It was almost with bewilderment that Mrs. Helmer revisited Thornwick. The near past seemed to have vanished like a dream that leaves a sorrow behind it, and the far past to take its place. She had never been accustomed to reflect on her own feelings; things came, were welcome or unwelcome, proved better or worse than she had anticipated, passed away, and were mostly forgotten. With plenty of faculty, Letty had not yet emerged from the chrysalid condition; she lived much as one in a dream, with whose dream mingle sounds and glimmers from the waking world. Very few of us are awake, very few even alive in true, availing sense. "Pooh! what stuff!" says the sleeper, and will say it until the waking begins to come.
On the threshold of her old home, then, Letty found her old self awaiting her; she crossed it, and was once more just Letty, a Letty wrapped in the garments of sorrow, and with a heaviness at the heart, but far from such a miserable Letty as during the last of her former life there. Little joy had been hers since the terrible night when she fled from its closed doors; and now that she returned, she could take up everything where she had left it, except the gladness. But peace is better than gladness, and she was on the way to find that.
Mrs. Wardour, who, for all her severity, was not without a good-sized heart, and whoso conscience had spoken to her in regard of Letty far oftener than any torture would have made her allow, was touched with compassion at sight of her worn and sad look; and, granting to herself that the poor thing had been punished enough, even for her want of respect to the house of Thornwick, broke down a little, though with well-preserved dignity, and took the wandering ewe-lamb to her bosom. Letty, loving and forgiving always, nestled in it for a moment, and in her own room quietly wept a long time. When she came out, Mrs. Wardour pleased herself with the fancy that her eyes were red with the tears of repentance; but Letty never dreamed of repenting, for that would have been to deny Tom, to cut off her married life, throw it from her, and never more see Tom.
By degrees, rapid yet easy, she slid into all her old ways; took again the charge of the dairy as if she had never left it; attended to the linen; darned the stockings; and in everything but her pale, thin face, and heavy, exhausted heart, was the young Letty again. She even went to the harness-room to look to Cousin Godfrey's stirrups and bits; but finding, morning after morning for a whole week, that they had not once been neglected, dismissed the care-not without satisfaction.
Mrs. Wardour continued kind to her; but every now and then would allow a tone as of remembered naughtiness to be sub-audible in speech or request. Letty, even in her own heart, never resented it. She had been so used to it in the old days, that it seemed only natural. And then her aunt considered her health in the kindest way. Now that Letty had known some of the troubles of marriage, she felt more sympathy with her, did not look down upon her from quite such a height, and to Letty this was strangely delightful. Oh, what a dry, hard, cold world this would grow to, but for the blessing of its many sicknesses!
When Godfrey saw her moving about the house as in former days, but changed, like one of the ghosts of his saddest dreams, a new love began to rise out of the buried seed of the old. In vain he reasoned with himself, in vain he resisted. The image of Letty, with its trusting eyes fixed on him so "solemn sad," and its watching looks full of ministration, haunted him, and was too much for him. She was never the sort of woman he could have fancied himself falling in love with; he did in fact say to himself that she was onlyalmosta lady-but at the word his heart rebuked him for a traitor to love and its holy laws. Neither in person was she at all his ideal. A woman like Hesper, uplifted and strong, broad-fronted and fearless, large-limbed, and full of latent life, was more of the ideal he could have written poetry about. But we are deeper than we know. Who is capable of knowing his own ideal? The ideal of a man's self is hid in the bosom of God, and may lie ages away from his knowledge; and his ideal of woman is the ideal belonging to this unknown self: the ideal only can bring forth an ideal. He can not, therefore, know his own ideal of woman; it is, nevertheless—so I presume—this his own unknown ideal that makes a man choose against his choice. Gladly would Godfrey now have taken Letty to his arms. It was no longer anything that from boyhood he had vowed rather to die unmarried, and let the land go to a stranger, than marry a widow. He had to recall every restraining fact of his and her position to prevent him from now precipitating that which he had before too long delayed. But the gulf of the grave and the jealousy of a mother were between them; for, if he were again to rouse her suspicions, she would certainly get rid of Letty, as she had before intended, so depriving her of a home, and him of opportunity. He kept, therefore, out of Letty's way as much as he could, went more about the farm, and took long rides.
Nothing was further from Letty than any merest suspicion of the sort of regard Godfrey cherished for her. There was in her nothing of the self-sentimental. Her poet was gone from her, but she did not therefore take to poetry; nay, what poetry she had learned to like was no longer anything to her, now her singing bird had flown to the land of song. To her, Tom was the greatest, the one poet of the age; he had been hers—was hers still, for did he not die telling her that he would go on watching till she came to him? He had loved her, she knew; he had learned to love her better before he died. She must be patient; the day would come when she should be a Psyche, as he had told her, and soar aloft in search of her mate. The sense of wifehood had grown one with her consciousness. It mingled with all her prayers, both in chamber and in church. As she went about the house, she was dreaming of her Tom—an angel in heaven, she said to herself, but none the less her husband, and waiting for her. If she did not read poetry, she read her New Testament; and if she understood it only in a childish fashion, she obeyed it in a child-like one, whence the way of all wisdom lay open before her. It is not where one is, but in what direction he is going. Before her, too, was her little boy—borne in his father's arms, she pictured him, and hearing from him of the mother who was coming to them by and by, when God had made her good enough to rejoin them!
But, while she continued thus simple, Godfrey could not fail to see how much more of a woman she had grown: he was not yet capable of seeing that she would—could never hare got so far with him, even if he had married her.
Love and marriage are of the Father's most powerful means for the making of his foolish little ones into sons and daughters. But so unlike in many cases are the immediate consequences to those desired and expected, that it is hard for not a few to believe that he is anywhere looking after their fate—caring about them at all. And the doubt would be a reasonable one, if the end of things was marriage. But the end is life—that we become the children of God; after which, all things can and will go their grand, natural course; the heart of the Father will be content for his children, and the hearts of the children will be content in their Father.
Godfrey indulged one great and serious mistake in reference to Letty, namely, that, having learned the character of Tom through the saddest of personal experience, she must have come to think of him as he did, and must have dismissed from her heart every remnant of love for him. Of course, he would not hint at such a thing, he said to himself, nor would she for a moment allow it, but nothing else could be the state of her mind! He did not know that in a woman's love there is more of the specially divine element than in a man's—namely, the original, the unmediated. The first of God's love is not founded upon any merit, rests only on being and need, and the worth that is yet unborn.
