"That is the way of looking at such things in the class you belong to, I dare say," rejoined Hesper; "but with us it is quite different. There is no necessity laid uponyou. Ourposition obliges us."
"But what if God should not see it as you do?"
"If that is all you have got to bring against me!—" said Hesper, with a forced laugh.
"But that is not all," replied Mary. "When you married, you promised many things, not one of which you have ever done."
"Really, Mary, this is intolerable!" cried Hesper.
"I am only doing what you asked me, ma'am," said Mary. "And I have said nothing that every one about Mr. Redmain does not know as well as I do."
Hesper wished heartily she had never challenged Mary's judgment.
"But," she resumed, more quietly, "how could you, how could any one, how could God himself, hard as he is, ask me to fulfill the part of a loving wife to a man like Mr. Redmain?—There is no use mincing matters withyou,Mary."
"But you promised," persisted Mary. "It belongs, besides, to the very idea of marriage."
"There are a thousand promises made every day which nobody is expected to keep. It is the custom, the way of the world! How many of the clergy, now, believe the things they put their names to?"
"They must answer for themselves. We are not clergymen, but women, who ought never to say a thing except we mean it, and, when we have said it, to stick to it."
"But just look around you, and see how many there are in precisely the same position! Will you dare to say they are all going to be lost because they do not behave like angels to their brutes of husbands?"
"I say, they have got to repent of behaving to their husbands as their husbands behave to them."
"And what if they don't?"
Mary paused a little.
"Do you expect to go to heaven, ma'am?" she asked
"I hope so."
"Do you think you will like it?"
"I must say, I think it will be rather dull."
"Then, to use your own word, you must be very like lost anyway. There does not seem to be a right place for you anywhere, and that is very like being lost—is it not?"
Hesper laughed.
"I am pretty comfortable where I am," she said.
"Husband and all!" thought Mary, but she did not say that. What she did say was:
"But you know you can't stay here. God is not going to keep up this way of things for you; can you ask it, seeing you don't care a straw what he wants of you? But I have sometimes thought, What if hell be just a place where God gives everybody everything she wants, and lets everybody do whatever she likes, without once coming nigh to interfere! What a hell that would be! For God's presence in the very being, and nothing else, is bliss. That, then, would be altogether the opposite of heaven, and very much the opposite of this world. Such a hell would go on, I suppose, till every one had learned to hate every one else in the same world with her."
This was beyond Hesper, and she paid no attention to it.
"You can never, in your sober senses, Mary," she said, "mean that God requires of me to do things for Mr. Redmain that the servants can do a great deal better! That would be ridiculous—not to mention that I oughtn't and couldn't and wouldn't do them for any man!"
"Many a woman," said Mary, with a solemnity in her tone which she did not intend to appear there, "has done many more trying things for persons of whom she knew nothing."
"I dare say! But such women go in for being saints, and that is not my line. I was not made for that."
"You were made for that, and far more," said Mary.
"There are such women, I know," persisted Hesper; "but I do not know how they find it possible."
"I can tell you how they find it possible. They love every human being just because he is human. Your husband might be a demon from the way you behave to him."
"I supposeyoufind it agreeable to wait upon him: he is civil to you, I dare say!"
"Not very," replied Mary, with a smile; "but the person who can not bear with a sick man or a baby is not fit to be a woman."
"You may go to your own room," said Hesper.
For the first time, a feeling of dislike to Mary awoke in the bosom of her mistress—very naturally,allmy readers will allow. The next few days she scarcely spoke to her, sending directions for her work through Sepia, who discharged the office with dignity.
At length one morning, when she believed Mrs. Redmain would not rise before noon, Mary felt she must go and see Letty. She did not find her in the quarters where she had left her, but a story higher, in a mean room, sitting with her hands in her lap. She did not lift her eyes when Mary entered: where hope is dead, curiosity dies. Not until she had come quite near did she raise her head, and then she seemed to know nothing of her. When she did recognize her, she held out her hand in a mechanical way, as if they were two specters met in a miserable dream, in which they were nothing to each other, and neither could do, or cared to do, anything for the other.
"My poor Letty!" cried Mary, greatly shocked, "what has come to you? Are you not glad to see me? Has anything happened to Tom?"
She broke into a low, childish wail, and for a time that was all Mary heard. Presently, however, she became aware of a feeble moaning in the adjoining chamber, the sound of a human sea in trouble—mixed with a wandering babble, which to Letty was but as the voice of her own despair, and to Mary was a cry for help. She abandoned the attempt to draw anything from Letty, and went into the next room, the door of which stood wide. There lay Tom, but so changed that Mary took a moment to be certain it was he. Going softly to him, she laid her hand on his head. It was burning. He opened his eyes, but she saw their sense was gone. She went back to Letty, and, sitting down beside her, put her arm about her, and said:
"Why didn't you send for me, Letty? I would have come to you at once. I will come now, to-night, and help you to nurse him. Where is the baby?"
Letty gave a shriek, and, starting from her chair, walked wildly about the room, wringing her hands. Mary went after her, and taking her in her arms, said:
"Letty, dear, has God taken your baby?"
Letty gave her a lack-luster look.
"Then," said Mary, "he is not far away, for we are all in God's arms."
But what is the use of the most sovereign of medicines while they stand on the sick man's table? What is the mightiest of truths so long as it is not believed? The spiritually sick still mocks at the medicine offered; he will not know its cure. Mary saw that, for any comfort to Letty, God was nowhere. It went to her very heart. Death and desolation and the enemy were in possession. She turned to go, that she might return able to begin her contest with ruin. Letty saw that she was going, and imagined her offended and abandoning her to her misery. She flew to her, stretching out her arms like a child, but was so feeble that she tripped and fell. Mary lifted her, and laid her wailing on her couch.
"Letty," said Mary, "you didn't think I was going to leave you! But I must go for an hour, perhaps two, to make arrangements for staying with you till Tom is over the worst."
Then Letty clasped her hands in her old, beseeching way, and looked up with a faint show of comfort.
"Be courageous, Letty," said Mary. "I shall be back as soon as ever I can. God has sent me to you."
She drove straight home, and heard that Mrs. Redmain was annoyed that she had gone out.
"I offered to dress her," said Jemima; "and she knows I can quite well; but she would not get up till you came, and made me fetch her a book. So there she is, a-waiting for you!"
"I am sorry," said Mary; "but I had to go, and she was fast asleep."
When she entered her room, Hesper gave her a cold glance over the top of her novel, and went on with her reading. Mary proceeded to get her things ready for dressing. But by this time she had got interested in the story.
"I shall not get up yet," she said.
"Then, please, ma'am," replied Mary, "would you mind letting Jemima dress you? I want to go out again, and should be glad if you could do without me for some days. My friend's baby is dead, and both she and her husband are very ill."
