Works of grant allen, p.278
Works of Grant Allen, page 278
I know now there were two reasons why they wanted to see me. I was the murdered man’s daughter, and I was a Psychological Phenomenon.
We drove away, through green lanes, in the cab, nurse and I; and in spite of the Horror, which surrounded me always, and the Picture, which recurred every time I shut my eyes to think, I enjoyed that drive very much, with all the fresh vividness of childish pleasure. Though I learnt later I was eighteen years old at least, I was in my inner self just like a baby of ten months, going ta-ta. At the end of the drive, we drew up sharp at a house, where some more men stood about, with red bands on their caps, and took boxes from the cab and put them into a van, while nurse and I got into a different carriage, drawn quickly by a thing that went puff-puff, puff-puff. I didn’t know it was a railway, and yet in a way I did. I half forgot, half remembered it. Things that I’d seen in my previous state seemed to come back to me, in fact, as soon as I saw them; or at least to be more familiar to me than things I’d never seen before. Especially afterwards. But while things were remembered, persons, I found by-and-by, were completely forgotten. Or rather, while I remembered after a while generalities, such as houses and men, recognising them in the abstract as a house, or a man, or a horse, or a baby, I forgot entirely particulars, such as the names of people and the places I had lived in. Words soon came back to me: names and facts were lost: I knew the world as a whole, not my own old part in it.
Well, not to make my story too long in these early childish stages, we went on the train, as it seemed to me, a long way across fields to Aunt Emma’s. I didn’t know she was Aunt Emma then for, indeed, I had never seen her before; but I remember arriving there at her pretty little cottage, and seeing a sweet old lady — barely sixty, I should say, but with smooth white hair, — who stood on the steps of the house and cried like a child, and held out her hands to me, and hugged me and kissed me. And it was there that I learned my first word. A great many times over, she spoke about “Una.” She said it so often, I caught vaguely at the sound. And nurse, when she answered her, said “Una” also. Then, when Aunt Emma called me, she always said “Una.” So it came to me dimly that Una meant ME. But I didn’t exactly recollect it had been my name before, though I learned in due time afterwards that I’d always been called so. However, just at first, I picked up the word as a child might pick it up; and when, some months later, I began to talk easily, I spoke of myself always in the third person as Una. I can remember with a smile now how I went one day to Aunt Emma — I, a great girl of eighteen — and held up my skirt, that I’d muddied in the street, and said to her, with great gravity:
“Una naughty girl: Una got her frock wet. Aunt Emma going to scold poor Una for being so naughty!”
Not that I often smiled, in those days; for, in spite of Aunt Emma’s kindness, my second girlhood, like my first, was a very unhappy one. The Horror and the Picture pursued me too close. It was months and months before I could get rid for a moment of that persistent nightmare. And yet I had everything else on earth to make me happy. Aunt Emma lived in a pretty east-coast town, with high bracken-clad downs, and breezy common beyond; while in front stretched great sands, where I loved to race about and to play cricket and tennis. It was the loveliest town that ever you saw in your life, with a broken chancel to the grand old church, and a lighthouse on a hill, with delicious views to seaward. The doctor had sent me there (I know now) as soon as I was well enough to move, in order to get me away from the terrible associations of The Grange at Woodbury. As long as I lived in the midst of scenes which would remind me of poor father, he said, and of his tragical death, there was no hope of my recovery. The only chance for me to regain what I had lost in that moment of shock was complete change of air, of life, of surroundings. Aunt Emma, for her part, was only too glad to take me in: and as poor papa had died intestate, Aunt Emma was now, of course, my legal guardian.
She was my mother’s sister, I learned as time went on; and there had been feud while he lived between her and my father. Why, I couldn’t imagine. She was the sweetest old soul I ever knew, indeed, and what on earth he could have quarrelled with her about I never could fathom. She tended me so carefully that as months went by, the Horror began to decrease and my soul to become calm again. I grew gradually able to remain in a room alone for a few minutes at a time, and to sleep at night in a bed by myself, if only there was a candle, and nurse was in another bed in the same room close by me.
