CHAPTER IX "WHAT TALES ARE THESE?"

"Now tell me," said Mr Bevan, they were walking in the garden after luncheon, "tell me, Cousin Fanny"—Miss Lambert, had vanished with the B?llinger—"don't you think your father is a little bit—er—extravagant?"

"He may be a bit extravagant," murmured Fanny, plucking a huge daisy and putting it in her belt. "But then—he is such a dear, and I know he tries to economise all he can, he sold the carriage and horse only a month ago, and just look at the garden! he wont go to the expense of a gardener but does it all himself; it would be disgraceful only it's so lovely, with all the things running wild; see, here is one of his garden gloves."

She picked a glove out of a thorn bush and kissed it, and put it in her pocket.

"He does the garden himself!"

"He and James."

"You don't mean——"

"Mr Isaacs' man, they have dug up a lot of ground over there and planted asparagus.[Pg 63] James was a gardener once, but as I have told you, he had misfortunes and had to take to the law. He is awfully poor, and his wife is ill; they live in a little street near Artesian Road, and father has been to see her; he came with me, and we brought her some wine; I carried it in a basket. See, is not that a beautiful rose?" she smiled at the rose, and Charles could not but admire her beauty.

"And then," resumed Fanny, the smile fading as the wind turned the rose's face away, "father is so unfortunate, all the people he lends money to won't pay him back, and stocks and shares and things go up and down, and always the wrong way, so he says, and he gets into such a rage with the house because he can't mortgage it—it was left in trust for me—and we can't let it, so we have to live in it."

"Why can you not let it?"

"Because of the ghost."

"Good gracious goodness!" gobbled Charles, taking the cigar from his mouth. "What nonsense are you talking, Cousin Fanny? Ghost! there are no such things as ghosts."

"Aren't there?" said Fanny. "I wish you saw our one."

"Do you really mean to try to make me[Pg 64] believe——" cried Charles, then he foundered, tied up in his own vile English.

"We did let it once, a year ago, to a Major Sawyer," said Fanny, and she smiled down the garden path at some presumably pleasant vision. "It was in May; we let it to him for three months and went down to Ramsgate to economise. Major Sawyer moved in on a Friday; I remember that, for the next day was Saturday, and I shall never forget that Saturday.

"We were sitting at breakfast, when a telegram was brought, it was from the Major, and it was from the South Kensington Hotel; it said, as well as I can remember, 'Call without a moment's delay.'"

"Of course we thought 'The Laurels' were burnt down, and you can fancy the fright we were in, for it's not insured—at least the furniture isn't."

"Not insured!" groaned Charles.

"No; father says houses never catch fire if they are not insured, and he wouldn't trust himself not to set it on fire if it was insured, so it's not insured."

"Go on."

"Let us sit down on this seat. Well, of[Pg 65] course we thought we were ruined, and father was perfectly wild to get up to town and know the worst, he can't stand suspense. He wanted to take a special train, and there was a terrible scene at the station; you know we have Irish blood in us: his mother was Irish, and Fanny Lambert, my great-grandmother, the one that hung herself, was an Irishwoman. There was a terrible scene at the station, because they wouldn't take father's cheque for the extra twenty-five pounds for the special train. 'I tell you I'm ruined,' said father, but the station-master, a horrible little man with whiskers, said he couldn't help that. Oh! the world is horribly cold and cruel," said Fanny, drawing closer to her companion, "when one is in a strange place, where one doesn't know people. Once father gets to know people he can do anything with them, for every one loves him. The wife of the hotel-keeper where we stayed in Paris wept when we had to go away without our luggage."

"I should think so."

"You see we only took half of the money we got from Mr Isaacs to Paris; we locked half of it up in the bureau in the library for fear we would spend it, then when the [Pg 66]fortnight was up we hadn't enough for the bill. Father wanted to leave Boy-Boy, but they said they'd sooner keep the luggage. They were very nice over it, the hotel-keeper and his wife, but people are horrid when they don't know one.

"Well, we came by a later train, and found Major Sawyer waiting for us at the South Kensington Hotel. He was such a funny old man with fiery eyes and white hair that stood up. We did not see Mrs Sawyer, so we supposed she had been burnt in the fire; but we scarcely had time to think, for the Major began to abuse father for having let him such a house.

