you Algy, which oddly enough had--just reach me that bottle, Algy;
thanks!--which--"
"Rest a minute, dear old boy; rest. You've been exerting yourself too
much."
"No; I'm better now--only faint for a minute. What was I saying?--O,
about Lionel. You recollect a letter which--" his voice was growing
again so faint that Algy took up the sentence.
"Which I brought to you; a letter from Lionel, after he had, you know,
dear old boy--board ship and that kind of thing?"
"Yes, that is the letter I mean. You--you knew its contents, Algy?"
"Well, Arthur, I think I did--I--you know Lionel was very fond of me,
and--used to be about with him, you know, and that kind of thing--"
"You knew his--his wife?"
"Wife, Gad, did he say?--Jove! Knew you were--dear me!--charming
person--lady. Very beautiful--great friend of Lionel's; but not his
wife, dear old boy--somebody else's wife."
"Somebody else's wife?"
"Yes; wonderful story. Ive wanted to tell you, and, most extraordinary
thing, something always interrupted. Friend of yours too; tall woman
red hair, violet eyes--wife of painter-man--Good God, Arthur!"
Well might he start; for Lord Caterham threw his hands wildly above
his head, then let them fall helplessly by his side. By the time Algy
Barford had sprung to his chair, and passed his arms around him, the
dying man's head had drooped on to his right shoulder, and his eyes
were glazing fast.
"Arthur! dear Arthur! one instant! Let me call for help."
"No, Algy; leave us so; no one else. Only one who could--and
she--better not--bless her! better not. Take my hand, Algy, old
friend--tried, trusted, dear old friend--always thoughtful, always
affectionate--God bless you--Algy! Yes, kiss my forehead again. Ah, so
happy! where the wicked cease from troubling and the--Yes, Lord, with
me abide, with me abide!--the darkness deepens: Lord, with me abide!"
And as the last words fell faintly on Algy Barford's ears, the slight
form which was lying in Algy Barford's arms, and on which the strong
man's tears were falling like rain, slipped gradually out of his
grasp--dead.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PROTRACTED SEARCH.
Annie Maurice was aroused from the brooding loneliness in which she
had sought refuge, in the first bewilderment and stupefaction of her
grief, by a communication from Lord Beauport. All was over now; the
last sad ceremonial had taken place; and the place which had known
Arthur, in his patient suffering, in his little-appreciated gentleness
and goodness, should know him no more for ever. The crippled form
was gone, and the invalid-chair which had for so long supported it
had been removed, by order of the housekeeper, to a receptacle for
discarded articles of use or ornament. Lord and Lady Beauport were
not likely to notice the circumstance, or to object to it if they
did. The blinds were decorously drawn; the rooms were scrupulously
arranged; every thing in them in its place, as though never to be used
or handled any more. The books, the objects of art, the curious things
which the dead man alone of all the house had understood and valued,
had a staring lifeless look about them in the unaccustomed precision
of their distribution; the last flowers which Annie ha placed in the
Venetian glasses had withered, and been thrown away by the notable
housemaids. A ray of sunlight crept in at one side of the blind, and
streamed upon the spot where Arthur's head had fallen back upon his
friend's arm,--ah, how short a time ago!--and yet all looked strange
and changed, not only as if he had gone away for ever, but as if he had
never been there at all. Annie had not gone into the rooms since he had
left them for the last time; she had an instinctive feeling of how it
would be, and she could not bear it yet; she knew that in nothing would
there be so sharp a pang as in seeing the familiar things which had
been so like him, grown so unlike. So, when her maid told her that Lord
Beauport wished to see her immediately, she asked nervously where he
was.
"In the library, Miss Annie," said her maid, and looked very pityingly
at the purple eyelids and white face.
"Alone?"
No, his lordship was not alone; one of the lawyer gentlemen and her
ladyship were with him.
Annie went slowly and reluctantly to the library. She did not think
for a moment that Lord and Lady Beauport were indifferent to the
death of their eldest son; on the contrary, she knew that the event
had come upon them with a mighty shock, and that they had felt it, if
not deeply, at least violently and keenly. But she had the faculty
of vivid perception, and she used it intuitively; and in this case
it told her that shame, self-detection, and remorse,--the vague
uneasiness which besets all who cannot reckon with themselves to the
full in the daylight of conscience, but, like the debtor called to
an account, kept something back,--mingled largely with their grief.
It was not wholehearted, lavish, sacred, like hers; it was not the
grief which takes the spontaneous form of prayer, and chastens itself
into submission, elevating and sanctifying the mind and character of
the mourner. Annie knew, by that keen unreasoning instinct of hers,
that while her sole and earnest desire was to keep the memory of her
dead cousin green, recalling his words, his counsels, his
wishes,--dwelling on his views of life and its duties, and
preserving him in her faithful heart, for ever near her, as a living
friend,--while her chosen thoughts would be of him, and her best
consolation in memory,--his father and mother would forget him if
they could. They mourned for him, but it was with captious impatient
grief; there was a sting in every remembrance, every association, which
they could not yet escape from, but would have put away if they had had
the power. To them, sorrow for the dead was as a haunting enemy, to
be outwitted and left behind as speedily as might be; to her it was a
friend, cherished and dear, solemnly greeted, and piously entertained.
When Annie entered the library, she found that the "lawyer gentleman,"
whom her maid had mentioned, was the family solicitor, Mr. Knevitt,
who was well known to her, and for whom Caterham had had much liking
and respect. Lord Beauport and he were standing together beside a long
table, strewn with papers, and on which stood a large despatch-box
open, and, as she saw while she walked up the room, also full of
papers. At some distance from the table, and in the shade, Lady
Beauport was seated, her hands clasped together in her lap, and her
figure leaning completely back in the deep arm-chair she occupied. She
looked very pale and worn, and her deep mourning was not becoming to
her. Sharp contention of thought and feeling was going on under that
calm exterior,--bitter pangs, in which vexation had a large share, as
well as regret, and a sense that she was to be baffled in the future
as she had been defeated in the past. Ay, the future,--she had begun
to think of it already, or rather she had begun (when had she ever
ceased?) to think of _him_. Lionel was the future to her. What if there
were more trouble and opposition in store for her? What if Arthur (ah,
poor fellow! he had never understood young men different from himself,
and he was always hard on Lionel) had left any communication for his
father, had written any thing touching the particulars of Lionel's
career which he knew, and had warned her not to ask? Hitherto nothing
of the sort had been found in the examination of Lord Caterham's
papers instituted by Lord Beauport and Mr. Knevitt. There was a packet
for Annie Maurice, indeed; they had found it an hour ago, and Lord
Beauport had just sent for Annie in order to hand it over to her. Lady
Beauport had, however, no apprehensions connected with this matter;
the virtues of the dead and the vices of the living son (though she
would not have given them their true name) secured her from feeling
any. Whatever Lionel had done she felt convinced was not of a nature
to be communicated to Annie, and Caterham would have guarded her
with the utmost caution from hearing any thing unfit for her ears.
No, no; there was no danger in that quarter. Had she not felt sure,
before this "dreadful thing"--as she called Lord Caterham's death to
herself--happened, that the scrupulous delicacy of her son, where
Annie was concerned, would be her best aid and defence against his
defeat of her projects? The letter, the packet--whatever it might be
called--was probably an effusion of feeling, a moral lecture on life,
or a posthumous guide to studies, in which Arthur had desired to see
his gentle and interesting cousin proficient.
So Lady Beauport looked at the packet as it lay on the table, close to
the despatch-box, without the least anxiety, and fixed her impatient
attention on the further investigation of the papers, continued by Lord
Beauport and Mr. Knevitt. It was not until they had concluded as much
of their melancholy task as they proposed to undertake that day, that
the Earl sent the summons which brought Annie to the library.
He took up the packet as she drew near, and said, very sadly:
"This is for you my dear."
"From--from Arthur?" she asked, in a trembling voice. "Yes, Annie,--we
found it among his papers."
She took it from him, looked at it, and sat down in a chair beside the
table, but made no attempt to break the seal. Lady Beauport did not
speak. The Earl resumed his conversation with Mr. Knevitt, and Annie
sat still and silent for a few minutes, Then she interrupted Lord
Beauport by asking him if he required her for any thing further.
"No, my dear," he said kindly; "you may go away if you like. How weary
you look!" he added, with a deep sigh. Still Lady Beauport spoke no
word; but her keen unsympathetic eyes followed the girl's graceful
figure and drooping head as she left the library.
Arrived at her own room, Annie opened the packet, which she felt was
a sacred thing. Her departed friend had written to her, then, words
which he intended her to read only when he should be no more; solemn
counsel, very precious affection, a priceless legacy from the dead
would no doubt be in the letter, whose folds felt so thick and heavy
in her hand. She removed the outer cover, placing it carefully by her
side, and found an enclosure directed to Geoffrey Ludlow, and merely a
few lines to herself, in which the writer simply directed her to place
the accompanying letter in Geoffrey's hands _herself_, and privately,
as soon after it came into hers as possible.
Surprise and disappointment were Annie's first feelings. She looked
forlornly enough at the meagre scrap of writing that was her share,
and with some wonder at the letter--no doubt voluminous--which was
Geoffrey's. What could it be about? Arthur and Ludlow had been good
friends, it is true, and had entertained strong mutual respect; but she
could not account for this solemn communication, implying so strange
and absolute a confidence. She turned the letter over in her hands, she
scrutinised the address, the paper, the seal; then she rose and locked
it carefully away, together with the note to herself in which it had
been: enclosed. "Give this letter _privately_ to Ludlow," were Arthur's
words; then, if he did not wish its delivery to be known, it was plain
he wished to conceal its existence. If Lady Beauport should question
her as to the contents of the packet? Well, she must either give an
evasive answer, or refuse to answer at all; the alternative should
be decided by the terms of the question. She could venture to refuse
an answer to a question of Lady Beauport's now; her heiress-ship had
secured her many immunities, that one among the rest.
Lord Beauport was right; Annie was weary, and looking so. The sickness
and dreariness of a great grief were upon her, and she was worn out.
The stillness of the great house was oppressive to her; and yet
she shrank from the knowledge that that stillness was soon to pass
away, that life would resume its accustomed course, and the dead be
forgotten. By all but her; to her his memory should be ever precious,
and his least wish sacred. Then she debated within herself how she
should fulfil his last request. There were difficulties in the way.
She could not tell Geoffrey to call on her yet, nor could she go to
his house. Then she remembered that he had not written to her. She had
forgotten, until then, that there had been no answer to the letter in
which she told Geoffrey Ludlow of Caterham's death. Could a letter have
come, and been overlooked? She rang for her maid and questioned her,
but she was positive no letter had been mislaid or forgotten. Several
papers lay on her writing-table; she turned them over, to satisfy
herself, though nothing could be more improbable than that she should
have overlooked a letter from her dear old friend. There was no such
thing. Puzzled and vaguely distressed, Annie stood looking at the heap
of notes, with her hands pressed on her throbbing temples; and her
maid entreated her to lie down and rest, commenting, as Lord Beauport
had done, upon her appearance. Annie complied; and the girl carefully
darkened the room and left her. For a while she lay still, thinking how
she was to convey the letter to Geoffrey, without delay, "as soon as
possible," Arthur had said; but she soon dropped into the dull heavy
sleep of grief and exhaustion.
It was late in the evening when she awoke, and she again eagerly
inquired for letters. There were none, and Annie's surprise grew into
uneasiness. She resolved to write to Ludlow again, to tell him that
she had something of importance to communicate, without indicating
its character. "He may tell Margaret, or not, as he pleases," she
thought "that is for him to decide. I daresay, if she sees my note,
she will not feel any curiosity or interest about it. Poor Geoffrey!"
And then the girl recalled all that Arthur had said of his suspicion
and distrust of Ludlow's beautiful wife, and thought sorrowfully how
large was his share in the loss they had sustained of such a friend.
Something must be wrong, she thought, or Geoffrey would surely have
written. In her sore grief she yearned for the true and ready sympathy
which she should have from him, and him alone. Stay; she would not only
write, she would send her maid to inquire for Geoffrey, and Margaret,
and the child. She could go early next morning in a cab, and be back
before breakfast-hour. So Annie made this arrangement, wrote her note,
got through a short hour or two in the great dreary drawing-room as
best she could, and once more cried herself to the merciful sleep which
in some degree strengthened her for the intelligence which awaited her
in the morning.
