When Nellie came home from the vicarage she found her mother looking very
ill. There were dark rings under her eyes, and her features were drawn
and tear-stained, while the beautiful waves of her brown hair had lost
their habitual neatness and symmetry. The child noticed these things,
with a child's quickness, but explained them on the ground that her
mother's headache was probably much worse. Mrs. Goddard accepted the
explanation and on the following day Nellie had forgotten all about it;
but her mother remembered it long, and it was many days before she
recovered entirely from the shock of her interview with the squire. The
latter did not come to see her as usual, but on the morning after his
visit he sent her down a package of books and some orchids from his
hothouses. He thought it best to leave her to herself for a little while;
the very sight of him, he argued, would be painful to her, and any
meeting with her would be painful to himself. He did not go out of the
house, but spent the whole day in his library among his books, not indeed
reading, but pretending to himself that he was very busy. Being a strong
and sensible man he did not waste time in bemoaning his sorrows, but he
thought about them long and earnestly. The more he thought, the more it
appeared to him that Mrs. Goddard was the person who deserved pity rather
than he himself. His mind dwelt on the terrors of her position in case
her husband should return and claim his wife and daughter when the twelve
years were over, and he thought with horror of Nellie's humiliation, if
at the age of twenty she should discover that her father during all these
years had not been honourably dead and buried, but had been suffering the
punishment of a felon in Portland. That the only attempt he had ever made
to enter the matrimonial state should have been so singularly unfortunate
was indeed a matter which caused him sincere sorrow; he had thought too
often of being married to Mary Goddard to be able to give up the idea
without a sigh. But it is due to him to say that in the midst of his own
disappointment he thought much more of her sorrows than of his own, a
state of mind most probably due to his temperament.
He saw also how impossible it was to console Mrs. Goddard or even to
alleviate the distress of mind which she must constantly feel. Her
destiny was accomplished in part, and the remainder seemed absolutely
inevitable. No one could prevent her husband from leaving his prison when
his crime was expiated; and no one could then prevent him from joining
his wife and ending his life under her roof. At least so it seemed.
Endless complications would follow. Mrs. Goddard would certainly have to
leave Billingsfield--no one could expect the Ambroses or the squire
himself to associate with a convict forger. Mr. Juxon vaguely wondered
whether he should live another nine years to see the end of all this, and
he inwardly determined to go to sea again rather than to witness such
misery. He could not see, no one could see how things could possibly turn
out in any other way. It would have been some comfort to have gone to the
vicar, and to have discussed with him the possibilities of Mrs. Goddard's
future. The vicar was a man after his own heart, honest, reliable,
charitable and brave; but Mr. Juxon thought that it would not be quite
loyal towards Mrs. Goddard if he let any one else know that he was
acquainted with her story.
For two days he stayed at home and then he went to see her. To his
surprise she received him very quietly, much as she usually did, without
betraying any emotion; whereupon he wished that he had not allowed two
days to pass without making his usual visit. Mrs. Goddard almost wished
so too. She had been so much accustomed to regard the squire as a friend,
and she had so long been used to the thought that Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose
knew of her past trouble, that the fact of the squire becoming acquainted
with her history seemed to her less important, now that it was
accomplished, than it seemed to the squire himself. She had long thought
of telling him all; she had seriously contemplated doing so when he first
came to Billingsfield, and now at last the thing was done. She was glad
of it. She was no longer in a false position; he could never again think
of marrying her; they could henceforth meet as friends, since he was so
magnanimous as to allow their friendship to exist. Her pride had suffered
so terribly in the beginning that it was past suffering now. She felt
that she was in the position of a suppliant asking only for a quiet
resting-place for herself and her daughter, and she was grateful to the
people who gave her what she asked, feeling that she had fallen among
good Samaritans, whereas in merry England it would have been easy for her
to have fallen among priests and Pharisees.
So it came about that in a few days her relations with Mr. Juxon were
re-established upon a new basis, but more firmly and satisfactorily than
before, seeing that now there was no possibility of mistake. And for a
long time it seemed as though matters would go on as before. Neither Mrs.