Yet every now and again a fresh shivering fit came on. At such times I would cover my head with the bedclothes and cower, and see the Picture even so floating visibly in mid-air like a vision before me.
My second education must have been almost as much of a business as my first had been, only rather less longsome. I had first to relearn the English language, which came back to me by degrees, much quicker, of course, than I had picked it up in my childhood. Then I had to begin again with reading, writing, and arithmetic — all new to me in a way, and all old in another. Whatever I learned and whatever I read seemed novel while I learned it, but familiar the moment I had thoroughly grasped it. To put it shortly, I could remember nothing of myself, but I could recall many things, after a time, as soon as they were told me clearly. The process was rather a process of reminding than of teaching, properly so called. But it took some years for me to recall things, even when I was reminded of them.
I spent four years at Aunt Emma’s, growing gradually to my own age again. At the end of that time I was counted a girl of twenty-two, much like any other. But I was older than my age; and the shadow of the Horror pursued me incessantly.
All that time I knew, too, from what I heard said in the house that my father’s murderer had never been caught, and that nobody even knew who he was, or anything definite about him. The police gave him up as an uncaught criminal. He was still at large, and might always be so. I knew this from vague hints and from vague hints alone; for whenever I tried to ask, I was hushed up at once with an air of authority.
“Una, dearest,” Aunt Emma would say, in her quiet fashion, “you mustn’t talk about that night. I have Dr. Wade’s strict orders that nothing must be said to you about it, and above all nothing that could in any way excite or arouse you.”
So I was fain to keep my peace; for though Aunt Emma was kind, she ruled me still in all things like a little girl, as I was when I came to her.
CHAPTER III.
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
One morning, after I’d been four whole years at Aunt Emma’s, I heard a ring at the bell, and, looking over the stairs, saw a tall and handsome man in a semi-military coat, who asked in a most audible voice for Miss Callingham.
Maria, the housemaid, hesitated a moment.
“Miss Callingham’s in, sir,” she answered in a somewhat dubious tone; “but I don’t know whether I ought to let you see her or not. My mistress is out; and I’ve strict orders that no strangers are to call on Miss Callingham when her aunt’s not here.”
And she held the door ajar in her hand undecidedly.
The tall man smiled, and seemed to me to slip a coin quietly into Maria’s palm.
“So much the better,” he answered, with unobtrusive persistence; “I thought Miss Moore was out. That’s just why I’ve come. I’m an officer from Scotland Yard, and I want to see Miss Callingham — alone — most particularly.”
Maria drew herself up and paused.
My heart stood still within me at this chance of enlightenment. I guessed what he meant; so I called over the stairs to her, in a tremor of excitement:
“Show the gentleman into the drawing-room, Maria. I ‘ll come down to him at once.”
For I was dying to know the explanation of the Picture that haunted me so persistently; and as nobody at home would ever tell me anything worth knowing about it, I thought this was as good an opportunity as I could get for making a beginning towards the solution of the mystery.
Well, I ran into my own room as quick as quick could be, and set my front hair straight, and slipped on a hat and jacket (for I was in my morning dress), and then went down to the drawing-room to see the Inspector.
He rose as I entered. He was a gentleman, I felt at once. His manner was as deferential, as kind, and as considerate to my sensitiveness, as anything it’s possible for you to imagine in anyone.
“I’m sorry to have to trouble you, Miss Callingham,” he said, with a very gentle smile; “but I daresay you can understand yourself the object of my visit. I could have wished to come in a more authorised way; but I’ve been in correspondence with Miss Moore for some time past as to the desirability of reopening the inquiry with regard to your father’s unfortunate death; and I thought the time might now have arrived when it would be possible to put a few questions to you personally upon that unhappy subject. Miss Moore objected to my plan. She thought it would still perhaps be prejudicial to your health — a point in which Dr. Wade, I must say, entirely agrees with her. Nevertheless, in the interests of Justice, as the murderer is still at large, I’ve ventured to ask you for this interview; because what I read in the newspapers about the state of your health — .”
