William Shakespeare - "Leben und Tod des Koenigs Johann"

James Mark Baldwin - "The Story of the Mind"

W. D. Howells - "The Story of a Play"

Mrs. Charles Bryce - "The Ashiel mystery"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Ashiel mystery

M >> Mrs. Charles Bryce >> The Ashiel mystery




"It was you, then, who moved the body! To think that I never guessed!" he
murmured, half to himself. "If I had known, I might have spared myself
the trouble to--" Then more loudly he reproached his companion.

"And you have never said a word to me! Oh, Julia, you didn't trust me."
He shook his head at her mournfully.

"Trust you!" she retorted. "Did you trust me? But I would have trusted
you," she added, gazing fondly into his eyes, "if I had dared risk the
punishment that will surely be meted out to me if it is known I have done
so. You don't know how rigid the rules of our society are. But you
haven't told me yet if you have the list."

"Not I," he said. "I never heard of its existence. I suppose that
anonymous letter that came addressed to Uncle Douglas after his death had
something to do with that."

"Did a letter come from Paris? They sent them to him from time to time.
It prevented his suspecting me. But you will give me the list if you find
it, won't you? It means everything to me."

"Of course I will," he promised. "It is no earthly good to me, so far as
I know. But you, when you were looking for it, did you, among all the
papers you examined, ever come across such a thing as a will?"

"No, never," she replied. "Mrs. Clutsam told me it could not be found.
You may be sure, if I had discovered one which did not leave you
everything, I should have destroyed it."

"Dear little Julia!" Mark drew her to him and kissed her. "How sweet you
are. There is no one like you!"

"Really? Do you really love me, Mark?"

"Darling, of course I do."

"Will you always? Are you quite, quite sure that I am the one girl in all
the world for you, as you are the one man for me?"

"Darling, you are the only one in the world I have ever so much as
looked at."

"Would you never, never forget me, or marry anyone else, no matter what
happened?"

"Never," he assured her, "never."

She sighed contentedly.

"What should I do if you forgot me, Mark? I should die. But," she added
in a different tone, "I think I should kill you first!"

Mark laughed a little uneasily.

"Hush, hush," he said, "you mustn't talk so much about killing. A minute
ago you were talking of killing my poor old uncle. If I took you
seriously what should I think? It is lucky I love you as I do, otherwise
doesn't it occur to you that it might get you into trouble to talk in
this wild way?"

"You can take me as seriously as you like," she answered gravely. "I am
serious enough, God knows. But I shouldn't talk about it, even to you, if
I didn't _know_ it was safe. You see, I know you are like me."

"Like you? I'm dashed if I am! How do you mean? I am like you?"

She looked at him squarely, and nodded.

"Yes," she said, "you are like me. You would not hesitate to kill if you
thought it necessary. You think just the same as me on that subject. Only
you have gone farther than I have--yet."

"Julia," he cried, "what do you mean?"

"I mean that I know all about you, Mark," she replied gravely. "I know
what you think you have kept secret from me. I know it was you who killed
your uncle."

With a muffled cry Mark shook himself free, and sprang away from her.

"What are you saying?" he whispered hoarsely. "You are mad, girl! But I
won't have such lies uttered, I won't have it, I tell you."

With terrified amazement Juliet saw his face change, become ugly,
distorted. But Julia showed no sign of alarm.

"Why get so excited?" she asked calmly. "What does it matter? Do you
imagine I would betray you? I, who would sell my soul for you! I know you
did it. It is no use keeping up this pretence of innocence to me, who had
more right to kill him than you. Why shouldn't you kill who you wish? But
don't say you didn't do it. It is foolish. I saw you."

"It is a lie. You can't have seen me," Mark declared again, but with less
assurance. "You were in the drawing-room all the time. Lady Ruth and
Maisie Tarver both said so. The drawing-room doesn't even look out on the
garden. There is no room that does, except the library, and you weren't
there then, anyhow."

"I didn't see you fire the shot," said Julia, "but I saw you afterwards
when you went to put back your rifle in the gun-room. I told you that
after the first search in the grounds was over, and everyone had gone
up to bed, I slipped out of the house by the door near the gunroom, and
came round to the library to see if Lord Ashiel had carried the list on
him. When I came back, I let myself in quietly by the door which I had
left unbolted, and had just got half-way up the back stairs when I
heard footsteps in the passage below, and crouched down behind the
banisters. I saw you come along the passage, carrying an electric
lantern in one hand and your rifle in the other. I saw you look round
anxiously before opening the gun-room door and going in. When you had
vanished, I hurried on up to my room, for it was not the time or place
to tell you what I had seen, but I left a crack of my door open, and
after rather a long while saw you pass along the passage to your own
room; this time without your gun. I knew, of course, that you had been
cleaning it and putting it away."

