"Two or three other little things struck me, all tending to strengthen
my doubts, but perhaps they are hardly worth naming. Still, make the
worst of it, it was only suspicion, not certainty, and I left Saltwater,
holding my tongue."
"And is this all, Owen?"
"Not quite, sir. Would you be so good as to step outside, and just look
at the name over the grocer's door?"
I did so, and read Valentine. "John Valentine." The same name as
Matilda's.
"Yes, sir, it is," Owen said, in answer to me. "After settling here we
made acquaintance with the Valentines, and by-and-by learnt that they
are cousins of Matilda's. Fanny--my wife that is to be--has often talked
to me about Matilda; they were together a good bit in early life; and
by dint of mentally sifting what she said, and putting that and that
together, I fancy I see daylight."
"Yes. Well?"
"Matilda's father married a Spanish woman. She was of a wild,
ungovernable temper, subject to fits of frenzy; in one of which fits
she died. Matilda has inherited this temper; she is liable to go into
frenzies that can only be compared to insanity. Fanny has seen her
in two only; they occur at rare intervals; and she tells me that she
truly believes the girl is mad--mad, Mr. Johnny--during the few minutes
that they last."
The history I had heard of her mad rage at Miss Deveen's flashed over
me. Temporarily insane they had thought her there.
"I said to Fanny one day when we were talking of her," resumed Owen,
"that a person in that sort of uncontrollable passion, might commit any
crime; a murder, or what not. 'Yes,' Fanny replied, 'and not unlikely to
do it, either: Matilda has more than once said that she should never die
in her bed.' Meaning----"
"Meaning what?" I asked, for he came to a pause.
"Well, sir, meaning, I suppose, that she might sometime lay violent
hands upon herself, or upon another. I can't help thinking that
something must have put her into one of these rages with Jane Cross,
and that she pushed or flung the poor girl over the stairs."
Looking back, rapidly recalling signs and tokens, I thought it might
have been so. Owen interrupted me.
"I shall come across her sometime, Mr. Johnny. These are things that
don't hide themselves for ever: at least, not often. And I shall tax
her with it to her face."
"But--don't you know where she is?"
"No, I don't sir. I wish I did. It was said that she came up to take
a situation in London, and perhaps she is still in it. But London's a
large place, I don't know what part of it she was in, and one might as
well look for a needle in a bundle of hay. The Valentines have never
heard of her at all since she was at Saltwater."
How strange it seemed;--that she and they were living so near one
another, and yet not to be aware of it. Should I tell Owen? Only for
half a moment did the question cross me. _No_: most certainly not. It
might be as he suspected; and, with it all, I could only pity Matilda.
Of all unhappy women, she seemed the unhappiest.
Miss Deveen's carriage bowled past the door to take her up at the
linendraper's. Wishing Owen good-day, I was going out, but drew back to
make room for two people who were entering: an elderly woman in a close
bonnet, and a young one with a fair, pretty and laughing face.
"My mother and Fanny, sir," he whispered.
"She is very pretty, very nice, Owen," I said, impulsively. "You'll be
sure to be happy with her."
"Thank you, sir; I think I shall. I wish you had spoken a word or two to
her, Mr. Johnny: you'd have seen how nice she is."
"I can't stay now, Owen. I'll come again."
Not even to Miss Deveen did I speak of what I had heard. I kept thinking
of it as we drove round Hyde Park, and she told me I was unusually
silent.
* * * * *
The thread was unwinding itself more and more. Once it had begun to
lengthen, I suppose it had to go on. Accident led to an encounter
between Matilda and Thomas Owen. Accident? No, it was this same thread
of destiny. There's no such thing as accident in the world.
During the visit to the linendraper's, above spoken of, Miss Deveen
bought a gown for Matilda. Feeling in her own heart sorry for the girl,
thinking she had been somewhat hardly done by in her house, what with
Hall and the rest of them, she wished to make her a present on leaving,
as a token of her good-will. But the quantity of stuff bought proved not
to be sufficient: Miss Deveen had doubted the point when it was cut off,
and told Matilda to go herself and get two yards more. This it was, this
simple incident, that led to the meeting with Owen. And I was present at
it.
