And all too little to atone
For knowing what should ne’er be known.
Scott.
The season at Saratoga was not yet over, the travellers were told at
New York, though people were fast thronging back into “the city.” Should
they go on thither at once, or try to find the photographer nearer at
hand? It was on a Friday that they landed, and they resolved to wait
till Monday, Jock thinking that a rest would be better for his mother.
The early autumn sun glowed on the broad streets as they walked slowly
through them, halting to examine narrowly every display of portraits at
a photographer’s door.
It was a right course; they came upon some exquisitely-finished ones,
among which they detected unmistakably the coloured likeness of Elvira
de Menella. They went into the studio and asked to look at it. “Ah, many
ask that,” they were told, “though the sensation was a little gone by.”
“What sensation?” Jock asked, while his mother trembled so much that she
had to sit down on one of the velvet chairs.
“I guess you are a stranger, sir, from England? Then no doubt you have
not heard of the great event of the season at Saratoga, the sudden
elopement of this young lady, a beautiful English heiress, on the eve of
marriage, these very portraits ordered for the bridesmaids’ lockets.”
“Whom did she elope with?” asked Jock.
“That’s the remarkable part of it, sir. Some say that she was claimed
in secret by a lover to whom she had been long much attached; but we are
better informed. I can state to a certainty that she only fled to escape
the tyranny of an aunt. She need only have appealed to the institutions
of the country.”
“Very true,” said Jock. “Let me ask if your informant was not the lady
who coloured this photograph, Mrs. Harte?” “Yes.” “And is she here?”
“No, sir,” with some hesitation.
“Can you give me her address? I am her brother. This lady is her mother,
and we are very anxious to find her.”
The photographer was gained by the frank address and manner. “I am
sorry,” he said, “but the truth is that there was a monster excitement
about the disappearance of the girl, and as Mrs. Harte was said to have
been concerned, there was constant resort to the studio to interview
her; and I cannot but think she treated me ill, sir, for she quitted me
at an hour’s notice.”
“And left no address?” exclaimed her mother, grievously disappointed.
“Not with me, madam; but she was intimate with a young lady employed in
our establishment, and she may know where to find her.”
And, through a tube, the photographer issued a summons, which resulted
in the appearance of a pleasant-looking girl, who, on hearing that Mrs.
Harte’s mother and brother were in search of her, readily responded that
Mrs. Harte had written to her a month ago from Philadelphia, asking her
to forward to her any letters that might come to the room she usually
occupied at New York. She had found employment, and there could be no
doubt that she would be heard of there.
It was very near now. There was something very soothing in the services
of that Sunday of waiting, when the Church seemed a home on the other
side the sea, and on the Monday they were on their way, hearing, but
scarcely heeding, the talk in the cars of the terrible yellow-fever
visitation then beginning at New Orleans.
They arrived too late to do anything, but in early morning they were
on foot, breakfasting with the first relay of guests at the hotel, and
inquiring their way along the broad tree-planted streets of the old
Quaker city.
It was again at a photograph shop that they paused, but as they were
looking for the number, the private door opened, and there issued from
it a grey figure, with a black hat, and a bag in her hand. She stood on
the step, they on the side-walk. She had a thin, worn, haggard face, a
strange, grey look about it, but when the eyes met on either side there
was not a moment’s doubt.
There was not much demonstration. Caroline held out her hand, and Janet
let hers be locked tight into it. Jock took her bag from her, and they
went two or three paces together as in a dream, till Jock spoke first.
“Where are we going? Can we come back with you, Janet, or will you come
to the hotel with us?”
“I was just leaving my rooms,” she said. “I was on my way to the
station.”
“You will come with me,” said Caroline under her breath; and Janet
passively let herself be led along, her mother unconsciously holding her
painfully fast.
So they reached the hotel, and then Jock said, “I shall go and read the
papers; send a message for me if you want me. You had rather be left to
yourselves.”
The mother knew not how she reached her bedroom, but once there, and
with the door locked, she turned with open arms. “Oh! Janet, one kiss!”
and Janet slid down on the floor before her, hiding her face in her
dress and sobbing, “Oh! mother, mother, I am not worthy of this!”
