The Clock That Struck Thirteen

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Title:     The Clock That Struck Thirteen
Author: Mary Louisa Molesworth [More Titles by Molesworth]

"You misunderstand me wilfully, Helen. I neither said nor inferred anything of the kind."

"What did you mean then, for if words to you bear a different interpretation from what they do to me, I must trouble you to speak in my language when addressing me," angrily retorted a young girl, with what nature had intended to be a very pretty face with a charming expression, but which at the present moment was far from deserving the latter part of the description. Eyes flashing, cheeks burning and hands clenched in the excess of her indignation, stood Helen Beaumont by the window of her pretty little sitting-room, or "studio" as she loved to call it, presenting a striking contrast to the peaceful scene without; where a carefully tended garden still looked bright with the remaining flowers of late September. Her companion, standing in the attitude invariably assumed now-a-days by novelists' heroes, namely, leaning against the mantelpiece, was a young man of equally prepossessing appearance with her own. At first glance no one would have suspected him of sharing any of the young lady's excitement, for his expression was so calm as almost to merit the description of sleepy. Looking more closely, however, the signs of some unusual disturbance or annoyance were to be descried, for his face was slightly flushed and his blue eyes had lost the look of sweet temper evidently their ordinary expression.

"What I meant to say, Helen, was not, as you choose to misinterpret it, that I blame you for proper womanly courage and spirit, than which, I consider few things more admirable, nor as you are well aware do I admire the sweetly silly and affectedly timid order of young ladies. But this I do mean and repeat, that I think your persistence in this foolish scheme a piece of sheer bravado and foolhardiness, totally unworthy of any sensible person's approval, and what is more----"

"Thank you, Malcolm, or rather Mr. Willoughby, I have heard quite enough,"--and as she spoke, Helen turned from the window out of which she had been gazing while Malcolm spoke, with, it must be confessed, very little interest in the varied tints of the dahlias blooming in all their rich brilliance on the terrace,--"I have heard quite enough, and think myself exceedingly fortunate in having heard it now before it is too late. You may imagine," she continued, "that I am speaking in temper, but it is not so. I have for some time suspected, and now feel convinced, that we are not suited to each other. Your own words bear witness to your opinion of me, 'self-willed, foolhardy, unwomanly,' and I know not what other pretty expressions you have applied to me, and for my part I tell you simply that I cannot and will not marry a man whose opinion of what a woman should be is like yours; and who insults me constantly as you do, by telling me how far short I fall of his ideal. Marry your ideal, Malcolm Willoughby, and I shall wish you joy of her. Some silly little fool who dares not move a step alone in her bewitching helplessness. But do not think to convert me into such a piece of contemptible inanity," and so saying she turned towards the door.

"Helen," said Malcolm quietly, so quietly that Helen was arrested in spite of herself, "you are unjust, unreasonable and ungenerous. You know that I never cared for any woman but you, you know that nothing pleases me more than to witness your superiority in numberless particulars to the general run of girls, and you know too the pride and pleasure I take in your skill as an artist; but blinded by self-will you will not see the perfect reasonableness of my request that you will abandon this absurd expedition. If not for your own sake, at least do so for Edith's, who is as you know left in your special charge by Leonard."

The first part of this speech seemed, to judge by Helen's transparent countenance, likely to soften and move her, but the unlucky word "absurd" and the tone in which Malcolm spoke, as if it was necessary to remind her of her duty, effectually did away with any good result that his remonstrance might have worked. She turned, with her hand on the door, and saying, "I have told you my decision, Mr. Willoughby, and I wish you good-evening," left the room. Malcolm remained behind, lost in thought of no pleasurable nature. At last he too left the little sitting-room, after first ringing the bell and ordering his horse to be brought round. Making his way to the front entrance he there "mounted and rode away," his spirits, poor fellow, by no means the better for his visit.

It is time, I think, to explain the cause of the lovers' quarrel above described. Helen and Edith Beaumont were orphans, left to the guardianship of their brother Leonard, in whose house we have seen the former. Delicacy, induced by a severe illness some months previously, had obliged Mr. Beaumont, accompanied by his wife, to go for the autumn and winter months to the south of France, leaving his sisters at home under the nominal chaperonage of an elderly aunt, who performed her duty to the perfect satisfaction of her nieces by letting them do exactly as they liked. More correctly speaking, perhaps, exactly as Helen liked, for the younger of the two, Edith, a girl of seventeen and four years her sister's junior, could hardly be said to have likes or dislikes distinct from those of Helen. Possibly Mr. Beaumont might not have left the two to their own devices with so easy a mind, had he not quitted home happy in the knowledge of Helen's engagement to his friend and neighbour Malcolm Willoughby. The gentleman in question lived within a few miles of our heroine's home, having succeeded some years before to his father's property. His only sister, Mrs. Lindsay, was at this time living with him for a few months while awaiting her husband's return from India, and though some years older, was, next to her sister, Helen's most valued friend and companion. Malcolm Willoughby was a man of high character, peculiarly fitted, by his unusual amount of sterling good sense, to be the guide of an impulsive, enthusiastic girl like pretty Helen Beaumont, whom to know was to love, and who would have been altogether charming but for her inordinate amount of self-will and inveterate dislike to being, as she expressed it, "ordered" to do or not to do whatever came into her head. She and her sister had real talent as artists, and their spirited and well-executed landscapes bore but little resemblance to the insipid productions of most young lady painters. To improving herself in this direction Helen had devoted much time and labour. Unfortunately, it had so absorbed her thoughts and desires that in its pursuance she was inclined sometimes to forget what were for her more important avocations. Helen's fortunate engagement to Mr. Willoughby had for some time past corrected these only objectionable tendencies in her character, and all had gone smoothly and happily till the date at which our story commences, when, unluckily, some artist friends had filled her head with their descriptions of the exquisite autumn scenery, "effects of foliage," etc., to be seen in a mountainous and hitherto little explored part of Wales. Her imagination, and through her that of her sister Edith, ran wild on the subject, and now nothing would satisfy her but a journey to the spot in question, by themselves, in order that they might enjoy their freedom to the utmost, and revel in the delight of painting some of the wonderful Welsh scenery described to them. The idea had at first been mooted half in joke, but an impolitic expression of strong disapprobation on the part of Mr. Willoughby had done more to determine Helen on carrying it out than all the anticipated artistic enjoyment.

