THE END
The time passed, and now I was to prepare myself to receive my husband.
My mind had been so wholly engrossed by my sister that I had given but
little thought to the interview that was likely to happen that day, if
it were true, as Mary had said, that my husband would come to Newcastle.
It was not my fault, but the fault of my having been born a woman--of
my being human, in short--that, whilst I thought of my husband’s
arrival, I should find myself looking into the glass and comparing
my face with my sister’s. Never had I seen her so sweet, so lovely,
indeed, as when I beheld her in the road when my little boy came
running to me. How different was my face from hers! And yet, if he
loved me, if his love for my memory was as deep as my sister had
declared it in her letter, surely my face could not signify. Had I
found him shorn of his youth, maimed, ravaged by disaster, it would not
have mattered, I should but have loved him the more.
But then, I said to myself, whilst I looked in the glass, ‘What should
it be to me if his love grows cold at the sight of my white hair and
my altered countenance? Why should I care, though he came to me loving
only Mary? for I swear’--and as I pronounced these words I knelt--‘I
swear by my God that whilst Mary lives I will be no wife to John.’ And
this I said on my knees, again and still again. Yet, when I arose,
having been governed by a sudden bitter, powerful impulse to pronounce
these words, my heart trembled within me, and I felt that I had sinned
in directing myself by oath to a course, instead of trusting myself,
child-like, to the guiding hand of Him whose loving eye had been, as I
still hoped it was, upon me.
I was in my bedroom that evening; the time was a little before eight.
The room, as you may remember, was at the back of the house, and no
sound of traffic from the roadway reached me. On a sudden Mrs. Lee
opened the door without knocking, and said, with something of alarm
in the expression of her face, ‘Agnes, your husband awaits you in the
dining-room.’
Had I not seen him when I secretly visited Bath, and had not Mary’s
letter made me expect to see him at Jesmond almost immediately, I
cannot tell what would have been the effect upon me of the announcement
of his arrival. But I had had all day to think over it, and, as I
have said, I had seen him when I went to Bath, though he did not
know me; then, again, my capacity of emotion--or, in other words, my
sensibility--was somewhat dulled by the manner in which my spirits had
been strained since I had recovered my memory and received news of my
family; for one reason or another, then, I merely started when Mrs. Lee
announced my husband’s arrival, and, with a voice of composure, asked
her to accompany me downstairs.
‘No,’ said she, ‘go alone, Agnes. It will be a meeting too sacred for
me to witness. I have welcomed him to my house, and he awaits you. Go,
then!’
I descended the stairs, but my heart beat very quickly. Sacred the
meeting might be, but it could not possess the joy, the gladness, the
happy tears, the pathos of the delight of reunion which must have
made a golden and glorious memory of it whilst my life lasted had it
chanced but four short months earlier. The dining-room door was ajar;
I pushed it open and entered. A tall lamp stood upon the table; the
globe was unshaded, and the light streamed full upon my husband, who
stood at the table with his face turned towards the door. On seeing
me, he cried, ‘Oh, Agnes! oh, my dearest wife!’ and in a moment he had
embraced me, and once or twice he sobbed as he pressed his lips to my
cheek. He held me to him for some moments, then released me, grasped my
hands, and fell back a step to survey me.
‘That I should not have known you,’ he cried, ‘when I looked at you as
you lay upon the sofa! That you should have come to Bath, as Mary told
me, to see your children, walking until you fainted in your exhaustion,
and not entering your own house because--because--ah, God!’ he cried,
broke off, hid his face, and then, looking at me, exclaimed, ‘Speak to
me, Agnes!’
‘Oh, John, I will speak to you! The love that I gave you when we were
married is still yours. I will speak to you--but not as your wife.
Look at these white hairs. Look at the deformity here and here. I have
suffered much. For nearly three years have I been deprived of memory. I
knew not my own name. I knew not,’ I added, in a low voice, ‘that I had
a husband and children. My memory came back to me the other day, and
then I heard that Mary was your wife. Would for her dear sake that I
was dead, as you both believed me. Look in my face; you will see how I
have suffered. But what have been my sufferings compared to Mary’s now?
