Chapter VIII: I Hear Strange Things

DR. FIRTH appeared next day after breakfast and borrowed me, with the children, for the day. Mrs. McNab was immersed in writing, and seemed glad to let us go. She had shown real feeling over the news of Jack’s escape, and had come to my room at night to thank me for my small share in it. I had remarked that I was afraid she would blame me for letting him out of my sight: to which she had replied mournfully that if one had a hundred eyes it would be impossible always to keep Judy and Jack in their line of vision. Then she had drifted away.

We went off in high spirits, my own raised to the seventh heaven because Dr. Firth allowed me to drive. I had not had the wheel of a car in my hands since the good days when I used to drive father on his rounds; one of the bitterest moments of our poverty had been when we saw our beloved Vauxhall driven away by the fat bookmaker who had bought her. He couldn’t drive a bit, either: he scraped one mudguard at our very front gate. Dr. Firth’s car was a Vauxhall also, and it was sheer joy to feel her purring under one’s touch. We went for a fifty-mile run before we came back to his house for lunch.

The house was a fine old place, of deep-red brick, half smothered in Virginia creeper. Judy and Jack evidently knew their way about, and they promptly disappeared towards the stables, where two ponies were at their disposal. It was with difficulty that I retrieved them for lunch, which we ate at a table on the verandah, in a corner shut in by a wall of climbing roses. A delightful old housekeeper, motherly and gentle, fussed over us. The whole place breathed an atmosphere of home.

When we had finished, Dr. Firth showed us all the quaint and beautiful things that his brother had collected. They were almost bewildering in their variety. One great room was given up to stuffed animals, far finer specimens than the moth-eaten relics to be found in the City Museum. There were marvellous cases of butterflies, mounted so exquisitely that they almost seemed in flight: others of tropical birds, and a particularly unpleasant section given up to reptiles, over which Judy and Jack gibbered with delight. In one room were weapons, ancient and modern, civilized and savage: in another, barbaric ornaments, set with rough jewels. I recollect a beautiful cabinet filled with fans, of the most delicate workmanship. So large was the collection that my brain was bewildered long before I had seen everything. I sympathized with Judy and Jack when at last they struck.

“They’re all awfully wonderful and all that,” Judy said bluntly. “But if you won’t think us rude, Dr. Firth, Jack and I would rather go back to the ponies!”

The Doctor laughed.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “There is really too much for one day. I think Doris has had enough, too. Some other time you must come and see the rest: just now, I think we’ll lock them up again. Be off with you!”—and the pair raced away.

Dr. Firth returned the jewelled Tibetan belt-clasp he had been showing us to its blue-lined case, and locked the cabinet carefully.

“Mrs. McNab is convinced that the Wootong burglar will pay me a visit,” he said, laughing. “I don’t think so: these things are hardly likely to attract the average sneak-thief, though, of course, many of them are almost priceless. They really should not be in a private house. I mean to lend most of them to the Museum, and then I shan’t feel responsible.”

“I should love you to be burgled,” I said, laughing—“and the burglar to find himself inside that stuffed Zoo of yours. Just fancy the feelings of an enterprising thief who turned on his dark lantern and found himself confronted by a python! It would be enough to give him a change of heart, wouldn’t it?”

“It would certainly be worth seeing,” Dr. Firth agreed. “If he dropped his dark lantern in his confusion and couldn’t find the way out, there would be a very fair chance of adding a lunatic to the collection by the morning! That room is uncommonly eerie in a dim light. I don’t care for it myself. The animals always seem to me to come alive when the light begins to fade: sometimes you’d swear you saw one move. They say my brother used to sit there in the evening—he said the animals were companionable!”

“It was a queer taste,” I said.

“An unhealthy one, I think. No—they’re out of place in an ordinary man’s home. And the servants hate them; not one of the maids would go near that room after dark if you offered her double wages. That big room could be put to much better use than housing those silent avenues of watching beasts. It would make a fine ballroom, wouldn’t it, Doris?”

“Oh, wouldn’t it!” I cried.

“I’d like to see it a ballroom,” he said, putting his keys into his pocket, and leading the way out to the verandah. “I want to see young people round me, Doris: the place is altogether too lonely and silent. I’ll clear all the beasts out before the next holidays, and you and Madge and Colin must come down here and we’ll fill the house with cheery boys and girls. I think we could manage a pretty good time, don’t you?”

