CHAPTER VII.
THE FALL OF LUCIFER
The following morning, I sat in the main parlour downstairs, across the hallway from the dining-room, reading my mail and the papers. I was forced to move from chair to chair as Mrs. Brooks and Susan came in to dust and polish around me.
"Weel, Doctor Watson, let's hope there'll be an end tae this sorry business soon!" our hostess remarked. "I'm glad the lassie cam' tae her senses about that husband o' hers! It's a shame it's owre late for the ither chiel, though!"
"Such is fate, Mrs. Brooks!"
She sighed, and turned her attention to the maid: "Now, Susan, mind that you dinna scairt the wood there..."
But she seemed in better spirits than for the previous ten days or so since the crime. As she went about her duties, I heard snatches of a song, of happier - indeed, of more risqué - character than her murdered Earl Richard and demonic Jamie Harris:
"'Ye lee, ye lee, my bonnie May,' he says,
'Sae loud's I hear ye lee;
For dinna ye mind yon bonnie simmer nicht
When ye lay in the yowe-bochts wi' me, me.
When ye lay in the yowe-bochts wi' me?'"
The parrot's voice picked up and echoed the sprightly air.
An interesting woman, Polly Brooks, I thought: a woman of strong character and feeling who had sublimated her own personal tragedies through work. If they had lived, her own children would have been of an age with the victim, and the nature of the case had reawakened old doubts about the satisfactory nature of her own marriage. Undoubtedly that was why she felt so emotionally involved, and why she sought redemption through helping the fallen girl whom she had been too hasty to condemn at first. I had received a letter from Mary. A pure soul, my wife yet understood what lay at the heart of the problem: "It is always we women who suffer most for respectability's sake," she wrote. I resolved to invite her to join me here as soon as the conclusion of criminal matters permitted; somehow the thought of her alone in London seemed suddenly unbearable.
Susan was sent home after helping Mrs. Brooks bake some scones for tea. In the early afternoon, Holmes, disguised, set out for the station.
I watched from the doorway of the front parlour as he returned with the visitors arrived: a man and a young girl.
"Good afternoon, Polly, m'dear!" he said.
The lady of the house gasped, and I must admit that I too was momentarily shaken at first glance.
"Mrs. Clare...?" she murmured.
Holmes laughed. "Nay, Polly! This is Miss Durbeyfield, her younger sister - she's come with Mr. Clare to help clear out his wife's things!"
"Och, I'm sorry! I'm delighted tae meet you, though I'm sorry it's no' on a happier occasion! Mr. Clare - I maun say the same tae yoursel'! But you're luikin' a wee bit better nor when I last saw you!" she gushed, taking their coats.
Mr. Clare smiled weakly: "I'm sure." He cut an odd, haggard figure, his face sallow beneath the tan. Like his late rival, he was about twenty-eight, but age was the only similarity between them. He had doubtless been handsome in health, albeit in a rather bland way, and was still sufficiently attractive to enthrall his young companion, who gazed adoringly up at him. However, there was something slightly effeminate about his small mouth, and his fair beard could not quite conceal a weak jaw.
"I trust you'll tak' tea wi' us afore you stairt on this sorry business?" Mrs. Brooks asked. "Captain Mycroft's an auld friend o' my late husband, and we thocht you'd like something tae eat."
"That's most kind of you, madam," Clare answered. "Isn't it, 'Liza-Lu?" he added, prompting the girl.
"Yes, it is. Thank you kindly, ma'am."
I noticed that, unlike most poor girls entering a reasonably fine house for the first time, she did not gape at the elegant hall stand, or the plaster cornices. She began to walk unbidden into the front parlour.
"Aye, that's richt - I canna thole fowk staunin' on ceremony!" said Mrs. Brooks. "I've some fresh scones, and the Captain gi'ed me some o' your mither's apple jeely."
'Captain Mycroft' took charge of the guests. I was introduced as Mr. Watson, a visitor from London, newly arrived in town for a brief holiday.
"Pleased to meet you, sir, miss," I said in my bluffest 'club' manner. "Sad business about your wife - saw it in The Times. It must be a great burden to you - you have my sympathy."
"Thank you, sir," he replied coolly. "It was - unfortunate. It seems she is mentally disturbed, but that may not save her."
"Sad indeed."
Clare turned to Holmes: "It's pitiful, Mycroft - she keeps changing her story. I blame myself for going to Brazil."
'Liza-Lu clung to his arm as they seated themselves on the couch. "Please, Angel - must we talk of...?"
He turned to her with a tender look. "My dear child, I'm so sorry! Captain, Mr. Watson - my sister-in-law finds certain subjects distressing. I think we should talk of other things."
"You're quite right!" said Holmes. "Ain't he, Polly?"
