CLOSING SCENES.
It was not until the day of her husband's funeral that Ellen Whitelaw
wrote to Mr. Fenton to tell him what had happened. She knew that her
letter was likely to bring him post-haste to the Grange, and she wished
his coming to be deferred until that last dismal day was over. Nor was
she sorry that there should be some little pause--a brief interval of
ignorance and tranquillity--in Marian's life before she heard of her
husband's useless voyage across the Atlantic. She was in sad need of rest
of mind and body, and even in those few days gained considerable
strength, by the aid of Mrs. Whitelaw's tender nursing. She had not left
her room during the time that death was in the darkened house, and it was
only on the morning after the funeral that she came downstairs for the
first time. Her appearance had improved wonderfully in that interval of
little more than a week. Her eyes had lost their dim weary look, the
deathly pallor of her complexion had given place to a faint bloom. But
grateful as she was for her own deliverance, she was full of anxiety
about her husband. Ellen Whitelaw's vague assurances that all would be
well, that he would soon be restored to her, were not enough to set her
mind at ease.
Ellen had not the courage to tell her the truth. It was better that
Gilbert Fenton should do that, she thought. He who knew all the
circumstances of Mr. Holbrook's journey, and the probabilities as to his
return, would be so much better able to comfort and reassure his wife.
"He will come to-day, I have no doubt," Ellen said to herself on the
morning after her husband's funeral.
She told Marian how she had written to Mr. Fenton on the day before, in
order to avoid the agitation of a surprise, should he appear at the
Grange without waiting to announce his coming. Nor was she mistaken as to
the probability of his speedy arrival. It was not long after noon when
there came a loud peal of the bell that rang so rarely. Ellen ran herself
to the gate to admit the visitor. She had told him of her husband's death
in her last letter, and her widow's weeds were no surprise to him. He was
pale, but very calm.
"She is well?" he asked eagerly.
"Yes, sir, she is as well as one could look for her to be, poor dear,
after what she has gone through. But she is much changed since last you
saw her. You must prepare yourself for that, sir. And she is very anxious
about her husband. I don't know how she'll take it, when she hears that
he has gone to America."
"Yes, that is a bad business, Mrs. Whitelaw," Gilbert answered gravely.
"He was not in a fit state to travel, unfortunately. He was only just
recovering from a severe illness, and was as weak as a child."
"O dear, O dear! But you won't tell Mrs. Holbrook that, sir?"
"I won't tell her more than I can help; of course I don't want to alarm
her; but I am bound to tell her some portion of the truth. You did her
husband a great wrong, you see, Mrs. Whitelaw, when you suspected him of
some share in this vile business. He has shown himself really devoted to
her. I thank God that it has proved so. And now tell me more about this
affair; your letter explains so little."
"I will tell you all, sir."
They walked in the garden for about a quarter of an hour before Gilbert
went into the house. Eager as he was to see Marian, he was still more
anxious to hear full particulars of that foul plot of which she had been
made the victim. Ellen Whitelaw told him the story very plainly, making
no attempt to conceal her husband's guilty part in the business; and the
story being finished, she took him straight to the parlour where he had
seen Marian for the first time after her marriage.
It was a warm bright day, and all three windows were open. Marian was
sitting by one of them, with some scrap of work lying forgotten in her
lap. She started up from her seat as Gilbert went into the room, and
hastened forward to meet him.
"How good of you to come!" she cried. "And you have brought me news of my
husband? I am sure of that."
"Yes, dear Mrs. Holbrook--Mrs. Saltram; may I not call you by that name
now?--I know all; and have forgiven all."
"Then you know how deeply he sinned against you, and how much he valued
your friendship? He would never have played so false a part but for that.
He could not bear to think of being estranged from you."
"We are not estranged. I have tried to be angry with him; but there are
some old ties that a man cannot break. He has used me very ill, Marian;
but he is still my friend."
His voice broke a little as he uttered the old familiar name. Yes, she
was changed, cruelly changed, by that ordeal of six months' suffering.
The brightness of her beauty had quite faded; but there was something in
the altered face that touched him more deeply than the old magic. She was
dearer to him, perhaps, in this hour than she had ever been yet. Dearer
to him, and yet divided from him utterly, now that he professed himself
her husband's friend as well as her own.
