Unconscious of the inquietude of her own brother and of her son, happy in a reunion which she had never ventured to hope for, still sufficiently weakened by her illness to be preserved from any mental investigation of "how things had come about," acquiescent and tranquil, Mrs. Carruthers was rapidly getting well. The indelible alteration which her beauty had sustained--for it was beauty still--the beauty of a decade later than when George had seen his mother through the ball-room window at Poynings--had touched her morally as well as physically; and a great calm had come upon her with the silver streaks in her rich dark hair, and the fading of the colour in her cheek.
The relation between George's mother and her husband had undergone an entire change. Mr. Carruthers had been excessively alarmed when he first realized the nature of his wife's illness. He had never come in contact with anything of the kind, and novelty of any description had a tendency to alarm and disconcert Mr. Carruthers of Poynings. But he was not in the least likely to leave any manifest duty undone, and he had devoted himself, with all the intelligence he possessed (which was not much), and all the heart (which was a great deal more than he or anybody else suspected), to the care, attention, and "humouring" which the patient required. From the first, Mrs. Carruthers had been able to recognize this without trying to account for it, and she unconsciously adopted the best possible method of dealing with a disposition like that of her husband. She evinced the most absolute dependence on him, and almost fretful eagerness for his presence, an entire forgetfulness of the former supposed immutable law which had decreed that the convenience and the pleasure of Mr. Carruthers of Poynings were to take precedence, as a matter of course, of all other sublunary things. Indeed, it was merely in a technical sense that, as regarded the little world of Poynings, these had been considered sublunary. Its population concerned themselves infinitely less with the "principalities and powers" than with the accuracy of the temperature of Mr. Carruthers's shaving-water, and the punctuality with which Mr. Carruthers's breakfast, lunch, and dinner were served. It had never occurred to his loving and dutiful wife that any alteration in this principle of life at Poynings could possibly be effected, and thus the more superficial faults of the character of a genuinely worthy man had been strengthened by the irresponsibility of his position until they bade fair to overpower its genuine worth. But all this had changed now, changed in a fashion against which there was no appeal Mr. Carruthers was no longer the first. His hours, his habits, his occupations, had to give way to the exigencies of a misfortune which struck him on the most sensitive point, and which invested him with a responsibility not to be trifled with or shared. It was characteristic of him that he became excessively proud of his care of his wife. The pomposity and importance with which he had been wont to "transact his public business" was now transferred to his superintendence of his patient; and the surveillance and fussiness which had made life rather a burdensome possession to the household and retainers of Poynings impressed themselves upon the physicians and attendants promoted to the honour of serving Mrs. Carruthers, As they were, in the nature of things, only temporary inflictions, and were, besides, accompanied by remarkably liberal remuneration, the sufferers supported them uncomplainingly.
It was also characteristic of Mr. Carruthers that, having made up his mind to receive George Dallas well, he had received him very well, and speedily became convinced that the young man's reformation was genuine, and would be lasting. Also, he had not the least suspicion how largely he was influenced in this direction by Mark Felton's estimate of the young man--an estimate not due to ignorance either, for George had hidden nothing in his past career from his uncle except his acquaintance with Clare Carruthers, and the strange coincidence which connected him with the mysterious murder of the 17th of April. Mr. Carruthers, like all men who are both weak and obstinate, was largely influenced by the opinions of others, provided they were not forced upon him or too plainly suggested to him, but that he was currently supposed to partake or even to originate them. He had not said much to his wife about her son; he had not referred to the past at all.
It was in his honourable, if narrow, nature to tell her frankly that he had recognized his error, that he knew now that all his generosity, all the other gifts he had given her, had not availed, and could not have availed, while George's society had been denied; but theconsignewas, "Mrs. Carruthers must not be agitated," and the great rule of Mr. Carruthers's life at present was, that theconsignewas not to be violated. Hence, nothing had been said upon the subject, and after the subsidence of her first agitation, Mrs. Carruthers had appeared to take George's presence very quietly, as she took all other things.
The alteration which had taken place in his wife had tended to allay that unacknowledged ill which had troubled Mr. Carruthers's peace, and exacerbated his temper. The old feeling of jealousy died completely out. The pale, delicate, fragile woman, whose mind held by the past now with so very faint a grasp, whose peaceful thoughts were of the present, whose quiet hopes were of the future, had nothing in common with the beautiful young girl whom another than he had wooed and won. As she was now, as alone she wished to be, he was first and chief in her life, and there was not a little exaction or temporary fretfulness, a single little symptom of illness and dependence, which had not in it infinitely more reassuring evidence for Mr. Carruthers than all the observance of his wishes, and submission to his domestic laws, which had formerly made it plainer to Mr. Carruthers of Poynings that his wife feared than that she loved him.
And, if it be accounted strange and bordering on the ludicrous that, at Mr. Carruthers's respectable age, he should still have been subject to the feelings tauntingly mentioned as the "vagaries" of love, it must be remembered that George's mother was the only woman he had ever cared for, and that he had only of late achieved the loftier ideals of love. It was of recent date that he learned to hold his wife more dear and precious than Mr. Carruthers of Poynings.
He was not in the least jealous of George. He liked him. He was clever, Mr. Carruthers knew; and he rather disapproved of clever people in the abstract. He had heard, and had no reason to doubt--certainly none afforded by his stepson's previous career--that literary people were a bad lot. He supposed, innocent Mr. Carruthers, that, to be literary, people must be clever. The inference was indisputable. But George did not bore him with his cleverness. He never talked about thePiccadillyor theMercury, reserving his confidences on these points for his mother and his uncle. The family party paired off a good deal. Mr. Carruthers and his wife, Mark Felton and his nephew. And then Mr. Carruthers had an opportunity of becoming convinced that the doubts he had allowed to trouble him had all been groundless, and to learn by experience that, happy in her son's society, truly grateful to him for the kindness with which he watched George, she was happier still in his company.
To a person of quicker perception than Mr. Carruthers, the fact that the invalid never spoke of her faithful old servant would have had much significance. It would have implied that she had more entirely lost her memory than other features and circumstances of her condition indicated, or that she had regained sufficient mental firmness and self-control to avoid anything leading directly or indirectly to the origin and source of a state of mental weakness of which she was distressingly conscious. But Mr. Carruthers lacked quickness and experience, and he did not notice this. He had pondered, in his stately way, over Dr. Merle's words, and he had become convinced that he must have been right. There had been a "shock." But of what nature? How, when, had it occurred? Clearly, these questions could not now, probably could not ever, be referred to Mrs. Carruthers. Who could tell him? Clare? Had anything occurred while he had been absent during the days immediately preceding his wife's illness? He set himself now, seriously, to the task of recalling the circumstances of his return.
