Read Ebook: Caught in a Trap by Hutcheson John C John Conroy

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Ebook has 420 lines and 112077 words, and 9 pages

Only a simple, and yet special name and appellation--

"Mrs Hartshorne, The Poplars."

That is all.

Far and wide throughout this county--over a considerable portion of which she owned manorial rights of vassalage, and ruled with sovereign sway in the matter of leases and titheholds and rackrents--amongst the lesser farmers and villagers she was known by this title; although, it must be confessed, her more intimate dependents and rustic neighbours dubbed her by far less elegant sobriquets.

Any one meeting her about the country lanes, where she was to be found at all hours, would have taken Mrs Hartshorne to be a shabby little dried-up, poor old woman. She always dressed in dark grey garments of antediluvian cut, somewhat brown and rusty from age and wear. Her bonnet was a marvellous specimen of the hideous old coal-scuttle form used by our grandmothers. She always carried a reticule of similar date, which, by her demeanour when emporting it, might have contained a hundred death-warrants, or keys of dungeons--if she had lived some three centuries or so ago: a bulgy umbrella in all weathers, wet or fine: thick shoes of rough country make: dark woollen gloves; and no veil to disguise the thin sharp features and piercing bead-like black eyes, overhung with bushy grey eyebrows, and the wrinkled forehead above, covered with scanty white locks, braided puritanically on each side, and there you have Mrs Hartshorne.

She was not a handsome old woman, nor a prepossessing old woman, nor would her face impress you as being either benevolent or pious; but shrewdness, cleverness, and hardness of set purpose, were ingrained in every line of its expression; and in truth--she was a hard, shrewd, clever old woman.

A quarter of a century seems a somewhat long time to look back, but twenty-five years ago Mrs Hartshorne was a young and handsome woman. Time had not dealt kindly with her as he does to some: none would dream of calling hers a graceful or a winning old age. She seemed to wrestle with the Destroyer, instead of ignoring his approach as most of us do, and quietly and placidly submitting to his encroachments. The result was not to her advantage. Every line on her face, every crow's-foot in the corners of her twinkling little eyes, every wrinkle on her careworn brow, every silvery hair on her head, marked the issue of some unsuccessful struggle; and the strong passions of her nature, even as they had embittered her life, seemed now, when her youth was passed, to war with death.

She had a quick way of speaking, running her words and sentences into one another, so that they resembled one of those compound, Dutch jaw-breaking words that occupy several lines in extent, and almost fill up a paragraph. Her temper was not a sweet one. It might suit "namby pamby," milk-and-water, bread-and-butter girls--"hussies," she would have called them--to mince their words and moderate their utterances; but she, "thank God, was none of those!" She said what she meant, sharp and straight to the point, and did not care what any one thought about it. Her voice, mode of speech, and general manner, resembled the barking of a wiry little Scotch terrier, and terrified most with whom she had any dealings. "Good Lord!" as old Doctor Jolly, the most hearty, jovial, loud and cheery-voiced of country surgeons--the only visitor who had entrance within her gates, and who used at fixed intervals to beard the lioness in her den--used to say; "but she has a temper. I would not be her husband, or her son, or her daughter for something! God bless my soul! sir, but she could hold a candle to the devil himself." And so she could, and hold her own, too!

When Tom grew old enough he was sent to school, only coming home for one week every year by express stipulation with the proprietor of the school! and when he became eighteen, at his earnest wish, and after continual wranglings with the old lady--who was passionately fond of him, although at the same time possessing an inordinate affection for money--he was allowed to go into the army. His mother said that he would "ruin her" when she gave an order on her banker to the doctor, who was Tom's guardian, for the sum required for his commission and outfit, but she did not behave illiberally, and gave master Tom a very fair allowance, satisfying her conscience by raising all the rents of her poorer tenants, and grinding down the household expenses more than ever. Of Tom she was not only fond but proud: it was the only one womanly trait in her character; and although she was not a very motherly kind of woman, and did not display her affection in the manner customary to the feminine sex--ruling her household, even Tom, with a rod of iron and a stern sense of duty--yet her son was very much attached to her, notwithstanding he did not exhibit any strong partiality for visiting her. He knew that the less he saw of her the better: they both understood each other well.

