DOUBTFUL INFORMATION.
The early days of the new year brought little change in John Saltram's
condition. Mr. Mew, and the physician who saw him once in every three
days, seemed perhaps a shade more hopeful than they had been, but would
express no decided opinion when Gilbert pressed them with close
questioning. The struggle was still going on--the issue still doubtful.
"If we could keep the mind at rest," said the physician, "we should have
every chance of doing better; but this constant restlessness, this
hyper-activity of the brain, of which you and Mr. Mew tell me, must needs
make a perpetual demand upon the patient's physical powers. The waste is
always going on. We cannot look for recovery until we obtain more
repose."
Several weeks had passed since the beginning of John Saltram's illness,
and there were no tidings from Mr. Medler. Every day Gilbert had expected
some communication from that practitioner, only to be disappointed. He
had called twice in Soho, and on both occasions had been received by a
shabby-looking clerk, who told him that Mr. Medler was out, and not
likely to come home within any definite time. He was inclined to fancy,
by the clerk's manner on his second visit, that there was some desire to
avoid an interview on Mr. Medler's part; and this fancy made him all the
more anxious to see that gentleman. He did not, therefore, allow much
time to elapse between this second visit to the dingy chambers in Soho
and a third. This time he was more fortunate; for he saw the lawyer let
himself in at the street-door with his latch-key, just as the cab that
drove him approached the house.
The same shabby clerk opened the door to him.
"I want to see your master," he said decisively, making a move towards
the office-door.
The clerk contrived to block his way.
"I beg your pardon, sir, I don't think Mr. Medler's in; but I'll go and
see."
"You needn't give yourself the trouble. I saw your master let himself in
at this door a minute ago. I suppose you were too busy to hear him come
in."
The clerk coughed a doubtful kind of cough, significant of perplexity.
"Upon my word, sir, I believe he's out; but I'll see."
"Thanks; I'd rather see myself, if you please," Gilbert said, passing the
perturbed clerk before that functionary could make up his mind whether he
ought to intercept him.
He opened the office-door and went in. Mr. Medler was sitting at his
desk, bending over some formidable document, with the air of a man who is
profoundly absorbed by his occupation; with the air also, Gilbert
thought, of a man who has been what is vernacularly called "on the
listen."
"Good-morning, Mr. Medler," Gilbert said politely; "your clerk had such a
conviction of your being out, that I had some difficulty in convincing
him you were at home."
"I've only just come in; I suppose Lucas didn't hear me."
"I suppose not; I've been here twice before in search of you, as I
conclude you have been told. I have expected to hear from you daily."
"Well, yes--yes," replied the lawyer in a meditative way; "I am aware
that I promised to write--under certain circumstances."
"Am I to conclude, then, that you were silent because you had nothing to
communicate? that you have obtained no tidings of any kind respecting
Mrs. Holbrook?"
Mr. Medler coughed; a cough no less expressive of embarrassment than that
of his clerk.
"Why, you see, Mr. Fenton," he began, crossing his legs, and rubbing his
hands in a very deliberate manner, "when I made that promise with
reference to Mrs. Holbrook, I made it of course without prejudice to the
interests or inclinations of my client. I might be free to communicate to
you any information I received upon this subject--or I might find myself
pledged to withhold it."
Gilbert's face flushed with sudden excitement.
"What!" he cried, "do you mean to say that you have solved the mystery of
Marian Holbrook's fate? that you know her to be alive--safe--well, and
have kept back the knowledge from me?"
"I have been compelled to submit to the wishes of my client. I will not
say that I have not offered considerable opposition to her desire upon
this point, but finding her resolution fixed, I was bound to respect it."
"She is safe--then all this alarm has been needless? You have seen her?"
"Yes, Mr. Fenton, I have seen her."
"And she--she forbade you to let me know of her safety? She was willing
that I should suffer all the anguish of uncertainty as to her fate? I
could not have believed her so unkind."
"Mrs. Holbrook had especial reasons for wishing to avoid all
communication with former acquaintances. She explained those reasons to
me, and I fully concurred in them."
"She might have such reasons with regard to other people; she could have
none with reference to me."
"Pardon me, she mentioned your name in a very particular manner."
"And yet she has had good cause to trust in my fidelity."
"She has a very great respect and esteem for you, I am aware. She said as
much to me. But her reasons for keeping her affairs to herself just now
are quite apart from her personal feeling for yourself."
"I cannot understand this. I am not to see her then, I suppose; not to be
told her address?"
"No; I am strictly forbidden to disclose her address to any one."
"Yet you can positively assure me that she is in safety--her own
mistress--happy?"