The Redmains were again at Durnmelling—had been for some weeks; and Sepia had taken care that she and Godfrey should meet—on the footpath to Testbridge, in the field accessible by the breach in the ha-ha—here and there and anywhere suitable for a little detention and talk that should seem accidental, and be out of sight. Nor was Godfrey the man to be insensible to the influence of such a woman, brought to bear at close quarters. A man less vulnerable—I hate the word, but it is the right one with Sepia concerned, for she was, in truth, an enemy—might perhaps have yielded room to the suspicion that these meetings were not all so accidental as they appeared, and as Sepia treated them; but no glimmer of such a thought passed through the mind of Godfrey. He knew nothing of all that my readers know to Sepia's disadvantage, and her eyes were enough to subdue most men from the first—for a time at least. Had it not been for the return of Letty, she would by this time have had him her slave: nothing but slavery could it ever be to love a woman like her, who gave no love in return, only exercised power. But although he was always glad to meet her, and his heart had begun to beat a little faster at sight of her approach, the glamour of her presence was nearly destroyed by the arrival of Letty; and Sepia was more than sharp enough to perceive a difference in the expression of his eyes the next time she met him. At the very first glance she suspected some hostile influence at work—intentionally hostile, for persons with a consciousness like Sepia's are always imagining enemies. And as the two worst enemies she could have were the truth and a woman, she was alternately jealous and terrified: the truth and a woman together, she had not yet begun to fear; that would, indeed, be too much!
She soon found there was a young woman at Thornwick, who had but just arrived; and ere long she learned who she was—one, indeed, who had already a shadowy existence in her life—was it possible the shadow should be now taking solidity, and threatening to foil her? Not once did it occur to her that, were it so, there would be retribution in it. She had heard of Tom's death through "The Firefly," which had a kind, extravagant article about him, but she had not once thought of his widow—and there she was, a hedge across the path she wanted to go! If the house of Durnmelling had but been one story higher, that she might see all round Thornwick!
For some time now, as I have already more than hinted, Sepia had been fashioning a man to her thrall—Mewks, namely, the body-servant of Mr. Redmain. It was a very gradual process she had adopted, and it had been the more successful. It had got so far with him that whatever Sepia showed the least wish to understand, Mewks would take endless trouble to learn for her. The rest of the servants, both at Durnmelling and in London, were none of them very friendly with her—least of all Jemima, who was now with her mistress as lady's-maid, the accomplished attendant whom Hesper had procured in place of Mary being away for a holiday.
The more Sepia realized, or thought she realized, the position she was in, the more desirous was she to get out of it, and the only feasible and safe way, in her eyes, was marriage: there was nothing between that and a return to what she counted slavery. Rather than lift again such a hideous load of irksomeness, she would find her way out of a world in which it was not possible, she said, to be both good and comfortable: she had, in truth, tried only the latter. But if she could, she thought, secure for a husband this gentleman-yeoman, she might hold up her head with the best. Even if Galofta should reappear, she would know then how to meet him: with a friend or two, such as she had never had yet, she could do what she pleased! It was hard work to get on quite alone—or with people who cared only for themselves! She must have some love on her side! some one who cared forher!
From all she could learn, there was nothing that amounted even to ordinary friendship between Mr. Wardour and the young widow. She was in the family but as a distant poor relation—"Much as I am myself!" thought Sepia, with a bitter laugh that even in her own eyes she should be comparable to a poor creature like Letty. The fact, however, remained that Godfrey was a little altered toward her: she must have been telling him something against her—something she had heard from that detestable little hypocrite who was turned away on suspicion of theft! Yes—that was how Sepia talkedto herselfabout Mary.
One morning, Letty, finding she had an hour's leisure, for her aunt did not pursue her as of old time, wandered out to the oak on the edge of the ha-ha, so memorable with the shadowy presence of her Tom. She had not been seated under it many minutes before Godfrey caught sight of her from his horse's back: knowing his mother was gone to Testbridge, he yielded to an urgent longing, took his horse to the stable, and crossed the grass to where she sat.
Letty was thinking of Tom—what else was there of her own to do?—thinking like a child, looking up into the cloud-flecked sky, and thinking Tom was somewhere there, though she could not see him: she must be good and patient, that she might go up to him, as he could not come down to her—if he could, he would have come long ago! All the enchantment of the first days of her love had come back upon the young widow; all the ill that had crept in between had failed from out her memory, as the false notes in music melt in the air that carries the true ones across ravine and river, meadow and grove, to the listening ear. Letty lived in a dream of her husband—in heaven, "yet not from her"—such a dream of bliss and hope as in itself went far to make up for all her sorrows.
She was sitting with her back toward the tree and her face to Thornwick, and yet she did not see Godfrey till he was within a few yards of her. She smiled, expecting his kind greeting, but was startled to hear from behind her instead the voice of a lady greeting him. She turned her head involuntarily: there was the head of Sepia rising above the breach in the ha-ha, and Godfrey had turned aside and run to give her his hand.
Now Letty knew Sepia by sight, from the evening she had spent at the old hall; more of her she knew nothing. From the mind of Tom, in his illness, her baleful influence had vanished like an evil dream, and Mary had not thought it necessary to let him know how falsely, contemptuously, and contemptibly, she had behaved toward him. Letty, therefore, had no feeling toward Sepia but one of admiration for her grace and beauty, which she could appreciate the more that they were so different from her own.
"Thank you," said Sepia, holding fast by Godfrey's hand, and coming up with a little pant. "What a lovely day it is for your haymaking! How can you afford the time to play knight-errant to a distressed damsel?"
"The hay is nearly independent of my presence," replied Godfrey. "Sun and wind have done their parts too well for my being of much use."
"Take me with you to see how they are getting on. I am as fond of hay as Bottom in his translation."
She had learned Godfrey's love of literature, and knew that one quotation may stand for much knowledge.
"I will, with pleasure," said Godfrey, perhaps a little consoled in the midst of his disappointment; and they walked away, neither taking notice of Letty.
"I did not know," she said to herself, "that the two houses had come together at last! What a handsome couple they make!"
What passed between them is scarcely worthy of record. It is enough to say that Sepia found her companion distrait, and he felt her a little invasive. In a short while they came back together, and Sepia saw Letty under the great bough of the Durnmelling oak. Godfrey handed her down the rent, careful himself not to invade Durnmelling with a single foot. She ran home, and up to a certain window with her opera-glass. But the branches and foliage of the huge oak would have concealed pairs and pairs of lovers.
Godfrey turned toward Letty. She had not stirred.
"What a beautiful creature Miss Yolland is!" she said, looking up with a smile of welcome, and a calmness that prevented the slightest suspicion of a flattering jealousy.
"I was coming toyou," returned Godfrey. "I never saw her till her head came up over the ha-ha.—Yes, she is beautiful—at least, she has good eyes."
"They are splendid! What a wife she would make for you, Cousin Godfrey! I should like to see such a two."
Letty was beyond the faintest suggestion of coquetry. Her words drove a sting to the heart of Godfrey. He turned pale. But not a word would he have spoken then, had not Letty in her innocence gone on to torture him. She sprang from the ground.
"Are you ill, Cousin Godfrey?" she cried in alarm, and with that sweet tremor of the voice that shows the heart is near. "You are quite white!—Oh, dear! I've said something I oughtn't to have said! What can it be? Do forgive me, Cousin Godfrey." In her childlike anxiety she would have thrown her arms round his neck, but her hands only reached his shoulders. He drew back: such was the nature of the man that every sting tasted of offense. But he mastered himself, and in his turn, alarmed at the idea of having possibly hurt her, caught her hands in his. As they stood regarding each other with troubled eyes, the embankment of his prudence gave way, and the stored passion broke out.
