John Brancker's abrupt departure left Mr. Avison in no very enviable frame of mind. He was thoroughly dissatisfied with John; nay, more, as he told himself, he was deeply offended with him; but none the less was he conscious of a certain sense of dissatisfaction with himself. Although he had laid such stress on the fact that the trial had failed to clear up certain points of evidence which told strongly against John, and had brought forward that fact as an excuse for getting rid of him, and although he still failed to understand how the crime could possibly have been the work of a stranger, he was possessed by a secret conviction, which the recent interview had not failed to strengthen, that John Brancker was as innocent as he, Benjamin Avison, was of any participation either in the death of Mr. Hazeldine, or in the robbery which had formed part and parcel of the mysterious affair. Therefore he was dissatisfied with himself. The scales of justice which he prided himself on holding with such an even balance in his dealings with his fellows, inclined for once a little more to one side than the other, and he was conscious that their doing so was owing entirely to his own bias in the affair.
Such thoughts were not comforting, and with a strong wrench he broke away from them. John Brancker had taken his own headstrong course, and he must abide by the consequences. "For the future, I wash my hands of him entirely," said Mr. Avison, as he touched the bell at his elbow.
The death of Mr. Hazeldine and the enforced absence of John had necessitated several changes in the Bank staff. Such changes, however, in view of John's probable resumption of his duties, had only been of a makeshift and temporary character; but now the time had come for them to be made permanent. Mr. Avison had taken upon his own shoulders a great part of the duties of his dead manager. The next clerk to John Brancker in point of seniority was a Mr. Howes, who was a protégé of Mr. Avison, and, consequently, somewhat of a favorite, although no signs of his being so had ever been detected by the rest of the staff. Mr. Howes, who had performed John's duties while the latter was in prison, was now confirmed in the position at a considerable advance of salary. When he had given expression to his thanks and was dismissed, Ephraim Judd and Frank Derison were sent for.
Mr. Avison had never liked Ephraim, although no one, except perhaps the object of his dislike, had any cognizance of the fact. The Banker, in matters of dress and personal appearance, was one of the most fastidious of men, whereas Ephraim was careless to the verge of slovenliness. His clothes were of coarse material and badly made; one collar and one pair of cuffs were made to do duty for a week; while his necktie was usually either awry, or had its ends loosely flying. Both his nails and his teeth would have repaid more attention than he chose to bestow on them, while his lank, black hair, which he wore several inches longer than is customary nowadays, only tended to accentuate the general untidiness of his appearance. All these things, each one a trifle in itself, had yet, when taken in the aggregate, an irritating effect on the nerves of Mr. Avison. Then there were those terrible ears of his, and his peculiar mode of progression--although, of course, the fellow could not help it--something between a hop and a skip when unassisted by his stick. Taking him all in all, the Banker desired to see as little as possible of Ephraim Judd.
But, on the other hand, Ephraim was one of the best of clerks, industrious, painstaking, conscientious. Mr. Avison told himself that it would never do--that it was contrary to all his principles--to allow personal prejudices to stand in the way of doing what was right by the other. It may be that he felt the more determined to deal with him in a thoroughly just spirit because he was not without his secret doubts whether that was altogether the spirit in which he had dealt with John Brancker. Accordingly, the Banker now proceeded to inform Judd that he might consider himself as being permanently installed in the position lately filled by Mr. Howes, while Frank Derison was to succeed Ephraim. A substantial increase of salary would follow in each case as a matter of course.
Both the young men were profuse in their professions of thanks, which, however, Mr. Avison deprecated with a gentle motion of his hand. Then he said: "If you can see your way, Judd, if you really can see your way to pay a little more attention to the details of your attire, and--and to your personal appearance generally, upon my word, I shall esteem it a favor." There was something that verged on the pathetic in the way he spoke. Then he added: "That will do for the present, Judd. Derison, I want a word with you before you go."
Ephraim left the room with a very red face, and a tingling sensation about his ears as if someone had soundly boxed them. Frank turned not red but white. Which of his little peccadilloes, he asked himself, was he going to be "called over the coals" about?
"I have not conferred this promotion on you, Derison, without having very serious doubts as to the wisdom of doing so," said Mr. Avison, toying with a paper-knife and staring the young man straight in the face. "I trust, however, that you will give me no cause to regret having taken such a step; but, in order that you may not do so, it will be needful for you at once to turn over a fresh leaf. For one thing, you must wholly give up frequenting the 'Crown and Cushion,' or any other tavern, and if you continue to play billiards, it must be at private houses only. I have made it my business to ascertain in what way you are in the habit of passing your evenings, and the result, I am sorry to say, is one which is far from creditable to you. It is not, however, too late for you to reform, but I need scarcely tell you that the reformation must be both thorough and sincere, and I must have ample proof that it is so. And now, to turn to another matter. You are a frequent visitor, I believe, at the house of John Brancker. I am also given to understand that Brancker has a niece--a more than ordinarily attractive young woman. Is there any engagement, may I ask, between yourself and the person in question?"
There was a momentary hesitation before Frank spoke. Then he said in low, but distinct tones: "There is no engagement whatever, sir, between me and the young lady you refer to."
"I am glad, for reasons of my own, to have your assurance of the fact. If you will be advised by me, you will be a less frequent visitor at Brancker's house in time to come. I don't know that I have anything more to say to you just now, unless it be to impress upon you the fact that your future rests entirely in your own hands, either to make or mar."
