A Strange Tangle

Front matter

A STRANGE TANGLE. " She stood before the mirror over the chimney-piece arranging a head-dress of no less importance than a wreath of orange-flowers." — Page 2. Frontispiece, [a strange tangle. A STRANGE TANGLE BV ALICE KING AUTHOR OF "QUEEN OP HERSELF, ' ' FETTEKEI1 VET FREE, FTC. ETC. ' He set up a howl which was horrible and wonderful tn listen to." — Page 180. LONDON: JOHN & ROBERT MAXWELL MILTON HOUSE, ST. BRIDE STREET, E.C. [All Rig/its Reserved] CONTENTS. CHAPTER FACK I. THE EVE OF A WEDDING - - 1 II. FREDERICK ATHELSTONE - - - 15 III. WHAT MRS. PUGSLEY SAW WHEN SHE LOOKED OUT OF THE WINDOW - - 27 IV. WHERE ARE THE MASTER AND HIS HEAD MAN ? - - - - - 39 V. WHAT BECAME OF FREDERICK ATHELSTONE 51 VI. ARRESTED FOR MURDER - - - 64 VII. THE GREAT POND - - - - 7G VIII. 'I WILL PROVE YOUR INNOCENCE' - 89 IX ' BRAVO, DULCY !' - - - - 102 X. A VERY STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCE- - 116 XI.

THE BRIDE IS MARRIED, BUT THE BRIDES MAID IS NERVOUS - - - 130 XII. THE MAN WITH THE BLACK BEARD - 143 XIII. DRIFTING DOWN THE GOLDEN RIVER - 156 XIV. JOE BECOMES A RIDDLE - - 169 XV. WAS IT NOT STRANGE ? - - 182 XVI. THE GHOST'S HAND - - VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER PACE XVII. THE GHOST'S FOOTSTEP - - - 208 XVIIT. THE FIGURE IN THE MOONLIGHT - - 221 XIX. EDGAR HAS A SECRET MISSION GIVEN HIM 235 . XX. THE GHOST - - - - 249 XXI. ALL AMONGST THE HONEYSUCKLE- - 262 XXII. ACCUSED ----- 276 XXIII. OUT INTO THE NIGHT - - 290 XXIA'. 'IF YOU DARE' - - - 303 XXA'. LIGHT AT LAST - - - - 315 XXVI. THE ANGEL'S VISIT - - - A STRANGE TANGLE.

Chapter I. The Eve Of

A WEDDING. ' Now, Miss Agatha, how can a sensible young lady like you be, and one that I've abad the bringing up of ever since you was in long clothes, stand there before the glass aplacing and aputting as you have abeen doing this last hour pretty near? don't 'ee know that all fine clothes be but vanity and vexation of spirit ?' The scene was a pretty, old-fashioned, live able room in an old house in West Somerset ; a room where, this summer afternoon, every available chair and table wras covered with articles of female dress of every imaginable hue and material. The speaker was an old woman, with a wrinkled face that had shrewd ness and obstinacy, those two indispensable ingredients in AVest Somerset character, written all over it, and with a little handkerchief pinned quaintly and neatly, in true and orthodox ancient West Somerset fashion, across her bosom.

The person addressed wras a young lady of twenty-five, who stood before the mirror over the chimney-piece arranging a head-dress of no less importance than a wreath of orange-flowers. She was tall, and her whole figure was on somewhat a large scale, though beautifully proportioned ; her face was not, correctly speaking, handsome, if that word can only be applied to statuesque perfection of f3ature, but there was a lamp of intelligence in the dark eyes; a halo of thought round the high forehead, from which the wavy hair of deep, rich brown was drawn back; a steadfast ness which might perhaps be' resoluteness, if the spirit within was roused, in the expression of mouth and chin, which wrould have made any observer, who loved the study of cha racter and physiognomy, look at her much oftener than he would at a countenance of exquisite Grecian mould. ' Why, you know, Dorcas, if Aggy ever may have a right to be vain in all her life it's now, when she's trying on what she's to wrear at her wedding.