“It sounds too good to be true!” I answered. “But I would love to think it might happen.”

“We’ll make it happen,” Dr. Firth said. “You three are to be my property, in a way; you’re the nearest approach to nieces and nephews that I have—and, indeed, I don’t believe that any nieces and nephews of my own could have been as much to me as Denis’s children.” He put me into a comfortable chair. “Now you have got to tell me all about him,” he said. “I never could hear too much of Denis.”

I certainly could never have grown weary of talking. It seemed to bring Father very near to be telling everything about him to this man whom he had loved: who sat, leaning forward in his chair, letting his pipe go out as he listened. I told him how dear and good Father had been to us after Mother had died, when Madge was a very little girl: how, busy as he was, he had always made time to be with us, and had set himself to make our home what Mother would have liked it to be—a place of love and happiness. I told him of our camping-out holidays in the bush; of the half-hour before bed-time that he always kept free for us; of how he used to come to tuck us in, when we were in bed, and say “God bless you,” just as Mother would have done. There were so many dear and merry memories of which it was happiness to tell. It was not so easy to speak of the last dreadful days, when we had all, in our bewilderment, been unable to realize that he was going away from us for ever.

“But he did not know, himself,” I said. “It was all so quick: unconsciousness came so soon. We have always been thankful that he did not know.”

“I wish I had been there,” Dr. Firth said. “You three children, to face everything!”

He walked up and down for a few minutes saying nothing. Then he came back and put his hand on my shoulder.

“You seem to have faced things like men, at all events,” he said. “And in future, you have got to count me in: I’m not going to lose you, now that I have found you. When you go back to Melbourne I mean to go too, to make friends with Colin and Madge. Colin and I used to be friends, years ago. He was a great little boy: the kind of boy a man would like to have for a son.”

“He is certainly the kind of boy we like to have for a brother,” I said, laughing. “Why, even his name helps to keep Judy and Jack McNab in order!”

“And that speaks volumes!” said Dr. Firth. “Not that you would call them extra-orderly now. Look at Judy, I ask you!”

The younger Miss McNab had just shot into view in the paddock beyond the garden. She was mounted on a nuggety black pony, which had apparently gone mad. Bucking was beyond the black pony, ordinarily an animal of sedate habits and calm middle-age; but it fled across the paddock, “pig-rooting,” kicking-up, and now and then pausing to twist and wriggle in the most complex fashion. Behind the pair came Jack, who rolled in his saddle, helpless with laughter: his shouts of mirth echoed as he went.

“She’ll be killed!” I gasped.

“Not she,” said Dr. Firth. “That child is born to be hanged! But I would certainly like to know what had come to my old Blackie. I didn’t think he had it in him to be so gay.”

Blackie’s gaiety at the moment seemed to border on desperation. He propped in his gallop, gave a series of ungainly bounds, and finally commenced to kick as though nothing else could ease his spirits. At each kick his hind-quarters shot higher and higher into the air, and Judy slid a little farther forward. At last, a kick so high that it seemed that nothing could save the pony from turning a somersault ended the matter for his rider: she left the saddle, appeared to sit on Blackie’s head for a moment, and came to earth in a heap. The pony stood still, panting.

In their joyous career they had turned and were near the house, so that it did not take us long to reach them. I ran with wild imaginings of broken bones whirling in my brain: hugely relieved, as I came near, to see Judy gather herself up from the grass, rubbing various portions of her frame with extreme indignation. Beyond the fact that she was very dirty there seemed little damage done. And after all, to be dirty was nothing very unusual for the younger Miss McNab.

“That beast of a pony!” she uttered viciously. “What on earth happened to him, Dr. Firth? He just went mad!”

“He isn’t given to excursions of that kind,” Dr. Firth said, looking puzzled. “Blackie is always regarded as beyond the flights of youth. What did you do to him, Judy?”

“Only rode him. And I could hardly get a move out of him until just now. I told Jack the old slug wasn’t fit to ride!”

“So he went and slung you off!” put in Jack happily, from his pony. “That’ll teach you to be polite to a pony, Ju!”

