ON the memorable Monday, when the picture gallery was opened to the public for the first time, Lord Loring and Father Benwell met in the library.
“Judging by the number of carriages already at the door,” said Father Benwell, “your lordship’s kindness is largely appreciated by the lovers of Art.”
“All the tickets were disposed of in three hours,” Lord Loring answered. “Everybody (the librarians tell me) is eager to see the pictures. Have you looked in yet?”
“Not yet. I thought I would get on first with my work among the books.”
“I have just come from the gallery,” Lord Loring continued. “And here I am, driven out of it again by the remarks of some of the visitors. You know my beautiful copies of Raphael’s Cupid and Psyche designs? The general impression, especially among the ladies, is that they are disgusting and indecent. That was enough for me. If you happen to meet Lady Loring and Stella, kindly tell them that I have gone to the club.”
“Do the ladies propose paying a visit to the gallery?”
“Of course—to see the people! I have recommended them to wait until they are ready to go out for their drive. In their indoor costume they might become the objects of general observation as the ladies of the house. I shall be anxious to hear, Father, if you can discover the civilizing influences of Art among my guests in the gallery. Good-morning.”
Father Benwell rang the bell when Lord Loring had left him.
“Do the ladies drive out to-day at their usual hour?” he inquired, when the servant appeared. The man answered in the affirmative. The carriage was ordered at three o’clock.
At half-past two Father Benwell slipped quietly into the gallery. He posted himself midway between the library door and the grand entrance; on the watch, not for the civilizing influences of Art, but for the appearance of Lady Loring and Stella. He was still of opinion that Stella’s “frivolous” mother might be turned into a source of valuable information on the subject of her daughter’s earlier life. The first step toward attaining this object was to discover Mrs. Eyrecourt’s present address. Stella would certainly know it—and Father Benwell felt a just confidence in his capacity to make the young lady serviceable, in this respect, to the pecuniary interests of the Church.
After an interval of a quarter of an hour, Lady Loring and Stella entered the gallery by the library door. Father Benwell at once advanced to pay his respects.
For some little time he discreetly refrained from making any attempt to lead the conversation to the topic that he had in view. He was too well acquainted with the insatiable interest of women in looking at other women to force himself into notice. The ladies made their remarks on the pretensions to beauty and to taste in dress among the throng of visitors—and Father Benwell waited by them, and listened with the resignation of a modest young man. Patience, being a virtue, is sometimes its own reward. Two gentlemen, evidently interested in the pictures, approached the priest. He drew back, with his ready politeness, to let them see the picture before which he happened to be standing.
The movement disturbed Stella. She turned sharply—noticed one of the gentlemen, the taller of the two—became deadly pale—and instantly quitted the gallery. Lady Loring, looking where Stella had looked, frowned angrily and followed Miss Eyrecourt into the library. Wise Father Benwell let them go, and concentrated his attention on the person who had been the object of this startling recognition.
Unquestionably a gentleman—with light hair and complexion—with a bright benevolent face and keen intelligent blue eyes—apparently still in the prime of life. Such was Father Benwell’s first impression of the stranger. He had evidently seen Miss Eyrecourt at the moment when she first noticed him; and he too showed signs of serious agitation. His face flushed deeply, and his eyes expressed, not merely surprise, but distress. He turned to his friend. “This place is hot,” he said; “let us get out of it!”
“My dear Winterfield!” the friend remonstrated, “we haven’t seen half the pictures yet.”
“Excuse me if I leave you,” the other replied. “I am used to the free air of the country. Let us meet again this evening. Come and dine with me. The same address as usual—Derwent’s Hotel.”
With those words he hurried out, making his way, without ceremony, through the crowd in the picture gallery.
Father Benwell returned to the library. It was quite needless to trouble himself further about Mrs. Eyrecourt or her address. “Thanks to Lord Loring’s picture gallery,” he thought, “I have found the man!”
He took up his pen and made a little memorandum—“Winterfield. Derwent’s Hotel.”
I.
To Mr. Bitrake. Private and Confidential.
SIR—I understand that your connection with the law does not exclude your occasional superintendence of confidential inquiries, which are not of a nature to injure your professional position. The inclosed letter of introduction will satisfy you that I am incapable of employing your experience in a manner unbecoming to you, or to myself.
The inquiry that I propose to you relates to a gentleman named Winterfield. He is now staying in London, at Derwent’s Hotel, and is expected to remain there for a week from the present date. His place of residence is on the North Devonshire coast, and is well known in that locality by the name of Beaupark House.
The range of my proposed inquiry dates back over the last four or five years—certainly not more. My object is to ascertain, as positively as may be, whether, within this limit of time, events in Mr. Winterfield’s life have connected him with a young lady named Miss Stella Eyrecourt. If this proves to be the case it is essential that I should be made acquainted with the whole of the circumstances.
I have now informed you of all that I want to know. Whatever the information may be, it is most important that it shall be information which I can implicitly trust. Please address to me, when you write, under cover to the friend whose letter I inclose.
I beg your acceptance—as time is of importance—of a check for preliminary expenses, and remain, sir, your faithful servant,
AMBROSE BENWELL.
II.
To the Secretary, Society of Jesus, Rome.