Hesper threw down her book, and her eyes flamed.
"What do you mean by using me so, Miss Marston?" she said.
"I am very sorry to put you to inconvenience," answered Mary; "but the husband seems dying, and the wife is scarcely able to crawl."
"I have nothing to do with it," interrupted Hesper. "When you made it necessary for me to part with my maid, you undertook to perform her duties. I did not engage you as a sick-nurse for other people."
"'No, ma'am," replied Mary; "but this is an extreme case, and I can not believe you will object to my going."
"I do object. How, pray, is the world to go on, if this kind of thing be permitted! I may be going out to dinner, or to the opera to-night, for anything you know, and who is there to dress me? No; on principle, and for the sake of example, I will not let you go."
"I thought," said Mary, not a little disappointed in Hesper, "I did not stand to you quite in the relation of an ordinary servant."
"Certainly you do not: I look for a little more devotion from you than from a common, ungrateful creature who thinks only of herself. But you are all alike."
More and more distressed to find one she had loved so long show herself so selfish, Mary's indignation had almost got the better of her. But a little heightening of her color was all the show it made.
"Indeed, it is quite necessary, ma'am," she persisted, "that I should go."
"The law has fortunately made provision against such behavior," said Hesper. "You can not leave without giving me a month's notice."
"The understanding on which I came to you was very different," said Mary, sadly.
"It was; but, since then, you consented to become my maid."
"It is ungenerous to take advantage of that," returned Mary, growing angry again.
"I have to protect myself and the world in general from the consequences that must follow were such lawless behavior allowed to pass."
Hesper spoke with calm severity, and Mary, making up her mind, answered now with almost equal calmness.
"The law was made for both sides, ma'am; and, as you bring the law to me, I will take refuge in the law. It is, I believe, a month's warning or a month's wages; and, as I have never had any wages, I imagine I am at liberty to go. Good-by, ma'am."
Hesper made her no answer, and Mary left the room. She went to her own, stuffed her immediate necessities into a bag, let herself out of the house, called a cab, and, with a great lump in her throat, drove to the help of Letty.
First she had a talk with the landlady, and learned all she could tell. Then she went up, and began to make things as comfortable as she could: all was in sad disorder and neglect.
With the mere inauguration of cleanliness, and the first dawn of coming order, the courage of Letty began to revive a little. The impossibility of doing all that ought to be done, had, in her miserable weakness, so depressed her that she had not done even as much as she could—except where Tom was immediately concerned: there she had not failed of her utmost.
Mary next went to the doctor to get instructions, and then to buy what things were most wanted. And now she almost wished Mrs. Redmain had paid her for her services, for she must write to Mr. Turnbull for money, and that she disliked. But by the very next post she received, inclosed in a business memorandum in George's writing, the check for fifty pounds she had requested.
She did not dare write to Tom's mother, because she was certain, were she to come up, her presence would only add to the misery, and take away half the probability of his recovery and of Letty's, too. In the case of both, nourishment was the main thing; and to the fit providing and the administering of it she bent her energy.
For a day or two, she felt at times as if she could hardly get through what she had undertaken; but she soon learned to drop asleep at any moment, and wake immediately when she was wanted; and thereafter her strength was by no means so sorely tried.
Under her skillful nursing—skillful, not from experience, but simply from her faith, whence came both conscience of and capacity for doing what the doctor told her—things went well. It is from their want of this faith, and their consequent arrogance and conceit, that the ladies who aspire to help in hospitals give the doctors so much trouble: they have not yet learnedobedience,the only path to any good, the one essential to the saving of the world. One who can not obey is the merest slave—essentially and in himself a slave. The crisis of Tom's fever was at length favorably passed, but the result remained doubtful. By late hours and strong drink, he had done not a little to weaken a constitution, in itself, as I have said, far from strong; while the unrest of what is commonly and foolishly called a bad conscience, with misery over the death of his child and the conduct which had disgraced him in his own eyes and ruined his wife's happiness, combined to retard his recovery.
While he was yet delirious, and grief and shame and consternation operated at will on his poetic nature, the things he kept saying over and over were very pitiful; but they would have sounded more miserable by much in the ears of one who did not look so far ahead as Mary. She, trained to regard all things in their true import, was rejoiced to find him loathing his former self, and beyond the present suffering saw the gladness at hand for the sorrowful man, the repenting sinner. Had she been mother or sister to him, she could hardly have waited on him with more devotion or tenderness.
One day, as his wife was doing some little thing for him, he took her hand in his feeble grasp, and pressing it to his face, wet with the tears of reviving manhood, said:
"We might have been happy together, Letty, if I had but known how much you were worth, and how little I was worth myself!—Oh me! oh me!"
He burst into an incontrollable wail that tortured Letty with its likeness to the crying of her baby.
"Tom! my own darling Tom!" she cried, "when you speak as if I belonged to you, it makes me as happy as a queen. When you are better, you will be happy, too, dear. Mary says you will."
"O Letty!" he sobbed—"the baby!"
"The baby's all right, Mary says; and, some day, she says, he will run into your arms, and know you for his father."
"And I shall be ashamed to look at him!" said Tom.
An hour or so after, he woke from a short sleep, and his eyes sought Letty's watching face.
"I have seen baby," he said, "and he has forgiven me. I dare say it was only a dream," he added, "but somehow it makes me happier. At least, I know how the thing might be."
"It was true, whether it was but a dream or something more," said Mary, who happened to be by.
"Thank you, Mary," he returned. "You and Letty have saved me from what I dare not think of! I could die happy now—if it weren't for one thing."
"What is that?" asked Mary.
"I am ashamed to say," he replied, "but I ought to say it and bear the shame, for the man who does shamefully ought to be ashamed. It is that, when I am in my grave—or somewhere else, for I know Mary does not like people to talk about being in their graves—you say it is heathenish, don't you, Mary?—when I am where they can't find me, then, it is horrid to think that people up here will have a hold on me and a right over me still, because of debts I shall never be able to pay them."
"Don't be too sure of that, Tom," said Mary, cheerfully. "I think you will pay them yet.—But I have heard it said," she went on, "that a man in debt never tells the truth about his debts—as if he had only the face to make them, not to talk about them: can you make a clean breast of it, Tom?"
"I don't exactly know what they are; but I always did mean to pay them, and I have some idea about them. I don't think they would come to more than a hundred pounds."
"Your mother would not hesitate to pay that for you?" said Mary.
"I know she wouldn't; but, then, I'm thinking of Letty."
He paused, and Mary waited.
"You know, when I am gone," he resumed, "there will be nothing for her but to go to my mother; and it breaks my heart to think of it. Every sin of mine she will lay to her charge; and how am I to lie still in my grave—oh, I beg your pardon, Mary."
"I will pay your debts, Tom, and gladly," said Mary, "if they don't come to much more than you say—than you think, I mean."
