and I think that’s all, and so no more at present from yours and cetrer,
C. Britain. Ha ha ha! There! Take all the papers, and lock ’em up. Oh!
Wait a minute. Here’s a printed bill to stick on the wall. Wet from the
printer’s. How nice it smells!’
‘What’s this?’ said Ben, looking over the document.
‘I don’t know,’ replied his wife. ‘I haven’t read a word of it.’
‘“To be sold by Auction,”’ read the host of the Nutmeg-Grater, ‘“unless
previously disposed of by private contract.”’
‘They always put that,’ said Clemency.
‘Yes, but they don’t always put this,’ he returned. ‘Look here,
“Mansion,” &c.—“offices,” &c., “shrubberies,” &c., “ring fence,” &c.
“Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs,” &c., “ornamental portion of the
unencumbered freehold property of Michael Warden, Esquire, intending to
continue to reside abroad”!’
‘Intending to continue to reside abroad!’ repeated Clemency.
‘Here it is,’ said Britain. ‘Look!’
‘And it was only this very day that I heard it whispered at the old
house, that better and plainer news had been half promised of her, soon!’
said Clemency, shaking her head sorrowfully, and patting her elbows as if
the recollection of old times unconsciously awakened her old habits.
‘Dear, dear, dear! There’ll be heavy hearts, Ben, yonder.’
Mr. Britain heaved a sigh, and shook his head, and said he couldn’t make
it out: he had left off trying long ago. With that remark, he applied
himself to putting up the bill just inside the bar window. Clemency,
after meditating in silence for a few moments, roused herself, cleared
her thoughtful brow, and bustled off to look after the children.
Though the host of the Nutmeg-Grater had a lively regard for his
good-wife, it was of the old patronising kind, and she amused him
mightily. Nothing would have astonished him so much, as to have known
for certain from any third party, that it was she who managed the whole
house, and made him, by her plain straightforward thrift, good-humour,
honesty, and industry, a thriving man. So easy it is, in any degree of
life (as the world very often finds it), to take those cheerful natures
that never assert their merit, at their own modest valuation; and to
conceive a flippant liking of people for their outward oddities and
eccentricities, whose innate worth, if we would look so far, might make
us blush in the comparison!
It was comfortable to Mr. Britain, to think of his own condescension in
having married Clemency. She was a perpetual testimony to him of the
goodness of his heart, and the kindness of his disposition; and he felt
that her being an excellent wife was an illustration of the old precept
that virtue is its own reward.
He had finished wafering up the bill, and had locked the vouchers for her
day’s proceedings in the cupboard—chuckling all the time, over her
capacity for business—when, returning with the news that the two Master
Britains were playing in the coach-house under the superintendence of one
Betsey, and that little Clem was sleeping ‘like a picture,’ she sat down
to tea, which had awaited her arrival, on a little table. It was a very
neat little bar, with the usual display of bottles and glasses; a sedate
clock, right to the minute (it was half-past five); everything in its
place, and everything furbished and polished up to the very utmost.
‘It’s the first time I’ve sat down quietly to-day, I declare,’ said Mrs.
Britain, taking a long breath, as if she had sat down for the night; but
getting up again immediately to hand her husband his tea, and cut him his
bread-and-butter; ‘how that bill does set me thinking of old times!’
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Britain, handling his saucer like an oyster, and disposing
of its contents on the same principle.
‘That same Mr. Michael Warden,’ said Clemency, shaking her head at the
notice of sale, ‘lost me my old place.’
‘And got you your husband,’ said Mr. Britain.
‘Well! So he did,’ retorted Clemency, ‘and many thanks to him.’
‘Man’s the creature of habit,’ said Mr. Britain, surveying her, over his
saucer. ‘I had somehow got used to you, Clem; and I found I shouldn’t be
able to get on without you. So we went and got made man and wife. Ha!
ha! We! Who’d have thought it!’
‘Who indeed!’ cried Clemency. ‘It was very good of you, Ben.’
‘No, no, no,’ replied Mr. Britain, with an air of self-denial. ‘Nothing
worth mentioning.’
‘Oh yes it was, Ben,’ said his wife, with great simplicity; ‘I’m sure I
think so, and am very much obliged to you. Ah!’ looking again at the
bill; ‘when she was known to be gone, and out of reach, dear girl, I
couldn’t help telling—for her sake quite as much as theirs—what I knew,
could I?’
‘You told it, anyhow,’ observed her husband.
