MISS MEWLSTONE HAS AN INTERRUPTION.
"HERBERT DANCY CHEYNE!"
As he pronounced the name slowly and with marked emphasis, a low cry
of uncontrollable astonishment broke from Phillis: it was so
unexpected. She began to shiver a little from the sudden shock.
"There! I have startled you,--and no wonder; and yet how could I help
it? Yes," he repeated, calmly, "I am that unfortunate Herbert Cheyne
whom his own wife believes to be dead."
"Whom every one believes to be dead," corrected Phillis, in a panting
breath.
"Is it any wonder?" he returned, vehemently; and his eyes darkened,
and his whole features worked, as though with the recollection of some
unbearable pain. "Have I not been snatched from the very jaws of
death? Has not mine been a living death, a hideous grave, for these
four years?" And then, hurriedly and almost disconnectedly, as though
the mere recalling the past was torture to him, he poured into the
girl's shrinking ears fragments of a story so stern in its reality, so
terrible in its details, that, regardless of the children that played
on the margin of the water, Phillis hid her face in her hands and wept
for sheer pity.
Wounded, bereft of all his friends, and left apparently dying in the
hands of a hostile tribe, Herbert Cheyne had owed his life to the
mercy of a woman, a poor, degraded ill-used creature, half-witted and
ugly, but who had not lost all the instincts of her womanhood, and who
fed and nursed the white stranger as tenderly as though he were her
own son.
While the old negress lived, Herbert Cheyne had been left in peace to
languish back to life, through days and nights of intolerable
suffering, until he had regained a portion of his old strength; then a
fever carried off his protectress, and he became virtually a slave.
Out of pity for the tender-hearted girl who listened to him, Mr.
Cheyne hurried over this part of his sorrowful past. He spoke briefly
of indignities, abuse, and at last of positive ill treatment. Again
and again his life had been in danger from brute violence; again and
again he had striven to escape, and had been recaptured with blows.
Phillis pointed mutely to his scarred wrists, and the tears flowed
down her cheeks.
"Yes, yes; these are the marks of my slavery," he replied, bitterly.
"They were a set of hideous brutes; and the fetish they worshipped was
cruelty. I carry about me other marks that must go with me to my
grave; but there is no need to dwell on these horrors. He sent His
angel to deliver me," he continued, reverently; "and again my
benefactor was a woman."
And then he went on to tell Phillis that one of the wives of the chief
in whose service he was took pity on him, and aided him to escape on
the very night before some great festival, when it had been determined
to kill him. This time he had succeeded; and, after a series of
hair-breadth adventures, he had fallen in with some Dutch traders who
had come far into the interior in search of ivory tusks. He was so
burnt by the sun and disfigured by paint that he had great difficulty
in proving his identity as an Englishman. But at last they had
suffered him to join them, and after some more months of wandering he
had worked his way to the coast.
There misfortune bad again overtaken him, in the form of a long and
tedious illness. Fatigue, disaster, anguish of mind, and a slight
sunstroke had taken dire effect upon him; but this time he had fallen
into the hands of good Samaritans. The widowed sister of the consul, a
very Dorcas of good works, had received the miserable stranger into
her house; and she and her son, like Elijah's widow of Zarephath, had
shared with him their scanty all.
"They were very poor, but they pinched themselves for the sake of the
stricken wretch that was thrown on their mercy. It was a woman again
who succored me the third time," continued Mr. Cheyne: "you may judge
how sacred women are in my eyes now! Dear motherly Mrs. Van Hollick!
when she at last suffered me to depart, she kissed and blessed me as
though I were her own son. Never to my dying day shall I forget her
goodness. My one thought, after seeing Magdalene, will be how I am to
repay her goodness,--how I can make prosperity flow in on the little
household, that the cruse and cake may never fail!"
"But," interrupted Phillis at this point, "did you not write, or your
friends write for you, to England?"
Mr. Cheyne smiled bitterly:
"It seems as though some strange fatality were over me. Yes, I wrote.
