A MYSTERY.
‘Oh snows so pure, oh peaks so high!
I shall not reach you till I die!’
_Songs of Two Worlds._
Wellfield found his way somehow to the station, and waited for the
train to Frankfort, pacing about the little asphalted platform with
feelings of the most horrible shame and humiliation–a longing to quit
the place, to lose the recollection of it–a sensation that he belonged
to a different world, a lower order of creature than she did, and that
to approach her was folly, and must necessarily result in disaster,
in singed feathers and maimed pinions. Blended with this was a sudden
yearning, stronger than he had ever felt before, to see once more the
gentle eyes of the wife who, he knew, would never love any other than
him, let his shortcomings or the nobility of the other be never so
strongly contrasted. Truly, could his moral stature, his innermost
_ich_, have been disrobed then and placed naked before the eyes of men,
it must have presented but a sorry, grovelling kind of figure.
The slow, jog-trot train came rumbling in, and bore him in leisurely
fashion past all the little stations, till at last, long after
half-past eight, they arrived at Frankfort.
He trailed his steps slowly up the street to the hotel. What he had
just gone through mentally–the moral scourging he had just sustained,
had exhausted him more than the hardest day of physical exertion could
have done. He felt used up–_todtmüde_, as he dragged himself up the
steps into the dazzling light of the hall, filled with piles of luggage
and groups of visitors–men smoking, girls flirting with them, parties
of people taking their coffee, an incessant passing to and fro, and
cheerful bustle.
It seemed that there was to be no pause, no reprieve in the sequence of
his calamities just then. A waiter came up to him, and asked if he were
the person to whom ‘_dieses telegram_’ was addressed.
Mechanically he took it; his apprehension dulled with the moral
castigation from which he was freshly come, and opened it, dully
wondering from whom it came, and what in the world it was about.
‘_John Leyburn_,
_Wellfield._
_To Jerome Wellfield, Esq._,
_–Hotel, Frankfort-am-Main._
‘Your wife has a son. She is very ill. Return at once, or you may be
too late.’
For the first moment this seemed the one drop too much. With a kind of
faint groan, he dropped into a chair that stood hard by, and propped—
his throbbing head upon his hands, feeling as if to move another step
would be impossible.
But this was but for a moment. He raised his head at last, and saw that
one person had been compassionate enough to come forward, and speak
to him–a stout, comely English matron, who, bravely overcoming her
insular reserve, said:
‘I fear you are ill. Is there nothing we can do for you?’
He raised so haggard a face, such wretched eyes towards her, that she
half-started; but Jerome, touched inexpressibly by the one drop of
sympathy of this motherly-looking woman, answered brokenly:
‘I am not ill, madam, I thank you. I–my wife–you may see—’
He put the paper into her hand, and went upstairs to put up his things,
and hasten to the night train for Brussels and Calais, which he knew
left in about half an hour’s time. When he came down again, and had
paid his bill, and was going out into the night with his wretchedness,
the same kind-looking matron stepped up to him, and said, all her
stiffness melted away:
‘I hope you will find your wife better, and not worse, when you
get home. I can feel for you, and I shall think of you, for I have
daughters of my own.’
‘Thank you for your goodness–you are very kind,’ he said quickly, his
voice breaking, as he hurried away.
‘Poor young fellow! I wonder if his wife will get better,’ said the
prosperous-looking matron to her husband.
‘Pooh, my dear! A perfect stranger! The thing is sure to be in the
_Times_ if she does die. That “poor young fellow” must be young
Wellfield of Wellfield. I wonder how he came to be here.’
‘He has a great trouble of some kind, and I hope his poor wife will not
die,’ repeated the lady.
* * * * *
The kindly words of the strange lady put a momentary warmth into his
heart, and he thought of them more than once on his journey home.
We all know what a journey from such a place to London is. Jerome,
inquiring on the way, found that with the best will in the world he
could not be in Manchester before nine o’clock the following night,
and from Manchester how was he to get to that out-of-the-world place
Wellfield? He dared not stop to think of it, but made his way onwards
as fast as he could. The twenty-four hours of travelling and waiting,
and waiting and travelling, seemed an eternity. He knew how they must
all be waiting for him, and Nita–he stopped that thought instantly
–it never got so far as the wonder whether she were dead or alive.
Manchester at last–after time, on a clear moonlight night. Into a
hansom, with urgent demands for speed, from the London Road Station,
down the long length of noisy Piccadilly and Market Street, up the hill
to the Victoria Station. He breathlessly asked the porter who strolled
up to him, ‘The train for Wellfield–how long?’
