XVI
It was a lovely summer’s day, and Madame Carimon’s neat little slip of a kitchen was bright and hot with the morning sun. Madame, herself, stood before the paste-board, making a green-apricot tart. Of pies and tarts à la mode Anglaise, Monsieur Jules was more fond than a schoolboy; and of all tarts known to the civilized world, none can equal that of a green apricot.
Madame had put down the rolling-pin, and stood for the moment idle, looking at Flore Pamart, and listening to something that Flore was saying. Flore, whisking out of the Petite Maison Rouge a few minutes before, ostensibly to do her morning’s marketings, had whisked straight off to the Rue Pomme Cuite, and was now seated at the corner of the pastry-table, telling a story to Madame Carimon.
“It was madame’s own fault,” she broke off in her tale to remark. “Madame
will
give me her orders in French, and half the time I can’t understand them. She had an engagement to take tea at Madame Smith’s in the Rue Lambeau, was what I thought she said to me, and that I must present myself there at half-past nine to walk home with her. Well, madame, I went accordingly, and found nobody at home there but the bonne, Thomasine. Her master was dining out at the Sous-préfet’s, and her mistress had gone out with some more ladies to walk on the pier, as it was so fine an evening. Naturally I thought my mistress was one of the ladies, and sat there waiting for her and chatting with Thomasine. Madame Smith came in at ten o’clock, and then she said that my lady had not been there and that she had not expected her.”
“She must have gone to tea elsewhere,” observed Madame Carimon.
“Clearly, madame; as I afterwards found. It was to Madame Lambert’s, in the Rue Lothaire, that I ought to have gone. I could only go home, as madame sees; and when I arrived there I found the house-door wide open. Just as I entered, a frightful cry came from the kitchen, and there I found her dropped down on the floor, half senseless with terror. Madame, she avowed to me that she had seen Mademoiselle Lavinia standing near her in the moonlight.”
Madame Carimon took up her rolling-pin slowly before she spoke. “I know she has a fancy that she appears in the house.”
“Madame Carimon, I think she
is
in the house,” said Flore solemnly. And for a minute or two Madame Carimon rolled her paste in silence.
“Monsieur Fennel used to see her—I am sure he did—and now his wife sees her,” went on the woman. “I think that is the secret of his running away so much: he can’t bear the house and what is haunting it.”
“It is altogether a dreadful thing; I lie awake thinking of it,” bewailed Mary Carimon.
“But it cannot be let go on like this,” said Flore; “and that’s what has brought me running here this morning—to ask you, madame, whether anything can be done. If she is left alone to see these sights, she’ll die of it. When she got up this morning she was shivering like a leaf in the wind. Has madame noticed that she is wasting away? For the matter of that, so was Monsieur Fennel.”
Madame Carimon, beginning to line her shallow dish with paste, nodded in assent. “He ought to be here with her,” she remarked.
“Catch him,” returned Flore, in a heat. “Pardon, madame, but I must avow I trust not that gentleman. He is no good. He will never come back to stay at the house so long as there is in it—what is there. He dare not; and I would like to ask him why not. A man with the conscience at ease could not be that sort of coward. Honest men do not fly away, all scared, when they fancy they see a revenant.”
Deeming it might be unwise to pursue the topic from this point, Madame Carimon said she would go and see Mrs. Fennel in the course of the day, and Flore clattered off, her wooden shoes echoing on the narrow pavement of the Rue Pomme Cuite.
But, as Madame Carimon was crossing the Place Ronde in the afternoon to pay her visit, she met Mrs. Fennel. Of course, Flore’s communication was not to be mentioned.
“Ah,” said Madame Carimon readily, “is it you? I was coming to ask if you would like to take a walk on the pier with me. It is a lovely afternoon, and not too hot.”
“Oh, I’ll go,” said Nancy. “I came out because it is so miserable at home. When Flore went off to the fish-market after breakfast, I felt more lonely than you would believe. Mary,” dropping her voice, “I saw Lavinia last night.”
“Now I won’t listen to that,” retorted Mary Carimon, as if she were reprimanding a child. “Once give in to our nerves and fancies, there’s no end to the tricks they play us. I wish, Ann, your house were in a more lively situation, where you might sit at the window and watch the passers-by.”
