Martin Gurwood had a disturbed ride to Hendon. The difficulty of the
task which he had undertaken to discharge seemed to increase as he
progressed towards his destination, and he lay back in the cab buried
in thought, revolving in his mind the best manner of breaking the
fearful news of which he was the bearer, and wondering how it would be
received. From time to time he raised himself to gaze at the prettiness
of the scenery through which he was passing, to look at the wild,
gorse-covered expanse of Hampstead Heath, and to refresh his eyes,
wearied with the dull monotony of the London bricks and the glare of
the London pavement, with that soft greenery which is so eminently
characteristic of our northern suburbs; but the thought of the duty
before him prevented his enjoying the sight as he otherwise would, and
resuming his reverie, he remained absorbed until he roused himself at
the entrance of Hendon village.
'There is the finger-post, that Statham spoke of, and the little
pond close by,' he said to himself. 'It is no use taking the cab any
farther; I suppose I had better make the best of my way to Rose Cottage
on foot.' So saying, he raised his stick, and, obedient to the signal,
the cabman drew up at the side of the road. 'You had better go and put
up your horse at the inn,' said Martin to him; 'it has been a long pull
for him, poor animal, and I shall be some little time before I want to
return.'
The driver carefully inspected his fare. He had come a long way, and
was now setting down, not at any house, not at any lodge, but in an
open country road. 'Was it a case of--no!' The gravity of Martin
Gurwood's face, the length of his coat, the spotless stiffness of his
white cravat, had their effect even on this ribald of the cab-rank.
'You will come for me, sir, then, to the public when you want me?' he
said, touching his hat with his forefinger, and drove away contented.
Then Martin Gurwood, following Statham's directions, walked slowly up
the little street, took the turning leading to the church, and looked
out for Rose Cottage. There it was, standing some distance back from
the road, with the ruddy glow of the Virginia creeper not yet wholly
gone from it. Martin Gurwood stopped at the garden-gate and looked at
the little paradise, so trim and orderly, so neatly kept, so thoroughly
comfortable, and yet so fully unpretentious, with the greatest
admiration. Then he lifted the latch and walked towards the house.
The gate swung to behind him, and Alice, who was in her bedroom hearing
little Bell her lessons, heard the clanking of the latch. She laid down
her book, and stopping the child's babbling by her uplifted finger,
leant her head to listen.
'What is it, mamma?' asked little Bell, in wonderment.
'Hush, dear,' said Alice, 'I heard the garden gate. No sound of wheels!
Then he cannot have brought his luggage; still it must be John.'
She rose from her seat, and hurried down the stairs into the little
hall. Just as she reached the half-glass door, and had her hand upon
the lock, a man stepped into the portico; the figure was strange to
her--it was not John.
She felt as though she must faint; her grasp on the door relaxed, and
she staggered against the wall. Seeing her condition the gentleman
entered the hall, took her with a kind firm hold by the arm, and led
her into the dining-room, the door of which stood open. She went
passively, making no resistance, taking no notice, but throwing herself
into a chair, and staring blankly at him, stricken dumb with sickening
apprehension.
'I am speaking to Mrs.--Mrs. Claxton?' he said, after a moment's pause,
in a soft, kind voice.
He was a young man, she began to notice, fair and good-looking, and
dressed in clerical garb. That last fact had a peculiar significance
for her. In the far north-east of England, on the sea-coast, where
some of Alice's early days had been passed, it was the practice of the
fishermen, when one of their number had been lost, to get the parson
to go to the newly-made widow and break the news to her. In a stormy
season Alice had often seen the sable-garbed messenger proceeding on
his doleful mission, and the remembrance of him and of the 'parson's
work,' as it was called, when he was so engaged, rose vividly before
her, and inspired her with sudden terror.
'You are a clergyman?' she said, looking hard at him.
