The Quiet Mrs. Fleming

Front matter

I ■ ■ ■ ■ THE OUIET MRS. FLEMING. New Novels at all Libraries. A LOST ILLUSION. By Leslie Keith, Author of "The Chilcotes, " "A Hurricane in Petticoats," &c 3 vols. Crown 8vo. [Ready. A DOUBLE KNOT. By G. Manville Fenn, Author of "The Vicar's People," "Eli's Children," &c. 3 vols. Crown Svo [Ready. THE HONOURABLE MISS : A Tale of a Country Town. By L. T. Meade, Author of " Scamp and I," " A Girl of the People," &c. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. [Ready. URITH : A Story of Dartmoor. By S. Baring Gould, Author of " Mehalah," " Arminell," &c 3 vols. [Shortly. PRINCE OF THE GLADES. By Hannah Lynch. 2 vols. [Shortly. A MARRIAGE AT SEA. By W. Clark Russell, Author of " The Wreck of the Grosvenor," &c. 2 vols. [February. THE QUIET MRS. FLEMING B, RICHARD PRYCE author of "the ugly story of miss wetherby," "just impediment," etc.

X o n & o it METHUEN & CO. 18 BURY STREET, BLOOMSBURY, W.C. Cowan &~ CV., Limited, Vrinteis, Firtli, CONTENTS. Chap. Page i. The Girl in the Pink Print - - - i ii. The Lady with the Yellow Hair - - n m. Brinville - - - - - - - 18 iv. The Sounds in the Night - - - • 29 v. By the Doctor's Orders - - - - 45 vi. Blue-Beard's Chamber - - - - 54 vn. Mrs. Manton - - 63 vm. The Robbery at Markham Abbey - - 75 ix. George Saltash ------ 98 x. The Ground-Floor - - - - - no xi. The Silence of Mrs. Fleming - - - 121 xii. The Lady in the Ulster - - - - 131 xin. The Veil ------- 140 xiv. The Man from Scotland Yard - - 151 xv. A Scrap of Paper - - - - - 164 xvi. The Story of the Fallen Coffin - - 174 xvii. The Walking of the Corpse - - - 186 xvm. The Walking of the Lady - - 196 xix. A Sound of Voices 205 xx. The Further Walking of the Lady - 216 xxi. The Conjecture of Saltash - - - 229 xxil Hunted Down ------ 238 xxm. A Possible Ending

Chapter I. The Girl In The Pink Print

Mrs. Smith said her hair was dyed. " It's a yellow that is never natural," she said. " Look at Emma, she has real golden hair, but it ain't a bit like that. I had a good look at her and her hair is dyed." Mr. Smith hazarded some opinion. " And she is made up," said Mrs. Smith. " I always know when a lady is made up. You know I've lived in the best places and I've seen heaps and heaps of people, and I can always tell. There's a sort of powdery look on her face like the bloom on a grape when you see it sideways. Look at Emma ; A Emma's got a nice complexion. You don't see no bloom on her face." Emma was not there to be seen. Mrs. Smith spoke figuratively ; but her husband conjured up before his mind's eye a sufficiently accurate vision of the insipid face and the colourless head that formed Mrs. Smith's ideal of perfect feminine beauty.

"And then again her eyes," said Mrs. Smith, " she must put belladonna in them to make the pupils so big. There was one lady I lived with as nearly blinded herself with usinsr it. You see I've lived in the best houses where there was dinner-parties con stant, and I've seen and I know. Look at Emma." Smith was accustomed to obeying his wife, and he looked at Emma as before, and he thought of the watery blue eyes and the pale lashes. " Well, as you're so set against her — " he began. "Who ever said I was set against her?" THE GIRL IX THE PINK PRINT. said Mrs. Smith sharply. " It's you that are so trusting and so easily imposed upon. I'm obliged to be particular. What I say is, as she ain't as Nature made her, and that I stick to." " If you think," ventured Smith cautiously, " if you think we're going to be imposed upon, as we were by that family you took in in the summer, who went away owing three weeks' rent, well, then, we'd better say we find she can't have the rooms."