"It will be just the opportunity I wanted," thought the foolish girl, "of showing him that I do not intend to be a silly nonentity of a wife with no opinion of my own, and hedged in by all the absurd old-fashioned conventionalities which will not allow a woman to have an existence of her own or give her opportunity to cultivate what talents she may possess."

And once determined, Miss Helen remained inflexible. In vain Mr. Willoughby remonstrated, in vain even their indulgent old aunt expressed her horror at the idea of "two young girls scouring the country by themselves," her own feebleness rendering her accompanying them out of the question. Go to Wales Helen and Edith must, and go they would, till at last the discussion with her fiancé terminated in the disastrous manner above recorded.

I will not undertake to describe Helen's feelings, when, in the solitude of her own room, she thought over what she had done. Had she herself been obliged to put them into words, I believe she would have repeated that she had not acted in temper and that the stand she had made for her womanly freedom, as she would have expressed it, had been an act of supreme heroism and devotion to the cause of right. She said all this to herself and tried hard, very hard to believe it; and to stifle the little voice at the very bottom of her heart which whispered that she had behaved like a silly, self-willed, petted child, and shown herself undeserving of so good a gift as the love of a man like Malcolm Willoughby. The little voice was smothered for the time by exaggerated anticipations of the delights of their tour and attempted self-congratulations at her newly regained liberty to do as she chose; for Malcolm did not come near her again, and it took all her pride to hide from herself and others the shock she felt through all her being when, in the course of a few days, she heard accidentally that Mr. Willoughby was leaving home for an uncertain length of time.

"He has taken me at my word," thought she, "but of course I meant him to do so," and she hurried on the preparations for their journey which they were now on the eve of.

"You will at least take Maxwell," said Aunt Fanny timidly.

"Maxwell, aunt! No, thank you," said Helen ironically; "she would be crying for her spring mattress the first night and thinking she was going to die if she heard the wind howl. No, thank you, I mean to be independent for once in my life, and so does Edith."

Other twenty-four hours saw our two young ladies on their way. Unaccustomed as they were to travelling alone they got on very well for the greater part of their journey, till they arrived at a certain railway station in Wales, of name unpronounceable by civilised tongue, but which sounded to them like that of the place where they were to leave the railway. Never doubting but what they were right in so doing Helen and Edith calmly descended from their carriage, watched the train disappear in the tunnel hard by, and then began to make inquiries for a conveyance to transport themselves and their luggage, white umbrellas, easels and all, the five or six miles which they imagined were all that divided them from their destination. A colloquy ensued with the most intelligible of two or three fly-drivers, carmen, or whatever these personages are called in Wales; but what was Helen's consternation on learning that fifteen miles at least remained to be traversed; they having left the railway at Llanfar, two stations too soon, instead of remaining in it till they reached Llanfair, the point nearest to the farm-house where lodgings had been taken for them. No chance of a train to Llanfair till to-morrow morning, for the line was a new one, and the traffic as yet but small. No prospect of a night's accommodation where they were. Nothing for it but to trust to the driver's assurance that he and his unpromising-looking horse could easily convey them to the farm-house, with the inevitably unpronounceable name. With some unconfessed misgivings Helen and Edith mounted the vehicle awaiting them, and drove off along a muddy, jolting lane into the quickly gathering gloom.

Shivering on her uncomfortable seat, did Helen wish herself at home again in her own little sitting-room, with Aunt Fanny peacefully knitting, Edith kneeling on the hearth-rug, and Malcolm's face bright with the reflection of the ruddy log fire so welcome in autumn evenings; all together as was their wont, enjoying "blind man's holiday"?

I think we had better not press the question too closely. However, "it's a long lane that has no ending," and even this dreary journey gradually drew to a close. They passed but few houses of any kind, one or two straggling hamlets were left behind, and for some two or three miles the road had been perfectly solitary, when they suddenly heard wheels advancing to meet them, and in a few minutes a car like their own drove towards them, and being hailed by their driver, drew up at their side. A jabbering ensued of directions asked and given, and they again drove on.

"Are you sure you know the way?" said Helen timidly.