I interrupted him, astonished.
“What you read in the newspapers about the state of my health!” I repeated, thunderstruck. “Why, surely they don’t put the state of MY health in the newspapers!”
For I didn’t know then I was a Psychological Phenomenon.
The Inspector smiled blandly, and pulling out his pocket-book, selected a cutting from a pile that apparently all referred to me.
“You’re mistaken,” he said, briefly. “The newspapers, on the contrary, have treated your case at great length. See, here’s the latest report. That’s clipped from last Wednesday’s Telegraph.”
I remembered then that a paragraph of just that size had been carefully cut out of Wednesday’s paper before I was allowed by Aunt Emma to read it. Aunt Emma always glanced over the paper first, indeed, and often cut out such offending paragraphs. But I never attached much importance to their absence before, because I thought it was merely a little fussy result of auntie’s good old English sense of maidenly modesty. I supposed she merely meant to spare my blushes. I knew girls were often prevented on particular days from reading the papers.
But now I seized the paragraph he handed me, and read it with deep interest. It was the very first time I had seen my own name in a printed newspaper. I didn’t know then how often it had figured there.
The paragraph was headed, “THE WOODBURY MURDER,” and it ran something like this, as well as I can remember it:
“There are still hopes that the miscreant who shot Mr. Vivian Callingham at The Grange, at Woodbury, some four years since, may be tracked down and punished at last for his cowardly crime. It will be fresh in everyone’s memory, as one of the most romantic episodes in that extraordinary tragedy, that at the precise moment of her father’s death, Miss Callingham, who was present in the room during the attack, and who alone might have been a witness capable of recognising or describing the wretched assailant, lost her reason on the spot, owing to the appalling shock to her nervous system, and remained for some months in an imbecile condition. Gradually, as we have informed our readers from time to time, Miss Callingham’s intellect has become stronger and stronger; and though she is still totally unable to remember spontaneously any events that occurred before her father’s death, it is hoped it may be possible, by describing vividly certain trains of previous incidents, to recall them in some small degree to her imperfect memory. Dr. Thornton, of Welbeck Street, who has visited her from time to time on behalf of the Treasury, in conjunction with Dr. Wade, her own medical attendant, went down to Barton-on-the-Sea on Monday, and once more examined Miss Callingham’s intellect. Though the Doctor is judiciously reticent as to the result of his visit, it is generally believed at Barton that he thinks the young lady sufficiently recovered to undergo a regular interrogatory; and in spite of the fact that Dr. Wade is opposed to any such proceeding at present, as prejudicial to the lady’s health, it is not unlikely that the Treasury may act upon their own medical official’s opinion, and send down an Inspector from Scotland Yard to make inquiries direct on the subject from Miss Callingham in person.”
My head swam round. It was all like a dream to me. I held my forehead with my hands, and gazed blankly at the Inspector.
“You understand what all this means?” he said interrogatively, leaning forward as he spoke. “You remember the murder?”
“Perfectly,” I answered him, trembling all over. “I remember every detail of it. I could describe you exactly all the objects in the room. The Picture it left behind has burned itself into my brain like a flash of lightning!”
The Inspector drew his chair nearer. “Now, Miss Callingham,” he said in a very serious voice, “that’s a remarkable expression — like a flash of lightning.’ Bear in mind, this is a matter of life and death to somebody somewhere. Somebody’s neck may depend upon your answers. Will you tell me exactly how much you remember?”
