MRS. REDMOND’S CONFESSION.
“I’ll tell to thee my hopes and fears,
And all my heart to thee confess.”
--MAXWELL.
The flame of Mrs. Redmond’s life flickered along unsteadily from day
to day, and month to month. She was now entirely bed-ridden, and the
strain of constant nursing wore Betty down a good deal. Occasionally
Maria Finny came and spent an hour or two in the sick room--and
subsequently spread alarming reports in the village, where deaths and
births were the only exciting events; a marriage was rare indeed. Once
she even went so far as to assure Mrs. Maccabe, that the dying woman
“could not possibly put over the night,” and to request that a very
superior sirloin (then hanging in the shop) should be immediately set
aside for the funeral breakfast! but when Maria hurried to Noone the
next morning she found the invalid not merely alive, but better--better
and fretful.
“Ah,” she said in answer to Maria’s query, “I was bad enough
yesterday--yes, you thought I was going--I could have died if I
_liked_, long ago, but I am holding on--holding on--at least till the
next mail comes in.”
All she seemed to care for now was the Indian mail, but how many mails
come in and brought her no letters! Belle was enjoying herself without
a thought of her. It was Betty who was her real daughter, the girl whom
she had wronged. Every one else was going from her, and she was going
from every one! The old lady was not in a happy frame of mind, she was
filled with remorse now.
Betty’s determined refusal of Ghosty Moore had opened her eyes, but had
occasioned no surprise to Miss Dopping. That excellent lady had her
own private views, and was truly concerned to see her young friend so
hollow-eyed and pale, so different from what she used to be! But Betty
never uttered a word of complaint, and she struggled along bravely
under the heavy tasks imposed on her; she was a-foot all day--the first
to rise, the last to go to rest, therefore Miss Dopping drove over
one afternoon to have a serious talk with Mrs. Redmond, about getting
a professional nurse to take some of the load off Betty’s shoulders,
but the miserly patient turned a deaf ear to her suggestion. A trained
nurse would require wages, she would certainly eat--possibly she would
drink porter!
“Betty,” she declared, “did very well. Betty liked nursing. Betty could
manage alone.”
And as the wish was father to the thought, Mrs. Redmond believed it,
and relapsed into her normal condition of torpid selfishness.
“I don’t know what I should do without her, or what she will do without
me,” she groaned. “It’s a great trial that she won’t look at Ghosty
Moore. She has refused him twice. I can’t understand her, and the
Moores so fond of her, and such a splendid connection, and for Belle
too. It’s too bad of Betty. Have you any idea of her real reason?”
“I believe I have,” replied Miss Dopping with unexpected promptness.
“I always thought that George Holroyd was in love with Betty, and
that she had a fancy for him.” As she spoke she looked sharply at her
questioner, and Mrs. Redmond’s face betrayed her; she was weak, and had
lost the command of her countenance.
Her eyes fell, her lips twitched nervously, a faint guilty colour stole
into her pallid face.
In a second, the astute old maid had guessed all, and felt disposed to
deal with her companion as Queen Elizabeth did with the Countess of
Nottingham, and shake the dying woman in her bed, and declare that “God
might forgive her, but she never would!”
“Then it _was_ Betty?” leaning forward and speaking in a hoarse whisper.
“It was,” returned the other in a still fainter key. “Now you know my
secret--keep it.”
“No--not from Betty--in all justice to George Holroyd, she shall know
that he is a man of honour and did not break his pledge. Woman! what
possessed you to ruin two lives, and peril your own immortal soul?”
“Belle is happy--I did it for her,” protested the culprit.
“And is every one to be sacrificed to Belle! And _is_ Belle happy?
I know Holroyd is not; other people can write besides his wife. The
Moores’ niece says she would never have known him--he has grown so
silent and careworn, and as to Belle, I need not tell you what her
temper is! Nor that she cannot keep a servant, or a female friend. She
is the scourge and heartscald of the station.”
“He paid her great attention,” faltered Mrs. Redmond. “She fully
expected his offer.”
“Not a bit of it,” returned Miss Dopping scornfully. “She paid _him_
great attention. I only hope she is half as attentive to him still!
