She has never woke up once since she was laid down. I have been watching her myself: I had her brought down to my own room. Nurse behaved shamefully over it, and I gave her warning. She shall leave to-morrow.”

  “Pray let us go on, and see how she is,” said Mrs. Beecher, never supposing but they had been called up by the state of the child, and thinking Mrs. Ordie’s words and delay very strange.

  “When he comes. You say he will not be long. Had he undressed?”

  “Had who undressed?”

  “My husband.”

  Mrs. Beecher stared at her with amaze­ment. “I do not understand you, Louisa. For whom are we waiting here?”

  “For my husband, of course. You say he is finding his shoes.”

  Both Mr. and Mrs. Beecher thought her child’s illness was turning her crazy. “Louisa, you are mystifying us. Is your husband coming out, here, into the gar­den? Are we to wait here for him?”

  “Why, you know he is coming out, and of course I shall wait for him. Only think of his travelling in his regimentals! Just as if he were on duty.”

  “Where is Captain Ordie?” interposed the curate.

  “Well, that’s a sensible question, from you,” laughed Mrs. Ordie. “I suppose he is in your spare bedroom, though I see no light. Or else hunting for his shoes in your kitchen.”

  “Child,” said Mrs. Beecher, taking hold of her tenderly, “you are not well. I told you to-day what it would be, if you excited yourself. Let us take you home.”

  “I will not go without my husband. There. And what makes him so long? I shall call to him.” She advanced and turned the handle of the door, but it re­sisted her efforts.

  “Why, you have locked it!” she ex­claimed, turning to Mr. Beecher. “You have locked him in.”

  “Locked who in, child?” said Mrs. Beecher. “There’s nobody in the house but Kitty.”

  “My husband is there. Did he not come to you, finding our house shut up?”

  “No, certainly not. We have not seen him.”

  “Mr. Beecher,” she impatiently uttered, “I asked you when you first came to the window, whether my husband had come here, and you said yes.”

  “My dear young lady, I must have misunderstood your question. You know I am a little deaf. All I heard, with refer­ence to Captain Ordie, was, that he had come: I supposed to your house. He has certainly not been to ours.”

  “Then what were you talking of?” she reproachfully asked of Mrs. Beecher. “It was shameful to deceive me so! You said he had gone up-stairs in slippers, and was finding his shoes. You know you did.”

  “My dear child, I was speaking of Mr. Beecher. I did not know you thought your husband was here. Why did you think so?”

  “If he is not here, where is he?” de­manded Mrs. Ordie. “You need not look at me as though you thought I was out of my senses. Do you mean to say you have not seen Captain Ordie?”

  “We have not, indeed. We went to bed at ten, and heard nothing, until you threw the gravel at the window.”

  “Where can he be? What can he have done with himself?” uttered Mrs. Ordie, in deep tribulation.

  “Did he leave you to come to our house? What time did he arrive?”

  “It was at twenty-five minutes after eleven. I had got baby in my room, as I told you, and I was sitting by her, read­ing the ‘Vicar of Wakefield.’ All at once I heard footsteps approaching from the upper gate, and I knew they were my husband’s. He came close, and I looked out, and saw him, and called to him; he did not seem to hear me, but went in to the portico. I ran down to let him in, and to my surprise he was not there then, and I thought he must have come on to you.”

  “Then you have not yet spoken with him?” exclaimed Mr. Beecher.

  “Not yet.”

  “Are you sure it was Captain Ordie? Who opened the gate to him?”

  “No one. The gate is locked. There is the
strange part of the business.”

  “My dear Mrs. Ordie! I fear it must be all a mistake. Captain Ordie would not arrive here on foot, even if he landed unexpectedly; and he could not have got through a locked gate. Perhaps you were asleep.”

  “Nonsense,” peevishly replied Mrs. Ordie; “I was as wide awake as I am now. I was deep in the book, and had not felt sleepy. I had got to that part where the fine ladies from town had gone in to neighbor Flamborough’s and caught them all at hunt-the-slipper, Olivia in the middle, bawling for fair play; where Mr. Burchell, afterwards, turns his back upon the company, and calls out ‘fudge’ at the ladies’ high-lived conversation. The bal­lad ‘Edwin and Angelina’ came in, a few pages before, and that I skipped. I assure you I was perfectly awake.”

  “I do not think it possible to have been any thing but a delusion,” persisted Mr. Beecher.

  “How a delusion?” angrily asked the young lady; “I do not know what you mean. Delusions don’t visit people who are wide awake, and in their sober senses. If my hearing had played me false, Mr. Beecher, my sight could not. I heard my husband, and saw him, and spoke to him: do you think I should speak to somebody I did not know? I am certain it was Cap­tain Ordie. He was in his regimentals: were they a delusion?”

  “This is very strange,” said Mrs. Beecher.

  “It is more than strange,” was Louisa Ordie’s answer, as she looked dreamily about. “He is in the grounds somewhere, and why he does not come forward, I don’t know.”

  The mystery was not cleared up that night. The next day Mrs. Ordie sent for her father, to impart to him the strange circumstance. He adopted his curate’s view of the affair, and indeed the universal view. Mrs. Ordie was much annoyed at their disbelief, and she actually, in spite of her friends, had Captain Ordie advertised for, in the local papers: he was in England, she said, and it would be proved so.

  When letters next arrived from India, there was one from Captain Ordie, which gave proof positive that he was not, and had not been, in Europe. Mrs. Ordie was perplexed, and refused to speak of it further, for she only got ridicule.