I inclose a receipt for the remittance which your last letter confides to my care. Some of the money has been already used in prosecuting inquiries, the result of which will, as I hope and believe, enable me to effectually protect Romayne from the advances of the woman who is bent on marrying him.
You tell me that our Reverend Fathers, lately sitting in council on the Vange Abbey affair, are anxious to hear if any positive steps have yet been taken toward the conversion of Romayne. I am happily able to gratify their wishes, as you shall now see.
Yesterday, I called at Romayne’s hotel to pay one of those occasional visits which help to keep up our acquaintance. He was out, and Penrose (for whom I asked next) was with him. Most fortunately, as the event proved, I had not seen Penrose, or heard from him, for some little time; and I thought it desirable to judge for myself of the progress that he was making in the confidence of his employer. I said I would wait. The hotel servant knows me by sight. I was shown into Romayne’s waiting-room.
This room is so small as to be a mere cupboard. It is lighted by a glass fanlight over the door which opens from the passage, and is supplied with air (in the absence of a fireplace) by a ventilator in a second door, which communicates with Romayne’s study. Looking about me, so far, I crossed to the other end of the study, and discovered a dining-room and two bedrooms beyond—the set of apartments being secluded, by means of a door at the end of the passage, from the other parts of the hotel. I trouble you with these details in order that you may understand the events that followed.
I returned to the waiting-room, not forgetting of course to close the door of communication.
Nearly an hour must have passed before I heard footsteps in the passage. The study door was opened, and the voices of persons entering the room reached me through the ventilator. I recognized Romayne, Penrose—and Lord Loring.
The first words exchanged among them informed me that Romayne and his secretary had overtaken Lord Loring in the street, as he was approaching the hotel door. The three had entered the house together—at a time, probably, when the servant who had admitted me was out of the way. However it may have happened, there I was, forgotten in the waiting-room!
Could I intrude myself (on a private conversation perhaps) as an unannounced and unwelcome visitor? And could I help it, if the talk found its way to me through the ventilator, along with the air that I breathed? If our Reverend Fathers think I was to blame, I bow to any reproof which their strict sense of propriety may inflict on me. In the meantime, I beg to repeat the interesting passages in the conversation, as nearly word for word as I can remember them.
His lordship, as the principal personage in social rank, shall be reported first. He said: “More than a week has passed, Romayne, and we have neither seen you nor heard from you. Why have you neglected us?”
Here, judging by certain sounds that followed, Penrose got up discreetly, and left the room. Lord Loring went on.
He said to Romayne: “Now we are alone, I may speak to you more freely. You and Stella seemed to get on together admirably that evening when you dined with us. Have you forgotten what you told me of her influence over you? Or have you altered your opinion—and is that the reason why you keep away from us?”
Romayne answered: “My opinion remains unchanged. All that I said to you of Miss Eyrecourt, I believe as firmly as ever.”
His lordship remonstrated, naturally enough. “Then why remain away from the good influence? Why—if it reallycanbe controlled—risk another return of that dreadful nervous delusion?”
“I have had another return.”
“Which, as you yourself believe, might have been prevented! Romayne, you astonish me.”
There was a time of silence, before Romayne answered this. He was a little mysterious when he did reply. “You know the old saying, my good friend—of two evils, choose the least. I bear my sufferings as one of two evils, and the least of the two.”
Lord Loring appeared to feel the necessity of touching a delicate subject with a light hand. He said, in his pleasant way: “Stella isn’t the other evil, I suppose?”
“Most assuredly not.”
“Then what is it?”
Romayne answered, almost passionately: “My own weakness and selfishness! Faults which I must resist, or become a mean and heartless man. For me, the worst of the two evils is there. I respect and admire Miss Eyrecourt—I believe her to be a woman in a thousand—don’t ask me to see her again! Where is Penrose? Let us talk of something else.”
Whether this wild way of speaking offended Lord Loring, or only discouraged him, I cannot say. I heard him take his leave in these words: “You have disappointed me, Romayne. We will talk of something else the next time we meet.” The study door was opened and closed. Romayne was left by himself.
Solitude was apparently not to his taste just then. I heard him call to Penrose. I heard Penrose ask: “Do you want me?”
Romayne answered: “God knows I want a friend—and I have no friend near me but you! Major Hynd is away, and Lord Loring is offended with me.”
Penrose asked why.
Romayne, thereupon, entered on the necessary explanation. As a priest writing to priests, I pass over details utterly uninteresting to us. The substance of what he said amounted to this: Miss Eyrecourt had produced an impression on him which was new to him in his experience of women. If he saw more of her, it might end—I ask your pardon for repeating the ridiculous expression—in his “falling in love with her.” In this condition of mind or body, whichever it may be, he would probably be incapable of the self-control which he had hitherto practiced. If she consented to devote her life to him, he might accept the cruel sacrifice. Rather than do this, he would keep away from her, for her dear sake—no matter what he might suffer, or whom he might offend.
Imagine any human being, out of a lunatic asylum, talking in this way. Shall I own to you, my reverend colleague, how this curious self-exposure struck me? As I listened to Romayne, I felt grateful to the famous Council which definitely forbade the priests of the Catholic Church to marry.Wemight otherwise have been morally enervated by the weakness which degrades Romayne—and priests might have become instruments in the hands of women.
