LADY JANET’S curiosity was by this time thoroughly aroused. Summoned to explain who the nameless lady mentioned in his letter could possibly be, Julian had looked at her adopted daughter. Asked next to explain what her adopted daughter had got to do with it, he had declared that he could not answer while Miss Roseberry was in the room.
What did he mean? Lady Janet determined to find out.
“I hate all mysteries,” she said to Julian. “And as for secrets, I consider them to be one of the forms of ill-breeding. People in our rank of life ought to be above whispering in corners. If youmusthave your mystery, I can offer you a corner in the library. Come with me.”
Julian followed his aunt very reluctantly. Whatever the mystery might be, he was plainly embarrassed by being called upon to reveal it at a moment’s notice. Lady Janet settled herself in her chair, prepared to question and cross-question her nephew, when an obstacle appeared at the other end of the library, in the shape of a man-servant with a message. One of Lady Janet’s neighbors had called by appointment to take her to the meeting of a certain committee which assembled that day. The servant announced that the neighbor—an elderly lady—was then waiting in her carriage at the door.
Lady Janet’s ready invention set the obstacle aside without a moment’s delay. She directed the servant to show her visitor into the drawing-room, and to say that she was unexpectedly engaged, but that Miss Roseberry would see the lady immediately. She then turned to Julian, and said, with her most satirical emphasis of tone and manner: “Would it be an additional convenience if Miss Roseberry was not only out of the room before you disclose your secret, but out of the house?”
Julian gravely answered: “It may possibly be quite as well if Miss Roseberry is out of the house.”
Lady Janet led the way back to the dining-room.
“My dear Grace,” she said, “you looked flushed and feverish when I saw you asleep on the sofa a little while since. It will do you no harm to have a drive in the fresh air. Our friend has called to take me to the committee meeting. I have sent to tell her that I am engaged—and I shall be much obliged if you will go in my place.”
Mercy looked a little alarmed. “Does your ladyship mean the committee meeting of the Samaritan Convalescent Home? The members, as I understand it, are to decide to-day which of the plans for the new building they are to adopt. I cannot surely presume to vote in your place?”
“You can vote, my dear child, just as well as I can,” replied the old lady. “Architecture is one of the lost arts. You know nothing about it; I know nothing about it; the architects themselves know nothing about it. One plan is, no doubt, just as bad as the other. Vote, as I should vote, with the majority. Or as poor dear Dr. Johnson said, ‘Shout with the loudest mob.’ Away with you—and don’t keep the committee waiting.”
Horace hastened to open the door for Mercy.
“How long shall you be away?” he whispered, confidentially. “I had a thousand things to say to you, and they have interrupted us.”
“I shall be back in an hour.”
“We shall have the room to ourselves by that time. Come here when you return. You will find me waiting for you.”
Mercy pressed his hand significantly and went out. Lady Janet turned to Julian, who had thus far remained in the background, still, to all appearance, as unwilling as ever to enlighten his aunt.
“Well?” she said. “What is tying your tongue now? Grace is out of the room; why won’t you begin? Is Horace in the way?”
“Not in the least. I am only a little uneasy—”
“Uneasy about what?”
“I am afraid you have put that charming creature to some inconvenience in sending her away just at this time.”
Horace looked up suddenly, with a flush on his face.
“When you say ‘that charming creature,’” he asked, sharply, “I suppose you mean Miss Roseberry?”
“Certainly,” answered Julian. “Why not?”
Lady Janet interposed. “Gently, Julian,” she said. “Grace has only been introduced to you hitherto in the character of my adopted daughter—”
“And it seems to be high time,” Horace added, haughtily, “that I should present her next in the character of my engaged wife.”
Julian looked at Horace as if he could hardly credit the evidence of his own ears. “Your wife!” he exclaimed, with an irrepressible outburst of disappointment and surprise.
“Yes. My wife,” returned Horace. “We are to be married in a fortnight. May I ask,” he added, with angry humility, “if you disapprove of the marriage?”
Lady Janet interposed once more. “Nonsense, Horace,” she said. “Julian congratulates you, of course.”
Julian coldly and absently echoed the words. “Oh, yes! I congratulate you, of course.”
Lady Janet returned to the main object of the interview.
“Now we thoroughly understand one another,” she said, “let us speak of a lady who has dropped out of the conversation for the last minute or two. I mean, Julian, the mysterious lady of your letter. We are alone, as you desired. Lift the veil, my reverend nephew, which hides her from mortal eyes! Blush, if you like—and can. Is she the future Mrs. Julian Gray?”
“She is a perfect stranger to me,” Julian answered, quietly.
“A perfect stranger! You wrote me word you were interested in her.”
“Iaminterested in her. And, what is more, you are interested in her, too.”
Lady Janet’s fingers drummed impatiently on the table. “Have I not warned you, Julian, that I hate mysteries? Will you, or will you not, explain yourself?”
Before it was possible to answer, Horace rose from his chair. “Perhaps I am in the way?” he said.