"You don'tmeanyou would like to see me married, Letty?" he groaned.
"Yes, indeed, I do, Cousin Godfrey! You would make such a lovely husband!"
"Ah! I thought as much! I knew you never cared for me, Letty!"
He dropped her hands, and turned half aside, like a figure warped with fire.
"I care for you more than anybody in the world—except, perhaps, Mary," said Letty: truthfulness was a part of her.
"And I care for you more than all the world!—more than very being—it is worthless without you. O Letty! your eyes haunt me night and day! I love you with my whole soul."
"How kind of you, Cousin Godfrey!" faltered Letty, trembling, and not knowing what she said. She was very frightened, but hardly knew why, for the idea of Godfrey in love with her was all but inconceivable. Nevertheless, its approach was terrible. Like a fascinated bird she could not take her eyes off his face. Her knees began to fail her; it was all she could do to stand. But Godfrey was full of himself, and had not the most shadowy suspicion of how she felt. He took her emotion for a favorable sign, and stupidly went on:
"Letty, I can't help it! I know I oughtn't to speak to you like this—so soon, but I can't keep quiet any longer. I love you more than the universe and its Maker. A thousand times rather would I cease to live, than live without you to love me. I have loved you for years and years—longer than I know. I was loving you with heart and soul and brain and eyes when you went away and left me."
"Cousin Godfrey!" shrieked Letty, "don't you know I belong to Tom?"
And she dropped like one lifeless on the grass at his feet.
Godfrey felt as if suddenly damned; and his hell was death. He stood gazing on the white face. The world, heaven, God, and nature were dead, and that was the soul of it all, dead before him! But such death is never born of love. This agony was but the fog of disappointed self-love; and out of it suddenly rose what seemed a new power to live, but one from a lower world: it was all a wretched dream, out of which he was no more to issue, in which he must go on for ever, dreaming, yet acting as one wide awake! Mechanically he stooped and lifted the death-defying lover in his arms, and carried her to the house. He felt no thrill as he held the treasure to his heart. It was the merest material contact. He bore her to the room where his mother sat, laid her on the sofa, said he had found her under the oak-tree—and went to his study, away in the roof. On a chair in the middle of the floor he sat, like a man bereft of all. Nothing came between him and suicide but an infinite scorn. A slow rage devoured his heart. Here he was, a man who knew his own worth, his faithfulness, his unchangeableness, cast over the wall of the universe, into the waste places, among the broken shards of ruin! If there was a God—and the rage in his heart declared his being—why did he make him? To make him for such a misery was pure injustice, was willful cruelty! Henceforward he would live above what God or woman could do to him! He rose and went to the hay-field, whence he did not return till after midnight.
He did not sleep, but he came to a resolution. In the morning he told his mother that he wanted a change; now that the hay was safe, he would have a run, he hardly knew where—possibly on the Continent; she must not be uneasy if she did not hear from him for a week or two; perhaps he would have a look at the pyramids. The old lady was filled with dismay; but scarcely had she begun to expostulate when she saw in his eyes that something was seriously amiss, and held her peace—she had had to learn that with both father and son. Godfrey went, and courted distraction. Ten years before, he would have brooded: that he would not do now: the thing was not worth it! His pride was strong as ever, and both helped him to get over his suffering, and prevented him from gaining the good of it. He intrenched himself in his pride. No one should say he had not had his will! He was a strong man, and was going to prove it to himself afresh!
Thus thought Godfrey; but he is in reality a weak man who must have recourse to pride to carry him through. Only, if a man has not love enough to make a hero of him, what is he to do?
He was away a month, and came back in seeming health and spirits. But it was no small relief to him to find on his arrival that Letty was no longer at Thornwick.
She had gone through a sore time. To have made Godfrey unhappy, made her miserable; but how was she to help it? She belonged to Tom! Not once did she entertain the thought of ceasing to be Tom's. She did not even say to herself, what would Tom do if she forgot and forsook him—and for what he could not help! for having left her because death took him away! But what was she to do? She must not remain where she was. No more must she tell his mother why she went.
She wrote to Mary, and told her she could not stay much longer. They were very kind, she said, but she must be gone before Godfrey came back.
Mary suspected the truth. The fact that Letty did not give her any reason was almost enough. The supposition also rendered intelligible the strange mixture of misery and hardness in Godfrey's behavior at the time of Letty's old mishap. She answered, begging her to keep her mind easy about the future, and her friend informed of whatever concerned her.
This much from Mary was enough to set Letty at comparative ease. She began to recover strength, and was able to write a letter to Godfrey, to leave where he would find it, in his study.
It was a lovely letter—the utterance of a simple, childlike spirit—with much in it, too, I confess, that was but prettily childish. She poured out on Godfrey the affection of a womanchild. She told him what a reverence and love he had been to her always; told him, too, that it would change her love into fear, perhaps something worse, if he tried to make her forget Tom. She told him he was much too grand for her to dare love him in that way, but she could look up to him like an angel—only he must not come between her and Tom. Nothing could be plainer, simpler, honester, or stronger, than the way the little woman wrote her mind to the great man. Had he been worthy of her, he might even yet, with her help, have got above his passion in a grand way, and been a great man indeed. But, as so many do, he only sat upon himself, kept himself down, and sank far below his passion.
When he went to his study the day after his return, he saw the letter. His heart leaped like a wild thing in a trap at sight of the ill-shaped, childish writing; but—will my lady reader believe it?—the first thought that shot through it was—"She shall find it too late! I am not one to be left and taken at will!" When he read it, however, it was with a curling lip of scorn at the childishness of the creature to whom he had offered the heart of Godfrey Wardour. Instead of admiring the lovely devotion of the girl-widow to her boy-husband, he scorned himself for having dreamed of a creature who could not only love a fool like Tom Helmer, but go on loving him after he was dead, and that even when Godfrey Wardour had condescended to let her know he loved her. It was thus the devil befooled him. Perhaps the worst devil a man can be posessed withal, is himself. In mere madness, the man is beside himself; but in this case he is inside himself; the presiding, indwelling, inspiring sprit of him is himself, and that is the hardest of all to cast out. Godfrey rose form the reading of that lettercured,as he called it. But it was a cure that left the wound open as a door to the entrance of evil things. He tore the letter into a thousand pieces, and throw them into the empty grate—not even showed it the respect of burning it with fire.
Mary had got her affairs settled, and was again in the old place, the hallowed temple of so many holy memories. I do not forget it was a shop I call a temple. In that shop God had been worshiped with holiest worship—that is, obedience—and would be again. Neither do I forget that the devil had been worshiped there too—in what temple is he not? He has fallen like lightning from heaven, but has not yet been cast out of the earth. In that shop, however, he would be worshiped no more for a season.
At once she wrote to Letty, saying the room which had been hers was at her service as soon as she pleased to occupy it: she would take her father's.
