The Uninhabited House by Mrs. J. H. Riddell

M >> Mrs. J. H. Riddell >> The Uninhabited House

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There were some who thought, if Mrs. Elmsdale could tolerate her
sister's company, she might without difficulty have condoned her
husband's want of acquaintance with some points of grammar and
etiquette; and who said, amongst themselves, that whereas he only
maltreated, Miss Blake mangled every letter in the alphabet; but these
carping critics were in the minority.

Mrs. Elmsdale was a beauty, and a martyr; Mr. Elmsdale a rough beast,
who had no capacity of ever developing into a prince. Miss Blake was a
model of sisterly affection, and if eccentric in her manner, and
bewildering in the vagaries of her accent, well, most Irish people, the
highest in rank not excepted, were the same. Why, there was Lord
So-and-so, who stated at a public meeting that "roight and moight were
not always convartible tarms"; and accepted the cheers and laughter
which greeted his utterance as evidence that he had said something
rather neat.

Miss Blake's accent was a very different affair indeed from those
wrestles with his foe in which her brother-in-law always came off
worsted. He endured agonies in trying to call himself Elmsdale, and
rarely succeeded in styling his wife anything except Mrs. HE. I am told
Miss Blake's mimicry of this peculiarity was delicious: but I never was
privileged to hear her delineation, for, long before the period when
this story opens, Mr. Elmsdale had departed to that land where no
confusion of tongues can much signify, and where Helmsdale no doubt
served his purpose just as well as Miss Blake's more refined
pronunciation of his name.

Further, Miss Helena Elmsdale would not allow a word in depreciation of
her father to be uttered when she was near, and as Miss Helena could on
occasion develop a very pretty little temper, as well as considerable
power of satire, Miss Blake dropped out of the habit of ridiculing Mr.
Elmsdale's sins of omission and commission, and contented herself by
generally asserting that, as his manner of living had broken her poor
sister's heart, so his manner of dying had broken her--Miss
Blake's--heart.

"It is only for the sake of the orphan child I am able to hold up at
all," she would tell us. "I would not have blamed him so much for
leaving us poor, but it was hard and cruel to leave us disgraced into
the bargain"; and then Miss Blake would weep, and the wag of the office
would take out his handkerchief and ostentatiously wipe his eyes.

She often threatened to complain of that boy--a merry, mischievous young
imp--to Mr. Craven; but she never did so. Perhaps because the clerks
always gave her rapt attention; and an interested audience was very
pleasant to Miss Blake.

Considering the nature of Mr. Elmsdale's profession, Miss Blake had
possibly some reason to complain of the extremely unprofitable manner in
which he cut up. He was what the lady described as "a dirty
money-lender."

Heaven only knows how he drifted into his occupation; few men, I
imagine, select such a trade, though it is one which seems to exercise
an enormous fascination for those who have adopted it.

The only son of a very small builder who managed to leave a few hundred
pounds behind him for the benefit of Elmsdale, then clerk in a
contractor's office, he had seen enough of the anxieties connected with
his father's business to wash his hands of bricks and mortar.

Experience, perhaps, had taught him also that people who advanced money
to builders made a very nice little income out of the capital so
employed; and it is quite possible that some of his father's
acquaintances, always in want of ready cash, as speculative folks
usually are, offered such terms for temporary accommodation as tempted
him to enter into the business of which Miss Blake spoke so
contemptuously.

Be this as it may, one thing is certain--by the time Elmsdale was thirty
he had established a very nice little connection amongst needy men:
whole streets were mortgaged to him; terraces, nominally the property of
some well-to-do builder, were virtually his, since he only waited the
well-to-do builder's inevitable bankruptcy to enter into possession. He
was not a sixty per cent man, always requiring some very much better
security than "a name" before parting with his money; but still even
twenty per cent, usually means ruin, and, as a matter of course, most of
Mr. Elmsdale's clients reached that pleasant goal.

They could have managed to do so, no doubt, had Mr. Elmsdale never
existed; but as he was in existence, he served the purpose for which it
seemed his mother had borne him; and sooner or later--as a rule, sooner
than later--assumed the shape of Nemesis to most of those who "did
business" with him.

There were exceptions, of course. Some men, by the help of exceptional
good fortune, roguery, or genius, managed to get out of Mr. Elmsdale's
hands by other paths than those leading through Basinghall or Portugal
Streets; but they merely proved the rule.

