One warm morning when the apple-trees were out, Arthur Brock was
sitting with Gresham Powell in the garden of the farm-house where they
were lodging in the country, turning over a portfolio full of Powell's
sketches, and Powell was looking at them over his shoulder, and
discussing them with him. Arthur had just come upon a clever study of
the head of a girl in a hat, and was looking hard at it.
"That's a study in starvation," Powell explained. "It's an interesting
face, isn't it? She came into a hairdresser's one day when I was
there, and sat down just in that attitude, and I sketched her on the
spot. She was too far through at the moment to notice me. Look at her
pretty hair particularly. You'll see why in the next sketch, which is
the sequel."
Brock took up the next sketch hurriedly. It was the same girl in the
same hat, but with her hair cut short.
"I asked the barber fellow about her when she'd gone," Gresham
pursued. "He'd taken her into an inner room, and when she came out she
was cropped like that. She told him she had come to her last shilling,
and she had an invalid at home depending on her entirely, and she
entreated him to give her all he could for her hair. I believe the
chap did too," he seemed so moved by her suffering and gentleness.
"What's the matter?"
Brock had risen abruptly with the sketches still in his hand. The
colour had left his face, and he looked as pinched and ill as he had
done during the early days of his convalescence.
"The matter!" he ejaculated. "I've just discovered what a blind fool I
am, that's what's the matter; and I'll keep these two studies with
your permission to remind me of the fact. Choose amongst mine any you
like instead of them, old chap, but these you must let me have."
Without waiting for an answer, he took the sketches away with him into
the house. When he returned a short time afterwards, he was dressed
for a journey, and had a travelling bag in his hand.
"I'm going to town," he said, "to see the original of these sketches.
I've run up an account with her I shall never be able to settle, but
at all events I can acknowledge my debt, dolt that I am! _I_ was that
invalid. And I thought myself such a gentleman too! not counting my
change and asking no questions, trusting her implicitly: that was my
pose from the day you came and poisoned my mind. Before that I had
neither trusted nor distrusted, but just taken things for granted as
they came, beautifully. I was too self-satisfied even to suspect that
she might be imposing her bounty upon me, starving herself that I
might have all I required, and sending me off here finally with the
last penny she had in the world. I told you I was wondering she did
not answer my letters. I expect she hadn't the stamp. But you said it
was out of sight out of mind, and she'd be trying it on with some one
else in my absence. If I'd the strength, I'd thrash you, Gresham, for
an evil-minded bounder."
"I'll carry your bag to the station, old chap," Gresham replied with
contrition, "and take the thrashing at your earliest convenience."
Ethel Maud Mary was standing on the steps in the sunshine looking out
when Arthur Brock arrived, just as she had stood to watch him depart,
but in the interval a happy change had pleasantly transformed her. Her
golden hair was brightly burnished again, her blue eyes sparkled, and
her delicate skin had recovered its rose-leaf tinge. She wore a new
frock, a new ring, a new watch and chain, and there was a new look in
her face, one might say, as if the winter of care had passed out of
her life with the snow and been forgotten in the spring sunshine of
better prospects.
"O Mr. Brock!" she exclaimed; "you back! But none too well yet,
judging by appearances."
"Where is Mrs. Maclure?" he demanded.
"I wish I knew!" Ethel Maud Mary rejoined, becoming important all at
once. "She's gone for good, that's all I can tell you. O Mr. Brock!
fancy her being tip-top all the time, and us not suspecting it, though
I might have thought something when I saw the dresses she sold when
you were ill, only I'd got the fashion papers in my mind, and didn't
know but what she'd been paid in dresses! Come into the parlour; you
look faint."
"You said she sold her dresses?"
"Yes; sit down, Mr. Brock. A glass of port wine is what you want, as
she'd say herself if she was here; and you'll get it good too, for
it's been sent for Ma. My! the things that have come! Look at me--all
presents--everything she ever heard me say I'd like to have; and
Gwendolen the same."
She got out the wine and the biscuits from a chiffonier as she
chattered, and set them before him.
"Yes, she sold her dresses, and her rings, and her books, and every
other blessed thing she possessed except what had belonged to an old
aunt. She got _them_ out too, one day, but cried so when it came to
parting with them, I persuaded her to wait. I said something would
turn up, I was sure. And something did, for _you_ went away, and
directly after--the next minute, so to speak, for you were scarcely
out of sight--a lady stopped her carriage--a fine carriage and pair
and coachman and footman all silver-mounted--and ran up the steps in a
great way. She'd seen Mrs. Maclure go into the house, and she said
she'd been hunting for her everywhere for months, and all her friends
were in a way about her, not knowing what had happened to her. I took
the lady up to the attic, and there was Mrs. Maclure lying on the
floor looking like death, with her head up against the big chair where
you used to sit. We thought she _was_ dead at first, but the doctor
came and brought her round. He said it was just exhaustion from
fatigue and starvation."
Arthur Brock uttered an exclamation.
"You needn't reproach yourself, Mr. Brock," Ethel Maud Mary pursued
sympathetically. "You weren't worse than the rest of us. I saw her
every day, and never suspected she was denying herself everything, she
was always so much the same--happy, you know, in her quiet way."
"Do you think she was happy?" he groaned.
"Yes, she was happy," Ethel Maud Mary said simply. "She's that
disposition--contented, you know; and she was happy from the first;
but she was happier still from the time she had you to care for. I'd
read about ladies of that kind, Mr. Brock, but had not seen one
before. It's being good does it, I suppose. Do you know she'd not have
told a lie was it ever so, Mrs. Maclure wouldn't!"
"And she went away with that lady?" Arthur asked, after a pause.
"Yes, if you can call it going," Ethel Maud Mary replied; "for the
lady didn't ask her leave, but just rolled her up in wraps, and had
her carried down to the carriage and took her off. And that's all we
know about her. She's written me a letter I'd like to show you, and
sent me money, pretending she owed it, because I'd let her have her
attic too cheap. She sent the presents afterwards, but no address. The
lady came back once alone, and had the attic photographed, with
everything arranged just as Mrs. Maclure used to have it. And she
bought all the things in it that belonged to us, and had them and all
Mrs. Maclure's own things taken away to keep, she said. She sat a long
time in the attic, looking at it, just as if she was trying to imagine
what living in it was like, and she kept dabbing her eyes with a
little lace handkerchief, and then she got up and sighed and said,
'Poor Beth! poor Beth!' several times. She talked to me a lot about
Mrs. Maclure. She seemed to know all about me, and treated me as if
we'd been old friends. And she knew all about you too, and asked after
you kindly. She said Mrs. Maclure was going to be a great woman--a
great genius or something of that sort--and do a lot for the world;
and she wanted to know if you'd ever suspected it. I told her I
thought not. The two letters you wrote she took to give Mrs. Maclure,
so she'd get _them_ all right."
"And see the particular kind of fatuous ass I am set down clearly in
my own handwriting!" he said to himself.
Then he rose. "I'll just go up and look at the attics," he said.
Ethel Maud Mary waited below, and waited long for him. When at last he
came down, he shook hands with her, but without looking at her.
"I'm going to find that lady--Mrs. Maclure," he said, jamming his hat
down on his head, "if I have to spend the rest of my life in the
search."