A Search For A Secret: A Novel. Volume 3

For some time neither of us offered any suggestion, for we knew very little indeed about the suburbs of London. At last I said, "I think Harry I should like to be somewhere near the river, if that would suit you as well as any other side of London. When we were at Grendon House, we used to go up the river to Kew in a steamer, once or twice every summer, on the Miss Pilgrims' birthdays, and grand occasions of that sort, and I remember I used to think to myself, that if I were to live in London, I should like it to be near the river."

"Just the very thing I should have proposed, if you had no decided preference for any other part," Harry said. "I have lately joined the 'Metropolitan Rowing Club,' which was started about a year since. It is held at Putney, and Putney would suit me very well for business, for I can get up by train in twenty minutes, as early of a morning as I like. Yes, that will do capitally for us all."

So to Putney it was unanimously settled we should go.

"And now, girls, when will you leave here?"

"The sooner the better, Harry," Polly said, eagerly; and I agreed with her, for I really dreaded being by our two selves in that rambling old house, where every room, every piece of furniture, every act of our daily life would bring back some association of him who was gone.

"How long can you stay, Harry?"

"Not beyond Saturday, Agnes – five more days. Pellat has written to me saying that, although of course under the circumstances he does not wish to hurry me, still that I am greatly wanted; and I answered him to-day saying that I could not possibly get away before, but that I would be at work on Monday morning."

"Do you mean to sell the furniture, or move it, Harry?"

"Sell it, my dear; it will be of no use to us: it is all very old, and would hardly pay for the carriage. Of course those things which have any particular association we will take with us."

"Do you think there would be any possibility of our going up with you on Saturday, Harry?" Polly asked, anxiously. "I should not mind how hard I worked, if we could but do it; don't you think we could?"

"Well, Polly, I don't know that there is any absolute reason against it, if you work very hard, and get everything packed up; of course I will help you. To-morrow morning I am going to speak to Dr. Hooper. He has written to me saying that he should be glad to take the lease of the house of me. There are only three more years to run. I answered him that I would let him know to-morrow; but of course I could give no decided answer till I knew what your plans would be."

"I suppose if we can get ready to go up with you, Harry, we could go into lodgings at Putney, till we find a house to suit us?"

"Certainly, Polly, that will be what we must do."

"I can tell you of some lodgings," I said. "I have the address upstairs."

I accordingly went up at once to the drawer where I kept all my old pocket-books. I found the one for the year when we had been at Ramsgate, and there in pencil, as I had written it down when the old bathing-woman told me of it, was her daughter's address at Putney. I went down with it triumphantly, and found them wondering where I could have got the address of lodgings at Putney. However, I explained the matter to them, and although, as Harry said, she might have moved long since, we agreed at any rate to try there first, as it was much pleasanter to have some fixed place to go to, than to drive about vaguely looking for lodgings.

The next morning we girls set to work at our packing, and at luncheon Harry came in with the welcome news, that he had arranged everything most satisfactorily with Dr. Hooper.

Dr. Hooper was at present living in a furnished house, and he had gladly agreed to take all our furniture at a valuation, and also the carriage and horses, and to continue old Andrew as coachman – at any rate, for the present; and Harry, on his part, agreed to ask very little for the lease of the house, which we held on favourable terms for three years longer. This was a very good arrangement, as it saved us all further trouble; and it was more pleasant to think of the old house remaining as it had been during our time, which we could not have done had the furniture been put up and sold by auction. I have no doubt that it suited Dr. Hooper equally well, as it was a very large, roomy house, at a moderate rent, and the good-will, although not worth much, was still an advantage to any medical man taking the house.

That afternoon we went through the house, and decided on the few articles we should like to keep. The next day a valuer came in, and on Friday morning Dr. Hooper gave Harry a cheque for £500, which was, with the exception of £70 or £80, which some of the richer of papa's patients owed him, all that Harry ever received as his share of the property.

That four days we were dreadfully busy – what with packing, and seeing all our friends who came in to say good-bye; but on Saturday we had finished, bade farewell to Canterbury, and started by the one o'clock train for London.

CHAPTER II

A QUIET TIME

It was dusk when we got to Putney. We had left all our heavy baggage, to be sent up after us when we should have got into a house, and had brought up only what we should require for the present. We got into one of the rickety-looking flies standing at the station, and told the man to drive us to No. 12, Charlemagne Villas. We were soon there, and in the uncertain light we could see that it was a little detached house standing in a garden, and cut off from its neighbours and the road by a wall.