But you will be anxious to hear what Penrose did under the circumstances. For the moment, I can tell you this, he startled me.
Instead of seizing the opportunity, and directing Romayne’s mind to the consolations of religion, Penrose actually encouraged him to reconsider his decision. All the weakness of my poor little Arthur’s character showed itself in his next words.
He said to Romayne: “It may be wrong in me to speak to you as freely as I wish to speak. But you have so generously admitted me to your confidence—you have been so considerate and so kind toward me—that I feel an interest in your happiness, which perhaps makes me over bold. Are you very sure that some such entire change in your life as your marriage might not end in delivering you from your burden? If such a thing could be, is it wrong to suppose that your wife’s good influence over you might be the means of making your marriage a happy one? I must not presume to offer an opinion on such a subject. It is only my gratitude, my true attachment to you that ventures to put the question. Are you conscious of having given this matter—so serious a matter for you—sufficient thought?”
Make your mind easy, reverend sir! Romayne’s answer set everything right.
He said: “I have thought of it till I could think no longer. I still believe that sweet woman might control the torment of the voice. But could she deliver me from the remorse perpetually gnawing at my heart? I feel as murderers feel. In taking another man’s life—a man who had not even injured me!—I have committed the one unatonable and unpardonable sin. Can any human creature’s influence make me forget that? No more of it—no more. Come! Let us take refuge in our books.”
Those words touched Penrose in the right place. Now, as I understand his scruples, he felt that he might honorably speak out. His zeal more than balanced his weakness, as you will presently see.
He was loud, he was positive, when I heard him next. “No!” he burst out, “your refuge is not in books, and not in the barren religious forms which call themselves Protestant. Dear master, the peace of mind, which you believe you have lost forever, you will find again in the divine wisdom and compassion of the holy Catholic Church. There is the remedy for all that you suffer! There is the new life that will yet make you a happy man!”
I repeat what he said, so far, merely to satisfy you that we can trust his enthusiasm, when it is once roused. Nothing will discourage, nothing will defeat him now. He spoke with all the eloquence of conviction—using the necessary arguments with a force and feeling which I have rarely heard equaled. Romayne’s silence vouched for the effect on him. He is not the man to listen patiently to reasoning which he thinks he can overthrow.
Having heard enough to satisfy me that Penrose had really begun the good work, I quietly slipped out of the waiting-room and left the hotel.
To-day being Sunday, I shall not lose a post if I keep my letter open until to-morrow. I have already sent a note to Penrose, asking him to call on me at his earliest convenience. There may be more news for you before post time.
Monday, 10 A.M..
Thereismore news. Penrose has just left me.
His first proceeding, of course, was to tell me what I had already discovered for myself. He is modest, as usual, about the prospect of success which awaits him. But he has induced Romayne to suspend his historical studies for a few days, and to devote his attention to the books which we are accustomed to recommend for perusal in such cases as his. This is unquestionably a great gain at starting.
But my news is not at an end yet. Romayne is actually playing our game—he has resolved definitely to withdraw himself from the influence of Miss Eyrecourt! In another hour he and Penrose will have left London. Their destination is kept a profound secret. All letters addressed to Romayne are to be sent to his bankers.
The motive for this sudden resolution is directly traceable to Lady Loring.
Her ladyship called at the hotel yesterday evening, and had a private interview with Romayne. Her object, no doubt, was to shake his resolution, and to make him submit himself again to Miss Eyrecourt’s fascinations. What means of persuasion she used to effect this purpose is of course unknown to us. Penrose saw Romayne after her ladyship’s departure, and describes him as violently agitated. I can quite understand it. His resolution to take refuge in secret flight (it is really nothing less) speaks for itself as to the impression produced on him, and the danger from which, for the time at least, we have escaped.
Yes! I say “for the time at least.” Don’t let our reverend fathers suppose that the money expended on my private inquiries has been money thrown away. Where these miserable love affairs are concerned, women are daunted by no adverse circumstances and warned by no defeat. Romayne has left London, in dread of his own weakness—we must not forget that. The day may yet come when nothing will interpose between us and failure but my knowledge of events in Miss Eyrecourt’s life.
For the present, there is no more to be said.
Two days after Father Benwell had posted his letter to Rome, Lady Loring entered her husband’s study, and asked eagerly if he had heard any news of Romayne.
Lord Loring shook his head. “As I told you yesterday,” he said, “the proprietor of the hotel can give me no information. I went myself this morning to the bankers, and saw the head partner. He offered to forward letters, but he could do no more. Until further notice, he was positively enjoined not to disclose Romayne’s address to anybody. How does Stella bear it?”
“In the worst possible way,” Lady Loring answered. “In silence.”
“Not a word even to you?”
“Not a word.”
At that reply, the servant interrupted them by announcing the arrival of a visitor, and presenting his card. Lord Loring started, and handed it to his wife. The card bore the name of “Major Hynd,” and this line was added in pencil: “On business connected with Mr. Romayne.”
“Show him in directly!” cried Lady Loring.
Lord Loring remonstrated. “My dear! perhaps I had better see this gentleman alone?”
“Certainly not—unless you wish to drive me into committing an act of the most revolting meanness! If you send me away I shall listen at the door.”
