CHAPTERVI.
Allthe women who had witnessed the accident hung over the parapet of the bridge, screaming at the top of their voices after the manner of their kind, whilst the men ran off for assistance. The police were summoned; boats, with grappling irons, were put out, and every effort made to rescue the unfortunate suicide, but in vain. Nothing was seen or heard of the body. No crafts had been immediately under the bridge at the moment. Two or three empty barges were moored in its vicinity, but their black beams could tell no tales. The search was not given up until it was pronounced unavailing, and the police went back to report the circumstance at headquarters. Next morning there appeared a paragraph in the dailies with the headline—‘Mysterious Suicide from Waterloo Bridge.’
‘Last evening, as the large audiences were turning out of the transpontine theatres, and wending their way homewards, a thrilling accident, or what may have been so, occurred on Waterloo Bridge. A tall, lady-like, well-dressed young woman, was walking quietly amongst the passengers, apparently as soberly-disposed as any amongst them, when, without sound or warning, she suddenly vaulted over the parapet and dashed into the river. The act was so unpremeditated, and took the bystanders so completely by surprise, that there was no opportunity of preventing the terrible catastrophe. The peaceful crowd was immediately transformed into an agitated mass; all striving to give the alarm, or aid in rescuing the unfortunate woman. The police behaved magnificently on the occasion. In less time than we could write the words, boats were put out and every possible assistance given, but no trace of the body could be found though the grappling-irons were used in every direction. It is supposed that she must have fractured her skull against one of the empty barges moored in proximity to the bridge, and sunk beyond recall. The occurrence created a painful sensation among the bystanders. Women were fainting, and men rushing about in all directions. Some people, who had followed the unfortunate woman across the bridge from the Strand, describe her to have had a tall and very elegant figure, and say that she was dressed in a black mantle, and wore a broad, black hat with a drooping feather. Everybody seems agreed that she did not belong to the lower classes, and it is to be feared, from the determination with which she sprang over the parapet, that her loss can be ascribed to nothing but deliberate suicide. The police are on the look-out for the body, which will probably turn up further down the river, when some light may be thrown on the identity of the unfortunate lady. The strangers who walked in her wake across the bridge observed that she possessed an abundant quantity of bright chestnut hair, coiled low upon her neck, and that her hands, which were bare, were long and white. This makes the fifteenth suicide that has taken place from Waterloo Bridge in twelve months.’
Mr Sterndale, the solicitor, sitting alone in his office, read this paragraph, and was very much struck by it, especially as Warrender, Lord Ilfracombe’s butler, had been to see him not half an hour ago with the intelligence that Miss Llewellyn had left the house the night before and not been home since. Mr Sterndale, with his cynical ideas concerning women, had not paid much attention nor attached much importance to the man’s statement. He thought the quondam housekeeper of Grosvenor Square had found another place, or another lover, and no longer held herself responsible to the earl or anybody else for what she might choose to do. He had told Warrender that he did not think there was any reason for alarm; that Miss Llewellyn was quite old enough to take care of herself, and that she had probably gone to visit friends and spent the night with them. She would be sure to return for her boxes. The butler had not seemed satisfied.
‘But, begging your pardon, sir, the maid who saw her last, Susan, says she was looking very ill, poor lady! She said she was going into the square for a breath of fresh air, and it was past nine o’clock then. Susan and I waited up for Miss Llewellyn till twelve, and then I only lay down on the bench in the hall till four this morning. But she never came back, and, begging your pardon, sir, it’s what Miss Llewellyn haven’t never done, not since she’s been under his lordship’s protection.’
‘Ah, well, Warrender, she’s got her orders to quit, you know, and I daresay she considers she can do as she likes, as indeed there’s no reason she should not. She’s a very obstinate young woman or she would have left the house before now, and she’s putting me to a great deal of inconvenience. Indeed, if she does not leave soon, she will compel me to exercise the authority vested in me by Lord Ilfracombe, and order her to pack up her boxes and go.’
The old servant looked troubled.
