A Search For A Secret Volume Ii Part 3

Now Sarah was not; she came from the other end of the county, and was recommended to Mr. Harmer by some lady last year, at the time of all those grand doings over there; and as they don't know that her young man Thomas is my son, seeing he is in service in another place, they have not given her warning to go."

"And do you think, Andrew, that Sarah would be willing to do anything to help us?"

"Lor' bless you, Miss, she would do anything for you; she said the other day she would, and that she did not care whether she lost her place or not; she did not want to stop with thieves. Oh, you may depend on her, Miss."

"Well, Andrew, do you think I could get her to come here and have a talk with me quietly?"

"Sure enough, Miss Agnes. To-day is Friday. On Sunday evening she goes out, and will walk into town with Mary--and for the matter of that, with Tom too--and she can very well come here; no one will know her in the dark, and so she will be quite safe."

Accordingly, on Sunday evening our maid came in to say that Andrew's daughter, Mary, and another young woman, were in the hall, and would be glad to see me. And so Mary and Thomas's Sarah were shown in. Mary I knew well; indeed she had learnt her work with us as under-housemaid before she went to Mr. Harmer's. She was a stout, well-made, active girl, with a good-natured honest face, but I should have had some hesitation in entrusting any delicate and difficult task to her.

Thomas's Sarah, I felt at once, had tact and intelligence sufficient for my purpose, and I was sure that I could trust her, and that she would do exactly for what I required.

Thomas had certainly shown good taste in his selection, for his Sarah was a very pretty little girl,--a slight active figure, a bright clear complexion, brown hair waving back off her forehead, a cheerful smile, large speaking eyes with a little touch of sauciness in them--which I fancied would sometimes vex and puzzle Thomas, who was a steady matter-of-fact young groom, not a little--and a very prettily cut nose and mouth. I was altogether very much taken with her appearance.

I asked them to take seats, and Sarah at once began:--

"Miss Ashleigh, I am told by"--and here she paused a little, coloured, and ended by telling a story and saying--"Mary, that I could be of service to you. I can only say that I shall be glad to do so by any means in my power; we are all at Harmer Place very sorry at your losing your rights, and should rejoice to see you restored to them."

Sarah expressed herself so well that I was really quite surprised. I thanked her for her offer, and said, "You can, indeed, do us a service which may turn out of great importance. Now I do not disguise from you, it will cost you your place if you are discovered; but I need not say that we will take care that you shall be no loser by that. Now I will at once tell you how we stand at present, and what we want to find out. We know, or at least are nearly sure, that the will exists, and that it is with some other papers large enough to fill a good-sized box. Now we strongly believe that this box is hidden away in a secret room we know to exist in the house; and what we want to find out is, where is that secret room? It must be a pretty good size--I mean much larger than a mere closet--because we know people used to lay hid there in old times."

Sarah nodded, as much as to say that she had heard legends of the "priest's chamber." "Now, Sarah, the first thing we want to discover is the whereabouts of this room--and this can only be done in one way. I want the exact dimensions--that is to say, the measure, the height, length, and breadth, of every room, pa.s.sage, closet, and staircase in the old part of the house; because as this room existed in the old time, it is only in the central part of the house, which was the original building, that the secret chamber need be looked for. When I have got all these measurements, and put them all down upon paper, I shall see where there is a s.p.a.ce to fill up. Do you understand?"

Sarah did not quite understand; so I got a sheet of paper, drew a rough plan of a house, and explained the matter more fully.

Sarah understood now, and at once entered into it with all her heart.

"You see," I said, "we want the exact position of the doors, windows, and chimneys. Here is a small pocket-book and pencil: take one page for each room; mark down first in this way, the extreme length and breadth, then the positions of the doors and windows thus, and put 'in small figures' their distances from each other."

I then showed her a small plan of Harmer Place, which I had drawn from my recollection of it, and Sarah understood perfectly what she had to do.

"Make a notch the length of a yard on the handle of your broom," I said, "and measure the exact length of the bottom of your ap.r.o.n. With your broom you can get the height of the room, and with your ap.r.o.n the other measurements, so that you will be able to get all the sizes; and even if you are disturbed, no one would have the slightest idea of what you are doing."

I then asked her to measure the room we were in, and to make a little sort of plan of it, and I found her so quick and intelligent, that I felt certain she would execute her task with sufficient accuracy to enable us to find out where the secret room was situated.

The two girls then took their leave, and I really felt strong hope in the success of my plan--not indeed that it was mine, for it was Harry's idea entirely, and I only gave her the instructions he had previously given me.

After this, a small packet arrived every week, sent by Sarah, through Thomas, to his father, containing seven or eight leaves of the pocket-book.

In little more than a month we had all the measurements, and were enabled to make out the entire plan, in doing which, of course our previous knowledge of the house a.s.sisted us greatly. Papa a.s.sisted me in this. I had not, at first, told him anything of what I was doing, as I wished that, in case by any chance my scheme was detected, he should be able to say that he knew nothing about it. At last, however, I was obliged to let him into the secret, and when I told him, he was very much interested and pleased; and I do not think that I should ever have succeeded in putting the parts together, and certainly have never arrived at any accurate conclusion, without his a.s.sistance.

When it was done, we found the blank s.p.a.ce precisely where we had antic.i.p.ated that we should do. It is difficult to explain the exact position, but I will endeavour to do so.

On entering the house, from the front, one found oneself in a large square hall, from one side of which the library opened, and from the other the dining-room. Opposite to the front door was an immense fireplace, in which still stood two large iron dogs, and in which in winter a great wood fire always blazed; on one side of this fireplace, the grand staircase went up, and on the other a pa.s.sage led down to a room which had originally been a drawing-room, but which, from its windows being at the back of the house, had been long since turned into a kitchen; the fireplace of this room stood back to back to the one in the hall. It was in the block contained in the square formed by the backs of the kitchen and hall, the staircase and the pa.s.sage, that we came to the conclusion that the secret room must be, for, even allowing for immense thickness of masonry, there was yet a large s.p.a.ce unaccounted for. On the floor above there was also a s.p.a.ce, directly over this, considerably larger than would have been required for the chimneys of the hall and kitchen fire, even had there been two of them--which there were not, for Sarah found that the chimney of the hall made almost a right angle, and ran into the kitchen chimney.

Papa, after going very carefully into the measurements, came to the conclusion that the room itself was situated nearly over the hall fireplace; that it might be some seven or eight feet long, by five or six wide, and that it could be little over six feet high. He thought it was approached by some short staircase opening into the hall fireplace, or into one of the bedrooms above, which ab.u.t.ted on the vacant s.p.a.ce on that floor. One of these rooms had been occupied by Herbert Harmer, and the other had been, and was still, Miss Harmer's room.

Indeed papa suspected both entrances to exist, as by them, in case of necessity, provisions could be so much more readily and secretly supplied, and escape made in some disguise from the one exit, should an entrance be forcibly made at the other.

"All this is mere guesswork, my dear; but when there is so much ground to go upon as we have got, one can guess very closely indeed to the truth."

"And where should you think, papa, that the entrance is most likely to be discovered?"

"Most likely in the hall fireplace. The back and sides, if I remember right, are formed of iron, with rude ornaments upon it. The mantelpiece, too, is of old oak, and is covered with carving; undoubtedly in some of all this the secret spring is concealed. The hall is the best place to try for another reason; early in the morning, and at various times indeed, Sarah might search among all these ornaments and k.n.o.bs for the spring, and if any one came suddenly into the hall, her presence there would appear only natural; whereas in either of the bedrooms, and especially that of Mr. Harmer, which is not now in use, she could hardly be often without exciting suspicion."

Sarah came on the following Sat.u.r.day evening, and I showed her the plan we had made, and explained to her where we thought the entrance was, and how she was most likely to find the secret spring.

Sarah was much pleased with the success which had so far attended her efforts, and promised to find the spring if it existed. She said she would get up half an hour before the other servants, and try every k.n.o.b and roughness on or near the grate.

However, week after week rolled on, and every Sat.u.r.day came a message, "No result;" and the week before Christmas she sent to say she had tried every possible place, but could not find any signs of it. I sent back in answer to ask her to try all the stones and bricks as far up the chimney as she could reach.

With Christmas, Polly came home from school, and this time to stop for good, for papa could not very well afford to keep her at so expensive a school as Grendon House; and indeed we wanted her bright face and happy laugh back again among us. Papa's practice was not very lucrative; it was a large, but not a good-paying one. A great proportion of it lay among the lower cla.s.ses; in any serious cases among them he was always ready to give his time and skill. Indeed for the last three years, since there was an apparent certainty that we should be all so handsomely provided for, papa had purposely given up much of his paying practice.

