LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER I.THE ARRIVAL.
A small country town in the heart of England was the scene some few years ago of a sad tragedy. I must ask my readers to bear with me while I relate it. These crimes, having their rise in the evil passions of our nature, are not the most pleasant for the pen to record; but it cannot be denied that they do undoubtedly bear for many of us an interest amounting well nigh to fascination. I think the following account of what took place will bear such an interest for you.
South Wennock, the name of this place, was little more than a branch or offshoot of Great Wennock, a town of some importance, situated at two miles’ distance from it. The lines of rail from London and from other places, meeting at Great Wennock did not extend themselves to South Wennock, consequently any railway travellers arriving at the large town, had to complete their journey by the omnibus if they wished to go on to the small one.
The two miles of road which the omnibus had to traverse were about the worst to be met with in a civilized country. When it, the omnibus, had jolted its way over this road, it made its entrance to South Wennock in the very middle of the town. South Wennock might be said to consist of one long, straggling street, called High Street. Much building had been recently added to both ends of this old street. At the one end the new buildings, chiefly terraces and semi-detached houses, had been named Palace Street, from the fact that the way led to the country palace of the bishop of the diocese. The new buildings at the other end of High Street were called the Rise, from the circumstance that the ground rose there gradually for a considerable distance; and these were mostly detached villas, some small, some large.
On the afternoon of Friday, the 10th of March, 1848, the railway omnibus, a cramped vehicle constructed to hold six, came jolting along its route as usual. South Wennock lay stretched out in a line right across it in front, for the road was at a right angle with the town, and could the omnibus have dashed on without reference to houses and such-like slight obstructions, as a railway engine does, it would have cut the town in half, leaving part of High Street and the Rise to its right, the other part and Palace Street to its left.
The omnibus was not so fierce, however. It drove into High Street by the accustomed opening, turned short round to the left, and pulled up a few yards further at its usual place of stoppage, the Red Lion Inn. Mrs. Fitch, the landlady, an active, buxom dame with a fixed colour in her cheeks, and a bustling, genial manner, came hastening out to receive the guests it might have brought.
It had brought only a young lady and a trunk: and the moment Mrs. Fitch cast her eyes on the former’s face, she thought it the most beautiful she had ever looked upon.
“Your servant, miss. Do you please to stay here?”
“For a short time, while you give me a glass of wine and a biscuit,” was the reply of the traveller: and the tone, accent, and manner were unmistakeably those of a gentlewoman. “I shall be glad of the refreshment, for I feel exhausted. The shaking of the omnibus has been terrible.”
She was getting out as she spoke, and something in her appearance more particularly attracted the attention of Mrs. Fitch, as the landlady helped her down the high and awkward steps, and marshalled her in-doors.
“Dear ma'am, I beg your pardon! It does shake, that omnibus—and you not in a condition to bear it! And perhaps you have come far besides, too! You shall have something in a minute. I declare I took you for a young unmarried lady.”
“If you happen to have any cold meat, I would prefer a sandwich to the biscuit,” was all the reply given by the traveller.
She sat down in the landlady’s cushioned chair, for it was to her own parlour Mrs. Fitch had conducted her, untied her bonnet, and threw back the strings. The bonnet was of straw, trimmed with white ribbons, and her dress and mantle were of dark silk. Never was bonnet thrown back from a more lovely face, with its delicate bloom and its exquisitely refined features.
“Can you tell me whether there are any lodgings to be had in South Wennock?” she inquired, when the landlady came in again with the sandwiches and wine.
“Lodgings?” returned Mrs. Fitch. “Well, now, they are not over plentiful here; this is but a small place, you see, ma'am—not but what it’s a deal larger than it used to be,” continued the landlady, as she stroked her chin in deliberation. “There’s Widow Gould’s. I know her rooms were empty a week ago, for she was up here asking me if I couldn’t hear of anybody wanting such. You’d be comfortable there, ma'am, if she’s not let. She’s a quiet, decent body. Shall I send and inquire?”
“No, I would rather go myself. I should not like to fix upon rooms without seeing them. Should these you speak of be engaged, I may see bills in other windows. Thank you, I cannot eat more: I seem to feel the jolting of the omnibus still; and the fright it put me into has taken away my appetite. You will take care of my trunk for the present.”
“Certainly, ma'am. What name?”
“Mrs. Crane.”
The landlady stepped outside to direct the stranger on her way. Widow Gould’s house was situated in the first terrace in Palace Street, and a walk of six or seven minutes brought Mrs. Crane to it. It had a card in the window, indicating that its rooms were to let. Widow Gould herself, a shrinking little woman, with a pinched, red face, came to the door. The lady wanted a sitting-room and bed-room: could she be accommodated? Mrs. Gould replied that she could, mentioned a very moderate charge, and invited her in to see the rooms. They were on the first floor; not large, but clean and nice and convenient, the one room opening into the other. Mrs. Crane liked them very much.
“You perceive that I am expecting to be laid by,” she said. “Would that be an objection?”
“N—o, I don’t see that it need,” replied the widow, after some consideration. " Of course you would have proper attendance, ma'am? I could not undertake that.”
“Of course I should,” said Mrs. Crane.
So the bargain was made. Mrs. Crane taking the rooms for a month certain, intimating that she preferred engaging them only from month to month, and the Widow Gould undertaking to supply all ordinary attendance. Mrs. Crane went back to the inn, to pay for the refreshment of which she had partaken, and to desire her trunk to be sent to her, having ordered tea to be ready against her return to Palace Street.
She found everthing prepared for her, a nice fire burning in the sitting-room grate, the tea on the table, and Mrs. Gould in the adjoining room putting sheets upon the bed. The widow was in spirits at the prospect of her rooms being wanted for some months, as she believed they would be, and had placed the last weekly South Wennock newspaper on the table beside the tea-tray, a little mark of extra attention to her new lodger.
In obedience to the ring when tea was over, Mrs. Gould came up to remove the things. Mrs. Crane was seated before them. A fair young girl she looked with her bonnet off, in her silk dress and her golden brown hair. The widow kept no servant, but waited on her lodgers herself. Her parlours were let to a permanent lodger, who was at that time absent from South Wennock.
“Be so good as take a seat,” said Mrs. Crane to her, laying down the newspaper, which she appeared to have been reading. But Mrs. Gould preferred to stand, and began rubbing one shrivelled hand over the other, her habit when in waiting. “I have some information to ask of you. Never mind the tray; it can wait. First of all, what medical men have you at South Wennock?”
“There’s the Greys,” was Widow Gould’s response.
A pause ensued, Mrs. Crane probably waiting to hear the list augmented. “The Greys”? she repeated, finding her informant did not continue.
“Mr. John and Mr. Stephen Grey, ma'am. There was another brother, Mr. Robert, but he died last year. Nice pleasant gentlemen all three, and they have had the whole of the practice here. Their father and their uncle had it before them.”
“Do you mean to say there are no other medical men?” exclaimed the stranger, in some surprise. “I never heard of such a thing in a place as large as this appears be.”
“South Wennock has only got large lately, ma'am. The Greys were very much liked and respected in the place; and being three of them, they could get through the work, with an assistant. They always keep one. But there is another doctor here now, a gentleman of the name of Carlton.”
“Who is he?”
“Well, I forget where it was said he came from; London, I think. A fine dashing gentleman as ever you saw, ma'am; not above thirty, at the most. He came suddenly among us a few months ago, took a house at the other end of the town, and set up against the Greys. He is getting on, I believe, especially with the people that live on the Rise, mostly fresh comers; and he keeps his cabrioly.”
“Keeps his what?”
“His cabrioily—a dashing one-horse carriage with a head to it. It is more than the Greys have ever done, ma'am; they have had their plain gig, and nothing else. Some think that Mr. Carlton has private property, and some think he is making a show to get into practice.”
“Is he clever—Mr. Carlton?”
“There are those here who’ll tell you he is cleverer than the two Greys put together; but, ma'am, I don’t forget the old saying, New brooms sweep clean. Mr. Carlton, being new in the place, and having a practice to make, naturally puts out his best skill to make it.”
The remark drew forth a laugh from Mrs. Crane. “But unless a doctor has the skill within him, he cannot put it out,” she said.