"I was awfully frightened, and father listened to the abuse quite meekly, you see he thought Mrs Sawyer was burnt. Then it came out that there had been no fire, and I saw father lift up his head, and put his chin out, and I stopped my ears and shut my eyes."

"I suppose he gave it to old Sawyer."

"Didn't he! Mrs Sawyer told me afterwards that the Major had never been spoken to so before since he left school, and that it had done him a world of good—poor old thing!"

[Pg 67]

"But what was it all about—I mean what made him leave the house?"

"Why, the ghost, to be sure. The first night he was in the house he went poking about looking for burglars, and saw it or heard it, I forget which; they say he did not stop running till he reached the police station, and that's nearly a mile away, and he wouldn't come back but took a cab to the hotel in his pyjamas. But the funny thing is, that ever since the day father abused him, he has been our best friend; he's helped us in money matters lots of times, and he always sends us hares and things when he goes shooting. The ghost always brings us luck when she can—always."

"You believe in Luck?"

"I believe in everything, so does father."

"And this ghost, it's a 'she' you said, I think?"

"It's Fanny Lambert."

"Oh!"

"My great-grandmother."

"Tell me about her," said Charles, lighting a new cigar and leaning back luxuriously on the seat.

The seat was under a chestnut tree,[Pg 68] before them lay a little wilderness, sunflowers unburst from the bud, stocks, and clove pinks.

In its centre stood a moss-grown sun-dial bearing this old dial inscription in Latin, "The hours pass and are numbered." From this wilderness of a garden came the drone of bees, a dreamy sound that seemed to refute the motto upon the dial.

"She lived," said Fanny, "a hundred, or maybe two hundred, years ago; anyhow it was in the time of the Regency—and I wish to goodness I had lived then."

"Why?"

"Oh, it must have been such fun."

"How do you know about the time of the Regency?"

"I have read about it in the library, there are a lot of old books about it, and one of them is in handwriting, not in print. You know in those times the Lamberts lived here at 'The Laurels,' just as we do, that's what makes the house so old; and the Prince Regent used to drive up here in a carriage and pair of coal-black horses. He was in love with Mrs Lambert, and she was in love with him. I don't wonder at her."

[Pg 69]

"Well, you ought to wonder at her," said Charles in a hectoring voice, blowing a cloud of smoke at a bumble-bee that had alighted on Fanny's dress, and was rubbing its hands together as if in satisfaction at the prosperous times and the plenty of flowers.

"Don't blow smoke at the poor thing. Isn't he fat!—there, he is gone. Why ought I to wonder at her?"

"Because she was married."

"Why shouldn't she be married?"

"Ahem!" said Charles, clearing his throat.

"Why?"

"I meant to say that she should not have loved the Prince."

"Why not? he was awfully good to them. Do you know George, Fanny's husband, must have been very like father; he was like him in face, for we have a miniature of him, but he was like him in other ways, too. He would sit up at Crockfords—what was Crockfords?"

"A kind of club, I believe."

"He would sit up at Crockfords playing cards all night, and he killed a man once by hitting him over the head with a poker; the jury said the man died of apoplexy, but he[Pg 70] kept the man's wife and children always afterwards, and that is just what father would have done."

"I know," said Charles, "at least I can imagine him; but, all the same, I don't think you know what marriage is."

"Oh yes, I do!"

"What is it, then?"

"It's a blessed state," said Fanny, breaking into a joyous laugh; "at least I read so in some old book."

"We were talking of the Prince Regent, I think," said Charles rather stiffly.

"Were we? Oh yes, I remember. Well, they loved each other so much that the old book said it was a matter of common rumour, whatever that means. One night at Crockfords Mr Bevan—he was an ancestor of yours—flew into a frightful temper over some nonsense—a misdeal at cards I think it was—and called George Lambert a name, an awfully funny name; what was this it was? let me think——"

"Don't think, don't think, go on with the story," cried Charles in an agony.

"And George Lambert slapped Mr Bevan's face, and serve him right, too."

[Pg 71]

"What is that you say?" cried Charles, wattling like a turkey-cock.

"I said serve him right!" cried Fanny, clenching her little fists.