I wrote to Magdalene, to my lawyer, and to another friend who had
known me all my life, but the ship that carried these letters was
burnt at sea. I only heard that when I at last worked my way to
Portsmouth as a common sailor and in that guise presented myself at my
lawyer's chambers. Poor man! I thought he would have fainted when he
saw me. He owned afterwards he was a believer in ghosts at that
moment."
"How long ago was that?" asked Phillis, gently.
"Two months; not longer. It was then I heard of my children's death,
of my wife's long illness and her strange state. I was ill myself, and
not fit to battle through any more scenes. Mr. Standish took me home
until I had rested and recovered myself a little; and then I put on
this disguise--not that much of that is necessary, for few people
would recognize me, I believe--and came down here and took possession
of Mrs. Williams's lodgings."
Phillis looked at him with mute questioning in her eyes. She did not
venture to put it into words, but he understood her:
"Why have I waited so long, do you ask? and why am I living here
within sight of my own house, a spy on my own threshold and wife? My
dear Miss Challoner, there is a bitter reason for that!
"Four years ago I parted from my wife in anger. There were words said
that day that few women could forgive. Has she forgiven them? That is
what I am trying to find out. Will the husband who has been dead to
her all these years be welcome to her living?" His voice dropped into
low vehemence, and a pallor came over his face as he spoke.
Phillis laid her hand on his own. She looked strangely eager:
"This is why you want my help. Ah! I see now! Oh, it is all right--all
that you can wish! It is she who is tormenting herself, who has no
rest day or night! When the thunder came that evening--you
remember--we sat beside the children's empty beds, and she told me
some of her thoughts. When the lighting flashed, her nerves gave way,
and she cried out, in her pain, 'Did he forgive?' That was her one
thought. Her husband,--who was up in heaven with the children,--did he
think mercifully of her, and know how she loved him? It was your name
that was on her lips when that good woman, Miss Mewlstone, hushed her
in her arms like a child. Oh, be comforted!" faltered Phillis, "for
she loves you, and mourns for you as though she were the most desolate
creature living!" But here she paused, for something that sounded like
a sob came to her ear, and looking round, she saw the bowed figure of
her companion shaking with uncontrollable emotion,--those hard
tearless sobs that are only wrung from a man's strong agony.
"Oh, hush!" cried the girl, tenderly. "Be comforted: there is no room
for doubt. There! I will leave you; you will be better by and by." And
then instinctively she turned away her face from a grief too sacred
for a stranger to touch, and walked down to the water, where the
children had ceased playing, and listened to the baby waves that
lapped about her feet.
And by and by he joined her; and on his pale face there was a rapt,
serious look, as of one who has despaired and has just listened to an
angel's tidings.
"Did I not say that you, and only you, could help me? This is what I
have wanted to know: had Magdalene forgiven me? Now I need wait no
longer. My wife and home are mine, and I must take possession of my
treasures."
He stopped, as though overcome by the prospect of such happiness; but
Phillis timidly interposed:
"But, Mr. Cheyne, think a moment. How is it to be managed? If you are
in too great a hurry, will not the shock be too much for her? She is
nervous,--excitable. It would hardly be safe."
"That is what troubles me," he returned, anxiously. "It is too much
for any woman to bear; and Magdalene--she was always excitable. Tell
me, you have such good sense; and, though you are so young, one can
always rely on a woman; you understand her so well--I see you do--and
she is fond of you,--how shall we act that my poor darling, who has
undergone so much, may not be harmed by me any more?"
"Wait one moment," returned Phillis, earnestly. "I must consider." And
she set herself to revolve all manner of possibilities, and then
rejected them one by one. "There seems no other way," she observed,
at last, fixing her serious glance on Mr. Cheyne. "I must seek for an
opportunity to speak to Miss Mewlstone. It must be broken carefully to
your poor wife; I am sure of that. Miss Mewlstone will help us. She
will tell us what to do, and how to do it. Oh, she is so kind, so
thoughtful and tender, just as though Mrs. Cheyne were a poor wayward
child, who must be guided and helped and shielded. I like her so much:
we must go to her for counsel."
