"Missing"--"Lost"--"To--"--all the initials of the alphabet--we read
these sort of advertisements in the newspapers; and unless there
happens to be in them something intensely pathetic, comical, or
horrible, we think very little about them. Only those who have
undergone all that such an advertisement implies can understand its
depth of misery: the sudden missing of the person out of the home
circle, whether going away in anger or driven away by terror or
disgrace; the hour after hour and day after day of agonized suspense;
the self-reproach, real or imaginary, lest any thing might have been
said or done that was not said or done--any thing prevented that was
not prevented; the gnawing remorse for some cruel, or careless, or
bitter word, that could so easily have been avoided.
Alas! if people could only be made to feel that every word, every
action carries with it the weight of an eternity; that the merest
chance may make something said or done quite unpremeditatedly, in
vexation, sullenness, or spite, the last action, the last word; which
may grow into an awful remembrance, rising up between them and the
irredeemable past, and blackening the future for years!
Selina was quite sure her unhappy nephew had committed suicide, and
that she had been the cause of it. This conviction she impressed
incessantly on her two sisters as they waited upon her, or sat
talking by her bedside during that long Saturday, when there was
nothing else to be done.
That was the misery of it. There was nothing to be done. They had not
the slightest clew to Ascott's haunts or associates. With the last
fingering of honest shame, or honest respect for his aunts, he had
kept all these things to himself. To search for him in wide London
was altogether impossible.
Two courses suggested themselves to Hilary--one, to go and consult
Miss Balquidder; the other--which came into her mind from some
similar case she had heard of--to set on foot inquiries at all police
stations. But the first idea was soon rejected: only at the last
extremity could she make patent the family misery--the family
disgrace. To the second, similar and even stronger reasons applied.
There was something about the cool, matter-of-fact, business-like act
of setting a detective officer to hunt out their nephew, from which
these poor women recoiled. Besides, impressed as he was--he had told
his Aunt Johanna so--with the relentlessness of Mr. Ascott, might not
the chance of his discovering that he was hunted drive him to
desperation?
Hardly to suicide. Hilary steadfastly disbelieved in that. When
Selina painted horrible pictures of his throwing himself off Waterloo
Bridge: or being found hanging to a tree in one of the parks; or
locking himself in a hotel bed chamber and blowing out his brains,
her younger sister only laughed--laughed as much as she could--if
only to keep Johanna quiet.
Yet she herself had few fears. For she knew that Ascott was, in a
sense, too cowardly to kill himself. He so disliked physical pain,
physical unpleasantness of all kinds. She felt sure he would stop
short, even with the razor or the pistol in his hand, rather than do
a thing so very disagreeable.
Nevertheless, in spite of herself, while she and her sisters sat
together, hour after hour, in a stillness almost like that when there
is a death in the house, these morbid terrors took a double size.
Hilary ceased to treat them as ridiculous impossibilities, but began
to argue them out rationally. The mere act of doing so made her
recoil; for it seemed an acknowledgment that she was fighting not
with chimeras but realities.
"It is twenty-four hours since he went," she reasoned. "If he had
done anything desperate he would have done it at once, and we should
have heard of it long before now; ill news always travels fast.
Besides, his name was marked on all his clothes in full. I did it
myself. And his coat pockets were always stuffed with letters; he
used to cram them in as soon as he got them, you know."
And at this small remembrance of one of his "ways," even though it
was an unkind way, and had caused them many a pain, from the want of
confidence it showed, his poor, fond aunts turned aside to hide their
starting tears. The very phrase "he used to," seemed such an
unconscious admission that his life with them was over and done; that
he never would either please them or vex them any more.
Yet they took care that during the whole day every thing should be
done as if he were expected minute by minute; that Elizabeth should
lay the fourth knife and fork at dinner, the fourth cup and saucer at
tea. Elizabeth, who throughout had faithfully kept her pledge; who
went about silently and unobservantly, and by every means in her
power put aside the curiosity of Mrs. Jones as to what could be the
reason that her lodgers had sat up all night, and what on earth had
become of young Mr. Leaf.
After tea, Johanna, quite worn out, consented to go to bed; and then
Hilary, left to her own responsibility, set herself to consider how
long this dreadful quietness was to last, whether nothing could be
done. She could endure whatever was inevitable, but it was against
her nature as well as her conscience to sit down tamely to endure any
thing whatsoever till it did become inevitable.