Oh! I have received a terrible letter from her.’
I put my hand in my pocket and extended the letter to him. He looked
at it, and then at me, and then at it again, standing motionless, as
though paralysed. Presently he exclaimed, in a voice a little above a
whisper:
‘You will speak to me, you say, but not as my wife? You will speak to
me, _but not as my wife_?’
‘Oh, John! I love you, but whilst Mary lives I am not your wife.’
He regarded me awhile, then extended his arms, as though he would
have me run to him that he might clasp me. I could not bear his look,
and, sinking upon a chair, I hid my face upon the table. He put his
arm around me and caressed me, kissing my hands and stroking my hair,
and calling me his precious wife whom God had returned to him. My
resolution was a bitter hard one in the face of those endearments! I
felt that he loved me. I believed in my heart that his marriage to my
sister was mainly for the sake of my children, and to shield her from
the whispers of the gossips by giving her his name. But, nevertheless,
she was his wife in the eyes of God and in her own pure heart; it was
not for me, her twin sister, to dishonour her; and with a cry forced
from me from the _pang_ of determination renewed, even as I sat with
buried face, caressed by my husband, I sprang to my feet, stepped a few
paces away, and confronted him with dry eyes.
‘Read this letter, John,’ I said; and I put Mary’s letter upon the
table.
He picked it up with one hand, and with the other drew a letter from
his pocket.
‘This, too,’ he said, ‘is from Mary.’
It was addressed to my husband. It contained not above twenty lines.
She said that the white-haired lady who had been carried into the
house was Agnes, ‘my sister and your wife.’ She gave him my address,
which she had doubtless found on the card that had been stitched to my
jacket, and bade him go to me without delay. She then, in a few words,
pointed out that I had come to Bath to see my children, that I knew
she had been married to him, and that I had meant to remain as though
dead to them that _her_ happiness might not be disturbed. Wonderful was
the sympathy of the sweet and gentle heart that could thus interpret
me! She briefly concluded by saying that she left him and the children
with tears and love, and that day and night she would pray to God to
continue to bless the house in which she had passed so many happy years.
My heart wept tears of blood as I read this letter, but my eyes
remained dry. My husband put the letter I had given to him upon the
table after reading it, and stood with his head bowed. He looked pale,
distress worked in his face, he had been travelling all day and was
cold, and he was my husband and I loved him. I took him by the hand
and led him to an arm-chair near the fire, and stood beside him.
‘John,’ I said, ‘Mary is your wife, and out of her letter I interpret
what you yourself must know. Can I dishonour my beloved sister by
replacing her? Would you wish it? Could you endure the thought of it?
You must seek her, take her to you again, cherish her. I ask only for
my children. Give me them, for they are mine and I must have them.’
‘I will seek her, Agnes, but you are my wife. I will seek her; but
suppose I find her? It is not she who is my wife; it is you. Could I
induce her to live with us under the same roof?’ He paused, and then
said, a little wildly, ‘Why have you been silent for three years? What
has become of you in all that long time?’
I took a chair opposite him, and told him all that had befallen me,
from the hour of the boatman falling overboard down to the time of
the recovery of my memory. He often started up, as though pity and
grief would make him clasp me. Then I told him of Alice Lee, and of
Mrs. Lee’s goodness to me--how dear, true, and devoted a friend she had
proved to me; and I also told him of the many inquiries she had caused
to be made on our return to England, and of the paragraphs relating
my story which had appeared in the newspapers. He declared he had not
heard one word of those paragraphs. He asked me to name the time when
they had appeared, and, when I answered, he said that in those months
he was taking a holiday in France with Mary and the children, and
this was the reason, no doubt, of his not having seen the newspaper
paragraphs; but he was amazed that none of his friends had acquainted
him with the publication of a story which must certainly have led to
his discovering me, particularly as my disappearance from Piertown and
my supposed death at sea had been much talked of amongst our friends in
Bath, whilst the account of the disaster had been printed in a local
paper.