"Aye, what wi' the polis and the papers... We'd be better pittin' the hale business ahint us!"
"Mr. Clare, I'm not a man who has travelled widely," I lied, "so I should like to hear of your travels in South America. It must be a fascinating continent."
"Why, yes. I sailed to Rio early last year - that's how I met old Mycroft here, although my memories of that time are a little foggy."
Holmes laughed: "I told him he'd never make a sailor, Poll - can't hold his grog!"
"Mycroft, that rum took the varnish off the bar!" Then he noticed that 'Liza-Lu was looking uncomfortable again. "But we shouldn't speak of such things in the presence of young ladies, eh, Lu?"
The girl blushed demurely. She was as Holmes had described her - slighter than her sister, and a little sharper of feature, but the resemblance was striking. With a veil and the shadow of a parasol... I wondered.
"Well," Clare went on, "I travelled down to Curitiba, and then inland, with a party of other British settlers. We were hoping to find good land for ranching, but... It all turned sour. I went down with a wasting fever."
Mrs. Brooks appeared sympathetic. "My Josh got sick in Buenos Aires. He thocht he'd recovered, but as soon as he landed in Bristol, he drapt deid."
"My sympathies, Mrs. Brooks."
"Och, that was in '75! I've no' just sat around greetin' since - I took this house the year after, and stairted wi' the guests. It pays weel eneuch, save when - But as Miss Durbeyfield says, it's no' nice tae talk about such things. It's nae guid for business, though, fowk deein' unnatural!"
Clare bit into a scone. "At least it wasn't poison!"
Mrs. Brooks cleared her throat, and exchanged a disapproving glance with 'Liza-Lu.
Holmes pretended to be amused, and I gave a studiously idiotic: "I say, that's rather funny!"
"There's naucht amiss wi' my cookin'!" Mrs. Brooks said defensively.
"Of course there ain't, Polly!" Holmes replied. "We're only teasing!"
"So what about Brazil?" I asked again.
Mr. Clare whispered to Mrs. Brooks, who nodded, "Richt you are, sir!" She then suggested to 'Liza-Lu that the latter help her fetch some more food up from the kitchen, leaving the men to discuss "the sort o' things menfowk dee." The girl agreed, and we were able to relax a little.
"Brazil? Ah yes, a fascinating country and peoples," the traveller said. "I've seen and heard things there that are quite unfit for female ears."
"Hum!" Holmes grunted. "Our Poll's got a stronger stomach than many men I've sailed with!"
"That's hardly the point! Ladies ought to be shielded from coarseness. And young girls like 'Liza-Lu especially need protection: their purity's too precious to be sullied casually."
"That's very chivalrous of you, Mr. Clare," I said.
"Innocence, once lost, is lost for ever," he replied sombrely. "The Brazilians have a stronger sense of honour than we Englishmen. I told one of my Brazilian guides, Afonso, about the... situation with my wife. He couldn't understand why I had simply left, without demanding satisfaction from her seducer: he thought I was a coward. He told me about a mule-driver he knew, who'd found out that his bride had been - shall we say - less than virtuous in her past. He found the guilty man and killed them both, for shaming him. Cut their throats. And no-one told the authorities: the whole village understood, you see, that it was a matter of personal honour. I suppose they would understand this, now, wouldn't they, Mycroft?"
"Yes. Over there they take defending their women's honour very seriously - though usually with a stiletto, not a kitchen carving-knife."
The corners of Clare's mouth twitched into a bleak smile: "Quite - but then, Sandbourne's hardly Rio! Poor Tess... I suppose she was trying to save us both from further shame..."
"It is a pity that her family's left in such a state."
Clare sighed: "Indeed, but... One must hope for the best. Sadly, my own means are not extensive - but I'll do what I can, for 'Liza-Lu's sake. Tess asked me to. But that wretched man made them so abjectly grateful to him that the mother resents my intrusion... Ignorant slattern!"
My colleague lit his pipe. "She's had a hard life, Clare. She's bound to be wary."
"Well, it's a rum state of affairs that she should've welcomed charity from her daughter's paramour and not from her lawful husband!"
"No doubt she judges differently from the likes of us. What's your opinion, Mr. Watson?"
"I shouldn't venture one, sir; I don't know the woman. All the same, it is tragic."
"Yes," Clare said in an abstracted tone. "It's difficult for my family, too. My father is quite elderly, and, being a clergyman, the scandal... It's unfortunate that Tess ever met that man! She's of a degenerate noble line -deficient in will, I'm afraid. Decadent. How could she hope to resist temptation? 'Liza-Lu is from the same stock, but seems more promising material. Enfeeblement of the will is one of the diseases of our time, Mr. Watson. Do you read Nietzsche?"
I confessed that I did not.