"That's just like you," said his wife con temptuously ; " and a chance of a winter let, and the bill been up over a month and nobody so much as asked to look over the rooms. All I say is that she's not what I call handsome. You was so full of her appearance and such. But anybody can be handsome as likes to use condiments." It is to be presumed that Mrs. Smith meant cosmetics. Mr. Smith was accus tomed to agree with her without question, but he found himself wondering whether the aids to beauty, to which she alluded with so much scorn, would effect any really appreci able difference in her own homely face. She was a little woman with large features and a flat figure. Involuntarily his eyes strayed from her face to the level expanse of shiny alpaca, and he sighed. It was at this moment that a certain re semblance struck him.

He was contrasting the angularity of his wife with the beautiful developments of the lady they were discuss ing, when of a sudden he remembered another form which had always appealed to his admiration. He used to see it across the road five years ago, when he was butler in his old master's house in Barn Street, Park Lane, where Mrs. Smith — Susan Long she had been then — was cook. The form was the form of a parlour-maid who lived at the house exactly facing that wherein he dis charged his own duties. He used to see her every morning. He even rose a little earlier that he might be in time to watch her as she THE GIRL IN THE PINK PRINT. 5 pulled up the blinds of such rooms as fell to her share in the work of the limited estab lishment. He had never seen her more closely than across that fifteen yards or so of road ; but he had good eyes, and they had quickly seen her beauty.

She wore the neatest pink print dress imaginable, and usually a knot of pink ribbon in her muslin cap. She had brown hair and pretty brown eyes, and the sun used to glisten in them when she sometimes stood for s. few moments at the window. He used to see her laying breakfast and carrying in the silver urn ; and then there would be a sound. of ringing, and it pleased him to imagine how she must look standing in the passage at the foot of the stairs and swinging in her pretty hands the bell that announced to the house that it was time for the old lady to come down. A Mrs. Manton, he remem bered, was the mistress upon whom she attended with such care. After that, his own master's breakfast was served, and, by THE QUIET MRS. FLEMING. the time this was over, a pink form was to be seen moving deftly about the drawing room opposite — brushing the floor, dusting china and chairs, shaking antimacassars and — yes — it was true, standing sometimes for several minutes before the looking-glass over the mantelpiece.

He used to think of the pretty reflection she must have seen there and wish that he could see it too. He often saw her, as she stood there, put up her hands to her pretty hair and push in a stray lock, or, perhaps, pull one down upon her forehead. His own master did not allow fringes, and probably Mrs. Manton's rule was just as strict. And she would turn and look at herself sideways, and sometimes he thought she would smile at her own reflection. He knew exactly when the little window of her room at the top of the house would flap, as she went in to dress before lunch. And sometimes he could see her at the look ing-glass there, that stood with its back to the light. She used to pay great attention THE GIRL IN THE PINK PRINT. 7 to the pretty hair. A little later when he was laying his own master's mid-day meal he would see her, in a neat black dress with a white collar and cuffs and a fresh cap, per forming a like duty.

Then the bell would sound again and the old lady would come in, and when he was standing behind bis master's chair, and the old man had every thing he could want, Smith would turn round furtively and watch the trim form flitting about Mrs. Manton's dining-room. After lunch he would sometimes stand behind the curtains and watch her as she answered the bell to visitors. Sometimes holding her smart cap she came down the steps to speak to the occupant of a carriage— and he never saw her more nearly than that. Smith had little liberty just then, for his master was old and very constant in his demands upon the time of his manservant. So he could only go out in the morning, when he took the poodle for a trot in the park, or on Sunday evenings. The parlour-maid opposite had, on THE QUIET MRS. FLEMING. the other hand, an indulgent mistress, and was apparently allowed to go out twice in the week.