“Well, of course there’s something in that,” returned the Widow, reflectively. “Any ways, Mr. Carlton is getting into practice, and it’s said he is liked. There’s a family on the Rise where he attends constantly, and I’ve heard they think a great deal of him. It’s a Captain Chesney, an old gentleman, who has the gout perpetual. They came strangers to the place from a distance, and settled here; very proud, exclusive people, it’s said. There’s three Miss Chesneys; one of them beautiful: t’other’s older; and the little one, she’s but a child. Mr. Carlton attends there a great deal, for the old gentlemanGood heart alive! what’s the matter?”
Mrs. Gould might well cry out. The invalid—and an invalid she evidently was-had turned of a ghastly whiteness, and was sinking back motionless in her chair.
Mrs. Gould was timid by nature, nervous by habit. Very much frightened, she raised the lady’s head, but it fell back unconscious. In the excitement induced by the moment’s terror, she flew down the stairs, shrieking out in the empty house, burst out at her own back door, ran through the yard, and burst into the back door of the adjoining house. Two young women were in the kitchen; the one ironing, the other sitting by the fire and not doing anything.
“For the love of Heaven, come back with me, one of you!” called out the widow, in a tremor. “The new lady lodger I told you of this afternoon has gone and died right off in her chair.”
Without waiting for assent or response, she flew back again. The young woman at the fire started from her seat, alarm depicted on her countenance. The other calmly continued her ironing.
“Don’t be frightened, Judith,” said she. “You are not so well used to Dame Gould as I am. If a blackbeetle falls on the floor, she’ll cry out for aid. I used to think it was put on, but I have come at last to the belief that she can’t help it. You may as well go in, however, and see what it is.”
Judith hastened away. She was a sensible-looking young woman, pale, with black hair and eyes, and was dressed in new and good mourning. Mrs. Gould was already in her lodger’s sitting-room. She had torn a feather from the small feather-duster hanging by the mantelpiece, had scorched the end, and was holding it to the unhappy lady’s nose. Judith dashed the feather to the ground.
“Don’t be so stupid, Mrs. Gould! What good do you suppose that will do? Get some water.”
The water was procured, and Judith applied it to the face and hands, the widow looking timidly on. As the lady revived, Mrs. Gould burst into tears.
“It’s my feelings that overcomes me, Judith,” said she. “I can’t abear the sight of illness.”
“You need not have been alarmed,” the invalid faintly said, as soon as she could speak. “For the last few months, since my health has been delicate, I have been subject to these attacks of faintness; they come on at any moment. I ought to have warned you.”
When fully restored they left her to herself, Mrs. Gould carrying away the tea-things; having first of all unlocked the lady’s trunk by her desire, and brought to her from it a small writing-case.
“Don’t go away, Judith,” the widow implored, when they reached the kitchen. “She may have another of those fits, for what we can tell—you heard her say she was subject to them—and you know what a one I am to be left with illness. It would be a charity to stop with me; and you are a lady at large just now.”
“I’ll go and get my work, then, and tell Margaret. But where’s the sense of your calling it a fit, as if you were speaking of apoplexy?” added Judith.
“When the girl came back—though, indeed, she was not much of a girl, being past thirty—Mrs. Gould had lighted a candle, for it was growing dark, and was washing the tea-things. Judith sat down to her sewing, her thoughts intent upon the lady upstairs.
“Who is she, I wonder?” she said aloud.
“Some stranger. Mrs. Fitch sent her down to me—I told Margaret about it this afternoon when you were out. I say, isn’t she young?”
Judith nodded. “I wonder if she is married?”
“Married!” angrily retorted Mrs. Gould. “If the wedding-ring upon her finger had been a bear it would have bit you. Where were your eyes?”
“All wedding-rings have not been put on in churches,” was the composed answer of the girl. “Not but that I daresay she is married, for she seems a modest, good lady; it was her being so young, and coming here in this sudden manner, all unprotected, that set me on the other thought. Where is her husband?”
“Gone abroad,” she said. “I made free to ask her.”
“Why does she come here?”
“I can’t tell. It does seem strange. She never was near the place in her life before this afternoon, she told me, and had no friends in it. She has been inquiring about the doctors———"
“That’s her bell,” interrupted Judith, as the bell hanging over Mrs. Gould’s head began to sound. “Make haste. I dare say she wants lights.”
“She has got them. The candles were on the mantelpiece, and she said she’d light them herself.”
A sealed note lay on the table when Mrs. Gould entered the drawing room. The lady laid her hand upon it.
“Mrs. Gould, I must trouble you to send this note for me. I did not intend to see about a medical man until to-morrow; but I feel fatigued and sick, and I think I had better see one to-night. He may be able to give me something to calm me.”
“Yes, ma'am. They live almost close by, the Greys. But, dear lady, I hope you don’t feel as if you were going to be ill!”
Mrs. Crane smiled. Her nervous landlady was rubbing her hands together in an access of trembling.
“Not ill in the sense I conclude you mean it. I do not expect that for these two months. But I don’t want to alarm you with a second fainting fit. I am in the habit of taking drops, which do me a great deal of good, and I unfortunately left them behind me, so I had better see a doctor. Was that your daughter who come up just now? She seemed a nice young woman.”
The question offended Mrs. Gould’s vanity beyond everything. She believed herself to be remarkably young-looking, and Judith was two-and-thirty if she was a day.
“No, indeed, ma'am, she’s not; and I have neither chick nor child,” was the resentful answer. “She’s nothing but Judith Ford, sister to the servant at the next door; and being out of place, her sister’s mistress said she might come there for a few days while she looked out. I’ll get her to carry the note for me.”
Mrs Gould took the note from the table, and was carrying it away without looking at it, when the lady called her back.
“You see to whom it is addressed, Mrs. Gould?”
Mrs. Gould stopped, and brought the note close to her eyes. She had not her spectacles upstairs, and it was as much as she could do to see anything without them.
“Why—ma'am! It—it—it’s to Mr. Carlton.”
The lady looked surprised in her turn. “Why should it not be to Mr. Carlton?” she demanded.
“But the Greys are sure and safe, ma'am. Such a thing has never been known as for them to lose one of their lady patients.”
Mrs. Crane paused, apparently in indecision. “Has Mr. Carlton lost them?”
“Well—no; I can’t remember that he has. But, ma'am, he attends one where the Greys attend ten.”
“When you were speaking this evening of the doctors, I nearly made up my mind to engage Mr. Carlton,” observed Mrs. Crane. “I think men of skill struggling into practice should be encouraged. If you have anything really serious to urge against him, that is quite a different thing, and you should speak out.”
“No, ma'am, no,” was the widow’s reply; “and I am sure it has been rude of me to object to him if your opinion lies that way. I don’t know a thing against Mr. Carlton; people call him clever. I am naturally prejudiced in favour of the Greys, for Mr. John has attended me ever since he grew up, as his father did before him. I’ll send this down to Mr. Carlton’s.”
“Let it go at once, if you please. I should like, if possible, to see him to-night.”
Mrs. Gould descended to the kitchen. On the dresser, staring her in the face when she entered, lay her spectacles. She put them on and looked at the superscription on the note.
“Well, now, that’s a curious thing, if ever there was one! ‘Lewis Carlton, Esq.!’ How did she know his name was Lewis? I never mentioned it. I couldn’t mention it, for I did not know it myself. Is his name Lewis?”
“For all I can tell,” responded Judith. “Yes,” she added, more decisively, “of course it is Lewis; it is on his door-plate. Perhaps Mrs. Fitch told her.”
“There! that’s it!” exclaimed the widow, struck with sudden conviction. “Mrs. Fitch has been speaking up for him, and that’s what has put her on to Mr. Carlton, and off the Greys. There was a traveller ill at the Red Lion in the winter, and he had Mr. Carlton. It’s a shame of Mrs. Fitch to turn round on old friends.”
“I can tell you where she got the named from, though perhaps Mrs. Fitch did speak for him,” cried Judith, suddenly. “There’s his card—as they call it—in that newspaper you lent her, ‘Mr. Lewis Carlton: Consulting Surgeon.’ She couldn’t fail to see it. Is she ill, that she is sending for him? She looks not unlikely to be.”
