Many years before, when the Reverend George Cumberland held his chaplaincy in Madras, there were two friends also there with whom he was intimate--Major Bohun and Mr. Adair. The latter held a civil appointment under Government. At that time, Mr. Adair was not married. Later, this gentleman went to Australia: Mr. and Mrs. Cumberland also went there. Mr. Adair had married in the course of time. His wife died, leaving one little child, a daughter: who was, despatched to England for her education. Upon its completion, William Adair wrote and begged Mrs. Cumberland to receive her: he thought it probable that he should be returning home; and if so, it would not be worth while for Ellen to go out to him. Mrs. Cumberland consented, and the young lady became an inmate of her house at Dallory Ham. Very liberal terms were offered by Mr. Adair: but this was a matter entirely between himself and Mrs. Cumberland.
Holding herself, as she did, so aloof from her neighbours, there was little wonder in madam's having remained unconscious of the fact that some months ago, nearly twelve now, a young lady had come to reside with Mrs. Cumberland. Part of the time Mrs. Cumberland had been away. Madam had also been away: and when at home her communication with Dallory and Dallory Ham consisted solely in being whirled through its roads in a carriage: no one indoors spoke unnecessarily in her hearing of any gossip connected with those despised places; and to church she rarely went, for she did not get up in time. And so the sweet girl, who had for some time now been making Arthur Bohun's heart's existence, had never yet been seen or heard of by his mother.
For Mrs. Cumberland to be seen abroad so early was something marvellous; indeed, she was rarely seen abroad at all. On this morning she came out of her room between eleven and twelve o'clock, dressed for a walk; and bade Ellen Adair prepare to accompany her. Ellen obeyed, silently wondering. The truth was, Mrs. Cumberland had picked up a very unpleasant doubt the previous day, and would give the whole world to lay it to rest. It was connected with her son. His assurances had partly pacified her, but not quite: and she determined to have a private word with Mr. North. Ellen, walking by her side along the road, supposed they were going in to Dallory. Mrs. Cumberland kept close to the hedge for the sake of the shade: as she brushed the bench in passing, where she had sat the past night, a slight shudder seized her frame. Ellen did not observe it; she was revelling in the beauty of the sweet spring day. The gates of Dallory Hall gained, Mrs. Cumberland turned in. Ellen Adair wondered more and more; but Mrs. Cumberland was not one to be questioned at will on any subject.
On they came, madam watching with all her eyes. Mrs. Cumberland was in her usual black silk attire, and walked with the slow step of an invalid. Ellen wore a morning dress of lilac muslin. It needed not the lilac parasol she carried to reflect an additional lovely hue on that most lovely face. A stately, refined girl, as madam saw, with charming manners, the reverse of pretentious.
But as madam, fascinated for once in her life, gazed outwards, a certain familiarity in the face dawned upon her senses. That she had seen it before, or one very like it, became a conviction to her. "Who on earth is she?" murmured the lady to herself--for madam was by no means stilted in her phrases in leisure moments.
"Are you going to call at the Hall, Mrs. Cumberland?" inquired Ellen, venturing to ask the question at length in her increasing surprise. And every word could be distinctly heard by madam, for they were very close to her.
"I think so," was the answer, given in hesitating tones. "I--I should like to tell Mr. North that I feel for his loss."
"But is it not early to do so--both in the hour of the day, and after the death?" rejoined Ellen, with deprecation.
"For a stranger it would be; for me, no. I and John North were once as brother and sister. Besides, I have something else to say to him."
Had Miss Adair asked what the something else was--which she would not have presumed to do--Mrs. Cumberland might have replied that she wished again to enlist the Hall's influence on behalf of her son, now that Mr. Alexander was about to leave. A sure indication that it wasnotthe real motive that was drawing her to the Hall, for she was one of those reticent women who rarely, if ever, observe candour even to friends. Suddenly she halted.
"I prefer to go on alone, Ellen. You can sit down and wait for me. There are benches about in the covered walks."
Mrs. Cumberland went forward. Ellen turned and began to walk towards the entrance-gates with the lingering step of one who waits. Mrs. Cumberland had gone well on, when she turned and called.
"Ellen."
But Ellen did not hear.
"Ellen! Ellen Adair!"
A louder call, this, falling on the warm summer air, echoing in the curious ears covered by the lace mantilla. Mrs. North gave a quick, sharp start. It looked very like a start of terror.
"Ellen Adair!" she repeated to herself, her eyes, in their fear, flashing out on the beautiful face, to see whether she could trace the resemblancenow. "Ellen Adair? Good Heavens!"
Ellen had turned at once. "Yes, Mrs. Cumberland."
"Do not go within sight of the road, my dear. I don't care that all the world should know I am calling at Dallory Hall. Find a bench and sit down, as I bade you."
Obedient as it was in her nature to be, the young lady turned into one of the side paths, which brought her within nearer range of madam's view. She, madam, with a face from which every atom of colour had faded, leaving it white as ashes, stood still as a statue, as one confounded.
"I see the likeness: it is tohim," she muttered. "Can he have come home?"
Ellen Adair passed out of sight and hearing. Madam, shaking herself from her fear, turned with stealthy steps to seek the house, keeping in the private paths as long as possible, which was a more circuitous way. Madam intended, unseen, to make a third at the interview between her husband and Mrs. Cumberland. The sight of that girl's face had frightened her. There might be treason in the air.
Mrs. Cumberland was already in Mr. North's parlour. Strolling out amongst his flowers, he had encountered her in the garden, and taken her in through the open window. Madam arriving a little later, passed through the hall to the dining-room. Rather inopportunely, there sat Bessy, busy with her housekeeping books.
