"She always was, Miss Mary. She is married to a gentleman. At least,
that is her account of him: he is a medical man, she says. But it may be
he is only a medical man's assistant."
"Did she go back yesterday, or to-day?" I inquired, carelessly. "She
would have a cold journey."
"Yesterday, if she's gone at all, sir," replied Harriet: "she'd hardly
travel on Christmas-Day. If not, she'll be here to-morrow."
Roger groaned--and turned it off with a desperate cough, as though the
raisins burnt his throat.
* * * * *
The next day came, Wednesday, again clear, cold, and bright. At
breakfast George and Mary agreed to walk to Brighton. "You will come
too," said George, looking at us.
I said nothing. Roger shook his head. Of all places in the known world
he'd not have ventured into Brighton, and run the risk of meeting _her_,
perambulating its streets.
"No!--why, it will be a glorious walk," remonstrated George.
"Don't care for it this morning," shortly answered Roger. "I'm sure
Johnny doesn't."
Mr. Brandon came, if I may so put it, to the rescue. "I shall take a
walk myself, and you two may go with me," said he to us. "I should like
to see what the country looks like yonder"--pointing to the unknown
regions beyond the little church. And as this was just in the opposite
direction to Brighton, Roger made no objection, and we set off soon
after breakfast. The sky overhead was blue and clear, the snow on the
ground dazzlingly white.
The regions beyond the church were the same as these: a
long-stretched-out moor of flat dreariness. Mr. Brandon walked on.
"We shall come to something or other in time," said he. Walking with
him meant walking when he was in the mood for it.
A mile or two onwards, more or less, a small settlement loomed into
view, with a pound and a set of rusty stocks, and an old-fashioned inn,
its swinging sign, The Rising Sun, as splendid as that other sign nearer
Prior's Glebe: and it really appeared to us as if all the inhabitants
had turned out to congregate round the inn-door.
"What's to do, I wonder?" cried Mr. Brandon: "seems to be some
excitement going on." When near enough he inquired whether anything was
amiss, and the whole throng answered together.
A woman had been found that morning frozen to death in the snow, and had
been carried into The Rising Sun. A young woman wearing smart clothes,
added a labourer, as the rest of the voices died away: got benighted,
perhaps, poor thing, and lost her way, and so lay down to die; seemed to
have been dead quite a day or two, if not more. The missis at The Sheaf
o' Corn yonder had been over, and recognized her as having called in
there on Sunday night and had some drink.
Why, as the man spoke, should the dread thought have flashed into my
mind--was it Lizzie? Why should it have flashed simultaneously into
Roger's? Had Lizzie lost her way that past Sunday night--and sunk down
into some sheltered nook to rest awhile, and so sleep and then death
overtook her? Roger glanced at me with frightened eyes, a dawn of horror
rising to his countenance.
"I will just step in and take a look at her," I said, and bore on
steadily for the door of the inn, deaf for once to Mr. Brandon's
authoritative call. What did I want looking at dead women, he asked: was
the sight so pleasant? No, it was not pleasant, I could have answered
him, and I'd rather have gone a mile away from it; but I went in for
Roger's sake.
The innkeeper--an elderly man, with a bald head and red nose--came
forward, grumbling that for the past hour or two it had been sharp work
to keep out the crowd, all agape to see the woman. I asked him to let me
see her, assuring him it was not out of idle curiosity that I wished it.
Believing me, he acquiesced at once; civilly remarking, as he led the
way through the house, that he had sent for the police, and expected
them every minute.
On the long table of a bleak-looking outer kitchen, probably used only
in summer, lay the dead. I took my look at her.
Yes, it was Lizzie. Looking as peaceful as though she had only just gone
to sleep. Poor thing!
"Do you recognize her, sir? Did you think you might?"
I shook my head in answer. It would not have done to acknowledge it.
Thanking him, I went out to Roger. Mr. Brandon fired off a tirade of
reproaches at me, and said he was glad to see I had turned white.
"_Yes_," I emphatically whispered to Roger in the midst of it. "Go you
in, and satisfy yourself."
Roger disappeared inside the inn. Mr. Brandon was so indignant at the
pair of us, that he set off at a sharp pace for home again, I with him,
Roger presently catching us up. Twice during the walk, Roger was taken
with a shivering-fit, as though sickening for the ague. Mr. Brandon held
his tongue then, and recommended him, when we got in, to put himself
between some hot blankets.