The money-order office of the district was situated amidst this colony
of shops. In going down there one afternoon to cash an order, I overtook
Matilda. She was on her way to buy the additional yards of stuff.
"I suppose I am going right, sir?" she said to me. "I don't know much
about this neighbourhood."
"Not know much about it! What, after having lived in it more than a
year!"
"I have hardly ever gone out; except to church on a Sunday," she
answered. "And what few articles I've wanted in the dress line, I have
mostly bought at the little draper's shop round the corner."
Hardly had the words left her lips, when we came face to face with
Thomas Owen. Matilda gave a sort of smothered cry, and stood still,
gazing at him. What they said to one another in that first moment, I did
not hear. Matilda had a frightened look, and was whiter than death.
Presently we were all walking together towards Thomas Owen's, he having
invited Matilda to go and see his home.
But there was another encounter first. Standing at the grocer's door
was pretty Fanny Valentine. She and Matilda recognized each other, and
clasped hands. It appeared to me that Matilda did it with reluctance,
as though it gave her no pleasure to meet her relatives. She must have
known how near they lived to Miss Deveen's, and yet she had never sought
them out. Perhaps the very fact of not wishing to see them had kept her
from the spot.
They all sat down in the parlour behind the shop--a neat room. Mrs. Owen
was out; her son produced some wine. I stood up by the bookcase, telling
them I must be off the next minute to the post-office. But the minutes
passed, and I stayed on.
How he led up to it, I hardly know; but, before I was prepared for
anything of the kind, Thomas Owen had plunged wholesale into the subject
of Jane Cross, recounting the history of that night, in all its minute
details, to Fanny Valentine. Matilda, sitting back on the far side of
the room in an armchair, looked terror-stricken: her face seemed to be
turning into stone.
"Why do you begin about that, Thomas Owen?" she demanded, when words at
length came to her. "It can have nothing to do with Fanny."
"I have been wishing to tell it her for some little time, and this seems
to be a fitting opportunity," he answered, coolly resolute. "You, being
better acquainted with the matter than I, can correct me if I make any
blunders. I don't care to keep secrets from Fanny: she is going to be my
wife."
Matilda's hands lifted themselves with a convulsive movement and fell
again. Her eyes flashed fire.
"_Your wife?_"
"If you have no objection," he replied. "My dear old mother goes into
Wales next month, and Fanny comes here in her place."
With a cry, faint and mournful as that of a wounded dove, Matilda put
her hands before her face and leaned back in her chair. If she had in
truth loved Thomas Owen, if she loved him still, the announcement must
have caused her cruel pain.
He resumed his narrative; assuming as facts what he had in his own mind
conceived to have been the case, and by implication, but not directly,
charging Matilda with the crime. It had a dreadful effect upon her; her
agitation increased with every word. Suddenly she rose up in the chair,
her arms lifted, her face distorted. One of those fits of passion had
come on.
We had a dreadful scene. Owen was powerful, I of not much good, but we
could not hold her. Fanny ran sobbing into her own door and sent in two
of the shopmen.
It was the climax in Matilda Valentine's life. One that perhaps might
have been always looked for. From that hour she was an insane woman,
her ravings interspersed with lucid intervals. During one of these, she
disclosed the truth.