The daughter, however, Mrs Hartshorne hated and disliked in the strongest manner possible. She grew up uncared for, except as regarded frequent and summary corrections for childish misdemeanours; and if it had not been for the boy Tom she would have been altogether neglected. Little Susan was an eyesore to her mother in consequence of her being the only one provided for in Roger Hartshorne's will independently of the mother, to whom all the rest of the property, excepting of course the entail, was bequeathed without reservation. Mrs Hartshorne considered her own child as a species of interloper or invader of her rights, and treated her accordingly with neglect and almost cruelty when the squire was no longer able to look after and protect her. The very fondness of the old man for his little girl had been even an additional incentive for her ill-treatment. When Susan had reached her fifteenth year--she was little more than a year older than Tom--the dislike of her mother culminated in an accident, which indeed might be characterised in worse terms, that somewhat checked the ill-treatment and harshness she had previously suffered. She had done some trifling thing or other one day which had offended her mother to fury, and she consequently, after beating her most unmercifully, had locked her up all one night in a solitary part of the house by herself. The little thing was of a very nervous, tender organisation; and the fright she suffered in the lonely darkness throughout the long hours of the night drove away her poor little wits. When the child was let out the next day she was in a raging fever, and when she recovered from that, thanks to old Doctor Jolly , she was never herself again. She remained quietly passive under any or every treatment of the mother "half-silly," as the poor folks say, and half-silly she was now still, although she was almost one-and-twenty. Her mental disorder was of a pathetic description--a sort of melancholia, and although her mother had procured governesses for her, and she knew, like a parrot, as much as most girls of her age in the matter of education, she never exhibited any likes or dislikes, or preferences, except for music, of which she was passionately fond: everything else that was taught her she learnt in a machine-like way. Susan would spend hours each day, particularly in the evening, playing on an old chamber-organ, which occupied one of the disused rooms of the house, wild, weird, melancholy melodies which appeared to soothe her, and give her the only sense of enjoyment she seemed to possess. Tom and Doctor Jolly were the only people she cared to see; her mother she disliked greatly, and had a sort of trembling fit whenever she came across her or passed her in the passages of the house; and the old female domestics she barely tolerated, although she liked old George, a simple, uneducated Sussex countryman , who now did all the odd jobs and outdoor work about the house since the establishment had been reduced.

Mrs Hartshorne always had a governess or special person to look after Susan, and she was careful to put down all the expenses of the said individual to be charged against and deducted from the portion which her daughter was to inherit in accordance with the terms of the squire's will.

These governesses were always being changed, for few persons, even those who have taught themselves to submit, as governesses have to teach themselves, could long bear with the temper of the dowager. A new face was consequently ever coming and going within the narrow range of Susan Hartshorne's horizon.

Doctor Jolly used to say that perhaps some sudden shock of grief or joy might restore the poor girl to the full possession of her senses.

"But then," he would remark, "I don't know how that is going to happen, unless the old lady kicks the bucket."

Thus was Mrs Hartshorne placed, and it must be owned that a skeleton such as she had in her closet would not tend to sweeten her disposition. Hard and stern she was with all around her. She was her own farm agent, her own bailiff, her own man of business. If she had been entirely alone she would probably have had not a soul in the house with her, not even a domestic. She collected her own rents, and was never forgetful of a farthing owed to her. When the leases granted by the squire expired she would not let them be renewed, but kept her tenants under fear and trembling, with only a year's certainty of possession of their homes; and she waxed rich, did the dowager, and had by this time a goodly pile of ready money at her bankers'. This was all for Tom, and, faith! the young sir would have a splendid inheritance when the dowager departed for the happy hunting grounds. The squire's property, before the advent of Mrs Hartshorne, had been worth some ten thousand a year. It was now worth nearly half as much again, and the savings of the yearly income amounted to more than a hundred thousand pounds. "A very comfortable little sum of ready money, sir!" as the doctor would say.

