Henry Wood - Johnny Ludlow, Third Series

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.

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 passage 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. Pass 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!”

Dashing to the door, I looked over the balustrades. The shrieks and calls came from Lettice Lane, who was stumbling up the stairs from the hall. Cattledon opened her door in her night-cap, saw me, and shut it again with a bang.

“Murder! robbers! thieves!” shrieked Lettice.

“But what is it, Lettice?” I cried, leaping down.

“Oh, Mr. Johnny, the house is robbed!—and we might just as well all have been murdered in our beds!”

Every one was appearing on the scene. Miss Deveen came fully dressed—she was often up before other people; Cattledon arrived in a white petticoat and shawl. The servants were running up from the kitchen.

Thieves had broken in during the night. The (so-called) breakfast-room at the back presented a scene of indescribable confusion. Everything in it was turned topsy-turvy, the secretary had been ransacked; the glass-doors stood open to the garden.

It seemed that Lettice, in pursuance of her morning’s duties, had gone to the room, and found it in this state. Lettice was of the excitable order, and went into shrieks. She stood now, sobbing and shaking, as she gave her explanation.

“When I opened the door and saw the room in this pickle, the window standing open, my very blood seemed to curdle within me. For all I knew the thieves might have done murder. Just look at the place, ma’am!—look at your secretary!”

It’s what we were all looking at. The sight was as good as moving house. Chairs and footstools lay upside down, their chintz covers untied and flung off; the hearthrug was under the table; books were open, periodicals scattered about; two pictures had been taken from the wall and lay face downwards; every ornament was moved from the mantelpiece. The secretary stood open; all its papers had been taken out, opened, and lay in a heap on the floor; and Janet Carey’s well-stocked work-box was turned bottom upwards, its contents having rolled anywhere.

“This must be your work, George,” said Miss Cattledon, turning on the servant-man with a grim frown.

“Mine, ma’am!” he answered, amazed at the charge.

“Yes, yours,” repeated Cattledon. “You could not have fastened the shutters last night; and that is how the thieves have got in.”

“But I did, ma’am. I fastened them just as usual.”

“Couldn’t be,” said Cattledon decisively, who had been making her way over the débris to examine the shutters. “They have not been forced in any way: they have simply been opened. The window also.”

“And neither window nor shutters could be opened from the outside without force,” remarked Miss Deveen. “I fear, George, you must have forgotten this room when you shut up last night.”

“Indeed, ma’am, I did not forget it,” was the respectful answer. “I assure you I bolted the window and barred the shutters as I always do.”

Janet Carey, standing in mute wonder like the rest of us, testified to this. “When I came in here last night to get a needle and thread to mend Miss Whitney’s dress, I am sure the shutters were shut: I noticed that they were.”

Cattledon would not listen. She had taken up her own opinion of George’s neglect, and sharply told Janet not to be so positive. Janet looked frightfully white and wan this morning, worse than a ghost.

“Oh, goodness!” cried Helen Whitney, appearing on the scene. “If ever I saw such a thing!”