ENTER MR. HODGSON.
Mention has been made of a certain Mr. Hodgson, as being the
intermediary through whom John Brancker and his sister received into
their charge and keeping the little three-years-old child, Hermia
Rivers. It has also been told how the said Mr. Hodgson was in the
habit of calling upon John once a year, apparently with the object of
satisfying himself that Hermia was alive and well, and that
everything, as far as she was concerned, was progressing
satisfactorily.
Mr. Hodgson's annual visit, the date of which he made a point of
communicating to John beforehand, had nearly always taken place during
the month of April, but this year he wrote some weeks earlier than
usual to announce that he might be looked for at Nairn Cottage on the
following day. The letter came to hand about a week after John's
departure for London; but Miss Brancker, feeling sure who it was from,
made no scruple about opening it.
The notice given was so short that there was no time to communicate
with John previously to Mr. Hodgson's arrival, so Miss Brancker, who
had met the lawyer several times already, made up her mind to "tackle"
him single-handed; indeed, she was rather glad than otherwise that on
this occasion her brother happened to be out of the way. More than
once since a certain discussion John had avowed his intention of
turning over the twelve hundred pounds to Mr. Hodgson when next he saw
him, and after explaining to him of what it consisted, telling him in
plain terms that he would have nothing more to do with it. Miss
Brancker, however, had other views in her mind as to the ultimate
destination of the money of which she said nothing to anyone, and she
was determined not to touch on the question with Mr. Hodgson.
There was one point as to which she decided that it might be advisable
to enlighten her visitor. She would make no secret of Hermia's
engagement to Clement Hazeldine. If the girl had any parents or near
relatives living, it seemed no more than right--their having discarded
her when a child, notwithstanding--that such an important event in her
life should be made known to them, although whether it would receive
their sanction, supposing them to interest themselves in the matter at
all, and what would be the result if it did not, were questions which
the future alone could determine.
"In any case," said the spinster to herself, "if my telling Mr.
Hodgson results in nothing else, it may, perhaps, have the effect of
bringing to light some facts connected with Hermia's parentage and the
history of her early years. If the knowledge that she is engaged to be
married fails to do so, we may give up all hope of ever learning more
than we know at present."
Mr. Hodgson presented himself at the Cottage in due course. He was a
thin, dried-up atomy of a man, apparently close on seventy years of
age, with a very remarkably developed aquiline nose--a nose which not
infrequently caused irreverent boys to make rude remarks as he passed
them in the street. Miss Brancker had told Hermia that she was
expecting him, and although the girl's color changed for the moment,
she received the news with a sort of proud indifference, and as though
it were a matter which could be of no possible concern to her.
"As it happens, Mr. Hodgson, my brother is away in London just now on
important business," said Aunt Charlotte, "and, consequently, will be
unable to see you."
"Aye, aye; is that so? Well, he could not have left me a more charming
substitute," replied the lawyer, with a touch of old-fashioned
gallantry. "And how is Missy?"--it was the term he had always applied
to Hermia when she was a schoolgirl--"quite well and hearty, I trust."
"Quite well, sir, I am happy to say. But probably you would like to
see her."
"For a couple of minutes, if you have no objection, dear madam. I will
not detain her long."
It had been the practice for Mr. Hodgson to dine at Nairn Cottage on
each recurring annual visit, but John being away, it seemed to Miss
Brancker out of the question that he should do so in the present
instance. She had not, however, forgotten her visitor's fondness for
old port, and a decanter of it, together with a plate of biscuits, was
now brought in; whereupon, in obedience to his hostess's request, the
old gentleman, nothing loth, proceeded to pour out for himself a glass
of wine.
Then Miss Brancker rang the bell again, and a few seconds later
Hermia, who had been expecting the summons, entered the room. A faint
flush suffused her cheeks, but her manner was perfectly cool and
composed.
