Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 80

The notion a.s.sumed by Mrs. Hill was, that her husband had started the boy off from the cottage direct to the train. She felt thoroughly vexed.

"He had all his old clothes on, Hill. I would not have had him go to Worcester in that plight for any money. You might have let the child come home for a bit of breakfast--and to dress himself. There was not so much as a brush and comb at the place, to make his hair tidy."

"There's no pleasing you," growled Hill. "Last night you were a'most crying, cause Davvy couldn't be let go over to see your mother; and, now that he is gone, _that_ don't please ye! Women be the very deuce for grumbling."

Mrs. Hill dropped the subject--there could be no remedy--and gave her husband his breakfast in silence. Hill seemed to eat nothing, and looked very pale; at moments ghastly.

"Don't you feel well?" she asked.

"Well?--I'm well enough. What should ail me--barring the cold? It's as sharp a frost as ever I was out in."

"Drink this," she said, pouring him out another cup of hot tea. "It is cold; and I'm sorry we've got it so for our moving. What time shall we get in to-day, Hill?"

"Not at all."

"Not at all!" repeated the wife in surprise.

"No, not at all," was Hill's surly confirmation. "What with you disabled, and Davvy o' no use, things is not as forrard as they ought to be. I've got to be off to my work too, pretty quick, or the Squire'll be about me. We shan't get in till to-morrow."

"But nearly all our things are in," she remonstrated. "There's as good as nothing left here."

"I tell ye we don't go in afore to-morrow," said Hill, giving the table a thump. "Can't ye be satisfied with that?"

He went off to his work. Mrs. Hill, accepting the change as inevitable, resigned herself, and borrowed a saucepan to cook the potatoes for dinner. She might have spared herself the trouble; her husband did not come in for any. He bought a penny loaf and some cheese, and made his dinner of it inside our home barn, Molly giving him some beer. He had done it before when very busy: but the work he was about that day was in no such hurry, and he might have left it if he would.

"Who is to sleep in the house to-night?" his wife asked him when he got home to tea.

"I shall," said Hill. "I won't be beholden to n.o.body."

Mrs. Hill, remembering the experience of the past night, quaked a little at finding she should have to sleep in the old place alone, devoutly praying there might be no recurrence of the dream that had thrown her into such mortal terror. She and Davy were just alike--frightened at their own shadows in the dark. When Hill was safe off, she hurried into bed, and kept her head under the clothes.

Hill came back betimes in the morning; and they moved in at once; old Coney's groom, who happened to be out with the dog-cart, offering to drive Mrs. Hill. Though her ankle was better and the distance short, she could hardly have walked. Instead of finding the house in order, as she expected, it was all sixes and sevens; the things lying about all over it.

Towards evening, Hannah got me to call at Willow Brook and say she'd go there in the morning for an hour or two, to help put things in order--the mistress had said she might do so. The fact was, Hannah was burning for a gossip, she and Hill's wife being choice friends. It was almost dark; the front room looked tolerably straight, and Mrs. Hill sat by the fire, resting her foot and looking out at the window, the shutters not yet closed.

"I'd be very thankful for her to come, Master Johnny," she said eagerly, hardly letting me finish. "There's a great deal to do; and, besides that, it is so lonesome here. I never had such a feeling in all my life; and I have gone into strange homes before this."

"It does seem lonesome, somehow. The fancy may go off in a day or two."

"I don't know, sir: it's to be hoped it will. Master Johnny, as true as that we are sitting here, when I got out of Mr. Coney's dog-cart and put my foot over the threshold to enter, a fit of trembling took me all over. There was no cause for it: I mean I was not thinking of anything to give it me. Not a minute before, I was laughing; for the man had been telling me a joking story of something that happened yesterday at his master's. A strange fear seemed to come upon me all at once as I stepped over the threshold, and I began to shake from head to foot. Hill stared at me, and at last asked if it was the cold; I told him truly that I did not know what it was; except that it seemed like some unaccountable attack, for I was well wrapped up. He had some brandy in a bottle, and made me drink a drop. The fit went off; but I have had a queer lonesome feeling on me ever since, as if the house was not one to be alone in."

