CHAPTER IV
Bluebeard's Cupboard
'O most lame and impotent conclusion!'--_Shakespeare_.
Agatha was naturally very vexed when she heard from her sisters whathad happened. She was sometimes laughed at by her friends for herdevotion to the clergy, and all her hopes of doing good were centred inthe country church and its organizations.
'It is most unfortunate,' she said; 'I was hoping that perhaps some ofthem might call before Sunday, but really after such an encounter theymay totally ignore us. It was not right to do such a thing, Elfie,without permission. I can't think how Gwen could have allowed it.'
'Well, really, I am not up in propriety and etiquette in such matters,'was Gwen's rather impatient response. 'We are not in town now, thankgoodness! In the country you are supposed to have a little freedom.If they don't wish people to try the organ, they should not leave itopen, or they should chain a bulldog to the organ stool. Wasn't thather suggestion, Clare? My dear Agatha, don't fuss yourself. This oldwoman must be quite a character, and would abuse anybody, I feelcertain. We didn't tell her who we were, so if she comes to call onyou, we will keep out of the way. She seemed half blind, so I don'texpect she would recognise us again.'
'Jane says she lives alone with her brother, who is unmarried,' saidClare, 'and she is quite a Tartar in the village, though she is verygood in relieving the villagers' wants.'
'What does Jane know about it?'
'Oh, she gets her gossip from Mrs. Tucker, who also told her that MissMiller sees better through her green glasses than most people dowithout any glasses at all!'
'Mrs. Tucker talks a lot of rubbish, I expect,' said Gwen, ratherloftily; then, changing the conversation, she said, 'I am going tounpack my books now. Who will come and help me? I am longing to fillup those empty bookshelves in Mr. Lester's study. What a good thing heleft them as fixtures!'
'I will help you, if you like,' said Clare. 'Are you going to takesole possession of that study, may I ask?'
Gwen looked across at her rather queerly.
'Not if you dispute it,' she said, with a little laugh. 'Agatha is inlove with the drawing-room. She has already arranged a corner forherself there; her writing-table in the west window, her work-basketand books in the corner by it, and her pet canary is now singinghimself hoarse at the view he has from the window.'
'Yes,' Agatha replied, 'it is an ideal old maid's corner, and that iswhere you will always find me, when my housekeeping duties are notkeeping me away.'
'I wish we could have a sitting-room each,' said Clare; 'we get so ineach other's way.'
'You can share the study with me when you want to be quiet,' said Gwen.'I won't have you there if you talk!'
'You're quite the owner of it already, then? And what are you going todo, Elfie?'
'Oh, I shall be everywhere. Agatha never minds my music. I shall bepractising a good deal, and if I'm voted a bore, I shall take my violinup to the bedroom. You and Gwen are the blue stockings, so the studywill be given over to you.'
This seemed satisfactory. Gwen was a great reader, and possessedalready a most valuable library. She wrote essays for some periodicaloccasionally, but would never bind herself to any steady contributions,and she was never so happy as when deeply engrossed in some ancienthistories of Egypt or Nineveh. The buried past had a fascination forher, and perhaps she of all the others had most reason for regrettingthe departure from London, for her constant visits to the reading-roomat the British Museum had been a keen delight and pleasure to her.When quite a schoolgirl she used to say, with that masterful toss ofher head, 'I am quite determined that I will understand and masterevery "ology" under the sun!'
And Gwen and her 'ologies' had been a perpetual joke in her family eversince. She had dabbled in a good many sciences--geology, astronomy,architecture, physiology, botany, natural history, and archaeology allhad their turn, and she certainly seemed to get a good deal of interestand amusement out of them all. She announced to Clare, as a littlelater they were seated on the study floor surrounded by pyramids ofbooks, that she intended to give her thoughts now to gardening andagriculture.
'I have some delightful old books on horticulture, which I shall readup,' she said enthusiastically; 'and there is an old Dutch writeramongst them who gives the most minute directions for laying out aflower and vegetable garden. I have told Agatha I shall take thegarden into my charge. I am certain I shall succeed with it.'
'Do you ever doubt your capability for doing anything?'
Clare put the question gravely.
'No, I don't think I do, except teach a Sunday school class!' saidGwen, laughing.