"Oh yes, miss," the driver answered confidently, and further informed them that the car they had met, had just returned from their own destination (being translated), the Black Nest Farm, having there deposited a traveller who had taken the middle course of leaving the railway at the intermediate stoppage between Llanfar and Llanfair. Other three-quarters of an hour and they pulled up at last before a house which the darkness prevented their seeing more of than that it was long and low. They stumbled up the rough garden path, and in answer to their knock, the door was opened by a tidy, clean-looking old woman, with a flickering candle in her hand, evidently surprised at their appearance. She had, she said, quite given up thoughts of their coming that night, and feared the fire in the sitting-room was out. Thankful to have reached the Black Nest at last, a chilly room seemed a smaller evil than the two girls would have considered it at home; and after all, things were not so bad, for the fire in the little farmhouse parlour, to which their landlady conducted them, was not quite out, and a little judicious coaxing soon brought it round.

Their hostess's and their own first idea was of course tea. What a blessing, by the way, it is that British womankind in general, high and low, rich and poor, old and young, have this one taste in common! Refreshed by the homely meal speedily set before them, Helen and Edith proceeded, under the guidance of the old woman (apparently the only inhabitant of the house), and the flickering candle, to inspect their sleeping apartment. The result was not eminently satisfactory, for it struck them as gloomy, ill-ventilated, and a long way from their parlour, though but few rooms appeared to intervene between the two. This puzzled them at the time, but was afterwards explained by the fact that Black Nest Farm-house had originally consisted of two one-storeyed cottages standing at some yards distance from each other, and which, on becoming the property of one owner, had been united by a long passage; which arrangement was looked upon in the neighbourhood as a triumph of architectural ingenuity. On returning to their sitting-room Helen's eye fell on a door beside their own which she had not before noticed, and she inquired if that was a bedroom. To which the old woman replied in the affirmative, but added that they could not have it, as it and a small sitting-room opening out of it were engaged by a "strange gentleman". And besides this, she added, the bedroom was not so desirable for ladies, having a second, or rather third door to the outside of the house. The only other room they could have was so small that she did not think they would like it, but they should see for themselves, and so saying she turned towards a recess in the passage. Helen followed her, but the flickering candle suddenly throwing light in a new direction, she gave a little exclamation of alarm at what appeared at the first moment to be a very ugly grinning portrait high up on the wall.

"It's only the clock, miss," said the old woman. "Though, to be sure, it is quare," and as she spoke she threw the light more fully upon the object that had startled Helen, which she now perceived to be a very antique clock, standing high in a dark wooden case, and with the face she had seen, peeping at you as it were from behind the dial-plate. An ugly, coarsely painted face, with a disagreeably mocking expression it seemed to Helen; nor was it the only repulsive feature in this very remarkable clock, for the artist appeared to have outdone himself in the grotesquely hideous devices at the bottom of the dial. Death's heads, cross-bones, and other equally unpleasant objects of various kinds, curiously intermingled with a condensed solar system, in which sun, moon and stars appeared jumbled together haphazard. The general object of the whole evidently being to bring before the spectator the ghastly side of his future, and to read him a wholesome, but certainly not attractive, homily on the shortness of life, and the speed with which time was ticking away. Helen felt half fascinated by its hideousness.

"Dear me, what a very curious clock!" she ejaculated, and the old woman repeated, with a little inward chuckle at what she evidently considered the admiration drawn forth by her heirloom:--

"Yes, sure it is quare."

An uncanny object it certainly was, and Helen felt relieved that the room in its immediate vicinity was so small as to be out of the question for the accommodation of her sister and herself. Re-entering the sitting-room she found poor Edith looking so utterly worn-out that she proposed that they should at once go to bed; which they accordingly did, followed by the old woman with offers of assistance. Passing the door of "the strange gentleman's" room, they heard sounds of some one moving inside, and Edith sleepily remarked that she wondered what could have brought a gentleman to an outlandish place like the Black Nest, unless, like themselves, he came to take views in the neighbourhood. Helen pricked up her ears at this and inquired of Mrs. Jones if their fellow-lodger was an artist. Mrs. Jones thought not, but seemed unwilling to pursue the topic of the strange gentleman further. In rather a forced manner she changed the subject by inquiring if the young ladies would like to hire her pony while there, as it was rough walking, and her grandson Griffith, the only other inhabitant of the cottage, a little lad of twelve, could lead it for them, and show them the way whenever they chose. Helen gladly closed with the offer.

"Dear me, Mrs. Jones," she exclaimed "how very lonely you must be living here with no one but a little boy. Have you no near neighbours?"

"None nearer than three miles ma'am, for the farm-men live at a distance, save old Thomas in the last cottage you passed, but he is bed-ridden. My widow daughter, Griffith's mother, was with me till she took ill, two winters ago, and died before the doctor could get to her. Yes, it is lonesome like in winter to be sure. It's not often that gentry like you, miss, care to be in these parts so late in the year."

Further inquiries elicited that the nearest church was a good five miles off, that there was no doctor nearer than Llanfar, that the butcher only came in the winter once a fortnight and that irregularly; in consequence of which the Black Nesters had often to depend upon their own scanty resources, the roads being almost impassable in stormy weather.

"Don't you think it feels rather dreary, Helen?" said Edith, as she was falling asleep.

"Eerie, rather, I should say," replied her sister, "but that, you know, is the beauty of it. In the morning, I daresay, it will look bright enough, but I confess I do not like that clock. Listen, can't you hear its ticking, faintly, even here, at the end of that long passage?"

