Of all the people who suffered, and were destined to suffer, from Jenny
Walcheren’s death, the heart that bled the most has been mentioned
the least, because it bled so silently and unobtrusively. Poor Mrs
Crampton! Who can estimate the depth and length and breadth of a
mother’s love?
Whilst Mr Crampton had been noisily giving way to his indignation and
suspicions down at Dover, and Frederick Walcheren had been lapped in
despair, and Henry Hindes had been compelled to hide his dastardly
dread under an assumption of friendly concern, she had been bowed
beneath the weight of her sorrow at home. It was so hard to believe
it. Her Jenny!--whom she had never parted from since she was a little
baby at her breast. She sat passive, silent and incredulous, in her
darkened room, trying to realise that Jenny would never come home
again, except in her coffin. Her husband had wired her to say that he
and Mr Hindes would return on the Tuesday evening, bringing _that_ with
him, which was all that was left of their daughter. The poor, stricken
mother could not believe it. She tried to make herself do so. She kept
on talking to Aunt Clem about Jenny, of her childhood, her wilfulness,
and her beauty, but still the tears would not come, and the poor heart
was unrelieved.
‘I wish I could cry, Clem,’ she said pathetically, ‘I wish I could cry;
but, whenever I think it is coming, a great, hard lump seems to rise in
my throat and drive it back again. I fancy I should feel better in my
head if I could cry. Talk to me, Clem, of when she was a little girl.’
‘She was a sweet little girl,’ said poor Aunt Clem, mendaciously, ‘a
little fond of her own way, perhaps, but very loving and obedient.’
‘Oh! no, Clem, not obedient, I think,’ replied Mrs Crampton, ‘but
always loving. I remember, when she was a baby, how I used to look
at her and wonder if she would ever grow up to be a woman. I had
lost so many of them, you see, Clem--five darlings buried, one after
another--until I was quite afraid to grow fond of a baby for fear it
should be taken from me. I can never forget those burials. They used
to tear my heart in two, and bury a piece of it every time. I went to
see the two first buried,--those were little John and Edmund, you know,
Clem; but, afterwards, I couldn’t bear the sight. It seemed so hopeless
my having any children, until my Jenny came, so different from all the
others, who had been sickly little creatures; but she was so fat and
bonny that the doctor said to me, “Well, you’ve got a thriving child
this time, Mrs Crampton.” And yet it was many years, Clem, before
I dared to spend my whole love on her. I felt as if she were to go
too--that I must die. And yet you see she has gone, and I can sit and
talk about it to you, and do not even cry. It is very strange; I am
afraid there must be something wrong with my head,’ and she passed her
hand in a puzzled manner over her forehead as she spoke.
‘Oh! my dear sister,’ exclaimed Aunt Clem, whose own features were
almost indistinguishable from the effect of her tears, ‘do try and cry.
I am sure it would do you good.’
‘It has not done you any good, Clem,’ replied the poor mother.
‘Besides, we may expect her home at any moment now, and John has never
been very patient of my tears. I should not like to meet them--I mean
him--with my eyelids swollen. It might upset him. For we must be
very quiet over it, you know, Clem. It is a very solemn occasion. Is
everything ready for her reception?’
‘Yes, dear; I have arranged they shall carry her into your boudoir. It
will make the room more dear to you afterwards, Ellen. Bradshaw helped
me to remove the ornaments and drape the tables in white, and decorate
the room with flowers. I think you will like it when you see it, dear.
At least, I have done my best.’
‘I remember,’ said the mother, in a monotone, ‘how averse I was to call
her Jane. John would have it so, because his sister Jane had only died
a month before her birth, but I thought it such a plain name. I had
set my heart upon calling her Ethel, after the heroine in Thackeray’s
story of the Newcomes, but her father said it was romantic nonsense on
my part, and he would have her nothing but plain “Jane.” But Mrs Sellon
stood godmother to her, so she was called Emily, also, after her. Ah,
well,’ with a heavy, deep-drawn out sigh, ‘it doesn’t signify now, does
it?’
‘Hark!’ exclaimed Miss Bostock, changing colour, as the sound of
carriage wheels was heard slowly advancing up the drive. ‘What is
that?’
Mrs Crampton rose, trembling. They both knew but too well. It was the
funeral coaches which they heard, coming back from the station where
they had been ordered to await the nine o’clock train.
‘Let me go!’ cried Mrs Crampton wildly, rousing herself from her
apparent apathy for the first time, ‘let me go to my child, my Jenny. I
must be there to meet her.’
But Miss Bostock held her back.