Then Caroline flung herself down by her, and gathered her into her
arms, and Janet rested her head on her shoulder for some seconds, each
sensible of little save absolute content.
“And you have come all this way for me?” whispered Janet, at last
raising her head to gaze at the face.
“I did so long after you! My poor, poor child, how you have suffered,”
said Caroline, drawing through her fingers the thin, worn, bony,
hard-worked hand.
“I deserved a thousand times more,” said Janet. “But it seems all gone
since I see you, mother. And if you forgive, I can hope God forgives
too.”
“My child, my child,” and as the strong embrace, and the kiss was on her
brow, Janet lay still once more in the strange rest and relief. “It is
very strange,” she said. “I thought the sight of you would wither me
with shame, but somehow there’s no room for anything but happiness.”
Renewed caresses, for her mother was past speaking.
“And Lucas is with you? Not Babie?”
“No, Babie is left with Mrs. Evelyn.”
“So poor little Elvira came safe home?”
“Yes, and is Mrs. Allen Brownlow. Poor child, you rescued her from a sad
fate. She believed to the last you were coming with her, and she lost
your note, or you would have heard from us sooner.”
Janet went on asking questions about the others. Her mother dreaded to
put any, and only replied. Janet asked where they had been living, and
she answered:
“In the old house, while the two Johns have been studying medicine.”
“Not Lucas?” cried Janet, sitting upright in her surprise.
“Yes, Lucas. The dear fellow gave up all his prospects in the army,
because he thought it would be more helpful to me for him to take this
line, and he has passed so well, Janet. He has got the silver medal, and
his essay was the prize one.”
“And--” Janet stood up and walked to the window, as she said “and you
have told him--”
“Yes. But, Janet, it was too late. Some hints of your father’s had been
followed up, and the main discovery worked out, though not perfected.”
Janet’s eyes glistened for a moment as they used to do in angry
excitement, and she asked, “Could he bear it?”
“He was chiefly concerned lest I should be disappointed. Then he
reminded me that the benefit to mankind had come all the sooner.”
“Ah!” said Janet with a gasp, “there’s the difference!” She did not
explain further, but said, “It has not poisoned his life!”
Then seeking in her bag, she took out a packet. “I wish you to know all
about it, mother,” she said. “I wrote this to send home by Elvira, but
then my heart failed me. It was well, since she lost my note. I kept
it, and when I did not hear from you, I thought I would leave it to be
posted when all was over with me. I should like you to read it, and I
will tell you anything else you like to know.”
There came the interruption of the hotel luncheon, after which a room
was engaged for Janet, and the use of a private parlour secured for
the afternoon and evening. Jock came and went. He was very much excited
about the frightful reports he heard of the ravages of yellow fever
in the south, and went in search of medical papers and reports. Janet
directed him where to seek them. “I was just starting to offer myself as
an attendant,” she said. “I shall still go, to-morrow.”
“You? Oh, Janet, not now!” was her mother’s first exclamation.
“You will understand when you have read,” quietly said Janet.
All that afternoon, according to her manifest wish, her mother was
reading that confession of hers, while she sat by replying to each
question or comment, in the repose of a confidence such as had not
existed for fifteen years.
“Magnum Bonum,” wrote Janet. “So my father named it. Alas! it has been
Magnum Malum to me. I have thought over how the evil began. I think it
must have been when I brooded over the words I caught at my father’s
death-bed, instead of confessing to my mother that I had overheard them.
It might be reserve and dread of her grief, but it was not wholly so.
I did not respect her as I ought in my childish conceit. I was an
old-fashioned girl. Grandmamma treated her like a petted eldest child,
and I had not learnt to look up to her with any loyalty. My uncle and
aunt too, even while seeming to uphold her authority, betrayed how
cheaply they held her.”
“No wonder,” said Caroline. “I was a very foolish creature then.”