"She is in perfect safety--her own mistress--and as happy as it is
possible she can be under the unfortunate circumstances of her married
life. She has left her husband for ever; I will venture to tell you so
much as that."
"I am quite aware of that fact."
"How so? I thought Mr. Holbrook was quite unknown to you?"
"I have learnt a good deal about him lately."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the lawyer, with a genuine air of surprise.
"But of course your client has been perfectly frank in her communications
with you upon this subject?" Gilbert said. "Yes; I know that Mrs.
Holbrook has left her husband, but I did not for a moment suppose she
had left him of her own free will. From my knowledge of her character
and sentiments, that is just the last thing I could have imagined
possible. There was no quarrel between them; indeed, she was expecting
his return with delight at the very time when she left her home in
Hampshire. The thought of sharing her fortune with him was one of
perfect happiness. How can you explain her abrupt flight from him in the
face of this?"
"I am not free to explain matters, Mr. Fenton," answered the lawyer; "you
must be satisfied with the knowledge that the lady about whom you have
been so anxious is safe."
"I thank God for that," Gilbert said earnestly; "but that, knowledge of
itself is not quite enough. I shall be uneasy so long as there is this
secrecy and mystery surrounding her fate. There is something in this
sudden abandonment of her husband which is painfully inexplicable to me."
"Mrs. Holbrook may have received some sudden revelation of her husband's
unworthiness. You are aware that a letter reached her a few hours before
she left Hampshire? There is no doubt that letter influenced her actions.
I do not mind admitting a fact which is so obvious."
"The revelation that could move her to such a step must have been a very
startling one."
"It was strong enough to decide her course," replied the lawyer gravely.
"And you can assure me that she is in good hands?" Gilbert asked
anxiously.
"I have every reason to suppose so. She is with her father."
Mr. Medler announced this fact as if there were nothing extraordinary in
it. Gilbert started to his feet.
"What!" he exclaimed; "she is with Mr. Nowell--the father who neglected
her in her youth, who of course seeks her now only for the sake of her
fortune? And you call that being in good hands, Mr. Medler? For my own
part, I cannot imagine a more dangerous alliance. When did Percival
Nowell come to England?"
"A very short time ago. I have only been aware of his return within the
last two or three weeks. His first step on arriving in this country was
to seek for his daughter."
"Yes; when he knew that she was rich, no doubt."
"I do not think that he was influenced by mercenary motives," the lawyer
said, with a calm judicial air. "Of course, as a man of the world, I am
not given to look at such matters from a sentimental point of view. But I
really believe that Mr. Nowell was anxious to find his daughter, and to
atone in some measure for his former neglect."
"A very convenient repentance," exclaimed Gilbert, with a short bitter
laugh. "And his first act is to steal his daughter from her home, and
hide her from all her former friends. I don't like the look of this
business, Mr. Medler; I tell you so frankly."
"Mr. Nowell is my client, you must remember, Mr. Fenton. I cannot consent
to listen to any aspersion of his character, direct or indirect."
"And you positively refuse to tell me where Mrs. Holbrook is to be
found?"
"I am compelled to respect her wishes as well as those of her father."
"She has been placed in possession of her property, I suppose?"
"Yes; her grandfather's will has been proved, and the estate now stands
in her name. There was no difficulty about that--no reason for delay."
"Will you tell me if she is in London?" Gilbert asked impatiently.
"Pardon me, my dear sir, I am pledged to say nothing about Mrs.
Holbrook's whereabouts."
Gilbert gave a weary sigh.
"Well, I suppose it is useless to press the question, Mr. Medler," he
said. "I can only repeat that I don't like the look of this business.
Your client, Mr. Nowell, must have a very strong reason for secrecy, and
my experience of life has shown me that there is very seldom mystery
without wrong doing of some kind behind it. I thank God that Mrs.
Holbrook is safe, for I suppose I must accept your assurance that she is
so; but until her position is relieved from all this secrecy, I shall not
cease to feel uneasy as to her welfare. I am glad, however, that the
issue of events has exonerated her husband from any part in her
disappearance."
He was glad to know this--glad to know that however base a traitor to
himself, John Saltram had not been guilty of that deeper villany which he
had at times been led to suspect.
Gilbert Fenton left Mr. Medler's office a happier man than when he had
entered it, and yet only half satisfied. It was a great thing to know
that Marian was safe; but he would have wished her in the keeping of
any one rather than of him whom the world would have called her natural
protector.
Nor was his opinion of Mr. Medler by any means an exalted one. No
assertion of that gentleman inspired him with heart-felt confidence; and
he had not left the lawyer's office long before he began to ask himself
whether there was truth in any portion of the story he had heard, or
whether he was not the dupe of a lie.
