While Matthew Grice was traveling backwards and forwards between town
and town in the midland counties, the life led by his young friend
and comrade in the metropolis, was by no means devoid of incident and
change. Zack had met with his adventures as well as Mat; one of them, in
particular, being of such a nature, or, rather, leading to such results,
as materially altered the domestic aspect of the lodgings in Kirk
Street.
True to his promise to Valentine, Zack, on the morning of his friend’s
departure for the country, presented himself at Mr. Strather’s house,
with his letter of introduction, punctually at eleven o’clock; and was
fairly started in life by that gentleman, before noon on the same
day, as a student of the Classic beau-ideal in the statue-halls of the
British Museum. He worked away resolutely enough till the rooms
were closed; and then returned to Kirk Street, not by any means
enthusiastically devoted to his new occupation; but determined to
persevere in it, because he was determined to keep to his word.
His new profession wore, however, a much more encouraging aspect when
Mr. Strather introduced him, in the evening, to the private Academy.
Here, live people were the models to study from. Here he was free to
use the palette, and to mix up the pinkest possible flesh tints with
bran-new brushes. Here were high-spirited students of the fine arts,
easy in manners and picturesque in personal appearance, with whom he
contrived to become intimate directly. And here, to crown all, was
a Model, sitting for the chest and arms, who had been a great
prize-fighter, and with whom Zack joyfully cemented the bonds of an
eternal (pugilistic) friendship, on the first night of his admission to
Mr. Strather’s Academy.
All through the second day of his probation as a student, he labored
at his drawing with immense resolution and infinitesimal progress. All
through the evening he daubed away industriously under Mr. Strather’s
supervision, until the Academy sitting was suspended. It would have been
well for him if he had gone home as soon as he laid down his brushes.
But in an evil hour he lingered after the studies of the evening
were over, to have a gossip with the prize-fighting Model; and in an
indiscreet moment he consented to officiate as one of the patrons at an
exhibition of sparring, to be held that night in a neighboring tavern,
for the ex-pugilist’s benefit.
After being conducted in an orderly manner enough for some little time,
the pugilistic proceedings of the evening were suddenly interrupted
by one of the Patrons present (who was also a student at the Drawing
Academy), declaring that his pocket had been picked, and insisting that
the room door should be closed and the police summoned immediately.
Great confusion and disturbance ensued, amid which Zack supported the
demand of his fellow-student--perhaps a little too warmly. At any rate,
a gentleman sitting opposite to him, with a patch over one eye, and
a nose broken in three places, swore that young Thorpe had personally
insulted him by implying that he was the thief; and vindicated his moral
character by throwing a cheese-plate at Zack’s head. The missile struck
the mark (at the side, however, instead of in front), and breaking when
it struck, inflicted what appeared to every unprofessional eye that
looked at the injury like a very extensive and dangerous wound.
The chemist to whom Zack was taken in the first instance to be bandaged,
thought little of the hurt; but the local doctor who was called in,
after the lad’s removal to Kirk Street, did not take so reassuring a
view of the patient’s case. The wound was certainly not situated in a
very dangerous part of the head; but it had been inflicted at a time
when Zack’s naturally full-blooded constitution was in a very unhealthy
condition, from the effects of much more ardent spirit-drinking than
was at all good for him. Bad fever symptoms set in immediately, and
appearances became visible in the neighborhood of the wound, at which
the medical head shook ominously. In short, Zack was now confined to
his bed, with the worst illness he had ever had in his life, and with no
friend to look after him except the landlady of the house.
Fortunately for him, his doctor was a man of skill and energy, who knew
how to make the most of all the advantages which the patient’s youth and
strength could offer to assist the medical treatment. In ten days’
time, young Thorpe was out of danger of any of the serious inflammatory
results which had been apprehended from the injury to his head.
