On the morning when Amelius and Sally (in London) entered the church to look at the wedding. Rufus (in Paris) went to the Champs Elysees to take a walk.
He had advanced half-way up the magnificent avenue, when he saw Regina for the second time, taking her daily drive, with an elderly woman in attendance on her. Rufus took off his hat again, perfectly impenetrable to the cold reception which he had already experienced. Greatly to his surprise, Regina not only returned his salute, but stopped the carriage and beckoned to him to speak to her. Looking at her more closely, he perceived signs of suffering in her face which completely altered her expression as he remembered it. Her magnificent eyes were dim and red; she had lost her rich colour; her voice trembled as she spoke to him.
“Have you a few minutes to spare?” she asked.
“The whole day, if you like, Miss,” Rufus answered.
She turned to the woman who accompanied her. “Wait here for me, Elizabeth; I have something to say to this gentleman.”
With those words, she got out of the carriage. Rufus offered her his arm. She put her hand in it as readily as if they had been old friends. “Let us take one of the side paths,” she said; “they are almost deserted at this time of day. I am afraid I surprise you very much. I can only trust to your kindness to forgive me for passing you without notice the last time we met. Perhaps it may be some excuse for me that I am in great trouble. It is just possible you may be able to relieve my mind. I believe you know I am engaged to be married?”
Rufus looked at her with a sudden expression of interest. “Is this about Amelius?” he asked.
She answered him almost inaudibly—“Yes.”
Rufus still kept his eyes fixed on her. “I don’t wish to say anything, Miss,” he explained; “but, if you have any complaint to make of Amelius, I should take it as a favour if you would look me straight in the face, and mention it plainly.”
In the embarrassment which troubled Regina at that moment, he had preferred the two requests of all others with which it was most impossible for her to comply. She still looked obstinately on the ground; and, instead of speaking of Amelius, she diverged to the subject of Mr. Farnaby’s illness.
“I am staying in Paris with my uncle,” she said. “He has had a long illness; but he is strong enough now to speak to me of things that have been on his mind for some time past. He has so surprised me; he has made me so miserable about Amelius—” She paused, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. Rufus said nothing to console her—he waited doggedly until she was ready to go on. “You know Amelius well,” she resumed; “you are fond of him; you believe in him, don’t you? Do you think he is capable of behaving basely to any person who trusts him? Is it likely, is it possible, he could be false and cruel to Me?”
The mere question roused the indignation of Rufus. “Whoever said that of him, Miss, told you a lie! I answer for my boy as I answer for myself.”
She looked at him at last, with a sudden expression of relief. “I said so too,” she rejoined; “I said some enemy had slandered him. My uncle won’t tell me who it is. He positively forbids me to write to Amelius; he tells me I must never see Amelius again—he is going to write and break off the engagement. Oh, it’s too cruel! too cruel!”
Thus far they had been walking on slowly. But now Rufus stopped, determined to make her speak plainly.
“Take a word of advice from me, Miss,” he said. “Never trust anybody by halves. There’s nothing I’m not ready to do, to set this matter right; but I must know what I’m about first. What’s said against Amelius? Out with it, no matter what ‘tis! I’m old enough to be your father; and I feel for you accordingly—I do.”
The thorough sincerity of tone and manner which accompanied those words had its effect. Regina blushed and trembled—but she spoke out.
“My uncle says Amelius has disgraced himself, and insulted me; my uncle says there is a person—a girl living with him—” She stopped, with a faint cry of alarm. Her hand, still testing on the arm of Rufus, felt him start as the allusion to the girl passed her lips. “You have heard of it!” she cried. “Oh, God help me, it’s true!”
“True?” Rufus repeated, with stern contempt. “What’s come to you? Haven’t I told you already, it’s a lie? I’ll answer to it, Amelius is true to you. Will that do? No? You’re an obstinate one, Miss—that you are. Well! it’s due to the boy that I should set him right with you, if words will do it. You know how he’s been brought up at Tadmor? Bear that in mind—and now you shall have the truth of it, on the word of an honest man.”
Without further preface, he told her how Amelius had met with Sally, insisting strongly on the motives of pure humanity by which his friend had been actuated. Regina listened with an obstinate expression of distrust which would have discouraged most men. Rufus persisted, nevertheless; and, to some extent at least, succeeded in producing the right impression. When he reached the close of the narrative—when he asserted that he had himself seen Amelius confide the girl unreservedly to the care of a lady who was a dear and valued friend of his own; and when he declared that there had been no after-meeting between them and no written correspondence—then, at last, Regina owned that he had not encouraged her to trust in the honour of Amelius, without reason to justify him. But, even under these circumstances, there was a residue of suspicion still left in her mind. She asked for the name of the lady to whose benevolent assistance Amelius had been indebted. Rufus took out one of his cards, and wrote Mrs. Payson’s name and address on it.
“Your nature, my dear, is not quite so confiding as I could have wished to see it,” he said, quietly handing her the card. “But we can’t change our natures—can we? And you’re not bound to believe a man like me, without witnesses to back him. Write to Mrs. Payson, and make your mind easy. And, while we are about it, tell me where I can telegraph to you tomorrow—I’m off to London by the night mail.”
“Do you mean, you are going to see Amelius?
