In order to explain Susan's reappearance under these exceptional
circumstances, it will be necessary that we should retrace our steps and
return to a date some months back in our narrative.
It will be remembered that when Doctor Jolly paid his visit to Havre in
the previous winter, he, after enquiring unsuccessfully for Susan at the
house of the Mere Cliquelle, in the Rue Montmartre, went off for a walk
(to pass the time until his ward should return) in the very same
direction that Markworth and Susan, with Clara Kingscott dogging their
heels, had taken--towards the heights of Ingouville.
The Doctor picked his steps carefully, for it was dusk, and he was in a
strange place, and he wished to establish certain landmarks in his mind,
by which he might regain the Rue Montmartre when his stroll was over,
and he should think it time to return.
Doctor Jolly had the address of his hotel on a printed card in his
pocket: he was not going to make another mistake, such as he had made
earlier in the day; and if any doubts arose in his mind as to his exact
latitude and longitude, he had resolved to hand the card of the hotel,
which he had previously secured, to the nearest policeman or cabman.
Oh! the doctor was very 'cute and business-like.
But he did not wish to return there just yet. He wanted to see Susan,
and have his mind set at rest about her before the night was over. And
so the doctor walked on in a desultory way, carefully studying the
topography of the street as he sauntered along, and pondering over
recent events in his mind.
He was wondering at the chain of circumstances which had brought him
wandering about "this confounded foreign, outlandish place!" at
nightfall, and "in the depth of winter too, by Gad!" he soliloquised, as
he inhaled the foggy air of the dull November night, which made him puff
and wheeze beneath the comforter, which in remembrance of Deb's
solicitude, he still kept carefully wrapped round his neck.
When he came to one of the roads leading up to the heights above, the
doctor paused a moment to recover his breath; he had never been "any
great hand at walking," as he would have told you himself; and the
distance he had already traversed, short though it was, had by this time
affected his wind.
While he was resting a moment, and debating in his mind whether he
should ascend the footpath in front of him, or yet retrace his steps to
the Rue Montmartre, he heard a sound near him as of one groaning in
pain. It was like the noise of the battle to the war-horse, or the salt
smell of the sea to a mariner; and the doctor pricked up his ears, all
his senses aroused at the idea of pain and suffering being suggested to
him: to minister to the ills of nature was his special vocation.
He searched about and followed the sound--it led him up higher to a
ledge on the cliff above; and there in the dim twilight he made out the
form of a human figure lying stretched on the _debris_ which had fallen
away with it apparently from the summit above.
To see and perceive was, with the staunch old doctor, but secondary to
acting.
He climbed up as hastily as his portly form would permit to the ledge,
and bent over a figure, which was nearly motionless. "Bless my soul!"
he ejaculated in alarm and surprise. "God bless my soul! Why, it is
poor Susan! How on earth did she come here?" As he bent to lift her up
she lay like a log in his arms.
The doctor however did not waste any time in vain regrets or in
exclamations of wonder: he was a medical man, and his first care was to
examine the motionless form of the girl, to see how far she was hurt.
She had only fainted, he shortly perceived, and he set to work at once
to revive her.
Thanks to a pocket flask of brandy, which he had fortunately brought
with him, he soon contrived to put a little life into the girl; and he
was able after a time to raise her up, when she opened her eyes and gave
a groan of pain. She apparently did not know where she was or recognise
the doctor; she only moaned, "Take me home! Take me home!"
One of her arms broken, and a cut on her head; but, otherwise, she had
most providentially escaped. She had probably fainted at the time she
shrieked out before falling backwards over the cliff. Being thus
supine, she could not struggle; so instead of receiving fatal injuries
as a man might have done, who attempted to resist his fall she was
unhurt, with the exception of a few trifling injuries, which time would
soon repair. But she was very much shaken, and the doctor did not know
what to do with her, as she could hardly walk, and he was not strong
enough to carry her, as he might have done in his earlier days.
The place was quite deserted. The doctor could not see a soul, and much
as he disliked Frenchmen, he would have been glad to come across then
the most "miserable foreign vagabond" who might have been sent on his
way; but no one came, and as it was getting darker and darker, and night
coming on, the doctor had to pull his wits together.