Wretchedly weak and reduced--unwilling to alarm his mother by informing
her of his illness--without Valentine to console him, or Mat to amuse
him, Zack’s spirits now sank to a far lower ebb than they had ever
fallen to before. In his present state of depression, feebleness, and
solitude, there were moments when he doubted of his own recovery, in
spite of all that the doctor could tell him. While in this frame
of mind, the remembrance of the last sad report he had heard of his
father’s health, affected him very painfully, and he bitterly condemned
himself for never having written so much as a line to ask Mr. Thorpe’s
pardon since he had left home. He was too weak to use the pen himself;
but the tobacconist’s wife--a slovenly, showy, kind-hearted woman--was
always ready to do anything to serve him; and he determined to make his
mind a little easier by asking her to write a few penitent lines for
him, and by having the letter despatched immediately to his father’s
address in Baregrove Square. His landlady had long since been made the
confidant of all his domestic tribulations (for he freely communicated
them to everybody with whom he was brought much in contact); and she
showed, therefore, no surprise, but on the contrary expressed great
satisfaction, when his request was preferred to her. This was the letter
which Zack, with tearful eyes and faltering voice, dictated to the
tobacconist’s wife:--
“MY DEAR FATHER,--I am truly sorry for never having written to ask
you to forgive me before. I write now, and beg your pardon with all my
heart, for I am indeed very penitent, and ashamed of myself. If you
will only let me have another trial, and will not be too hard upon me at
first, I will do my best never to give you any more trouble. Therefore,
pray write to me at 14, Kirk Street, Wendover Market, where I am now
living with a friend who has been very kind to me. Please give my dear
love to mother, and believe me your truly penitent son,
“Z. THORPE, jun.”
Having got through this letter pretty easily, and finding that the
tobacconist’s wife was quite ready to write another for him if he
pleased, Zack resolved to send a line to Mr. Blyth, who, as well as he
could calculate, might now be expected to return from the country every
day. On the evening when he had been brought home with the wound in his
head, he had entreated that his accident might be kept a secret from
Mrs. Blyth (who knew his address), in case she should send after him.
This preliminary word of caution was not uselessly spoken. Only three
days later a note was brought from Mrs. Blyth, upbraiding him for never
having been near the house during Valentine’s absence, and asking him
to come and drink tea that evening. The messenger, who waited for an
answer, was sent back with the most artful verbal excuse which the
landlady could provide for the emergency, and no more notes had been
delivered since. Mrs. Blyth was doubtless not overwell satisfied with
the cool manner in which her invitation had been received.
In his present condition of spirits, Zack’s conscience upbraided him
soundly for having thought of deceiving Valentine by keeping him
in ignorance of what had happened. Now that Mat seemed, by his long
absence, to have deserted Kirk Street for ever, there was a double
attraction and hope for the weary and heart-sick Zack in the prospect
of seeing the painter’s genial face by his bedside. To this oldest,
kindest, and most merciful of friends, therefore, he determined to
confess, what he dare not so much as hint to his own father.
The note which, by the assistance of the tobacconist’s wife, he now
addressed to Valentine, was as characteristically boyish, and even
childish in tone, as the note which he had sent to his father. It ran
thus:
“MY DEAR BLYTH,--I begin to wish I had never been born; for I have got
into another scrape--having been knocked on the head by a prize-fighter
with a cheese-plate. It was wrong in me to go where I did, I know. But
I went to Mr. Strather, just as you told me, and stuck to my drawing--I
did indeed! Pray do come, as soon as ever you get back--I send this
letter to make sure of getting you at once. I am so miserable and
lonely, and too weak still to get out of bed.
“My landlady is very good and kind to me; but, as for that old vagabond,
Mat, he has been away in the country, I don’t know how long, and has
never written to me. Please, please do come! and don’t blow me up much
if you can help it, for I am so weak I can hardly keep from crying when
I think of what has happened. Ever yours,
“Z. THORPE, jun.
“P. S. If you have got any of my money left by you, I should be very
glad if you would bring it. I haven’t a farthing, and there are several
little things I ought to pay for.”
This letter, and the letter to Mr. Thorpe, after being duly sealed and
directed, were confided for delivery to a private messenger. They were
written on the same day which had been occupied by Matthew Grice in
visiting Mr. Tatt and Mr. Nawby, at Dibbledean. And the coincidences of
time so ordered it, that while Zack’s letters were proceeding to their
destinations, in the hand of the messenger, Zack’s fellow-lodger was
also proceeding to his destination in Kirk Street, by the fast London
train.