She was aroused by her maid, who came hurriedly to her bedside, holding
in her hand Annie's note to Ludlow. She started up, confused, yet
sufficiently awake to be startled at the look in the girl's face.
"What is it?" she said faintly.
"O Miss Annie, dreadful, dreadful news Mrs. Ludlow has gone away,
nobody knows where, and Mr. Ludlow is raving mad, in brain-fever!"
Lord Caterham's letter lay for many days undisturbed in the receptacle
in which Annie Maurice had placed it. Not yet was the confidence of
the dead to be imparted to the living. He was to read that letter in
time, and to learn from it much that the writer had never dreamed it
could convey. Little had the two, who had lived in so near and pleasant
an intimacy, dreamed of the fatal link which really, though unseen,
connected them. This was the letter which, in due time, Annie Maurice
deposited in Geoffrey's hands:
"MY DEAR LUDLOW,--I have felt for some time that for me 'the long
disease called life' is wearing toward its cure. Under this conviction
I am 'setting my house in order;' and to do so thoroughly, and enjoy
peace of mind for the brief space which will remain to me when that is
done, I must have recourse to your honest and trusty friendship. I have
to bequeath to you two services to be done for me, and one confidence
to be kept, until your discretion shall judge it expedient that it
should be divulged. These two services are distinct, but cognate; and
they concern one who is the dearest of all living creatures to me, and
for whom I know you entertain a sincere and warm affection--I allude
to Annie Maurice. The confidence concerns my unworthy brother, Lionel
Brakespere.
"In the fortune left her by Mr. Ampthill, Annie has security against
material ills, and is safe from the position of dependence, in which
I never could bear to feel she must remain. This is an immense relief
to my mind; but it has substituted a source of uneasiness, though of
considerably less dimensions, for that which it has removed. When
I wrote to you lately, asking you to come to me, it was with the
intention of speaking to you on this subject; but as our interview has
been accidentally prevented, I made up my mind to act in the matter
myself, as long as I live, and to bequeath action after my death to
you, as I am now doing. My brother is as worthless a man as there is on
the face of the earth--heartless, depraved, unprincipled to an almost
incredible degree, considering his early association with men and women
of character. You have, I daresay, heard vaguely of certain disgraceful
circumstances which forced him to leave the country, and which brought
immeasurable distress upon us all.
"I need not enter into these matters: they have little to do with
the thing that is pressing on my mind. If Lionel's vices had been
hidden from society ever so discreetly, I was sufficiently aware of
their existence to have shrunk with as much horror as I feel now from
the idea of his becoming Annie's husband. Let me preface what I am
about to say by assuring you that I do not entertain any such fear.
I know Annie; and I am perfectly assured that for her pure, upright,
intelligent, and remarkably clear-sighted nature such a man as
Lionel,--whose profound and cynical selfishness is not to be hidden by
external polish, and whose many vices have left upon him the _cachet_
which every pure woman feels instinctively, even though she does not
understand theoretically,--will never have any attraction. She knows
the nature of the transaction which drove him from England; and such a
knowledge would be sufficient protection for her, without the repulsion
which I am satisfied will be the result of association with him. I
would protect her from such association if I could, and while I live
I do not doubt my power to do so. It will be painful to me to use it;
but I do not mind pain for Annie's benefit. A sad estrangement always
existed between Lionel and me; an estrangement increased on his side by
contempt and dislike--which he expressed in no measured terms--but on
my part merely passive. The power which I possess to hinder his return
to this house was put into my hands by himself--more, I believe, to
wound me, and in the wanton malice and daring of his evil nature, than
for the reason he assigned; but it is effectual, and I shall use it,
as I can, without explanation. When I am gone, it needs be, some one
must be enabled to use this power in my stead; and that person, my dear
Ludlow, is you. I choose you for Annie's sake, for yours, and for my
own. My mother designs to marry Lionel to Annie, and thus secure to him
by marriage the fortune which his misconduct lost him by inheritance.
With this purpose in view, she has summoned Lionel to England, and she
proposes that he should return to this house. She and I have had a
painful explanation, and I have positively declared that it cannot and
shall not be. In order to convince her of the necessity of yielding
the point, I have told her that I am in possession of particulars of
Lionel's conduct, unknown to her and my father, which perfectly justify
me in my declaration; and I have entreated her, for the sake of her own
peace of mind, not to force me, by an attempt which can have no issue
but failure, to communicate the disgraceful particulars. Lady Beauport
has been forced to appear satisfied for the present; and matters are in
a state of suspense.
"But this cannot last, and with my life it will come to an end.
Lionel will return here, in my place, and bearing my name--the heir
to an earldom; and the follies and crimes of the younger son will be
forgotten. Still Annie Maurice will be no less a brilliant match, and
my mother will be no less anxious to bring about a marriage. I foresee
misery to Annie--genteel persecution and utter friendlessness--unless
you, Ludlow, come to her aid. With all its drawbacks, this is her
fitting home; and you must not propose that she should leave it without
very grave cause. But you must be in a position to preserve her from
Lionel; you must hold the secret in your hand, as I hold it, which
makes all schemes for such an accursed marriage vain--the secret which
will keep the house she will adorn free from the pollution of his
presence. When you hear that Lionel Brakespere is paying attention to
Annie under his father's roof, go to Lord Beauport, and tell him that
Lionel Brakespere is a married man.
"And now, my dear Ludlow, you know one of the services you are to do me
when I am gone; and you are in possession of the confidence I desire to
repose in you. To explain the other, I must give you particulars. When
my brother left England, he sent me, by the hands of a common friend, a
letter which he had written at Liverpool, and which, when I have made
you acquainted with its contents, I shall destroy. I do not desire to
leave its low ribaldry, its coarse contempt, its cynical wickedness, to
shock my poor father's eyes, or to testify against my brother when I am
gone.
"I enable you to expose him, in order to prevent unhappiness to one
dear to us both; but I have no vindictive feeling towards him, and
no eyes but mine must see the words in which he taunts me with the
physical afflictions to which he chooses to assign my 'notions of
morality' and 'superiority to temptation.' Enough--the facts which the
letter contains are these: As nearly as I can make out, four years
ago he met and tried to seduce a young lady, only eighteen years old,
at Tenby. Her virtue, I hope--he says her ambition--foiled him, and
he ran away with the girl and married her. He called himself Leonard
Brookfield; and she never knew his name or real position. He took her
abroad for a time; then brought her to London, where she passed for
his mistress among the men to whom he introduced her, and who were
aware that she had no knowledge of his identity. He had left the army
then, or of course she would have discovered it. When the crash came,
he had left her, and he coolly told me, as he had next to nothing for
himself, he had nothing for her. His purpose in writing to me was
to inform me, as especially interested in the preservation of the
family, that not only was there a wife in the case, but, to the best
of his belief, child also, to be born very soon; and as no one could
say what would become of him, it might be as well to ascertain where
the heir of the Beauports might be found, if necessary. He supposed I
would keep the matter a secret, until it should become advisable, if
ever, to reveal it. Mrs. Brakespere had no knowledge of her rights,
and could not, therefore, make herself obnoxious by claiming them.
If I chose to give her some help, I should probably be rewarded by
the consciousness of charity; but he advised me to keep the secret of
our relationship for my own sake: she was perfectly well known as his
mistress; and as they were both under a cloud at present, the whole
thing had better be kept as dark as possible. I read this letter with
the deepest disgust; the personal impertinence to myself I could afford
to disregard, and was accustomed to; but the utter baseness and villany
of it sickened me. This was the man who was to bear my father's name
and fill my father's place. I determined at once to afford assistance
to the wretched forsaken wife, and to wait and consider when and how
it would be advisable to bring about the acknowledgment of the truth
and her recognition. I thought of course only of simple justice. The
circumstances of the marriage were too much against the girl to enable
me to form any favourable opinion of her. I turned to the letter to
find her name and address; they were not given: of course this was only
an oversight; he must have intended to subjoin them. My perplexity was
extreme. How was I to discover this unhappy woman? I knew too well the
code of honour, as it is called, among men, to hope for help from any
of his dissolute friends; they would keep his evil secret--as they
believed it--faithfully.
"Algy Barford had brought me the letter, and on that occasion had
referred to his being 'no end chums' with Lionel. But he had also
declared that he knew nothing whatever of the contents of the letter.
Still he might know something of her. I put a question or two to him,
and found he did not. He had known a woman who lived with Lionel
for a short time, he believed, but she was dead. Clearly this was
another person. Then I determined to have recourse to the professional
finders-out of secrets, and I sent for Blackett. You have often seen
him leaving me as you came in, or waiting for me as you went out. The
day Mrs. Ludlow fainted, you remember, he was in the hall as you took
her to the carriage, and he asked me so many questions about her, that
I was quite amused at the idea of a detective being so enthusiastic.
The materials he had to work on were sparing indeed, and the absence of
all clue by name was very embarrassing. He went to work skilfully, I
am sure, though he failed. He went to Tenby, and there he ascertained
the name of the girl who had deserted her widowed mother for Leonard
Brookfield. The mother had been many months dead. This was little help,
for she had doubtless discarded the Christian name; and the personal
description was probably coloured by the indignation her conduct had
excited. Blackett learned that she was handsome, with red hair and blue
eyes,--some said black. He could get no certain information on that
point.
"But I need not linger over these details. No efforts were spared, yet
our search proved vain. When some time had elapsed, their direction
changed, and a woman and child were sought for: in every part of
London where destitution hides, in all the abodes of flaunting sin, in
hospitals, in refuges, in charitable institutions,--in vain. Sometimes
Blackett suggested that she might have taken another protector and
gone abroad; he made all possible inquiry. She had never communicated
with her home, or with any one who had formerly known her. I began to
despair of finding her; and I had almost made up my mind to relinquish
the search, when Blackett came to me one day, in great excitement for
him, and told me he was confident of finding her in a day or two at
the farthest. 'And the child?' I asked. No, he knew nothing of the
child; the woman he had traced, and whom he believed to be my brother's
deserted wife, had no child, had never had one, within the knowledge
of the people from whom he had got his information; nevertheless he
felt sure he was right this time, and the child might have died before
she came across them. She must have suffered terribly. Then he told
me his information came through a pawnbroker, of whom he had frequent
occasion to make inquiries. This man had shown him a gold locket, which
had evidently held a miniature, on the inside of which was engraved
'From Leonard to Clara,' and which had been pawned by a very poor but
respectable person, whose address, in a miserable lane at Islington,
he now gave to Blackett. He went to the place at once and questioned
the woman, who was only too anxious to give all the information in her
power in order to clear herself. She had received the locket in the
presence of two persons, from a young woman who had lodged with her,
and who had no other means of paying her. The young woman had gone away
a week before, she did not know where; she had no money, and only a
little bundle of clothes--a handkerchief full. She had no child, and
had never said any thing about one. The woman did not know her name.
She had taken a picture out of the locket She had red hair and dark
eyes. This was all. I shall never forget the wretched feeling which
came over me as I thought of the suffering this brief story implied,
and of what the wretched woman might since have undergone. I remember
so well, it was in January,--a dirty, wet, horrible day,--when Blackett
told me all this; and I was haunted with the idea of the woman dying
of cold and want in the dreadful streets. Blackett had no doubt of
finding her now; she had evidently fallen to the veriest pauperism,
and out of the lowest depths she would be drawn up, no doubt. So he
set to work at once, but all in vain. Dead or living, no trace of her
has ever been found; and the continuous search has been abandoned.
Blackett only 'bears it in mind' now. Once he suggested to me, that as
she was no doubt handsome, and not over particular, she might have got
a living by sitting to the painters, and 'I'll try that lay,' he said;
but nothing came of that either. I thought of it the day Annie and I
met you f, at the Private View, and if I had had the opportunity, would
have asked you if you knew such a face as the one we were only guessing
at, after all; but you were hurried, and the occasion passed; and when
we met again, Blackett had exhausted all sources of information in that
direction, and there was nothing to be learned.