She had loved Thomas Owen with a passionate love. Mistaking the gossip
and the nonsense that the young man was fond of chattering to her and
Jane Cross, she believed her love was returned. On the day preceding the
tragedy, when talking with him after morning service, she had taxed him
with paying more attention to Jane Cross than to herself. Not a bit
of it, he had lightly answered; he would take her for a walk by the
seashore that evening if she liked to go. But, whether he had meant it,
or not, he never came, though Matilda dressed herself in readiness. On
the contrary, he went to church, met Jane there, and walked the best
part of the way home with her. Matilda jealously resented this; her mind
was in a chaos; she began to suspect that it was Jane Cross he liked,
not herself. She said a word or two upon the subject to Jane Cross the
next day, Monday; but Jane made sport of it--laughed it off. So the
time went on to evening, when they were upstairs together, Jane sewing,
Matilda writing. Suddenly Jane Cross said that Thomas Owen was coming
along, and Matilda ran to the window. They spoke to him as he passed,
and he said he would look in as he returned from Munpler. After
Matilda's letter to her brother was finished, she began a note to Thomas
Owen, intending to reproach him with not keeping his promise to her
and for joining Jane Cross instead. It was the first time she had ever
attempted to write to him; and she stuck her work-box with the lid open
behind the sheet of paper that Jane Cross might not see what she was
doing. When it grew dusk, Jane Cross remarked that it was blind man's
holiday and she would go on down and lay the supper. In crossing the
room, work-basket in hand, she passed behind Matilda, glanced at her
letter, and saw the first words of it, "Dearest Thomas Owen." In sport,
she snatched it up, read the rest where her own name was mentioned, and
laughingly began, probably out of pure fun, to teaze Matilda. "Thomas
Owen your sweetheart!" she cried, running out on to the landing. "Why,
he is mine. He cares more for my little finger than for----" Poor girl!
She never finished her sentence. Matilda, fallen into one of those
desperate fits of passion, had caught her up and was clutching her like
a tiger-cat, tearing her hair, tearing pieces out of her gown. The
scuffle was brief: almost in an instant Jane Cross was falling headlong
down the well of the staircase, pushed over the very low balustrades by
Matilda, who threw the work-basket after her.
The catastrophe sobered her passion. For a while she lay on the landing
in a sort of faint, all strength and power taken out of her as usual by
the frenzy. Then she went down to look after Jane Cross.
Jane was dead. Matilda, not unacquainted with the aspect of death, saw
that at once, and her senses pretty nearly deserted her again with
remorse and horror. She had never thought or wished to kill Jane Cross,
hardly to harm her, she liked her too well: but in those moments of
frenzy she had not the slightest control over her actions. Her first act
was to run and lock the side door in the garden wall, lest anyone should
come in. How she lived through the next half-hour, she never knew. Her
superstitious fear of seeing the dead Edmund Peahern in the house was
strong--and now there was another! But, with all her anguish and her
fear, the instinct of self-preservation was making itself heard. What
must she do? How could she throw the suspicion off herself? She could
not run out of the house and say, "Jane Cross has fallen accidentally
over the stairs; come and look to her"--for no one would have believed
it to be an accident. And there were the pieces, too, she had clutched
out of the gown! Whilst thus deliberating the gate-bell rang, putting
her into a state of the most intense terror. It rang again. Trembling,
panting, Matilda stood cowering in the kitchen, but it did not ring a
third time. This was, of course, Thomas Owen.
Necessity is the mother of invention. Something she _must_ do, and her
brain hastily concocted the plan she should adopt. Putting the cloth and
the bread and cheese on the table, she took the jug and went out at the
front door to fetch the usual pint of ale. A moment or two she stood
at the front door, peering up and down the road to make sure that no
one was passing. Then she slipped out, locking the door softly; and,
carrying the key concealed in the hollow of her hand, she threw it
amidst the shrubs at No 1. _Now_ she could not get into the house
herself; she would not have entered it alone for the world: people must
break it open. All along the way to the post-office, to which she really
did go, and then to the Swan, she was mentally rehearsing her tale. And
it succeeded in deceiving us all, as the reader knows. With regard to
the visit of her brother on the Wednesday, she had told Thomas Owen the
strict truth; though, when he first alluded to it in the churchyard, her
feelings were wrought up to such a pitch that she could only cry out
and escape. But how poor Matilda contrived to live on and carry out her
invented story, how she bore the inward distress and repentance that
lay upon her, we shall never know. A distress, remorse, repentance that
never quitted her, night or day; and which no doubt contributed to
gradually unhinge her mind, and throw it finally off its balance.
Such was the true history of the affair at No. 7, which had been so
great a mystery to Saltwater. The truth was never made public, save to
the very few who were specially interested in it. Matilda Valentine is
in an asylum, and likely to remain there for life; whilst Thomas Owen
and his wife flourish in sunshine, happy as a summer day is long.