"You must indeed, and at once!" he returned, rather peremptorily; and
Phillis had a notion now what manner of man he had been before
misfortunes had tamed and subdued him. His eyes flashed with
eagerness; he grew young, alert, full of life in a moment. "Forgive me
if I am too impetuous; but I have waited so long, and now my patience
seems exhausted all at once during the last hour. I have been at
fever-point ever since you have proved to me that my wife--my
Magdalene--has been true to me. Fool that I was! why have I doubted so
long? Miss Challoner, you will not desert me?--you will be my good
angel a little longer? You will go to Miss Mewlstone now,--this very
moment,--and ask her to prepare my wife?"
"It is time for me to be going home: mother and Nan will think I am
lost," returned Phillis, in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone. "Come Mr.
Cheyne, we can talk as we go along." For he was so wan and agitated
that she felt uneasy for his sake. She took his arm gently, and guided
him as though he were a child; and he obeyed her like one.
"Promise me that you will speak to her at once," he said, as he walked
beside her rather feebly; and his gait became all at once like that of
an old man. But Phillis fenced this remark very discreetly.
"This afternoon or this evening, when I get the chance," she said,
very decidedly: "if I am to help you, it must be as I think best, and
at my own time. Do not think me unkind, for I am doing this for your
own good: it would not help you if your wife were to be brought to the
brink of a nervous illness. Leave it to me. Miss Mewlstone will serve
us best, and she will know." And then she took her hand from his arm,
and bade him drop behind a little, that she might not be seen in the
town walking with him. "Good-bye! keep up your courage. I will help
you all I can," she said, with a kindly smile, as he reluctantly
obeyed her behest. She was his good angel, but he must not walk any
longer in her shadow: angels do their good deeds invisibly, as Phillis
hoped to do hers. He thought of this as he watched her disappearing in
the distance.
Phillis walked rapidly towards the cottage. Archie, who was letting
himself in at his own door, saw the girl pass, carrying her head high,
and stepping lightly as though she were treading on air. "Here comes
Atalanta," he said to himself; but, though a smile came over his tired
face, he made no effort to arrest her. The less he saw of any of them
the better, he thought, just now.
Nan looked up reproachfully as the truant entered the work-room, and
Mrs. Challoner wore her gravest expression; evidently she had prepared
a lecture for the occasion. Phillis looked at them both with sparkling
eyes.
"Listen to me, Nan and mother. Oh, I am glad Dulce is not here, she is
so young and giddy; and she might talk--No, not a word from either of
you, until I have had my turn." And then she began her story.
Nan listened with rapt speechless attention, but Mrs. Challoner gave
vent to little pitying moans and exclamations of dismay.
"Oh, my child!" she kept saying, "to think of your being mixed up in
such an adventure! How could you be so imprudent and daring? Mrs.
Williams's lodger--a strange man! in that outlandish cloak, too! and
you walked home with him that dark night! Oh, Phillis, I shall never
be at peace about you again!" and so on.
Phillis bore all this patiently, for she knew she had been incautious:
and when her mother's excitement had calmed down a little, she
unfolded to them her plan.
"I must see Miss Mewlstone quite alone; and that unfinished French
merino will be such a good excuse, Nan. I will take the body with me
this afternoon, and beg her to let me try it on; the rest must come
afterwards, but this will be the best way of getting her to myself."
And, as Nan approved of this scheme, and Mrs. Challoner did not
dissent, Phillis had very soon made up her parcel, and was walking
rapidly towards the White House.
As she turned in at the gates she could see a shadow on the blind in
Mrs. Williams's little parlor, and waved her hand towards it. He was
watching her, she knew: she longed to go back and give him a word of
encouragement and exhortation to patience; but some one, Mr. Drummond
perhaps, might see her, and she dare not venture.
She sent her message by Jeffreys, and Miss Mewlstone soon came
trotting into the room; but she wore a slightly-disturbed expression
on her good-natured face.
She had been reading the third volume of a very interesting novel, and
had most unwillingly laid down her book at the young dressmaker's
unseasonable request. Like many other stout people, Miss Mewlstone was
more addicted to passivity than activity after her luncheon; and,
being a creature of habit, this departure from her usual rules
flurried her.
