ON THE DEFENSIVE.
The announcement of a lady who wished to see Mrs. Brookes caused the
faithful old woman no particular emotion. She was well known and much
respected among the neighbours of Poynings, in the humbler sense, and
visits from several of their number were ordinary events enough in her
life. The announcement found her, not in her own room, but in her
mistress's, where she had replaced the portrait of George, and was
sitting looking at it with dim eyes and clasped hands. The time had
been long in rolling over her weary old head; for though she had
passed the period of life in which feeling is very keen, and sorrow
has power to torture, and constancy to last, Mrs. Brookes had no other
objects to divide her thoughts with Mrs. Carruthers and her son; and
day by day the old woman had brooded upon the new trouble which had
come to those whom she loved so well. Perplexity mingled with her
grief, for she knew not what to think. She had stoutly denied the
possibility of George's guilt, in the memorable dialogue which had
been the last she had held with his mother; but the faint and
fluttering hope she entertained was very different from the confidence
she expressed; and now, in the solitude and silence of the great
house, in the absence of the absorbing demand which Mrs. Carruthers's
condition had made upon all her attention and self-command, her stout
old heart sank within her. His mother was gone away from all the
scenes and associations which had come to have a terrible meaning.
Would she ever return? Ellen hardly knew how she wished to answer this
question. It were better and happier perhaps that she never did, that
her tired heart should drowsily beat itself to rest in a strange
country, and lie hidden under another soil than that her son had
stained with blood. Had he done this thing? What of him? Where was he?
The orderly house, the well-regulated household, needed little of the
old housekeeper's supervision. The absence of the family made little
difference. No cleaning-days interrupted the decorous order of things
in an establishment in which it would have savoured of indecorum to
suppose that the rule of absolute cleanliness was ever superseded.
Alterations and repairs were innovating interruptions altogether
incompatible with Poynings; and, in fact, there was little or nothing
to break the dead level to which old Ellen had looked forward as that
of her days when she should be left alone in the stately house, and
which had begun to realize itself at once.
Dixon had accompanied her mistress to foreign parts; and it was
Martha, housemaid, who told Mrs. Brookes that a lady, who had been
shown into her own room, wanted to see her.
"Which, I dare say, she's come after Susan's character," remarked
Martha, parenthetically, "for she ain't this side Hamherst, I know."
Mrs. Brookes rose from the chair that she had placed opposite George's
picture, took off her spectacles, from which she wiped a suspicious
moisture, placed them carefully in her pocket, arranged her cap and
shawl, and, without vouchsafing any answer to the speculations of
Martha, she took her way slowly to the housekeeper's room. As she
crossed the hall she saw a fly standing at the open door; and the
driver, a man from Page's, touched his hat to her as she passed.
"I don't know this lady," she thought. "Nobody about here takes a fly
to come to Poynings."
Her visitor was seated on the heavy horsehair sofa, which in the
winter flanked the fire, but was now drawn close under the window
through which George had entered on that memorable night, which came
freshly into the memory of the old woman at that moment. As she looked
sharply at the figure which rose to greet her, Mrs. Brookes felt in a
moment that she was in the presence of a woman with some purpose.
The fixedness of Harriet Routh's face, the effort of a smile--for
loneliness told upon her nerves now with rapidity and power--a
something forced and painful in her voice, aroused an instinctive fear
in Mrs. Brookes, and put her on her guard. She made a stiff bow and a
movement with her body, which, when she was younger, would have been a
curtsey, but was now only a duck, and asked her visitor's pleasure.
"I have called upon you, Mrs. Brookes," said Harriet, in a sweet and
winning tone, "in consequence of a paragraph which I have seen in a
newspaper."
It was an unfortunate beginning, for it set the old nurse instantly on
her guard by arousing her suspicions, and making her resolve that the
blue-eyed, sweet-spoken lady, who looked as if she had a purpose,
should get nothing out of her.
"Indeed," she replied, very stiffly. "Please to sit down, ma'am."
Harriet resumed her seat, and began to speak rather quickly. Mrs.
Brookes looked at her steadily, immovably, having put on her
spectacles for the purpose, but gave her neither encouragement nor
assistance by so much as a sound or a nod.
"I am Mrs. Routh," she said, "and a friend of Mr. George Dallas, Mrs.
Carruthers's son. It is on his account and for his sake I have come
here."
Mrs. Brookes's black-mittened hands pressed each other more closely as
they lay clasped together in her lap, but she made no sign.
