A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY.
When Hermia, in response to Mrs. Varrel's appeal, had said: "I will
myself take the parcel to London," the answer had sprung to her lips
of its own accord, so to speak, and as if her will had had no part in
the framing of it.
It was a promise which, having once been given, she felt bound to
fulfil; but, indeed, after consideration showed her no reason why she
should wish to do otherwise than fulfil it. She was determined, in the
first place, to carry out her promise, and, in the second, if it were
by any means possible to do so, to clear up the terrible suspicion
which had taken root in her mind, either by proving that it had no
basis of fact to rest upon, or else, by the accumulation of further
evidence, to put together a case sufficiently strong to warrant her in
placing it in other and more competent hands, leaving it for them to
work out to whatever issue it might lead them.
In pursuance of this resolution it was that, two days after Mrs.
Varrel's death, and without affording the faintest hint to anyone of
the real object she had in view, Hermia wrote the note, already given,
to her lover; and after bidding Uncle John and Aunt Charlotte a tender
farewell, set out for London on an errand which she herself felt all
but convinced would prove to be nothing more than a bootless errand.
She drove direct from the London terminus to the house of her friend,
Mrs. Wingate, in Maida Vale. Both Mrs. Wingate and her husband made
Hermia as welcome as it was possible to make anyone. She explained to
them the object of her journey as far as the delivery of the parcel
was concerned, upon which Mr. Wingate kindly offered to keep her
company on her errand, assuring her, after she had told him the
address she wanted to go to, that the neighborhood in question was a
very low one, being infested by loose characters of various kinds, and
that a lady unattended--unless she were a Sister of Mercy, or a
"visitor," and known to be such--could scarcely traverse it without
the risk of being insulted, to say nothing of the further risk she
would run of being hustled and robbed.
On consideration, Hermia deemed it best to accept Mr. Wingate's offer.
She had not mentioned Richard Varrell's name, and, bearing in mind her
promise to his mother, she determined not to do so.
Accordingly, they set out about six o'clock the following day, Mr.
Wingate being of opinion that if the person Miss Rivers was in search
of were in any kind of employment she would be more likely to find him
at home in the evening than at any other time. Mr. Wingate had engaged
a hansom, and after what had seemed to Hermia an interminable ride,
but which was none the less strange and fascinating to her untutored
eyes on that account, they were set down opposite a church having a
spire so tall and stately that if it could have been transplanted to
the flat country about Ashdown it would have served as a landmark for
miles around. After skirting the churchyard and leaving behind all the
main thoroughfares of traffic, they found themselves in a maze of
streets, courts and alleys, the like of which Hermia had never dreamed
of before and never wished to see again. The farther they penetrated,
the more squalid and mean became their surroundings. The whole
neighborhood swarmed with life--but such life! Could Hermia ever
forget the dream of baleful faces which passed like a procession
before her that evening; some scowling and sinister, some leering,
some with an ape-like grin upon them, and others verging on the
vacancy of an idiot's, with here and there one bearing the impress of
a wickedness so unfathomable that the girl could but shudder and veil
her eyes? "But the children--oh, my dears, the little children!" as
she said afterwards, when recounting her experience to Uncle John and
Aunt Charlotte, her blue eyes flushed with tears. "It was simply
heartrending to see them and to feel and know that I could do nothing
for them."
At length, but not till after two or three inquiries on Mr. Wingate's
part, Plumtree Street was found, number sixteen. It was a narrow
street of three-storey tenements, all of them looking unspeakably
squalid and uncared for, with broken windows stuffed with rags and
paper, and in many cases with doors which hardly hung together on
their hinges. Mr. Wingate now gave Hermia the parcel, which he had
hitherto taken charge of, and while he waited on guard, as it were, on
the corner of the street, Hermia made her way to number sixteen, and
not without a little fluttering of the nerves, knocked at the door.
Again and again she knocked, first with her knuckles and then with the
handle of her umbrella--the knocker itself, if there had ever been
one, having apparently been wrenched away long ago--but to no purpose,
although she could hear a woman inside objurgating someone at the top
of her voice. A swarm of children watched her every movement, and
presently, as if by some preconcerted signal, windows were thrown up,
and the doorways near at hand began to fill with the shapes of
slatternly women, and frowsy, disreputable-looking men.
Hermia began to feel far from comfortable, and she was just
considering whether she had not better go back to Mr. Wingate, when
the door was suddenly opened from within, and she found herself face
to face with Richard Varrel.