Baregrove Square was nearer to the messenger than Valentine’s house, so
the first letter that he delivered was that all-important petition for
the paternal pardon, on the favorable reception of which depended Zack’s
last chance of reconciliation with home.
Mr. Thorpe sat alone in his dining-parlor--the same dining-parlor in
which, so many weary years ago, he had argued with old Mr. Goodworth,
about his son’s education. Mrs. Thorpe, being confined to her room by a
severe cold, was unable to keep him company--the doctor had just taken
leave of him--friends in general were forbidden, on medical authority,
to excite him by visits--he was left lonely, and he had the prospect of
remaining lonely for the rest of the day. That total prostration of
the nervous system, from which the doctor had declared him to be now
suffering, showed itself painfully, from time to time, in his actions
as well as his looks--in his sudden startings when an unexpected noise
occurred in the house, in the trembling of his wan yellowish-white hand
whenever he lifted it from the table, in the transparent paleness of his
cheeks, in the anxious uncertainty of his ever-wandering eves.
His attention was just now directed on an open letter lying near him--a
letter fitted to encourage and console him, if any earthly hopes could
still speak of happiness to his heart, or any earthly solace still
administer repose to his mind.
But a few days back, his wife’s entreaties and the doctor’s advice
had at length prevailed on him to increase his chances of recovery, by
resigning the post of secretary to one of the Religious Societies to
which he belonged. The letter he was now looking at, had been written
officially to inform him that the members of the Society accepted his
resignation with the deepest regret; and to prepare him for a visit on
the morrow from a deputation charged to present him with an address and
testimonial--both of which had been unanimously voted by the Society “in
grateful and affectionate recognition of his high character and eminent
services, while acting as their secretary.” He had not been able to
resist the temptation of showing this letter to the doctor; and he could
not refrain from reading it once again now, before he put it back in his
desk. It was, in his eyes, the great reward and the great distinction of
his life.
He was still lingering thoughtfully over the last sentence, when Zack’s
letter was brought in to him. It was only for a moment that he had dared
to taste again the sweetness of a well-won triumph--but even in that
moment, there mingled with it the poisoning bitter of every past
association that could pain him most!--With a heavy sigh, he put away
the letter from the friends who honored him, and prepared to answer the
letter from the son who had deserted him.
There was grief, but no anger in his face, as he read it over for the
second time. He sat thinking for a little while--then drew towards him
his inkstand and paper--hesitated--wrote a few lines--and paused again,
putting down the pen this time, and covering his eyes with his thin
trembling hand. After sitting thus for some minutes, he seemed to
despair of being able to collect his thoughts immediately, and to
resolve on giving his mind full time to compose itself. He shut up his
son’s letter and his own unfinished reply together in the paper-case.
But there was some re-assuring promise for Zack’s future prospects
contained even in the little that he had already written; and the letter
suggested forgiveness at the very outset; for it began with, “My dear
Zachary.”
On delivering Zack’s second note at Valentine’s house, the messenger was
informed that Mr. Blyth was expected back on the next day, or on the day
after that, at the latest. Having a discretionary power to deal as she
pleased with her husband’s correspondence, when he was away from home,
Mrs. Blyth opened the letter as soon as it was taken up to her. Madonna
was in the room at the time, with her bonnet and shawl on, just ready
to go out for her usual daily walk, with Patty the housemaid for a
companion, in Valentine’s absence.
“Oh, that wretched, wretched Zack!” exclaimed Mrs. Blyth, looking
seriously distressed and alarmed, the moment her eyes fell on the first
lines of the letter. “He must be ill indeed,” she added, looking closely
at the handwriting; “for he has evidently not written this himself.”
Madonna could not hear these words, but she could see the expression
which accompanied their utterance, and could indicate by a sign her
anxiety to know what had happened. Mrs. Blyth ran her eye quickly over
the letter, and ascertaining that there was nothing in it which Madonna
might not be allowed to read, beckoned to the girl to look over her
shoulder, as the easiest and shortest way of explaining what was the
matter.