Julian signed to him to sit down again.
“I have already told Lady Janet that you are not in the way,” he answered. “I now tell you—as Miss Roseberry’s future husband—that you, too, have an interest in hearing what I have to say.”
Horace resumed his seat with an air of suspicious surprise. Julian addressed himself to Lady Janet.
“You have often heard me speak,” he began, “of my old friend and school-fellow, John Cressingham?”
“Yes. The English consul at Mannheim?”
“The same. When I returned from the country I found among my other letters a long letter from the consul. I have brought it with me, and I propose to read certain passages from it, which tell a very strange story more plainly and more credibly than I can tell it in my own words.”
“Will it be very long?” inquired Lady Janet, looking with some alarm at the closely written sheets of paper which her nephew spread open before him.
Horace followed with a question on his side.
“You are sure I am interested in it?” he asked. “The consul at Mannheim is a total stranger to me.”
“I answer for it,” replied Julian, gravely, “neither my aunt’s patience nor yours, Horace, will be thrown away if you will favor me by listening attentively to what I am about to read.”
With those words he began his first extract from the consul’s letter.
* * * “‘My memory is a bad one for dates. But full three months must have passed since information was sent to me of an English patient, received at the hospital here, whose case I, as English consul, might feel an interest in investigating.
“‘I went the same day to the hospital, and was taken to the bedside.
“‘The patient was a woman—young, and (when in health), I should think, very pretty. When I first saw her she looked, to my uninstructed eye, like a dead woman. I noticed that her head had a bandage over it, and I asked what was the nature of the injury that she had received. The answer informed me that the poor creature had been present, nobody knew why or wherefore, at a skirmish or night attack between the Germans and the French, and that the injury to her head had been inflicted by a fragment of a German shell.’”
Horace—thus far leaning back carelessly in his chair—suddenly raised himself and exclaimed, “Good heavens! can this be the woman I saw laid out for dead in the French cottage?”
“It is impossible for me to say,” replied Julian. “Listen to the rest of it. The consul’s letter may answer your question.”
He went on with his reading:
“‘The wounded woman had been reported dead, and had been left by the French in their retreat, at the time when the German forces took possession of the enemy’s position. She was found on a bed in a cottage by the director of the German ambulance—”
“Ignatius Wetzel?” cried Horace.
“Ignatius Wetzel,” repeated Julian, looking at the letter.
“Itisthe same!” said Horace. “Lady Janet, we are really interested in this. You remember my telling you how I first met with Grace? And you have heard more about it since, no doubt, from Grace herself?”
“She has a horror of referring to that part of her journey home,” replied Lady Janet. “She mentioned her having been stopped on the frontier, and her finding herself accidentally in the company of another Englishwoman, a perfect stranger to her. I naturally asked questions on my side, and was shocked to hear that she had seen the woman killed by a German shell almost close at her side. Neither she nor I have had any relish for returning to the subject since. You were quite right, Julian, to avoid speaking of it while she was in the room. I understand it all now. Grace, I suppose, mentioned my name to her fellow-traveler. The woman is, no doubt, in want of assistance, and she applies to me through you. I will help her; but she must not come here until I have prepared Grace for seeing her again, a living woman. For the present there is no reason why they should meet.”
“I am not sure about that,” said Julian, in low tones, without looking up at his aunt.
“What do you mean? Is the mystery not at an end yet?”
“The mystery has not even begun yet. Let my friend the consul proceed.”
Julian returned for the second time to his extract from the letter:
“‘After a careful examination of the supposed corpse, the German surgeon arrived at the conclusion that a case of suspended animation had (in the hurry of the French retreat) been mistaken for a case of death. Feeling a professional interest in the subject, he decided on putting his opinion to the test. He operated on the patient with complete success. After performing the operation he kept her for some days under his own care, and then transferred her to the nearest hospital—the hospital at Mannheim. He was obliged to return to his duties as army surgeon, and he left his patient in the condition in which I saw her, insensible on the bed. Neither he nor the hospital authorities knew anything whatever about the woman. No papers were found on her. All the doctors could do, when I asked them for information with a view to communicating with her friends, was to show me her linen marked with her, name. I left the hospital after taking down the name in my pocket-book. It was “Mercy Merrick.”’”
Lady Janet producedherpocket-book. “Let me take the name down too,” she said. “I never heard it before, and I might otherwise forget it. Go on, Julian.”
Julian advanced to his second extract from the consul’s letter:
“‘Under these circumstances, I could only wait to hear from the hospital when the patient was sufficiently recovered to be able to speak to me. Some weeks passed without my receiving any communication from the doctors. On calling to make inquiries I was informed that fever had set in, and that the poor creature’s condition now alternated between exhaustion and delirium. In her delirious moments the name of your aunt, Lady Janet Roy, frequently escaped her. Otherwise her wanderings were for the most part quite unintelligible to the people at her bedside. I thought once or twice of writing to you, and of begging you to speak to Lady Janet. But as the doctors informed me that the chances of life or death were at this time almost equally balanced, I decided to wait until time should determine whether it was necessary to trouble you or not.’”