She knew him again at a glance, despite the woeful change which a few
short years had wrought in him. In days gone by, when he was a clerk,
and she a girl of ten or twelve, she used often to meet him on her way
to school, when he had always a smiling "Good-morning" for her. In
those days he was a dandified, good-looking young man, with a facile
smile, and the easy manner of one who was on excellent terms with
himself and the world.
Hermia had not seen him after his "misfortune," as he termed it, till
the evening of the trial when he spoke to John Brancker through the
cab window, and even then she had been shocked to see the change in
him; but now, when she beheld him again, the change was still more
marked. His hands trembled like aspen leaves, his eyes were bleared
and bloodshot, his face sallow and fallen away to little more than
skin and bone.
He stood staring at Hermia, holding the open door in his hand, with a
sort of half-gleam of recognition in his furtively suspicious eyes.
"Mr. Varrel," she said, "I see that you fail to remember me. My name
is Hermia Rivers, and I am the niece of Mr. Brancker, of Ashdown."
The moment she began to speak his face lighted up with what seemed
like the ghost of his old pleasant smile.
"What a stupid I must be to have forgotten you even for a moment!" he
exclaimed. "Why of course I remember you, Miss Hermia--remember you
from the time you were no higher than a table. Do you know what I used
to think in those days? But how should you? I used to think that when
you grew up I should like to marry you. Ah, I did, and I was in
earnest about it, too!"
This was not at all what Hermia wanted, so she made haste to say:
"Are you not curious, Mr. Varrel, to know why I have come all this way
to find you? But, first of all, why did you neglect to answer the
letter I wrote you to this address more than a week ago?"
"Letter!--what letter?" he queried, with a half-mazed look, and with
that he pushed back his hat and pressed his hands to his forehead for
a few moments, as if trying to recall something to mind. Then,
half-doubtingly, he thrust his hand into an inner pocket of his coat
and drew from it a letter--the one Hermia had written him, as she saw
at a glance, and still unopened. He stared at it for a space of a
dozen seconds, and then he said, confusedly:
"I recollect, now, I put it in my pocket when it came--I wasn't very
well at the time--and afterwards I forgot all about it. I did, upon my
honor!"
"Open it and read it," was all Hermia could say.
When he had done so, he looked at her with a question in his eyes
which his lips seemed afraid to ask.
"Your mother died three days ago," said Hermia, "looking to the last
for the son who never came."
He turned away, and putting up an arm against the door-post, he leaned
his head upon it. The tears that dropped from his eyes made tiny black
dents in the grimy dust into which they fell.
"I've not one word of excuse, Miss Hermia, to urge for myself," he
said presently. "I put the letter in my pocket, and forgot all about
it. It was all owing to the drink--the cursed drink!"
Thereupon Hermia proceeded to give him his mother's last message.
"God bless her! She was a good woman," he said, sorrowfully. "Maybe,
if I had been a different son to her she would have lived for years to
come."
That he was genuinely moved by the news of his mother's death it was
impossible to doubt.
"The errand which brought me here is not yet completed," said Hermia,
presently. "Your mother entrusted me with a sum of money to give into
your hands."
His cheek paled on the instant. "Hush! Not a word about it here," he
whispered, with a quick, apprehensive glance around. "If the wretches
hereabouts once suspected that I had anything more than the merest
trifle in the way of money in my possession, I should be a dead man
before to-morrow morning. Will you come into my room for three
minutes, Miss Rivers? You may safely do so, and I won't detain you
longer."
Mr. Wingate was still keeping watch and ward at the corner of the
street. "Lead the way and I will follow," was all she said.
Accordingly, they entered the house, and after Varrel had shut the
door behind them he led the way up a rickety staircase, the handrail
of which had been torn away, into a small back room on the first
floor. Never before had Hermia been in such a room; but the evening
was drawing in by this time, and in the half light its more sordid
features did not seem so obtrusive as they would have done at mid-day.
"Not a palace, truly, Miss Rivers," he said, with a shrug and a
cynical smile, "but cheerful, homelike, nay, almost luxurious in
comparison with some of its neighbors."
Hermia's only reply was an involuntary shudder.
Motioning her to the one chair in the place, he seated himself on the
edge of a box, and cut the string of the parcel, which Hermia had
handed him on entering the room. Before him lay the envelope and its
contents, together with the bag of gold. He looked up, and his and
Hermia's eyes met.
