Transcriber’s Note: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores:
_italics_.
DEAD MEN’S SHOES
A Novel
BY THE AUTHOR OF
‘LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET’
ETC. ETC. ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. III.
[Illustration: (Colophon)]
LONDON
JOHN MAXWELL AND CO.
4, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET
1876
[_All rights reserved._]
CONTENTS TO VOL. III.
CHAP. PAGE
I. TROT’S HISTORY 1
II. GAINING TIME 15
III. AT BAY 32
IV. ON THE THRESHOLD OF A DISCOVERY 43
V. A FATHER’S CLAIM 64
VI. A WEDDING EVE 78
VII. THE PASSING-BELL 97
VIII. DARK SURMISES 114
IX. IN THE SURGERY 130
X. STEPHEN TRENCHARD SURPRISES HIS FRIENDS 142
XI. ‘IT IS NOT NOW AT IT HAS BEEN OF YORE’ 164
XII. ‘’TIS HELD THAT SORROW MAKES US WISE’ 202
XIII. ‘BUT HERE IS ONE WHO LOVES YOU AS OF OLD’ 215
XIV. ALEXIS INVESTIGATES 230
XV. MR. LEVISON CROSS-EXAMINES 259
XVI. THE PODMORES THINK OF EMIGRATION 280
XVII. COMMITTED FOR TRIAL 297
XVIII. ‘A DARK TALE DARKLY FINISHED’ 323
EPILOGUE 336
DEAD MEN’S SHOES.
CHAPTER I.
TROT’S HISTORY.
Alexis wakes next morning with a throbbing head and a vague sense of
trouble and regret; but upon the one question of his immediate return
to the Grange his mind is fixed. There shall be no further delay. He
has been long enough at Dorley--perhaps too long for his peace.
‘If any one had told me last Christmas that my heart could ever
beat one throb in the minute faster for any woman living except
my wife, I should have given him the lie boldly enough. Is it
gratitude--respect--affection--that makes me think so much of my
fair young nurse, and think it so hard a thing to part from her?
Or is it a feeling that I am bound to stifle? I hardly know how to
answer that question even to myself. At worst the sentiment is a mild
one. Passion has no part in my love--if love it be. It is pure and
reverent, and I will say no word that shall sully it. Yet I can but
feel what new brightness might glorify my life if I were free to love
this girl.’
He rises later than usual, and not before Trot has come to knock at
his door and announce the hour.
‘Bekkust is weady for oo,’ says Trot; ‘oo eggs is boiled. Trot found
’em in the henhouse; Cothin Thina ones.’
‘Dear little Trot! How I shall miss that baby voice, and those
pretty baby ways!’ thinks Alexis. ‘Coming presently, Trot,’ he cries
cheerily, and Trot makes his way downstairs rather noisily, as he
alights upon every stair with a jump.
It is noon when Alexis goes down to breakfast, a radiant summer
noon, and the first strawberries from the garden are upon the table,
nestling among their aristocratic leaves. Linda is seated in her
accustomed place by the window, her inexhaustible work-basket by her
side. When she is not working for her grandfather or Trot she is
making clothes for the poorest among her neighbours.
‘You accused me of looking ill last night, Miss Challice,’ says
Alexis as they shake hands; ‘and this morning I find you as pale as
your lilies out yonder. What has happened to disturb you?’
‘I have been told what you did yesterday evening,’ answers Linda,
gravely.
‘What, my little escapade with one of your amiable neighbours,’ cries
Alexis, lightly. ‘You don’t mean to say people have been talking of
such a trifle as that? I think I taught the gentleman that it’s bad
manners to laugh at a sick man.’
‘Was it for laughing at you that you struck him, Mr. Secretan?’ asks
Linda.
‘Certainly. My cadaverous looks provoked his mirth, and if I do
resemble the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, I don’t choose to be
laughed at before my face.’
‘Oh, Mr. Secretan, I know all that was said by that man. Elizabeth
has been in the village this morning, and people have told her all
that happened. It was the slander against me which you resented. The
old cruel slander which has pursued me ever since I took pity upon
that desolate child.’
The tears roll slowly down her cheeks, but she wipes them hastily
away and regains composure. She is not one of those women who wash
out their grief in tears.