He had been met by Clare, who told him Mrs. Carruthers was not quite well. He had gone with her to his wife's room. She was lying in her bed. He remembered that she looked pale and ill. She was in her dressing-gown, but otherwise dressed. Then she had not been so ill that morning as to have been unable to leave her bed. If anything had occurred, it must have taken place after she had risen as usual Besides, she had not been seriously ill until a day or two later--stay, until how many days? It was on the morning after Mr. Dalrymple's visit that he had been summoned to his wife's room; he and Clare were at breakfast together. Yes, to be sure, he remembered it all distinctly. Was the "shock" to be referred to that morning, then? Had it only come in aid of previously threatening indisposition? These points Mr. Carruthers could not solve. He would question Clare on his return, and find out what she knew, or if she knew anything. In the mean time, he would not mention the matter at all, not even to his wife's brother or her son. Mr. Carruthers of Poynings had the "defects of his qualities," and the qualities of his defects, so that his pride, leading to arrogance in one direction, involved much delicacy in another, and this sorrow, this fear, this source, of his wife's suffering, whatever it might be, was a sacred thing for him, so far as its concealment from all hitherto unacquainted with it was concerned. Clare might help him to find it out, and then, if the evil was one within his power to remedy, it should be remedied; but in the mean time, it should not be made the subject of discussion or speculation. Her brother could not possibly throw any light on the cause of his wife's trouble; he was on the other side of the Atlantic when the blow, let it have come from whatever unknown quarter, had struck her. Her son! Where had he been? And asking himself this question, Mr. Carruthers began to feel rather uncomfortably hot about the ears, and went creaking up the stairs to his wife's sitting-room, in order to divert his thoughts as soon as possible. He saw things by a clearer light now, and the recollection of his former conduct to George troubled him.
He found his stepson and Mark Felton in Mrs. Carruthers's room. The day was chilly and gloomy, and eminently suggestive of the advantages possessed by an English country mansion over the most commodious and expensive of foreign lodging-houses. George had just placed a shawl round his mother's shoulders, and was improving the fastenings of the windows, which were in their normal condition in foreign parts.
"Mark has been talking about Poynings," said Mrs. Carruthers, turning to her husband with a smile, "and says he never saw a place he admired more, though he had only a passing glimpse of it." Mr. Carruthers was pleased, though of course it was only natural that Mr. Felton should never have seen any place more to be admired by persons of well-regulated taste than Poynings.
"Of course," he said, with modest admission, "if you come to talk about the Dukeries, and that kind of thing, there's nothing to be said for Poynings. Butit isa nice place, and I am very fond of it, and so is Laura."
He was rather alarmed, when he had said this, to observe his wife's eyes full of tears. Tears indicated recollection, and of a painful kind, he thought, being but little acquainted with the intricate symptoms of feminine human nature, which recollection must be avoided, or turned aside, in a pleasurable direction.
Now George's cleverness was a direction of the required kind, and Mr. Carruthers proceeded to remark that George must make drawings for his mother of all the favourite points of view at Poynings.
"There's the terrace, George," he said, "and the 'Tangle,' where your mother loves to spend the summer afternoons, and there's the beech-wood, from the hill behind the garden, and the long avenue. There are several spots you will like, George, and--and," said Mr. Carruthers, magnanimously, and blushing all over his not much withered face, like a woman, "I'm only sorry you are to make acquaintance with them so late in the day."
He put out his hand, with true British awkwardness, as he spoke, and the young man took it respectfully, and with an atoning pang of shame and self-reproach. But for his mother's presence, and the imperative necessity of self-restraint imposed by the consideration of her health and the danger of agitation to her, George would have inevitably told his stepfather the truth. He felt all the accumulated meanness of an implied falsehood most deeply and bitterly, and might have been capable of forgetting even his mother, but for a timely warning conveyed to him by the compressed lips and frowning brows of his uncle. As for his mother, neither he nor Mr. Felton could judge of the effect produced upon her by the words of her husband. She had turned away her head as he began to speak.
"I was just going to tell Laura what I thought of doing, if you and she approve," Mr. Felton hastened to say. "You see, I am getting more and more anxious about Arthur, and I don't think he will turn up here. I thought if George and I were to go on to Paris and make some inquiries there--I know pretty well where he went to there, and what he did--we need not make more than a few days' delay, and then go on to London, and join you and Laura there. What do you say?"
"I think it would do nicely," said Mr. Carruthers. "You and George would hardly like our rate of travelling under any circumstances." It would have afforded any individual endowed with good humour and a sense of the ludicrous great amusement to observe the pleasure and importance with which Mr. Carruthers implied the seriousness of his charge, and the immense signification of a journey undertaken by Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings. "We shall stay some time in town," he continued, "for additional medical advice; and then, I hope, we shall all go down to Poynings together."
"I have secured rooms for George and myself in Piccadilly," said Mark Felton, in a skilfully off-hand manner. "It would never do for two jolly young bachelors like him and me to invade Sir Thomas Boldero's house. Even "--and here Mr. Felton's countenance clouded over, and he continued absently--"even if Arthur did not join us; but I hope he will--I hope he will."
Mr. Carruthers was singularly unfortunate in any attempt to combine politeness with insincerity. He had a distinct conviction that his wife's nephew was a "good-for-nothing," of a different and more despicable order of good-for-nothingness from that which he had imputed to his stepson in his worst days; and though he would have been unfeignedly pleased had Mr. Felton's inquietude been set at rest by the receipt of a letter from his son, he was candidly of opinion that the longer that young gentleman abstained from joining the family-party, the more peaceful and happy that family-party would continue to be.
However, he endeavoured to rise to the occasion, and said he hoped "Mr. Arthur" would accompany his father to Poynings, with not so very bad a grace considering.
The diversion had enabled George to recover himself, and he now drew a chair over beside his mother's, and began to discuss the times and distances of their respective journeys, and other cognate topics of conversation. Mr. Carruthers liked everything in the planning and settling line, and it was quite a spectacle to behold him over the incomprehensible pages of Bradshaw, emphasizing his helplessness with his gold spectacles.
"I suppose ten days will see us all in London," he said to Mr. Felton, "if you leave this with George to-morrow, and we leave on Monday. I have written to my niece. Sir Thomas and Lady Boldero never come to town at this season, so I have asked Clare to come up and see that the house is all comfortable for Laura. Clare can stay at her cousin's till we arrive."
"Her cousin's?" asked Mark Felton; and George blessed him for the question, for he did not know who was meant, and had never yet brought himself to make an inquiry in which Clare Carruthers was concerned, even by implication.
"Mrs. Stanhope, Sir Thomas's daughter," said Mr. Carruthers; "she was married just after we left Poynings."
"The young lady of whom Captain Marsh made such appropriate mention," thought George.
"I ha-ve no town-house," continued Mr. Carruthers with more of the old pompous manner than Mr. Felton had yet remarked in him. "Laura prefers Poynings, so do I; and as my niece came down only this spring and has been detained in the country by several causes, we have not thought it necessary to have one."
"I should think you would find a town-house a decided nuisance," said Mr. Felton, frankly; "and if Miss Carruthers has Sir Thomas Boldero's and Mrs. Stanhope's to go to, I don't see that she wants anything more."
"You forget," said Mr. Carruthers in a quiet tone, which, nevertheless, conveyed to Mr. Felton's quick apprehension that he had made a grave mistake, and implied to perfection the loftiness of rebuke--"you forget that Miss Carruthers is the heiress of Poynings!"
"Ah, to be sure, so I do," said Mark Felton, heartily, "and I beg her pardon and yours; but at least I shall never forget that she is the most charming girl I ever saw in my life." And then, as if a secret inspiration led him to put the question which George longed to hear and dared not ask, he said:
"When is Miss Carruthers to arrive in London?"