Notably amongst these fortunate persons may be mentioned a Mr. Harrison
and a Mr. Harringford--'Arrison and 'Arringford, as Mr. Elmsdale called
them, when he did not refer to them as the two Haitches.

Of these, the first-named, after a few transactions, shook the dust of
Mr. Elmsdale's office off his shoes, sent him the money he owed by his
lawyer, and ever after referred to Mr. Elmsdale as "that thief," "that
scoundrel," that "swindling old vagabond," and so forth; but, then,
hard words break no bones, and Mr. Harrison was not very well thought
of himself.

His remarks, therefore, did Mr. Elmsdale very little harm--a
money-lender is not usually spoken of in much pleasanter terms by those
who once have been thankful enough for his cheque; and the world in
general does not attach a vast amount of importance to the opinions of a
former borrower. Mr. Harrison did not, therefore, hurt or benefit his
quondam friend to any appreciable extent; but with Mr. Harringford the
case was different.

He and Elmsdale had been doing business together for years, "everything
he possessed in the world," he stated to an admiring coroner's jury
summoned to sit on Mr. Elmsdale's body and inquire into the cause of
that gentleman's death--"everything he possessed in the world, he owed
to the deceased. Some people spoke hardly of him, but his experience of
Mr. Elmsdale enabled him to say that a kinder-hearted, juster, honester,
or better-principled man never existed. He charged high interest,
certainly, and he expected to be paid his rate; but, then, there was no
deception about the matter: if it was worth a borrower's while to take
money at twenty per cent, why, there was an end of the matter. Business
men are not children," remarked Mr. Harringford, "and ought not to
borrow money at twenty per cent, unless they can make thirty per cent,
out of it." Personally, he had never paid Mr. Elmsdale more than twelve
and a half or fifteen per cent.; but, then, their transactions were on a
large scale. Only the day before Mr. Elmsdale's death--he hesitated a
little over that word, and became, as the reporters said, "affected"--he
had paid him twenty thousand pounds. The deceased told him he had urgent
need of the money, and at considerable inconvenience he raised the
amount. If the question were pressed as to whether he guessed for what
purpose that sum was so urgently needed, he would answer it, of course;
but he suggested that it should not be pressed, as likely to give pain
to those who were already in terrible affliction.

Hearing which, the jury pricked up their ears, and the coroner's
curiosity became so intense that he experienced some difficulty in
saying, calmly, that, "as the object of his sitting there was to elicit
the truth, however much he should regret causing distress to anyone, he
must request that Mr. Harringford, whose scruples did him honour, would
keep back no fact tending to throw light upon so sad an affair."

Having no alternative after this but to unburden himself of his secret,
Mr. Harringford stated that he feared the deceased had been a heavy
loser at Ascot. Mr. Harringford, having gone to that place with some
friends, met Mr. Elmsdale on the race-course. Expressing astonishment at
meeting him there, Mr. Elmsdale stated he had run down to look after a
client of his who he feared was going wrong. He said he did not much
care to do business with a betting man. In the course of subsequent
conversation, however, he told the witness he had some money on the
favourite.

As frequently proves the case, the favourite failed to come in first:
that was all Mr. Harringford knew about the matter. Mr. Elmsdale never
mentioned how much he had lost--in fact, he never referred again, except
in general terms, to their meeting. He stated, however, that he must
have money, and that immediately; if not the whole amount, half, at all
events. The witness found, however, he could more easily raise the
larger than the smaller sum. There had been a little unpleasantness
between him and Mr. Elmsdale with reference to the demand for money made
so suddenly and so peremptorily, and he bitterly regretted having even
for a moment forgotten what was due to so kind a friend.

He knew of no reason in the world why Mr. Elmsdale should have committed
suicide. He was, in business, eminently a cautious man, and Mr.
Harringford had always supposed him to be wealthy; in fact, he believed
him to be a man of large property. Since the death of his wife, he had,
however, noticed a change in him; but still it never crossed the
witness's mind that his brain was in any way affected.

Miss Blake, who had to this point postponed giving her evidence, on
account of the "way she was upset," was now able to tell a sympathetic
jury and a polite coroner all she knew of the matter.

"Indeed," she began, "Robert Elmsdale had never been the same man since
her poor sister's death; he mooned about, and would sit for half an
hour at a time, doing nothing but looking at a faded bit of the
dining-room carpet."