I'm sure a bride is entitled to a little vanity all the world over,' cried a clear voice from the farther end of the room — a voice which had for its accompaniment a little bird-like chime of laughter. She from whom the words came wa s a girl some few years younger than the lady before the mirror. Her form Avas slight and endowed writh a flexible grace of movement, which brought to mind the motion of the wavy corn when stirred by a summer breeze; her crown of light brown hair showed here and there golden threads in it, as the sunshine, fell upon it there where she reclined on the low seat by 1—2 the open window. Her smile had a wondrous sweetness and brightness, Avhich gave almost the idea at times, when it was most radiant, of her carrying about everywhere a light with her, and making each place where she was full of it.

Her face, with its delicate features, would have been much more regularly pretty than that of her sister if it had not been that, alas ! the eyes, which were turned now towards the rich belt of Avoodland, and the Avinding, flashing stream, and the neio-hbourinohills, visible from the windoAV, now towards her companions in the room, were fixed and motionless — the girl was blind. ' Now, Miss Dulcy, I suppose you've atookt up, too, the notion that to be married be a fine thing,' retorted Dorcas. ' 'Tis your sister that have put it into your head, as if I hadn't told 'ee scores of times that when a young woman thinks of being married she'd better, nine times out often, go and take a rope and hang herself right straight away.' ' That's a nice encouraging speech for me on the eve of my wedding-day,' said Agatha, smiling. ' But you see, Dorcas,' cried Dulcy, ' you don't tell us anything about the tenth time, when it would not be wrell, even according to your own showing, for a young Avoman, intent on matrimony, to proceed to such desperate measures.' ' The tenth time,' said Dorcas slowly, evidently a little at a loss hoAv to reply. ' Why the tenth time, that be the lucky time, don't ever come, that I know by, in the matter of a husband.' ' But you made us think it did by what you said just now, you know, Dorcas ; and it wras just your saying, what you have said this minute about being married so often over and over, that made Agatha resolved to try if she might not perhaps get one of those precious tenth chances that you always imply there are,' persisted Dulcy.

Again, as she spoke, there burst from her lips another ripple of almost childlike mirth. It was always one of Dulcy's pet amusements, teasing Dorcas. 'Why, law, Miss Dulcy,' said the old woman testily, ' there be no sense at all in 'ee this afternoon; I ain't agoing to bide here wasting my precious time any longer with 'ee. The kitchen Avill be like Troy toAvn if I don't make haste and go down, and so will the pantry. They good-for-nothing hussies be no more worth anything for AA'ork, if I bain't after their tails, than so many china images. It be so with all the girls nowadays; and it be all owing to the copy-books and spelling-books, and the other truck that the schools be full of.' Having shot this final shaft at the Educa tional Code, Dorcas flounced out of the room, closing the door with no gentle hand.

As Dorcas passed down the long passage which led to the kitchen, with a Avhirlwind, which was about to burst upon the devoted heads of all the maid-servants in the establish ment, rustling ominously in her hurrying skirts, she met a pale, dejected-looking man, somewhat past middle-age, who wore the dress of an upper workman. 'Be 'ee looking for master, Mr. Crockford?' asked Dorcas. ' How be you to-day ? I seem you be looking very bad, Avorse than usual.' These Avords were spoken with the charming candour of West -country folk with regard to each other's personal appearance. ' Well, I be feeling dreadful queer-like to-day, Mrs. Pugsley. I Avas took faint again this morning, and I haven't got over it quite, I suppose. IVe half a mind to ask Mr. Esdale about it sometimes.' 'I never holds with running after doctors; my herb tea do a deal more good than all their stuff", I warnt, in the course of the year,' replied Dorcas, in a tone of sovereign superiority over the faculty generally. ' Well, I be very much of your opinion about doctors, Mrs. Pugsley, and that be why I have never spoken to Mr. Esdale about myself, though he be here noAV so often, since he have abeen acourting Miss Athelstone.' 'Better fit he'd abided and minded his doctoring work, than acome here after Miss Agatha.