“I say, Judy, don’t go frightening a body like that,” cried the woman, in tremor. “She won’t be ill for these two months; but that nasty omnibus has shook her, and I suppose the faint finished it up. Oh, it rattles over the road without regard to folk’s bones. You’ll take this for me, won’t you, Judith?”
“I daresay!” returned Judith.
“Come, do; there’s a good woman! I can’t go myself, for fear her bell should ring. It’s a fine night, and the run will do you good.”
Judith, not unaccommodating, rose from her seat. “There, now!” she exclaimed, in a tone of vexation, as she took the note, “how am I to get my things? Margaret’s gone out, and she is sure to have bolted the back-door. I don’t like to disturb old Mrs. Jenkinson; the night’s coldish, or I’d go without my bonnet rather than do it.”
“Put on mine,” suggested Mrs. Gould. “You are welcome to it, and to my shawl too.”
Judith laughed; and she laughed still more when arrayed in Mrs. Gould’s things. The shawl did very well, but the bonnet was large, one of those called a “poke,” and she looked like an old woman in it. “Nobody will fall in love with me to-night, that’s certain,” said she, as she sped off.
Mr. Carlton’s house was situated at the other end of the town, just before the commencement of the Rise. It stood by itself, on the left; a. handsome white house, with iron rails round it, and a pillared portico in front. Judith ascended the steps and rang at the bell.
The door was flung open by a young man in livery. “Can I see Mr. Carlton?” she asked.
The man superciliously threw back his head, Judith’s large old bonnet did not tell in her favour. “Is it on perfessional business?” he questioned.
“Yes, it is.”
“Then perhaps, mem, you’ll have the obleegance to walk round to the perfessional entrance; and that’s on that there side.”
He waved his hand condescendingly to the side of the house. Judith complied, but she gave him a word at parting.
“Pray how much wages do you earn?”
“If ever I heered such a. question put to a gentleman?” cried the man in astonishment. “What is it to you?”
“Because 1 should judge that you get so much paid you for clothes, and so much for airs.”
Passing down the steps, and out of reach of sundry compliments he honoured her with in return, she went to the side, and found herself in front of a door with “Surgery” written on it. It opened to a passage, and thence to a small square room, whose walls were lined with bottles. A boy in buttons was lying at full length on the counter, whistling a shrill note, and kicking his heels in the air. The entrance startled him, and he tumbled off feet foremost.
It was but twilight yet, and not at first did he gather in Judith’s appearance; but soon the poke bonnet disclosed itself to view.
“Hulloa!” cried he. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I want Mr. Carlton. Is he at home?”
“No, he isn’t.”
“Then you must go out and find him. This note must be instantly given to him. A lady wants to see him to—night.”
“Then I’m afeard want must be the lady’s master,” returned the impudent boy. “Perhaps we might get this note tied on to the telegraph wires, and send it to him that fashion; there ain’t no other way of doing it. Mr. Carlton went off to London this morning.”
“To London!” repeated Judith, surprise checking her inclination to box the young gentleman’s ears. “When is he coming home again?”
“When his legs brings him. There! He’ll be home in a couple of days,” added the boy, dodging out of Judith’s reach, and deeming it as well to cease his banter. “His father, Dr. Carlton, was took ill, and sent for him. Now you know.”
“Well,” said Judith, after a pause of consideration, “you had better take charge of this note, and give it to him when he does come home. I don’t know anything else that can be done. And I’d recommend yon not to be quite so free with your tongue, unless you want to come to grief,” was her parting salutation, as she quitted the boy and the house.
CHAPTER II.HAPPILY OVER.
As Judith Ford went back through the lighted streets, the landlady of the Red Lion was standing at her door.
“Good evening, Mrs. Fitch”
“Why, who—why, Judith, it’s never you! What on earth have you been making yourself such a guy as that for?”
Judith laughed, and explained how it was that she happened to be out in Mrs. Gould’s things, and where she had been to. “After all, my visit has been a useless one,” she remarked, “for Mr. Carlton is away. Gone to London, that impudent boy, of his, said.”
“I could have told you so, and saved you the trouble of a walk, had I seen you passing,” said Mrs. Fitch. “His groom drove him to the Great Wennock station this morning, and called here as he came back for a glass of ale. Is the lady ill?”
“She does not seem well; she had a fainting-fit just after tea, and thought she had better see a doctor at once.”
“And Dame Gould could send for Mr. Carlton! What have the Greys done to her?”
“Dame Gould thought you recommended Mr. Carlton to the lady.”
“I!” exclaimed Mrs. Fitch, “Well, that’s good! I never opened my lips to the lady about any doctor at all.”
“It was her own doing to send for Mr. Carlton, and Mrs. Gould thought you must have spoken for him.”
“Not I. If I had spoken for any it would have been for the Greys, who are our old fellow townspeople; not but what Mr. Carlton is a nice pleasant gentleman, skilful too. Look here, Judith, you tell Dame Gould that when the time comes for the young lady to be ill, if there’s currant jelly wanted for her, or any little matter of that sort, she can send to me for it, and welcome. I don’t know when I have seen such a sweet young lady.”
Judith gave a word of thanks, and sped on towards Palace Street. She had barely rung the bell when she heard Mrs. Gould floundering down-stairs in hot haste. She flung open the door, and seized hold of Judith.
“Oh, Judith, thank Heaven you are come!, What on earth’s to he done? She is taken ill!”
“Taken ill!” repeated Judith.
“She is, she is, really ill; it’s as true as that you are alive. Where’s Mr. Carlton?”
Judith made no reply. Shaking off the timorous woman, and the shawl and bonnet at the same time, which she thrust into her hands, she sped up to the sitting-room. Mrs. Crane was clasping the arm of the easy-chair in evident pain; the combs were out of her hair, which now fell in wavy curls on her neck, and she moaned aloud in what looked like terror, as she cast her fair girlish face up to Judith. Never, Judith thought, had she seen eyes so wondrously beautiful; they were large tender brown eyes, soft and mournful, and they and their peculiarly sweet expression became fixed from that hour in Judith’s memory.
“Don’t be cast down, poor child,” she said, forgetting ceremony in her compassion. “Lean on me, it will be all right.”
She laid her head on Judith’s shoulder. “Will Mr. Carlton be long?” she moaned. “Cannot some one go and hurry him?”
“Mr. Carlton can’t come, ma'am,” was Judith’s answer. “He went to London this morning.”
A moment’s lifting of the head, a sharp cry of disappointment, and the poor head fell again and the face was hidden. Judith strove to impart comfort.
“They are all strangers to you, ma'am, so what can it matter? I know you cannot fail to like the Greys as well as you would Mr. Carlton. Nay, dear young lady, don’t take on so. Everybody likes Mr. John and Mr. Stephen Grey. Why should you have set your mind on Mr. Carlton?”
She lifted her eyes, wet with tears, whispering into Judith’s ear.
“I cannot afford to pay both, and it is Mr. Carlton I have written to.”
“Pay both! of course not!” responded Judith in a warm tone. “If Mr. Carlton can’t come because he is away and Mr. Gray attends for him, there’ll be only one of them to pay. Doctors understand all that, ma'am. Mr. Carlton might take Mr. Grey’s place with you as soon as he is back again, if you particularly wish for him.”
“I did wish for him, I do wish for him. Some friends of mine know Mr. Carlton well, and they speak highly of his skill. They recommended him to me.”
That explains it, thought Judith, but she was interrupted by a quaking, quivering voice beside her.
“What in the world will be done?”
It was Widow Gould’s, of course; Judith scarcely condescended to answer: strong in sense herself, she had no sympathy with that sort of weakness.
“The first thing for you to do is to leave off being an idiot; the second, is to go and fetch one of the Mr. Greys.”
“I will not have the Mr. Greys,” spoke the young lady peremptorily, lifting her head from the cushion of the easy-chair, where she had now laid it. “I don’t like the Mr. Greys, and I will not have them.”
“Then, ma'am, you must have been prejudiced against them!” exclaimed Judith.
“True,” said Mrs. Crane; “so far as that I have heard they are not clever.”
Judith could only look her utter astonishment. The Greys not clever! But Mrs. Crane interposed against further discussion.
“I may not want either of them, after all,” she said; “I am feeling easy again now. Perhaps if you leave me alone I shall get a bit of sleep.”