'I am,' he replied, still in the same soft tone. 'My name is
Gurwood--Martin Gurwood; and I have come here to--'
'You have come here to tell me something dreadful--I know it, I feel
it--something dreadful about my husband!'
She pushed her hair back from off her face, and leaned forward on the
table, looking at him, her eyes staring, her lips apart. Martin thought
he had scarcely ever seen anything so beautiful.
'My visit to you certainly relates to Mr. Claxton,' he began, and then
he hesitated and looked down.
'Ah!' she cried, immediately noticing his confusion, 'it is about John,
then. There is something wrong, I know. Tell me all about it at once. I
can bear it. I am strong--much stronger than I look. I entreat you not
to keep me in suspense.'
'I am deeply grieved for you, madam,' said Martin, 'for you are right
in anticipating that I bring bad news about Mr. Claxton. During his
absence from home, he was attacked by a very sharp illness.'
'He was ill when he left here,' cried Alice. 'I knew it; and Mr.
Broadbent, the doctor, knew it too, though I could not get him to say
so. He ought not to have gone away. I ought not to have let him go. Now
tell me, sir, pray; he has been very ill, you say; is he better?'
'I trust he is better,' said Martin solemnly.
Something in his tone struck Alice at once.
'Ah,' she cried, with a short sharp scream, 'I know now--he is dead!'
And covering her face with her hands, she sobbed violently.
Martin Gurwood sat by, gazing at her with tear-dimmed eyes. He was not
a man given to the reading of character; he had not been in the room
with this girl for more than five minutes, he had not exchanged ten
sentences with her, and yet he was certain that Humphrey Statham was
perfectly right in the estimate which he had formed of her, and that,
however cruelly she might have been treated, she herself was wholly
innocent.
After some moments, Alice raised her head from out her hands.
'I can listen to you now,' she said very quietly. 'Will you tell me all
about it? I suppose it was because I recognised you as a clergyman that
gave me the intuitive knowledge that something dreadful had happened,
and that you had come to tell me all. I am ready to hear it now.'
Martin Gurwood was horribly discomposed at this. He felt he could give
her no information; for it would be impossible to tell her that the man
whom she supposed to be her husband had died on the day that he left
Hendon, as she would naturally inquire why the news of his death had
so long been kept from her, and Martin owned to himself that he was
not good at invention. He did not know what to say, and he therefore
remained silent, his hand fluttering nervously round his mouth.
'My dear madam,' commenced Martin, with much hesitation, 'beyond the
awful fact, there is indeed nothing to tell.'
She looked disappointed for an instant; then, striving to control the
working of her lips, she said:
'Did he ask for me? Did he speak of me before--before-- Ah, my darling
John! My dear, good old John, kindest, best, and dearest. I cannot bear
it. What shall I do!'
She broke down utterly, and again buried her face, down which the tears
were streaming, in her hands.
Knowing the impossibility of affording her any relief, Martin Gurwood
sat helplessly by. He could only wait until the outburst of grief
should moderate; he knew that it was of no use attempting to check it;
so he waited.
Presently she raised her head.
'I thought I had more command over myself,' she said. 'I did not know
I was so weak. But when there is any occasion for me to act, I shall
be found strong enough. Tell me, sir, if you please, where is he? When
will they bring him home?'
Martin Gurwood was not prepared for this question; it was not one
of those which he had talked over with Statham. Its being put
so straightforward and direct, was a contingency which he never
contemplated, and he knew not how to meet it.
'Where is he?' repeated Alice, observing his hesitation. 'There is
perhaps some difficulty about his being brought here.'
'There--there is,' said Martin Gurwood, catching at the chance.
'Then I will go to him. I will be taken to him at once.'
'There will be some difficulty about that, my dear madam,' said Martin.
'I am afraid it cannot be managed so easily as you seem to anticipate.'
'Difficulty! Cannot be managed! I do not understand what you mean, sir.'