"But, don't you see, Mary, that would be only a shifting of my debt from them to you? Except for Letty, it would not make the thing any better."
"What!" said Mary, "is there no difference between owing a thing to one who loves you and one who does not? to one who would always be wishing you had paid him and one who is glad to have even the poor bond of a debt between you and her? All of us who are sorry for our sins are brothers and sisters."
"O Mary!" said Tom.
"But I will tell you what will be better: let your mother pay your debts, and I will look after Letty. I will care for her like my own sister, Tom."
"Then I shall die happy," said Tom; and from that day began to recover.
Many who would pay money to keep a man alive or to deliver him from pain would pay nothing to take a killing load off the shoulders of his mind. Hunger they can pity—not mental misery.
Tom would not hear of his mother being written to.
"I have done Letty wrong enough already," he said, "without subjecting her to the cruel tongue of my mother. I have conscience enough left not to have anybody else abuse her."
"But, Tom," expostulated Mary, "if you want to be good, one of your first duties is to be reconciled to your mother."
"I am very sorry things are all wrong between us, Mary," said Tom. "But, if you want her to come here, you don't know what you are talking about. She must have everything her own way, or storm from morning to night. I would gladly make it up with her, but live with her, or die with her, I couldnot. To make either possible, you must convert her, too. When you have done that, I will invite her at once."
"Never mind me, Tom," said Letty. "So long as you love me, I don't care what even your mother thinks of me. I will do everything I can to make her comfortable, and satisfied with me."
"Wait till I am better, anyhow, Letty; for I solemnly assure you I haven't a chance if my mother comes. I will tell you what, Mary: I promise you, if I get better, I will do what is possible to be a son to my mother; and for the present I will dictate a letter, if you will write it, bidding her good-by, and asking her pardon for everything I have done wrong by her, which you will please send if I should die. I can not and I will not promise more."
He was excited and exhausted, and Mary dared not say another word. Nor truly did she at the moment see what more could be said. Where all relation has been perverted, things can not be set right by force. Perhaps all we can do sometimes is to be willing and wait.
The letter was dictated and written—a lovely one, Mary thought—and it made her weep as she wrote it. Tom signed it with his own hand. Mary folded, sealed, addressed it, and laid it away in her desk.
The same evening Tom said to Letty, putting his thin, long hand in hers—
"Mary thinks we shall know each other there, Letty."
"Tom!" interrupted Letty, "don't talk like that; Ican'tbear it. If you do, I shall die before you."
"All I wanted to say," persisted Tom, "was, that I should sit all day looking out for you, Letty."
The faint, sweet, luminous jar of bow and string, as betwixt them they tore the silky air into a dying sound, came hovering—neither could have said whether it was in the soul only, or there and in the outer world too.
"Whatisthat?" said Tom.
"Mary!" Letty called into the other room, "there is our friend with the violin again! Don't you think Tom would like to hear him?"
"Yes, I do," answered Mary.
"Then would you mind asking him to come and play a little to us? It would do Tom good, I do think." Mary went up the one stair—all that now divided them, and found the musician with his sister—his half-sister she was.
"I thought we should have you in upon us!" said Ann. "Joe thinks he can play so as nobody can hear him; and I was fool enough to let him try. I am sorry."
"I am glad," rejoined Mary, "and am come to ask him down stairs; for Mrs. Helmer and I think it will do her husband good to hear him. He is very fond of music."
"Much help music will be to him, poor young man!" said Ann, scornfully.
"Wouldn't you give a sick man a flower, even if it only made him a little happier for a moment with its scent and its loveliness?" asked Mary.
"No, I wouldn't. It would only be to help the deceitful heart to be more desperately wicked."
I will not continue the conversation, although they did a little longer. Ann's father had been a preacher among the followers of Whitefield, and Ann was a follower of her father. She laid hold upon the garment of a hard master, a tyrannical God. Happy he who has learned the gospel according to Jesus, as reported by John—that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all! Happy he who finds God his refuge from all the lies that are told for him, and in his name! But it is love that saves, and not opinion that damns; and let the Master himself deal with the weeds in his garden as with the tares in his field.
"I read my Bible a good deal," said Mary, at last, "but I never found one of those things you say in it."
"That's because you were never taught to look for them," said Ann.
"Very likely," returned Mary. "In the mean time I prefer the violin—that is, with one like your brother to play it."
She turned to the door, and Joseph Jasper, who had not spoken a word, rose and followed her. As soon as they were outside, Mary turned to him, and begged he would play the same piece with which he had ended on the former occasion.
"I thought you did not care for it! I am so glad!" he said.
"I care for it very much," replied Mary, "and have often thought of it since. But you left in such haste! before I could find words to thank you!"
"You mean the ten lepers, don't you?" he said. "But of course you do. I always end off with them."
"Is that how you call it?" returned Mary. "Then you have given me the key to it, and I shall understand it much better this time, I hope."
"That is what I call it," said Joseph, "—to myself, I mean, not to Ann. She would count it blasphemy. God has made so many things that she thinks must not be mentioned in his hearing!"
When they entered the room, Joseph, casting a quick look round it, made at once for the darkest corner. Three swift strides took him there; and, without more preamble than if he had come upon a public platform to play, he closed his eyes and began.
And now at last Mary understood at least this specimen of his strange music, and was able to fill up the blanks in the impression it formerly made upon her. Alas, that my helpless ignorance should continue to make it impossible for me to describe it!
A movement even and rather slow, full of unexpected chords, wonderful to Mary, who did not know that such things could be made on the violin, brought before her mind's eye the man who knew all about everything, and loved a child more than a sage, walking in the hot day upon the border be-tween Galilee and Samaria. Sounds arose which she interpreted as the stir of village life, the crying and calling of domestic animals, and of busy housewives at their duties, carried on half out of doors, in the homeliness of country custom. Presently the instrument began to tell the gathering of a crowd, with bee-like hum, and the crossing of voice with voice—but, at a distance, the sounds confused and obscure. Swiftly then they seemed to rush together, to blend and lose themselves in the unity of an imploring melody, in which she heard the words, uttered afar, with uplifted hands and voices, drawing nearer and nearer as often repeated, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." Then came a brief pause, and then what, to her now fully roused imagination, seemed the voice of the Master, saying, "Go show yourselves unto the priests." Then followed the slow, half-unwilling, not hopeful march of timeless feet; then a clang as of something broken, then a silence as of sunrise, then air and liberty—long-drawn notes divided with quick, hurried ones; then the trampling of many feet, going farther and farther—merrily, with dance and song; once more a sudden pause—and a melody in which she read the awe-struck joyous return of one. Steadily yet eagerly the feet drew nigh, the melody growing at once in awe and jubilation, as the man came nearer and nearer to him whose word had made him clean, until at last she saw him fall on his face before him, and heard his soul rushing forth in a strain of adoring thanks, which seemed to end only because it was choked in tears.