‘No one shall slander you in my presence, Miss Challice, and go
unpunished. I’m sorry I let that foul-mouthed ruffian off so easily.’
‘And you do not believe----you----’ Her voice fails her, and again
the unbidden tears start to her eyes.
‘I believe anything against you? No, Linda. But if you would trust me
with your secret----’
‘I have no secret,’ replies Linda, with a frank, steady look, more
convincing than a world of protestation. ‘I have shrunk from talking
to you of that dear little fellow’s history only because it is a
very sad one, and because the scandal which he has brought upon us
has made the subject particularly painful to me. I should have been
weak and cowardly if I had consented to part with my little darling
just because people are wicked enough to speak evil of me, but I am
not so brave as to endure their slander without pain. I have suffered
deeply.’
‘Tell me all, I entreat you. I think I love that child almost as well
as you do. He is about the age my own son would have been had he
lived--the son I never saw. That sounds curious, does it not? but the
history of my marriage is a very painful one, Miss Challice, though I
thank God it has no element of disgrace--and I----’ here he falters
a little, as if the words he has to speak were somewhat difficult to
say--‘I still have the hope of reunion with my wife.’
He may have some motive for speaking of Sibyl to-day, though she has
been very little in his thoughts of late.
‘Tell me all about Trot’s birth.’
‘Let me see you begin your breakfast first. It’s rather a long story.’
‘I am all attention.’
‘It was about the end of March, three years ago, when I first saw
Trot. It was a bleak afternoon, windy and cold. I had gone out into
the front garden to look for the first wall-flowers, when I saw a
woman leaning against the railings for support. I did not see at
first that she had a baby in her arms, it was so hidden by an old
sealskin jacket. I asked her if she was ill, and she said yes, she
was ill and tired. She had walked all the way from Winchester. I
asked her to come into the porch and rest. She came in, and had
hardly seated herself when she fainted, and would have fallen if I
had not managed to support her in my arms. Then the baby began to
cry, and I saw him for the first time--such a tiny thing. Fortunately
I was accustomed to young babies, from having visited a good deal
among our cottagers.
‘And you took them in, mother and child, and sheltered and nourished
them?’
‘What else could I do? Elizabeth and I soon discovered that the poor
creature was starving. She had been living on penny rolls for the
last fortnight--ever since she had left the workhouse, where her baby
was born. Yes, that sounds dreadful, doesn’t it? Our darling Trot
was born in Winchester Union.’
‘Dreadful indeed from society’s point of view. What kind of person
was the mother?’
‘I can hardly tell you. She was very ill when we took her in--worn
and wasted to a mere shadow. She must have been very pretty when
she was happy and well, but her beauty was all gone. She was very
reserved, and though I tried to win her confidence, she would tell
me nothing about herself--what she had been in the past, or what
she hoped to be in the future. She seemed very unhappy, and though
she was evidently fond of her baby, he seemed rather to add to her
unhappiness. I felt that her story must be a very sorrowful one.’
‘And you pitied her?’
‘With all my heart. One day when she had been with us about a week,
and was beginning to get a little better and stronger, I asked her if
she had any home to go to. She had been talking about leaving us in a
day or two. Yes, she said, she had a home, and she was going to it,
but she did not know what to do with her baby. There were reasons
why she could not take the baby home. And then she asked me if I knew
any honest woman in the village who would take care of the child for
a year or two, and trust to her sending payment for its maintenance
regularly after her return home. I told her that I was afraid none
of our own villagers would take the responsibility of a stranger’s
child. They would want to know who and what she was before they
trusted her. Of course I said this as kindly as I could.’
‘As if you could be anything but kind!’ exclaims Alexis.
‘After this I could see she was very much disturbed in her mind.
She sat with the baby in her lap, crying over it in a fretful way,
and she was evidently in great trouble, and chiefly about the baby.
I don’t know how it was, but just then there came into my mind the
thought of all I had ever heard about wretched women killing their
children. I thought of this poor creature wandering about the country
penniless, friendless, with a wailing infant in her arms, and how in
some dreadful hour wandering by the side of a river, the temptation
might come to her to drown this sweet, innocent little thing, which,
even in its unconsciousness, seemed to cling to me, and to be happier
in my arms than in its mother’s.’
‘Doubtless infants, like the lower animals, have an instinct that
tells them when they are beloved,’ remarks Alexis.
