Uncanny Tales Part 19

Some silly little fool who dares not move a step alone in her bewitching helplessness. But do not think to convert _me_ into such a piece of contemptible inanity," and so saying she turned towards the door.

"Helen," said Malcolm quietly, so quietly that Helen was arrested in spite of herself, "you are unjust, unreasonable and ungenerous. You know that I never cared for any woman but you, you know that nothing pleases me more than to witness your superiority in numberless particulars to the general run of girls, and you know too the pride and pleasure I take in your skill as an artist; but blinded by self-will you will not see the perfect reasonableness of my request that you will abandon this absurd expedition. If not for your own sake, at least do so for Edith's, who is as you know left in your special charge by Leonard."

The first part of this speech seemed, to judge by Helen's transparent countenance, likely to soften and move her, but the unlucky word "absurd" and the tone in which Malcolm spoke, as if it was necessary to remind her of her duty, effectually did away with any good result that his remonstrance might have worked. She turned, with her hand on the door, and saying, "I have told you my decision, Mr. Willoughby, and I wish you good-evening," left the room. Malcolm remained behind, lost in thought of no pleasurable nature. At last he too left the little sitting-room, after first ringing the bell and ordering his horse to be brought round. Making his way to the front entrance he there "mounted and rode away," his spirits, poor fellow, by no means the better for his visit.

It is time, I think, to explain the cause of the lovers' quarrel above described. Helen and Edith Beaumont were orphans, left to the guardians.h.i.+p of their brother Leonard, in whose house we have seen the former. Delicacy, induced by a severe illness some months previously, had obliged Mr. Beaumont, accompanied by his wife, to go for the autumn and winter months to the south of France, leaving his sisters at home under the nominal chaperonage of an elderly aunt, who performed her duty to the perfect satisfaction of her nieces by letting them do exactly as they liked. More correctly speaking, perhaps, exactly as Helen liked, for the younger of the two, Edith, a girl of seventeen and four years her sister's junior, could hardly be said to have likes or dislikes distinct from those of Helen. Possibly Mr. Beaumont might not have left the two to their own devices with so easy a mind, had he not quitted home happy in the knowledge of Helen's engagement to his friend and neighbour Malcolm Willoughby. The gentleman in question lived within a few miles of our heroine's home, having succeeded some years before to his father's property. His only sister, Mrs. Lindsay, was at this time living with him for a few months while awaiting her husband's return from India, and though some years older, was, next to her sister, Helen's most valued friend and companion. Malcolm Willoughby was a man of high character, peculiarly fitted, by his unusual amount of sterling good sense, to be the guide of an impulsive, enthusiastic girl like pretty Helen Beaumont, whom to know was to love, and who would have been altogether charming but for her inordinate amount of self-will and inveterate dislike to being, as she expressed it, "ordered" to do or not to do whatever came into her head. She and her sister had real talent as artists, and their spirited and well-executed landscapes bore but little resemblance to the insipid productions of most young lady painters. To improving herself in this direction Helen had devoted much time and labour. Unfortunately, it had so absorbed her thoughts and desires that in its pursuance she was inclined sometimes to forget what were for her more important avocations. Helen's fortunate engagement to Mr.

Willoughby had for some time past corrected these only objectionable tendencies in her character, and all had gone smoothly and happily till the date at which our story commences, when, unluckily, some artist friends had filled her head with their descriptions of the exquisite autumn scenery, "effects of foliage," etc., to be seen in a mountainous and hitherto little explored part of Wales. Her imagination, and through her that of her sister Edith, ran wild on the subject, and now nothing would satisfy her but a journey to the spot in question, by themselves, in order that they might enjoy their freedom to the utmost, and revel in the delight of painting some of the wonderful Welsh scenery described to them. The idea had at first been mooted half in joke, but an impolitic expression of strong disapprobation on the part of Mr. Willoughby had done more to determine Helen on carrying it out than all the antic.i.p.ated artistic enjoyment.

"It will be just the opportunity I wanted," thought the foolish girl, "of showing him that I do not intend to be a silly nonent.i.ty of a wife with no opinion of my own, and hedged in by all the absurd old-fas.h.i.+oned conventionalities which will not allow a woman to have an existence of her own or give her opportunity to cultivate what talents she may possess."