“You know best, Julian,” said Lady Janet. “But I own I don’t quite see in what way I am interested in this part of the story.”
“Just what I was going to say,” added Horace. “It is very sad, no doubt. But what haveweto do with it?”
“Let me read my third extract,” Julian answered, “and you will see.”
He turned to the third extract, and read as follows:
“‘At last I received a message from the hospital informing me that Mercy Merrick was out of danger, and that she was capable (though still very weak) of answering any questions which I might think it desirable to put to her. On reaching the hospital, I was requested, rather to my surprise, to pay my first visit to the head physician in his private room. “I think it right,” said this gentleman, “to warn you, before you see the patient, to be very careful how you speak to her, and not to irritate her by showing any surprise or expressing any doubts if she talks to you in an extravagant manner. We differ in opinion about her here. Some of us (myself among the number) doubt whether the recovery of her mind has accompanied the recovery of her bodily powers. Without pronouncing her to be mad—she is perfectly gentle and harmless—we are nevertheless of opinion that she is suffering under a species of insane delusion. Bear in mind the caution which I have given you—and now go and judge for yourself.” I obeyed, in some little perplexity and surprise. The sufferer, when I approached her bed, looked sadly weak and worn; but, so far as I could judge, seemed to be in full possession of herself. Her tone and manner were unquestionably the tone and manner of a lady. After briefly introducing myself, I assured her that I should be glad, both officially and personally, if I could be of any assistance to her. In saying these trifling words I happened to address her by the name I had seen marked on her clothes. The instant the words “Miss Merrick” passed my lips a wild, vindictive expression appeared in her eyes. She exclaimed angrily, “Don’t call me by that hateful name! It’s not my name. All the people here persecute me by calling me Mercy Merrick. And when I am angry with them they show me the clothes. Say what I may, they persist in believing they are my clothes. Don’t you do the same, if you want to be friends with me.” Remembering what the physician had said to me, I made the necessary excuses and succeeded in soothing her. Without reverting to the irritating topic of the name, I merely inquired what her plans were, and assured her that she might command my services if she required them. “Why do you want to know what my plans are?” she asked, suspiciously. I reminded her in reply that I held the position of English consul, and that my object was, if possible, to be of some assistance to her. “You can be of the greatest assistance to me,” she said, eagerly. “Find Mercy Merrick!” I saw the vindictive look come back into her eyes, and an angry flush rising on her white cheeks. Abstaining from showing any surprise, I asked her who Mercy Merrick was. “A vile woman, by her own confession,” was the quick reply. “How am I to find her?” I inquired next. “Look for a woman in a black dress, with the Red Geneva Cross on her shoulder; she is a nurse in the French ambulance.” “What has she done?” “I have lost my papers; I have lost my own clothes; Mercy Merrick has taken them.” “How do you know that Mercy Merrick has taken them?” “Nobody else could have taken them—that’s how I know it. Do you believe me or not?” She as beginning to excite herself again; I assured her that I would at once send to make inquiries after Mercy Merrick. She turned round contented on the pillow. “There’s a good man!” she said. “Come back and tell me when you have caught her.” Such was my first interview with the English patient at the hospital at Mannheim. It is needless to say that I doubted the existence of the absent person described as a nurse. However, it was possible to make inquiries by applying to the surgeon, Ignatius Wetzel, whose whereabouts was known to his friends in Mannheim. I wrote to him, and received his answer in due time. After the night attack of the Germans had made them masters of the French position, he had entered the cottage occupied by the French ambulance. He had found the wounded Frenchmen left behind, but had seen no such person in attendance on them as the nurse in the black dress with the red cross on her shoulder. The only living woman in the place was a young English lady, in a gray traveling cloak, who had been stopped on the frontier, and who was forwarded on her way home by the war correspondent of an English journal.’”
“That was Grace,” said Lady Janet.
“And I was the war correspondent,” added Horace.
“A few words more,” said Julian, “and you will understand my object in claiming your attention.”
