it was a long time before i got over the burglary at the hall. it was a most daring thing, and the detective that came down from london, said it was the work of an old hand. a nice haul the wretches had made, though they hadn’t got all mrs. phillips’s diamonds and jewels, because, it seems, the best had been sent to the bank, but they had taken a lot that were in her room, and valuable plate and things, and got clean away with everything.
we didn’t learn all about it till next day. the first story that went about when people got up in the morning was that mrs. phillips had been murdered in her bed, but, thank goodness, it wasn’t as bad as that; but the nurse that slept in the next room to her, got a nasty knock on the head, hearing a noise and coming in, which made her so queer that she was a long time before she could say what the man was like she saw in the room, ransacking the things.
but what gave us the most dreadful shock first of all, was the disappearance of the london physician, and him going out in the middle of the night and leaving our front door open.
directly we told the policeman, he said, “he’s the man.”
“what man?” i said.
“why, the man that committed the burglary.”
i couldn’t believe that. i said it was nonsense. a london physician wouldn’t go breaking into people’s houses at night. but he certainly was gone, and his hand portmanteau too, and he didn’t come back again the{72} next morning, and then we recollected about his going up to the hall with mr. wilkins, and his having seen the grounds and been shown over the house by the butler.
but it was such a dreadful idea that it was a very long time before i could believe it, and i didn’t quite till the detective came down from london and began to ask questions.
we’d never asked the physician his name, and no letters had come for him, which he explained by saying, that as he wanted to be quite quiet and rest, he had ordered no letters to be forwarded, only he was to be telegraphed to in case of anything very particular, and of course we should have taken up any telegram that came, and said, “is this for you, sir?” because there was nobody else staying in the house. his going away like that and not coming back again, wasn’t what a first-class london physician would have done, so it was evident he’d deceived us about himself, and if he’d done that, why shouldn’t he be the burglar?
the detective said it was a “put-up job”—that’s what he called it. he said the hall had been “marked,” and this fellow had come to stay at our house so as to take his observations and find out all he could, and “do the trick” (those were the detective’s words) as soon as he saw a good opportunity.
poor mr. wilkins was nearly mad to think that he’d been the one to take him over the grounds and introduce him to the butler, and so let him find out all he wanted to, and you may be sure that we were pretty mad, too, that the burglar who burgled the hall should have been a visitor staying at our house. our first visitor, too, and one we’d been so proud of, and thought was going to do us such a lot of good!
it wasn’t his not paying his bill so much that we minded as the scandal!
harry said, “well, we wanted to get something about our house in the papers, and, by jove, missus, we’ve got it! it’s all over the county now. i shouldn’t wonder if our hotel wasn’t known as ‘the burglar’s arms.’”
“oh, harry,” i said, “don’t say that—it’s awful. if we got a name like that no respectable person would pass a night here.” i began to think, when harry said that,{73} about an inn i’d seen on the stage, where awful things are done—a murder, i think; by two awful villains who stayed there, though they made you laugh. their names were mr. macaire and mr. strop, i think; but how the landlord could have taken them in dressed as they were, and putting bread and cheese and onions in their hats, and stuffing their umbrellas with meat and vegetables, i couldn’t understand. you could see they were bad characters, but no one would ever have suspected that silver-haired, golden-spectacled old gentleman, who really looked just what he said he was—a london physician.
i must confess that for a good many nights after the awful discovery i didn’t feel very comfortable. it made me nervous to think that we should never know who was sleeping under our roof. i’m sure i should never have suspected that nice amiable old gentleman of being a burglar.
we got over it after a bit, and when no trace was found of the burglar, and the excitement was over, i didn’t think so much about it. all that was found out was that the man in the dog-cart who nearly drove over the miller was an accomplice. they traced the wheels away from the hall, and the detective said the man in the dog-cart had waited for the physician and driven him off with the “swag.” (that’s what the detective called it.)
a few days after that another old gentleman came, and wanted a room, but he’d only got a black bag, and i was so nervous that i told him we were full, and he went back to the station, and went on somewhere else.