The residence of the dowager was situated about a mile from the picturesque little village of Hartwood, which boasted not only of a special little station to itself on the S.C. Rail, but also of its own little church, quite independent of the sacred episcopal edifice general to the parish under whose jurisdiction it came. The dowager owned the church as well as the village, and the right of presentation being in her gift, she had recently inducted the most extreme Ritualistic divine she could procure into the pulpit of Hartwood, just purely out of opposition to the rector of the district, whom she disliked, and who was supposed to be of strong evangelical principles.

The Poplars--there can be no mistake in saying it--was an extremely ugly house. Its architecture was neither Gothic nor Norman, Elizabethan or Tudor; it was an heterogeneous pile of stones and brickwork, scrambled together without any style or design. Inside it was comfortable enough, and roomy and rambling; without it seemed nothing but a collection of eaves and chimneys, and its sole redeeming point consisted in the lofty and spreading poplar trees which surrounded it on all sides, as well as gave it its name, and concealed its native ugliness from strangers and passers-by.

There you have "The Poplars" and its mistress.

THE FISH AND THE HOOK.

"Het-wood!" shouted the guard vehemently, as the train in which Tom Hartshorne and Markworth had left London drew up at a little wayside station, closely adjoining Hartwood village, the spire of whose church could be seen near at hand, amidst a group of lofty elm trees which surrounded it--and "Het-wood! Het-wood! Het-wood!" burst a tribe of porters and railway men, after that official, chorusing in full cry to a musical accompaniment of door-slammings and steam-escapements.

"Here we are at last," ejaculated Tom, poking his head out of the window of one of the carriages as soon as they fairly stopped.

"Are we? Then the Lord be praised! Beastly long journey. More than two hours for only sixty or seventy miles!" responded his companion, stepping on to the platform, where they and their luggage were quickly deposited--the only arrivals for the little village--while the iron horse again grunted and puffed on its toilsome way with its string of cattle pens behind it.

"Good day, sir," said the station-master, touching his hat respectfully to Tom; "do you want a trap, sir?"

"No, thanks, we'll walk over; but will you send up our things for us, Murphy?"

"Certainly, sir; one of the men shall go at once with them. Here, Peter! shoulder them there bags, and follow Mister Hartshorne up t'ouse."

"It's much jollier to walk, Markworth," remarked Tom, as they left the station, and he led the way over a stile into a little bypath across a field; "it's a lovely afternoon, and we'll get there in half the time we should if we drove by the road."

"All right, my boy, I'm agreeable," answered Markworth.

So they sauntered on, walking in a narrow foot-wide track, through acres of gleaming green fields of oats and wheat, with their wavy motion, like the sea, and their rustling tops, one of the railway porters following closely behind them, weighed down apparently by two heavy travelling-bags he carried, although, probably, he thought them but a trifle.

A pleasant walk it was on a fine summer day.

Presently Markworth could see a gaunt, grim stone wall in front of them, with a mass of tall, melancholy-looking, waving poplar trees behind it, all in a clump together.

"There's the place," said Tom. "We'll be there in no time. We can go through that side-door," pointing to a small gateway cut through the wall. "You must not mind, old chap, what my mother says, you know, at first. I told you she was a queer fellow, you know, and she will seem rough to you at first."

"I sha'n't mind, bless you, Tom--I oughtn't to be afraid of any woman at my time of life, my hearty."

In another minute they had arrived at the small door they had been making for, and Tom rang the bell with a sonorous peal.

After waiting about a quarter of an hour, and ringing some three times, the gate was at length opened by George, the Dowager's "man of all work," an honest, tall, beaming-looking countryman, who stood at the entrance with a broad grin of pleasure on his rustic face.