'Why,' said Martin, hesitating worse than ever, 'you see that--in these
matters--'
'In these matters, who should be with them, who should be by them,'
cried Alice, 'but their nearest and dearest? Who shall tell me not to
go to my husband? Who shall gainsay my right to be by him at such a
time? He had no relatives; he was mine--mine alone, and I was all the
world to him! O, my dear old John!' And again she burst into an agony
of tears.
Martin Gurwood was almost at his wits' end. He foresaw that if the
question were put to him again--as it would be put, he knew, so soon
as her access of grief was over--if Alice again called upon him to
take her to her husband, in default of any reasonable excuse he should
probably be forced to confess the truth, and then he must be prepared
to take the consequences, which he knew would be serious. This girl's
utter prostration and humiliation, Mrs. Calverley's first outburst of
rage, and subsequent malignant revenge, the shattering of the dead
man's reputation, and the despicable slander and gossip which would
ensue, Martin Gurwood thought of all these; knew that their being
called into action was dependent on how to manage to get through the
next few minutes. Why on earth had he undertaken this business? Why had
not Statham, whose experience in such matters ought to have forewarned
him that such a point was likely to arise--why had he not instructed
him how to deal with it? From her point of view, this poor girl was,
no doubt, strictly right. She considered herself to be the dead man's
widow (Martin had now not the smallest doubt on that point), and was
therefore perfectly justified in demanding to be taken to him. Even
if Martin Gurwood's conscience would have absolved him from telling a
white lie on the occasion, his inventive powers were not of calibre
sufficient to devise the necessary fiction; he felt there was no chance
for him but to tell Alice as little of the truth as would satisfy her,
in as roundabout a manner as he could manage, and then to risk the
result.
Just as he had arrived at this determination he raised his eyes, and
saw a little child run past the window. A small, delicate-looking
girl, with long fair hair streaming down her shoulders, prettily, even
elegantly dressed, and laughing heartily as she pursued a large elastic
ball which bounded before her. Martin saw her but for an instant, then
she disappeared down the garden path.
But that momentary glimpse was sufficient to give Martin Gurwood an
idea. And when Alice raised her tear-blurred face, now stern with the
expression of a set and determined purpose, he was to a certain extent
prepared for her.
'You must take me to my husband,' she said quietly. 'I am grateful to
you for coming here Mr.--'
'Gurwood--my name is Martin Gurwood.'
'I am grateful to you for coming here, Mr. Gurwood, and for the
delicate manner in which you have performed your task. But now I wish
to be taken to my husband. I have a right to make that claim, and I do
so.'
'My dear madam,' said Martin Gurwood, in the same quiet tone, but with
much more firmness than he had hitherto exhibited, 'I will not allow
that you owe me the smallest obligation; but if you did, the way in
which you could best repay me would be by exciting yourself as little
as possible. Under these most painful circumstances, you must not give
way, Mrs. Claxton; you must keep up as best you can, for the sake of
his memory, for the sake of the child which he has left behind him.'
'Little Bell? the child who is playing in the garden, and who just now
passed the window?'
'Yes, a fragile, fair, bright-looking mite.'
'Little Bell! She is not Mr. Claxton's child, sir, nor mine, but she
is another living proof of John's goodness, and thoughtfulness, and
care for others.' She rose from her seat as she spoke, and wandered in
a purposeless manner to the window. 'So thoughtful, so unselfish, so
generous,' she murmured. 'It is three years ago since little Bell first
came here.'
'Indeed!' said Martin, delighted at the unexpected reprieve, and
anxious to divert her thoughts as long as possible from the one dread
subject. 'Indeed! And where did she come from?'
