Ellen Wood

A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR

Beginning in May 1857, the Indian Mutiny was an uprising of Indian regiments who began to expel or put to death European residents. The uprising effectively ended the East India Company’s dominance in India. It took two months for the news of this upheaval to reach the United Kingdom, but, once it did, it became a focal point for periodicals, entirely dominating foreign affairs articles for the rest of the year. Known for her sensation novels, including East Lynne, Ellen Wood (1814–1887) developed a knack for wringing the greatest amount of pathos and tragedy out of the page: “Her books are pure soap operas”.8 This short story appeared first in Bentley’s Miscellany in 1857 and later, in a bowdlerized version, in Argosy, the magazine she bought and edited. It certainly emphasizes the British perspective of the Indian Mutiny’s tragic violence for readers far removed from the danger. The soldier-husband involves his wife in the mutiny by visiting her on the night of its occurrence. While this seems like gritty Christmas reading, the highly emotional quality of the story would have been fitting for the midwinter reading circle during the charged period of Christmas 1857.

On Monday morning, the 11th of May last, there sat in one of the quiet rooms of Enton parsonage a young and pretty woman, playing with her baby. It was Mrs. Ordie. The incumbent of Enton was Dr. Ling, an honorary canon of the county cathedral, and rather given, of late years, to certain church innovations. He called himself a high churchman, his friends a Tractarian, and his enemies a Puseyite. However, Puseyite or not, he was the spiritual director of Enton, which brought him in a good round income, every farthing of which he lived up to, some people said to more. Mrs. Ling was from India; her family connexions lived there; father, uncles, brothers, and cousins, had been, or were, in the civil or military service of Bengal. Consequently, as the daughters of Dr. Ling had grown towards womanhood, they were severally shipped off, with high matrimonial views, according to a fashion that extensively prevails among certain of our British families.

Miss Ling, Louisa, had gone out first, and had secured Captain Ordie. Constance had gone out next, and espoused Lieutenant Main, to the indignation of all her relatives, both at home and out, for she was a handsome girl, and had been set down for nothing less than a major. Lieutenant Main, who was attached to Captain Ordie’s regiment, had been home on sick leave, and was unfortunately returning in the very ship that took Constance. Before they had come to the end of their voyage, they had agreed that Main was a prettier name for the young lady than Ling, and although everybody assured her that he had no interest and would never get promoted, she married him. The third daughter, Sarah Ann, very young and pretty she was, went out the following year, with a stern injunction not to do as Constance had done. Sarah Ann, probably, would not have gone so soon, but that Mrs. Ordie had urged it. Her own health was not good; she was returning to Europe; let Sarah Ann come and be introduced under her auspices, before she left, otherwise she would be consigned to the charge and bad example of Mrs. Main. And Sarah Ann was despatched at the age of fifteen: Dr. and Mrs. Ling had three other daughters yet.

It happened, however, before Sarah Ann could get there, that Mrs. Ordie’s health grew worse, and she was ordered immediately to her native climate, so, after all, Sarah Ann had to be received by Mrs. Main. Mrs. Ordie, upon landing in England, proceeded to Enton. The voyage had been of much service to her, and her health was improved. And there we see her sitting, on the morning of the 11th of last May, nearly twelve months after her arrival, playing with her infant, who was nine months old. She was well now, and in August she and the child were going back to India.

Mrs. Ordie was much attached to this child, very anxious and fidgety over it; her first child had died in India, so perhaps that was the reason. She fancied, this morning, that it was not well, and had been sending in haste for Mrs. Beecher, who lived close by. The honorary canon, Mrs. Ling, and two of the remaining daughters, had gone, the previous Saturday, to spend a week in the county town, where he had some “honorary” duty to perform in the cathedral.

Mrs. Beecher came running in without her bonnet. She had been governess to Louisa and Constance when they were young, had married the curate, and remained the deeply-attached friend and adviser of the Ling family. In any emergency Mrs. Beecher was appealed to, and she proved herself equal to all.

“I am sure baby’s ill,” was Mrs. Ordie’s salutation. “I have been playing with her, and doing all I can to excite her notice, but she will keep her head down. See how hot her cheeks are.”

“I think she is sleepy,” said Mrs. Beecher. “And perhaps a very little feverish.”

“Do you think her feverish? Whatever shall I do? Good mercy, if she should die as the other did!”

“Louisa,” remonstrated Mrs. Beecher, “do not excite yourself causelessly. I thought you had left that off before you went out: you promised me you had.”

“Oh, but you don’t know what it is to lose a child, you never had one,” returned Mrs. Ordie, giving way to her excitement. “If she dies, I can tell you I shall die with her.”

“Hush,” interrupted Mrs. Beecher. “In the first place, I believe there is little, if anything, the matter with the child, except cutting her teeth, which renders all children somewhat feverish. In the second, if she were dangerously ill, you have no right to say what you have just said.”

“Oh yes, I have a right, for it is truth. I would rather lose everything I possess in the world, than my baby.”

“Not everything, I hope, Louisa,” quietly remarked Mrs. Beecher.

“Yes, everything. I would. I like nothing half so well. What a while Mr. Percival is!” she added, walking to the window and looking out.

“You surely have not sent for Mr. Percival?”

“I surely have. And if he does not soon make his appearance, I shall send again.”

Mrs. Beecher sighed. “I am sorry to see this, Louisa. You will get into your old nervous state again.”

Mrs. Ordie would not hear reason. She had taken up the idea that the child was ill, and at length told Mrs. Beecher that as she had never had any children herself, she could not feel for her. She had always been of most excitable temperament. As a girl, her imagination was so vivid, so prone to the marvellous, that story books and fairy tales were obliged to be kept from her. She would seek to get them unknown to her parents, and, when successful, would wake up in the night, shrieking with terror at what she had read. Hers was indeed a peculiarly active brain. It is necessary to mention this, as it may account, in some degree, for what follows.

