The Solitary House (215 page)

I dawdled away the morning—part of the time in the rooms down stairs; and part, out of the doors, in the great square which is formed by the three sides of the house, and by the lofty iron railings and gates which protect it in front. A large circular fish-pond, with stone sides and an allegorical leaden monster in the middle, occupies the centre of the square. The pond itself is full of gold and silver fish,
and is encircled by a broad belt of the softest turf I ever walked on. I loitered here, on the shady side, pleasantly enough, till luncheon time; and, after that, took my broad straw hat, and wandered out alone, in the warm lovely sunlight, to explore the grounds.

Daylight confirmed the impression which I had felt the night before, of there being too many trees at Blackwater. The house is stifled by them. They are, for the most part, young, and planted far too thickly. I suspect there must have been a ruinous cutting down of timber, all over the estate, before Sir Percival’s time, and an angry anxiety, on the part of the next possessor, to fill up all the gaps as thickly and rapidly as possible. After looking about me, in front of the house, I observed a flower-garden on my left hand, and walked towards it, to see what I could discover in that direction.

On a nearer view, the garden proved to be small and poor and ill-kept. I left it behind me, opened a little gate in a ring fence, and found myself in a plantation of fir-trees. A pretty, winding path, artificially made, led me on among the trees; and my north-country experience soon informed me that I was approaching sandy, heathy ground. After a walk of more than half a mile, I should think, among the firs, the path took a sharp turn; the trees abruptly ceased to appear on either side of me; and I found myself standing suddenly on the margin of a vast open space, and looking down at the Blackwater lake from which the house takes its name.

The ground, shelving away below me, was all sand, with a few little heathy hillocks to break the monotony of it in certain places. The lake itself had evidently once flowed to the spot on which I stood, and had been gradually wasted and dried up to less than a third of its former size. I saw its still, stagnant waters, a quarter of a mile away from me in
the hollow, separated into pools and ponds, by twining reeds and rushes, and little knolls of earth. On the farther bank from me, the trees rose thickly again, and shut out the view, and cast their black shadows on the sluggish, shallow water. As I walked down to the lake, I saw that the ground on its farther side was damp and marshy, over-grown with rank grass and dismal willows. The water, which was clear enough on the open sandy side, where the sun shone, looked black and poisonous opposite to me, where it lay deeper under the shade of the spongy banks and the rank overhanging thickets and tangled trees. The frogs were croaking, and the rats were slipping in and out of the shadowy water, like live shadows themselves, as I got nearer to the marshy side of the lake. I saw here, lying half in and half out of the water, the rotten wreck of an old overturned boat, with a sickly spot of sunlight glimmering through a gap in the trees on its dry surface, and a snake basking in the midst of the spot, fantastically coiled, and treacherously still. Far and near, the view suggested the same dreary impressions of solitude and decay; and the glorious brightness of the summer sky overhead, seemed only to deepen and harden the gloom and barrenness of the wilderness on which it shone. I turned and retraced my steps to the high, heathy ground; directing them a little aside from my former path, towards a shabby old wooden shed, which stood on the outer skirt of the fir plantation, and which had hitherto been too unimportant to share my notice with the wide, wild prospect of the lake.

On approaching the shed, I found that it had once been a boat-house, and that an attempt had apparently been made to convert it afterwards into a sort of rude arbour, by placing inside it a firewood seat, a few stools, and a table. I entered the place, and sat down for a little while, to rest and get my breath again.

I had not been in the boat-house more than a minute, when it struck me that the sound of my own quick breathing was very strangely echoed by something beneath me. I listened intently for a moment, and heard a low, thick, sobbing breath that seemed to come from the ground under the seat which I was occupying. My nerves are not easily shaken by trifles; but, on this occasion, I started to my feet in a fright—called out—received no answer—summoned back my recreant courage—and looked under the seat.

