THE UNCERTAIN WITNESS.
“Mary Nicholson!”
“Well, Mrs. Frost?”
“Mary Nicholson, where have you flirted off to, I should like to know?
Oh, Michael, you can’t tell what a trial that flighty creature is. If
ever I take another young person to bring up and be responsible for
during my whole life, you set me down as a born idiot, nothing less.
Mary Nicholson, I say, what are you doing?”
“Only putting—oh, dear, only—why nothing at all, Mrs. Frost,” cried Mrs.
Nicholson, appearing in the door of her bedroom with her foxy little
front all awry on her forehead, and a cap half on, the faded pink
ribbons of which she was tying.
“There it is,” said Mrs. Frost, with an indulgent smile, “always the
pink ribbons when a gentleman knocks. Now I tell you, Michael, this
giddy creature is setting her cap for you—her cap pink with bows and
streamers. Did you ever see anything so giddy? Well, Mary Nicholson, for
once Mr. Hurst really wants to see you. Sit down, and do, for mercy’s
sake, stop fidgeting with them cap strings—it’s enough to make one
sick.”
“Don’t be too severe on the lady,” said Michael, blandly; “for my part,
I think the pink ribbons charming: they give a delicate flush to the
complexion.”
“Mr. Hurst!” exclaimed Mrs. Frost, austerely.
“Oh, Mr. Hurst!” murmured Mrs. Nicholson, gratefully.
Michael smiled deprecatingly on Mrs. Frost, and ardently on Mrs.
Nicholson.
“Then you really cannot remember any thing about this ceremony, Mrs.
Frost?” he said, anxiously. “Still it must have taken place in your
house, and Mrs. Nicholson was undoubtedly present, for her name is on
the certificate.”
“I—I—did you mean me?” gasped Mrs. Nicholson. “Of course I had a
certificate; who doubts it?—who dares attempt to take away my character?
Mrs. Frost, you may call me young and giddy, and a flirt, but don’t
insinuate to Mr. Hurst that I never had a certificate, because I had.”
“You don’t understand,” said Hurst, soothingly, “it is not of your
marriage certificate we speak; but of one to which you were a witness,
years ago, when you first came to visit Mrs. Frost. Try and think: it
seems almost hopeless to ask one so blooming to remember back more than
twenty years; but every thing depends on it, Mrs. Nicholson—every thing
that I can have or hope for on earth. If you can only remember the
circumstances under which you wrote this name, it will put a million of
dollars in my pocket.”
“A million of dollars! Oh, Mr. Hurst!”
“A million of dollars! Besides giving you and Mrs. Frost a house of your
own, with an income that will make you the envy of half New York. A
thousand dollars a year—two, three thousand, if you want it!”
Mrs. Frost’s eyes began to glitter, and her head went off again,
nod—nod—nod, till Hurst really longed to take hold of her and set it
straight. But Mrs. Nicholson looked rather bewildered and very blank:
she did not seem to relish the idea of living forever with Mrs. Frost,
even in a grand house, and with an abundant income. But she sat looking
at the marriage certificate, wondering vaguely how her name got on the
paper, and feeling a little frightened, as if she suspected some ghost
work.
“Surely you can remember?” whispered Hurst, pale with expectation.
Mrs. Nicholson shook her head. The elder woman’s eyes glowed brighter
and brighter, like fire through frosted glass: he was enraged at Mary
Nicholson’s hesitation.
“Can’t you remember, Mary Nicholson?”
“I am trying my best,” answered the old lady, “my very best. William
Bentley, and Mehitable Hart, Mary Nicholson. Well, it’s strange!”
“What is strange?” cried Mrs. Frost.
“Why, that this should be my writing, and I not remember it.”
“Think—think, it is so many years ago, Mrs. Nicholson,” cried Hurst,
breathless with anxiety.
“Does she remember it?” inquired the bewildered woman, looking at Mrs.
Frost, who tried to shake her head, but only introduced a few more
energetic spasms in the wrong direction.
“No, I don’t remember; how should I? My name isn’t on the paper,” cried
Mrs. Frost, sharply. “My husband was a strange man in some things, and
kept his own secrets close as a vice. He was always marrying people
behind my back; I believe if he could a-done it, he’d have married me
without letting me know it, and claimed me afterward: that was Mr. Frost
all over.”