There was really nothing the matter with the child, but Mrs. Ordie insisted that there was, and made herself misera­ble all the day. The surgeon, Mr. Perci­val, came; he saw little the matter with it, either, but he ordered it a warm bath, and sent in some medicine—probably dis­tilled water and sugar: mothers and nurses must be humored.

Mrs. Beecher called in, in the evening. Mrs. Ordie hinted that she might as well remain for the night, to be on the spot should baby be taken worse.

Mrs. Beecher laughed. “I think I can promise you that there will be no danger, Louisa. You may cease to torment your­self; if she was not quite well this morn­ing, I can see that she is perfectly so to­-night. You may go to sleep in peace.”

“You might as well stay. However, if any thing does happen, I shall send to your house, and call you up.”

The Lings kept four servants. Of these, two, a man and maid, were with their master and mistress, the other two were at home. And there was the child’s nurse. After Mrs. Beecher left, Mrs. Ordie crept along the corridor to the nurse’s room, where the baby slept, and found the nurse undressing herself.

“What are you doing that for?” she indignantly exclaimed. “Of course you will sit up to-night, and watch by baby.”

“Sit up for what, ma’am?” returned the nurse.

“I would not leave the child unwatched to-night for any thing. My other baby died of convulsions, and the same thing may attack this. They come on in a mo­ment. I have ordered Martha to sit up in the kitchen and keep hot water in readiness.”

“Why, ma’am, there’s no cause in the world for it. The baby is as well as you or I, and has never woke up since I laid her down at eight o’clock.”

“She shall be watched this night,” per­sisted Mrs. Ordie. “So dress yourself again.”

“I must say it’s a shame,” grumbled the nurse, who had grown tired of her mis­tress’s capricious ways, and had privately told the other servants that she did not care how soon she left the situation. “I’d sit up for a week, if there was a call for it, but to be deprived of one’s natural rest, for nothing, is too bad. I’ll sit myself in the old rocking-chair, if I must sit up,” added the servant, half to herself, half to her mistress, “and get asleep that way.”

Mrs. Ordie’s eyes flashed anger. The fact was, the slavery of Eastern servants had a little spoiled her for the independ­ence of European ones. She accused the girl of every crime that was unfeeling, short of child-murder, and concluded by having the infant’s crib carried down to her own room. She would sit up herself and watch it.

The child still slept calmly and quietly, and Mrs. Ordie sat quietly by it. But she began to find it rather dull, and she went to the book-shelves and got a book. It was then striking eleven. Setting the lamp on a small table at her elbow, she began to read.

She had pitched upon the “Vicar of Wakefield.” She had not opened the book for years, and she read on with in­terest, all her old pleasure in the tale re­vived. Suddenly she heard footsteps on the gravel path outside, advancing down it, and she looked off and listened. The first thought that struck her was, that one of the servants had been out without per­mission, and was coming in at that late hour, which, as her hanging watch, oppo­site, told her, was twenty-five minutes past eleven. It must be explained that Enton parsonage stood a little back from the high road, and was surrounded by trees. Two iron gates gave ingress from the road, by a broad, half-circular carriage path, which swept round close by the house, between it and the thick trees. A lawn and garden were at the back of the house, but there was no ingress there, or to any part of the premises, save through the iron gates. A narrow gravel path, branching off from the portico, led to the small house of the curate, not a hundred yards off, and that house was connected with the high road by one iron gate, and a straight walk. Broad enough for carriages also, but none ever went down it, for they could not turn. These iron gates—the rector’s two and the curate’s one—were invariably locked at sunset, all the year round: did any visitors approach either house, after that, they had to ring for admittance.

Mrs. Ordie heard footsteps in the still­ness of the night, and her eyes glanced to her watch. Twenty-five minutes after eleven. But immediately an expression of astonishment rose to her face, and her eyes dilated and her lips opened, and her ears were strained to the sound. If ever she heard the footsteps of her husband, she was sure she heard them then.

She drew in her breath and listened still. They were coming nearer, close upon the house, his own sharp, quick, firm step, which she had never heard since she left him in Calcutta: they were right under­neath her window now, on their way to the door. With a cry of joy she rose, and softly opened the window.

“George! dear George! I knew your step. Whatever brings you home?”

There was no answer, except the sound of the footsteps, but she leaned out, and by the rays, cast outside from the kitchen window, which was well lighted within, and stood far back, at right angles with the house door, she saw the form of the visitor. Rather dimly to be sure, but there was no mistaking it for any other than Captain Ordie, and he wore his regi­mentals. She watched him leave the broad path, and halt at the entrance to the portico, which was situated on the side of the house. She spoke again:

“George, you did not hear me. Don’t knock—baby’s ill. Wait a moment, and I will let you in.”

She sprang to the door. Her lamp was not one suitable for carry­ing, and she would not stay to light a taper: she knew every stair well, and sped down them. But she was awkward at the fastenings of the front door, and could not undo them in the dark. She ran into the kitchen for a light. The servant, sitting up in obe­dience to her orders, was lying back in a chair, her feet stretched out upon another. She was fast asleep and snoring. A large fire burnt in the grate, and two candles were alight on the ironing-board under­neath the window, one of them guttering down. Servants will be wasteful.

“Martha! Martha!” she exclaimed, “rouse up. My husband’s come.”

“What!” cried the woman, starting up in affright, and evidently forgetting where she was, “who’s come?”

“Come and open the hall-door. Captain Ordie is there.”

She snatched one of the candles from the table, and bore to the door again. The servant followed, rubbing her eyes.