of course it was a stupid thing to do, but my nerves were bad, and being an old gentleman and having no luggage it gave me a turn, and i sent him away on the spur of the moment.
afterwards we found out he was a big solicitor in london, and very savage with myself i was for my foolishness.
soon after that two more customers came, and i was not a bit frightened of them, for they were just the sort of people we wanted. it must have been a little more than a fortnight after the burglary that the station fly brought us a young lady and gentleman with some lovely luggage{74}—honeymoon luggage i saw it was at once by the new dress trunks, and the new dressing-bags, and i knew it was a honeymoon by the way the young gentleman helped the young lady out of the fly and the bashful way he came in and said, “can i have apartments here for myself and my wife?”
“certainly, sir,” i said; “i will show you the apartments we have vacant.”
we had all the apartments vacant, but of course it’s never business to say that. i took him upstairs, the lady following, and showed him the best sitting-room and the best bedroom, and he said to his wife, “i think these will do, dear, don’t you?” and she said, “oh, yes! they are very nice indeed,” and then she went to the window and looked out into the garden, and said, “oh, what a pretty garden!”—and then he went and looked out too, and she slipped her arm through his, and they stood there together, and i saw him give her a little squeeze with his arm, and it made me think of my own honeymoon, when harry used to squeeze my arm just like that.
when i went downstairs the young gentleman followed me to settle with the fly, and i told him not to bother about the things—everything should be sent upstairs directly. he was very shy and awkward, i thought—shyer and awkwarder than harry had been; but then, of course, he wasn’t a sailor, and sailors have a knack of accommodating themselves to circumstances at once.
when i went up to take their orders for dinner, i knocked at the door, and i heard them move before the young gentleman said, “come in.”
i’m sure they were sitting side by side on the sofa, and when i went in he was standing up by the fireplace, and the young lady was looking out of the window, with her face close to the glass, just as if they hadn’t been within a mile of each other!
“what time will you have dinner, please?” i said; “and what would you like?”
he turned to her and asked her what i had asked him.
“six o’clock, i think, dear,” she said.
“and what shall we have?”
“what you like, dear.{75}”
i saw that they didn’t quite know what to say, so i suggested what we could get easiest, and they said, “oh, yes; that will do capitally,” and seemed quite pleased that i had helped them.
“will you take dinner, here, sir,” i said, “or in the coffee-room?”
“oh, here, please, if you don’t mind,” said the young lady, turning round from the window in a minute, and looking at me quite anxiously.
“oh, it’s no trouble,” i said. “all your meals can be served here.”
“thank you,” she said; and they both seemed quite relieved at not having to go down in the coffee-room.
before dinner they went out for a little walk, and i stood at the door and looked after them as they strolled away.
oh, how happy they looked!—his arm through hers, and his head bent down a little listening to her. it made a tear come into my eye as i watched them.
i think it is so beautiful to see young sweethearts together like that, in the first beautiful sunshine of their married life, without a care, without a thought except for each other. i think it must be one of the most beautiful things in life, that first happy married love, that first “together,” with no good-bye to come, and the future looking so bright and peaceful. troubles must come, we know. it’s very few couples who can go on to the end of the journey loving and trusting and worshipping like that; but even when the troubles come, there is that dear old happy, holy time—the purest and most sacred happiness that we get in this world—to look back upon; and it is so bright in our memory that its light can reach still to where we stand in the darkness, and make that darkness less.
i know it’s sentimental, as they call it, to talk like that; but i can’t help being sentimental when i write about that happy boy-husband and girl-wife—write it at a time when i have had my own little troubles of married life; only little ones, harry is so good—and my own love and my own honeymoon get mixed up in my mind with theirs, and that makes sentimental thoughts come into my head.{76}
when they came in just before dinner, the table was ready laid for them, and i had gathered some flowers and made a nice nosegay, and put it in a glass, to make the table look nice; and i waited on them myself—susan, the housemaid, carrying the dishes up for me.
the young lady looked so pretty with her hat off when she sat down to dinner, her cheeks bright with the air and the sunshine, and her eyes—those beautiful, gentle brown eyes that have such a world of love in them—watching her husband every moment, that for a minute i stood and looked at her instead of taking the cover off the soles.
she caught my look, and went so red, poor girl; and i felt quite confused myself, and was afraid i had made her uncomfortable by my awkwardness.
the young gentleman served the fish all right, but when i put the next dish in front of him—a roast chicken—he looked at it quite horrified, and the young lady she looked horrified too. then they both looked at each other and laughed.
