When Drayton went out, Hugh Ritson walked into the bar. The gossips had
gone. Only the landlady was there. The door to the room opposite now
stood open.
"Mrs. Drayton," said Hugh, "have you ever seen this face before?"
He took a medallion from his pocket and held it out to her.
"Lor's a mercy me!" cried the landlady; "why, it's her herself as plain
as plain--except for the nun's bonnet."
"Is that the lady who lodged with you at Pimlico--the mother of Paul?"
"As sure as sure! Lor's, yes; and to think the poor young dear is dead
and gone! It's thirty years since, but it do make me cry, and my
husband--he's gone, too--my husband he said to me, 'Martha,' he said,
'Martha--'"
The landlady's garrulity was interrupted by a light scream: "Hugh,
Hugh!"
Mercy Fisher stood in the door-way, with wonder-stricken eyes and
heaving breast.
In an instant the poor little soul had rushed into Hugh Ritson's arms
with the flutter of a frightened bird.
"Oh, I knew you would come--I was sure you would come!" she said, and
dried her eyes, and then cried again, and then dried them afresh, and
lifted her pouting lips to be kissed.
Hugh Ritson made no display. A shade of impatience crossed his face at
first, but it was soon gone. He tried to look pleased, and bent his head
and touched the pale lips slightly.
"You look wan, you poor little thing," he said, quietly. "What ails
you?"
"Nothing--nothing, now that you have come. Only you were so long in
coming, so very long."
He called up a brave word to answer her.
"But you see I keep my word, little woman," he said, and smiled down at
her and nodded his head cheerfully.
"And you have come to see me at last! All this way to see poor little
me!"
The mute weariness that had marked her face fled at that moment before a
radiant smile.
"One must do something for those who risk so much for one," he said, and
laughed a little.
"Ah!"
The first surprise over, the joy of that moment was beyond the gift of
speech. Her arms encircled his neck, and she looked up at his face in
silence and with brightening eyes.
"And so you found the time long and tedious?" he said.
"I had no one to talk to," she said, with a blank expression.
"Why, you ungrateful little thing! you had good Mrs. Drayton here, and
her son, and all the smart young fellows of Hendon who came to drink at
the bar and say pretty things to the little bar-maid, and--"
"It's not that--I had no one who knew you," she said, and dropped her
voice to a whisper.
"But you go out sometimes--into the village--to London?" he said.
"No, I never go out--never now."
"Then your eyes are really worse?"
"It's not my eyes. But, never mind. Oh, I knew you would not forget me.
Only sometimes of an evening, when the dusk fell in, and I sat by the
fire all alone, something would say, 'He doesn't want me,' 'He won't
come for me.' But that was not true, was it?"
"Why, no; of course not."
"And then when the children came--the neighbor's children,--and I put
the little darlings to bed, and they said their prayers to me, and I
tried to pray, too--sometimes I was afraid to pray--and then, and then,"
(she glanced round watchfully and dropped her voice) "something would
say, 'Why didn't he leave me alone? I was so happy!'"
"You morbid little woman! You shall be happy again--you are happy now,
are you not?" he said.
Her eyes, bleared and red, but bright with the shafts of love, looked up
at him in the dumb joy that is perfect happiness.
"Ah!" she said, and dropped her comely head on his breast.
"But you should have taken walks--long, healthy, happy walks," he said.
"I did--while the roses bloomed and the dahlias and things, and I saved
so many of them against you would come, moss roses and wild white roses;
but you were so long coming and they withered. And then I couldn't throw
them away, because, you know, they were yours; so I pressed them in the
book you gave me. See, let me show you."
She stepped aside eagerly to pick up a little gilt-edged book from the
table in the inner room. He followed her mechanically, hardly heeding
her happy prattle.
"And was there no young fellow in all Hendon to make those lonely walks
of yours more cheerful?"
She was opening her book with nervous fingers, and stopped to look up
with blank eyes.
"Eh? No handsome young fellow who whispered that you were a pretty
little thing, and had no right to go moping about by yourself? None?
Eh?"
Her old look of weariness was creeping back.
"Come, Mercy, tell the truth, you sly little thing--eh?"
She was fumbling his withered roses with nervous fingers. Her throat
felt parched.
He looked down at her saddening face, and then muttered, as if speaking
to himself: "I told that Bonnithorne this hole and corner was no place
for the girl. He should have taken her to London."
The girl's heart grew sick. The book was closed and dropped back on to
the table.