When Frank reached home that evening he made haste to tell his mother all that had passed between himself and Mr. Avison.
"To think that he should have set someone to play the spy on me! I call it mean and contemptible in the extreme," concluded the young clerk in a fine burst of indignation.
"You look at the matter from an erroneous point of view, my son," replied Mrs. Derison, in her unemotional way. "You may rely upon it that Mr. Avison would not have been at the trouble to act as he has unless your future were a matter of some concern to him. He has warned you and told you what he expects at your hands, and you may rest satisfied he has not done it without having a certain end in view. That your future will be a brilliant one I think you need not doubt, if only you will be guided by him. He has put you on your trial, and the result rests entirely with yourself."
"All the same, it was a mean thing to set a spy to dog my footsteps," said Frank, sullenly.
"I do not doubt that you will live to see the wisdom of the step which you now denounce so pettishly. And now, as to Miss Rivers?"
"Well, what about her? I consider it a piece of unwarrantable impertinence on Mr. Avison's part to ask me whether I am engaged to Hermy, as also to advise me to visit less frequently at John Brancker's house. What can it possibly matter to him how often I go there?"
"Oh! Frank, Frank! when will you be able to see an inch further than your nose? Cannot you comprehend that Mr. Avison's interference in your affairs is dictated by a strong desire for your ultimate good? Do not his actions say as plainly as words, 'Only do as I want you to do, and I will set you on the high-road to fortune?' You ought never to forget that Mr. Avison's nearest relatives are all of my sex, and that in view of the delicate state of his health, as well as of the fact that he is no longer young, the question of a possible successor at the Bank, especially now that Mr. Hazeldine is no more, is one which must inevitably be much in his thoughts. I am glad you were able to assure him that there is no engagement between yourself and Miss Rivers."
"But there is an engagement between us, as you know full well. I was a hound to tell Mr. Avison that there wasn't."
"An engagement of a sort," replied Mrs. Dersion meaningly; then after a moment's pause, she went on: "It was only a half-and-half provisional arrangement, look at it whichever way you will. At the end of a year either of you could cry off that might wish to do so; and now that the course it is to your interest to follow is put so plainly before you, surely you would not----?"
"I repeat it, I was a hound to tell Mr. Avison what I did. Hermia Rivers is the most charming girl I know, and I'm far from sure that I want to break with her."
"Frank, you are a fool, and I have no patience with you," said Mrs. Derison, in coldly contemptuous tones, as she got up and left the room.
But it was only to return to the charge a little later on. She did not in the least doubt that, in the long run, her stronger will should overmaster Frank's weak one, and that she should ultimately carry her point. Thus it fell out that, in the course of the next day but one after Frank's interview with Mr. Avison, the following letter was received by Miss Rivers:
"My Dear Hermia,
"Never before have I had so hard a task as the one which confronts me to-day, and I scarcely know in what terms to set about it. Pray believe me when I tell you that to me the pain is very keen, though I cannot flatter myself that it will be anything like the same to you. In any case, I trust that what I am about to propose will, in the long run, prove conducive to the happiness of both.
"It is now upwards of a year since you and I entered into a kind of semi-engagement, which by mutual consent was to be kept secret from everyone for the time being, and was to be terminable at the end of twelve months at the option of either or both, unless it should meanwhile have developed into a bond of a much closer and warmer kind.
"Dear Hermia, I now write to offer you your freedom. My feelings towards you have in no wise changed. I still love you as much as ever I did, but I feel that it would be unfair towards you to keep you longer under the bond of an engagement which I see no present prospect of being able to bring to its legitimate conclusion. In brief, I am too poor to marry, and am likely to remain so for an indefinite period. Rather would I keep single forever than allow my wife to deteriorate into one of those household drudges of which we can see so many specimens around us. That sort of thing I could not reconcile either to my conscience or my feelings; neither am I selfish enough to wish you to wear out the best years of your life in waiting for one who, the longer he lives, the more unworthy he feels himself to be of the great treasure of your love.
"I do not know that I can add more, unless it be to say that, should I ever find myself in a position to marry, you would be the one whom I should choose before all the world; and also that my heart still clings to you, and that, in writing as I am now, I feel that I am cutting myself adrift from all that has been brightest and best in my life.
"Always, dear Hermia, yours most sincerely,
"Frank Derison."
This characteristic epistle elicited the following reply:
"Dear Frank,
"The contents of your letter caused me very little surprise, and what I did experience was of a pleasurable kind. For some time past it has been plain to me that the tie which bound us, slight though it was, had become irksome to you, and that its severance would be hailed by you as a relief. To me, almost from the first, it has been as a chain that galled and fretted me; and your having written me as you have, has merely anticipated by a few days a step which I had fully made up my mind to take on my own account.
"To be candid with you--and surely in such a matter candor is of the first importance--my feelings towards you were never of a kind to warrant me in entering into any engagement with you, nor do I believe that time would do anything towards effecting a change in them. A year ago I was led away by your impassioned words, and by a certain amount of self-deception on my own part, into believing that I might, after a while, come to care for you in the way you wanted me to do. But I was not long in finding out that I had made a great mistake; and now you on your side have made a similar discovery. Let us hope that, taught by experience, both of us will be wiser in time to come.
"Always your friend and well-wisher,
"Hermia Rivers."