They arranged the cushions about her comfortably, and went down-stairs, where a half dispute ensued. Judith reproached Mrs. Gould for her childish cowardice, and that lady retorted that if folks were born timid they couldn’t help themselves. In the midst of it, a great cry came from above, and Judith flew up. Mrs. Gould followed, taking her leisure over it, and met the girl, who had come quickly down again, making for the front door.
“One of the Mr. Greys must be got here, whether or not,” she said in passing; “she’s a great deal worse.”
“But, Judy, look here,” were the arresting words of the widow. “Who’ll be at the responsibility? She says she won’t have the Greys, and I might have to pay them out of my own pocket.”
“Nonsense!” retorted Judith. “I’d not bring up pockets, if I were you, when a fellow-creature’s life is at stake. You go up to her; perhaps you can do that.”
Judith hastened into the street. The two brothers lived in houses contiguous to each other, situated about midway between Mrs. Gould’s and the Red Lion inn. Mr. John, generally called Mr. Grey, occupied the larger house, which contained the surgery and laboratory; Mr. Stephen the smaller one adjoining. Mr. Stephen, the younger, had married when he was only twenty-one, and he now wanted a year or two of forty; Mr. John had more recently married, and had a troop of very young children.
The hall door of Mr. John’s house stood open, and Judith went in, guided by the bright lamp in the fanlight. Too hurried to stand upon ceremony, she crossed the hall and pushed open the surgery door. A handsome, gentlemanly lad of sixteen stood there, pounding drugs with a pestle and mortar. Not perhaps that the face was so handsome in itself, but the exceeding intelligence pervading it, the broad, intellectual forehead, and the honest expression of the large, earnest blue eyes, would have made the beauty of any countenance. He was the son and only child of Mr. Stephen Grey.
“What, is it you, Judith?” he exclaimed, turning his head quickly as she entered. “You come gliding in like a ghost.”
“Because I am in haste, Master Frederick. Are the gentlemen at home?”
“Papa is. Uncle John’s not.”
“I want to see one of them, if you please, sir.”
The boy vaulted off, and returned with Mr. Stephen: a merry-hearted man with a merry and benevolent countenance, who never suffered the spirits of his patients to go down while he could keep them up. A valuable secret in medical treatment.
“Well, Judith? and what’s the demand for you?” he jokingly asked. “Another tooth to be drawn?”
“I’ll tell my errand to yourself, sir, if you please.”
Without waiting to be sent, Frederick Grey retired from the surgery and closed the door. Judith gave an outline of the case she had come upon to Mr. Stephen Grey.
He looked grave; grave for him; and paused a moment when she had ceased.
“Judith, girl, we would prefer not to interfere with Mr. Carlton’s patients. It might appear, look you, as though we grudged him the few he had got together, and would wrest them from him. We wish nothing of the sort: the place is large enough for us all.”
“And what is the poor young lady to do, sir? To die?”
“To die!” echoed Stephen Grey. “Goodness forbid.”
“But she may die, sir, unless you or Mr. Grey can come to her aid. Mr. Carlton can be of no use to her, he is in London.”
Mr. Stephen Grey felt the force of the argument. While Mr. Carlton was in London, the best part of a hundred miles off, he could not be of much use to anybody in South Wennock.
“True, true,” said he, nodding his head. “I’ll go back with you, Judith. Very young, you say? Where’s her husband?”
“Gone travelling abroad, Sir,” replied Judith, somewhat improving upon the information supplied by Mrs. Gould. “Is there no nurse that can be got in, sir?” she continued. “I never saw such a stupid woman as that Mrs. Gould is in illness.”
“Nurse? To be sure. Time enough for that. Frederick,” Mr. Stephen called out to his son, as he crossed the hall, “if your uncle comes in before I am back, tell him I am at Widow Gould’s. A lady who has come to lodge there is taken ill.”
Judith ran on first, and got back before Mr. Stephen. Somewhat to her surprise, she found Mrs. Crane seated at the table, writing.
“You are better, ma'am!”
“No, I am worse. This has come upon me unexpectedly, and I must write to apprize a friend.”
The perspiration induced by pain was running off her as she spoke. She appeared to have written but two or three lines, and was thrusting the letter into an envelope. Mrs. Gould stood by, helplessly rubbing her hands, her head shaking with a tremulous motion, as though she had St. Vitus’s dance.
“Will you post it for me?”
“Yes, sure I will, ma'am” replied Judith, taking the note which she held out. “But I fear it is too late to go to-night.”
“It cannot be helped: put it in the post at all risks. And you had better call on one of the medical gentlemen you spoke of, and ask him to come and see me.”
“I have been, ma'am,” replied Judith, in a glow of triumph. “He is following me down. And that’s his ring,” she added, as the bell was heard. “It is Mr. Stephen Grey, ma'am; Mr. Grey was not at home. Of the two brothers Mr. Stephen is the pleasantest, but they are both nice gentlemen. You can’t fail to like Mr. Stephen.”
She went out with the letter, glancing at the superscription. It was addressed to London, to Mrs. Smith. On the stairs she encountered Mr. Stephen Grey.
“I suppose I am too late for the post tonight, sir?” she asked. “It is a letter from the lady.”
Mr. Stephen took out his watch. “Not if you make a run for it, Judith. It wants four minutes to the time of closing.”
Judith ran off. She was light and active, one of those to whom running is easy; and she saved the post by half a minute. Mr. Stephen Grey meanwhile, putting the widow Gould aside with a merry nod, entered the room alone. Mrs. Crane was standing near the table, one hand lay on it, the other was pressed on her side, and her anxious, beautiful eyes were strained on the door. As they fell on the doctor an expression of relief came into her face. Mr. Stephen went up to her, wondering at her youth. He took one of her hands in his, and looked down with his reassuring smile.
“And now tell me all about what’s the matter?”
She kept his hand, as if there were protection in it, and the tears came into her eyes as she raised them to him, speaking in a whisper.
“I am in great pain: such pain! Do you think I shall die?”
“Die!” cheerily echoed Mr. Stephen. “Not you. You may talk about dying in some fifty or sixty years to come, perhaps; but not now. Come, sit down, and let us have a little quiet chat together.”
“You seem very kind, and I thank you,” she said; “but before going further, I ought to tell you that I am Mr. Carlton’s patient, for I had written to engage him before I knew he was away. I am came an entire stranger to South Wennock, and I had heard of Mr. Carlton’s skill from some friends.”
“Well, we will do the best we can for you until Mr. Carlton’s return, and then leave you in his hands. Are you quite alone?”
“It happens unfortunately that I am. I have just sent a note to the post to summon a friend. You see I never expected to be ill for the next two months.”
“And very likely you will not be,” returned Mr. Stephen. “When you shall have got half-a-dozen children about you, young lady, you will know what importance to attach to false alarms. Your husband is abroad, I hear?”
And she inclined her head in the affirmative.
But it was no false alarm. The lady got worse with every minute; and when Judith came back Mr. Stephen met her, coming forth from the bedroom.
“You must help me, Judith,” he said. “Dame Gould is utterly useless. First of all, look in the lady’s travelling trunk. She says there are baby’s clothes and other things there. Make haste over it.”
“I’ll do anything and everything I can, sir,” replied Judith; “but I’d make her useful. I have no patience with her.”
“I’ll make her useful in one way if I don’t in another. Where is she now?”
“Sitting on the stairs outside, sir, with her hands to her ears.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Stephen, and he went out to the widow.
“Mrs. Gould, you know Grote’s Buildings?”
“In course, sir, I do,” was the whimpered answer, as she rose. “Oh, sir, I’m shook!”
“Go there without delay: you can shake as you go along, you know. Ask for Mrs. Hutton, and desire her to come here to me immediately. Tell her the nature of the case.”
Mrs. Gould lost no time in starting, glad to be out of the house. She returned with a short, stout barrel of a woman, with grizzled hair and black eyes. She was attired in a light-coloured print gown, and went simpering into the room, carrying a bundle, and dropping curtsies to Mr. Stephen Grey. Mr. Stephen stared at the woman for a full minute, as if in disbelief of his own eyes, and his face turned to severity.
“Who sent for you, Mrs. Pepperfly?”