‘Oh, I hope not, sir, I hope not. Perhaps it’s not my place to say anything, but Miss Llewellyn has been a kind mistress to us all, and so much at home, and—there, there, I don’t understand these things, of course, and what’s for his lordship’s good is for the good of all of us; but there’s not a servant in the hall but will be sorry that poor Miss Llewellyn is to be the sufferer. She had a kind heart, poor thing! if any lady had.’
‘No doubt, Warrender, no doubt. No one denies that she has good qualities, but they have been exercised greatly to the detriment of the earl. Young men will be young men, but there comes a time when such things must be put a stop to, and the time has come to stop this. You will have a legal mistress now—a lady of high birth, who will rule the house as it should be ruled, and the sooner you all forget that such a person as Miss Llewellyn existed the better!’
‘Perhaps so, sir; but, meanwhile, what are we to do about this?’
‘Do nothing at all! She will come back safe enough, you may depend upon that, and I will write to her to-morrow and tell her she must fix a day for leaving the house. I want to put the workmen in as soon as possible!’
‘Very good, sir,’ said the butler, humbly, as he retired.
But the next thing Mr Sterndale did was to read the account in hisStandardof Nell’s attempted suicide, and the coincidence naturally struck him. It did not flurry him in the least. It only made the thought flash through his mind what a fortunate thing it would be if it were true. He threw up his engagements for the day and took his way at once to the river police station to make all possible inquiries about the suicide. He did not hear much more than he had read; but the description of the woman’s figure and dress, together with the time the accident occurred, all tallied so wonderfully with the fact of Nell’s disappearance, that the solicitor considered that he had every reason to hope it might have been herself who had thus most opportunely left the course clear for the happiness of Lord Ilfracombe and his bride. He seconded the efforts of the police to discover the truth, offering a handsome reward for the recovery of the body for identification, and when a week passed without its being found, or Miss Llewellyn returning to Grosvenor Square, he considered it his duty to institute a search amongst the property she had left behind to see if he could find any clue to the mystery. He told the servants that he did so in order to try and find an address to send them after her to; but they all knew by this time that something had happened to their late mistress, and that it was unlikely they should ever see her again, and, to do them justice, there was very sincere sorrow in the servants’ hall at the idea. Mr Sterndale would not allow anybody to assist him in his search. He ransacked poor Nell’s chest of drawers and wardrobe by himself, turned over her dainty dresses and laced and embroidered stock of linen, opened all her workbags and boxes, her desk and blotting books, but found not a line to intimate she had entertained any idea of taking her own life.
‘Pooh!’ said Mr Sterndale to himself, as he wiped the dew off his pale face, ‘I’ve been alarming myself for nothing! It’s another lover the jade will be looking after, and not a watery grave! People in their right mind don’t commit suicide, and she was as sane as I am. She has most probably sought shelter with Mr Jack Portland or some other of the earl’s swell friends. I know she was universally admired, and there will be a rush to the bidding as soon as it becomes known that she’s put up for sale. However, these pretty things had better be put under lock and key till his lordship sends word how they are to be disposed of.’
With that he came to the trinket-case which Nell had locked, and the key of which she had thrown out of the window.
‘Holloa!’ he thought, ‘what is this? Another workbox? No. I fancy it is the sort of article women keep their rings in. He gave her some beauties; but I don’t suppose she has been such a fool as to leave them behind her.’
He tried every key on a bunch he had found on the dressing-table, but none would fit; so, after a few attempts with another bunch from his own pocket, he took out his penknife and prised the lock open. The first thing he saw, laid on the top of the rings, brooches and bracelets, was Nell’s pathetic message to her lover. ‘Good-bye, my only love—I cannot live without you!’ Mr Sterndale read it, and shivered like an aspen leaf. Had Nell’s ghost stood by his side, he could not have been more alarmed and nervous. ‘Good-bye, my only love—I cannot live without you!’ he muttered to himself, while he trembled anew and glanced fearfully over his shoulder.