Does she know?”
“No one knows but Holroyd and myself.”
“It was a bold game for an ailing old woman! I have no doubt the devil
helped you. How did you do it?”
“I gave Betty’s letter to Belle--I had only to change one word.”
“Well, you must tell Betty at once.”
“Don’t you think she is happier not to know?” faltered the invalid.
“Don’t I think that you are a wicked, treacherous old creature! She has
blamed the wrong person for more than a year. Take your sin on your own
head. If I were the girl, I would never forgive you. You have ruined
her life and his. It would never surprise _me_ if he took to drink, or
if he were to shoot Belle. I believe _I’d_ shoot her, if I was married
to her.”
“What nonsense you talk, old Sally Dopping!” exclaimed the invalid
angrily. “George is a sane, respectable man; he has got a very pretty,
accomplished wife, and as to Betty--she is young----”
“She is, and before she is a week older she shall know that George
Holroyd kept faith with her.”
“I can’t tell her--I won’t tell her,” protested the culprit irritably.
“Very well! it would come better from you than me; you may sweeten your
story--I shall not. I give you three days’ law, three days to make up
your mind--not an hour longer.”
And then Miss Dopping arose, holding herself unusually erect, seized
her umbrella, and marched straight out of the room without another
word--without even the formality of “Good afternoon.”
* * * * *
Mrs. Redmond endured Miss Dopping’s daily “Have you told her?” for
a whole week, before she mustered up her courage and spoke. It was
at night time, when the house was closed and silent. Betty had been
reading the Bible, seated at a small table, with the lamp-light falling
on her face--a face that could not be implacable.
“Betty,” began the invalid suddenly, “I have something important to say
to you. Open my dressing-case--the key is in it, and take a letter out
of the flap.”
Betty rose and did as desired. Mrs. Redmond received the letter with a
shaking hand, saying, as she did so:
“Sit down and tell me something, Betty. Did it ever occur to you, that
George Holroyd liked you?”
Betty, who had been standing hitherto, sat down, and faced her
questioner with silent lips and piteous eyes.
“How could he?” she said at last in a very low voice. “He married
Belle.”
“Yes, Betty, he did, and I must ease my mind and confess a great wrong
to you before I die. He married Belle because I made him marry her.”
“You!--I don’t understand.”
“You know that Belle was my idol ever since she was born. I would
have died for her. I was prepared to make any sacrifice for her. I--I
sacrificed _you_!”
Betty leant her arms on the table, and gazed at her aunt with a
colourless face.
“The letter I gave to Belle was yours, addressed under cover to me,
to Miss Elizabeth Redmond; he only mentioned your name once. I was
sorely tempted; the letter would apply equally well to Belle. I blotted
out that word. I gave it to her, and now she is away at the other end
of the world, dancing and singing and amusing herself, whilst you are
the only comfort of the wicked woman who spoiled your life. But Belle
fretted so dreadfully, her heart was set on change. She never dreamt
that he cared for _you_. His proposal to you would have been an awful
blow. I dared not tell her; you remember her attacks--her violent
nervous attacks? A doctor once told me that her frenzies bordered on
insanity, and that any sudden nervous shock might--might--Betty dear,”
lowering her voice, “you and I alone know--though we have never, never
spoken of it--that sometimes she was a little strange--not quite
herself.”
Betty recalled, with a shiver, one dark winter’s night, when, after a
day of terrible depression, Belle had appeared suddenly in the study,
her hair wet, a table knife gleaming in her hand, and an odd wild
look in her eyes. “Do you know what I have been doing?” she asked
triumphantly.
“I felt that I must do something or go mad. I saw Maggie going out to
the poultry yard with a knife and a candle. I went with her. I killed a
fowl. I cut its throat. I _liked_ doing it! Yes, I did.”
“Betty--Betty do not cover your face,” pleaded Mrs. Redmond. “Are you
very, very angry?”
“Oh, what is the good of being angry?” moaned the girl, with a long
shuddering sigh, and the old lady noticed that tears were trickling
through her fingers. Tears not wholly of grief. It was balm to her
wounded heart to know that, though lost to her for ever, George had
not been false, nor she willingly forsaken. He had been faithful. Poor
George!