"Take them elsewhere," said madam, with an imperious sweep of the hand.
She was not in the habit of giving a reason for any command whatever: let it be reasonable or the contrary, the rule was to hear and obey. Bessy gathered her books up and went away, madam fastening the bolt of the door after her.
Then she stole across the soft Turkey carpet and slipped into the closet already spoken of, that formed a communication--though never used--between the dining-room and Mr. North's parlour. The door opening to the parlour was unlatched, and had been ever since he put his slippers inside it an hour ago. When her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, madam saw them there; she also saw one or two of his old brown gardening coats hanging on the pegs. Against the wall was a narrow table with an unlocked desk upon it, belonging to herself. It was clever of madam to keep it there. Opening the lid silently, she pulled up a few of its valueless papers, and let them appear. Of course, if the closet were suddenly entered from the parlour--a most unlikely thing to happen, but madam was cautious--she was only getting something from her desk. In this manner she had occasionally made an unsuspected third at Richard North's interviews with his father. Letting the lace hood slip off, madam bent her ear to the crevice of the door, and stood there listening. She was under the influence of terror still: her lips were drawn, her face wore the hue of death.
Apparently the ostensible motive of the interview--Mrs. Cumberland's wish to express her sympathy for the blow that had fallen on the Hall--was over; she had probably also been asking for Mr. North's influence in favour of her son. The first connected words madam caught were these:--
"I will do what I can, Mrs. Cumberland. I wished to do it before, as you know. But Mrs. North took a dislike--I mean took a fancy to Alexander."
"You mean took a dislike to Oliver," corrected Mrs. Cumberland. "In the old days, when you were John North without thought of future grandeur, and I was Fanny Gass, we spoke out freely to each other."
"True," said poor Mr. North. "I've never had such good days since. Ah, what a long time it seems to look back to! I have grown into an old man, Fanny, older in feeling than in years; and you--you wasted the best days of your life in a hot and unhealthy climate."
"Unhealthy in places and at certain seasons," corrected Mrs. Cumberland. "My husband was stationed in the beautiful climate of the Blue Mountains, as we familiarly call the region of the Neilgherry Hills. It is pleasant there."
"Ay, I've heard so. Getting the cool breezes and all that."
"People used to come up there from the hot plains to regain their lost health," continued Mrs. Cumberland, whose thoughts were apt to wander back to the earlier years of her exile. "Ootacamund is resorted to there, just as the colder seaside places are here. But I and Mr. Cumberland were stationary."
"Ootacamund?" repeated Mr. North, struck with the name. "Ootacamund was where my wife's first husband died; Major Bohun."
"No, he did not die there," quietly rejoined Mrs. Cumberland.
"Was it not there? Ah! well, it does not matter. One is apt to confuse these foreign names and places in the memory."
Mrs. Cumberland made no rejoinder, and a momentary silence ensued. Madam, who with the mention of the place, Ootacamund, bit her lip almost to bleeding, bent forward, and looked through the opening of the door. She could just see the smallest portion of the cold, calm, grey face, and waited in sickening apprehension of what the next words might be. They came from Mrs. Cumberland and proved an intense relief, for the subject was changed for another.
"I am about to make a request to you, John: I hope you will grant it for our old friendship's sake. Let me see the anonymous letter that proved so fatal to Edmund. Every incident connected with this calamity is to me so full of painful interest!" she continued, as if seeking to apologize for her request. "As I lay awake last night, unable to sleep, it came into my mind that I would ask you to let me see the letter."
"You may see it, and welcome," was Mr. North's ready reply, as he unlocked a drawer in his old secretaire, and handed the paper to her. "I only wish I could show it to some purpose--to someone who would recognize the handwriting. You won't do that."
Mrs. Cumberland answered by a sickly smile. Her hands trembled as she took the letter, and Mr. North noticed how white her lips had become--as if with some inward suspense or emotion. She studied the letter well, reading it three times over; looking at it critically in all lights. Madam in the closet could have struck her for her inquisitive curiosity.
"You are right, John," she said, with an unmistakable sigh of relief as she gave the missive back to him; "I certainly do not recognize that handwriting. It is like no one's that I ever saw."
"It is a disguised hand, you see," he answered. "No doubt about that: and accomplished in the cleverest manner."
"Is it true that poor Edmund had been drawing bills in conjunction with Alexander?"
"Only one. He had drawn a good many I'm afraid during his short lifetime in conjunction with other people, but only one with Alexander--which they got renewed. No blame attaches to Alexander; not a scrap of it."
"Oliver told me that."
"Ay. I have a notion that poor Edmund did not get into this trouble for his own sake, but to help that young scamp, his brother."
"Which brother?"
"Which brother!" echoed Mr. North, rather in mockery. "As if you need ask that. There's only one of them who could deserve the epithet, and that's Sidney. An awful scamp. He is but twenty years of age, and he is as deep in the ways of a bad world as though he were forty."
"I am very sorry to hear you say it. Whispers go abroad about him, as I dare say you know, but I would rather not have heard them confirmed by you."
"People can't say much too bad of him. We have Mrs. North to thank for it: it is all owing to the way she has brought him up. When I would have corrected his faults, she stepped in between us. Oftentimes have I thought of the enemy that sowed the tares amidst the wheat in his neighbour's field."
"The old saying comes home to many of us," observed Mrs. Cumberland with a suppressed sigh, as she rose to leave. "When our children are young they tread upon our toes, but when they grow older they tread upon our hearts."
