The mystery of Angelina Frood
I proceeded to give her a brief account of my recent adventures and
the condition of her precious husband. “Is he subject to attacks of
this kind?” I asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “When he is put out about anything in some ways
he is rather like a hysterical woman. But, you see, I was right. He is
penniless. And that--now I come to think of it--makes it rather odd
that he should be here. But won’t you come in for a moment?”
I entered and shut the door. “Why is it odd?” I asked.
“Because he would be getting some money to-morrow. I make him a small
allowance; it is very little, but it is as much as I can possibly
manage; and it is paid monthly, on the fifteenth of the month. But he
has to apply for it personally at the bank or send an accredited
messenger with a receipt; and as to-morrow is the fifteenth, the
question is, why on earth is he down here now? I mean that it is odd
that he should not have waited to collect the allowance before coming
to hunt me up.”
“If he is in communication with your banker,” said I, “he could, I
suppose, get a letter forwarded to you?”
“No,” she replied; “the banker who pays him is the London agent of Mr.
Japp’s banker, and he doesn’t know on whose behalf the payments are
made. I had to make that arrangement, or he would have bombarded me
with letters.”
“Well,” I said, “you had better keep close for a day or two. If his
search for you is unsuccessful, he may get discouraged and raise the
siege. I will let you know what his movements are, so far as I can.”
She thanked me once more with most evident sincerity, and as I made my
way to the door, she let me out with a cordial and friendly shake of
the hand.
CHAPTER IV.
DEALS WITH CHARITY AND ARCHÆOLOGY
Immediately after breakfast on the following morning I made my way
to Mr. Richard Watts’s establishment, where I learned that all the
poor travellers had departed with the exception of my patient, who had
been allowed to stay pending my report on him.
“I shall be glad to see the back of him, poor fellow,” said the
matron, “for, of course, we have no arrangements for dealing with sick
men.”
“Do you often get cases of illness here?” I asked.
“I really don’t know,” she answered. “You see, I am only doing
temporary duty here while the regular matron is away. But I should
think not, though little ailments are apt to occur in the case of a
poor man who has been on the road for a week or so.”
“This man is on tramp, is he?” said I.
“Well, no,” she replied. “It seems, from what he tells me, that his
wife has left him, and he had reason to believe that she was staying
in this town. So he came down here to try to find her. He supposed
that Rochester was a little place where everybody knew everybody else,
and that he would have no difficulty in discovering her whereabouts.
But all his inquiries have come to nothing. Nobody seems to have heard
of her. I suppose you don’t happen to know the name--Frood?”
“I only came here yesterday, myself,” was my evasive reply. “I am a
stranger to the town. But is he certain that she is here?”
“I don’t think he is. At any rate, he seems inclined to give up the
search for the present, and he is very anxious to get back to London.
But I don’t know how he is going to manage it. He isn’t fit to walk.”
“Well,” I said, “if it is only the railway fare that stands in the
way, that difficulty can be got over. I will pay for his ticket; but I
should like to be sure that he really goes.”
“Oh, I’ll see to that,” she said, with evident relief. “I will go with
him to the station, and get his ticket and see him into the train. But
you had better just have a look at him, and see that he is fit to go.”
She conducted me to the supper-room, where our friend was sitting in a
Windsor armchair, looking the very picture of misery and dejection.
“Here is the doctor come to see you, Mr. Frood,” the matron said
cheerfully, “and he is kind enough to say that, if you are well enough
to travel, he will pay your fare to London. So there’s an end of your
difficulties.”
The poor devil glanced at me for an instant, and then looked away;
and, to my intense discomfort, I saw that his eyes were filling.
“It is indeed good of you, Sir,” he murmured, shakily, but in a very
pleasant voice and with a refined accent; “most good and kind to help
a lame dog over a stile in this way. I don’t know how to thank you.”
Here, as he showed a distinct tendency to weep, I replied hastily:
“Not at all. We’ve all got to help one another in this world. And how
are you feeling? Hand is still a little bit shaky, I see.”
I put my finger on his wrist and then looked him over generally. He
was a miserable wreck, but I judged that he was as well as he was ever
likely to be.
“Well,” I said, “you are not in first-class form, but you are up to a
short railway journey. I suppose you have somewhere to go to in
London?”
“Yes,” he replied, dismally, “I have a room. It isn’t in the Albany,
but it is a shelter from the weather.”
“Never mind,” said I. “We must hope for better times. The matron is
going to see you safely to the station and comfortably settled in the
train--and”--here I handed her a ten shilling note--“you will get Mr.
Frood’s ticket, matron, and you had better give him the change. He may
want a cab when he gets to town.”
He glowered sulkily at this arrangement--I suspect he had run out of
cigarettes--but he thanked me again, and, when I had privately
ascertained the time of the train which was to bear him away, I wished
him adieu.
“I suppose,” said I, “there is no likelihood of his hopping out at
Strood to get a drink and losing the train?”
The matron smiled knowingly. “He will start from Strood,” said she. “I
shall take him over the bridge in the tram and put him into the London
express there. We don’t want him back here to-night.”
