A Search For A Secret: A Novel. Volume 3

The old woman listened with great interest, and a day or two afterwards when Mrs. Green went down again with eggs, she told her that she should like very much to have a talk with her friend, for that she herself had been thinking of leaving service for some time, and of going to live with some relatives in a distant part of the country. Mrs. Green thereupon invited her to come up and take a cup of tea with her on the following evening – which invitation was accepted.

The next evening, after tea, the matter was entered into, and a great amount of bargaining and discussion went on between Sophy and the old servant, as Sophy did not wish to appear too eager about it. But it was at last settled that Sophy should give £8 – which was a year's wages – if the place could be procured for her at once. The old woman took her leave, chuckling inwardly at the thought of the good bargain she had made; for Miss Harmer was not expected now to last many months longer, and as there was no heir, and the property would pass to strangers, who were not likely to require the services of a priest, she thought it probable that her successor would not remain long enough in her new place even to receive the year's wages she had paid for it.

The next morning the old servant told her master the tale which had been agreed upon, namely – that she had just heard that a relative in a distant town was taken seriously ill, and wished her to go and live with her and nurse her. She said that she should take it very kind of her master if he would let her go at once; and that she trusted that he would not be inconvenienced; for that there was a person staying in the village who would suit his situation exactly. She was a friend of her own – indeed, a sort of relation; she had been in service but had left to marry a tradesman; it was altogether a very sad story; for her husband had been ruined and had died; the poor thing's health was not very strong, and so she wished to take some quiet place in the country; and that she was quite sure she would suit master.

The priest heard her quietly to the end, and then asked if her friend would be willing to come.

"Yes, she would, sir. After you had gone up to the Hall yesterday, I went up to see her, as I could not have asked you to let me go at once, if I could not have found some one to take my place. She would be glad to come, sir; and I am sure she will suit you."

"Ask her to come in to see me at once, then," Father Eustace said, "before I go up to the Hall."

In an hour Sophy came down. Father Eustace looked at her gravely, and saw a respectable quiet-looking woman before him, very pale and sad-looking – much as he might have expected from what he had heard of her story.

He asked a few questions, which were satisfactorily answered, and that same afternoon Sophy Gregory entered upon her new duties as servant to Father Eustace.

CHAPTER XI
OFF GUARD

And so Sophy succeeded in the first step of her enterprise, and was promoted to the honourable position of servant to Father Eustace, vice old Peggy resigned; and, although she was a long way from the goal yet, she felt very sanguine of success now, and looked upon the easy way in which this first part of her scheme had been effected as a sure omen of her future success. The priest lived in a comfortable little house at the extreme end of the village nearest to Harmer Place, and which belonged to the estate, having indeed been built by the grandfather of Miss Harmer specially as a residence for the family confessor. It stood back a little from the road, and had a small garden in front. There was a coach-house and stable attached, over which was a room where the groom slept.

Sophy commenced her new duties in earnest, and Father Eustace very soon had reason to congratulate himself on his change of domestics, and on the advent of this quiet, respectable-looking woman in the place of his former garrulous and slatternly old servant; and he soon felt a great increase of comfort in his domestic arrangements. This new servant was scrupulously neat and tidy. What little cooking she had to do, was sure to be well done; and above all, she was always at home, and, come in when he would, she was there at her work, instead of gossiping about the village, as he had frequently found it the case before: his only regret was that the change had not taken place years earlier.

Sophy's duties were not heavy. Father Eustace breakfasted at home, and then sat writing until lunch-time, after which he went up to the Hall; from this he seldom returned until late in the evening, never taking his dinner at home. The groom was on board wages, and did not have any of his meals in the house; consequently, when breakfast was over, Sophy had the rest of the day nearly to herself.