"This is the story I had to tell you, Ludlow, and to leave to your
discretion to use when the time comes. Within the last week Blackett
has made further attempts, and has again failed. Lionel is in London;
but while I live he does not enter this house. I shall, after a while,
when I am able, which I am not now, let him know that search has been
unsuccessfully made for his wife, and demand that he shall furnish
me with any clue in his possession, under the threat of immediate
exposure. This, and every other plan, may be at any moment rendered
impossible by my death; therefore I write this, and entreat you to
continue the search until this woman be found, dead or living. So only
can Annie's home be made happy and reputable for her when I shall have
left it for ever. You will receive this from Annie's hands; a packet
addressed to her will not be neglected or thrown aside; and if it
becomes necessary for you to act for her, she will have the knowledge
of the confidence I repose in you to support her in her acceptance of
your interference and obedience to your advice. I confide her to you,
my dear Ludlow--as I said before--as the dearest living thing in all
the world to me.--Yours ever,
"CATERHAM."
CHAPTER V.
DISMAY.
Mrs. Ludlow and Til had concluded the meal which is so generally
advanced to a position of unnatural importance in a household devoid of
the masculine element _en permanence_; and, the tea-things having been
removed, the old lady, according to the established order, was provided
with a book, over which she was expected to fall comfortably asleep.
But she did not adhere to the rule of her harmless and placid life on
this particular occasion. The "cross" was there--no doubt about it; and
it was no longer indefinite in its nature, but very real, and beginning
to be very heavy. Under the pressure of its weight Geoffrey's mother
was growing indifferent to, even unobservant of, the small worries
which had formerly occupied her mind, and furnished the subject-matter
of her pardonable little querulousness and complaints--a grievance
in no way connected with the tradespeople, and uninfluenced by the
"greatest plagues in life"--which no reduction of duties involving
cheap groceries, and no sumptuary laws restraining servant-gal-ism
within limits of propriety in respect of curls and crinoline, had any
power to assuage,--had taken possession of her now, and she fidgeted
and fumed no longer, but was haunted by apprehension and sorely
troubled.
A somewhat forced liveliness on Til's part, and a marked avoidance of
the subject of Geoffrey, of whom, as he had just left them, it would
have been natural that the mother and daughter should talk, bore
witness to the embarrassment she felt, and increased Mrs. Ludlow's
depression. She sat in her accustomed arm-chair, but her head drooped
forward and her fingers tapped the arms in an absent manner, which
showed her pre-occupation of mind. Til at length took her needle-work,
and sat down opposite her mother, in a silence which was interrupted
after a considerable interval by the arrival of Charley Potts, who
had not altogether ceased to offer clumsy and violently-improbable
explanations of his visits, though such were rapidly coming to be
unnecessary.
On the present occasion Charley floundered through the preliminaries
with more than his usual impulsive awkwardness, and there was that in
his manner which caused Til (a quick observer, and especially so in his
case) to divine that he had something particular to say to her. If she
were right in her conjecture, it was clear that the opportunity must be
waited for,--until the nap, in which Mrs. Ludlow invariably indulged in
the evening, should have set in. The sooner the conversation settled
into sequence, the sooner this desirable event might be expected to
take place; so Til talked vigorously, and Charley seconded her efforts.
Mrs. Ludlow said little, until, just as Charley began to think the nap
was certainly coming, she asked him abruptly if he had seen Geoffrey
lately. Miss Til happened to be looking at Charley as the question was
put to him, and saw in a moment that the matter he had come to speak to
her about concerned her brother.
"No, ma'am," said Chancy; "none of us have seen Geoff lately. Bowker
and I have planned a state visit to him; he's as hard to get at as a
swell in the Government--with things to give away--what do you call
it?--patronage; but we're not going to stand it. We can't do without
Geoff. By the bye, how's the youngster, ma'am?"
"The child is very well, I believe," said Mrs. Ludlow, with a shake of
the head, which Charley Potts had learned to recognise in connection
with the "cross," but which he saw with regret on the present occasion.
"I'm afraid theyve heard something," he thought. "But," continued the
old lady querulously, "I see little of him, or of Geoffrey either.
Things are changed; I suppose it's all right, but it's not easy for
a mother to see it; and I don't think any mother would like to be
a mere visitor at her own son's house,--not that I am even much of
that now, Mr. Potts; for I am sure it's a month 'or more since ever I
have darkened the doors of Elm Lodge,--and I shouldn't so much mind
it, I hope, if it was for Geoffrey's good; but I can't think it's
that--" Here the old lady's voice gave way, and she left off with a
kind of sob, which went to Charley's soft heart and filled him with
inexpressible confusion. Til was also much taken aback, though she saw
at once that her mother had been glad of the opportunity of saying her
little say, under the influence of the mortification she had felt at
Geoffrey's silence on the subject of her future visits to Elm Lodge. He
had, as we have seen, made himself as delightful as possible in every
other respect; but he had been strictly reticent about Margaret, and
he had not invited his mother and sister to his house. She had been
longing to say all this to Til; and now she had got it out, in the
presence of a third party, who would "see fair" between her justifiable
annoyance and Til's unreasonable defence of her brother. Til covered
Charley's embarrassment by saying promptly, in a tone of extreme
satisfaction,
"Geoffrey was here to-day; he paid us quite a long visit."
"Did he?" said Charley; "and is he all right?"
"O yes," said Til, "he is very well; and he told us all about his
pictures; and, do you know, he's going to put baby and the nurse into
a corner group, among the people on the Esplanade,--only he must wait
till baby's back is stronger, and his neck leaves off waggling, so
as to paint him properly, sitting up nice and straight in nurse's
arms." And then Miss Til ran on with a great deal of desultory talk,
concerning Geoffrey, and his description of the presents, and what he
had said about Lord Caterham and Annie Maurice. Charley listened to her
with more seriousness than he usually displayed; and Mrs. Ludlow sighed
and shook her head at intervals, until, as the conversation settled
into a dialogue, she gradually dropped asleep. Then Til's manner
changed, and she lowered her voice, and asked Charley anxiously if he
had come to tell her any bad news.
"If you have," she said, "aid that it can be kept from mamma, tell it
at once, and let me keep it from her."
With much true delicacy and deep sympathy, Charley then related to
Til the scene which had taken place between himself, Bowker, and
Stompff,--and told her that Bowker had talked the matter over with
him and they had agreed that it was not acting fairly by Geoffrey to
allow him to remain in ignorance of the floating rumours, injurious
to his wife's character, which were rife among their friends. How
Stompff had heard of Margaret's having fainted in Lord Caterham's
room, Charley could not tell; that he had heard it, and had heard a
mysterious cause assigned to it, he knew. That he could have known
any thing about an incident apparently so trivial proved that the
talk had become tolerably general, and was tending to the injury of
Geoffrey, not only in his self...respect and in his feelings, but in
his prospects. Charley was much more alarmed and uneasy, and much more
grieved for Geoffrey, than even Bowker; for he had reason to fear that
no supposition derogatory to Margaret's antecedents could surpass the
reality. He alone knew where and how the acquaintance between Geoffrey
and Margaret had begun, and he was therefore prepared to estimate the
calamity of such a marriage correctly. He did not exactly know what
he had intended to say to Matilda Ludlow; he had come to the house
with a vague idea that something ought to be done;--that Til ought to
speak to her sister-in-law,--a notion which in itself proved Charley
Potts to be any thing but a wise man,--ought to point out to her
that her indifference to her husband was at once ungrateful to him
and shortsighted to her own interest; and that people, notably his
employer, were talking about it. Charley Potts was not exactly an adept
in reading character, and the real Margaret was a being such as he
could neither have understood nor believed in; therefore the crudity,
wildness, and inapplicability of this scheme were to be excused.
A very few words on his part served to open the susceptible heart
of Miss Til, especially as they had spoken on the subject, though
generally, before; and they were soon deep in the exchange of mutual
confidences. Til cried quietly, so as not to wake her mother; and it
distressed Charley very keenly to see her tears and to hear her declare
that her sister-in-law had not the slightest regard for her opinion;
that though perfectly civil to her, Margaret had met all her attempts
at sisterly intimacy with most forbidding coldness; and that she felt
sure any attempt to put their relation on a more familiar footing would
be useless.
"She must have been very badly brought up, I am sure," said Til. "We
don't know anything about her family; but I am sure she never learned
what the duties of a wife and mother are."
Charley looked admirably at Til as she sadly uttered this remark, and
his mind was divided between a vision of Til realising in the most
perfect manner the highest ideal of conjugal and maternal duty, and
speculating upon what might have been the polite fiction presented by
Geoffrey to his mother and sister as an authentic history of Margaret's
parentage and antecedents.
"Did Geoffrey seem cheerful and happy to-day?" he asked, escaping off
the dangerous ground of questions which he could have answered only too
completely.
"Well," replied Til, "I can't say he did. He talked and laughed, and
all that; but I could see that he was uneasy and unhappy. How much
happier he was when we were all together, in the days which seem so far
off now!"
At this point the conversation became decidedly sentimental; for
Charley, while carefully maintaining that true happiness was only
to be found in the married state, was equally careful to state his
opinion that separation from Til must involve a perfectly incomparable
condition of misery; and altogether matters were evidently reaching
a climax. Matilda Ludlow was an unaffected honest girl: she knew
perfectly well that Charley loved her, and she had no particular
objection to his selecting this particular occasion on which to tell
her so. But Til and Charley were not to part that evening in the
character of affianced lovers; for in one of those significant pauses
which precede important words, cab-wheels rolled rapidly up to the
little gate, hurried footsteps ran along the flagged path, and a loud
knock and ring at the door impatiently demanded attention.
Mrs. Ludlow awoke with a violent start: Charley and Til looked at each
other. The door was opened, and a moment later the cook from Elm Lodge
was in the room, and had replied to Charley's hurried question by the
statement that her master was very ill, and she had been sent to fetch
Miss Ludlow.
"Very ill! has any accident happened?" they all questioned the woman,
who showed much feeling--all his dependents loved Geoffrey--and the
confusion was so great, that it was some minutes before they succeeded
in learning what actually had happened. That Geoffrey had returned home
as usual; had gone to the nursery, and played with the child and talked
to the nurse as usual; had gone to his painting-room; and had not again
been seen by the servants, until the housemaid had found him lying on
the hearth-rug an hour before, when they had sent for Dr. Brandram, and
that gentleman had despatched the cook to bring Miss Ludlow.
"Did Mrs. Ludlow tell you to come?" asked Til.
To this question the woman replied that her mistress was not at home.
She had been out the greater part of the day, had returned home some
time later than Mr. Ludlow, and had kept the cab waiting for an hour;
then she had gone away again, and had not returned when the cook had
been sent on her errand. Charley Potts exchanged looks of undisguised
alarm with Til at this portion of the woman's narrative, and, seeing
that reserve would now be wholly misplaced, he questioned her closely
concerning Mrs. Ludlow. She had nothing to tell, however, beyond that
the housemaid had said her master and mistress had been together in the
dining-room, and, surprised that dinner had not been ordered up, she
had gone thither; but hearing her mistress speaking "rather strangely,"
she had not knocked at the door. The servants had wondered at the
delay, she said, not understanding why their master should go without
his dinner because Mrs. Ludlow was not at home, and had at length found
him as she described.
"Did Mrs. Ludlow often go out in this way?" asked Mr. Potts.
"No, sir, never," said the woman. "I never knew my mistress leave my
master alone before, sir; and I am afraid something has took place
between them."
The distress and bewilderment of the little party were extreme.
Manifestly there was but one thing to be done; Til must obey the
doctor's summons, and repair immediately to her brother's house. He was
very ill indeed, the cook said, and quite "off his head;" he did not
talk much, but what he did say was all nonsense; and Dr. Brandram had
said it was the beginning of brain-fever. Charley and Til were both
surprised at the firmness and collectedness manifested by Mrs. Ludlow
under this unexpected trial. She was very pale and she trembled very
much, but she was quite calm and quiet when she told Til that she must
put up such articles of clothing as she would require for a few days,
as it was her intention to go to her son and to remain with him.
"I am the fittest person, my dear," said the old lady. "If it be only
illness that ails him, I know more about it than you do; if it is
sorrow also, and sorrow of the kind I suspect, I am fitter to hear it
and act in it than you."