Strange that Marian's father should have returned at so opportune a
moment; still more strange that Marian should suddenly desert the husband
she had so devotedly loved, and cast in her lot with a father of whom she
knew nothing but his unkindness. What if this man Medler had been lying
to him from first to last, and was plotting to get old Jacob Nowell's
fortune into his own hands?
"I must find her," Gilbert said to himself; "I must be certain that she
is in safe hands. I shall know no rest till I have found her."
Harassed and perplexed beyond measure, he walked through the busy streets
of that central district for some time without knowing where he was
going, and without the faintest purpose in his steps. Then the notion
suddenly flashed upon him that he might hear something of Percival
Nowell at the shop in Queen Anne's Court, supposing the old business to
be still carried on there under the sway of Mr. Tulliver; and it seemed
too early yet for the probability of any change in that quarter.
Gilbert was in the Strand when this notion occurred to him. He turned his
steps immediately, and went back to Wardour-street, and thence to the
dingy court where he had first discovered Marian's grandfather.
There was no change; the shop looked exactly the same as it had looked in
the lifetime of Jacob Nowell. There were the same old guineas in the
wooden bowl, the same tarnished tankards and teapots on view behind the
wire-guarded glass, the same obscure hints of untold riches within, in
the general aspect of the place.
Mr. Tulliver darted forward from his usual lurking-place as Gilbert went
in at the door.
"O!" he exclaimed, with undisguised disappointment, "it's you, is it,
sir? I thought it was a customer."
"I am sorry to disappoint your expectation of profit. I have looked in to
ask you two or three questions, Mr. Tulliver; that is all."
"Any information in my power I'm sure I shall be happy to afford, sir.
Won't you be pleased to take a seat?"
"How long is it since you saw Mr. Nowell, your former employer's son?"
Gilbert asked, dropping into the chair indicated by the shopman, and
coming at once to the point.
Mr. Tulliver was somewhat startled by the question. That was evident,
though he was not a man who wore his heart upon his sleeve.
"How long is it since I've seen Mr. Nowell--Mr. Percival Nowell, sir?" he
repeated, staring thoughtfully at his questioner.
"Yes; you need not be afraid to speak freely to me; I know Mr. Nowell is
in London."
"Well, sir, I've not seen him often since his father's death."
Since his father's death! And according to Mr. Medler, Jacob Nowell's son
had only arrived in England after the old man's death;--or stay, the
lawyer had declared that he had been only aware of Percival's return
within the last two or three weeks. That was a different thing, of
course; yet was it likely this man could have returned, and his father's
lawyer have remained ignorant of his arrival?
Gilbert did not allow the faintest expression of surprise to appear on
his countenance.
"Not often since your master's death: but how often before?"
"Well, he used to come in pretty often before the old man died; but they
were both of 'em precious close. Mr. Percival never let out that he was
my master's son, but I guessed as much before he'd been here many times."
"How was it that I never came across him?"
"Chance, I suppose; but he's a deep one. If you'd happened to come in
when he was here, I daresay he'd have contrived to slip away somehow
without your seeing him."
"When did he come here last?" asked Gilbert.
"About a fortnight ago. He came with Mr. Medler, the lawyer, who
introduced him formally as my master's son; and they took possession of
the place between them for Mrs. Holbrook, making an arrangement with me
to carry on the business, and making precious hard terms too."
"Have you seen Mrs. Holbrook since that morning when she left London for
Hampshire, immediately after her grandfather's death?"
"Never set eyes on her since then; but she's in London, they told me,
living with her father. She came up to claim the property. I say, the
husband must be rather a curious party, mustn't he, to stand that kind of
thing, and part company with her just when she's come into a fortune?"
"Have you any notion where Mrs. Holbrook or her father is to be found? I
should be glad to make you a handsome present if you could enlighten me
upon that point."
"I wish I could, sir. No, I haven't the least idea where the gentleman
hangs out. Oysters ain't closer than that party. I thought he'd get his
paw upon his father's money, somehow, when I used to see him hanging
about this place. But I don't believe the old man ever meant him to have
a sixpence of it."
There was very little satisfaction, to be obtained from Mr. Tulliver; and
except as to the one fact of Percival Nowell's return, Gilbert left
Queen Anne's Court little wiser than when he entered it.