"What clock do you mean? I saw no clock," said Edith, but almost before Helen could answer, her soft regular breathing told that she was asleep. Helen however, could not so quickly compose herself. She felt excited and vaguely uneasy; and when she at last fell asleep, it was only to have her discomfort increased, by absurd, yet alarming dreams. With them all the ugly clock was grotesquely intermingled. Sometimes it was herself, sometimes Edith, and once Malcolm, whom she fancied in some position of terrible peril, always associated with the clock, and at last she awoke with a half-smothered scream of horror at the most frightful dream of all; in which the "strange gentleman," their fellow-lodger, was pursuing her with a veil over his face, which just as he caught her fell off, and disclosed, horrible to relate, the face on the clock.

Edith started up as Helen convulsively clutched her, and exclaiming, "What in the world is the matter?" really thought Helen was going out of her mind when she replied, "That horrible clock;" and as she spoke, as if invoked, the clock began to strike: "One, two, three, four," and so on. "Is it never going to stop?" said Helen. Poor Edith, half asleep still, listened with her.

"Edith, I am almost certain that clock struck thirteen," said Helen in an awe-struck voice; and then they heard a door shut at the end of the passage.

"Helen, you have been dreaming, and you are only half awake now," said Edith. "It is not like you to waken me in this frightening way, please let me go to sleep."

"I am very sorry," said Helen penitently, and she too closed her eyes and tried hard to go to sleep, which of course she did, as soon as she left off trying, and had made up her mind to lie awake till daylight.

The morning broke clear and fresh; and, as Helen had said, things in general bore a very different aspect to that of the night before. Indoors, the quaint old house now looked simply picturesque, and Mrs. Jones the beau idéal of a cheery old hostess. Even the face of the clock, when Helen pointed it out to Edith, seemed to have lost its mocking grin, and to be merely bidding them good-morning, with a comical smile at the consternation it had awakened the night before.

Out-of-doors they soon turned their steps. There was no view from the house, but a short voyage of discovery quickly explained to them their locality. Black Nest Farm stood at the foot of a hill close on to the high road, or what passed for such in that hitherto little frequented neighbourhood. On the opposite side of the road but little was to be seen, as the meadows were soon lost in a thick belt of wood; but immediately behind the house was a tempting prospect, for there a little winding path led up the hill to one of the spots Helen and Edith most ardently desired to paint, and of which their friends had given them a glowing description. It was rather a long walk to the Black Lake, Mrs. Jones informed them, but their enthusiasm knew no bounds, and hardly permitted them to do justice to their breakfast of ham and eggs, home-made bread and home-churned butter. See them then starting on their expedition,--their painting materials, and some creature comforts in the shape of sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, safely packed on the pony's back, Griffith leading him and acting as guide. A pretty stiff pull it was, enthusiasm notwithstanding, and rather hard work for the little feet, sensibly shod in good strong boots it is true, but unaccustomed nevertheless to mountain scrambling. But at last their circuitous path brought them to the summit, and there a curious prospect broke upon them. They stood at the edge of the great Welsh tableland. There it stretched away before them, miles and miles beyond their view; a vast expanse of wild, brown moor, unrelieved by tree or shrub, but here and there dotted by great patches of what Edith at first sight took to be "lovely emerald moss". Treacherous loveliness, for it told, as they learnt from Griffith, of fearful bog-pits, down whose slimy sides once slipped no man or beast could ever regain firm ground.

"What a horrible death that would be," said Helen, shuddering, "far worse than regular drowning in clean water. It would be slow suffocation in nasty, dirty mud."

A few minutes' careful walking brought them in sight of the Black Lake, the special object of their excursion. And it certainly was well worth coming to see, if not to paint; probably too, better seen in the greyness of a late autumn day than in the summer sun, whose bright rays reflected on its surface would have little harmonised with its character of gloom and loneliness. The lake was equal to several acres in extent, but from where they stood could not all be seen, as its farther end was hidden by the undulations of the land. In colour it was a dull, leaden grey, and looking at it, one's mind spontaneously reverted to travellers' descriptions of the Dead Sea, for dead was essentially the word by which to describe it. There were no fish to be caught in it Griffith told them, and as for its depth he had never heard tell of any one's sounding it. The effect of the whole scene was very peculiar, and so Helen and Edith felt it to be, as they stood gazing at the leaden water and the great, apparently boundless moorland. It was difficult to realise that they were so far above the ordinary haunts of men, for there was nothing in that great plain to remind them of the existence even of hills and mountains, except a steady-blowing breeze of that peculiar freshness pertaining only to sea or mountain air. Pleasantly invigorating at first, but soon becoming too chilly to make one care to stand about, or, worse still, to sit, as our young ladies now prepared to do.

"We are very lucky in the weather," remarked Helen, as they prepared for their sketching. "I should fancy it is just the day to see the lake to the best advantage."

"Or disadvantage," said Edith, "for I do think it is the most horrible place I ever saw. I don't know," added she dreamily, "but what it would seem even more desolate on a bright, sunny day. I don't know why."

"I understand how you mean," replied her sister, "the contrast would be so strange. Like a skeleton dressed in a golden robe. Dear me, I am becoming quite poetical. But look, Edith, how do you like this?" And a consultation on their work ensued.

