CHAPTER VII.
THE GRANGE AT WOODBURY
I stopped for three weeks in Jane's lodgings; and before the end ofthat time, Jane and I had got upon the most intimate footing. It waspartly her kindliness that endeared her to me, and her constantsense of continuity with the earlier days which I had quiteforgotten; but it was partly too, I felt sure, a vague revivalwithin my own breast of a familiarity that had long ago subsistedbetween us. I was coming to myself again, on one side of my nature.Day by day I grew more certain that while facts had passed away fromme, appropriate emotions remained vaguely present. Among theWoodbury people that I met, I recognised none to say that I knewthem; but I knew almost at first sight that I liked this one anddisliked that one. And in every case alike, when I talked the matterover afterwards with Jane, she confirmed my suspicion that in myFirst State I had liked or disliked just those persons respectively.My brain was upset, but my heart remained precisely the same asever.
On my second morning I went up to The Grange with her. The house wasstill unlet. Since the day of the murder, nobody cared to live init. The garden and shrubbery had been sadly neglected: Jane took meout of the way as we walked up the path, to show me the place wherethe photographic apparatus had been found embedded in the grass, andwhere the murderer had cut his hands getting over the wall in hisfrantic agitation. The wall was pretty high and protected withbottle-glass. I guessed he must have been tall to scramble over it.That seemed to tell against Jane's crude idea that a woman mighthave done it.
But when I said so to Jane, she met me at once with the crushingreply: "Perhaps it wasn't the same person that came back for thebox." I saw she was right again. I had jumped at a conclusion. Incases like this, one must leave no hypothesis untried, jump at noconclusions of any sort. Clearly, that woman ought to have been madea detective.
As I entered the house the weird sense of familiarity that pursuedme throughout rose to a very high pitch. I couldn't fairly say,indeed, that I remembered the different rooms. All I could say withcertainty was that I had seen them before. To this there were threeexceptions--the three that belonged to my Second State--the library,my bedroom, and the hall and staircase. The first was indeliblyprinted on my memory as a component part of the Picture, and I foundmy recollection of every object in the room almost startling in itscorrectness. Only, there was an alcove on one side that I'd quiteforgotten, and I saw why most clearly. I stood with my back to it asI looked at the Picture. The other two bits I remembered as the roomin which I had had my first great illness, and the passage downwhich I had been carried or helped when I was taken to Aunt Emma's.
I had begun to recognise now that the emotional impression made uponme by people and things was the only sure guide I still possessed asto their connection or association with my past history. And therooms at The Grange had each in this way some distinctivecharacteristic. The library, of course, was the chief home of theHorror which had hung upon my spirit even during the days when Ihardly knew in any intelligible sense the cause of it. But thedrawing-room and dining-room both produced upon my mind a vagueconsciousness of constraint. I was dimly aware of being ill at easeand uncomfortable in them. My own bedroom, on the contrary, gave mea pleasant feeling of rest and freedom and security: while theservants'-hall and the kitchen seemed perfect paradises of liberty.
"Ah! many's the time, miss," Jane said with a sigh, looking over atthe empty grate, "you'd come down here to make cakes or puddings,and laugh and joke like a child with Mary an' me. I often used tosay to Emily--her as was cook here before Ellen Smith,--'Miss Una'snever so happy as when she's down here in the kitchen.' And 'That'strue what you say,' says Emily to me, many a time and often."
That was exactly the impression left upon my own mind. I began toconclude, in a dim, formless way, that my father must have been asomewhat stern and unsympathetic man; that I had felt constrainedand uncomfortable in his presence upstairs, and had often beenpleased to get away from his eye to the comparative liberty and easeof my own room or of the maid-servants' quarters.
At last, in the big attic that had once been the nursery, I pausedand looked at Jane. A queer sensation came over me.
"Jane," I said slowly, hardly liking to frame the words, "there'ssomething strange about this room. He wasn't cruel to me, was he?"
"Oh! no, miss," Jane answered promptly. "He wasn't never what youmight call exactly cruel. He was a very good father, and lookedafter you well; but he was sort of stern and moody-like--would havehis own way, and didn't pay no attention to fads and fancies, hecalled 'em. When you were little, many's the time he sent you uphere for punishment--disobedience and such like."
I took out the photograph and tried, as it were, to think of myfather as alive and with his eyes open. I couldn't remember theeyes. Jane told me they were blue; but I think what she said was thesort of impression the face produced upon me. A man not unjust orharsh in his dealings with myself, but very strong and masterful. Aman who would have his own way in spite of anybody. A father whoruled his daughter as a vessel of his making, to be done as he wouldwith, and be moulded to his fashion.