“Well, sir; please, sir, I came,” was the response, the curtseys dropping all the while. “You sent for Hutton, sir; but she were called out this afternoon; and I was a stopping at number three, and thought I might come in her place.”
“Hutton was called out this afternoon?”
“This very blessed afternoon what’s gone, sir, just as four o’clock was a striking from St. Mark’s church. Mrs. Gilbert on the Rise is took with her fever again, sir, and she won’t have nobody but Hutton to nurse her.”
Mr. Stephen Grey ran over the sisterhood in his mind, but could think of none available just then. He beckoned the woman from the room.
“Hark ye, Mother Pepperfly,” he said, in a stern tone. “You know your failing; new if you dare to give way to it this time, as you have done before, you shall never again nurse a patient of mine or my brother’s. You can do your duty—none better—if you choose to keep in a fit state to do it. Take care you do so.”
Mrs. Pepperfly squeezed out a tear. She’d be upon her Bible oath, if Mr. Stephen chose to put her to it, not to touch nothing no stronger than table beer. Mr. Stephen, however, did not put her to the ordeal.
There was sufficient hustle in the house that might; but by the morning quiet and peace had supervened; and Nurse Pepperfly, on her best behaviour, was carrying about, wrapped in flannel, a wee wee infant.
Judith had not left Mrs. Crane’s side during the night, and the latter appeared to be drawn to her by some attraction, to find comfort in her genuine sympathy.
“You have been a good girl, Judith,” Mr. Stephen said to her as he was leaving in the morning, and she went down to open the door for him.
“Will she do well, sir?” asked Judith.
“Famously,” answered Mr. Stephen. “Never had a safer case in my life. Give a look to Mother Pepperfly, Judith. I trust her as far as I can see her. I shall be back in a couple of hours.”
Things went on well during the day. Mrs. Pepperfly busied herself chiefly with the baby, nursing it by the fire in the sitting-room; Judith attended on the sick lady. In the afternoon, Mrs. Crane, who was lying awake, suddenly addressed her.
“Judith, how is it you are able to be with me? I thought the landlady told me you were in service.”
“Not just now, ma'am. I have been in service, but have left my place, and am stopping with my sister, at the next door, while I look out for another.”
“Does your sister let lodgings, as Mrs. Gould does?”
“A lady lives at the next door, a Mrs. Jenkinson,” was Judith’s reply, “and my sister is her servant. Margaret has lived with her going on for eleven years.”
“So that just now you are at liberty?”
“Quite so, ma'am.”
“See now how merciful God is!” spoke Mrs. Crane, placing her hands together in an attitude of reverence. “Last night when I began to feel ill, and thought I should have nobody about me but that timid Mrs. Gould, I turned sick with perplexity,—with fear, I may say,—at the prospect of being left with her. And then you seemed to be raised up for me, as it were on purpose, and can be with me without let or hindrance. None but those who have stood in need of it,” she added after a pause, “can know the full extent of God’s mercy.”
A glow, partly of pleasure partly of shame, came over Judith’s face as she listened. In a little corner of her inmost heart there had lurked a doubt whether it was all as straight as it ought to be with the young lady who had come there in so strange a manner—whether that plain gold ring on her finger had been a genuine wedding-ring, or but a false bauble placed there to deceive. The above reverential words of trust convinced Judith that the lady, whoever she might be, and whatever might be the mystery, was as honest as she was, and she took shame to herself for doubting her. No girl, living a life of sin, could so speak with unaffected simplicity of the goodness of God. At least, so felt Judith.
“I think, Judith, you must have been accustomed to attend on the sick?”
“Pretty well, ma'am. In my last place, where I lived four years, my mistress’s sister was bed-ridden, and I waited on her. She was a great sufferer. She died just three weeks ago, and they did not want me any more: that’s why I am changing places.”
“The mourning you wear is for her?”
“Yes it is, ma'am. Mr. Stephen Grey was her doctor, and never failed to come every day all those four years; so that I feel quite at home with him, if that is a proper expression for a servant to use when speaking of a gentleman.”
“What was the matter with her?”
“It was an inward complaint, causing her distressing pain. We were always trying fresh remedies to give her ease, but they did not do much good. I don’t fancy Mr. Stephen ever thought they would; but she would have them tried. Ah, ma'am! we talk about suffering, and pity it, when people are laid up far a week or two; but only think what it must be to lie by for years, and be in acute pain night and day!”
The tears had come into Judith’s eyes at the remembrance. Mrs. Crane looked at her. She had a large, full forehead, strongly marked. One, gifted with phrenological lore, would have pronounced her largely gifted with concentration and reticence. Good qualities when joined to an honest heart.
“Judith, Where was my work-box put?”
“It is here, ma'am, on the drawers.”
“Unlock it, will you. You will find my keys somewhere about. Inside the little compartment that 1ifts up, you will see a locket set round with pearls.”
Judith did as she was bid, and brought forth the locket. It was a charming little trinket of blue enamel, the gold ring round it studded with pearls, and a place for hair in the front. A very fine gold chain about two inches long was attached, so that it could be worn to a necklace, or pendant to a bracelet.
“Take it, Judith. It is for you.”
“Oh, ma'am!”
“That is my own hair inside; but you can take it out if you like, and put in your sweetheart’s. I daresay you have one.”
“A costly toy like this is not fit for me, ma'am. I could not think of taking it.”
“But it is fit for you, and I am glad to give it you; and I owe you a great deal more than that, for what I should have done without you I don’t know,” reiterated the invalid. “Put it up in your treasure-box, Judith.”
“I’m sure I don’t know how to say enough thanks,” spoke Judith in her gratitude. “I shall keep it to my dying day, dear lady, and store up the hair in it for ever.”
(To be continued.)
LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER I.THE ARRIVAL.
A small country town in the heart of England was the scene some few years ago of a sad tragedy. I must ask my readers to bear with me while I relate it. These crimes, having their rise in the evil passions of our nature, are not the most pleasant for the pen to record; but it cannot be denied that they do undoubtedly bear for many of us an interest amounting well nigh to fascination. I think the following account of what took place will bear such an interest for you.
South Wennock, the name of this place, was little more than a branch or offshoot of Great Wennock, a town of some importance, situated at two miles’ distance from it. The lines of rail from London and from other places, meeting at Great Wennock did not extend themselves to South Wennock, consequently any railway travellers arriving at the large town, had to complete their journey by the omnibus if they wished to go on to the small one.
The two miles of road which the omnibus had to traverse were about the worst to be met with in a civilized country. When it, the omnibus, had jolted its way over this road, it made its entrance to South Wennock in the very middle of the town. South Wennock might be said to consist of one long, straggling street, called High Street. Much building had been recently added to both ends of this old street. At the one end the new buildings, chiefly terraces and semi-detached houses, had been named Palace Street, from the fact that the way led to the country palace of the bishop of the diocese. The new buildings at the other end of High Street were called the Rise, from the circumstance that the ground rose there gradually for a considerable distance; and these were mostly detached villas, some small, some large.
On the afternoon of Friday, the 10th of March, 1848, the railway omnibus, a cramped vehicle constructed to hold six, came jolting along its route as usual. South Wennock lay stretched out in a line right across it in front, for the road was at a right angle with the town, and could the omnibus have dashed on without reference to houses and such-like slight obstructions, as a railway engine does, it would have cut the town in half, leaving part of High Street and the Rise to its right, the other part and Palace Street to its left.
The omnibus was not so fierce, however. It drove into High Street by the accustomed opening, turned short round to the left, and pulled up a few yards further at its usual place of stoppage, the Red Lion Inn. Mrs. Fitch, the landlady, an active, buxom dame with a fixed colour in her cheeks, and a bustling, genial manner, came hastening out to receive the guests it might have brought.
It had brought only a young lady and a trunk: and the moment Mrs. Fitch cast her eyes on the former’s face, she thought it the most beautiful she had ever looked upon.
“Your servant, miss. Do you please to stay here?”
“For a short time, while you give me a glass of wine and a biscuit,” was the reply of the traveller: and the tone, accent, and manner were unmistakeably those of a gentlewoman. “I shall be glad of the refreshment, for I feel exhausted. The shaking of the omnibus has been terrible.”
She was getting out as she spoke, and something in her appearance more particularly attracted the attention of Mrs. Fitch, as the landlady helped her down the high and awkward steps, and marshalled her in-doors.