"Only three or four days before we shall get there, I fancy. My love," turning abruptly to Mrs. Carruthers, as a happy idea struck him, by which her additional comfort might be secured, "what would you think of my desiring Clare to bring Brookes up with her? Should you like to have her with you when you are in town?"
Mrs. Carruthers turned a face full of distress upon her husband in reply to his kind question. It was deeply flushed for a moment, then it grew deadly pale; her eyes rolled towards George with an expression of doubt, of searching, of misty anguish which filled him with alarm, and she put out her hands with a gesture of avoidance.
"O no, no," she said, "I cannot see her yet--I am not able--I don't know--there's something, there's something."
It might have struck Mr. Carruthers and Mark Felton too, had they not been too much alarmed to think of anything but Mrs. Carruthers's emotion, that when they both approached her eagerly, George did not attempt to do so. He rose, indeed, but it was to push back his chair and get out of their way. Mr. Carruthers asked her tenderly what was the matter, but she replied only by laying her head upon his breast in a passion of tears.
In the evening, when Dr. Merle had seen Mrs. Carruthers, had said a great deal about absolute quiet, but had not interdicted the purposed return to England, when it had been decided that there was to be no leave-taking between her and her brother and son, who were to commence their journey on the morrow, Mr. Carruthers, sitting by his wife's bed, where she then lay quietly asleep, arrived at the conclusion that the old nurse was connected with the "shock." The idea gave him acute pain. It must have been, then, something that had some reference to his wife's past life, something in which he and the present had no share. Very old, and worn, and troubled Mr. Carruthers looked as the darkness came on and filled the room, and once more the night wind arose, and whistled and shrieked over Taunus. He began to wish ardently, earnestly, to get home. It was very strange to look at his wife, always before his eyes, and know she had a terrible secret grief, which had thus powerfully affected her, and not to dare to question her about it. This fresh confirmation of the fact, this new manifestation of her sufferings, after so peaceful an interval, had in it something awful to the mind of Mr. Carruthers.
The brother and the son in their different ways were equally disturbed by the occurrence--Mark Felton in his ignorance and conjecture, George in the painful fulness of his knowledge and his self-reproach.
And as Mark Felton's look had alone arrested George's impulsive desire to reveal his knowledge of Poynings to Mr. Carruthers, so the remembrance of all Routh and Harriet had said to him of the difficulty, the embarrassment, the probable danger of an acknowledgment, alone arrested his desire to inform his uncle of the dreadful error which had caused his mother's illness.
Mark Felton and George Dallas left Homburg for Paris on the following day. They had separated for the night earlier than usual, and George had employed himself for some hours in writing a long and confidential letter to his friend Cunningham. It was addressed to that gentleman at theMercuryoffice, and it contained full details of every particular which he had been able to learn connected with his missing cousin. The purpose of the letter was an urgent request that Cunningham would at once communicate with the police on this matter, and it concluded with these words:
"I cannot conquer my apprehensions, and I will not yet communicate them to my uncle. But, mark this, I am convinced we shall learn nothing good at Paris; and we have done very wrong in not putting the police to work long ago. Don't laugh at me, and call me a novelist in action. I never felt so sure of anything I had not seen as I am of Arthur Felton's having come to serious grief."
The autumn tints were rich and beautiful upon the Kent woods, and nowhere more rich or more beautiful than in Sir Thomas Boldero's domain. The soft grass beneath the noble beeches was strewn with the russet leaves a little earlier than usual that year, and somewhat more plentifully, for the storm had shaken them down, and had even rent away a branch here and there from some of the less sturdy trees. And then the forester made his inspection, and the fallen branches were removed, and duly cut and housed for winter fire-wood, and it chanced that the hitherto forgotten log on which George Dallas had sat one spring morning was carried away with them.
Clare Carruthers missed it from its accustomed place as she rode down the glade which she still loved, though it had a painful association for her now. Every day her eyes had rested on the rugged log, and every day she had turned them away with a sigh. To-day it was there no longer, and its absence was a relief. She reined Sir Lancelot up for a moment, and looked at the vacant space. The earth lay bare and brown where the log had been; there was no grass there.
"It won't be hidden until the spring," she thought, impatiently. "I wish--I wish I could forget the place in which I saw him first! I wish I could forget that I ever had seen him!"
Then she turned her head away with an effort and a sigh, and rode on.
Clare was going over from the Sycamores to Poynings. She had occasion to see the housekeeper, started early, and, as usual, unattended, save by Cæsar, who bounded along now by the side of Sir Lancelot, anon a considerable way in advance, doing the distance twice over, after the fashion of dogs, and evidently compassionating the leisurely pace to which his equine friend and comrade was condemned.
The months which had elapsed since her inauspicious meeting among the beeches with Paul Ward had had much inquietude and mysterious trouble in them for the girl whose graces they had but ripened and perfected, on whose fair face they had impressed a premature but very beautiful thoughtfulness. To one so young, so innocent, so carefully shielded from evil, living in so pure and calm an atmosphere of home, and yet around whom the inevitable solitude of orphanhood dwelt, the presence of a secret cause of sorrow, doubt, perplexity, was in itself a burden grievous to be borne. Clare could not help, dwelling perpetually on the only mystery which had ever come into her tranquil conventional life, and the more she shrank from the contemplation, the more it pressed itself upon her; Sometimes, for days and weeks together, the remembrance of it would be vague and formless, then it would take shape again and substance, and thrill her with fresh horror, distract her with new perplexity. Sometimes she would address herself with all the force of her intelligence to this mysterious remembrance, she would arrange the circumstances in order and question them, and then she would turn away from the investigation cold and trembling, with all the terrible conviction of the first moment of revelation forcibly restored.
The dreadful truth haunted her. When Sir Thomas Boldero asked her ladyship if there was any news in theTimeseach morning (for the Sycamores was governed by other laws than those which ruled Poynings, and Lady Boldero, who was interested in politics after her preserves and her linen-presses, always read the papers first), Clare had listened with horrid sickening fear for many and many a day. But suspense of this sort cannot last in its first vitality, and it had lessened, but it was not wholly dead even yet. One subject of speculation frequently occupied her. Had he seen the warning she had ventured to send him? No, she would sometimes say to herself, decisively, no, he had not seen it. His safety must have been otherwise secured; if he had seen it, he would know that the terrible truth was known to her, and he would never have dared to recall himself to her memory. For he did so recall himself, and this was the most terrible part of it all for Clare. On the first day of each month she received the current number of thePiccadilly, and there was always written on the fly-leaf, "From Paul Ward." No, her attempt had failed; such madness, such audacity, could not otherwise be accounted for. For some time Clare had not looked at the books which reached her with this terribly significant imprint. She had not destroyed them, but she had put them away out of her sight. One day, after her cousin's marriage, and when her thoughts--forcibly distracted for some time by the preparations, the hospitalities, and the rejoicings attendant on that event--had flown back to the subject which had such tormenting attraction for her, a sudden impulse of utter incredulity seized her. Nothing was changed in the facts, nothing in the circumstances; but Clare laid aside reason under the suddenly exerted power of feeling, and refused to believe that Paul Ward had murdered the unknown man in whose company he had been, and who undoubtedly had been murdered.