‘So that must really have been her, and she has destroyed herself!’ he thought. ‘I never really believed it would come to that—never. But it is Lord Ilfracombe’s concern, not mine. It was he that drove her to it. I only acted on his orders, and I am bound to obey him, if he tells me to do a thing. But who would have thought it was in her. She must have felt his marriage very much. I didn’t believe it wasinwomen to care for any man to such an extent. But, perhaps, after all, it was only the loss of her position, illegal as it was, that turned her a bit crazy. It can’t be pleasant after having enjoyed such a home as this to go back to work. Yet she wouldn’t take the money he offered her—a noble compensation. She didn’t seem to think even that enough. Well, well, it is incomprehensible. All the female sex are. To think that she should have preferred death—death! But what am I saying? It may not have been Miss Llewellyn after all. We have no proof. Doubtless, it was some unfortunate who had come to the end of her tether. But it would never do to tell Lord Ilfracombe my suspicions—not yet, at all events, while he is on his wedding tour. Time enough when he has sobered down into a steady married man; then, perhaps, the news will come rather as a relief from all fear of meeting the object of his youthful indiscretion again. Yet, under the water—that beautiful face and figure! It seems too terrible. I must not think of it. There is no reason it should trouble me in the very slightest degree.’
Mr Sterndale rung the bell at this juncture, and ordered the lady’s maid, who had waited upon Miss Llewellyn, to have all her belongings properly packed and locked away, until his lordship’s pleasure concerning them should be known. But the trinket-box he put his own seal on, and carried off to place in his safe with other property belonging to his client. Yet Mr Sterndale, try as he would, could not lock away with it all remembrance of the woman whom he firmly believed to be lying stark and dead beneath the water. His last interview with her kept on returning to his memory, and made him wretched. Her proud, flashing glances, her complete incredulity, and then her bowed head and subdued voice; her attitude of utter despair, her silence, and her final accusation that her lover’s determination had been brought about through his influence. It had in a great measure been so; he knew it and had confessed as much to her. And so she had thought fit to end the matter. Very foolish, very rash, and decidedly unpleasant to think of. So he would put the remembrance away from him at once and for ever. He informed the servants that Miss Llewellyn had returned home to her own people, and that her things were to remain there until they received further orders.
But none of them believed his story.
Meantime, Nell’s complete disappearance, though apparently so mysterious, was in reality no mystery at all. Few things are, when once unravelled. Her precipitate fall into the water had brought her head downwards against the black side of an empty barge. The blow stunned her, and she was immediately sucked under, and borne by the running current some way lower down, where her body rose under the bows of a rowing boat, whose owners were just preparing to shelve her on the mud-bank which fringes either side the Thames. They were watermen of the lowest class, but honest and kindly-hearted.
‘’Ullo, Jim,’ cried one of them, as Nell’s body rose alongside, ‘what’s that? By Gawd, if it isn’t a woman’s ’and. Here, give us an ’and, and lift ’er over. Quick, now, will yer?’
‘It’s a corpus,’ said Jim, shrinking back, as most people do from contact with the dead. ‘Let it be, Garge. Don’t bring it over here. It’s no concarn of ourn, and the perlice will find it soon enough. Row on, man, do, and leave it be’ind. The look of it’s quite enough for me.’
‘You’re a nice ’un,’ retorted Garge, as he leant over the boat’s side and seized hold of Nell Llewellyn. ‘What d’ye mean? Would yer leave a poor gal to drown, when maybe she ain’t ’alf dead? Here, lend an ’and, will yer, or I’ll knock yer bloomin’ brains out with my oar.’
Thus admonished, Jim joined his forces to those of his comrade, and by their united efforts they hauled the body into the boat. As soon as Garge saw her lovely face, which looked, almost unearthly in its beauty, he became eager to take her home to his mother, to be succoured and taken care of.
‘Now, Garge, mark what I’m sayin’ of,’ argued Jim, ‘you ’ad better by ’alf take ’er to the station at once. ’Tain’t no business of yourn, and you’ll maybe get into trouble by taking it on yerself. She’s committed suicide, there’s where it is, and you should leave ’er to the perlice. I thought I ’eard a lot o’ shoutin’ from the bridge jest now, and it was after this ’ere, you may take yer oath of it. A bad lot all round, and will bring you into trouble. Now, be wise and jest drop ’er into the water agin. She’s as dead as a door-nail!’