“i—i’m afraid—i—er—can’t carve this properly,” he stammered. “would you mind cutting it up downstairs?”
i smiled, and said, “if you like, sir, i’ll carve it.”
“oh, thank you so much,” he said; “i’m such a bad carver.”
i took the chicken on to the side-table, and cut it up for them; and from that minute both their spirits rose. i’m sure that chicken had been on their minds from the moment they ordered it.
they had a bottle of champagne with their dinner; and to follow the chicken i had made a fruit tart, and they both said it was beautiful, and they ate it all. i told them i made it myself, and the young lady said it was very clever of me, and asked me how to make pastry as light as that. i told her my way, and they got quite friendly, and asked me about the hotel, and how long i’d been there; and then i told them how i’d lived in service; and then the young lady asked me how long i’d been married, and all the shyness wore off, and they began to laugh quite merrily; and the young gentleman, when he heard harry was a sailor, said he hoped he should see something of him, as sailors were jolly fellows.{77}
after they’d had some tea, i said to harry, “harry, i shall take them up our visitors’ book that we’ve bought. they’re our first customers since we’ve had it, and must put their names in for us.”
we bought that visitors’ book after the burglar had stayed with us that we’d never asked his name, because harry said we must always ask people’s names in future, and you can do it in a nicer way by saying, “please enter your name in the visitors’ book.”
i got the book, and was going upstairs with it, when harry said, “wait a minute. won’t it be better to write a few names in first? p’r’aps they won’t like to be the first, being on a honeymoon; it will be so conspicuous, and everybody who comes afterwards will see their names, being the first, and they mightn’t like it.”
that was quite true, and i understood what harry meant; so, not to be deceitful and write false names, i wrote my maiden name first, and then harry wrote h. beckett, and i went into the bar and got mr. wilkins, who had just come in, to write his name, and then we put the names of some of the people who came in of an evening.
when i went in, the young lady was sitting in the arm-chair reading a book out loud, and the young gentleman was smoking a cigar, sitting by the table, listening to her.
“if you please, sir,” i said, “will you kindly write your names in our visitors’ book?”
if i’d asked them to come to prison they couldn’t have looked more terrified. i saw both their faces change in a moment, the young lady’s going quite white, and the young gentleman’s quite red.
his hand trembled as he took the cigar out of his mouth. but he recovered himself in a moment, and said, “certainly—with pleasure.”
i gave him the book, and put the pen and ink by him, and i saw him exchange glances with the young lady, as much as to say, “don’t be frightened. i’ll manage it.”
then he took the pen and wrote in a bold, distinct hand, “mr. and mrs. smith, from london.”
“thank you,” i said; and took the book and went downstairs.{78}
“harry,” i said, “there’s something wrong upstairs.”
“good gracious!” he said; “whatever do you mean?”
“i don’t know what i mean,” i said; “but that young gentleman has signed a false name in our visitors’ book.”
harry looked grave for a minute, and he didn’t like the idea any more than i did, and i felt so sorry that there should be anything that might be wrong, because i had taken to the young lady and gentleman so much, and they seemed so very nice.
presently harry said, “perhaps it’s a runaway match.”
“no,” i said, “i don’t think so, because of the luggage and the dressing-bags.”
“oh, they might have had them all ready,” he said; “if people are going to run away they can have luggage.”
“they are so young,” i said; “it—it can’t be anything worse than that, can it?”