Mr. Hodgson stood up and extended a withered hand, and peered at her
through his gold-rimmed spectacles. "Well, my dear, I trust that I see
you in perfect health," he began; "but, indeed, you cannot be
otherwise, if eyes and cheeks may be believed, and I am not aware that
they are in the habit of telling untruths. Upon my word, you are
vastly improved--you may allow an old man to say so without
offence--vastly improved since I saw you last."
Hermia murmured something, withdrew her hand, and sat down a little
distance away.
Then there followed a little conversation, chiefly about the weather
and such-like indifferent topics, in which Hermia took no part, while
Mr. Hodgson indulged in occasional appreciative sips at his wine. Now
that Hermia had been told the object of his yearly visits, she could
not help regarding him with a certain amount of curiosity and
interest. In the brain behind that withered mask of a face lay hidden
the secret of her birth and parentage; those pinched lips, had they
but so willed, could doubtless have told her something about the
mother of whom she retained no faintest recollection, if it were only
her name and whether she was living or dead. But no question on the
subject should ever escape her; the knowledge must come to her
unsought if it were ever to come at all.
Presently a timid ring at the front door made itself heard. "It is
Mrs. Nokes," said Aunt Charlotte to Hermia. "Will you attend to her,
dear?"
Mrs. Nokes was one of Miss Brancker's weekly pensioners. Hermia was
glad of an excuse for escaping from the room.
"There is one circumstance," Mr. Hodgson, "which it may, perhaps, be as
well to mention to you," said Miss Brancker, as soon as they were
alone. "Hermia is engaged to be married."
The old gentleman fairly jumped in his chair. "Bless my heart! Engaged
to be married? You surprise me, madam--you surprise me greatly! Why
was I not communicated with before now? Why was I not consulted?
Why----?"
"My dear sir, you seem to forget that you have never favored us with
your address. We know no more today where a letter would find you than
we knew seventeen years ago when my brother and you had your first
interview."
Mr. Hodgson stroked his chin and coughed. "To be sure--to be sure. For
the moment that little fact had escaped my memory. Still, it is most
unfortunate. Had I dreamed when I was here last that anything of the
sort was likely to happen I would certainly have left you an address
through which you could have communicated with me. But before
discussing the matter further, I should like to be informed who and
what the person is on whom Miss Rivers has seen fit to bestow her
affections."
Thereupon Miss Brancker proceeded to enlighten him: and one may be
sure that the portrait of Clement Hazeldine which she drew for her
visitor lacked nothing on the score of eulogy. The old lawyer listened
in silence; when she had done, he said:
"Then, it is your opinion that Miss Rivers is really in earnest in
this affair, and that it is not one of those idle engagements into
which--so I have been given to understand--numbers of young women
drift for want of something better to do; and from which they emerge,
if circumstances run contrary to their wishes, heart-whole and
fancy-free, ready and eager to engage in the fray again, only, of
course, with a different Strephon?"
"Hermia has nothing in common with the class of young women to whom you
refer. That her affections are very deeply involved I am as certain as
that I am now talking to you, nor have I any hesitation in saying that
were she compelled to break off her engagement with Clement Hazeldine
it would go far towards wrecking her happiness, if not for life, in
any case for a long time to come."
"Aye, aye!--is that so? Your charming sex, my dear madam, are kittle
cattle to deal with. The particular point at issue is, however, one as
to which at present I can offer no decided opinion. As you will have
surmised long ago, I am not acting in Miss Rivers' affairs for myself
alone. I am merely an instrument, whose function it is to carry out
the instructions deputed to me by others. All I can say just now is,
that you shall hear from me at the earliest possible moment, and that,
till then, matters may as well remain as they are."
After Mr. Hodgson was gone, Miss Brancker did not fail to call to mind
that he had never once made the slightest allusion to John's
imprisonment and trial; and, furthermore, that the name of Hazeldine
had seemed to awake no echo in his memory of the dread tragedy with
which it had been associated so short a time before. Was his silence
due to the fact that the annals of crime possessed no interest for
him, and that he shunned the reading of them; or was it simply
the result of a failure of memory? Of course, another theory was
possible--that he had read and recollected everything bearing on the
murder and trial, and that he was silent about them of set purpose. In
any case, it was open to Miss Brancker to adopt which of the three
theories might seem most feasible to her.