She spoke with the indifference with which one may refer to a regrettable
but incontrovertible fact, and Mark seemed to feel it useless to deny
what she said.

"You had no right to spy on me," he exclaimed angrily when she had done.

"Oh, Mark," she cried, dismayed, "I wasn't spying. It was the merest
accident. And I think it's horrid of you to mind my knowing. Why didn't
you tell me all about it before. I might have helped you, I'm sure."

But he would have none of her endearments, and threw off the hand she
laid upon his arm with a rough gesture.

"Mark, oh, Mark," she wailed, "don't be angry with me! You know I can't
bear it. I can bear anything but that. Don't, don't be angry with me."

She had but one thought; it was for him, and he who ran might read it
shining in the depths of her great eyes. After a few minutes of sulking,
Mark relented.

"No one could be angry with you for long, Julia," he declared.

Instantly she was once more all smiles.

"Don't ever be angry with me again," she urged, her hands in his. "And
now that you have forgiven me, tell me all about it. What made you do
such a dreadful thing, Mark? You must have had some good reason, I know.
I never would doubt that."

"There's nothing much to tell," he said unwillingly. "I had a good
reason, yes. I must have money. It is for your sake, darling, that I must
get it. I can't marry you without it. I hadn't meant to kill him, if I
could get it without. He was ill, and had left his fortune to me. I
thought I should get it in time, by letting Nature take her course. It
was that or ruin, and I really had to do it for your sake, darling. I
didn't want to hurt the old boy. Why should I? It's not a pleasant thing
to have to do. But I had no choice--there was no other way of getting
enough money, and I simply had to get it. It was his life or mine. You
don't understand. I can't explain. It just had to be done, and there's an
end of it. Everything was going wrong. That girl, that Byrne girl, I
imagined he was going to marry her. You know we all did. That would have
spoilt everything. At first I thought she could be got out of the way,
but she seemed to bear a charmed life."

"What?" cried Julia, "did you try to kill her too?"

"Why, if anyone had to be got rid of," he admitted defiantly, "it seemed
better to go for a stranger, like her, than for my own uncle. Come, you
must see that, surely! She was nothing to me, and, anyhow, my hand was
forced. It's very hard that I should have been put in such a position.
I'm the last person to do harm to a fly, but one must think of oneself."

Since it was no use denying the murder, he seemed to find some sort of
satisfaction in telling Julia of his other crimes. And yet, though he
tried hard to speak with an affectation of indifference, it was plain
that he kept a watchful eye upon his listener, and was ready to fasten
resentfully upon the first sign of horror, or even disapproval. For all
his efforts, the tone of his disclosures was at once swaggering and
suspicious; but he need have had no anxiety as to the spirit in which
they would be received. It was clear that Julia brought to his judgment
no remembrance of ordinary human standards of conduct. To her he was
above such criticisms, as the Immortals might be supposed to be above
the rules that applied to dwellers upon earth. What he did was right in
her eyes, because he did it, and she admired his brutality, as she adored
the rest of him, whole-heartedly, without reservation.

"I had a shot at her," he went on, "one day on the moor when she was with
David; but I missed her. It was a rotten shot. I can't think how I came
to do it. Then when she fell into the river--I saw her standing by it as
I came home from stalking.... I had walked on ahead, and where the path
runs along above the waterfall pool I happened to go to the edge and look
over. There she was on a stone right at the edge, by the deepest part. It
looked as if she'd been put there on purpose, and I should have been a
fool to miss such a chance. It's no good going against fate. As a matter
of fact I thought I'd got her sitting this time. I caught up the nearest
piece of rock and dropped it down on her. That was a good shot, though I
say it, but it hit her on the shoulder instead of the head as luck would
have it, which was bad luck for me. However, in she went, and I thought
all was well and lost no time in getting away from the place. If it
hadn't been for that meddling fool Andy!... Well, then, at dinner, Uncle
Douglas came out with the news that she was his daughter, not his
intended, and everything looked worse than ever. Afterwards when she went
to talk to him in the library, and passed through the billiard-room where
I was knocking the balls about and feeling pretty savage, I can tell you,
I happened, by a fluke, to ask her if she knew where David was. She said
he'd gone into the garden.