A pretty place we shall all be in when she be gone.' ' Seems to me everything be going the wrong way now,' said Crockford gloomily. ' The business ban't half what it used to be; and as for master, he be quite an altered man. He be either down in the dumps sullen-like, or else he be so irritable there be no speaking to him. I think I shall leave before long if it do go on so.' 'AVell, I do fancy, too, that things ban't all right with master somehow,' rejoined Dorcas, rolling up the corner of her neckhand kerchief reflectively. ' And as for this here wedding, I ban't a bit up for it, though I've just turned out all the shapes of jelly for the breakfast. There be nothing but nasty bad signs to gaily a body — cocks crowing at mid night, and such like things. After all, all my life through I have preferred funerals to weddings.

There be nothing like a good long' funeral hymn.' And having made this singular but very open statement of her own peculiar sentiments, Mrs. Dorcas Pugsley continued her progress towards the kitchen, while David Crockford went out again into the yard in search of his master. MeaiiAvhile, the conversation betAveen the two young ladies in the room upstairs had taken a graver turn since Dorcas's departure. ' Oh, Dulcy darling,' cried Agatha, coming and sitting down beside her sister, and putting her arm fondly round her Avaist, ' Leonard is very dear to me, and it is a golden thought that I shall soon be at his side to share his every joy and bear his every trouble Avith him. But Avhen I think of leaving you, there comes a great black shadow over everything. I want to be his and yours at the same time, that's just what I want.' ' And so you Avill be, Aggy dear, Avhen you come back from your wedding tour, and it isn't to be a long one, Leonard says,' answered Dulcy, trying hard to smile but as she could not succeed, and tears would come instead at the thought of to-morrow's parting, hiding her face on her sister's shoulder. ' Yes, when I come back.

But you know, Dulcy, we have never been separated for more than a few hours in all our lh'es. And even when I come back it won't be like being always here with you ; I shall be two miles off. How will you get on without me to read to you, and walk with you, and describe the fields, and the sky, and everything to you? Whenever I try to imagine your life, darling, without me at your side, I begin to cry, and I can't o-o on doing' it.' And as she spoke, Agatha put up her hand and brushed away furtively a tear, fancying that Dulcy would not know what she Avas about; but blind Dulcy, though she made no sign of doing so, kneAv what her sister was about quite as Avell as if she could see. Having been blind from her birth, there had grown with her growth a sort of intuitive faculty, a gift from God, which took the place of sight in a remarkable manner.

Longing' in her sweet, unselfish way to cheer her sister, she said brightly : 'I shall change a little my way of life — that's all, Agatha. I shall be a deal with father, and grow quite learned about the manufactory; and a deal with Dorcas, and grow quite learned about housekeeping. I expect that I shall soon be quite a splendid housekeeper. You may laugh, I dare say, Mistress Aggy, but I can do everything without nry eyes quite as well as you can with them.' And she drew herself up Avith a charming air of importance. There Avas such love betAveen these tvvo, that if one strove to cheer the other, she Avas quite sure to take up her sister's strain and continue it ; it was like listening to a tune which has a first and second part to it. ' It will be sunshine for father to have you more with him, dear,' Agatha said ; ' you were always his favourite.' ' I hope it will,' replied Dulcy, growing a little sad and thoughtful again; ' but I'm sure there's been a change in father lately.' ' Oh, Dulcy, I think that's mostly your fancy.' ' No, it is no fancy.

You may not see it, perhaps, in his face; but I can feel it when I am with him, nevertheless.' ' Father has alvA'ays had man)' and variable moods that there is no accounting for,' said Agatha, with a touch of impatience in her tone. Mr. Athelstone had never got on very Avell Avith his eldest daughter. ' Oh, Agatha !' cried Dulcy reproachfully, 'you ' But here she broke off, while a soft wave of colour suddenly rose up and overspread her cheeks. A quick step was coming up the stairs. ' There is Leonard, but I won't let him come and disturb us just yet,' said Agatha, thinking that the flush came from annoyance at their talk being interrupted. ' It is not Leonard, it is Edgar,' said Dulcy, in a Ioav tone. An instant after the correctness of the blind girl's sense of hearing was proved by Edgar Esdale entering the room.