Major Hynd was shown in, and was duly presented to Lady Loring. After making the customary apologies, he said: “I returned to London last night, expressly to see Romayne on a matter of importance. Failing to discover his present address at the hotel, I had the hope that your lordship might be able to direct me to our friend.”
“I am sorry to say I know no more than you do,” Lord Loring replied. “Romayne’s present address is a secret confided to his bankers, and to no one else. I will give you their names, if you wish to write to him.”
Major Hynd hesitated. “I am not quite sure that it would be discreet to write to him, under the circumstances.”
Lady Loring could no longer keep silence. “Is it possible, Major Hynd, to tell us what the circumstances are?” she asked. “I am almost as old a friend of Romayne as my husband—and I am very anxious about him.”
The Major looked embarrassed. “I can hardly answer your ladyship,” he said, “without reviving painful recollections—”
Lady Loring’s impatience interrupted the Major’s apologies. “Do you mean the duel?” she inquired.
Lord Loring interposed. “I should tell you, Major Hynd, that Lady Loring is as well informed as I am of what happened at Boulogne, and of the deplorable result, so far as Romayne is concerned. If you still wish to speak to me privately, I will ask you to accompany me into the next room.”
Major Hynd’s embarrassment vanished. “After what you tell me,” he said, “I hope to be favored with Lady Loring’s advice. You both know that Romayne fought the fatal duel with a son of the French General who had challenged him. When we returned to England, we heard that the General and his family had been driven away from Boulogne by pecuniary difficulties. Romayne, against my advice, wrote to the surgeon who had been present at the duel, desiring that the General’s place of retreat might be discovered, and expressing his wish to assist the family anonymously, as their Unknown Friend. The motive, of course, was, in his own words, ‘to make some little atonement to the poor people whom he had wronged.’ I thought it a rash proceeding at the time; and I am confirmed in my opinion by a letter from the surgeon, received yesterday. Will you kindly read it to Lady Loring?”
He handed the letter to Lord Loring. Translated from the French, it ran as follows:
“SIR—I am at last able to answer Mr. Romayne’s letter definitely, with the courteous assistance of the French Consul in London, to whom I applied when other means of investigation had produced no result.
“A week since the General died, circumstances connected with the burial expenses informed the Consul that he had taken refuge from his creditors, not in Paris as we supposed, but in London. The address is, Number 10, Camp’s Hill, Islington. I should also add that the General, for obvious reasons, lived in London under the assumed name of Marillac. It will be necessary, therefore, to inquire for his widow by the name of Madame Marillac.
“You will perhaps be surprised to find that I address these lines to you, instead of to Mr. Romayne. The reason is soon told.
“I was acquainted with the late General—as you know—at a time when I was not aware of the company that he kept, or of the deplorable errors into which his love of gambling had betrayed him. Of his widow and his children I know absolutely nothing. Whether they have resisted the contaminating influence of the head of the household—or whether poverty and bad example combined have hopelessly degraded them—I cannot say. There is at least a doubt whether they are worthy of Mr. Romayne’s benevolent intentions toward them. As an honest man, I cannot feel this doubt, and reconcile it to my conscience to be the means, however indirectly, of introducing them to Mr. Romayne. To your discretion I leave it to act for the best, after this warning.”
Lord Loring returned the letter to Major Hynd. “I agree with you,” he said. “It is more than doubtful whether you ought to communicate this information to Romayne.”
Lady Loring was not quite of her husband’s opinion. “While there is a doubt about these people,” she said, “it seems only just to find out what sort of character they bear in the neighborhood. In your place, Major Hynd, I should apply to the person in whose house they live, or to the tradespeople whom they have employed.”
“I am obliged to leave London again to-day,” the Major replied; “but on my return I will certainly follow your ladyship’s advice.”
“And you will let us know the result?”
“With the greatest pleasure.”
Major Hynd took his leave. “I think you will be responsible for wasting the Major’s time,” said Lord Loring, when the visitor had retired.
“I think not,” said Lady Loring.
She rose to leave the room. “Are you going out?” her husband asked.
“No. I am going upstairs to Stella.”
Lady Loring found Miss Eyrecourt in her own room. The little portrait of Romayne which she had drawn from recollection lay on the table before her. She was examining it with the closest attention.
“Well, Stella, and what does the portrait tell you?”
“What I knew before, Adelaide. There is nothing false and nothing cruel in that face.”
“And does the discovery satisfy you? For my part, I despise Romayne for hiding himself from us. Can you excuse him?”
Stella locked up the portrait in her writing-case. “I can wait,” she said quietly.
This assertion of patience seemed to irritate Lady Loring “What is the matter with you this morning?” she asked. “You are more reserved than ever.”
“No; I am only out of spirits, Adelaide. I can’t help thinking of that meeting with Winterfield. I feel as if some misfortune was hanging over my head.”
“Don’t speak of that hateful man!” her ladyship exclaimed. “I have something to tell you about Romayne. Are you completely absorbed in your presentiments of evil? or do you think you can listen to me?”
Stella’s face answered for her. Lady Loring described the interview with Major Hynd in the minutest detail—including, by way of illustration, the Major’s manners and personal appearance. “He and Lord Loring,” she added, “both think that Romayne will never hear the last of it if he allows these foreigners to look to him for money. Until something more is known about them, the letter is not to be forwarded.”