This was not at all the kind of answer that Frank had looked for. Far from expressing the slightest regret, or indignation--he could have borne a little indignation with equanimity--Hermy seemed actually to welcome her release! But, of course, as he told himself, he knew better than to credit her assertions. Her pride would not allow her to let him see how deeply she was wounded; as was but natural, she tried to carry it off with a high hand; but he was not to be so easily hoodwinked. All the same, the tone of her reply did not fail to jar against the self-love which was one of his most pronounced characteristics; and not for a long time to come was he able to rid himself of an uneasy consciousness that his treatment of Hermia had been anything rather than that of a man of honor and a gentleman; and Frank had a great desire to pose as both--as though the two were not synonymous--not only before the world at large, but in the clearer eyes of his own conscience.
In the press of other matters we have lost sight of Mrs. Hazeldine and Fanny for a time. The news of Mr. Hazeldine's tragical end came upon them with all the force and suddenness of an earthquake shock, shattering the little trivial round of their daily existence in a way which seemed to render it impossible that it should ever come together again. Not till the day of the funeral was Mrs. Hazeldine able to rise from her bed, but after that last sad duty had been discharged, she grew in strength rapidly, although no one expected of her that she should do otherwise than keep up therôleof a semi-invalid for some time to come.
On the day following the funeral she was interviewed by an enterprising member of the staff of the county newspaper, whom, nothing loth, being indeed flattered by the notion that anything she might choose to tell the man would be deemed worthy of appearing in print, she supplied with an exaggerated and sentimental account of Mr. Hazeldine's last evening at home, not forgetting a description of sundry strange dreams she had been troubled with just before the sad event; and supplementing the whole with the mention of certain omens and portents presaging misfortune of which she had thought nothing at the time, but which had appealed to her since with all the force of neglected warnings. The narrative thus obtained, having been docked of sundry excrescences, and then touched up with sundry dramatic and picturesque details, was duly served up for the delectation of the public at large, greatly to the disgust of Clement and Edward Hazeldine.
In other ways, too, Mrs. Hazeldine began to find that there was a likelihood of her being "appreciated"--that was how she stated the case to herself--after a fashion to which she could lay no claim during her husband's lifetime. Both Lady Glendoyle and the Hon. Mrs. Gore-Bandon--by neither of whom had she ever been noticed before--called upon her in her great affliction, and were most kind and sympathetic; while the Countess of Elstree in person made inquiries and left a card. Even at such a time, she could not help deriving a melancholy satisfaction from the knowledge that her mourning was quite correct and beyond criticism. Fanny had not been too much overwhelmed with grief to look carefully after so vitally essential a matter.
To Fanny the loss of her father was a serious blow in more ways than one. For one thing, it meant her enforced absence for at least six months to come from all those gaieties and social functions in which her soul delighted. At two-and-twenty she felt that such a waste of precious time was nothing less than a serious misfortune; and then she was beset by the consciousness that in mourning she looked nothing less than "horrid." It should not be her fault if her mother and she did not go into half-mourning at the earliest possible moment. In the way of half-mourning there are always some lovely things obtainable--delicate shades and semi-tones of color which would suit her style and complexion admirably. It was especially annoying that a certain event should have happened when it did, just as she had entered on a most promising flirtation with Mr. Gerald Darke, who had come down from town to stay for a month with a rich maiden aunt from whom he had expectations. Who could say what might not have come of the affair! As matters fell out, however, young Darke's visit had come to an end during the time Fanny was necessarily invisible. She felt that it was very hard on her, more particularly in view of the fact that for some time past she had given up flirtation for flirtation's sake, and always, nowadays--with an eye to possible eventualities--made herself sure beforehand that the game was worth the candle.
It was an unwelcome surprise both to the widow and her daughter to find that, beyond a policy of insurance for twelve thousand pounds, Mr. Hazeldine had left nothing behind him except a sum of one thousand pounds lodged in the Bank to which his services had been given for so many years. He was a man who never talked about his private affairs to anybody, but that he had died so poor was a source of surprise to all who had known him. The house, however, in which he had lived was his own, and that was now left to Mrs. Hazeldine for her use during life. With the exception of a legacy of five hundred pounds to his daughter, all else he might die possessed of was to be invested for the benefit of his widow, the interest accruing therefrom to be hers as long as she lived, and at her death the principal to be divided equally among his children.
It was not without many inward qualms that Edward Hazeldine allowed himself to become an accessory to the fraud--for it could be termed nothing less--perpetrated by his father on the Stork Insurance Company. But, as he told himself over and over again, there was no way of escape open to him. He felt as if he had lowered himself for ever in his own eyes when he had acknowledged the receipt of the Insurance Company's cheque, and had paid the same into the Bank in his mother's name. It was another of those downward steps forced on him by his fatal knowledge of his father's secret. Fervently did he hope it might be the last.
A day or two after the receipt of the cheque, Edward called on his mother in order to consult with her as to the disposition of the money. "What I propose," he said to Mrs. Hazeldine, "is that you should authorize me to invest the amount in the Four per cent, debentures of a certain Company with which Lord Elstree is intimately associated. By doing this you will come into receipt of an assured income of four hundred and eighty pounds a year."
"Four per cent! Why, my dear Edward, I made sure that with your financial knowledge you would be able to get me eight per cent, for my money--or six at the very least!"
"Oh, I could get you eight, or even ten per cent., readily enough," retorted Edward, a little grimly, "only in that case what sort of security would you have for your principal? People who are not content without a high percentage for their money must take the risk with it. Now, the investment I am proposing to you is an absolutely safe one."