He took no interest in anything; if he was asked any questions about the
garden, he would say, "What does it matter? _she_ cannot see it now."

"Indeed, my lord," said Miss Blake, in her agitation probably
confounding the coroner with the chief justice, "it was just pitiful to
see the creature; I am sure his ways got to be heart-breaking."

"After my sister's death," Miss Blake resumed, after a pause, devoted by
herself, the jury, and the coroner to sentiment, "Robert Elmsdale gave
up his office in London, and brought his business home. I do not know
why he did this. He would not, had she been living, because he always
kept his trade well out of her sight, poor man. Being what she was, she
could not endure the name of it, naturally. It was not my place to say
he shouldn't do what he liked in his own house, and I thought the
excitement of building a new room, and quarrelling with the builder, and
swearing at the men, was good for him. He made a fireproof place for his
papers, and he fitted up the office like a library, and bought a
beautiful large table, covered with leather; and nobody to have gone in
would have thought the room was used for business. He had a Turkey
carpet on the floor, and chairs that slipped about on castors; and he
planned a covered way out into the road, with a separate entrance for
itself, so that none of us ever knew who went out or who came in. He
kept his affairs secret as the grave."

"No," in answer to the coroner, who began to think Miss Blake's
narrative would never come to an end. "I heard no shot: none of us
did: we all slept away from that part of the house; but I was restless
that night, and could not sleep, and I got up and looked out at the
river, and saw a flare of light on it. I thought it odd he was not
gone to bed, but took little notice of the matter for a couple of
hours more, when it was just getting gray in the morning, and I
looked out again, and still seeing the light, slipped on a
dressing-wrapper and my slippers, and ran downstairs to tell him he
would ruin his health if he did not go to his bed.

"When I opened the door I could see nothing; the table stood between me
and him; but the gas was flaring away, and as I went round to put it
out, I came across him lying on the floor. It never occurred to me he
was dead; I thought he was in a fit, and knelt down to unloose his
cravat, then I found he had gone.

"The pistol lay on the carpet beside him--and that," finished Miss
Blake, "is all I have to tell."

When asked if she had ever known of his losing money by betting, she
answered it was not likely he would tell her anything of that kind.

"He always kept his business to himself," she affirmed, "as is the way
of most men."

In answer to other questions, she stated she never heard of any losses
in business; there was plenty of money always to be had for the asking.
He was liberal enough, though perhaps not so liberal latterly, as before
his wife's death; she didn't know anything of the state of his affairs.
Likely, Mr. Craven could tell them all about that.

Mr. Craven, however, proved unable to do so. To the best of his belief,
Mr. Elmsdale was in very easy circumstances. He had transacted a large
amount of business for him, but never any involving pecuniary loss or
anxiety; he should have thought him the last man in the world to run
into such folly as betting; he had no doubt Mrs. Elmsdale's death had
affected him disastrously. He said more than once to witness, if it were
not for the sake of his child, he should not care if he died that night.

All of which, justifying the jury in returning a verdict of "suicide
while of unsound mind," they expressed their unanimous opinion to that
effect--thus "saving the family the condemnation of _felo de se_"
remarked Miss Blake.

The dead man was buried, the church service read over his remains, the
household was put into mourning, the blinds were drawn up, the windows
flung open, and the business of life taken up once more by the
survivors.

3. OUR LAST TENANT

It is quite competent for a person so to manage his affairs, that,
whilst understanding all about them himself, another finds it next to
impossible to make head or tail of his position.

Mr. Craven found that Mr. Elmsdale had effected this feat; entries there
were in his books, intelligible enough, perhaps, to the man who made
them, but as so much Hebrew to a stranger.

He had never kept a business banking account; he had no regular journal
or ledger; he seemed to have depended on memoranda, and vague and
uncertain writings in his diary, both for memory and accuracy; and as
most of his business had been conducted _viva voce_, there were few
letters to assist in throwing the slightest light on his transactions.

Even from the receipts, however, one thing was clear, viz., that he had,
since his marriage, spent a very large sum of money; spent it lavishly,
not to say foolishly. Indeed, the more closely Mr. Craven looked into
affairs, the more satisfied he felt that Mr. Elmsdale had committed
suicide simply because he was well-nigh ruined.