“Dear ma'am, I beg your pardon! It does shake, that omnibus—and you not in a condition to bear it! And perhaps you have come far besides, too! You shall have something in a minute. I declare I took you for a young unmarried lady.”
“If you happen to have any cold meat, I would prefer a sandwich to the biscuit,” was all the reply given by the traveller.
She sat down in the landlady’s cushioned chair, for it was to her own parlour Mrs. Fitch had conducted her, untied her bonnet, and threw back the strings. The bonnet was of straw, trimmed with white ribbons, and her dress and mantle were of dark silk. Never was bonnet thrown back from a more lovely face, with its delicate bloom and its exquisitely refined features.
“Can you tell me whether there are any lodgings to be had in South Wennock?” she inquired, when the landlady came in again with the sandwiches and wine.
“Lodgings?” returned Mrs. Fitch. “Well, now, they are not over plentiful here; this is but a small place, you see, ma'am—not but what it’s a deal larger than it used to be,” continued the landlady, as she stroked her chin in deliberation. “There’s Widow Gould’s. I know her rooms were empty a week ago, for she was up here asking me if I couldn’t hear of anybody wanting such. You’d be comfortable there, ma'am, if she’s not let. She’s a quiet, decent body. Shall I send and inquire?”
“No, I would rather go myself. I should not like to fix upon rooms without seeing them. Should these you speak of be engaged, I may see bills in other windows. Thank you, I cannot eat more: I seem to feel the jolting of the omnibus still; and the fright it put me into has taken away my appetite. You will take care of my trunk for the present.”
“Certainly, ma'am. What name?”
“Mrs. Crane.”
The landlady stepped outside to direct the stranger on her way. Widow Gould’s house was situated in the first terrace in Palace Street, and a walk of six or seven minutes brought Mrs. Crane to it. It had a card in the window, indicating that its rooms were to let. Widow Gould herself, a shrinking little woman, with a pinched, red face, came to the door. The lady wanted a sitting-room and bed-room: could she be accommodated? Mrs. Gould replied that she could, mentioned a very moderate charge, and invited her in to see the rooms. They were on the first floor; not large, but clean and nice and convenient, the one room opening into the other. Mrs. Crane liked them very much.
“You perceive that I am expecting to be laid by,” she said. “Would that be an objection?”
“N—o, I don’t see that it need,” replied the widow, after some consideration. " Of course you would have proper attendance, ma'am? I could not undertake that.”
“Of course I should,” said Mrs. Crane.
So the bargain was made. Mrs. Crane taking the rooms for a month certain, intimating that she preferred engaging them only from month to month, and the Widow Gould undertaking to supply all ordinary attendance. Mrs. Crane went back to the inn, to pay for the refreshment of which she had partaken, and to desire her trunk to be sent to her, having ordered tea to be ready against her return to Palace Street.
She found everthing prepared for her, a nice fire burning in the sitting-room grate, the tea on the table, and Mrs. Gould in the adjoining room putting sheets upon the bed. The widow was in spirits at the prospect of her rooms being wanted for some months, as she believed they would be, and had placed the last weekly South Wennock newspaper on the table beside the tea-tray, a little mark of extra attention to her new lodger.
In obedience to the ring when tea was over, Mrs. Gould came up to remove the things. Mrs. Crane was seated before them. A fair young girl she looked with her bonnet off, in her silk dress and her golden brown hair. The widow kept no servant, but waited on her lodgers herself. Her parlours were let to a permanent lodger, who was at that time absent from South Wennock.
“Be so good as take a seat,” said Mrs. Crane to her, laying down the newspaper, which she appeared to have been reading. But Mrs. Gould preferred to stand, and began rubbing one shrivelled hand over the other, her habit when in waiting. “I have some information to ask of you. Never mind the tray; it can wait. First of all, what medical men have you at South Wennock?”
“There’s the Greys,” was Widow Gould’s response.
A pause ensued, Mrs. Crane probably waiting to hear the list augmented. “The Greys”? she repeated, finding her informant did not continue.
“Mr. John and Mr. Stephen Grey, ma'am. There was another brother, Mr. Robert, but he died last year. Nice pleasant gentlemen all three, and they have had the whole of the practice here. Their father and their uncle had it before them.”
“Do you mean to say there are no other medical men?” exclaimed the stranger, in some surprise. “I never heard of such a thing in a place as large as this appears be.”
“South Wennock has only got large lately, ma'am. The Greys were very much liked and respected in the place; and being three of them, they could get through the work, with an assistant. They always keep one. But there is another doctor here now, a gentleman of the name of Carlton.”
“Who is he?”
“Well, I forget where it was said he came from; London, I think. A fine dashing gentleman as ever you saw, ma'am; not above thirty, at the most. He came suddenly among us a few months ago, took a house at the other end of the town, and set up against the Greys. He is getting on, I believe, especially with the people that live on the Rise, mostly fresh comers; and he keeps his cabrioly.”
“Keeps his what?”
“His cabrioily—a dashing one-horse carriage with a head to it. It is more than the Greys have ever done, ma'am; they have had their plain gig, and nothing else. Some think that Mr. Carlton has private property, and some think he is making a show to get into practice.”
“Is he clever—Mr. Carlton?”
“There are those here who’ll tell you he is cleverer than the two Greys put together; but, ma'am, I don’t forget the old saying, New brooms sweep clean. Mr. Carlton, being new in the place, and having a practice to make, naturally puts out his best skill to make it.”
The remark drew forth a laugh from Mrs. Crane. “But unless a doctor has the skill within him, he cannot put it out,” she said.
“Well, of course there’s something in that,” returned the Widow, reflectively. “Any ways, Mr. Carlton is getting into practice, and it’s said he is liked. There’s a family on the Rise where he attends constantly, and I’ve heard they think a great deal of him. It’s a Captain Chesney, an old gentleman, who has the gout perpetual. They came strangers to the place from a distance, and settled here; very proud, exclusive people, it’s said. There’s three Miss Chesneys; one of them beautiful: t’other’s older; and the little one, she’s but a child. Mr. Carlton attends there a great deal, for the old gentlemanGood heart alive! what’s the matter?”
Mrs. Gould might well cry out. The invalid—and an invalid she evidently was-had turned of a ghastly whiteness, and was sinking back motionless in her chair.
Mrs. Gould was timid by nature, nervous by habit. Very much frightened, she raised the lady’s head, but it fell back unconscious. In the excitement induced by the moment’s terror, she flew down the stairs, shrieking out in the empty house, burst out at her own back door, ran through the yard, and burst into the back door of the adjoining house. Two young women were in the kitchen; the one ironing, the other sitting by the fire and not doing anything.
“For the love of Heaven, come back with me, one of you!” called out the widow, in a tremor. “The new lady lodger I told you of this afternoon has gone and died right off in her chair.”
Without waiting for assent or response, she flew back again. The young woman at the fire started from her seat, alarm depicted on her countenance. The other calmly continued her ironing.
“Don’t be frightened, Judith,” said she. “You are not so well used to Dame Gould as I am. If a blackbeetle falls on the floor, she’ll cry out for aid. I used to think it was put on, but I have come at last to the belief that she can’t help it. You may as well go in, however, and see what it is.”
Judith hastened away. She was a sensible-looking young woman, pale, with black hair and eyes, and was dressed in new and good mourning. Mrs. Gould was already in her lodger’s sitting-room. She had torn a feather from the small feather-duster hanging by the mantelpiece, had scorched the end, and was holding it to the unhappy lady’s nose. Judith dashed the feather to the ground.
“Don’t be so stupid, Mrs. Gould! What good do you suppose that will do? Get some water.”
The water was procured, and Judith applied it to the face and hands, the widow looking timidly on. As the lady revived, Mrs. Gould burst into tears.
“It’s my feelings that overcomes me, Judith,” said she. “I can’t abear the sight of illness.”
“You need not have been alarmed,” the invalid faintly said, as soon as she could speak. “For the last few months, since my health has been delicate, I have been subject to these attacks of faintness; they come on at any moment. I ought to have warned you.”
When fully restored they left her to herself, Mrs. Gould carrying away the tea-things; having first of all unlocked the lady’s trunk by her desire, and brought to her from it a small writing-case.
