Johnny Ludlow Third Series Part 21

"But you said it would not come to anything," interrupted Helen.

"Well, and no more it won't: leastways, it seemed so by the cards; and it seemed to bring a bother with it--old folks pulling one way maybe, and young 'uns the other. You'll have to wait a bit for the right gentleman, my pretty miss."

"What stupid cards they are!" cried Helen, in dudgeon. "I dare say it's all rubbish."

"Any ways, you've had nothing bad," said the old woman. "And that's a priceless consolation."

"It's your turn now, Anna."

"I won't have mine told," said Anna. "I'm afraid."

"Oh, you senseless donkey!" cried Bill. "Afraid of a pack of cards!" So Anna laughed, and began.

"Ah, there's more here," said the old woman as she laid them out. "You are going through some great ceremony not long first. See here--crowds of people--and show. Is it a great ball, I wonder?"

"It may be my presentation," said Anna.

"And here's the wedding-ring!--and there's the gentleman! See! he's turning towards you; a dark man it is; and he'll be very fond of you, too!--and----"

"Oh, don't go on," cried Anna, in terrible confusion as she heard all this, and caught Tod's eye, and saw Bill on the broad laugh. "Don't, pray don't; it must be all nonsense," she went on, blushing redder than a rose.

"But it's true," steadily urged the old lady. "There the wedding is. I don't say it'll be soon; perhaps not for some years; but come it will in its proper time. And you'll live in a fine big house; and--stay a bit--you'll----"

Anna, half laughing, half crying, pushed the cards together. "I won't be told any more," she said; "it must be all a pack of nonsense."

"Of course it is," added Helen decisively. "And why couldn't you have told me all that, Mrs. Ness?"

"Why, my dear, sweet young lady, it isn't me that tells; it's the cards."

"I don't believe it. But it does to while away a wet and wretched afternoon. Now, Miss Carey."

Miss Carey looked up from her book with a start. "Oh, not me! Please, not me!"

"Not you!--the idea!" cried Helen. "Why, of course you must. I and my sister have had our turn, and you must take yours."

As if further objection were out of the question, Miss Carey stood timidly up by the table and shuffled the cards that Dame Ness handed to her. When they were spread out, the old woman looked at the cards longer than she had looked for either Helen or Anna, then at the girl, then at the cards again.

"There has been sickness and trouble;--and distress," she said at length, "And--and--'tain't over yet. I see a dark lady and a fair man: they've been in it, somehow. Seems to ha' been a great trouble"--putting the tips of her forefingers upon two cards. "Here you are, you see, right among it,"--pointing to the Queen of Hearts. "I don't like the look of it. And there's money mixed up in the sorrow----"

A low, shuddering cry. I happened to be looking from the window at the moment, and turned to see Janet Carey with hands uplifted and a face of imploring terror. The cry came from her.

"Oh don't, don't! don't tell any more!" she implored.

"I--was--not--guilty."

Down went her voice by little and little, down fell her hands; and down dropped she on the chair behind her. The next moment she was crying and sobbing. We stood round like so many helpless simpletons, quite put down by this unexpected interlude. Old Dame Ness stared, slowly shuffling the cards from hand to hand, and could not make it out.

"Here, I'll have my fortune told next, Mother Ness," said Bill Whitney, really out of good nature to the girl, that she might be left un.o.bserved to recover herself. "Mind you promise me a good one."

"And so I will then, young gentleman, if the cards 'll let me," was the hearty answer. "Please shuffle 'em well, sir, and then cut 'em into three."

Bill was shuffling with all his might when we heard the front-door open, and Cattledon's voice in the hall. "Oh, by George, I say, what's to be done?" cried he. "She'll be fit to smother us. That old parson can't have given them a sermon."

Fortunately she stayed on the door-mat to take off her clogs. Dame Ness was smuggled down the kitchen stairs, and Bill hid the cards away in his pocket.

And until then it had not occurred to us that it might not be quite the right thing to go in for fortune-telling on Good Friday.

II.

On Easter Tuesday William Whitney and Tod went off to Whitney Hall for a few days: Sir John wrote for them. In the afternoon Miss Deveen took Helen in the carriage to make calls; and the rest of us went to the Colosseum, in the Regent's Park. Cattledon rather fought against the expedition, but Miss Deveen did not listen to her. None of us--except herself--had seen it before: and I know that I, for one, was delighted with it.

The last scene of the performance was over. If I remember rightly, at this distance of time, it was the representation of the falling of an avalanche on a Swiss village, to bury it for ever in the snow; and we saw the little lighted church to which the terrified inhabitants were flying for succour, and heard the tinkling of its alarm bell. As we pushed out with the crowd, a policeman appeared in our way, facing us, a tall, big, fierce-looking man; not to impede the advance of the throng, but to direct its movements. Janet Carey seized my arm, and I turned to look at her. She stood something like a block of stone; her face white with terror, her eyes fixed on the policeman. I could not get her on, and we were stopping those behind. Naturally the man's eyes fell on her; and with evident recognition.

"Oh, it's you here, is it, Miss Carey!"

The tone was not exactly insolent: but it was cool and significant, wanting in respect. When I would have asked him how he dared so to address a young lady, the words were arrested by Janet. I thought she had gone mad.

"Oh, get me away, Mr. Ludlow, for Heaven's sake! Don't let him take me!

Oh what shall I do? what shall I do?"

"What you've got to do is to get for'ard out o' this here pa.s.sage and not block up the way," struck in the policeman. "I bain't after you now; so you've no call to be afeared this time. Pa.s.s on that way, sir."

I drew her onwards, and in half-a-minute we were in the open air, clear of the throng. Cattledon, who seemed to have understood nothing, except that we had stopped the way, shook Janet by the arm in anger, and asked what had come to her.

"It was the same man, aunt, that Mrs. Knox called in," she gasped. "I thought he had come to London to look for me."

Miss Cattledon's answer was to keep hold of her arm, and whirl her along towards the outer gates. Anna and I followed in wonder.

"What is it all, Johnny?" she whispered.

"Goodness knows, Anna. I----"

Cattledon turned her head, asking me to go on and secure a cab. Janet was helped into it and sat back with her eyes closed, a shiver taking her every now and then.

Janet appeared at dinner, and seemed as well as usual. In the evening Helen tore the skirt of her thin dress: and before she was aware, the girl was kneeling by the side of her chair with a needle and thread, beginning to mend it.

"You are very kind," said Helen heartily, when she saw what Janet was doing.

"Oh no," answered Janet, with an upward, humble glance from her nice eyes.

But soon after that, when we were describing to Helen and Miss Deveen the sights at the Colosseum, and the silence of the buried village after the avalanche had fallen, Janet was taken with an ague fit. The very chair shook; it seemed that she must fall out of it. Anna ran to hold her. Miss Deveen got up in consternation.

"That Colosseum has been too much for her: there's nothing so fatiguing as sightseeing. I did wrong in letting Janet go, as she is still weak from her illness. Perhaps she has taken cold."

Ringing the bell, Miss Deveen told George to make some hot wine and water. When it was brought in, she made Janet drink it, and sent her upstairs to bed, marshalled by Cattledon.

The next morning, Wednesday, I was dressing in the sunshine that streamed in at the bedroom windows, when a loud hulla-balloo was set up below, enough to startle the king and all his men.

"Thieves! robbers! murder!"