Goddard nor the squire ever referred to the interview on that memorable
stormy afternoon, and so far as the squire could judge his life and hers
might go on with perfect tranquillity until it should please the powers
that be and the governor of Portland to set Mr. Walter Goddard at
liberty. Heaven only knew what would happen then, but it was provided
that there should be plenty of time to prepare for anything which might
ensue. The point upon which Mrs. Goddard had not spoken plainly was that
which concerned her probable treatment of her husband after his
liberation. She had passed that question over in silence. She had
probably never dared to decide. Most probably she would at the last
minute seek some safer retreat than Billingsfield and make tip her mind
to hide for the rest of her life. But Mr. Juxon had heard of women who
had carried charity as far as to receive back their husbands under even
worse circumstances; women were soft-hearted creatures, reflected the
squire, and capable of anything.
Few people in such a situation could have acted consistently as though
nothing had happened. But Mr. Juxon's extremely reticent nature found it
easy to bury other people's important secrets at least as deeply as he
buried the harmless details of his own honest life. Not a hair of his
smooth head was ruffled, not a line of his square manly face was
disturbed. He looked and acted precisely as he had looked and acted
before. His butler remarked that he ate a little less heartily of late,
and that on one evening, as has been recorded, the squire forgot to
dress for dinner. But the butler in his day had seen greater
eccentricities than these; he had the greatest admiration for Mr. Juxon
and was not inclined to cavil at small things. A real gentleman, of the
good sort, who dressed for dinner when he was alone, who never took too
much wine, who never bullied the servants nor quarrelled unjustly with
the bills, was, as the butler expressed it, "not to be sneezed at, on
no account." The place was a little dull, but the functionary was well
stricken in years and did not like hard work. Mr. Juxon seemed to be
conscious that as he never had visitors at the Hall and as there were
consequently no "tips," his staff was entitled to an occasional fee,
which he presented always with great regularity, and which had the
desired effect. He was a generous man as well as a just.
The traffic in roses and orchids and new books continued as usual between
the Hall and the cottage, and for many weeks nothing extraordinary
occurred. Mrs. Ambrose and Mrs. Goddard met frequently, and the only
difference to be observed in the manner of the former was that she
mentioned John Short very often, and every time she mentioned him she
fixed her grey eyes sternly upon Mrs. Goddard, who however did not notice
the scrutiny, or, if she did, was not in the least disturbed by it. For a
long time Mrs. Ambrose entertained a feeble intention of addressing Mrs.
Goddard directly upon the subject of John's affections, but the longer
she put off doing so, the harder it seemed to do it. Mrs. Ambrose had
great faith in the sternness of her eye under certain circumstances, and
seeing that Mrs. Goddard never winced, she gradually fell into the belief
that John had been the more to blame, if there was any blame in the
matter. She had indeed succeeded in the first instance, by methods of her
own which have been heretofore detailed, in extracting a sort of
reluctant admission from her husband; but since that day he had proved
obdurate to all entreaty. Once only he had said with considerable
impatience that John was a very silly boy, and was much better engaged
with his books at college than in running after Mrs. Goddard. That was
all, and gradually as the regular and methodical life at the vicarage
effaced the memory of the doings at Christmas time, the good Mrs.
Ambrose forgot that anything unpleasant had ever occurred. There was no
disturbance of the existing relations and everything went on as before
for many weeks. The February thaw set in early and the March winds began
to blow before February was fairly out. Nat Barker the octogenarian
cripple, who had the reputation of being a weather prophet, was
understood to have said that the spring was "loike to be forrard t'year,"
and the minds of the younger inhabitants were considerably relieved. Not
that Nat Barker's prophecies were usually fulfilled; no one ever
remembered them at the time when they might have been verified. But they
were always made at the season when people had nothing to do but to talk
about them. Mr. Thomas Reid, the conservative sexton, turned up his nose
at them, and said he "wished Nat Barker had to dig a parish depth grave
in three hours without a drop of nothin' to wet his pipe with, and if he
didden fine that groun' oncommon owdacious Thomas Reid he didden know.
They didden know nothin', sir, them parish cripples." Wherewith the
worthy sexton took his way with a battered tin can to get his "fours"
at the Feathers. He did not patronise the Duke's Head. It was too
new-fangled for him, and he suspected his arch enemy, Mr. Abraham Boosey,
of putting a rat or two into the old beer to make it "draw," which
accounted for its being so "hard." But Mr. Abraham Boosey was the
undertaker, and he, Thomas Reid, was the sexton, and it did not do to
express these views too loudly, lest perchance Mr. Boosey should, just in
his play, construct a coffin or two just too big for the regulation
grave, and thereby leave Mr. Reid in the lurch. For the undertaker and
the gravedigger are as necessary to each other, as Mr. Reid maintained,
as a pair of blackbirds in a hedge.