The thing, perhaps, for which of all others Father Eustace liked his new domestic, was, that he could now leave his papers about with the absolute certainty that on his return he would find them precisely as he left them; and with no fear that they would be crumpled up, and put away in a closet, or piled in a heap in a corner, either to make way for a breakfast or lunch-tray, or in an accession of an occasional fit of tidiness, such as sometimes seized his former servant. To his new domestic his papers were sacred; leave them about in the wildest apparent confusion, and he might rely upon it that she would never move them; and to such a point did she carry this, that one or two mornings after her arrival – when the priest had left some papers on the table – she brought a small round table out of another room, on which she placed the breakfast things; after this she always continued the same practice, so that there was no longer any occasion for the papers to be moved from the table at all. This being the case, Father Eustace ceased to put them away, but left them all about, feeling quite secure that, from their being entirely in Italian, it would be out of the question that any one would attempt to read them.

Father Eustace had not changed in appearance in the slightest, in the seven years he had been at Harmer Place. His thin face, with its shaven cheeks and chin, was perhaps a shade thinner, but that was all; and yet Father Eustace chafed inwardly at his long detention there, wasting six precious years of his life in his daily ministrations on this obstinate iron old woman. Sometimes he regretted that he had ever accepted the post, but yet the reward at the end would be great. The Bishop of Ravenna, his especial patron, at whose bidding he had come over, would see that his merits were known in the proper quarter, and that a reward proportionate to the service he had rendered was bestowed upon him. The bishop was a man of great influence; he had been spoken of for a cardinal's hat; and he had promised Father Eustace that he would put his conduct in such a light, that it would be nearly sure to lead to his elevation to some vacant see.

Father Eustace was a clever man, and an ambitious – for himself and his Church, and would have scrupled at little for the good of either. Still it was very wearying waiting so long for this iron old woman to die; the more so as the principal object of his coming had not yet been attained. However, he had been trained in a good school for patience, and although when alone his eyes would sometimes flash angrily, and his thin hands clench in his impatience, at ordinary times he was bland and gentle, and seemed never weary of reading to her in that suave, mellow voice of his for hours at a time.

As a resource for his leisure hours, he occupied himself in writing an elaborate history of the martyrs of the early Church, and it was with the sheets of this manuscript that his tables were generally littered.

From these Sophy gained no information, and it was some little time, indeed, before she did so; but one day, rendered careless by the tidiness and care of his servant, Father Eustace went out, leaving his key in the lock of his desk. It was for this that Sophy had been waiting and hoping. She lost not a moment in taking it out, and taking an impression of it on a flat cake of wax, which she had carried ready in her pocket from the day she had entered his service. The same afternoon she sent the cake of wax, in a small tin box, to Mr. Billow, King Edward Street, Lambeth, enclosed in a letter with a £5 note, requesting a key to be made from the impression, and sent down at once to the direction, "Mary Westwood, Post Office, Sturry, Kent."

In three days the key arrived, and Sophy was now able to indulge her intense desire to examine the contents of Father Eustace's desk. It was a large one, and contained a great number of letters and documents; but all that she had any interest in were two bundles of papers, of about the same size, the one endorsed, "Letters of Monseigneur the Bishop of Ravenna," the other, "Copies of my letters to the Bishop of Ravenna."

These she read through and through, taking one letter out at a time, and reading it up in her own room; so that in case her master suddenly returned, even should he go at once to his desk, he would find it locked, and the bundles of papers apparently as he had left them.

The earlier letters were the most interesting: in these Father Eustace related the events of the funeral, and of the ineffectual search for the will. He said that Miss Harmer, on his arrival, had told him at once that she was determined that her elder brother's will should be carried out, that the property should all go to the Church, and that no will would ever be forthcoming. He had of course applauded her resolution, and promised her the blessing of the Church. But he said that she had not, even in confession, told him where the will really was.