‘And Dr. Jeddler,’ pursued Clemency, putting down her tea-cup, and
looking thoughtfully at the bill, ‘in his grief and passion turned me out
of house and home! I never have been so glad of anything in all my life,
as that I didn’t say an angry word to him, and hadn’t any angry feeling
towards him, even then; for he repented that truly, afterwards. How
often he has sat in this room, and told me over and over again he was
sorry for it!—the last time, only yesterday, when you were out. How
often he has sat in this room, and talked to me, hour after hour, about
one thing and another, in which he made believe to be interested!—but
only for the sake of the days that are gone by, and because he knows she
used to like me, Ben!’
‘Why, how did you ever come to catch a glimpse of that, Clem?’ asked her
husband: astonished that she should have a distinct perception of a truth
which had only dimly suggested itself to his inquiring mind.
‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ said Clemency, blowing her tea, to cool it.
‘Bless you, I couldn’t tell you, if you was to offer me a reward of a
hundred pound.’
He might have pursued this metaphysical subject but for her catching a
glimpse of a substantial fact behind him, in the shape of a gentleman
attired in mourning, and cloaked and booted like a rider on horseback,
who stood at the bar-door. He seemed attentive to their conversation,
and not at all impatient to interrupt it.
Clemency hastily rose at this sight. Mr. Britain also rose and saluted
the guest. ‘Will you please to walk up-stairs, sir? There’s a very nice
room up-stairs, sir.’
‘Thank you,’ said the stranger, looking earnestly at Mr. Britain’s wife.
‘May I come in here?’
‘Oh, surely, if you like, sir,’ returned Clemency, admitting him.
‘What would you please to want, sir?’
The bill had caught his eye, and he was reading it.
‘Excellent property that, sir,’ observed Mr. Britain.
He made no answer; but, turning round, when he had finished reading,
looked at Clemency with the same observant curiosity as before. ‘You
were asking me,’—he said, still looking at her,—‘What you would please to
take, sir,’ answered Clemency, stealing a glance at him in return.
‘If you will let me have a draught of ale,’ he said, moving to a table by
the window, ‘and will let me have it here, without being any interruption
to your meal, I shall be much obliged to you.’ He sat down as he spoke,
without any further parley, and looked out at the prospect. He was an
easy, well-knit figure of a man in the prime of life. His face, much
browned by the sun, was shaded by a quantity of dark hair; and he wore a
moustache. His beer being set before him, he filled out a glass, and
drank, good-humouredly, to the house; adding, as he put the tumbler down
again:
‘It’s a new house, is it not?’
‘Not particularly new, sir,’ replied Mr. Britain.
‘Between five and six years old,’ said Clemency; speaking very
distinctly.
‘I think I heard you mention Dr. Jeddler’s name, as I came in,’ inquired
the stranger. ‘That bill reminds me of him; for I happen to know
something of that story, by hearsay, and through certain connexions of
mine.—Is the old man living?’
‘Yes, he’s living, sir,’ said Clemency.
‘Much changed?’
‘Since when, sir?’ returned Clemency, with remarkable emphasis and
expression.
‘Since his daughter—went away.’
‘Yes! he’s greatly changed since then,’ said Clemency. ‘He’s grey and
old, and hasn’t the same way with him at all; but, I think he’s happy
now. He has taken on with his sister since then, and goes to see her
very often. That did him good, directly. At first, he was sadly broken
down; and it was enough to make one’s heart bleed, to see him wandering
about, railing at the world; but a great change for the better came over
him after a year or two, and then he began to like to talk about his lost
daughter, and to praise her, ay and the world too! and was never tired of
saying, with the tears in his poor eyes, how beautiful and good she was.
He had forgiven her then. That was about the same time as Miss Grace’s
marriage. Britain, you remember?’
Mr. Britain remembered very well.
‘The sister is married then,’ returned the stranger. He paused for some
time before he asked, ‘To whom?’
Clemency narrowly escaped oversetting the tea-board, in her emotion at
this question.
‘Did _you_ never hear?’ she said.
‘I should like to hear,’ he replied, as he filled his glass again, and
raised it to his lips.
‘Ah! It would be a long story, if it was properly told,’ said Clemency,
resting her chin on the palm of her left hand, and supporting that elbow
on her right hand, as she shook her head, and looked back through the
intervening years, as if she were looking at a fire. ‘It would be a long
story, I am sure.’
‘But told as a short one,’ suggested the stranger.