“I wish I had the letter,” cried Stella.
“Would you forward it to Romayne?”
“Instantly! Does it matter whether these poor French people are worthy of his generosity? If it restores his tranquillity to help them, who cares whether they deserve the help? They are not even to know who it is that assists them—Romayne is to be their unknown friend. It is he, not they, whom we have to think of—his peace of mind is everything; their merit is nothing. I say it’s cruel tohimto keep him in ignorance of what has happened. Why didn’t you take the letter away from Major Hynd?”
“Gently, Stella! The Major is going to make inquiries about the widow and children when he returns to London.”
“When he returns!” Stella repeated indignantly. “Who knows what the poor wretches may be suffering in the interval, and what Romayne may feel if he ever hears of it? Tell me the address again—it was somewhere in Islington, you said.”
“Why do you want to know it?” Lady Loring asked. “You are not going to write to Romayne yourself?”
“I am going to think, before I do anything. If you can’t trust my discretion, Adelaide, you have only to say so!”
It was spoken sharply. Lady Loring’s reply betrayed a certain loss of temper on her side. “Manage your own affairs, Stella—I have done meddling with them.” Her unlucky visit to Romayne at the hotel had been a subject of dispute between the two friends—and this referred to it. “You shall have the address,” my lady added in her grandest manner. She wrote it on a piece of paper, and left the room.
Easily irritated, Lady Loring had the merit of being easily appeased. That meanest of all vices, the vice of sulkiness, had no existence in her nature. In five minutes she regretted her little outburst of irritability. For five minutes more she waited, on the chance that Stella might be the first to seek a reconciliation. The interval passed, and nothing happened. “Have I really offended her?” Lady Loring asked herself. The next moment she was on her way back to Stella. The room was empty. She rang the bell for the maid.
“Where is Miss Eyrecourt?”
“Gone out, my lady.”
“Did she leave no message?”
“No, my lady. She went away in a great hurry.”
Lady Loring at once drew the conclusion that Stella had rashly taken the affair of the General’s family into her own hands. Was it possible to say how this most imprudent proceeding might end? After hesitating and reflecting, and hesitating again, Lady Loring’s anxiety got beyond her control. She not only decided on following Stella, but, in the excess of her nervous apprehension, she took one of the men-servants with her, in case of emergency!
NOT always remarkable for arriving at just conclusions, Lady Loring had drawn the right inference this time. Stella had stopped the first cab that passed her, and had directed the driver to Camp’s Hill, Islington.
The aspect of the miserable little street, closed at one end, and swarming with dirty children quarreling over their play, daunted her for the moment. Even the cabman, drawing up at the entrance to the street, expressed his opinion that it was a queer sort of place for a young lady to venture into alone. Stella thought of Romayne. Her firm persuasion that she was helping him to perform an act of mercy, which was (to his mind) an act of atonement as well, roused her courage. She boldly approached the open door of No. 10, and knocked on it with her parasol.
The tangled gray hair and grimy face of a hideous old woman showed themselves slowly at the end of the passage, rising from the strong-smelling obscurity of the kitchen regions. “What do you want?” said the half-seen witch of the London slums. “Does Madame Marillac live here?” Stella asked. “Do you mean the foreigner?” “Yes.” “Second door.” With those instructions the upper half of the witch sank and vanished. Stella gathered her skirts together, and ascended a filthy flight of stairs for the first time in her life.
Coarse voices, shameless language, gross laughter behind the closed doors of the first floor hurried her on her way to the rooms on the higher flight. Here there was a change for the better—here, at least, there was silence. She knocked at the door on the landing of the second floor. A gentle voice answered, in French; “Entrez!”—then quickly substituted the English equivalent, “Come in!” Stella opened the door.
The wretchedly furnished room was scrupulously clean. Above the truckle-bed, a cheap little image of the Virgin was fastened to the wall, with some faded artificial flowers arranged above it in the form of a wreath. Two women, in dresses of coarse black stuff, sat at a small round table, working at the same piece of embroidery. The elder of the two rose when the visitor entered the room. Her worn and weary face still showed the remains of beauty in its finely proportioned parts—her dim eyes rested on Stella with an expression of piteous entreaty. “Have you come for the work, madam?” she asked, in English, spoken with a strong foreign accent. “Pray forgive me; I have not finished it yet.”
The second of the two workwomen suddenly looked up.
She, too, was wan and frail; but her eyes were bright; her movements still preserved the elasticity of youth. Her likeness to the elder woman proclaimed their relationship, even before she spoke. “Ah! it’s my fault!” she burst out passionately in French. “I was hungry and tired, and I slept hours longer than I ought. My mother was too kind to wake me and set me to work. I am a selfish wretch—and my mother is an angel!” She dashed away the tears gathering in her eyes, and proudly, fiercely, resumed her work.
Stella hastened to reassure them, the moment she could make herself heard. “Indeed, I have nothing to do with the work,” she said, speaking in French, so that they might the more readily understand her. “I came here, Madame Marillac—if you will not be offended with me, for plainly owning it—to offer you some little help.”
“Charity?” asked the daughter, looking up again sternly from her needle.
“Sympathy,” Stella answered gently.