But the spring was "forrard t'year" and the weather was consequently even
more detestable than usual at that season. The roads were heavy. The rain
seemed never weary of pouring down and the wind never tired of blowing.
The wet and leafless creepers beat against the walls of the cottage, and
the chimneys smoked both there and at the vicarage. The rooms were
pervaded with a disagreeable smell of damp coal smoke, and the fires
struggled desperately to burn against the overwhelming odds of rain and
wind which came down the chimneys. Mrs. Goddard never remembered to have
been so uncomfortable during the two previous winters she had spent in
Billingsfield, and even Nellie grew impatient and petulant. The only
bright spot in those long days seemed to be made by the regular visits of
Mr. Juxon, by the equally regular bi-weekly appearance of the Ambroses
when they came to tea, and by the little dinners at the vicarage. The
weather had grown so wet and the roads so bad that on these latter
occasions the vicar sent his dogcart with Reynolds and the old mare,
Strawberry, to fetch his two guests. Even Mr. Juxon, who always walked
when he could, had got into the habit of driving down to the cottage
in a strange-looking gig which he had imported from America, and which,
among all the many possessions of the squire, alone attracted the
unfavourable comment of his butler. He would have preferred to see a good
English dogcart, high in the seat and wheels, at the door of the Hall,
instead of that outlandish vehicle; but Joseph Ruggles, the groom,
explained to him that it was easier to clean than a dogcart, and that
when it rained he sat inside with the squire.
On a certain evening in February, towards the end of the month, Mr. and
Mrs. Ambrose and Mr. Juxon came to have tea with Mrs. Goddard. Mr. Juxon
had at first not been regularly invited to these entertainments. They
were perhaps not thought worthy of his grandeur; at all events both the
vicar's wife and Mrs. Goddard had asked him very rarely. But as time went
on and Mr. Juxon's character developed under the eyes of the little
Billingsfield society, it had become apparent to every one that he was a
very simple man, making no pretensions whatever to any superiority on
account of his station. They grew more and more fond of him, and ended by
asking him to their small sociable evenings. On these occasions it
generally occurred that the squire and the vicar fell into conversation
about classical and literary subjects while the two ladies talked of the
little incidents of Billingsfield life, of Tom Judd's wife and of Joe
Staines, the choir boy, who was losing his voice, and of similar topics
of interest in the very small world in which they lived.
The present evening had not been at all a remarkable one so far as the
talk was concerned. The drenching rain, the tendency of the fire to
smoke, the general wetness and condensed depravity of the atmosphere had
affected the spirits of the little party. They were not gay, and they
broke up early. It was not nine o'clock when all had gone, and Mrs.
Goddard and little Eleanor were left alone by the side of their
drawing-room fire. The child sat upon a footstool and leaned her head
against her mother's knee. Mrs. Goddard herself was thoughtful and
sad, without precisely knowing why. She generally looked forward with
pleasure to meeting the Ambroses, but this evening she had been rather
disappointed. The conversation had dragged, and the excellent Mrs.
Ambrose had been more than usually prosy. Nellie had complained of a
headache and leaned wearily against her mother's knee.
"Tell me a story, mamma--won't you? Like the ones you used to tell me
when I was quite a little girl."
"Dear child," said her mother, who was not thinking of story-telling, "I
am afraid I have forgotten all the ones I ever knew. Besides, darling, it
is time for you to go to bed."
"I don't want to go to bed, mamma. It is such a horrid night. The wind
keeps me awake."
"You will not sleep at all if I tell you a story," objected Mrs. Goddard.
"Mr. Juxon tells me such nice stories," said Nellie, reproachfully.
"What are they about, dear?"
"Oh, his stories are beautiful. They are always about ships and the blue
sea and wonderful desert islands where he has been. What a wonderful man
he is, mamma, is not he?"
"Yes, dear, he talks very interestingly." Mrs. Goddard stroked Nellie's
brown curls and looked into the fire.
"He told me that once, ever so many years ago--he must be very old,
mamma--" Nellie paused and looked up inquiringly.
"Well, darling--not so very, very old. I think he is over forty."
"Over forty--four times eleven--he is not four times as old as I am.
Almost, though. All his stories are ever so many years ago. He said he
was sailing away ever so far, in a perfectly new ship, and the name of
the ship was--let me see, what was the name? I think it was--"
Mrs. Goddard started suddenly and laid her hand on the child's shoulder.