“That is so. I’m too fond of Amelius to let this trouble rest where ‘tis now. I’ve been away from him, here in Paris, for some little time—and you may tell me (and quite right, too) I can’t answer for what may have been going on in my absence. No! now we are about it, we’ll have it out. I mean to see Amelius and see Mrs. Payson, tomorrow morning. Just tell your uncle to hold his hand, before he breaks off your marriage, and wait for a telegram from me. Well? and this is your address, is it? I know the hotel. A nice look-out on the Twillery Gardens—but a bad cellar of wine, as I hear. I’m at the Grand Hotel myself, if there’s anything else that troubles you before evening. Now I look at you again, I reckon there’s something more to be said, if you’ll only let it find its way to your tongue. No; it ain’t thanks. We’ll take the gratitude for granted, and get to what’s behind it. There’s your carriage—and the good lady looks tired of waiting. Well, now?”
“It’s only one thing,” Regina acknowledged, with her eyes on the ground again. “Perhaps, when you go to London, you may see the—”
“The girl?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not likely. Say I do see her—what then?”
Regina’s colour began to show itself again. “If you do see her,” she said, “I beg and entreat you won’t speak ofmein her hearing. I should die of the shame of it, if she thought herself asked to give him up out of pity for me. Promise I am not to be brought forward; promise you won’t even mention my having spoken to you about it. On your word of honour!”
Rufus gave her his promise, without showing any hesitation, or making any remark. But when she shook hands with him, on returning to the carriage, he held her hand for a moment. “Please to excuse me, Miss, if I ask one question,” he said, in tones too low to be heard by any other person. “Are you really fond of Amelius?”
“I am surprised you should doubt it,” she answered; “I am more—much more than fond of him!”
Rufus handed her silently into the carriage, “Fond of him, are you?” he thought, as he walked away by himself. “I reckon it’s a sort of fondness that don’t wear well, and won’t stand washing.”
“Well, Mr. Frenchman, and how doyougit along? And how’s Amelius?”
Toff, standing before the gate, answered with the utmost respect, but showed no inclination to let the visitor in.
“Amelius has his intervals of laziness,” Rufus proceeded; “I bet he’s in bed!”
“My young master was up and dressed an hour ago, sir—he has just gone out.”
“That is so, is it? Well, I’ll wait till he comes back.” He pushed by Toff, and walked into the cottage. “Your foreign ceremonies are clean thrown away on me,” he said, as Toff tried to stop him in the hall. “I’m the American savage; and I’m used up with travelling all night. Here’s a little order for you: whisky, bitters, lemon, and ice—I’ll take a cocktail in the library.”
Toff made a last desperate effort to get between the visitor and the door. “I beg your pardon, sir, a thousand times; I must most respectfully entreat you to wait—”
Before he could explain himself, Rufus, with the most perfect good humour, pulled the old man out of his way. “What’s troubling this venerable creature’s mind—” he inquired of himself, “does he think I don’t know my way in?”
He opened the library door—and found himself face to face with Sally. She had risen from her chair, hearing voices outside, and hesitating whether to leave the room or not. They confronted each other, on either side of the table, in silent dismay. For once Rufus was so completely bewildered, that he took refuge in his customary form of greeting before he was aware of it himself.
“How do you find yourself, Miss? I take pleasure in renewing our acquaintance,—Thunder! that’s not it; I reckon I’m off my head. Do me the favour, young woman, to forget every word I’ve said to you. If any mortal creature had told me I should find you here, I should have said ‘twas a lie—and I should have been the liar. That makes a man feel bad, I can tell you. No! don’t slide off, if you please, into the next room—thatwon’t set things right, nohow. Sit you down again. Now I’m here, I have something to say. I’ll speak first to Mr. Frenchman. Listen to this, old sir. If I happen to want a witness standing in the doorway, I’ll ring the bell; for the present I can do without you. Bong Shewer, as we say in your country.” He proceeded to shut the door on Toff and his remonstrances.
“I protest, sir, against acts of violence, unworthy of a gentleman!” cried Toff, struggling to get back again.
“Be as angry as you please in the kitchen,” Rufus answered, persisting in closing the door; “I won’t have a noise up here. If you know where your master is, go and fetch him—and the sooner the better.” He turned back to Sally, and surveyed her for a while in terrible silence. She was afraid to look at him; her eyes were on the book which she had been reading when he came in. “You look to me,” Rufus remarked, “as if you had been settled here for a time. Never mind your book now; you can go back to your reading after we’ve had a word or two together first.” He reached out his long arm, and pulled the book to his own side of the table. Sally innocently silenced him for the second time. He opened the book, and discovered—the New Testament.
“It’s my lesson, if you please, sir. I’m to learn it where the pencil mark is, before Amelius comes back.” She offered her poor little explanation, trembling with terror. In spite of himself, Rufus began to look at her less sternly.
“So you call him ‘Amelius’, do you?” he said. “I note that, Miss, as an unfavourable sign to begin with. How long, if you please, has Amelius turned schoolmarm, for your young ladyship’s benefit? Don’t you understand? Well, you’re not the only inhabitant of Great Britain who don’t understand the English language. I’ll put it plainer. When I last saw Amelius, you were learning your lessons at the Home. What ill wind, Miss, blew you in here? Did Amelius fetch you, or did you come of your own accord, without waiting to be whistled for?” He spoke coarsely but not ill-humouredly. Sally’s pretty downcast face was pleading with him for mercy, and (as he felt, with supreme contempt for himself) was not altogether pleading in vain. “If I guessed that you ran away from the home,” he resumed, “should I guess right?”