The driver got down and rang at the bell, and the gate, or rather the door in the wall, was opened by a small servant-girl.

"Does Mrs. Thompson live here?"

"Yes, ma'am; will you walk in?"

Very pleased to find that the object of our search still lived there, Polly and I got out of the fly and went in; while Harry, who said he hated this sort of thing, stopped outside to look after the boxes.

We were shown into a pretty little drawing-room, where the servant drew down the blind and lighted the gas, and in a minute or two a brisk little woman came in and said —

"My name is Thompson, ma'am; did you wish to see me?"

"Yes, Mrs. Thompson: some four years ago I was at Ramsgate, and when there I struck up a great acquaintance with your mother. She gave me your address, and I said that if ever I came to London I would come to you. Do you still let lodgings, and are they vacant?"

"I do, ma'am," Mrs. Thompson said, "and shall be only too glad to let them to any one whom mother recommended them to. If you had come two months later I might have been full, but my season does not begin till April, so we are quite empty at present."

A bargain was soon made with her, and Mrs. Thompson went to the top of the stairs and called "Mother," and, to my great surprise, the old bathing-woman herself came up. She knew me at once.

"Miss Ashleigh!" she exclaimed. "Oh, miss, I am so glad to see you. Do you know it is only ten days ago, when I saw your loss in the paper, that I said to Jane: 'Now, Jane, I should not be surprised if Miss Ashleigh comes up to town; every one does seem to come up here some time or other in their lives – perhaps this is her time.' And I said, miss, that I should take the liberty of writing to you in a few days, in case you might be coming up. I remembered I had given you Jane's address, but I thought you would have lost that long since. It is very kind of you to have thought of what an old woman said so long ago."

"Not kind at all," I said, "I was very glad to think that there was a place I seemed to know something of, and as I wrote the address down in my pocket-book at the time, I had no trouble in finding it. Have you given up your old occupation?"

"No, miss, but it is not the season now, and only one of us waits on through the winter, and as I begin to find the water then too cold for my old limbs, I have given it up these last two winters, and come here and stop with Jane and her husband."

Our landlady now took us upstairs. Our room was a nice large one, over the drawing room. Harry's was behind ours, smaller, but quite large enough for him, and both were beautifully clean and nice.

While tea was getting ready, we unpacked as much as we could, and in half an hour, when Harry's voice was heard shouting at the foot of the stairs that tea was ready, we were quite astonished to find how much we had done, and how nearly we had finished our unpacking and putting away. The room below looked so comfortable that we could not help exclaiming with surprise and pleasure when we went in. A bright fire blazed in the grate, various gauze covers which had been placed over the chimney glass and picture frames, had been taken off. A white table-cloth was laid on the table, with a very pretty tea service upon it. Harry had made the tea, and the bright copper kettle was standing on the fire. I don't know when I enjoyed a meal so much – it seemed so homelike and comfortable that we were all quite in spirits, and certainly all very hungry; and we agreed that it was most fortunate that I had kept the old bathing-woman's address.

We were very comfortable at Mrs. Thompson's; indeed, we could not have been more so in our own house, and we almost debated whether we should not stay as we were. Still, after all, there is nothing like being in a house of one's own; and it would give Polly and me something to do to see after the housekeeping. Besides, Harry said that he wanted a place where he could have men in of an evening to have a glass of grog and smoke a pipe with him; for, although he did not mind smoking when alone with us, he said he did not wish the room where his sisters were to look like the bar parlour in a public-house.

On the Monday after we got there, Harry went up to work. Sometimes he went to an office at the West End, and on these days we breakfasted at half-past seven, which was rather a hardship; still it would cease to be one in another month, when the mornings got lighter and the weather warmer; and it could not be helped, as Harry had to catch the ten minutes past eight train, so as to be at his office by nine. Sometimes he had to go out surveying, and on these mornings he had to start very early – soon after six. When he did this, we did not get up to breakfast with him, but he had some bread and butter taken up to his room overnight, and he made a cup of coffee in a patent machine over a spirit-lamp.

After we had been in Putney about a week, and began to know the place a little, Harry asked us to look about for a house. We were not long in finding one, for Polly and I had observed a pretty little place to let within a hundred yards of us, which we both agreed would suit exactly; and now, having Harry's permission to look for a house, we at once went there.