His mentioning the trip to France with Mary and the children led him to
speak of the reason of his marrying my sister. I listened to him, and
then said, ‘I have not one word to say. When I first received the news
it grieved me indeed to think how short a time it takes for a man to
banish the memory of his wife from his love.’
‘No!’ he said passionately, ‘your memory was never banished from my
love. What has been my sin? How I grieved over your loss, Mary knows.
But the years stole away, two years and eight months passed; all this
while Mary was living with me, the children wanted a mother’s care, and
Mary was with them, and I could not part with her for Johnny’s and the
baby’s sake. But already your sister had remained too long under the
roof of one who was supposed to be a widower. People had been talking
for some time. Our visitors grew fewer and fewer. Either Mary must
leave my children, or I must protect her with my name.’
‘John, I have not one word to say,’ I repeated, ‘but Mary is your wife,
and if that be so, you cannot be my husband; therefore find her--you
will send me my children?’ My voice failed me; nevertheless I arose,
crossed to him, kissed his brow, and then found power to say: ‘I love
you, but I also love my sister. Do not ask me to dishonour her. Sooner
than do so I will kill myself,’ and speaking these words I pulled the
bell.
A servant opened the door, and I asked her to request Mrs. Lee to join
us. In a few moments the dear little creature entered. ‘This has been
my true best friend,’ I cried, throwing my arms around her neck.
My husband took her by the hand, and thanked her with deep feeling for
her kindness to me; ‘But,’ he added, looking at her with grief strong
in his face, ‘she asks for her children, and means to live away from
me, and to think of me as a stranger.’
‘Mr. Campbell,’ said Mrs. Lee, speaking cheerfully, though with a
little effort, ‘you must give your wife time. She has told you she was
without memory for three years. The whole of her past life came to her
suddenly, as I believe, as I truly believe, through the intercession of
my sainted child. Here was a revelation that might wreck the reason.
A lifetime is granted to a mortal to bear the sorrows and take the
pleasures of a lifetime, but all that entered into the lifetime of your
wife was utterly lost to her for three years, and then the mighty tide
of memory floods her brain. Consider this, I pray you, and add to it
the sad complication that has followed. Bear with her, grant her time;
all will yet be well.’
‘My sister must not suffer through me,’ said I.
‘Neither must you suffer through your sister,’ she answered. ‘Mr.
Campbell, I have ordered supper to be laid in the drawing-room, as I
did not wish you to be interrupted. You must feel weary after your long
journey.’
‘I can eat nothing, thanking you much. I have left my portmanteau at
the Central Station Hotel. I had hoped to return with Agnes to-morrow
morning.’
‘No, John, no!’ I cried. ‘When will you send the children to me?’
‘Are you so resolved?’ he said in a low voice.
‘I have sworn by my God,’ I cried, ‘that Mary shall not be dishonoured
through me. She is your wife. It is your duty to seek her, to follow
her, to find her. She is to be traced to Leicester, at all events.’
He took up his hat that lay upon a chair, moving as though in a dream.
‘God forgive you, Agnes,’ said he; ‘you are wronging and paining one
who loves you.’
He went to the door, and held it a moment with his eyes fixed upon me.
I directed my gaze downwards; for not long could I have withheld that
appealing look.
‘God forgive you!’ said he again, and passed out, followed by Mrs. Lee,
who closed the door behind her. She took him into the drawing-room,
and a long half-hour passed. The hall-door was then opened and shut,
footsteps sounded on the gravel-path, and Mrs. Lee came into the
dining-room. She sank into a chair, and exclaimed, ‘Agnes, he is a
good man, and he loves you. I have sent him away with a light heart.
All will yet be well. We shall recover your sister, and she will live
with me, and you will be a happy wife once more in your own home, with
your husband and your children by your side.’
‘Will he send the children to me?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘On his return.’