"Ay, ay! Don't go yet," added Mr. North. "It is pleasant in times of sorrow to see an old friend. I have no friends now."
"I must go, John. Ellen Adair is waiting for me, and will find the time long. And I expect it would not be very agreeable to your wife to see me here. Not that I know wherefore, or what I can have done to her."
"She encourages no one; no one of the good old days," was the confidential rejoinder. "There's no fear of her; I saw her going off towards the shrubberies--after Master Sidney, I suppose. She takes what she calls her constitutional walks there. They last a couple of hours sometimes."
As Mr. North turned to put the letter into the drawer again, he caught sight of a scrap of poetry that had been found in Arthur Bohun's desk. This he also showed his visitor. He would have kept nothing from her; she was the only link left to him of the days when he and the world (to him) were alike young. Had Mrs. Cumberland stayed there till night, he would then have thought it too soon for her to depart.
"I will do all I can for your son, Fanny," said Mr. North, as they stood for a moment at the glass-doors. "I like Oliver. He is a steady, persevering fellow, and I'll help him on if I can. If I do not, the fault will not lie with me. You understand?" he added, looking at her.
Mrs. Cumberland understood perfectly--the fault would lie with madam. She nodded in answer.
"Mr. Alexander is going, John--as you know. Should Oliver succeed in getting the whole of the practice--and there's nothing to prevent it--he will soon be making a large income. In that case, I suppose he will be asking you to give him something else."
"You mean Bessy. I wish to goodness he had her!" continued Mr. North impulsively; "I do heartily wish it sometimes. She has not a very happy life of it here. Well, well; I hope Oliver will get on with all my heart; tell him so from me, Fanny. He shall have her when he does."
"Shallhe!" ejaculated madam from her closet, and in her most scornfully defiant tone--for the conversation had not pleased her.
They went strolling away amidst the flowers, madam peering after them with angry eyes. She heard her husband tell Mrs. Cumberland to come again; to come in often; whenever she would. Mr. North went on with her down the broad path, after they had lingered some minutes with the sweet flowers. In strolling back alone, who should pounce upon Mr. North from a side path but madam!
"Was not that woman I saw you with the Cumberland, Mr. North?"
"It was Mrs. Cumberland: my early friend. She came in to express her sympathy at my loss. I took it as very kind of her, madam."
"I take it as very insolent," retorted madam. "She had some girl with her when she came in. Who was it?"
"Some girl!" repeated Mr. North, whose memory was anything but retentive. "Ah yes, I remember: she said her ward was waiting for her."
"Who is her ward?"
"The daughter of a friend whom they knew in India, madam. In India or Australia; I forget which: George Cumberland was stationed in both places. A charming young lady with a romantic name: Ellen Adair."
Madam toyed with the black lace that shielded her face. "You seem to know her, Mr. North."
"I have seen her in the road; and in coming out of church. The first time I met them was in Dallory, one day last summer, and Mrs. Cumberland told me who she was. That is all I know of her, madam--as you seem to be curious."
"Is she living at Mrs. Cumberland's?"
"Just now she is. I--I think they said she was going out to join her father," added Mr. North, whose impressions were always hazy in matters that did not immediately concern him. "Yes, I'm nearly sure, madam: to Australia."
"Her father--whoever he may be--is not in Europe then?" slightingly spoke madam, stooping to root up mercilessly a handful of blue-bells.
"Her father lives over yonder. That's why the young lady has to go out to him."
Madam tossed away the rifled flowers and raised her head to its customary haughty height. The danger had passed. "Over yonder" meant, as she knew, some far-off antipodes. She flung aside the girl and the interlude from her recollections, just as ruthlessly as she had flung the blue-bells.
"I want some money, Mr. North."
Mr. North went into a flutter at once. "I--I have none by me, madam."
"Then give me a cheque."
"Nor cheque either. I don't happen to have a signed cheque in the house, and Richard is gone for the day."
"What have I repeatedly told you--that you mustkeepmoney by you; and cheques too," was her stern answer. "Why does Richard always sign the cheques? Why can't you sign them?"
She had asked the same thing fifty times, and he had never been goaded to give the true answer.
"I have not signed a cheque since Thomas Gass died, except on my own private account, madam; no, nor for long before it. My account is overdrawn. I shan't have a stiver in the bank until next quarter-day."
"You told me that last week," she said contemptuously. "Draw then upon the firm account."
He shook his head. "The bank would not cash it."
"Why?"
"Because only Richard can sign. Oh dear, this is going over and over the old ground again. You'll wear me out, madam. When Richard took the management at the works, it was judged advisable that he should alone sign the business cheques--for convenience' sake, madam; for convenience' sake. Gass's hands were crippled with gout; I was here with my flowers."
"I don't care who signs the cheques so that I get the money," she retorted in rude, rough tones. "You must give me some to-day."
"It is for Sidney; I know it is for Sidney," spoke Mr. North tremulously. "Madam, you are ruining that lad. For his own sake some check must be put upon him: and therefore I am thankful that to-day I have no money to give."
He took some short hurried steps over the corners of paths and flower-beds, with the last words, and got into his own room. Madam calmly followed. Very sure might he be that she would not allow him to escape her.
Ellen Adair, waiting for Mrs. Cumberland, hadnotfelt the time long. Very shortly after she was left alone, the carriage came back from the station, bringing Arthur Bohun: Richard had been left at Whitborough. Captain Bohun got out at the gates, intending to walk up to the house. Ellen saw him come limping along--the halt in his gait was always more visible when he had been sitting for any length of time--and he at the same time caught sight of the bright hues of the lilac dress gleaming through the trees.