“You be quiet!” flashed his sister. She cast a look of sudden inspiration at his innocent face. “I do believe——!” She broke off, and hurriedly unfastened Blackie’s girth, lifting the saddle. A dry thistle-head, considerably flattened, came into view.

“You did it!” she screamed, and darted at him. Jack’s movement of flight was a thought too late: she grabbed his leg as he swung his pony round, and in a moment he, too, lay on the grass, the injured Judy pounding him scientifically. We dragged the combatants apart, holding them at a safe distance.

“What do you mean by putting a thing like that under your sister’s saddle, sir?” demanded Dr. Firth severely.

“Well, she wanted an exciting ride,” Jack grinned. “She wouldn’t do anything but abuse poor old Blackie ’cause he wouldn’t go. She said he ought to be in a Home for Decayed Animals, and she wouldn’t believe me when I told her he only wanted a little handling. So I thought I’d show her that he wasn’t as old as he looked, and I put that thistle under the saddle while she was finding a new switch. And my goodness, didn’t he go! Wasn’t it just scrumptious when he kicked her off!” He dissolved in helpless laughter at the recollection, and Judy writhed in Dr. Firth’s hands.

“It isn’t fair!” she protested. “Just let me get at him for a moment!”

“Murder is forbidden on this property,” answered her host sententiously. “He deserves hanging, but you had better forgive him, Judy, and come in for some tea.”

Judy submitted with a bad grace.

“Oh, all right,” she said. “Let’s go—I won’t kill him now, but I’ll pay him out afterwards—you see if I don’t, young Jack!” With a swift movement she possessed herself of Jack’s pony, scrambling into the saddle and setting off at a gallop, a proceeding Jack vainly endeavoured to check by clinging to the tail of his steed, and narrowly escaping being kicked. He shrugged his shoulders, grinned cheerfully, girthed up Blackie’s saddle, and went off in pursuit. They appeared together, presently, on the verandah, washed and brushed, and apparently the best of friends: and proceeded to demonstrate how many chocolate éclairs may be consumed at an early age without fatal results to the consumers.

We found a silent house when we reached The Towers at six o’clock, for the house-party had suddenly decided upon a moonlight picnic, and had vanished into the bush. Mrs. McNab did not appear at all: genius was working, and she had given orders that she was not to be disturbed. We dined in the schoolroom in unwonted quiet; the children confessed to being tired, and went off to bed early, leaving me free to answer long letters that had awaited me from Colin and Madge—long, cheery letters, written with the evident intention of making me believe that life in the Prahran flat was one long dream of joy. I was reading them, for the fourth time, when Julia dropped in to see me, on her way downstairs with Mrs. McNab’s dinner-tray.

“I’d sooner be carryin’ it down than up,” she remarked, putting the tray upon the schoolroom table. “’Tis herself has the great appetite when she’s worrkin’: that tray was as heavy as lead when I tuk it up. Indeed, though, wouldn’t the poor thing want nourishing an’ she writin’ her ould books night afther night! ’Tis no wonder she looks annyhow next day.”

“No wonder, indeed,” I assented.

“Well, now, many’s the time I’ve said things agin her, but there’s no doubt she’s got a feelin’ heart,” said Julia. “I’ll tell you, now, the quare thing I heard to-day, miss. ’Twas me afthernoon out, an’ I walked into Wootong to do me little bit of shoppin’, an’ who should I meet but little Miss Parker—wan of thim two ould-maid sisters the thief’s afther robbin’ the other night. They’re nice little ould things, them two sisters: I often stop an’ have a chat wid them an’ I goin’ by. Little Miss Sarah she med me go in to-day an’ have a cup of tay wid her an’ her sister. An’ what do you think them two told me?”

I said I didn’t know.

“A baby cud have knocked me down wid a feather!” said Julia dramatically. “This morning, who should call on them but the misthress herself!”

“Mrs. McNab?” I asked.

Julia nodded.