Those well-marked, dark eyebrows of Agatha Athelstone were slightly contracted as she recognised the cause of her sister's blush. She knew that Edgar showed a strong liking for Dulcy, but she was a little afraid that, on account of her sister's infirmity, this liking would never, on the young man's side, blossom into love, and that thus sorrow would be brought upon her darling. Her face, how ever, cleared up, as whose would not on the approach of Edgar Esdale ? it was like a refreshing breeze suddenly coming into the room. As his sensible, genial eyes wrere turned upon the sisters, his voice rang out in cheery tones : ' Aggy, I am sent on like a telegram to tell you that Leonard won't be here for another two hours. There's an old woman has thought fit to have the bad manners to break her leg ten miles off on the eve of your wedding-day. Now it's your solemn duty to sit down and mope while Dulcy and I go for a walk.'

Chapter II. Frederick Athelstone

Frederick Athelstone, the father of Agatha and Dulcy, was one of those men who hover on the borderland of genius, but fail in life just because they have not been fortunate enough to pass over the boundary. He had shown early a great and decided talent for science and chemistry, and had devoted his early manhood to studies in this direction. Had he applied himself steadily to any one single point in these regions of knowledge, and actively and practically pursued it, he would doubtless have attained to some amount of real fame and fortune. But there was an innate restlessness in his character which had prevented his ever making such profitable use of his natural good gifts. He had instead always been filled with a desire to throw aside one subject and turn to another the moment he had mastered it.

Throughout his life he had been one of the proverbial 'rolling stones' of the world, always thinking and believing that he was about to make some grand discovery that would make a name for him in a moment, and always as regularly failing to do anything of the kind. His bright talents had thus been completely frittered away, and his time with them. There were yet darker shadows upon the character of Frederick Athelstone than a mere wasting of rich mental poAA'ers. He had spent much of his youth in the great capitals of the Continent, and had become entangled with Avild companions wherever he Avent, Avho had led him into anything but upAA'ard paths, for he Avas singularly wanting in strength of will. The evil wiiich he had then contracted had left a permanent stamp upon him, and in middle age he Avas a man Avithout any high sense of honour or moral rectitude.

This fact, never theless, he was clever enough to keep in a great measure to himself ; and not even his eldest daughter, although, as has before been said, betAveen her and her father there was always a certain note of discord, was more than dimly suspicious of his shortcomings in these respects. Athelstone was a man of peculiarly genial manners, and, to a certain extent, warm affec tions. These qualities had enabled him to win easily the heart of a good, pure woman, whose love he had chiefly sought because she was the mistress of a considerable sum of ready money. She had lived for five years as his wife without ever waking from the golden dreams in which she beheld her husband endowed with every radiant gift, both moral and intellectual ; he had cast such a spell over her, that to the last she worshipped him as a hero, and believed in him as an oracle.

It was well and beautiful for the young wife that she was allowed to die in this faith, but her loss was a sad one for her two little daughters ; she had died when Agatha was four years old, and Dulcy an infant. During his wife's life, his constant inter course with her sweet, lofty nature had, to a certain extent, kept Athelstone's character in tune to a higher key than it had known in former years. She had not, it is true, made any radical change in him, but she had kept all that was worst and lovA'est in him in check. A really good woman of high Christian principle cannot fail to raise somewhat any man who is brought into close contact with her daily life. AVhen, howrever, he lost her from his side, whom he had loved as much as it was possible for him to love anyone except himself — for though he had wooed her at first for her money, he had learned to prize her afterwards for her own sweet worth — Frederick Athel stone had sunk lower than he had ever done before; he had entered into very questionable money speculations, and had been concerned, though fortunately for him he had managed that his name should be kept in the background, with two or three great swindles of the day that had made an unpleasant stir in the newspapers.

His father, who had been a wealthy Bristol merchant, had left him a very large fortune, for he had been his only child, so that he had plenty of money to enable him to carry on all these proceedings. He had gra dually made ducks and drakes with a good deal of it, but he managed to keep afloat. Athelstone had had sufficient love and rever ence for his wife's memory to have his daughters well and carefully brought up. He had placed them with a distant female relation in London, a woman of cultivated mind and steadfast religious principle, and had ordered that no expense should Le spared in their edu cation. From time to time he had visited them, and had always come to bring little bits of brightness into their young lives. He regarded them with much real affection, and they repaid it in full, yielding, as their mother had done before them, to the spell of his genial, winning manners, and easy, good temper, and 2—2 intellectual gifts which made him so charming a companion.