Still, my visit to The Grange resulted in the end in casting verylittle light upon the problem before me. It pained and distressed megreatly, but it brought no new elements of the case into view: atbest, it only familiarised me with the scene of action of thetragedy. The presence of the alcove was the one fresh feature.Nothing recalled to me as yet in any way the murderer's features. Iracked my brain in vain; no fresh image came up in it. I couldrecollect nothing about the man or his antecedents.
I almost began to doubt that I would ever succeed in reconstructingmy past, when even the sight of the home in which I had spent mychildish days suggested so few new thoughts or ideas to me.
For a day or two after that I rested at Jane's, lest I shoulddisturb my brain too much. Then I called once more on the doctor whohad made the post mortem on my father, and given evidence at theinquest, to see if anything he could say might recall my lapsedmemory.
The moment he came into the room--a man about fifty, close-shavenand kindly-looking--I recognised him at once, and held out my handto him frankly. He surveyed me from head to foot with a good medicalstare, and then wrung my hand in return with extraordinary warmthand effusion. I could see at once he retained a most pleasingrecollection of my First State, and was really glad to see me.
"What, you remember me then, Una!" he cried, with quite fatherlydelight. "You haven't forgotten me, my dear, as you've forgotten allthe rest, haven't you?"
It was startling to be called by one's Christian name like that, andby a complete stranger, too; but I was getting quite accustomed nowto these little incongruities.
"Oh, yes; I remember you perfectly," I answered, half-grieved todistress him, "though I shouldn't have known your name, and didn'texpect to see you. You're the doctor who attended me in my firstgreat illness--the illness with which my present life began--justafter the murder."
He drew back, a little crestfallen.
"Then that's all you recollect, is it?" he asked. "You don'tremember me before, dear? Not Dr. Marten, who used to take you onhis knee when you were a tiny little girl, and bring you lollipopsfrom town, to the great detriment of your digestion, and get intorows with your poor father for indulging you and spoiling you? Youmust surely remember me?"
I shook my head slowly. I was sorry to disappoint him; but it wasnecessary before all things to get at the bare truth.
"I'm afraid not," I answered. "Do please forgive me! You must haveread in the papers, like everybody else, of the very great changethat has so long come over me. Bear in mind, I can't rememberanything at all that occurred before the murder. That first illnessis to me the earliest recollection of childhood."
He gazed across at me compassionately.
"My poor child," he said in a low voice, like a very affectionatefriend, "it's much better so. You have been mercifully spared agreat deal of pain. Una, when I first saw you at The Grange afteryour father's death, I thanked heave
n you had been so seized. Ithanked heaven the world had become suddenly a blank to you. Iprayed hard you might never recover your senses again, or at leastyour memory. And now that you're slowly returned to life once more,against all hope or fear, I'm heartily glad it's in this peculiarway. I'm heartily glad all the past's blotted out for you. You can'tunderstand that, my child? Ah, no, very likely not. But I think it'smuch best for you, all your first life should be wholly forgotten."He paused for a second. Then he added slowly: "If you remembered itall, the sense of the tragedy would be far more acute and poignanteven than at present."
"Perhaps so," I said resolutely; "but not the sense of mystery. It'sTHAT that appals me so! I'd rather know the truth than be so wrappedup in the incomprehensible."
He looked at me pityingly once more.
"My poor child," he said, in the same gentle and fatherly voice,"you don't wholly understand. It doesn't all come home to you. I cansee clearly, from what Inspector Wolferstan told me, after his visitto you the other day--"
I broke in, in surprise.
"Inspector Wolferstan!" I cried. "Then he came down here to see you,did he?"
It was horrible to find how all my movements were discussed andchronicled.
"Yes, he came down here to see me and talk things over," Dr. Martenwent on, as calmly as if it were mere matter of course. "And I couldsee from what he said you were still spared much. For instance, youremember it all only as an event that happened to an old man with along white beard. You don't fully realise, except intellectually,that it was your own father. You're saved, as a daughter, the miseryand horror of thinking and feeling it was your father who lay deadthere."
"That's quite true," I answered. "I admit that I can't feel it allas deeply as I ought. But none the less, I've come down here to makea violent effort. Let it cost what it may, I must get at the truth.I wanted to see whether the sight of The Grange and of Woodbury mayhelp me to recall the lost scenes in my memory."
To my immense surprise, Dr. Marten rose from his seat, and standingup before me in a perfect agony of what seemed like terror, halfmixed with affection, exclaimed in a very earnest and resolutevoice:
"Oh, Una, my child, whatever you do--I beg of you--I imploreyou--don't try to recall the past at all! Don't attempt it! Don'tdream of it!"
