I can remember the day and the hour as if it had all happened yesterday.
I can recall the view from the windows distinctly, as though time had
stood still ever since. There are no gardens under our windows in
Buckingham Street. Buckingham Gate stands the entrance to a desert of
mud, on which the young Arabs--shoeless, stockingless--are disporting
themselves. It is low water, and the river steamers keep towards the
middle arches of Waterloo. Up aloft the Hungerford Suspension rears
itself in mid air, and that spick-and-span new bridge, across which
trains run now ceaselessly, has not yet been projected. It is a bright
spring day. The sunshine falls upon the buildings on the Surrey side,
and lights them with a picturesque beauty to which they have not the
slightest title. A barge, laden with hay, is lying almost motionless in
the middle of the Thames.
There is, even in London, a great promise and hope about that pleasant
spring day, but for me life has held no promise, and the future no hope,
since that night when the mystery of River Hall was solved in my
presence, and out of his own mouth the murderer uttered his
condemnation.
How the weeks and the months had passed with me is soon told. Ill when I
left River Hall, shortly after my return home I fell sick unto death,
and lay like one who had already entered the Valley of the Shadow.
I was too weak to move; I was too faint to think; and when at length I
was brought slowly back to the recollection of life and its cares, of
all I had experienced and suffered in the Uninhabited House, the time
spent in it seemed to me like the memory of some frightful dream.
I had lost my health there, and my love too. Helena was now further
removed from me than ever. She was a great heiress. Mr. Harringford had
left her all his money absolutely, and already Miss Blake was
considering which of the suitors, who now came rushing to woo, it would
be best for her niece to wed.
As for me, Taylor repeated, by way of a good joke, that her aunt
referred to me as a "decent sort of young man" who "seemed to be but
weakly," and, ignoring the fact of ever having stated "she would not
mind giving fifty pounds," remarked to Mr. Craven, that, if I was in
poor circumstances, he might pay me five or ten sovereigns, and charge
the amount to her account.
Of all this Mr. Craven said nothing to me. He only came perpetually to
my sick-bed, and told my mother that whenever I was able to leave town I
must get away, drawing upon him for whatever sums I might require. I did
not need to encroach on his kindness, however, for my uncle, hearing of
my illness, sent me a cordial invitation to spend some time with him.
In his cottage, far away from London, strength at last returned to me,
and by the autumn my old place in Mr. Craven's office was no longer
vacant. I sat in my accustomed corner, pursuing former avocations, a
changed man.