It was always in the evening, and Smith used to watch with a jealous pang the figure of a man of gentleman-like appearance who waited for her near the pillar-box on these occasions. He took to hating the very sight of him, and the well fitting clothes which he wore. Sometimes this person hailed a han som and with the maid in question drove off, to the endless discomfiture of poor Smith. In thought he followed that hansom and con jectured its destination — a theatre, a restaur ant ? It was maddening. Punctually at ten o'clock he would hear the click of the area gate opposite, and rushing up to a window, he would see the trim form disappearing down the steps. On those evenings, when she went out with his hated rival, Smith used to remark the smartness of her dress ; she looked, as he expressed it to himself, like a lady.

He never made her acquaintance. He watched and watched and admired, and THE GIRL IN THE PINK PRINT. 9 in his own way was restless and unhappy. Then his old master died, and the house was broken up. He found himself the pos sessor of a handsome legacy. The old man had often expressed a wish that when he was gone his manservant would marry the cook, and when the will was read and Smith heard of the bequest to himself he felt, all unwill ing though he was, that he could not do less than ask Miss Long to share his good for tune. She expressed her pleasure at such an arrangement, and the wedding took place almost at once, and part of the capital was expended on a house at a rising seaside resort, with a view to letting lodgings. All this had happened five years ago, and the pretty parlour-maid was as much for gotten as Smith would ever forget her.

Something in the figure of the lady who had called that day about the rooms had re minded him of her. He wondered whether she was still attending upon Mrs. Man ton with neat precision, and he sighed again. Perhaps the old lady was dead, per haps — "What are you thinking of?" said Mrs. Smith sharply. Her husband started. " Oh, I don't know,'" he said ; " what we were talking of, I suppose — the lady who has taken the rooms."

Chapter II. The Lady With The Yellow Hair

Mrs. Fleming arrived that evening, and Mrs. Smith, despite her severe criticisms, received her graciously, and hoped that she would find the rooms comfortable. She brought up some tea and toast for her, and placed them on a table before the fire. Then she asked for directions as to her lodger's dinner, and withdrew. Mrs. Fleming's large box blocked the little landing between the sitting-room and her bedroom. It was very heavy, and Mr. Smith and the cabman had carried it up the creaking stairs. The cab man had demanded an extra sixpence for his exertion, and Mrs. Fleming gave it without demur. Smith said that it was a good sign when a woman did not amue with her driver. Mrs. Smith said : " Well, she couldn't very well 'iggle about sixpence with a trunk like that. I wonder whatever's in it ?

" Mrs. Smith was always full of curiosity about her lodgers, so the remark called for little attention. At seven o'clock her husband went up to lay the table for Mrs. Flem ing's modest dinner. She was sitting by the fire reading an evening paper. Her back was towards him, and he contemplated her unseen. Mrs. Smith was possibly right as to the nature — or, in this case and her opinion, absence of nature — of the yellow hair. It was elaborately and classically dressed, and its colour that of a canary. It was full of light, and it shone in the glow of the fire. The lady turned presently. The tints of her complexion were admirably managed, and Smith was inclined to question his wife's assertion that art was responsible for them. The eyes were very luminous and brown, and they reminded him vaguely of those of a THE LADY WITH THE YELLOW UAIR. 13 woman in a different station in life.

He thought again of the neat, tall girl in the pink print, and he sighed. Mrs. Fleming was looking at him in a contemplative sort of way. " You are my landlord, are you not ? " she said in a well-modulated voice. " Yes'm." " I like these rooms," she said, looking round critically, " and I think they are likely to suit me. You have no other lodgers, Mr. Smith ? " " No'm. You see it's winter now, and the season doesn't begin rightly till May or une. " I am glad of that," said the lady. " I desired rest and quiet — that was my reason for coming to this place. I am not very strong, and I am likely to be confined a great deal to the house. I don't think you will find that I shall give you much trouble."' v " No'm," said Smith again. He had paused in his work of laying the table. "And I shall have few visitors," said Mrs. Fleming.