"Iwon'tbelieve it! I don't believe it!"
These words have often been uttered by the human will, when tortured by the terrible impotence of human despair, as unreasonably, as obstinately, as Clare Carruthers spoke them, and with infinitely more suffering implied in the inevitable reaction. But they can seldom have brought greater relief. A generous, reckless impulse of youth, partly against the terrible knowledge of evil, partly against her own suffering, which wearied and oppressed her spirit, distant, vague, even chimerical as she told herself it was, animated her resolution. She rose, and stretched her arms out, and shook her golden head, as though she discarded a baleful vision by a strong act of her will.
"I shall never see him again," she thought. "I shall never know his fate, unless, indeed, he becomes famous, and the voice of his renown reaches me. I shall never know the truth of this dreadful story; but, strong as the evidence is, I never will believe it more. Never, never!"
Clare Carruthers was too young, too little accustomed to the sad science of self-examination, too candidly persuadable by the natural abhorrence of youth for grief, to ask herself how much of this resolution came from the gradual influence of time--how much from the longing she felt to escape from the constant pressure of the first misery she had ever known. The impulse, the resolution, had come to her, with her first waking thoughts, one glorious morning in the early autumn--the morning which saw George Dallas and his uncle arrive at Homburg, and witnessed Mr. Carruthers's reception of his stepson. This resolution she never abandoned. That day she had taken the books out of their hiding-place, and had set herself to read the serial story which she knew was written by him. Something of his mind, something of his disposition, would thus reveal itself to her. It was strange that he remembered to send her the books so punctually, but that might mean nothing; they might be sent by the publisher, by his order. He might have forgotten her existence by this time. Clare was sensible, and not vain, and she saw nothing more than a simple politeness in the circumstance. So she read the serial novel, and thought over it; but it revealed nothing to her. There was one description, indeed, which reminded her, vaguely, of Mrs. Carruthers, as she had been before her illness, as Clare remembered her, when she had first seen her, years ago. Clare liked the story. She was not enthusiastically delighted with it. A change which her newly-formed resolution to believe him innocent, to chase from her all that had tormented her, could never undo, had passed upon Clare, since her girlish imagination had been ready to exalt Paul Ward, "the author," Paul Ward, "the artist," as she had called him, with all the reverence her innocent heart accorded to such designations, into a hero; she had less impulse in her now, she had suffered, in her silent unsuspected way, and suffering is a sovereign remedy for all enthusiasm except that of religion. But she discerned in the story something which made her reason second her resolution. And from that day Clare grieved no more. She waited, she did not know for what; she hoped, she did not know why; she was pensive, but not unhappy. She was very young, very innocent, very trustful; and the story of the murder was six months old. So was that of the meeting, and that of the myrtle-sprig; and all three were growing vague.
The young girl's thoughts were very busy as she rode from the Sycamores to Poynings, but not exclusively with Paul Ward.
Her life presented itself in a more serious aspect to her then than it had ever before worn. All things seemed changed. Her uncle's letters to her had undergone a strange alteration. He wrote now to her as to one whom he trusted, to whom he looked for aid, on whom he purposed to impose a responsible duty. The pompousness of Mr. Carruthers's nature was absolutely inseparable from his style of writing as from his manner of speech, but the matter of his letters atoned for their faults of manner. He wrote with such anxious affection of his wife, he stepson, whose name Clare had never heard pronounced by his lips or in his presence. Above all, he seemed to expect very much from Clare. Evidently her life was not to be empty of interest for the future, if responsibility could fill it; for Clare was to be intrusted with all the necessary arrangements for Mrs. Carruthers's comfort, and Mrs. Carruthers was very anxious to get back to England, to Poynings, and to Clare! The girl learned this with inexpressible gladness, but some surprise. She was wholly unaware of the feelings with which Mrs. Carruthers had regarded her, and the intentions of maternal care and tenderness which she had formed--feelings she had hidden, intentions she had abandoned from motives of prudence founded on her thorough comprehension of the besetting weakness of her husband's character.
Clare had not the word of the enigma, and it puzzled her. But it delighted her also. Instinctively she felt there was something of Mark Felton's doing in this. He had impressed her as favourably as she had impressed him. She had recognized his possession of the two great qualities, feeling and intelligence, and her own kindred endowments had answered to them at once.
Was she going to be happy and useful? Was she going to be something more than the rich Miss Carruthers, the heiress of Poynings, who had every luxury life could supply, except that of feeling herself of active individual importance to any living creature? Was Poynings going to be as pleasant as the Sycamores, and for a more worthy reason? Clare felt in her honest young heart that the superiority of the Sycamores consisted principally in the fact that the uncle who inhabited that abode was never in her way, whereas the uncle who ruled at Poynings was generally otherwise, and unpleasant. It was very ungrateful of her to feel this; but she did feel it. Was all this going to be altered? Was she going to have the sort of feeling that might have been hers if she had not been the heiress of Poynings, but the real, own daughter of a kind lady who needed and would accept all her girlish love and eager, if unskilful, care? It must be so, Clare thought, now Mrs. Carruthers had her son with her, and she no longer felt that there was injustice done to her, for which Clare was made the reason or the pretext, she would allow her to be all she had always desired to be. How much uselessness, unreality, weariness, fell away from Clare Carruthers as she rode on, the beautiful healthful colour rising higher in her cheeks as the glad thoughts, the vague, sweet, unselfish hopes of the future, expanded in her young heart! She would tell Mrs. Carruthers some day when she was quite well, when there should be no longer any danger of doing her harm by the revelation, about the mystery which had caused her so much suffering, and then, when there should be perfect confidence between them, she would tell her how she had discovered that she, too, was acquainted with Paul Ward. Clare had never speculated seriously upon the cause of Mrs. Carruthers's illness. Her first convictions were, that it had originated in some trouble about her son. The old housekeeper's manner, the removal of the portrait, had sufficed for Clare. This was a sacred sorrow, sacred from Clare's curiosity, even in her thoughts. And now it was at an end, probably thanks to Mark Felton; but, at all events, it was quite over. In the time to come, that future which Clare's fancy was painting so brightly, as her horse carried her swiftly over the familiar road, Mrs. Carruthers might even love her well enough to tell her the story of the past, and what that terrible grief had been.
"I am to take Thomas up to town with me, Mrs. Brookes, and I only wish you were coming too," said Clare to the housekeeper at Poynings, as a concluding item of the budget of news she had to tell. Clare was in high spirits by this time. Mrs. Brookes was much more friendly than usual to the young lady, whom she, too, had always regarded with jealousy, and almost dislike, as the enemy of George.
"I am better here, Miss Carruthers," said Mrs. Brookes. "I daresay there won't be much delay in London--for Mrs. Carruthers and master, I mean. You'll stay awhile with Mrs. Stanhope, belike?"
"O dear no--I certainly shall not," replied Clare, with the prettiest air of importance. "I shall come down with my uncle and aunt. My uncle says we are to come as soon as the doctors will let us go."
"And Mr. Felton also, you say, Miss Carruthers?"