‘Dear, dear Ellen,’ she said, ‘pray don’t go down stairs till John has
come to fetch you; there is so much to be done yet. Stay here quietly,
there’s a dear, till the arrangements are complete. Bradshaw promised
to meet John and tell him where they were to carry her. Don’t make a
scene in the hall. You know how he objects to any publicity.’
‘A scene in the hall, Clem,’ said Mrs Crampton, in a voice of surprise.
‘And when I am going to meet my own child and welcome her home? I
don’t understand you! Let me see, though. Isn’t she married? Didn’t
she marry that Mr Walcheren, or is it a mistake? It must be a mistake,
Clem, or why should she come back to us? My pretty Jenny, the beauty
of Hampstead, as they call her! How glad I shall be to have her home
again.’
‘Good God!’ cried Miss Bostock, in an agony of terror, ‘her brain is
going. John, John!’ she called out over the banisters, ‘come here quick
to Ellen, she is very ill!’
The mournful _cortège_ had, by this time, entered the house, and
deposited their burden on the white-draped table in the boudoir on
the ground floor. The coffin had been temporarily closed, but the
undertakers, who had met it at the station, unclosed it again, and
Jenny Walcheren lay revealed, placid and immovable, under her father’s
roof. Mr Crampton, hearing his sister-in-law’s appeal, and thinking
his wife had fainted, ran upstairs at once, but was surprised to meet
her on the landing with a strange look in her eyes, but an unmoved
countenance, as she extended her hand to him.
‘John!’ she said, in a muffled voice, ‘our Jenny has come home. I heard
her enter the house. Take me down to see her without delay.’
‘Oh, John!’ whispered the terrified Aunt Clem, ‘it will kill her. Ought
she to see her? I believe she is going out of her mind with grief.’
‘Poor soul! and well she may,’ replied Mr Crampton, as he looked into
his wife’s staring eyes. ‘But let her come; the sight can’t make her
worse than she is. Come, Ellen,’ he added, affectionately, ‘come and
see your lamb, then. God has taken her from us, Nelly, but there is no
help for it, and railing won’t bring her back again. Come and see how
peacefully she sleeps.’
He led the bereaved mother downstairs and into the boudoir as he spoke.
The servants, who had been gazing tearfully on the remains of their
young mistress, withdrew respectfully, as they saw the approach of
their employers; and, as they entered the room, Mr Crampton closed the
door behind them. The most expensive coffins that Dover could produce
had been procured to convey poor Jenny’s remains to Hampstead, and
there she lay in a white satin-lined shell, enclosed in a polished oak
sarcophagus, heavily clamped and ornamented with brass. Mrs Crampton
had had her Jenny before her mental eyes all day, dead indeed, but
plump and filled-out as when she had parted with her. She was prepared
to see a corpse, but a corpse that was only a marble likeness of her
child, and when her husband reverently and solemnly lifted the cambric
cloth that hid the features of the deceased, and she perceived a
little, shrunken and fallen-in body with a pallid face, looking half
the size it used to be, and flattened hands with purple nails and
palms, she drew one gasping breath, and gave a scream that echoed and
re-echoed through the mansion.
‘_That_ my Jenny?’ she exclaimed; ‘_that_ my child--my daughter? Oh,
God! be merciful, be merciful!’ and dropped upon the floor in a dead
faint.
Miss Bostock, who was sobbing at the sad sight before her as if her
heart would break, flung herself down in terror beside her prostrate
sister.
‘John, John,’ she cried, ‘it has killed her. I told you it would.’
‘Don’t say that, Clem,’ exclaimed the unhappy man, ‘for, if I lose her
as well, I shall have nothing left to live for. Go and send William for
Dr Sewell at once.’
‘Where is Mr Hindes?’ said Miss Bostock. ‘Did he not travel with you?’
‘Yes, but he would not enter the Cedars. There was no need, and he
feared to intrude on our sorrow at this sad home-coming. But he did
everything for me whilst at Dover, and worked night and day in my
behalf to save me trouble. I can never repay him for all his goodness.
But send for Sewell, Clem, and tell Bradshaw to come here and help me
carry poor Nelly to her room. She must not come back to her senses
here.’
Mrs Bradshaw, who was the house-keeper, appearing at that moment, they
lifted the poor mother between them and conveyed her upstairs, and,
when she came to herself again and remembered what had occurred, a
violent burst of weeping relieved her overcharged brain and rendered
her grief more natural, and, consequently, less acute.