“How distressed Valentine will be to hear of this!” thought Mrs. Blyth,
summoning Patty up-stairs by a pull at her bell-rope, while Madonna was
eagerly reading the letter. The housemaid appeared immediately, and
was charged by her mistress to go to Kirk Street at once; and after
inquiring of the landlady about Zack’s health, to get a written list of
any comforts he might want, and bring it back as soon as possible. “And
mind you leave a message,” pursued Mrs. Blyth, in conclusion, “to say
that he need not trouble himself about money matters, for your master
will come back from the country, either to-morrow or next day.”
Here her attention was suddenly arrested by Madonna, who was eagerly and
even impatiently signing on her fingers: “What are you saying to Patty?
Oh! do let me know what you are saying to Patty?”
Mrs. Blyth repeated, by means of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet,
the instructions which she had just given to the servant; and
added--observing the paleness and agitation of Madonna’s face--“Let us
not frighten ourselves unnecessarily, my dear, about Zack; he may turn
out to be much better than we think him from reading his letter.”
“May I go with Patty?” rejoined Madonna, her eyes sparkling with
anxiety, her fingers trembling as they rapidly formed these words. “Let
me take my walk with Patty, just as if nothing had happened. Let me go!
pray, let me go!”
“She can’t be of any use, poor child,” thought Mrs. Blyth; “but if I
keep her here, she will only be fretting herself into one of her violent
headaches. Besides, she may as well have her walk now, for I shan’t
be able to spare Patty later in the day.” Influenced by these
considerations, Mrs. Blyth, by a nod, intimated to her adopted child
that she might accompany the housemaid to Kirk Street. Madonna, the
moment this permission was granted, led the way out of the room; but
stopped as soon as she and Patty were alone on the staircase, and,
making a sign that she would be back directly, ran up to her own
bed-chamber.
When she entered the room, she unlocked a little dressing-case that
Valentine had given to her; and, emptying out of one of the trays four
sovereigns and some silver, all her savings from her own pocket-money,
wrapped them up hastily in a piece of paper, and ran down stairs again
to Patty. Zack was ill, and lonely, and miserable; longing for a friend
to sit by his bedside and comfort him--and she could not be that friend!
But Zack was also poor; she had read it in his letter; there were many
little things he wanted to pay for; he needed money--and in that need
she might secretly be a friend to him, for she had money of her own to
give away.
“My four golden sovereigns shall be the first he has,” thought Madonna,
nervously taking the housemaid’s offered arm at the house-door. “I will
put them in some place where he is sure to find them, and never to know
who they come from. And Zack shall be rich again--rich with all the
money I have got to give him.” Four sovereigns represented quite a
little fortune in Madonna’s eyes. It had taken her a long, long time to
save them out of her small allowance of pocket-money.
When they knocked at the private door of the tobacco-shop, it was opened
by the landlady, who, after hearing what their errand was from Patty,
and answering some preliminary inquiries after Zack, politely
invited them to walk into her back parlor. But Madonna seemed--quite
incomprehensibly to the servant--to be bent on remaining in the passage
till she had finished writing some lines which she had just then begun
to trace on her slate. When they were completed, she showed them to
Patty, who read with considerable astonishment these words: “Ask where
his sitting-room is, and if I can go into it. I want to leave something
for him there with my own hands, if the room is empty.”
After looking at her young mistress’s eager face in great amazement for
a moment or two, Patty asked the required questions; prefacing them with
some words of explanation which drew from the tobacconist’s wife many
voluble expressions of sympathy and admiration for Madonna. At last,
there came to an end; and the desired answers to the questions on the
slate were readily given enough, and duly, though rather slowly, written
down by Patty, for her young lady’s benefit. The sitting-room belonging
to Mr. Thorpe and the other gentleman, was the front room on the first
floor. Nobody was in it now. Would the lady like to be shown--
Here Madonna arrested the servant’s further progress with the
slate pencil--nodded to indicate that she understood what had been
written--and then, with her little packet of money ready in her hand,
lightly ran up the first flight of stairs; ascending them so quickly
that she was on the landing before Patty and the landlady had settled
which of the two ought to have officially preceded her.
The front room was indeed empty when she entered it, but one of the
folding doors leading into the back room had been left ajar; and when
she looked towards the opening thus made, she also looked, from the
particular point of view she then occupied, towards the head of the bed
on which Zack lay, and saw his face turned towards her, hushed in deep,
still, breathless sleep.