Told as a short one,’ repeated Clemency in the same thoughtful tone, and
without any apparent reference to him, or consciousness of having
auditors, ‘what would there be to tell? That they grieved together, and
remembered her together, like a person dead; that they were so tender of
her, never would reproach her, called her back to one another as she used
to be, and found excuses for her! Every one knows that. I’m sure I do.
No one better,’ added Clemency, wiping her eyes with her hand.
‘And so,’ suggested the stranger.
‘And so,’ said Clemency, taking him up mechanically, and without any
change in her attitude or manner, ‘they at last were married. They were
married on her birth-day—it comes round again to-morrow—very quiet, very
humble like, but very happy. Mr. Alfred said, one night when they were
walking in the orchard, “Grace, shall our wedding-day be Marion’s
birth-day?” And it was.’
‘And they have lived happily together?’ said the stranger.
‘Ay,’ said Clemency. ‘No two people ever more so. They have had no
sorrow but this.’
She raised her head as with a sudden attention to the circumstances under
which she was recalling these events, and looked quickly at the stranger.
Seeing that his face was turned toward the window, and that he seemed
intent upon the prospect, she made some eager signs to her husband, and
pointed to the bill, and moved her mouth as if she were repeating with
great energy, one word or phrase to him over and over again. As she
uttered no sound, and as her dumb motions like most of her gestures were
of a very extraordinary kind, this unintelligible conduct reduced Mr.
Britain to the confines of despair. He stared at the table, at the
stranger, at the spoons, at his wife—followed her pantomime with looks of
deep amazement and perplexity—asked in the same language, was it property
in danger, was it he in danger, was it she—answered her signals with
other signals expressive of the deepest distress and confusion—followed
the motions of her lips—guessed half aloud ‘milk and water,’ ‘monthly
warning,’ ‘mice and walnuts’—and couldn’t approach her meaning.
Clemency gave it up at last, as a hopeless attempt; and moving her chair
by very slow degrees a little nearer to the stranger, sat with her eyes
apparently cast down but glancing sharply at him now and then, waiting
until he should ask some other question. She had not to wait long; for
he said, presently:
‘And what is the after history of the young lady who went away? They
know it, I suppose?’
Clemency shook her head. ‘I’ve heard,’ she said, ‘that Doctor Jeddler is
thought to know more of it than he tells. Miss Grace has had letters
from her sister, saying that she was well and happy, and made much
happier by her being married to Mr. Alfred: and has written letters back.
But there’s a mystery about her life and fortunes, altogether, which
nothing has cleared up to this hour, and which—’
She faltered here, and stopped.
‘And which’—repeated the stranger.
‘Which only one other person, I believe, could explain,’ said Clemency,
drawing her breath quickly.
‘Who may that be?’ asked the stranger.
‘Mr. Michael Warden!’ answered Clemency, almost in a shriek: at once
conveying to her husband what she would have had him understand before,
and letting Michael Warden know that he was recognised.
‘You remember me, sir?’ said Clemency, trembling with emotion; ‘I saw
just now you did! You remember me, that night in the garden. I was with
her!’
‘Yes. You were,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir,’ returned Clemency. ‘Yes, to be sure. This is my husband, if
you please. Ben, my dear Ben, run to Miss Grace—run to Mr. Alfred—run
somewhere, Ben! Bring somebody here, directly!’
‘Stay!’ said Michael Warden, quietly interposing himself between the door
and Britain. ‘What would you do?’
‘Let them know that you are here, sir,’ answered Clemency, clapping her
hands in sheer agitation. ‘Let them know that they may hear of her, from
your own lips; let them know that she is not quite lost to them, but that
she will come home again yet, to bless her father and her loving
sister—even her old servant, even me,’ she struck herself upon the breast
with both hands, ‘with a sight of her sweet face. Run, Ben, run!’ And
still she pressed him on towards the door, and still Mr. Warden stood
before it, with his hand stretched out, not angrily, but sorrowfully.
‘Or perhaps,’ said Clemency, running past her husband, and catching in
her emotion at Mr. Warden’s cloak, ‘perhaps she’s here now; perhaps she’s
close by. I think from your manner she is. Let me see her, sir, if you
please. I waited on her when she was a little child. I saw her grow to
be the pride of all this place. I knew her when she was Mr. Alfred’s
promised wife. I tried to warn her when you tempted her away. I know
what her old home was when she was like the soul of it, and how it
changed when she was gone and lost. Let me speak to her, if you please!’
He gazed at her with compassion, not unmixed with wonder: but, he made no
gesture of assent.