The violin ceased, but, as if its soul had passed from the instrument into his, the musician himself took up the strain, and in a mellow tenor voice, with a mingling of air and recitative, and an expression which to Mary was entrancing, sang the words, "And he was a Samaritan."
At the sound of his own voice, he seemed to wake up, hung his head for a moment, as if ashamed of having shown his emotion, tucked his instrument under his arm, and walked from the room, without a word spoken on either side. Nor, while he played, had Mary once seen the face of the man; her soul sat only in the porch of her ears, and not once looked from the windows of her eyes.
A few rudiments of righteousness lurked, in their original undevelopment, but still in a measure active, in the being of Mr. Redmain: there had been in the soul of his mother, I suspect, a strain of generosity, and she had left a mark of it upon him, and it was the best thing about him. But in action these rudiments took an evil shape.
Preferring inferior company, and full of that suspicion which puts the last edge upon what the world calls knowledge of human nature, he thought no man his equal in penetrating the arena of motive, and reading actions in the light of motive; and, that the fundamental principle of all motive was self-interest, he assumed to be beyond dispute. With this candle, not that of the Lord, he searched the dark places of the soul; but, where the soul was light, his candle could show him nothing—served only to blind him yet further, if possible, to what was there present. And, because he did not seek the good, never yet in all his life had he come near enough to a righteous man to recognize that in something or other that man was different from himself. As for women—there was his wife—of whom he was willing to think as well as she would let him! And she, firmly did he believe, was an angel beside Sepia!—of whom, bad as she was, it is quite possible he thought yet worse than she deserved: alas for the woman who is not good, and falls under the judgment of a bad man!—the good woman he can no more hurt than the serpent can bite the adamant. He believed he knew Sepia's self, although he did not yet know her history; and he scorned her the more that he was not a hair better himself. He had regard enough for his wife, and what virtue his penetration conceded her, to hate their intimacy; and ever since his marriage had been scheming how to get rid of Sepia—only, however, through finding her out: he must unmask her: there would be no satisfaction in getting rid of her without his wife's convinced acquiescence. He had been, therefore, almost all the time more or less on the watch to uncover the wickedness he felt sure lay at no great depth beneath her surface; and in the mean time, and for the sake of this end, he lived on terms of decent domiciliation with her. She had no suspicion how thin was the crust between her and the lava.
In Cornwall, he began at length to puzzle himself about Mary. Of course she was just like the rest! but he did not at once succeed in fitting what he saw to what he entirely believed of her. She remained, like Sepia, a riddle to be solved. He was not so ignorant as his wife concerning the relations of the different classes, and he felt certain there must be some reason, of course a discreditable one, for her leaving her former, and taking her present, position. The attack he had in Cornwall afforded him unexpected opportunity of making her out, as he called it.
Upon this occasion it was also that Mary first ventured to expostulate with her mistress on her neglect of her husband. She heard her patiently; and the same day, going to his room, paid him some small attention—handed him his medicine, I believe, but clumsily, because ungraciously. The next moment, one of his fits of pain coming on, he broke into such a torrent of cursing as swept her in stately dignity from the room. She would not go near him again.
"Brought up as you have been, Mary," she said, "you can not enter into the feelings of one in my position, to whom the very tone even of coarse language is unspeakably odious. It makes me sick with disgust. Coarseness is what no lady can endure. I beg you will not mention Mr. Redmain to me again."
"Dear Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, "ugly as such language is, there are many things worse. It seems to me worse that a wife should not go near her husband when he is suffering than that he should in his pain speak bad words."
She had been on the point of saying that a thin skin was not purity, but bethought herself in time.
"You are scarcely in a position to lay down the law for me, Mary," said Hesper. "We will, if you please, drop the subject."
Mary's words were overheard, as was a good deal in the house more than was reckoned on, and reached Mr. Redmain, whom they perplexed: what could the young woman hope from taking his part?
One morning, after the arrival of Mewks, his man, Mary heard Mr. Redmain calling him in a tone which betrayed that he had been calling for some time: the house was an old one, and the bells were neither in good trim, nor was his in a convenient position. She thought first to find Mewks, but pity rose in her heart. She ran to Mr. Redmain's door, which stood half open, and showed herself.
"CanInot do something for you, sir?" she said.
"Yes, you can. Go and tell that lumbering idiot to come to me instantly. No! here, you!—there's a good girl!—Oh, damn!—Just give me your hand, and help me to turn an inch or two."
Change of posture relieved him a little. "Thank you," he said. "That is better. Wait a few moments, will you—till the rascal comes?"
Mary stood back, a little behind him, thinking not to annoy him with the sight of her.
"What are you doing there?" he cried. "I like to see what people are about in my room. Come in front here, and let me look at you."
Mary obeyed, and with a smile took the position he pointed out to her. Immediately followed another agony of pain, in which he looked beset with demons, whom he not feared but hated. Mary hurried to him, and, in the compassion which she inherited long back of Eve, took his hand, the fingers of which were twisting themselves into shapes like tree-roots. With a hoarse roar, he dashed hers from him, as if it had been a serpent. She returned to her place, and stood.
"What did you mean by that?" he said, when he came to himself. "Do you want to make a fool of me?"
Mary did not understand him, and made no reply. Another fit came. This time she kept her distance.
"Come here," he howled; "take my head in your hands."
She obeyed.
"Damned nice hands you've got!" he gasped; "much nicer than your mistress's."
Mary took no notice. Gently she withdrew her hands, for the fit was over.
"I see! that's the way of you!" he said, as she stepped back. "But come now, tell me how it is that a nice, well-behaved, handsome girl like you, should leave a position where, they tell me, you were your own mistress, and take a cursed place as lady's maid to my wife."
"It was because I liked Mrs. Redmain so much," answered Mary. "But, indeed, I was not very comfortable where I was."
"What the devil did you see to like in her? I never saw anything!"
"She is so beautiful!" said Mary.
"Is she! ho! ho!" he laughed. "What is that to another woman! You are new to the trade, my girl, if you think that will go down! One woman taking to another because 'she's so beautiful'! Ha! ha! ha!"
He repeated Mary's words with an indescribable contempt, and his laugh was insulting to a degree; but it went off in a cry of suffering.
"Hypocrisy mustn't be too barefaced," he resumed, when again his torture abated. "I didn't make you stop to amuse me! It's little of that this beastly world has got for me! Come, a better reason for waiting on my wife?"
"That she was kind to me," said Mary, "may be a better reason, but it is not a truer."
"It's more than ever she was to me! What wages does she give you?"
"We have not spoken about that yet, sir."
"You haven't had any?"
"I haven't wanted any yet."
"Then what the deuce ever made you come to this house?"