Very cold work it became, as it grew to afternoon, notwithstanding the pleasurable excitement of their occupation, and Edith, for one, was not sorry when Helen at last thought it time to pack up their painting materials and turn homewards. A drizzling rain began to fall as they neared the foot of the hill, and they both felt thankful to reach the farm-house,--tired, muddy and damp, and in not quite such high spirits as when they set off on their expedition. A savoury odour meeting them on their entrance, Helen suddenly bethought herself that she had utterly forgotten to order anything for their "high tea," or whatever one likes to call the said incongruous meal. It was therefore an agreeable surprise to her after remembering her neglect to see on entering their little sitting-room the brightest of fires, and the table daintily set out with evident preparation for a tempting repast; part of which, in the shape of a delicious-looking ham, "a new-made pat of butter and a wheaten loaf so fine," had already made its appearance. Damp clothes and muddy boots discarded, they sat down with an excellent appetite to their meal, and the savoury odour which had greeted them was soon explained by the appearance of Mrs. Jones bearing a chicken stewed in mushrooms.

"Mushrooms!" exclaimed Helen, "the thing of all others I like. How clever you are, Mrs. Jones, to get us all these good things! I shall leave our food to your providing, I think, in future."

Mrs. Jones laughed and said a friend had sent some things from Llanfar, and a friend also had gathered the mushrooms, the last of their season, thinking the young ladies might like them.

"Your friends are as good as yourself then, Mrs. Jones," said Helen; but as she spoke she was startled by what sounded like a half-smothered laugh or exclamation of some kind just outside the door. Almost at the same moment her friend the clock began to strike, and she therefore fancied the sound she had heard must have come from it. "Its internal arrangements are, I daresay, as peculiar as its outside," thought she to herself, and refrained therefore from mentioning to Edith what she thought she had heard. All the rest of the evening, however, though she would hardly have owned it to herself, she felt a little nervous and uneasy, particularly when she heard the clock strike.

"I wonder what our fellow-lodger does with himself all day," said Edith that evening.

"I am sure I don't know, or care either," said Helen, "indeed, I hardly believe there is such a being at all."

They went early to bed, and fell quickly asleep. After having slept, it seemed to her for several hours, Helen woke suddenly with the feeling that something had wakened her, and found that the clock was busy striking, and to her confused fancy had been striking for ever so long before she woke. Its strokes ceased before she was sufficiently awake to count them, but a moment or two afterwards she heard a door shut as it had done the night before.

"It is very annoying that I can't get a good night's rest here," thought she. A whispered "Helen," told her that Edith too was awake.

"The clock did strike thirteen," said Edith, "and there must be somebody in that room, for I heard the door shut again."

"And so did I," said Helen, whereupon they lay still in awe-struck silence, till they both fell fast asleep again.

The next day was Saturday, and though somewhat stiff and tired with their exertions, Friday's programme was repeated. The sketches proceeded satisfactorily, but our heroines were less fortunate in other respects, for just as they were about to leave the Black Lake in the afternoon, the rain came on in torrents. Long before they got back to the farm-house the poor girls were thoroughly drenched. Edith escaped with no ill results, but Helen sat shivering over the fire all the evening, passed an uneasy night in which it seemed to her that the clock never left off striking at all, and woke on Sunday morning with every symptom of a delightfully bad cold. The prospect outside was not cheering. Rain, rain, rain. Down it came in torrents. No chance of making their way to the five miles' off church, no chance even of a quiet stroll along the lanes; and, worst of all, no books to read, for such a possibility as a whole day in the house had never presented itself to their inexperienced imaginations! It was very dull. Helen was almost cross with Edith for being so exceedingly sympathetic. It was kind of course, but provoking nevertheless, as to Helen's sensitiveness it seemed to convey a tacit reproach. She would not allow to herself that they were at all to be pitied. All the same she was not sorry when the time came at last for them to go to bed.

"I wish we had brought some sherry with us," said Edith. "A little white wine whey would have been the very thing for your cold."

"What's the good of wishing," replied her sister rather snappishly, "you had better call Mrs. Jones and ask her to make me some gruel." But on Mrs. Jones's appearance, and when the request had been made, both the girls felt rather surprised at her volunteering the very thing they had been wishing for.

She had, she said, "some very nice sherry wine, given her by a friend," and many years ago, when she was in service in Chester, she had learnt to make white wine whey. Sure enough a tempting-looking basinful shortly after made its appearance.

Thanks to its soporific influence Helen soon fell asleep, but woke (as she had got strangely into the habit of doing) just at midnight, or as Edith had taken to calling it, "thirteen o'clock". The clock was half-way through its striking when she woke, and a sudden impulse seized her to jump up, and, opening the door slightly, to peep out and either see who it was that always shut a door after the clock struck, or, by seeing nothing, satisfy herself that the sound had all along been merely the creation of her own and Edith's imagination.

She opened the door very cautiously, and instantly perceived that there was a light at the end of the passage in the recess where stood the clock. Helen's heart beat more loudly, and she wished devoutly that she had allowed her curiosity to remain unsatisfied, when to her horror the light moved out of the recess, and she saw that it was held by a tall dark figure with its back turned towards her. The passage was so long and the light flickered so much that it was impossible for her to distinguish anything but the general outline of the person who held it. Not Mrs. Jones or Griffith, assuredly, but poor Helen was too frightened to do more than lock the door with her trembling fingers and leap back into bed, thereby awakening Edith, who on hearing Helen's story calmly assured her that she had either been dreaming, or had seen the strange gentleman their fellow-lodger whose existence Helen had rashly dared to question. Oddly enough she had forgotten all about him, and felt somewhat relieved by Edith's matter-of-fact solution.