“Don’t go away, Judith,” the widow implored, when they reached the kitchen. “She may have another of those fits, for what we can tell—you heard her say she was subject to them—and you know what a one I am to be left with illness. It would be a charity to stop with me; and you are a lady at large just now.”
“I’ll go and get my work, then, and tell Margaret. But where’s the sense of your calling it a fit, as if you were speaking of apoplexy?” added Judith.
“When the girl came back—though, indeed, she was not much of a girl, being past thirty—Mrs. Gould had lighted a candle, for it was growing dark, and was washing the tea-things. Judith sat down to her sewing, her thoughts intent upon the lady upstairs.
“Who is she, I wonder?” she said aloud.
“Some stranger. Mrs. Fitch sent her down to me—I told Margaret about it this afternoon when you were out. I say, isn’t she young?”
Judith nodded. “I wonder if she is married?”
“Married!” angrily retorted Mrs. Gould. “If the wedding-ring upon her finger had been a bear it would have bit you. Where were your eyes?”
“All wedding-rings have not been put on in churches,” was the composed answer of the girl. “Not but that I daresay she is married, for she seems a modest, good lady; it was her being so young, and coming here in this sudden manner, all unprotected, that set me on the other thought. Where is her husband?”
“Gone abroad,” she said. “I made free to ask her.”
“Why does she come here?”
“I can’t tell. It does seem strange. She never was near the place in her life before this afternoon, she told me, and had no friends in it. She has been inquiring about the doctors———"
“That’s her bell,” interrupted Judith, as the bell hanging over Mrs. Gould’s head began to sound. “Make haste. I dare say she wants lights.”
“She has got them. The candles were on the mantelpiece, and she said she’d light them herself.”
A sealed note lay on the table when Mrs. Gould entered the drawing room. The lady laid her hand upon it.
“Mrs. Gould, I must trouble you to send this note for me. I did not intend to see about a medical man until to-morrow; but I feel fatigued and sick, and I think I had better see one to-night. He may be able to give me something to calm me.”
“Yes, ma'am. They live almost close by, the Greys. But, dear lady, I hope you don’t feel as if you were going to be ill!”
Mrs. Crane smiled. Her nervous landlady was rubbing her hands together in an access of trembling.
“Not ill in the sense I conclude you mean it. I do not expect that for these two months. But I don’t want to alarm you with a second fainting fit. I am in the habit of taking drops, which do me a great deal of good, and I unfortunately left them behind me, so I had better see a doctor. Was that your daughter who come up just now? She seemed a nice young woman.”
The question offended Mrs. Gould’s vanity beyond everything. She believed herself to be remarkably young-looking, and Judith was two-and-thirty if she was a day.
“No, indeed, ma'am, she’s not; and I have neither chick nor child,” was the resentful answer. “She’s nothing but Judith Ford, sister to the servant at the next door; and being out of place, her sister’s mistress said she might come there for a few days while she looked out. I’ll get her to carry the note for me.”
Mrs Gould took the note from the table, and was carrying it away without looking at it, when the lady called her back.
“You see to whom it is addressed, Mrs. Gould?”
Mrs. Gould stopped, and brought the note close to her eyes. She had not her spectacles upstairs, and it was as much as she could do to see anything without them.
“Why—ma'am! It—it—it’s to Mr. Carlton.”
The lady looked surprised in her turn. “Why should it not be to Mr. Carlton?” she demanded.
“But the Greys are sure and safe, ma'am. Such a thing has never been known as for them to lose one of their lady patients.”
Mrs. Crane paused, apparently in indecision. “Has Mr. Carlton lost them?”
“Well—no; I can’t remember that he has. But, ma'am, he attends one where the Greys attend ten.”
“When you were speaking this evening of the doctors, I nearly made up my mind to engage Mr. Carlton,” observed Mrs. Crane. “I think men of skill struggling into practice should be encouraged. If you have anything really serious to urge against him, that is quite a different thing, and you should speak out.”
“No, ma'am, no,” was the widow’s reply; “and I am sure it has been rude of me to object to him if your opinion lies that way. I don’t know a thing against Mr. Carlton; people call him clever. I am naturally prejudiced in favour of the Greys, for Mr. John has attended me ever since he grew up, as his father did before him. I’ll send this down to Mr. Carlton’s.”
“Let it go at once, if you please. I should like, if possible, to see him to-night.”
Mrs. Gould descended to the kitchen. On the dresser, staring her in the face when she entered, lay her spectacles. She put them on and looked at the superscription on the note.
“Well, now, that’s a curious thing, if ever there was one! ‘Lewis Carlton, Esq.!’ How did she know his name was Lewis? I never mentioned it. I couldn’t mention it, for I did not know it myself. Is his name Lewis?”
“For all I can tell,” responded Judith. “Yes,” she added, more decisively, “of course it is Lewis; it is on his door-plate. Perhaps Mrs. Fitch told her.”
“There! that’s it!” exclaimed the widow, struck with sudden conviction. “Mrs. Fitch has been speaking up for him, and that’s what has put her on to Mr. Carlton, and off the Greys. There was a traveller ill at the Red Lion in the winter, and he had Mr. Carlton. It’s a shame of Mrs. Fitch to turn round on old friends.”
“I can tell you where she got the named from, though perhaps Mrs. Fitch did speak for him,” cried Judith, suddenly. “There’s his card—as they call it—in that newspaper you lent her, ‘Mr. Lewis Carlton: Consulting Surgeon.’ She couldn’t fail to see it. Is she ill, that she is sending for him? She looks not unlikely to be.”
“I say, Judy, don’t go frightening a body like that,” cried the woman, in tremor. “She won’t be ill for these two months; but that nasty omnibus has shook her, and I suppose the faint finished it up. Oh, it rattles over the road without regard to folk’s bones. You’ll take this for me, won’t you, Judith?”
“I daresay!” returned Judith.
“Come, do; there’s a good woman! I can’t go myself, for fear her bell should ring. It’s a fine night, and the run will do you good.”
Judith, not unaccommodating, rose from her seat. “There, now!” she exclaimed, in a tone of vexation, as she took the note, “how am I to get my things? Margaret’s gone out, and she is sure to have bolted the back-door. I don’t like to disturb old Mrs. Jenkinson; the night’s coldish, or I’d go without my bonnet rather than do it.”
“Put on mine,” suggested Mrs. Gould. “You are welcome to it, and to my shawl too.”
Judith laughed; and she laughed still more when arrayed in Mrs. Gould’s things. The shawl did very well, but the bonnet was large, one of those called a “poke,” and she looked like an old woman in it. “Nobody will fall in love with me to-night, that’s certain,” said she, as she sped off.
Mr. Carlton’s house was situated at the other end of the town, just before the commencement of the Rise. It stood by itself, on the left; a. handsome white house, with iron rails round it, and a pillared portico in front. Judith ascended the steps and rang at the bell.
The door was flung open by a young man in livery. “Can I see Mr. Carlton?” she asked.
The man superciliously threw back his head, Judith’s large old bonnet did not tell in her favour. “Is it on perfessional business?” he questioned.
“Yes, it is.”
“Then perhaps, mem, you’ll have the obleegance to walk round to the perfessional entrance; and that’s on that there side.”
He waved his hand condescendingly to the side of the house. Judith complied, but she gave him a word at parting.
“Pray how much wages do you earn?”
“If ever I heered such a. question put to a gentleman?” cried the man in astonishment. “What is it to you?”
“Because 1 should judge that you get so much paid you for clothes, and so much for airs.”
Passing down the steps, and out of reach of sundry compliments he honoured her with in return, she went to the side, and found herself in front of a door with “Surgery” written on it. It opened to a passage, and thence to a small square room, whose walls were lined with bottles. A boy in buttons was lying at full length on the counter, whistling a shrill note, and kicking his heels in the air. The entrance startled him, and he tumbled off feet foremost.
It was but twilight yet, and not at first did he gather in Judith’s appearance; but soon the poke bonnet disclosed itself to view.
“Hulloa!” cried he. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I want Mr. Carlton. Is he at home?”
“No, he isn’t.”
“Then you must go out and find him. This note must be instantly given to him. A lady wants to see him to—night.”