Friendship, brotherly affection, those chastened sentiments which he had
fancied had superseded all warmer feelings--where were they now? By the
passionate beating of his heart, by his eager longing to clasp that faded
form to his breast, he knew that he loved her as dearly as on the day
when she promised to be his wife; that he must love her with the same
measure till the end of his existence.
"Thank God for that," Marian said gently; "thank God that you are still
friends. But why did he not come with you to-day? You have told him about
me, I suppose?"
"Not yet, Marian; I have not been able to do that. Nor could he come with
me to-day. He has left England--on a false scent."
And then he told her, in a few words, the story of John Saltram's voyage
to New York; making very light of the matter, and speaking cheerily of
his early return.
"He will come back at once, of course, when he finds how he has been
deceived," Gilbert said.
Marian was cruelly distressed by this disappointment. She tried to bear
the blow bravely, and listened with a gentle patience to Gilbert's
reassuring arguments; but it was a hard thing to bear.
"He will be back soon, you say," she said; "but soon is such a vague
word; and you have not told me when he went."
Gilbert told her the date of John Saltram's departure. She began
immediately to question him as to the usual length of the voyage, and to
calculate the time he had had for his going and return. Taking the
average length of the voyage as ten days, and allowing ten days for delay
in New York, a month would give ample time for the two journeys; and John
Saltram had been away more than a month.
Gilbert could see that Marian was quick to take alarm on discovering
this.
"My dear Mrs. Saltram, be reasonable," he said gently. "Finding such a
cheat put upon him, your husband would naturally be anxious to bring your
father to some kind of reckoning, to extort from him the real secret of
your fate. He would no doubt stay in New York to do this; and we cannot
tell how difficult the business might prove, or how long it would occupy
him."
"But if he had been detained like that, he would surely have written to
you," said Marian; "and you have heard nothing from him since he left
England."
"Unhappily nothing. But he is not the best correspondent in the world,
you know."
"Yes, yes, I know that. Yet, in such a case as this, he would surely have
written, if he were well." Her eyes met Gilbert's as she said this. She
stopped abruptly, dismayed by something in his face.
"You are hiding some misfortune from me," she cried; "I can see it in
your face. You have had bad news of him."
"Upon my honour, no. He was not in very strong health when he left
England, that is all; and, like yourself, I am naturally anxious."
He had not meant to admit even as much as this just yet; but having said
this, he found himself compelled to say more. Marian questioned him so
closely, that she finally extorted from him the whole history of John
Saltram's illness. After that it was quite in vain to attempt
consolation. She was very gentle, very patient, troubling him with no
vain wailings and lamentations; but he could see that her heart was
almost broken.
He left her at the end of a few hours to return to London, promising to
go on to Liverpool next day, in order to be on the spot to await her
husband's return, and to send her the earliest possible tidings of it.
"Your friendship for us has given you nothing but trouble and pain," she
said; "but if you will do this for me, I shall be grateful to you for the
rest of my life."
There was no occasion for that journey to Liverpool. When he arrived in
London that night, Gilbert Fenton found a letter waiting for him at his
Wigmore-street lodgings--a letter with the New York post-mark, but _not_
addressed in his friend's hand. He tore it open hurriedly, just a little
alarmed by this fact.
His first feeling was one of relief. There were three separate sheets of
paper in the envelope, and the first which he took up was in John
Saltram's hand--a hurried eager letter, dated some weeks before.
"My dear Gilbert," he wrote, "I have been duped. This man Nowell is a
most consummate scoundrel. The woman with him is not Marian, but some
girl whom he has picked up to represent her--his wife perhaps, or
something worse. I was very ill on the passage out, and only discovered
the trick at the last. Since then I have traced the scoundrel to his
quarters, and have had an interview with him--rather a stormy one, as you
may suppose. But the long and short of it is that he defies me. He tells
me that my wife is in England, and safe, but will admit no more. I have
consulted a lawyer here, but it seems I can do nothing against him--or
nothing that will not involve a more complicated and protracted business
than I have time or patience for. I don't want this wretch to go
scot-free. It is evident that he has hatched this plot in order to get
possession of his daughter's money, and I have little doubt the lawyer
Medler is in it. But of course my first duty, as well as my most ardent
desire, is to find Marian; and for this purpose I shall come back to
England by the first steamer that will convey me, leaving Mr. Nowell's
punishment to the chances of the future. My dear girl's property, as well
as herself, will be best protected by my presence in England."
There was a pause here, and the next paragraph was dated two days after.