“I saw you differently too late,” said Janet. “Thus unchecked by any
sober word, my imagination went on dwelling on those words, which
represented to me an arcanum as wonderful as any elixir of life that
alchemists dream of, and I was always figuring to myself the honour and
glory of the discovery, and fretting that it was destined to one of my
brothers rather than myself. Even then, I had some notion of excelling
them, and fretted at our residence at Kenminster because I was cut off
from classes and lectures. Then came the fortune, and I saw at the
first glance that wealth would hinder all the others, even Robert, from
attempting to fulfil the conditions, and I imagined myself persevering
and winning the day. As to the concealment of the will, I can honestly
say that, to my inexperienced fancy, it appeared utterly unlike my
father’s and grandmother’s, and at the moment I hid it, I only thought
of the disturbance and discomfort, which scruples of my mother’s would
create, and the unpleasantness it would make with Elvira, with whom I
had just been quarrelling. When as I grew older, and found the validity
of wills did not depend on the paper they were written upon, I had
qualms which I lulled by thinking that when my education was safe, and
Elvira safely married to Allen, I would look again and then bring it to
light, if needful. My mother’s refusal to commit the secret to me on any
terms entirely alienated me, I am grieved to say. I have learnt since
that she was quite right, and that she could not help it. It was only my
ignorance that rebelled; but I was enraged enough to have produced the
will, and perhaps should have done so, if I had not been afraid both of
losing my own medical training, and of causing Robert to take up that
line, in which I knew he could succeed better than anyone.”
“Janet, this must be fancy!”
“No, mother. There’s no poison like a blessing turned into a curse. This
is the secret history of what made me such a disagreeable, morose girl.
“Then came the opportunity that enabled me to glance at the book of
my father’s notes. Barbara’s eyes made me lock the desk in haste and
confusion. It was really and truly accident that I locked the book out
instead of in. As you know, Barbara hid away the davenport, and I could
not restore the book, when I had pored over it half the night, and found
myself quite incompetent to understand the details, though I perceived
the main drift. I durst not take the book out of the house, and the loss
of my keys cut me off from access to it. Meantime I studied, and came
to the perception that a woman alone could never carry out the needful
experiments, I must have a man to help me, but I was too much warped by
this time to see how my mother was thus justified. I still looked on
her as insanely depriving me of my glory, the world of the benefit for
a mere narrow scruple. Then I fell in with Demetrius Hermann. How can
I tell the story? How he seemed to me the wisest and acutest of human
beings, the very man to assist in the discovery, and how I betrayed to
him enough by my questions to make him think me a prize, both for my
secret and my fortune. He says I deceived him. Perhaps I did. Any
way, we are quits. No, not quite, for I loved him as I should not have
thought it in me to love anyone, and the very joy and gladness of the
sensation made me see with his eyes, or else be preposterously blind.
I think his southern imagination made his expectations of the secret
unreasonable, and I followed his bidding blindly and implicitly in my
two attempts to bring off Magnum Bonum, which I had come to believe my
right, unjustly withheld from me. The second attempt, as you know, ended
in the general crash.
“Afterwards, all the overtures were made by my husband. I would not
share in them. I was too proud and would not come as a beggar, or see
him threaten and cringe as unhappily I knew he could do, nor would I be
seen by my mother or brothers. I knew they would begin to pity me, and I
could not brook that. My mother’s assurance of exposure, if he made any
use of the stolen secret, made Demetrius choose to go to America.
“He said it all came out before my military brother. Did that change
Lucas’s destination?” said Janet, looking up.
“Ask him?”
“No, indeed,” said Jock, when he understood. “I turned doctor as the
readiest way of looking after mother.”
“Did you understand nothing?”
“Only that she had some memoranda of my father’s, that the sc---- that
Hermann wanted. I never thought of them again till she told me.”
Mrs. Brownlow started at the next few words.
“My child was born only two days after we landed at New York.”
But a quick interrogative glance kept her silent. “She was very small
and delicate, and her father was impatient both of her weakness and
mine. I think that was when I began to long for my mother. He made
me call her Glykera, after his mother. I had taught him to be bitter
against mine.”
“O mother, if you could have seen her,” suddenly exclaimed Janet, “she
was the dearest little thing,” and she drew from her bosom a locket with
a baby face on one side, and some soft hair on the other, put it into
her mother’s hand and hid her face on her shoulder.