AVhen Agatha was twenty and Dulcy sixteen, the old lady who brought them up had died, and they had gone to live with their father, together Avith their old serA'ant, Dorcas Pugsley, Avho had nursed them both as babies, and had never left them since. Just at that period Frederick Athelstone had conceived the notion that he could repair his now somewhat shattered fortunes by a new way he had discovered of making paper. He had bought an old house in AVest Somerset, in the retired regions round about Exmoor, and there he had settled down and set up a manufactory. There were many buildings round the old place which Avere suitable for his purpose. Labour is cheap in AVest Somerset, and he Avanted, for the present, to live quietly. It was, therefore, to this home that the two Misses Athelstone and old Dorcas came.

When the father and daughters beo-an to live together in the close intercourse of everyday life, it soon appeared that there was a certain want of harmony between Athelstone and Agatha. Everything in Agatha Athelstone's character and disposition was after the pattern of her well-marked eye-brows — regular and equable, and strongly defined. Her whole nature was like a well-made clock ; she disliked irregularity, even in the smallest things of daily existence. Her father's careless habits and unpunctual ways, his fashion of sliding along the road of life rather than walking upon it, were all things repellent to her nature. She did. not live in any open opposition with him, she was too good a girl for that; but the two instinctively felt that there was a certain restraint in all their intercourse.

Agatha had besides, perhaps, a vague mistrust that there were worse things still, than those which woke her dislike, in her father's character ; but if she had any such shadowy misgiving about him she never even framed it into a distinct thought ; she shrank from doing so even in her most secret soul. Dulcy, on the other hand, regarded her father with a love which was not darkened by a single cloud ; her sweet, sunny nature skimmed lightly over all the small incon veniences which his irregular ways brought into the daily lives of his daughters and their surroundings ; her unsuspecting innocence took for real gold everything about him that glit tered. She basked in the charm of his genial manners, and regarded them as the outward and visible sign of a warm, unselfish heart ; she firmly believed that he would, one day, make a great name by an invention or a scien tific discovery ; her childlike laughter was always pouring forth in merry ripples at his funny and witty sayings.

Her father petted and indulged Dulcy in every possible way, and lavished tender caresses upon her. The one point in which Frederick Athelstone and his eldest daughter were entirely agreed was in their strong affection for the blind girl. The person of next importance at Athel stone Hall, for so Mr. Athelstone had grandiloquently christened the old house after he bought it, to Mrs. Dorcas Pugsley was, among the servants, David Crockford. He was bailiff over all the farming in which Mr. Athelstone dabbled with the tips of the fingers of one hand, trying all sorts of costly new experi ments, while the other wras deep in the busi ness of the paper manufactory; and even in the manufactory itself Crockford held some power over the work-people. He was a single man of quiet habits, reserved manners, and weak health ; he had a high character for trustworthy honesty in the neighbourhood, and his master placed unbounded confidence in him.

He was not a very old servant like Dorcas, wdio had left Somersetshire with Mrs. Athelstone on her marriage, and was now at the side of Mrs. Athelstone's daughter in the old West Somersetshire house on the eve of her wedding-day ; Crockford had only come to live with Mr. Athelstone when he settled down in his present home. Some months before our story begins, Agatha Athelstone had become engaged to be married to Leonard Esdale, the young doctor of the neighbouring county town of AA'ood combe. In this same town, Edgar Esdale, the younger brother of Leonard, was articled to Mr. Parsons, the attorney. Air. Parsons was a man of great influence in the neighbourhood, avIio had been coining money in his profession for many years ; therefore, a good position in his office was no bad opening for a young man entering upon life.