"If I have strength to come, I shall return by the next steamer; but the
fact is, my dear Gilbert, I am very ill--have been completely prostrate
since writing the above--and a doctor here tells me I must not think of
the voyage yet awhile. But I shan't allow his opinion to govern me. If I
can crawl to the steamer, which starts three days hence, I shall come."
Then there was another break, and again the writer went on in a weak and
more straggling hand, without any date this time.
"My dear Gil, it's nearly a week since I wrote the last lines, and I've
been in bed ever since. I'm afraid there's no hope for me; in plain words,
I believe I'm dying. To you I leave the duty I am not allowed to perform.
Marian is living, and in England. I believe that scoundrelly father of hers
told me the truth when he declared that. You will not rest till you find
her, I know; and you will protect her fortune from that wretch. God bless
you, faithful old friend! Heaven knows how I yearn for the sight of your
honest face, lying here among strangers, to be buried in a foreign land.
See that my wife pays Mrs. Branston the money I borrowed to come here; and
tell her that I was grateful to her, and thought of her on my dying bed.
To my wife I send no message. She knows that I loved her; but how dear she
has been to me in this bitter time of separation, she can never know.
"You will find a bulky MS. at my chambers, in the bottom drawer on the
right side of my desk. It is my Life of Swift--unfinished as my own life.
If, after reading it, you should think it worth publishing, as a
fragment, with my name to it, I should wish you to arrange its
publication. I should be glad to leave my name upon something."
In a stranger's hand, and upon another sheet of paper, Gilbert read the
end of his friend's history.
"Sir,--I regret to inform you that your friend Mr. Saltram expired
at eleven o'clock last night (Wednesday, May 2nd), after an
illness of a fortnight's duration, throughout which I gave him my
best attention as his medical adviser. He will be buried in the
Cypress-hill Cemetery, on Long Island, at his own request; and he
has left sufficient funds for the necessary expenses, and the
payment of his hotel bill, as well as my own small claim against
him. Any surplus which may be left I shall forward to you, when
these payments have been made. I enclose a detailed account of the
case for your satisfaction, and have the honour to be, sir,
"Yours very obediently,
"SILAS WARREN, M.D.
"113 Sixteenth-street, New York,
"May 3, 186--."
This was all.
And Gilbert had to carry these tidings to Marian. For a time he was
almost paralyzed by the blow. He had loved this man as a brother; if he
had ever doubted the strength of his attachment to John Saltram, he knew
it now. But the worst of all was, that one bitter fact--Marian must be
told, and by him.
He went back to the Grange next day. Again and again upon that miserable
journey he acted over the scene which was to take place when he came to
the end of it--in spite of himself, as it were--going over the words he
was to say, while Marian's face rose before him like a picture. How was
he to tell her? Would not the very fact of this desolation coming to her
from his lips be sufficient to make him hateful to her in all the days to
come? More than once upon that journey he was tempted to turn back, and
to leave his dismal news to be told in a letter.
But when the fatal moment did at last arrive, the event in no manner
realized the picture of his imagination. Time was not given to him to
speak those solemn preliminary words by which he had intended to prepare
the victim for her deathblow. His presence there, and his presence alone,
were all sufficient to prepare her for some calamity.
"You have come back to me, and without him!" she exclaimed. "Tell me what
has happened; tell me at once."
He had no time to defer the stroke. His face told her so much. In a few
moments--before his broken words could shape themselves into
coherence--she knew all.
There are some things that can never be forgotten. Never, to his dying
day, can Gilbert Fenton forget the quiet agony he had to witness then.
She was very ill for a long time after that day--in danger of death. All
that she had suffered during her confinement at Wyncomb seemed to fall
upon her now with a double weight. Only the supreme devotion of those who
cared for her could have carried her through that weary time; but the day
did at last come when the peril was pronounced a thing of the past, and
the feeble submissive patient might be carried away from the Grange--from
the scene of her brief married life and of her bitter widowhood.
She went with Ellen Whitelaw to Ventnor. It was late in August before she
was able to bear this journey; and in this mild refuge for invalids she
remained throughout the winter.
Even during that trying time, when it seemed more than doubtful whether
she could live to profit by her grandfather's bequest, her interests had
been carefully watched by Gilbert Fenton. It was tolerably evident to his
mind that Mr. Medler had been a tacit accomplice in Percival Nowell's
fraud; or, at any rate, that he had enabled the pretended Mrs. Holbrook
to obtain a large sum of ready money with greater ease than she could
have done had he, as executor, been scrupulously careful to obtain her
identification from some more trustworthy person than he knew Percival
Nowell to be.