The sad days which succeeded, until that of the funeral arrived, were
spent in silence and gloom, in a darkened house, where meals were
prepared as usual, but never touched, and even the domestics spoke
with bated breath, and went about their work with red-rimmed eyes. The
preparations for the interment went on, and were conducted without
the slightest regard to expenditure. Mr Crampton felt a melancholy
pleasure in determining that it should be the most magnificent funeral
that had ever taken place in Hampstead, and be succeeded by the most
magnificent monument that had ever been erected over so young and
insignificant a girl. He would have an inscription on it, he said
to himself, that should hand down her cruel story to posterity, and
be a standing shame against Frederick Walcheren forever more. And
all Hampstead sympathised in his ambition. If Jenny had not been
an universal favourite during her lifetime, she became so upon her
death. The girls who had been jealous of her unusual beauty, and
the admiration which it excited, were shocked at her sudden removal
from amongst them, and the young men were as deeply moved. Everyone
sympathised with the unfortunate parents who had lost the hope of their
old age, and, when the day of the funeral arrived, there was hardly a
household in Hampstead who did not send a wreath of flowers to place
upon the bier, and a representative to swell the crowd about the grave.
Mr Crampton’s city friends, too, turned out in large numbers to
pay their last token of respect to his daughter, so that the line
of carriages seemed unlimited, and the cemetery was filled with
spectators. Mr Crampton had purchased a large plot of ground in the
principal avenue, with the intention of making a garden round the
grave, and here assembled, on that beautiful August afternoon, old and
young, rich and poor, friends and strangers, to see his lovely daughter
laid to rest in the warm bosom of her Mother Earth--all but the man
who, humanly speaking, had caused all the trouble, but who was about to
expiate it by a sacrifice greater than anyone else would have thought
of dedicating to Jenny’s memory.
Amongst the chief mourners, and standing next to old Mr Crampton, was
Henry Hindes, clad in a suit of the deepest black, and with a face the
colour of ashes. The bystanders, even those least well acquainted with
the principal performers in the tragedy, remarked that he seemed to
suffer as much, if not more, than the father did.
‘He did not weep so openly, as poor Mr Crampton,’ said a woman who had
stood near him, ‘but he shook so violently that I could see him do it.
And, when the clergyman came to the part of “Dust to dust, and ashes to
ashes,” Mr Hindes swayed as if he was going to fall into the grave. I
was quite frightened. I thought every moment that he would faint.’
‘Ah! well,’ replied her companion, ‘he is one of the firm, you see, and
a great friend of the family; I daresay he has known the poor girl ever
since she was born! I wonder who the Cramptons will leave their money
to now! Some one told me that this is the last of their family, and the
sixth child they have lost, and they have no heir left. It’ll be a nice
pot of money for whoever gets it! They are reported to be as rich as
Crœsus.’
Mr Crampton said something of the same thing to Henry Hindes that
evening, as they sat together in the library at The Cedars. The old man
had insisted upon his friend accompanying him home, and the latter had
not known how to refuse with any grace.
‘Why I want to speak to you, my dear Hindes, is this,’ said Mr
Crampton as they sat in the gloaming together. ‘You see it behoves me
now to make a new will! Everything I had was to have gone to my poor
girl--that is, after her mother’s death--but that’s all over now; in
fact, everything is over for me, and I don’t fancy I shall last long
myself.’
‘You mustn’t say that, my dear friend,’ replied Hindes, in the strange,
muffled voice he had adopted of late, and which he attributed to a bad
sore throat, ‘you are hale and hearty, and have many years of life, I
hope, before you yet, and--when this--this terrible event has somewhat
faded from your memory--of enjoyment also.’
‘No, Hindes, no! I am too old a man to forget so easily. You see it is
not as if it were the first nor the second, and it has given me my
death-blow, I am certain of that. We men don’t make so much noise about
our troubles as the women do, poor things; not that they don’t feel as
keenly, perhaps, but their tears are their salvation. Now people, to
have heard me talk over this business, might have thought, maybe, that
all I cared for was my revenge on the scoundrel who stole my pretty
one from me. But it isn’t so--only the other feeling lies too deep for
words. But, I am sure of one thing--and that is, that my wife there
will outlive me, and that it won’t be so long, either, before she’s a
widow. Now, of course, she’ll be provided for amply, and her sister
into the bargain; but two women of such quiet tastes and habits can
never use one half of the money I have to leave behind me; and who are
they to leave it to, when they die? They stand alone in the world. Of
course I had meant--I had intended--to leave my Jenny more than half of
it--that’s what I’ve been working for all these years--but as it is--’
Here the old man stopped, and, leaning his head on his hand, pressed
the burning eyeballs which refused to shed tears, but let his dry heart
feed upon itself.