“But it isn’t,” said Nancy sensibly. “It looks upon nothing but the walls.”
Walking on, they sat down upon a bench that stood back from the port, facing the harbour. Nearly opposite lay the English boat, busily loading for London. The sight made Nancy sigh.
“I wish it would bring Edwin the next time it comes in,” she said in low tones.
“When do you expect him?”
“I don’t know
when
,” said poor Nancy with emphasis. “Mary, I am beginning to think he stays away because he is afraid of seeing Lavinia.”
“Men are not afraid of those foolish things, Ann.”
“He is. Recollect those fits of terror he had. He used to hear her following him up and downstairs; used to see her on the landings.”
Madame Carimon found no ready answer. She had witnessed one of those fits of terror herself.
“Last night,” went on Mrs. Fennel, after a pause, “when Flore had left me and I could only shiver in my bed, and not expect to sleep, I became calm enough to ask myself
why
Lavinia should come back again, and what it is she wants. Can you think why, Mary?”
“Not I,” said Madame Carimon lightly. “I shall only believe she does come when she shows herself to me.”
“And I happened on the thought that, possibly, she may be wanting us to inquire into the true cause of her death. It might have been ascertained at the time, but for my stopping the action of the doctors, you know.”
“Ann, my dear, you should exercise a little common sense. I would ask you what end ascertaining it now would answer, to her, dead, or to you, living?”
“It might be seen that she could have been cured, had we only known what the malady was.”
“But you did not know; the doctors did not know. It could only have been discovered, even at your showing, after her death, not in time to save her.”
“I wish Monsieur Dupuis had come more quickly on the Monday night!” sighed Nancy. “I am always wishing it. You can picture what it was, Mary—Lavinia lying in that dreadful agony and no doctor coming near her. Edwin was gone so long—so long! He could not wake up Monsieur Dupuis. I think now that the bell was out of order.”
“Why do you think that now? Captain Fennel must have known whether the bell answered to his summons, or not.”
“Well,” returned Nancy, “this morning when Flore returned with the fish, she said I looked very ill. She had just seen Monsieur Dupuis in the Place Ronde, and she ran out again and brought him in–”
“Did you mention to him this fancy of seeing Lavinia?” hastily interrupted Madame Carimon.
“No, no; I don’t talk of that to people. Only to you and Flore; and—yes—I did tell Mrs. Smith. I let Monsieur Dupuis think I was ill with grieving after Lavinia, and we talked a little about her. I said how I wished he could have been here sooner on the Monday night, and that my husband had rung several times before he could arouse him. Monsieur Dupuis said that was a mistake; he had got up and come as soon as he was called; he was not asleep at the time, and the bell had rung only once.”
“What an extraordinary thing!” exclaimed Mary Carimon. “I know your husband said he rang many times.”
“That’s why I now think the bell must have been out of order; but I did not say so to Monsieur Dupuis,” returned Nancy. “He is a kind old man, and it would grieve him: for of course we know doctors
ought
to keep their door-bells in order.”
Madame Carimon rose in silence, but full of thought, and they continued their walk. It was low water in the harbour, but the sun was sparkling and playing on the waves out at sea. On the pier they found Rose and Anna Bosanquet; and in chatting with them Nancy’s mood became more cheerful.
That same evening, on that same pier, Mary Carimon spoke a few confidential words to her husband. They sat at the end of it, and the beauty of the night, so warm and still, induced them to linger. The bright moon sailed grandly in the heavens and glittered upon the water that now filled the harbour, for the tide was in. Most of the promenaders had turned down the pier again, after watching out the steamer. What a fine passage she would make, and was making, cutting there so smoothly through the crystal sea!
Mary Carimon began in a low voice, though no one was near to listen and the waves could not hear her. She spoke pretty fully of a haunting doubt that lay upon her mind, as to whether Lavinia had died a natural death.
“If we make the best of it,” she concluded, “her dying in that strangely sudden way was unusual; you know that, Jules; quite unaccountable. It never
has
been accounted for.”
Monsieur Jules, gazing on the gentle waves as they rose and fell in the moonlight at the mouth of the harbour, answered nothing.