" My doctor may come down from town to see me, but I know no one here. And, Mr. Smith, I shall want a newspaper — - will you order a morning and an evening paper to be sent to me from to-morrow ? " Smith promised with enthusiasm that her directions should be executed. The very word newspaper had a charm for him. He was not allowed to have one daily on his own account. His wife was wont to declare that she "never did see such a one as Smith for idlin' his time over a bit of news," and the good woman's tongue being insistent as a clapper, her husband was fain to content himself with a weekly local sheet, which con tained little but advertisements. Mrs. Fleming's order was, then, a herald of good times. "You are fond of reading?" she said to him one day, as, coming in to breakfast, she found him poring over her paper.

He put it down quickly. THE LADY WITH THE YELLOW HAIR. " I beg pardon, 'm," he said ; " I didn't hear you come in." "And what was interesting you so much?" she asked, with a smile. "Well, I was just reading that Markham case that there's so much talk about." "What is the Markham case?" asked Mrs. Fleming. " Oh, don't you know, 'm?" said Smith with surprise. " It's that big jewellery robbery in Wiltshire. There were things stolen to the value of several thousand pounds, and I see they've traced it now to a man called Brinsley, who has disappeared. They don't think he's got out of the country yet, because the ports have all been watched, and he's still at lame." " Dear me," said Mrs. Fleming. " It makes one quite glad one has no jewellery. Being poor has some advantages, hasn't it ? " Smith gave a pleased smile.

Mrs. Fleming had charming manners. She was, as he ex pressed it, so affable. Mrs. Smith unbent in the course of the next few days. She allowed that she might be mistaken about the belladonna. She still maintained that the hair was dyed. "For it ain't a natural colour," she said. " Look at Emma." Emma happened to be present on this occasion, and she bridled and glanced coyly at Mr. Smith from under her fringe. " That's real golden 'air, that is," said Mrs. Smith. Emma said, " Oh, aunt ! "You needn't ' oh, aunt,' me so modest," said the proud relation. "You favour your mar. My sister Jane had just that coloured 'air when younger." Smith thought at this moment that if that shock of colourless curls was nature, of the two he preferred art. He did not say so, however, but read the paper in silence.

He was full of the mystery enveloping the theft of the Markham jewels. "They're finding out a lot more about THE LADY WITH THE YELLOW HAIR. 17 him," he said, looking up presently. " It's thought now that he's wanted for other things as well as this. The man's died that he shot at when he got away, so if they ever get him they'll try him for murder." " Fancy ! " said Emma. " I wonder where he is. Isn't it dreadful to think we might pass him in the street and not know." "Tsh ! What's that?" cried Mrs. Smith suddenly, holding up her finger, and listening. The beautiful Emma turned pale, and looked affrightedly over her shoulder. "What's the matter?" she asked in a terrified whisper. Smith looked up. " I thought I heard talking*-," said his wife. "Talking? nonsense, you're nervous," said Smith.

He rose as he spoke, and went to the door. The handle was loose and rattled loudly as he turned it. Was there a sudden sound upstairs ? The house was still. Only Mrs. Fleming was humming in her room. l

Chapter III. Brinville

Emma was of the nervous and hysterical order of girls, and she said she was afraid to walk home. " Aunt's gave me such a turn," she said, ''jumping up sudden like that ; and what with uncle reading about murders and one thing or another I daren't go along the road by me self." " Uncle shall walk 'ome with you," said Mrs. Smith. " It'd be so awful if I was to pass him and not know," said Emma again. " It'd be a deal awfuller if you did," said her aunt. Smith put on his coat, and left the house with his wise's niece. With all her nervous- BRINVILLE. 19 ness Emma had a morbid cravings for the horrible, and she made her uncle recount all that he had read of the case, dwelling more particularly upon that portion which dealt with the footman who had followed the man out of the house, and had received the dis charge of his pistol in the face.