‘I don’t think she _can_ know,’ pursued Clemency, ‘how truly they forgive
her; how they love her; what joy it would be to them, to see her once
more. She may be timorous of going home. Perhaps if she sees me, it may
give her new heart. Only tell me truly, Mr. Warden, is she with you?’
‘She is not,’ he answered, shaking his head.
This answer, and his manner, and his black dress, and his coming back so
quietly, and his announced intention of continuing to live abroad,
explained it all. Marion was dead.
He didn’t contradict her; yes, she was dead! Clemency sat down, hid her
face upon the table, and cried.
At that moment, a grey-headed old gentleman came running in: quite out of
breath, and panting so much that his voice was scarcely to be recognised
as the voice of Mr. Snitchey.
‘Good Heaven, Mr. Warden!’ said the lawyer, taking him aside, ‘what wind
has blown—’ He was so blown himself, that he couldn’t get on any further
until after a pause, when he added, feebly, ‘you here?’
‘An ill-wind, I am afraid,’ he answered. ‘If you could have heard what
has just passed—how I have been besought and entreated to perform
impossibilities—what confusion and affliction I carry with me!’
‘I can guess it all. But why did you ever come here, my good sir?’
retorted Snitchey.
‘Come! How should I know who kept the house? When I sent my servant on
to you, I strolled in here because the place was new to me; and I had a
natural curiosity in everything new and old, in these old scenes; and it
was outside the town. I wanted to communicate with you, first, before
appearing there. I wanted to know what people would say to me. I see by
your manner that you can tell me. If it were not for your confounded
caution, I should have been possessed of everything long ago.’
‘Our caution!’ returned the lawyer, ‘speaking for Self and
Craggs—deceased,’ here Mr. Snitchey, glancing at his hat-band, shook his
head, ‘how can you reasonably blame us, Mr. Warden? It was understood
between us that the subject was never to be renewed, and that it wasn’t a
subject on which grave and sober men like us (I made a note of your
observations at the time) could interfere. Our caution too! When Mr.
Craggs, sir, went down to his respected grave in the full belief—’
‘I had given a solemn promise of silence until I should return, whenever
that might be,’ interrupted Mr. Warden; ‘and I have kept it.’
‘Well, sir, and I repeat it,’ returned Mr. Snitchey, ‘we were bound to
silence too. We were bound to silence in our duty towards ourselves, and
in our duty towards a variety of clients, you among them, who were as
close as wax. It was not our place to make inquiries of you on such a
delicate subject. I had my suspicions, sir; but, it is not six months
since I have known the truth, and been assured that you lost her.’
‘By whom?’ inquired his client.
‘By Doctor Jeddler himself, sir, who at last reposed that confidence in
me voluntarily. He, and only he, has known the whole truth, years and
years.’
‘And you know it?’ said his client.
‘I do, sir!’ replied Snitchey; ‘and I have also reason to know that it
will be broken to her sister to-morrow evening. They have given her that
promise. In the meantime, perhaps you’ll give me the honour of your
company at my house; being unexpected at your own. But, not to run the
chance of any more such difficulties as you have had here, in case you
should be recognised—though you’re a good deal changed; I think I might
have passed you myself, Mr. Warden—we had better dine here, and walk on
in the evening. It’s a very good place to dine at, Mr. Warden: your own
property, by-the-bye. Self and Craggs (deceased) took a chop here
sometimes, and had it very comfortably served. Mr. Craggs, sir,’ said
Snitchey, shutting his eyes tight for an instant, and opening them again,
‘was struck off the roll of life too soon.’
‘Heaven forgive me for not condoling with you,’ returned Michael Warden,
passing his hand across his forehead, ‘but I’m like a man in a dream at
present. I seem to want my wits. Mr. Craggs—yes—I am very sorry we have
lost Mr. Craggs.’ But he looked at Clemency as he said it, and seemed to
sympathise with Ben, consoling her.
‘Mr. Craggs, sir,’ observed Snitchey, ‘didn’t find life, I regret to say,
as easy to have and to hold as his theory made it out, or he would have
been among us now. It’s a great loss to me. He was my right arm, my
right leg, my right ear, my right eye, was Mr. Craggs. I am paralytic
without him. He bequeathed his share of the business to Mrs. Craggs, her
executors, administrators, and assigns. His name remains in the Firm to
this hour. I try, in a childish sort of a way, to make believe,
sometimes, he’s alive. You may observe that I speak for Self and
Craggs—deceased, sir—deceased,’ said the tender-hearted attorney, waving
his pocket-handkerchief.
Michael Warden, who had still been observant of Clemency, turned to Mr.
