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A VANISHED HAND
by
SARAH DOUDNEY
Author of "Where the Dew Falls in London," Etc. Etc.
With Illustrations
London
James Nisbet & Co., Limited
21 Berners Street
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press
[Illustration: SHE PUT THE ROLL OF PAPER INTO HIS HAND]
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. IN A BACK ROOM
II. WHAT WAS WRITTEN
III. TAKING COUNSEL
IV. MRS. TRYON
V. MRS. BEATON
VI. HAROLD AND META
VII. MRS. PENN
VIII. LOOKING AT PICTURES
IX. MEETINGS
X. LONELINESS
XI. MRS. VERDON
XII. HIS FIRST VISIT
XIII. IN PORTMAN SQUARE
XIV. RUSHBROOK
XV. WAYNE'S COURT
XVI. GOING TO CHURCH
XVII. THE PICNIC
XVIII. THE ISLAND
XIX. CONCLUSION
A VANISHED HAND
CHAPTER I
_IN A BACK ROOM_
"For one shall grasp, and one resign,
One drink life's rue, and one its wine,
And God shall make the balance good."
--WHITTIER.
Elsie Kilner had a battle to fight, and it must be fought after her own
fashion. It was the kind of battle which is fought every day and every
hour; but the battlefield is always a silent place, and there is neither
broken weapon nor crimson stain to tell us where the strife has been.
Elsie's battle was fought in a back room in All Saints' Street on an
afternoon in March. It was not a gloomy room; although the window looked
out upon walls and roofs and chimneys, she had a good clear view of the
sky. Some pigeons occupied a little house outside one of the
neighbouring windows, and there was a roof covered with red tiles on
which they loved to strut and plume their feathers in the sunshine.
To a woman country-born the sight of pigeons and red tiles called up
visions of an old home. The memories which came to Elsie in her London
room were as fresh and sweet as the breath of early spring flowers.
She could see again the red manor-house among the Sussex hills, and the
old green garden which winter could never quite despoil. The cherry-tree
spread its boughs close to her window, and seemed to fill the room with
the delicate dewy light of its blossoms; the winds came blowing in,
sweet and chill, from thymy common and "sheep-trimmed down."
Perhaps she had never seen her home so plainly with her bodily eyes as
she saw it now in imagination. Our everyday blessings are too common to
be looked at in their true light; but when time and change have put them
far away from us we see them in all their beauty.
"It makes me feel desperate," she said half aloud to herself.
She had a dark, delicate face, as changeful as an April sky. It was not
a happy face; the dark eyes were restless, the soft lips often quivered.
And yet, in spite of sorrow and unrest, and the experiences of nearly
nine-and-twenty years, there was an extraordinary freshness, almost
girlishness, in her appearance, which did not suffer even from the close
proximity of younger women. The mourning dress, fitting closely to her
graceful figure, told its own story of recent loss.
In that old manor-house among the Sussex hills her bright youth had been
calmly spent. Then came her mother's death, and changes began in the
home-life. Her father was growing weak in mind and body. Elsie was the
only daughter, and the household cares and anxieties pressed heavily on
her heart and brain. When Robert, her brother, suggested, with all
possible kindliness, that it would be well if he came with his wife to
the Manor and shared her labours, she welcomed the proposal gladly.
So Robert and Bertha arrived, bringing with them their little girl and
her governess; and the old peace fled away for ever.
For two miserable years Elsie lived on in that altered home, and saw
everything that she had loved sliding gradually out of her hold. Robert
introduced many new plans, all for his father's comfort, as he
continually declared. Bertha took charge of the household, and the
simple habits of the past were given up. Old servants were pronounced
incompetent and dismissed; and when Elsie protested against these
changes, her brother and his wife dropped the mask of civility.
There is no need to go over all the details of the wretched story. Old
Mr. Kilner, growing more feeble every day, suffered himself to be guided
entirely by Robert and Bertha, and Elsie soon found that his heart was
turned away from her. Then came the end. The will was read, and
everything was left to Robert Kilner.
"But Elsie cannot say that she is not provided for," said Bertha to her
friends. "Her godmother--old Mrs. Hardie, you know--left her a hundred
and fifty a year. Quite a fortune, is it not?"
Turned out of the old home, Elsie had come straight to London, and had
sought shelter at a boarding-school where a friend of hers was a
teacher. Then, after a careful search of six months, a friend had
directed her to this quiet house, and she had gratefully settled here.
She welcomed solitude as one who has so many things to think over, that
it is indispensable.
There was a letter grasped tightly in her hand, as she stood looking out
of the window. It had come from the rector's wife, who had been her
mother's friend in happy days gone by. The old lady had written to say
that there were wild doings at the Manor, and the country-side was
ringing with tales of Robert's extravagance and dissipation. The Kilners
had never been wealthy; there was just enough to keep up the old house
in quiet comfort, and that was all.
"Robert will soon come to an end of everything," wrote the clergyman's
wife with the frankness of long friendship. "We have heard that he was
deeply involved before he came to live at the Manor. Bertha is beginning
to look sad and worn and crestfallen. People have looked coldly on her
since you went away, and if she ever had any influence over her husband,
she has lost it now. The air is full of unwholesome rumours. I am glad
that you are no longer here, my dear child."