In the first place, she determined on that which a certain sense of
honor, as well as the fear of vexing him should he come home, had
hitherto prevented the examining of Ascott's room, drawers, clothes,
and papers. It was a very dreary business--almost like doing the like
to a person who was dead, only without the sad sanctity that belongs
to the dead, whose very errors are forgotten and forgiven, who can
neither suffer nor make others suffer any more.
Many things she found, and more she guessed at--things which stabbed
her to the heart, things that she never told, not even to Johanna;
but she found no clew whatever to Ascott's whereabouts, intentions,
or connections. One thing, however, struck her--that most of his
clothes, and all his somewhat extensive stock of jewelry were gone;
every thing, in short, that could be convertible into money. It was
evident that his flight, sudden as it was, had been premeditated as
at least a possibility.
This so far was satisfactory. It took away the one haunting fear of
his committing suicide; and made it likely that he was still
lingering about, hiding from justice and Mr. Ascott, or perhaps
waiting for an opportunity to escape from England--from the fear that
his godfather, even if not prosecuting him, had the power and
doubtless the will completely to crush his future, wherever he was
known.
Where could he go? His Aunt tried to think over every word he had
ever let fall about America, Australia, or any other place to which
the hopeless outlaws of this country fly; but she could recollect
nothing to enable her to form any conclusion. One thing only she was
sure of--that if once he went away, his own words would come true;
they would never see his face again. The last tie, the last
constraint that bound him to home and a steady, righteous life would
be broken; he would go all adrift, be tossed hither and thither on
every wave of circumstance--what he called circumstance--till Heaven
only knew what a total wreck he might speedily become, or in what
forlorn and far off seas his ruined life might go down. He, Ascott
Leaf, the last of the name and family.
"It can not be; it shall not be!" cried Hilary. A sharp, bitter cry
of resistance to the death; and her heart seemed to go out to the
wretched boy and her hands to clutch at him, as if he were drowning,
and she were the only one to save him. How could she do it?
If she could only get at him, by word or letter! But that seemed
impossible, until, turning over scheme after scheme, she suddenly
thought of the one which so many people had tried in similar
circumstances, and which she remembered they had talked over and
laughed over, they and Ascott, one Sunday evening not so very long
ago. This was--a Times advertisement.
The difficulty how to word it, so as to catch his attention and yet
escape publicity, was very great, especially as his initials were so
common. Hundreds of "A. L.'s" might be wandering away from home, to
whom all that she dared say to call Ascott back would equally apply.
At last a bright thought struck her.
"A. leaf" (will a small l) "will be quite safe wherever found. Come.
Saturday. 15."
As she wrote it--this wretched double-entendre--she was seized with
that sudden sense of the ludicrous which sometimes intrudes in such a
ghastly fashion in the very midst of great misery. She burst into
uncontrollable laughter, fit after fit; so violent that Elizabeth,
who came in by chance, was terrified out of her wits, and kneeling
beside her mistress, implored her to be quiet. At last the paroxysm
ended in complete exhaustion. The tension of the last twenty-four
hours had given way, and Hilary knew her strength was gone. Yet the
advertisement ought to be taken to the Times office that very night,
in order to be inserted without fail on Monday morning.
There was but one person whom she could trust--Elizabeth.
She looked at the girl, who was kneeling beside the sofa, rubbing her
feet, and sometimes casting a glance round, in the quiet way of one
well used to nursing, who can find out how the sufferer is without
"fussing" with questions. She noticed, probably because she had seen
little of her of late, a curious change in Elizabeth. It must have
been gradual, but yet its result had never been so apparent before.
Her brusqueness had softened down, and there had come into her and
shone out of her, spite of all her natural uncomeliness of person,
that beautiful, intangible something, common alike to peasant and
queen, as clear to see and as sad to miss in both--womanliness. Added
thereto was the gentle composure of mein which almost invariably
accompanied it, which instinctively makes you fell that in great
things or small, whatever the woman has to do, she will do it in the
womanliest, wisest, and best way.
So thought Miss Hilary as she lay watching her servant, and then
explained to her the errand upon which she wished to send her.