She started violently--trembled a little--then stood motionless, looking
towards him through the door; the tears standing thick in her eyes,
the color gone from her cheeks, the yearning pulses of grief and
pity beating faster and faster in her heart. Ah! how pale and wan and
piteously still he lay there, with the ghastly white bandages round
his head, and one helpless, languid hand hanging over the bedside! How
changed from that glorious creature, all youth, health, strength, and
exulting activity, whom it had so long been her innocent idolatry to
worship in secret! How fearfully like what might be the image of him in
death, was the present image of him as he lay in his hushed and awful
sleep! She shuddered as the thought crossed her mind, and drying the
tears that obscured her sight, turned a little away from him, and looked
round the room. Her quick feminine eyes detected at a glance all
its squalid disorder, all its deplorable defects of comfort, all its
repulsive unfitness as a habitation for the suffering and the sick.
Surely a little money might help Zack to a better place to recover in!
Surely _her_ money might be made to minister in this way to his comfort,
his happiness, and even his restoration to health!
Full of this idea, she advanced a step or two, and sought for a proper
place on the one table in the room, in which she might put her packet of
money.
While she was thus engaged, an old newspaper, with some hair lying in
it, caught her eye. The hair was Zack’s and was left to be thrown away;
having been cut off that very morning by the doctor, who thought that
enough had not been removed from the neighborhood of the wound by the
barber originally employed to clear the hair from the injured side of
the patient’s head. Madonna had hardly looked at the newspaper before
she recognized the hair in it as Zack’s by its light-brown color, and by
the faint golden tinge running through it. One little curly lock, lying
rather apart from the rest, especially allured her eyes; she longed to
take it as a keepsake--a keepsake which Zack would never know that she
possessed! For a moment she hesitated, and in that moment the longing
became an irresistible temptation. After glancing over her shoulder to
assure herself that no one had followed her upstairs, she took the lock
of hair, and quickly hid it away in her bosom.
Her eyes had assured her that there was no one in the room; but, if she
had not been deprived of the sense of hearing, she would have known that
persons were approaching it, by the sound of voices on the stairs--a
man’s voice being among them. Necessarily ignorant, however, of this,
she advanced unconcernedly, after taking the lock of hair, from the
table to the chimney-piece, which it struck her might be the safest
place to leave the money on. She had just put it down there, when she
felt the slight concussion caused by the opening and closing of the door
behind her; and turning round instantly, confronted Patty, the landlady,
and the strange swarthy-faced friend of Zack’s, who had made her a
present of the scarlet tobacco-pouch.
Terror and confusion almost overpowered her, as she saw him advance to
the chimney-piece and take up the packet she had just placed there. He
had evidently opened the room-door in time to see her put it down; and
he was now deliberately unfolding the paper and examining the money
inside.
While he was thus occupied, Patty came close up to her, and, with rather
a confused and agitated face, began writing on her slate, much faster
and much less correctly than usual. She gathered, however, from the few
crooked lines scrawled by the servant, that Patty had been very much
startled by the sudden entrance of the landlady’s rough lodger, who
had let himself in from the street, just as she was about to follow her
young mistress up to the sitting-room, and had uncivilly stood in her
way on the stairs, while he listened to what the good woman of the
house had to tell him about young Mr. Thorpe’s illness. Confused as the
writing was on the slate, Madonna contrived to interpret it thus far,
and would have gone on interpreting more, if she had not felt a heavy
hand laid on her arm, and had not, on looking round, seen Zack’s friend
making signs to her, with her money loose in his hand.
She felt confused, but not frightened now; for his eyes, as she looked
into them, expressed neither suspicion nor anger. They rested on her
face kindly and sadly, while he first pointed to the money in his hand,
and then to her. She felt that her color was rising, and that it was
a hard matter to acknowledge the gold and silver as being her own
property; but she did so acknowledge it. He then pointed to himself; and
when she shook her head, pointed through the folding doors into Zack’s
room. Her cheeks began to burn, and she grew suddenly afraid to look at
him; but it was no harder trial to confess the truth than shamelessly
to deny it by making a false sign. So she looked up at him again, and
bravely nodded her head.