“But you remember Mr. William Bentley coming here, one night, with one
of the Hart girls and going into his study?” said Hurst.
“I remember them coming; and yes, yes, I dare say they did go into the
study. Mary Nicholson, you were here that night: I remember your saying
something about Mehitable Hart. What was it now?”
“I can’t recollect, Mrs. Frost.”
“But you must recollect, Mary Nicholson.”
“Dear me, how can I?”
Hurst began to despair. His witness only became more and more confused.
“Mrs. Frost, if you would be so kind, just step into the next room, and
leave me alone with Mrs. Nicholson a few minutes.”
“Alone with Mrs. Nicholson!”
“You understand, she has not exactly your clear memory; age tells on her
a little.”
“Age! Mr. Hurst, age!” wailed Mrs. Nicholson, “why, why, indeed, I don’t
think you can honestly call it that. My memory, sir, is clear as a
bell—clear as spring-water, Mr. Hurst. Indeed, it’s very cruel to take
me by surprise, and, because I can’t think all at once, call it age.”
Hurst smiled gently, and looked at Mrs. Frost, who had arisen, and stood
nodding her head at them over one shoulder.
“No, Mr. Hurst, it ain’t proper, and I won’t,” cried the old lady,
subsiding into her chair, and beginning to rock with spasmodic jerks.
“Perhaps you are right,” said Hurst. “Mrs. Nicholson is a little
nervous, though; allow us to sit by the window. Her memory will come
back. It’s only because the whole thing seemed so unimportant at the
time. But you will understand, Mrs. Nicholson,” he continued, leading
the old lady to a chair by the window, and pressing her hand softly as
he went, “you will understand that it was the marriage of my father and
mother you witnessed that night. If I can prove that marriage—and you
are the only witness living—it makes me the richest man in New York. It
gives me the power to help my friends to any extent; and who among all
those friends will have the claim on me that you will possess—you to
whom I shall owe all my wealth and good fortune?”
“But you will not make me live with her?” said the poor woman, in a
whisper, and casting frightened looks at the rocking-chair.
“With her! No, no. You have seen Mr. Bentley’s house? been in it, I dare
say?”
“Yes, once; Miss Hetty asked me, and I went. What a grand house it is!”
“When I am its master—and that your evidence will make me—what think you
of being housekeeper there, mistress of every one?”
“Me? Oh, Mr. Hurst! you take away my breath. But her—what will she do?”
“She shall have a house by herself, with a good, strong person to wait
on her.”
“Strong! Yes, she will need to be that.”
“I know—I know, but you shall be that person no longer—you who are a
friend of my mother’s!”
“Your mother—your mother, who was she?”
“Miss Hetty Hart, the woman whom you saw married in Mr. Frost’s study,
more than twenty years ago, when your name was put to this certificate.”
“Yes, yes, that is my name and my writing; but as for the ceremony,
somehow my mind is a little confused yet.”
“Very natural. It was a long time ago, but I remember it all.”
“You!”
“Yes, distinctly; you have told me the story a hundred times, when I was
a little boy: how Mr. William Bentley—a handsome fellow, wasn’t he?—came
to Mr. Frost’s house, one evening, with Miss Hart and another young
person—her name is on the certificate, you see—all dressed in white, but
without any thing else particular about them.”
“Yes, yes, I think I do remember about the dresses—muslin, with tucks
and worked edging. I had a dress like that once,” cried the old lady,
eagerly.
“Oh, yes, I knew the whole thing would come to your recollection; such
scenes sometimes sleep in the mind for years, and then come out clear
when some object brings them forcibly to the thought. Now it is a long
time since you told me about this wedding, but I remember it all—you
give a story so vividly, my dear Mrs. Nicholson.”
“Do I? Well, I didn’t know that; but of course I shouldn’t have told it
if it hadn’t been so.”
“That was what I was saying to Mrs. Frost, when she hinted that you were
a little in years and might have forgotten. ‘No, my dear Mrs. Frost,’
said I, ‘there exist people who never grow old, and of such is Mrs. Mary
Nicholson—her memory may sleep, nothing more.’ Mrs. Frost will see that
I am right. How quickly your mind seizes on facts! You even remember the
dress.”
“Oh, yes, I am almost—quite sure of the dress!”