"I hoped to be of some service to Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, growing troubled.
"And you ain't of any? Is that why you don't want wages?"
"No, sir. That is not the reason."
"Then whatisthe reason? Come! Trust me. I will be much better to you than your mistress. Out with it! I knew there was something!"
"I would rather not talk more about it," said Mary, knowing that her feeling in relation to Hesper would be altogether incredible, and the notion of it ridiculous to him.
"You needn't mind tellingme! I know all about such things.—Look here! Give me that pocket-book on the table."
Mary brought him the pocket-book. He opened it, and, taking from it some notes, held them out to her.
"If your mistress won't pay you your wages, I will. There! take that. You're quite welcome. What matter which pays you? It all comes out of the same stocking-foot."
"I don't know yet," answered Mary, "whether I shall accept wages from Mrs. Redmain. Something might happen to make it impossible; or, if I had taken money, to make me regret it."
"I like that! There you keep a hold on her!" said Mr. Redmain, in a confidential tone, while in his heart he was more puzzled than ever. "There's no occasion, though, for all that," he went on, "to go without your money when you can have it and she be nothing the wiser. There—take it. I will swear you any oath you like not to tell my stingy wife."
"She is not stingy," said Mary; "and, if I don't take wages from her, I certainly shall not from any one else.—Besides," she added, "it would be dishonest."
"Oh! that's the dodge!" said Mr. Redmain to himself; but aloud, "Where would be the dishonesty, when the money is mine to do with as I please?"
"Where the dishonesty, sir!" exclaimed Mary, astounded. "To take wages from you, and pretend to Mrs. Redmain I was going without!"
"Ha! ha! The first time, no doubt, you ever pretended anything!"
"It would be," said Mary, "so far as I can, at the moment, remember."
"Go along," cried Mr. Redmain, losing, or pretending to lose, patience with her; "you are too unscrupulous a liar for me to deal with."
Mary turned and left the room. As she went, his keen glance caught the expression of her countenance, and noted the indignant red that flushed her cheeks, and the lightning of wronged innocence in her eyes.
"I ought not to have said it," he remarked to himself.
He did not for a moment fancy she had spoken the truth; but the look of her went to a deeper place in him than he knew even the existence of.
"Hey! stop," he cried, as she was disappearing. "Come back, will you?"
"I will find Mr. Mewks," she answered, and went.
After this, Mary naturally dreaded conference with Mr. Redmain; and he, thinking she must have time to get over the offense he had given her, made for the present no fresh attempt to come, by her own aid, at a bird's-eye view of her character and scheme of life. His curiosity, however, being in no degree assuaged concerning the odd human animal whose spoor he had for the moment failed to track, he meditated how best to renew the attempt in London. Not small, therefore, was his annoyance to find, a few days after his arrival, that she was no longer in the house. He questioned his wife as to the cause of her absence, and told her she was utterly heartless in refusing her leave to go and nurse her friend; whereupon Hesper, neither from desire to do right nor from regard to her husband's opinion, but because she either saw or fancied she saw that, now Mary did not dress her, she no longer caused the same sensation on entering a room, resolved to write to her—as if taking it for granted she had meant to return as soon as she was able. And to prick the sides of this intent came another spur, as will be seen from the letter she wrote:
"Dear Mary, can you tell me what is become of my large sapphire ring? I have never seen it since you brought my case up with you from Cornwall. I have been looking for it all the morning, but in vain. Youmusthave it. I shall be lost without it, for you know it has not its equal for color and brilliance. I do not believe you intended for a moment to keep it, but only to punish me for thinking I could do without you. If so, you have your revenge, for I find I can not do without either of you—you or the ring—so you will not carry the joke further than I can bear. If you can not come at once, write and tell me it is safe, and I shall love you more than ever. I am dying to see you again. Yours faithfully, H. R."
By this time, Letty was much better, and Tom no longer required such continuous attention; Mary, therefore, betook herself at once to Mr. Redmain's. Hesper was out shopping, and Mary went to her own room to wait for her, where she was glad of the opportunity of getting at some of the things she had left behind her.
"While she was looking for what she wanted, Sepia entered, and was, or pretended to be, astonished to see her. In a strange, sarcastic tone:
"Ah, you there!" she said. "I hope you will find it."
"If you mean the ring, that is not likely, Miss Yolland," Mary answered.
Sepia was silent a moment or two, then said:
"How is your cousin?"
"I have no cousin," replied Mary.
"The person, I mean, you have been staying with?"
"Better, thank you."
"Almost a pity, is it not—if there should come trouble about this ring?"
"I do not understand you. The ring will, of course, be found," returned Mary.
"In any case the blame will come on you: it was in your charge."
"The ring was in the case when I left."
"You will have to prove that."
"I remember quite well."
"That no one will question."
Beginning at last to understand her insinuations, Mary was so angry that she dared not speak.
"But it will hardly go to clear you," Sepia went on. "Don't imagine I mean you have taken it; I am only warning you how the matter will look, that you may be prepared. Mr. Redmain is one to believe the worst things of the best people."
"I am obliged to you," said Mary, "but I am not anxious."
"It is necessary you should know also," continued Sepia, "that there is some suspicion attaching to a female friend of yours as well, a young woman who used to visit you—the wife of the other, it is supposed. She was here, I remember, one night there was a party; I saw you together in my cousin's bedroom. She had just dressed and gone down."
"I remember," said Mary. "It was Mrs. Helmer."
"Well?"
"It is very unfortunate, certainly; but the truth must be told: a few days before you left, one of the servants, hearing some one in the house in the middle of the night, got up and went down, but only in time to hear the front door open and shut. In the morning a hat was found in the drawing-room, with the nameThomas Helmerin it: that is the name of your friend's husband, I believe?"
"I am aware Mr. Helmer was a frequent visitor," said Mary, trying to keep cool for what was to come.
This that Sepia told her was true enough, though she was not accurate as to the time of its occurrence. I will relate briefly how it came about.
Upon a certain evening, a few days before Mary's return from Cornwall, Tom would have gone to see Miss Yolland had he not known that she meant to go to the play with a Mr. Emmet, a cousin of the Redmains. Before the hour arrived, however, Count Galofta called, and Sepia went out with him, telling the man who opened the door to ask Mr. Emmet to wait. The man was rather deaf, and did not catch with certainty the name she gave. Mr. Emmet did not appear, and it was late before Sepia returned.
Tom, jealous even to hatred, spent the greater part of his evening in a tavern on the borders of the city—in gloomy solitude, drinking brandy-and-water, and building castles of the most foolish type—for castles are as different as the men that build them. Through all the rooms of them glided the form of Sepia, his evil genius. He grew more and more excited as he built, and as he drank. He rose at last, paid his bill, and, a little suspicious of his equilibrium, stalked into the street. There, almost unconsciously, he turned and walked westward. It was getting late; before long the theatres would be emptying: he might have a peep of Sepia as she came out!—but where was the good when that fellow was with her! "But," thought Tom, growing more and more daring as in an adventurous dream, "why should I not go to the house, and see her after he has left her at the door?"
