The arrival of letters at the Cottage was somewhat irregular and
uncertain. Mails from England and the States reached Cacouna in the
evening, and if a messenger was sent to the post-office the letters
could be had about an hour afterwards. Since Maurice had been in
England, the English mails were eagerly looked for, and Mr. Leigh never
failed to send at the very first moment when it was possible there might
be news of him. Lately Maurice's correspondence had been nearly equally
divided between his father and Mrs. Costello; and Mr. Leigh had wondered
not a little at the fretted impatient humour which showed itself plainly
at times in his share of the letters written in that silent and shadowy
sickroom at Hunsdon. But Maurice said nothing to him of the real cause
of his discontent--very little of his plan of returning to Cacouna; and
it was Mrs. Costello who received the notes which acted as safety valves
to his almost irrepressible disturbance of mind. He continued to send
her, once a week, a sheet full of persuasions and arguments which the
moment they were written seemed unanswerable, and the moment they were
despatched appeared puerile and worthless. Still they came, with no
other effect than that of making the recipient more and more unhappy, as
she perceived how her own mistake had helped to increase Maurice's
hopes, and to darken his life by their destruction.
One of these letters arrived on the very evening of Mrs. Costello's
visit to the jail. It was shorter and more hurried than usual, and spoke
of Mr. Beresford being worse--so much worse that his granddaughter had
been sent for hastily, and, as every one supposed, for the last time;
but it was just as peremptory as any former one, in declaring that
nothing could or should prevent the writer from seeking for, and finding
Lucia wherever she might be, the moment he was free to leave England.
Mrs. Costello read this note with some uneasiness. She saw that on the
question which of two declining lives should waste fastest, much of the
future now depended. If death came first to the rich and well-born
Englishman, in his stately house, Maurice would be set at liberty, and
by his presence at Cacouna would add to her difficulties; if, to the
miserable prisoner who had been for so many years her terror and
disgrace, and was now thrown upon her care and pity, she should yet be
able to fly with Lucia and hide herself, not now indeed from an enemy,
but from too faithful a friend.
In the meantime, however, since she had decided to make her marriage
known to all the little world of Cacouna, she began to feel that the
Leighs, both father and son, had a right to have the truth simply and
immediately from herself. She said nothing to Lucia that evening on this
subject, but after going to her room for the night, she sat down and
wrote a very brief but clear explanation of her secret, for Maurice;
adding only a few words of affectionate farewell, and an intimation that
it was better for all direct communication between them to cease with
this letter.
Next morning at breakfast she told Lucia what she had done, saying
simply that she preferred writing to Maurice, to leaving him to find out
the truth by more indirect means; and added that she intended going at
once to Mr. Leigh's and making him her first confidant in Cacouna. Lucia
could only assent. _Somebody_ must be the first to hear the story, and
who so fit as their old and dear friend?
"If Maurice were but here!" she said, with a sigh, "he would be such a
comfort, I know, for nothing would make any change in him."
Mrs. Costello echoed the sigh, but not the wish.
"If he will but stay away!" she thought, and said nothing.
She put on her bonnet as soon as breakfast was over, and walked slowly
up the lane to the farmhouse. Lucia watched her anxiously, and many
times during the next two hours went to the windows to see if she were
returning, but it was after twelve before she came, and then she looked
pale and exhausted from the morning's excitement.
She lay down, however, at Lucia's entreaty, and by-and-by began to tell
her what had passed.
In the first place Mr. Leigh had been utterly astonished. Through all
the years of their acquaintance the secret had been so well kept that
he had never had the smallest suspicion of it. Like all the rest of her
neighbours he had supposed Mrs. Costello a widow, whose married life had
been too unhappy for her to care to speak of it. The idea that this dead
husband was a Spaniard had arisen in the first place from Lucia's dark
complexion and black hair and eyes, as well as from the name her mother
had assumed; it had been, in fact, simply a fancy of the Cacouna people,
and no part of Mrs. Costello's original plan of concealment. It had
come, however, to be as firmly believed as if it had been ever so
strongly asserted, and had no doubt helped to save much questioning and
many remarks.
All these ideas, firmly rooted in Mr. Leigh's mind, had taken some
little time to weed out; but when he heard and understood the truth, it
never occurred to him to question for a moment the wisdom or propriety
of her flight from her husband or of the means she had taken to remain
safe from him. He thought the part of a friend was to sympathize and
help, not to criticize, and after a few minutes' consideration as to how
help could best be offered, he asked whether she intended that very day
to claim her rightful post as Christian's nurse.
"I did intend to do so," she answered, "but for two or three reasons I
think I had perhaps better wait until to-morrow. Mr. Strafford may
possibly be here then."
"You will be glad to have him with you," Mr. Leigh answered, "but it
seems to me that an old neighbour who has seen you every day for years,
might not be out of place there too. Will you let me go with you to the
jail?"
"Dear Mr. Leigh! you cannot. You have not been out of the house for
weeks."
"All laziness. Though indeed I could not pretend to walk so far. But we
can have Lane's covered sleigh, and go without any trouble."
Mrs. Costello still protested; but in her heart she was perfectly well
aware that Mr. Leigh's presence would be a support to her in the first
painful moments when she must acknowledge herself the wife of a supposed
murderer--and more than that, of an Indian, who had become in the
imagination of Cacouna, the type and ideal of a savage criminal. So,
finally, it was arranged that she should be accompanied to the prison on
the following day by her two faithful friends (supposing Mr. Strafford
to have then arrived), and that in the meantime she should merely pay
her husband a visit without betraying any deeper interest in him than
she had shown already.
Mr. Leigh asked whether he should tell Maurice what he had himself just
heard, and in reply Mrs. Costello gave him the note she had written, and
asked him to enclose it for her.