"But four hundred and eighty pounds a year! I--I did hope that I should have been able to keep a little pony-phaeton."
"There will only be yourself and Fan," responded Edward, ignoring the latter part of her remark. "Your staff of servants might well be reduced, and I would recommend that you should let this house and move into a smaller one."
"My dear Edward, what are you thinking about! Remove into another house--and a smaller one, too--when only last spring this one was fitted throughout with new carpets and blinds? Think of the waste of money--I will not speak of the laceration of my feelings--which such a step would involve. This house has associations for me such as--as no other house ever could have. But--but that, of course, matters to nobody but myself."
Mrs. Hazeldine began to whimper in a gentle but aggravating way. Edward got up and walked to the window and stood there, turning over the keys and money in his pocket.
"And then, again, what chance would Fanny have of getting well married, if we were to go and live in some little cottage, which in all probability would swarm with earwigs and black beetles?"
"My dear mother, pray don't say another word about it."
But if he thought he was going to get off so easily, he was mistaken.
"Just, too, as I am getting round me a circle of friends such as I never had in your poor father's lifetime! Lady Glendoyle, and Mrs. Gore-Bandon, and others. What would they think if I were to bury myself alive in the way you want me to? I might almost as well go and live in one of the parish almshouses. I consider it most unkind of you even to suggest such a thing."
Edward ground his teeth, but refrained from any reply. He had wound Mrs. Hazeldine up, and there was nothing for it but to let her run down of her own accord. Presently he remembered an appointment, and took a hurried leave.
Although nothing more was said about the widow's removal to a smaller house, her son's strong will prevailed over her weak one as far as money matters were concerned. The twelve thousand pounds were invested in accordance with Edward's suggestion, and Mrs. Hazeldine tried to derive consolation from the fact that none of her fine acquaintances would know how very limited was her income. Naturally, she told herself, if they thought of the matter at all, they would put her income down as being at least twice the amount it actually was.
It was with a very strange feeling that John Brancker woke up on the morning of the day after his interview with Mr. Avison, and called to mind the fact that he had no office to go to, nor any work to do.
"I feel like a fish out of water, and not a bit like a gentleman of ease and leisure," said John at breakfast next morning, with a little rueful laugh. "Now that I have got back home and am among my old familiar surroundings, all that has happened during the last three months seems almost as if it had never been. More than once this morning I have caught myself looking at the clock, under the impression that it would soon be time to set off; and on coming down stairs I began to brush my hat in the hall just as I used to do every morning."
"After all you have gone through of late, dear, you must give yourself a month's holiday at the very least, before you even begin to think of looking out for another situation."
John shook his head. "It would hardly be worth calling a holiday, because I should be fidgeting all the time, and wondering what was going to become of us."
"Going to become of us, indeed! To hear you talk, one would think there was nothing but the Workhouse before us. It is not often, goodness knows, that I insist upon having my own way, but I do in this. You shall take a month's holiday, going right away from Ashdown; and if we find you too obstinate to go of your own accord, why then Hermy and I will carry you off by main force, and having locked up the Cottage, leave it to take care of itself till our return."
John was pottering about the garden after breakfast, when the Reverend Peter Edislow was announced. He was the Vicar of St. Mary's, the church at which John, previously to his imprisonment, had filled the post of organist for several years. He shook hands with John, and said:
"I congratulate you most cordially, Mr. Brancker, on the result of last Saturday," but there was not much cordiality in his tone. He was a thin, ascetic-looking man, with a somewhat sour and querulous expression of countenance. He regarded himself as the most ill-used person of his acquaintance, and pitied himself accordingly, while cherishing much inward resentment against certain of his ecclesiastical superiors who had passed him over time after time, when there was preferment in the air, in favor of others, altogether his inferiors--or so he was firmly persuaded--in point of learning, eloquence, and sound doctrinal piety. He felt it to be hard--very hard--that his many merits should have received such scant acknowledgment at the hands of those who ought to have been among the first to accord them their due meed of appreciation and reward.
"Thank you, sir," said John. "It is a great pleasure to me to hear you say so. One never knows until trouble overtakes us how many friends and well-wishers one really has. And now about the organ, sir. I presume it is your wish that I should take up my old duties on Sunday next?"
"Hum! Well, the fact is, Mr. Brancker, it is about your position as organist that I have called to see you this morning. We are very well satisfied with Mr. Plympton, who has been officiating during your absence--very well satisfied, indeed--and I think, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration, that it would, perhaps, be as well if the existing arrangement were allowed to go on, at all events for some little time to come. You will not fail to appreciate my motives, I am sure."
"All the circumstances of the case!" echoed John, blankly. "Pardon me if I fail to quite apprehend your meaning, Mr. Edislow."
The vicar coughed behind his hand. "I was in hope that your own good sense would have spared me the necessity of any further explanation," he said, a little stiffly. "If you are not aware, I can only say you ought to be, that although your trial on Saturday last resulted in your acquittal--a fact on which I have not failed to congratulate you most heartily--a very antagonistic feeling towards you still exists in certain quarters. There are not wanting those who say that, although the jury by their verdict avouched your innocence, certain suspicious circumstances connected with the affair have not yet been cleared up; and, in short, they choose to exercise the right of private opinion, and--and to assume--But, really, is there any need for me to pursue this painful topic any further?"
"None whatever, Mr. Edislow," answered John, with grave dignity. "If such a feeling as you speak of exists--though it seems hard to believe it of one's fellow-townsmen--why, then, sir, I quite agree with you that my position as organist at St. Mary's is no longer tenable, and I will at once place my formal resignation in your hands."