“Of course I know you will never forgive me,” whimpered Mrs. Redmond.
“You will go away, and leave me, and I shall die with no one near me
but a strange hospital nurse, who will rob me out of the face. Oh! I am
sorry I ever told you. It was all old Sally’s doing. She _made_ me.”
“No--no--aunt, do not be afraid that I shall desert you; but oh! what
must he think of me?”
“He knows all. I wrote very plainly, and here is his letter to
me--keep it. It was a bold venture sending out Belle. I wonder I had
the strength and nerve to go through that awful time. Supposing he
had refused to marry her, and she had been cast adrift helpless and
penniless! I declare I never had a real night’s rest until I got the
telegram to say that the wedding was over.”
“You might have trusted him!”
“Yes, especially when I told him that you were soon to be married to
Ghosty Moore, and had never given him a thought.”
“Oh, Aunt Emma!”
The girl’s voice was sharp with pain, and she trembled from head to
foot.
“Yes, indeed, I stuck at nothing; but then I must say, that I had no
suspicion that you liked George Holroyd, and I was confident that
you would accept Augustus Moore. I wrote everything quite frankly to
Holroyd--and he married Belle.”
“Does she know?” enquired Betty faintly.
“Know? Oh, no! and never will; but after all I am afraid they are not
very happy. He is sure not to understand her temper--it’s all over so
soon too, and, poor girl, she is always sorry. Betty, you must promise
me solemnly that he shall never know that _you_ know.”
“What does it matter?” she returned. “We shall never meet again, but
whether or no, I can make no promise.”
“I--I suppose you would not go out to Belle?”
“_Aunt Emma!_”
“You know she is always wishing for you; she is a jealous girl, and of
course if she knew, she would as soon have the plague in the house!
Well, I must say, Betty, you have taken it beautifully; you are a dear
good child; come and kiss me. I shall sleep all the better for having
a load off my mind, and when you have settled the fire, and fixed the
night-light, and given me my draught, you can go.”
Mrs. Redmond slept peacefully that night, with heavy long-drawn snores,
but Betty sat hour after hour in her window, with dry, tearless
eyes, looking out upon the stars that seemed to return her gaze with
sympathy, and shone with a frosty brightness. She was still sitting
there when they began to pale. The next time Miss Dopping came to Noone
she found Maria closeted with Betty, whilst the invalid was asleep.
“No letter from Belle this morning, I suppose?” enquired the old lady.
“No, but I heard of her,” returned Maria with eager volubility. “I
was at the Moores’ yesterday and met their niece, who is just home
from India. She saw Belle lately; she has lost every scrap of her
looks, and is as yellow as a kite’s claw; her temper has worn her to
fiddle-strings, and they are as much afraid of her out there as if she
were a mad dog! As to Holroyd, you would never know him; he is as grave
and as silent as if he were at a priest’s funeral. I always knew it
would be a miserable match.”
“Oh, _you_ say that of every match, Maria,” rejoined Miss Dopping. “I
don’t believe half I hear. What about this new tea of Casey’s? Have you
tried it?”
“No,” snapped Maria, who saw that the topic was disagreeable, and
naturally pursued it. “I can’t tell you anything about the tea, but I
would be thankful if you would tell me, _what_ possessed young Holroyd
to marry Isabella?”
Miss Sally’s glance met Betty’s.
Betty blushed, and she read in the girl’s eyes that the tale had been
told.
“He was no more in love with her than he was with _me_,” continued Miss
Finny emphatically. “Do you think she had any hold over him, or knew
some secret in his past about money, or----?”
“Murder! say it out boldly. Secret in his past indeed,” repeated Miss
Dopping. “Tut, tut, Maria! I could not have believed that a woman of
your age could be such a fool, but of course there’s no fool like an
old one.” Nevertheless Miss Dopping glanced somewhat nervously out of
the corner of her eye at Betty. But Betty was staring into the fire.
A few days later Mrs. Redmond had passed away tranquilly in her sleep,
with all Belle’s letters--no great quantity--under her pillow, and
Belle’s most flattering photograph grasped in her rigid hand.