" How awful," said Emma ; " I wonder whether it blew his nose off." She had once known a man without a nose, and she started upon reminiscences. "He had to wear a little black patch on a piece of elastic — like aunt wore when she got the cold in her eye — and he couldn't speak plain. I wonder whether the poor footman 'ad he have lived would have been 'bliged to do the same. Isn't it dreadful to think ? " Smith could not say. " He's dead any way," he said, " and if they get the man it's murder." Emma did not know what things were coming to — what with stabbings and poisonings and the mortality of infants " put in the club," a respectable girl was afraid to walk about by herself. "It's perfectly awful I call it, and it ought to be put a stop to," she said. " Do you think they'll hang him ? " " They've got to find him first," said Smith.

" Think they'll do that ? " asked Emma. Her uncle by marriage could not say. Emma started off again. " There's a story in my Young Ladies Novelist about an awful murder of an old lady who was cut into little pieces and posted to friends in the country ; wouldn't it be dreadful to get a little packet by parcel's post — I expect it was parcel's post, because it'd come expensive letter weight, and you couldn't leave the ends open — and when you opened it find a piece of some one as you'd known ! The heroine had brain fever when she opened hers and found a finger and a bit of an ear, and all the time the murderer was lodging in the same street and with her old BRINVILLE. nurse as let lodgings, and nobody knew. Wouldn't it be dreadful if he was to go to you and aunt ? — him as shot the footman I mean.

There's no knowing." "Well he couldn't have the drawing-rooms any way," said Smith, "for they're let." "And to think," said Emma Hollis, "to think that when I'm helping mother mind the shop he might come in for a pound of our best two-and-four, or a tin of preserved beef, or a pot of jam. It's dreadful, I con sider." The pair had reached the grocer's and pro vision store which Was their destination. Emma invited him in, but he declined, and turned to go home. The night was stormy. The wind blew up from the shore. The salt smell of the seaweed, washed astrand by the tide, was in his nostrils, and he pulled up the collar of his coat about his ears as the gale whistled round him. The moon shed a bright and fitful light. Thin and fragmentary clouds were being swept hurriedly across the sky. Smoke from chimneys in the town was blown hither and thither and was quickly dissipated.

The clock in the tower of one of the many churches with which Brinville-super-mare, in common with every other rising resort, abounded, struck the hour of nine. It was early yet. Smith thought he would take a turn upon the Marine Parade — - known familiarly to the inhabitants as the P'ryde — before returning to the domestic hearth. Brinville, you must understand, was rising. It had not yet so far risen as to command a winter season. In July and August it mus tered a sufficiently large number of visitors to keep it going for the rest of the year. Smith had at no time any very great faith in the town. It would never be a fashionable watering-place, of that he was certain. The people who came down were hopelessly middle-class. They came year after year and crowded up the lodgings and the hotels ; and the Parade, now empty and desolate, BRINVILLE. swarmed with over-dressed women and their showy daughters ; men, who stayed for a fortnight with their wives and families, and after that came down on visits from Saturday to Monday; clerks, shopkeepers, professional men, nurses, children, perambulators, and dogs.

Then Brinville put out all its attrac tions. The town band, which was execrable, played morning and evening in front ot the Imperial Hotel, and Christie minstrels twanged their banjos and sang their songs upon the sands. A row of ramshackle old chaises stood in an enclosure in the road, and were to be hired by the hour. Donkeys, for lorn and obstinate, and goat carriages, with troublesome boys in aggressive attendance, were provided for the amusement of the chil dren. There was bathing too, and the guide book, published by a local and enterprising newsagent, described it as unrivalled. The work was redundantly entitled, " Brinville super-mare, its environs and neighbourhood — with maps, and an exhaustive list of excursions to all outlying places of interest, together with a table of omnibus routes, cab fares, and tariff of the principal hotels ; Also a short account of its history and foundation, in the year of grace one thousand eight hun dred and sixty, by John Brin, Esquire, of London and Beliast.