Not much explanation, for she merely gave her the advertisement to
read, and told her what she wished done with it. And Elizabeth, on
her part, asked no questions, but simply listened and obeyed.
After she was gone Hilary lay on the sofa, passive and motionless.
Her strength and activity seemed to have collapsed at once into that
heavy quietness which comes when one has endured to the utmost limit
of endurance when one feels as if to speak a word or to lift a finger
would be as much as life was worth.
"Oh, if I could only go to sleep!" was all she thought.
By-and-by sleep did come, and she was taken far away out of these
miseries. By the strange peculiarity of dreams that we so seldom
dream about any grief that oppresses us at the time but generally of
something quite different, she thought she was in some known unknown
land, lovely and beautiful, with blue hills rising in the distance,
and blue seas creeping and curling on to the shore. On this shore she
was walking with Robert Lyon, just as he used to be, with his true
face and honest voice. He did not talk to her much; but she felt him
there, and knew they had but "one heart between them." A heart which
had never once swerved, either from the other; a heart whole and
sound, into which the least unfaith had never come--that had never
known, or recognized even as a possibility, the one first doubt, the
ominous --
"Little rift within the lute,
That by-and-by will make the music mute,
And ever widening slowly silence all."
Is it ever so in this world? Does God ever bring the faithful man to
the faithful woman, and make them love one another with a righteous,
holy, persistent tenderness, which dare look in His face, nor be
ashamed; which sees in this life only the beginning of the life to
come; and in the closest, most passionate human love something to be
held with a loose hand, something frail as glass and brittle as
straw, unless it is perfected and sanctified by the love divine?
Hilary at least believed so. And when at Elizabeth's knock she woke
with a start, and saw--not the sweet sea-shore and Robert Lyon, but
the dull parlor, and the last flicker of the fire, she thanked God
that her dream was not all a dream--that, sharp as her misery was, it
did not touch this--the love of her heart: she believed in Robert
Lyon still.
And so she rose and spoke quite cheerfully, asking Elizabeth how she
had managed, and whether the advertisement would be sure to be in on
Monday morning.
"Yes, Miss Hilary; it is sure to be all right."
And then the girl hung about the room in an uneasy way, as if she had
something to tell, which was the fact.
Elizabeth had had an adventure. It was a new thing in her monotonous
life; it brightened her eyes, and flushed her cheeks, and made her
old nervousness of manner return. More especially as she was somewhat
perplexed, being divided in her mind between the wish she had to tell
her mistress every thing, and the fear to trouble her, at this
troublous time, with any small matter that merely concerned herself.
The matter was this. When she had given in her advertisement at the
Times office, and was standing behind the counter waiting for her
change and receipt, there stood beside her a young man, also waiting.
She had hardly noticed him, till on his talking to the clerk about
some misprint in his advertisement, apparently one of the great
column of "Want Places," her ear was caught by the unmistakable
Stowbury accent.
It was the first time she had heard it since she left home, and to
Elizabeth's tenacious nature home in absence had gained an additional
charm, had grown to be the one place in the world about which her
affections clung. In these dreary wilds of London, to hear a Stowbury
tongue, to catch sight of a Stowbury person, or even one who might
know Stowbury, made her heart leap up with a bound of joy. She turned
suddenly, and looked intently at the young man, or rather the lad,
for he seemed a mere lad, small, slight, and whiskerless.
"Well, Miss. I hope you'll know me again next time." said the young
fellow. At which remark Elizabeth saw that he was neither so young
nor so simple as she had at first thought. She drew back, very much
ashamed, and coloring deeply.
Now, if Elizabeth ever looked any thing like comely, it was when she
blushed; for she had the delicate skin peculiar to the young women of
her district; and when the blood rushed through it, no cheek of lady
fair ever assumed a brighter rose. That, or the natural vanity of man
in being noticed by woman, caught the youth's attention.
"Come now, Miss, don't be shy or offended. Perhaps I'm going your
way? Would you like company home?"
"No, thank you," said Elizabeth, with great dignity.
"Well, won't you even tell a fellow your name? Mine's Tom Cliffe, and
I live--"
"Cliffe! Are you little Tommy Cliffe, and do you come from Stowbury?"
And all Elizabeth's heart was in her eyes.
