"By George!" he cried; "and you've thrown over Julia, and offended all
our Guernsey folks, and half broken your poor mother's heart, all for
nothing!"
The last consideration was the one that stung me to the quick. It _had_
half broken my mother's heart. No one knew better than I that it had
without doubt tended to shorten her fleeting term of life. At this
moment she was waiting for me to bring her good news--perhaps the
promise that Olivia had consented to become my wife before her own last
hour arrived; for my mother and I had even talked of that. I had thought
it a romantic scheme when my mother spoke of it, but my passion had
fastened eagerly upon it, in spite of my better judgment. These were the
tidings she was waiting to hear from my lips.
When I reached home I found her full of dangerous excitement. It was
impossible to allay it without telling her either an untruth or the
whole story. I could not deceive her, and with a desperate calmness I
related the history of the day. I tried to make light of my
disappointment, but she broke down into tears and wailings.
"Oh, my boy!" she lamented; "and I did so want to see you happy before I
died: I wanted to leave some one who could comfort you; and Olivia would
have comforted you and loved you when I am gone! You had set your heart
upon her. Are you sure it is true? My poor, poor Martin, you must forget
her now. It becomes a sin for you to love her."
"I cannot forget her," I said; "I cannot cease to love her. There can be
no sin in it as long as I think of her as I do now."
"And there is poor Julia!" moaned my mother.
Yes, there was Julia; and she would have to be told all, though she
would rejoice over it. Of course, she would rejoice; it was not in human
nature, at least in Julia's human nature, to do otherwise. She had
warned me against Olivia; had only set me free reluctantly. But how was
I to tell her? I must not leave to my mother the agitation of imparting
such tidings. I couldn't think of deputing the task to my father. There
was no one to do it but myself.
My mother passed a restless and agitated night, and I, who sat up with
her, was compelled to listen to all her lamentation. But toward the
morning she fell into a heavy sleep, likely to last for some hours. I
could leave her in perfect security; and at an early hour I went down to
Julia's house, strung up to bear the worst, and intending to have it all
out with her, and put her on her guard before she paid her daily visit
to our house. She must have some hours for her excitement and rejoicing
to bubble over, before she came to talk about it to my mother.
"I wish to see Miss Dobrée," I said to the girl who quickly answered my
noisy peal of the house-bell.
"Please, sir,'" was her reply, "she and Miss Daltrey are gone to Sark
with Captain Carey."
"Gone to Sark!" I repeated, in utter amazement.
"Yes, Dr. Martin. They started quite early because of the tide, and
Captain Carey's man brought the carriage to take them to St. Sampson's.
I don't look for them back before evening. Miss Dobrée said I was to
come, with her love, and ask how Mrs. Dobrée is to-day, and if she's
home in time she'll come this evening; but if she's late she'll come
to-morrow morning."
"When did they make up their minds to go to Sark?" I inquired,
anxiously.
"Only late last night, sir," she answered. "Cook had settled with Miss
Dobrée to dine early to-day; but then Captain Carey came in, and after
he was gone she said breakfast must be ready at seven this morning in
their own rooms while they were dressing; so they must have settled it
with Captain Carey last night."
I turned away very much surprised and bewildered, and in an irritable
state which made the least thing jar upon me. Curiosity, which had slept
yesterday, or was numbed by the shock of my disappointment, was
feverishly awake to-day. How little I knew, after all, of the mystery
which surrounded Olivia! The bitter core of it I knew, but nothing of
the many sheaths and envelops which wrapped it about. There might be
some hope, some consolation to be found wrapped up with it. I must go
again to Sark in the steamer on Monday, and hear Olivia tell me all she
could tell of her history.
Then, why were Julia and Kate Daltrey gone to Sark? What could they have
to do with Olivia? It made me almost wild with anger to think of them
finding Olivia, and talking to her perhaps of me and my
love--questioning her, arguing with her, tormenting her! The bare
thought of those two badgering my Olivia was enough to drive me frantic.