Some years back, the detachment commanded by Arthur Bohun was quartered in Ireland. One ill-starred night it was called out to suppress some local disturbances, and he was desperately wounded: shot, as was supposed, unto death. That he would never be fit for service again; that his death, though it might be lingering, was inevitable; surgeons and friends alike thought. For nearly two years he was looked upon as a dying man: that is, as a man who could not possibly recover. But Time, the great healer, restored him; and he came out of his sickness and danger with only a slight limp, more or less perceptible. When walking slowly, or when he took any one's arm, it was not seen at all. Mrs. North (who was proud of her handsome and distinguished son, although she had no love for him) was wont to tell friends confidentially that he had a bullet in his hip yet--at which Arthur would laugh.
The sight of the lilac dress caused him to turn aside. Ellen rose and stood waiting; her whole being was thrilling with the rapture the meeting brought. He took her hand in his, his face lighting.
"Is it indeed you, Ellen! I should as soon have expected to see a fairy here."
"Mrs. Cumberland has gone to call on Mr. North. She told me to wait for her."
"I have been with Dick to take my uncle and James to the station," spoke Captain Bohun, pitching upon it as something to say, for his tongue was never too fluent when alone with her. "He has been asking me to go and stay with him."
"Sir Nash has?"
"Yes. Jimmy invites no one; he is taken up with his missionaries, and that."
"Shall you go?"
Their eyes met as she put the question. Go! away from her!
"I think not," he quietly answered. "Not at present. Miss Bohun's turn must come first: she has been writing for me this long time."
"That's your aunt."
"My aunt. And a good old soul she is. Won't you walk about a little, Ellen?"
She took the arm he held out, and they paced the covered walks, almost in silence. The May birds were singing, the budding leaves were green. Eloquence enough for them: and each might have detected the beating of the other's heart. Madam had her ear glued to that closet-door, and so missed the sight. A sight that would have made her hair stand on end.
Minutes, for lovers, fly on swift wings. When Mrs. Cumberland appeared, it seemed that she had been away no time. Ellen went forward to meet her: and Captain Bohun said he had just come home from the station. Mrs. Cumberland, absorbed in her own cares, complaining of fatigue, took little or no notice of him: he strolled by their side up the Ham. Standing at Mrs. Cumberland's gate for a moment in parting, Oliver Rane came so hastily out of his house that he ran against them.
"Don't knock me down, Rane," spoke Arthur Bohun in his lazy but very pleasing manner.
"I beg your pardon. When I am in a hurry I believe I am apt to drive on in a blindfold fashion."
"Is any one ill, Oliver?" questioned his mother.
"Yes. At Mrs. Gass's. I fear it is herself. The man who brought the message did not know."
"You ought to keep a horse," spoke Captain Bohun, as the doctor recommenced his course. "So much running about must wear out a man's legs."
"Oughts go for a great deal, don't they?" replied the doctor, looking back. "I ought to be rich enough to keep one, but I'm not."
Captain Bohun wished them good-day, and they went indoors. Ellen wondered at hearing that Mrs. Cumberland was going out again. Feeling uneasy--as she said--about the sudden illness, she took her way to the house of Mrs. Gass, in spite of the fatigue she had been complaining of. A long walk for her at any time. Arrived there she found that lady in perfect health; it was one of her servants to whom Oliver had been summoned. The young woman had scalded her hand and arm.
"I was at the Hall this morning, and Mr. North showed me the anonymous letter," Mrs. Cumberland took occasion to say. "It evidently comes from a stranger; a stranger to us. The handwriting is quite strange."
"So much the better, ma'am," heartily spoke Mrs. Gass. "It would be too bad to think it was wrote by a friend."
"Oliver thinks it was madam," pursued Mrs. Cumberland, lowering her voice. "At least--he has not gone so far as to sayhethinks it, but that Mr. Alexander does."
"That's just what he said to me, ma'am. Alexander thought it, he said, but that he himself didn't know what to think, one way or the other. As well, perhaps, for us not to talk of it: least said is soonest mended."
"Of course. But I cannot help recalling a remark once innocently made by Arthur Bohun in my hearing: that he did not know any one who could imitate different handwritings so well as his mother. Did you"--Mrs. Cumberland looked cautiously round--"observe the girl, Molly Green, take her handkerchief from her pocket whilst she stood here?"
"I didn't see her with any handkercher," was the answer, given after a slight pause. "Shouldn't think the girl has one. She put her basket on the sideboard there, to come forward to my geraniums, and stood stock still while she looked at 'em. I don't say she didn't go to her pocket; but I never saw her do it."
"It might have been so. These little actions often pass unnoticed. And it is so easy for any other article to slip out unseen when a handkerchief is drawn from a pocket," concluded Mrs. Cumberland in a suppressed, almost eager tone. Which Mrs. Gass noticed, and did not quite like.
But there is still something to relate of Dallory Hall. When madam followed her husband through the glass-doors into his parlour, an unusually unpleasant scene ensued. For once Mr. North held out resolutely. He had no other resource, for he had not the money to give her, and did not know where to get it. That it was for Sidney, he well believed; and for that reason only would have denied it to the utmost of his feeble strength. Madam flounced out in one of her worst moods. Mrs. Cumberland's visit and the startling sight of Ellen Adair had brought to her unusual annoyance. As ill-luck had it, she encountered Bessy in the hall, and upon her vented her temper. The short scene was a violent one. When it was over, the poor girl went shivering and trembling into her father's parlour. He had been standing with the door ajar, shrinking almost as much as Bessy, and utterly powerless to interfere.