"I am aware of the unfortunate circumstances which keep Mr. Dallas and
his mother apart," continued Harriet, who maintained a watch upon the
old woman as steady as her own, but more covert; "and I am afraid he
will be much distressed and alarmed if this reaches him without any
preparation."
She held out a newspaper as she spoke--a newspaper she had procured at
the inn at Amherst, and pointed to the paragraph which recorded the
departure of Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings and suite for the
Continent; and, in addition, the regret with which "we" had learned
that the departure in question had been occasioned by the dangerous
illness of Mrs. Carruthers. Mrs. Brookes was immensely relieved, but
not altogether reassured. She had a vague idea that the business of
detection was sometimes intrusted to women, and she still had her
doubts of the blue-eyed, sweet-spoken lady whose face indicated a
purpose, without betraying it.
"Mr. Dallas knows of his mother's illness," said Mrs. Brookes. "He
will not hear of it first from any newspaper."
"Indeed," said Harriet. "I am glad to know that. I am much relieved.
Mr. Dallas is so intimate with Mr. Routh, my husband, and we are so
much attached to him, that anything which is of importance to him
concerns us. I am on my way to Dover, and I thought I would turn out
of it a little to inquire into this matter."
"Thank you, ma'am," said Mrs. Brookes, still unsoftened. "May I ask if
you have left your house in London?"
"We have for the present," replied Harriet; "indeed, I don't think we
shall return there."
Mrs. Brookes looked confused and distressed.
"Excuse me," she said, after an awkward pause, "if I appear at all
impertinent. I am George Dallas's old nurse, and more his mother's
friend than her servant, and I can't be particular about other people
when they are concerned. George Dallas is not as welcome here as he
ought to be in his mother's house; you say you know that. If you
really are Mrs. Routh, you ought to know more about him than
that--more, in fact, than I do."
"Certainly," said Harriet, with unchanged sweetness of tone, and just
the least gleam of colour in her cheek, showing that she was
approaching her object. "I do know a great deal more about George
Dallas than you do, if, as I conclude from your words, nothing has
been heard of him since his last visit to his mother."
She paused very slightly, but Mrs. Brookes did not utter a word.
"You are quite right to be cautious, Mrs. Brookes; in such a delicate
family matter as this, caution is most essential. Poor George has been
so foolish, that he has laid himself open to being harmed either by
enemies or injudicious friends; but I assure you, Mrs. Brookes, I am
neither. I really am Mrs. Routh, and I am quite in George's
confidence, and am here solely with the purpose of saving him any
trouble or anxiety I can."
"Where is he?" asked the old woman, suddenly, as if the question were
forced upon her.
"He is at Amsterdam, in Holland," replied Harriet, in a frank tone,
and changing her seat for one beside Mrs. Brookes, as she spoke; "here
are several letters from him. See," and she drew half a dozen sheets
of foreign paper, closely written over, from her pocket, and put them
into the old woman's hands. She beheld the letters with mingled
pleasure and avoidance: they could not answer the question which
tormented her, but they relieved her misgivings about her visitor. She
felt assured now that she really was speaking to Mrs. Routh, and that
the object of her visit was one of kindness to George. The letters
were in his well-known hand; the thin paper and the postmarks
satisfied her that they came from abroad. He was still out of the
country, then; so far there was safety, but she must be cautious still
concerning him. What if she could make Harriet the unconscious bearer
of a further warning to him--a warning carefully contrived so that
none but he should know its meaning, and he should understand it
thoroughly? She would try. She had thought all this while she turned
the letters over in her hands; then she returned them to Harriet, and
said:
"Thank you, ma'am. I see these are from Master George, and it's plain
he has great confidence in you. He never answered a letter I sent him:
it went to your house."
"All communications for him are addressed to Mr. Routh," said Harriet,
"and forwarded at once."
"Well, ma'am, he never told me where he had gone to, or wrote a letter
but one to his mother; and when that came, she was too ill to read it,
or know anything about it."
"Indeed," said Harriet, in a tone of commiseration; "she must have
been taken ill just after he saw her, then?"
"She was," returned Mrs. Brookes, emphatically, "and you, ma'am, know,
no doubt, why she saw him, and can understand that his conduct caused
her illness."
"Not exactly that," said Harriet. "He told me all that had passed, and
described his mother as full of forgiveness and hope, and he even said
how well and handsome he thought her looking. George amuses us very
much by constantly talking of his mother's beauty; he will be all the
more distressed when he hears of her illness, now, and I really think,
Mrs. Brookes, it cannot be quite fair to impute it to his conduct."