Compiled by William Basset-Hollis." Mr. Basset-Hollis was uncle to Emma, the type of beauty, and through the medium of Mrs. Hollis — no Basset in this case — of the provision store who, as we know, was sister to Smith's wife, the choice had been made of Brinville as the most desirable of resorts wherein to set up a lodging-house. From a financial point of view the enter prise had been successful. A great deal of money was spent in Brinville in the summer by the rich and vulgar and also by others who, if the truth were known, economised during the rest of the year. In August the theatrical legend, " House Full," might have been hung in most of the windows. It had BRINVILLE. 25 even been on record that upon a Saturday preceding that bank holiday known as " first Monday," the bathing machines had been brought into requisition to supply the demand for sleeping accommodation.

Smith thought that on the whole he pre ferred the place out of the season. He turned on to the Parade, ''sheltered," vide guide book, "by a noble avenue of trees." This assertion on the part of Mr. Basset- Hollis was due to a flight of the imagination and verged on inaccuracy. The trees had been planted only a year or two before the compiling of the work, and they remained striplings, meagre, stunted, and insufficiently nourished. Each one was surrounded by a little wooden railing, and was supported by props. So often were two or three at a time laid low in the storms of the winter, that at a recent meeting of the local board of health it had been moved that they should be taken away. Someone said it was absurd to have planted them at all. Mr. Basset-Hollis said their removal would necessitate a new edition of the guide book.

There was some further and desultory talk which came to nothing. Mr. Basset-Hollis and the o-uide book were of paramount importance in Brinville. The work had a large circulation and paid its ex penses in sales and advertisements. It was thrust upon the newcomers at all the stationers, and was bought by those who either thirsted for the information it contained or else rave in to importunity. Smith left the Parade and went down to the terrace. Here the wind had its own way, and he pulled his cap tightly down on to his head. The spray was blown up into his face. The tide was very high. The sands were entirely submerged, and the surf broke on the shingle. After each wave came the roar of the receding stones. Smith stood and watched the frolic of the storm. Out where the sea was dark under a cloud he could BRINVILLE. see dimly the white crests of the breakers.

Now the cloud had passed, and the moon sailed forth and seemed to gaze passively down upon the troubled waters. Pebbles glistened on the shore. A bit of wreckage was being washed up and carried back, and Smith looked at it. wondering whether after all it would be left upon the beach or borne away by the restless sea. Then he walked on to where the terrace became the road that led round the hill upon which stood the light house. Here the waves struck the rocks at the base of the cliff with a voice of thunder. The road was wet with spray. A flake of foam tossed up by wave and wind lay shiver ing on the wall, and trembling as one by one the tiny bubbles burst. The clouds sped across the sky fast and ever faster. Each seemed to hurry after that which had gone before. The wind lulled sometimes, and then in a hurricane renewed its work.

Smith turned his back upon it, and leaning, it gave him support. When he began to move it hurried him forwards, and at a trot he retraced his steps. Two figures, those of a man and a woman, were sitting on one of the seats on the terrace. As he neared them the moon was obscured by a cloud and all was dark as he passed them.

Chapter IV. The Sounds In The Night

Mrs. Smith was in the kitchen. A large red worsted shawl was on the table, and her husband glanced at it inquiringly. " What a while you was," said Mrs. Smith acridly, "anybody'd think as Emma lived the other side of the town instead of only two streets off. I suppose you went in, and Jane is such a one to keep you talking." " I didn't go in," said Smith, " I went for a walk on the terrace." " Did you meet Mrs. Fleming ? " asked his wife. '' Has she gone out ? " "Almost at once after you," said Mrs. Smith. " She rang the bell just after you'd left the house, and I went up, and she was standing at the winder. And she said she thought of going out for a turn, being as she liked the wind. She'd just like a bit of a blow before she went to bed. And she asked me how long you'd be out, and I told her where you was gone, and what time we liked to shut up the house, and I said at 10.30.