A REPRIEVE.
Three months passed by, and found Sidney Martin fairly at work in his
uncle's office. It had been a busy and exciting time with him, and he
had had little leisure to brood over his private difficulties. It was
impossible that he could forget Sophy, but he felt more willing to
forget her than to rack his brains over the silence and mystery that
surrounded her absence. Inherited instinct awoke within him a love of
finance and commerce. The world-wide business carried on in the busy
offices of his uncle's shipping agency firm in the City of London had
taken possession of his mind, appealing curiously enough to his
imagination, and he was throwing himself into its affairs with an ardor
very satisfactory to Sir John Martin.
There was something fascinating to Sidney in the piles of letters
coming in day after day bearing the postmarks of every country under
the sun, and the foreign letters were generally allotted to him. But
one morning, as they passed through his hands, a letter bearing the
name of the Groldne Sonne, Innsbruck, lay among them, bringing his
heart to his mouth as his eye fell upon it. He glanced around at his
uncle, as if he could not fail to observe it and suspect him of some
secret, but Sir John was absorbed with his own share of the
correspondence. The Innsbruck letter was slipped away into Sidney's
pocket, and he went on opening the rest; but his brain was in a whirl,
and refused to take in the import of any of them. "I've a miserable
headache to-day," he said at last, with a half groan; "I cannot make
anything out of these."
"Go home, my boy," answered his uncle, "and take a holiday. We can do
very well without you."
Sidney was glad to get away. This unopened letter--which he had not
dared to open in his uncle's presence--seemed of burning importance.
Yet he felt sure it was nothing but the letter of directions he had
left for Sophy when he quitted Innsbruck. All these months her fate
had been a mystery to him. She had disappeared so completely out of
his life, that sometimes it seemed to him positively that his marriage
had been only a dream. From the moment of his return to England, he
had been incessantly worried by the dread of her arrival, either at his
uncle's house or at the offices in the City. More than once he had
been on the point of telling his uncle all about his fatal mistake, but
his courage always failed him at the right moment. Sometimes he felt
angry at Sophy's obstinate silence, but more often he was glad of it.
He felt so free without her. His understanding and intellect, his very
soul, seemed to have thrown off some stifling incubus. He could enjoy
art and music again. There was no silly girl to be jealous of his
books. The brief, boyish passion he had felt was dead, and there could
be no resurrection of it. It appeared monstrous to him that his whole
life should be blighted for one foolish and mad act. If he only knew
once for all what had become of her, and that she would never trouble
him again, no regret would burden his emancipated spirit.
Instead of going home this morning, he took the train for Apley, a
small town lying between London and Oxford, where he had first seen
Sophy. On the way down he read his own letter to her, giving her
minute directions for her journey. Yes, he had been very thoughtful,
very considerate for her; if she had obeyed him, she would now have
been awaiting his visit to Apley. He felt a great throb of gladness,
however, that it was not so; and then the thought crossed his mind,
like a thunderbolt, that possibly she had acted in the very manner he
had suggested in the letter he held in his hand, all but his final
instruction of letting him know of her safe arrival. If so, his wife
and his child were now dwelling in the country town which he had just
entered.
This idea opened up to him a great gulf, in which all his future life
would be swallowed up. He did not feel any yearning toward his unknown
child; it seemed but yesterday since he was a child himself--and yet
what ages since! He walked slowly down the almost deserted High
Street, and past the shop where he had first seen her. It was a small
saddler's shop, with a man at work in the bow-window, and a show of
bridles and reins festooned about the panes of glass. There were three
steps up to the door; and he recollected well how Sophy looked as she
stood, smiling and blushing, to receive his orders about the saddle he
wanted repaired. He was staying then with Colonel Cleveland at Apley
Hall, his uncle's oldest friend. How long ago it seemed--yet it was
not three years! Oh! what a fool he had been!
He opened the closed door, and set a little bell tinkling loudly. The
workman in the window took no notice of him, but a woman came forward
from a back room. She was of middle age, and her face bore a strong
resemblance to Sophy's. She looked at him with a faint, pleasant
smile, though her eyes were sad, and her face pale. There was a
gentleness and sweetness about her manner that made him feel
uncomfortable and guilty.
"Can you tell me if any of the Clevelands are at home?" he inquired.
He knew they were not, or he would not have ventured down to Apley.