He was a man of action: to wager with possible improbabilities his
creed, so he did not hesitate long. While the girl was sobbing and
moaning to herself, and crying out in half-incoherent language "Allynne!
Allynne!" he lifted her up bodily, and tried to get her home to her own
place in the _Rue Montmartre_.
But the night was dark, as has been before observed, and the doctor
missed the landmarks, which he had so carefully jotted down on the
tablets of his memory. He was in the right direction, but when he got
to the foot of the street of which he was in search, he lost altogether
his _carte du pays_. Just then he saw a _fiacre_, and at the same time
he arrived at a sudden determination; what it was, will be presently
shown.
The doctor bethought him that he had come over to Havre especially to
try and get Susan home, and separate her from Markworth. Why on earth
should he take her back now to the place where she would still be with
him? Here she was unconscious, and he was her proper guardian appointed
by her father. He would--"Yes, I will, I'll be damned if I don't!" he
said, to himself; "take her back to England on my own account, without
asking anybody's leave or license!" And the doctor carried his
determination into effect between that night and the next day.
The _fiacre_ arriving opportunely, the doctor hailed it; and lifting
Susan in, gave the driver the card of his hotel, "The Queen of Savoy,"
which he had kept so carefully in his waistcoat pocket for such an
emergency as losing his way: he and his charge--now more recovered--were
presently set down at that famous hostelry, where the doctor had Susan
at once put to bed, guarding her all the while with jealous
watchfulness: he was afraid Markworth might step in at the last moment
to claim her, and that his trouble would be thrown away.
In the morning--Susan being still nearly unconscious--he had her carried
on board the early packet for England; and the same evening the doctor,
to his intense satisfaction, had her on English ground.
At Southampton, Susan was unfortunately taken very ill; and Doctor Jolly
could not carry out his intention of removing her at once to his own
house as he had intended.
The shock, the fall, the mental anxieties she had suffered, brought on
an attack of brain fever; and Susan was for days struggling between life
and death. When she was out of danger, the doctor, leaving her in the
care of a trustworthy nurse, went home to see about his practice--which
he thought must be at sixes and sevens from his prolonged absence--and
to make preparations for Susan's return to The Poplars.
When he got to Bigton, however, the doctor heard of the alarming illness
of the old dowager, and his plans became upset.
He went off at once to Hartwood village, and found the old lady
unconscious, although the respectable Dobbins, his _locum tenens_ had
treated her, the doctor allowed, as well as he could have done himself
under the sudden paralytic shock she had sustained.
Doctor Jolly had consequently to neglect Susan for a few days, in order
to attend to her mother; and when he did go back for her, he determined
that he would not bring her home to The Poplars--where everything would
remind her of her former life--but would take her to his own house at
Bigton.
Here, accordingly, Susan was removed as soon as she was able to travel
from Southampton; and here the good old Deb, the doctor's sister, nursed
the girl back to life, and to a knowledge of the past and present, with
more than a mother's care, tenderly aided by the doctor himself.
It may be remembered by the reader, in our retrospect, that Mr Trump
met Doctor Jolly soon after he returned from abroad; and the two had
some explanation together, which resulted in the fact of the lawyer
being pleased with himself at having taken no active part in the
proceedings of the French police after Susan's disappearance and
supposed death--although he had inserted a mortuary notice in the
_Times_.
Mr Trump's gratulation is thus easily explained. The advertisement of
Susan's death was not contradicted, in the first place because it was
rather late in the day to do it now, and in the second, the doctor
advised no steps being taken in the matter, or else Markworth might
return and claim the girl.
Mr Trump, however, made one omission, which, as a lawyer, he ought to
have attended to earlier. He did not communicate with the French police
until some weeks had elapsed--not until in fact after Miss Kingscott had
left Havre, in disgust at not hearing anything there of the hunted man,
and come to prosecute her watch in London. Thus it was that she knew
nothing of these revelations; and the polite Chef did not think it worth
his while, or the expenditure of a _dix centimes_ stamp, to inform
_cette femme diable_, as he termed her, any more about the matter.