He returned to the letter for the last time, and concluded his extracts from it as follows:
“‘Instead of attending at the hospital myself, I communicated by letter the failure of my attempt to discover the missing nurse. For some little time afterward I heard no more of the sick woman, whom I shall still call Mercy Merrick. It was only yesterday that I received another summons to visit the patient. She had by this time sufficiently recovered to claim her discharge, and she had announced her intention of returning forthwith to England. The head physician, feeling a sense of responsibility, had sent for me. It was impossible to detain her on the ground that she was not fit to be trusted by herself at large, in consequence of the difference of opinion among the doctors on the case. All that could be done was to give me due notice, and to leave the matter in my hands. On seeing her for the second time, I found her sullen and reserved. She openly attributed my inability to find the nurse to want of zeal for her interests on my part. I had, on my side, no authority whatever to detain her. I could only inquire whether she had money enough to pay her traveling expenses. Her reply informed me that the chaplain of the hospital had mentioned her forlorn situation in the town, and that the English residents had subscribed a small sum of money to enable her to return to her own country. Satisfied on this head, I asked next if she had friends to go to in England. “I have one friend,” she answered, “who is a host in herself—Lady Janet Roy.” You may imagine my surprise when I heard this. I found it quite useless to make any further inquiries as to how she came to know your aunt, whether your aunt expected her, and so on. My questions evidently offended her; they were received in sulky silence. Under these circumstances, well knowing that I can trust implicitly to your humane sympathy for misfortune, I have decided (after careful reflection) to insure the poor creature’s safety when she arrives in London by giving her a letter to you. You will hear what she says, and you will be better able to discover than I am whether she really has any claim on Lady Janet Roy. One last word of information, which it may be necessary to add, and I shall close this inordinately long letter. At my first interview with her I abstained, as I have already told you, from irritating her by any inquiries on the subject of her name. On this second occasion, however, I decided on putting the question.’”
As he read those last words, Julian became aware of a sudden movement on the part of his aunt. Lady Janet had risen softly from her chair and had passed behind him with the purpose of reading the consul’s letter for herself over her nephew’s shoulder. Julian detected the action just in time to frustrate Lady Janet’s intention by placing his hand over the last two lines of the letter.
“What do you do that for?” inquired his aunt, sharply.
“You are welcome, Lady Janet, to read the close of the letter for yourself,” Julian replied. “But before you do so I am anxious to prepare you for a very great surprise. Compose yourself and let me read on slowly, with your eye on me, until I uncover the last two words which close my friend’s letter.”
He read the end of the letter, as he had proposed, in these terms:
“‘I looked the woman straight in the face, and I said to her, “You have denied that the name marked on the clothes which you wore when you came here was your name. If you are not Mercy Merrick, who are you?” She answered, instantly, “My name is ———“’”
Julian removed his hand from the page. Lady Janet looked at the next two words, and started back with a loud cry of astonishment, which brought Horace instantly to his feet.
“Tell me, one of you!” he cried. “What name did she give?”
Julian told him.
“GRACE ROSEBERRY.”
FOR a moment Horace stood thunderstruck, looking in blank astonishment at Lady Janet. His first words, as soon as he had recovered himself, were addressed to Julian. “Is this a joke?” he asked, sternly. “If it is, I for one don’t see the humor of it.”
Julian pointed to the closely written pages of the consul’s letter. “A man writes in earnest,” he said, “when he writes at such length as this. The woman seriously gave the name of Grace Roseberry, and when she left Mannheim she traveled to England for the express purpose of presenting herself to Lady Janet Roy.” He turned to his aunt. “You saw me start,” he went on, “when you first mentioned Miss Roseberry’s name in my hearing. Now you know why.” He addressed himself once more to Horace. “You heard me say that you, as Miss Roseberry’s future husband, had an interest in being present at my interview with Lady Janet. Nowyouknow why.”
“The woman is plainly mad,” said Lady Janet. “But it is certainly a startling form of madness when one first hears of it. Of course we must keep the matter, for the present at least, a secret from Grace.”
“There can be no doubt,” Horace agreed, “that Grace must be kept in the dark, in her present state of health. The servants had better be warned beforehand, in case of this adventuress or madwoman, whichever she may be, attempting to make her way into the house.”
“It shall be done immediately,” said Lady Janet. “What surprisesmeJulian (ring the bell, if you please), is that you should describe yourself in your letter as feeling an interest in this person.”
Julian answered—without ringing the bell.
“I am more interested than ever,” he said, “now I find that Miss Roseberry herself is your guest at Mablethorpe House.”
“You were always perverse, Julian, as a child, in your likings and dislikings,” Lady Janet rejoined. “Why don’t you ring the bell?”
“For one good reason, my dear aunt. I don’t wish to hear you tell your servants to close the door on this friendless creature.”
Lady Janet cast a look at her nephew which plainly expressed that she thought he had taken a liberty with her.
“You don’t expect me to see the woman?” she asked, in a tone of cold surprise.
“I hope you will not refuse to see her,” Julian answered, quietly. “I was out when she called. I must hear what she has to say—and I should infinitely prefer hearing it in your presence. When I got your reply to my letter, permitting me to present her to you, I wrote to her immediately, appointing a meeting here.”
Lady Janet lifted her bright black eyes in mute expostulation to the carved Cupids and wreaths on the dining-room ceiling.
“When am I to have the honor of the lady’s visit?” she inquired, with ironical resignation.
“To-day,” answered her nephew, with impenetrable patience.
“At what hour?”
Julian composedly consulted his watch. “She is ten minutes after her time,” he said, and put his watch back in his pocket again.
At the same moment the servant appeared, and advanced to Julian, carrying a visiting card on his little silver tray.
“A lady to see you, sir.”
Julian took the card, and, bowing, handed it to his aunt.