She answered with a sudden accession of confidence. “Don’t blame Amelius,” she said; “I did run away. I couldn’t live without him.”
“You don’t know how you can live, young one, till you’ve tried the experiment. Well, and what did they do at the Home? Did they send after you, to fetch you back?”
“They wouldn’t take me back—they sent my clothes here after me.”
“Ah, those were the rules, I reckon. I begin to see my way to the end of it now. Amelius gave you house-room?”
She looked at him proudly. “He gave me a room of my own,” she said.
His next question was the exact repetition of the question which he had put to Regina in Paris. The only variety was in the answer that he received.
“Are you fond of Amelius?”
“I would die for him!”
Rufus had hitherto spoken, standing. He now took a chair.
“If Amelius had not been brought up at Tadmor,” he said, “I should take my hat, and wish you good morning. As things are, a word more may be a word in season. Your lessons here seem to have agreed with you, Miss. You’re a different sort of girl to what you were when I last saw you.”
She surprised him by receiving that remark in silence. The colour left her face. She sighed bitterly. The sigh puzzled Rufus: he held his opinion of her in suspense, until he had heard more.
“You said just now you would die for Amelius,” he went on, eyeing her attentively. “I take that to be a woman’s hysterical way of mentioning that she feels interest in Amelius. Are you fond enough of him to leave him, if you could only be persuaded that leaving him was for his good?”
She abruptly left the table, and went to the window. When her back was turned to Rufus, she spoke. “Am I a disgrace to him?” she asked, in tones so faint that he could barely hear them. “I have had my fears of it, before now.”
If he had been less fond of Amelius, his natural kindness of heart might have kept him silent. Even as it was, he made no direct reply. “You remember how you were living when Amelius first met with you?” was all he said.
The sad blue eyes looked at him in patient sorrow; the low sweet voice answered—“Yes.” Only a look and a word—only the influence of an instant—and, in that instant, Rufus’s last doubts of her vanished!
“Don’t think I say it reproachfully, my child! I know it was not your fault; I know you are to be pitied, and not blamed.”
She turned her face towards him—pale, quiet, and resigned. “Pitied, and not blamed,” she repeated. “Am I to be forgiven?”
He shrank from answering her. There was silence.
“You said just now,” she went on, “that I looked like a different girl, since you last saw me. Iama different girl. I think of things that I never thought of before—some change, I don’t know what, has come over me. Oh, my heart does hunger so to be good! I do so long to deserve what Amelius has done for me! You have got my book there—Amelius gave it to me; we read in it every day. If Christ had been on earth now, is it wrong to think that Christ would have forgiven me?”
“No, my dear; it’s right to think so.”
“And, while I live, if I do my best to lead a good life, and if my last prayer to God is to take me to heaven, shall I be heard?”
“You will be heard, my child, I don’t doubt it. But, you see, you have got the world about you to reckon with—and the world has invented a religion of its own. There’s no use looking for it in this book of yours. It’s a religion with the pride of property at the bottom of it, and a veneer of benevolent sentiment at the top. It will be very sorry for you, and very charitable towards you: in short, it will do everything for you except taking you back again.”
She had her answer to that. “Amelius has taken me back again,” she said.
“Amelius has taken you back again,” Rufus agreed. “But there’s one thing he’s forgotten to do; he has forgotten to count the cost. It seems to be left to me to do that. Look here, my girl! I own I doubted you when I first came into this room; and I’m sorry for it, and I beg your pardon. I do believe you’re a good girl—I couldn’t say why if I was asked, but I do believe it for all that. I wish there was no more to be said—but there is more; and neither you nor I must shirk it. Public opinion won’t deal as tenderly with you as I do; public opinion will make the worst of you, and the worst of Amelius. While you’re living here with him—there’s no disguising it—you’re innocently in the way of the boy’s prospects in life. I don’t know whether you understand me?”
She had turned away from him; she was looking out of the window once more.
“I understand you,” she answered. “On the night when Amelius met with me, he did wrong to take me away with him. He ought to have left me where I was.”
“Wait a bit! that’s as far from my meaning as far can be. There’s a look-out for everybody; and, if you’ll trust me, I’ll find a look-out foryou.”
She paid no heed to what he said: her next words showed that she was pursuing her own train of thought.
“I am in the way of his prospects in life,” she resumed. “You mean that he might be married some day, but for me?”
Rufus admitted it cautiously. “The thing might happen,” was all he said.
“And his friends might come and see him,” she went on; her face still turned away, and her voice sinking into dull subdued tones. “Nobody comes here now. You see I understand you. When shall I go away? I had better not say good-bye, I suppose?—it would only distress him. I could slip out of the house, couldn’t I?”