The letter had given Elsie a cruel pleasure--a pleasure which was so
hideous that her better self could not endure the sight of it. It was
only the darker side of her nature which could entertain this hateful
joy for a moment. And so the battle began in her heart on that sunny
March afternoon.
There were certain outer influences which seemed to act upon that inward
strife. The sky helped her with glimpses of holy blue and faint hints of
the coming spring. Even the spire of a church helped her, although it
could only point a very little way up into the far heaven. She stood
quite still, wrestling silently with that fierce temptation to rejoice
over her enemy's downfall.
All Bertha's insulting speeches and unkind actions came back into her
mind. It might be impossible to love her, but it was--it must
be--possible to be sorry for her blighted life and darkened home. Elsie
called up a vision of the dressy, well-to-do Bertha, who had always put
herself into a front place, and wondered how she could play the part of
a neglected wife, looked down upon by her neighbours and forgotten by
the world?
The thought of the crushed woman, who had so little in her interior
world to help her, was not without effect. Pity triumphed. Elsie's dark
eyes were suddenly dimmed with tears; she was grieved for Bertha and
ashamed of herself. The fight was over, and a voice within her seemed to
say that it would never have to be so fiercely fought again.
She drew a deep breath of relief as she turned away from the window,
putting the letter into her pocket. The tea-tray, with its solitary cup
and saucer, was waiting on the table, and Elsie poured out tea,
congratulating herself that she was alone. She was not an unsociable
woman; but the boarding-school, with all its noisy, merry occupants, had
set her longing for solitude. She had felt far too weary and dispirited
to enter into the fun and prattle of the girls.
While she drank her tea she glanced round the little room, surveying the
decorations which had kept her busy for a day or two. Some relics of her
old home-life were gathered here--a quaint oval looking-glass, some bits
of ancient china, some photographs, and a goodly number of books. Her
little clock ticked cheerfully on the mantelpiece, one or two
richly-coloured fans and screens brightened the walls; there was a faint
scent of sandal-wood in the air. She had not yet unlocked the handsome
desk which stood on a table in the corner, and it occurred to her that
she would answer some of her neglected letters that very evening.
Going to the desk, and opening it, she noticed for the first time the
table on which it had been placed. It stood in the darkest part of the
room, and she had not observed its old-fashioned claw feet and the
curiously-wrought brass handles of its drawer. It was not a sham drawer,
but a real one, which opened easily with a gentle pull, and appeared at
first sight to be quite empty.
"It is large enough to hold a good many of my treasures," thought Elsie,
putting in her hand. "And here are some old papers, quite at the back! I
will take them out to make room for other things."
The papers were not old nor discoloured by time, although the dust had
settled upon them pretty thickly. They looked like pages torn out of a
diary, and were covered with writing which struck Elsie with a sense of
familiarity. This handwriting, firm, black, legible, was like her own.
"How interesting!" she said to herself. "I have always flattered myself
that mine was an uncommon hand. But somebody--a woman evidently--has
stolen my e's and b's and g's and y's. I should like to know a little
more about her."
She forgot all about the open desk and unanswered letters, and sat down
on the edge of the sofa near the window with the papers on her lap. The
shadow had vanished from the delicate expressive face; the dark eyes had
brightened. Elsie had the happy temperament which is charmed with every
little bit of novelty that it can find. She loved, as she had often
said, to investigate things, and always caught eagerly at the slightest
clue which might lead to a delightful labyrinth of mystery.
The manuscript began abruptly. The first words on which Elsie's glance
rested were these: "If I could only be sure that some one would be kind
to little Jamie!"
This sentence was written at the top of the first page, and then came a
vacant space. Lower down, in the middle of the leaf, the writer had gone
on: "What a new life came to me all at once when I met Harold for the
first time! The path was so flowery and bright that I had no fear of the
turnings of the way. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that
we should meet, and walk on together all our lives. No, we did not meet;
he overtook me as I was sauntering along, and looked into my face with
that look which a man gives the woman who is to belong to him for ever
and ever."
Elsie paused in her reading and lifted her gaze thoughtfully to the
evening sky. Her face had changed again; the expression of eyes and
mouth was wistful and tender.
"No man has ever loved me in that fashion," she mused. "I've had lovers,
but I was never meant for them nor they for me. I wonder why this
unknown woman had the joy of finding her spirit-mate when such a joy has
been denied to me? Are they married? Where is she now? I wish I knew
her."
No one who had seen Elsie at that moment would have doubted that she had
had lovers. She was very pretty to-day; prettier at twenty-eight than
she had been in the days of girlhood. Some new feeling of peace was
creeping into her heart and hushing all its turmoil into a sweet rest.
Some new interest was beginning to stir in her life; much was quieted
within her, and much was wakening. She felt as if she had roused after
an uneasy sleep and tasted the first freshness of a fair morning.
She sat a little while in silence, thinking about the unknown writer and
her Harold. Although she had read only a few lines, she felt drawn
towards this woman whom she had never seen. It would have been good to
have had her for a friend.
Where was she now? Living somewhere with Harold, perhaps far away in the
country. Elsie could fancy the pair coming homeward through ferny lanes
in the first shade of the twilight. She pictured the woman, dark-eyed
and dark-haired, like herself, and the man tall and fair, with a grave
yet gentle face. They had a great deal to say to each other, as those
who are one in spirit often have. They answered each other's thoughts;
there was the fulness of a calm content in every tone.
And then she turned again to the manuscript.