"It was just that, and nothing else," said the old woman; and her
voice shook as she spoke, though she strove to control it. "It was,
indeed, ma'am, and you must tell him the truth, without softening it,
or making it any better. Tell him that she nearly died of the
knowledge of his conduct, and that her mind is weakened, and her
memory gone."
"Her memory gone!" exclaimed Harriet. "You don't mean to say it is so
bad as that?"
"I do, indeed," said Mrs. Brookes. "And will you tell him exactly what
I tell you? Tell him that his mother has forgotten all that led to her
illness, all the fear and suspense she underwent. Of course she was
frightened at what she had to do, and in suspense until it was done;
but I am sure she has not forgotten him, and if he were to see her, or
even be mentioned to her suddenly, it might have the worst effect. Be
sure to tell him this, and that the only thing he can do to atone for
the past in any way is to keep out of his mother's sight. He knows
some of this already, for I wrote to him, and he knows from Mr.
Carruthers that his mother is gone away."
"From Mr. Carruthers?" said Harriet, in a tone of admirably simulated
surprise; "does _he_ ever communicate with George?"
"My master is a very just man," replied Mrs. Brookes, in a stately
tone, "and he would not allow his wife's son to be kept in ignorance
of his mother's danger. I am sure he will send for him, wherever he
may be, if there is no chance of her recovery. I don't say he would
send for him sooner."
"Of course Mr. Carruthers has no idea of the cause of Mrs.
Carruthers's illness?"
"No, no; it was her fear of his finding out that George had been here,
and what for, that brought it on; but, of course, he did not suspect
anything."
"It is very strange," said Harriet, musingly; "she seems to have borne
all this business perfectly well at the time, and given way completely
afterwards. It must have surprised _you_ very much, Mrs. Brookes,
though, no doubt, you understand your mistress's constitution."
"Yes," replied the old woman, dryly, and ignoring the beginning of the
sentence, "I understand my mistress's constitution."
"I will give your message to Mr. Dallas," said Harriet, rising, "and I
had better leave you our temporary address, unless, indeed, you would
prefer writing to Mr. Dallas direct."
"No," said Mrs. Brookes, "I have nothing to say. When news of his
mother comes from abroad, I will send it to you."
The old woman was constrained and miserable in her visitor's presence,
but the hospitality of Poynings must be vindicated; and she felt,
besides, that Mrs. Carruthers would, in other days, have been glad of
an opportunity of being kind to any one who had been kind to George.
So she pressed Harriet to take some refreshment and to prolong her
visit. But Harriet would not touch bread or wine in the house, and
told Mrs. Brookes she must return to Amherst immediately, to catch the
train for Dover. "I dined at the inn in the town," she said, in
explanation of her refusal, "as I had to wait awhile before I could
get a fly."
"I hope they made you comfortable, ma'am," said Mrs. Brookes, who had
resumed, when their interview assumed a commonplace complexion, her
head-servant-like manner. "Page's people are obliging, and it is a
respectable house."
"Very much so indeed," returned Harriet, carelessly. "The town seems a
clean dull sort of place. I had a funeral to look at while I waited
for my dinner, and the waiter entertained me with the biography of the
deceased."
"I had not heard of a death at Amherst," said Mrs. Brookes, primly.
She did not like the flippant tone in which her visitor spoke. "The
servants have not been in the town this week."
"An estimable person--one Evans, a tailor, I believe; so the waiter
said," Harriet returned, still more carelessly, as she took up her
parasol and railway-guide, glanced covertly at the old woman's face,
and moved to the door.
Mrs. Brookes stood quite still for several seconds; then she followed
Harriet, joined her at the red-baize door which opened into the hall,
accompanied her to the great door, where a footman waited, took a
respectful leave of her, and then shut herself up in her room, and
remained invisible to the household for the remainder of the day.
As Harriet Routh drove back to Amherst, she leaned her head wearily
against the uncongenial woodwork of the fly, and summed up the results
of her journey.
"Whatever the mother knows, the old woman knows. The old woman is as
staunch as steel, and she will conceal her suspicions all the more
tenaciously, the stronger they are; and I have strengthened them. What
a clever old woman she is, and how brave! If my purpose had been what
she suspected, I should have had some real difficulty in getting the
information I required. It is clear that nothing is to be feared now,
in this direction. Mrs. Brookes will never speak. Mrs. Carruthers is
in the best possible condition for our purposes, and her son has no
pretext for returning to Poynings, even if the death of the tailor had
not made it quite safe for him to do so."