“Oh! my poor Janet, you have suffered indeed! How long did you keep the
little darling?”
“Two years. You will hear! I was not quite wretched while I had her. Go
on, mother. There’s no talking of it.”
“We tried both practising and lecturing, feeling our way meantime
towards the Magnum Bonum. We found, however, in the larger cities that
people were quite as careful about qualifications as at home, and that
we wanted recommendations. I could have got some practice among women if
Demetrius would have rested long enough anywhere, but he liked lecturing
best. I had been obliged to perceive that he had very little real
science, and indeed I had to give him the facts and he put them in his
flowery language. While as to Magnum Bonum, he had gained enough to use
it in a kind of haphazard way, for everything. I trembled at what he
began doing with it, when in the course of our wanderings we got out of
the more established regions into the south-west. In Texas we found a
new township, called Burkeville, without a resident medical man, and the
fame of his lectures had gone far enough for him to be accepted. There
we set up our staff, and Demetrius--it makes me sick to say so--tried
to establish himself as the possessor of a new and certain cure. I was
persuaded that he did not know how to manage it, I tried to make him
understand that under certain conditions it might be fatal, but he
thought I was jealous. He had had one or two remarkable successes, his
fame was spreading, he was getting reckless, and I could not watch as
carefully as I sometimes did, for my child was ill, and needed all my
care. The favourite of all the parish was the minister’s daughter, a
beautiful, lively, delicate girl, loved and followed like a sort of
queen by the young men, of whom there were many, while there were hardly
any other young women, none to compare with her. Demetrius had lost some
patients, it was a sickly season, and I fancy there was some mistrust
and exasperation against him already, for he was incompetent, and grew
more averse to consulting me when his knowledge was at fault. I need
not blame him. Everyone at home knows that I do not always make myself
agreeable, and I had enough to exacerbate me, with my child pining in
the unhealthy climate, and my father’s precious secret used with the
rough ignorance of an empiric. I knew enough of the case of this Annie
Field to be sure that there were features in it which would make that
form of treatment dangerous. I tried to make him understand. He thought
me jealous of his being called in rather than myself. Well--she died,
and such a storm of vengeance arose as is possible in those lawless
parts. I knew and heeded nothing of it, for my little Glykera was worse
every day, and I thought of nothing else, but it seems that reports
unfavourable to us had come from some one of the cities where we had
tried to settle, and thus grief and rage had almost maddened one of
Annie’s lovers, a young man of Irish blood, a leader among the rest. On
the day of her funeral all the ruffianism in the place was up in arms
against us. My husband had warning, I suppose, for I never saw or heard
of him since he went out that morning, leaving me with my little one
moaning on my lap. She was growing worse every hour, and I knew nothing
else, till my door was burst open by a little boy of eight or ten years
old, crying out, ‘Mrs. Hermann, Mrs. Hermann, quick, they are coming to
lynch you! come away, bring the baby. If father can’t stop them, there’s
no place safe but our house.’
“And indeed upon the air came the sound of a great, horrible, yelling
roar unspeakably dreadful. It seems never to have been out of my ears
since. I do not know whether an American mob would have proceeded to
extremities with a lonely woman and dying child, but there was an
Irish and Spanish element of ferocity at Burkeville, and the cold, hard
Englishwoman was unpopular, besides that, I was supposed to share in
the irregular practice that had had such fatal effects. But with that
horrible sound, one did not stop to weigh probabilities. I gathered up
my child in her bed-clothes, and followed the boy out at the back
door, blindly. And where do you think I found myself? where but in the
minister’s house? His wife, whose daughter had just been carried out
to her grave, rose up from weeping and praying, to take me into
the innermost chamber, where none could see me, and when she saw my
darling’s state, to give me all the help and sympathy a good woman
could. Oh! that was my first true knowledge of Christian charity.