"This," he said, laying a finger on the envelope, "my mother was to
keep for me until I should choose to reclaim it; but this," shifting
his finger to the bag, "was for her sole use, as I told her when I
gave it her--to buy whatever she wanted, and help to make her
comfortable."
"Your mother refused to touch it, Mr. Varrel," replied Hermia, looking
him steadily in the face.
"What do you mean?" he demanded, with startling suddenness. "Who told
you she would not touch it?"
"She herself. She said there was blood on it--those were her
words--and that she would have nothing to do with it till you had
proved to her how you had come by it."
He sat for some seconds without speaking or stirring, like one in
doubt what to do or say next. Then he said, sneeringly:
"Old people when they lie dying often get strange fancies into their
heads, and give expression to all manner of ridiculous things.
Sensible people take no heed of their ravings at such times."
"On the contrary, it is at such times that secrets long hidden come
unexpectedly to light."
He bit his lip as if to restrain himself from saying something which
he might afterwards have regretted. Having glanced at the seal, he was
about to put the envelope into his pocket unopened, when Hermia said:
"Mr. Varrel, have you noticed what is written outside that packet?"
"No--what is it?" he demanded.
In the twilight he had overlooked the writing. He now crossed to the
window and read it. Then for a little space he stood stock still, with
eyes that seemed fixed on vacancy. Then, going back to his seat, he
said dryly:
"My mother's writing, without a doubt, Miss Rivers. But it was
scarcely worth while--was it?--to draw my attention specially to it."
"You are quite aware of my motive in drawing your attention to it."
responded Hermia. "Those words were written within twenty-four hours
of the time Mr. Hazeldine was found murdered."
He put down the packet with a sudden movement, as if it had scorched
his fingers.
"Oh, Mr. Varrel!" cried, the girl, clasping her hands in front of her
bosom, as if thereby to enforce her appeal, "if you know anything
whatever in connection with that terrible crime--if you have any clue,
even the faintest, to the perpetrator of it--I implore you no longer
to conceal it."
Varrel got up abruptly, and, crossing to the window, stood staring out
of it with his back towards her. Hermia waited till the silence became
all but unbearable.
"I am quite at a loss, Miss Rivers," he began at length, speaking in a
hard, dry voice, "to know why you should address so singular an appeal
to me, or assume that I know anything more about Mr. Hazeldine's
tragical end than is known to the world at large. A certain remark
made by an old woman--a certain coincidence of date in connection with
a parcel of banknotes--such is the flimsy superstructure round which
you choose to build an imaginary theory, and then appeal to me for
facts to enable you to substantiate it. No, Miss Rivers, it won't do.
Your house of cards has no foundation beyond that which is supplied by
your own vivid imagination. Pray accept my assurance on that score.
The way in which the money, both gold and notes, came into my mother's
hands is easily explained. I had won it over a certain race a few days
before. The gold, as I have already remarked, I gave to her for her
own use. That she did not choose to benefit by it is no fault of mine.
The notes, which were intended by me for a very special purpose, I
asked her to take charge of till the time should come for me to
reclaim them, knowing well, as I did, that if I kept them by me, they
would inevitably disappear after the fashion in which so many of their
kind had disappeared already. The explanation is a simple one. I trust
that you are satisfied."
He had come back to the table while speaking. Tearing open the
envelope with an air of manifest defiance, he extracted the notes from
it, and proceeded to stuff them unceremoniously into his pocket.
But Hermia was far from being satisfied. She felt instinctively that
he was prevaricating, and that he knew far more than he cared to tell.
But, in face of his emphatic denial, what was it possible for her to
do more than she had done already? His manner implied that, as far as
he was concerned, the interview was at an end, and, indeed, Hermia
felt that it was high time for her to go. There was upon her a sense
of hopeless bewilderment as she rose and pushed back her chair. She
was like one groping in the mazes of a dark cavern, who, while feeling
sure the daylight is close at hand, vainly strives to find the way
which will lead him to it. She would have to go back to Ashdown no
wiser than she had left it.
"Before you go, Miss Rivers," said Varrel, "permit me to thank you,
which I do from the bottom of my heart, for all your kindness to my
poor mother."
He added a little more in the same strain, which it is not needful to
repeat.
Three minutes later Hermia had rejoined Mr. Wingate.