"Did you hear anything, Nellie?" she asked quickly. Nellie looked up in
some surprise.
"No, mamma. When? Just now? It must have been the wind. It is such a
horrid night. The name of the ship was the 'Zephyr'--I remember, now."
She looked up again to see if her mother was listening to the story. Mrs.
Goddard looked pale and glanced uneasily towards the closed window. She
had probably been mistaken.
"And where did the ship sail to, Nellie dear?" she asked, smoothing the
child's curls again and forcing herself to smile.
"Oh--the ship was a perfectly new ship and it was the most beautiful
weather in the world. They were sailing away ever so far, towards the
straits of Magellan. I was so glad because I knew where the straits of
Magellan were--and Mr. Juxon was immensely astonished. But I had been
learning about the Terra del Fuego, and the people who were frozen
there, in my geography that very morning--was not it lucky? So I knew all
about it--mamma, how nervous you are! It is nothing but the wind. I wish
you would listen to my story--"
"I am listening, darling," said Mrs. Goddard, making a strong effort to
overcome her agitation and drawing the child closer to her. "Go on,
sweetheart--you were in the straits of Magellan, you said, sailing
away--"
"Mr. Juxon was, mamma," said Nellie correcting her mother with the
asperity of a child who does not receive all the attention it expects.
"Of course, dear, Mr. Juxon, and the ship was the 'Zephyr.'"
"Yes--the 'Zephyr,'" repeated Nellie, who was easily pacified. "It was at
Christmas time he said--but that is summer in the southern hemisphere,"
she added, proud of her knowledge. "So it was very fine weather. And Mr.
Juxon was walking up and down the deck in the afternoon, smoking a
cigar--"
"He never smokes, dear," interrupted Mrs. Goddard, glad to show Nellie
that she was listening.
"Well, but he did then, because he said so," returned Nellie unmoved.
"And as he walked and looked out--sailors always look out, you know--he
saw the most wonderful thing, close to the ship--the most wonderful thing
he ever saw," added Nellie with some redundance of expression.
"Was it a whale, child?" asked her mother, staring into the fire and
trying to pay attention.
"A whale, mamma!" repeated Nellie contemptuously. "As if there were
anything remarkable about a whale! Mr. Juxon has seen billions of whales,
I am sure."
"Well, what was it, dear?"
"It was the most awfully tremendous thing with green and blue scales, a
thousand times as big as the ship--oh mamma! What was that?"
Nellie started up from her stool and knelt beside her mother, looking
towards the window. Mrs. Goddard was deathly pale and grasped the arm of
her chair.
"Somebody knocked at the window, mamma," said Nellie breathlessly. "And
then somebody said 'Mary'--quite loud. Oh mamma, what can it be?"
"Mary?" repeated Mrs. Goddard as though she were in a dream.
"Yes--quite loud. Oh mamma! it must be Mary's young man--he does
sometimes come in the evening."
"Mary's young man, child?" Mrs. Goddard's heart leaped. Her cook's name
was Mary, as well as her own. Nellie naturally never associated the name
with her mother, as she never heard anybody call her by it.
"Yes mamma. Don't you know? The postman--the man with the piebald horse."
The explanation was necessary, as Mrs. Goddard rarely received any
letters and probably did not know the postman by sight.
"At this time of night!" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard. "It is too bad. Mary is
gone to bed."
"Perhaps he thinks you are gone to the vicarage and that Mary is sitting
up for you in the drawing-room," suggested Nellie with much good sense.
"Well, he can't come in, can he, mamma?"
"Certainly not," said her mother. "But I think you had much better go to
bed, my dear. It is half-past nine." She spoke indistinctly, almost
thickly, and seemed to be making a violent effort to control herself. But
Nellie had settled down upon her stool again, and did not notice her
mother.
"Oh not yet," said she. "I have not nearly finished about the
sea-serpent. Mr. Juxon said it was not like anything in the world. Do
listen, mamma! It is the most wonderful story you ever heard. It was
all covered with blue and green scales, and it rolled, and rolled, and
rolled, and rolled, till at last it rolled up against the side of the
ship with such a tremendous bump that Mr. Juxon fell right down on his
back."
"Yes dear," said Mrs. Goddard mechanically, as the child paused.
"You don't seem to mind at all!" cried Nellie, who felt that her efforts
to amuse her mother were not properly appreciated. "He fell right down on
his back and hurt himself awfully."