Mortgage-deeds Mr. Craven himself had drawn up, were nowhere to be
found; neither could one sovereign of the money Mr. Harringford paid be
discovered.

Miss Blake said she believed "that Harringford had never paid at all";
but this was clearly proved to be an error of judgment on the part of
that impulsive lady. Not merely did Harringford hold the receipt for the
money and the mortgage-deeds cancelled, but the cheque he had given to
the mortgagee bore the endorsement--"Robert Elmsdale"; while the clerk
who cashed it stated that Mr. Elmsdale presented the order in person,
and that to him he handed the notes.

Whatever he had done with the money, no notes were to be found; a
diligent search of the strong room produced nothing more important than
the discovery of a cash-box containing three hundred pounds; the
title-deeds of River Hall--such being the modest name by which Mr.
Elmsdale had elected to have his residence distinguished; the leases
relating to some small cottages near Barnes; all the letters his wife
had ever written to him; two locks of her hair, one given before
marriage, the other cut after her death; a curl severed from the head of
my "baby daughter"; quantities of receipts--and nothing more.

"I wonder he can rest in his grave," said Miss Blake, when at last she
began to realize, in a dim sort of way, the position of affairs.

According to the River Hall servants' version, Mr. Elmsdale did anything
rather than rest in his grave. About the time the new mourning had been
altered to fit perfectly, a nervous housemaid, who began perhaps to find
the house dull, mooted the question as to whether "master walked."

Within a fortnight it was decided in solemn conclave that master did;
and further, that the place was not what it had been; and moreover, that
in the future it was likely to be still less like what it had been.

There is a wonderful instinct in the lower classes, which enables them
to comprehend, without actual knowledge, when misfortune is coming upon
a house: and in this instance that instinct was not at fault.

Long before Mr. Craven had satisfied himself that his client's estate
was a very poor one, the River Hall servants, one after another, had
given notice to leave--indeed, to speak more accurately, they did not
give notice, for they left; and before they left they took care to
baptize the house with such an exceedingly bad name, that neither for
love nor money could Miss Blake get a fresh "help" to stay in it for
more than twenty-four hours.

First one housemaid was taken with "the shivers"; then the cook had "the
trembles"; then the coachman was prepared to take his solemn affidavit,
that, one night long after everyone in the house to his knowledge was in
bed, he "see from his room above the stables, a light a-shining on the
Thames, and the figures of one or more a passing and a repassing across
the blind." More than this, a new page-boy declared that, on a certain
evening, before he had been told there was anything strange about the
house, he heard the door of the passage leading from the library into
the side-road slam violently, and looking to see who had gone out by
that unused entrance, failed to perceive sign of man, woman, or child,
by the bright moonlight.

Moved by some feeling which he professed himself unable to "put a name
on," he proceeded to the door in question, and found it barred, chained,
and bolted. While he was standing wondering what it meant, he noticed
the light as of gas shining from underneath the library door; but when
he softly turned the handle and peeped in, the room was dark as the
grave, and "like cold water seemed running down his back."

Further, he averred, as he stole away into the hall, there was a sound
followed him as between a groan and a cry. Hearing which statement, an
impressionable charwoman went into hysterics, and had to be recalled to
her senses by a dose of gin, suggested and taken strictly as a medicine.

But no supply of spirituous liquors, even had Miss Blake been disposed
to distribute anything of the sort, could induce servants after a time
to remain in, or charwomen to come to, the house. It had received a bad
name, and that goes even further in disfavour of a residence than it
does against a man or woman.

Finally, Miss Blake's establishment was limited to an old creature
almost doting and totally deaf, the advantages of whose presence might
have been considered problematical; but, then, as Miss Blake remarked,
"she was somebody."

"And now she has taken fright," proceeded the lady. "How anyone could
make her hear their story, the Lord in heaven alone knows; and if there
was anything to see, I am sure she is far too blind to see it; but she
says she daren't stay. She does not want to see poor master again till
she is dead herself."

"I have got a tenant for the house the moment you like to say you will
leave it," said Mr. Craven, in reply. "He cares for no ghost that ever
was manufactured. He has a wife with a splendid digestion, and several
grown-up sons and daughters. They will soon clear out the shadows; and
their father is willing to pay two hundred and fifty pounds a year."

"And you think there is really nothing more of any use amongst
the papers?"

"I am afraid not--I am afraid you must face the worst."