Rufus began to feel uneasy. He was prepared for tears—but not for such resignation as this. After a little hesitation, he joined her at the window. She never turned towards him; she still looked out straight before her; her bright young face had turned pitiably rigid and pale. He spoke to her very gently; advising her to think of what he had said, and to do nothing in a hurry. She knew the hotel at which he stayed when he was in London; and she could write to him there. If she decided to begin a new life in another country, he was wholly and truly at her service. He would provide a passage for her in the same ship that took him back to America. At his age, and known as he was in his own neighbourhood, there would be no scandal to fear. He could get her reputably and profitably employed, in work which a young girl might undertake. “I’ll be as good as a father to you, my poor child,” he said, “don’t think you’re going to be friendless, if you leave Amelius. I’ll see to that! You shall have honest people about you—and innocent pleasure in your new life.”
She thanked him, still with the same dull tearless resignation. “What will the honest people say,” she asked, “when they know who I am?”
“They have no business to know who you are—and they shan’t know it.”
“Ah! it comes back to the same thing,” she said. “You must deceive the honest people, or you can do nothing for me. Amelius had better have left me where I was! I disgraced nobody, I was a burden to nobody,there.Cold and hunger and ill-treatment can sometimes be merciful friends, in their way. If I had been left to them, they would have laid me at rest by this time.” She turned to Rufus, before he could speak to her. “I’m not ungrateful, sir; I’ll think of it, as you say; and I’ll do all that a poor foolish creature can do, to be worthy of the interest you take in me.” She lifted her hand to her head, with a momentary expression of pain. “I’ve got a dull kind of aching here,” she said; “it reminds me of my old life, when I was sometimes beaten on the head. May I go and lie down a little, by myself?”
Rufus took her hand, and pressed it in silence. She looked back at him as she opened the door of her room. “Don’t distress Amelius,” she said; “I can bear anything but that.”
Left alone in the library, Rufus walked restlessly to and fro, driven by a troubled mind. “I was bound to do it,” he thought; “and I ought to be satisfied with myself. I’m not satisfied. The world is hard on women—and the rights of property is a darned bad reason for it!”
The door from the hall was suddenly thrown open. Amelius entered the room. He looked flushed and angry—he refused to take the hand that Rufus offered to him.
“What’s this I hear from Toff? It seems that you forced your way in when Sally was here. There are limits to the liberties that a man may take in his friend’s house.”
“That’s true,” said Rufus quietly. “But when a man hasn’t taken liberties, there don’t seem much to be said. Sally was at the Home, when I last saw you—and nobody told me I should find her in this room.”
“You might have left the room, when you found her here. You have been talking to her. If you have said anything about Regina—”
“I have said nothing about Miss Regina. You have a hot temper of your own, Amelius. Wait a bit, and let it cool.”
“Never mind my temper. I want to know what you have been saying to Sally. Stop! I’ll ask Sally herself.” He crossed the room to the inner door, and knocked. “Come in here, my dear; I want to speak to you.”
The answer reached him faintly through the door. “I have got a bad headache, Amelius. Please let me rest a little.” He turned back to Rufus, and lowered his voice. But his eyes flashed; he was more angry than ever.
“You had better go,” he said. “I can guess how you have been talking to her—I know what her headache means. Any man who distresses that dear little affectionate creature is a man whom I hold as my enemy. I spit upon all the worldly considerations which pass muster with people like you! No sweeter girl than poor Sally ever breathed the breath of life. Her happiness is more precious to me than words can say. She is sacred to me! And I have just proved it—I have just come from a good woman, who will teach her an honest way of earning her bread. Not a breath of scandal shall blow on her. If you, or any people like you, think I will consent to cast her adrift on the world, or consign her to a prison under the name of a Home, you little know my nature and my principles. Here”—he snatched up the New Testament from the table, and shook it at Rufus—“here are my principles, and I’m not ashamed of them!”
Rufus took up his hat.
“There’s one thing you’ll be ashamed of, my son, when you’re cool enough to think about it,” he said; “you’ll be ashamed of the words you have spoken to a friend who loves you. I’m not a bit angry myself. You remind me of that time on board the steamer, when the quarter-master was going to shoot the bird. You made it up with him—and you’ll come to my hotel and make it up with me. And then we’ll shake hands, and talk about Sally. If it’s not taking another liberty, I’ll trouble you for a light.” He helped himself to a match from the box on the chimney-piece, lit his cigar, and left the room.
He had not been gone half an hour, before the better nature of Amelius urged him to follow Rufus and make his apologies. But he was too anxious about Sally to leave the cottage, until he had seen her first. The tone in which she had answered him, when he knocked at her door, suggested, to his sensitive apprehension, that there was something more serious the matter with her than a mere headache. For another hour, he waited patiently, on the chance that he might hear her moving in her room. Nothing happened. No sound reached his ears, except the occasional rolling of carriage-wheels on the road outside.
His patience began to fail him, as the second hour moved on. He went to the door, and listened, and still heard nothing. A sudden dread struck him that she might have fainted. He opened the door a few inches, and spoke to her. There was no answer. He looked in. The room was empty.
He ran into the hall, and called to Toff. Was she, by any chance, downstairs? No. Or out in the garden? No. Master and man looked at each other in silence. Sally was gone.
“Courage, sir!” he said. “With a little thinking, we shall see the way to find her. That rude American man, who talked with her this morning, may be the person who has brought this misfortune on us.”
Amelius waited to hear no more. There was the chance, at least, that something might have been said which had induced her to take refuge with Rufus. He ran back to the library to get his hat.