“Here she is,” he said, just as quietly as ever.
Lady Janet looked at the card, and tossed it indignantly back to her nephew. “Miss Roseberry!” she exclaimed. “Printed—actually printed on her card! Julian, even MY patience has its limits. I refuse to see her!”
The servant was still waiting—not like a human being who took an interest in the proceedings, but (as became a perfectly bred footman) like an article of furniture artfully constructed to come and go at the word of command. Julian gave the word of command, addressing the admirably constructed automaton by the name of “James.”
“Where is the lady now?” he asked.
“In the breakfast-room, sir.”
“Leave her there, if you please, and wait outside within hearing of the bell.”
The legs of the furniture-footman acted, and took him noiselessly out of the room. Julian turned to his aunt.
“Forgive me,” he said, “for venturing to give the man his orders in your presence. I am very anxious that you should not decide hastily. Surely we ought to hear what this lady has to say?”
Horace dissented widely from his friend’s opinion. “It’s an insult to Grace,” he broke out, warmly, “to hear what she has to say!”
Lady Janet nodded her head in high approval. “I think so, too,” said her ladyship, crossing her handsome old hands resolutely on her lap.
Julian applied himself to answering Horace first.
“Pardon me,” he said. “I have no intention of presuming to reflect on Miss Roseberry, or of bringing her into the matter at all.—The consul’s letter,” he went on, speaking to his aunt, “mentions, if you remember, that the medical authorities of Mannheim were divided in opinion on their patient’s case. Some of them—the physician-in-chief being among the number—believe that the recovery of her mind has not accompanied the recovery of her body.”
“In other words,” Lady Janet remarked, “a madwoman is in my house, and I am expected to receive her!”
“Don’t let us exaggerate,” said Julian, gently. “It can serve no good interest, in this serious matter, to exaggerate anything. The consul assures us, on the authority of the doctor, that she is perfectly gentle and harmless. If she is really the victim of a mental delusion, the poor creature is surely an object of compassion, and she ought to be placed under proper care. Ask your own kind heart, my dear aunt, if it would not be downright cruelty to turn this forlorn woman adrift in the world without making some inquiry first.”
Lady Janet’s inbred sense of justice admitted not over willingly—the reasonableness as well as the humanity of the view expressed in those words. “There is some truth in that, Julian,” she said, shifting her position uneasily in her chair, and looking at Horace. “Don’t you think so, too?” she added.
“I can’t say I do,” answered Horace, in the positive tone of a man whose obstinacy is proof against every form of appeal that can be addressed to him.
The patience of Julian was firm enough to be a match for the obstinacy of Horace. “At any rate,” he resumed, with undiminished good temper, “we are all three equally interested in setting this matter at rest. I put it to you, Lady Janet, if we are not favored, at this lucky moment, with the very opportunity that we want? Miss Roseberry is not only out of the room, but out of the house. If we let this chance slip, who can say what awkward accident may not happen in the course of the next few days?”
“Let the woman come in,” cried Lady Janet, deciding headlong, with her customary impatience of all delay. “At once, Julian—before Grace can come back. Will you ring the bell this time?”
This time Julian rang it. “May I give the man his orders?” he respectfully inquired of his aunt.
“Give him anything you like, and have done with it!” retorted the irritable old lady, getting briskly on her feet, and taking a turn in the room to compose herself.
The servant withdrew, with orders to show the visitor in.
Horace crossed the room at the same time—apparently with the intention of leaving it by the door at the opposite end.
“You are not going away?” exclaimed Lady Janet.
“I see no use in my remaining here,” replied Horace, not very graciously.
“In that case,” retorted Lady Janet, “remain here because I wish it.”
“Certainly—if you wish it. Only remember,” he added, more obstinately than ever, “that I differ entirely from Julian’s view. In my opinion the woman has no claim on us.”
A passing movement of irritation escaped Julian for the first time. “Don’t be hard, Horace,” he said, sharply. “All women have a claim on us.”
They had unconsciously gathered together, in the heat of the little debate, turning their backs on the library door. At the last words of the reproof administered by Julian to Horace, their attention was recalled to passing events by the slight noise produced by the opening and closing of the door. With one accord the three turned and looked in the direction from which the sounds had come.
JUST inside the door there appeared the figure of a small woman dressed in plain and poor black garments. She silently lifted her black net veil and disclosed a dull, pale, worn, weary face. The forehead was low and broad; the eyes were unusually far apart; the lower features were remarkably small and delicate. In health (as the consul at Mannheim had remarked) this woman must have possessed, if not absolute beauty, at least rare attractions peculiarly her own. As it was now, suffering—sullen, silent, self-contained suffering—had marred its beauty. Attention and even curiosity it might still rouse. Admiration or interest it could excite no longer.
The small, thin, black figure stood immovably inside the door. The dull, worn, white face looked silently at the three persons in the room.