"Yes, and Mr. Dallas. How delighted I am, Mrs. Brookes--how delighted you must be!" The girl's face flushed deeply. She was all glowing with the generous ardour of her feelings. She had taken off her hat, and was standing before the open window in the morning-room, her habit gathered up in one hand, her slight figure trembling, her beautiful face radiant.
"I am sure it has been almost as hard for you as for his mother. I could not say anything about it before, Nurse Ellen"--it was the first time Clare had ever called the old woman by this name--"because--because I knew nothing--no one ever told me anything, and I must have seemed to blame my uncle. But, indeed, it pained me very much, and now--now I am so happy!"
Bright swift tears sparkled in her golden-brown eyes. She dashed them away, and, taking the old woman's hands in hers, she said, with girlish archness,
"You must not hate me any more, Nurse Ellen, for 'Master George' and I are going to be very good friends."
"Hate you, my dear young lady!" said Mrs. Brookes, who was too old to blush externally, but who certainly felt like blushing. "How can you have such fancies? Who could hateyou?"
"You--you dear, faithful old thing! But it's all right now; and, Nurse Ellen," she said, seriously, "I am sure we owe all this happy change to Mr. Felton. The moment I saw that man, I felt he had come to do good. By-the-by, my uncle tells me there is no news of Mr. Felton's son yet. I suppose you never saw him, nurse?"
"La, bless you, no, my dear. I never saw his father till the day he came here. Mr. Arthur was born in America."
"Did he ever come to England before? Did Mrs. Carruthers ever see him?"
"Never. He told his father he would see his aunt the first thing he did, and he never came anigh the place. I doubt he's a black sheep, Miss Carruthers."
"I hope not, for his father's sake, nurse."
And then Clare proceeded to make various arrangements with Mrs. Brookes, thinking the while: "Arthur Felton never was here. Mrs. Carruthers never saw him. For a moment I fancied he might have been Paul Ward."
"I wonder what I shall think of George Dallas?" thought Clare as she rode away from Poynings in the afternoon, having given Thomas the necessary orders. "I wonder what he will think of me? I dare say he does not like the idea of me much. Perhaps I should not like the idea ofhim, if he were in my place and I in his; but, as it is,I decidedly do."
Attended by her maid and Thomas, Miss Carruthers went to London on the following day. Mrs. Stanhope met her at the railway station, and took her home with her. The footman was despatched to Sir Thomas Boldero's house in Chesham-place. In the course of the evening he went to Mrs. Stanhope's house, and asked to see Clare. His errand was to inform her that Mr. Felton and Mr. Dallas had arrived in London, and were particularly desirous of seeing Miss Carruthers. He (Thomas) had Mr. Felton's orders to ascertain from Miss Carruthers whether she would see them, on the following day, at Chesham-place, and if so, at what hour. He was to take her answer to Mr. Felton's lodgings in Piccadilly.
"When did the gentlemen arrive?" Miss Carruthers asked.
Thomas could not say exactly, but he thought they had only just reached London. They had overcoats on, and looked "travellers-like."
Clare sent word to Mr. Felton that she should be at Cheshamplace at noon the next day, and would be very happy to see him. She did not mention Mr. Dallas, but it was by no means necessary she should do so.
Punctually at twelve on the following day, Mrs. Stanhope's brougham deposited Clare Carruthers at Sir Thomas Boldero's house. It was in process of preparation for the expected guests; but had not quite thrown off the drowsy unoccupied look of a house whose owners were absent. Its appearance bore the same relation to the state it would assume by-and-by as that of an individual who has just persuaded himself to rise, and is yawning and shivering in the process, bears to that of the same individual in his tubbed, dressed, shaved, breakfasted, newspaper-read, hatted, gloved, and ready-for-the-day condition.
Clare got out of the carriage, gave the coachman some directions, stood at the door until he had driven off, and made a remark or two (ever reminiscent of Poynings punctiliousness) relative to the area-railings and door-steps to Thomas before she entered the house. He listened gravely, promised to attend to these matters, and then said:
"Mr. Dallas has been here some time, ma'am."
"Indeed!" said Clare, pausing just inside the hall-door. "Is Mr. Felton not here?"
"He will be here directly, ma'am. He came with Mr. Dallas, but went away again. I showed Mr. Dallas into the study, ma'am."
Clare felt rather embarrassed. She wished Mrs. Stanhope had been with her--she wished Mr. Felton had remained until she came, or had taken his nephew with him. It was so awkward to have to introduce herself to George Dallas, a stranger, and yet not exactly a stranger. She hesitated; her colour rose. What should she do? What was not the easiest or pleasantest thing to do--for that would be to go to the drawing-room and remain there until Mr. Felton should come, leaving Mr. Dallas to a similar vigil in the study--but the kindest. Clearly, to give Mrs. Carruthers's son the friendliest greeting in her power, to show him, in her little way, how pleased she was at the family reunion, how much she desired to be numbered among his friends.
The study windows faced the street; he had probably seen the carriage, and heard her voice. He might be even now hurt by her tarrying.
Clare delayed no longer. She crossed the hall, opened the door of Sir Thomas Boldero's study, saw a man's figure close to one of the windows, shut the door, took two or three steps, and said, in the sweet gentle tone which was one of her peculiar charms:
"Mr. Dallas, I am so much pleased."
Then the figure turned away from the window, and Clare found herself in the presence of Paul Ward.
The same day which had witnessed the departure from Homburg of Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers, and the commencement of the journey which had London for its destination, beheld that city in an unusually agreeable aspect in point of weather. The sun was warm and bright; the sadness and sweetness of autumn filled the air, and lent their poetical charm to the prosaic streets, and impressed themselves sensibly and unacknowledged upon the prosaic dwellers therein. People who had no business or pleasure, or combination of both, to call them abroad, went out on that day, and rode or drove or walked, because the rare beauty and charm of the day imperatively required such homage. Women and children were out in the Parks, and, but for the fallen leaves upon the ground, and the peculiar sigh which made itself heard now and again among the trees--a sound which the ear that has once learned to distinguish it never fails to catch when the summer is dead--the summer might be supposed to be still living.
The brightest thoroughfare in London, Piccadilly, was looking very bright that autumn day, with all the windows of the few houses which can lay claim to anything of the beauty of grandeur glittering in the sun, and an astounding display of carriages, considering the season, enlivening the broad sloping road. The Greek Park was dotted over with groups of people, as in the summer-time, and along the broad path beyond the iron railings solitary pedestrians walked or loitered, unmolested by weather, just as it suited their fancy. The few and far-between benches had their occupants, of whom some had books, some cigars, and some babies. Perambulators were not wanting, neither were irascible elderly gentlemen to swear at them. It was happily too hot for hoops.