We found that it was just what we wanted; indeed, that it could not have been more so if it had been specially built for the purpose. It was one of a row of six little semi-detached villas – at least they were called villas – but I think the word cottages would have been more appropriate. They stood back from the road, with pretty flower gardens in front, and a good large piece of ground behind for vegetables. A row of lime-trees grew in the gardens close to the road, the branches of which were trained towards each other, so that they formed a green wall in summer, and it was only through the arch cut over each gate that the houses could then be seen at all by passers-by. It was just the right size, and was altogether a charming little place, and the rent was £35 a year.

Harry stopped at home the next morning an hour behind his usual time, to go in with us to see it. He was as much pleased with it as we were, and at once decided upon taking it. It was a few days before he could spare time to give a day with us in town to buy the furniture; but in just a month from the date of our arrival in Putney we were snugly installed in our new home, which was called No. 1, Daisy Villas, Charlemagne Road; and comfortable as we had been at Mrs. Thompson's, we all agreed it was far pleasanter being in a house of our own. Harry had furnished the drawing-room very nicely, and bought a piano as a joint present for Polly and myself.

We had promised old Andrew that directly we were in a house of our own we would have up his youngest daughter Susan, who had been with us for a year before we left Canterbury, as our servant; and, accordingly, when we had taken the cottage, and the furniture came in, we sent for Susan, who arrived in due course, and was installed as our maid-of-all-work; and an excellent servant she turned out.

On the opposite side of the road to us was a large field, which had as yet escaped the builder's hands, and which was in autumn and winter used as a playground for the children of the neighbourhood, and in spring and summer was shut up, and kept for hay. Before we left, however, a builder had began to erect a line of villas opposite to us, but for the first two years there was nothing to interfere with our view; and even afterwards it did not matter so much, for, as I have said, in summer our lime-trees formed such a leafy screen that we could not see beyond our bright little flower garden.

We liked Putney very much. Polly and I were capital walkers, and there were such pretty walks to be taken round it – up the hill, and across the common to Wimbledon, or on nearly to Kingston, or across Putney heath, through Barnes, to Mortlake and Kew, or – best of all – through the green lanes to Richmond Park, with its groups of splendid trees, its brown fern brakes, and fallow-deer; and sometimes, when it was fine and the water was high, along the towing-path to Hammersmith, to watch the barges drifting lazily on the quiet water, and the steamboats, full of holiday-makers to Kew, cleaving their swift way through it.

I certainly got to like Putney, with its quaint High Street, its noble river, and its pretty walks, very very much – not in the same way that I loved Canterbury. Canterbury, with its quiet, sleepy ways, is far better suited to me as I am now; but as I was then, I thought Putney a delightful place to live in. It was, too, such a convenient distance from town, and once a week Polly and I used to walk across the bridge, get into an omnibus, and go as far as the Circus, and then get out and walk up Regent Street and Oxford Street, and look at the shops.

It was not always that we had shopping to do, although we generally managed to want something, as a sort of excuse for going; but we both enjoyed it much, it was all so new to us; for we had never been in London at all, except at the time when we were at school – and then, of course, we never went up into London itself, and when we were staying respectively with Lady Desborough and Ada, when we were very much too grand to go out shopping on foot. So that the shops, and the gay carriages, and the bustle and confusion were all quite new, and very pleasant to us.

Sometimes of an evening, when Harry got back in good time, he would take us up to the theatre, at which he occasionally had a box given him by a friend in the "Metropolitan." Being in deep mourning, we could not go into any other part of the house; nor, indeed, did we go at all for the first six months of our stay in London.

After we had been in our new home about a fortnight, I wrote to tell Ada where we were. I had not done so before, because I did not wish her to come down to see us till we were quite straight, and had everything very nice: it was a little bit of pride, perhaps, but so it was. I had received a letter from her a week after dear papa's death, condoling with us, and asking Polly and me to go and stay with her for a while, when we felt equal to it, until our future plans were settled; and I had written back, thanking her, and telling her I would let her know when things were arranged. After that, I had not sent my usual monthly letter to her, but, as I had written myself to Percy, that did not matter. The day before I wrote, I had received a letter from her, which was forwarded from Canterbury, asking what had become of me, and this I now answered by giving our present address, and saying how pleased we should be to see her.

By this time it was the end of April; the season happened to be an early one, and our garden was gay with spring flowers, with which we had stocked it from a nursery close by, and the lime-trees in front were just putting out their delicate green leaves.

On the very day after I had written to Ada, an open carriage with a splendid pair of horses stopped in front of our house, and a tall powdered footman got down, opened the gate and came down the little walk, with a rather mystified air, as if wondering what his mistress could possibly want at No. 1, Daisy Villas.