It was finally agreed that they should both go to Geoffrey's house
and that Til should return home in the morning; for even in this
crisis Mrs. Ludlow could not quite forget her household gods, and to
contemplate them bereft at once of her own care and that of Til would
have been too grievous; so they started--the three women in the cab,
and Charley Potts on the box, very silent, very gloomy, and not even in
his inmost thoughts approaching the subject of a pipe.
It was past ten when Geoffrey Ludlow's mother and sister reached the
house which had seen such terrible events since they had visited it
last. Already the dreary neglected air which settles over every room
in a dwelling invaded by serious illness, except the one which is the
scene of suffering, had come upon it. Four hours earlier all was bright
and cheerful, well cared for and orderly; now, though the disarray was
not material, it was most expressive. Mrs. Geoffrey Ludlow had not
returned; the doctor had gone away, but was coming back as soon as
possible, having left one of the servants by Geoffrey's bedside, with
orders to apply wet linen to his temples without intermission. Geoffrey
was quiet now--almost insensible, they thought. Mrs. Ludlow and Til
went to the sick-room at once, and Charley Potts turned disconsolately
into the dining-room, where the cloth was still laid, and the chairs
stood about in disorder--one, which Geoffrey had knocked down, lay
unheeded on the ground. Charley picked it up, sat down upon it, and
leaned his elbows disconsolately on the table.
"It's all up, I'm afraid," said he to himself; "and she's off with the
other fellow, whoever he is. Well, well, it will either kill Geoff
outright or break his heart for the rest of his life. At all events,
there couldn't have been much good in her if she didn't like Til."
After some time Dr. Brandram arrived, and Charley heard him ask the
servant whether Mrs. Ludlow had returned, and heard her reply that her
mistress was still absent, but Mrs. Ludlow and her daughter had come,
and were in her master's room. The doctor went upstairs immediately,
and Charley still waited in the parlour, determined to waylay him has
he came down.
Geoffrey was dangerously ill, there was no doubt of that, though his
mother's terror magnified danger into hopelessness, and refused to be
comforted by Dr. Brandram's assurance that no living man for certain
could tell how things would be. She met the doctor's inquiry about
Margaret with quiet reserve: she did not expect her daughter-in-law's
return that evening, she said; but she and Miss Ludlow were prepared
to remain. It was very essential that they should do so, Dr. Brandram
assured her; and on the following day he would procure a professional
nurse. Then he made a final examination of his patient, gave the ladies
their instructions, observed with satisfaction the absence of fuss, and
the quiet self-subduing alacrity of Til, and went downstairs, shaking
his head and wondering, to be pounced upon in the little hall by the
impulsive Charley, who drew him into the dining-room, and poured out a
torrent of questions. Dr. Brandram was disposed to be a little reserved
at first, but unbent when Charley assured him that he and Geoffrey
were the most intimate friends--"Brothers almost," said Mr. Potts in
a conscious tone, which did not strike the doctor. Then he told his
anxious interlocutor that Geoffrey was suffering from brain-fever,
which he supposed to be the result of a violent shock, but of what kind
he could form no idea; and then he said something, in a hesitating sort
of way, about "domestic affairs."
"It is altogether on the mind, then," said Charley. "In that case, no
one can explain any thing but himself."
"Precisely so," said Dr. Brandram; "and it may, it most probably
will, be a considerable time before he will be able to give us any
explanation of any thing, and before it would be safe to ask him for
any. In the mean time,--but no doubt Mrs. Ludlow will return, and--"
"I don't think she will do any thing of the kind," said Charley Potts
in a decisive tone; "and, in fact, doctor, I think it would be well to
say as little as possible about her."
Dr. Brandram looked at Mr. Potts with an expression intended to be
knowing, but which was in reality only puzzled, and assuring him of his
inviolable discretion, departed. Charley remained at Elm Lodge until
after midnight, and then, finding that he could be of no service to the
watchers, sorrowfully wended his way back to town on foot.
Wearily dragged on the days in the sick man's room, where he lay racked
and tormented by fever, and vaguely oppressed in mind. His mother and
sister tended him with unwearied assiduity, and Dr. Brandram called
in further medical advice. Geoffrey's life hung in the balance for
many days--days during which the terror his mother and Til experienced
are not to be told. The desolate air of he house deepened; the
sitting-rooms were quite deserted now. All the bright pretty furniture
which Geoff had bought for the delectation of his bride, all the little
articles of use and ornament peculiarly associated with Margaret,
were dust-covered, and had a ghostly seeming. Charley Potts--who
passed a great deal of his time moping about Elm Lodge, too thankful
to be permitted on the premises, and occasionally to catch a glimpse
of Til's figure, as she glided noiselessly from the sick-room to the
lower regions in search of some of the innumerable things which are
always being wanted in illness and are never near at hand--occasionally
strolled into the painting-room, and lifting the cover which had been
thrown over it, looked sadly at "The Esplanade at Brighton," and
wondered whether dear old Geoff would ever paint baby's portrait among
that group in the left-hand corner.
The only member of the household who pursued his usual course of
existence was this same baby. Unconscious alike of the flight of his
mother and the illness, nigh unto death, of his father, the child
throve apace, and sometimes the sound of his cooing, crowing voice,
coming through the open doors into the room where his grandmother sat
and looked into the wan haunted face of her son, caused her unspeakable
pangs of sorrow and compassion. The child "took to" Til wonderfully,
and it is impossible to tell the admiration with which the soul of
Charley Potts was filled, as he saw the motherly ways of the young lady
towards the little fellow, happily unconscious that he did not possess
a mother's love.
Of Margaret nothing was heard. Mrs. Ludlow and Til were utterly
confounded by the mystery which surrounded them. She made no sign from
the time she left the house. Their ignorance of the circumstances
of her departure was so complete, that they could not tell whether
to expect her to do so or not. Her dresses and ornaments were all
undisturbed in the drawers in the room where poor Geoffrey lay, and
they did not know whether to remove them or not. She had said to
Geoffrey, "Whatever I actually require I will send for;" but they
did not know this, and she never had sent. The centre of the little
system--the chief person in the household--the idolised wife--she had
disappeared as utterly as if her existence had been only a dream. The
only person who could throw any light on the mystery was, perhaps,
dying--at all events, incapable of recollection, thought, or speech. It
"got about" in the neighbourhood that Mr. Ludlow was dangerously ill,
and that his mother and sister were with him, but his beautiful wife
was not; whereat the neighbourhood, feeling profoundly puzzled, merely
looked unutterably wise, and had always thought there was something
odd in that quarter. Then the neighbourhood called to enquire and to
condole, and was very pointed in its hopes that Mrs. Geoffrey Ludlow
was "bearing up well," and very much astonished to receive for answer,
"Thank you ma'am; but missis is not at home." Mrs. Ludlow knew nothing
of all this, and Til, who did know, cared nothing; but it annoyed
Charley Potts, who beard and saw a good deal from his post of vantage
in the dining-room window, and who relieved his feelings by swearing
under his breath, and making depreciatory comments upon the personal
appearance of the ladies as they approached the house, with their faces
duly arranged to the sympathetic pattern.
It chanced that, on one occasion, when Geoffrey had been about ten
days ill, Til came down to the dining-room to speak to the faithful
Charley, carrying the baby on one arm, and in her other hand a bundle
of letters. Charley took the child from her as a matter of course; and
the youthful autocrat graciously sanctioning the arrangement, the two
began to talk eagerly of Geoffrey. Til was looking very pale and weary,
and Charley was much moved by her appearance.
"I tell you what it is," he said, "you'll kill yourself, whether
Geoffrey lives or dies." He spoke in a tone suggestive of feeling
himself personally injured, and Til was not too far gone to blush and
smile faintly as she perceived it.
"O no, I sha'n't," she said. "I'm going to lie down all this afternoon
in the night-nursery. Mamma is asleep now, and Geoffrey is quite quiet,
though the nurse says she sees no change for the better, no real change
of any kind indeed. And so I came down to ask you what you think I
had better do about these letters." She laid them on the table as she
spoke. "I don't think they are business letters, because you have taken
care to let all Geoffrey's professional friends know, haven't you,
Charley?"
Charley thrilled; she had dropped unconsciously, in the intimacy of a
common sorrow, into calling him by his Christian name, but the pleasure
it gave him had by no means worn off yet.
"Yes," he said; "and you have no notion what a state they are all in
about dear old Geoff. I assure you they all envy me immensely, because
I can be of some little use to you. They don't come here, you know,
because that would be no use--only making a row with the door-bell,
and taking up the servants' time; but every day they come down to my
place, or write me notes, or scribble their names on the door, with
fat notes of interrogation after them, if I'm not at home. That means,
'How's dear old Geoff? send word at once.' Why, there's Stompff--I told
you he was a beast, didn't I? Well, he's not half a beast, I assure
you; he is in such a way about Geoff; and, upon my word, I don't think
it's all because he is worth no end of money to him,--I don't indeed.
He is mercenary, of course, but not always and not altogether; and he
really quite got over me yesterday by the way he talked of Geoffrey,
and wanted to know if there was any thing in the world he could do. Any
thing in the world, according to Stompff, meant any thing in the way of
money, I suppose; an advance upon the 'Esplanade,' or something of that
sort."
"Yes, I suppose it did," said Til; "but we don't want money. Mamma has
plenty to go on with until--" here her lipquivered,--"until Geoffrey
can understand and explain things. It's very kind of Mr. Stompff,
however, and I'm glad he's not quite a beast," said the young lady
simply. "But, Charley, about these letters; what should I do?"
At this point the baby objected to be any longer unnoticed, and was
transferred to Til, who walked up and down the room with the injured
innocent, while Charley turned over the letters, and looked at their
superscriptions.
"You are sure there is no letter from his wife among these?" said
Charley.
"O no!" replied Til; "I know Margaret's hand well; and I have examined
all the letters carefully every day. There has never been one from her."
"Here are two with the same monogram, and the West-end district mark; I
think they must be from Miss Maurice. If these letters can be made out
to mean any thing, they are A.M. And see, one is plain, and one has a
deep black edge."
Til hurried up to the table. "I hope Lord Caterham is not dead," she
said! "I have heard Geoffrey speak of him with great regard; and only
the day he was taken ill, he said he feared the poor fellow was going
fast."
"I think we had better break the seal and see," said Charley; "Geoff
would not like any neglect in that quarter."
He broke the seal as he spoke, and read the melancholy note which Annie
had written to Geoffrey when Arthur died, and which had never received
an answer.
Charley Potts and Til were much shocked and affected at the
intelligence which the note contained.
"I haven't cared about the papers since Geoff has been ill, or I
suppose I should have seen the announcement of Lord Caterham's death,
though I don't particularly care for reading about the swells at any
time," said Charley. "But how nicely she writes to Geoffrey, poor girl!
I am sure she will be shocked to hear of his illness, and you must
write to her,--h'm,--Til. What do you say to writing, and letting me
take your letter to-morrow myself? Then she can ask me any questions
she likes, and you need not enter into any painful explanations."
Til was eminently grateful for this suggestion which she knew was
dictated by the sincerest and most disinterested wish to spare her; for
to Charley the idea of approaching the grandeur of St. Barnabas Square,
and the powdered pomposity of the lordly flunkeys, was, as she well
knew, wholly detestable. So it was arranged that Charley should fulfil
this mission early on the following day, before he presented himself at
Elm Lodge. The baby was sent upstairs, Til wrote her note, and Charley
departed very reluctantly, stipulating that Til should at once fulfil
her promise of lying down in the nursery.
When, on the ensuing morning, Miss Maurice's maid reached Elm Lodge,
the servants communicated to her the startling intelligence, which she
roused Annie from her sleep to impart to her, without any reference
to Mrs. Ludlow and Til, who were not aware for some time that Miss
Maurice had sent to make inquiries. On his arrival at St. Barnabas
Square, Charley Potts was immediately admitted to Annie's presence,
and the result of the interview was that she arrived at Elm Lodge
escorted by that gentleman, whose embarrassment under the distinguished
circumstances was extreme, before noon. She knew from Charley's report
that it would be quite in vain to take Caterham's letter with her; that
it must be long ere it should meet the eyes for which it was written,
if ever it were to do so, and it remained still undisturbed in her
charge. So Annie Maurice shared the sorrow and the fear of Geoffrey's
mother and sister, and discussed the mystery that surrounded the
calamities which had befallen them, perfectly unconscious that within
reach of her own hand lay the key to the enigma.