As time went on, he wrote to say that he could not elicit from her where it was hidden, and that, devoted as she was to the Church, she was of so obstinate a character, that he was afraid he never should find out from her; but that he did not like to appear too pertinacious on the point, about which indeed there was no especial hurry. He told the bishop that he believed that this reticence of hers was caused by two reasons – the one, that she wished to be able to say conscientiously that she had never seen it; the other and stronger one, that she was ridiculously superstitious; that she had an idea that her brother's spirit was guarding it, and that his curse would fall upon her if she destroyed it. He said that he had reasoned with her, and rebuked her for her superstition; but that nothing he could say had the least effect upon her. Angela Harmer, he said, he should have been able to have managed without difficulty; but she was guided entirely by her elder sister, who had even bound her by a solemn vow not to tell, even in confession, anything about the will; and no assurance on the part of himself that any vow which was to the detriment of the Church was binding, had any effect upon her. In return, the bishop exhorted him to patience. From his own knowledge of Cecilia Harmer's character, he was certain that she would not be easily diverted from any purpose she had once taken up; but when the time should come, he would use his own authority, and he had no doubt that then she would give way.

The bishop, however, thought that the will might be found and destroyed without the Miss Harmers' knowledge, for he believed he knew where it was hidden. The Miss Harmers had frequently, in their conversations with him, spoken of the way in which their family had in the old times of persecution concealed fugitive priests, in a secret room constructed in a chimney; access was had to this room from the hall, by unscrewing the tongue of one of the iron dogs in the fireplace, and by pushing a spring inside the mouth, and also pressing a spring in the chimney behind the mantelpiece. The bishop said that he had taken a note of it at the time, as he always did of everything which could by any possibility ever turn out useful; and that he had no doubt the will would be found there.

Father Eustace wrote in reply to say that he had followed the instructions, and had entered the secret chamber; but that there was no will there.

After this there was nothing in any of the letters of much interest until the last one or two. In these Father Eustace repeated that Miss Harmer was breaking fast, and that it was becoming necessary to make another effort to find the will.

The Bishop replied that when the time came he would himself write to her; and would point out, "that the house must be sold at her death, and that some day it might be pulled down and the will found, and thereby all her good intentions for the benefit of the Church would be frustrated; that he, therefore, exhorted – nay, more, commanded, if necessary, that she would reveal the hiding-place to her confessor in order that such a contingency as the will ever being found might be rendered an impossibility."

All these letters Sophy read through and through. She was disappointed, for she had hoped that she should have found this secret which she so longed to find out, but it was not to be; and so she fell back upon another plan, for she had thoroughly foreseen every possible difficulty and discouragement, and had marked out various schemes for herself, which were to be adopted according to circumstances. One of the letters from the bishop happened to have the large seal with which he sealed his letters unbroken. Of this she carefully took an impression, with a piece of bread, kneaded up with a little oil, just as she had often taken seal impressions when a girl. This she put by to dry, in order to be in readiness when required. She then carefully wrote the two letters she wished copied, took one of the bishop's earlier letters from the bundle, and also a note in Father Eustace's own handwriting, and enclosed them to Mr. Billow, with the following letter: —

"Dear Mr. Billow,

"The time has now come when I require the letters I spoke to you about when in London. I enclose copies of the two letters I wish written, and also letters the handwriting of which is to be imitated; the long one in Italian must be done on foreign letter-paper, and the other on note-paper, and let the addresses be written as in the copies, on the back. I enclose £25 in notes, and will forward another £25 when I receive the letter from you. Please register it, and enclose it to Mary Westwood, Sturry, Kent."

In three days the letters came down, and the handwritings were so exactly imitated, that Sophy could not detect the slightest difference. She folded them, sealed one with the broad seal, and then locked them up in her box till wanted. She was now ready for the attempt, and only waited for the time. It was longer coming than she had expected, and six months went on after she had come down to Sturry before there was any decided change. Then Miss Harmer began to sink rapidly, and took to her bed. Sophy could see that her master was nervous and anxious, and he wrote off at once to the Bishop of Ravenna. He came back now to dinner at five, and soon after six again went up to Harmer Place, and remained there till late in the evening.

