Johnny Ludlow Sixth Series Part 44

"And you could stand by quietly last night when they were having, it seems, this bitter quarrel, and not stop it?" exclaimed Mrs. Cramp.

"They would not listen to me," returned Scott. "I went between them; spoke to one, spoke to the other; told them what they were quarrelling about was utter nonsense--and the more I said, the more they wrangled.

Johnny Ludlow saw how it was; he came up at the end of it."

Cherry Dawson was sent for downstairs, and came in between Sally and Joan, limp and tearful and shaking with fright. Mrs. Cramp questioned her.

"It was all done in fun," she said with a sob. "Juliet and I teased one another. It was as much her fault as mine. Fred Scott needn't talk. I'm sure _I_ don't want him. I've somebody waiting for me at Edgbaston, if I choose. Scott may go to York!"

"Suppose you mind your manners, young woman: you've done enough mischief in my house without forgetting _them_," reproved Mrs. Cramp. "I want to know when you last saw Juliet."

"We came in together after the quarrel. She ran up to her room; I joined the rest of you. As she did not come down to supper, I thought she had gone to bed. O-o-o-o-o!" shivered Cherry; "and she says she'll haunt me!

I shall never dare to be alone in the dark again."

Mr. Fred Scott took his departure, glad no doubt to do so, carrying with him a hint from Mrs. Cramp that for the present his visits must cease, unless he should be required to give evidence at the inquest. As he went out, Mr. Paul and Tom Chandler came in together. Tom, strong in plain common-sense, could not at all understand it.

"Pa.s.sion must have overbalanced her reason and driven her mad," he said aside to me. "The taunts of that Dawson girl did it, I reckon."

"Blighted love," said I.

"Moonshine," answered Tom Chandler. "Juliet, poor girl, had gone in for too many flirtations to care much for Scott. As to that golden-haired one, _her_ life is pa.s.sed in nothing else: getting out of one love affair into another, month in, month out. Her brother Tim once told her so in my presence. No, Johnny, it is a terrible calamity, but I shall never understand how she came to do it as long as I live."

I was not sure that I should. Juliet was very practical: not one of your moaning, sighing, die-away sort of girls who lose their brains for love, like crazy Jane. It was a dreadful thing, whatever might have been the cause, and we were all sorry for Mrs. Cramp. Nothing had stirred us like this since the death of Oliver Preen.

Georgiana Chandler came flying over from Birmingham in a state of excitement. Cherry Dawson had gone then, or Georgie might have shaken her to pieces. When put up, Georgie had a temper of her own. Cherry had disappeared into the wilds of Devonshire, where her home was, and where she most devoutly hoped Juliet's ghost would not find its way.

"It is an awful thing to have taken place in your house, Aunt Mary Ann.

And why unhappy, ill-fated Juliet should have--but I can't talk of it,"

broke off Georgie.

"I know that I am ashamed of its having happened here, Georgiana,"

a.s.sented Mrs. Cramp. "I am not alluding to the sad termination, but to that parcel of nonsense, the sweethearting."

"Clementina is more heartless than an owl over it," continued Georgie, making her remarks. "She says it serves Juliet right for her flirting folly, and she hopes Cherry will be haunted till her yellow curls turn grey."

The more they dragged, the less chance there seemed of finding Juliet.

Nothing came up but eels. It was known that the eel-pond had a hole or two in it which no drags could penetrate. Gloom settled down upon us all. Mrs. Cramp's healthy cheeks lost some of their redness. One day, calling at Crabb Cot, she privately told us that the trouble would lie upon her for ever. The best word Tod gave to it was--that he would go a day's march with peas in his shoes to see a certain lady hanging by her golden hair on a sour apple tree.

It was a bleak October evening. Jane Preen, in her old shawl and garden hat, was hurrying to Dame Sym's on an errand for her mother. The cold wind sighed and moaned in the trees, clouds flitted across the face of the crescent moon. It scarcely lighted up the little old church beyond the Triangle, and the graves in the churchyard beneath, Oliver's amidst them. Jane shivered, and ran into Mrs. Sym's.