The girl resumed her work. “I beg your pardon,” she said; “I shall learn to submit to my lot in time.”
The quiet long-suffering mother placed a chair for Stella. “You have a kind beautiful face, miss,” she said; “and I am sure you will make allowances for my poor girl. I remember the time when I was as quick to feel as she is. May I ask how you came to hear of us?”
“I hope you will excuse me,” Stella replied. “I am not at liberty to answer that question.”
The mother said nothing. The daughter asked sharply, “Why not?”
Stella addressed her answer to the mother. “I come from a person who desires to be of service to you as an unknown friend,” she said.
The wan face of the widow suddenly brightened. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “has my brother heard of the General’s death? and has he forgiven me my marriage at last?”
“No, no!” Stella interposed; “I must not mislead you. The person whom I represent is no relation of yours.”
Even in spite of this positive assertion, the poor woman held desperately to the hope that had been roused in her. “The name by which you know me may mislead you,” she suggested anxiously. “My late husband assumed the name in his exile here. Perhaps, if I told you—”
The daughter stopped her there. “My dear mother, leave this to me.” The widow sighed resignedly, and resumed her work. “Madame Marillac will do very well as a name,” the girl continued, turning to Stella, “until we know something more of each other. I suppose you are well acquainted with the person whom you represent?”
“Certainly, or I should not be here.”
“You know the person’s family connections, in that case? and you can say for certain whether they are French connections or not?”
“I can say for certain,” Stella answered, “that they are English connections. I represent a friend who feels kindly toward Madame Marillac; nothing more.”
“You see, mother, you were mistaken. Bear it as bravely, dear, as you have borne other trials.” Saying this very tenderly, she addressed herself once more to Stella, without attempting to conceal the accompanying change in her manner to coldness and distrust. “One of us must speak plainly,” she said. “Our few friends are nearly as poor as we are, and they are all French. I tell you positively that we have no English friends. How has this anonymous benefactor been informed of our poverty? You are a stranger to us—youcannot have given the information?”
Stella’s eyes were now open to the awkward position in which she had placed herself. She met the difficulty boldly, still upheld by the conviction that she was serving a purpose cherished by Romayne. “You had good reasons, no doubt, mademoiselle, when you advised your mother to conceal her true name,” she rejoined. “Be just enough to believe that your ‘anonymous benefactor’ has good reasons for concealment too.”
It was well said, and it encouraged Madame Marillac to take Stella’s part. “My dear Blanche, you speak rather harshly to this good young lady,” she said to her daughter. “You have only to look at her, and to see that she means well.”
Blanche took up her needle again, with dogged submission. “If weareto accept charity, mother, I should like to know the hand that gives it,” she answered. “I will say no more.”
“When you are as old as I am, my dear,” rejoined Madame Marillac, “you will not think quite so positively as you think now. I have learned some hard lessons,” she proceeded, turning to Stella, “and I hope I am the better for them. My life has not been a happy one—”
“Your life has been a martyrdom!” said the girl, breaking out again in spite of herself. “Oh, my father! my father!” She pushed aside the work and hid her face in her hands.
The gentle mother spoke severely for the first time. “Respect your father’s memory!” she said. Blanche trembled and kept silence. “I have no false pride,” Madame Marillac continued. “I own that we are miserably poor; and I thank you, my dear young lady, for your kind intentions toward us, without embarrassing you by any inquiries. We manage to live. While my eyes last, our work helps to support us. My good eldest daughter has some employment as a teacher of music, and contributes her little share to assist our poor household. I don’t distrust you—I only say, let us try a little longer if we cannot help ourselves.”
She had barely pronounced the last words, when a startling interruption led to consequences which the persons present had not foreseen. A shrill, wailing voice suddenly pierced through the flimsy partition which divided the front room and the back room. “Bread!” cried the voice in French; “I’m hungry. Bread! bread!”
The daughter started to her feet. “Think of his betraying us at this moment!” she exclaimed indignantly. The mother rose in silence, and opened a cupboard. Its position was opposite to the place in which Stella was sitting. She saw two or three knives and forks, some cups and saucers and plates, and a folded table-cloth. Nothing else appeared on the shelves; not even the stray crust of bread for which the poor woman had been looking. “Go, my dear, and quiet your brother,” she said—and closed the cupboard door again as patiently as ever.
Stella opened her pocketbook when Blanche had left the room. “For God’s sake, take something!” she cried. “I offer it with the sincerest respect—I offer it as a loan.”
Madame Marillac gently signed to Stella to close the pocketbook again. “That kind heart of yours must not be distressed about trifles,” she said. “The baker will trust us until we get the money for our work—and my daughter knows it. If you can tell me nothing else, my dear, will you tell me your Christian name? It is painful to me to speak to you quite as a stranger.”
Stella at once complied with the request. Madame Marillac smiled as she repeated the name.
“There is almost another tie between us,” she said. “We have your name in France—it speaks with a familiar sound to me in this strange place. Dear Miss Stella, when my poor boy startled you by that cry for food, he recalled to me the saddest of all my anxieties. When I think of him, I should be tempted if my better sense did not restrain me—No! no! put back the pocketbook. I am incapable of the shameless audacity of borrowing a sum of money which I could never repay. Let me tell you what my trouble is, and you will understand that I am in earnest. I had two sons, Miss Stella. The elder—the most lovable, the most affectionate of my children—was killed in a duel.”