‘That’s yer opinion, is it?’ said Garge, contemptuously; ‘and ’ow long ’ave you sot up as a doctor, eh? Now, jest do as I tell yer, or I’ll know the reason why. Lift ’er up by the petticoats, and I’ll take ’er ’ead and shoulders. That’s it, and now for mother’s.’
‘Mother’s’ was the cellar floor of one of those tenements which abound on the river’s side, and afford shelter for the ‘water-rats’ who make their living on its bosom and its shores. The two young men had not far to carry their burden, but Nell was heavy, and they stumbled over the threshold of the house and down the cellar steps, and were glad enough to lay her dripping body on the floor.
‘Hello, lads, what ’ave yer got there?’ exclaimed an old woman, who came out of the Cimmerian darkness, carrying a tallow candle stuck in the neck of an old beer bottle. ‘Mercy me! not a corpus, surely? Why, what on airth made you bring it in ’ere? A gal too, and a purty one! Garge; tell me the rights of it all, or I’ll ’ave none of ’er ’ere.’
‘Theer ain’t no rights, nor wrongs neither, mother,’ replied Garge, ‘only this body floated under our bows, and I don’t believe the pore gal is dead, and no one knows better ’ow to rewive a corpus than you do, so we carried ’er ’ome to you at onst. She’s a lady, and maybe a rich ’un, and you may git a good reward for rewivin’ ’er, from ’er friends. So, wheer’s the blankets and the ’ot water? Yer’ve got some bilin’ to make our tea, I know, and I’ll go and call Mrs Benson to ’elp yer with ’er.’
‘That’s it my lad,’ replied the mother, who, though most people would have designated her as a filthy hag, was a kind-hearted old body. ‘And Jim and you must make yerself scarce for to-night, for I can’t do nothin’ till you two are gone. Take Garge ’ome with you, Jim, and if this gal’s too fur gone to do anything with, yer must give notice fust thing in the mornin’ to the perlice, for I can’t keep a dead body ’ere longer than the mornin’.’
‘I don’t believe as she is dead,’ said Garge, who had been bending over Nell’s body and listening with his ear upon her chest. ‘Yer can’t deceive me much, yer know, mother, for I’ve seen too many on ’em. ’Owever, I’ll fetch Mrs Benson at once, and I’ll look in larst thing to ’ear your news.’
The old woman had lighted a fire by this time and dragged the body in front of it, and as soon as her neighbour joined her, they commenced rubbing and thumping and chafing the limbs of the apparently drowned girl, and though their remedies were rough, they were successful, for after some fifteen or twenty minutes of this treatment, Nell sighed deeply, gasped for breath, and finally opened her eyes and looked at her good Samaritans. She attempted to rise, but they held her down with their strong hands, and continued their original massage treatment with redoubled energy. At last their patient ejaculated, ‘Where am I?’ Which is invariably the first question asked by a woman recovering from a fit of unconsciousness.
‘Wheer are ye, honey?’ repeated Garge’s mother. ‘Why, afore the fire, of course, and on the floor, which is rather a hard bed I ’spect for one like you, but we’d no better place to lay you on.’
‘But how did I come here?’ said Nell, and then, as remembrance poured back upon her, she moaned,—‘Ah, the water, I remember, the water!’ and closed her eyes again. But as her strength returned more fully she started to a sitting posture and cried fiercely,—‘Who brought me here? Who told you to do this? What right have you to interfere with me? I thought it would have been all over by this time, and now it has all to come over again—all over again!’
‘Oh, no, it won’t, honey,’ replied her companion. ‘You won’t go to do any think so foolish agin. Why, you’ve as near lost yer life as possible. It wore jest touch and go with yer, wern’t it, Mrs Benson?’
‘That it wure, indeed,’ said that worthy. ‘And you’re too fine a gal to throw yerself away in sich a fashion, yer should leave that sorter thing to the poor gutter drabs. My Garge, ’e found yer and brought yer ’ome, and I’ve no doubt you’ve fine friends as will be real glad to git yer back agin!’
‘No, I haven’t. I have no friends,’ said Nell.