‘My dear friend,’ interposed Hindes, ‘do not pursue this torturing
subject to-night, I entreat you. Think of the trial you have already
gone through, and have some pity on yourself.’
‘No, Hindes, I wish to say what I have to say to-night, and I am quite
equal to it. I must see Throgmorton, my solicitor, about my will
to-morrow, without fail, for the next day I intend taking my wife and
her sister to Scotland for a change. But I will be as brief as I can. I
mean, therefore, to alter my will with respect to the names, but not to
disposition of property. To my wife and her sister, I shall leave, for
their lifetimes, the half of my fortune, and the other half--my poor
Jenny’s share--to you.’
‘To _me_,’ exclaimed Henry Hindes, starting from his chair. ‘No, no, it
is impossible. The very idea is horrible to me. I will not take it.’
Mr Crampton gazed at this sudden eruption in mute surprise.
‘But why not you, my dear Hindes?’ he said, after a pause. ‘You are
the best--I may say--the nearest and dearest friend I possess; and now
that _she’s_ gone, your children are the only ones in whom I feel any
interest. I can never thank nor repay you for all you have done for
me during this sad time. I do not mean to offer you my fortune as a
requital, only to show you how deeply I have felt your goodness to me,
and how truly I value your friendship and the love you felt for my poor
girl.’
‘I cannot take it--it is impossible,’ gasped Hindes, as he nervously
swept his brow, over and over again, with his handkerchief.
‘I know you are rich enough for every ordinary purpose, my dear fellow,
but wealth is never unwelcome. Even with our combined fortunes,
you will not be a Rothschild. And, even if you were, you have three
children to spend it on, and may have more. If you absolutely refuse to
be my heir, I will make little Walter so. You will not refuse to let me
benefit your child, to pass on to him that which was intended for my
own.’
‘I would rather not indeed!’ repeated Hindes. ‘Walter will have plenty.
The idea of his being your heir is painful to me. Surely there are
members amongst your own or your wife’s family who would be thankful to
be remembered by you, and need your kindness more than my children do.’
Mr Crampton looked puzzled and a little vexed. He had wished to show
his appreciation of the Hindes’s affection for his dead daughter, and
his partner’s determined refusal of his offer wounded him. It is not
pleasant to have an intended kindness thrown back in one’s face. But
all he said was,--
‘You have disappointed me!’
‘I am sorry,’ said Hindes, spasmodically, ‘but it took me by surprise.
It is more than I deserve at your hands--I feel as if I had no right to
accept your bounty. People might think it strange--they might begin to
question--’
‘What could they question? What right would they have to think it
strange?’ demanded Mr Crampton, querulously. ‘Have I not a right to
dispose of my money in my own way? Come, Hindes, if it is not to be
you, it must be your son, so I give you fair warning, and you can
divide your own money amongst your children as you choose. But little
Walter will be my heir--will take the place of my poor murdered Jenny,
whether you like it or no. I will give Throgmorton the necessary
directions to-morrow.’
‘My God, my God!’ groaned Hindes, below his breath.
‘My poor friend, I know you are feeling this trouble almost as much
as myself,’ continued Mr Crampton, ‘that is what has endeared you so
to me since it occurred. I wonder what that fellow Walcheren, who has
been the cause of it all, is thinking of at the present moment. If he
has a conscience, by Jove! I don’t envy him the possession of it. Say
what you will, Hindes, I shall always look upon him as her murderer. If
he didn’t push her over the cliff, which I am half inclined sometimes
to believe, his carelessness was the real cause of it. Why did he
leave her alone, such a wild, thoughtless, heedless creature as she
was--plucky to a fault, and ready to dare anything. Why wasn’t he by
her side, either to defend her against the villain who assaulted her,
or to save her from her own wilfulness?’
‘Oh! sir, pray do not discuss the matter any more, at least to-night,’
said Hindes, in a voice of abject entreaty. ‘Suppose you found out the
truth, how could it alter matters now? Try to think that no one was to
blame--that it was the will of Heaven--and that--’
‘No! no! Hindes, I cannot think that!’ replied the old man. ‘Her death
may always be shrouded in mystery, but God never designed so young
and beautiful a creature to die so foully. There is some villainy at
the bottom of it, and I have not done with it yet, for, if ever I can
discover the real author of the mischief, I will kill him with my own
hand. I will, if he proves to be a prince of the blood royal.’