"Dear, dear! to think of your wanting to try on that French merino
again!" she observed; "and the other dress fitted so beautifully, and
no trouble at all. And there has Miss Middleton being calling just
now, and saying they are expecting her brother Hammond home from India
in November; and it is getting towards the end of September now. I
was finishing my book, but I could not help listening to her,--she has
such a sweet voice. Ah, just so--just so. But aren't you going to open
your parcel, my dear?"
"Never mind the dress," returned Phillis, quickly. "Dear Miss
Mewlstone, I was sorry to disturb you; but it could not be helped.
Don't look at the parcel: that is only an excuse. My business is far
more important. I want you to put on your bonnet, and come with me
just a little way across the road. There is some one's identity that
you must prove."
Phillis was commencing her task in a somewhat lame fashion; but Miss
Mewlstone was still too much engrossed with her novel to notice her
visitor's singular agitation.
"Ah, just so--just so," she responded; "that is exactly what the last
few chapters have been about. The real heir has turned up, and is
trying to prove his own identity; only he is so changed that no one
believes him. It is capitally worked out. A very clever author, my
dear----"
But Phillis interrupted her a little eagerly:
"Is that your tale, dear Miss Mewlstone? How often people say truth is
stranger than fiction! Do you know, I have heard a story in real life
far more wonderful than that? Some one was telling me about it just
now. There was a man whom every one, even his own wife, believed to be
dead; but after four years of incredible dangers and hardships--oh,
such hardships!--he arrived safely in England, and took up his abode
just within sight of his old house, where he could see his wife and
find out all about her without being seen himself. He put on some sort
of disguise, I think, so that people could not find him out."
"That must be a make-up story, I think," returned Miss Mewlstone, a
little provokingly; but her head was still full of her book. Poor
woman! she wanted to get back to it. She looked at Phillis and the
parcel a little plaintively. "Ah, just so,--a very pretty story, but
improbable,--very improbable, my dear."
"Nevertheless, it is true!" returned Phillis, so vehemently that Miss
Mewlstone's little blue eyes opened more widely. "Never mind your
book. I tell you I have business so important that nothing is of
consequence beside it. Where is Mrs. Cheyne? She must not know we are
going out."
"Going out!" repeated Miss Mewlstone, helplessly. "My dear, I never go
out after luncheon, as Magdalene knows."
"But you are going out with me," replied Phillis, promptly. "Dear Miss
Mewlstone, I know I am perplexing and worrying you; but what can I do?
Think over what I have just said,--about--about that improbable story,
as you called it; and then, you will not be so dreadfully startled.
You must come with me now to Mrs. Williams's cottage: I want you to
see her lodger."
"Her lodger!" Miss Mewlstone was fully roused now; and, indeed,
Phillis's pale face and suppressed eager tones were not without their
due effect. Had the girl taken leave of her senses? Why, the ladies at
the White House led the lives of recluses. Why should she be asked to
call upon any stranger, but especially a gentleman,--Mrs. Williams's
lodger? "My dear," she faltered, "you are very strange this
afternoon.--Magdalene and I seldom call on any one, and certainly not
on gentlemen."
"You must come with me," replied Phillis, half crying with excitement.
She found her task so difficult. Miss Mewlstone was as yielding as a
feather bed in appearance, and yet it was impossible to move her. "He
calls himself Mr. Dancy; but now he says that is not all his name: let
me whisper it in your ear, if it will not startle you too much. Think
of Mrs. Cheyne, and try and command yourself. Mrs. Williams's lodger
says that he is Herbert Cheyne,--poor Mrs. Cheyne's husband!"
XXXV.
"BARBY, DON'T YOU RECOLLECT ME?"
"I do not believe it!--stuff and nonsense! You are crazy, child, to
come to me with this trumped-up story! The man is an impostor. I will
have the police to him. For heaven's sake don't let Magdalene hear
this nonsense!"