"That was very sad," said Mrs. Goddard. "Did he catch the sea-serpent
afterwards ?"
"Catch the sea-serpent! Why mamma, don't you know that nobody has ever
caught the sea-serpent? Why, hardly anybody has ever seen him, even!"
"Yes dear, but I thought Mr. Juxon--"
"Of course, Mr. Juxon is the most wonderful man--but he could not catch
the sea-serpent. Just fancy! When he got up from his fall, he looked and
he saw him quite half a mile away. He must have gone awfully fast, should
not you think so? Because, you know, it was only a minute."
"Yes, my child; and it is a beautiful story, and you told it so nicely.
It is very interesting and you must tell me another to-morrow. But now,
dear, you must really go to bed, because I am going to bed, too. That man
startled me so," she said, passing her small white hand over her pale
forehead and then staring into the fire.
"Well, I don't wonder," answered Nellie in a patronising tone. "Such a
dreadful night too! Of course, it would startle anybody. But he won't try
again, and you can scold Mary to-morrow and then she can scold her young
man."
The child spoke so naturally that all doubts vanished from Mrs. Goddard's
mind. She reflected that children are much more apt to see things as they
are, than grown people whose nerves are out of order. Nellie's
conclusions were perfectly logical, and it seemed folly to doubt them.
She determined that Mary should certainly be scolded on the morrow and
she unconsciously resolved in her mind the words she should use; for she
was rather a timid woman and stood a little in awe of her stalwart
Berkshire cook, with her mighty arms and her red face, and her uncommonly
plain language.
"Yes dear," she said more quietly than she had been able to speak for
some time, "I have no doubt you are quite right. I thought I heard his
footsteps just now, going down the path. So he will not trouble us any
more to-night. And now darling, kneel down and say your prayers, and then
we will go to bed."
So Nellie, reassured by the news that her mother was going to bed, too,
knelt down as she had done every night during the eleven years of her
life, and clasped her hands together, beneath her mother's. Then she
cleared her throat, then she glanced at the clock, then she looked for
one moment into the sweet serious violet eyes that looked down on her so
lovingly, and then at last she bent her lovely little head and began to
say her prayers, there, by the fire, at her mother's knees, while angry
storm howled fiercely without and shook the closed panes and shutters
and occasional drops of rain, falling down the short chimney, sputtered
in the smouldering coal fire.
"Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom
come--"
Nellie gave a loud scream and springing up from her knees flung her arms
around her mother's neck, in uttermost, wildest terror.
"Mamma, mamma!" she cried looking, and yet hardly daring to look, back
towards the closed window. "It called 'MARY GODDARD'! It is you, mamma!
Oh!"
There was no mistaking it this time. While Nellie was saying her prayer
there had come three sharp and distinct raps upon the wooden shutter, and
a voice, not loud but clear, penetrating into the room in spite of wind
and storm and rain.
"Mary Goddard! Mary Goddard!" it said.
Mrs. Goddard started to her feet, lifting Nellie bodily from the ground
in her agony of terror; staring round the room wildly as though in search
of some possible escape.
"I must come in! I will come in!" said the voice again.
"Oh don't let him in! Mamma! Don't let him in!" moaned the terrified
child upon her breast, clinging to her and weighing her down, and
grasping her neck and arm with convulsive strength.
But in moments of great agitation timid people, or people who are thought
timid, not uncommonly do brave things. Mrs. Goddard unclasped Nellie's
hold and forced the terror-struck child into a deep chair.
"Stay there, darling," she said with unnatural calmness. "Do not be
afraid. I will go and open the door."
Nellie was now too much frightened to resist. Mrs. Goddard went out into
the little passage which was dimly lighted by a hanging lamp, and closed
the door of the drawing-room behind her. She could hear Nellie's
occasional convulsive sobs distinctly. For one moment she paused, her
right hand on the lock of the front door, her left hand pressed to her
side, leaning against the wall of the passage. Then she turned the key
and the handle and drew the door in towards her. A violent gust of wind,
full of cold and drenching rain, whirled into the passage and almost
blinded her. The lamp flickered in the lantern overhead. But she looked
boldly out, facing the wind and weather.
"Come in!" she called in a low voice.
Immediately there was a sound as of footsteps coming from the direction
of the drawing-room window, across the wet slate flags which surrounded
the cottage, and a moment afterwards, peering through the darkness, Mrs.
Goddard saw a man with a ghastly face standing before her in the rain.