He went to the house and rang the bell. The man came, and said immediately that Miss Yolland was out, but had desired him to ask Mr. Helmer to wait; whereupon Tom walked in, and up the stair to the drawing-room, thence into a second and a third drawing-room, and from the last into the conservatory. The man went down and finished his second, pint of ale. From the conservatory, Tom, finding himself in danger of havoc among the flower-pots, turned back into the third room, threw himself on a couch, and fell fast asleep.
He woke in the middle of the night in pitch darkness; and it was some time before he could remember where he was. When he did, he recognized that he was in an awkward predicament. But he knew the house well, and would make the attempt to get out undiscovered. It was foolish, but Tom was foolish. Feeling his way, he knocked down a small table with a great crash of china, and, losing his equanimity, rushed for the stair. Happily the hall lamp was still alight, and he found no trouble with bolts or lock: the door was not any way secured.
The first breath of the cold night-air brought with it such a gush of joy as he had rarely experienced; and he trod the silent streets with something of the pleasure of an escaped criminal, until, alas! the wind, at the first turning, let him know that he had left his hat behind him! He felt as if he had committed a murder, and left his card-case with the body. A vague terror grew upon him as he hurried along. Justice seemed following on his track. He had found the door on the latch: if anything was missing, how should he explain the presence of his hat without his own? The devil of the brandy he had drunk was gone out of him, and only the gray ashes of its evil fire were left in his sick brain, but it had helped first to kindle another fire, which was now beginning to glow unsuspected—that of a fever whose fuel had been slowly gathering for some time.
He opened the door with his pass-key, and hurried up the stair, his long legs taking three steps at a time. Never before had he felt as if he were fleeing to a refuge when going home to his wife.
He opened the door of the sitting-room—and there on the floor lay Letty and little Tom, as I have already told.
"Why have I heard nothing of this before?" said Mary.
"I am not aware of any right you have to know what happens in this house."
"Not from you, of course, Miss Yolland—perhaps not from Mrs. Redmain; but the servants talk of most things, and I have not heard a word—"
"How could you," interrupted Sepia, "when you were not in the house?—And, so long as nothing was missed, the thing was of no consequence," she added. "Now it is different."
This confused Mary a little. She stopped to consider. One thing was clear—that, if the ring was not lost till after she left—and of so much she was sure—it could not be Tom that had taken it, for he was then ill in bed. Something to this effect she managed to say.
"I told you already," returned Sepia, "that I had no suspicion of him—at least, I desire to have none, but you may be required to prove all you say; and it is as well to let you understand—though there is no reason whyIshould take the trouble—that your going to those very people at the time, and their proving to be friends of yours, adds to the difficulty."
"How?" asked Mary.
"I am not on the jury," replied Sepia, with indifference.
The scope of her remarks seemed to Mary intended to show that any suspicion of her would only be natural. For the moment the idea amused her. But Sepia's way of talking about Tom, whatever she meant by it, was disgraceful!
"I am astonished you should seem so indifferent," she said, "if the character of a gentleman with whom you have been so intimate is so seriously threatened as you would imply. I know he has been to see you more than once while Mr. and Mrs. Redmain were not yet returned."
Sepia's countenance changed; an evil fire glowed in her eyes, and she looked at Mary as if she would search her to the bone. The poorer the character, the more precious the repute!
"The foolish fellow," she returned, with a smile of contempt, "chose to fall in love with me!—A married man, too!"
"If you understood that, how did he come to be here so often?" asked Mary, looking her in the face.
But Sepia knew better than declare war a moment before it was unavoidable.
"Have I not just told you," she said, in a haughty tone, "that the man was in love with me?"
"And have you not just told me he was a married man? Could he have come to the house so often without at least your permission?"
Mary was actually taking the upper hand with her! Sepia felt it with scarcely repressive rage.
"He deserved the punishment," she replied, with calmness.
"You do not seem to have thought of his wife!"
"Certainly not. She never gave me offense."
"Is offense the only ground for casting a regard on a fellow-creature?"
"Why should I think of her?"
"Because she was your neighbor, and you were doing her a wrong."
"Once for all, Marston," cried Sepia, overcome at last, "this kind of thing will not do with me. I may not be a saint, but I have honesty enough to know the genuine thing from humbug. You have thrown dust in a good many eyes in this house, butnonein mine."
By this time Mary had got her temper quite in hand, taking a lesson from the serpent, who will often keep his when the dove loses hers. She hardly knew what fear was, for she had in her something a little stronger than what generally goes by the name of faith. She was therefore able to see that she ought, if possible, to learn Sepia's object in talking thus to her.
"Why do you say all this to me?" she asked, quietly. "I can not flatter myself it is from friendship."
"Certainly not. But the motive may be worthy, for all that. You are not the only one involved. People who would pass for better than their neighbors will never believe any good purpose in one who does not choose to talk their slang."
Sepia had repressed her rage, and through it looked aggrieved. "She confesses to a purpose," said Mary to herself, and waited.
"They are not all villains who are not saints," Sepia went on. "—This man's wife is your friend?"
"She is."
"Well, the man himself is my friend—in a sort of a sense." A strange shiver went through Mary, and seemed to make her angry. Sepia went on:
"I confess I allowed the poor boy—he is little more—to talk foolishly to me. I was amused at first, but perhaps I have not quite escaped unhurt; and, as a woman, you must understand that, when a woman has once felt in that way, if but for a moment, she would at least be—sorry—" Here her voice faltered, and she did not finish the sentence, but began afresh: "What I want of you is, through his wife, or any way you think best, to let the poor fellow know he had better slip away—to France, say—and stop there till the thing blow over."
"But why should you imagine he has had anything to do with the matter? The ring will be found, and then the hat will not signify."
"Well," replied Sepia, putting on an air of openness, and for that sake an air of familiarity, "I see I must tell you the whole truth. I never did for a moment believe Mr. Helmer had anything to do with the business, though, when you put me out of temper, I pretended to believe it, and that you were in it as well: that was mere irritation. But there is sure to be trouble; for my cousin is miserable about her sapphire, which she values more than anything she has; and, if it is not found, the affair will be put into the hands of the police, and then what will become of poor Mr. Helmer, be he as innocent as you and I believe him! Even if the judge should declare that he leaves the court without a blot on his character, Newgate mud is sure to stick, and he will be half looked upon as a thief for the rest of his days: the world is so unjust. Nor is that all; for they will put you in the witness-box, and make you confess the man an old friend of yours from the same part of the country; whereupon the counsel for the prosecution will not fail to hint that you ought to be standing beside the accused. Believe me, Mary, that, if Mr. Helmer is taken up for this, you will not come out of it clean."
