Uncanny Tales

"It can't be helped now," said Helen, "but I wish I had not proposed it."

The afternoon seemed long and dull, and yet Helen felt sorry when it began to close in, for no Edith had yet appeared. Still it was not later than they had been out together more than once. Helen tried to think it was not yet dusk outside, but felt this comfort fail her when it gradually grew so indisputably dark that Mrs. Jones brought in candles without her asking for them.

"Are you not uneasy about my sister and Griffith, Mrs. Jones?" said Helen; but her anxiety was tenfold increased when Mrs. Jones replied calmly: —

"Griffith is not with the young lady to-day. I had to send him a message to Llanfair, and as like as not he will stay at his uncle's till the morning. The young lady said it did not matter, and I saddled the pony for her myself."

"Griffith not with her!" exclaimed Helen. "Oh, Mrs. Jones, what will become of her?"

"Don't be alarmed, miss," said the old woman, "the pony is very steady, and the darkness comes on so sudden-like, it seems later than it is."

And with this scanty consolation Helen was obliged to remain satisfied. Mrs. Jones stirred up the fire and set the tea all ready, but Helen grew sick at heart as the time went on, and still no Edith. Six, struck the clock, and ticked on again to seven. Helen could bear it no longer.

"Mrs. Jones," cried she, "can you not get any one to go to look for my sister? She may be on her way down the hill, and have got into some difficulty with the pony."

"Indeed, miss, I don't know what I can do. There's no one nearer than old Thomas and he can't move."

"The strange gentleman!" said Helen suddenly; "your other lodger. Would he not help me?"

"He has been out since early this morning," replied Mrs. Jones, "and he told me he was not sure of being back to-night. He has gone to meet a friend."

Helen felt more in despair than before. It seemed an aggravation of her anxiety to have to lie still on the sofa doing nothing. Indeed had she been able to do so, nothing would have prevented her making her way to the Black Lake, and too probably losing her own life in the endeavour to save her sister's. As it was, she managed at last to drag herself to the door in hopes of hearing footsteps up the path, but nothing broke the silence save the tick, tick of the clock. It wore on to nine, despite her wretchedness and indescribable anxiety. She pictured to herself her sister, her dear little Edith, left so specially in her charge, cowering on the moor, alone in that dreary darkness, sobbing in despair of ever finding her way out of that frightful desert. Or, worse still, lying cold and dead in one of those fearful pits under the mockingly beautiful moss; whence, in all probability, her poor body even would never be recovered. It was too frightful. Helen almost shrieked aloud: "Oh, my darling, my little sister, come back, do come back. Oh, Malcolm, if only you were here. How terribly I am punished for my self-will!" And terribly punished she was, for the memory of that night's suffering was too painful to recall in after years without a shudder. Mrs. Jones was in helpless distress, though in hopes of every moment hearing the pony and the young lady at the gate, and she returned to her own domains saying she had better have hot water ready as Miss Edith would be fainting for her tea. Helen remained alone at the window of the sitting-room.

The night was fine but very dark. Darker than she had ever seen a night before, it seemed to Helen. She was almost in a stupor of despair. She sank down half-unconsciously before the fire and never knew how long she had lain there when she was roused by the clock striking. "One, two, three, four," – she counted aloud as if bewitched, till when it got to the fatal thirteen, her over-strained nerves gave way, and with a scream she ran or stumbled, she knew not how, along the passage to seek for Mrs. Jones. As she passed the front-door she was arrested by the sharp sounds of steps coming quickly up the garden path. The door was pushed open. The only light was what came through the open door of the room she had just left, and she could distinguish nothing but a tall dark figure hurrying towards her. She screamed with terror but stood, unable to move, when to her intense relief a voice from behind the person she saw, exclaimed eagerly: "Helen, dearest Helen, don't be frightened. I am quite safe," and some one rushed past the tall person, now close to her, and kissing her passionately, Helen felt, rather than saw, that it was Edith.

"Malcolm! Malcolm! she is fainting!" called Edith, and the tall person pressed forward, caught her up in his arms like a baby, and, unconscious now of everything, Helen was carried back into the sitting-room, laid on the hard little sofa, and there held tenderly by the strong yet gentle arms whose protecting care she, poor foolish child, had fancied she could so well dispense with.

It was the first time in her life that Helen Beaumont had ever fainted, and it was not long before she began to recover.

"Malcolm! oh, Malcolm!" were her first words on returning consciousness (and it seemed to her afterwards as if some one else had spoken them for her, her good angel perhaps!), "can you ever forgive me?"

"My darling," was the whispered answer, "you know you need not ask it." And then Helen felt as if she were just going to die, but was too happy to care, and too languid to ask even how all this had come about. But now a third person came forward saying: —

"Malcolm, let me stay beside her," and, wonderful to tell, the sweet voice and kind face were Mrs. Lindsay's. Helen thought she must be dreaming, but lay still as she was told, and then drank something or other Mrs. Lindsay brought her; so before long she was able to sit up and begin to wonder what was the meaning of it all.