'I sometimes feel I am incapable of living even,' said Clare dreamily.
Gwen stared at her. These two understood each other better than onewould have thought possible with such opposite characteristics. Clareadmired Gwen's intellect, and there were times when Gwen knew thatClare had depths of which she knew nothing. Reason and practicalcommon sense had full sway in the one, imagination and mysticism in theother, and none of these qualities were tempered with real religion.
'You must be in the blues!' exclaimed Gwen, with a laugh.
'No,' said Clare, looking up, 'I am not, at all. I am longing to be upand doing, and leave some mark behind me as I go. Is that Browning youhave in your hand? Just let me look up a passage!' Gwen laughed againas she handed across the book.
'No hope for any more help from you, if you once get hold of him!'
And for an hour Clare sat amongst the piles of books with her fair headresting against the carved cupboard, and not a word or sign could Gwenget out of her.
Elfie spent her time in helping Agatha to unpack, and it was a verytired little party that gathered round the drawing-room fire thatevening.
'I wonder,' said Clare, 'if we shall find we have made a mistake incoming here. It seems so very quiet, and different to either London orDane Hall. When we used to stay there with Aunt Mildred, there wasalways such a lot going on that it didn't seem quite like the country.'
'My dear Clare,' said Agatha quietly, 'you would be much happieryourself, and would make others happier too, if you always made thebest of your circumstances. I remember you used to complain at DaneHall of the frivolity and empty-headedness of aunt's visitors, andwould say it was a mere waste of life to live as we did!'
'Oh, don't be so prosy, Agatha!' Clare returned impatiently. 'If youwere dropped into a workhouse ward, you would look round and remark howcomfortable you were, and how at last you had found your vocation!'
Elfie laughed aloud at this, but Agatha leant back in her chair andlooked into the glowing coals in front of her with a smile that showedshe was not destitute of humour. 'I daresay I might,' she said. 'Ialways love a community of old women, and if I could have chats withthem, I am sure I should enjoy myself.'
'Well, I only wish I could be so easily contented,' said Clare, in atone that showed she would be very sorry for herself if she were. Shesoon went off to bed, and Elfie followed, and then the two elder onesdrew their chairs together and had a confidential talk over ways andmeans.
Agatha, though apparently apathetic at times and of a yieldingdisposition, had not always been so. When she first came home fromschool, she had all the bright hopes and restless longings of a younggirl, and her aunt did all in her power to make life pleasant andbright for her. She went out into society, and was a generalfavourite, owing to her sweet temper and extreme unselfishness. Thenone came on the scene who attracted her heart from the first. He wasan earnest, whole-hearted Christian man, a vicar of an East End parish,and it was his influence that made Agatha view life in a differentlight. She vexed her aunt at first by gradually withdrawing fromgaieties, and it was only with great difficulty that she was givenpermission to visit in the slums. The vicar was soon her betrothed,and Agatha had a few months of perpetual sunshine. But hard work, anda not very strong constitution, soon brought about a seriousbreak-down, and he was ordered to the south
of France to recruit hishealth. The parting was a sad one, and Agatha had wild thoughts ofmarrying then and there, and going with him as his wife and nurse. Butthis Miss Dane strenuously opposed, and poor Agatha had to bear thestrain of five months away from the one who needed her so badly. Hedied, and for a time she was broken-hearted; but gradually she came toprove the reality and comfort of her religion, and then, taking up theinterests of those around her, she had cheerfully buried her ownsorrow, and became the mainstay of her aunt and her household. PerhapsAgatha felt most keenly being shut out from her aunt's dying room, shecertainly uttered with heartfelt fervour morning and evening, 'Forgiveus our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us.'
And she had never trusted herself to mention her cousin's unjustdealing to anyone; even her sisters had little idea how deep herfeelings were about it.
The next few days were very busy ones. Saturday brought Captain Knox,to stay with them till Monday, and Clare showed him over house andgarden in the best of spirits. 'It is rather strange,' he said, as hesat at dinner with them that night, 'but one of my sisters knows a ladyin this neighbourhood, and she thinks you will like her. She livessomewhere on the outskirts of Brambleton. A Miss Villars. She is acharming woman, I hear, very comfortably off, but rather eccentric inthe way she spends her money. My sister wrote to her when she knew ofyour arrival here, so you may have a visit from her soon.'