‘Last train left twenty minutes ago, sir–the slow one–doesn’t get in
till eleven.’
‘I _must_ be there to-night,’ he repeated, mechanically.
‘There’s an express to Bolton, sir, in five minutes. If you took that,
you might perhaps have a special on from there.’
This was the only plan, and he took it. He was in Bolton in half an
hour. A few inquiries there. Yes–they would send him on with a special
if he liked, but not for an hour. The line was blocked, and it could
not be done before then.
A sudden thought struck Jerome. One of his horses had been sent to
Bolton two days before he left, for a certain dealer to dispose of: he
knew it must still be there, for he had left orders that nothing was
to be concluded about it till his return. The man’s place was close to
the station, and it was but ten o’clock. It was a twenty miles’ ride
to Wellfield, but with a swift horse he might be there sooner than by
waiting an hour for a special train.
How it was settled he knew not. His white intent face, and something of
a silent urgency in his whole manner, caused the men to hasten their
work. In little more than ten minutes he rode out of the town along the
great north-eastern road.
It was a moonlight night, and bitter cold–a contrast to that of
twenty-four hours ago. He settled himself into his saddle, set his
teeth, and tried to think it was a short way. He never confessed the
feeling to himself, but he had little hope–his feeling was, not
that he hastened to give Nita the comfort of his presence as soon as
possible, but that he rode a race to speak to her and hear her speak to
him before she died.
The horse was fresh, was ready, and willing for the work; he shook his
head, stretched his long legs and lean flanks, and ‘his thundering
hoofs consumed the ground.’ Bending his head before the bitter air,
Jerome gave him rein, and they flew quickly past village and farm
and town, through one great dingy mass of square buildings and tall
chimneys after another; through streets dazzling with lights, and
flaring gin-palace windows, into a long stretch of quiet country, with
the moon shining serenely on the silent fields.
It seemed an eternity till he came to Burnham, the last great town
before Wellfield, and some six miles away from it. Outside the town,
beside a brook, he paused to water his horse; then, with a word of
encouragement, and a pat on the neck, the good beast resumed its long,
swinging stride, and there at last, in the moonlight, he sees the
first home landmark, the great shape of Penhull, grey and ghast in the
moonbeams. Nearer and nearer to that well-known shape, till he saw the
long wooded ridge on which Brentwood stands, and then down a hill,
betwixt thick woods; there stands the old white church at the end of
the street, here he is on the stones of Wellfield village–up its whole
length in a moment’s space, in at the Abbey gate–his horse’s hoofs
sound hollow on the turf of the river walk. The gate stands open; his
eye scans the windows. That was Nita’s room, and a light shone behind
the blind.
He flung himself off his horse, and almost staggered into the house.
The drawing-room door stood wide open, and as he entered a man came
out; he looked desperately into the face of Nita’s old friend.
‘Leyburn–my wife–is–is she—’
‘Yes, she is living still,’ said John, putting his arm within his,
and leading him to the foot of the stairs. ‘In her own room,’ added
Leyburn. ‘Miss Shuttleworth and your sister are—’
‘Yes–thanks!’ he answered, running up the stairs and finding himself
at last in the subdued light of Nita’s room, hearing Avice’s voice
exclaim:
‘Oh, Jerome! Thank God!’
He neither saw nor heeded anyone, but strode to Nita’s side, and knelt
by her bed, controlling himself with a great effort.
‘Is it you, Jerome?’ said a feeble changed voice. Avice and Miss
Shuttleworth had left them, the latter sobbing uncontrollably.
‘Don’t speak, Nita, my darling! I am here, I shall never leave you till
you are well again!’ he murmured.
‘I must speak, Jerome. I want to say–you will love my baby–oh!’ She
began to weep pitifully.
‘Hush, hush!’ he implored her. ‘Nita, hush! Let me love _you_, my
child.’
‘And you will not let him forget that _I_ was his mother, and should
have loved him dearly if I had stayed with him,’ she went on, in a
voice ever fainter and fainter.
‘You shall teach him yourself, my wife. Ah, Nita, you must not leave
me! God knows how I need you and your love and your forgiveness!’
‘Jerome,’ with a sudden flicker of life and strength, ‘do you love me a
little?’
‘As God is above us, Nita, I love you dearly,’ he answered; and he
spoke what was the truth at the moment, at least.
‘I am glad that I was able to speak to you,’ she said. ‘But if—’
These were the last words. When, alarmed by the long silence, Avice
and Miss Shuttleworth entered the room, they found Wellfield kneeling
still beside his dead wife, holding her cold hands to his breast, and
motionless almost as herself.
[Illustration]