Letty breathed a deep breath of redemption, and made haste to accept the offer. But to let Mrs. Wardour know her resolve was a severe strain on her courage.
I will not give the conversation that followed her announcement that she was going to visit Mary Marston. Her aunt met it with scorn and indignation. Ingratitude, laziness, love of low company, all the old words of offense she threw afresh in her face. But Letty could not help being pleased to find that her aunt's storm no longer swamped her boat. When she began, however, to abuse Mary, calling her a low creature, who actually gave up an independent position to put herself at the beck and call of a fine lady, Letty grew angry.
"I must not sit and hear you call Mary names, aunt," she said. "When you cast me out, she stood by me. You do not understand her. She is the only friend I ever had-except Tom."
"You dare, you thankless hussy, to say such a thing in the house where you've been clothed and fed and sheltered for so many years! You're the child of your father with a vengeance! Get out of my sight!"
"Aunt—" said Letty, rising.
"No aunt of yours!" interrupted the wrathful woman.
"Mrs. Wardour," said Letty, with dignity, "you have been my benefactor, but hardly my friend: Mary has taught me the difference. I owe you more than you will ever give me the chance of repaying you. But what friendship could have stood for an hour the hard words you have been in the way of giving me, as far back as I can remember! Hard words take all the sweetness from shelter. Mary is the only ChristianIhave ever known."
"So we are all pagans, except your low-lived lady's-maid! Upon my word!"
"She makes me feel, often, often," said Letty, bursting into tears, "as if I were with Jesus himself—as if he must be in the room somewhere."
So saying, she left her, and went to put up her things. Mrs. Wardour locked the door of the room where she sat, and refused to see or speak to her again. Letty went away, and walked to Testbridge.
"Godfrey will do something to make her understand," she said to herself, weeping as she walked.
Whether Godfrey ever did, I can not tell.
The same day on which Turnbull opened his new shop, a man was seen on a ladder painting out the sign above the old one. But the paint took time to dry.
The same day, also, Mary returned to Testbridge, and, going in by the kitchen-door, went up to her father's room, of which and of her own she had kept the keys—to the indignation of Turnbull, who declared he did not know how to get on without them for storage. But, for all his bluster, he was afraid of Mary, and did not dare touch anything she had left.
That night she spent alone in the house. But she could not sleep. She got up and went down to the shop. It was a bright, moonlit night, and all the house, even where the moon could not enter, was full of glimmer and gleam, except the shop. There she lighted a candle, sat down on a pile of goods, and gave herself up to memories of the past. Back and back went her thoughts as far as she could send them. God was everywhere in all the story; and the clearer she saw him there the surer she was that she would find him as she went on. She was neither sad nor fearful. The dead hours of the night came, that valley of the shadow of death where faith seems to grow weary and sleep, and all the things of the shadow wake up and come out and say, "Here we are, and there is nothing but us and our kind in the universe!" They woke up and came out upon Mary now, but she fought them off. Either there is mighty, triumphant life at the root and apex of all things, or life is not—and whence, then, the power of dreaming horrors? It is life alone—life imperfect—that can fear; death can not fear. Even the terror that walketh by night is a proof that I live, and that it shall not prevail against me. And to Mary, besides her heavenly Father, her William Marston seemed near all the time. Whereever she turned she saw the signs of him, and she pleased herself to think that perhaps he was there to welcome her. But it would not have made her the least sad to know for certain that he was far off, and would never come near her again in this world. She knew that, spite of time and space, she was and must be near him so long as she loved and did the truth. She knew there is no bond so strong, none so close, none so lasting as the truth. In God alone, who is the truth, can creatures meet.
The place was left in sad confusion and dirt, and she did not a little that night to restore order at least. But at length she was tired, and went up to her room.
On the first landing there was a window to the street. She stopped and looked out, candle in hand, but drew back with a start: on the opposite side of the way stood a man, looking up, she thought, at the house! She hastened to her room, and to bed. If God was not watching, no waking was of use; and if God was watching, she might sleep in peace. She did sleep, and woke refreshed.
Her first care in the morning was to write to Letty—with the result I have set down. The next thing she did was to go and ask Beenie to give her some breakfast. The old woman was delighted to see her, and ready to lock her door at once and go back to her old quarters. They returned together, while Testbridge was yet but half awake.
Many things had to be done before the shop could be opened. Beenie went after charwomen, and soon a great bustle of cleaning arose. But the door was kept shut, and the front windows.
In the afternoon Letty came fresh from misery into more than counterbalancing joy. She took but time to put off her bonnet and shawl, and was presently at work helping Mary, cheerful as hope and a good conscience could make her.
Mary was in no hurry to open the shop. There was "stock to be taken," many things had to be rearranged, and not a few things to be added, before she could begin with comfort; and she must see to it all herself, for she was determined to engage no assistant until she could give her orders without hesitation.
She was soon satisfied that she could not do better than make a proposal to Letty which she had for some time contemplated—namely, that she should take up her permanent abode with her, and help her in the shop. Letty was charmed, nor ever thought of the annoyance it would be to her aunt. Mary had thought of that, but saw that, for Letty to allow the prejudices of her aunt to influence her, would be to order her life not by the law of that God whose Son was a workingman, but after the whim and folly of an ill-educated old woman. A new spring of life seemed to bubble up in Letty the moment Mary mentioned the matter; and in serving she soon proved herself one after Mary's own heart. Letty's day was henceforth without a care, and her rest was sweet to her. Many customers were even more pleased with her than with Mary. Before long, Mary, besides her salary, gave her a small share in the business.
Mrs. Wardour carried her custom to the Turnbulls.
When the paint was dry which obliterated the old sign, people saw the now one begin with anM., and the sign-writer went on until there stood in full,Mary Marston. Mr. Brett hinted he would rather have seen it without the Christian name; but Mary insisted she would do and be nothing she would not hold just that name to; and on the sign her own name, neither more nor less, should stand. She would have liked, she said, to make itWilliam and Mary Marston; for the business was to go on exactly as her father had taught her; the spirit of her father should never be out of the place; and if she failed, of which she had no fear, she would fail trying to carry out his ideas-but people were too dull to understand, and she therefore set the sign so in her heart only.
Her old friends soon began to come about her again, and it was not many weeks before she saw fit to go to London to add to her stock.
The evening of her return, as she and Letty sat over a late tea, a silence fell, during which Letty had a brooding fit.
"I wonder how Cousin Godfrey is getting on?" she said at last, and smiled sadly.
"How do you meangetting on?" asked Mary.
"I was wondering whether Miss Yolland and he—"
Mary started from her seat, white as the table-cloth.
"Letty!" she said, in a voice of utter dismay, "you don't mean that woman is—is making friends withhim?"
"I saw them together more than once, and they seemed—well, on very good terms."
"Then it is all over with him!" cried Mary, in despair. "O Letty! whatisto be done? Why didn't you tell me before? He'll be madly in love with her by this time! They always are."
"But where's the harm, Mary? She's a very handsome lady, and of a good family."