"I thought it was better and kinder to write to him myself," she said.
"It will be a shock to Maurice to know the real position of his old
playfellow."
Mr. Leigh looked at her doubtfully.
"It will be a surprise, no doubt," he said, "as it was to me, and he
will be heartily sorry not to be here now to show you both how little
change such a discovery makes. But do you know, Mrs. Costello, it has
struck me lately that there was something wrong either with you and
Maurice, or with Lucia and Maurice?"
"There is nothing wrong with either, I assure you. You know yourself,"
she answered with a smile, "that Maurice never forgets to send us a note
by every mail."
"That is true; but it does not altogether convince me; Maurice is
worried and unhappy about something, and yet I cannot make out that
there is anything in England to trouble him."
"On the contrary," Mrs. Costello said, as she rose, "except for Mr.
Beresford's illness I think he has everything he can reasonably wish
for--and more."
She held out her hand to say good-bye, feeling a strong desire to get
away, and escape from a conversation which was becoming embarrassing.
Mr. Leigh took it and for one second held it, as if he wished to say
something more, but the feeling that he had really no ground but his own
surmises for judging of Maurice's relations with either Lucia or her
mother, checked him.
Mrs. Costello hurried home. She knew as well as if he had said so, that
her old friend guessed his son's attachment and was ready to sanction
it; she could easily understand the generous impulse which would have
urged him to offer to her and her child all the support and comfort
which an engagement between the two young people could be made to
afford; but she would not even trust herself to consider for a moment
the possibility of accepting a consolation which would cost the giver so
dear. Maurice, she felt, ought to marry an English-woman, his mother's
equal; and no doubt if he and Lucia could be kept completely apart for
two or three years, he would do so without reluctance; only nothing must
be said about the matter either by Mr. Leigh or to Lucia. As for her
daughter, the very circumstance which had formerly seemed most
unfavourable to her wishes was now her great comfort; she rejoiced in
the certainty that Lucia had never suspected the true nature or degree
of Maurice's regard. It was in this respect not to be much regretted
that Lucia still thought faithfully of Percy--not at all as of one who
might yet have any renewed connection with her life, but as of one dead.
The poor child, in spite of her premature womanliness, was full of
romantic fancies; while Percy was near her she had made him a hero; now
since his disappearance, she had found it natural enough to build him a
temple and put in it the statue of a god. And it was better that she
should mourn over a dead love, than that she should a second time be
tormented by useless hopes and fears.
That afternoon Mrs. Costello and Lucia went together into Cacouna,
taking with them some small comforts for the invalid, but Lucia was not
yet permitted to see him. She parted from her mother at the prison
door, and went to pay a visit to Mrs. Bellairs and Bella, the last time
she was ever likely to see them on the old frank and intimate footing.
Even now, indeed, the intimacy had lost much of its charm. She loved
them both more than ever, but the miserable consciousness of imposture
weighed heavily upon her, and seemed to herself to colour every word she
uttered. She did not stay long; and making a circuit in order to pass
the jail again, in hopes of meeting her mother, she walked sadly and
thoughtfully through the winter twilight towards home. In passing
through the town she noticed an unusual stir of people; groups of men
stood in the streets or round the shop doors talking together, but it
was a time of some political excitement, and the inhabitants of Cacouna
were keen politicians, so that there might be no particular cause for
that.
Mr. Strafford was more than half expected at the Cottage that evening.
The boat might be in by five, and it was nearly that time when Lucia
reached home, so she took off her walking-things, and applied herself at
once to making the house look bright and comfortable to welcome him,
all the while listening with some anxiety for the sound of her mother's
return. But Mrs. Costello did not come, and Lucia began to think that
she must have gone to the wharf to meet Mr. Strafford, and that they
would arrive together. She made Margery bring in the tea-things, and had
spent no small trouble in coaxing the fire into its very brightest and
warmest humour, the chairs into the cosiest places, and the curtains to
hang so that there should not be the slightest suspicion of a draught,
when at last the welcome sound of the gate opening was heard, and she
ran to the door; there indeed stood Mr. Strafford, but alone.
Lucia forgot her welcome, and greeted him with an exclamation of
surprise and disappointment; then suddenly recollecting herself, she
took him into the bright sitting-room and explained why she was
astonished to see him alone.
"I came straight from the wharf," he said, "and have seen nothing of
Mrs. Costello, but I will walk back along the road and meet her."
This, however, Lucia would not hear of.
"Margery shall go a little way," she said; "mamma cannot be long now."
So Margery went, while Mr. Strafford questioned Lucia as to all she
knew of Christian's condition. She told him, with little pauses of
listening between her sentences, for she was growing every moment more
uncontrollably anxious. At length both started up, for the tinkle of
sleigh bells was heard coming up the lane. Again Lucia flew to the door,
and opened it just as the sleigh stopped.
"Mamma!" she cried, "are you there?" and to her inexpressible relief she
was answered by Mrs. Costello's voice.
"But why are you so late?" was the next question.
"I will tell you all presently. Pay the man, dear, and let him go. Or
stay, tell him to come for me at ten o'clock to-morrow morning."
Mrs. Costello was sitting by the fire when Lucia came back from her
errand. She looked excessively pale and tired, but in her face and in
that of Mr. Strafford as he stood opposite to her there was a light and
flicker of strong excitement. Both turned to Lucia, and Mrs. Costello
held out her hand.
Lucia came forward, and seeing something she could not understand, knelt
down by her mother's knee and said, "What is it?"
"Good news, darling, good news at last!" Mrs. Costello tried to speak
calmly, but her voice shook with this unaccustomed agitation of joy. "He
is innocent!" she cried, and covered her face with her hands.