"Oh, child! if I could only save you from this!" he murmured, as they stood together before the window, and he fondly stroked the head that lay on his breast. "It's cue of the troubles that are wearing me out, Bessy: wearing me out before my time."
Bessy North was patient, meek, enduring; but meekness and patience can both be tried beyond their strength.
"Oliver Rane wants you: you know that, Bessie. If he could see his way to keeping you, you should go to him tomorrow. Ay! though your poor brother has just been put into his grave."
Bessy lifted her head. In these moments of emotion, the heart speaks out without reticence.
"Papa, I would go to Oliver as he is now, and risk it," she said through her blinding tears. "I should not be afraid of our getting on: we would make shift together, until better times came. He spoke a word of this to me not long ago, but his lips were sealed, he said, and he could not press it."
"He thought he had not enough for you?"
"He thought you would not consider it so.Ishould, papa. And I think those who bravely set out to struggle on together, have as much happiness in their makeshifts and economies as others who begin with a fortune."
"We'll see; we'll see, Bessy. I should like you to try it, if you are not afraid. I'll talk to Dick. But--mind!--not a word here," he added, glancing round to indicate the precincts of Mrs. North. "We shall have to keep it to ourselves if we would not have it frustrated. I wonder how much Oliver makes a year."
"Not much; but he is advancing slowly. He has talked to me about it. What keeps one will keep two, papa."
"He comes into about two hundred a-year when his mother dies. And I fear she won't live long, from what she tells me. Poor Fanny! Not that I'd counsel any one to reckon on dead men's shoes, child. Life's uncertain: he might die before her."
"He would not reckon on anything but his own exertions, papa. He told me a secret--that he is engaged on a medical work, writing it all his spare time. It is quite certain to become a standard work, he says, and bring him good returns. Oh! papa, there will be no doubt about our getting on. Let us risk it!"
She spoke in a bright, hopeful tone--her mild eyes shining. Mr. North caught a little of the glad spirit, and resolved--Dick being willing: sensible Dick--that they should risk it.
Whitborough was a good-sized, bustling town, sending two members to parliament. In the heart of it lived Mr. Dale, the lawyer, who did a little in money-lending as well. He was a short stout man, with a red face and no whiskers, nearly bald on the top of his round head; and he usually attired himself in the attractive costume of a brown tail coat and white neckcloth.
On this same morning which had witnessed the departure of Sir Nash Bohun and his son from Dallory Hall, Mr. Dale, known commonly amongst his townsfolks as Lawyer Dale--was seated in his office at Whitborough. It was a small room, containing a sort of double desk, at which two people might face each other. The lawyer's seat was against the wall, his face to the room; a clerk sometimes sat, or stood on the other side when business was pressing. Adjoining this office was one for the clerks, three of whom were kept; and clients had to pass through their room to reach the lawyer's.
Mr. Dale was writing busily. The clock was on the stroke of twelve, and a great deal of the morning's work had still to be done, when one of the clerks came in: a tall, thin, cadaverous youth with black hair, parted into a flat curl on his forehead.
"Are you at home, sir?"
"Who is it?" asked Mr. Dale, growling at the interruption.
"Mr. Richard North."
"Send him in."
Richard came in; a fine looking man in his mourning clothes; the lawyer could not help thinking so. After shaking hands--a ceremony Mr. Dale liked to observe with all his clients, when agreeable to them--he came from behind his desk to seat himself in his elbow-chair of red leather, and gave Richard a seat opposite. The room was small, the desk and other furniture large, and they sat very close together. Richard held his hat on his knee.
"You guess, no doubt, what has brought me here, Mr. Dale. Now that my ill-fated brother is put out of our sight in his last resting-place, I have leisure and inclination to look into the miserable event that sent him there. I shall spare neither expense nor energy in discovering--if it may be--the traitor."
"You allude to the anonymous letter."
"Yes. And I have come to ask you to give me all the information you can about it."
"But, my good sir, I have no information to give. I don't possess any."
"I ought to have said details of the attendant circumstances. Let me hear your history of the transaction from beginning to end: and if you can give me any hint as to the writer--that is, if you have formed any private opinion about him--I trust you will do so."
Mr. Dale could be a little tricky on occasion; he was sometimes engaged in transactions that would not have borne the light of day, and that most certainly he would never have talked about. On the other hand, he could be honest and truthful where there existed no reason for being the contrary: and this anonymous letter business came under the latter category.
"The transaction was as open and straightforward as possible," spoke the lawyer--and Richard, a judge of character and countenances, saw he was speaking the truth. "Mr. Edmund North came to me one day some short time ago, wanting me to let him have a hundred pounds on his own security. I didn't care to do that--I knew about his bill transactions, you see--and I proposed that some one should join him. Eventually he came with Alexander the surgeon, and the matter was arranged."
"Do you know for what purpose he wanted the money?"
"For his young brother, Sidney North. A fast young man, that, Mr. Richard," added the lawyer in significant tones.
"Yes. Unfortunately."
"Well, he had got into some secret trouble, and came praying to Mr. Edmund to get him out of it. Whatever foolish ways Edmund North had wasted money in, there's this consolation remaining to his friends--that the transaction which eventually sent him to his grave was one of pure kindness," added the lawyer warmly. "'My father has enough trouble,' he remarked to me; 'with one thing and another, his life's almost worried out of him; and I don't care that he should hear what Master Sidney's been up to, if it can be kept from him.' Yes; the motive was a good one."