"And my sister's child left no better off than a street beggar,"
suggested Miss Blake.

"Come, come," remonstrated Mr. Craven; "matters are not so bad as all
that comes to. Upon three hundred a year, you can live very comfortable
on the Continent; and--"

"We'll go," interrupted Miss Blake; "but it is hard lines--not that
anything better could have been expected from Robert Elmsdale."

"Ah! dear Miss Blake, the poor fellow is dead. Remember only his
virtues, and let his faults rest."

"I sha'n't have much to burden my memory with, then," retorted Miss
Blake, and departed.

Her next letter to my principal was dated from Rouen; but before that
reached Buckingham Street, our troubles had begun.

For some reason best known to himself, Mr. Treseby, the good-natured
country squire possessed of a wife with an excellent digestion, at the
end of two months handed us half a year's rent, and requested we should
try to let the house for the remainder of his term, he, in case of our
failure, continuing amenable for the rent. In the course of the three
years we secured eight tenants, and as from each a profit in the way of
forfeit accrued, we had not to trouble Mr. Treseby for any more money,
and were also enabled to remit some small bonuses--which came to her,
Miss Blake assured us, as godsends--to the Continent.

After that the place stood vacant for a time. Various care-takers were
eager to obtain the charge of it, but I only remember one who was not
eager to leave.

That was a night-watchman, who never went home except in the daytime,
and then to sleep, and he failed to understand why his wife, who was a
pretty, delicate little creature, and the mother of four small
children, should quarrel with her bread and butter, and want to leave
so fine a place.

He argued the matter with her in so practical a fashion, that the
nearest magistrate had to be elected umpire between them.

The whole story of the place was repeated in court, and the
night-watchman's wife, who sobbed during the entire time she stood in
the witness-box, made light of her black eye and numerous bruises, but
said, "Not if Tim murdered her, could she stay alone in the house
another night."

To prevent him murdering her, he was sent to gaol for two months, and
Mr. Craven allowed her eight shillings a week till Tim was once more a
free man, when he absconded, leaving wife and children chargeable to
the parish.

"A poor, nervous creature," said Mr. Craven, who would not believe that
where gas was, any house could be ghost-ridden. "We must really try to
let the house in earnest."

And we did try, and we did let, over, and over, and over again,
always with a like result, till at length Mr. Craven said to me: "Do
you know, Patterson, I really am growing very uneasy about that house
on the Thames. I am afraid some evil-disposed person is trying to
keep it vacant."

"It certainly is very strange," was the only remark I felt capable
of making.

We had joked so much about the house amongst ourselves, and ridiculed
Miss Blake and her troubles to such an extent, that the matter bore no
serious aspect for any of us juniors.

"If we are not soon able to let it," went on Mr. Craven, "I shall advise
Miss Blake to auction off the furniture and sell the place. We must not
always have an uninhabited house haunting our offices, Patterson."

I shook my head in grave assent, but all the time I was thinking the day
when that house ceased to haunt our offices, would be a very dreary one
for the wags amongst our clerks. "Yes, I certainly shall advise Miss
Blake to sell," repeated Mr. Craven, slowly.

Although a hard-working man, he was eminently slow in his ideas
and actions.

There was nothing express about our dear governor; upon no special
mental train did he go careering through life. Eminently he preferred
the parliamentary pace: and I am bound to say the life-journey so
performed was beautiful exceedingly, with waits not devoid of interest
at little stations utterly outside his profession, with kindly talk to
little children, and timid women, and feeble men; with a pleasant smile
for most with whom he came in contact, and time for words of kindly
advice which did not fall perpetually on stony ground, but which
sometimes grew to maturity, and produced rich grain of which himself
beheld the garnering.

Nevertheless, to my younger and quicker nature, he did seem often
very tardy.

"Why not advise her now?" I asked.

"Ah! my boy," he answered, "life is very short, yet it is long enough to
have no need in it for hurry."

The same day, Colonel Morris appeared in our office. Within a fortnight,
that gallant officer was our tenant; within a month, Mrs. Morris, an
exceedingly fine lady, with grown-up children, with very young children
also, with ayahs, with native servants, with English servants, with a
list of acquaintances such as one may read of in the papers the day
after a Queen's drawing-room, took possession of the Uninhabited House,
and, for about three months, peace reigned in our dominions.

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