Carrying back her parcel, she turned in at the garden gate and stood leaning over it for a few moments. Tears were coursing down her cheeks.

Life for a long time had seemed very hard to Jane; no hope anywhere.

The sound of quick footsteps broke upon her ear, and a gentleman came into view. She rather wondered who it was; whether anyone was coming to call on her father.

"Jane! Jane!"

With a faint cry, she fell into the arms opened to receive her--those of Valentine Chandler. He went away, a ne'er-do-well, three years ago, shattered in health, shaken in spirit; he had returned a healthy, hearty man, all his parts about him.

Yes, Valentine had turned over a new leaf from the moment he touched the Canadian sh.o.r.es. He had put his shoulder to the wheel in earnest, had persevered and prospered. And now he had a profitable farm of his own, and a pretty house upon it, all in readiness for Jane.

"We have heard from time to time that you were doing well," she said, with a sob of joy. "Oh, Valentine, how good it is! To have done it all yourself!"

"Not altogether myself, Jane," he answered. "I did my best, and G.o.d sent His blessing upon it."

Jane no longer felt the night cold, the wind bleak, or remembered that her mother was waiting for the parcel. They paced the old wilderness of a garden, arm locked within arm. There was something in the windy night to put them in mind of that other night: the night of their parting, when Valentine had sung his song of farewell, and bade her remember him though rolling ocean placed its bounds between them. They had been faithful to one another.

Seated on the bench, under the walnut tree, the very spot on which poor Oliver had sat after that rush home from his fatal visit to Mr. Paul's office at Islip, Jane ventured to say a word about Juliet, and, to her surprise, found that Valentine knew nothing.

"I have not heard any news yet, Jane," he said. "I came straight to you from the station. Presently I shall go back to astonish Aunt Mary Ann.

Why? What about Juliet?"

Jane enlightened him by degrees, giving him one particular after another. Valentine listening in silence to the end.

"I don't believe it."

"Don't believe it!" exclaimed Jane.

"Not a syllable of it."

"But what do you mean? What don't you believe?"

"That Juliet threw herself into the pond. My dear, she is not the kind of girl to do it; she'd no more do such a thing than I should."

"Oh, Val! It is true the drags brought up nothing but eels; but----"

"Of course they didn't. There's nothing but eels there to bring up."

"Then where can Juliet be?--what is the mystery?" dissented Jane. "What became of her?"

"That I don't know. Rely upon it, Janey, she is not there. She'd never jump into that cold pond. How long ago is this?"

"Nearly a month. Three weeks last Thursday."

"Ah," said Valentine. "Well, I'll see if I can get to the bottom of it."

Showing himself indoors to Mr. and Mrs. Preen for a few minutes, Valentine then made his way to Mrs. Cramp's, where he would stay. He knew his mother was away, and her house shut up. Mrs. Cramp, recovering from her surprise, told him he was welcome as the sun in harvest.

She had been more grieved when Valentine went wrong than the world suspected.

Seated over the fire, in her comfortable parlour, after supper, Valentine told her his plans. He had come over for one month; could not leave his farm longer; just to shake hands with them all, and to take Jane Preen back with him. That discussed, Mrs. Cramp entered gingerly upon the sad news about Juliet--not having thought well to deluge him with it the moment he came in. Valentine refused to believe it--as he had refused with Jane.

"Bless the boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Cramp, staring. "What on earth makes him say such a thing?"

"Because I am sure of it, Aunt Mary Ann. Fancy strong-minded Juliet throwing herself into an eel pond! She is gadding about somewhere, deep already, I daresay, in another flirtation."

Mrs. Cramp, waiting to collect her scattered senses, shook her head plaintively. "My dear," she said, "I don't pretend to know the fashion of things in the outlandish world in which you live, but over here it couldn't be. Once a girl has been drowned in a pond--whether eel, duck, or carp pond, what matters it?--she can't come to life again and go about flirting."