Brooding upon the revelations of that day as he walked slowly westward,
he began to think that Percival and Mr. Medler had been in league from
the time of the prodigal son's return, and that his own exclusion from
the will as executor, and the substitution of the lawyer's name, had been
brought about for no honourable purpose. What would a weak inexperienced
woman be between two such men? or what power could Marian have, once
under her father's influence, to resist his will? How she had fallen
under that influence so completely as to leave her husband and her quiet
country home, without a word of explanation, was a difficult question to
answer; and Gilbert Fenton meditated upon it with a troubled mind.
He walked westward, indifferent where he went in the perplexity of his
thoughts, anxious to walk off a little of his excitement if he could,
and to return to his sick charge in the temple in a calmer frame of mind.
It was something gained, at the worst, to be able to return to John
Saltram's bedside freed from that hideous suspicion which had tormented
him of late.
Walking thus, he found himself, towards the close of the brief winter
day, at the Marble Arch. He went through the gate into the empty Park,
and was crossing the broad road near the entrance, when an open carriage
passed close beside him, and a woman's voice called to the coachman to
stop.
The carriage stopped so abruptly and so near him that he paused and
looked up, in natural wonderment at the circumstance. A lady dressed in
mourning was leaning forward out of the carriage, looking eagerly after
him. A second glance showed him that this lady was Mrs. Branston.
"How do you do, Mr. Fenton," she cried, holding out her little
black-gloved hand: "What an age since I have seen you! But you have not
forgotten me, I hope?"
"That is quite impossible, Mrs. Branston. If I had not been very much
absorbed in thought just now, I should have recognised you sooner. It was
very kind of you to stop to speak to me."
"Not at all. I have something most particular to say to you. If you are
not in a very great hurry, would you mind getting into the carriage, and
letting me drive you round the Park? I can't keep you standing in the
road to talk."
"I am in no especial hurry, and I shall be most happy to take a turn
round the Park with you."
Mrs. Branston's footman opened the carriage-door, and Gilbert took his
seat opposite the widow, who was enjoying her afternoon drive alone for
once in a way; a propitious toothache having kept Mrs. Pallinson within
doors.
"I have been expecting to see you for ever so long, Mr. Fenton. Why do
you never call upon me?" the pretty little widow began, with her usual
frankness.
"I have been so closely occupied lately; and even if I had not been so, I
should have scarcely expected to find you in town at this unfashionable
season."
"I don't care the least in the world for fashion," Mrs. Branston said,
with an impatient shrug of her shoulders. "That is only an excuse of
yours, Mr. Fenton; you completely forgot my existence, I have no doubt.
All my friends desert me now-a-days--older friends than you. There is Mr.
Saltram, for instance. I have not seen him for--O, not for ever so long,"
concluded the widow, blushing in the dusk as she remembered that visit of
hers to the Temple--that daring step which ought to have brought John
Saltram so much nearer to her, but which had resulted in nothing but
disappointment and regret--bitter regret that she should have cast her
womanly pride into the very dust at this man's feet to no purpose.
But Adela Branston was not a proud woman; and even in the midst of her
regret for having done this foolish thing, she was always ready to make
excuses for the man she loved, always in danger of committing some new
folly in his behalf.
Gilbert Fenton felt for the poor foolish little woman, whose fair face
was turned to him with such a pleading look in the wintry twilight. He
knew that what he had to tell her must needs carry desolation to her
heart--knew that in the background of John Saltram's life there lurked
even a deeper cause of grief for this gentle impressionable little soul.
"You will not wonder that Mr. Saltram has not called upon you lately when
you know the truth," he said gravely: "he has been very ill."
Mrs. Branston clasped her hands, with a faint cry of terror.
"Very ill--that means dangerously ill?"
"Yes; for some time he was in great danger. I believe that is past now;
but I am not quite sure of his safety even yet. I can only hope that he
may recover."
Hope that he might recover, yes; but to be a friend of his, Gilbert's,
never more. It was a dreary prospect at best. John Saltram would recover,
to seek and reclaim his wife, and then those two must needs pass for ever
out of Gilbert Fenton's life. The story would be finished, and his own
part of it bald enough to be told on the fly-leaf at the end of the book.
Mrs. Branston bore the shock of his ill news better than Gilbert had
expected. There is good material even in the weakest of womankind when
the heart is womanly and true.
She was deeply shocked, intensely sorry; and she made no attempt to mask
her sorrow by any conventional speech or pretence whatsoever. She made
Gilbert give her all the details of John Saltram's illness, and when he
had told her all, asked him plainly if she might be permitted to see the
sick man.
"Do let me see him, if it is possible," she said; "it would be such a
comfort to me to see him."
"I do not say such a thing is not possible, my dear Mrs. Branston; but I
am sure it would be very foolish."