Phillis recoiled a few steps, speechless with amazement. Miss
Mewlstone's face was crimson; her small eyes were sparkling with angry
excitement: all her softness and gentle inanity had vanished.
"Give me a bonnet,--shawl,--anything, and I will put this matter
straight in a moment. Where is Jeffreys? Ring the bell, please, Miss
Challoner! I must speak to her."
Phillis obeyed without a word.
"Ah, just so. Jeffreys," resuming her old purring manner as the maid
appeared, "this young lady has a friend in trouble, and wants me to go
down to the cottage with her. Keep it from your mistress if you can,
for she hates hearing of anything sad; say we are busy,--I shall be in
to tea,--anything. I know you will be discreet, Jeffreys."
"Yes, ma'am," returned Jeffreys, adjusting the shawl over Miss
Mewlstone's shoulders; "but this is your garden-shawl, surely?"
"Oh, it does not matter; it will do very well. Now Miss Challoner, I
am ready." And so noiseless and rapid were her movements that Phillis
had much to do to keep up with her.
"Won't you listen to me?" she pleaded. "Dear Miss Mewlstone, it is no
made-up story; it is all true;" but to her astonishment, Miss
Mewlstone faced round upon her in a most indignant manner:
"Be silent, child! I cannot, and will not, hear any more. How should
you know anything about it? Have you ever seen Herbert Cheyne? You are
the tool of some impostor. But I will guard Magdalene; she shall not
be driven mad. No, no, poor dear! she shall not, as long as she has
old Bathsheba to watch over her." And Phillis, in despair, very wisely
held her peace. After all she was a stranger: had she any proof but
Mr. Dancy's word?
Just towards the last, Miss Mewlstone's pace slackened; and her hand
shook so, as she tried to unlatch the little gate, that Phillis was
obliged to come to her assistance. The cottage door stood open as
usual, but there was no tall figure lurking in the background,--no
shadow on the blind.
"We had better go in there," whispered Phillis, pointing to the closed
door of the parlor; and Miss Mewlstone, without knocking, at once
turned the handle and went in, while Phillis followed trembling.
"Well, sir," said Miss Mewlstone, sternly, "I have come to know what
you mean by imposing your story on this child."
Mr. Dancy, who was standing with his back to them, leaning for support
against the little mantle-shelf, did not answer for a moment; and then
he turned slowly round, and looked at her.
"Oh, Barby!" he said; "don't you recollect me?" And then he held out
his thin hands to her imploringly, and added "Dear old Barby! but you
are not a bit changed."
"Herbert--why, good heavens! Ah, just so--just so," gasped the poor
lady, rather feebly, as she sat down, feeling her limbs were deserting
her, and every scrap of color left her face. Indeed, she looked so
flabby and lifeless that Phillis was alarmed and flew to her
assistance; only Mr. Cheyne waved her aside rather impatiently.
"Let her be; she is all right. She knows me, you see: so I cannot be
so much altered. Barby," he went on, in a coaxing voice, as he knelt
beside her and chafed her hands, "you thought I was an impostor, and
were coming to threaten me: were you not? But now you see Miss
Challoner was in the right. Have you not got a word for me? Won't you
talk to me about Magdalene? We have got to prepare her, you know."
Then, as he spoke his wife's name, and she remembered her sacred
charge, the faithful creature suddenly fell on his neck in piteous
weeping.
"Oh, the bonnie face," she wept, "that has grown so old, with the
sorrow and the gray hair! My dear, this will just kill her with joy,
after all her years of bitter widowhood." And then she cried again,
and stroked his face as though he were a child, and then wrung her
hands for pity at the changes she saw. "It is the same face, and yet
not the same," she said, by and by. "I knew the look of your eyes, my
bonnie man, for all they were so piercing with sadness. But what have
they done to you, Herbert?--for it might be your own ghost,--so thin;
and yet you are brown, too; and your hair!" And she touched the gray
locks over the temples with tender fluttering fingers.
"Magdalene never liked gray hairs," he responded, with a sigh. "She is
as beautiful as ever, I hear; but I have not caught a glimpse of her.