The three persons in the room, on their side, stood for a moment without moving, and looked silently at the stranger on the threshold. There was something either in the woman herself, or in the sudden and stealthy manner of her appearance in the room, which froze, as if with the touch of an invisible cold hand, the sympathies of all three. Accustomed to the world, habitually at their ease in every social emergency, they were now silenced for the first time in their lives by the first serious sense of embarrassment which they had felt since they were children in the presence of a stranger.
Had the appearance of the true Grace Roseberry aroused in their minds a suspicion of the woman who had stolen her name, and taken her place in the house?
Not so much as the shadow of a suspicion of Mercy was at the bottom of the strange sense of uneasiness which had now deprived them alike of their habitual courtesy and their habitual presence of mind. It was as practically impossible for any one of the three to doubt the identity of the adopted daughter of the house as it would be for you who read these lines to doubt the identity of the nearest and dearest relative you have in the world. Circumstances had fortified Mercy behind the strongest of all natural rights—the right of first possession. Circumstances had armed her with the most irresistible of all natural forces—the force of previous association and previous habit. Not by so much as a hair-breadth was the position of the false Grace Roseberry shaken by the first appearance of the true Grace Roseberry within the doors of Mablethorpe House. Lady Janet felt suddenly repelled, without knowing why. Julian and Horace felt suddenly repelled, without knowing why. Asked to describe their own sensations at the moment, they would have shaken their heads in despair, and would have answered in those words. The vague presentiment of some misfortune to come had entered the room with the entrance of the woman in black. But it moved invisibly; and it spoke as all presentiments speak, in the Unknown Tongue.
A moment passed. The crackling of the fire and the ticking of the clock were the only sounds audible in the room.
The voice of the visitor—hard, clear, and quiet—was the first voice that broke the silence.
“Mr. Julian Gray?” she said, looking interrogatively from one of the two gentlemen to the other.
Julian advanced a few steps, instantly recovering his self-possession. “I am sorry I was not at home,” he said, “when you called with your letter from the consul. Pray take a chair.”
By way of setting the example, Lady Janet seated herself at some little distance, with Horace in attendance standing near. She bowed to the stranger with studious politeness, but without uttering a word, before she settled herself in her chair. “I am obliged to listen to this person,” thought the old lady. “But I amnotobliged to speak to her. That is Julian’s business—not mine. Don’t stand, Horace! You fidget me. Sit down.” Armed beforehand in her policy of silence, Lady Janet folded her handsome hands as usual, and waited for the proceedings to begin, like a judge on the bench.
“Will you take a chair?” Julian repeated, observing that the visitor appeared neither to heed nor to hear his first words of welcome to her.
At this second appeal she spoke to him. “Is that Lady Janet Roy?” she asked, with her eyes fixed on the mistress of the house.
Julian answered, and drew back to watch the result.
The woman in the poor black garments changed her position for the first time. She moved slowly across the room to the place at which Lady Janet was sitting, and addressed her respectfully with perfect self-possession of manner. Her whole demeanor, from the moment when she had appeared at the door, had expressed—at once plainly and becomingly—confidence in the reception that awaited her.
“Almost the last words my father said to me on his death-bed,” she began, “were words, madam, which told me to expect protection and kindness from you.”
It was not Lady Janet’s business to speak. She listened with the blandest attention. She waited with the most exasperating silence to hear more.
Grace Roseberry drew back a step—not intimidated—only mortified and surprised. “Was my father wrong?” she asked, with a simple dignity of tone and manner which forced Lady Janet to abandon her policy of silence, in spite of herself.
“Who was your father?” she asked, coldly.
Grace Roseberry answered the question in a tone of stern surprise.
“Has the servant not given you my card?” she said. “Don’t you know my name?”
“Which of your names?” rejoined Lady Janet.
“I don’t understand your ladyship.”
“I will make myself understood. You asked me if I knew your name. I ask you, in return, which name it is? The name on your card is ‘Miss Roseberry.’ The name marked on your clothes, when you were in the hospital, was ‘Mercy Merrick.’”
The self-possession which Grace had maintained from the moment when she had entered the dining-room, seemed now, for the first time, to be on the point of failing her. She turned, and looked appealingly at Julian, who had thus far kept his place apart, listening attentively.
“Surely,” she said, “your friend, the consul, has told you in his letter about the mark on the clothes?”
Something of the girlish hesitation and timidity which had marked her demeanor at her interview with Mercy in the French cottage re-appeared in her tone and manner as she spoke those words. The changes—mostly changes for the worse—wrought in her by the suffering through which she had passed since that time were now (for the moment) effaced. All that was left of the better and simpler side of her character asserted itself in her brief appeal to Julian. She had hitherto repelled him. He began to feel a certain compassionate interest in her now.
“The consul has informed me of what you said to him,” he answered, kindly. “But, if you will take my advice, I recommend you to tell your story to Lady Janet in your own words.”
Grace again addressed herself with submissive reluctance to Lady Janet.