‘What, no father nor mother?’ exclaimed her hostess. ‘Pore gal! But I daresay you’ve got a young man, or if yer ’aven’t yer’ll git one. You’re much too fine a gal to go beggin’. And whatever made yer think of makin’ an ’ole in the water puzzles me. Now, you jest wrap this blanket right round yer, and drink this posset. ’Tain’t to yer taste, p’r’aps, but ’tis the best thing out to warm your blood arter a soakin’.’
She held a filthy mug, filled with a filthy but steaming decoction of treacle and beer to Nell’s lips as she spoke, and the girl opened her mouth mechanically and took it all in. Then, sickened of life and everything in it, including the treacle posset, she rolled herself in the blanket, and with her face towards the fire, sunk into a sleep of exhaustion and despair. Garge, true to his trust, sneaked round at about midnight to ask what news there was of his patient, and was delighted in his rough way to hear that she had recovered.
‘Sheisa beauty!’ he exclaimed, as he gazed at her pale face, on which the light of the burning logs was playing; ‘a rale rare ’un, that’s wot I thinks! Don’t yer let that fire out afore the morning, mother, for she’ll feel cold when she wakes though it is so ’ot; and now, wasn’t I wise to bring ’er ’ome, ’stead of the perlice station. I bet yer’ll make a pot of money over this, mother, ’stead of the coppers takin’ it. Well, good-night, and don’t yer let ’er go till I’ve seen ’er agin in the mornin’.’
But long before Garge’s mother had roused herself again her visitor had gone. The old woman was tired with the exertions she had made on her behalf, and had taken just the smallest drop of gin to quiet her own perturbed feelings before she turned into bed. But Nell had soon started up from her short, feverish slumber, and lain before the fire with wide-open eyes, staring at the flickering flames, and wondering what the next move of her unhappy life would be. The old woman’s words rang in her ears. ‘What! no father nor mother? Pore gal!’ How ungrateful it had been of her not to remember that she had both father and mother, before she took the fatal plunge which might have separated her from them for ever. Already she felt ashamed of her impetuosity and despair. She resolved, as she lay there, that she would go back to her parents and her home. She would return to Panty-cuckoo Farm, and try to forget that she had ever left it. It would be sweet, she thought feverishly, to smell the woodbine and the roses again—it would cool her brain to lie down on the dewy grass and press her hot cheek to the wild thyme and the daisies that bedecked it. Her mind was still in a bewildered and chaotic state, or Nell would have dreaded the questions that awaited her at Panty-cuckoo Farm; but, luckily, it led her in the right direction. A sudden horror of the publicity she had courted by her rash act took possession of her, and she panted to get up and away before the good Samaritans who had brought her back to life were able to gain any particulars regarding her name or former condition. With this desire strong upon her, she raised herself, weak as she was, and glanced at her surroundings. The logs still burnt brightly on the hearth; the old woman snored mellifluously on a pallet in the corner—for the rest, she was alone. The clothes they had taken off her were hung out to dry on a chair. Nell felt them. They were fit to put on again. She raised herself gently and resumed her attire, which consisted of a dark print dress, a black mantle and a large straw hat, which had not become detached from her head when she went under the water. But she could not go without leaving some token of her gratitude behind her. She felt in the pocket of her dress. Her purse was still there, and it contained several pounds. Nell took out two, and, wrapping them in a piece of paper, placed them in a conspicuous position on the chair. Then she crept softly across the cellar, and, climbing the stone steps that led to the entrance of the tenement, found, to her relief, that the outer door was ajar. There were too many people in the house, and they were of too lawless a kind for anyone to notice her departure, or think it singular if they had. The dawn was just breaking as Nell stepped into the open air; and, though she knew she must look very forlorn, the few wayfarers whom she encountered looked more forlorn still, and no one molested or questioned her. She found she had sufficient money to take her straight away to Usk had she so desired, but she dared not present herself before her people in her present draggled state. So she went into a little lodging in the Waterloo Road, where she was confident that no one would recognise her; and, after staying two nights there, she had so far remedied the state of her wardrobe as to feel able to go back to Wales without exciting too much inquiry. But still, Nell was far from being in her normal condition, and moved and spoke like a woman in a dream.