‘“If my grandfather would only let me keep your child!” I said, at
which she burst into tears again, and threw her arms round my neck,
and entreated me to take care of the little one, and promised me all
kinds of rewards by-and-bye, when fortune smiled upon her. I told her
I wanted no reward except the delight of making the little fellow
happy, and teaching him to love me. I thought very little of the
responsibility I was assuming, I am afraid. It seemed scarcely more
to me than if I was offering to take care of another kitten to add to
our family of pets.’
‘What did your grandfather say to the idea?’
‘Bless his kind heart, he never refused me anything in his life. He
was rather against the notion at first, and he asked me if I had
considered what a burden we should be taking upon ourselves, and what
we were to do with the baby when it grew up. “A baby’s easy to keep;”
he said; “a quart of new milk more or less won’t hurt us, but what
shall we do when he’s a big fellow and wants schooling?” “He can go
to the mill and work for his living,” I said. “Not if you bring him
up as a pet and plaything,” said grandfather, “he’ll be too good for
the mill.”’
‘And you had your way?’
‘Yes; I couldn’t get that idea about the river out of my mind, and
I was determined the unhappy mother shouldn’t take the baby away,
so I talked my dear old grandfather into giving his consent, and he
promised to adopt the child. The poor creature went down on her knees
to me when I told her that I would take care of her baby, but she was
not any more inclined to confide in me than she had been at the very
first; and two days afterwards she insisted upon leaving us, though I
begged her to stay till she was stronger and better able to travel.
She was resolute, so I gave her a couple of sovereigns, all the
money I had of my own, and patched up her clothes a little. She was
dreadfully shabby, poor thing, and at daybreak one morning she left
us to walk to Winchester, where she was to take the parliamentary
train to London.’
‘You are sure she was going to London?’
‘That is what she told me, and she was anxious to get to Winchester
in time for the London train.’
‘She did not even tell you her name?’
‘No. “I might give you a false name,” she said, “but what would be
the use of that? If I live, and things prosper with me, you shall
know all about me some day.”’
‘That was vague,’ says Alexis. ‘Did she wear a wedding ring?’
‘Yes, but she told me that it was one she had bought for a penny. “I
sold the real one to buy bread,” she said.’
‘And she left her child without showing any grief?’
‘No, just at the last she broke down, clasped him to her breast, and
cried over him bitterly.’
‘Have you heard nothing of her since that time?’
‘I have had no actual communication. But I have received three
ten-pound notes at intervals each in a blank envelope, posted in
London. I have put the money into the savings bank for my darling.’
‘And the envelopes, you kept them, I suppose?’
‘No, they were directed in a cramped unformed hand, like that of a
very common person. I cannot think that it was the writing of Trot’s
mother, yet I feel sure the money must have come from her.’
‘There was nothing written inside the envelope?’
‘Not a word. The bank note was wrapped in a blank sheet of paper.’
‘Provoking!’ exclaims Alexis. ‘I would give a great deal to know more
about Trot’s origin. His name of Trot, by the way, how did he come by
that?’
‘It is only a pet name which my grandfather gave him when he first
began to walk and was always trotting about the house. He was
christened William after my grandfather, who stood for him. We had
him christened the week after his mother left us.’
‘Poor little Trot, but for you he might have been left outside the
fold. Poor little Trot, born in a workhouse, abandoned by his mother,
fatherless, nameless! Well, Miss Challice, his schooling shall never
trouble you or your grandfather. We’ll send him to Winchester when
he’s old enough, and to Oxford after, and make a man of him. That
shall be my duty, and it may be some small return for all the care
you and your worthy grandfather have bestowed upon me.’
‘You are too good. Believe me, we need no recompense.’
‘No more did the good Samaritan. How long is it, by the way, since
you received the last bank note?’
‘Not more than two months ago. It came while you were very ill.’
‘I thank you most sincerely for having told me this story. I am
deeply interested in Trot, deeply moved by your goodness to him.
It is a hard thing that such an act of divine charity should have
brought sorrow upon you. It makes me detest your innocent rustics.’
‘Do not blame them. It arises out of their ignorance----’
‘No,’ cries Alexis sternly, ‘it arises out of their knowledge of
evil, and incapacity to believe in good.’