Toff followed his master, with another suggestion. “One word more, sir, before you go. If the American man cannot help us, we must be ready to try another way. Permit me to accompany you as far as my wife’s shop. I propose that she shall come back here with me, and examine poor little Miss’s bedroom. We will wait, of course, for your return, before anything is done. In the mean time, I entreat you not to despair. It is at least possible that the means of discovery may be found in the bedroom.”
They went out together, taking the first cab that passed them. Amelius proceeded alone to the hotel.
Rufus was in his room. “What’s gone wrong?” he asked, the moment Amelius opened the door. “Shake hands, my son, and smother up that little trouble between us in silence. Your face alarms me—it does! What of Sally?”
Amelius started at the question. “Isn’t she here?” he asked.
Rufus drew back. The mere action said, No, before he answered in words.
“Have you seen nothing of her? heard nothing of her?”
“Nothing. Steady, now! Meet it like a man; and tell me what has happened.”
Amelius told him in two words. “Don’t suppose I’m going to break out again as I did this morning,” he went on; “I’m too wretched and too anxious to be angry. Only tell me, Rufus, have you said anything to her—?”
Rufus held up his hand. “I see what you’re driving at. It will be more to the purpose to tell you what she said to me. From first to last, Amelius, I spoke kindly to her, and I did her justice. Give me a minute to rummage my memory.” After brief consideration, he carefully repeated the substance of what had passed between Sally and himself, during the latter part of the interview between them. “Have you looked about in her room?” he inquired, when he had done. “There might be a trifling something to help you, left behind her there.”
Amelius told him of Toff’s suggestion. They returned together at once to the cottage. Madame Toff was waiting to begin the search.
The first discovery was easily made. Sally had taken off one or two little trinkets—presents from Amelius, which she was in the habit of wearing—and had left them, wrapped up in paper, on the dressing-table. No such thing as a farewell letter was found near them. The examination of the wardrobe came next—and here a startling circumstance revealed itself. Every one of the dresses which Amelius had presented to her was hanging in its place. They were not many; and they had all, on previous occasions, been passed in review by Toff’s wife. She was absolutely certain that the complete number of the dresses was there in the bedroom. Sally must have worn something, in place of her new clothes. What had she put on?
Looking round the room, Amelius noticed in a corner the box in which he had placed the first new dress that he had purchased for Sally, on the morning after they had met. He tried to open the box: it was locked—and the key was not to be found. The ever-ready Toff fetched a skewer from the kitchen, and picked the lock in two minutes. On lifting the cover, the box proved to be empty.
The one person present who understood what this meant was Amelius.
He remembered that Sally had taken her old threadbare clothes away with her in the box, when the angry landlady had insisted on his leaving the house. “I want to look at them sometimes,” the poor girl had said, “and think how much better off I am now.” In those miserable rags she had fled from the cottage, after hearing the cruel truth. “He had better have left me where I was,” she had said. “Cold and hunger and ill-treatment would have laid me at rest by this time.” Amelius fell on his knees before the empty box, in helpless despair. The conclusion that now forced itself on his mind completely unmanned him. She had gone back, in the old dress, to die under the cold, the hunger, and the horror of the old life.
Rufus took his hand, and spoke to him kindly. He rallied, and dashed the tears from his eyes, and rose to his feet. “I know where to look for her,” was all he said; “and I must do it alone.” He refused to enter into any explanation, or to be assisted by any companion. “This is my secret and hers,” he answered, “Go back to your hotel, Rufus—and pray that I may not bring news which will make a wretched man of you for the rest of your life.” With that he left them.
In another hour he stood once more on the spot at which he and Sally had met.
The wild bustle and uproar of the costermongers’ night market no longer rioted round him: the street by daylight was in a state of dreary repose. Slowly pacing up and down, from one end to another, he waited with but one hope to sustain him—the hope that she might have taken refuge with the two women who had been her only friends in the dark days of her life. Ignorant of the place in which they lived, he had no choice but to wait for the appearance of one or other of them in the street. He was quiet and resolved. For the rest of the day, and for the whole of the night if need be, his mind was made up to keep steadfastly on the watch.
When he could walk no longer, he obtained rest and refreshment in the cookshop which he remembered so well; sitting on a stool near the window, from which he could still command a view of the street. The gas-lamps were alight, and the long winter’s night was beginning to set in, when he resumed his weary march from end to end of the pavement. As the darkness became complete, his patience was rewarded at last. Passing the door of a pawnbroker’s shop, he met one of the women face to face, walking rapidly, with a little parcel under her arm.
She recognized him with a cry of joyful surprise.