His eyes seemed to grow clearer and softer as they still rested kindly
on her; but he made her take back the money immediately, and, holding
her hand as he did so, detained it for a moment with a curious awkward
gentleness. Then, after first pointing again to Zack’s room, he began to
search in the breast-pocket of his coat, took from it at one rough grasp
some letters tied together loosely, and a clumsy-looking rolled-up strip
of fur, put the letters aside on the table behind him, and, unrolling
the fur, showed her that there were bank-notes in it. She understood him
directly--he had money of his own for Zack’s service, and wanted none
from her.
After he had replaced the strip of fur in his pocket, he took up the
letters from the table to be put back also. As he reached them towards
him, a lock of hair, which seemed to have accidentally got between them,
fell out on the floor just at her feet. She stooped to pick it up for
him; and was surprised, as she did so, to see that it exactly resembled
in color the lock of Zack’s hair which she had taken from the old
newspaper, and had hidden in her bosom.
She was surprised at this; and she was more than surprised, when he
angrily and abruptly snatched up the lock of hair, just as she touched
it. Did he think that she wanted to take it away from him? If he did,
it was easy to show him that a lock of Zack’s hair was just now no such
rarity that people need quarrel about the possession of it. She reached
her hand to the table behind, and, taking some of the hair from the old
newspaper, held it up to him with a smile, just as he was on the point
of putting his own lock of hair back in his pocket.
For a moment he did not seem to comprehend what her action meant; then
the resemblance between the hair in her hand and the hair in his own,
struck him suddenly.
The whole expression of his face changed in an instant--changed so
darkly that she recoiled from him in terror, and put back the hair into
the newspaper. He pounced on it directly; and, crunching it up in his
hand, turned his grim threatening face and fiercely-questioning eyes on
the landlady. While she was answering his inquiry, Madonna saw him look
towards Zack’s bed; and, as he looked, another change passed over
his face--the darkness faded from it, and the red scars on his cheek
deepened in color. He moved back slowly to the further corner of the
room from the folding-doors; his restless eyes fixed in a vacant stare,
one of his hands clutched round the old newspaper, the other motioning
clumsily and impatiently to the astonished and alarmed women to leave
him.
Madonna had felt Patty’s hand pulling at her arm more than once during
the last minute or two. She was now quite as anxious as her companion
to quit the house. They went out quickly, not venturing to look at Mat
again; and the landlady followed them. She and Patty had a long talk
together at the street door--evidently, judging by the expression
of their faces, about the conduct of the rough lodger up-stairs. But
Madonna felt no desire to be informed particularly of what they were
saying to each other. Much as Matthew’s strange behavior had surprised
and startled her, he was not the uppermost subject in her mind just
then. It was the discovery of her secret, the failure of her little plan
for helping Zack with her own money, that she was now thinking of with
equal confusion and dismay. She had not been in the front room at Kirk
Street much more than five minutes altogether--yet what a succession of
untoward events had passed in that short space of time!
For a long while after the women had left him, Mat stood motionless in
the furthest corner of the room from the folding-doors, looking vacantly
towards Zack’s bedchamber. His first surprise on finding a stranger
talking in the passage, when he let himself in from the street; his
first vexation on hearing of Zack’s accident from the landlady; his
momentary impulse to discover himself to Mary’s child, when he saw
Madonna standing in his room, and again when he knew that she had come
there with her little offering, for the one kind purpose of helping the
sick lad in his distress--all these sensations were now gone from
his memory as well as from his heart; absorbed in the one predominant
emotion with which the discovery of the resemblance between Zack’s hair
and the hair from Jane Holdworth’s letter now filled him. No ordinary
shocks could strike Mat’s mind hard enough to make it lose its
balance--_this_ shock prostrated it in an instant.
In proportion as he gradually recovered his self-possession so did the
desire strengthen in him to ascertain the resemblance between the
two kinds of hair once more--but in such a manner as it had not been
ascertained yet. He stole gently to the folding-doors and looked into
young Thorpe’s room. Zack was still asleep.