And once determined, Miss Helen remained inflexible. In vain Mr.

Willoughby remonstrated, in vain even their indulgent old aunt expressed her horror at the idea of "two young girls scouring the country by themselves," her own feebleness rendering her accompanying them out of the question. Go to Wales Helen and Edith must, and go they would, till at last the discussion with her _fiance_ terminated in the disastrous manner above recorded.

I will not undertake to describe Helen's feelings, when, in the solitude of her own room, she thought over what she had done. Had she herself been obliged to put them into words, I believe she would have repeated that she had not acted in temper and that the stand she had made for her womanly freedom, as she would have expressed it, had been an act of supreme heroism and devotion to the cause of right. She said all this to herself and tried hard, very hard to believe it; and to stifle the little voice at the very bottom of her heart which whispered that she had behaved like a silly, self-willed, petted child, and shown herself undeserving of so good a gift as the love of a man like Malcolm Willoughby. The little voice was smothered for the time by exaggerated antic.i.p.ations of the delights of their tour and attempted self-congratulations at her newly regained liberty to do as she chose; for Malcolm did not come near her again, and it took all her pride to hide from herself and others the shock she felt through all her being when, in the course of a few days, she heard accidentally that Mr.

Willoughby was leaving home for an uncertain length of time.

"He has taken me at my word," thought she, "but of course I meant him to do so," and she hurried on the preparations for their journey which they were now on the eve of.

"You will at least take Maxwell," said Aunt f.a.n.n.y timidly.

"Maxwell, aunt! No, thank you," said Helen ironically; "she would be crying for her spring mattress the first night and thinking she was going to die if she heard the wind howl. No, thank you, I mean to be independent for once in my life, and so does Edith."

Other twenty-four hours saw our two young ladies on their way.

Unaccustomed as they were to travelling alone they got on very well for the greater part of their journey, till they arrived at a certain railway station in Wales, of name unp.r.o.nounceable by civilised tongue, but which sounded to them like that of the place where they were to leave the railway. Never doubting but what they were right in so doing Helen and Edith calmly descended from their carriage, watched the train disappear in the tunnel hard by, and then began to make inquiries for a conveyance to transport themselves and their luggage, white umbrellas, easels and all, the five or six miles which they imagined were all that divided them from their destination. A colloquy ensued with the most intelligible of two or three fly-drivers, carmen, or whatever these personages are called in Wales; but what was Helen's consternation on learning that fifteen miles at least remained to be traversed; they having left the railway at Llanfar, two stations too soon, instead of remaining in it till they reached Llanfair, the point nearest to the farm-house where lodgings had been taken for them. No chance of a train to Llanfair till to-morrow morning, for the line was a new one, and the traffic as yet but small. No prospect of a night's accommodation where they were. Nothing for it but to trust to the driver's a.s.surance that he and his unpromising-looking horse could easily convey them to the farm-house, with the inevitably unp.r.o.nounceable name. With some unconfessed misgivings Helen and Edith mounted the vehicle awaiting them, and drove off along a muddy, jolting lane into the quickly gathering gloom.

s.h.i.+vering on her uncomfortable seat, did Helen wish herself at home again in her own little sitting-room, with Aunt f.a.n.n.y peacefully knitting, Edith kneeling on the hearth-rug, and Malcolm's face bright with the reflection of the ruddy log fire so welcome in autumn evenings; all together as was their wont, enjoying "blind man's holiday"?

I think we had better not press the question too closely. However, "it's a long lane that has no ending," and even this dreary journey gradually drew to a close. They pa.s.sed but few houses of any kind, one or two straggling hamlets were left behind, and for some two or three miles the road had been perfectly solitary, when they suddenly heard wheels advancing to meet them, and in a few minutes a car like their own drove towards them, and being hailed by their driver, drew up at their side. A jabbering ensued of directions asked and given, and they again drove on.

"Are you sure you know the way?" said Helen timidly.

"Oh yes, miss," the driver answered confidently, and further informed them that the car they had met, had just returned from their own destination (being translated), the Black Nest Farm, having there deposited a traveller who had taken the middle course of leaving the railway at the intermediate stoppage between Llanfar and Llanfair. Other three-quarters of an hour and they pulled up at last before a house which the darkness prevented their seeing more of than that it was long and low. They stumbled up the rough garden path, and in answer to their knock, the door was opened by a tidy, clean-looking old woman, with a flickering candle in her hand, evidently surprised at their appearance.