Henry Hindes did not answer for a few minutes, and then he said in a
low voice,--
‘Have I your permission to go home, Mr Crampton? I am not well, and
this conversation has upset me. It is all too new, too fresh, my dear
friend; it will not bear discussion yet. If you can do without me, I
should be thankful to try and procure a little rest at home. We have to
be early at the office to-morrow.’
‘Go then, Hindes, by all means. I am afraid I am sadly selfish, but
it is a relief in such cases to have a friend to unbosom oneself to.
God bless you for all you have done for me. I could never have gone
through that ceremony to-day if you had not stood by my side. I will go
up to my poor wife now, and see what I can do or say to comfort her.’
He grasped Hindes’ hand as he spoke, and the two men separated for
the night. Hannah was anxiously expecting her husband’s return. She
knew his emotional nature, and how he suffered after any trial to his
feelings. She had been suffering through the day very much herself. In
Jenny Walcheren, she had lost the female friend whose society she had
enjoyed the most, and her sympathy with the bereaved and heart-broken
parents was extreme. She wept more for their sakes than for her own,
and she knew that her husband felt for them, equally with herself. But,
as he entered her presence, she was shocked to see the ravages of grief
upon his countenance. It seemed unnatural to her that he should mourn
so deeply as this--as if, too, something more than grief mingled with
his feelings--if it had not seemed derogatory to his manhood, she would
have said he must have become superstitious since Jenny’s death, for
he seemed to have grown frightened of shadows, and to glance about him
with a startled air, as if he expected to see something that was not
there. She was a sweet, placid-tempered woman herself, with a strong
sense of religion, who would never have been alarmed at the idea of
any supernatural appearances; who did not believe in them in the first
place, and, if she had done so, would have said they came of God, and
therefore could never harm those who believed and trusted in Him.
She could not, therefore, account for her husband’s altered appearance,
unless, indeed, there was something in his constitution which unfitted
him for resisting the attacks of sorrow. And she had always been aware
that he loved the dead girl equally with herself.
‘My dearest!’ she said, as soon as they were alone, and he had cast
himself upon a sofa, ‘you must not give way like this, you must not
indeed. You will make yourself ill if you fret so continuously, and you
have your work to do, remember.’
‘Do leave me alone,’ he answered sulkily; ‘it’s all very well to
preach, but everybody’s not so cold-blooded as yourself.’
‘Cold-blooded! Henry,’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh, don’t say I am that with
regard to our darling Jenny. I think I mourn her loss as much as you
do. But you frighten me, my dear. You can have no idea how altered you
have become in these few days. You are like a wreck of your former
self.’
‘It’s enough to make a man a wreck, to pass through such trying scenes
as I have been doing. You seem to forget that everything has fallen to
my share. From that terrible inquest, to this afternoon’s ceremony, Mr
Crampton has depended on me for every mortal detail. You would feel
like a wreck if you had done as much.’
‘Yes, yes, dear,’ she answered, soothingly, ‘for without having seen it
all, I cannot get it out of my head. I have been trying so hard this
afternoon to picture darling Jenny to myself, as she used to be--as I
have seen her, a thousand times and more--with her bright, merry face
and her saucy smile, driving those cobs of hers at such a rate through
the town, without a fear or a care. But I can’t. I can only see that
little, mournful, pale face which I looked on in her coffin, with its
sunken eyes and closed lips, and--’
‘Damn it all!’ cried Hindes, furiously, as he leapt from the couch,
‘you have the most ingenious faculty of any woman I ever knew for
torturing a man. Why on earth can’t you leave these harrowing details
alone? What good does it serve to rake them up _ad nauseam_? Is that
the way to make one forget? I cannot stand it any longer, I shall go to
bed.’
And without another word, he rushed from the room.
Hannah was in dismay. She did not know what she had said to make her
husband so angry with her. His irritation raised her suspicions. Had
there been more in Henry’s affection for Jenny Crampton than she had
ever thought of? She was not a prying or curious woman by nature, but
Hindes’ behaviour was enough to make anyone suspicious. The mere idea
was a revelation to her. Never in the whole course of their married
life, now extending to eight years, had she conceived the slightest
notion but that her husband cared for herself alone. He had never been
very demonstrative, but, on the other hand, he had never been unkind.
And yet, when she remembered how very lovely the dead girl was, she
wondered she had never seen danger in Henry’s familiar intercourse with
her. She could not feel jealous of poor little Jenny now, lying so
meekly, with her hands crossed upon her breast, out in the cemetery,
but Hannah did feel very sorry for herself, and less effusive than
usual towards her husband. Yet, after all, as she told herself, it was
only a supposition--it might turn out to be a delusion on her part--but
she would watch Henry carefully, and find out the truth for herself.