"We're all of good enough family," said Mary, a little petulantly. "But that Miss Yolland—Letty—that Miss Yolland—she's a bad woman, Letty."
"I never heard you say such a hard word of anybody before, Mary! It frightens me to hear you."
"It's a true word of her, Letty."
"How can you be so sure?"
Mary was silent. There was that about Letty that made the maiden shrink from telling the married woman what she knew. Besides, in so far as Tom had been concerned, she could not bring herself, even without mentioning his name, to talk of him to his wife: there was no evil to be prevented and no good to be done by it. If Letty was ever to know those passages in his life, she must hear them first in high places, and from the lips of the repentant man himself!
"I can not tell you, Letty," she said. "You know the two bonds of friendship are the right of silence and the duty of speech. I dare say you have some things which, truly as I know you love me, you neither wish nor feel at liberty to tell me."
Letty thought of what had so lately passed between her and her cousin Godfrey, and felt almost guilty. She never thought of one of the many things Tom had done or said that had cut her to the heart; those had no longer any existence. They were swallowed in the gulf of forgetful love—dismissed even as God casts the sins of his children behind his back: behind God's back is just nowhere. She did not answer, and again there was silence for a time, during which Mary kept walking about the room, her hands clasped behind her, the fingers interlaced, and twisted with a strain almost fierce.
"There's no time! there's no time!" she cried at length. "How are we to find out? And if we knew all about it, what could we do? O Letty! whatamI to do?"
"Anyhow, Mary dear,youcan't be to blame! One would think you fancied yourself accountable for Cousin Godfrey!"
"Iamaccountable for him. He has done more for me than any man but my father; and I know what he does not know, and what the ignorance of will be his ruin. I know that one of the best men in the world"—so in her agony she called him—"is in danger of being married by one of the worst women; and I can't bear it—I can't bear it!"
"But what can you do, Mary?"
"That's what I want to know," returned Mary, with irritation. "WhatamI to do? WhatamI to do?"
"If he's in love with her, he wouldn't believe a word any one—even you—told him against her."
"That is true, I suppose; but it won't clear me. I must do something."
She threw herself on the couch with a groan.
"It's horrid!" she cried, and buried her face in the pillow.
All this time Letty had been so bewildered by Mary's agitation, and the cause of it was to her so vague, that apprehension for her cousin did not wake. But when Mary was silent, then came the thought that, if she had not so repulsed him—but she could not help it, and would not think in that direction.
Mary started from the couch, and began again to pace the room, wringing her hands, and walking up and down like a wild beast in its cage. It was so unlike her to be thus seriously discomposed, that Letty began to be frightened. She sat silent and looked at her. Then spoke the spirit of truth in the scholar, for the teacher was too troubled to hear. She rose, and going up to Mary from behind, put her arm round her, and whispered in her ear:
"Mary, why don't you ask Jesus?"
Mary stopped short, and looked at Letty. But she was not thinking about her; she was questioning herself: why had she not done as Letty said? Something was wrong with her: that was clear, if nothing else was! She threw herself again on the couch, and Letty saw her body heaving with her sobs. Then Letty was more frightened, and feared she had done wrong. Was it her part to remind Mary of what she knew so much better than she?
"But, then, I was only referring her to herself!" she thought.
A few minutes, and Mary rose. Her face was wet and white, but perplexity had vanished from it, and resolution had taken its place. She threw her arms round Letty, and kissed her, and held her face against hers. Letty had never seen in her such an expression of emotion and tenderness.
"I have found out, Letty, dear," she said. "Thank you, thank you, Letty! You are a true sister."
"What have you found out, Mary?"
"I have found out why I did not go at once to ask Him what I ought to do. It was just because I was afraid of what he would tell me to do."
And with that the tears ran down her cheeks afresh.
"Then you know now what to do?" asked Letty.
"Yes," answered Mary, and sat down.
The next morning, leaving the shop to Letty, Mary set out immediately after breakfast to go to Thornwick. But the duty she had there to perform was so distasteful, that she felt her very limbs refuse the office required of them. They trembled so under her that she could scarcely walk. She sent, therefore, to the neighboring inn for a fly. All the way, as she went, she was hoping she might be spared an encounter with Mrs. Wardour; but the old lady heard the fly, saw her get out, and, imagining she had brought Letty back in some fresh trouble, hastened to prevent either of them from entering the house. The door stood open, and they met on the broad step.
"Good morning, Mrs. Wardour," said Mary, trying to speak without betraying emotion.
"Good morning, Miss Marston," returned Mrs. Wardour, grimly.
"Is Mr. Wardour at home?" asked Mary.
"What is your business withhim?" rejoined the mother.
"Yes; it is with him," returned Mary, as if she had mistaken her question, and there had been a point of exclamation after theWhat.
"About that hussy?"
"I do not know whom you call by the name," replied Mary, who would have been glad indeed to find a fellow-protector of Godfrey in his mother.
"You know well enough whom I mean. Whom should it be, but Letty Lovel!"
"My business has nothing to do with her," answered Mary.
"Whom has it to do with, then?"
"With Mr. Wardour."
"What is it?"
"Only Mr. Wardour himself must hear it. It is his business, not mine."
"I will have nothing to do with it."
"I have no desire to give you the least trouble about it," rejoined Mary.
"You can't see Mr. Wardour. He's not one to be at the beck and call of every silly woman that wants him."
"Then I will write, and tell him I called, but you would not allow me to see him."
"I will give him a message, if you like."
"Then tell him what I have just said. I am going home to write to him. Good morning."
She was getting into the fly again, when Mrs. Wardour, reflecting that it must needs be something of consequence that brought her there so early in a fly, and made her show such a determined front to so great a personage as herself, spoke again.
"I will tell him you are here; but you must not blame me if he does not choose to see you. We don't feel you have behaved well about that girl."
"Letty is my friend. I have behaved to her as if she were my sister."
"You had no business to behave to her as if she were your sister. You had no right to tempt her down to your level."
"Is it degradation to earn one's own living?"
"You had nothing to do with her. She would have done very well if you had but let her alone."
"Excuse me, ma'am, but I havesomeright in Letty. I am sorry to have to assert it, but she would have been dead long ago if I had behaved to her as you would have me."
"That was all her own fault."
"I will not talk with you about it: you do not know the circumstances to which I refer. I request to see Mr. Wardour. I have no time to waste in useless altercation."
Mary was angry, and it did her good; it made her fitter to face the harder task before her.
That moment they heard the step of Godfrey approaching through a long passage in the rear. His mother went into the parlor, leaving the door, which was close to where Mary stood, ajar. Godfrey, reaching the hall, saw Mary, and came up to her with a formal bow, and a face flushed with displeasure.
"May I speak to you alone, Mr. Wardour?" said Mary. "Can you not say what you have to say here?"
"It is impossible."
"Then I am curious to know—"
"Let your curiosity plead for me, then."
With a sigh of impatience he yielded, and led the way to the drawing-room, which was at the other end of the hall. Mary turned and shut the door he left open.