Captain Esdale, the father of Leonard and Edgar, had died comparatively young, leaving his widow and children not over-burdened Avith money, so that it had been needful for the two young men to choose professions in Avhich they Avould be likely to make a little for themselves. Mrs. Esdale, their mother, who was getting an old woman now, for she had married rather late in life, lived in a little house in AVoodcombe ; both her sons had at first lived with her, but since his engagement to Agatha Athelstone the elder had set up a home for himself in prospect of his quickly approaching marriage. But to return to the evening before Agatha's wedding-day. That evening, when she wished him ' good-night,' Dulcy put her arms around her father's neck with more warmth than usual in their embrace. Her heart was full of the coming parting with Agatha, and of the new stage in her own life's journey which must begin with her sister's marriage.

She felt that neAV duties must now be taken up by her, and done bravely, in spite of her blindness ; she longed to strive to be more to her father than she had hitherto been, now that he and she should be left alone in the old house together, and therefore her caresses that night were unwontedly lingering and tender. ' AVhy, Dulcy,' cried Edgar Esdale, happen ing to come out into the hall to put on his great-coat preparatory to returning home, Avhile the father and daughter were standing there, ' anyone would think it was Mr. Athelstone who Avas going to leave you tomorrow instead of Agatha, to judge by the way in which you cling to him!' The young man spoke lightly, and in a half jesting tone, but Frederick Athelstone seemed gravely displeased by his words. ' I think, Edgar, you might have something better to do than to stand there watching Dulcy and me!' he cried, with a sudden sharp ring of irritation in his voice.

Edgar glanced at him in surprise, but said no more, and went his way. As for Dulcy, she concluded that he had been a little put out by the confusion in the house conse quent on the wedding preparations. ' AVe shall be all quiet by this time to niorrow, Dad,' she said coaxingly ; ' we two shall be alone together, and then we will be, oh ! so much to each other.' He made no answer, he only pressed a long kiss on her lips ; then he put her away with a quick movement, and hurried upstairs.

Chapter III. What Mrs

PUGSLEY SAW WHEN SHE LOOKED OUT OF THE WINDOW. It was quite impossible for Agatha Athelstone to behave in the orthodox fashion for a bride on the eve of her wedding-day, namely to sit and keep state among her trousseau and her wedding presents. She had, it is true, tried on her wedding wreath, and had felt a little thrill of pardonable female vanity as she saw how well it became her, but her mind quickly descended from orange-flowers to far more material things. Ever since she had lived in the old house she had been the guiding, ruling household spirit of it — the mainspring that kept family life there going ; and she found it quite vain to try to prevent her busy hands from being active in arranging the table for the wedding breakfast, and her feet from hurrying hither and thither to make up for the shortcomings of all the maid-servants in the establishment.

Then there were a thousand little matters to be thought of with regard to the comfort of Dulcy and her father after she was gone, and to all these she attended as accurately and methodically as if there had been no such person as Mr. Leonard Esdale in the world, and no such person as Airs. Leonard Esdale about soon to be. No one who had seen her setting straight a dish on the table which was a hair's breadth out of place, or Avho had heard her ordering to morrow's dinner, would have believed her to be the bride of to-morrow. ' Why, law, Aliss Agatha!' said Dorcas at length somewhat testily, when the young lady had kept her up till long after her usual bed time, letting her do very little except look on all the wdiile, 'anyone would think that you was the only living Avoman in the house, WHAT MRS. PUGSLEY SAW. 29 and that Ave, that you be going to leave behind 'ee, be nothing but a set of picters in a picter-book.

Do 'ee make haste and go to bed, and don't stand about diddle-daddling any longer. You won't look much of it in your wedding-dress to-morrow morning, I can tell 'ee if you do sit up so late.' Agatha was certainly beginning to feel a little tired. She had sent Dulcy to bed long ago ; so she took the old woman's advice, bade her ' good-night,' and wrent upstairs. In the passage, on the way to her room, she was somewhat surprised to meet her father. ' AVhy, papa,' she cried, ' I thought you went up to bed Avhen Dulcy did ! I fancied you far on in the land of dreams.' ' I have had several business letters to write to-night,' he answered, making a restless movement, as though he wished to pass her without further words. ' But are you not going to bed now ?' she asked. 'No, my dear; not just yet.