"Still you explain nothing," said Mary. "You would not have me believe it is for my sake you are giving yourself all this trouble?"
"No. But I thought you would see where I was leading you. For—and now for thewholetruth—although nothing can touch the character of one in my position, it would be worse than awkward for me to be spoken of in connection with the poor fellow's visits to the house:myhonesty would not be called in question as yours would, but what is dear to me as my honesty might—nay, it certainly would. You see now why I came to you!—You must go to his wife, or, better still, to Mr. Helmer himself, and tell him what I have been saying to you. He will at once see the necessity of disappearing for a while."
Mary had listened attentively. She could not help fearing that something worse than unpleasant might be at hand; but she did not believe in Sepia, and in no case could consent that Tom should compromise himself. Danger of this kind must be met, not avoided. Still, whatever could be done ought to be done to protect him, especially in his present critical state. A breath of such a suspicion as this reaching him might be the death of him, and of Letty, too.
"I will think over what you have said," she answered; "but I can not give him the advice you wish me. What I shall do I can not say—the thing has come upon me with such a shock."
"You have no choice that I see," said Sepia. "It is either what I propose or ruin. I give you fair warning that I will stick at nothing where my reputation is concerned. You and yours shall be trod in the dirt before I allow a spot on my character!"
To Mary's relief they were here interrupted by the hurried entrance of Mrs. Redmain. She almost ran up to her, and took her by both hands.
"You dear creature! You have brought me my ring!" she cried.
Mary shook her head with a little sigh.
"But you have come to tell me where it is?"
"Alas! no, dear Mrs. Redmain!" said Mary.
"Then you must find it," she said, and turned away with an ominous-looking frown. "I will do all I can to help you find it."
"Oh, youmustfind it! My jewel-case was in your charge."
"But there has been time to lose everything in it, the one after the other, since I gave it up. The sapphire ring was there, I know, when I went."
"That can not be. You gave me the box, and I put it away myself, and, the next time I looked in it, it was not there."
"I wish I had asked you to open it when I gave it you," said Mary.
"I wish you had," said Hesper. "But the ring must be found, or I shall send for the police."
"I will not make matters worse, Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, with as much calmness as she could assume, and much was needed, "by pointing out what your words imply. If you really mean what you say, it is I who must insist on the police being sent for."
"I am sure, Mary," said Sepia, speaking for the first time since Hesper's entrance, "that your mistress has no intention of accusing you."
"Of course not," said Hesper; "only, what am I to do? I must have my ring. Why did you come, if you had nothing to tell me about it?"
"How could I stay away when you were in trouble? Have you searched everywhere?"
"Everywhere I can think of."
"Would you like me to help you look? I feel certain it will be found."
"No, thank you. I am sick of looking."
"Shall I go, then?—What would you like me to do?"
"Go to your room, and wait till I send for you."
"I must not be long away from my invalids," said Mary, as cheerfully as she could.
"Oh, indeed! I thought you had come back to your work!"
"I did not understand from your letter you wished that, ma'am—though, indeed, I could not have come just yet in any case."
"Then you mean to go, and leave things just as they are?"
"I am afraid there is no help for it. If I could do anything-. But I will call again to-morrow, and every day till the ring is found, if you like."
"Thank you," said Hesper, dryly; "I don't think that would be of much use."
"I will call anyhow," returned Mary, "and inquire whether you would like to see me.—I will go to my room now, and while I wait will get some things I want."
"As you please," said Hesper.
Scarcely was Mary in her room, however, when she heard the door, which had the trick of falling-to of itself, closed and locked, and knew that she was a prisoner. For one moment a frenzy of anger overcame her; the next, she remembered where her life was hid, knew that nothing could touch her, and was calm. While she took from her drawers the things she wanted, and put them in her hand-bag, she heard the door unlocked, but, as no one entered, she sat down to wait what would next arrive.
Mrs. Redmain, as soon as she was aware of her loss, had gone in her distress to tell her husband, whose gift the ring had been. Unlike his usual self, he had showed interest in the affair. She attributed this to the value of the jewel, and the fact that he had himself chosen it: he was rather, and thought himself very, knowing in stones; and the sapphire was in truth a most rare one: but it was for quite other reasons that Mr. Redmain cared about its loss: it would, he hoped, like the famous carbuncle, cast a light all round it.
He was as yet by no means well, and had not been from the house since his return.
The moment Mary was out of the room, Hesper rose.
"I should be a fool to let her leave the house," she said.
"Hesper, you will do nothing but mischief," cried Sepia.
Hesper paid no attention, but, going after Mary, locked the door of her room, and, running to her husband's, told him she had made her a prisoner.
No sooner was she in her husband's room than Sepia hastened to unlock Mary's door; but, just as she did so, she heard some one on the stair above, and retreated without going in. She would then have turned the key again, but now she heard steps on the stair below, and once more withdrew.
Mary heard a knock at her door. Mewks entered. He brought a request from his master that she would go to his room.
She rose and went, taking her bag with her.
"You may go now, Mrs. Redmain," said her husband when Mary entered. "Get out, Mewks," he added; and both lady and valet disappeared.
"So!" he said, with a grin of pleasure. "Here's a pretty business! You may sit down, though. You haven't got the ring in that bag there?"
"Nor anywhere else, sir," answered Mary. "Shall I shake it out on the floor?—or on the sofa would be better."
"Nonsense! You don't imagine me such a fool as to suppose, if you had it, you would carry it about in your bag!"
"You don't believe I have it, sir—do you?" she returned, in a tone of appeal.
"How am I to know what to believe? There is something dubious about you—you have yourself all but admitted that: how am I to know that robbery mayn't be your little dodge? All that rubbish you talked down at Lychford about honesty, and taking no wages, and loving your mistress, and all that rot, looks devilish like something off the square! That ring, now, the stone of it alone, is worth seven hundred pounds: one might let pretty good wages go for a chance like that!"
Mary looked him in the face, and made him no answer. He spied a danger: if he irritated her, he would get nothing out of her!
"My girl," he said, changing his tone, "I believe you know nothing about the ring; I was only teasing you."
Mary could not help a sigh of relief, and her eyes fell, for she felt them beginning to fill. She could not have believed that the judgment of such a man would ever be of consequence to her. But the unity of the race is a thing that can not be broken.
Now, although Mr. Redmain was by no means so sure of her innocence as he had pretended, he did at least wish and hope to find her innocent—from no regard for her, but because there was another he would be more glad to find concerned in the ugly affair.
"Mrs. Redmain," he went on, "would have me hand you over to the police; but I won't. You may go home when you please, and you need fear nothing."