The sudden disclosure drew a cry of sympathy from Stella, which she was not mistress enough of herself to repress. Now for the first time she understood the remorse that tortured Romayne, as she had not understood it when Lady Loring had told her the terrible story of the duel. Attributing the effect produced on her to the sensitive nature of a young woman, Madame Marillac innocently added to Stella’s distress by making excuses.
“I am sorry to have frightened you, my dear,” she said. “In your happy country such a dreadful death as my son’s is unknown. I am obliged to mention it, or you might not understand what I have still to say. Perhaps I had better not go on?”
Stella roused herself. “Yes! yes!” she answered, eagerly. “Pray go on!”
“My son in the next room,” the widow resumed, “is only fourteen years old. It has pleased God sorely to afflict a harmless creature. He has not been in his right mind since—since the miserable day when he followed the duelists, and saw his brother’s death. Oh! you are turning pale! How thoughtless, how cruel of me! I ought to have remembered that such horrors as these have never overshadowed your happy life!”
Struggling to recover her self-control, Stella tried to reassure Madame Marillac by a gesture. The voice which she had heard in the next room was—as she now knew—the voice that haunted Romayne. Not the words that had pleaded hunger and called for bread—but those other words, “Assassin! assassin! where are you?”—rang in her ears. She entreated Madame Marillac to break the unendurable interval of silence. The widow’s calm voice had a soothing influence which she was eager to feel. “Go on!” she repeated. “Pray go on!”
“I ought not to lay all the blame of my boy’s affliction on the duel,” said Madame Marillac. “In childhood, his mind never grew with his bodily growth. His brother’s death may have only hurried the result which was sooner or later but too sure to come. You need feel no fear of him. He is never violent—and he is the most beautiful of my children. Would you like to see him?”
“No! I would rather hear you speak of him. Is he not conscious of his own misfortune?”
“For weeks together, Stella—I am sure I may call you Stella?—he is quite calm; you would see no difference outwardly between him and other boys. Unhappily, it is just at those times that a spirit of impatience seems to possess him. He watches his opportunity, and, however careful we may be, he is cunning enough to escape our vigilance.”
“Do you mean that he leaves you and his sisters?”
“Yes, that is what I mean. For nearly two months past he has been away from us. Yesterday only, his return relieved us from a state of suspense which I cannot attempt to describe. We don’t know where he has been, or in the company of what persons he has passed the time of his absense. No persuasion will induce him to speak to us on the subject. This morning we listened while he was talking to himself.”
“Was it part of the boy’s madness to repeat the words which still tormented Romayne?” Stella asked if he ever spoke of the duel.
“Never! He seems to have lost all memory of it. We only heard, this morning, one or two unconnected words—something about a woman, and then more that appeared to allude to some person’s death. Last night I was with him when he went to bed, and I found that he had something to conceal from me. He let me fold all his clothes, as usual, except his waistcoat—and that he snatched away from me, and put it under his pillow. We have no hope of being able to examine the waistcoat without his knowledge. His sleep is like the sleep of a dog; if you only approach him, he wakes instantly. Forgive me for troubling you with these trifling details, only interesting to ourselves. You will at least understand the constant anxiety that we suffer.”
“In your unhappy position,” said Stella, “I should try to resign myself to parting with him—I mean to placing him under medical care.”
The mother’s face saddened. “I have inquired about it,” she answered. “He must pass a night in the workhouse before he can be received as a pauper lunatic in a public asylum. Oh, my dear, I am afraid there is some pride still left in me! He is my only son now; his father was a General in the French army; I was brought up among people of good blood and breeding—I can’t take my own boy to the workhouse!”
Stella understood her. “I feel for you with all my heart,” she said. “Place him privately, dear Madame Marillac, under skillful and kind control—and let me, do let me, open the pocketbook again.”
The widow steadily refused even to look at the pocketbook. “Perhaps,” Stella persisted, “you don’t know of a private asylum that would satisfy you?”
“My dear, I do know of such a place! The good doctor who attended my husband in his last illness told me of it. A friend of his receives a certain number of poor people into his house, and charges no more than the cost of maintaining them. An unattainable sum tome!There is the temptation that I spoke of. The help of a few pounds I might accept, if I fell ill, because I might afterward pay it back. But a larger sum—never!”
She rose, as if to end the interview. Stella tried every means of persuasion that she could think of, and tried in vain. The friendly dispute between them might have been prolonged, if they had not both been silenced by another interruption from the next room.
This time, it was not only endurable, it was even welcome. The poor boy was playing the air of a French vaudeville on a pipe or flageolet. “Now he is happy!” said the mother. “He is a born musician; do come and see him!” An idea struck Stella. She overcame the inveterate reluctance in her to see the boy so fatally associated with the misery of Romayne’s life. As Madame Marillac led the way to the door of communication between the rooms, she quickly took from her pocketbook the bank-notes with which she had provided herself, and folded them so that they could be easily concealed in her hand.
She followed the widow into the little room.