In the cool twilight, Julia and Kate Daltrey were announced. I was about
to withdraw from my mother's room, in conformity with the etiquette
established among us, when Julia recalled me in a gentler voice than she
had used toward me since the day of my fatal confession.
"Stay, Martin," she said; "what we have to tell concerns you more than
any one."
I sat down again by my mother's sofa, and she took my hand between both
her own, fondling it in the dusk.
"It is about Olivia," I said, in as cool a tone as I could command.
"Yes," answered Julia; "we have seen her, and we have found out why she
has refused you. She is married already."
"She told me so yesterday," I replied.
"Told you so yesterday!" repeated Julia, in an accent of chagrin. "If we
had only known that, we might have saved ourselves the passage across to
Sark."
"My dear Julia," exclaimed my mother, feverishly, "do tell us all about
it, and begin at the beginning."
There was nothing Julia liked so much, or could do so well, as to give a
circumstantial account of any thing she had done. She could relate
minute details with so much accuracy, without being exactly tedious,
that when one was lazy or unoccupied it was pleasant to listen. My
mother enjoyed, with all the delight of a woman, the small touches by
which Julia embellished her sketches. I resigned myself to hearing a
long history, when I was burning to ask one or two questions and have
done with the topic.
"To begin at the beginning, then," said Julia, "dear Captain Carey came
into town very late last night to talk to us about Martin, and how the
girl in Sark had refused him. I was very much astonished, very much
indeed! Captain Carey said that he and dear Johanna had come to the
conclusion that the girl felt some delicacy, perhaps, because of
Martin's engagement to me. We talked it over as friends, and thought of
you, dear aunt, and your grief and disappointment, till all at once I
made up my mind in a moment. 'I will go over to Sark and see the girl
myself,' I said. 'Will you?' said Captain Carey. 'Oh, no, Julia, it will
be too much for you.' 'It would have been a few weeks ago,' I said; 'but
now I could do any thing to give Aunt Dobrée a moment's happiness.'"
"God bless you, Julia!" I interrupted, going across to her and kissing
her cheek impetuously.
"There, don't stop me, Martin," she said, earnestly. "So it was arranged
off-hand that Captain Carey should send for us at St. Sampson's this
morning, and take us over to Sark. You know Kate has never been yet. We
had a splendid passage, and landed at the Creux, where the yacht was to
wait till we returned. Kate was in raptures with the landing-place, and
the lovely lane leading up into the island. We went on past Vaudin's Inn
and the mill, and turned down the nearest way to Tardifs. Kate said she
never felt any air like the air of Sark. Well, you know that brown pool,
a very brown pool, in the lane leading to the Havre Gosselin? Just
there, where there are some low, weather-beaten trees meeting overhead
and making a long green isle, with the sun shining down through the
knotted branches, we saw all in a moment a slim, erect, very
young-looking girl coming toward us. She was carrying her bonnet in her
hand, and her hair curled in short, bright curls all over her head. I
knew in an instant that it was Miss Ollivier."
She paused for a minute. How plainly I could see the picture! The
arching trees, and the sunbeams playing fondly with her shining golden
hair! I held my breath to listen.
"What completely startled me," said Julia, "was that Kate suddenly
darted forward and ran to meet her, crying 'Olivia!'"
"How does she know her?" I exclaimed.
"Hush. Martin! Don't interrupt me. The girl went so deadly pale, I
thought she was going to faint, but she did not. She stood for a minute
looking at us, and then she burst into the most dreadful fit of crying!
"I ran to her, and made her sit down on a little bank of turf close by,
and gave her my smelling-bottle, and did all I could to comfort her.
By-and-by, as soon as she could speak, she said to Kate, 'How did you
find me out?' and Kate told her she had not the slightest idea of
finding her there. 'Dr. Martin Dobrée, of Guernsey, told me you were
looking for me, only yesterday,' she said.