He had the house where the Helmers lodged already watched, and knew this much, that some one was ill there, and that the doctor came almost every day.
"I certainly shall fear nothing," said Mary, not quite trusting him; "my fate is in God's hands."
"We know all about that," said Mr. Redmain; "I'm up to most dodges. But look here, my girl: it wouldn't be prudent in me, lest there should be such a personage as you have just mentioned, to be hard upon any of my fellow-creatures: I am one day pretty sure to be in misfortune myself. You mightn't think it of me, but I am not quite a heathen, and do reflect a little at times. You may be as wicked as myself, or as good as Joseph, for anything I know or care, for, as I say, it ain't my business to judge you. Tell me now what you are up to, and I will make it the better for you."
Mary had been trying hard to get at what he was "up to," but found herself quite bewildered.
"I am sorry, sir," she faltered, "but I haven't the slightest idea what you mean."
"Then you go home," he said. "I will send for you when I want you."
The moment she was out of the room, he rang his bell violently. Mewks appeared.
"Go after that young woman—do you hear? You know her—Miss—damn it, what's her name?—Harland or Cranston, or—oh, hang it! you know well enough, you rascal!"
"Do you mean Miss Marston, sir?"
"Of course I do! Why didn't you say so before? Go after her, I tell you; and make haste. If she goes straight home—you know where—come back as soon as she's inside the door."
"Yes, sir."
"Damn you, go, or you'll lose sight of her!"
"I'm a-listenin' after the street-door, sir. It ain't gone yet. There it is now!"
And with the word he left the room.
Mary was too much absorbed in her own thoughts to note that she was followed by a man with the collar of his great-coat up to his eyes, and a woolen comforter round his face. She walked on steadily for home, scarce seeing the people that passed her. It was clear to Mewks that she had not a suspicion of being kept in sight. He saw her in at her own door, and went back to his master.
Another fact Mewks carried to his master—namely, that, as Mary came near the door of the house, she was met by "a rough-looking man," who came walking slowly along, as if he had been going up and down waiting for her. He made her an awkward bow as she drew near, and she stopped and had a long conversation with him—such at least it seemed to Mewks, annoyed that he could hear nothing of it, and fearful of attracting their attention—after which the man went away, and Mary went into the house. This report made his master grin, for, through the description Mewks gave, he suspected a thief disguised as a workman; but, his hopes being against the supposition, he dwelt the less upon it.
The man who stopped Mary, and whom, indeed, she would have stopped, was Joseph Jasper, the blacksmith. That he was rough in appearance, no one who knew him would have wished himself able to deny, and one less like a thief would have been hard to find. His hands were very rough and ingrained with black; his fingers were long, but chopped off square at the points, and had no resemblance to the long, tapering fingers of an artist or pickpocket. His clothes were of corduroy, not very grimy, because of the huge apron of thick leather he wore at his work, but they looked none the better that he had topped them with his tall Sunday hat. His complexion was a mixture of brown and browner; his black eyebrows hung far over the blackest of eyes, the brightest flashing of which was never seen, because all the time he played he kept them closed tight. His face wore its natural clothing—a mustache thick and well-shaped, and a beard not too large, of a color that looked like black burned brown. His hair was black and curled all over his head. His whole appearance was that of a workman; a careless glance could never have suspected him a poet-musician; as little could even such a glance have failed to see in him an honest man. He was powerfully built, over the middle height, but not tall. He spoke very fair old-fashioned English, with the Yorkshire tone and turn. His walk was rather plodding, and his movements slow and stiff; but in communion with his violin they were free enough, and the more delicate for the strength that was in them; at the anvil they were as supple as powerful. On his face dwelt an expression that was not to be read by the indifferent—a waiting in the midst of work, as of a man to whom the sense of the temporary was always present, but present with the constant reminder that, just therefore, work must be as good as work can be that things may last their due time.
The following was the conversation concerning the purport of which Mewks was left to what conjecture was possible to a serving-man of his stamp.
Mary held out her hand to Jasper, and it disappeared in his. He held it for a moment with a great but gentle grasp, and, as he let it go, said:
"I took the liberty of watching for you, miss. I wanted to ask a favor of you. It seemed to me you would take no offense."
"You might be sure of that," Mary answered. "You have a right to anything I can do for you."
He fixed his gaze on her for a moment, as if he did not understand her. "That's where it is," he said: "I'vedonenothing for your people. It's all very well to go playing and playing, but that's not doing anything; and, ifhehad done nothing, there would ha' been no fiddling. You understand me, miss, I know: work comes before music, and makes the soul of it; it's not the music that makes the doing. I'm a poor hand at saying without my fiddle, miss: you'll excuse me."
Mary's heart was throbbing. She had not heard a word like this—not since her father went to what people call the "long home"—as if a home could be too long! What do we want but an endless home?—only it is not the grave! She felt as if the spirit of her father had descended on the strange workman, and had sent him to her. She looked at him with shining eyes, and did not speak. He resumed, as fearing he had not conveyed his thought.
"What I think I mean is, miss, that, if the working of miracles in his name wouldn't do it, it's not likely playing the fiddle will."
"Oh, I understand you so well!" said Mary, in a voice hardly her own, "—so well! It makes me happy to hear you! Tell me what I can do for you."
"The poor gentleman in there must want all the help you can give him, and more. There must be something left, surely, for a man to do. He must want lifting at times, for instance, and that's not fit for either of you ladies."
"Thank you," said Mary, heartily. "I will mention it to Mrs. Helmer, and I am sure she will be very glad of your help sometimes."
"Couldn't you ask her now, miss? I should like to know at what hour I might call. But perhaps the best way would be to walk about here in the evening, after my day's work is over, and then you could run down any time, and look out: that would be enough; I should be there. Saturday nights I could just as well be there all night."
To Tom and Letty it seemed not a little peculiar that a man so much a stranger should be ready to walk about the street in order to be at hand with help for them; but Mary was only delighted, not surprised, for what the man had said to her made the thing not merely intelligible, but absolutely reasonable.
Joseph was not, however, allowed to wander the street. The arrangement made was, that, as soon as his work was over, he should come and see whether there was anything he could do for them. And he never came but there was plenty to do. He took a lodging close by, that he might be with them earlier, and stay later; and, when nothing else was wanted of him, he was always ready to discourse on his violin. Sometimes Tom enjoyed his music much, though he found no little fault with his mode of playing, for Tom knew something about everything, and could render many a reason; at other times, he preferred having Mary read to him.
On one of these latter occasions, Mary, occupied in cooking something for the invalid, asked Joseph to read for her. He consented, but read very badly—as if he had no understanding of the words, but, on the other hand, stopping every few lines, apparently to think and master what he had read. This was not good reading anyway, least of all for an invalid who required the soothing of half-thought, molten and diluted in sweet, even, monotonous sound, and it was long before Mary asked him again.