"Only what should he be doing at the clock at this time of night? I hope he is not out of his mind;"--to which Edith replied:--

"I do believe he gets up to make it strike thirteen on purpose to tease us."

Monday morning wore a more promising aspect than Sunday, for such clouds as there were, bespoke nothing worse than showers, and our young ladies succeeded in obtaining an hour or two's sketching at the lake. Helen, however, felt still considerably the worse of her terrible wetting, and was actually the first to propose that they should return to the farm-house. Somewhat weakened by her cold, and tired too, she mounted the little pony at Edith's suggestion, and they were proceeding cheerily enough on their way--Griffith, loaded with their painting materials, some little distance behind--when a stumble on the pony's part brought him suddenly to the ground. Helen had been paying little attention to her steed, and, unprepared for the shock, fell on her side with some little force. A most undignified procedure had there been any one to witness it, but which would have drawn forth nothing but a laugh had it not been that in the fall her foot caught in the stirrup. Her sharp cry of pain terrified Edith, who, however, soon succeeded in disentangling her, as the poor little pony remained perfectly quiet, but a moment's examination, and a vain attempt to stand, showed them that the ankle was badly sprained. All that could be done was to mount Helen again as well as Edith and Griffith could manage, and to make the best of their way home. Arrived there, hot applications soon reduced the pain, but it was easy to be seen, even by their inexperienced eyes, that Helen must not attempt to move for several days to come.

Here was a charming ending to their expedition! Helen, even, felt woefully disconcerted, and poor Edith fairly began to cry.

"If it were not that you would not like it, I would write to Mrs. Lindsay to come and nurse you," said Edith, "she is so good and kind, and I know she would come in a minute, for she has nothing to prevent her."

"Mrs. Lindsay! Edith," exclaimed Helen indignantly, "the very last person I would apply to, however good and kind she may be. Do you really think that. I would put myself under such an obligation to the sister of the man I have----" "Quarrelled with for nothing at all," said the little voice at the bottom of her heart. Edith said nothing, but for the first time in her life took an independent resolution and acted upon it. Her love for Helen conquered her fear of displeasing her. What this resolution was we shall not disclose, nor shall we tell whose hand addressed a letter to Mrs. Lindsay carried that evening by the post-boy to Llanfar. The strangest coincidence was that two letters bearing the same direction left the Black Nest Farm that evening.

Tired out with the pain of her ankle, Helen, for the first time since their arrival, slept past midnight and only woke to hear the clock strike five. All too soon for her comfort, for her thoughts were none of the brightest, as she lay waiting for the daylight. Her folly, her headstrong determination, right or wrong, to carry out her own way, began to show themselves to her more clearly; or rather, she began to allow herself to see them in their true light. And when at last the morning came, and she was established for the day on the hard little horse-hair sofa in their sitting-room, her spirits were not improved by the perusal of a letter from her Aunt Fanny. The good old lady, after deploring their absence and pathetically describing her anxiety on their behalf, made mention of a visit from Mrs. Lindsay, who had come to tell her how unhappy she was about her brother. "He left home," wrote Aunt Fanny, "two days after that unfortunate conversation with you without telling his sister what was the matter. At least she only gathered that something unpleasant had happened from his saying that you were leaving home, and that he did not expect to see you before you went. He left no direction beyond telling her to write to his club, which she has done two or three times, but got no answer. She says he looked so unlike himself that she fears he has fallen ill somewhere and cannot write to tell her. Oh, Helen, I do wish you had never thought of this expedition."

"How very silly Mrs. Lindsay is to be so fanciful," said Helen, in which view of the case tender-hearted little Edith did not at all agree, though she hardly dared to say so. They spent a dull day, for Edith would not consent to leave her sister, and their paintings were at a standstill for want of another day's sketching from the original.

"To-morrow, Edith," said Helen, "you might go to the lake for an hour or so without me and finish your sketch, and I might go on with mine from yours," to which Edith made no objection.

By night Helen's feverish uneasiness had increased, and Edith secretly congratulated herself on her resolute step of the day before. And a wretched night followed. In reality Helen was very anxious and unhappy about Malcolm Willoughby, and her dreams were full of terrors that something had befallen him. Through all, the disagreeable clock again thrust forward its ugly face, and she woke in an indescribable state of horror, fancying that the clock was standing by her bedside, striking loudly in her ears to a kind of "refrain" of the words: "I told you so. I told you so." Of course the clock was striking, and had evidently awakened her by so doing.

"Thirteen again," whispered Edith, "it is really very disagreeable."

"It sounds to me like the voice of my conscience," said Helen, "warning me that some terrible punishment is coming upon me for my wicked folly. Yes, Edith, I see it all now, and as soon as ever I can move we shall go home, and I shall ask poor Aunt Fanny to forgive me. I wish every other consequence of my wrong-doing could be done away with as easily as her displeasure." And all her pride broken down, poor Helen burst into tears, and Edith's affectionate words of soothing were of no avail to stop her sobs. She felt rather better in the morning however, partly, perhaps, because the day was bright and sunny. About mid-day she fell into a doze on her sofa, and waking after an hour's sleep was surprised to miss Edith. A note in pencil pinned to the table-cover caught her attention. It bore these words: "You are so nicely asleep I don't like to waken you. I shall come back as early as I can, but don't be alarmed if I am a little later than you expect."