"That took us by surprise, for Kate had not the faintest idea of seeing
her. I have always thought her name was Ollivier, and so did Kate. 'For
pity's sake,' said the girl, 'if you have any pity, leave me here in
peace. For God's sake do not betray me!'
"I could hardly believe it was not a dream. There was Kate standing over
us, looking very stern and severe, and the girl was clinging to me--to
_me_, as if I were her dearest friend. Then all of a sudden up came old
Mother Renouf, looking half crazed, and began to harangue us for
frightening mam'zelle. Tardif, she said, would be at hand in a minute or
two, and he would take care of her from us and everybody else. 'Take me
away!' cried the girl, running to her; and the old woman tucked her hand
under her arm, and walked off with her in triumph, leaving us by
ourselves in the lane."
"But what does it all mean?" asked my mother, while I paced to and fro
in the dim room, scarcely able to control my impatience, yet afraid to
question Julia too eagerly.
"I can tell you," said Kate Daltrey, in her cold, deliberate tones; "she
is the wife of my half-brother, Richard Foster, who married her more
than four years ago in Melbourne; and she ran away from him last
October, and has not been heard of since."
"Then you know her whole history," I said, approaching her and pausing
before her. "Are you at liberty to tell it to us?"
"Certainly," she answered; "it is no secret. Her father was a wealthy
colonist, and he died when she was fifteen, leaving her in the charge of
her step-mother, Richard Foster's aunt. The match was one of the
stepmother's making, for Olivia was little better than a child. Richard
was glad enough to get her fortune, or rather the income from it, for of
course she did not come into full possession of it till she was of age.
One-third of it was settled upon her absolutely; the other two-thirds
came to her for her to do what she pleased with it. Richard was looking
forward eagerly to her being one-and-twenty, for he had made ducks and
drakes of his own property, and tried to do the same with mine. He would
have done so with his wife's; but a few weeks before Olivia's
twenty-first birthday, she disappeared mysteriously. There her fortune
lies, and Richard has no more power than I have to touch it. He cannot
even claim the money lying in the Bank of Australia, which has been
remitted by her trustees; nor can Olivia claim it without making
herself known to him. It is accumulating there, while both of them are
on the verge of poverty."
"But he must have been very cruel to her before she would run away!"
said my mother in a very pitiful voice. Poor mother! she had borne her
own sorrows dumbly, and to leave her husband had probably never occurred
to her.
"Cruel!" repeated Kate Daltrey. "Well, there are many kinds of cruelty.
I do not suppose Richard would ever transgress the limits of the law.
But Olivia was one of those girls who can suffer great torture--mental
torture I mean. Even I could not live in the same house with him, and
she was a dreamy, sensitive, romantic child, with as much knowledge of
the world as a baby. I was astonished to hear she had had daring enough
to leave him."
"But there must be some protection for her from the law," I said,
thinking of the bold, coarse woman, no doubt his associate, who was in
pursuit of Olivia. "She might sue for a judicial separation, at the
least, if not a divorce."
"I am quite sure nothing could be brought against him in a court of
law," she answered. "He is very wary and cunning, and knows very well
what he may do and what he may not do. A few months before Olivia's
flight, he introduced a woman as her companion--a disreputable woman
probably; but he calls her his cousin, and I do not know how Olivia
could prove her an unfit person to be with her. Our suspicions may be
very strong, but suspicion is not enough for an English judge and jury.
Since I saw her this morning I have been thinking of her position in
every light, and I really do not see any thing she could have done,
except running away as she did, or making up her mind to be deaf and
blind and dumb. There was no other alternative."
"But could he not be induced to leave her in peace if she gave up a
portion of her property?" I asked.
"Why should he?" she retorted. "If she was in his hands the whole of the
property would be his. He will never release her--never. No, her only
chance is to hide herself from him. The law cannot deal with wrongs like
hers, because they are as light as air apparently, though they are as
all-pervading as air is, and as poisonous as air can be. They are like
choke-damp, only not quite fatal. He is as crafty and cunning as a
serpent. He could prove himself the kindest, most considerate of
husbands, and Olivia next thing to an idiot. Oh, it is ridiculous to
think of pitting a girl like her against him!"