When Susan recovered her senses and her memory, the only thing remained
fixed in her mind was the idea that Markworth had gone off and left her.
She seemed to remember only the words which he had spoken before she
had been alarmed and started back to the edge of the cliff that night.
She remembered nothing of the fall, and her subsequent removal by the
doctor to England. All the present was easily explained to her mind as
a natural consequence of what Markworth had told her, that he had to go
away, and that he was going to send her back home again; here she was
accordingly.
As she became well, however--there could be no question of her reason
now, for she was as sensible as possible, although timid in manner, as
she always would be--she appeared to dread the idea of being taken back
to her mother's house, which very naturally the doctor had suggested.
As soon as the old lady was able to bear the unexpected news--the doctor
and Lizzie had broken to her very gently the fact of Susan, her
daughter, whom she supposed dead, and whose death she accused herself of
causing, was still alive!--the dowager wanted her immediately to be
brought to The Poplars; but when the doctor proposed it to Susan, she
shrank back in alarm at the suggestion. The poor girl had such a
nervous dread of ever beholding the painful scenes of her miserable
childhood, and any allusion to the place or to her mother caused her
such trembling fits, and seemed to make her to withdraw herself into
herself, that the doctor saw that, for some time at least, the
eventuality of Susan's removal must be postponed.
When matters were explained to the dowager, she agreed with Doctor Jolly
that Susan had better remain at his house, although she would not hear
of it until he consented to accept remuneration. Fancy how changed the
dowager was when she now was anxious to force money on one unwilling to
receive it!
Susan still lived, therefore, at Bigton, undisturbed, with the doctor
and his worthy sister; indeed, Deb took such a fancy to Susan, with her
fair, grief-marked face, and frightened manner, that in a little while--
although she at first grumbled at her coming there to interrupt the
_tete-a-tete_ life of Damon and her Pythias--she could not bear the idea
of parting with her: there is no such pet in the world as an "old maid's
child."
By-and-bye, when Susan was quite recovered, as she expressed a desire to
see Havre again, and the house where she had lived so happily with
Markworth, the doctor took her over. The Mere Cliquelle and her _petit
bon homme_, were delighted to see _La belle Madame_ again--it seemed
like a resurrection from the dead to them, and they were in a great
puzzle about all the circumstances of the case, which the doctor's
explanation, although delivered in his loudest voice, utterly failed to
solve.
The Mere Cliquelle and her husband still let lodgings in their
comfortable little house in the _Rue Montmartre_; and if you want _un
appartement bien garni_, a cheerful hostess, and a landlord who "spiks
Inglis," decidedly broken, and has a partiality for chewing chocolate
and bon-bons, you cannot do better than "take their first-floor!"
Although she was anxious to re-visit these scenes again, Susan did not
care to stop after she got there. The place made her sad and
melancholy, and she said she wished to go away the next day: the doctor,
you may be certain, did not oppose her, and they returned to England
immediately.
They crossed the Channel, however, _via_ Folkestone, and went through
London, as Mr Trump wished for Susan to sign some documents referring
to the property she inherited under her father's will--property which
there was now no chance or loophole left for Markworth to lay claim to.
Thus it was that Doctor Jolly and Susan were both in London on the spot
where Clara Kingscott had caught the man she pursued at last.
And here they now were in company with the lawyer, and the woman who so
persistently hated him, in the presence of the dead man!
It was a sad shock to Susan; but a more fearful one to Clara Kingscott,
who felt herself a betrayer, like Judas Iscariot when he discovered our
Saviour with his accursed kiss. Remorse preyed upon her and gave her no
rest. She afterwards, it is believed, entered a convent in the South of
France, and is now a lay sister of the order of the Bleeding Heart!
