"If you please, my lady, Thomas Bradly would be glad to speak with you
for a few minutes, if you could oblige him."
"Thomas Bradly?" asked Lady Morville of the footman who brought the
message; "is he one of our own people?"
"No, my lady; but he says you'll know who he is if I mention that Jane
Bradly is his sister."
"Dear me! Yes, to be sure. Take him into the housekeeper's room, and
tell him I will be with him in a few minutes."
"Well, Thomas," said her ladyship, holding out her hand to him as she
entered the room, "I'm very glad to see you. I needn't ask if you are
well."
"Thank your ladyship, I'm very well; and I hope you're the same, and Sir
Lionel too."
"Thank you. Sir Lionel is not so well just now; he has had a good deal
to worry him lately. But how are all your family? We miss you still
from church very much, and from the Lord's table.--And poor Jane?"
"Well, my lady, poor Jane's been poor Jane indeed for a long time, but
she's rich Jane now."
"You don't mean to say, Thomas--!" exclaimed the other in a distressed
tone.
"Oh no!" interrupted Bradly; "Jane's not left yet for the better land,
though she's walking steadily along the road to it. But the Lord has
been very gracious to her, in bringing her light in her darkness. She
wants for nothing now, except a kind message from your ladyship, which I
hope to carry back with me."
"That you shall, with all my heart, Thomas, though I don't quite see
what your meaning is. But I can tell you this: I have never felt
satisfied about poor Jane's leaving me as she did, and yet I do not see
that I could have acted otherwise than I did at the time; but I have
wished her back again a thousand times, you may tell her, especially as
I fear there were some base means used to get her away."
"How does your ladyship mean?"
"Why, have you not heard, Thomas, that John Hollands the butler has
absconded? He left us on a pretence of visiting some of his relations,
with his master's leave, last December; and we find now that he has been
robbing us for years, and cheating the trades-people, and even selling
some of Sir Lionel's choice curiosities, and putting the money into his
own pocket. It is this that has worried Sir Lionel till he is quite
ill. We have had, too, to make an entire change of all our servants;
for we found that all of them had been, more or less, sharing in
Hollands' wickedness and deceit."
"And was your ladyship's own maid, Georgina, one of these?"
"O Thomas! She was worse, if possible, even than Hollands. Before he
left I detected her in lying, thieving, and intemperance, besides
abominable hypocrisy, and was thankful to get her out of the house."
"Well, my lady, I'm truly sorry for all this; but perhaps it shows that
poor Jane's story may have been true after all."
"Indeed it does; but still I have never been able to understand Jane's
conduct when I found the bracelet in her hands. If she had only
produced the other bracelet, and explained in a simple way how she came
by them, or if the other bracelet had been found, that might have made a
difference; but it has never been seen or heard of from that day to
this."
"I can now explain all to your ladyship's full satisfaction," said
Bradly.
"Indeed, Thomas, I shall be only too thankful, for I now know both
Georgina and John Hollands to have been utterly untruthful, and I could
almost as soon have doubted my own senses as Jane's truthfulness and
honesty. But appearances did certainly seem very much against her."
"Your ladyship says nothing but the simple truth, but I can explain it
all now from John Hollands' own confession."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, my lady. On the 23rd of last December, Hollands, who was on his
way abroad, stopped at our station--Crossbourne station--on the road,
and left a bag and a letter for Jane in the hands of a railway porter.
In that bag was the missing bracelet, the fellow to the one your
ladyship saw in Jane's hands; and a letter was in the bag too,
explaining how John had joined Georgina in a plot to ruin Jane, because
she had reproved them for some of their evil doings."
"Dear me!" cried her ladyship, shocked and surprised; "is it possible?
But why did you not acquaint me with this at once?"
"Well, my lady, here is the strangest part of my story. The porter,
instead of bringing the bag on to us at once, left it outside a public-
house, while he went in to get a drink, and when he came out again the
bag was gone; and, though every inquiry and search was made after it, it
only turned up a few days ago."