CHAPTER VI.
A CLUE.
Written by a dying hand, the letter addressed by Lord Caterham
to Geoffrey Ludlow was read when the doctors would scarcely have
pronounced its recipient out of the jaws of death. Gaunt, wan, hectic;
with great bistre-rings round his big eyes, now more prominent than
ever; with his shapely white hands now almost transparent in their
thinness; with his bushy beard dashed here and there with gray patches;
and with O such a sense of weariness and weakness,--old Geoff,
stretched supine on his bed, demanded news of Margaret. They had none
to give him: told him so--at first gently, then reiterated it plainly;
but he would not believe it. They must know something of her movements;
some one must have been there to tell him where she was; something must
have been heard of her. To all these questions negative answers. Then,
as his brain cleared and his strength increased--for, except under both
of these conditions, such a question would not have occurred to him--he
asked whether, during his illness, there had been any communication
from Lord Beauport's house. A mystery then--a desire to leave it over,
until Miss Maurice's next call, which happened the next day, when
Caterham's letter, intact, was handed to him.
That letter lay on a chair by Geoffrey's bedside the whole of that
afternoon. To clutch it, to look at it, to hold it, with its seal yet
unbroken, before his eyes, he had employed such relics of strength as
remained to him; but he dared not open it. He felt that he could give
no explanation of his feelings; but he felt that if he broke that seal,
and read what was contained in that letter, all his recent tortures
would return with tenfold virulence: the mocking demons that had sat
on his bed and sneered at him; the fiery serpents that had uncoiled
themselves between him and the easel on which stood the picture which
urgent necessity compelled him to work at; the pale fair form, misty
and uncertain generally, yet sometimes with Margaret's hair and eyes,
that so constantly floated across his vision, and as constantly eluded
his outstretched arms,--all these phantasms of his fevered brain
would return again. And yet, in it, in that sheet of paper lying so
temptingly near to his pillow, there was news of her! He had but to
stretch out his hand, and he should learn how far, at least, her story
was known to the relatives of him who---- The thought in itself was too
much; and Geoffrey swooned off. When he recovered, his first thought
was of the letter; his first look to assure himself that it had not
been removed. No, there it lay I He could resist the temptation no
longer; and, raising himself on his elbow, he opened and read it.
The effect of the perusal of that letter on Geoffrey Ludlow none
knew but himself. The doctors found him "not quite so well" for the
succeeding day or two, and thought that his "tone" was scarcely so good
as they had been led to anticipate; certain it was that he made no
effort to rouse himself, and that, save occasionally, when spoken to
by Til, he remained silent and preoccupied. On the third day he asked
Til to write to Bowker, and beg him to come to him at once. Within
twenty-four hours that worthy presented himself at Elm Lodge.
After a few words with Til downstairs, Mr. Bowker was shown up to
Geoffrey's room, the door of which Til opened, and, when Mr. Bowker
had entered, shut it behind him. The noise of the closing door roused
Geoffrey, and he turned in his bed, and, looking up, revealed such a
worn and haggard face, that old Bowker stopped involuntarily, and drew
a long breath, as he gazed on the miserable appearance of his friend.
There must have been something comical in the rueful expression of
Bowker's face, for old Geoff smiled feebly, as he said,
"Come in, William; come in, old friend! Ive had a hard bout of it, old
fellow, since you saw me; but there's no danger now--no infection, I
mean, or any thing of that kind."
Geoff spoke haphazard; but what he had said was the best thing to
restore Mr. Bowker to himself.
"Your William's fever-proof;" he growled out in reply, "and don't fear
any nonsense of that kind; and if he did, it's not that would keep
him away from a friend's bedside. I should have been here--that is,
if you'd have let me; and, oddly enough, though I'm such a rough old
brute in general, I'm handy and quiet in times of sickness,--at least
so Ive been told;" and here Bowker stifled a great sigh. "But the first
I heard of your illness was from your sister's letter, which I only got
this morning."
"Give me your hand, William; I know that fast enough. But I didn't
need any additional nursing. Til and the old lady--God bless
them!--have pulled me through splendidly, and--But I'm beyond nursing
now, William; what I want is--" and Geoff's voice failed him, and he
stopped.
Old Bowker eyed him with tear-blurred vision for a moment, and then
said, "What you want is--"
"Don't mind me just now, William; I'm horribly weak, and girlish, and
trembling, but I shall get to it in time. What I want is, some man,
some friend, to whom I can talk openly and unreservedly,--whose advice
and aid I can seek, in such wretchedness as, I trust, but few have
experienced."
It was a good thing that Geoffrey's strength had in some degree
returned, for Bowker clutched his hand in an iron grip, as in a dull
low voice, he said, "Do you remember my telling you the story of my
life? Why did I tell you that? Not for sympathy, but for example. I saw
the rock on to which you were drifting, and hoped to keep you clear. I
exposed the sadness of my life to you when the game was played out and
there was no possibility of redemption. I can't tell what strait you
may be in; but if I can help you out of it, there is no mortal thing I
will not do to aid you."
As well as he could Geoff returned the pressure; then, after a moment's
pause, said, "You know, of course, that my wife has left me?"
Bowker bowed in acquiescence.
"You know the circumstances?"
"I know nothing, Geoff, beyond the mere fact. Whatever talk there may
be among such of the boys as I drop in upon now and then, if it turned
upon you and your affairs, save in the matter of praising your art, it
would be certain to be hushed as soon as I stepped in amongst them.
They knew our intimacy, and they are by far too good fellows to say any
thing that would pain me. So that beyond the mere fact which you have
just stated, I know nothing."
Then in a low weak voice, occasionally growing full and powerful under
excitement, and subsiding again into its faint tone, Geoffrey Ludlow
told to William Bowker the whole history of his married life, beginning
with his finding Margaret on the doorstep, and ending by placing in
his friend's hands the posthumous letter of Lord Caterham. Throughout
old Bowker listened with rapt attention to the story, and when he came
back from the window, to which he had stepped for the perusal of the
letter, Geoffrey noticed that there were big tears rolling down his
cheeks. He was silent for a minute or two after he had laid the letter
on Geoffrey's bed; when he spoke, he said, "We're a dull lot, the
whole race of us; and that's the truth. We pore over our own twopenny
sorrows, and think that the whole army of martyrs could not show such a
specimen as ourselves. Why, Geoff, dear old man, what was my punishment
to yours! What was,--but, however, I need not talk of that. You want my
services--say how."
"I want your advice first, William. I want to know how to--how to find
my wife--for, O, to me she is my wife; how to find Margaret. You'll
blame me probably, and tell me that I am mad--that I ought to cast her
off altogether, and to--But I cannot do that, William; I cannot do
that; for I love her--O my God, how I love her still!" And Geoffrey
Ludlow hid his face in his arms, and wept like a child.
"I shan't blame you, Geoff, nor tell you any thing of the kind,"
said old Bowker, in a deep low voice. "I should have been very much
surprised if--However, that's neither here nor there. What we want is
to find her now. You say there's not been the slightest clue to her
since she left this house?"
"Not the slightest."
"She has not sent for any thing--clothes, or any thing?"
"For nothing, as I understand."
"She has not sent,--you see, one must understand these things, Geoff;
all our actions will be guided by them,--she has not sent to ask about
the child?"
Geoff shuddered for an instant, then said, "She has not."
"That simplifies our plans," said Bowker. "It is plain now that we have
only one chance of discovering her whereabouts."
"And that is--"
"Through Blackett the detective, the man mentioned in Lord Caterham's
letter. He must be a sharp fellow; for through the sheer pursuance of
his trade, and without the smallest help, he must have been close upon
her trail, even up to the night when you met her and withdrew her from
the range of his search. If he could learn so much unaided, he will
doubtless be able to strike again upon her track with the information
we can give him."
"There's no chance of this man--this Captain Brakespere, having--I
mean--now he's back, you know--having taken means to hide her
somewhere--where--one couldn't find her, you know?" said Geoffrey,
hesitatingly.
"If your William knows any thing of the world," replied Bowker,
"there's no chance of Captain Thingummy having taken the least trouble
about her. However, I'll go down to Scotland Yard and see what is to be
made of our friend Inspector Blackett. God bless you, old boy! You know
if she is to be found, I'll do it."
They are accustomed to odd visitors in Scotland Yard; but the
police-constables congregated in the little stone hall stared the next
day when Mr. Bowker pushed open the swing-door, and calmly planting
himself among them, ejaculated "Blackett." Looking at his beard, his
singular garb, and listening to his deep voice, the sergeant to whom he
was referred at first thought he was a member of some foreign branch
of the force; then glancing at the general wildness of his demeanour,
had a notion that he was one of the self-accused criminals who are so
constantly forcing themselves into the grasp of justice, and who are
so impatient of release; and finally, comprehending what he wanted,
sent him, under convoy of a constable, through various long corridors,
into a cocoa-nut-matted room furnished with a long green-baize-covered
table, on which were spread a few sheets of blotting-paper, and a
leaden inkstand, and the walls of which were adorned with a printed
tablet detailing the disposition of the various divisions of the
police-force, and the situation of the fire-escapes in the metropolis,
and a fly-blown Stationers' Almanac. Left to himself, Mr. Bowker had
scarcely taken stock of these various articles, when the door opened,
and Mr. Inspector Blackett, edging his portly person through the very
small aperture which he had allowed himself for ingress, entered the
room, and closed the door stealthily behind him.
"Servant, sir," said he, with a respectful bow, and a glance at
Bowker, which took in the baldness of his head, the thickness of his
beard, the slovenliness of his apparel, and the very shape of his
boots,--"servant, sir. You asked for me?"
"I did, Mr. Blackett. Ive come to ask your advice and assistance in
a rather delicate manner, in which you've already been engaged--Lord
Caterham's inquiry."
"O, beg pardon, sir. Quite right. Friend of his lordship's, may I ask,
sir?"
"Lord Caterham is dead, Mr.--"
"Quite right, sir; all right, sir. Right to be cautious in these
matters; don't know who you are, sir. If you had not known that fact,
must have ordered you out, sir. Imposter, of course. All on the square,
Mr.--beg pardon; didn't mention your name, sir."
"My name is Bowker. To a friend of mine, too ill now to follow the
matter himself; Lord Caterham on his deathbed wrote a letter, detailing
the circumstances under which he had employed you in tracing a young
woman. That friend has himself been very ill, or he would have pursued
this matter sooner. He now sends me to ask whether you have any news?"
"Beg pardon, sir; can't be too cautious in this matter. What may be the
name of that friend?"
"Ludlow--Mr. Geoffrey Ludlow."
"Right you are, sir! Know the name well; have seen Mr. Ludlow at his
lordship's; a pleasant gentleman too, sir, though not given me the
idea of one to take much interest in such a business as this. However,
I see we're all square on that point, sir; and I'll report to you as
exactly as I would to my lord, if he'd been alive--feeling, of course,
that a gentleman's a gentleman, and that an officer's trouble will be
remunerated--"
"You need not doubt that, Mr. Blackett."
"I don't doubt it, sir; more especially when you hear what I have got
to tell. It's been a wearing business, Mr. Bowker, and that I don't
deny; there have been many cases which I have tumbled-to quicker, and
have been able to lay my finger upon parties quicker but this has been
a long chase; and though other members of the force has chaffed me, as
it were, wanting to know when I shall be free for any thing else, and
that sort of thing, there's been that excitement in it that Ive never
regretted the time bestowed, and felt sure I should hit at it last. My
ideas has not been wrong in that partic'ler, Mr. Bowker; I _have_ hit
it at last!"
"The devil you have!"