"Why all this mystery, Miss Marston?" he said. "I am not aware of anything between you and me that can require secrecy."
He spoke with unconcealed scorn.
"When I have made my communication, you will at least allow secrecy to have been necessary."
"Some objects may require it!" said Wardour, in a tone itself an insult.
"Mr. Wardour," returned Mary, "I am here for your sake, not my own. May I beg you will not render a painful duty yet more difficult?"
"MayIbeg, then, that you will be as brief as possible? I am more than doubtful whether what you have to say will seem to me of so much consequence as you suppose."
"I shall be very glad to find it so."
"I can not give you more than ten minutes." Mary looked at her watch.
"You have lately become acquainted with Miss Yolland, I am told," she began.
"Whew!" whistled Godfrey, yet hardly as if he were surprised.
"I have been compelled to know a good deal of that lady."
"As lady's-maid in her family, I believe."
"Yes," said Mary—then changing her tone after a slight pause, went on: "Mr. Wardour, I owe you more than I can ever thank you for. I strongly desire to fulfill the obligation your goodness has laid upon me, though I can never discharge it. For the sake of that obligation—for your sake, I am risking much—namely, your opinion of me."
He made a gesture of impatience.
"IknowMiss Yolland to be a woman without principle. I know it by the testimony of my own eyes, and from her own confession. She is capable of playing a cold-hearted, cruel game for her own ends. Be persuaded to consult Mr. Redmain before you commit yourself. Ask him if Miss Yolland is fit to be the wife of an honest man."
There was nothing in Godfrey's countenance but growing rage. Turning to the door, Mary would have gone without another word.
"Stay!" cried Godfrey, in a voice of suppressed fury. "Do not dare to go until I have told you that you are a vile slanderer. I knew something of what I had to expect, but you should never have entered this room had I known how far your effrontery could carry you. Listen to me: if anything more than the character of your statement had been necessary to satisfy me of the falsehood of every word of it, you have given it me in your reference to Mr. Redmain—a man whose life has rendered him unfit for the acquaintance, not to say the confidence of any decent woman. This is a plot—for what final object, God knows—between you and him! I should be doing my duty were I to expose you both to the public scorn you deserve."
"Now I am clear!" said Mary to herself, but aloud, and stood erect, with glowing face and eyes of indignation: "Then why not do your duty, Mr. Wardour? I should be glad of anything that would open your eyes. But Miss Yolland will never give Mr. Redmain such an opportunity. Nor does he desire it, for he might have had it long ago, by the criminal prosecution of a friend of hers. For my part, I should be sorry to see her brought to public shame."
"Leave the house!" said Godfrey through his teeth, and almost under his breath.
"I am sorry it is so hard to distinguish between truth and falsehood," said Mary, as she went to the door.
She walked out, got into the fly, and drove home; went into the shop, and served the rest of the morning; but in the afternoon was obliged to lie down, and did not appear again for three days.
The reception she had met with did not much surprise her: plainly Sepia had been before her. She had pretended to make Godfrey her confidant, had invented, dressed, and poured out injuries to him, and so blocked up the way to all testimony unfavorable to her. Was there ever man in more pitiable position?
It added to Godfrey's rage that he had not a doubt Mary knew what had passed between Letty and him. That, he reasoned, was at the root of it all: she wanted to bring them together yet: it would be a fine thing for her to have her bosom-friend mistress of Thornwick! What a cursed thing he should ever have been civil to her! And what a cursed fool he was ever to have cared a straw for such a low-minded creature as that Letty! Thank Heaven, he was cured of that!
Cured?—He had fallen away from love—that was all the cure!
Like the knight of the Red Cross, he was punished for abandoning Una, by falling in love with Duessa. His rage against Letty, just because of her faithfulness, had cast him an easy prey into the arms of the clinging Sepia.
And now what more could Mary do? Just one thing was left: Mr. Redmain could satisfy Mr. Wardour of the fact he would not hear from her!—so, at least, thought Mary yet. If Mr. Redmain would take the trouble to speak to him, Mr. Wardour must be convinced! However true might be what Mr. Wardour had said about Mr. Redmain, fact remained fact about Sepia!
She sat down and wrote the following letter:
"Sir: I hardly know how to address you without seeming to take a liberty; at the same time I can not help hoping you trust me enough to believe that I would not venture such a request as I am about to make, without good reason. Should you kindly judge me not to presume, and should you be well enough in health, which I fear may not be the case, would you mind coming to see me here in my shop? I think you must know it—it used to be Turnbull and Marston—the Marston was my father. You will see my name over the door. Any hour from morning to night will do for me; only please let it be as soon as you can make it convenient.
"I am, sir,"Your humble and grateful servant,"MARY MARSTON"
"What the deuce is she grateful to me for?" grumbled Mr. Redmain when he read it. "I never did anything for her! By Jove, the gypsy herself wouldn't let me! I vow she's got more brains of her own than any half-dozen women I ever had to do with before!"
The least thing bearing the look of plot, or intrigue, or secret to be discovered or heard, was enough for Mr. Redmain. What he had of pride was not of the same sort as Wardour's: it made no pretense to dignity, and was less antagonistic, so long at least as there was no talk of good motive or righteous purpose. Far from being offended with Mary's request, he got up at once, though indeed he was rather unwell and dreading an attack, ordered his brougham, and drove to Testbridge. There, careful of secrecy, he went to several shops, and bought something at each, but pretended not to find the thing he wanted.
He then said he would lunch at the inn, told his coachman to put up, and, while his meal was getting ready, went to Mary's shop, which was but a few doors off. There he asked for a certain outlandish stuff, and insisted on looking over a bale not yet unpacked. Mary understood him, and, whispering Letty to take him to the parlor, followed a minute after.
As soon as she entered—
"Come, now, what's it all about?" he said.
Mary began at once to tell him, as directly as she could, that she was under obligation to Mr. Wardour of Thornwick, and that she had reason to fear Miss Yolland was trying to get a hold of him—"And you know what that would be for any man!" she said.
"No, by Jove! I don't," he answered. "What would it be?"
"Utter ruin," replied Mary. "Then go and tell him so, if you want to save him."
"I have told him. But he does not like me, and won't believe me."
"Then let him take his own course, and be ruined."
"But I have just told you, sir, I am under obligation to him—great obligation!"
"Oh! I see! you want him yourself!—Well, as you wish it, I would rather you should have him than that she-devil. But come, now, you must be open with me."
"I am. I will be."
"You say so, of course. Women do.—But you confess you want him yourself?"
Mary saw it would be the worst possible policy to be angry with him, especially as she had given him the trouble to come to her, and she must not lose this her last chance.
"I do not want him," she answered, with a smile; "and, if I did, he would never look at one in my position. He would as soon think of marrying the daughter of one of his laborers—and quite right, too—for the one might just be as good as the other."
"Well, now, that's a pity. I would have done a good deal foryou—I don't know why, for you're a little humbug if ever there was one! But, if you don't care about the fellow, I don't see why I should take the trouble. Confess—you're a little bit in love with him—ain't you, now? Confess to that, and I will do what I can."