This exceptional day was at its best and brightest when Harriet Routh came down the street in which she lived, crossed Piccadilly, and entered the Park. She was, as usual, very plainly dressed, and her manner had lost none of its ordinary quietude. Nevertheless, a close observer would have seen that she looked and breathed like a person in need of free fresh air, of movement, of freedom; that though the scene, the place in which she found herself, was indifferent to her, perhaps wholly unobserved by her, the influence upon her physical condition was salutary. She did not cross the grass, but walked slowly, and with her eyes turned earthwards, along the broad path near the railings. Occasionally she looked up, and lifted her head, as if to inhale as much as possible of the fresh air, then fell into her former attitude again, and continued her walk. Her face bore an expression of intense thought--the look of one who had brought a subject out with her in her mind, which subject she was resolved to think out, to look at in every aspect, to bring to a final decision. She kept a straight, clear course in her walk, looking neither to the right nor to the left, pondering deeply, as might have been seen by the steady tension of her low white forehead and the firm set of her lips. At last she paused, when she had traversed the entire length of the walk several times, and looked about her for an unoccupied seat. She descried one, with no nearer neighbour than the figure of a boy, not exactly ragged, but very shabby, extended on the grass beside it, resting on his elbows, with a fur cap pulled down over his eyes, leaving the greater portion of a tangled head exposed to view, and a penny illustrated journal, whose contents, judging by the intentness with which he was devouring them, must have been of a highly sensational character, stretched out on the ground before him. Harriet took no notice of the boy, nor did he perceive her, when she seated herself on the bench by which he lay. She sat down noiselessly, folded her hands, and let her head fall forward, looking out with the distant absorbed gaze which had become habitual to her. She sat very still, and never for a moment did the purpose in her face relax. She was thinking, she was not dreaming.
After a while she looked at her watch, and rose. At the first step which she made on the grass, and towards the railings, her silk dress rustled over the outspread paper from which the boy was reading. She looked down, apologetically; the boy looked up angrily, and then Mr. James Swain jumped up, and made the movement which in his code of manners passed for a bow to Harriet.
"Ah, is it you, Jim?" she said. "Are you not busy to-day?"
"No, mum, I ain't," said Jim. "Mr. Routh hadn't no messages this mornin', and I ain't been lucky since."
"It's a nice day for you to have a little time to yourself," said Harriet. "I hope you got all the commissions I left for you."
"I did, mum, and thank'ee," said Jim. Harriet had remembered the street-boy when she was leaving home, and had charged her servants to employ him. She had not the slightest suspicion of the extensive use which Routh was in the habit of making of his services.
"The windows is to be cleaned," said Jim, suggestively. "There warn't time, mum; you come home so unexpected."
"Very well," said Harriet. "I suppose you can clean them, can't you?"
"Mr. Harris said as I might try," returned Jim. Mr. Harris was the irreproachable man-servant attached to Routh's modest establishment in Mayfair.
Harriet moved on, and Jim Swain stood still, looking after her. She was a puzzle to him, and an object of constant interest. By little and little Jim had come to know a good deal about Stewart Routh and his daily life, and he had abandoned the first theory which had presented itself to his mind, and which had owed its inspiration to the illustrated penny literature which formed his intellectual food. He no longer believed Harriet a persecuted victim of her husband's groundless jealousy. For reasons of his own, equally strong and secret, Mr. James Swain had taken a lively interest in George Dallas, had experienced certain emotions on seeing him, and had taken very kindly to the business of espionage in which Routh had engaged his services, without affording him any indication of its purpose. At first the boy had conceived an idea that Dallas was the object of Harriet's supposed preference and Routh's supposed jealousy, but he abandoned that notion very speedily, and since then he had not succeeded in forming any new theory to his satisfaction. From the conversation of the servants, Jim had learned that Mr. Dallas and Mr. Felton, with whose personal appearance the boy was equally familiar, had gone to the same place in foreign parts as that to which Mr. and Mrs. Routh had gone a little later, and knowing this, Jim thought more and more frequently over certain circumstances which he had kept to himself with extraordinary discretion--discretion, indeed, which nothing but the strongest possible sense of self-interest, as inseparable from its observance, could have enabled him to preserve.
"He don't like him," Jim would say to himself, with frequent repetition, "he don't like him, can't abear him; I knows that precious well. And he can't be afraid of him, as I can see, for he certainly warn't neither in nor nearthatbusiness, and I'm blest if he knows anythin' about it. Wotever can he want to know all about him for, and keep a-follerin' him about? It ain't for no good ashefollers anybody, I'll take my davy." And Mr. James Swain's daily reflections invariably terminated with that formula, which was indeed a simple and accurate statement of the boy's belief. His abandonment of his theories concerning Harriet had worked no change in his mind towards Routh. His familiarity with Routh's servants, his being in a manner free of the house--free, but under the due amount of inspection and suspicion justified by his low estate--enlightened him as to Harriet's domestic position, and made him wonder exceedingly, in his half-simple, half-knowing way, how "the like of her could be spoony on sich a cove as him," which was Mr. James Swain's fashion of expressing his sense of the moral disparity between the husband and wife.
This was the second time that Jim had seen Mrs. Routh since her return from the trip which he had been told was specially undertaken for the benefit of her health. The first time was on the day of her arrival, when Jim had fortunately been "handy," and had helped with the luggage. He had made his observations then upon Harriet's appearance with all his native impudence; for though the element of suspicion, which lent his interest in Harriet something tragic, had died out of it, that interest continued lively; but he had admitted that it was pardonable that she should look "precious blue and funky" after a journey.
But looking at her more attentively on this second occasion, and when there was no journey in the case, Jim arrived at the conclusion that whatever had "ailed" Mrs. Routh before she left home ailed her still.
"Uncommon ill she do look, to be sure," he said to himself, as he crumpled up the exciting fiction which he had been reading, and which "left off" at a peculiarly thrilling crisis, and wedged the illustrated journal into his cap; "uncommon ill. Wot's the good of all them baths and things, if she's to come back lookin' like this--a deal worse,Icall it, and much miserabler in her mind? Wotever ails her?"
At this point in his cogitations Jim began to move on, slowly indeed, and keeping his eye on Harriet, who had reached one of the gates of the Park opening into Piccadilly, had passed through it, and was just about to cross to the opposite side. She stood for a moment irresolute, then turned, came through the gate again, and rapidly approached Jim, beckoning him towards her as she came.
She stood still as the boy ran up to her, and pointed to one of the smaller but much decorated houses on the opposite side of the way.
"Jim," she said, "you see that house, where the wide windows are, all one pane, and the bright balconies there, the house with the wide door, and the heavy carved railings?"
"Yes, mum, I see," said Jim.
"Go to that house, and ask if anything has been heard from Mr. Felton. Ask when he is expected--he has taken lodgings there--whether any other gentleman is expected to come with him--and, Jim, be sure to ask in particular whether any letters have been received for Mr. Felton, and sent on to him."
Jim Swain looked at Harriet. There was something strange as well as intelligent in the look, but she saw only the intelligence. It harmonized with the thought in her own mind, and she replied to it:
"You think, perhaps, they may not like to tell you," she said. "Perhaps they may not. But you may tell whoever answers you that Mr. Felton's sister wishes to know--" Jim still looked at her, and Harriet felt that he did so, but this time she did not catch his eye. "Be quick," she said, "and bring me the answer yonder." She pointed to the bench on which she had been sitting, and which was beyond the reach of observation from the house she had indicated, and walked away towards it as she ceased speaking. "It cannot be helped," she said. "The risk is a trifling one at worst, and must be run. I could not put Harris in communication with any one on a false pretext, and I can trust this boy so far not to say he has asked this question for me. I cannot bear it any longer. I must know how much time there is before me. Imusthave so much certainty; if not, I shall go mad."