"That's a pity; you'd find him most interesting..."
At this point, the women re-entered the room, bearing trays, Mrs. Brooks with a pot of fresh tea and 'Liza-Lu with sweet cakes and biscuits. The girl appeared in brighter spirits, her sullenness diminished.
"Angel," she said excitedly, "Mrs. Brooks has been showing me how to read tea-leaves! She says she sees a wedding!"
Clare laughed disdainfully. "Why, Lu, you are a droll child! We'll have to get these rustic superstitions out of your head!"
"Don't mock me!" she snapped. "'Tisn't fair!"
"And you want to be a schoolmistress?" he parried.
"What's this?" Holmes smiled. "Don't make fun of the lass so! It's a harmless game of the ladies!"
"It can lead to all sorts of irrationality, Mycroft. As I told you, some of the Candomblé rites in Brazil are unspeakable. It appalls me that such primitive rot is still practised in this day and age!"
Mrs. Brooks sniffed. "You shouldna sneer at things you dinna understand, young man."
"The point is, my good woman, that I do understand it all too well. The slaves in Brazil, poor fools, believe they are practising ancient magic, sacrificing fowls, et cetera, and entering trance states wherein they are possessed by their gods. It is all nonsense - as is the stuff my father practices in church every Sunday. The reality of it is mind-control."
"Mind-control?" I queried.
"Mesmerism of a sort. The strong-willed always prevail over the weak: it's the law of nature. Properly used by logical people, it could be of great use to the world. But the priests and priestesses of these cults trivialise it, putting ignorant people into trances and duping them into believing they can communicate with other worlds."
"You mean like spirit mediums?"
"All such nonsense," he answered.
'Liza-Lu's eyes widened: "But that's not nonsense!"
"What isn't?"
"Spirit mediums. Mrs. Brooks told me! Isn't that so, Mrs. Brooks?"
She drew herself up to her full height. "Weel, sir, some hae said I've a talent for it mysel'," she said proudly.
Clare glanced at Holmes incredulously. "A sensible Englishwoman...?"
"Scotswoman!" she corrected him severely.
"Anyway," 'Liza-Lu continued, "she told me she can prove it, and help me talk to Father -"
"Really, at your age!"
"But Angel -"
He made a cutting gesture with the edge of his hand, to indicate that nothing further was to be said on the matter. "Mrs. Brooks, may we have the key to my wife's rooms, to collect her things?" asked Clare.
"Certainly, sir," she answered coolly, and led him and 'Liza-Lu upstairs.
The girl turned to her, and said sofly: "I'll try to persuade him. I-I'd so like to speak to Father again..."
Mrs. Brooks nodded.
I almost pitied 'Liza-Lu. For all her adoration of Angel Clare, which was obvious in the way she looked at him and clung close to him, it was equally apparent that he, in his conceit, saw her as a young mind to be shaped and bent to his own will. He had failed with his unhappy wife, but had no intention of failing with her sister.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Holmes darted out into the entrance and picked up the girl's gloves from the hall stand. They were of white kid, small and narrow as the hands they fitted. He sniffed at them suspiciously.
"Good perfume lingers," he observed. "These gloves have been cleaned recently, but the scent remains."
"Scent?"
"Lavender masking civet: Jicky, I'd say. Not something one usually associates with modest village maidens."
"The bottle on Mrs. Clare's dressing-table!"
Holmes smiled. "Exactly, Watson. Our veiled lady."
I was chilled. "They're taking their time upstairs."
"It's all right; Mrs. Brooks is listening at the door."
He replaced 'Liza-Lu's gloves, as Mrs. Brooks descended, holding her beads and châtelaine to prevent a tell-tale rattle.
"I keeked in at the keyhole. You should hae seen the bit quine - primpin' and posin' afore the gless with her sister's hats, and haudin' up her gouns against hersel'! And for a brither-in-law, he's gey free wi' his haunds, aye clappin' her!"
"Anything suspicious?"
"She seemed tae ken where things were. And I think she's persuaded him about our wee 'experiment'!"
"Good! Are you ready?"
She nodded. "Sae is Rio."
When the couple came downstairs again, I noticed that 'Liza-Lu was wearing a dainty pearl necklace; she had also put on more of Tess's perfume. Holmes was right; it was identical to the faint traces on her gloves, the sharp musk of the cat penetrating through the flowers.
"Mrs. Brooks, Lu has persuaded me to humour her with this séance game of yours. I'd like to see how you do it," said Angel Clare.
"That's gey big o' you," she replied with some sarcasm. "But I'm sure you'll find it interestin'."
"Mycroft!" he whispered to Holmes. "What say you to a small wager on whether I can show she's a fraud?"
"It's an idea, but it wouldn't be very courteous to our hostess, would it?"