I blessed him in my heart, and kissed him in fancy. But the strain
had proved too great. The strength I had put forth to uphold me in my
resolution, not to know him as my husband whilst Mary lived, had taxed
me too heavily. I sat down at the table to support my head till the fit
of giddiness should pass, and when I opened my eyes again, Mrs. Lee
told me that I had been unconscious for nearly a quarter of an hour.
She saw me to bed, and that my thoughts should not keep me sleepless
all night, she procured and insisted on my taking a soothing draught,
which threw me into a sleep from which I did not awaken until past
eight o’clock next morning. My mind went often to my husband throughout
the day, but oftener to my children, whom I was to expect on the
following afternoon, and oftener still to my sister. In what part of
England did she mean to hide herself? And was it not true, as John had
said, that, supposing her hiding-place to be discovered, she would
insist on remaining apart from us all, insuring concealment by change
of quarters. It was certain she would not dwell with my husband whilst
I was alive. It was certain she could not live with us if I chose to
return to my husband. What then could she do? She must live apart, and
her pride and her condition, which her letter had hinted at, would
compel her to live in obscurity, even though, instead of having a
hundred a year to subsist upon, she had the wealth of a Princess.
I talked earnestly, with tears and with passion, to Mrs. Lee about
her; asked her how we should go to work to find out where she was;
‘Because,’ I said, ‘if she should not consent to live with you, she
might consent to live with me and my children. My husband must support
me, and Mary and I might be able to put enough together to keep a
little home on.’
But Mrs. Lee answered somewhat coldly, and without interest. Her
sympathy was not with my sister; it was with me and my husband and
children. She told me that I had no right to render my children
fatherless, to deprive them of their natural protection, and of their
home, indeed, by finding out where my sister was hidden and dwelling
with her. Indeed she strongly discountenanced my resolution not to
rejoin my husband, and I let the subject drop, fearful lest some hot
sentence should escape me, which might give pain to a friend and
benefactress whom I loved only a little less tenderly than I loved my
own sister.
I busied myself that afternoon, helped by the old housekeeper, Sarah,
to prepare a room for my children and the nurse. I walked into
Newcastle and purchased two little bedsteads, and I bought several toys
and boxes of sweets as surprises and welcomes for my little ones; and
when the evening had come, my thoughts at the time being much with my
husband, I sat down, and for above two hours occupied myself in filling
page after page of a letter to him.
I should only weary you to give you, even in the most abridged form,
the substance of that long letter. It was a justification of my
behaviour; it was an entreaty for my sister; and I also pointed out to
him that now my children were coming to me, I could no longer remain
dependent upon Mrs. Lee. I would be satisfied with the interest of
the money my mother had given to me, and if that did not suffice to
maintain my children and myself, I would endeavour by my industry to
make up what was wanting.
My children came next day. My husband sent Mrs. Lee a telegram, giving
the hour at which the train arrived, and I went to the railway station
to meet my children. There were many people on the platform, and I
do not doubt that my behaviour was observed, and that numbers went
away saying that they had seen a mad woman. My joy at the sight of my
children was indeed extravagant. First, I would take the baby from the
nurse and hug it, and then pick up Johnny and hold him, and then put
the little fellow down and take the baby again, laughing and crying
alternately with such gestures of delight, with such impassioned speech
to one or the other of the little ones, that, as I have said, many of
the people who observed me must have certainly thought me crazy.