Markworth's death released him from all his liabilities! It can be
imagined what a wail went up in Jewry when the knowledge that he had
escaped them became fully known to those modern Shylocks, Solomonson and
Isaacs. They tore their beards, they wept, they cursed by their gods
the Gentile who had out-witted them; but it was of no use, they could
not get their money back. Death is regardless of human bonds and
obligations, and although the Shylocks got much additional avoirdupois
weight of flesh beyond their original pound, the Jews thought themselves
sadly victimised. They got no pecuniary satisfaction for the large sums
they had advanced their former client; even the change which had been
left out of Mrs Martin's five pound note did not come to them: it was
taken out of the pockets of the dead man by the Cerberus of the
sponging-house, who thought it better to appropriate the said moneys to
his own use rather than leave them to be a source of wrangling to
others.
Seeing that nothing could be got out of him now, the harpies left
Markworth's body to its fate. An inquest was held, a verdict given,
"Died by the visitation of God," and the unfortunate schemer would have
been buried at the expense of the parish, had it not been for Mr Trump,
who defrayed the cost out of his own pocket.
Thus ended Markworth's life. He had schemed and planned, it is true, to
enrich himself at the expense of others, but he was not, perhaps, so bad
altogether, as one would, perhaps, at the first blush suppose. If we
were to analyse the men around us, and enquire into the motives which
plan their actions, independently of the actions themselves, we might
find many whose principles are like those of the man who has been
depicted in these pages--many, perhaps, far worse.
Volume 3, Chapter XIV.
"SEE THE CONQUERING HERO COMES."
The Abyssinian war was ended! that gallant exploit of British arms,
however marvellous in its inception, and second only to the march of
Cyrus to the Sea that we read of in Xenophon, was actually _un fait
accompli_! The captives were rescued, and the host returned, leaving
Abyssinia pretty much as it was before it set out, with the exception of
King Theodore being no longer in the land of the living. Peace to the
bones of his sable majesty, who deserves some credit for his pluck, even
if his ideas on the subject of diplomacy were at fault.
Although we have been saddled with a debt of some ten millions more or
less--probably more, on account of the expedition--still it was a
glorious feat for our country.
That "Britons never will be slaves," or allow their fellow-countrymen to
remain in captivity, is a remarkably comfortable axiom to hug to one's
heart cannot be denied; and beyond the credit we have gained from the
successful termination of the "war," and the kudos for the manner in
which it was carried through from first to last, in spite of apparently
insurmountable difficulties, the Abyssinian mission has done much to
restore our old Continental reputation.
Sadly tarnished has the latter been of late years by the "old womanish"
policy of certain foreign secretaries of ours, in _re_ Denmark, and one
or two other like matters, not to speak of the moral cowardice and
practical stupidity we displayed in the non-recognition of the ill-fated
Confederate party in America; but we have not heard the last of that
question yet! _Vide_ Mr Sumner and the Alabama claims.
It would be useless to the point of our story, as well as out of place
here, to chronicle the different steps of the Abyssinian army, so ably
detailed by the graphic author of "The March to Magdala."
Suffice it to say that the expedition started and succeeded in its
purpose; and our hero, Master Tom, as one of its component parts, may be
said to have gone, and seen, and conquered like one of the rest, and
was, after a time, on his way home again.
Tom Hartshorne was ignorant of most that had occurred since he left
home. He had read and grieved over the intelligence of his sister
Susan's death, which he had come across in a stray copy of the _Times_
at Zoulla; but his grief was of very short duration, for the very next
day after he read the announcement he received a letter from Mr Trump,
telling him that it was all a mistake, and Susan was not dead at all,
although his mother, the dowager, was seriously ill. Beyond this--and
puzzled he was, too, with the conflicting accounts--Tom knew nothing of
the chops and changes brought about at The Poplars and in its
neighbourhood during his absence; he had no one to correspond with him,
and although he had written frequently to his mother in the meanwhile,
the lawyer's letter was the only communication he had received about
home matters since he left England, and home, and Lizzie, the year
before, for the far East.
His means of information being thus so scant, you may be sure that Tom's
imagination was additionally busy; and Tom had plenty to occupy his mind
in thinking of a past most important episode in his life, which you may
guess was connected with somebody--"you know who"--and allowing his
thoughts to dwell on the future, his future, so pregnant for him of joy
or sorrow. Which was it to be?