Whether these suspicions of Gilbert's were correct, whether the lawyer
had been actually deceived, or had willingly lent himself to the
furtherance of Nowell's design, must remain unascertained; as well as
the amount of profit which Mr. Medler may have secured to himself by the
transaction. The law held him liable for the whole of the moneys thus
paid over in fraud or error; but the law could do very little against a
man whose sole earthly possessions appeared to be comprised by the
worm-eaten desks and shabby chairs and tables in his dingy offices. The
poor consolation remained of making an attempt to get him struck off "the
Rolls;" but when the City firm of solicitors in whose hands Gilbert had
placed Mrs. Saltram's affairs suggested this, Marian herself entreated
that the man might have the benefit of the doubt as to his complicity
with her father, and that no effort should be made to bring legal ruin
upon him.
"There has been enough misery caused by this money already," she said.
"Let the matter rest. I am richer than I care to be, as it is."
Of course Mr. Medler was not allowed to retain his position as executor.
The Court of Chancery was appealed to in the usual manner, and intervened
for the future protection of Mrs. Saltram's interests.
About Nowell's conduct there was, of course, no doubt; but after wasting
a good deal of money and trouble in his pursuit, Gilbert was fain to
abandon all hope of catching him in the wide regions of the new world. It
was ascertained that the woman who had accompanied him in the _Orinoco_
as his daughter was actually his wife--a girl whom he had met at some low
London dancing-rooms, and married within a fortnight of his introduction
to her. It is possible that prudence as well as attachment may have had
something to do with this alliance. Mr. Nowell knew that, once united to
him in the bonds of holy matrimony, the accomplice of his fraud would
have no power to give evidence against him. The amount which he had
contrived to secure to himself by this plot amounted in all to something
under four thousand pounds; and out of this it may fairly be supposed
that Mr. Medler claimed a considerable percentage. The only information
that Gilbert Fenton could ever obtain from America was, of a shabby
swindler arrested in a gambling-house in one of the more remote western
cities, whose description corresponded pretty closely with that of
Marian's father.
There comes a time for the healing of all griefs. The cruel wound closes
at last, though the scar, and the bitter memory of the stroke, may remain
for ever. There came a time--some years after John Saltram's death--when
Gilbert Fenton had his reward. And if the woman he won for his wife in
these latter days was not quite the fresh young beauty he had wooed under
the walnut-trees in Captain Sedgewick's garden, she was still infinitely
more beautiful than all other women in his eyes; she was still the
dearest and best and brightest and purest of all earthly creatures for
him. In that happy time--that perfect summer and harvest of his life--all
his fondest dreams have been realized. He has the home he so often
pictured, the children whose airy voices sounded in his dreams, the dear
face always near him, and, sweeter than all, the knowledge that he is
loved almost as he loves. The bitter apprenticeship has been served, and
the full reward has been granted.
For Ellen Whitelaw too has come the period of compensation, and the
farmer's worst fears have been realized as to Frank Randall's
participation in that money he loved so well. The income grudgingly left
to his wife by Stephen has enabled Mr. Randall to begin business as a
solicitor upon his own account, in a small town near London, with every
apparent prospect of success. Ellen's home is within easy reach of the
river-side villa occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Fenton; so she is able to see
her dear Marian as often as she likes; nor is there any guest at the
villa more welcome than this faithful friend.
The half-written memoir of Jonathan Swift was published; and reviewers,
who had no compunction in praising the dead, were quick to recognize the
touch of a master hand, the trenchant style of a powerful thinker. For
the public the book is of no great value; it is merely a curiosity of
literature; but it is the only monument of his own rugged genius which
bears the name of John Saltram.
Poor little Mrs. Branston has not sacrificed all the joys of life to the
manes of her faithless lover. She is now the happy wife of a dashing
naval officer, and gives pleasant parties which bring life and light into
the great house in Cavendish-square; parties to which Theobald Pallinson
comes, and where he shines as a small feeble star when greater lights are
absent--singing his last little song, or reciting his last little poem,
for the delight of some small coterie of single ladies not in the first
bloom of youth; but parties from which Mrs. Pallinson keeps aloof in a
stern spirit of condemnation, informing her chosen familiars that she was
never more cruelly deceived than in that misguided ungrateful young
woman, Adela Branston.