"Ah! Brancker, it is a sad thing to say, but we live in a most uncharitable world. I shall be sorry to lose your services, but, all things considered, I fail to see how you could have come to any other decision."
The Vicar's statement that there was a certain section of the good people of Ashdown who, notwithstanding the result of the trial, still regarded John Brancker with the eye of suspicion, was a great shock to the latter; and yet, human nature being what it is, it could hardly have been otherwise. From the day of John's committal to prison on the capital charge, the question of his guilt or innocence had been a burning subject of discussion--not merely among the frequenters of bar-parlors and tap-rooms, but at dinner-parties and tea-gatherings--through the gradually ascending scale of social life till the highest rank of county society were reached, where it was kept in reserve by judicious hostesses as a topic which could always be depended on to give a fillip to the conversation whenever it seemed in danger of languishing. Like all burning questions, it was not discussed without acrimony and vehemence. Those who avowed themselves firm believers in the prisoner's innocence were confronted by others who were just as positive with regard to his guilt, although these latter were probably far from wishing to see their belief worked out to its logical conclusion. Then, again, there was another class; that which is never satisfied unless it can back up its opinion with a wager. Thus it naturally came to pass that when the trial resulted in John's acquittal, all those who had professed themselves believers in his guilt, as well as that other section who were out of pocket through having wagered the wrong way, felt themselves more or less aggrieved, a feeling which was further intensified by the undisguised elation of those who had pinned their faith to the opposite view. Therefore it was that sundry people were even now going about hinting darkly at a miscarriage of justice, and averring that till certain points of evidence should be disproved, or explained away, no person of intelligence could fail to still have strong grounds for doubting the late prisoner's innocence.
When John Brancker took his first walk into the town after Mr. Edislow's call upon him, he looked at the world from a new point of view. All at once he had become sensitive and suspicious. He felt himself to be a marked man. It seemed to him that numbers of those who passed him in the street looked askance at him, or, worse still, purposely averted their faces from him; and as he walked along his heart was a prey to a dumb, bitter anger which was compelled to feed on itself for lack of a definite object against which it could turn. If you have reason to believe that half-a-dozen people have done you an injustice, you can either meet them one by one and strive to prove to them where they are in the wrong, or otherwise you can afford to treat their opinion of you with indifference or contempt; but what are you to say or do if the assurance festers in your heart that some hundreds of your fellow-townsmen regard you with an eye of suspicion and distrust? In such a case you are helpless; there is nothing you can either say or do; you can only writhe in silence, trusting that for you, as for so many others, the whirligig of Time will some day bring in his revenges.
That John, in the soreness of his heart, exaggerated the case as against himself, there can be little doubt. It was a part of his nature, perhaps a weakness of it, to be morbidly sensitive to the opinion of others. It seemed essential to the simple content which had hitherto been his portion through life, that he should stand well in the eyes of his fellows. He had been buoyed up during his imprisonment by the consciousness of his innocence, and by the certainty, which rarely deserted him, that the trial would result in his acquittal. It had so resulted, yet now that he was a free man again, a sheaf of poisoned arrows were being aimed at him in the dark from which he was powerless to protect himself. He put forth his hands to grasp his enemy, and encountered empty space. After that first day he took nearly all his walks among the fields and country lanes, and rarely went into the town till after dusk. His sister was not long in perceiving that something was the matter, and had little difficulty in worming out of him the cause of his unwonted depression of spirits; for John was one of those men to whom it is a relief to unburthen themselves to someone, and who find it next to impossible to live without the sympathy of those with whom their affections are bound up. What had affected him with a sort of bitter sadness filled Miss Brancker with a fine flame of indignation, which aroused whatever combative instinct there was within her--but to no purpose, for of all futile occupations, that of fighting against shadows is perhaps the most unsatisfactory.
"We must just try and live it down," said John, with a patient sigh.
"Yes, and you eating your heart out meanwhile!" answered Miss Brancker, with an indignant flutter of her cap-strings.
"I really think that Hermia ought to be told," said John to his sister a few days later. "My intention all along has been not to tell her till her twenty-first birthday, but that will not be here for several months, and in view of all that has happened of late, and, more especially, of the dark cloud which during the past few days has settled on my life----"
"Of which I am quite sure Hermy knows nothing," interposed Miss Brancker.
"But of which she is sure to hear sooner or later--in consideration of all these things, I have decided that I should not be justified in keeping the secret from her any longer."
"She will be greatly shocked."
"At first, I do not doubt; but at her age she will soon recover. After all, the story I have to tell is like a tale in two volumes, of which one volume is all I can offer her. Where the other is, and whether she will ever find it, is more than either you or I can say."
John fixed on the following evening for his revelation, as the three were seated alone in the little parlor after tea. There was a keen frost outside, but the lamplighted interior had all that cosy cheerfulness which we associate in our thoughts with mid-winter weather. John sat on one side of the fireplace, more engaged with his own musings than with the newspaper in his hand, which he used occasionally by way of a fire-screen. A little way apart sat Hermia, between whom and Miss Brancker was a small oval work-table. The spinster was busy with her crewels, while the girl was engaged in mending some delicate old lace belonging to her aunt. Now and again Aunt Charlotte would glance up from her work to Hermia's sunny face, who, all unconscious of the scrutiny and wrapped up in some pleasant daydream, would let her needle come to a pause every few minutes as if to count her heart-beats, a slow, faint smile curving her lips the while, and the luminous depths of her dark-blue eyes becoming more luminous still. Then, with an almost imperceptible start, she would seem to call to mind where she was and the work on which she was engaged, and for a little while her needle would move in and out of the lace with the unerring precision of a machine.