She had reached the bench now, and sat down in the former attitude.
"Once before I asked myself," she muttered, "if I was going mad. I did not feel more like it then than now--not so like it, indeed. I knew what he was doing then, I had found him out. But I don't know now--I don't know now. I am in the dark, and the tide is rising."
Jim came back from his errand. He had been civilly answered by a woman-servant. Mr. Felton was expected in a few days; the exact day was not yet named. No letters had been received for him. He had sent no orders relative to the forwarding of any. Having delivered his message so far, Jim Swain hesitated. Harriet understood the reticence, and spared a momentary thought for passing wonderment at this little touch of delicacy in so unpromising a subject for the exhibition of the finer emotions.
"Did the person who answered you ask you any question?" she said.
"No, mum," said Jim, relieved. Harriet said no more, she knew he had not made the false statement which had proved to be needless, and something assured her that there was no necessity that she should caution Jim to say nothing concerning this commission. Now she went away in reality--went home. She ascended the stairs to her room, and looked at her face in a glass as she took her bonnet off, and thought, "I wonder if people can see in my face that I am turning into a coward, and am going mad? I could not knock at that door and ask that simple, natural question for myself--I could not: and a little while ago,since--ay,long-since--I could have done anything. But not now--not now. When the time comes, when the waiting is over, when the suspense is ended, then I may be strong again, if indeed I am not quite mad by then; but now--now I cannot do anything--I cannot evenwait."
The fixed look had left her face, and was succeeded by a painful wildness, and an expression almost like that of some present physical terror. She pressed her hands upon her temples and rocked herself to and fro, but there was no wild abandonment of grief in the gesture. Presently she began to moan, but all unconsciously; for catching the sound after a little, she checked it angrily. Then she took up some needlework, but it dropped from her hands after a few minutes. She started up, and said, quite aloud, "It's no use--it's no use; Imusthave rest!" Then she unlocked her dressing-case, took out a bottle of laudanum, poured some of the contents into a glass of water, drank the mixture, and lay down upon her bed. She was soon in a deep sleep which seemed peaceful and full of rest. It was undisturbed. A servant came into the room, but did not arouse her, and it was understood in the house that "master" would probably not return to dinner.
Mr. James Swain turned his steps in the direction of the delectable region in which his home was situated. He was in so far more fortunate than many of his class that he had a home, though a wretched one. It consisted of a dingy little room at the back of the third story in a rickety house in Strutton-ground, and was shared with a decrepit female, the elder sister of the boy's dead mother, who earned a frightfully insufficient subsistence by shoe-binding. More precarious than ever was this fragile means of living now, for her sight was failing, as her strength had failed. But things had been looking up with Jim of late, odd jobs had been plenty, his services had reached in certain quarters the status of recognized facts, and the street-boy was kind to his old relative. They were queer people, but not altogether uninteresting, and, strange to say, by no means unhappy. Old Sally had never been taught anything herself but shoe-binding, or she would have imparted instruction to Jim. Now Jim had learned to read in his mother's lifetime, and before his father had "come to grief" and been no more heard of, and it was consequently he who imparted instruction to his aunt. She was as fond of penny romances as the boy himself, and was wonderfully quick at discovering the impenetrable mysteries and unwinding the labyrinthine webs of those amazing productions. So Jim, cheered by the prospect of a lucrative job for the morrow, purchased a fresh and intensely horrible pennyworth by the way, and devoted himself for the evening to the delectation of old Sally, who liked her murders, as she liked her tea and her snuff, strongly flavoured.
The pennyworth lasted a good while, for Jim read slowly and elaborately, and conversational digressions occurred frequently. The heroine of the story, a proud and peerless peeress, was peculiarly fascinating to the reader and the listener.
"Lor, Jim," said old Sally, when the last line had been spelled over, and Jim was reluctantly obliged to confess that that was "all on it"--"lor, Jim, to think of that sweet pretty creetur, Rorer."--the angelic victim of the story was known to mortals as Aurora,--"knowing as how her ladyship 'ad been and done it all, and dyin' all alone in the moonshine, along o' thinkin' on her mother's villany."
Ordinarily, when Jim Swain lay down on his flock bed in the corner, he went to sleep with enviable rapidity; but the old woman's words had touched some chord of association or wonder in his clumsily arranged but not unintelligent mind; so that long after old Sally, in her corner of her little room, was sound asleep, Jim sat up hastily, ran his hands through his tangled hair, and said aloud:
"Good Lord! that's it! She'ssureshe knows it, she knows he did it, and she hidin' on it, and kiverin' of it up, and it's killing her."
The stipulated hour in the morning beheld Jim Swain engaged in the task of window-cleaning, not very unpleasant in such weather. He pursued his occupation with unusual seriousness; the impression of the previous night remained upon him.
The back parlour, called, of course, the "study" in Routh's house, deserved the name as much or as little as such rooms ordinarily merit it. The master of the house, at least, used the room habitually, reading there a little, and writing a great deal. He had been sitting before a bureau, which occupied a space to the right of the only window in the apartment, for some time, when Harriet came to ask him if the boy, who was cleaning the windows, might go on with that one.
"Certainly," said Routh, absently; "he won't disturb me."
It would have required something of more importance than the presence of a boy on the other side of the window to disturb Routh. He was arranging papers with the utmost intentness. The drawers of the bureau were open on either side, the turned-down desk was covered with papers, some tied up in packets, others open: a large sheet, on which lines of figures were traced, lay on the blotting-pad. The dark expression most familiar to it was upon Stewart Routh's face that morning, and the tightly compressed lips never unclosed for a moment as he pursued his task. Jim Swain, on the outside of the window, which was defended by a narrow balcony and railing, could see him distinctly, and looked at him with much eagerness while he polished the panes. It was a fixed belief with Jim that Routh was always "up to" something, and the boy was apt to discover confirmation in the simplest actions of his patron. Had another observer of Routh's demeanour been present, he might, probably, have shared Jim's impression; for the man's manner was intensely preoccupied. He read and wrote, sorted papers, tied them up, and put them away, with unremitting industry.
Presently he stretched his hand up to a small drawer in the upper compartment of the bureau; but, instead of taking a paper or a packet from it, he took down the drawer itself, placed it on the desk before him, and began to turn over its contents with a still more darkly frowning face. Jim, at the corner of the window furthest from him, watched him so closely that he suspended the process of polishing; but Routh did not notice the cessation. Presently he came upon the papers which he had looked for, and was putting them into the breast-pocket of his coat, when he struck the drawer with his elbow, and knocked it off the desk. It fell on the floor, and its contents were scattered over the carpet. Among them was an object which rolled away into the window, and immediately caught the attention of Jim Swain. The boy looked at it, through the glass, with eyes in which amazement and fear contended. Routh picked up the contents of the drawer, all but this one object, and looked impatiently about in search of it. Then Jim, desperately anxious to see this thing nearer, took a resolution. He tapped at the window, and signed to Routh to open it and let him in. Routh, surprised, did so.
