The Wooden Hand. Fergus Hume
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"I don't know. I seemed to see the place and the figure of a man in dark clothes lying face downward, with his hands twisted helplessly in the rank grasses. I heard a laugh too--a cruel laugh, but in my dream I saw no one else. Only the dead man, face downward," and she stared at the carpet as though she saw the gruesome sight again.
"How do you know 'twas your father's corpse?" croaked the old woman.
"I didn't think it was--I didn't tell you it was," panted Eva, flushing and paling with conflicting emotions.
"Ah," interpreted Mrs. Merry, "some one he killed, perhaps."
"How dare you--how dare----? Nurse," she burst out, "I believe it was my father lying dead there--I saw a white-gloved right hand."
"Your pa, sure enough," said the woman grimly. "His wooden hand, eh? I know the hand. He struck me with it once. Struck me," she cried, rising and glaring, "with my own husband standing by. But Giles was never a man. So your pa was dead, wooden hand and all, in the Red Deeps? Did you go there to see, this day?"
"No, no," Eva shuddered, "it was only a dream."
"Part of one, you said."
Miss Strode nodded. "After I saw the body and the white glove on the wooden hand glimmering in the twilight--for twilight it was in my dream--I seemed to sink into darkness, and to be back in my bed--yes, in my bed in the room across the passage."
"Ah! you woke then?" said Mrs. Merry, disappointed.
"No, I swear I was not awake. I was in my bed asleep, dreaming, for I heard footsteps--many footsteps come to the door--to the front door, then five knocks----"
"Five," said the woman, surprised.
"Five knocks. One hard and four soft. Then a voice came telling me to take in the body. I woke with a cry, and found it was just after nine o'clock."
"Well, well," chuckled the old woman, "if Robert Strode is dead----"
"You can't be sure of that," said Eva fiercely, and regretted telling this dismal woman her dream.
"You saw the gloved hand--the wooden hand?"
"Bah! It is only a dream."
"Dreams come true. I've known 'em to come true," said Mrs. Merry, rising, "and to-morrow I go to the Red Deeps to see."
"But my father comes home to-night."
"No," said Mrs. Merry, with the mien of a sibyl, "he'll never come home agin to the house where he broke a woman's heart."
And she went out laughing and muttering of the Red Deeps.
CHAPTER II
LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM
Eva Strode was an extremely pretty blonde. She had golden-brown hair which glistened in the sunshine, hazel eyes somewhat meditative in expression, and a complexion that Mrs. Merry, in her odd way, compared to mixed roses and milk. Her nose was delicate and straight, her mouth charming and sensitive, and if it drooped a trifle at the corners, she had good cause for so melancholy a twist. Her figure was so graceful that envious women, less favoured by Nature, suggested padding: but these same depreciators could say nothing against her hands and feet, which were exquisitely formed. Usually Eva, cunning enough to know that her beauty needed no adornment, dressed in the very plainest fashions. At the present moment she was arrayed in a pale blue dress of some coarse material, and wore a large straw hat swathed in azure tulle. An effective touch of more pronounced colour appeared in the knot of red ribbon at her throat and the bunch of crimson roses thrust into her waistband. She looked dainty, well-bred, charming, and even the malignant female eye would have found little to blame. But the female eye generally did find fault. Eva was much too pretty a girl to escape remark.
This vision of loveliness walked demurely down the garden path to gladden the eyes of a young man lingering at the gate. He, eagerly expecting the descent of Venus, quickly removed his Panama hat, and looked at the goddess with admiring eyes, eloquent of unspoken praise. Eva, feeling, rather than meeting, their fervid gaze, halted within the barrier and blushed as red as the roses in her belt. Then she ventured to look at her lover, and smiled a welcome.
Certainly the lover was not unworthy of the lass, so far as looks went. Allen Hill was as dark as Eva was fair. Indeed, he more resembled a Spaniard than an Englishman. His oval face, smooth and clean-shaven save for a small, smartly pointed moustache, was swarthy, his eyes were wonderfully black and large, and his closely clipped hair might be compared to the hue of the raven's wing. His slim figure was clothed in white flannels, so well cut and spotless that they conveyed a suspicion that the young gentleman was something of a dandy. He looked more like a poet than a mining engineer.
Yet an engineer he was, and had travelled over the greater part of the world with his eyes open. These looked languid enough as a rule, but they could blaze with a fighting light, as his associates in the lands at the back of Beyond knew. At thirty years of age Allen knew quite as much as was good for him, and knew also how to utilise his knowledge. In many lands he had seen fair women, but none had captured his heart as had this dewy, fragrant English rose.
Six months earlier the two had met at a garden party. Allen came and saw, and Eva--as women always do--conquered. The engineer's heart, being tinder, caught fire easily and began to blaze with a fiery flame not to be extinguished by reason. Eva herself, not being tame either, rather liked this Sabine courtship, and did not leave Allen long in doubt as to the way in which she regarded his audacious advances. The result was that in a few months they became engaged, and the flower-time of their love came almost as speedily as did that of Romeo and Juliet. But now, as Eva well knew, the common sense of the world was about to chill their ardour. She had this very evening to inform this eager, whole-hearted lover that her father refused to sanction the engagement. No easy task, seeing she loved the man with her whole heart and soul.
"My dear, my love," murmured Allen, as the gate closed behind the girl: and he would have embraced her in the public road, but that she dexterously evaded his widely spread arms.
"Not here--not here," she whispered hurriedly, and with a fine colour; "it's too public, you stupid boy."
The stupid boy, cheated of his treat, glared up and down the road, "I don't see any one," he grumbled.
"Eyes at those windows," said Eva, waving a slim hand towards a row of thatched cottages, "and tongues also."
"I am not ashamed of our love. I wish the whole world knew of it."
"The whole world probably does," rejoined Miss Strode, a trifle drily; "if any one saw you with those eyes and that look, and--oh, you ridiculous boy!" and she shook her finger at him.
"Oh, you coquette. Can't we----"
"On the common we can talk, if that is what you mean," said Eva, turning away to trip up the dusty road; "the common," she cried with a backward look which should have drawn the young man after her at a fine pace.
But Allen lingered for a moment. Deeply in love as he was, he had his own ideas regarding the management of the fair sex. He knew that when a woman is sure of her swain she is apt to be exacting, so as to check his ardour. On the other hand, if the swain hangs back, the maid comes forward with winsome looks. Hitherto, Allen had been all passion and surrender. Now he thought he would tease Eva a little, by not coming immediately to her beck and call. Therefore, while she skipped ahead--and without looking back, so sure was she that Allen followed--the young man lighted a cigarette, and when the smoke perfumed the air, looked everywhere save in the direction he desired to look. North, south, west looked Allen, but never east, where could be seen the rising sun of his love. But passion proved to be stronger than principle, and finally his eyes fastened on the shadowy figure of Eva pausing on the edge of the common. She was looking back now, and beckoned with persuasive finger. Allen made a step forward to follow the siren, then halted. A strange feeling took possession of him. Allen's mother was Scotch, and having the impressionable Celtic nature, he