She had, she said, quite given up thoughts of their coming that night, and feared the fire in the sitting-room was out. Thankful to have reached the Black Nest at last, a chilly room seemed a smaller evil than the two girls would have considered it at home; and after all, things were not so bad, for the fire in the little farmhouse parlour, to which their landlady conducted them, was not quite out, and a little judicious coaxing soon brought it round.

Their hostess's and their own first idea was of course _tea_. What a blessing, by the way, it is that British womankind in general, high and low, rich and poor, old and young, have this _one_ taste in common!

Refreshed by the homely meal speedily set before them, Helen and Edith proceeded, under the guidance of the old woman (apparently the only inhabitant of the house), and the flickering candle, to inspect their sleeping apartment. The result was not eminently satisfactory, for it struck them as gloomy, ill-ventilated, and a long way from their parlour, though but few rooms appeared to intervene between the two.

This puzzled them at the time, but was afterwards explained by the fact that Black Nest Farm-house had originally consisted of two one-storeyed cottages standing at some yards distance from each other, and which, on becoming the property of one owner, had been united by a long pa.s.sage; which arrangement was looked upon in the neighbourhood as a triumph of architectural ingenuity. On returning to their sitting-room Helen's eye fell on a door beside their own which she had not before noticed, and she inquired if that was a bedroom. To which the old woman replied in the affirmative, but added that they could not have it, as it and a small sitting-room opening out of it were engaged by a "strange gentleman". And besides this, she added, the bedroom was not so desirable for ladies, having a second, or rather third door to the outside of the house. The only other room they could have was so small that she did not think they would like it, but they should see for themselves, and so saying she turned towards a recess in the pa.s.sage.

Helen followed her, but the flickering candle suddenly throwing light in a new direction, she gave a little exclamation of alarm at what appeared at the first moment to be a very ugly grinning portrait high up on the wall.

"It's only the clock, miss," said the old woman. "Though, to be sure, it is quare," and as she spoke she threw the light more fully upon the object that had startled Helen, which she now perceived to be a very antique clock, standing high in a dark wooden case, and with the face she had seen, peeping at you as it were from behind the dial-plate. An ugly, coa.r.s.ely painted face, with a disagreeably mocking expression it seemed to Helen; nor was it the only repulsive feature in this very remarkable clock, for the artist appeared to have outdone himself in the grotesquely hideous devices at the bottom of the dial. Death's heads, cross-bones, and other equally unpleasant objects of various kinds, curiously intermingled with a condensed solar system, in which sun, moon and stars appeared jumbled together haphazard. The general object of the whole evidently being to bring before the spectator the ghastly side of his future, and to read him a wholesome, but certainly not attractive, homily on the shortness of life, and the speed with which time was ticking away. Helen felt half fascinated by its hideousness.

"Dear me, what a very curious clock!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and the old woman repeated, with a little inward chuckle at what she evidently considered the admiration drawn forth by her heirloom:--

"Yes, sure it _is_ quare."

An uncanny object it certainly was, and Helen felt relieved that the room in its immediate vicinity was so small as to be out of the question for the accommodation of her sister and herself. Re-entering the sitting-room she found poor Edith looking so utterly worn-out that she proposed that they should at once go to bed; which they accordingly did, followed by the old woman with offers of a.s.sistance. Pa.s.sing the door of "the strange gentleman's" room, they heard sounds of some one moving inside, and Edith sleepily remarked that she wondered what could have brought a gentleman to an outlandish place like the Black Nest, unless, like themselves, he came to take views in the neighbourhood. Helen p.r.i.c.ked up her ears at this and inquired of Mrs. Jones if their fellow-lodger was an artist. Mrs. Jones thought not, but seemed unwilling to pursue the topic of the strange gentleman further. In rather a forced manner she changed the subject by inquiring if the young ladies would like to hire her pony while there, as it was rough walking, and her grandson Griffith, the only other inhabitant of the cottage, a little lad of twelve, could lead it for them, and show them the way whenever they chose. Helen gladly closed with the offer.

"Dear me, Mrs. Jones," she exclaimed "how very lonely you must be living here with no one but a little boy. Have you no near neighbours?"