"But the letter?" asked Lady Morville; "did the porter lose that too?"
"No; he brought it to us in a day or two, for he were afraid to bring it
at first, because he'd lost our bag."
"Still, Thomas, if you or Jane had brought that letter, it would, no
doubt, have made all plain, and quite cleared her character."
"Ah! But, my lady, the letter the porter brought said very little. I
have it here. It only says, `Dear Jane, I am sorry now for all as I've
done at you. Pray forgive me. You will find a letter all about it in
the bag, and I've put your little marked Bible and the other br---t
[that means bracelet, of course] with it into the bag. So no more at
present from yours--JH.'"
"And why didn't you bring me this letter, Thomas? I should have been
quite satisfied with it."
"Ah! My lady, it would have looked a lame sort of tale if I'd brought
this letter and said as the bag and bracelet had been lost. It would
have looked very much like a roundabout make-up sort of story, letter
and all."
"I see what you mean, Thomas; but now you say that the bag and its
contents have been found after all. Pray, tell me all about it."
"Well, it's a long story, my lady; but, if you'll have patience with me,
I'll make it as short as I can."
Bradly then proceeded to give Lady Morville the history of the manner in
which the way had been opened up little by little, and the bag found at
last. He then drew from his pocket a neatly-folded packet, and handed
it to her ladyship, who, having opened it, found the bracelet.
"Yes," she said, "there can be no doubt about it--this is my missing
bracelet; and that heartless creature Georgina has cruelly misled me,
and, more cruelly still, ruined for a time the character of her fellow--
servant. But, poor, wretched, misguided creature, her triumphing was
short indeed."
Before she could say more, Bradly placed in her hands Hollands' letter
of explanation. She read it through slowly and carefully; and then,
laying it down, leaned her head on her hand, while her tears fell fast.
"O Thomas," she said, after a while, "what a terrible trial your
sister's must have been! How can I ever make her amends for the cruel
injustice I have been guilty of to her?"
"Nay, my lady," cried Thomas, touched by her deep emotion, "you've done
Jane no wrong; you did as you was bound to do under the circumstances.
It's all right now, and the Lord's been bringing a wonderful deal of
blessing out of this trouble. Jane's been sharply chastened, but she's
stood the trial well, by God's grace, and she's come out of it purified
like the fine gold. All she wants now is a kind message by me, assuring
her as you are now thoroughly satisfied she was innocent of what was
laid to her charge and led to her leaving your service."
"She shall have it, Thomas, and not only by word of mouth, but in my own
handwriting."
So saying, Lady Morville rang the bell, and having ordered some
refreshment for Thomas Bradly, asked him to wait while she went to her
own room and wrote Jane a letter. In half an hour she returned, and,
having given the letter into Bradly's charge, said,--
"I have been talking to Sir Lionel, and he is as pleased as I am at the
thorough establishment of Jane's character; and we both wish to show our
sense of her value, and our conviction that she deserves our fullest
confidence, and some amends too for my mistaken judgment, by offering
her the post of matron to a cottage hospital we have been building, if
she feels equal to undertaking it. She will have furnished rooms,
board, and firing, and thirty pounds a year, and the duties will not
require much physical exertion. I shall thus have her near me, and it
will be my constant endeavour to show my sense of her worth, and my
sorrow for her sufferings, by doing everything in my power to make her
comfortable and happy."
"I'm sure Sir Lionel, and your ladyship more particularly, deserve our
most grateful thanks for your goodness," said Thomas Bradly. "I don't
doubt as Jane'll be better content to be earning her own living again,
though she's not been eating the bread of idleness, and I'm sure she
couldn't start again in a happier way to herself, so I'll tell her your
most kind offer; and may the Lord reward Sir Lionel and yourself for
it."
No man in the United Kingdom journeyed homeward that day in a happier
frame of mind than Thomas Bradly.