"I can't confess to a lie. I owe Mr. Wardour a debt of gratitude—that is all—but no light thing, you will allow, sir!"
"I don't know; I never tried its weight. Anyhow, I should make haste to be rid of it."
"I have sought to make him this return, but he only fancies me a calumniator. Miss Yolland has been beforehand with me."
"Then, by Jove! I don't see but you're quits with him. If he behaves like that to you, don't you see, it wipes it all out? Upon my soul! I don't see why you should trouble your head about him. Let him take his way, and go to—Sepia."
"But, sir, what a dreadful thing it would be, knowing what she is, to let a man like him throw himself away on her!"
"I don't see it. I've no doubt he's just as bad as she is. We all are; we're all the same. And, if he weren't, it would be the better joke. Besides, you oughtn't to keep up a grudge, don't you know; you ought to let the—thewomanhave a chance. If he marries her—and that must be her game this time—she'll grow decent, and be respectable ever after, you may be sure—go to church, as you would have her, and all that—never miss a Sunday, I'll lay you a thousand."
"He's of a good old family!" said Mary, foolishly, thinking that would weigh with him.
"Good old fiddlestick! Damned old worn-out broom-end!She'sof a good old family—quite good enough for his, you may take your oath! Why, my girl! the thing's not worth burning your fingers with. You've brought me here on a goose-errand. I'll go and have my lunch."
He rose.
"I'm sorry to have vexed you, sir," said Mary, greatly disappointed.
"Never mind.—I'm horribly sold," he said, with a tight grin. "I thought you must have some good thing in hand to make it worth your while to send for me."
"Then I must try something else," reflected Mary aloud.
"I wouldn't advise you. The man's only the surer to hate you and stick to her. Let him alone. If he's a stuck-up fellow like that, it will take him down a bit—when the truth comes out, that is, as come out it must. There's one good thing in it, my wife'll get rid of her. But I don't know! there's an enemy, as the Bible says, that sticketh closer than a brother. And they'll be next door when Durnmelling is mine! But I can sell it."
"If heshouldcome to you, will you tell him the truth?"
"I don't know that. It might spoil my own little game."
"Will you let him think me a liar and slanderer?"
"No, by Jove! I won't do that. I don't promise to tell him all the truth, or even that what I do tell him shall be exactly true; but I won't let him think ill of my little puritan; that would spoilyourgame. Ta, ta!"
He went out, with his curious grin, amused, and enjoying the idea of a proud fellow like that being taken in with Sepia.
"I hope devoutly he'll marry her!" he said to himself as he went to his luncheon. "Then I shall hold a rod over them both, and perhaps buy that miserable little Thornwick. Mortimer would give the skin off his back for it."
The thing that ought to be done had to be done, and Mary had done it—alas! to no purpose for the end desired: what was left her to do further? She could think of nothing. Sepia, like a moral hyena, must range her night. She went to bed, and dreamed she was pursued by a crowd, hooting after her, and calling her all the terrible names of those who spread evil reports. She woke in misery, and slept no more.
One hot Saturday afternoon, in the sleepiest time of the day, when nothing was doing; and nobody in the shop, except a poor boy who had come begging for some string to help him fly his kite, though for the last month wind had been more scarce than string, Jemima came in from Durnmelling, and, greeting Mary with the warmth of the friendship that had always been true between them, gave her a letter.
"Whom is this from?" asked Mary, with the usual human waste of inquiry, seeing she held the surest answer in her hand.
"Mr. Mewks gave it me," said Jemima. "He didn't say whom it was from."
Mary made haste to open it: she had an instinctive distrust of everything that passed through Mewks's hands, and greatly feared that, much as his master trusted him, he was not true to him. She found the following note from Mr. Redmain:
"DEAR MISS MARSTON: Come and see me as soon as you can; I have something to talk to you about. Send word by the bearer when I may look for you. I am not well.
"Yours truly,
"F. G. REDMAIN."
Mary went to her desk and wrote a reply, saying she would be with him the next morning about eleven o'clock. She would have gone that same night, she said, but, as it was Saturday, she could not, because of country customers, close in time to go so far.
"Give it into Mr. Redmain's own hand, if you can, Jemima," she said.
"I will try; but I doubt if I can, miss," answered the girl.
"Between ourselves, Jemima," said Mary, "I do not trust that man Mewks."
"Nobody does, miss, except the master and Miss Yolland."
"Then," thought Mary, "the thing is worse than I had supposed."
"I'll do what I can, miss," Jemima went on. "But he's so sharp!—Mr. Mewks, I mean."
After she was gone, Mary wished she had given her a verbal message; that she might have insisted on delivering in person.
Jemima, with circumspection, managed to reach Mr. Redmain's room unencountered, but just as she knocked at the door, Mewks came behind her from somewhere, and snatching the letter out of her hand, for she carried it ready to justify her entrance to the first glance of her irritable master, pushed her rudely away, and immediately went in. But as he did so he put the letter in his pocket.
"Who took the note?" asked his master.
"The girl at the lodge, sir."
"Is she not come back yet?"
"No, sir, not yet. She'll be in a minute, though. I saw her coming up the avenue."
"Go and bring her here."
"Yes, sir."
Mewks went, and in two minutes returned with the letter, and the message that Miss Marston hadn't time to direct it.
"You damned rascal! I told you to bring the messenger here."
"She ran the whole way, sir, and not being very strong, was that tired, that, the moment she got in, the poor thing dropped in a dead faint. They ain't got her to yet."
His master gave him one look straight in the eyes, then opened the letter, and read it.
"Miss Marston will call here tomorrow morning," he said; "see thatsheis shown up at once—here, to my sitting-room. I hope I am explicit."
When the man was gone, Mr. Redmain nodded his head three times, and grinned the skin tight as a drum-head over his cheek-bones.
"There isn't a damned soul of them to be trusted!" he said to himself, and sat silently thoughtful.
Perhaps he was thinking how often he had come short of the hope placed in him; times of reflection arrive to most men; and a threatened attack of the illness he believed must one day carry him off, might well have disposed him to think.
In the evening he was worse.
By midnight he was in agony, and Lady Margaret was up with him all night. In the morning came a lull, and Lady Margaret went to bed. His wife had not come near him. But Sepia might have been seen, more than once or twice, hovering about his door.
Both she and Mewks thought, after such a night, he must have forgotten his appointment with Mary.
When he had had some chocolate, he fell into a doze. But his sleep was far from profound. Often he woke and again dozed off.
The clock in the dressing-room struck eleven.
"Show Miss Marston up the moment she arrives," he said—and his voice was almost like that of a man in health.
"Yes, sir," replied the startled Mewks, and felt he must obey.
So Mary was at once shown to the chamber of the sick man.
To her surprise (for Mewks had given her no warning), he was in bed, and looking as ill as ever she had seen him. His small head was like a skull covered with parchment. He made the slightest of signs to her to come nearer—and again. She went close to the bed. Mewks sat down at the foot of it, out of sight. It was a great four-post-bed, with curtains.