There, crouched up in the farthest corner, lay the forlorn cause of my terror, in the shape of a poor little dog—a black and white spaniel. The creature moaned feebly when I looked at it and called to it, but never stirred. I moved away the seat and looked closer. The poor little dog’s eyes were glazing fast, and there were spots of blood on its glossy white side. The misery of a weak, helpless, dumb creature is surely one of the saddest of all the mournful sights which this world can show. I lifted the poor dog in my arms as gently as I could, and contrived a sort of makeshift hammock for him to lie in, by gathering up the front of my dress all round him. In this way, I took the creature, as painlessly as possible, and as fast as possible, back to the house.

Finding no one in the hall, I went up at once to my own sitting-room, made a bed for the dog with one of my old shawls, and rang the bell. The largest and fattest of all possible housemaids answered it, in a state of cheerful stupidity which would have provoked the patience of a saint. The girl’s fat, shapeless face actually stretched into a broad grin, at the sight of the wounded creature on the floor.

“What do you see there to laugh at?” I asked, as angrily as if she had been a servant of my own. “Do you know whose dog it is?”

“No, miss, that I certainly don’t.” She stopped, and
looked down at the spaniel’s injured side—brightened suddenly with the irradiation of a new idea—and, pointing to the wound with a chuckle of satisfaction, said, “That’s Baxter’s doings, that is.”

I was so exasperated that I could have boxed her ears. “Baxter?” I said. “Who is the brute you call Baxter?”

The girl grinned again, more cheerfully than ever. “Bless you, miss! Baxter’s the keeper; and when he finds strange dogs hunting about he takes and shoots ’em. It’s keeper’s dooty, miss. I think that dog will die. Here’s where he’s been shot, ain’t it? That’s Baxter’s doings, that is. Baxter’s doings, miss, and Baxter’s dooty.”

I was almost wicked enough to wish that Baxter had shot the housemaid instead of the dog. Seeing that it was quite useless to expect this densely impenetrable personage to give me any help in relieving the suffering creature at our feet, I told her to request the housekeeper’s attendance, with my compliments. She went out exactly as she had come in, grinning from ear to ear. As the door closed on her, she said to herself, softly, “It’s Baxter’s doings and Baxter’s dooty—that’s what it is.”

The housekeeper, a person of some education and intelligence, thoughtfully brought up-stairs with her some milk and some warm water. The instant she saw the dog on the floor, she started and changed colour.

“Why, Lord bless me,” cried the housekeeper, “that must be Mrs. Catherick’s dog!”

“Whose?” I asked, in the utmost astonishment.

“Mrs. Catherick’s. You seem to know Mrs. Catherick, Miss Halcombe?”

“Not personally. But I have heard of her. Does she live here? Has she had any news of her daughter?”

“No, Miss Halcombe. She came here to ask for news.”

“When?”

“Only yesterday. She said some one had reported that a stranger answering to the description of her daughter had been seen in our neighbourhood. No such report has reached us here; and no such report was known in the village, when I sent to make inquiries there on Mrs. Catherick’s account. She certainly brought this poor little dog with her when she came; and I saw it trot out after her when she went away. I suppose the creature strayed into the plantations, and got shot. Where did you find it, Miss Halcombe?”

“In the old shed that looks out on the lake.”

“Ah, yes, that is the plantation side, and the poor thing dragged itself, I suppose, to the nearest shelter, as dogs will, to die. If you can moisten its lips with the milk, Miss Halcombe, I will wash the clotted hair from the wound. I am very much afraid it is too late to do any good. However, we can but try.”

Mrs. Catherick! The name still rang in my ears, as if the housekeeper had only that moment surprised me by uttering it. While we were attending to the dog, the words of Walter Hartright’s caution to me returned to my memory. “If ever Anne Catherick crosses your path, make better use of the opportunity, Miss Halcombe, than I made of it.” The finding of the wounded spaniel had led me already to the discovery of Mrs. Catherick’s visit to Blackwater Park; and that event might lead, in its turn, to something more. I determined to make the most of the chance which was now offered me, and to gain as much information as I could.

“Did you say that Mrs. Catherick lived anywhere in this neighbourhood?” I asked.

“Oh, dear, no,” said the housekeeper. “She lives at Welmingham; quite at the other end of the county—five-and-twenty miles off at least.”

“I suppose you have known Mrs. Catherick for some years?”