"Are you not amazed, Helen?" said Edith; "but first of all you must forgive me for frightening you so, for indeed I have been nearly as wretched as you, thinking of what you must have been feeling." And before Helen could reply the eager girl ran on with her explanations. "Who do you think has been our fellow-lodger all this time, Helen? Who do you think is the 'strange gentleman'? Only fancy Malcolm's having been here ever since we came! It was he that travelled by the same train, and seeing as it moved off at Llanfar that we had got out, he did so at the next station, and arrived here before us. He had inquired about Mrs. Jones, and heard what a good creature she was; and he had time to have a talk with her, and to take her to some extent into his confidence."

Helen looked at first, as this recital went on, as if she were wavering between a return to her old dislike to being interfered with, and gratitude to Malcolm for his undeserved devotion. The good angel triumphed, as Malcolm, who was watching her anxiously, quickly perceived.

"I did not interfere with you, Helen," he said in a low voice, "but it was the greatest comfort to me to be able to protect and care for you, even though you did not know it."

The tears started to Helen's eyes.

"Oh, Malcolm, I know how good you are, but – "

"Never mind any 'buts,'" said Mrs. Lindsay brightly, catching the last word. "'All's well, that ends well.'"

"I know now who foraged for us so successfully," said Edith. "Who was the mysterious friend that gave Mrs. Jones the mushrooms!"

"And nearly betrayed myself by laughing at the door, when passing I heard Helen's enthusiastic thanks to Mrs. Jones," said Malcolm.

"Yes, and frightened me horribly by so doing," added Helen, "as I really began to think that clock was bewitched, and had a special ill-will against me. In fact it took the place of my conscience for the time being."

"I have the very greatest regard for the clock," said Malcolm demurely, "and I intend to make Mrs. Jones an offer for it forthwith."

"Please don't," said Helen piteously. "I daresay it is very silly, but I really don't quite like that clock, though, after all, its warning of ill-luck has brought the very reverse to me. But I have not heard yet what kept Edith out so late, or how in the world you and Mrs. Lindsay met her at the Black Lake."

"The Black Lake?" said Mrs. Lindsay, "what do you mean?"

Whereupon Edith hastened on with that part of her story relating to her own adventures. She, it appeared, feeling confident in Mrs. Lindsay's ready kindness, and never doubting but what she would at once respond to her appeal by coming to nurse Helen, instead of going to the Black Lake to sketch, as Helen imagined, set off on the pony to meet her friend at the station, having proposed to her to come by a certain train. Overtaking Griffith on the road to Llanfair, as she expected from Mrs. Jones's account, he accompanied her to the village, where she gave over the pony to his care. As she entered the station she saw a return train about to start for the Junction about half an hour's journey from where she was. Finding by her watch that she was in ample time, it struck her that she might as well go so far to meet her friend, but on arriving at the Junction she was startled to find that with the new month a change had taken place in the trains, and that consequently Mrs. Lindsay could not arrive till late in the evening. Worse still she herself could not now get back to Helen till she was frightened to think what hour, the evening train in question not going farther than Llanfar, the station near the Junction at which she and her sister had by mistake got out on their arrival, and which was fifteen miles from the Black Nest. It is needless to describe her distress of mind all the long hours she had to sit in the little waiting-room at the Junction; or her corresponding delight when, on the train coming up, she descried looking out of a window the familiar face of Malcolm Willoughby, and found that he was accompanied by his sister whom he had gone to meet half-way on her journey.

Helen woke at noon the next day feeling indescribably happy, she could not tell why till the sight of Mrs. Lindsay's sweet face recalled to her mind all her misery of the night before and the relief and happiness with which it had ended.

"How little I deserve it!" thought she humbly and gratefully, "and how can I ever repay Malcolm for his goodness?"

Their dull little parlour looked very different now that it was enlivened by the presence of the two newcomers; and Helen could scarcely believe it to be the same room in which, but yesterday, she had passed hours of such agonising suspense. So thoroughly penitent and softened did she feel that she offered no opposition to anything proposed, and it was therefore arranged that as soon as Helen was well enough to travel they should all return home together to relieve poor Aunt Fanny's anxiety.

"I wonder," said Helen, with a little sigh, a few days afterwards, when they were packing up their painting materials, "I wonder if I shall ever finish my sketch of the Black Lake."

"I don't like to make rash promises," said Malcolm, "but if somebody I know is very good perhaps next summer she may see the Black Lake again, provided she will neither catch cold nor tumble off her pony."

Edith laughed and Helen blushed.

"But there's one thing still," said Edith, "which I don't understand. Why, Malcolm, did you always shut your door as the clock struck thirteen?"

"Very simply explained," replied he. "The first night I was here I was sitting up reading till midnight and thought I heard it strike thirteen. I thought it very odd, and for a night or two I listened till it began to strike and then opened my door to make sure I was not mistaken. And one night I went out with my candle to examine the clock, trying to make out the cause of it, and to see if I could put it right. No man, they say, can resist meddling with a clock even though he is no mechanical genius."

"All the same," said Edith triumphantly, "notwithstanding your examinations, you and no one else can tell the reason why that clock does strike thirteen."

THE END