"And you have been alone, I suppose?"

"Every bit of the time, save when Hill came in to his dinner. I don't remember ever to have had such a feeling before in broad daylight. It's just as if the house was haunted."

Not believing in haunted houses, I laughed. Mrs. Hill got up to stir the fire. It blazed, and cast her shadow upon the opposite wall.

"When dusk came on, I could hardly bear it. But for your coming in, Master Johnny, I should have stood at the door in the cold, and watched for Hill: things don't feel so lonely to one out of doors as in."

So it seemed that I was in for a stay--any way, till Hill arrived. After this, it would not have been very kind to leave her alone; she looked so weak and little.

"I've never liked the thought of moving here from the first," she went on; "and then there came the accident to my foot. Some people think nothing at all of omens, Master Johnny, but I do think of them. They come oftener than is thought for too; only, so few take notice of them.

I wish Davy was back! I can't bear to be in this house alone."

"David is at Worcester, I heard Hill say."

"He went yesterday morning, sir. I expected a letter from him to-day; and it is very curious that none have come. Davy knew how anxious I was about mother; and he never fails to write when he's away from me.

Somehow, all things are going crooked and cross just now. I had a fright the night before last. Master Johnny, and I am hardly quit of it yet."

"What was that?" I asked her.

She stared into the fire for a minute or two before she answered me.

There was no other light in the room; I sat back against the wall beside the window--the shutters were still open.

"You might not care to hear it, sir."

"I should if it's worth telling."

Turning from the fire, she looked straight at me while she told it from beginning to end, exactly as I have written it above. The tale would have been just the thing for Mrs. Todhetley: who went in for marvels.

"Hill stood to it that it was a dream, Master Johnny; but the more I think of it, the less I believe it could have been one. If I had only heard the call in my sleep, or in the moment of waking, why of course it might have been a dream; but when I heard it the second time it was _after_ I awoke. I heard it as plain as I hear my own voice now; and plainer, too."

"But what else, except a dream, do you fancy it could have been?"

"Well, sir, that's what is puzzling me. But for Hill's convincing me Davy could not have got out of here after he had locked him and Macintosh in for safety, I should have said it was the boy himself, calling me from outside. It sounded in the room, close to me: but the fright I was in might have deceived me. What's that?"

A loud rapping at the window. I am not ashamed to say that coming so unexpectedly it startled me. Mrs. Hill, with a shrill scream, darted forward to catch hold of my arm.

"Let me go. Some one wants to be let in. I dare say it's Hill."

"Master Johnny, I beg your pardon," she said, going back. "Hill ought to know better than to come frightening me at night like this."

I opened the door, and Miss Timmens walked in: not Hill. The knocking had not been intended to frighten any one, but as a greeting to Mrs.

Hill--Miss Timmens having seen her through the gla.s.s.

"You know you always were one of the quaking ones, Nanny," she said, scoffing at the alarm. "I have just got back from Worcester, and thought you'd like to hear that mother's better."

"And it is well you are back, Miss Timmens," I put in. "The school has been in rebellion. Strangers, going by, have taken it for a bear garden."

"That Maria Lease is just good for nothing," said Miss Timmens, wrathfully. "When she offered to take my place I knew she'd not be of much use. Yes, sir; it was the thought of the school that brought me back so soon."

"And mother is really better!" cried Mrs. Hill. "I am so thankful. If she had died and I not able to get over to her, I should never have forgiven myself. How is David?"

"Are you getting straight, Nancy?" asked Miss Timmens, looking round the room, and not noticing the question about David.

"Straight! and only moved in this morning! and me with this ankle!"

Miss Timmens laughed. She was just as capable as her sister was the contrary.