“The clothes your ladyship speaks of,” she said, “were the clothes of another woman. The rain was pouring when the soldiers detained me on the frontier. I had been exposed for hours to the weather—I was wet to the skin. The clothes marked ‘Mercy Merrick’ were the clothes lent to me by Mercy Merrick herself while my own things were drying. I was struck by the shell in those clothes. I was carried away insensible in those clothes after the operation had been performed on me.”
Lady Janet listened to perfection—and did no more. She turned confidentially to Horace, and said to him, in her gracefully ironical way: “She is ready with her explanation.”
Horace answered in the same tone: “A great deal too ready.”
Grace looked from one of them to the other. A faint flush of color showed itself in her face for the first time.
“Am I to understand,” she asked, with proud composure, “that you don’t believe me?”
Lady Janet maintained her policy of silence. She waved one hand courteously toward Julian, as if to say, “Address your inquiries to the gentleman who introduces you.” Julian, noticing the gesture, and observing the rising color in Grace’s cheeks, interfered directly in the interests of peace
“Lady Janet asked you a question just now,” he said; “Lady Janet inquired who your father was.”
“My father was the late Colonel Roseberry.”
Lady Janet made another confidential remark to Horace. “Her assurance amazes me!” she exclaimed.
Julian interposed before his aunt could add a word more. “Pray let us hear her,” he said, in a tone of entreaty which had something of the imperative in it this time. He turned to Grace. “Have you any proof to produce,” he added, in his gentler voice, “which will satisfy us that you are Colonel Roseberry’s daughter?”
Grace looked at him indignantly. “Proof!” she repeated. “Is my word not enough?”
Julian kept his temper perfectly. “Pardon me,” he rejoined, “you forget that you and Lady Janet meet now for the first time. Try to put yourself in my aunt’s place. How is she to know that you are the late Colonel Roseberry’s daughter?”
Grace’s head sunk on her breast; she dropped into the nearest chair. The expression of her face changed instantly from anger to discouragement. “Ah,” she exclaimed, bitterly, “if I only had the letters that have been stolen from me!”
“Letters,” asked Julian, “introducing you to Lady Janet?”
“Yes.” She turned suddenly to Lady Janet. “Let me tell you how I lost them,” she said, in the first tones of entreaty which had escaped her yet.
Lady Janet hesitated. It was not in her generous nature to resist the appeal that had just been made to her. The sympathies of Horace were far less easily reached. He lightly launched a new shaft of satire—intended for the private amusement of Lady Janet. “Another explanation!” he exclaimed, with a look of comic resignation.
Julian overheard the words. His large lustrous eyes fixed themselves on Horace with a look of unmeasured contempt.
“The least you can do,” he said, sternly, “is not to irritate her. It is so easy to irritate her!” He addressed himself again to Grace, endeavoring to help her through her difficulty in a new way. “Never mind explaining yourself for the moment,” he said. “In the absence of your letters, have you any one in London who can speak to your identity?”
Grace shook her head sadly. “I have no friends in London,” she answered.
It was impossible for Lady Janet—who had never in her life heard of anybody without friends in London—to pass this over without notice. “No friends in London!” she repeated, turning to Horace.
Horace shot another shaft of light satire. “Of course not!” he rejoined.
Grace saw them comparing notes. “My friends are in Canada,” she broke out, impetuously. “Plenty of friends who could speak for me, if I could only bring them here.”
As a place of reference—mentioned in the capital city of England—Canada, there is no denying it, is open to objection on the ground of distance. Horace was ready with another shot. “Far enough off, certainly,” he said.
“Far enough off, as you say,” Lady Janet agreed.
Once more Julian’s inexhaustible kindness strove to obtain a hearing for the stranger who had been confided to his care. “A little patience, Lady Janet,” he pleaded. “A little consideration, Horace, for a friendless woman.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Grace. “It is very kind of you to try and help me, but it is useless. They won’t even listen to me.” She attempted to rise from her chair as she pronounced the last words. Julian gently laid his hand on her shoulder and obliged her to resume her seat.
“Iwill listen to you,” he said. “You referred me just now to the consul’s letter. The consul tells me you suspected some one of taking your papers and your clothes.”
“I don’t suspect,” was the quick reply; “I am certain! I tell you positively Mercy Merrick was the thief. She was alone with me when I was struck down by the shell. She was the only person who knew that I had letters of introduction about me. She confessed to my face that she had been a bad woman—she had been in a prison—she had come out of a refuge—”
Julian stopped her there with one plain question, which threw a doubt on the whole story.
“The consul tells me you asked him to search for Mercy Merrick,” he said. “Is it not true that he caused inquiries to be made, and that no trace of any such person was to be heard of?”
“The consul took no pains to find her,” Grace answered, angrily. “He was, like everybody else, in a conspiracy to neglect and misjudge me.”
Lady Janet and Horace exchanged looks. This time it was impossible for Julian to blame them. The further the stranger’s narrative advanced, the less worthy of serious attention he felt it to be. The longer she spoke, the more disadvantageously she challenged comparison with the absent woman, whose name she so obstinately and so audaciously persisted in assuming as her own.