“Mr. Field himself was striving at the very grave itself to turn away
the rage of these men against those whom they held his daughter’s
murderers, but he was as nothing against some fifty or sixty gathered,
I suppose, some by real or fancied wrongs, some from mere love
of violence. Any way, when he found himself powerless against the
infuriated speeches of the young Irish lover, he put his little boy over
the graveyard wall, and sent him off to take me to the last place where
the mob would look for me, the very room where Annie died. Those howls
and yells round the empty house, perhaps, too, the shaking of my rapid
run, hastened the end with my precious child. I do not believe she
could have lived many hours, but the fright brought on shudderings and
convulsions, and she was gone from me by nine that evening. They might
have torn me to pieces then, and I would have thanked them! I cannot
tell you the goodness of the Fields. It could not comfort me then, but I
have wondered over it often since.” (There were blistered, blotted tear
marks here.) “They knew it was not safe for me to remain, for there had
been wild talk of a warrant out against us for manslaughter. They would
have had me leave my little darling’s form to their care, but they saw
I dreaded (unreasonably I now think) some insult from those ruffians for
her father’s sake. Mr. Field said I should lay my little one to her rest
myself. They found a long basket like a cradle. We laid her there in her
own night-dress, looking so sweet and lovely. Mr. Field himself went out
and dug the little grave, close to Annie’s, and there by moonlight we
laid her, and the good man put one of the many wreaths from Annie’s
grave upon hers, and there we knelt and he prayed. I don’t know what
denomination his may be, but a Christian I know he is. Cruel as the very
sight of me must have been, they kept me in bed all the next day; and
the minister went to see what he could save for me. Finding no one, the
mob had wreaked their vengeance on our medicine bottles and glasses,
smashed everything, and made terrible havoc of all our books, clothes
and furniture. Almost the only thing Mr. Field had found unhurt was
mother’s little Greek Testament, which I had carried about, but utterly
neglected till then. Mr. Field saw my name in it, brought it to me, and
kindly said he was glad to restore it; none could be utterly desolate
whose study lay there. I was obliged to tell him how you had sent it
after me with that entreaty, which I had utterly neglected, and you can
guess how he urged it on me.”
“You have gone on now,” said her mother, looking up at her.
Janet’s reply was to produce the little book from her handbag, showing
marks of service, and then to open it at the fly leaf. There Caroline
herself had written “Janet Hermann,” with the reference to St. Luke
xv. 20. She had not dared to write more fully, but the good minister of
Burkeville had, at Janet’s desire, put his own initials, and likewise
written in full:
“Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work
shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall come again from the
land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that
thy children shall come again to their own border.”
“He might have written it for me,” said Caroline. “My child--one at
least is come to me.”
“Or you have gone into her far country to seek her,” said Janet.
“Can I write to this good man?” asked Caroline. “I do long to thank
him.”
“O yes. I wrote to him only the day before yesterday.”
There was but little more of the narrative. “At night he borrowed a
waggon, and drove me to a station in time to take the early train for
the north-east, supplying me with means for the journey, and giving me a
letter to a family relation of his, in New York State. I was most kindly
sheltered there for a few days while I looked out for advertisements.
I found, however, that I must change my name, for the history of
the Burkeville affair was copied into all the papers, and there were
warnings against the two impostors, giving my maiden name likewise, as
that in which my Zurich diploma had been made out. This cut me off from
all medical employment, and I had to think what else I could do, not
that I cared much what became of me. Seeing a notice that an assistant
was wanted to colour and finish photographs, I thought my drawing,
though only schoolroom work, might serve. I applied, showed specimens,
and was thought satisfactory. I sent my address to Mr. Field, who had
promised to let me know in case my husband made any attempt to trace me,
or if I could find my way back to him, but up to this time I have heard
absolutely nothing. The few white days in my life are, however, when
I get a cheering, comforting letter from him. How I should once have
laughed their phraseology to scorn, but then I did not know what reality
meant, and they are the only balm of my life now, except mother’s little
book, and what they have led me to.
“But you see why I cannot come with Elvira. Not only do I not dare to
meet my mother, but it might bring down upon her one whom she could not
welcome. Besides, it is clearly fit that I should strive to meet him
again; I would try to be less provoking to him now.”