"What can have come to her?" queried Miss Brancker of herself. "She is not the same girl she was even so short a time ago as last week. Of course, loving John as she does, it lifted a great load off her mind--though neither she nor I had ever the least doubt as to the result of the trial--when he was acquitted; but is there not something more than that which so often causes her cheeks to flush and then pale again as they never used to do, and has set the seal of some secret happiness on her face?" Then she added, as sagely as if she knew all about such matters: "And what but one thing should there be in all the world to cause a young maiden to fall into daydreams and forget where she is, and, although her eyes are wide open, to see nothing of what is going on around her! 'She walks in meads of Asphodel, and sunlight dwells in all her ways,'" quoted the spinster, who was still as fond of poetry as any girl of eighteen. And with that she gave a little sigh, and went on with her work.
It was from one of these daydreams that John's voice, addressing her after a rather long silence, brought back Hermia with a start.
"My dear," he said, speaking slowly and softly, "do you ever go back in memory to that far-off time before you came to us, or try to piece together whatever fragments you may still retain of the earliest recollections of your childhood?"
The dazzling light in Hermia's eyes, as she turned them on him the moment he spoke to her, died out of them as her mind took in the purport of his question.
"When I was much younger than I am now," she replied, "I often used to try to piece together what, even then, seemed like the broken fragments of a number of dreams all jumbled up together, but I never could make anything of them. Nowadays, my mind seldom travels back so far. Why, indeed, should it? I suppose everything has been told me which it is good for me to know, and assuming that to be so, why should I trouble further?"
"Nothing has been told you yet," said John, gently.
A startled look came into her eyes. "Then something remains to be told," she said with a little break in her voice--"something about the parents of whom I remember nothing--nothing!"
"My dear, neither my sister nor I have any more knowledge of your parents than you yourself have."
Her cheek paled suddenly, "Oh!--Can that be true? And yet you are my uncle and aunt! How, then?" She stared helplessly from one to the other.
John drew his chair closer to Hermy's, and taking one of her hands in both his, pressed it tenderly. "Ah," he said, with an infinite pathos in his voice, "therein lies the secret--the secret which has been kept from you for so many years, but which must be told you at last." Here he pressed her hand a little harder. "My darling child--for so I may surely call you--it seems a cruel thing to be compelled to say, but we are not your uncle and aunt--I and my sister. In point of fact, we are no relatives at all."
Hermia's eyes were not bent on John, but on the fire, but just then they saw no more of what they seemed to be gazing at, than if they had been struck with blindness. Twice her lips shaped themselves as if to speak, but no sound came from them. A large tear gathered in the corner of each eye, lingered there for a moment, and then fell. John himself was unable to continue for a little while.
"And now," he went on, "having told you so much, I must, of course, tell you the rest, for my sister agrees with me that the time has come when you should be made aware of as much of your history as it is in our power to impart to you. After all, there is not much to tell, as you will be able presently to judge for yourself." He paused for a few moments as if to gather his thoughts, and then resumed.
"Seventeen years ago, at which time we were living in the suburbs of London, my sister drew my attention to an advertisement in one of the daily papers, which specified that the advertiser was desirous of entering into communication with some thoroughly respectable and trustworthy people, who were willing to adopt a little girl about three years of age, and bring her up as if she were a child of their own. My sister and I having made tip our minds years before that we should never marry, had long been desirous of brightening our lives by the adoption of a child, who should grow up with us, and be in everything as though she were really our own, and here seemed the opportunity we were seeking, ready to our hand. Accordingly, I at once answered the advertisement, and a couple of days later was called upon by a Mr. Hodgson, who, from the first time of seeing him, I set down in my mind as a lawyer. The result was that a few days later, you, my dear Hermia, were handed over to our care, and have lived with us ever since.
"Once every year Mr. Hodgson visits us at the Cottage, when he always dines with us, and you will doubtless remember having seen him here on several occasions. The object of his annual visit is to see you, probably in order that he may be able to report to those who employ him that you are alive and well. We were told, when you first came to us, that your name was Hermia Rivers, but beyond that we were told nothing. No hint whatever with regard to your parentage or family history has ever escaped Mr. Hodgson's lips, and it was understood between us all along that I was to ask no questions, and none has ever been asked. Two inferences, however, may be drawn which would seem to make it pretty clear that your relatives, whatever else they may be, must be people of some means. The first inference is, that were they not such, they would hardly be in a position to engage the services of a man of the stamp of Mr. Hodgson. The second is, that although we were quite willing to take and adopt you without any payment whatever--and, indeed, to have made our doing so a question of gain would have been altogether counter to our feelings in the matter--Mr. Hodgson insisted that the sum of sixty-five pounds a year should be paid for you till you should come of age; after which, he said, in all probability some fresh arrangement might become desirable. Accordingly, the sixty-five pounds has been paid punctually ever since, but not one farthing of it has been touched by us. Year by year it has been allowed to accumulate in your own name in Umpleby's Bank at Dulminster, where at the present moment, there stands to your credit a sum of over twelve hundred pounds."