“Granting all that you have said,” Julian resumed, with a last effort of patience, “what use could Mercy Merrick make of your letters and your clothes?”
“What use?” repeated Grace, amazed at his not seeing the position as she saw it. “My clothes were marked with my name. One of my papers was a letter from my father, introducing me to Lady Janet. A woman out of a refuge would be quite capable of presenting herself here in my place.”
Spoken entirely at random, spoken without so much as a fragment of evidence to support them, those last words still had their effect. They cast a reflection on Lady Janet’s adopted daughter which was too outrageous to be borne. Lady Janet rose instantly. “Give me your arm, Horace,” she said, turning to leave the room. “I have heard enough.”
Horace respectfully offered his arm. “Your ladyship is quite right,” he answered. “A more monstrous story never was invented.”
He spoke, in the warmth of his indignation, loud enough for Grace to hear him. “What is there monstrous in it?” she asked, advancing a step toward him, defiantly.
Julian checked her. He too—though he had only once seen Mercy—felt an angry sense of the insult offered to the beautiful creature who had interested him at his first sight of her. “Silence!” he said, speaking sternly to Grace for the first time. “You are offending—justly offending—Lady Janet. You are talking worse than absurdly—you are talking offensively—when you speak of another woman presenting herself here in your place.”
Grace’s blood was up. Stung by Julian’s reproof, she turned on him a look which was almost a look of fury.
“Are you a clergyman? Are you an educated man?” she asked. “Have you never read of cases of false personation, in newspapers and books? I blindly confided in Mercy Merrick before I found out what her character really was. She left the cottage—I know it, from the surgeon who brought me to life again—firmly persuaded that the shell had killed me. My papers and my clothes disappeared at the same time. Is there nothing suspicious in these circumstances? There were people at the Hospital who thought them highly suspicious—people who warned me that I might find an impostor in my place.” She suddenly paused. The rustling sound of a silk dress had caught her ear. Lady Janet was leaving the room, with Horace, by way of the conservatory. With a last desperate effort of resolution, Grace sprung forward and placed herself in front of them.
“One word, Lady Janet, before you turn your back on me,” she said, firmly. “One word, and I will be content. Has Colonel Roseberry’s letter found its way to this house or not? If it has, did a woman bring it to you?”
Lady Janet looked—as only a great lady can look, when a person of inferior rank has presumed to fail in respect toward her.
“You are surely not aware,” she said, with icy composure, “that these questions are an insult to Me?”
“And worse than an insult,” Horace added, warmly, “to Grace!”
The little resolute black figure (still barring the way to the conservatory) was suddenly shaken from head to foot. The woman’s eyes traveled backward and forward between Lady Janet and Horace with the light of a new suspicion in them.
“Grace!” she exclaimed. “What Grace? That’s my name. Lady Janet, youhavegot the letter! The woman is here!”
Lady Janet dropped Horace’s arm, and retraced her steps to the place at which her nephew was standing.
“Julian,” she said. “You force me, for the first time in my life, to remind you of the respect that is due to me in my own house. Send that woman away.”
Without waiting to be answered, she turned back again, and once more took Horace’s arm.
“Stand back, if you please,” she said, quietly, to Grace.
Grace held her ground.
“The woman is here!” she repeated. “Confront me with her—and then send me away, if you like.”
Julian advanced, and firmly took her by the arm. “You forget what is due to Lady Janet,” he said, drawing her aside. “You forget what is due to yourself.”
With a desperate effort, Grace broke away from him, and stopped Lady Janet on the threshold of the conservatory door.
“Justice!” she cried, shaking her clinched hand with hysterical frenzy in the air. “I claim my right to meet that woman face to face! Where is she? Confront me with her! Confront me with her!”
While those wild words were pouring from her lips, the rumbling of carriage wheels became audible on the drive in front of the house. In the all-absorbing agitation of the moment, the sound of the wheels (followed by the opening of the house door) passed unnoticed by the persons in the dining-room. Horace’s voice was still raised in angry protest against the insult offered to Lady Janet; Lady Janet herself (leaving him for the second time) was vehemently ringing the bell to summon the servants; Julian had once more taken the infuriated woman by the arms and was trying vainly to compose her—when the library door was opened quietly by a young lady wearing a mantle and a bonnet. Mercy Merrick (true to the appointment which she had made with Horace) entered the room.
The first eyes that discovered her presence on the scene were the eyes of Grace Roseberry. Starting violently in Julian’s grasp, she pointed toward the library door. “Ah!” she cried, with a shriek of vindictive delight. “There she is!”
Mercy turned as the sound of the scream rang through the room, and met—resting on her in savage triumph—the living gaze of the woman whose identity she had stolen, whose body she had left laid out for dead. On the instant of that terrible discovery—with her eyes fixed helplessly on the fierce eyes that had found her—she dropped senseless on the floor.