“Oh, sir, how glad I am to see you, to be sure! You’ve come to look after Sally, haven’t you? Yes, yes; she’s safe in our poor place—but in such a dreadful state. Off her head! clean off her head! Talks of nothing but you. ‘I’m in the way of his prospects in life.’ Over and over and over again, she keeps on saying that. Don’t be afraid; Jenny’s at home, taking care of her. She wants to go out. Hot and wild, with a kind of fever on her, she wants to go out. She asked if it rained. ‘The rain may kill me in these ragged clothes,’ she says; ‘and then I shan’t be in the way of his prospects in life.’ We tried to quiet her by telling her it didn’t rain—but it was no use; she was as eager as ever to go out. ‘I may get another blow on the bosom,’ she says; ‘and, maybe, it will fall on the right place this time.’ No! there’s no fear of the brute who used to beat her—he’s in prison. Don’t ask to see her just yet, sir; please don’t! I’m afraid you would only make her worse, if I took you to her now; I wouldn’t dare to risk it. You see, we can’t get her to sleep; and we thought of buying something to quiet her at the chemist’s. Yes, sir, it would be better to get a doctor to her. But I wasn’t going to the doctor. If I must tell you, I was obliged to take the sheets off the bed, to raise a little money—I was going to the pawnbroker’s.” She looked at the parcel under her arm, and smiled. “I may take the sheets back again, now I’ve met with you; and there’s a good doctor lives close by—I can show you the way to him. Oh how pale you do look! Are you very much tired? It’s only a little way to the doctor. I’ve got an arm at your service—but you mightn’t like to be seen waiting with such a person as me.”
Mentally and physically, Amelius was completely prostrated. The woman’s melancholy narrative had overwhelmed him: he could neither speak nor act. He mechanically put his purse in her hand, and went with her to the house of the nearest medical man.
The doctor was at home, mixing drugs in his little surgery. After one sharp look at Amelius, he ran into a back parlour, and returned with a glass of spirits. “Drink this, sir,” he said—“unless you want to find yourself on the floor in a fainting fit. And don’t presume again on your youth and strength to treat your heart as if it was made of cast-iron.” He signed to Amelius to sit down and rest himself, and turned to the woman to hear what was wanted of him. After a few questions, he said she might go; promising to follow her in a few minutes, when the gentleman would be sufficiently recovered to accompany him.
“Well, sir, are you beginning to feel like yourself again?” He was mixing a composing draught, while he addressed Amelius in those terms. “You may trust that poor wretch, who has just left us, to take care of the sick girl,” he went on, in the quaintly familiar manner which seemed to be habitual with him. “I don’t ask how you got into her company—it’s no business of mine. But I am pretty well acquainted with the people in my neighbourhood; and I can tell you one thing, in case you’re anxious. The woman who brought you here, barring the one misfortune of her life, is as good a creature as ever breathed; and the other one who lives with her is the same. When I think of what they’re exposed to—well! I take to my pipe, and compose my mind in that way. My early days were all passed as a ship’s surgeon. I could get them both respectable employment in Australia, if I only had the money to fit them out. They’ll die in the hospital, like the rest, if something isn’t done for them. In my hopeful moments, I sometimes think of a subscription. What do you say? Will you put down a few shillings to set the example?”
“I will do more than that,” Amelius answered. “I have reasons for wishing to befriend both those two poor women; and I will gladly engage to find the outfit.”
The familiar old doctor held out his hand over the counter. “You’re a good fellow, if ever there was one yet!” he burst out. “I can show references which will satisfy you that I am not a rogue. In the mean time, let’s see what is the matter with this little girl; you can tell me about her as we go along.” He put his bottle of medicine in his pocket, and his arm in the arm of Amelius—and so led the way out.
When they reached the wretched lodging-house in which the women lived, he suggested that his companion would do well to wait at the door. “I’m used to sad sights: it would only distress you to see the place. I won’t keep you long waiting.”
He was as good as his word. In little more than ten minutes, he joined Amelius again in the street.
“Don’t alarm yourself,” he said. “The case is not so serious as it looks. The poor child is suffering under a severe shock to the brain and nervous system, caused by that sudden and violent distress you hinted at. My medicine will give her the one thing she wants to begin with—a good night’s sleep.”
Amelius asked when she would be well enough to see him.
“Ah, my young friend, it’s not so easy to say, just yet! I could answer you to better purpose tomorrow. Won’t that do? Must I venture on a rash opinion? She ought to be composed enough to see you in three or four days. And, when that time comes, it’s my belief you will do more than I can do to set her right again.”
Amelius was relieved, but not quite satisfied yet. He inquired if it was not possible to remove her from that miserable place.
“Quite impossible—without doing her serious injury. They have got money to go on with; and I have told you already, she will be well taken care of. I will look after her myself tomorrow morning. Go home, and get to bed, and eat a bit of supper first, and make your mind easy. Come to my house at twelve o’clock, noon, and you will find me ready with my references, and my report of the patient. Surgeon Pinfold, Blackacre Buildings; there’s the address. Good night.”
After Amelius had left him, Rufus remembered his promise to communicate with Regina by telegraph.
With his strict regard for truth, it was no easy matter to decide on what message he should send. To inspire Regina, if possible, with his own unshaken belief in the good faith of Amelius, appeared, on reflection, to be all that he could honestly do, under present circumstances. With an anxious and foreboding mind, he despatched his telegram to Paris in these terms:—“Be patient for a while, and do justice to A. He deserves it.”
Having completed his business at the telegraph-office, Rufus went next to pay his visit to Mrs. Payson.
The good lady received him with a grave face and a distant manner, in startling contrast to the customary warmth of her welcome. “I used to think you were a man in a thousand,” she began abruptly; “and I find you are no better than the rest of them. If you have come to speak to me about that blackguard young Socialist, understand, if you please, that I am not so easily imposed upon as Miss Regina. I have done my duty; I have opened her eyes to the truth, poor thing. Ah, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
Rufus kept his temper, with his habitual self-command. “It’s possible you may be right,” he said quietly; “but the biggest rascal living has a claim to an explanation, when a lady puzzles him. Have you any particular objection, old friend, to tell me what you mean?”