"Why not?" I cried, astonished. "Surely it's my duty to try and findout my father's murderer!"
Instead of answering me, he looked about him for half a minute insuspense, as if doubtful what next to do or to say. Then he walkedacross with great deliberation to the door of the room, and lockedand double-locked it with furtive alarm, as I interpreted hisaction.
So terrified did he seem, indeed, that for a moment the ideaoccurred to me in a very vague way--Was I talking with the murderer?Had the man who himself committed the crime conducted the postmortem, and put Justice off the scent? And was I now practically atthe mercy of the criminal I was trying to track down? The thoughtfor a second or two made me feel terribly uncomfortable. But Iglanced at his back and at his hands, and reassured myself. Thatbroad, short man was not the slim figure of my Picture and of thephotograph. Those large red hands were not the originals of thesmall and delicate white palm just displayed at the back in boththose strange documents of the mysterious murder.
The doctor came over again, and drew his chair close to mine.
"Una, my child," he said slowly, "I love you very much, as if youwere my own daughter. I always loved you and admired you, and wassorry--oh, so sorry!--for you. You've quite forgotten who I am; butI've not forgotten you. Take what I say as coming from an oldfriend, from one who loves you and has your interest at heart. Forheaven's sake, I implore you, my child, make no more inquiries. Tryto forget--not to remember. If you do recollect, you'll be sorry inthe end for it."
"Why so?" I asked, amazed, yet somehow feeling in my heart I couldtrust him implicitly. "Why should the knowledge of the truecircumstances of the case make me more unhappy than I am atpresent?"
He gazed harder at me than ever.
"Because," he replied in slow tones, weighing each word as he spoke,"you may find that the murder was committed by some person orpersons you love or once loved very much indeed. You may find itwill rend your very heart-strings to see that person or thosepersons punished. You may find the circumstances were whollyotherwise than you imagine them to be.... Let sleeping dogs lie, mydear. Without your aid, nothing more can be done. Don't troubleyourself to put the blood-hounds on the track of some unhappycreature who might otherwise escape. Don't rake it all up afresh.Bury it--bury it--bury it!"
He spoke so earnestly that he filled me with vague alarm.
"Dr. Marten," I said solemnly, "answer me just one question. Do youknow who was the murderer?"
"No, no!" he exclaimed, starting once more. "Thank heaven, I can'ttell you that! I don't know. I know nothing. Nobody on earth knowsbut the two who were present on the night of the murder, I feelsure. And of those two, one's unknown, and the other has forgotten."
"But you suspect who he is?" I put in, probing the secret curiously.
He trembled visibly.
"I suspect who he is," he replied, after a moment's hesitation. "ButI have never communicated, and will never communicate, my suspicionsto anybody, not even to you. I will only say this: the person whom Isuspect is one with whom you may now have forgotten all your pastrelations, but whom you would be sorry to punish if you recoveredyour memory. I formed a strong opinion at the time who that personwas. I formed it from the nature and disposition of the wound, andthe arrangement of the objects in the room when I was called in tosee your father's body."
"And you never said so at the inquest!" I cried, indignant.
He looked at me hard again. Then he spoke in a very slow and earnestvoice:
"For your sake, Una, and for the sake of your affections, I held mypeace," he said. "My dear, the suspicion was but a very slender one:I had nothing to go upon. And why should I have tried to destroyyour happiness?"
That horrible article in the penny Society paper came back to mymind once more with hideous suggestiveness. I turned to him almostfiercely.
"So far as you know, Dr. Marten," I asked, "was I ever in love? HadI ever an admirer? Was I ever engaged to anyone?"
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled a sort of smile of relief.
"How should I know?" he answered. "Admirers?--yes, dozens of them;I was one myself. Lovers?--who can say? But I advise you not topush the inquiry further."
I questioned him some minutes longer, but could get nothing morefrom him. Then I rose to go.
"Dr. Marten," I said firmly, "if I remember all, and if it wrings myheart to remember, I tell you I will give up that man to justice allthe same! I think I know myself well enough to know this much atleast, that I never, never could stoop either to love or to screen aman who could commit such a foul and dastardly crime as this one."
He took my hand fervently, raised it with warmth to his lips andkissed it twice over.
"My dear," he said, with tears dropping down his gentle old cheeks,"this is a very great mystery--a terrible mystery. But I know youspeak the truth. I can see you mean it. Therefore, all the moreearnestly do I beg and beseech you, go away from Woodbury at once,and as long as you live think no more about it."