Tell me, Barby,--for I have grown timorous with sorrow,--will she hate
the sight of such a miserable scarecrow?"
"My dear! hate the sight of her own husband, who is given back to her
from the dead? Ay, I have much to hear. Why did you never write to us,
Herbert? But there! you have all that to explain to her by and by."
"Yes; and you must tell me about the children,--my little Janie," he
returned, in a choked voice.
"Ah, the dear angels! But, Herbert, you must be careful. Nobody speaks
of them to Magdalene, unless she does herself. You are impetuous, my
dear; and Magdalene--well, she has not been herself since you left
her. It is pining, grief, and the dead weight of loss that has ailed
her being childless and widowed at once. There, there! just so. We
must be tender of her, poor dear! and things will soon come right."
"You need not fear me, Barby. I have learned my lesson at last. If I
only get my wife back, you shall see--you shall see how I will make up
to her for all I have ever made her suffer! My poor girl! my poor
girl!" And then he shaded his face, and was silent.
Phillis had stolen out in the garden, and sat down on a little bench
outside, where passers-by could not discern her from the road, and
where only the sound of their voices reached her faintly. Now and
then, chance words fell on her ear,--"Magdalene" over and over again;
and "Janie" and "Bertie,"--always in the voice she had so admired. By
and by she heard her own name, and rose at once, and found them
looking for her.
"Here is my good angel, Barby," observed Mr. Cheyne, as she came up
smiling. "Not one girl in a thousand would have acted as bravely and
simply as she has done. We are friends for life, Miss Challoner, are
we not?" And he stretched out his hand to her, and Phillis laid her
own in it.
"I was a bit harsh with you, dearie, was I not?" returned Miss
Mewlstone, apologetically: "but there! you were such a child that I
thought you had been deceived. But I ought to have known better,
craving your pardon, my dear. Now we will just go back to Magdalene;
and you must help my stupid old head, for I am fairly crazy at the
thought of telling her. Go back into the parlor and lie down, Herbert,
for you are terribly exhausted. You must have patience, my man, a wee
bit longer, for we must be cautious,--cautious, you see."
"Yes, I must have patience," he responded, rather bitterly. But he
went back into the room and watched them until they disappeared into
the gates of his own rightful paradise.
Miss Mewlstone was leaning on Phillis's arm. Her gait was still rather
feeble, but the girl was talking energetically to her.
"What a spirit she has! just like Magdalene at her age," he thought,
"only Magdalene never possessed her even temper. My poor girl! From
what Barby says, she has grown hard and bitter with trouble. But it
shall be my aim in life to comfort her for all she has been through!"
And then, as he thought of his dead children, and of the empty
nursery, he groaned, and threw himself face downward upon the couch.
But a few minutes afterwards he had started up again, unable to rest,
and began to pace the room; and then, as though the narrow space
confined him, he continued his restless walk into the garden, and then
into the shrubberies of the White House.
"My dear, I am not as young as I was. I feel as if all this were too
much for me," sighed Miss Mewlstone, as she pressed her companion's
arm. "One needs so much vitality to bear such scenes. I am terrified
for Magdalene, she has so little self-control! and to have him given
back to her from the dead! I thank God! but I am afraid, for all
that." And a few more quiet tears stole over her cheeks.
"Thinking of it only makes it worse," returned Phillis, feverishly.
She, too, dreaded the ordeal before them; but she was young, and not
easily daunted. All the way through the shrubbery she talked on
breathlessly, trying to rally her own courage. It was she who entered
the drawing-room first, for poor Miss Mewlstone had to efface the
signs of her agitation.
Mrs. Cheyne looked up, surprised to see her alone.
"Jeffreys told me you and Miss Mewlstone had gone out together on a
little business. What have you done with poor old Barby?" And, as
Phillis answered as composedly and demurely as she could, Mrs. Cheyne
arched her eyebrows in her old satirical way:
"She is in her room, is she? Never mind answering, if you prefer your
own counsel. Your little mysteries are no business of mine. I should
have thought the world would have come to an end, though, before Barby
had thrown down the third volume of a novel for anything short of a
fire. But you and she know best." And, as Phillis flushed and looked
confused under her scrutiny, she gave a short laugh and turned away.