"Look here——" said Charles, then suddenly he became dumb, whilst the breeze wandered with a rustling sound through the desolate garden, bearing with it from some distant street the voice of a man crying "Herrings," as if to remind them that Highgate was no longer the Highgate of the Regency.

"Well?" said Fanny, still with a trace of defiance in her tone.

"Nothing," answered Charles meekly. "Go on with your story."

Fanny nestled closer to him as if to make up, and went on:

"The Prince was in the room, and every one said he turned pale; some people said he cried out, 'My God, what an occurrence!' and some people said he cried out, 'Gentlemen, gentlemen!' And the old Marquis of Bath dropped his snuff-box, though what that has to do with the story I don't know.

"At all events, the Prince left immediately, for he had an appointment to meet Fanny, and have supper with her. He must have[Pg 72] said something nasty to her, for instead of having supper with him, she took a carriage and drove home here. She seemed greatly distressed; the servants said she spent the night walking up and down the blue corridor crying out, 'O that I ever loved such a man!' and 'Who would have thought men were so cruel!' Then, when her husband came back from fighting a duel with Mr Bevan, she was gone. All her jewels were gone too; she must have hidden them somewhere, for they were never found again.

"They found her hanging in a clothes closet quite dead; she had hung herself with her garters—she must have had a very small neck, I'm sure I couldn't hang myself with mine—and now she haunts the corridor beckoning to people to follow her."

"Have you ever seen her?"

"No, but I am sure I have heard her at nights sometimes, when the wind is high. Father O'Mahony wanted to lay her, but I told father not to let him, she's said to be so lucky."

"Lucky, indeed, to lose you a good tenant!"

"It was the luckiest thing she ever did, for the hotel was awfully expensive."

[Pg 73]

"Why did you not take apartments, then?"

"Oh, they are so lonely and so poky, and landladies rob one so."

"Is your father a Roman Catholic?"

"He is."

"What are you?"

"I am nothing," said Fanny, proclaiming her simple creed with all the simplicity of childhood, and a smile that surely was reflected on the Recording Angel's face as he jotted down her reply.

"Does your father know of this state of your mind?" asked Charles in a horrified voice.

"Yes, and he is always trying to convert me to 'the faith,' as he calls it. We have long arguments, and I always beat him. When he can find nothing more to say, he always scratches his dear old head and says, 'Anyhow you're baptised, and that's one comfort,' then we talk of other things, but he did convert me once."

"How was that?"

"I was in a hurry to try on a frock," said this valuable convert to the Church; "at least the dressmaker was waiting, so I gave in, but only for once."

[Pg 74]

"What do you believe in, then?" asked Charles, glancing fearfully at the female atheist by his side, who had taken her garden hat from her head and was swinging it by the ribbon.

"I believe in being good, and I believe in father, and I believe one ought always to make every one as happy as possible and be kind to animals. I believe people who ill-treat animals go to hell—at least, I hope they do."

"Do you believe in heaven?" asked Mr Bevan in a pained voice.

"Of course I do."

"Then you are not an atheist," in a voice of relief.

"Of course I'm not. Who said I was?"

"You did."

"I didn't. I'd sooner die than be an atheist. One came here to dinner once; he had a red beard, and smoked shag in the drawing-room. Ugh! such a man!"

"Do you believe in God?"

"I used to, when I was a child. I was always told He would strike me dead if I told a lie, and then I found that He didn't. It was like the man who lived in the oven. I was always told that the Black Man who lived in the oven would run away with me if I stole[Pg 75] the jam; and one day I stole the jam, and opened the oven door and looked in. I was in a terrible fright, but there wasn't any man there."

"It's very strange," said Charles.

"That there wasn't a man there?"

"I was referring," said Charles stiffly, "to such thoughts in the mind of one so young as you are."

"Oh, I'm as old as the hills," cried Fanny in the voice of a blasé woman of the world, making a grab at a passing moth and then flinging her hat after it, "as old as the—mercy! what's that?"

"Miss Fanny!" cried the voice of Susannah, who was lowing like a cow through garden and shrubbery in search of her missing mistress, "Miss Fah-ny, Miss——"

"That's tea," said Fanny, rising, and leading the way to the house.