"She has gone to finish the sketch," thought Helen uneasily. "I wish I had not asked her to do so, it looks dull and overcast."

She rang the hand-bell for Mrs. Jones, who appeared with a basin of soup, and told her that the young lady had set off a quarter of an hour before.

"It can't be helped now," said Helen, "but I wish I had not proposed it."

The afternoon seemed long and dull, and yet Helen felt sorry when it began to close in, for no Edith had yet appeared. Still it was not later than they had been out together more than once. Helen tried to think it was not yet dusk outside, but felt this comfort fail her when it gradually grew so indisputably dark that Mrs. Jones brought in candles without her asking for them.

"Are you not uneasy about my sister and Griffith, Mrs. Jones?" said Helen; but her anxiety was tenfold increased when Mrs. Jones replied calmly:--

"Griffith is not with the young lady to-day. I had to send him a message to Llanfair, and as like as not he will stay at his uncle's till the morning. The young lady said it did not matter, and I saddled the pony for her myself."

"Griffith not with her!" exclaimed Helen. "Oh, Mrs. Jones, what will become of her?"

"Don't be alarmed, miss," said the old woman, "the pony is very steady, and the darkness comes on so sudden-like, it seems later than it is."

And with this scanty consolation Helen was obliged to remain satisfied. Mrs. Jones stirred up the fire and set the tea all ready, but Helen grew sick at heart as the time went on, and still no Edith. Six, struck the clock, and ticked on again to seven. Helen could bear it no longer.

"Mrs. Jones," cried she, "can you not get any one to go to look for my sister? She may be on her way down the hill, and have got into some difficulty with the pony."

"Indeed, miss, I don't know what I can do. There's no one nearer than old Thomas and he can't move."

"The strange gentleman!" said Helen suddenly; "your other lodger. Would he not help me?"

"He has been out since early this morning," replied Mrs. Jones, "and he told me he was not sure of being back to-night. He has gone to meet a friend."

Helen felt more in despair than before. It seemed an aggravation of her anxiety to have to lie still on the sofa doing nothing. Indeed had she been able to do so, nothing would have prevented her making her way to the Black Lake, and too probably losing her own life in the endeavour to save her sister's. As it was, she managed at last to drag herself to the door in hopes of hearing footsteps up the path, but nothing broke the silence save the tick, tick of the clock. It wore on to nine, despite her wretchedness and indescribable anxiety. She pictured to herself her sister, her dear little Edith, left so specially in her charge, cowering on the moor, alone in that dreary darkness, sobbing in despair of ever finding her way out of that frightful desert. Or, worse still, lying cold and dead in one of those fearful pits under the mockingly beautiful moss; whence, in all probability, her poor body even would never be recovered. It was too frightful. Helen almost shrieked aloud: "Oh, my darling, my little sister, come back, do come back. Oh, Malcolm, if only you were here. How terribly I am punished for my self-will!" And terribly punished she was, for the memory of that night's suffering was too painful to recall in after years without a shudder. Mrs. Jones was in helpless distress, though in hopes of every moment hearing the pony and the young lady at the gate, and she returned to her own domains saying she had better have hot water ready as Miss Edith would be fainting for her tea. Helen remained alone at the window of the sitting-room.

The night was fine but very dark. Darker than she had ever seen a night before, it seemed to Helen. She was almost in a stupor of despair. She sank down half-unconsciously before the fire and never knew how long she had lain there when she was roused by the clock striking. "One, two, three, four,"--she counted aloud as if bewitched, till when it got to the fatal thirteen, her over-strained nerves gave way, and with a scream she ran or stumbled, she knew not how, along the passage to seek for Mrs. Jones. As she passed the front-door she was arrested by the sharp sounds of steps coming quickly up the garden path. The door was pushed open. The only light was what came through the open door of the room she had just left, and she could distinguish nothing but a tall dark figure hurrying towards her. She screamed with terror but stood, unable to move, when to her intense relief a voice from behind the person she saw, exclaimed eagerly: "Helen, dearest Helen, don't be frightened. I am quite safe," and some one rushed past the tall person, now close to her, and kissing her passionately, Helen felt, rather than saw, that it was Edith.

"Malcolm! Malcolm! she is fainting!" called Edith, and the tall person pressed forward, caught her up in his arms like a baby, and, unconscious now of everything, Helen was carried back into the sitting-room, laid on the hard little sofa, and there held tenderly by the strong yet gentle arms whose protecting care she, poor foolish child, had fancied she could so well dispense with.

It was the first time in her life that Helen Beaumont had ever fainted, and it was not long before she began to recover.

"Malcolm! oh, Malcolm!" were her first words on returning consciousness (and it seemed to her afterwards as if some one else had spoken them for her, her good angel perhaps!), "can you ever forgive me?"

"My darling," was the whispered answer, "you know you need not ask it." And then Helen felt as if she were just going to die, but was too happy to care, and too languid to ask even how all this had come about. But now a third person came forward saying:--

"Malcolm, let me stay beside her," and, wonderful to tell, the sweet voice and kind face were Mrs. Lindsay's. Helen thought she must be dreaming, but lay still as she was told, and then drank something or other Mrs. Lindsay brought her; so before long she was able to sit up and begin to wonder what was the meaning of it all.