“He had so much to wish her away for, that man: all the money would become Nancy’s. And I’m sure there was secret enmity between them—on both sides. Don’t you see, Jules, how suspicious it all looks?”
The moonbeams, illumining Monsieur Jules Carimon’s face, showed it to be very impassive, betraying no indication that he as much as heard what his wife was talking about.
“I have not forgotten, I can never forget, Jules, the very singular Fate-reading, or whatever you may please to call it, spoken by the Astrologer Talcke last winter at Miss Bosanquet’s soirée. You were not in the room, you know, but I related it to you when we arrived home. He certainly foretold Lavinia’s death, as I, recalling the words, look upon it now. He said there was some element of evil in their house, threatening and terrible; he repeated it more than once.
In their house
, Jules, and that it would end in darkness; which, as every one understood, meant death: not for Mrs. Fennel; he took care to tell her that; but for another. He said the cards were more fateful than he had ever seen them. That evil in the house was Fennel.”
Still Monsieur Jules offered no comment.
“And what could be the meaning of those dreams Lavinia had about him, in which he always seemed to be preparing to inflict upon her some fearful ill, and she knew she never could and never would escape from it?” ran on Mary Carimon, her eager, suppressed tones bearing a gruesome sound in the stillness of the night. “And what is the explanation of the fits of terror which have shaken Fennel since the death, fancying he sees Lavinia? Flore said to me this morning that she is sure Lavinia is in the house.”
Glancing at her husband to see that he was at least listening, but receiving no confirmation of it by word or motion, Mary Carimon continued:
“Those dreams came to warn her, Jules. To warn her to get out of the house while she could. And she made arrangements to go, and in another day or two would have been away in safety. But he was too quick for her.”
Monsieur Jules Carimon turned now to face his wife. “Mon amie, tais toi,” said he with authority. “Such a topic is not convenable,” he added, still in French, though she had spoken in English. “It is dangerous.”
“But, Jules, I believe it
to have been so
.”
“All the same, and whether or no, it is not your affair, Marie. Neither must you make it so. Believe me, my wife, the only way to live peaceably ourselves in the world is to let our neighbours’ sins alone.”
XVII
Captain Edwin Fennel was certainly in no hurry to return to Sainteville, for he did not come. Nancy, ailing, weak, wretchedly uncomfortable, wrote letter after letter to him, generally sending them over by some friend or other who might be crossing, to be put in a London letter-box, and so evade the foreign postage. Once or twice she had written to Mrs. James, telling of her lonely life and that she wanted Edwin either to take her out of the dark and desolate house, or else to come back to it himself. Captain Fennel would answer now and again, promising to come—she would be quite sure to see him on one of the first boats if she looked out for their arrival. Nancy did look, but she had not yet seen him. She was growing visibly thinner and weaker. Sainteville said how ill Mrs. Fennel was looking.
One evening at the end of July, when the London steamer was due about ten o’clock, Nancy went to watch it in, as usual, Flore attending her. The port was gay, crowded with promenaders. There had been a concert at the Rooms, and the company was coming home from it. Mrs. Fennel had not made one: latterly she had felt no spirit for amusement. Several friends met her; she did not tell them she had come down to meet her husband, if haply he should be on the expected boat; she had grown tired and half ashamed of saying that; she let them think she was only out for a walk that fine evening. There was a yellow glow still in the sky where the sun had set; the north-west was clear and bright with its opal light.
The time went on; the port became deserted, excepting a few passing stragglers. Ten o’clock had struck, eleven would soon strike. Flore and her mistress, tired of pacing about, sat down on one of the benches facing the harbour. One of two young men, passing swiftly homewards from the pier, found himself called to.
“Charley! Charley Palliser!”
Charles turned, and recognized Mrs. Fennel. Stepping across to her, he shook hands.
“What do you think can have become of the boat?” she asked. “It ought to have been in nearly an hour ago.”
“Oh, it will be here shortly,” he replied. “The boat often makes a slow passage when there’s no wind. What little wind we have had to-day has been dead against it.”
“As I’ve just said to madame,” put in Flore, always ready to take up the conversation. “Mr. Charles knows there’s no fear it has gone down, though it may be a bit late.”