'From the workhouse,' said Alice, not looking at him, but gazing
straight before her through the window, against which her forehead was
pressed--'from the workhouse. It was John's doing that we brought her
here--all John's doing. It was from Mr. Tomlinson, the clergyman,'
she continued, in a low tone, and with a certain abrupt incoherence
of manner, 'that we heard about it--such cold weather, with the snow
lying deep in the fields. Mr. Tomlinson told us that they had found
her lying against a haystack in one of Farmer Mullins's fields, half
frozen, and with a baby at her breast. So thin, and pale, and delicate,
she looked when we went down to see her lying in the workhouse bed. She
had been starved as well as frozen, Mr. Broadbent said, and her cheeks
were hollow, and there were great dark circles round her eyes. But she
must have been pretty, O so pretty! Her chestnut hair was soft and
delicate, and her poor thin hands, almost transparent, were white and
well-shaped.'
In his first relief from the repetition of her demand which he expected
Alice would make, Martin Gurwood did not pay much attention to the
commencement of her little story, but as it progressed his interest
became excited, and at this point he left his chair and stood by her at
the window.
'Who was she?' he asked. 'Where did she come from?'
'We never knew,' said Alice, shaking her head. 'She never spoke from
the time they found her until her death, two days after; but she had
never been married; there was no wedding-ring on her finger, and when
they told me that, I turned to John and spoke to him.'
'Do you recollect what you said?' asked Martin, half with a desire to
satisfy his own curiosity, half wishing to lead her on.
'Recollect?' said Alice. 'I remember the very words. "O John," I said,
"my dear old John, isn't it an awful thing to think how this poor
creature has been deceived; you may depend upon it, John" I said,
"that the man who has brought her to this shame made her a promise of
marriage, or deceived her in some cruel and heartless manner."'
'Did you say that?' asked Martin, in a low voice.
'I did, and more. "Her death will lie at his door, John," I said, "as
surely as if he had killed her with his hand. He did kill her, first
her soul and then her body, and he will be held responsible for the
murder of each!" I recollect then that John threw his arms around me
and implored me to stop. His face was quite white, and the tears were
streaming down his cheeks, for he had the tenderest heart. And then
when the poor girl died, he proposed that we should take the baby and
adopt it for our own; and we did so. Strange it was, I recollect, that
for weeks after that, whenever John was at home, and in one of his
silent moods, which came upon him first about that time, I would see
him of an evening, when he thought I was not looking at him, with his
eyes fixed upon me, and with the tears stealing down his cheeks.'
Was it strange, knowing what he did? Martin thought not; but he did not
speak.
'He was thinking of that poor girl, I suppose,' murmured Alice, half
to herself; 'thinking of all the troubles and sufferings she had come
through; thinking, I shouldn't wonder, that they might have been mine,
if I had not been mercifully placed in a different position, and out of
the reach of temptation; for he had the tenderest heart, and he loved
me so dearly--O so dearly! that the mere thought of anything happening
to me to cause me pain or suffering, was enough to make him utterly
wretched.' Then the sense of her situation dawning again upon her, she
cried out: 'And now he is lost to me for ever! There is no one now to
think of or take care of me! We were all in all to each other, and now
I am left alone in the world; what shall I do, O, what shall I do!'
It had been Martin Gurwood's lot, in the discharge of his clerical
duties, to listen a hundred times in his life to this despairing wail
from women just robbed of their husbands by death: a hundred times had
he cheered the darkened and dispirited soul with recapitulations of the
Almighty goodness, with the hope that the parting from the loved and
lost one was but temporary and not of long duration, and that in the
future the two reunited might enjoy an eternity of bliss such as they
had never known before. What could he say to the woman now writhing
before him in misery and despair? What word of encouragement, what
scrap of hope could he whisper into her dulled ear? How could he, with
the fearful knowledge which he had acquired, speak to her of the future
of this man, whose memory she so blindly worshipped, ignorant of the
manner in which he had basely betrayed her? How could he even speak
kindly of the dead man's past, and echo the terms of affection in which
she mentioned him, knowing as he did the full measure of the deceit and
iniquity practised upon her by the man whom she imagined to have been
her husband?