Sophy now felt that the time was come. She sat down and wrote to me, asking me to hire a man the next day at the livery-stable, to ride out and deliver a note, which she enclosed in her letter to me; with strict injunctions that he was to leave Canterbury at six exactly: that he was to ride up to the door of Father Eustace's house, to ring the bell, deliver the letter, and ride off instantly without waiting to be questioned. She implored me not to fail in this, for that upon its being done exactly as she had dictated the whole of her plan depended, and that she believed ere long she should be able to tell me that she had found the will.

I confess that when I had read her letter I was very much puzzled what to do. I had no idea what her plans were, or what were the contents of the letter. I had not the least hope that she would find the will; and yet she wrote so urgently, that I was sure she believed herself that she had; and as she was going through so much, surely I need not mind risking a little. I had a long debate with myself, but at last came to the conclusion that I could not but do as she asked me, and send the little note, which was merely directed Father Eustace, in a hurried, almost illegible writing – to its destination. However, I determined to run as little risk of being discovered as being connected with it as possible, and I accordingly went down to old Andrew's cottage. I have not mentioned that he was still living in Dr. Hooper's service, and resided as before close to the old house, nor have I told of the delight with which he received me on my return.

"Andrew," I said to him, "I have got a piece of rather particular business I want done, and I know you will manage it for me."

"That I will, Miss Agnes. What is it?"

"I have a note here which I want delivered at the priest's at Sturry. You know the house, Andrew, the last one in the village."

"Aye, aye, Miss, I know it well enough."

"Well, Andrew, I want you either to go yourself, or get one of your sons to go there on horseback this evening. Now be very particular. You are to start from here at six exactly, you are to ride over there, ring at the bell, give this note to the servant, and ride off as fast as you can without waiting to be asked any questions. Do you quite understand? Of course I do not wish any one to know who left the note, or anything about it."

"I'll do it, Miss Agnes, sure enough – at least my son William will. I am getting too old for riding. He is at home at present; I will take one of master's horses and bring him out quietly, and William will do just as you say; and if master should come into the stable – which he won't do at that time of day – I will say Bill has taken him round to have a shoe put on."

All that day Sophy was very anxious and nervous, not so much as to the success of her plans as to whether her request would be fulfilled and her letter sent as directed. Even Father Eustace looked up rather surprised at dinner, for his usually quiet composed servant seemed anxious and excited. Her movements were hurried and quick, and there was a red patch of colour on her cheeks, and her eyes were bright and restless.

"Come here, child," he said, presently. "Give me your hand."

Rather surprised, she did as he told her.

"Your hand is hot and feverish, Mary," he said, "and your pulse is high. You are not at all well. I shall be back in an hour or two from the hall, and then I will give you a powder, and you must go to bed. I am afraid you are going to be ill."

At half-past six, Sophy, listening anxiously, heard the sound of horse's hoofs approaching at a gallop. It stopped at the gate. There was a ring at the bell. She went out, a letter was placed in her hands without a word, and the man and horse galloped off. She took the letter in to her master. He opened and read it.

"Mary," he said, quietly, "will you be good enough to see if Thomas is out in the stable; and if so, tell him to put the horse into the gig at once, and get ready to drive me to Sittingbourne."

Sophy did as he had ordered her, and then returned to the parlour.

"I am sorry I am obliged to go out this evening, Mary; but I am sent for to Sittingbourne, to Mrs. Ford, where I dined a short time since. The poor thing is taken suddenly ill, is dying in fact, and has sent to ask me to go over at once to administer the sacraments, and that is a call which I cannot refuse. Here is a powder; take that, and I should advise you to go to bed at once. Do not lock the door, I will let myself in when I come back."

In another ten minutes the gig was at the door, and Father Eustace went out, and in another minute was gone. Sophy stood at the door and watched them drive down into the village. Then she went in and shut the door. So far her plans had succeeded – would they to the end?