The explanation was not of a nature to set his mind at ease.
Regina had written, by the mail which took Rufus to England, repeating to Mrs. Payson what had passed at the interview in the Champs Elysees, and appealing to her sympathy for information and advice. Receiving the letter that morning, Mrs. Payson, acting on her own generous and compassionate impulses, had already answered it, and sent it to the post. Her experience of the unfortunate persons received at the Home was far from inclining her to believe in the innocence of a runaway girl, placed under circumstances of temptation. As an act of justice towards Regina, she enclosed to her the letter in which Amelius had acknowledged that Sally had passed the night under his roof.
“I believe I am only telling you the shameful truth,” Mrs. Payson had written, “when I add that the girl has been an inmate of Mr. Goldenheart’s cottage ever since. If you can reconcile this disgraceful state of things, with Mr. Rufus Dingwell’s assertion of his friend’s fidelity to his marriage-engagement, I have no right, and no wish, to make any attempt to alter your opinion. But you have asked for my advice, and I must not shrink from giving it. I am bound as an honest woman, to tell you that your uncle’s resolution to break off the engagement represents the course that I should have taken myself, if a daughter of my own had been placed in your painful and humiliating position.”
There was still ample time to modify this strong expression of opinion by the day’s post. Rufus appealed vainly to Mrs. Payson to reconsider the conclusion at which she had arrived. A more charitable and considerate woman, within the limits of her own daily routine, it would not be possible to find. But the largeness of mind which, having long and trustworthy experience of a rule, can nevertheless understand that other minds may have equal experience of the exception to the rule, was one of the qualities which had not been included in the moral composition of Mrs. Payson. She held firmly to her own narrowly conscientious sense of her duty; stimulated by a natural indignation against Amelius, who had bitterly disappointed her—against Rufus, who had not scrupled to take up his defence. The two old friends parted in coldness, for the first time in their lives.
Rufus returned to his hotel, to wait there for news from Amelius.
The day passed—and the one visitor who enlivened his solitude was an American friend and correspondent, connected with the agency which managed his affairs in England. The errand of this gentleman was to give his client the soundest and speediest advice, relating to the investment of money. Having indicated the safe and solid speculation, the visitor added a warning word, relating to the plausible and dangerous investments of the day. “For instance,” he said, “there’s that bank started by Farnaby—”
“No need to warn me against Farnaby,” Rufus interposed; “I wouldn’t take shares in his bank if he made me a present of them.”
The American friend looked surprised. “Surely,” he exclaimed, “you can’t have heard the news already! They don’t even know it yet on the Stock Exchange.”
Rufus explained that he had only spoken under the influence of personal prejudice against Mr. Farnaby.
“What’s in the wind now?” he asked.
He was confidentially informed that a coming storm was in the wind: in other words, that a serious discovery had been made at the bank. Some time since, the directors had advanced a large sum of money to a man in trade, under Mr. Farnaby’s own guarantee. The man had just died; and examination of his affairs showed that he had only received a few hundred pounds, on condition of holding his tongue. The bulk of the money had been traced to Mr. Farnaby himself, and had all been swallowed up by his newspaper, his patent medicine, and his other rotten speculations, apart from his own proper business. “You may not know it,” the American friend concluded, “but the fact is, Farnaby rose from the dregs. His bankruptcy is only a question of time—he will drop back to the dregs; and, quite possibly, make his appearance to answer a criminal charge in a court of law. I hear that Melton, whose credit has held up the bank lately, is off to see his friend in Paris. They say Farnaby’s niece is a handsome girl, and Melton is sweet on her. Awkward for Melton.”
Rufus listened attentively. In signing the order for his investments, he privately decided to stir no further, for the present, in the matter of his young friend’s marriage-engagement.
For the rest of the day and evening, he still waited for Amelius, and waited in vain. It was drawing near to midnight, when Toff made his appearance with a message from his master. Amelius had discovered Sally, and had returned in such a state of fatigue that he was only fit to take some refreshment, and to go to his bed. He would be away from home again, on the next morning; but he hoped to call at the hotel in the course of the day. Observing Toff’s face with grave and steady scrutiny, Rufus tried to extract some further information from him. But the old Frenchman stood on his dignity, in a state of immovable reserve.
“You took me by the shoulder this morning, sir, and spun me round,” he said; “I do not desire to be treated a second time like a teetotum. For the rest, it is not my habit to intrude myself into my master’s secrets.”
“It’s notmyhabit,” Rufus coolly rejoined, “to bear malice. I beg to apologise sincerely, sir, for treating you like a teetotum; and I offer you my hand.”
Toff had got as far as the door. He instantly returned, with the dignity which a Frenchman can always command in the serious emergencies of his life. “You appeal to my heart and my honour, sir,” he said. “I bury the events of the morning in oblivion; and I do myself the honour of taking your hand.”
As the door closed on him, Rufus smiled grimly. “You’re not in the habit of intruding yourself into your master’s secrets,” he repeated. “If Amelius reads your face as I read it, he’ll look over his shoulder when he goes out tomorrow—and, ten to one, he’ll see you behind him in the distance!”