It was a relief when Miss Mewlstone came trotting into the room with
her cap-strings awry.
"Dear, dear! have we kept you waiting for your tea, Magdalene?" she
exclaimed, in a flurried tone, as she bustled up to the table. "Miss
Challoner had a little business, and she thought I might help her.
Yes; just so! I have brought her in, for she is tired, poor thing! and
I knew she would be welcome."
"It seems to me that you are both tired. You are as hot as though you
had walked for miles, Barby. Oh, you have your secrets too. But it is
not for me to meddle with mysteries." And then she laughed again, and
threw herself back on her couch, with a full understanding of the
discomfort of the two people before her.
Phillis saw directly she was in a hard, cynical mood.
"You shall know our business by and by," she said, very quietly. "Dear
Miss Mewlstone, I am so thirsty, I must ask you for another cup of
tea." But, as Miss Mewlstone took the cup from her, the poor lady's
hand shook so with suppressed agitation that the saucer slipped from
her grasp, and the next moment the costly china lay in fragments at
her feet.
"Dear! dear!--how dreadfully careless of me!" fumed Miss Mewlstone.
But Mrs. Cheyne made no observation. She only rang the bell, and
ordered another cup. But, when the servant had withdrawn, she said,
coldly,--
"Your hand is not as steady as usual this evening, Barby;" and somehow
the sharp incisive tone cut so keenly that, to Phillis's alarm, Miss
Mewlstone became very pale, and then suddenly burst into tears.
"This is too much!" observed Mrs. Cheyne, rising in serious
displeasure. She had almost a masculine abhorrence to tears of late
years; the very sight of them excited her strangely.
"Miss Challoner may keep her mysteries to herself if she likes, but I
insist on knowing what has upset you like this."
"Oh dear! oh, dear!" sobbed the simple woman, wringing her hands
helplessly. "This is just too much for me! Poor soul, how am I to tell
her?" And then she looked at Phillis in affright at her own words,
which revealed so much and so little.
Mrs. Cheyne turned exceedingly pale, and a shadow passed over her
face.
"'Poor soul!' does she mean me? Is it of me you are speaking, Barby?
Is there something for me to know, that you dread to tell me? Poor
soul, indeed!" And then her features contracted and grew pinched. "But
you need not be afraid. Is it not the Psalmist who says, 'All thy
waves and thy billows have gone over me'? Drowned people have nothing
to fear: there is no fresh trouble for them." And her eyes took an
awful stony look that terrified Phillis.
"Oh, it is no fresh trouble!" stammered the girl. "People are not
tormented like that: they have not to suffer more than they can
bear."
But Mrs. Cheyne turned upon her fiercely:
"You are wrong, altogether wrong. I could not bear it, and it drove me
mad,--at least as nearly mad as a sane woman could be. I felt my
reason shaken; my brain was all aflame, and I cried out to heaven for
mercy; and a blank answered me. Barby, if there be fresh trouble, tell
me instantly, and at once. What do I care? What is left to me, but a
body that will not die, and a brain that will not cease to think? If I
could only stop the thoughts! if I could only go down into silence and
nothingness! but then I should not find Herbert and the children.
Where are they? I forget!" She stopped, pressed her hands to her brow
with a strange bewildered expression; but Miss Mewlstone crept up to
her, and touched her timidly.
"My bonnie Magdalene!" she exclaimed; "don't let the ill thoughts
come; drive them away, my poor dear. Look at me. Did old Barby ever
deceive you? There is no fresh trouble, my pretty. In his own good
time the All-Merciful has had mercy!"
Mrs. Cheyne's hand dropped down to her sides, but her brilliant eyes
showed no comprehension of her words.
"Why did you frighten me like that?" she repeated, rocking herself to
and fro; and her voice had a high, strained tone in it. "There is no
trouble, but your face is pale, and there are tears in your eyes; and
look how your hand shakes! Miss Challoner--Phillis, what does she
mean? Barby, you are a foolish old woman; your wits are gone."