"I'm glad you're come," he said, with a feeble grin, all he had for a smile. "I want to have a little talk with you. But I can't while that brute is sitting there. I have been suffering horribly. Look at me, and tell me if you think I am going to die—not that I take your opinion for worth anything. That's not what I wanted you for, though. I wasn't so ill then. But I want you the more to talk to now.Youhave a bit of a heart, even for people that don't deserve it—at least I'm going to believe you have; and, if I am wrong, I almost think I would rather not know it till I'm dead and gone!—Good God! where shall I be then?"
I have already said that, whether in consequence of remnants of mother-teaching or from the movements of a conscience that had more vitality than any of his so-called friends would have credited it with, Mr. Redmain, as often as his sufferings reached a certain point, was subject to fits of terror—horrible anguish it sometimes amounted to—at the thought of hell. This, of course, was silly, seeing hell is out of fashion in far wider circles than that of Mayfair; but denial does not alter fact, and not always fear. Mr. Redmain laughed when he was well, and shook when he was suffering. In vain he argued with himself that what he held by when in health was much more likely to be true than a dread which might be but the suggestion of the disease that was slowly gnawing him to death: as often as the sickness returned, he received the suggestion afresh, whatever might be its source, and trembled as before. In vain he accused himself of cowardice—the thing was there—in him—nothing could drive it out. And, verily, even a madman may be wiser than the prudent of this world; and the courage of not a few would forsake them if they dared but look the danger in the face. I pity the poor ostrich, and must I admire the man of whose kind he is the type, or take him in any sense for a man of courage? Wait till the thing stares you in the face, and then, whether you be brave man or coward, you will at all events care little about courage or cowardice. The nearer a man is to being a true man, the sooner will conscience of wrong make a coward of him; and herein Redmain had a far-off kindred with the just. After the night he had passed, he was now in one of his terror-fits; and this much may be said for his good sense—that, if there was anywhere a hell for the use of anybody, he was justified in anticipating a free entrance.
"Mewks!" he called, suddenly, and his tone was loud and angry.
Mewks was by his bedside instantly.
"Get out with you! If I find you in this room again, without having been called, I will kill you! I am strong enough for that, even without this pain. They won't hang a dying man, and where I am going they will rather like it."
Mewks vanished.
"You need not mind, my girl," he went on, to Mary. "Everybody knows I am ill—very ill. Sit down there, on the foot of the bed, only take care you don't shake it, and let me talk to you. People, you know, say nowadays there ain't any hell—or perhaps none to speak of?"
"I should think the former more likely than the latter," said Mary.
"You don't believe there is any? Iamglad of that! for you are a good girl, and ought to know."
"You mistake me, sir. How can I imagine there is no hell, whenhesaid there was?"
"Who'she?"
"The man who knows all about it, and means to put a stop to it some day."
"Oh, yes; I see! Hm!—But I don't for the life of me see what a fellow is to make of it all—don't you know? Those parsons! They will have it there's no way out of it but theirs, and I never could see a handle anywhere to that door!"
"Idon't see what the parsons have got to do with it, or, at least, what you have got to do with the parsons. If a thing is true, you have as much to do with it as any parson in England; if it is not true, neither you nor they have anything to do with it."
"But, I tell you, if it be all as true as—as—that we are all sinners, I don't know what to do with it!"
"It seems to me a simple thing.Thatman as much as said he knew all about it, and came to find men that were lost, and take them home."
"He can't well find one more lost than I am! But how am I to believe it? How can it be true? It's ages since he was here, if ever he was at all, and there hasn't been a sign of him ever since, all the time!"
"There you may be quite wrong. I think I could find you some who believe him just as near them now as ever he was to his own brothers—believe that he hears them when they speak to him, and heeds what they say."
"That's bosh. You would have me believe against the evidence of my senses!"
"You must have strange senses, Mr. Redmain, that give you evidence where they can't possibly know anything! If that man spoke the truth when he was in the world, he is near us now; if he is not near us, there is an end of it all."
"The nearer he is, the worse for me!" sighed Mr. Redmain.
"The nearer he is, the better for the worst man that ever breathed."
"That's queer doctrine! Mind you, I don't say it mayn't be all right. But it does seem a cowardly thing to go asking him to save you, after you've been all your life doing what ought to damn you—if there be a hell, mind you, that is."
"But think," said Mary, "if that should be your only chance of being able to make up for the mischief you have done? No punishment you can have will do anything for that. No suffering of yours will do anything for those you have made suffer. But it is so much harder to leave the old way than to go on and let things take their chance!"
"There may be something in what you say; but still I can't see it anything better than sneaking, to do a world of mischief, and then slink away into heaven, leaving all the poor wretches to look after themselves."
"I don't think Jesus Christ is worse pleased with you for feeling like that," said Mary.
"Eh? What? What's that you say?—Jesus Christ worse pleased with me? That's a good one! As if he ever thought about a fellow like me!"
"If he did not, you would not be thinking about him just this minute, I suspect. There's no sense in it, if he does not think about you. He said himself he didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
"I wish I could repent."
"You can, if you will."
"I can't make myself sorry for what's gone and done with."
"No; it wants him to do that. But you can turn from your old ways, and ask him to take you for a pupil. Aren't you willing to learn, if he be willing to teach you?"
"I don't know. It's all so dull and stupid! I never could bear going to church."
"It's not one bit like that! It's like going to your mother, and saying you're going to try to be a good boy, and not vex her any more."
"I see. It's all right, I dare say! But I've had as much of it as I can stand! You see, I'm not used to such things. You go away, and send Mewks. Don't be far off, though, and mind you don't go home without letting me know. There! Go along."
She had just reached the door, when he called her again.
"I say! Mind whom you trust in this house. There's no harm in Mrs. Redmain; she only grows stupid directly she don't like a thing. But that Miss Yolland!—that woman's the devil. I know more about her than you or any one else. I can't bear her to be about Hesper; but, if I told her the half I know, she would not believe the half of that. I shall find a way, though. But I am forgetting! you know her as well as I do—that is, you would, if you were wicked enough to understand. I will tell you one of these days what, I am going to do. There! don't say a word. I want no advice onsuchthings. Go along, and send Mewks."
With all his suspicion of the man, Mr. Redmain did not suspecthowfalse Mewks was: he did not know that Miss Yolland had bewitched him for the sake of having an ally in the enemy's camp. All he could hear—and the dressing-room door was handy—the fellow duly reported to her. Already, instructed by her fears, she had almost divined what Mr. Redmain meant to do.
Mary went and sat on the lowest step of the stair just outside the room.
"What are you doing there?" said Lady Margaret, coming from the corridor.
"Mr. Redmain will not have me go yet, my lady," answered Mary, rising. "I must wait first till he sends for me."
Lady Margaret swept past her, murmuring, "Most peculiar!" Mary sat down again.
In about an hour, Mewks came and said his master wanted her.