After pausing for a moment, and shaking his head sorrowfully, as he
noticed how pale and wasted the lad’s face looked, he approached the
pillow, and laid the lock of Arthur Carr’s hair upon it, close to the
uninjured side of Zack’s head. It was then late in the afternoon, but
not dusk yet. No blind hung over the bedroom window, and all the light
in the sky streamed full on to the pillow as Mat’s eyes fastened on it.
The similarity between the sleeper’s hair and the hair of Arthur Carr
was perfect! Both were of the same light brown color, and both had
running through that color the same delicate golden tinge, brightly
visible in the light, hardly to be detected at all in the shade.
Why had this extraordinary resemblance never struck him before? Perhaps
because he had never examined Arthur Carr’s hair with attention until
he had possessed himself of Mary’s bracelet, and had gone away to the
country. Perhaps also because he had never yet taken notice enough of
Zack’s hair to care to look close at it. And now the resemblance was
traced, to what conclusion did it point? Plainly, from Zack’s youth,
to none in connection with _him._ But what elder relatives had he? and
which of them was he most like?
Did he take after his father?
Mat was looking down at the sleeper, just then; something in the lad’s
face troubled him, and kept his mind from pursuing that last thought.
He took the lock of hair from the pillow, and went into the front room.
There was anxiety and almost dread in his face, as he thought of the
fatally decisive question in relation to the momentous discovery he had
just made, which must be addressed to Zack when he awoke. He had never
really known how fond he was of his fellow lodger until now, when he
was conscious of a dull, numbing sensation of dismay at the prospect of
addressing that question to the friend who had lived as a brother with
him, since the day when they first met.
As the evening closed in, Zack woke. It was a relief to Mat, as he went
to the bedside, to know that his face could not now be clearly seen. The
burden of that terrible question pressed heavily on his heart, while he
held his comrade’s feeble hand; while he answered as considerately, yet
as briefly as he could, the many inquiries addressed to him; and while
he listened patiently and silently to the sufferer’s long, wandering,
faintly-uttered narrative of the accident that had befallen him. Towards
the close of that narrative, Zack himself unconsciously led the way to
the fatal question which Mat longed, yet dreaded to ask him.
“Well, old fellow,” he said, turning feebly on his pillow, so as to face
Matthew, “something like what you call the ‘horrors’ has been taking
hold of me. And this morning, in particular, I was so wretched and
lonely, that I asked the landlady to write for me to my father, begging
his pardon, and all that. I haven’t behaved as well as I ought; and,
somehow, when a fellow’s ill and lonely he gets homesick--”
His voice began to grow faint, and he left the sentence unfinished.
“Zack,” said Mat, turning his face away from the bed while he spoke,
though it was now quite dark. “Zack, what sort of a man is your father?”
“What sort of a man! How do you mean?”
“To look at. Are you like him in the face?”
“Lord help you, Mat! as little like as possible. My father’s face is all
wrinkled and marked.”
“Aye, aye, like other old men’s faces. His hair’s grey, I suppose?”
“Quite white. By-the-by--talking of that--there _is_ one point I’m like
him in--at least, like what he _was,_ when he was a young man.”
“What’s that?”
“What we’ve been speaking of--his hair. I’ve heard my mother say, when
she first married him--just shake up my pillow a bit, will you, Mat?”
“Yes, yes. And what did you hear your mother say?”
“Oh, nothing particular. Only that when he was a young man, his hair was
exactly like what mine is now.”
As those momentous words were spoken, the landlady knocked at the door,
and announced that she was waiting outside with candles, and a nice
cup of tea for the invalid. Mat let her into the bedchamber--then
immediately walked out of it into the front room, and closed the
folding-doors behind him. Brave as he was, he was afraid, at that
moment, to let Zack see his face.
He walked to the fireplace, and rested his head and arm on the
chimney-piece--reflected for a little while--then stood upright
again--and searching in his pocket, drew from it once more that fatal
lock of hair, which he had examined so anxiously and so often during his
past fortnight in the country.
_“Your_ work’s done,” he said, looking at it for a moment, as it lay in
his hand--then throwing it into the dull red fire which was now burning
low in the grate. _“Your_ work’s done; and mine won’t be long a-doing.”
He rested his head and arm again wearily on the chimney-piece, and
added:
“I’m brothers with Zack--there’s the hard part of it!--I’m brothers with
Zack.”