“oh no,” said harry, “i’m sure it’s not. come, cheer up, little woman; don’t let’s get frightened because we’ve had one bad lot in the house! nice hotel-keepers we shall be if we’re going to be nervous about everybody that puts up at the ‘stretford arms!’”
i tried to laugh, but i didn’t feel comfortable, and all that night i kept thinking about it, and in the morning, when i took the breakfast up to the sitting-room, i think they saw by my manner that i suspected something, and they both looked very uncomfortable.
we didn’t talk at all. i only just said “good morning,” and i put the eggs and bacon on the table and left them.
about ten o’clock they went out for a walk, and i went upstairs to see that the rooms had been properly tidied up by the housemaid.
when i went into the bedroom the first thing that caught my eye was the young gentleman’s dressing-bag. it was closed, and the waterproof cover was over it, but not fastened.
i lifted it off the chair on which it stood, to put it on the chest of drawers while the chair was dusted, and as i did so the waterproof flap flew back, and i saw that there were three initials stamped on the leather, and the initials were “t. c. k.{79}”
“i knew it!” i exclaimed; and i rushed downstairs and told harry.
“if his surname begins with k, it’s certain his name isn’t smith,” said harry.
“i don’t want you to tell me that!” i said, a little sharply. “i do know how to spell. what i do want to know is what we are going to do?”
“how do you mean?”
“how do i mean! i suppose we are not going to let people stay at our hotel under false names after the lesson we’ve had with the london physician.”
harry looked puzzled.
“well, my dear,” he said, “i haven’t much experience yet, and i don’t know. i suppose as long as people pay their bill and behave themselves, they can stay under what name they choose. besides,” he said, his face brightening, and being evidently struck with an idea, “people do travel nowadays under false names. the queen, when she travels, calls herself the countess of something or other, and so do many crowned heads.”
“perhaps they do,” i said; “but you don’t want me to believe that we’ve got crowned heads staying in our house.”
“no,” said harry, laughing, “i’m sure they’re not crowned heads, but they may be big swells who are travelling in—in something.”
“incognito, you mean.”
i knew the word from a story i’d read with that title to it.
“yes, that’s it. perhaps they’re a young earl and countess.”
“no, they’re not, or they’d have coronets all over their bags, and on their brushes.”
while we were talking, the young couple came in, and went up to their sitting-room and rang the bell.
i went up, and they ordered luncheon. while i was taking the order, harry came up and called me out of the room.
“here’s a telegram for mr. smith,” he said; “somebody knows him by that name, at any rate.”
i took the telegram in and handed it to the young gentleman. the young lady, who was sitting down,{80} jumped up and watched him with a frightened look in her eyes as he tore the envelope open.
he read the telegram, and sank down on to the sofa.
“i’ve an important telegram,” he stammered. “we must go home at once: somebody ill. let me have my bill. what time’s the next train to london?”
i looked at the clock.
“in half an hour, sir,” i said.
“order a fly to the door, then. we shall be ready. pack your things, dear,” he said to the young lady; and then, turning to me, “let me have the bill at once.”
this new turn worried me more than anything. there was evidently something very wrong. harry agreed with me, and we both felt glad they were going.
i took up the bill, and he paid it, and said he was sorry to have to go, and he gave me half-a-sovereign, saying, “for the servants,” and then he and the young lady went downstairs and got into the fly.
i noticed that she had a thick veil on, but i could see she had been crying and was trembling like an aspen leaf.
when they had driven off, i said to harry, “thank goodness they’re gone! it’s quite a load off my mind.”
“well,” he said, “it’s a rum go. we’ve been trying all we know to get people to come to our house, and when they do come we’re jolly glad to get rid of them.”
i didn’t answer him, but i never got mr. and mrs. smith out of my head all that afternoon, and i made up my mind they’d be a mystery to me for the rest of my life.
but they were not.
that very afternoon, just as we were sitting down to tea, two gentlemen drove up in the station fly, and one of them came in and asked to see the landlord.
harry came out to him, and i followed.