"This way," said the lady, and led the four of us into the rear parlour. "I aye use this wee table."
"It's probably rigged," Clare murmured.
'Liza-Lu was glancing around her. "What's that mark on the ceiling?"
"Thon's your sister's chaumer up there," explained Mrs. Brooks.
"It's not...?"
"That colour? It's plaister, lassie! The bluid cam' through and shewed up the cracks in the ceiling! It was a guid job it did, or I'd no' hae kent it needed mendin' till it had fa'n doun!"
The girl turned to her brother-in-law. "Angel, maybe you're right... Not a séance - not under that..."
"Don't make yourself look even more foolish, darling!"
Mrs. Brooks kicked her armadillo sewing-basket under the table, and asked me to draw the curtain on the small window. Enough light seeped through the rose-coloured cloth to enable us to see reasonably well, but it imparted a strange mood to the room. In its cage in the corner, the parrot stopped chattering.
"Be seated," she said. "No, as I place you: 'Liza-Lu, facing me; Mr. Clare, on my richt, sae you can keep your e'en on me; Mr. Watson, on my left. Captain Mycroft...?"
Holmes shook his head. "I'll watch this time, if it's all right by you, Poll."
"Join hands, please," Mrs. Brooks ordered. She was sitting with her back to the door which led through to the tradesmen's entrance. "Empty your minds of this warld's substance..."
"Easy for some!" Clare murmured.
"Shh!" admonished the girl. There was a sound as of a cab or cart drawing up at the rear of the house. "What's that noise?"
"Probably the coal merchant," he suggested.
The medium closed her eyes. "Hooves, I hear the hooves..."
'Liza-Lu gasped: "The d'Urberville coach! A death!"
"Joshua Brooks, Joshua Brooks, are you here?"
Two raps - not loud, but clear enough.
"Aye, that's you, Josh. I hae some friends here, Josh - friends wantin' tae speak tae kindred that's crossed the Bar. Can you help me find them?"
Again, two raps.
"Is there onyone for Mr. Watson?"
One rap.
"No. For Mr. Clare?"
Again, one.
"No. For Miss Durbeyfield?"
A rapid burst of tapping.
"Steady now!"
'Liza-Lu's eyes were fixed upon Mrs. Brooks' face. Her hand tightened around mine.
"She must be working the table-leg with her foot," Angel Clare whispered. "It's ridiculous..."
"I see a man," said Mrs. Brooks. "He's no' sae auld - but aulder than thae present... A countryman, by the luik o' him... J - the letter J... Jock, or Jack - aye, Jack. His name's John..."
"Father!" cried 'Liza-Lu. "What do you want? Mother's all right, you know - we're managing fine now! All of us! Except Tessy -"
Clare twisted the girl's wrist. "Don't be a little idiot!"
There was more tapping. "Your faither says he knows Tess is in trouble... She's killed someone - something -"
"A man?"
"A horse. Something about a mail-cairt..."
"Prince!"
Clare muttered, "Did you tell Mycroft about any of this?"
"There's something else -" the medium went on. "Someone else trying tae get through... 'Liza-Lu, did you ever hae a brither that's crossed owre?"
"Oh - there was one older than me, who died years ago. A sister, too."
Her brother-in-law was growing increasingly irritable. "You're feeding her the information!"
"No - it's no' a bairn... No' a brither... Someone wantin' tae be a brither tae you... Or brither-in-law."
Holmes was now standing behind Mrs. Brooks. I thought I heard him lock - or unlock - the door. Since I was seated on the same side as the hinges, my view was not clear.
"It's a young man," she said. "He canna rest; he was taken of a sudden..."
Suddenly, 'Liza-Lu stood up and stared straight ahead at the door, which was suddenly ajar. "What do you want?" she murmured, as if to someone who stood upon the threshold.
Mrs. Brooks smiled chillingly. I caught a few bars of an old tune whispered under her breath - Earl Richard:
"Then up and spak' the popinjay
That flew abune her heid..."
Rio picked up the cue, and screeched loudly:
"'Lady, keep weel your gay cleiding
Fae aff that young lord's bleid!'"
The girl shrieked: "So it was my hand, but his plan! Don't blame me! I couldn't have done it alone!"
She pointed with trembling hand at Angel Clare. He pulled a knife from his belt. The thin blade gleamed in the dim light as he lunged at her. She screamed, but he tripped over the armadillo work-basket and fell. Holmes overpowered him and the stiletto clattered to the floor. 'Liza-Lu, shivering, still gazed towards the doorway. Mrs. Brooks and I turned towards the apparition which had prompted her confession: a tall, swarthy young man leaning on a walking cane, his left arm resting in a light sling.
"Honestly, anyone would think you'd seen a ghost!" he remarked wryly...
To be continued.