I told him in a few words precisely how the scene had imprinted itself on my memory. I recalled the room, the box, the green wires, the carpet; the man who lay dead in his blood on the floor; the man who stood poised ready to leap from the window. He let me go on unchecked till I’d finished everything I had to say spontaneously. Then he took a photograph from his pocket, which he didn’t show me. Looking at it attentively, he asked me questions, one by one, about the different things in the room at the time in very minute detail: Where exactly was the box? How did it stand relatively to the unlighted lamp? What was the position of the pistol on the floor? In which direction was my father’s head lying? Though it brought back the Horror to me in a fuller and more terrible form than ever, I answered all his questions to the very best of my ability. I could picture the whole scene like a photograph to myself; and I didn’t doubt the object he held in his hand was a photograph of the room as it appeared after the murder. He checked my statements, one by one as I went on, by reference to the photograph, murmuring half to himself now and again: “Yes, yes, exactly so”; “That’s right”; “That was so,” at each item I mentioned.
At the end of these inquiries, he paused and looked hard at me.
“Now, Miss Callingham,” he said again, peering deep into my eyes, “I want you to concentrate your mind very much, not on this Picture you carry so vividly in your own brain, but on the events that went immediately before and after it. Pause long and think. Try hard to remember. And first, you say there was a great flash of light. Now, answer me this: was it one flash alone, or had there been several?”
I stopped and racked my brain. Blank, blank, as usual.
“I can’t remember,” I faltered out, longing terribly to cry. “I can recall just that one scene, and nothing else in the world before it.”
He looked at me fixedly, jotting down a few words in his note-book as he looked. Then he spoke again, still more slowly:
“Now, try once more,” he said, with an encouraging air. “You saw this man’s back as he was getting out of the window. But can’t you remember having seen his face before? Had he a beard? a moustache? what eyes? what nose? Did you see the shot fired? And if so, what sort of person was the man who fired it?”
Again I searched the pigeon-holes of my memory in vain, as I had done a hundred times before by myself.
“It’s no use,” I cried helplessly, letting my hands drop by my side. “I can’t remember a thing, except the Picture. I don’t know whether I saw the shot fired or not. I don’t know what the murderer looked like in the face. I’ve told you all I know. I can recall nothing else. It’s all a great blank to me.”
The Inspector hesitated a moment, as if in doubt what step to take next. Then he drew himself up and said, still more gravely:
“This inability to assist us is really very singular. I had hoped, after Dr. Thornton’s report, that we might at last count with some certainty upon arriving at fresh results as to the actual murder. I can see from what you tell me you’re a young lady of intelligence — much above the average — and great strength of mind. It’s curious your memory should fail you so pointedly just where we stand most in need of its aid. Recollect, nobody else but you ever saw the murderer’s face. Now, I’m going to presume you’re answering me honestly, and try a bold means to arouse your dormant memory. Look hard, and hark back. — Is that the room you recollect? Is that the picture that still haunts and pursues you?”
He handed me the photograph he held in his fingers. I took it, all on fire. The sight almost made me turn sick with horror. To my awe and amazement, it was indeed the very scene I remembered so well. Only, of course, it was taken from another point of view, and represented things in rather different relative positions to those I figured them in. But it showed my father’s body lying dead upon the floor; it showed his poor corpse weltering helpless in its blood; it showed myself, as a girl of eighteen, standing awestruck, gazing on in blank horror at the sight; and in the background, half blurred by the summer evening light, it showed the vague outline of a man’s back, getting out of the window. On one side was the door: that formed no part of my mental picture, because it was at my back; but in the photograph it too was indistinct, as if in the very act of being burst open. The details were vague, in part — probably the picture had never been properly focussed; — but the main figures stood out with perfect clearness, and everything in the room was, allowing for the changed point of view, exactly as I remembered it in my persistent mental photograph.
I drew a deep breath.
“That’s my Picture,” I said, slowly. “But it recalls to me nothing new. I — I don’t understand it.”
The Inspector stared at me hard once more.
“Do you know,” he asked, “how that photograph was produced, and how it came into our possession?”