"Here it is, sir," said Jim, not entering the room, but sprawling over the window-sill, and groping with his long hands along the border of a rug which sheltered the object of Routh's search from his observation--"here it is, sir. I see it when it fell, and I knowed you couldn't see it from where you was."
The boy looked greedily at the object in his hand, and rolled it about once or twice before he handed it to Routh, who took it from him with a careless "Thank you." His preoccupied manner was still upon him. Then Jim shut down the window again from the outside and resumed his polishing. Routh replaced the drawer. Jim tried very hard to see where he placed the object he had held for a moment in his hand, but he could not succeed. Then Routh locked the bureau, and, opening a door of communication with the dining-room, Jim caught a momentary sight of Harriet sitting at the table, and went to his breakfast.
The seriousness of the previous night had grown and deepened over the boy. Abandoning the pursuit of odd jobs precisely at the hour of the day when he usually found them most plentiful, Jim took his way homewards with headlong speed. Arrived within sight of the wretched houses, he paused. He did not wish any one to see what he was going to do. Fortune favoured him. As he stood irresolute at one end of the narrow street, his aunt came out of the door. She was going, he knew, to do her humble shopping, which consisted, for the most part, in haggling with costermongers by the side of their carts, and cheapening poor vegetables at the stalls. She would not be coming back just yet. He waited until she had turned the opposite corner, and then plunged into the open doorway and up the dark staircase. Arrived at the room which formed his sole habitation, Jim shut the door, and unceremoniously pulled away his flock bed, rolled up neatly enough in a corner, from the wall. This wall was covered with a paper once gaudy, now dreary with the utter dreariness of dirt charged on bright colour, and had a wooden surbase about a foot in depth. Above the surbase there was a hole, not so large as to be easily remarked in a place where dilapidation of every sort was the usual state of things, and in this hole Jim insinuated his hand. There was suggestive dexterity in the way he did this; the lithe fingers had suppleness and readiness, swiftness and accuracy of touch, which, if there had been any one to care for the boy, that one would doubtless have noticed with regret. If he were not already a thief, Jim Swain possessed some of the physical requisites for that profession. Presently he withdrew the lithe hand, and looked steadfastly at the object which it had extracted from the hole in the wall. He turned it over and over, he examined it within and without, then he put it back again in the hiding-place, and replaced his bed.
Old Sally was much surprised, when she returned from her "marketing," to find her nephew at home. The apparition of Jim in the daytime, except on stray occasions, when, fortune being unpropitious, he would come home to see what his aunt could do for him in the way of dinner, was exceedingly rare. But he explained it now by saying he was tired, and had been well paid for a job he had done that morning. He proposed that he should get something choice that day for dinner, and stay "in" until evening.
"There's a new play at the 'Delphi to-night," said Jim, "and there'll be plenty of jobs down that way, callin' cabs and helpin' visitors to the hupper circles, as can't afford 'em, across the street. They're awful bewildered, mostly, when they come out of the theayter, and dreadful timid of the 'busses."
Very silent, and apparently sleepy, was Mr. James Swain all day; and as his old aunt sat patiently toiling by the window, he lay upon his bed with his knees up, and his hands crossed on the top of his tousled head. Allowing for the difference created by refinement, education, and the habit of thinking on a system, only possible to the educated, there was some resemblance in the expression of the boy's face to that which Harriet Routh's had worn yesterday, when she had carried the burden of her thoughts, under the clear sky and the sunshine, in the Green Park. Jim Swain, too, looked as if he alone, unaided as she, was thinking it out.
The new play at the Adelphi was very successful. The theatre was crowded; the autumnal venture had turned out admirably; and though the audience could not be called fashionable, it was perhaps rather more animated and satisfactory in consequence. Jim Swain's most sanguine hopes were realized. The night was fine; people did not mind waiting a few minutes; good humour and threepenny-pieces were abundant. A tolerable sprinkling of private carriages relieved the plebeian plenitude of cabs, and these vehicles were called up with an energy to which, in the season, human nature would hardly have been equal. Tim was extremely active in summoning them, and had just returned breathless to the portico of the theatre to catch another name, and rush away again to proclaim it to the listening flunkies, when he was arrested by the sight of a gentleman whose face he knew, who was standing under the garish light of the entry with a lady, whose hand rested on his arm, and whose face was turned upward towards him, so that the full glare of the light fell upon it. Her tall figure, the splendour of her dress, the careless grace of her attitude, the appearance of unconsciousness of the general observation she was attracting, even in that self-engrossed crowd--pardonably self-engrossed, considering that it was occupied with the care of getting home as soon as possible--would have made her a sufficiently remarkable object to attract Jim's attention; but there was more than perception of all these things in the look which he fixed upon her. He stood still, a little in the shade. Routh did not see him. The lady was looking at him, and he saw nothing but her face--nothing but the brilliant dark eyes, so bright for all the world, so soft for only him; nothing but the crimson lips, which trembled; the rose-tinted cheek, which paled only at his words--only under his glance.
Her carriage was called. She walked towards it with her dress sweeping round her, and the other people fell back, and let her pass, naturally, and not by the urgency of the dingy officials who brawl and fight on such occasions. When she had taken her seat in the carriage, Routh followed her, and then Jim started forward. There was no footman, so the man with the badge and the lantern, well known and prized of unprotected females with a taste for theatre-going, asked, "Where to?" Jim, quite close, and totally unobserved, listened eagerly. The lady's voice replied, "Home."
"Home," said the man with the lantern, and instantly turned his attention to the next departures. Jim Swain glanced at the carriage; it had no rumble, only a footboard. As it drove off slowly, for the Strand was crowded, he dashed into the jumble of cabs and omnibuses and followed it, running desperately, but dexterously too, and succeeded in keeping up with it until, at a point of comparative obscurity, he clambered up on the footboard.
The carriage rolled westward, and carried Jim Swain with it until it reached one of the small so-called squares which are situated between Brompton proper and Chelsea. Then it stopped before a house with a heavy stone portico and a heavy stone balcony. Jim slid lightly to the ground, and hid himself in the shelter of the heavy stone portico of the adjoining house. Routh got out of the carriage; and when the house-door was opened, and a flood of light issued from it, he handed out the lady. She stood breathing the sweet air a moment, and the light once more touched her face and her dress with a rich radiance.
"It's her," said Jim. "It's her--herandhim."
"What a lovely night!" said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, and then the door closed on her and Routh, and Jim stood still in his hiding-place until the carriage had slowly departed to the adjacent mews. Then he emerged from the portico, went up the steps of the house the lady and her companion had entered, and looked at the number on the door, distinctly visible by the light of the gas-jet within.
"Number four," said Jim; "now for the name of the square;" and he crossed the road, skirted the railings of the enclosed patch of brown ground and stunted shrubs, and took the opposite side of the way. The night was clear and bright, and the name of the square was distinctly legible.
"Hollington-square," said Jim. "They called Mrs. Bembridge's carriage. I have not a bad head for names, but I'll get Teddy Smith to write these down. And I can't stand it any longer; I must do something. I'll try and get Mr. Dallas to let me speak to him when he comes from abroad, and then I'll tell him all about it. I suppose," said Jim very ruefully, "if he thinks right to tell, they'll lag me; but it can't be helped. Almost every one as I've knowed gets lagged some time or other."