“Herself, an’ no wan else. Bence druv her in, but he never let on to annywan where she’d gone. She doesn’t know them well, so they were surprised at her comin’. She didn’t waste much time in chat, but told them she was terrible sorry to hear about the robbery. An’ finally she brings out five-an’-twinty pounds, just what the thief stole from them, an’ lays it on the table, sayin’ she was better able to afford the loss than they were. They argued against her, but nothin’ ’ud move her from the determination she had. ‘Let you take it now,’ she says, ‘or I’ll throw it in the fire,’ says she. There was no fire there, by reason of the hot weather that was in it, but the bare idea made the ould maids shiver. So they gev in at the lasht, after they’d argued an’ protested, but to no good: she wouldn’t listen to annything they’d be sayin’. An’ she lef the notes on the table an’ wished them a Happy New Year, an’ said good-bye. That was the lasht they saw of her, an’ they was still fingerin’ the notes to make sure they was real. What would you make of that now, miss?”—and Julia cocked her head on one side and looked at me like an inquisitive bird.

It was a queer story, and I said so. Mrs. McNab did not strike one ordinarily as a person of deep feeling or sympathy: and, despite the surroundings of wealth at The Towers, she kept a fairly sharp eye upon the household expenses and checked the bills with much keenness. It was difficult to imagine her going out of her way to pay so large a sum as twenty-five pounds to women of whom she knew personally very little. It just showed that one shouldn’t judge anyone’s character by outward appearances. Like Julia, I felt rather ashamed of having thought hardly of Mrs. McNab.

“Me ould Mother used to say you couldn’t tell an apple by its skin,” remarked Julia. “I’d have said plump enough that the misthress hadn’t much feelin’ for annywan but herself. She’s that cold in her manner you’d imagine all the warrm blood in her body had turned to ink—but there you are! There’s a mighty lot of warmth in five-an’-twinty pounds, so there is: particularly when you get it back afther havin’ lost it. Mrs. Winter, she’s as surprised as I was. ‘To think of that, now!’ says she—’an’ only this morning the misthress was down on me sharp enough for all the butter we do be usin’. An’ indeed, there’s butter used in this house to that extent you’d think they greased the motor with it,’ she says; ‘but where’s the use of scrapin’, an’ so I told her,’ says she. Terrible stiff she was about it to Mrs. Winter. But you’d forgive her for keepin’ one eye in the butter when she’d go off an’ make up all that money to thim two poor ould maids.”

Julia took up her tray and turned to go. But at the door, she hesitated.

“Tell me now, miss,” she said. “Do you ever get thinkin’ you hear quare noises in the night?—the sounds I was tellin’ you about when you first came? I’d be aisier in me mind if I knew that some one else heard the things I do be hearin’.”

“All rubbish, Julia,” I said, laughing. “In a house with so many people as this place has in it, you’re bound to hear movements at night some time. You’re very foolish to worry about it.”

Julia shook her head stubbornly.

“’Tis no right things I do be hearin’. People like the wild young things that’s in this house don’t move about as if they were tryin’ not to touch the floors with a foot. Bangin’ up an’ down stairs they are, makin’ as much noise as they can—to hear Mr. Harry or that young Mr. Atherton you’d say it was a regiment of horse they were. That’s the way people should move when they’re young an’ full of spirits. But the noises at night is very different—quare, muffled noises. If ’twas in Ireland you’d just say it was a ghost an’ be done with it. Many’s the good respectable house has its family ghost, just like the family pictures an’ silver. Only there’s no ghosts in Australia.”

“Certainly not,” I agreed. “You hear the trees rustling, Julia.”

“Ah, trees!” sniffed Julia. “The other night I heard them ould muffled noises till I couldn’t resht in me bed for them. I was that afraid, me heart was poundin’ on me ribs, but I up an’ puts on me coat, an’ crep’ out. Downstairs I went, an’ if annywan had spoke to me I’d have let a bawl fit to raise the roof!”

“And I’m certain you didn’t find anything,” I said.

“Well, I did not. But ’tis well known, miss, that them that goes lookin’ for them sounds isn’t the people that finds annything,” said Julia darkly. “An’ indeed, if I didn’t see a ghost at all, I med certain ’twasn’t only me that was afraid.” She paused, looking at me with a scared face.

I was trying hard to be practical and commonsensible, but in spite of myself I gave a little shiver. There was something eerie in her tragic tones.

“What do you mean?” I asked, forcing a smile that felt stiff at the corners.