"Are you not amazed, Helen?" said Edith; "but first of all you must forgive me for frightening you so, for indeed I have been nearly as wretched as you, thinking of what you must have been feeling." And before Helen could reply the eager girl ran on with her explanations. "Who do you think has been our fellow-lodger all this time, Helen? Who do you think is the 'strange gentleman'? Only fancy Malcolm's having been here ever since we came! It was he that travelled by the same train, and seeing as it moved off at Llanfar that we had got out, he did so at the next station, and arrived here before us. He had inquired about Mrs. Jones, and heard what a good creature she was; and he had time to have a talk with her, and to take her to some extent into his confidence."

Helen looked at first, as this recital went on, as if she were wavering between a return to her old dislike to being interfered with, and gratitude to Malcolm for his undeserved devotion. The good angel triumphed, as Malcolm, who was watching her anxiously, quickly perceived.

"I did not interfere with you, Helen," he said in a low voice, "but it was the greatest comfort to me to be able to protect and care for you, even though you did not know it."

The tears started to Helen's eyes.

"Oh, Malcolm, I know how good you are, but----"

"Never mind any 'buts,'" said Mrs. Lindsay brightly, catching the last word. "'All's well, that ends well.'"

"I know now who foraged for us so successfully," said Edith. "Who was the mysterious friend that gave Mrs. Jones the mushrooms!"

"And nearly betrayed myself by laughing at the door, when passing I heard Helen's enthusiastic thanks to Mrs. Jones," said Malcolm.

"Yes, and frightened me horribly by so doing," added Helen, "as I really began to think that clock was bewitched, and had a special ill-will against me. In fact it took the place of my conscience for the time being."

"I have the very greatest regard for the clock," said Malcolm demurely, "and I intend to make Mrs. Jones an offer for it forthwith."

"Please don't," said Helen piteously. "I daresay it is very silly, but I really don't quite like that clock, though, after all, its warning of ill-luck has brought the very reverse to me. But I have not heard yet what kept Edith out so late, or how in the world you and Mrs. Lindsay met her at the Black Lake."

"The Black Lake?" said Mrs. Lindsay, "what do you mean?"

Whereupon Edith hastened on with that part of her story relating to her own adventures. She, it appeared, feeling confident in Mrs. Lindsay's ready kindness, and never doubting but what she would at once respond to her appeal by coming to nurse Helen, instead of going to the Black Lake to sketch, as Helen imagined, set off on the pony to meet her friend at the station, having proposed to her to come by a certain train. Overtaking Griffith on the road to Llanfair, as she expected from Mrs. Jones's account, he accompanied her to the village, where she gave over the pony to his care. As she entered the station she saw a return train about to start for the Junction about half an hour's journey from where she was. Finding by her watch that she was in ample time, it struck her that she might as well go so far to meet her friend, but on arriving at the Junction she was startled to find that with the new month a change had taken place in the trains, and that consequently Mrs. Lindsay could not arrive till late in the evening. Worse still she herself could not now get back to Helen till she was frightened to think what hour, the evening train in question not going farther than Llanfar, the station near the Junction at which she and her sister had by mistake got out on their arrival, and which was fifteen miles from the Black Nest. It is needless to describe her distress of mind all the long hours she had to sit in the little waiting-room at the Junction; or her corresponding delight when, on the train coming up, she descried looking out of a window the familiar face of Malcolm Willoughby, and found that he was accompanied by his sister whom he had gone to meet half-way on her journey.

Helen woke at noon the next day feeling indescribably happy, she could not tell why till the sight of Mrs. Lindsay's sweet face recalled to her mind all her misery of the night before and the relief and happiness with which it had ended.

"How little I deserve it!" thought she humbly and gratefully, "and how can I ever repay Malcolm for his goodness?"

Their dull little parlour looked very different now that it was enlivened by the presence of the two newcomers; and Helen could scarcely believe it to be the same room in which, but yesterday, she had passed hours of such agonising suspense. So thoroughly penitent and softened did she feel that she offered no opposition to anything proposed, and it was therefore arranged that as soon as Helen was well enough to travel they should all return home together to relieve poor Aunt Fanny's anxiety.

"I wonder," said Helen, with a little sigh, a few days afterwards, when they were packing up their painting materials, "I wonder if I shall ever finish my sketch of the Black Lake."

"I don't like to make rash promises," said Malcolm, "but if somebody I know is very good perhaps next summer she may see the Black Lake again, provided she will neither catch cold nor tumble off her pony."

Edith laughed and Helen blushed.

"But there's one thing still," said Edith, "which I don't understand. Why, Malcolm, did you always shut your door as the clock struck thirteen?"

"Very simply explained," replied he. "The first night I was here I was sitting up reading till midnight and thought I heard it strike thirteen. I thought it very odd, and for a night or two I listened till it began to strike and then opened my door to make sure I was not mistaken. And one night I went out with my candle to examine the clock, trying to make out the cause of it, and to see if I could put it right. No man, they say, can resist meddling with a clock even though he is no mechanical genius."

"All the same," said Edith triumphantly, "notwithstanding your examinations, you and no one else can tell the reason why that clock does strike thirteen."

[The end]
Mary Louisa Molesworth's short story: Clock That Struck Thirteen

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