'Is she an old maid?' asked Elfie; 'because we have seen one, and, Iwas going to say, don't want to see another.'
Clare related their adventure in the church, and Captain Knox was muchamused.
'I do not think there is anything queer about Miss Villars, except thatshe is a very religious woman.'
'Is that queer?' questioned Clare, a little wistfully.
'No,' Agatha said very quietly; 'it ought not to be.'
'But it is in the sight of the world,' retorted Captain Knox; 'that is,if your religion in an aggressive one.'
'Well, of course it ought not to be aggressive,' said Gwen briskly.'Religion is a matter to be lived, not talked about. It only concernsoneself, and no one else.'
'That is a very selfish creed,' said Agatha. 'If you possess somethinggood, you ought to wish to pass it on.'
'But not to thrust it on people who don't want it. I am thirsty, andlike a glass of water, but need I insist upon your drinking it, whenyou are not thirsty at all?'
'Gwen loves an argument,' said Captain Knox good-naturedly.
'I am not good at arguing,' said Agatha, 'only, knowing that thirst canbe a blessing, I think we should try to make people thirsty.'
'How do you mean?' asked Clare with interest, 'thirst is not,generally, a very happy experience.'
'Doesn't it say, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst afterrighteousness, for they shall be filled"?'
'Oh, come, Agatha, we don't want a sermon with our dinner. You are notgiven to preach, so don't be trying to show us that you know how to beaggressive.'
Gwen's tone was a little scornful, and Agatha said no more; but asClare was pacing up and down in the verandah with Captain Knox, alittle time after, she suddenly said, 'I think I am a thirsty person,Hugh, only I never can tell what it is I am thirsting for; tell me, areyou perfectly satisfied with yourself and with life?'
Captain Knox looked down at the sweet, pensive face of his betrothed.'I shall be, Clare--on our wedding day.'
Clare frowned. 'You never will be in earnest about anything; youalways turn my thoughts into ridicule.'
'Indeed I do not. But I am a plain, matter-of-fact soldier, and liveon earth; you are in dreamland half your time, or in the clouds.Clare, darling, I cannot bear the thoughts of Africa sometimes; howshall I be able to stand being away from you so long? And time isslipping away so fast; only a fortnight more before I am off.'
'You will come down again before you start, of course?'
'Oh yes, I certainly intend to do so; but I have a lot to do intown--it may be only the last day that you will see me.'
Clare sighed, but said nothing, and then Captain Knox said suddenly,--
'Is Agatha very religious, Clare?
'No, I don't think so--not particularly. She is fond of church and allthat, but she doesn't often speak out as she did at dinner to-night.Now, don't let us be gloomy; come indoors, and I will show youBluebeard's cupboard in the study, It is well worth looking at, for itis beautifully carved, and I am going to try and copy it. You know howI love carving.'
She took him to the study, and there, by the aid of a lamp, theyexamined the old oak cupboard in the deep recess at the side of thefireplace.
'The strange thing is that there seems to be no lock or opening at allto it,' said Clare. 'I have spent hours in trying to find out where itis opened. Do you think one day I shall touch a spring, the doors willfly open, and there we shall see his headless wives?'
She was laughing now, and full of animation. Captain Knox passed hisfingers lightly across the carving.
'I expect one of these carved bits is movable,' he said. 'It is ahandsome bit of handicraft. What is this along the bottom, a scrollwith writing?'
'That is what I say it is; Gwen says not, but I am sure thosehieroglyphics mean something.'
It looks like Arabic characters,' said Captain Knox with interest. 'Ibelieve it is so. Here, stop a minute; let me copy these in mynotebook. I shall be studying Arabic on my way out, and if I find Ican translate this, I will let you know.'
'Perhaps it is a clue to the mystery,' said Clare, with shining eyes;'I am dying to know what this cupboard contains. Mrs. Tucker said shenever saw it opened the whole time she was here; but Mr. Lester toldher once that he prized this cupboard more than anything else in thehouse. She thinks, foolish woman, that it is full of gold! I onlyhope she won't spread that notion about Brambleton. The next thingwill be that we shall have thieves in the house, and perhaps be allmurdered in our beds!' Captain Knox laughed at her fears, and soonafter, they joined the others in the drawing-room.