“I seen the misthress. She was huntin’, too: she had a little flash-lamp, an’ she came out of the smokin’-room, movin’ like a ghost herself. Sure, an’ I thought she was one for a moment. I’d have screeched, only me tongue was stickin’ to the roof of me head! She looked up an’ saw me, an’ I cud see she was as frightened as I was. We stared at each other for a minute, me on the stairs an’ she by the door. Never a worrd did she say, only she put her finger to her lips as if she was tellin’ me to howld me noise—me, that couldn’t have said a worrd if ’twas to save me life!”

“And what then?”

“Then she shut off her lamp an’ went back into the room behind her. An’ I up the stairs as if the Sivin Divils were behind me, an’ lef’ her to her huntin’. ‘If there’s ghosts in it, let you be findin’ them yourself,’ thinks I; ‘sure, it’s your own house!’ An’ pretty soon I heard her comin’ upstairs slow an’ careful, an’ she went back into the Tower.”

“I think you are worrying yourself about nothing, Julia,” I said. “Mrs. McNab is often about the house at night—I thought I had caught a burglar myself the other night, and it turned out to be the mistress, coming up the kitchen stairs. I think she often wanders round when her work won’t go easily: and she is nervous about the safety of the place, since the robbery at Miss Parker’s. At any rate, if she is wakeful and watching there is no need for you or me to be anxious.”

Julia looked unconvinced. I could see that she hugged the idea of a mystery. And, indeed, I did not feel half so commonsensible as I tried to seem.

“Why wouldn’t she do it different, then?” she demanded. “If ’tis nervous she is, she might call Mr. Harry an’ let him an’ the other young gentlemen go huntin’, with all the lights turned on, an’ plenty of noise! A good noise ’ud be heartenin’—betther than that silent prowlin’ round, like a lone cat.”

“It might—but it wouldn’t catch a burglar,” I said. “Anyhow, Mrs. McNab might not have been after a burglar at all: she might have gone down for a book.”

“She had not that appearance,” said Julia. “Stealthy, she was: an’ I tell you, miss, there was fear on her face!”

“I should think so—with you creaking down the stairs!” I said, laughing. “Probably she made sure that the burglar had caught her instead. And when she saw that it was you, she was afraid you might alarm the house. She’s awfully anxious that the house-party should have a good time. I think it is rather nice to know that, even though she is working so hard, she watches over everything at night.”

“I dunno,” said Julia doubtfully. “Sure, I’d a sight rather she laid peaceful an’ quiet in her bed, an’ lef’ all the lights burnin’. Burglar or ghost, either of them’s aisy discouraged with a strong light: it’s worth all the prowlin’ a woman could do. Well, I’ve been lettin’ me tongue run away with me, but you’re the only wan I can talk to, miss. Mrs. Winter an’ Bella, they sleep like the dead, an’ never hear annything: an’ if they thought there was either a ghost or a burglar in The Towers they’d be off like scalded cats, without givin’ notice. An’ where’d you an’ I be then?”

“Cooking,” said I with alarmed conviction. “For goodness’ sake, don’t say a word to frighten them, Julia! Do make up your mind there is nothing wrong, and go to sleep at night like a sensible girl. Lock your door, and if you hear anything, just remember that it is Mrs. McNab’s house and she has a perfect right to prowl round it at any hour of the night.”

“’Tis great sense you have, an’ you only a shlip of a gerrl yourself, miss,” said Julia, looking at me respectfully—from which I gathered that I sounded more impressive than I felt. “Well, I will try so. But I’ll be believin’ all me days that it’s a quare house, entirely!”

Somehow, I thought so myself, after I had gone to bed—the picnickers had come in, laughing and chattering, and then the house settled down to quiet. I lay awake, thinking of what the Irish girl had said: and, so thinking, it seemed to me that, gradually, queer, muffled sounds came to me: furtive, stealthy movements, and the creaking of a stair. Once I got up, and, opening my door very softly, peered out: but all was in darkness, and there was no sound as I listened, except the thumping of my own heart. I told myself, angrily, all the wise things I had said to Julia, as I crept back to bed. But I will confess that I switched on my light and looked under the bed before I got back into its friendly shelter.