"And now, Mercy," said Hugh Ritson, "I want you to be a good little
woman, and do as I bid you, and not speak a word. Will you?"
The child-face brightened, and Mercy nodded her head, a little tear
rolling out of one gleaming eye. At the same moment she put her hand in
the pocket of her muslin apron, and took out a pair of knitted mittens,
and tried to draw them on to Hugh's wrists.
He looked at the gift, and smiled, and said: "I won't need these--not
to-day, I mean. See, I wear long gloves, with fur wristbands--there,
I'll store your mittens away in my pocket. What a sad little
soul--crying again?"
Mercy's pretty dreams were dying one by one. She lifted now a timid hand
until it rested lightly on his breast.
"Listen. I'm going out, but I'll soon be back. I must talk with Mrs.
Drayton, and I've something to pay her, you know."
The timid hand fell to the girl's side.
"When I return there may be some friends with me--a lady and a
gentleman--but I want to see them alone, quite alone, and I don't want
them to see you--do you understand?"
A great dumb sadness was closing in on Mercy's heart.
"But they will soon be gone, and then to-morrow you and I must talk
again, and try to arrange matters so that you won't be quite so lonely,
but will stir about, and see the doctor for your eyes, and get well
again, and try to forget--"
"Forget!" said the girl, faintly. Her parched throat took away her
voice.
"I mean--that is to say--I was hoping--of course, I mean forget all the
trouble in Cumberland. And now get away to bed like a good little girl.
I must be off. Ah, how late!--see, a quarter to eleven, and my watch is
slow."
He walked into the bar, buttoning up his coat to his ears. The girl
followed him listlessly. Mrs. Drayton was washing glasses behind the
counter.
"Mind you send this little friend of mine to bed very soon," said Hugh
to the landlady. "Look how red her eyes are! And keep a good fire in
this cozy parlor on the left--you are to have visitors--you need not
trouble about a bedroom--they won't stay long. Let me see, what do they
say is the time of your last up-train?"
"To London? The last one starts away at half past twelve," said the
landlady.
"Very good. I'll see you again, Mrs. Drayton. Good-night, Mercy, and do
keep a brighter face. There--kiss me. Now, good-night--what a silly,
affectionate little goose--and mind you are in bed and asleep before I
return, or I shall be that angry--yes, I shall. You never saw me angry.
Well, never mind. Good-night."
The door opened and closed. Mercy went back into the room. It was
cheerless and empty, and the children's happy voices lived in it no
more. The girl's heart ached with a dull pain that had never a pang at
all, but was dumb and dead and cold; and Mercy was all alone.
"Perhaps he was only in fun when he said that about walking out with
somebody and trying to forget, and not being seen," she thought. "Yes;
he must have been only in fun," she thought, "because he knew how I
waited and waited."
Then she took up again the book that he had hardly glanced at. It fell
open at a yellow, dried-up rose that had left the stain of its heart's
juice on the white leaf.
"Yes, he was only in fun," she said, and then laughed a little; and then
a big drop fell on to the open page and on to the dead flower.
Then she tried to be very brave.
"I must not cry; it makes my eyes, oh! so sore. I must get them well and
strong--oh, yes! I must be well and strong against--against--then."
She lifted her head slowly where she stood alone, and a smile, like a
summer breeze on still water, rippled over her mouth.
"He kissed me," she thought, "and he came to see me--all this long, long
way."
A lovely dream shone in her face now.
"And if he does not come again until--until then--he will be glad--oh,
he will be very glad!"
The thought of a future hour when the poor little soul should be rich
with something of her own that would be dearest of all because not all
her own, shone like a sleeping child's vision in her face. She went out
into the bar and lighted a candle.
"So that's your sweetheart--not the lawyer man, eh?" said Mrs. Drayton,
bustling about.
"I've no call to hide my face now--not now that he has come--have I?"
said Mercy.
"Well, he is free of his money, and I'se just been hoping you get some
of it, for, as I says, you want things bad, and them as has the looking
to it should find 'em, as is only reasonable."
Mercy did as she had been bidden: she went off to her bedroom. But her
head was too full of thoughts for sleep. She examined her face in the
glass, and smiled and blushed at it because he called it pretty. It was
prettier than ever to her own eyes now. After half an hour she
remembered that she had left the book on the table in the parlor, and
crept down-stairs to recover it. When she was on the landing at the
bottom, she heard a hurried knock at the outer door.
Thereafter all her dreams died in an instant.