"How was it he did not apply to me?" asked Richard.
"Well--had you not, just about that time, assisted your brother Edmund in some scrape of his own?"
Richard North nodded.
"Just so. He said he had not the face to apply to you so soon again; should be ashamed of himself. Well, to go on, Mr. Richard North. I gave him the money on the bill; and when it became due, neither he nor Alexander could meet it: so I agreed to renew it. Only one day after that, the anonymous letter found its way to Dallory Hall."
"You are sure of that?"
"Certain. The bill was renewed on the 30th of April; here, in this very room. Mr. North received the letter on the 1st of May."
"It was so. By the evening post."
"So that, if the transaction got wind through that renewing, the writer did not lose much time about it."
"Well now, Mr. Dale, in what way could that transaction have got wind, and who heard of it?"
"I never spoke of it to a human being," impetuously cried the lawyer. And Richard North again felt sure that he spoke the truth.
"The transaction, from the beginning, was known only to us three men: Edmund North, the surgeon, and myself. I don't believe either of them mentioned it at all. I know I did not. It's just possible Edmund North might have told his stepbrother Sidney how he got the money--the young scamp. I beg your pardon, Mr. Richard; I forgot he was your brother also."
"It would be to Sidney's interest to keep it quiet," remarked Richard. "Our men at the works have a report amongst them--I know not where picked up, and I don't think they know either--that the writer was your clerk, Wilks."
"Nonsense!" contemptuously rejoined the lawyer. "I've heard the report also. Why should Wilks trouble his head about it? Don't believe anything so foolish."
"I don't believe it," returned Richard North. "Wilks could have no motive whatever for it, as far as I can see. But I think that he may have become cognizant of the affair, and talked of it abroad."
"Not one of my clerks knew anything about it," protested Mr. Dale. "I've three of 'em: Wilks and two others. You don't suppose, sir, I take them into my confidence in all things."
"But, is it quite impossible that any one of them--say Wilks--could have found it out surreptitiously?" urged Richard.
"Wilks has nothing surreptitious about him," said the lawyer. "He is too shallow for it. A thoroughly useful clerk, but a man without guile."
"I did not mean to apply the word to him personally. I'll change it if you like. Could Wilks, or either of the other two, have accidentally learnt this, without your knowledge? Was there a possibility of it? Come, Mr. Dale; be open with me. Even if it were so, no blame would attach to you."
"It is just this," answered Mr. Dale: "I don't see how it was possible for any one of them to have learnt it; and yet at the same time, I see no other way in which it could have transpired. That's the candid truth. I lay awake one night for half-an-hour, turning the puzzle over in my mind. Alexander says he never opened his lips about it; I know I did not; and poor Edmund North went into his fatal passion thinking Alexander wrote the letter, because he said Alexander alone knew of it; a pretty sure proof he had not talked about it himself."
"Which brings us back to your clerks," remarked Richard North. "They might have overheard a few chance words when the bill was renewed."
"I'm sure the door was shut," debated Mr. Dale, in a tone as if he werenotsure, but rather sought to persuade himself that he was so. "Only Wilks was in, that morning; the other two had gone out."
"Rely upon it that's how it happened. The door could not have been quite closed."
"Well, I don't know. I generally shut it myself, and carefully too, when important clients are in here. I confess," honestly added Mr. Dale, "that it's the only explanation I can see in the matter. If the door was unlatched, Wilks might have heard. I had him in last night, and taxed him with it. He denies it out and out: says that, even if the affair had come to his knowledge, he knows his duty better than to have talked about it."
"I don't doubt that he does, when in his sober senses. But he is not always in them."
"Oh, come, Mr. Richard North, it is not as bad as that."
Richard was silent. If Mr. Dale was satisfied with his clerk and his clerk's discretion, he had no desire to render him otherwise.
"He takes too much now and then, you know, Mr. Dale; and he may have dropped a word in some enemy's hearing: who perhaps caught it up and then wrote the letter. Would you mind my questioning him?"
"He is not here to be questioned, or you might do it and welcome," replied Mr. Dale. "Wilks is lying up to-day. He has not been well for more than a week past; could hardly do his work yesterday."
"I'll take an opportunity of seeing him then," said Richard. "My father won't rest until the writer of this letter has been traced; neither, in truth, shall I."
The lawyer said good-morning to his visitor, and returned to his desk. But ere he recommenced work, he thought over the chief subject of their conversation. Had the traitor been Wilks, he asked himself. What Richard North had said was perfectly true--the young man sometimes took too much after work was over. But Mr. Dale had hitherto found no reason to complain of his discretion; and, difficult as it seemed to find any other loophole of suspicion, he finally concluded that he had no reason to do so now.
Meanwhile Richard North walked back to Dallory--it was nearly two miles from Whitborough. Passing his works, he continued his way a little further, to a turning called North Inlet, in which were some houses, large and small, chiefly tenanted by his workpeople. In one of these, a pretty cottage standing back, lodged Timothy Wilks. The landlady was a relative of Wilks's, and as he paid very little for his two rooms, he did not mind the walk once a-day to and from Whitborough.
"Good-morning, Mrs. Green. Is Timothy Wilks in?"
Mrs. Green, an ancient matron in a mob-cap, was on her knees, whitening the door-step. She rose at the salutation, saw it was Richard North, and curtsied.
"Tim have just crawled out to get a bit o' sunshine, sir. He's very bad to-day. Would you please to walk in, Mr. Richard?"