As has been said, she was of a specially tenacious nature. She liked
few people, but those she did like she held very fast. Almost the
only strong interest of her life, except Miss Hilary, had been the
little boy whom she had snatched from under the horse's heels; and
though he was rather a scape-grace, and cared little for her, and his
mother was a decidedly objectionable woman, she had clung to them
both firmly till she lost sight of them.
Now it was not to be expected that she should recognize in this
London stranger the little lad whose life she had saved--a lad, too,
from her beloved Stowbury--without a certain amount of emotion, at
which the individual in question broadly stared.
"Bless your heart, I am Tommy Cliffe from Stowbury, sure enough. Who
are you?"
"Elizabeth Hand."
Whereupon ensued a most friendly greeting. Tom declared he should
have known her any where, and had never forgotten her--never! How far
that was true or not, he certainly looked as if it were; and two
great tears of pleasure dimmed Elizabeth's kind eyes.
"You've grown a man now, Tommy," said she, looking at him with a sort
of half-maternal pride, and noticing his remarkably hand some and
intelligent face, so intelligent that it would have attracted notice,
though it was set upon broad, stooping shoulders, and a small, slight
body. "Let me see; how old are you?"
"I'm nineteen, I think."
"And I'm two-and-twenty. How aged we are growing!" said Elizabeth,
with a smile.
Then she asked after Mrs. Cliffe, but got only the brief answer,
"Mother's dead," given in a tone as if no more inquiries would be
welcome. His two sisters, also, had died of typhus in one week, and
Tom had been "on his own hook," as he expressed it, for the last
three years.
He was extremely frank and confidential; told how he had begun life
as a printer's "devil," afterward become a compositor, and his health
failing, had left the trade, and gone as servant to a literary
gentleman.
"An uncommon clever fellow is master; keeps his carriage, and has
dukes to dinner, all out of his books. Maybe you've heard of them,
Elizabeth?" and he named a few, in a patronizing way; at which
Elizabeth smiled, for she knew them well. But she nevertheless
regarded with a certain awe the servant of so great a man, and
"little Tommy Cliffe" took a new importance in her eyes.
Also, as he walked with her along the street to find an omnibus, she
could not help perceiving what a sharp little fellow he had grown
into; how, like many another printer's boy, he had caught the
influence of the atmosphere of letters, and was educated,
self-educated, of course, to a degree far beyond his position. When
she looked at him, and listened to him, Elizabeth involuntarily
thought of Benjamin Franklin, and of many more who had raised
themselves from the ink-pot and the compositor's desk to fame and
eminence, and she fancied that such might be the lot of "little Tommy
Cliffe." Why not? If so, how excessively proud she should be!
For the moment she had forgotten her errand; forgotten even Miss
Hilary. It was not till Tom Cliffe asked her where she lived, that
she suddenly recollected her mistress might not like, under present
circumstances, that their abode or any thing concerning them should
be known to a Stowbury person.
It was a struggle. She would have liked to see the lad again; have
liked to talk over with him Stowbury things and Stowbury people; but
she felt she ought not, and she would not.
"Tell me where you live, Tom, and that will do just as well; at least
till I speak to my mistress. I never had a visitor before, and my
mistress might not like it."
"No followers allowed, eh?"
Elizabeth laughed. The idea of little Tommy Clifie as her "follower,"
seemed so very funny.
So she bade him good-by; having, thanks to his gay frankness, been
made acquainted with all about him, but leaving him in perfect
ignorance concerning herself and her mistress. She only smiled when
he declared contemptuously, and with rather a romantic emphasis, that
he would hunt her out, though it were half over London.
This was all her adventure. When she came to tell it, it seemed very
little to tell, and Miss Hilary listened to it rather indifferently,
trying hard to remember who Tommy Cliffe was, and to take an interest
in him because he came from Stowbury. But Stowbury days were so far
off now--with such a gulf or pain between.
Suddenly the same fear occurred to her that had occurred to
Elizabeth.
"The lad did not see the advertisement, I hope? You did not tell him
about us?"
"I told him nothing." said Elizabeth. speaking softly, and looking
down. "I did not even mention any body's name."
"That was right; thank you."
But oh, the bitterness of knowing, and feeling sure Elizabeth knew
too, the thing for which she thanked her; and that not to mention
Ascott's name was the greatest kindness the faithful servant could
show toward the family.