"If she had been older, or if she had had a child, she would never have
left him," said my mother's gentle and sorrowful voice.
"But what can be done for her?" I asked, vehemently and passionately.
"My poor Olivia! what can I do to protect her?"
"Nothing!" answered Kate Daltrey, coldly. "Her only chance is
concealment, and what a poor chance that is! I went over to Sark, never
thinking that your Miss Ollivier whom I had heard so much of was Olivia
Foster. It is an out-of-the-world place; but so much the more readily
they will find her, if they once get a clew. A fox is soon caught when
it cannot double; and how could Olivia escape if they only traced her to
Sark?"
My dread of the woman into whose hands my imbecile curiosity had put the
clew was growing greater every minute. It seemed as if Olivia could not
be safe now, day or night; yet what protection could I or Tardif give to
her?
"You will not betray her?" I said to Kate Daltrey, though feeling all
the time that I could not trust her in the smallest degree.
"I have promised dear Julia that," she answered.
I should fail to give you any clear idea of my state of mind should I
attempt to analyze it. The most bitter thought in it was that my own
imprudence had betrayed Olivia. But for me she might have remained for
years, in peace and perfect seclusion, in the home to which she had
drifted. Richard Foster and his accomplice must have lost all hope of
finding her during the many months that had elapsed between her
disappearance and my visit to their solicitors. That had put them on the
track again. If the law forced her back to her husband, it was I who had
helped him to find her. That was a maddening thought. My love for her
was hopeless; but what then? I discovered to my own amazement that I had
loved her for her sake, not my own. I had loved the woman in herself,
not the woman as my wife. She could never become that, but she was
dearer to me than ever. She was as far removed from me as from Tardif.
Could I not serve her with as deep a devotion and as true a chivalry as
his? She belonged to both of us by as unselfish and noble a bond as ever
knights of old were pledged to.
It became my duty to keep a strict watch over the woman who had come to
Guernsey to find Olivia. If possible I must decoy her away from the
lowly nest where my helpless bird was sheltered. She had not sent for me
again, but I called upon her the next morning professionally, and stayed
some time talking with her. But nothing resulted from the visit beyond
the assurance that she had not yet made any progress toward the
discovery of my secret. I almost marvelled at this, so universal had
been the gossip about my visits to Sark in connection with the
breaking-off of my engagement to Julia. But that had occurred in the
spring, and the nine-days' wonder had ceased before my patient came to
the island. Still, any accidental conversation might give her the
information, and open up a favorable chance for her. I must not let her
go across to Sark unknown to myself.
Neither did I feel quite safe about Kate Daltrey. She gave me the
impression of being as crafty and cunning as she described her
half-brother. Did she know this woman by sight? That was a question I
could not answer. There was another question hanging upon it. If she saw
her, would she not in some way contrive to give her a sufficient hint,
without positively breaking her promise to Julia? Kate Daltrey's name
did not appear in the newspapers among the list of visitors, as she was
staying in a private house; but she and this woman might meet any day in
the streets or on the pier.
Then the whole story had been confided by Julia at once to Captain Carey
and Johanna. That was quite natural; but it was equally natural for them
to confide it again to some one or two of their intimate friends. The
secret was already an open one among six persons. Could it be considered
a secret any longer? The tendency of such a singular story, whispered
from one to another, is to become in the long-run more widely circulated
than if it were openly proclaimed. I had a strong affection for my
circle of cousins, which widened as the circle round a stone cast into
water; but I knew I might as well try to arrest the eddying of such
waters as stop the spread of a story like Olivia's.
I had resolved, in the first access of my curiosity, to cross over to
Sark the next week, alone and independent of Captain Carey. Every Monday
the Queen of the Isles made her accustomed trip to the island, to convey
visitors there for the day.
I had not been on deck two minutes the following Monday when I saw my
patient step on after me. The last clew was in her fingers now, that was
evident.