Amidst this colony of his workpeople he was chiefly known as "Mr. Richard." Mrs. Green's husband was timekeeper at the North Works.
"What's the matter with him?" asked Richard, as he stepped over the threshold and the bucket to the little parlour.
"Well, sir, I only hope it's not low fever; but it looks to me uncommon like it."
"Since when has he been ill?"
"He have been ailing this fortnight past. The fact is, sir, hewon'tkeep steady," she added in deploring tones. "Once a-week he's safe to come home the worse for drink, and that's pay night; and sometimes it's oftener than that. Then for two days afterwards he can't eat; and so it goes on, and he gets as weak as a rat. It's not that he takes much drink; it is that a little upsets him. Some men could take half-a-dozen glasses a'most to his one."
"What a pity it is!" exclaimed Richard.
"He had a regular bout of it a week or so ago," resumed Mrs. Green; who once set off on the score of Timothy's misdoings, never knew when to stop. It was so well known to North Inlet, this failing of the young man's, that she might have talked of it in the market-place and not betrayed confidence. "He had been ailing before, as I said, Mr. Richard; off his food, and that; but one night he caught it smartly, and he's been getting worse ever since."
"Caught what smartly?" asked Richard, not posted up in North Inlet idioms.
"Why, the drink, sir. He came home reeling, and give his head such a bang again the door-post that it knocked him back'ards. I got him up somehow--Green was out--and on to his bed, and there he went off in a dead faint. I'd no vinegar in the house: if you want a thing in a hurry you're sure to be out of it: so I burnt a feather up his nose, and that brought him to. He began to talk all sorts of nonsense then, about doing 'bills,' whatever that might mean, and old Dale's money-boxes, running words into one another like mad, so that you couldn't make top or tail of it. I'd never seen him as bad as this, and got frightened."
She paused to take breath, always short with Mrs. Green. The words "doing bills" struck Richard North. He immediately perceived that hence might have arisen the report--for she had no doubt talked of this publicly--that Timothy Wilks was the traitor. Other listeners could put two and two together as well as he.
"I thought I'd get in the vinegar, in case he went off again," resumed Mrs. Green. "And when I was running round to the shop for it--leastways walking, for I can't run now--who should I meet, turning out of Ketler's but Dr. Rane. I stopped to tell him, and he said he'd look in and see Tim. He's a kind man in sickness, Mr. Richard."
"Did Dr. Rane come?" asked Richard.
"Right off, sir, there and then. When I got back he had put cloths of cold water on Tim's head. And wasn't Tim talking! You might have thought him a show-man at the fair. The doctor wrote something on paper with his pencil and sent me off again to Stevens the druggist's, and Stevens he gave me a little bottle of white stuff ta bring back. The doctor gave Tim some of it in a teacup of cold water, and it sent him into a good sleep. But he has never been well, sir, since then: and now I misdoubt me but it will end in low fever."
"Do you remember what night this was?" asked Richard.
"Ay, that I do, sir. For the foolish girls was standing out by twos and threes, making bargains with their sweethearts to go a-maying at morning dawn. I told 'em they'd a deal better stop indoors to mend their stockings. 'Twas the night afore the first of May, Mr. Richard."
"The evening of the day the bill was renewed," thought Richard. He possessed the right clue now. If he had entertained any doubt of Wilks before, this set it at rest.
"Did any of the neighbours hear Tim talking?" he asked.
"Not a soul but me and Dr. Rane here, sir. But I believe he had been holding forth to a room-full at the Wheatsheaf. They say he was in part gone when he got there. Oh, it does make me so vexed, the ranting way he goes on when the drink's in him. If his poor father and mother could look up from their graves, they'd be fit to shake him in very shame. Drink is the worst curse that's going, Mr. Richard--and poor Tim's weak head won't stand hardly a drop of it."
She had told all she knew. Richard North stepped over the bucket again, remarking that he might meet Tim. Sure enough he did so. In taking a cross-cut to the works, he came upon him, leaning against the wooden railings that bordered a piece of waste land. He looked very ill: Richard saw that: a small, slight young man with a mild, pleasant countenance and inoffensive manners. His mother had been a cousin of Mrs. Green's, but superior to the Greens in station. Timothy would have held his head considerably above North Inlet, but for being brought down both in consequence and pocket by his oft-recurring failing.
Kindly and courteously, but with a resolute tone not to be mistaken, Richard North entered on his questioning. He did not suspect Wilks of having written the anonymous letter; he told him this candidly; but he suspected, nay, knew, that it must have been written by some one who had gathered certain details from Wilks's gossip. Wilks, weak and ill, acknowledged that the circumstance of the drawing of the bill; or rather the renewing of one; had penetrated to his hearing in Mr. Dale's office; but he declared that he had not, as far as he knew, repeated it again.
"I'd no more talk of our office business, sir, than I'd write an anonymous letter," said he, much aggrieved. "Mr. Dale never had a more faithful clerk about him than I am."
"I dare say you would not, knowingly," was Richard's rejoinder. "Answer me one question, Wilks. Have you any recollection of haranguing the public at the Wheatsheaf?"
Mr. Wilks's reply to this was, that he had not harangued the public at the Wheatsheaf. He remembered being at the house quite well, and there had been a good deal of argument in the parlour; chiefly, he thought, touching the question as to whether masters in general ought not to give holiday on the first of May. There had been no particular haranguing on his part, he declared; and he could take his oath that he never opened his lips there about what had come to his knowledge. One thing he did confess, on being pressed by Richard--that he had no remembrance of quitting the Wheatsheaf, or of how he reached home. He retained a faint idea of having seen Dr. Rane's face bending over him later, but could not say whether it was dream or reality.