"No, sir," answered Rachel Goldsmith, in a clear though low voice;
"Colonel Cleveland is in Germany, I believe, with Miss Cleveland."
"I almost fancy," continued Sidney, "that I owe you a few shillings. I
ought to pay interest if I do, for the debt has run on for three years
or so. I was staying at Apley Hall, and had my saddle mended here. Do
you know if it was paid for?"
"What date was it, sir?" she asked, opening a ledger that lay on a desk
on the counter.
"Nearly three years ago," he replied, "as near as I can guess. A young
lady took my orders; perhaps she may remember the date."
His voice trembled somewhat, but Rachel Goldsmith did not notice it.
Her hands were shaking so much she could hardly turn over the leaves.
"Is she at home? Cannot you ask her?" he inquired; and his pulse
seemed to stand still as he waited for her reply.
"Sir," she said, closing the ledger, "we have lost my niece."
"Lost her!" he repeated, and the blood bounded through his veins again,
and the color came back to his pallid face. Sophy, then, was not here!
"Yes," she said, with quivering lips, "but not by death. I could bear
that and be thankful. But when those you love disappear, oh! nobody
knows what the misery is. We do not know if she is dead or alive. I
loved her as if she had been my own child; but she did not feel as if
she owed me the duty of a child; and, when I thwarted her, she went
away, and left a letter saying she was gone to London. We have never,
never heard of her since, and it is now over a year ago. She is lost
in London."
Rachel Goldsmith's voice was broken with sobs. But before Sidney spoke
again, for he was slow in answering, she went on, with a glimmer of a
smile at herself.
"You'll excuse me, sir," she said. "I tell everybody, for when you
have lost anything no one knows who may come across it, or hear of it.
Not that a young gentleman like you could have any chance; and my
trouble cannot interest you."
"Oh! I am more interested than you think," he answered; "I cannot say
how much."
"I have her photo here," she continued, "and it might chance that you
should see her in London some day. And whatever she has been doing,
oh! we'll welcome her home like a lost lamb. She's only a young, giddy
girl, sir, and she'll make a good woman by and by. Not that I'm
certain she's in London. For I've got a little scrap of writing from
her three months after she went away, and it was posted in Rome. But
she said she was only traveling, and when she came back she would live
in London. I'm sorely afraid she has been deceived and led astray.
But here is her likeness, sir, if you'd please to see it, and the note
she wrote."
With a hand that shook visibly, she drew from her pocket a worn and
soiled envelope and handed it to Sidney. He turned his back upon her,
and went to the half-glass door to look at the contents. There was a
fading photograph of Sophy, her pretty features set in a simper, and
her slight figure posed in an affected attitude. But it was Sophy's
face; and a pang of remorse, and almost of a love not quite dead, shot
through his heart. He would have given half the fortune he was heir to
never to have seen that face.
"Please read the note, sir," persisted Rachel Goldsmith.
It was an untidy scrawl, and there was a mistake or two in spelling;
but Sidney felt the tears smart under his eyelids as he read the words.
"Dear father," wrote Sophy, "don't go to be fretting after me. I'm as
happy as a queen all day, and living grander than you could ever think
of. It has been a strange time since I saw you, but I shall come and
tell you all about it as soon as ever I can. We are going to live in
London when we come back; and my husband is a gentleman you never saw,
nor never knew. You'll be as glad as I am when you know all.--Your
loving Sophy."
"And that is all you know about her?" he asked, after a long pause,
when he could control himself enough to speak with no more sympathy
than should be shown by a kind-hearted stranger.
"All, sir, every word." she answered, wiping the tears from her eyes.
"Of course, I shall never give up hope; and if prayers will bring her
back, my prayers shall. Her father is my brother, and has his name
over the shop, 'James Goldsmith'; and sometimes he's nearly mad about
it, and sometimes he says she's married to surprise us all, and will
come back a grand lady. Well! thank you kindly, sir, for listening to
me: but I tell everybody, for who knows who may come across her some
day?"
Sidney bade her good-by, and went his way. There was no trace here of
Sophy; and as he traveled back to town he came to the conclusion that
it was best to let the matter rest, and wait for any chance that time
might bring. He had ruined his life; but, until the fatal moment of
discovery came, he might still act as if he were not a married man. A
reprieve had been granted to him, and he would live as if he were not a
criminal.