* * * * *
Mrs. Holroyd received the news of her mother’s death in her usual
extravagant fashion. She wept, and raved, and screamed, and roamed
about the house in her dressing-gown, with her hair loose, subsisted
on sal-volatile and champagne, and angrily refused all comfort. She
ordered the deepest mourning, and tied a wide black ribbon round
“Mossoo’s” neck.
At the end of three days, she went out driving for the sake of her
health, and despatched a very business-like letter to Betty, respecting
her darling mother’s rings, and plate, and household effects. At the
end of the week, she was playing tennis with her usual vigour and
agility, and at the end of a month, even to her husband’s surprise,
she was talking of leaving off her crape, and regretting that she could
not take part in some theatricals, and society (not easily scandalised)
was shocked to see Belle subsequently give way to precisely the same
violent outbreak of grief over a dead monkey as she had recently
displayed at the death of her mother! And in future, society tapped its
forehead and looked significant when it spoke of Mrs. Holroyd.
One afternoon, not long after her double bereavement, Belle was amazed
and flattered to hear that the Collector Sahib was at the door, and to
receive Mr. Redmond’s card. He had come solely to talk to her about
his niece Betty, he informed her with his usual bluntness. “Where is
she now?” he enquired, as he carefully selected a seat. “Tell me all
you know about her.” Now that Mrs. Redmond was dead, he was resolved
to assert his claim as her nearest of kin, and to import her to India
as his companion, housekeeper, and adopted daughter--for, in spite of
the tempting snares that were spread for him, he had no inclination to
marry again.
“She is at Ballingoole with Miss Dopping. I wanted to have had her out,
but George is so queer, he says married people are best alone.”
“Some are,” assented Mr. Redmond, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
“And although she is not very pretty, not the least like _me_, she
would be quite a beauty among the hideous girls that are here. I’d have
seen that she made a good match, and not married a wretched subaltern
like George, but a Bengal Civilian like yourself. Don’t say that _I_
never pay you a compliment!”
“Thank you,” he replied, in his driest manner. “Tell me one thing, Mrs.
Holroyd, does she resemble you in any way?”
“No,” rejoined Belle with a triumphant laugh, “you would never dream
that we were related. We are as opposite as the poles, and the same
people never like us! I mean people that like Betty, hate me, and _vice
versâ_. She is tall, and has grey eyes and rides splendidly, and is
quite a cook. _You_ would appreciate that! She has wonderful spirits,
and the nerves of a man, but she is not really pretty, or taking;
she is not sympathetic with men; in fact, poor mother--she was so
partial--always said she was a capital foil for _me_.”
“I can easily believe it,” he rejoined with an irony that was
completely lost on his fair listener. “And what about her temper?”
“No one has ever seen her angry in her life--really angry, you know--of
course she is cross now and then; she has that serene disposition that,
mother said, always went with an insipid character.”
“Your description enchants me! I delight in insipid people,” exclaimed
Mr. Redmond, rubbing his chin quite fiercely. “Ha, hum! a good cook,
a good rider, plain, insipid, and serene. I shall write by the mail
to-morrow--I am her nearest of kin--and ask her to come out and live
with me.”
“Oh, you dear, darling, delightful old man!” cried Belle, springing
from her seat. “Oh, you angel, I declare I should like to kiss you, I
really should.”
“I beg, madam, that you will do nothing of the sort,” backing away
as he spoke. “And let me ask one thing. For goodness’ sake don’t go
gabbling my plans all over the station. I hate to have my private
affairs discussed by a pack of women, and besides, she may not come.
She may prefer Ballingoole and Miss Dopping.”
“Miss Dopping will _send_ her out--she thinks Betty is lost in
Ballingoole. She often said so. She is sure to come! And to what a
delightful home. Carriages, horses, and everything. I suppose you will
give her the blue room? Can I help you to get it ready? Do tell me, can
I do anything for you?”
“Yes, keep my news to yourself, that is all you can do. You may tell
your husband, of course.”
“Oh, I shall not mention it to a soul, you may rely on that; it shall
be a dead secret between you and me. It will be capital fun. I shall
keep it as a grand surprise for George.”