"Then I saw my chance, and it seemed too good to miss. Why should I let
my inheritance be stolen from me? I ran off to the gun-room for a gun. I
meant to take David's rifle, but I found he hadn't cleaned it, so I left
it alone and took mine, as the thing was really too important to risk
using a strange gun unless it was absolutely necessary, and his is a
little shorter in the stock than I like. I nipped back and let myself out
of the passage door into the enclosed garden. It was a black night,
though I knew my way blindfolded about there. But the curtains of the
library were drawn, and I couldn't see between them without stepping on
the flower bed. I knew too much to leave my footmarks all over them, but
I had to get on to the bed to have a chance of getting a shot. So I got
the long plank the gardeners use to avoid stepping on the flower beds
when they're bedding out, from the tool-house behind the holly hedge
where I knew it was kept, and put it down near the hedge. It is held up
clear of the ground by two cross pieces of wood, one at each end, you
know, so there would be no marks left to identify me by.

"When I walked to the end of the plank, I could see straight into the
middle of the room; but they must have been sitting near the fire, for no
one was in sight. I could see the writing bureau and the chair in front
of it, and dimly in the back of the room I could make out the face of the
clock, but that was all.

"Well, I stood there for what seemed a long while. You've no idea how
cramping it is to stand on a narrow plank with no room to take a step
forward or back, for long at a time. And I don't mind telling you I got a
bit jumpy, waiting there. If anyone chanced to come along, what could I
say by way of explanation? I couldn't think of anything the least likely
to wash. And somehow, in the dark, one begins to imagine things. I saw
David coming at me across the lawn every other minute. And it seemed so
hideously likely that he should come. I knew he was somewhere out in the
grounds. By Jove, if he had, he'd have got the bullet instead of Uncle
Douglas! But he didn't come. Those beastly shadows and shapes and
whisperings and rustlings that seemed to be all round me, hiding in the
night, turned out to be nothing after all. But when I didn't fancy him at
my elbow, I imagined he was in the gunroom, wondering where the dickens
my rifle had got to.

"Oh, I had a happy half-hour among the roses, I tell you! A rifle is a
heavy thing too. I leant it up against a rose-bush and tried to sit down
on the plank, but it wouldn't do, and I saw I must bear it standing, or
Uncle Douglas might cross in front of the slit between the curtains
without my having time to get a shot. You must remember I'd been on the
hill all day, so that I was very stiff to begin with. It got so bad that
I began to think it was hardly worth the candle at last--and it's a
wonder I didn't miss him clean--when, just as I was on the point of
giving the whole thing up and going in again, he came suddenly into my
field of vision, and actually sat down at the table.

"I took a careful aim and fired. I saw him fall forward, and then I
jumped off the plank and hurled it back under the hedge before I ran for
the house. I had left the door ajar, and I just stayed to close it, and
then darted into the empty billiard-room and thrust my rifle under a
sofa. It was a quick bit of work. I had counted on Juliet Byrne waiting a
moment or two to see if she could do anything to help him before she
roused the house, or it roused itself, and she was rather longer than I
expected. I don't mind owning I got into a panic when minutes passed and
no one appeared, and I began to think I must have missed the old boy
altogether. I was within an ace of going to make certain, when the door
opened and in she came. Oh well, you know all the rest. That silly old
ass, David, was still mooning about in the garden, thinking of her, I
suppose, which was very lucky for me."

Julia had listened with absorbed interest.

"I think it is wonderful," she said, "that you should have gone through
all that for my sake. I shall always try to deserve it, my dear. Was it
all, all for me, that you did it, truly?"

"Yes," Mark assured her, gruffly monosyllabic.

"But how was it," she asked caressingly, "that Sir David's footprints
were found all over the rose-bed. What was he doing there?"

"That was an afterthought," Mark admitted. "It was a tophole idea. After
every one had gone upstairs, I crept down and got my Mannlicher from
where I had hidden it, and took it to the gun-room, where I cleaned it
and put it in its usual place. It was lucky for me that David had left
his weapon dirty. It was jolly unlike him to do it. I was thinking what a
good thing it was, and how well things looked like turning out--for I
thought I could manage the girl if she was able to prove that she really
was a McConachan--and it struck me I ought to be able to contrive that
the business should look a bit blacker against poor old David. Every one
knew he'd had a row with Uncle Douglas about his beastly dog, and if I
could only manufacture a little more evidence against him I knew I should
be pretty safe, one way and another. I was going back to the garden to
put by the gardener's plank, when I thought of using his boots. It didn't
take long to find them among all the boots used that day by the
household, which were ranged in a row in the place where they clean them
in the back premises. His bootmakers' name was in them. I took them, and
when I got to the garden door I put them on, and went out and trampled
about among the roses till I was pretty sure that even the blindest
country bobby couldn't fail to notice the tracks I'd left, though of
course I couldn't see them myself in the dark. Then I got the plank out
of the hedge and put it away where I'd found it. After that, I took the
boots back, and went to bed; and very glad I was to get there. Now you've
heard the whole story."

"How clever you are," murmured the girl. "There's no one like you," she
said, "no one." Mark smiled rather fatuously. He evidently shared her
opinion that his brains were something slightly out of the way. "And
everything happened just as you'd planned," she went on admiringly. "They
suspected Sir David from the first. I should have, myself, if I hadn't
known it was you who had done it."

"Yes," said Mark, "they suspected him, the silly idiots! They might have
known he hasn't the initiative to do a thing like that. And the girl
can't prove her relationship to Uncle Douglas, just as I expected. I
thought there might be some difficulty about that. But I wish I could
find the will he made in her favour. I should feel safer then, for she
told me he said he'd worded it so that she should get the money whether
she was proved his daughter or not. And who knows what other mad clauses
he may have put in it. Lately, for some reason I could never make out, I
felt sure he had changed towards me. He let fall a hint one day that his
legacies to me were conditional on my good behaviour. I don't feel easy
about it at all. Some one must have been telling him things--poisoning
his mind. But I've hunted high and low, and found nothing. I'm sick of
looking over musty old bills."

"Oh, we shall find it between us now," said Julia hopefully. "I wish I
had some idea where the list I want is, though," she added.

"There's that detective, too," pursued Mark. "That fellow Gimblet. I'm
rather fed up with him. Not that he seems any use at his work, though
he's supposed to be rather first-class at it, I believe."

"Gimblet! Is that who it is? Mrs. Clutsam told me a London detective
was here, but I didn't know who it was. I have met him before, and
found him very easy to manage. I don't think you need be afraid of
anything he may do."

"I shall be glad when he's off the place, anyhow," said Mark.

"I shall be glad when the whole business is over and forgotten," Julia
rejoined. "I wish we could be married at once, Mark darling. But why
can't it be given out that we are engaged. I don't understand why we
should keep it a secret now. I can't stand seeing so little of you as I
have these last few days."

"Be patient, darling, wait just a little longer. There are reasons, as I
have told you. I must get my financial affairs straight, for one thing,
before I allow you to tie yourself to me. Suppose I turn out to be a
beggar? I couldn't let you marry me then, you know."

"Mark!" Julia's voice was full of reproach. "You know perfectly well how
little I care about your money. I would be only too glad to marry you if
you hadn't a penny. But perhaps you mean that if you were poor you
wouldn't want to burden yourself with a wife?"

"You know how I adore you, Julia. How can you suggest such a thing? I
couldn't even dream of a life without you. You show how little you know
me. But, believe me, it is wisest to wait a short time longer before we
are publicly engaged. You must take my word for it, and not made me
unhappy by imagining such cruel things. Come, let us look for this list
of yours. What were you doing--searching among the books?"

"Yes," said she, rising, as he went towards a bookshelf, and following
him. "I thought it might be hidden between the leaves of one of these old
volumes. One reads of such things."

"I wonder," he said absently. "The will, too, may be here. Is there a
Bible anywhere? I believe that's a favourite place of concealment. Then,
when the heir is virtuous and reads his Bible, he gets the legacy, you
know; while, if he isn't, he doesn't. A sort of poetic justice is meted
out. If I find it in that way I shall take it as a sign that I am really
the virtuous one and that Heaven absolves me from all blame."

He spoke mockingly, but Julia answered very seriously:

"Of course you ought to have it; and if I don't blame you, why should
anyone else?"

"Well," he said after a pause, "at all events I mean to get it, whether
or no, if I have to pull down every stone of the place. That reminds me,"
he added, "where is the secret entrance you use? Through this old clock?
Who would have thought it?"

In a moment Juliet realized that she was going to be caught. She had
been so absorbed in listening to the dreadful revelations that had been
made during the last half-hour that not till now had she considered how
dangerous was her position.

As he spoke, Mark threw open the door of the clock case. Too late, she
turned to fly; he caught her by the arm and, with a stifled oath, dragged
her into the room.

"How long have you been there?" he cried, and fell to swearing horribly;
while Julia stood by, not speaking, but looking at Juliet with an
expression which frightened her more than all his violence.




CHAPTER XX


It did not occur to Juliet to deny that she had overheard their talk. She
had been found in the act of spying on them, and it was inconceivable
that they should believe she had not done so. Besides, she was raging at
the thought of what she had heard, and her anger gave her a courage she
might otherwise have found it hard to maintain.

"I have been there all the time," she declared stoutly. "I heard all you
said, you wicked, wicked man. A murderer! Oh, how horrible it all is!"

Julia laid a hand on Mark's arm.

"She will tell what she knows," she said, trembling.

"She shall not," Mark stammered furiously. He seemed to be half
suffocating with rage. "She shall not go unless she swears to say
nothing. Swear it, I say!"

He seized Juliet by the shoulder and shook her violently to emphasize
his words.

"I won't swear anything of the kind," she retorted, trying to break from
his grasp. "Do you suppose you can kill me, too, without being found out?
There is a detective here now, and Sir David Southern is not at hand to
lay the blame on. You coward! How dare you touch me!"

The truth of her words seemed to strike home to Mark, for he left go of
her suddenly, and stood, biting his nails and scowling, the picture of
irresolution and malignance.

Juliet lost no time in following up any advantage she might have gained.

"I can't help knowing that you care for him," she said, addressing
herself to Julia, "though I wouldn't have listened to that part if I
could have helped it. But how can you? How can you? I can't understand
how you can feel as you do about killing people, but at least if you did
such a thing you would imagine it was for the good of your country, while
this man thinks of nothing but his own selfish ends. Money, that is all
he wants! How can you condone such a crime as his? To kill Lord Ashiel,
that good, kind man who had treated him like a son all his life, who did
everything for him. And just for the sake of money! It's not even as if
he wanted it really. He's not starving. He had everything, in reason,
that he wanted. If he needed more, urgently, I believe he had only to
tell his uncle, and it would have been given to him. Oh, it is beyond all
words! He must be a fiend."

Indignation choked her. She spoke in bursts of trembling anger, her words
sounding tamely in her own ears. All she could say seemed commonplace and
inadequate beside the knowledge that this man was her father's murderer.

Even Julia, indifferent to every aspect of the case that did not touch
upon her relations with her lover, was shaken by the scornful disgust
with which the broken sentences were poured forth; and, if her
infatuation for Mark was too complete to allow her to consider any
action of his unjustifiable, still she realized, perhaps for the
first time, the feelings with which other people would view the thing
that he had done.

"You don't understand him," she faltered. "He didn't want money for
himself alone. It was for me he did it. He was too proud to ask me to
marry a poor man. You could never understand his love for me. How can I
blame him? How many men would run such risks for the girl they loved? I
am proud, yes proud, to be loved like that!"

"You believe his lies," Juliet cried contemptuously. "You believe he
loves you so much? Why it is not two days since he came to me and asked
me to marry him."

"What!" Julia spoke in a panting whisper. Her face had suddenly lost
every particle of colour. "Say it's not true," she begged, turning
miserably to the man.

He made an effort to deny the charge.

"Of course. Not a word of truth in it. Damned nonsense," he blustered.

But his eyes fell before Juliet's scornful gaze, and Julia was not
deceived.

"It can't be true, oh, it can't," she moaned. "No man could be so vile."

"No other man could," Juliet amended. In spite of herself she was sorry
for the girl, whose stricken face showed plainly the anguish she was
undergoing. "Forget him, Julia; he is not worthy to tie your shoe-lace.
He came to me after they had taken David away, and asked me first if I
would take his inheritance even though I couldn't prove my birth, which
he must have known perfectly that I should never dream of doing, and then
proposed I should marry him, saying that he was very fond of me, and that
in that way justice would be done as regards Lord Ashiel's money,
however things turned out for me. I thought it honourable and generous at
the time, and so did Lady Ruth when I told her--oh yes, she knows about
it and can tell you it is true--but now I see that all he wanted was to
be on the safe side, and, if I had accepted him and had turned out to
have no claim upon his uncle's fortune, he would have broken the
engagement on some easy pretext. Can you deny it?" she demanded of Mark.

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