DISAPPEARANCE.
"I am afraid I must ask you to leave us now, Miss Marston," said Mr.
Brett, seated with pen, ink, and paper, to receive his new client's
instructions.
"No," said Mr. Redmain; "she must stay where she is. I fancy something
happened last night which she has got to tell us about."
"Ah! What was that?" asked Mr. Brett, facing round on her.
Mary began her story with the incident of her having been pursued by
some one, and rescued by the blacksmith, whom she told her listeners
she had known in London. Then she narrated all that had happened the
night before, from first to last, not forgetting the flame that lighted
the closet as they approached the window.
"Just let me see those memoranda," said Mr. Brett to Mr. Redmain,
rising, and looking for the paper where he had left it the day before.
"It was of that paper I was this moment thinking," answered Mr. Redmain.
"It is not here!" said Mr. Brett.
"I thought as much! The fool! There was a thousand pounds there for
her! I didn't want to drive her to despair: a dying man must mind what
he is about. Ring the bell and see what Mewks has to say to it."
Mewks came, in evident anxiety.
I will not record his examination. Mr. Brett took it for granted he had
deliberately and intentionally shut out Mary, and Mewks did not attempt
to deny it, protesting he believed she was boring his master. The grin
on that master's face at hearing this was not very pleasant to behold.
When examined as to the missing paper, he swore by all that was holy he
knew nothing about it.
Mr. Brett next requested the presence of Miss Yolland. She was nowhere
to be found. The place was searched throughout, but there was no trace
of her.
When the doctor arrived, the bottle Joseph had taken from her was
examined, and its contents discovered.
Lady Malice was grievously hurt at the examination she found had been
going on.
"Have I not nursed you like my own brother, Mr. Redmain?" she said.
"You may be glad you have escaped a coroner's inquest in your house,
Lady Margaret!" said Mr. Brett.
"For me," said Mr. Redmain, "I have not many days left me, but somehow
a fellow does like to have his own!"
Hesper sought Mary, and kissed her with some appearance of gratitude.
She saw what a horrible suspicion, perhaps even accusation, she had
saved her from. The behavior and disappearance of Sepia seemed to give
her little trouble.
Mr. Brett got enough out of Mewks to show the necessity of his
dismissal, and the doctor sent from London a man fit to take his place.
Almost every evening, until he left Durnmelling, Mary went to see Mr.
Redmain. She read to him, and tried to teach him, as one might an
unchildlike child. And something did seem to be getting into, or waking
up in, him. The man had never before in the least submitted; but now it
looked as if the watching spirit of life were feeling through the
dust-heap of his evil judgments, low thoughts, and bad life, to find
the thing that spirit had made, lying buried somewhere in the frightful
tumulus: when the two met and joined, then would the man be saved; God
and he would be together. Sometimes he would utter the strangest
things--such as if all the old evil modes of thinking and feeling were
in full operation again; and sometimes for days Mary would not have an
idea what was going on in him. When suffering, he would occasionally
break into fierce and evil language, then be suddenly silent. God and
Satan were striving for the man, and victory would be with him with
whom the man should side.
For some time it remained doubtful whether this attack was not, after
all, going to be the last: the doctor himself was doubtful, and, having
no reason to think his death would be a great grief in the house, did
not hesitate much to express his doubt. And, indeed, it caused no
gloom. For there was little love in the attentions the Mortimers paid
him; and in what other hope could Hesper have married, than that one
day she would be free, with a freedom informed with power, the power of
money! But to the mother's suggestions as to possible changes in the
future, the daughter never responded: she had no thought of plans in
common with her.
Strange rumors came abroad. Godfrey Wardour heard something of them,
and laughed them to scorn. There was a conspiracy in that house to ruin
the character of the loveliest woman in creation! But when a week after
week passed, and he heard nothing of or from her, he became anxious,
and at last lowered his pride so far as to call on Mary, under the
pretense of buying something in the shop.
His troubled look filled her with sympathy, but she could not help
being glad afresh that he had escaped the snares laid for him. He
looked at her searchingly, and at last murmured a request that she
would allow him to have a little conversation with her.
She led the way to her parlor, closed the door, and asked him to take a
seat. But Godfrey was too proud or too agitated to sit.
"You will be surprised to see me on such an errand, Miss Marston!" he
said.
"I do not yet know your errand," replied Mary; "but I may not be so
much surprised as you think."
"Do not imagine," said Godfrey, stiffly, "that I believe a word of the
contemptible reports in circulation. I come only to ask you to tell me
the real nature of the accusations brought against Miss Yolland: your
name is, of course, coupled with them."