“I see, my dear,” said Caroline. “But why did you never draw on Mr.
Wakefield all this time?”
“I never thought we ought to take that money,” said Janet. “I could
maintain myself, and that was all I wanted. Besides I was ashamed to bid
him use a false name, and I durst not receive a letter under my own, nor
did I know whether Demetrius might go on applying.”
“He did once, saying that you were unwell, but Mr. Wakefield declined to
let him be supplied with out your signature.”
Janet eagerly asked the when and the where.
“I am glad,” said her mother, “to find that you change of name was not
in order to elude him, as feared at first.”
“No,” said Janet, “he never knew he was cruel, but he had made a mistake
altogether in me. I was a disappointment to begin with, owing to my
own bad management, you see, for if I had brought off the book, and
destroyed the will, his speculation would have succeeded. And then,
for his comfort, he should have married a passive, ignorant, senseless,
obedient oriental, and he did not know what to do with a cold, proud
thing, who looked most hard when most wretched, who had understanding
enough to see his blunders, and remains of conscience enough to make her
sour. Poor Demetrius! He had the worst of the bargain! And now--” She
turned the leaf of the manuscript, and showed, with a date three days
back:
“Mr. Field has written to me, sending a cutting of an advertisement of
a month back of a spiritualist from Abville, which he thinks may be my
husband’s. I am sure it is, I know the Greek idiom put into English. It
decides me on what I had thought of before. I shall offer my services
as nurse or physician, or whatever they will let me be in that stress of
need. I may find him, or if he have fled, I may, if I live, trace him.
At any rate, by God’s grace, I may thus endeavour to make a better use
of what has never yet been used for His service.
“And in case I should add no further words to this, let me conclude by
telling my dear, dear mother that my whole soul and spirit are asking
her forgiveness, and by sending my love to my brothers, and sister,
whom I love far better now than ever I did when I was with them. And to
Elvira too--perhaps she is my sister by this time.
“Let them try henceforth to think not unkindly of
“JANET HERMANN.”
This had been enclosed in an envelope addressed to Mrs. Joseph Brownlow,
to the care of Wakefield and Co., solicitors.
“You see I cannot go back with you, mother dear,” she said, “though you
have come to seek me.”
“Not yet,” said Caroline, handing the last page to Jock, who had come
back again from one of his excursions.
“Look here, Janet,” said Jock, “mother will not forbid it, I know. If
you will wait another day for me to arrange for her, I will go with
you. This is a place specially mentioned as in frightful need of medical
attendance, and I already doubted whether I ought not to volunteer, but
if you have an absolute call of duty there, that settles it. Mother, do
you remember that American clergyman who dined with us? I met him just
now. He begged me with all his heart to persuade you to come and stay
with his family. I believe he is going to bring his wife to call. I am
sure they would take care of you.”
“I don’t want care. Jock, Jock, why should I not go and help? Do you
think I can send my children into the furnace without me?”
Jock came and sat down by her with his specially consoling caress.
“Mother dear, I don’t think you ought. We are trained to it, you see,
and it is part of our vocation, besides, Janet has a call. But your
nursing would not make much difference, and besides, you don’t belong
only to us--Armine and Babie need their home. And suppose poor Bobus
came back. No, I am accountable to them all. They didn’t send me out in
charge of my Mother Carey that I should run her into the jaws of Yellow
Jack. I can’t do it, mother. I should mind my own business far less if I
were thinking about you. It would be just like your coming after me into
a general engagement.”
“Lucas is quite right,” said Janet. “You know, mother, this is a special
kind of nursing, that one does not understand by the light of nature,
and you are not strong enough or tough enough for it.”
“I flattered myself I was pretty tough,” said her mother, with trembling
lip. “What sort of a place is it? Could not I--even if you won’t let me
nurse--be near enough to rest you, and feed you, and disinfect you? That
is my trade, Jock will allow, as a doctor’s wife and mother. And I could
collect things and send them to the sick. Would not that be possible, my
dears?”
Jock said he would find out. And then he told them he had found a Church
with a daily service, to which they went.
And then those three had a wonderfully happy evening together.