No! In all Martin Gurwood's clerical career (and the experiences of a
zealous and earnest clergyman in an agricultural district are fraught
with more horrors, and tend to a lower appreciation of the human race
than the uninitiated would believe), he had never had to deal with such
a case as this. In his reproof he could temper justice with mercy, in
his consolation he could bid 'despair and anguish flee the struggling
soul;' but to attempt now to cast down the idol from its pedestal, to
attempt to show to the heartbroken woman, whose sobs were resounding
through the room, that the man whose loss she was deploring had been
her worst and bitterest enemy, to point out that the emotion which
he had exhibited at the story of the outcast woman and her baby, was
merely caused by 'the conscience-prick and the memory-smart,' proving
to him the similarity of his own crime with that of the man on whom he
was invited to sit in judgment--to do all or any of this was beyond
Martin Gurwood's power; he ought to have done it, he knew, but he was
only human after all, and he decided to leave it alone.
The story of the frozen woman with the baby in her arms--his thoughts
had wandered away to that--slight and delicate was she, and with long
chestnut hair--what a strange coincidence! That this man, who had
himself deceived a young and trusting woman, should by his unsuspecting
victim be called upon to exercise his charity towards another victim,
should be expected to denounce the crime of which he had himself been
guilty! How strange to think that--Martin was interrupted in his
reverie by a movement on Alice's part. She had risen to her feet,
twisted her dishevelled hair into a knot behind her head, and stood
pale and statuesque before him.
'I shall be ready in five minutes,' she said, 'and I shall then expect
you to take me straight to where my husband's body is lying. If you
refuse to do so, I shall call upon you to tell me where it is--to give
me the address. I have a right as his wife--O, my God!' she moaned--'as
his widow! to demand that, and I shall do so.'
The critical time had arrived. Martin knew that, and felt stronger
and more self-reliant than he had anticipated. The fact was, that
he thought he saw a way of tiding the matter over until he could
communicate with Humphrey Statham, and possibly get his friend to take
the burden of the disclosure upon himself.
'My dear madam,' he said, 'I can quite appreciate your anxiety, which
is perfectly natural under the circumstances, and which I shall be most
anxious to alleviate; but I must ask you to have a little patience.
This evening--should you still wish it--you shall be taken to the place
where Mr. Claxton's body was conveyed.'
'Where is that place, Mr. Gurwood?' cried Alice. 'There is some mystery
about this which I do not understand; I insist upon knowing where this
place is!'
'You shall know,' said Martin, quietly. 'The place to which the body
was conveyed was Mr. Calverley's house in Great Walpole-street.'
'Mr. Calverley's! What, John's partner?'
'Mr. Calverley, of Mincing-lane. You have heard of him?'
'O, a thousand times. Mr. Claxton was a sleeping partner in the house
of Calverley and Company, you know. O, of course it was quite natural
that my poor darling should be carried there! I am so relieved, Mr.
Gurwood. I was afraid that poor John had been taken to some horrid
place, and thought that was the reason why you objected to my going
there; but as he is at Mr. Calverley's house--'
'For that reason you must defer going there until the evening,' said
Martin Gurwood, with more firmness than he had hitherto shown. 'This
sad event has thrown the house into great confusion, and it will be
necessary that I should go back and apprise Mrs. Calverley, whom you do
not know, I think, of your intention of coming there tonight.'
'I suppose you are right,' said Alice, in a disappointed tone. 'I
suppose, even at such a dreadful time as this, there are regulations
and observances which must be respected. Will you promise me that you
will come to me this evening?'
'Either I myself or some friend whom I can trust,' said Martin. 'And
now I must leave you; for the time is short, and I have a great deal to
do in it.'
He took one glance at her pale, tearful face, with even more than
interest, and withdrew.
He was thinking to himself how very beautiful she was, when his
reflections were checked by his catching sight of a female figure, in a
black cloak, in the path before him.
On his near approach the lady raised her veil, and to his astonished
eyes revealed the features of Madame Du Tertre.