As we drove to Jesmond I plied the nurse with all sorts of questions,
and heard, though I did not need to be told, of the devotion of Mary
to my children. As for the nurse, I could not but treat her as a
stranger. She had been with me a few months only before I was lost to
my family, and now, after three years, she was as strange to me as
though I had just engaged her. She it was, however, who told me of my
sister’s fright and grief, when, at Piertown, the evening approached,
the weather grew boisterous, and I did not return; how my sister had
sent boatmen to seek for me, but how they came back in a very short
while, bringing no news, and offering no hope; how further search was
made next day when my husband arrived. And she told me of his grief,
how his heart seemed broken, how messages were sent to adjacent ports
along the line of coast stating the disaster, and requesting that a
lookout should be kept, and that a search should be made; and then she
spoke of the family’s return to Bath, of their going into mourning for
me, though for months my husband refused to believe I was lost to him,
in spite of the boatman’s body having been washed ashore, and his boat
discovered upside down. She told me enough in her plain way to make
me understand that I had been mourned by my husband with a passion of
grief that had broken him down and forced him away for his health,
and almost ruined his practice by rendering him for months unfit for
business.
I secretly wept as I listened to her and often kissed my children, for
his face as he had turned to look at me was before me, and his cry of
‘God forgive you, Agnes!’ rang in my ears.
Two days after I had written to him I received a reply. He enclosed a
cheque, told me what he was earning, and said that all should be mine
if I would grant him a trifle to live upon in lodgings, because now
that his children were gone and I refused to return to him his home was
desolate, his life was made insupportable by the memories which arose
as he sat alone of an evening. He would shut up the house, he said, and
go into lodgings and there await me, for he had faith in my love and
believed that I would return to him yet. He had much to tell me about
Mary, repeated all that he had said in his conversation with me about
his reasons for marrying her, said that he had made up his mind not to
endeavour to discover her, because if he succeeded in finding her he
was without any proposal to make. She was not his wife, he could not
insult her by asking her to live with him, and she would not live with
me if I rejoined him. Even if he could find her he would not propose,
because he would not wish, that she and I should live together, for in
that case it might come to his never seeing me nor his children again.
Much more he said with which I will not weary you.
But his appeals left my resolution unaltered. Day followed day and I
was for ever hoping to receive a letter from my sister, or to hear
from my husband that he had learnt where she was in hiding. But the
silence remained unbroken. What could I do? Even should I make appeals
to her through the newspapers and she read them she was not likely to
tell me where she lived and what she was doing. I could not myself
seek for her. It was impossible to know, indeed, whether she had not
left England. I ascertained from my husband that she had withdrawn her
securities, so there was no clue to her whereabouts to be obtained
from the bank where she had deposited the documents. Bitterest of all
was this consideration--that even if I employed some shrewd person to
seek after her and he should find her, there was no other proposal to
make than that she should live with me; a proposal that I knew would be
hopeless, because she would feel that whilst she lived with me I could
not live with my husband, and her reason in disappearing was that she
should be as dead to us voluntarily as I had been forced to be through
calamity, that I might return to my home.
* * * * *
Six months passed. Occasionally I heard from my husband. He had locked
up the house and gone into lodgings, and every letter contained an
impassioned entreaty to me to return to him with the children.
One evening I was sitting with Mrs. Lee reading aloud to her. We had
passed the afternoon in a long drive with the children; they were
in bed sleeping soundly, and I had come down from seeing after them
and was now sitting reading aloud to Mrs. Lee. It was the 21st of
April, and, I believe, six months to the very day since the date of my
husband’s visit to Jesmond.
I was reading aloud mechanically; my thoughts had all day been very
much with my husband and my sister, and I felt dull in my heart, when
we were startled by a loud postman’s knock on the hall door, and a
minute later the housemaid entered with a letter. It was addressed to
me, and it was in my husband’s handwriting, and I said to Mrs. Lee,
‘Here is a letter from John.’
But on opening the envelope I found that the enclosure consisted of a
letter addressed to Mrs. John Campbell at my house in Bath. I turned it
about before opening it. It was sealed with black wax, but the envelope
was not black-edged, and the handwriting was entirely strange to me.
‘Can this be news of Mary?’ said I in a low voice, and looking at the
post-mark I said, ‘it is from Manchester.’
‘Open it, my love, and read it,’ said Mrs. Lee; ‘there is no other way
to put an end to your conjectures.’