"I have indeed, sir; and hit it, as has cur'ously happened in my best
cases, by a fluke. It was by the merest fluke that I was at Radley's
Hotel in Southampton and nobbled Mr. Sampson Hepworth, the absconding
banker of Lombard Street, after Daniel Forester and all the city-men
had been after him for six weeks. It was all a fluke that I was
eatin' a Bath-bun at Swindon when the clerk that did them Post-office
robberies tried to pass one of the notes to the refreshment gal. It was
all a fluke that I was turning out of Grafton Street, after a chat with
the porter of the Westminster Club,--which is an old officer of the G's
and a pal of mine,--into Bond Street, when I saw a lady that I'd swear
to, if description's any use, though I never see her before, comin' out
of Long's Hotel."
"A lady!--Long's Hotel!"
"A lady a-comin' out of Long's Hotel. A lady with--not to put too
fine a point upon it--red hair and fine eyes and a good figure; the
very moral of the description I got at Tenby and them other places. I
twigged all this before she got her veil down and I said to myself,
Blackett, that's your bird, for a hundred pound."
"And were you right? Was it--"
"Wait a minute, sir: let's take the things in the order in which they
naturally present themselves. She hailed a cab and jumped in, all of
a tremble like, as I could see. I hailed another--hansom mine was;
and I give the driver the office, which he tumbled-to at once--most
of the West-enders knows me; and we follows the other until he turned
up a little street in Nottin' 'Ill, and I, marking where she got out,
stopped at the end of it. When she'd got inside, I walked up and took
stock of the house, which was a litle milliner's and stay-shop. It was
cur'ous, wasn't, it, sir," said Mr. Blackett, with a grave professional
smile, "that my good lady should want a little job in the millinery
line done for her just then, and that she should look round into that
very shop that evening, and get friendly with the missis, which was a
communicative kind of woman, and should pay her a trifle in advance,
and should get altogether so thick as to be asked in to take a cup
of tea in the back-parlour, and get a-talking about the lodger? Once
in, I'll back my old lady against any ferret that was ever showed at
Jemmy Welsh's. She hadn't had one cup of tea before she know'd all
about the lodger; how she was the real lady, but dull and lonesome
like; how she'd sit cryin' and mopin' all day; how she'd no visitors
and no letters; and how her name was Lambert, and her linen all marked
M. L. She'd only been there a day ortwo then, and as she'd scarcely
any luggage, the milliner was doubtful about her money. My good lady
came back that night, and told me all this, and I was certain our bird
was caged. So I put one of our men regular to sweep a crossin' during
the daytime, and I communicated with the sergeant of the division to
keep the house looked after at night. But, Lor' bless you, she's no
intention of goin' away. Couldn't manage it, I think, if she had; for
my missis, who's been up several times since, says the milliner says
her lodger's in a queer way, she thinks."
"How do you mean in a queer way?" interrupted Bowker; "ill?"
"Well, not exactly ill, I think, sir. I can't say exactly how, for
the milliner's rather a stupid woman; and it wouldn't do for my
missis--though she'd find it out in a minute--to see the lady. As far
as I can make out, it's a kind of fits, and she seems to have had 'em
pretty bad--off her head for hours at a time, you know. It's rather
cornered me, that has, as I don't exactly know how to act in the case;
and I went round to the Square to tell his lordship, and then found out
what had happened. I was thinking of asking to see the Hearl--"
"The what, Mr. Blackett?"
"The Hearl--Hearl Beauport, his lordship's father. But now you've come,
sir, you'll know what to do, and what orders to give me."
"Yes, quite right," said Bowker, after a moment's consideration.
"You must not see Lord Beauport; he's in a sad state of mind still,
and any further worry might be dangerous. You've done admirably, Mr.
Blackett,--admirably indeed; and your reward shall be proportionate,
you may take my word for that; but I think it will be best to leave
matters as they are until--at all events, until I have spoken to my
friend. The name was Lambert, I think you said; and what was the
address?"
"No. 102, Thompson Street, just beyond Nottin'-'Ill Gate; milliner's
shop, name of Chapman. Beg your pardon, sir, but this is a pretty case,
and one as has been neatly worked up; you won't let it be spoilt by any
amatoors?"
"Eh?--by what? I don't think I understand you."
"You won't let any one go makin' inquiries on their own hook? So many
of our best cases is spoilt by amatoors shovin' their oars in."
"You may depend on that, Mr. Blackett; the whole credit of the
discovery is justly due to you, and you shall have it. Now good day to
you; I shall find you here, I suppose, when next I want you?"
Mr. Blackett bowed, and conducted his visitor through the
hollow-sounding corridors, and bade him a respectful farewell at the
door. Then, when William Bowker was alone, he stopped, and shook his
head sorrowfully, muttering, "A bad job, a bad job! God help you,
Geoff, my poor fellow! there's more trouble in store for you--more
trouble in store!"
CHAPTER VII.
TRACKED.
The news which Mr. William Bowker had heard from Inspector Blackett
troubled its recipient considerably, and it was not until he had
thought it over deeply and consumed a large quantity of tobacco in
the process, that he arrived at any settled determination as to what
was the right course to be pursued by him. His first idea was to make
Geoffrey Ludlow acquainted with the whole story, and let him act as he
thought best; but a little subsequent reflection changed his opinion on
this point. Geoff was very weak in health, certainly in no fit state to
leave his bed; and yet if he heard that Margaret was found, that her
address was known, above all that she was ill, Bowker knew him well
enough to be aware that nothing would prevent him at once setting out
to see her, and probably to use every effort to induce her to return
with him. Such a course would be bad in every way, but in the last
respect it would be fatal. For one certain reason Bowker had almost
hoped that nothing more might ever be heard of the wretched woman who
had fallen like a curse upon his friend's life. He knew Geoffrey Ludlow
root and branch, knew how thoroughly weak he was, and felt certain
that, no matter how grievous the injury which Margaret had done him, he
had but to see her again--to see her more especially in sickness and
misfortune--to take her back to his heart and to his hearth, and defy
the counsel of his friends and the opinion of the world. That would
never do. Geoff had been sufficiently dragged down by this unfortunate
infatuation; but he had a future which should be independent of her,
undimmed by any tarnish accruing to him from those wondrous misspent
days. So old Bowker firmly believed; and to accomplish that end he
determined that none of Inspector Blackett's news should find its way
to Geoffrey's ears, at all events until he, Bowker, had personally made
himself acquainted with the state of affairs.
It must have been an impulse of the strongest friendship and love for
Geoff that induced William Bowker to undertake this duty; for it was
one which inspired him with aversion, not to say horror. At first
he had some thoughts of asking Charley Potts to do it; but then he
bethought him that Charley, headstrong, earnest, and impulsive as he
was, was scarcely the man to be intrusted with such a delicate mission.
And he remembered, moreover, that Charley was now to a great extent
_lié_ with Geoff's family, that he had been present at Geoff's first
meeting with Margaret, that he had always spoken against her, and that
now, imbued as he was likely to be with some of the strong feelings of
old Mrs. Ludlow, he would be certain to make a mess of the mission,
and, without the least intention of being offensive, would hurt some
one's feelings in an unmistakable and unpardonable manner. No; he must
go himself, horribly painful as it would be to him. His had been a set
gray life for who should say how many years; he had not been mixed up
with any woman's follies or griefs in ever so slight a degree, he had
heard no woman's voice in plaintive appeal or earnest confession, he
had seen no woman's tears or hung upon no woman's smile, since--since
when? Since the days spent with _her_. Ah, how the remembrance shut
out the present and opened up the long, long vistas of the past! He
was no longer the bald-headed, grizzle-bearded, stout elderly man;
he was young Bowker, from whom so much was expected; and the common
tavern-parlour in which he was seated, with its beer-stained tables and
its tobacco-reek faded away, and the long dusty roads of Andalusia,
the tinkling bells of the mules, the cheery shouts of the sunburnt
_arrieros_, the hard-earned pull at the _bota_, and the loved presence,
now vanished for ever, rose in his memory.
When his musings were put to flight by the entrance of the waiter,
he paid his score, and summoning up his resolution he went out into
the noisy street, and mounting the first omnibus was borne away to
his destination. He found the place indicated to him by Blackett--a
small but clean and decent street--and soon arrived at Mrs. Chapman's
house. There, at the door, he stopped, undecided what to do. He had not
thought of any excuse for demanding an interview with Mrs. Chapman's
lodger, and, on turning the subject over in his mind, he could not
imagine any at all likely to be readily received. See Margaret he must;
and to do that, he thought he must take her unprepared and on a sudden:
if he sent up his name, he would certainly be refused admittance. His
personal appearance was far too Bohemian in its character to enable
him to pass himself off as her lawyer, or any friend of her family;
his only hope was to put a bold front on it, to mention her name, and
to walk straight on to her room, leaving it to chance to favour his
efforts.
He entered the shop--a dull dismal little place, with a pair of stays
lying helplessly in the window, and a staring black-eyed torso of a
female doll, for cap-making purposes, insanely smiling on the counter.
Such a heavy footfall as Mr. Bowker's was seldom heard in those vestal
halls; such a grizzly-bearded face as Mr. Bowker's was seldom seen in
such close proximity to the cap-making dummy; and little Mrs. Chapman
the milliner came out "all in a tremble," as she afterwards expressed
it, from her inner sanctum, which was about as big and as tepid as a
warm-bath, and in a quavering voice demanded the intruder's business.
She was a mild-eyed, flaxen-haired, quiet, frightened little woman, and
old Bowker's heart softened towards her, as he said, "You have a friend
of mine lodging with you, ma'am, I think--Mrs. Lambert?"
"O, dear; then, if you're a friend of Mrs. Lambert's, you're welcome
here, I can assure you, sir!" and the little woman looked more
frightened than ever, and held up her hands half in fear, half in
relief.
"Ah, she's been ill, I hear," said Bowker, wishing to have it
understood that he was thoroughly _en rapport_ with the lodger.
"Ill!--I'm thankful you've come, sir!--no one, unless they saw her,
would credit how ill she is--I mean to be up and about, and all that.
She's better to-day, and clearer; but what she have been these few
days past, mortal tongue cannot tell--all delirium-like, and full of
fancies, and talking of things which set Hannah--the girl who does
for me--and me nearly out of our wits with fright. So much so, that
six-and-sixpence a-week is--well, never mind, poor thing; it's worse
for her than for us; but I'm glad, at any rate, some friend has come to
see her."
"I'll go and do so at once, Mrs. Chapman," said Bowker. "I know my way;
the door straight opposite to the front of the stairs, isn't it? Thank
you; I'll find it;" and with the last words yet on his tongue, Mr.
Bowker had passed round the little counter, by the little milliner, and
was making the narrow staircase creak again with his weight.
He opened the door opposite to him, after having knocked and received
no answer, and peered cautiously in. The daylight was fading, and the
blind of the window was half down, and Bowker's eyesight was none of
the best now, so that he took some little time before he perceived the
outline of a figure stretched in the white dimity-covered easy-chair
by the little Pembroke table in the middle of the room. Although some
noise had been made by the opening of the door, the figure had not
moved; it never stirred when Bowker gave a little premonitory cough to
notify his advent; it remained in exactly The same position, without
stirring hand or foot, when Bowker said, "A friend has come to see you,
Mrs.--Lambert." Then a dim undefined sense of terror came upon William
Bowker, and he closed the door silently behind him, and advanced into
the room. Immediately he became aware of a faint sickly smell, a
cloying, percolating odour, which seemed to fill the place; but he had
little time to think of this, for immediately before him lay the form
of Margaret, her eyes closed, her features rigid, her long red hair
falling in all its wild luxuriance over her shoulders. At first William
thought she was dead; but, stooping close over her, he marked her slow
laboured breathing, and noticed that from time to time her hands were
unclenched, and then closed again as tightly as ever. He took a little
water from a tumbler on the table and sprinkled it on her face, and
laid his finger on her pulse; after a minute or two she opened her
eyes, closing them again immediately, but after a time opening them
again, and fixing them on Bowker's face with a long wistful gaze.
"Are you one of them also?" she asked, in a deep hushed voice. "How
many more to come and gibber and point at me; or, worse than all, to
sit mutely staring at me with pitiless unforgiving eyes! How many more?
You are the latest. I have never seen you before."
"O yes you have," said Bowker quietly, with her hand in his, and his
eyes steadfastly fixed on hers--"O yes you have: you recollect me, my
dear Mrs. Ludlow."