"None nearer than three miles ma'am, for the farm-men live at a distance, save old Thomas in the last cottage you pa.s.sed, but he is bed-ridden. My widow daughter, Griffith's mother, was with me till she took ill, two winters ago, and died before the doctor could get to her.

Yes, it is lonesome like in winter to be sure. It's not often that gentry like you, miss, care to be in these parts so late in the year."

Further inquiries elicited that the nearest church was a good five miles off, that there was no doctor nearer than Llanfar, that the butcher only came in the winter once a fortnight and that irregularly; in consequence of which the Black Nesters had often to depend upon their own scanty resources, the roads being almost impa.s.sable in stormy weather.

"Don't you think it feels rather dreary, Helen?" said Edith, as she was falling asleep.

"_Eerie_, rather, I should say," replied her sister, "but that, you know, is the beauty of it. In the morning, I daresay, it will look bright enough, but I confess I do not like that clock. Listen, can't you hear its ticking, faintly, even here, at the end of that long pa.s.sage?"

"What clock do you mean? I saw no clock," said Edith, but almost before Helen could answer, her soft regular breathing told that she was asleep.

Helen however, could not so quickly compose herself. She felt excited and vaguely uneasy; and when she at last fell asleep, it was only to have her discomfort increased, by absurd, yet alarming dreams. With them all the ugly clock was grotesquely intermingled. Sometimes it was herself, sometimes Edith, and once Malcolm, whom she fancied in some position of terrible peril, always a.s.sociated with the clock, and at last she awoke with a half-smothered scream of horror at the most frightful dream of all; in which the "strange gentleman," their fellow-lodger, was pursuing her with a veil over his face, which just as he caught her fell off, and disclosed, horrible to relate, the face on the clock.

Edith started up as Helen convulsively clutched her, and exclaiming, "What in the world is the matter?" really thought Helen was going out of her mind when she replied, "That horrible clock;" and as she spoke, as if invoked, the clock began to strike: "One, two, three, four," and so on. "Is it never going to stop?" said Helen. Poor Edith, half asleep still, listened with her.

"Edith, I am almost certain that clock struck _thirteen_," said Helen in an awe-struck voice; and then they heard a door shut at the end of the pa.s.sage.

"Helen, you have been dreaming, and you are only half awake now," said Edith. "It is not like you to waken me in this frightening way, please let me go to sleep."

"I am very sorry," said Helen penitently, and she too closed her eyes and tried hard to go to sleep, which of course she did, as soon as she left off trying, and had made up her mind to lie awake till daylight.

The morning broke clear and fresh; and, as Helen had said, things in general bore a very different aspect to that of the night before.

Indoors, the quaint old house now looked simply picturesque, and Mrs.

Jones the _beau ideal_ of a cheery old hostess. Even the face of the clock, when Helen pointed it out to Edith, seemed to have lost its mocking grin, and to be merely bidding them good-morning, with a comical smile at the consternation it had awakened the night before.

Out-of-doors they soon turned their steps. There was no view from the house, but a short voyage of discovery quickly explained to them their locality. Black Nest Farm stood at the foot of a hill close on to the high road, or what pa.s.sed for such in that hitherto little frequented neighbourhood. On the opposite side of the road but little was to be seen, as the meadows were soon lost in a thick belt of wood; but immediately behind the house was a tempting prospect, for there a little winding path led up the hill to one of the spots Helen and Edith most ardently desired to paint, and of which their friends had given them a glowing description. It was rather a long walk to the Black Lake, Mrs.

Jones informed them, but their enthusiasm knew no bounds, and hardly permitted them to do justice to their breakfast of ham and eggs, home-made bread and home-churned b.u.t.ter. See them then starting on their expedition,--their painting materials, and some creature comforts in the shape of sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, safely packed on the pony's back, Griffith leading him and acting as guide. A pretty stiff pull it was, enthusiasm notwithstanding, and rather hard work for the little feet, sensibly shod in good strong boots it is true, but unaccustomed nevertheless to mountain scrambling. But at last their circuitous path brought them to the summit, and there a curious prospect broke upon them. They stood at the edge of the great Welsh tableland. There it stretched away before them, miles and miles beyond their view; a vast expanse of wild, brown moor, unrelieved by tree or shrub, but here and there dotted by great patches of what Edith at first sight took to be "lovely emerald moss". Treacherous loveliness, for it told, as they learnt from Griffith, of fearful bog-pits, down whose slimy sides once slipped no man or beast could ever regain firm ground.

"What a horrible death that would be," said Helen, shuddering, "far worse than regular drowning in clean water. It would be slow suffocation in nasty, dirty mud."

A few minutes' careful walking brought them in sight of the Black Lake, the special object of their excursion. And it certainly was well worth coming to see, if not to paint; probably too, better seen in the greyness of a late autumn day than in the summer sun, whose bright rays reflected on its surface would have little harmonised with its character of gloom and loneliness. The lake was equal to several acres in extent, but from where they stood could not all be seen, as its farther end was hidden by the undulations of the land. In colour it was a dull, leaden grey, and looking at it, one's mind spontaneously reverted to travellers' descriptions of the Dead Sea, for _dead_ was essentially the word by which to describe it. There were no fish to be caught in it Griffith told them, and as for its depth he had never heard tell of any one's sounding it. The effect of the whole scene was very peculiar, and so Helen and Edith felt it to be, as they stood gazing at the leaden water and the great, apparently boundless moorland. It was difficult to realise that they were so far above the ordinary haunts of men, for there was nothing in that great plain to remind them of the existence even of hills and mountains, except a steady-blowing breeze of that peculiar freshness pertaining only to sea or mountain air. Pleasantly invigorating at first, but soon becoming too chilly to make one care to stand about, or, worse still, to _sit_, as our young ladies now prepared to do.

"We are very lucky in the weather," remarked Helen, as they prepared for their sketching. "I should fancy it is just the day to see the lake to the best advantage."

"Or disadvantage," said Edith, "for I do think it is the most horrible place I ever saw. I don't know," added she dreamily, "but what it would seem even more desolate on a bright, sunny day. I don't know why."

"I understand how you mean," replied her sister, "the contrast would be so strange. Like a skeleton dressed in a golden robe. Dear me, I am becoming quite poetical. But look, Edith, how do you like this?" And a consultation on their work ensued.

Very cold work it became, as it grew to afternoon, notwithstanding the pleasurable excitement of their occupation, and Edith, for one, was not sorry when Helen at last thought it time to pack up their painting materials and turn homewards. A drizzling rain began to fall as they neared the foot of the hill, and they both felt thankful to reach the farm-house,--tired, muddy and damp, and in not _quite_ such high spirits as when they set off on their expedition. A savoury odour meeting them on their entrance, Helen suddenly bethought herself that she had utterly forgotten to order anything for their "high tea," or whatever one likes to call the said incongruous meal. It was therefore an agreeable surprise to her after remembering her neglect to see on entering their little sitting-room the brightest of fires, and the table daintily set out with evident preparation for a tempting repast; part of which, in the shape of a delicious-looking ham, "a new-made pat of b.u.t.ter and a wheaten loaf so fine," had already made its appearance.

Damp clothes and muddy boots discarded, they sat down with an excellent appet.i.te to their meal, and the savoury odour which had greeted them was soon explained by the appearance of Mrs. Jones bearing a chicken stewed in mushrooms.

"Mushrooms!" exclaimed Helen, "the thing of all others I like. How clever you are, Mrs. Jones, to get us all these good things! I shall leave our food to your providing, I think, in future."

Mrs. Jones laughed and said a friend had sent some things from Llanfar, and a friend also had gathered the mushrooms, the last of their season, thinking the young ladies might like them.

"Your friends are as good as yourself then, Mrs. Jones," said Helen; but as she spoke she was startled by what sounded like a half-smothered laugh or exclamation of some kind just outside the door. Almost at the same moment her friend the clock began to strike, and she therefore fancied the sound she had heard must have come from it. "Its internal arrangements are, I daresay, as peculiar as its outside," thought she to herself, and refrained therefore from mentioning to Edith what she thought she had heard. All the rest of the evening, however, though she would hardly have owned it to herself, she felt a little nervous and uneasy, particularly when she heard the clock strike.

"I wonder what our fellow-lodger does with himself all day," said Edith that evening.

"I am sure I don't know, or care either," said Helen, "indeed, I hardly believe there is such a being at all."