"Whoy! Lor sakes, measter Tummus! It beant you, be it? Well, to be sure!"

"Yes, it's me, sure enough, George. How are the rheumatics?"

"Och! they be foine, sur?"

"Nice day, George, ain't it? Good for the crops, eh?"

A sharp, querulous voice, which belonged to somebody evidently not far distant, here suddenly interposed--

"What are you standing jabbering and grinning there like a baboon for, man? Begone to your work man! Do you think I keep your idle carcass and pay your wages for you to be kicking your heels in the air all day and doing nothing? Begone to your work, man, and let my son in; if I ever catch you jabbering away like this again, out you go bag and baggage!"

Here it must be noted that the speaker did not pause a second in the delivery of this harangue--not a stop, such as have been put here for the sake of legibility, occurred between the words--the whole sentence rattled out as one word--a word fiery, hot, strong, and by no means sweet.

"Lor sakes! here's the missus!" ejaculated George, in sudden terror; and clutching his spade, which he had put down to open the gate, he disappeared amidst the shrubbery much sooner and with a quicker movement than he had evidently acted the part of Janitor.

The Dowager it was, without a doubt--for her presence had quickly followed her words, and she now stood before the pair in all her imposing appearance with an irritated face, and her piercing eyes fixed on them enquiringly.

She was the first to break the short silence that ensued.

"Well, and so you have come at last, Thomas! There, shake hands! that will do. I wonder you have been able to tear yourself away from all your jackanape companions--a lot of reckless spendthrifts and conceited puppies, every one of them--to come and see your ugly old mother at last. I am so old, and, having no airs and graces to receive you like other people--all lies to be sure--that I wonder you do come at all! I suppose it is only because you want money--money, money, money, like the whole tribe of them--bloodsuckers all. But who's this fellow with you?" she said, abruptly, turning round on Markworth as if she were going to snap him up. "Who is he, and what does he want, shoving himself in?"

Tom hastened to introduce him, saying that he was an old friend, Mr Allynne Markworth, who had been very kind to him, and whom he had ventured to invite down according to the express stipulation of his mother.

"Humph!" she muttered, "oh! that's it, is it; why did you not say so before instead of letting him stand staring there like an idiot? But you never had a head, Thomas, and never will as long as you live! You are only fit to be a lazy soldier to flaunt about all day in a patchwork uniform and do nothing. The only sense you ever have shown was in selecting your profession! So this is Mr Markworth, is it? Humph! I daresay he's like the rest of them--all calf's head and shrimp sauce! How do you do, Mr Markworth?" She now spoke without the former asperity, and curtseyed low in an old-fashioned manner. "Any friend of my son is welcome to my house, poor as it is! Please go on and lead the way, Thomas, with your friend, you will find a room ready prepared for him, and you know your own. We dine at the regular hour, five o'clock, and it only wants half-an-hour to that, so don't be late. I don't want any dressing or fal-lalling!" The old lady then turned into the shrubbery, evidently after the recreant George, and she muttered to herself as she ambled along, "He's taller than Thomas, and a handsome puppy; but I don't like him--he's a rogue, or I'll eat my boots."

There was no need for such an unusual repast on the part of the Dowager; she might have been wider from the mark in her casual conjecture.

Punctually at five o'clock the tones of some huge clanging old bell clanked through the house, proclaiming the hour; and Tom tapping at Markworth's door, told him that dinner was ready. The latter at once appeared outside as elaborately dressed as if he were going to attend a Lord Mayor's banquet.

"I always mind little things," replied the other; "I never sacrifice appearances:" in truth he never did.

Tom, on the way down in the train, had explained all about his sister's infirmity--that she was "Not quite right here, you know," tapping his forehead significantly; so Markworth was not surprised to see a tall, pale, slim-looking girl seated at the table with her eyes bent down on her plate. She looked up in a sort of painful wonder when they entered, which changed into a pleased, unmeaning smile when she recognised Tom, and immediately again dropped her eyes.

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