"O, never mind that; I am always doing foolish things. It would only be
one folly more, and would hardly count in my history. Dear Mr. Fenton, do
let me see him."
"I don't think you quite know what you are asking, Mrs. Branston. Such a
sick-bed as John Saltram's would be a most painful scene for you. He has
been delirious from the beginning of his illness, and is so still. He
rarely has an interval of anything like consciousness, and in all the
time that I have been with him has never yet recognised me; indeed,
there are moments when I am inclined to fear that his brain may be
permanently deranged."
"God forbid!" exclaimed Adela, in a voice that was choked with tears.
"Yes, such a result as that would be indeed a sore calamity. I have every
wish to set your mind at ease, believe me, Mrs. Branston, but in John
Saltram's present state I am sure it would be ill-advised for you to see
him."
"Of course I cannot press the question if you say that," Adela answered
despondently; "but I should have been so glad if you could have allowed
me to see him. Not that I pretend to the smallest right to do so; but we
were very good friends once--before my husband's death. He has changed to
me strangely since that time."
Gilbert felt that it was almost cruel to keep this poor little soul in
utter ignorance of the truth. He did not consider himself at liberty to
say much; but some vague word of warning might serve as a slight check
upon the waste of feeling which was going on in the widow's heart.
"There may be a reason for that change, Mrs. Branston," he said. "Mr.
Saltram may have formed some tie of a kind to withdraw him from all other
friendships."
"Some attachment, you mean!" exclaimed the widow; "some other
attachment," she added, forgetting how much the words betrayed. "Do you
think that, Mr. Fenton? Do you think that John Saltram has some secret
love-affair upon his mind?"
"I have some reason to suspect as much, from words that he has dropped
during his delirium."
There was a look of unspeakable pain in Mrs. Branston's face, which had
grown deadly pale when Gilbert first spoke of John Saltram's illness. The
pretty childish lips quivered a little, and her companion knew that she
was suffering keenly.
"Have you any idea who the lady is?" she asked quietly, and with more
self-command than Gilbert had expected from her.
"I have some idea."
"It is no one whom I know, I suppose?"
"The lady is quite a stranger to you."
"He might have trusted me," she said mournfully; "it would have been
kinder in him to have trusted me."
"Yes, Mrs. Branston; but Mr. Saltram has unfortunately made concealment
the policy of his life. He will find it a false policy sooner or late."
"It was very cruel of him not to tell me the truth. He might have known
that I should look kindly upon any one he cared for. I may be a very
foolish woman, Mr. Fenton, but I am not ungenerous."
"I am sure of that," Gilbert said warmly, touched by her candour.
"You must let me know every day how your friend is going on, Mr. Fenton,"
Adela said after a pause; "I shall consider it a very great favour if you
will do so."
"I will not fail."
They had returned to Cumberland-gate by this time, and at Gilbert's
request Mrs. Branston allowed him to be set down near the Arch. He called
a cab, and drove to the Temple; while poor Adela went back to the
splendid gloom of Cavendish-square, with all the fabric of her future
life shattered.
Until this hour she had looked upon John Saltram's fidelity to herself as
a certainty; she knew, now that her hope was slain all at once, what a
living thing it had been, and how great a portion of her own existence
had taken its colour therefrom.
It was fortunate for Mrs. Branston that Mrs. Pallinson's toothache, and
the preparations and medicaments supplied to her by her son--all declared
to be infallible, and all ending in ignominious failure--occupied that
lady's attention at this period, to the exclusion of every other thought,
or Adela's pale face might have excited more curiosity than it did. As it
was, the matron contented herself by making some rather snappish remarks
upon the folly of going out to drive late on a January afternoon, and
retired to administer poultices and cataplasms to herself in the solitude
of her own apartment soon after dinner, leaving Adela Branston free to
ponder upon John Saltram's cruelty.
"If he had only trusted me," she said to herself more than once during
those mournful meditations; "if he had only given me credit for some
little good sense and generosity, I should not feel it as keenly as I do.
He must have known that I loved him--yes, I have been weak enough to let
him see that--and I think that once he used to like me a little--in those
old happy days when he came so often to Maidenhead. Yes, I believe he
almost loved me then."
And then the thought that this man was lying desperately ill, perhaps in
danger of death, blotted out every other thought. It was so bitter to
know him in peril, and to be powerless to go to him; worse than useless
to him were she by his side, since it was another whose image haunted his
wandering brain--another whose voice he longed to hear.
She spent a sleepless melancholy night, and had no rest next day, until a
commissionnaire brought her a brief note from Gilbert Fenton, telling her
that if there were any change at all in the patient, it was on the side
of improvement.