“And the way in which they entered the study. There was a little
confusion, you remember, owing to the minister not being prepared.”
“Yes, yes, how kind you are! I never should have recalled all these
things but for you. Now they stand out quite clear. I never saw any
thing like it; and these people were really your father and mother?”
“They were, indeed. But till this time I have been kept an orphan—worse
than an orphan. But for this certificate I should now be ashamed to
speak of a father or mother.”
“Poor fellow! I understand. But the certificate——”
“Makes a man of me—an honorable, rich, powerful man.”
“Oh, I’m so glad! But how did you find the paper?”
This question was put in a raised voice, and old Mrs. Frost caught it.
“Yes, how on earth came you to find the paper, Michael? I want to know
that!”
“I found it, with a bundle of letters which my aunt and mother wrote to
Mr. Frost, in the old chest of drawers, in my room up-stairs.”
“The old chest of drawers—my husband’s chest—why, Michael, how did you
get in there? It hasn’t been unlocked these fifteen years.”
“True, Mrs. Frost; but in that time locks rust out. I had but to give a
stout pull, and found my fortune in the old papers.”
“Then Mary Nicholson didn’t give you my keys? It wasn’t her?” cried the
old woman, going up to the china vase, and nodding vehemently over it,
as she thrust her old, withered hands into the rubbish it contained. “I
can’t find them. Mary Nicholson! Mary Nicholson!”
“Let me search!” cried Hurst, drawing a clenched hand from his pocket,
as he started up. “The jar is deep. Yes, yes, something jingles—this
must be your keys, grandmother!”
“Yes, so it is. Well, well, it’s all right; but Mary Nicholson might
have done it, you know.”
“Don’t say a word against her, grandmother; her memory is bright as a
school girl’s. I never saw any thing like it. Now if Mr. Bentley, or his
lawyers, were to question you, my dear Mrs. Nicholson, you could
describe the whole wedding, I dare say—how the minister looked, and
all.”
“Why, of course! Didn’t I remember about the tucked dress?” cried the
old lady, exultingly.
“But you won’t let those lawyers browbeat you out of it? they always
fancy an elderly woman must forget, and so presume upon it.”
“Elderly! Well, well, let them question me; I shall stick to the truth.
How could I have told you all about it, if I hadn’t been there?”
“But you had, perhaps, better not mention me; they would fancy you could
not trust your own memory.”
“They’ll see, they’ll see,” responded the old lady, lifting her head,
and giving it a gentle toss that set the faded ribbons fluttering around
her face. “If I didn’t witness that marriage, who did, I’d like to
know?”
“Your memory has made me worth a million. Grandmother here could not
quite make it out; but she is so much older.”
“Wasn’t there—sure of it,” said the old lady, who was becoming slightly
irritated by all this flattery of Mary Nicholson.
“I dare say, dear grandmother; besides, your signature is not here to
prove it; but you can do me a great kindness, a very great one.”
“Well, what is it? Something Mary Nicholson can’t do, or you never would
have thought of asking me.”
“It is about my mother.”
“What, Hetty Hart? Poor thing! what about her?”
“Mrs. Bentley—Bentley is her name, and mine. She is a widow, remember,
with a dower claim on one-third of the Bentley property; but at this
moment without a home.”
“Why, isn’t she at Mr. Bentley’s?”
“No, I brought her away quietly, this morning. She is not well, and I
did not like to leave her among our enemies.”
“Poor, nervous creature!” muttered Mrs. Frost “Well, where is she? and
what do you want?”
“She is up-stairs in my room—I took the liberty. She will not prove
troublesome. She only wants to be alone. If Mrs. Nicholson will take her
a bit of toast and a cup of tea, now and then, I shall not forget it.
You are not angry, dear grandmother?”
Here Michael would have kissed the old woman, but that the vibrations of
her head rendered the salute impossible.
“There, there, remember Mary Nicholson is by, and don’t be foolish—of
course I ain’t angry. Mary Nicholson, go round to the corner and get a
mince-pie, and send a piece up with the toast; then cut the rest into
three parts. Michael has found out who he is, and what belongs to him,
so we’ll have a celebration for once. Get a pound of crackers and four
ounces of smoked beef, and—and—that’ll do, Mary Nicholson!”