"If they are gone, it is with joy!" she sobbed. "Yes, my precious one!
for sheer joy!" but then she broke down utterly. It was Phillis who
came to the rescue.
"Dear Mrs. Cheyne, I think I could tell you best," she began, in her
sweet sensible voice, which somehow stilled Mrs. Cheyne's frightful
agitation. "There has been some news,--a letter that has been lost,
which ought to have arrived months ago. We have heard about it this
afternoon." She stopped, for there seemed to be a faint sound of
footsteps in the hall below. Could he have followed them? What would
be the result of such imprudence? But, as she faltered and hesitated,
Mrs. Cheyne gripped her arm with an iron force:
"A letter from Herbert! Did he write to me? oh, my darling! did he
write to me before he died? Only one word--one word of forgiveness,
and I will say heaven indeed is merciful! Give it to me, Barby! Why do
you keep me waiting? Oh, this is blessed, blessed news!" But Miss
Mewlstone only clasped her gently in her arms.
"One moment, my dearie! There is more than that. It is not a message
from heaven. There is still one living on earth that loves you! Try
and follow my meaning," for the perplexed stare had returned again.
"Say to yourself, 'Perhaps, after all, Herbert is not dead. Nobody saw
him die. He may be alive; he may have written to me----" She stopped,
for Mrs. Cheyne had suddenly flung up her arms over her head with a
hoarse cry, that rang through the house:
"Herbert! Herbert! Herbert!"
"I am here,--Magdalene! Magdalene!" A tall figure that had crept
unperceived through the open hall door, and had lurked unseen in the
shadow of the portiere, suddenly dashed into the room, and took his
wife's rigid form into his arms. "Magdalene!--love--wife! It is
Herbert! Look up, my darling!--I am here! I am holding you!" But there
was no response. Magdalene's face was like the face of the dead.
They took her from him almost by force, for he refused to give her up.
Over and over again they prayed him to leave her to their care, but he
seemed like a deaf man that did not hear.
"She is dead! I have killed her; but there is no reason why I should
give her up," he had said, with terrible calm in his voice.
"She is not dead!" returned Miss Mewlstone, almost angrily. "She has
been like this before; but Jeffreys and I know what to do. Ay, you
were always wilful, Herbert; but when it comes to killing your own
wife----" And after this he consented to lay her down on her couch.
He watched them with wistful eyes as they tried the usual remedies;
but it was long before even the flicker of an eyelid spoke to them of
life. At the first sign of returning animation Herbert crept just
behind his wife's pillow, where he could see the first unclosing of
the drooping lids. When Magdalene opened her eyes at last, they fell
full on her husband's face.
Phillis, who was beside her, marvelled at the strange beauty of that
rapt look, as she lay and gazed at him.
"Herbert's face!" they heard her whisper, in an awe-struck voice.
"Then I have died at last, and am in heaven. Oh, how merciful! but I
have not deserved it,--a sinner such as I."
"Magdalene, my darling, you are in our own home! It is I who was lost,
and have come back to you. Look at me. It is only the children that
are in heaven. You and I are spared to each other on earth." But for a
long time her scattered faculties failed to grasp the truth.
Phillis went home at last, and left them. There was nothing she could
do, and she was utterly spent; but Miss Mewlstone kept watch beside
her charge until late into the night.
Little by little the truth dawned slowly on the numbed brain; slowly
and by degrees the meaning of her husband's tears and kisses sank into
the clouded mind. Now and again she wandered, but Herbert's voice
always recalled her.
"Then I am not dead?" she asked him, again and again. "They do not cry
in heaven, and Barby was crying just now. Barby, am I dreaming! Who is
this beside me? is it Herbert's ghost? only his hands are warm, and
mine are so terribly cold. Why you are crying too, love; but I am to
tired to understand." And then she crept wearily closer and closer
into his arms, like a tired-out child who has reached home.
And when Herbert stooped over her gently, he saw that the long lashes
lay on her cheek. Magdalene had fallen asleep.