Late on the next day, Amelius presented himself at the hotel. In speaking of Sally, he was unusually reserved, merely saying that she was ill, and under medical care, and then changing the subject. Struck by the depressed and anxious expression of his face, Rufus asked if he had heard from Regina. No: a longer time than usual had passed since Regina had written to him. “I don’t understand it,” he said sadly. “I suppose you didn’t see anything of her in Paris?”
Rufus had kept his promise not to mention Regina’s name in Sally’s presence. But it was impossible for him to look at Amelius, without plainly answering the question put to him, for the sake of the friend whom he loved. “I’m afraid there’s trouble coming to you, my son, from that quarter.” With those warning words, he described all that had passed between Regina and himself. “Some unknown enemy of yours has spoken against you to her uncle,” he concluded. “I suppose you have made enemies, my poor old boy, since you have been in London?”
“I know the man,” Amelius answered. “He wanted to marry Regina before I met with her. His name is Melton.”
Rufus started. “I heard only yesterday, he was in Paris with Farnaby. And that’s not the worst of it, Amelius. There’s another of them making mischief—a good friend of mine who has shown a twist in her temper, that has taken me by surprise after twenty years’ experience of her. I reckon there’s a drop of malice in the composition of the best woman that ever lived—and the men only discover it when another woman steps in, and stirs it up. Wait a bit!” he went on, when he had related the result of his visit to Mrs. Payson. “I have telegraphed to Miss Regina to be patient, and to trust you. Don’t you write to defend yourself, till you hear how you stand in her estimation, after my message. Tomorrow’s post may tell.”
Tomorrow’s post did tell.
Two letters reached Amelius from Paris. One from Mr. Farnaby, curt and insolent, breaking off the marriage-engagement. The other, from Regina, expressed with great severity of language. Her weak nature, like all weak natures, ran easily into extremes, and, once roused into asserting itself, took refuge in violence as a shy person takes refuge in audacity. Only a woman of larger and firmer mind would have written of her wrongs in a more just and more moderate tone.
Regina began without any preliminary form of address. She had no heart to upbraid Amelius, and no wish to speak of what she was suffering, to a man who had but too plainly shown that he had no respect for himself, and neither love, nor pity even, for her. In justice to herself, she released him from his promise, and returned his letters and his presents. Her own letters might be sent in a sealed packet, addressed to her at her uncle’s place of business in London. She would pray that he might be brought to a sense of the sin that he had committed, and that he might yet live to be a worthy and a happy man. For the rest, her decision was irrevocable. His own letter to Mrs. Payson condemned him—and the testimony of an old and honoured friend of her uncle proved that his wickedness was no mere act of impulse, but a deliberate course of infamy and falsehood, continued over many weeks. From the moment when she made that discovery, he was a stranger to her—and she now bade him farewell.
“Have you written to her?” Rufus asked, when he had seen the letters.
Amelius reddened with indignation. He was not aware of it himself—but his look and manner plainly revealed that Regina had lost her last hold on him. Her letter had inflicted an insult—not a wound: he was outraged and revolted; the deeper and gentler feelings, the emotions of a grieved and humiliated lover, had been killed in him by her stern words of dismissal and farewell.
“Do you think I would allow myself to be treated in that way, without a word of protest?” he said to Rufus. “I have written, refusing to take back my promise. ‘I declare, on my word of honour, that I have been faithful to you and to my engagement’—that was how I put it—‘and I scorn the vile construction which your uncle and his friend have placed upon an act of Christian mercy on my part.’ I wrote more tenderly, before I finished my letter; feeling for her distress, and being anxious above all things not to add to it. We shall see if she has love enough left for me to trust my faith and honour, instead of trusting false appearances. I will give her time.”
Rufus considerately abstained from expressing any opinion. He waited until the morning when a reply might be expected from Paris; and then he called at the cottage.
Without a word of comment, Amelius put a letter into his friend’s hand. It was his own letter to Regina returned to him. On the back of it, there was a line in Mr. Farnaby’s handwriting:—“If you send any more letters they will be burnt unopened.” In those insolent terms the wretch wrote with bankruptcy and exposure hanging over his head.
Rufus spoke plainly upon this. “There’s an end of it now,” he said. “That girl would never have made the right wife for you, Amelius: you’re well out of it. Forget that you ever knew these people; and let us talk of something else. How is Sally?”
At that ill-timed inquiry, Amelius showed his temper again. He was in a state of nervous irritability which made him apt to take offence, where no offence was intended. “Oh, you needn’t be alarmed!” he answered petulantly; “there’s no fear of the poor child coming back to live with me. She is still under the doctor’s care.”
Rufus passed over the angry reply without notice, and patted him on the shoulder. “I spoke of the girl,” he said, “because I wanted to help her; and I can help her, if you will let me. Before long, my son, I shall be going back to the United States. I wish you would go with me!”
“And desert Sally!” cried Amelius.
“Nothing of the sort! Before we go, I’ll see that Sally is provided for to your satisfaction. Will you think of it, to please me?”
Amelius relented. “Anything, to please you,” he said.
Rufus noticed his hat and gloves on the table, and left him without saying more. “The trouble with Amelius,” he thought, as he closed the cottage gate, “is not over yet.”