When John Brancker had brought his narrative to a close, Hermia sat awhile without speaking. Then she got up, and flinging her arms round John's neck, she kissed him twice very tenderly; then she crossed to the opposite side of the fireplace and did the same to Aunt Charlotte.
"Whoever my unknown relatives may be," she said, with a little catch in her breath, "they cannot care greatly about me. They chose to cast me off when I was a child, and they are evidently determined that I shall never know more about them than I do now. Why should I care more for them than they do for me, or, indeed, trouble myself about them in any way? If they were to make themselves known to-morrow, I could never learn to love them as I love you, my dear uncle and aunt--for I shall still continue to be your niece, shall I not?--as I have always been. Nothing you have told me can change or alter in any way the relationship between us, or cause me to love you one whit less than I have always loved you. To you I owe everything; to my unknown relatives, nothing. As for the money, it belongs of right to you, and yours it must and shall be. Not one shilling of it will I ever touch."
"My dear--my dear, that is a very rash thing of you to say. Consider----"
"No, aunt, I won't consider; it is a thing about which no consideration is needed. This money was given to Uncle John to help pay for my keep, and clothes, and education, and by every law of right and justice it belongs to him and to him alone."
"I could not touch it, my dear--that is quite out of the question. The idea of being paid for bringing you up! Such money would seem to me like a contamination.
"What, then, would it seem like to me?"
"But consider, my dear," again urged Miss Brancker, "what a nice little fortune it will make for you if you ever get married."
At these words a vivid blush suffused Hermia's cheeks.
"If I ever get married it will be to someone who knows my history, or rather, as much of it as any of us knows, and if he would demean himself so far as to accept a farthing of that money--well, if he were to do so I should never care for him again."
"It seems such a pity, such a very great pity," murmured Miss Brancker. "John and I have been congratulating ourselves all these years on the nice little nest-egg you would have when you came of age; and now, to think----!" She ended with a sigh.
"Dear Aunt Charlotte, cannot you see, cannot you understand, how entirely out of the question it is that I should touch this money?"
"It is equally out of the question that John or I should touch it."
"In that case, when Mr. Hodgson calls next at the Cottage I will bid him take back his money, and tell him that we will have none of it, and that if he never troubles himself to visit us again none of us will regret his absence. We don't want his money, and we don't want to know his secret. My relatives chose to disown me when I was a helpless child; now that I am grown up, I disown them!"
Frank Derison's letter to Hermia had come as a sort of shock to her, but it was a shock of pleasurable surprise. She had known for some time past that the image of another had usurped in her heart the place she had once believed to be Frank's, but which she had since discovered had never been his in reality. She had mistaken liking for love, as she had not been long in finding out when once the real and not the sham Eros had aimed one of his shafts at her; and a growing certainty had taken possession of her that if, at the end of the twelve months, Frank should press her to make the bond between them "a nearer one still and a dearer one," there would be no response to his wish in her heart. How foolish she had been! How severely she blamed herself, now that her eyes were opened, for having ever dreamed that she really loved him! It would be painful, very painful, to have to confess her mistake, but if he were to press his suit no other course would be open to her.
The twelve months which were to bring the secret engagement to an end in one form or another had terminated during the time of John's imprisonment. At a season of such deep trouble all thoughts of love and matrimony were out of the question, but the moment John's acquittal was an assured fact Hermia began to dread that which might come to pass at any moment. The infrequency and shortness of Frank's visits to the Cottage during the time of John's absence, and the impossibility of not seeing how forced was the sympathy displayed by him on those occasions, had tended still more to open Hermia's eyes; as a consequence of which, when Frank's letter came to hand its contents filled her with a sense of glad relief. She could not refrain from kissing the letter, so unfeigned was her joy at the news it brought her. There was nothing now to hinder her from loving as much as she liked, even though her love should never be returned, nor he who was the secret object of it so much as suspect its existence. Just now she asked for nothing beyond that--to love in secret as much as she liked.
Clement Hazeldine had not omitted to note how few and far between Frank Derison's visits to Nairn Cottage had been of late, and he did not fail to draw a happy augury therefrom. Up to the date of John's imprisonment, Clem had rarely gone to the Cottage without either finding Frank there before him, or leaving him there when he went away; but after that event, they seldom encountered each other. After all, as Clem told himself, it might well be that he had been mistaken, and that there had never been any secret understanding, as he had all along tormented himself with believing there was, between Frank and Hermia. Thus it fell out that John Brancker had not been many days back at home before Clem made up his mind to seize the first opportunity which might offer itself, and ascertain his fate once for all. His practice so far had not proved a very lucrative one, but it was growing steadily month by month, and old Dr. Finchdown had himself told him that he intended to retire in the course of next spring, and would recommend Clem strongly to all his best patients, as his successor, so that, what with one thing and another, he seemed to see a reasonable prospect of being able to take to himself a wife in eighteen months, or, at the most, two years from then. The more he saw of Hermia, the more strongly he felt to what an extent his future happiness was bound up with her.
The Fates are often kind to lovers, and seem to provide opportunities for them, as if of set purpose; at least, so Clem thought when, two or three evenings later, he found himself alone with Hermia. John had gone next door to sit with Mr. Kittaway, who was confined to the house by an attack of gout, and Clem had not been ten minutes at the Cottage before Miss Brancker remembered that when shopping, during the afternoon, she had quite forgotten to buy some silk of the particular shade which she needed before she could put another stitch in the crewel-work, over the intricacies of which she spent so many placid hours. She must go at once, and rectify her oversight before the shops closed for the night. Hermia offered to go in her place, but Aunt Charlotte, while thanking her, was dubious about trusting to other eyes the selection of the one particular shade and no other of which she stood in need. So the young people were left to themselves, and it was a full hour and a half--though neither Clem nor Hermia, had it not been for the irrefutable evidence of the clock, would have believed it half as long--before Aunt Charlotte, who, in addition to her shopping, had found one or two friends to call upon, got back to the Cottage.