She did not look out upon the fair scene through which she was
passing. To her, all beauty of nature was a dead thing; she had no
heart-throbs of exultation in "the pomp that fills the summer-circuit
of the hills;" no sense of its serene loveliness reached her busy
brain, or tempted her troubled brooding eyes. When she occasionally
lifted them, in shifting her position, they might have been blind for
any knowledge of the sunshine or the greenery that was in them. "I
will write to him," she went on in her thoughts, "just what she told
me to say. Poor George! It is hard to have to make him believe that he
has broken his mother's heart, and turned his mother's brain. He does
not deserve it, fool as he is. He is easily persuaded, fortunately. I
don't feel fit for much that is not easy, now.--The letter must be
sent on at once, and, if I do my part well, and this woman dies, or
remains abroad--and I fancy Mr. Carruthers is not the man to bring an
imbecile wife back, if he can help it--there's no reason why George
should come to England again for years, that I can see."
The driver of the fly pulled up for a minute, and letting down one of
the front windows, inquired whether he was to go to the inn or to the
railway station. While Harriet was answering his question by desiring
him to drive to the station, and looking out of the window, a young
girl on horseback, a large black Newfoundland dog galloping by her
horse's side, passed the fly. The driver touched his hat respectfully,
and the young lady acknowledged the salute with her whip.
"That's Miss Carruthers, ma'am," said the man to Harriet, giving her
the information in a manner which duly indicated the local importance
of Miss Carruthers. Harriet looked back at the girl, and noted the
golden gleam of her beautiful hair, the easy swaying of her graceful
figure, the air of youth and refinement which characterized her.
"That's Miss Carruthers, is it?" she thought. "George has never seen
her, I fancy, as he never mentioned her to me."
She had some time to wait for the train, and she went into the
waiting-room. But she found it already occupied by some cheery, chatty
women and children, returning from a holiday excursion. Their idle
talk, their careless laughter, jarred with her mood; the children
looked askance at her, and hushed their prattle; the women drew close
together on the hard high leather bench which lined the room, a solemn
mockery of a divan, and moderated their tones to a prim gentility.
Harriet perceived the effect her presence produced, smiled slowly, and
went out again upon the platform, which she paced from end to end,
until the train came up, listening idly to the raised voices and
renewed laughter which reached her through the open door.
When all the other passengers had taken their places, Harriet got into
a carriage which had no other occupant, and so travelled up to London
alone.
Routh was in the house when she reached the Tavistock, and was
surprised at her speedy return. She told him how the intelligence she
had heard on her arrival at Amherst had simplified her task of
investigation. She made her narrative as brief as possible, she spoke
in a cold measured voice which had become habitual to her, and which
filled Routh with intense concealed irritation; and she never looked
at him until she had concluded.
"I'll post the letter from the old fellow at once then," said Routh;
"it's only a couple of days late, and Dallas is too careless to notice
that. When you write--you'd better not do it for a day or so, lest he
might take it into his head to suspect you of a motive--you can tell
him about our move."
Harriet acquiesced, and changed the subject to their new residence, a
furnished house in May-fair. She would go there on the morrow, she
said, and arrange all their little property. Had everything been
removed from South Molton-street?
Everything. Routh had seen to it himself, and had employed the boy who
was always about there.
"Ay," said Harriet, dreamily, for she was thinking of the time, gone
for ever, when she had been happy in the home she had left without one
regret or hope. "What of him?"
"Nothing that I can make out," answered Routh, irritably. "But I hate
the sort of half-recollection I seem to have of him. There's something
in my mind connected with him, and I can't disentangle it."
Harriet looked up at her husband in some surprise, and turned very
pale. She had a painful, an indelible remembrance connected with the
first time she had seen Jim Swain. But Routh knew nothing of that; so
she said nothing; she made no effort to aid his memory. She would
avoid the torture when she could. Besides, she was utterly weary in
body and in spirits.
Mr. Carruthers's letter reached George Dallas not exactly duly,
indeed, but after a delay which would have astonished and exasperated
the writer, had he known it, to the last degree.
Stewart Routh and Harriet were very much superior to George Dallas in
many mental attributes, and in particular in cunning; but they were
incapable of understanding the young man on certain points. One of
these points was his love for his mother, with its concomitants of
remorse, repentance, and resolution. Not comprehending this mixed
feeling, they made a serious miscalculation. The day or two which
Harriet allowed to intervene before she wrote the letter which was to
prolong George's absence, exactly sufficed to bring him to England.