Many among the upper cla.s.ses have the habit of calling in a medical man on the slightest pretext, and like him, indeed, to call regularly, and have an hour's chat on all sorts of subjects; this time papa could not spare, and indeed I know that he said to two or three of his very best patients,--

"You have nothing serious the matter with you. All you want is a little occasional medicine, and a good chat of a day to do you good and cheer you up; this I have no time to give you, when I have half a dozen dying people waiting anxiously for me. Send to Harper; he is a clever fellow; knows all about everything; will amuse you more than I do. He has a large family, and your money will be of use to him. If you get seriously ill, and want me, I will of course come to you."

So papa had gradually withdrawn himself from much of his paying practice; he had still an income sufficient to keep us comfortably, but it was not nearly what it had been four or five years before. However, he was quite content to work as he did, giving his skill and time to those who most required but were least able to pay for them.

Harry came home, too, a little before Christmas. He had finished his last piece of work, and had now obtained an appointment of 150 a year to superintend a railway in the course of construction in the north of Ireland.

The evening after Christmas Day I received a note from Sarah, saying, that that morning, she had, in feeling up the chimney, found a projecting k.n.o.b immediately behind the mantelpiece; that on pressing this it went into the wall, and that every time it did so, she could hear a click, but that she could not find that anything else moved.

"Hurrah, Sarah!" Harry shouted when I read the note aloud; "we are on the right track. 'The king shall enjoy his own again!'" he sang in his stentorian way.

"I really do begin to think we are on the track," papa said. "You must tell Sarah that no doubt there is some other spring which must be pressed either together or before or after this; for generally there were two springs to these old hiding-places, in case one should be touched accidentally."

This I told Sarah, who came on the next Sunday evening to see me. She had rather began to despair before; but now that she had found something tangible she became quite enthusiastic, and said that she was determined to find the other spring if she were years engaged in the search. She was now certain that we were right, that the secret chamber existed, and that the entrance was there, of neither of which facts had she been quite sure in her own mind before.

CHAPTER IV.

EVIL DAYS.

With the cheering thought that she was punished, and that perhaps her fault was thus in some little way atoned for, and with the happy conviction that her husband loved her for her own sake, and not for that of her money, Sophy Gregory recovered from the weight of her sorrow and remorse more quickly than could have been expected; and by the end of another ten days she was able to leave her room, and go for a little walk leaning upon Robert's arm. That evening they were sitting before the fire; Robert looking moodily into it, but sometimes rousing himself and trying to talk pleasantly to Sophy, who was watching him a little anxiously, when she said, after one of these pauses,--

"I think, Robert, now that I am getting strong again, we ought to talk about the future. I am sure that by the time we have paid all we owe here, we shall not have much left out of our hundred pounds."

Sophy might have said, "my hundred pounds;" for it was she who had furnished the funds for their elopement. Mr. Harmer had been in the habit of giving her money from time to time, for which she had little use; and this had, at the time she left home with Robert Gregory, acc.u.mulated to rather more than a hundred pounds.

"The first thing to be done, Robert, is to find some very cheap lodgings. How cheap could you get two little rooms?"

Robert roused himself; he was pleased at Sophy's broaching the subject; for he had been all day wondering what they were to do, as of course it was out of the question that they could remain where they were. It was a small private hotel where Robert had gone the night of their return from Scotland, thinking that their stay there would not have exceeded three or four days at most, whereas now it had run on to more than a fortnight.

"You are quite right, Sophy, although I did not like to begin the conversation. It seems so hard for you, accustomed as you have been to luxury, to go into all the discomfort of small lodgings."

"My dear Robert," Sophy said, "please don't talk in that way. I am your wife, and shall be very happy anywhere with you; besides I have not been always accustomed to luxury. I was born and lived until I was twelve or thirteen in a cottage as a poor village girl. And please do not remind me of scenes where I had no right, and where I never deserved to have been. Do not let us think of the past at all, Robert; it is perhaps not very pleasant for either of us. Let us think of the future--it is all before us, and we are not worse off than thousands of others; but you did not answer my question, how cheap could we get a little parlour and bedroom?"

"We could get them, Sophy, in some out-of-the-way place, such as Islington, or Camberwell, or Chelsea, at about twelve s.h.i.+llings a week; but remember, they would be very small."