Much had happened meanwhile.
When Clem found himself with the longed-for opportunity ready to his hand, he shrank a little in dismay at the ordeal which faced him. Most of us can afford to be bold before the occasion, and he was no exception to the rule. It had seemed to him that it would be an easy enough thing, when the proper moment should have come, to give utterance, if not to all, at least to a portion of that with which his heart was charged; but now that it was here, he found himself as one suddenly stricken dumb. It was not merely words, but ideas that for the time being had taken wing and deserted him: and yet Clement Hazeldine was a man not usually lacking in either one or the other. Clear-headed and resolute of purpose in all the ordinary concerns of life, with a mind that was in the habit of marshalling its ideas with an almost mathematical precision, and a not unfluent tongue, he yet found himself in the presence of this April-eyed girl, in whose cheeks tender flushes of color came and went fitfully, without a word to say for himself. He raged inwardly, gnawing one end of his mustache meanwhile; but his doing so did not mend matters in the least. Opposite him sat Hermia, busy with her needle on some delicate piece of embroidery. She, too, seemed to have lost her tongue since Miss Brancker's departure. The silence was becoming strained.
Then, all at once, through the party-wall between the two houses, there came to them faintly the strains of John's flute, with which, a moment later, were mingled the deeper notes of Mr. Kittaway's 'cello. His gout notwithstanding, it seemed that the ex-wine merchant was making an heroic effort to accompany his friend on his favorite instrument.
Presently Hermia and Clem looked up and their eyes met. The air that was being played was one which they both recognized. They had heard it first one spring evening; heard it, softened by distance, as it was being played by some troupe of wandering musicians, and very sweet it had sounded. They had accidentally met, face to face, on the footpath which for miles follows the windings of the little River Dene, and Clem had ventured to turn back and walk with Hermia the way she was going. It was the first time they had found themselves alone together, and by neither of them would the occasion ever be forgotten. Then it was that a certain mischievous sprite, who had been lurking in their hearts for some time past, watching his opportunity, sprang full-armed and laughing into the light of day. From that hour Clem knew that he loved Hermia and she that she loved him, but neither guessed the other's secret until afterwards. How the softened strains that reached their ears brought back that eve as if it had been but yesterday, with all its golden burst of self-revelation which had then flashed dazzlingly upon them for the first time!
The magic of the music gave back his voice to Clem. "If I were to live to be a hundred I should never forget that air," he said. "Have you no recollection of having heard it before?"
"I seem to remember having heard it somewhere," answered Hermia, with a finger-tip pressed to her lips, as if in doubt, although in reality she had no doubt at all on the point.
"Oh! then you have not quite forgotten!" he cried, a great light of gladness breaking over his face. "We heard it played, in the distance, that evening last spring by the banks of the Dene. I have often wondered what it is called."
Hermia could have told him its name had she been minded to do so. She had chanced on it one day when she was buying some music, and had at once recognized it, but as it was she kept her own counsel.
"Yes," said Clem, at length, as if in continuation of some unspoken train of thought, "I shall never forget that evening. It was then that I first became sure of something which I had more than half suspected for months before."
"My own case exactly," whispered Hermia to herself; but she went on demurely with her work, and did not even lift her eyes in response.
"Can you not guess what it was that evening made me so sure of?" demanded Clem, next moment, as he leaned forward with crossed arms on the table which divided them. "Can you not guess?" he asked again. He had made the plunge and was becoming reckless.
"How should I?" answered Hermia, with a little shake of her head, but still without looking up. "I was always a poor hand at guessing.
"It was then the sweet certainty came to me that I loved you!"
Again no answer save a blush, but to herself Hermia said: "And to me that I loved you!"
"It is a certainty which has dwelt with me ever since, and one that will never leave me while I have breath to speak your name." He was getting on very promisingly for a young man who had been as dumb as a flounder only five minutes before.
Then, almost before Hermia knew what had happened, he was on a chair by her side, and had one of her hands imprisoned in his. No wonder her heart beat tumultuously; indeed, so taken aback was she by his audacity that, for the moment, she quite forgot to make any effort to regain possession of her hand.
The hand was lifted to Clem's lips, and an impassioned kiss imprinted on it; then, indeed, Hermia strove to withdraw it, but to no purpose.
"Listen," said Clem, bending his face till it was within a few inches of hers. "I have just told you the secret which for many long months I have hidden carefully from everyone--from you no less than from others."
"Perhaps he has not hidden it quite so carefully as he thinks," whispered Hermia in her heart.
"You can now guess why I am here to-night. It is to tell you that I love you--a little thing to tell, but to me how full of meaning!--to tell you that all my happiness is bound up in you, and then to ask you whether you will try to love me a little in return."
Try to love him! Why, her heart had been his for months and months, if he had but known it!
She did not answer him in words, but raising her head, let her eyes meet his. He read his answer there.
His arm went round her and he drew her to him. As his lips touched hers in love's first rapturous kiss, they heard the grating of Miss Brancker's latch-key in the lock of the front door.