Much relieved by the good lady’s evident grasp of the situation, I
turned away up the street and began to consider my next move. I had
nothing to do this morning, for at present there was not a single
patient on my books with the exception of Mrs. Frood; and it may have
been in accordance with the prevailing belief that to persons in my
condition, an individual, familiarly known as “the old gentleman,”
obligingly functions as employment agent, that my thoughts turned to
that solitary patient. At any rate they did. Suddenly, it was borne in
on me that I ought, without delay, to convey to her the glad tidings
of her husband’s departure. Whether the necessity would have appeared
as urgent if her personal attractions had been less, I will not
presume to say; nor whether had I been more self-critical, I should
not have looked with some suspicion on this intense concern respecting
the welfare of a woman who was almost a stranger to me. As it was, it
appeared to me that I was but discharging a neighbourly duty when I
executed an insinuating rat-tat on the handsome brass knocker which
was adorned--somewhat inappropriately, under the circumstances--with
a mask of Hypnos.
After a short interval, the door was opened by a spare, middle-aged
woman of melancholic aspect, with tow-coloured hair and a somewhat
anæmic complexion, who regarded me inquiringly with a faded blue eye.
“Is Mrs. Frood at home?” I asked briskly.
“I am afraid she is not,” was the reply, uttered in a dejected tone.
“I saw her go out some time ago, and I haven’t heard her come back.
But I’ll just see, if you will come in a moment.”
I entered the hall and listened with an unaccountable feeling of
disappointment as she rapped on the door first of the front room, and
then of the back.
“She isn’t in her rooms there,” was the dispirited report, “but she
may be in the basement. I’ll call out and ask.”
She retired to the inner hall and gave utterance to a wail like that
of an afflicted sea-gull. But there was no response; and I began to
feel myself infected by her melancholy.
“I am sorry you have missed her, Sir,” said she; and then she asked:
“Are you her doctor, Sir?”
I felt myself justified in affirming that I was, whereupon she
exclaimed:
“Ah, poor thing! It is a comfort to know that she has someone to look
after her. She has been looking very sadly of late. Very sadly, she
has.”
I began to back cautiously towards the door, but she followed me up
and continued: “I am afraid she has had a deal of trouble; a deal of
trouble, poor dear. Not that she ever speaks of it to me. But I know.
I can see the lines of grief and sorrow--like a worm in the bud, so to
speak, Sir--and it makes my heart ache. It does, indeed.”
I mumbled sympathetically and continued to back towards the door.
“I don’t see very much of her,” she continued in a plaintive tone.
“She keeps herself very close. Too close, I think. You see, she does
for herself entirely. Now and again, when she asks me, which is very
seldom, I put a bit of supper in her room. That is all. And I do think
that it isn’t good for a young woman to live so solitary; and I do
hope you’ll make her take a little more change.”
“I suppose she goes out sometimes,” said I, noting that she was out at
the present moment.
“Oh, yes,” was the reply. “She goes out a good deal. But always alone.
She never has any society.”
“And what time does she usually come in?” I asked, with a view to a
later call.
“About six; or between that and seven. Then she has her supper and
puts the things out on the hall table. And that is the last I usually
see of her.”
By this time I had reached the door and softly unfastened the latch.
“If you should see her,” I said, “you might tell her that I shall look
in this evening about half-past seven.”
“Certainly, Sir,” she replied. “I shall see her at lunch-time, and I
will give her your message.”
I thanked her, and, having now got the door open, I wished her good
morning, and retreated down the steps.
As I was in the act of turning away, my eye lighted on the adjacent
bay window, appertaining to the office of Messrs. Japp and Bundy, and
I then perceived above the green curtain the upper half of a human
face, including a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles; an
apparition which informed me that Mr. Bundy had been--to use Sam
Weller’s expression--“a-twigging of me.” On catching my eye, the face
rose higher, disclosing a broad grin; whereupon, without any apparent
reason, I felt myself turning somewhat red. However, I mounted the
official steps, and, opening the office door, confronted the smiler
and his more sedate partner.
“Ha!” said the former, “you drew a blank, Doctor. I saw the lovely
Angelina go out about an hour ago. Whom did you see?”
“The lady of the house, I presume; a pale, depressed female.”
“I know,” said Bundy. “Looks like an undertaker’s widow. That’s Mrs.
Gillow. Rhymes with willow--very appropriate, too,” and he began to
chant in an absurd, Punch-like voice: “Oh, all round my hat I’ll wear
the green----”
“Be quiet, Bundy,” said Mr. Japp, regarding his partner with a wrinkly
and indulgent smile.
Bundy clapped his hand over his mouth and blew out his cheeks, and I
took the opportunity to explain: “I called on Mrs. Frood to let her
know that her husband is leaving the town.”
“Leaving the town, is he?” said Mr. Japp, elevating his eyebrows and
thereby causing his forehead to resemble a small Venetian blind. “Do
you know when?”
“He goes this morning by the ten-thirty express to London.”
“Hooray!” ejaculated Bundy, with a flourish of his arms that nearly
capsized his stool. He recovered himself with an effort, and then,
fixing his eyes on me, proceeded to whistle the opening bars of “O!
Thou that tellest good tidings to Zion!”
“That’ll do, Bundy,” said Mr. Japp. Then turning to me, he asked:
“Where did you learn these good tidings, Doctor?”