"Mr. Wardour," said Mary, "if I thought you would believe what I told
yon, I would willingly do as you ask me. As it is, allow me to refer
you to Mr. Brett, the lawyer, whom I dare say you know."
Happily, the character of Mr. Brett was well known in Testbridge and
all the country round; and from him Godfrey Wardour learned what sent
him traveling on the Continent again--not in the hope of finding Sepia.
What became of her, none of her family ever learned.
Some time after, it came out that the same night on which the presence
of Joseph rescued Mary from her pursuer, a man speaking with a foreign
accent went to one of the surgeons in Testbridge to have his shoulder
set, which he said had been dislocated by a fall. When Joseph heard it,
he smiled, and thought he knew what it meant.
Hesper was no sooner in London, than she wrote to Mary, inviting her to
go and visit her. But Mary answered she could no more leave home, and
must content herself with the hope of seeing Mrs. Redmain when she came
to Durnmelling.
So long as her husband lived, the time for that did not again arrive;
but when Mary went to London, she always called on her, and generally
saw Mr. Redmain. But they never had any more talk about the things Mary
loved most. That he continued to think of those things, she had one
ground of hoping, namely, the kindness with which he invariably
received her, and the altogether gentler manner he wore as often and as
long as she saw him. Whether the change was caused by something better
than physical decay, who knows save him who can use even decay for
redemption? He lived two years more, and died rather suddenly. After
his death, and that of her father, which followed soon, Hesper went
again to Durnmelling, and behaved better to her mother than before.
Mary sometimes saw her, and a flicker of genuine friendship began to
appear on Hesper's part.
Mr. Turnbull was soon driving what he called a roaring trade. He bought
and sold a great deal more than Mary, but she had business sufficient
to employ her days, and leave her nights free, and bring her and Letty
enough to live on as comfortably as they desired--with not a little
over, to use, when occasion was, for others, and something to lay by
for the time of lengthening shadows.
Turnbull seemed to hare taken a lesson from his late narrow escape, for
he gave up the worst of his speculations, and confined himself to
"_genuine business-principles_"--the more contentedly that, all Marston
folly swept from his path, he was free to his own interpretation of the
phrase. He grew a rich man, and died happy--so his friends said, and
said as they saw. Mrs. Turnbull left Testbridge, and went to live in a
small county-town where she was unknown. There she was regarded as the
widow of an officer in her Majesty's service, and, as there was no one
within a couple of hundred miles to support an assertion to the
contrary, she did not think it worth her while to make one: was not the
supposed brevet a truer index to her consciousness of herself than the
actual ticket by ill luck attached to her--Widow of a linen-draper?
George carried on the business; and, when Mary and he happened to pass
in the street, they nodded to each other.
Letty was diligent in business, but it never got into her heart. She
continued to be much liked, and in the shop was delightful. If she ever
had another offer of marriage, the fact remained unknown. She lived to
be a sweet, gracious little old lady--and often forgot that she was a
widow, but never that she was a wife. All the days of her appointed
time she waited till her change should come, and she should find her
Tom on the other side, looking out for her, as he had said he would.
Her mother-in-law could not help dying; but she never "forgave"
her--for what, nobody knew.
After a year or so, Mrs. Wardour began to take a little notice of her
again; but she never asked her to Thornwick until she found herself
dying. Perhaps she then remembered a certain petition in the Lord's
prayer. But will it not be rather a dreadful thing for some people if
they are forgiven as they forgive?
Old Mr. Duppa died, and a young man came to minister to his
congregation who thought the baptism of the spirit of more importance
than the most correct of opinions concerning even the baptizing spirit.
From him Mary found she could learn, and would be much to blame if she
did not learn. From him Letty also heard what increased her desire to
be worth something before she went to rejoin Tom.
Joseph Jasper became once more Mary's pupil. She was now no more
content with her little cottage piano, but had an instrument of quite
another capacity on which to accompany the violin of the blacksmith.
To him trade came in steadily, and before long he had to build a larger
shoeing-shed. From a wide neighborhood horses were brought him to be
shod, cart-wheels to be tired, axles to be mended, plowshares to be
sharpened, and all sorts of odd jobs to be done. He soon found it
necessary to make arrangement with a carpenter and wheelwright to work
on his premises. Before two years were over, he was what people call a
flourishing man, and laying by a little money.
"But," he said to Mary, "I can't go on like this, you know, miss. I
don't want money. It must be meant to do something with, and I must
find out what that something is."