Snitchey when he ceased to speak, and whispered in his ear.
‘Ah, poor thing!’ said Snitchey, shaking his head. ‘Yes. She was always
very faithful to Marion. She was always very fond of her. Pretty
Marion! Poor Marion! Cheer up, Mistress—you are married now, you know,
Clemency.’
Clemency only sighed, and shook her head.
‘Well, well! Wait till to-morrow,’ said the lawyer, kindly.
‘To-morrow can’t bring back’ the dead to life, Mister,’ said Clemency,
sobbing.
‘No. It can’t do that, or it would bring back Mr. Craggs, deceased,’
returned the lawyer. ‘But it may bring some soothing circumstances; it
may bring some comfort. Wait till to-morrow!’
So Clemency, shaking his proffered hand, said she would; and Britain, who
had been terribly cast down at sight of his despondent wife (which was
like the business hanging its head), said that was right; and Mr.
Snitchey and Michael Warden went up-stairs; and there they were soon
engaged in a conversation so cautiously conducted, that no murmur of it
was audible above the clatter of plates and dishes, the hissing of the
frying-pan, the bubbling of saucepans, the low monotonous waltzing of the
jack—with a dreadful click every now and then as if it had met with some
mortal accident to its head, in a fit of giddiness—and all the other
preparations in the kitchen for their dinner.
* * * * *
To-morrow was a bright and peaceful day; and nowhere were the autumn
tints more beautifully seen, than from the quiet orchard of the Doctor’s
house. The snows of many winter nights had melted from that ground, the
withered leaves of many summer times had rustled there, since she had
fled. The honey-suckle porch was green again, the trees cast bountiful
and changing shadows on the grass, the landscape was as tranquil and
serene as it had ever been; but where was she!
Not there. Not there. She would have been a stranger sight in her old
home now, even than that home had been at first, without her. But, a
lady sat in the familiar place, from whose heart she had never passed
away; in whose true memory she lived, unchanging, youthful, radiant with
all promise and all hope; in whose affection—and it was a mother’s now,
there was a cherished little daughter playing by her side—she had no
rival, no successor; upon whose gentle lips her name was trembling then.
The spirit of the lost girl looked out of those eyes. Those eyes of
Grace, her sister, sitting with her husband in the orchard, on their
wedding-day, and his and Marion’s birth-day.
He had not become a great man; he had not grown rich; he had not
forgotten the scenes and friends of his youth; he had not fulfilled any
one of the Doctor’s old predictions. But, in his useful, patient,
unknown visiting of poor men’s homes; and in his watching of sick beds;
and in his daily knowledge of the gentleness and goodness flowering the
by-paths of this world, not to be trodden down beneath the heavy foot of
poverty, but springing up, elastic, in its track, and making its way
beautiful; he had better learned and proved, in each succeeding year, the
truth of his old faith. The manner of his life, though quiet and remote,
had shown him how often men still entertained angels, unawares, as in the
olden time; and how the most unlikely forms—even some that were mean and
ugly to the view, and poorly clad—became irradiated by the couch of
sorrow, want, and pain, and changed to ministering spirits with a glory
round their heads.
He lived to better purpose on the altered battle-ground, perhaps, than if
he had contended restlessly in more ambitious lists; and he was happy
with his wife, dear Grace.
And Marion. Had _he_ forgotten her?
‘The time has flown, dear Grace,’ he said, ‘since then;’ they had been
talking of that night; ‘and yet it seems a long long while ago. We count
by changes and events within us. Not by years.’
‘Yet we have years to count by, too, since Marion was with us,’ returned
Grace. ‘Six times, dear husband, counting to-night as one, we have sat
here on her birth-day, and spoken together of that happy return, so
eagerly expected and so long deferred. Ah when will it be! When will it
be!’
Her husband attentively observed her, as the tears collected in her eyes;
and drawing nearer, said:
‘But, Marion told you, in that farewell letter which she left for you
upon your table, love, and which you read so often, that years must pass
away before it _could_ be. Did she not?’
She took a letter from her breast, and kissed it, and said ‘Yes.’
‘That through these intervening years, however happy she might be, she
would look forward to the time when you would meet again, and all would
be made clear; and that she prayed you, trustfully and hopefully to do
the same. The letter runs so, does it not, my dear?’
‘Yes, Alfred.’
‘And every other letter she has written since?’
‘Except the last—some months ago—in which she spoke of you, and what you
then knew, and what I was to learn to-night.’
He looked towards the sun, then fast declining, and said that the
appointed time was sunset.