“Why, certainly not,” laughed Charley. “Are you waiting here for it, Mrs. Fennel?”
“Ye—s,” she answered, but with hesitation.
“And as it’s not even in sight yet, madame had much better go home and not wait, for the air is getting chilly,” again spoke Flore.
“We can’t see whether it’s in sight or not,” said her mistress. “It is dark out at sea.”
“Shall I wait here with you, Mrs. Fennel?” asked Charley in his good nature.
“Oh no, no; no, thank you,” she answered quickly. “If it does not come in soon, we shall go home.”
He wished them good-night, and went onwards.
“She is hoping the boat may bring that mysterious brute, Fennel,” remarked Charles to his companion.
“Brute, you call him?”
“He is no better than one, to leave his sick wife alone so long,” responded Charles in hearty tones. “She has picked up an idea, I hear, that the house is haunted, and shakes in her shoes in it from morning till night.”
The two watchers sat on, Flore grumbling. Not for herself, but for her mistress. A sea-fog was rising, and Flore thought madame might take cold. Mrs. Fennel wrapped her light fleecy shawl closer about her chest, and protested she was quite hot. The shawl was well enough for a warm summer’s night, but not for a cold sea-fog. About half-past eleven there suddenly loomed into view through the mist the lights of the steamer, about to enter the harbour.
“There she is!” exultingly cried Nancy, who had been shivering inwardly for some time past, and doing her best not to shiver outwardly for fear of Flore. “And now, Flore, you go home as quickly as you can and make a fire in the salon to warm us. I’m sure he will need one—at sea in this cold fog.”
“If he is come,” mentally returned Flore in her derisive heart. She had no faith in the return of Monsieur Fennel by any boat, a day or a night one. But she needed no second prompting to hasten away; was too glad to do it.
Poor Nancy waited on. The steamer came very slowly up the port, or she fancied so; one must be cautious in a fog; and it seemed to her a long time swinging round and settling itself into its place. Then the passengers came on shore one by one, Nancy standing close to look at them. There were only about twenty in all, and Captain Fennel was not one of them. With misty eyes and a rising in her throat and spiritless footsteps, Nancy arrived at her home, the Petite Maison Rouge. Flore had the fire burning in the salon; but Nancy was too thoroughly chilled for any salon fire to warm her.
The cold she caught that night stuck to her chest. For some days afterwards she was very ill indeed. Monsieur Dupuis attended her, and brought his son once or twice, Monsieur Henri. Nancy got up again, and was, so to say, herself once more; but she did not get up her strength.
She would lie on the sofa in the salon those August days, which were very hot ones, too languid to get off it. Friends would call in to see her; Major and Mrs. Smith, the Miss Bosanquets, the Lamberts, and so on. Madame Carimon was often there. They would ask her why she did not “make an effort” and sit up and occupy herself with a book or a bit of work, or go out a little; and Nancy’s answer was nearly always the same—she would do all that when the weather was somewhat cooler. Charley Palliser was quite a constant visitor. An English damsel, who was casting a covetous eye to Charles, though she might have spared herself the pains, took a fit of jealousy and said one might think sick Nancy Fennel was his sweetheart, going there so often. Charley rarely went empty-handed either. Now it would be half-a-dozen nectarines in their red-ripe loveliness, now some choice peaches, then a bunch of hot-house grapes, “purple and gushing,” and again an amusing novel just out in England.
“Mary, she is surely dying!”
The sad exclamation came from Stella Featherston. She and Madame Carimon, going in to take tea at the Petite Maison Rouge, had been sent by its mistress to her chamber above to take off their bonnets. The words had broken from Stella the moment they were alone.
“Sometimes I fear it myself,” replied Madame Carimon. “She certainly grows weaker instead of stronger.”
“Does any doctor attend her?”
“Monsieur Dupuis; a man of long experience, kind and clever. I was talking to him the other day, and he as good as said his skill and care seemed to avail nothing: were wasted on her.”
“Is it consumption?”
“I think not. She caught a dreadful cold about a month ago through being out in a night fog, thinly clad; and there’s no doubt it left mischief behind; but it seems to me that she is wasting away with inward fever.”
“I should get George to run over to see her, if I were you, Mary,” r