The boy was sitting on his bed. He laid down his flageolet and bowed to Stella. His long silky hair flowed to his shoulders. But one betrayal of a deranged mind presented itself in his delicate face—his large soft eyes had the glassy, vacant look which it is impossible to mistake. “Do you like music, mademoiselle?” he asked, gently. Stella asked him to play his little vaudeville air again. He proudly complied with the request. His sister seemed to resent the presence of a stranger. “The work is at a standstill,” she said—and passed into the front room. Her mother followed her as far as the door, to give her some necessary directions. Stella seized her opportunity. She put the bank-notes into the pocket of the boy’s jacket, and whispered to him: “Give them to your mother when I have gone away.” Under those circumstances, she felt sure that Madame Marillac would yield to the temptation. She could resist much—but she could not resist her son.
The boy nodded, to show that he understood her. The moment after he laid down his flageolet with an expression of surprise.
“You are trembling!” he said. “Are you frightened?”
Shewasfrightened. The mere sense of touching him had made her shudder. Did she feel a vague presentiment of some evil to come from that momentary association with him?
Madame Marillac, turning away again from her daughter, noticed Stella’s agitation. “Surely, my poor boy doesn’t alarm you?” she said. Before Stella could answer, some one outside knocked at the door. Lady Loring’s servant appeared, charged with a carefully-worded message. “If you please, miss, a friend is waiting for you below.” Any excuse for departure was welcome to Stella at that moment. She promised to call at the house again in a few days. Madame Marillac kissed her on the forehead as she took leave. Her nerves were still shaken by that momentary contact with the boy. Descending the stairs, she trembled so that she was obliged to hold by the servant’s arm. She was not naturally timid. What did it mean?
Lady Loring’s carriage was waiting at the entrance of the street, with all the children in the neighborhood assembled to admire it. She impulsively forestalled the servant in opening the carriage door. “Come in!” she cried. “Oh, Stella, you don’t know how you have frightened me! Good heavens, you look frightened yourself! From what wretches have I rescued you? Take my smelling bottle, and tell me all about it.”
The fresh air, and the reassuring presence of her old friend, revived Stella. She was able to describe her interview with the General’s family, and to answer the inevitable inquiries which the narrative called forth. Lady Loring’s last question was the most important of the series: “What are you going to do about Romayne?”
“I am going to write to him the moment we get home.”
The answer seemed to alarm Lady Loring. “You won’t betray me?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“You won’t let Romayne discover that I have told you about the duel?”
“Certainly not. You shall see my letter before I send it to be forwarded.”
Tranquilized so far, Lady Loring bethought herself next of Major Hynd. “Can we tell him what you have done?” her ladyship asked.
“Of course we can tell him,” Stella replied. “I shall conceal nothing from Lord Loring, and I shall beg your good husband to write to the Major. He need only say that I have made the necessary inquiries, after being informed of the circumstances by you, and that I have communicated the favorable result to Mr. Romayne.”
“It’s easy enough to write the letter, my dear. But it’s not so easy to say what Major Hynd may think of you.”
“Does it matter to me what Major Hynd thinks?”
Lady Loring looked at Stella with a malicious smile. “Are you equally indifferent,” she said, “to what Romayne’s opinion of your conduct may be?”
Stella’s color rose. “Try to be serious, Adelaide, when you speak to me of Romayne,” she answered, gravely. “His good opinion of me is the breath of my life.”
An hour later, the important letter to Romayne was written. Stella scrupulously informed him of all that had happened—with two necessary omissions. In the first place, nothing was said of the widow’s reference to her son’s death, and of the effect produced by it on his younger brother. The boy was simply described as being of weak intellect, and as requiring to be kept under competent control. In the second place, Romayne was left to infer that ordinary motives of benevolence were the only motives, on his part, known to Miss Eyrecourt.
The letter ended in these lines:
“If I have taken an undue liberty in venturing, unasked, to appear as your representative, I can only plead that I meant well. It seemed to me to be hard on these poor people, and not just to you in your absence, to interpose any needless delays in carrying out those kind intentions of yours, which had no doubt been properly considered beforehand. In forming your opinion of my conduct, pray remember that I have been careful not to compromise you in any way. You are only known to Madame Marillac as a compassionate person who offers to help her, and who wishes to give that help anonymously. If, notwithstanding this, you disapprove of what I have done, I must not conceal that it will grieve and humiliate me—I have been so eager to be of use to you, when others appeared to hesitate. I must find my consolation in remembering that I have become acquainted with one of the sweetest and noblest of women, and that I have helped to preserve her afflicted son from dangers in the future which I cannot presume to estimate. You will complete what I have only begun. Be forbearing and kind to me if I have innocently offended in this matter—and I shall gratefully remember the day when I took it on myself to be Mr. Romayne’s almoner.”
Lady Loring read these concluding sentences twice over.
“I think the end of your letter will have its effect on him,” she said.
“If it brings me a kind letter in reply,” Stella answered, “it will have all the effect I hope for.”
“If it does anything,” Lady Loring rejoined, “it will do more than that.”
“What more can it do?”
“My dear, it can bring Romayne back to you.”
Those hopeful words seemed rather to startle Stella than to encourage her.
“Bring him back to me?” she repeated “Oh, Adelaide, I wish I could think as you do!”
“Send the letter to the post,” said Lady Loring, “and we shall see.”