Four days later the afternoon post brought Miss Brancker a letter from
Mr. Hodgson, in which she was informed that the engagement between
Miss Rivers and Mr. Clement Hazeldine must at once be broken off, the
young lady's friends having other views and intentions with regard to
her future, which would be made known at the proper time. The writer,
it was added, would feel obliged by an immediate reply assuring him
that the instructions conveyed in his communication had been duly
carried out.
Aunt Charlotte gave the letter to Hermia to read, and she, as a matter
of course, passed it on to her lover, when he arrived at the Cottage
the same evening. Then Aunt Charlotte left them alone for half an hour
in order to afford them an opportunity of discussing the letter by
themselves. When she re-entered the room, Hermia said at once,
"We utterly decline, Clement and I, to have our destinies ruled and
controlled by an unknown autocrat, who, for anything we know to the
contrary, may have no legal or moral right whatever to interpose
between us. For my own part--and I want you to tell Mr. Hodgson so--I
altogether refuse to consider the question in any way until I know
clearly for whom he is acting, and the relationship which exists
between the person or persons in question and myself. Until I am
enlightened on those points, matters between myself and Clement will
remain on precisely the same footing that they are on now."
Then, after a momentary pause, she added, with a heightened color, and
a smile directed at her lover: "Not that it will make the slightest
difference even if Mr. Hodgson chooses to tell me all there is to
tell. I shall be of age in a few months, and my own mistress. The day
has gone by for either Mr. Hodgson, or those who hide themselves
behind him, to interfere with my destiny in any way."
She spoke with the happy confidence of her sex and age. Experience had
not yet taught her that the threads which unite us to our fellows,
although to all seeming as fine as those of a spider's web, may, any
one of them, prove strong enough to bind us round and round like so
many helpless flies, and with just as little possibility of escape.
"John will be home on Saturday," said Aunt Charlotte. "He will know in
what terms to answer the letter far better than I."
The answer was to be addressed to the care of a certain firm of
solicitors in Bedford Row, London.
John Brancker's month on trial was at an end, and he had written to
his sister to say that she might expect him home in the course of
Saturday afternoon.
"No doubt he will have to return by the first train on Monday
morning," said Miss Brancker to Hermia when she had read the note.
As it happened, one of the first people whom John recognized on
alighting at Ashdown station was Edward Hazeldine. They had travelled
by the same train without either being aware of the other's presence.
Edward saw John at the same moment. He was a little surprised at
seeing him there, but at once went up and shook hands with him.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Brancker," he said, heartily. "Hope you are
getting on all right in your new berth and that the work is to your
liking. I suppose you have come down to spend the week-end with your
people."
"I've come down for good, Mr. Edward. I'm not going back," answered
John, gravely.
"Not going back!" echoed Edward, surprised, and it may be, a little
dismayed. "I was certainly under the impression that you were settled
with my friend Lucas for years to come, if not for life. But how has
it come about? What has happened to hinder you from going back?"
It was merely the old story over again that John had to tell. For a
week or more all had gone well with him. He liked his work and he
liked his fellow clerks, but presently the fact oozed out somehow that
John was the man who had so recently stood his trial for what was
known as "the Ashdown murder," and from that moment his fate was
sealed. First one and then another of the staff declined to associate
with him, or to have anything to do with him beyond what was
absolutely necessitated by the exigencies of business; in point of
fact, poor John was completely boycotted.
"I couldn't stand another month of it, Mr. Edward; it would kill me,"
he said in conclusion in a quavering voice. "It seems no use trying
any more. I must either stay where I am, in the hope of being able to
live down the prejudice against me, or else go right away to the other
side of the world. There appears to be no other choice left me."