“On the contrary, Miss Halcombe; I never saw her before she came here, yesterday. I had heard of her, of course, because I had heard of Sir Percival’s kindness in putting her daughter under medical care. Mrs. Catherick is rather a strange person in her manners, but extremely respectable-looking. She seemed sorely put out, when she found that there was no foundation—none, at least, that any of
us
could discover—for the report of her daughter having been seen in this neighbourhood.”

“I am rather interested about Mrs. Catherick,” I went on, continuing the conversation as long as possible. “I wish I had arrived here soon enough to see her yesterday. Did she stay for any length of time?”

“Yes,” said the housekeeper, “she stayed for some time. And I think she would have remained longer, if I had not been called away to speak to a strange gentleman—a gentleman who came to ask when Sir Percival was expected back. Mrs. Catherick got up and left at once, when she heard the maid tell me what the visitor’s errand was. She said to me, at parting, that there was no need to tell Sir Percival of her coming here. I thought that rather an odd remark to make, especially to a person in my responsible situation.”

I thought it an odd remark, too. Sir Percival had certainly led me to believe, at Limmeridge, that the most perfect confidence existed between himself and Mrs. Catherick. If that was the case, why should she be anxious to have her visit at Blackwater Park kept a secret from him?

“Probably,” I said, seeing that the housekeeper expected me to give my opinion on Mrs. Catherick’s parting words; “probably, she thought the announcement of her visit might vex Sir Percival to no purpose, by reminding him that her lost daughter was not found yet. Did she talk much on that subject?”

“Very little,” replied the housekeeper. “She talked principally of Sir Percival, and asked a great many questions about where he had been travelling, and what sort of lady his new wife was. She seemed to be more soured and put out than distressed, by failing to find any traces of her daughter in these parts. ‘I give her up,’ were the last words she said that I can remember; ‘I give her up, ma’am, for lost.’ And from that, she passed at once to her questions about Lady Glyde; wanting to know if she was a handsome, amiable lady, comely and healthy and young—Ah, dear! I thought how it would end. Look, Miss Halcombe! The poor thing is out of its misery at last!”

The dog was dead. It had given a faint, sobbing cry, it had suffered an instant’s convulsion of the limbs, just as those last words, “comely and healthy and young,” dropped from the housekeeper’s lips. The change had happened with startling suddenness—in one moment, the creature lay lifeless under our hands.

Eight o’clock. I have just returned from dining down stairs, in solitary state. The sunset is burning redly on the wilderness of trees that I see from my window; and I am poring over my journal again, to calm my impatience for the return of the travellers. They ought to have arrived, by my calculations, before this. How still and lonely the house is in the drowsy evening quiet! Oh, me! How many minutes more before I hear the carriage-wheels and run down stairs to find myself in Laura’s arms?

The poor little dog! I wish my first day at Blackwater Park had not been associated with death—though it is only the death of a stray animal.

Welmingham—I see, on looking back through these private pages of mine, that Welmingham is the name of the place where Mrs. Catherick lives. Her note is still in my
possession, the note in answer to that letter about her unhappy daughter which Sir Percival obliged me to write. One of these days, when I can find a safe opportunity, I will take the note with me by way of introduction, and try what I can make of Mrs. Catherick at a personal interview. I don’t understand her wishing to conceal her visit to this place from Sir Percival’s knowledge; and I don’t feel half so sure, as the housekeeper seems to do, that her daughter Anne is not in the neighbourhood, after all. What would Walter Hartright have said in this emergency? Poor, dear Hartright! I am beginning to feel the want of his honest advice and his willing help, already.

Surely, I heard something? Yes! There is a bustle of footsteps below stairs. I hear the horses’ feet; I hear the rolling of wheels. Away with my journal and my pen and ink! The travellers have returned—my darling Laura is home again at last!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MISS HALCOMBE’S NARRATIVE CONTINUED

June 15th.—The confusion of their arrival has had time to subside. Two days have elapsed since the return of the travellers; and that interval has sufficed to put the new machinery of our lives at Blackwater Park in fair working order. I may now return to my journal, with some little chance of being able to continue the entries in it as collectedly as usual.