Nothing more could be got out of Timothy Wilks. That the man was guiltless of intentional treachery was as undoubted as that the treachery had occurred through his talking. Richard North bent his steps to the Wheatsheaf, to hold conference with Packerton, the landlord of that much-frequented hostelrie.
And any information that Packerton could give, he was willing to give; but it amounted to little. Richard wanted the names of all who went into the parlour on the night of the 30th of April, during the time that Wilks was there. The landlord mentioned as many as he could remember; but said that others might have gone in and out. One man--who looked like a gentleman and sat by Wilks--was a stranger, he said; he had never seen him before or since. This man grew quite friendly with Wilks, and went out with him, propping up his steps. Packerton's son, a smart youth of thirteen, going out on an errand, had overtaken them on their way across the waste ground. (In the very path where Richard had only now encountered Wilks.) Wilks was holding on by the railings, the boy said, talking with the other as fast as he could talk, and the other was laughing. Richard North wished he could find out who this man was, and where he might be seen; for, of all the rest mentioned by the landlord, not one was at all likely to have written the anonymous letter. Packerton's opinion was that Wilks had not spoken of the matter there; he was then hardly "far enough gone" to have committed the imprudence.
"But I suppose he was when he left you," said Richard.
"Yes, sir, I'm afraid he might have been. He could talk; but every bit of reason had gone out of him. I never saw anybody but Wilks just like this when they've taken too much."
Again Richard North sought Wilks, and questioned him who this stranger, man or gentleman, might be. He might as well have questioned the moon. Wilks had a hazy impression of having been with a tall, thin, strange man: but where, or when, or how, he knew not.
"I'll ask Rane what sort of a condition Wilks was in when he saw him," thought Richard.
But Richard could not carry out his intentions until night. Business claimed him for the rest of the day, and then he went home to dinner.
Dr. Rane was in his dining-room that night, the white blind drawn before the window, and writing by the light of a shaded candle. Bessy North had said to her father that Oliver was busy with a medical work from which he expected good returns when published. It was so. He spared himself no labour; over that, or anything else: often writing far into the small hours. He was a patient, persevering man: once give him a chance of success, a fair start on life's road, and he would be sure to go on to fortune. He said this to himself continually; and he was not mistaken. But the chance had not come yet.
The clock was striking eight, when the doctor heard a ring at his door-bell, and Phillis appeared, showing in Richard North. A thrill passed through Oliver Rane; perhaps he could not have told why or wherefore.
Richard sat down and began to talk about Wilks, asking what he had to ask, entering into the question generally. Dr. Rane listened in silence.
"I beg your pardon," he suddenly said, remembering his one shaded candle. "I ought to have asked for more light."
"It's quite light enough for me," replied Richard. "Don't trouble. To go back to Wilks: Did he say anything about the bill in your hearing, Rane?"
"Not a word; not a syllable. Or, if he did, I failed to catch it."
"Old Mother Green says he talked about 'bills,'" said Richard. "That was before you saw him."
"Does she?" carelessly remarked the doctor. "I heard nothing of the kind. There was no coherence whatever in his words, so far as I noticed: one never pays much attention to the babblings of a drunken man."
"Was he quite beside himself?--quite unconscious of what he said, Rane?"
"Well, I am told that it is the peculiar idiosyncrasy of Wilks to be able to talk and yet to be unconscious for all practical purposes, and for recollection afterwards. Otherwise I should not have considered him quite so far gone as that. He talked certainly; a little; seemed to answer me in a mechanical sort of way when I asked him a question, slipping one word into another. If I had tried to understand him, I don't suppose I could have done so. He did not say much; and I was away from him a good deal about the house, looking for water and rags to put on his head."
"Thenyouheard nothing about it, Rane?"
"Absolutely nothing."
The doctor sat so that the green shade of the candle happened to fall on his face, making it look very pale. Richard North, absorbed in thought about Wilks, could not have told whether the face was in shadow or in light. He spoke next about the stranger who had joined Wilks, saying he wished he could find out who it was.
"A tall thin man, bearing the appearance of a gentleman?" returned Dr. Rane. "Then I think I saw him, and spoke to him."
"Where?" asked Richard with animation.
"Close to your works. He was looking in through the iron gates. After quitting Green's cottage, I crossed the waste ground, and saw him standing at the gates, under the middle gas-lamp. I had to visit a patient down by the church, and took the nearer way."
"You did not recognize him?"
"Not at all. He was a stranger to me. As I was passing, he turned and asked me whether he was going right for Whitborough. I pointed to the high-road and told him to keep straight on. Depend upon it, this was the same man."
"What could he have been looking in at my gates for?" muttered Richard. "And what--for this is of more consequence--had he been getting out of Wilks?"
"It seems rather curious altogether," remarked Dr. Rane.
"I'll find this man," said Richard, as he got up to say goodnight; "I must find him. Thank you, Rane."
But after his departure Oliver Rane did not settle to his work as before. A man, once interrupted, cannot always do so. All he did was to pace the room restlessly with bowed head, as a man in some uneasy dream. The candle burnt lower, the flame grew above the shade, throwing its light on his face, showing up its lines and angles. But it was not any brighter than when the green shade had cast over it its cadaverous hue.
"Edmund North! Edmund North!"
Did the words in all their piteous, hopeless appeal come from him? Or was it some supernatural cry in the air?