In the dead woman's pocket was found Harriet Field's address; and a
policeman presented himself at Prior's Glebe with the news of the
calamity and to ask what Harriet knew of her. Away went Harriet to The
Rising Sun, and recognized the dead. It was her sister, she said; she
had called to see her on Sunday night, having walked over from Brighton,
and must have lost her way on the waste land in returning. What name,
was the next question put; and, after a moment's hesitation, Harriet
answered "Elizabeth Field." Not feeling altogether sure of the marriage,
she said nothing about it.
Will you accuse Roger Bevere of cowardice for holding aloof; for keeping
silence? Then you must accuse me for sanctioning it. He _could_ not
bring himself to avow all the past shame to his mother. And what end
would it answer now if he did?--what good effect to his poor, wretched,
foolish wife? None.
"Johnny," he said to me, with a grasp of his fevered hand, "is it wrong
to feel as if a great mercy had been vouchsafed me?--is it _wicked_?
Heaven knows, I pity her fate; I would have saved her from it if I
could. Just as I'd have kept her from her evil ways, and tried to be a
good husband to her--but she would not let me."
They held an inquest upon her next day: or, as the local phraseology of
the place put it, "Sat upon the body of Elizabeth Field." The landlady
of The Sheaf o' Corn was an important witness.
She testified that the young woman came knocking at the closed door of
the inn on the Sunday evening during church time, saying she had lost
her way. Nobody was at home but herself and the servant-girl, her
husband having gone to church. They let her in. She called for a good
drop of drink--brandy-and-water--while sitting there, and was allowed to
have it, though it was out of serving hours, as she declared she was
perishing with cold. Before eight o'clock, she left, and was away about
half-an-hour. Then she came back again, had more to drink, and bought a
pint bottle of brandy, to carry, as she told them, home to her lodgings,
and she got the girl to draw the cork, saying her rooms did not
possess a corkscrew. She took the bottle away with her. Was she tipsy?
interposed the coroner at this juncture. Not very, the witness replied,
not so tipsy but that she could walk and talk, but she had had quite
enough. She went away, and they saw her no more.
Harriet's evidence, next given, did not amount to much. The deceased,
her younger sister, had lived for some years in London, but she did not
know at what address latterly; she used to serve at a refreshment-bar,
but had left it. Until the past Sunday night, when Lizzie called
unexpectedly at Prior's Glebe, they had not met for five or six years:
it was then arranged that Lizzie should come to drink tea with her the
next afternoon: but she never came. Felt convinced that the death was
pure accident, through her having lost her way in the snow.
With this opinion the room agreed. Instead of taking the direct path
to Brighton, as Harriet had enjoined, she must have turned back
The Sheaf o' Corn for more drink. And that she had wandered in a wrong
direction, upon quitting it, across the waste land, there could not be
any doubt; or that she had sat down, or _fallen_ down, possibly from
fatigue, in the drift where she was found. The brandy bottle lay near
her, _empty_. Whether she died of the brandy, or of the exposure to
the cold night, might be a question. The jury decided that it was the
latter.
And nothing whatever had come out touching Roger.
Harriet had already given orders for a decent funeral, in the
neighbouring graveyard. It took place on the afternoon of the following
day, Friday. By a curious little coincidence, George Bevere was asked to
take the service, the incumbent being ill with a cold. It afforded a
pretext for Roger's attending. He and I walked quietly up in the wake
of George, and stood at the grave together. Harriet thanked us for it
afterwards: she looked upon it as a compliment paid to herself.
"Scott shall forward to her every expense she has been put to as soon as
I am back in London," said Roger to me. "He will know how to manage it."
"Shall you tell Mrs. Dyke?"
"To be sure I shall. She is a trustworthy, good woman."
Our time at Prior's Glebe was up, and we took our departure from it on
the Saturday morning; another day of intense cold, of dark blue skies,
and of bright sunshine. George left with us.
"My dear, you will try--you will _try_ to keep straight, won't you;
to be what you ought to be," whispered Lady Bevere in the bustle of
starting, as she clasped Roger's hands in the hall, tears falling from
her eyes: all just as it was that other time in Gibraltar Terrace. "For
my sake, dear; for my sake."
"I shall do now, mother," he whispered back, meeting her gaze through
his wet eyelashes, his manner strangely solemn. "God has been very good
to me, and I--I will try from henceforth to do my best in all ways."
* * * * *
And Roger kept his word.