The superscription of the letter was that of a vicarage taking its
name from a very little town or village within an easy distance of
Manchester. It was dated seven days earlier than this date of my
receipt of it. I read it aloud:
‘Dear Madam,--As the clergyman who attended your sister, Mary
Hutchinson, during her last moments, and as her friend and
confidant during the few months she resided in this neighbourhood,
it is my sad duty to inform you that she died on Saturday evening
last. She was confined of a still-born child on the previous
Tuesday, was very ill, having been long previously in a weakly
condition, but rallied, and the doctor had great hopes, when a
change happened for the worse, and I was sent for.
‘My wife had helped to nurse her through her illness; she was
seldom absent from her side. The sad and singular story of your
sister was well known to us. She took lodgings in this quiet place
about five months since, and speedily attracted my attention by her
frequent attendance at church, by her devotional behaviour during
the services, and by her isolation, that seemed strange in one so
young and beautiful. My wife and I found out where she lodged,
and called. Our relations quickly grew friendly and ripened into
intimacy. She told us her story, the story of your own strange and
dreadful experiences, imploring our secrecy, and assuring us that
nothing could ever prevail on her to make her whereabouts known to
you and her husband. We admired the nobility of her resolution, nor
was it possible for us to counsel her otherwise than as her own
pure heart dictated. Indeed, dear madam, we had nothing to oppose
to her own views. She was right. God has now taken her to Himself,
and be satisfied that she is happy, for surely she was of those who
are tried by the Lord in this world only that they shall enter more
surely as partakers of the glory of God and the life everlasting of
His Kingdom.
‘I propose that the funeral shall take place on Tuesday, if by
that date you and Mr. Campbell can conveniently reach this place.
Almost her last thoughts were with you and your husband and your
two children, and she desired me to send you her blessing, to tell
you that she was without pain, that the peace of God was upon her
spirit, and that she desired rest. One of the last wishes she
expressed was that her money should be divided between and settled
upon your two children.
‘I am, dear madam,
‘Sincerely yours,
‘JOHN F. TRUSCOTT.
‘P.S.--I reopen this letter after an interval of a week, to express
my deep regret that owing to an oversight on the part of one of my
servants it was not posted when written. It was placed upon the
mantelpiece and the servant was directed to post it, but, by some
means I am unable to account for, it got hidden behind a large
clock that stands upon my mantelpiece. I beg your forgiveness. I
am bitterly grieved by this act of neglect. The remains of your
dear sister were buried on Wednesday. I trust this letter may
safely reach your hands, and should you or Mr. Campbell be unable
to immediately visit us I shall be happy to attend to any requests
you may have to make.’
I read this letter aloud with tearless eyes to the last syllable of it,
then remained gazing at it as though I had been turned to stone, and
thus I sat, and nothing broke the silence in that room for many minutes
but the tick of the clock or the fall of an ember in the grate.
Then, lifting up my eyes and looking at Mrs. Lee, I said, ‘Mary is
dead!’
‘She is dead,’ said Mrs. Lee, beginning to weep, ‘and so is Alice, and
so is Edith, and how much happier are they than we!’
‘She is dead,’ I cried, ‘my sister is dead!’ and I rose and stepped
about the room murmuring to myself, ‘She is dead---and I was not there
to attend upon her---and whilst she lay dying I might have been playing
with my children and not thinking of her---’And then, seeing Mrs. Lee
weeping, the sight of her tears loosened mine, and I flung myself upon
my knees at her side and buried my face in her lap.
I felt my dear friend’s soft hand upon my head, and I heard her whisper
in my ear, ‘Agnes, it is at such a moment as this that you need your
husband’s love and sympathy.’
‘Oh, John!’ I cried, starting to my feet, ‘if you were but here.’
‘He is lonely--his grief will not be less than yours, Agnes,’ said Mrs.
Lee. ‘Prove now a true wife to your husband.’
‘I will go to him,’ I cried.
She kissed me, and again I knelt by her side, and with clasped hands
and streaming eyes we talked of Mary and of Alice and of my husband.
THE END
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
[Illustration]
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected.