THE GOAL REACHED.
No sooner had Bram recovered himself, and gone to the office without
another question to any one, avoiding the group and the sickening sight
they surrounded, than he found one of the servants from Holme Park with
a letter from Mr. Cornthwaite, asking him to come up to the house at
once.
He found his employer sitting in the study alone, in the very seat,
the very attitude, he had seen him in so often. While outside the
house looked mournful in the extreme with its drawn blinds; while the
servants moved about with silent step and scared faces, the master sat,
apparently as unchanged as a rock after a storm.
It was not until a change of position on the part of Mr. Cornthwaite
suddenly revealed to Bram the fact that the lines in his face had
deepened, the white patches in his hair grown wider, that the young
man recognized that the tragedy had left its outward mark on him also.
He had summoned Bram to talk about business. And this he did with as
clear a head, as deep an apparent interest as ever. Even the necessary
reference to his lost son he made with scarcely a break in his voice.
“I shall only have the works shut on one day, the day of the funeral,
Elshaw,” said he. “But in the meantime I shan’t be down there myself.
I--I----” At last his voice faltered. “I should like to be at work
again myself--to give me something to think about, instead of thinking
always on the same unhappy subject. But I couldn’t go down there so
soon after--after what I saw there.”
Bram could not answer. The remembrance was too fresh in his own mind.
“So I want you to take my place as far as you can. You can telephone
through to me if you want to know anything. You have to fill your own
place now, you know Elshaw, and--another’s.”
Bram bowed his head, deeply touched.
“Now you can go. If you want to see--him, one of the servants will take
you up. And the ladies, poor things, are sure to be about. They bear up
beautifully, beautifully. His wife bears up a little too well for my
taste. But--perhaps--we must forgive her!”
He shook Bram by the hand, and the young man went out.
In the death-chamber upstairs he found Mrs. Christian, dry-eyed,
on her knees beside the bed. She sprang up on Bram’s entrance, and
remained beside him, without speaking a word, while he looked long
and earnestly at the placid face, looking handsomer in death than it
had ever looked in life, the waxen mask, refined and delicate beyond
expression, the long golden moustache, the fair hair, silkier, smoother
than Bram had ever seen them.
And presently a mist came before his eyes, and he went hastily out.
He found Mrs. Christian still beside him. She was very pale, but quite
calm.
“I am glad you are come. You were poor Christian’s great friend, were
you not?” said she.
“Yes, madam,” said Bram rather stiffly.
Her little chirping voice irritated him. Although he understood that
the neglected, unloved wife could not be expected to feel Christian’s
death as those did who had loved and been loved by him, he wished she
would not bear up quite so well, just as Mr. Cornthwaite had done.
But she insisted on following him downstairs, and then she opened the
door of the morning-room, and asked him to come in. She would take no
excuses; she would not keep him a moment.
“I wish to ask you about Miss Biron,” said she, to Bram’s great
surprise, when she had shut the door of the room, and found herself
alone with him. “Oh, yes,” she went on with a little nod, as she
noticed his astonished look, “I bear her no malice because my husband
loved her better than he did me. I only wish he had married her! I do
sincerely hope and pray that I nourish no unchristian feelings against
anybody, even the poor, mad girl who killed him, and who has since made
away with herself in such a dreadful manner!”
She had heard of it already then! Bram was appalled by the manner in
which she dismissed such an awful occurrence in a few rapid words.
“And, of course,” she went on, “I cannot feel that I have any right
to blame Miss Biron, since we know that she did not run away with
Christian, as we had supposed.”
Bram was overwhelmed with relief unspeakable. This was the first time
he had heard anything more than doubt expressed as to Claire’s guilt
in this matter. He had, indeed, entertained hopes, especially since
last night, that Claire had been wrongfully accused. But what was the
strongest hope compared with this authoritative confirmation of it? He
was shrewd enough, strongly moved though he was, to control the emotion
he felt, and to put this question--
“Did Mr. Cornthwaite--did his father--did Mr. Cornthwaite know that he
had done his son and Miss Biron--an injustice, thinking what he did?”
“Why, of course he knew,” replied Mrs. Christian promptly. “When he
found Christian in London he accused him at once, and, of course,
Christian told him--indeed, he could see for himself--he was wrong.
Christian knew no more where his cousin had gone to than anybody else
did.”
Bram was silent. He resented Mr. Cornthwaite’s behavior in leaving him
in ignorance of such a fact. But his resentment was swallowed up in
ineffable joy.
“What I wanted to learn was whether Miss Biron has all the nursing she
wants,” chirped in little Mrs. Christian, “because I should be quite
glad to do anything I could for her out of Christian charity. I have
done a good deal of sick nursing, and I like it,” pursued the poor,
little woman. “And I should be really glad of something to occupy my
thoughts now in this dreadful time. I have been living with my parents,
you know, since this misunderstanding first came about. His father
brought Christian here, and when he got well he showed no wish to come
back. But when I heard late last night of what had happened, of course
I came here at once. And you will ask Miss Biron if she will have me,
won’t you? I would nurse her well. And, indeed, they are not very kind
to me here.”
Over the round, pale, freckled face there passed a quiver of feeling
which awoke Bram’s sympathy at last. The unattractive little woman
had been rather cruelly treated from first to last in this affair of
Christian’s marriage. The Cornthwaites, one and all, had thought much
of him and little of her from the beginning to the end of the matter.
And the offer to tend the girl Christian had loved so much better than
herself had in it something touching, even noble, in Bram’s eyes.
He stammered out that he would ask; that she was very good; that he
thanked her heartily. Then, exchanging with her a hand-pressure which
was warm on both sides, he left her, and went out of the gloomy house.
Of course, Joan would not hear of accepting the kindly-offered services
of poor Mrs. Christian. But when she heard of the welcome information
which Bram had obtained from her she went half-mad with a delight which
found expression in clumsy leaps and twirls and hand-clappings, and
even tears.
“And so it’s all reght, all reght, as we might ha’ knowed from t’
first. Oh, we ought to die o’ shame to think as we ever thowt anything
different! Oh, sir, an’ now ye can marry her reght off, an’ we can all
be happy as long as we live! Oh, sir, this is a happy day!”
Bram tried to silence her, tried at least to check this confident
expression of her hopes for the future. Not that his own heart did not
beat high: if she was happy in this newly-acquired knowledge, he was
happier still. The idol was restored to its pedestal. It was he now,
and not she, who had a shameful secret--the secret of his past doubts
of her.
Bram could not forgive himself for these, could not now conceive that
they had been natural, justifiable. He had doubted her, the purest of
creatures, as she was the noblest, the sweetest. He felt almost that he
had sinned beyond forgiveness, that he should never dare to meet her
frank eyes again.
In the meantime, as day after day passed slowly by, the news he got of
her grew better, while that he received of her father grew worse.
At last, two days after the funeral of Christian, he learnt, when he
made his usual morning inquiry at the farm on his way down to the
works, that Mr. Biron had passed away quietly during the night.
His last words, uttered at half-past two in the morning, had been a
characteristic request that somebody would go up immediately to Holme
Park with a note to Mr. Cornthwaite.
Bram heard from Joan that they tried to keep the intelligence of her
father’s death from Claire, who was now much better, but who was still
by the doctor’s orders kept very quiet. But she guessed something from
the looks and sounds she heard, and before the day was over she had
learnt the fact they tried to conceal; and then she spent the rest of
the day in tears.
Mrs. Cornthwaite and Hester visited her on the following day, and
begged her to come back with them. But Claire refused very courteously,
but without being quite able to hide her feeling that their offers of
kindness and of sympathy came too late.
As, however, the farm and everything Mr. Biron had left were to be
sold, it was necessary that she should go somewhere. So, on the
day after the funeral, Claire returned to the cottage of the old
housekeeper at Chelmsley, who had written inviting her most warmly to
return.
Bram, who had not dared to ask to see her, feeling more diffidence in
approaching her than he had ever done before, felt a pang whenever he
passed the desolate farmhouse on his way to and from his work. All the
news he got of Claire was through Joan, who received from the grateful
and affectionate girl letters which she could not answer without great
difficulty and many appeals to her children, who had had the advantage
of the School Board.
Joan gradually became sceptical as the time went on as to the
fulfilment of her old wish that Bram should marry Claire. Winter
melted into spring, and yet he made no effort to see her; he sent her
no messages, and she, on her side, said very little about him in her
letters. Indeed, as the leaves began to peep out on the trees, there
cropped up occasional references in those same letters of hers to the
kindness of a curate, who was teaching her to sketch, and encouraging
her to take such simple pleasures as came in her way.
Joan spelt out one of the letters which referred to these occupations
to Bram on the next occasion of their meeting. Then she looked up with
a broad smile, and gave him a huge nod.
“Ye’ll get left in the lurch, Mr. Elshaw, that’ll be t’ end of it!” she
said, with great emphasis.
“Well,” said Bram with apparent composure, “if she takes him, it will
be because she likes him. And if she likes him, why shouldn’t she have
him?”
But he was ill-pleased for all that. The vague hopes he had long ago
cherished had become stronger, more definite of late; he had forced
himself to be patient, to wait, telling himself that it would be
indelicate to intrude upon the grief, the horror of the awful shock
from which she must still be suffering.
He had long since heard all the particulars of the terrible death of
Chris, and of the manner in which the mistake between Meg and Claire
had come to be made. A workman had seen Christian and Claire in earnest
conversation not far from the railway line; had seen her give him the
note from her father which had brought her down. Christian had spoken
kindly to her, had bent over her as if with the intention of kissing
her, when suddenly the stalwart figure of Meg, who had followed them
from some corner where she had concealed herself in the works, rushed
between them, threatening them both with wild words. Claire had crept
away in alarm, and Meg had gradually dragged Chris, talking, volubly
gesticulating all the time, out upon the railway lines. She must have
calculated to a nicety the hour at which the next train might be
expected, so the general opinion afterwards ran. At any rate, it was
she who was with Christian when the train came by; and as every one
believed, as, in fact, poor Chris himself had said, she had flung him
of malice prepense down on the line just as the train came up to them.
The workingman who gave Bram most of these details was the person who
disabused Mr. Cornthwaite of his idea that the murderess was Claire. He
had given his information at the very time that Bram was on his way to
Hessel in the company of poor little Claire.
Although Claire herself had not witnessed the catastrophe, she had
had the awful shock of coming suddenly, a few minutes later, upon the
mangled body of her dying cousin. And Bram felt that he could not in
decency approach her with his own hopes on his lips until she had in
some measure recovered, not only from that shock, but from her father’s
death, and the loss of her beloved home.
The farm now looked dreary in the extreme. April came, and it was still
unlet. The grass in the garden had grown high, the crocuses were over,
and there was no one to tie up their long, thin, straggling leaves. The
tulips were drooping their petals, and the hyacinths were dying. There
was nobody now to sow the seeds for the summer.
Bram was on his way back home early one Saturday afternoon, when the
sun was shining brightly, showing up the shabby condition of the house
and grounds, the absence of paint on doors and shutters, the weeds
which were shooting up in the midst of the rubbish with which the
farmyard was blocked up.
As he leaned over the garden gate and looked ruefully in, with painful
thoughts about the little girl who was forgetting him in the society of
the curate, he fancied he heard a slight noise coming from the house
itself.
He listened, he looked. Then he started erect. He grew red; his heart
began to beat at express speed.
There was some one in the house, stealing from room to room, not making
much noise. And from the glimpse he caught of a disappearing figure in
its flight from one room to another Bram knew that the intruder was
Claire.
He stole round to the back of the house with his heart on fire.
The door was locked; she had not got in that way. Bram had never given
up the workman’s habit of carrying a few handy tools in a huge knife
in his pocket, and in a few seconds he had taken one of the outside
kitchen shutters off its hinges, and shot back the window-catch.
The next moment he was in the room.
But what a different room! The deal table where he had so often done
odd jobs of carpentering for Claire; the old sofa on which she had lain
on the night of Christian’s death while she uttered those precious
words of love for himself, which he had treasured in his heart all
through the dark winter; the three-legged stool on which she used to
sit by the fire; the square, high one he used to occupy on the other
side--all these things were gone, and there was nothing in the bare and
dirty apartment but some odds and ends of sacking and a broken packing
case.
Suddenly Bram conceived an idea. He dragged the packing case over the
floor, taking care not to make much noise, put it in the place of his
old stool, and sat down on it, bending over the dusty ashes which had
been left in the fireplace just as he used to do over the fire on a
cold evening.
And presently the door opened softly, and Claire came in.
He did not look round. He was satisfied to know that she was there,
there, almost within reach of his arm. And still he bent over the ashes.
A slight sob at last made him look up.
Oh, what a sight for him! The little girl, looking smaller than ever in
her black frock and bonnet, was standing in the full sunlight, smiling
through her tears; smiling with such unspeakable peace and happiness in
her eyes, such a glint of joy illuminating her whole face, that as he
got up he staggered back, and cried--
“Eh, Miss Claire, you’re more like a sunbeam than ever!”
She did not answer at first. She only clasped her small hands and
stared at him, with her lips parted, and the tears springing to her
eyes. But then she saw something in his face which brought the blood to
hers; and she turned quickly away, and pretended to find a difficulty
in making her way through the rubbish on the floor.
“Miss Claire!” said he. “Oh, Miss Claire!”
That was the sum and substance of the eloquence he had been teaching
himself; of the elaborate and carefully-chosen words which he had so
often prepared to meet her with, words which should be respectful and
yet affectionate, sufficiently distant, yet not too cold. It had all
resolved itself into this hapless, helpless exclamation--
“Miss Claire! Oh, Miss Claire!”
“I’m not surprised to find you here, Bram,” said she with a little
touch of growing reserve. “When I heard a noise in here I knew I should
find you--just the same.”
There was a very short pause. Then Bram said breathlessly--
“Yes, Miss Claire, you’ll always find me just the same.”
The words, the tone, summed up all the kindness he had ever shown her;
all the patient tenderness, the unspeakable, modest goodness she knew
so well. Claire’s face quivered all over. Then she burst into a torrent
of tears. Bram watched her for a minute in dead silence. Then, not
daring so much as to come a step nearer, he whispered hoarsely--
“May I comfort you, Miss Claire, may I dare?”
“Oh, Bram--dear Bram--if you don’t--I shall die!”
Which, when you come to think of it, was a very pretty invitation.
And Bram accepted it.
And they were married, and they _were_ happy ever afterwards, though,
in these despondent days, it hardly does to say so.
THE END.