Time alone could tell; and Time, that ill-featured old gentleman, who
will persist in playing with edged tools, decided favourably, in spite
of his usual malevolence.
Tom came home at last, to find his way smooth, and his lot cast in
pleasant places; but it was some time before he did so.
You see he was connected with the staff, and had to return to Bombay
with the major portion of the expeditionary army; and there he was
detained, arranging this thing and that, until it was waxing late in the
summer, when he gazed on the Sunderbunds behind him; late in the summer
when he beheld again the donkey boys of Cairo; still latter when he
steamed down the Mediterranean and past "The Rock," and up the Bay of
Biscay, and landed at Southampton; but he came at last, although the
month of August had again come round ere Tom set foot on British soil,
and revisited his native place.
The dowager had been "picking up," as Doctor Jolly said, all this time;
and although she could not walk about--one of her sides was paralysed
still--yet she was very cheerful, and could speak fluently enough.
Lizzie was in the room--the parlour where his mother had told him
"Fiddle-de-dee!" when he told his love--with her when he came home--and
you may guess the meeting between the three. How the mother sobbed over
her darling boy; how she grieved over the change in him; how Lizzie's
face wore little tell-tale blushes when he spoke to her; and how he,
too, blushed, when his mother called out to him, when he was going to
shake hands with her politely--
"Why don't you kiss her, Tom? You know you would, you scamp, if I were
not here."
But the old lady would not let him out of her sight; and although Tom
was dying to have more explanation with Lizzie, he had to wait for a
chance.
When Lizzie rose to go it was late in the afternoon, a bright August
afternoon. Tom told her he wanted to speak to her, as she was going to
the door, and asked her if he might come down to the parsonage. "He
wanted to see Pringle:" he was actually dying to see the young
incumbent.
And Lizzie, with a still more tell-tale blush, and a sudden casting down
of the pretty violet eyes, and a resting of the long black lashes on her
cheek, had murmured to him--
"Come!"
Later on, when the mother and son had had still quieter conversation,
and Tom got away, he bent his steps towards the parsonage, his mother
wishing him "God speed" on his errand. What on earth could that errand
be?
Fortunately, not only was the old campaigner away for the day--she had
taken to visiting and bullying the young incumbent's sick parishioners
for him now, and priming them with tracts when a cheerful word would
have better suited their ailments; but Pringle was also out with his
wife, and Tom found Lizzie alone at home--alone in a very little
conservatory, which had witnessed his love-tale before, and where he had
parted from her, telling her that she was a heartless jilt.
Lizzie was in the self-same little conservatory, pretending to be very
busy putting pots up, and poking about with her trowel, as if
horticulture was the ultimate aim and end of existence. She was trying
to be very unconscious--oh! what a very feeble pretence it was--and
endeavoured to receive Master Tom as if he were an ordinary afternoon
caller. Such a very faint endeavour it was.
Tom went forward eagerly. He was not going to be baulked this time, and
his military experience had taught him that a determined assault was the
best way of securing an enemy's capitulation.
He went forward, and with one hand he seized the little taper fingers of
the young lady; his other arm, the unblushing dog placed round her
waist, forcing Miss Lizzie to drop her trowel, and thus reducing her
means of defence.
He looked down into the deep violet eyes which were looking up into his
own with--what shall you call it?--wonder or indignation?
"Well, Lizzie!" Tom said.
Lizzie said nothing; but it appeared to be "well." And then what a long
tale had to be told. What a number of explanations and conjectures, and
enquiries, and assertions!
Tom wanted her to tell him here, in this very spot, where she had
treated him so cruelly, that she was sorry for what she had done. Of
course she was, and it "should not occur again," with such a
supplicating little gesture.
Then Lizzie must be informed over and over again in the strongest terms
of assertion that the English language was capable of, whether Tom
"really" loved her and cared for her so much.
Imagine the protestations that ensued: the multiplicity of lover's
honied words and oaths: then Tom's enquiries to the same effect, which
had also to be confirmed, and so _da capo_.
It took a good many "wells" before the interview was satisfactorily
terminated, and Tom returned exultant to The Poplars to tell his mother
of his happiness.
Volume 3, Chapter XV.