He laid special stress on the name, and as he uttered the words,
Margaret started, a new light flashed into her beautiful eyes, and she
regarded him attentively.
"What was that you said?" she asked; "what name did you call me?"
"What name? Why, your own, of course; what else should I call you, my
dear Mrs. Ludlow?"
She started again at the repetition, then her eyes fell, and she said
dreamily,
"But that is not my name--that is not my name." Bowker waited for a
moment, and then said,
"You might as well pretend to have forgotten me and our talk at Elm
Lodge that day that I came up to see Geoffrey."
"Elm Lodge! Geoffrey!--ah, good God, now I remember all!" said
Margaret, in a kind of scream, raising herself in the chair, and
wringing Bowker's hand.
"Hush, my dear Madam; don't excite yourself; I thought you would
remember all; you--"
"You are Mr. Bowker!" said Margaret, pressing her hand to her head;
"Mr. Bowker, whose story Geoff told me: Geoff! ah, poor, good Geoff!
ah, dear, good Geoff! But why are you here? he hasn't sent you?
Geoffrey has not sent you?"
"Geoffrey does not know I am here. He has been very ill; too ill to be
told of all that has been going on; too ill to understand it, if he had
been told. I heard by accident that you were living here, and that you
had been ill; and I came to see if I could be of any service to you."
While he had been speaking, Margaret had sat with her head tightly
clasped between her hands. When he finished, she looked up with a
slightly dazed expression, and said, with an evident attempt at
controlling her voice, "I see all now; you must pardon me, Mr. Bowker,
for any incoherence or strangeness you may have noticed in my manner;
but I have been very ill, and I feel sure that at times my mind wanders
a little. I am better now. I was quite myself when you mentioned about
your having heard of my illness, and offering me service; and I thank
you very sincerely for your kindness."
Old William looked at her for a minute, and then said,
"I am a plain-spoken man, Mrs. Ludlow--for you are Mrs. Ludlow to
me--as I daresay you may have heard, if you have not noticed it
yourself; and I tell you plainly that it is out of no kindness to you
that I am here now, but only out of love for my dear old friend."
"I can understand that," said Margaret; "and only respect you the more
for it; and now you are here, Mr. Bowker, I shall be very glad to say
a few words to you,--the last I shall ever say regarding that portion
of my life which was passed in--at--You know what I would say; you have
heard the story of the commencement of my acquaintance with Geoffrey
Ludlow?"
Bowker bowed in acquiescence.
"You know how I left him--why I am here?"
Then William Bowker--the memory of all his friend's trouble and misery
and crushed hopes and wasted life rising up strongly within him--set
his face hard, and said, between his clenched teeth, "I know your
history from two sources. Yesterday, Geoffrey Ludlow, scarce able to
raise himself in his bed, so weak was he from the illness which your
conduct brought upon him, told me, as well as he could, of his first
meeting with you, his strange courtship, his marriage,--at which I
was present,--of his hopes and fears, and all the intricacies of his
married life; of the manner in which, finally, you revealed the history
of your previous life, and parted from him. Supplementing this story,
he gave me to read a letter from Lord Caterham, the brother of the
man you call your husband. This man, Captain Brakespere, flying from
the country, had written to his brother, informing him that he had
left behind him a woman who was called his mistress, but who was in
reality his wife. To find this woman Lord Caterham made his care. He
set the detectives to work, and had her tracked from place to place;
continually getting news of, but never finding her. While he lived,
Lord Caterham never slackened from the pursuit; finding his end
approaching--"
"His end approaching!--the end of his life do you mean?"
"He is dead. But before he died, he delegated the duty of pursuit, of
all men in the world, to Geoffrey Ludlow,--to Geoffrey Ludlow, who, in
his blind ignorance, had stumbled upon the very woman a year before,
had saved her from a miserable death, and, all unknowingly, had fondly
imagined he had made her his loving wife."
"Ah, my God, this is too much! And Geoffrey Ludlow knows all this?"
"From Geoffrey Ludlow's lips I heard it not twenty-four hours since."
Margaret uttered a deep groan and buried her face in her hands. When
she raised her head her eyes were tear-blurred, and her voice faltered
as she said, "I acknowledge my sin, and--so far as Geoffrey Ludlow is
concerned--I deeply, earnestly repent my conduct. It was prompted by
despair; it ended in desperation. Have those who condemned me--and I
know naturally enough I am condemned by all his friends--have those
who condemned me ever known the pangs of starvation, the grim tortures
of houselessness in the streets? Have they ever known what it is to
have the iron of want and penury eating into their souls, and then to
be offered a comfortable home and an honest man's love? If they have,
I doubt very much whether they would have refused it. I do not say
this to excuse myself. I have done Geoffrey Ludlow deadly wrong; but
when I listened to his proffered protestations, I gave him time for
reflection; when I said 'Yes' to his repeated vows, I thought that the
dead past had buried its dead, and that no ghost from it would arise
to trouble the future. I vowed to myself that I would be true to that
man who had so befriended me; and I was true to him. The life I led
was inexpressibly irksome and painful to me; the dead solemn monotony
of it goaded me almost to madness at times; but I bore it--bore it
all out of gratitude to him--would have borne it till now if _he_ had
not come back to lure me to destruction. I do not say I did my duty;
I am naturally undomestic and unfitted for household management; but
I brought no slur on Geoffrey Ludlow's name in thought or deed until
that man returned. I have seen him, Mr. Bowker; I have spoken to him,
and he spurned me from him; and yet I love him as I loved him years
ago. He need only raise his finger, and I would fly to him and fawn
upon him, and be grateful if he but smiled upon me in return. They
cannot understand this--they cannot understand my disregard of the
respectabilities by flinging away the position and the name and the
repute, and all that which they had fitted to me, and which clung
to me, ah, so irritatingly; but if all I have heard be true you can
understand it, Mr. Bowker,--you can.--Is Geoffrey out of danger?"
The sudden change in the tone of her voice, as she uttered the last
sentence, struck on Bowker's ear, and looking up, he noticed a strange
light in her eyes.
"Geoffrey is out of danger," he replied; "but he is still very weak,
and requires the greatest care."
"And requires the greatest care!" she repeated. "Well, he'll get it,
I suppose; but not from me. And to think that I shall never see him
again! Poor Geoffrey! poor, good Geoffrey! How good he was, and how
grave!--with those large earnest eyes of his, and his great head, and
rough curling brown hair, and--the cruel cold, the pitiless rain, the
cruel, cruel cold!" As she said these words, she crept back shivering
into her chair, and wrapped her dress round her. William Bowker bent
down and gazed at her steadily; but after an instant she averted her
face, and hid it in the chair. Bowker took her hand, and it fell
passively into his own; he noticed that it was burning.
"This will not do, Mrs. Ludlow!" he exclaimed; "you have over-excited
yourself lately. You want rest and looking after--you must--" he
stopped; for she had turned her head to him again and was rocking
herself backwards and forwards in her chair, weeping meanwhile as
though her heart would break. The sight was too much for William to
bear unaided, and he opened the door and called Mrs. Chapman.
"Ah, sir," said the good little woman when she entered the room, "she's
off again, I see. I knew she was, for I heard that awful sobbing as I
was coming up the stairs. O, that awful sobbing that Ive laid awake
night after night listening to, and that never seemed to stop till
daylight, when she was fairly wore out. But that's nothing, sir,
compared to the talk when she's beside herself. Then she'd go on and
say--"
"Yes, yes, no doubt, Mrs. Chapman," interrupted Bowker, who did
not particularly wish to be further distressed by the narration of
Margaret's sadness; "but this faintness, these weeping fits, are quite
enough to demand the instant attention of a medical man. If you'll
kindly look to her now, I'll go off and fetch a doctor; and if there's
a nurse required--as Ive little doubt there will be--you won't mind me
intruding further upon you? No; I knew you'd say so. Mrs. Lambert's
friends will ever be grateful to you; and here's something just to
carry you on, you know, Mrs. Chapman--rent and money paid on her
account, and that sort of thing." The something was two sovereigns,
which had lain in a lucifer-match box used by Mr. Bowker as his bank,
and kept by him in his only locked drawer for six weeks past, and which
had been put aside for the purchase of a "tweed wrapper" for winter
wear.
Deliberating within himself to what physician of eminence he should
apply, and grievously hampered by the fact that he was unable to pay
any fee in advance, Bowker suddenly bethought him of Dr. Rollit, whose
great love of art and its professors led him, "in the fallow leisure
of his life," to constitute himself a kind of honorary physician to
the brotherhood of the brush. To him Bowker hastened, and, without
divulging Margaret's identity, explained the case, and implored the
doctor to see her at once. The doctor hesitated for a moment, for he
was at his easel and in a knot. He had "got something that would not
come right," and he scarcely seemed inclined to move until he had
conquered his difficulty; but after explaining the urgency of the case,
old Bowker took the palette and sheaf of brushes from the physician's
hand and said, "I think we can help each other at this moment, doctor:
go you and see the patient, and leave me to deal with this difficulty.
You'll find me here when you come back, and you shall then look at your
canvas."
But when Dr. Rollit, after a couple of hours' absence, returned, he
did not look at his picture--at least on his first entry. He looked so
grave and earnest that William Bowker, moving towards him to ask the
result of his visit, was frightened, and stopped.
"What is the matter?" he asked; "you seem--"
"I'm a little taken aback--that's all, old friend," said the doctor;
"you did not prepare me to find in my patient an old acquaintance--you
did not know it, perhaps?"
"By Jove! I remember now: Charley Potts said--What an old ass I am!"
"I was called in by Potts and Ludlow, or rather called out of
a gathering of the Titians, to attend Mrs. Lambert, as the
landlady called her, nearly two years ago. She is not much
altered--outwardly--since I left her convalescent."
"You lay a stress on 'outwardly'--what is the inner difference?"
"Simply that her health is gone, my good fellow; her whole constitution
utterly shattered; her life not worth a week's purchase."
"Surely you're wrong, doctor. Up to within the last few weeks her
health has been excellent."
"My dear William Bowker, I, as an amateur, meddle with your
professional work; but what I do is on the surface, and the mistakes
I make are so glaring, that they are recognisable instantly. You
might meddle, as an amateur, with mine, and go pottering on until
you'd killed half a parish, without any body suspecting you. The
disease I attended Mrs.----- there! it's absurd our beating about the
bush any longer--Mrs. Ludlow for was rheumatic fever, caught from
exposure to cold and damp. The attack I now find left behind it, as it
generally does, a strong predisposition to heart-disease, which, from
what I learn from her, seems to have displayed itself in spasms and
palpitations very shortly afterwards."
"From what you learn from her? She was sensible, then, when you saw
her?"
"She was sensible before I left her; ay, and that's the deuce of it.
Partly to deaden the pain of these attacks, partly, as she said herself
just now, to escape from thought, she has had recourse to a sedative,
morphia, which she has taken in large quantities. I smelt it the
instant I entered her room, and found the bottle by her side. Under
this influence she is deadened and comatose; but when the reaction
comes--Poor creature! poor creature!" and the kind-hearted doctor shook
his head sadly.
"Do you consider her in absolute danger?" asked Bowker, after a pause.
"My dear fellow it is impossible to say how long she may last;
but--though I suppose that's out of the question now, eh?--people will
talk, you know, and Ive heard rumours;--but if her husband wished to
see her, I should say fetch him at once."
"If her husband wished to see her!" said old Bowker to himself, as
he walked away towards his lodgings,--"if her husband wished to see
her! He don't--at least the real one don't, I imagine; and Geoff
mustn't; though, if he knew it, nothing would keep him away. But that
other--Captain Brakespere--he ought to know the danger she's in; he
ought to have the chance of saying a kind word to her before--He must
be a damned villain!" said old William, stopping for an instant, and
pondering over the heads of the story; "but he deserves that chance,
and he shall have it."
Pursuant to his determination, Mr. Bowker presented himself the next
day at Long's Hotel, where he recollected Mr. Blackett had informed him
that Captain Brakespere was stopping. The porter, immediately divining
from Mr. Bowker's outward appearance that he meditated a raid upon
coats, hats, or any thing that might be lying about the coffee-room,
barricaded the entrance with his waistcoat, and parleyed with the
visitor in the hall. Inquiring for Captain Brakespere, Mr. Bowker
was corrected by the porter, who opined "he meant Lord Catrum." The
correction allowed and the inquiry repeated, the porter replied that
his "lordship had leff," and referred the inquirer to St. Barnabas
Square.
To St. Barnabas Square Mr. Bowker adjourned, but there learned that
Lord Caterham had left town with Mr. Barford, and would not be back for
some days.
And meanwhile the time was wearing by, and Margaret's hold on life was
loosening day by day. Would it fail altogether before she saw the man
who had deceived her so cruelly? would it fail altogether before she
saw the man whom she had so cruelly deceived?
CHAPTER VIII.
IN THE DEEP SHADOW.
In the presence of the double sorrow which had fallen upon her, Annie
Maurice's girlhood died out. Arthur was gone, and Geoffrey in so
suffering a condition of body and mind that it would have been easier
to the tender-hearted girl to know that he was at rest, even though
she had to face all the loneliness which would then have been her lot.
Her position was very trying in all its aspects at this time; for
there was little sympathy with her new sorrow at the great house which
she still called home, and where she was regarded as decidedly "odd."
Lady Beauport considered that Caterham had infected her with some of
his strange notions, and that her fancy for associating with "queer"
people, removed from her own sphere not more by her heiress-ship than
by her residence in an earl's house and her recognition as a member of
a noble family, was chargeable to the eccentric notions of her son.
Annie came and went as she pleased, free from comment, though not from
observation; but she was of a sensitive nature; she could not assert
herself; and she suffered from the consciousness that her grief, her
anxiety, and her constant visits to Lowbar were regarded with mingled
censure and contempt. Her pre-occupation of mind prevented her noticing
many things which otherwise could not have escaped her attention;
but when Geoffrey's illness ceased to be actively dangerous, and the
bulletin brought her each morning from Til by the hands of the faithful
Charley contained more tranquillising but still sad accounts of the
patient, she began to observe an air of mystery and preparation in
the household. The few hours which she forced herself to pass daily
in the society of Lady Beauport had been very irksome to her since
Arthur died, and she had been glad when they were curtailed by Lady
Beauport's frequent plea of "business" in the evenings, and her leaving
the drawing-room for her own apartments. Every afternoon she went to
Elm Lodge, and her presence was eagerly hailed by Mrs. Ludlow and Til.
She had seen Geoffrey frequently during the height of the fever; but
since the letter she had kept in such faithful custody had reached his
hands she had not seen him. Though far from even the vaguest conjecture
of the nature of its contents, she had dreaded the effect of receiving
a communication from his dead friend on Geoffrey Ludlow, and had been
much relieved when his mother told her, on the following day, that he
was very calm and quiet, but did not wish to see any one for a few
days. Bowker and he had fully felt the embarrassment of the position
in which Lord Caterham's revelation had placed Geoffrey with regard to
Annie Maurice, and the difficulties which the complications produced
by Margaret's identity with Lionel Brakespere's wife added to Ludlow's
fulfilment of Caterham's trust. They had agreed--or rather Bowker had
suggested, and Geoffrey had acquiesced, with the languid assent of a
mind too much enfeebled by illness and sorrow to be capable of facing
any difficulty but the inevitable, immediate, and pressing--that Annie
need know nothing for the present.
"She could hardly come here from the Beauports, Geoff," Bowker had
said; "it's all nonsense, of course, to men like you and me, who look
at the real, and know how its bitterness takes all the meaning out of
the rubbish they call rules of society; but the strongest woman is no
freer than Gulliver in his fetters of packthread, in the conventional
world she lives in. We need not fret her sooner than it must be done,
and you had better not see her for the present."
So Annie came and went for two or three days and did not see Geoffrey.
Mrs. Ludlow, having recovered from the sudden shock of her son's
illness and the protracted terror of his danger, had leisure to feel a
little affronted at his desire for seclusion, and to wonder audibly why
_she_ should be supposed to do him more harm than Mr. Bowker.
"A big blundering fellow like that, Til," she said; "and I do assure
you, Miss Maurice, he quite forgot the time for the draught when he was
shut up there with him the other day--and talk of _he's_ doing Geoffrey
no harm! All I can say is, if Geoffrey had not been crying when I went
into his room, and wasn't trembling all over in his bed, I never was so
mistaken before."
Then Til and Annie looked blankly at each other, in mute wonder at this
incomprehensible sorrow--for the women knew nothing but that Margaret
had fled with a former lover--so much had been necessarily told them,
under Bowker's instructions, by Charley Potts; and Annie, after a
little, went sorrowfully away.
That day at dinner Lord Beauport was more than usually kind in his
manner to her; and Annie considered it due to him, and a fitting return
for some inquiries he had made for "her friend," which had more of
warmth and less of condescension than usual in their tone, to rouse
herself into greater cheerfulness than she had yet been able to assume.
Lady Beauport rose sooner than usual; and the two ladies had hardly
seated themselves in the dreary drawing-room when the Earl joined them.
There was an air of preparation in Lord Beauport's manner, and Annie
felt that something had happened.
The thing which had happened was this--Lady Beauport had not
miscalculated her experienced power of managing her husband. She
had skilfully availed herself of an admission made by him that
Lionel's absence, at so great a distance just then was an unfortunate
complication; that the necessary communications were rendered difficult
and tedious; and that he wished his "rustication" had been nearer home.
The Countess caught at the word 'rustication:' then not expulsion,
not banishment, was in her husband's mind. Here was a commutation
of her darling's sentence; a free pardon would follow, if she only
set about procuring it in the right way. So she resorted to several
little expedients by which the inconvenience of the heir's absence
was made more and more apparent: having once mentioned his name, Lord
Beauport continued to do so;--perhaps he was in his secret heart as
much relieved by the breaking of the ban as the mother herself;--and
at length, on the same day which witnessed William Bowker's visit
to Lionel Brakespere's deserted wife, Lady Beauport acknowledged to
her husband that their son was then in London, and that she had seen
him. The Earl received her communication in frowning silence; but she
affected not to observe his manner, and expatiated, with volubility
very unusual to her, upon the fortunate concurrence of circumstances
which had brought Lionel to England just as his improved position made
it more than ever probable he would be perfectly well received.
"That dear Mr. Barford," she said--and her face never changed at
the name of the man in whose arms her son had died so short a time
before--"assures me that every one is delighted to see him. And really,
George, he mustn't stay at Long's, you know--it looks so bad--for every
one knows he's in town; and if we don't receive him properly, that will
be just the way to rake up old stories. I'm sure they're old enough to
be forgotten; and many a young man has done worse than Lionel, and--"
"Stop, Gertrude," said Lord Beauport sternly; "stick to the truth,
if you please. I hope very few young men in our son's position have
disgraced it and themselves as he has done. The truth is, that we
have to make the best of a misfortune. He has returned; and by
so doing has added to the rest a fresh rascality by breaking his
pledged word. Circumstances oblige me to acquiesce,--luck is on his
side,--his brother's death--" Lord Beauport paused for a moment, and
an expression, hitherto unfamiliar, but which his wife frequently saw
in the future, flitted over his face--"his brother's death leaves me
no choice. Let us say as little as possible on this subject. He had
better come here, for every reason. For appearances' sake it is well;
and he will probably be under some restraint in this house." Here the
Earl turned to leave the room, and said slowly as he walked towards
the door, "Something tells me, Gertrude, that in Arthur's death, which
we dreaded too little and mourn too lightly, we have seen only the
beginning of evils."
Lady Beauport sat very still and felt very cold after he left her.
Conscience smote her dumbly,--in days to come it would find a voice in
which to speak,--and fear fell upon her. "I will never say any thing to
him about Annie Maurice," she said to herself, as the first effect of
her husband's words began to pass away; "I do believe he would be as
hard on Lionel as poor Arthur himself, and warn the girl against him."
How relieved she felt as she despatched a note to Lionel Brakespere,
telling him she had fulfilled her task, and inviting him to return to
his father's house when he pleased!
Assuredly the star of the new heir was in the ascendant; his brother
was dead, his place restored to him, and society ready to condone all
his "follies,"--which is the fashionable synonym for the crimes of the
rich and the great. If Lionel Brakespere could have seen "that cursed
woman"--as in his brutal anger he called his wife a hundred times over,
as he fretted and fumed over the remembrance of their interview--as
William Bowker saw her that day,--he would have esteemed himself a
luckier fellow still than he did when he lighted his cigar with his
mother's note, and thought how soon he would change that "infernal dull
old hole" from what it was in Caterham's time, and how he would have
every thing his own way now.
Such, as far as his knowledge of them extended, and without any comment
or expression of opinion of his own, were the circumstances which
Lord Beauport narrated to Annie. She received his information with an
indescribable pang, compounded of a thousand loving remembrances of
Arthur and a keen resuscitation by her memory of the scene of Lionel's
disgrace, to which she and her lost friend had been witnesses. She
could hardly believe, hardly understand it all; and the clearest
thought which arose above the surging troubled sea within her breast
was, that the place which knew Arthur no more would be doubly empty and
desolate when Lionel should fill it.
The tone in which Lord Beauport had spoken was grave and sad, and he
had confined himself to the barest announcement. Annie had listened in
respectful silence; but though she had not looked directly at her, she
was conscious of Lady Beauport's reproachful glances, addressed to her
husband, as he concluded by saying coldly,
"You were present, Annie, by my desire, when I declared that that which
is now about to happen should never be, and I have thought it necessary
to explain to you a course of conduct on my part which without
explanation would have appeared very weak and inconsistent. As a member
of _my_ family you are entitled to such an explanation; and indeed, as
an inmate of this house, you are entitled to an apology."
"Thank you, my lord," said Annie, in a voice which, though lower than
usual, was very firm.
This was more than Lady Beauport's pride could bear. She began,
fiercely enough,
"Really, Lord Beauport, I cannot see--"
But at that moment a servant opened the door and announced
"Lord Caterham."
The group by the fireside stood motionless for a moment, as Lionel,
dressed in deep mourning, advanced towards them with well-bred ease and
perfect unconcern. Then Lady Beauport threw herself into his arms; and
Annie, hardly noticing that Lord Beauport had by an almost involuntary
movement stretched out his hand to the handsome prodigal, glided past
the three, hurried to her own room, and, having locked the door, sank
down on her knees beside her bed in an agony of grief.
Three days elapsed, during which events marched with a steady pace at
Elm Lodge and at the lodging were the woman who had brought such wreck
and ruin within that tranquil-looking abode was lying contending with
grief and disease, dying the death of despair and exhaustion. When
Bowker returned from his unsuccessful quest for Lionel Brakespere, he
found that she had passed into another phase of her malady,--was quiet,
dreamy, and apparently forgetful of the excitement she had undergone.
She was lying quite still on her bed, her eyes half closed, and a faint
unmeaning smile was on her lips.
"I have seen her so for hours and hours, sir," said the gentle little
landlady; "and it's my belief it's what she takes as does it."
So Bowker concluded that Margaret had found means to avail herself
of the fatal drug from which she had sought relief so often and so
long, in the interval of depression which had succeeded the delirium
he had witnessed. He was much embarrassed now to know how to proceed.
She required better accommodation and careful nursing, and he was
determined she should have both,--but how that was to be managed was
the question; and Bowker, the most helpless man in the world in such
matters, was powerless to answer it. He had never imagined, as he
had turned the probabilities over and over in his mind, that such a
complication as severe physical illness would arise; and it routed all
his plans, besides engaging all his most active sympathies. William
Bowker had an extreme dread, indeed a positive terror, of witnessing
bodily suffering in women and children; and had his anger and repulsion
towards Margaret been far greater than they were, they would have
yielded to pain and pity as he gazed upon the rigid lines of the pale
weary face, from which the beauty was beginning to fade and drop away
in some mysterious manner of vanishing, terrible to see and feel, but
impossible to describe. He made the best provisional arrangements
within his power, and went away, promising Mrs. Chapman that he would
return on the following day to meet the doctor, and turned his steps in
much mental bewilderment towards the abode of Charley Potts, purposing
to consult him in the emergency, previous to their proceeding together
to Lowbar.