“have you had a young gentleman and lady staying here lately?”
“yes, sir,” i said, beginning to tremble, for i expected something dreadful was coming. “yes, sir; they came yesterday.”
“are they here now?”
“no, sir, they left this afternoon.{81}”
the gentleman said something—it was only one word, but it meant a good deal. he said “d——!”
“if you please, sir, is there anything wrong about them?” i asked, feeling that i must know the truth.
“wrong? i should think there was!” the gentleman yelled out—he really did yell it. “i’m that young lady’s guardian, and she’s a ward in chancery, and that young scoundrel’s married her without my consent—without the lord chancellor’s consent—and he’ll spend his honeymoon in holloway. that’s what’s wrong.”
“oh dear!” i said. “poor young gentleman!”
“poor young gentleman;” the old gentleman yelled. “d——d young scoundrel! the girl’s got ten thousand a year, and he’s the beggarly youngest son of a beggarly baronet, who has to work for his living. did they say where they were going?”
“no, sir,” i said.
it was a little white story, but i couldn’t find it in my heart to say “to london,” for fear it might be true. i wasn’t going to help to send a handsome young gentleman to prison for marrying his sweetheart and taking her away from that horrid court of chancery, which, judging by the outside, must be a dreadful place for a young girl to be brought up in.
the old gentleman swore a little more, then he jumped into the fly again, said something to the other old gentleman, and drove off again back to the station.
“i hope they won’t be caught,” i said to harry. “poor young things! how dreadful to be hunted about on their honeymoon, and the poor young lady to be always dreaming that her husband is being seized and dragged away from her and put into prison.”
* * * * *
about a week after that harry was reading the paper, when suddenly he shouted out, “they’re caught!”
“oh, harry, no!” i said. i knew what he meant.
“yes, they are!”
then he read me the account. the young gentleman, mr. thomas c. kenyon, was brought before the lord chancellor. he was arrested at dover just as they were going on board the steamer for france. our hotel was{82} mentioned as one of the places they’d been traced to, but, though it was another advertisement, we didn’t want it at that price—we’d had enough of newspaper advertisement of that sort; and the young gentleman was ordered to be imprisoned.
oh, how my heart ached for that dear young lady when i read that! harry said it was an infernal shame, and i said so too, only i didn’t say the word harry did.
there was a lot of talk at our bar about it, and it made the bar trade brisk for some time—lots of people coming in from the village to have a glass and ask about the case who didn’t use our house as a rule; but i could have thrown something at that mrs. goose, who came in, of course, and said right out before everybody, “my dear, you ought to keep a policeman on the premises to take up the people who come to stay with you.”
but some time afterwards we heard that the young gentleman had been released, having apologized, and having got his friends and the young lady’s friends to try and melt the lord chancellor’s heart, or whatever a lord chancellor has in the place of one; and that evening harry opened three bottles of champagne, and invited all our regular customers to join him in drinking long life and happiness to the first young couple who had stayed at our hotel, mr. and mrs. kenyon—or, as they were always called at the ‘stretford arms,’ “mr. and mrs. smith.”
* * * * *
they came to see us soon after the young gentleman was released. they came and stayed with us, and had their old rooms; but they weren’t shy or bashful this time, but, oh, so nice!—and they said they would do all they could to recommend us, and they did. in fact, we owe a great deal to them, and they were very lucky customers to us after all. this time they brought a beautiful victoria with them, and a pair of lovely horses and a coachman and a groom. our stabling was just ready, so we were able to take them in, and they drove about the place, and were the admiration of the village, and it’s wonderful how harry and i went up in the estimation of the inhabitants of the place through our having carriage company staying at our hotel.{83}
when “mr. and mrs. smith” left they shook hands heartily with harry and with me, and they told us——
* * * * *
met our pony galloping down the lane? why, he’s in the stable! the door’s open? oh, that boy! i’ve told him twenty times what would happen. harry, put on your hat and go after him at once. the pony’s got loose, and he’s galloping down the lane as hard as he can go.