“Then I’m afeard want must be the lady’s master,” returned the impudent boy. “Perhaps we might get this note tied on to the telegraph wires, and send it to him that fashion; there ain’t no other way of doing it. Mr. Carlton went off to London this morning.”
“To London!” repeated Judith, surprise checking her inclination to box the young gentleman’s ears. “When is he coming home again?”
“When his legs brings him. There! He’ll be home in a couple of days,” added the boy, dodging out of Judith’s reach, and deeming it as well to cease his banter. “His father, Dr. Carlton, was took ill, and sent for him. Now you know.”
“Well,” said Judith, after a pause of consideration, “you had better take charge of this note, and give it to him when he does come home. I don’t know anything else that can be done. And I’d recommend yon not to be quite so free with your tongue, unless you want to come to grief,” was her parting salutation, as she quitted the boy and the house.
CHAPTER II.HAPPILY OVER.
As Judith Ford went back through the lighted streets, the landlady of the Red Lion was standing at her door.
“Good evening, Mrs. Fitch”
“Why, who—why, Judith, it’s never you! What on earth have you been making yourself such a guy as that for?”
Judith laughed, and explained how it was that she happened to be out in Mrs. Gould’s things, and where she had been to. “After all, my visit has been a useless one,” she remarked, “for Mr. Carlton is away. Gone to London, that impudent boy, of his, said.”
“I could have told you so, and saved you the trouble of a walk, had I seen you passing,” said Mrs. Fitch. “His groom drove him to the Great Wennock station this morning, and called here as he came back for a glass of ale. Is the lady ill?”
“She does not seem well; she had a fainting-fit just after tea, and thought she had better see a doctor at once.”
“And Dame Gould could send for Mr. Carlton! What have the Greys done to her?”
“Dame Gould thought you recommended Mr. Carlton to the lady.”
“I!” exclaimed Mrs. Fitch, “Well, that’s good! I never opened my lips to the lady about any doctor at all.”
“It was her own doing to send for Mr. Carlton, and Mrs. Gould thought you must have spoken for him.”
“Not I. If I had spoken for any it would have been for the Greys, who are our old fellow townspeople; not but what Mr. Carlton is a nice pleasant gentleman, skilful too. Look here, Judith, you tell Dame Gould that when the time comes for the young lady to be ill, if there’s currant jelly wanted for her, or any little matter of that sort, she can send to me for it, and welcome. I don’t know when I have seen such a sweet young lady.”
Judith gave a word of thanks, and sped on towards Palace Street. She had barely rung the bell when she heard Mrs. Gould floundering down-stairs in hot haste. She flung open the door, and seized hold of Judith.
“Oh, Judith, thank Heaven you are come!, What on earth’s to he done? She is taken ill!”
“Taken ill!” repeated Judith.
“She is, she is, really ill; it’s as true as that you are alive. Where’s Mr. Carlton?”
Judith made no reply. Shaking off the timorous woman, and the shawl and bonnet at the same time, which she thrust into her hands, she sped up to the sitting-room. Mrs. Crane was clasping the arm of the easy-chair in evident pain; the combs were out of her hair, which now fell in wavy curls on her neck, and she moaned aloud in what looked like terror, as she cast her fair girlish face up to Judith. Never, Judith thought, had she seen eyes so wondrously beautiful; they were large tender brown eyes, soft and mournful, and they and their peculiarly sweet expression became fixed from that hour in Judith’s memory.
“Don’t be cast down, poor child,” she said, forgetting ceremony in her compassion. “Lean on me, it will be all right.”
She laid her head on Judith’s shoulder. “Will Mr. Carlton be long?” she moaned. “Cannot some one go and hurry him?”
“Mr. Carlton can’t come, ma'am,” was Judith’s answer. “He went to London this morning.”
A moment’s lifting of the head, a sharp cry of disappointment, and the poor head fell again and the face was hidden. Judith strove to impart comfort.
“They are all strangers to you, ma'am, so what can it matter? I know you cannot fail to like the Greys as well as you would Mr. Carlton. Nay, dear young lady, don’t take on so. Everybody likes Mr. John and Mr. Stephen Grey. Why should you have set your mind on Mr. Carlton?”
She lifted her eyes, wet with tears, whispering into Judith’s ear.
“I cannot afford to pay both, and it is Mr. Carlton I have written to.”
“Pay both! of course not!” responded Judith in a warm tone. “If Mr. Carlton can’t come because he is away and Mr. Gray attends for him, there’ll be only one of them to pay. Doctors understand all that, ma'am. Mr. Carlton might take Mr. Grey’s place with you as soon as he is back again, if you particularly wish for him.”
“I did wish for him, I do wish for him. Some friends of mine know Mr. Carlton well, and they speak highly of his skill. They recommended him to me.”
That explains it, thought Judith, but she was interrupted by a quaking, quivering voice beside her.
“What in the world will be done?”
It was Widow Gould’s, of course; Judith scarcely condescended to answer: strong in sense herself, she had no sympathy with that sort of weakness.
“The first thing for you to do is to leave off being an idiot; the second, is to go and fetch one of the Mr. Greys.”
“I will not have the Mr. Greys,” spoke the young lady peremptorily, lifting her head from the cushion of the easy-chair, where she had now laid it. “I don’t like the Mr. Greys, and I will not have them.”
“Then, ma'am, you must have been prejudiced against them!” exclaimed Judith.
“True,” said Mrs. Crane; “so far as that I have heard they are not clever.”
Judith could only look her utter astonishment. The Greys not clever! But Mrs. Crane interposed against further discussion.
“I may not want either of them, after all,” she said; “I am feeling easy again now. Perhaps if you leave me alone I shall get a bit of sleep.”
They arranged the cushions about her comfortably, and went down-stairs, where a half dispute ensued. Judith reproached Mrs. Gould for her childish cowardice, and that lady retorted that if folks were born timid they couldn’t help themselves. In the midst of it, a great cry came from above, and Judith flew up. Mrs. Gould followed, taking her leisure over it, and met the girl, who had come quickly down again, making for the front door.
“One of the Mr. Greys must be got here, whether or not,” she said in passing; “she’s a great deal worse.”
“But, Judy, look here,” were the arresting words of the widow. “Who’ll be at the responsibility? She says she won’t have the Greys, and I might have to pay them out of my own pocket.”
“Nonsense!” retorted Judith. “I’d not bring up pockets, if I were you, when a fellow-creature’s life is at stake. You go up to her; perhaps you can do that.”
Judith hastened into the street. The two brothers lived in houses contiguous to each other, situated about midway between Mrs. Gould’s and the Red Lion inn. Mr. John, generally called Mr. Grey, occupied the larger house, which contained the surgery and laboratory; Mr. Stephen the smaller one adjoining. Mr. Stephen, the younger, had married when he was only twenty-one, and he now wanted a year or two of forty; Mr. John had more recently married, and had a troop of very young children.
The hall door of Mr. John’s house stood open, and Judith went in, guided by the bright lamp in the fanlight. Too hurried to stand upon ceremony, she crossed the hall and pushed open the surgery door. A handsome, gentlemanly lad of sixteen stood there, pounding drugs with a pestle and mortar. Not perhaps that the face was so handsome in itself, but the exceeding intelligence pervading it, the broad, intellectual forehead, and the honest expression of the large, earnest blue eyes, would have made the beauty of any countenance. He was the son and only child of Mr. Stephen Grey.
“What, is it you, Judith?” he exclaimed, turning his head quickly as she entered. “You come gliding in like a ghost.”
“Because I am in haste, Master Frederick. Are the gentlemen at home?”
“Papa is. Uncle John’s not.”
“I want to see one of them, if you please, sir.”
The boy vaulted off, and returned with Mr. Stephen: a merry-hearted man with a merry and benevolent countenance, who never suffered the spirits of his patients to go down while he could keep them up. A valuable secret in medical treatment.
“Well, Judith? and what’s the demand for you?” he jokingly asked. “Another tooth to be drawn?”
“I’ll tell my errand to yourself, sir, if you please.”
Without waiting to be sent, Frederick Grey retired from the surgery and closed the door. Judith gave an outline of the case she had come upon to Mr. Stephen Grey.
He looked grave; grave for him; and paused a moment when she had ceased.
“Judith, girl, we would prefer not to interfere with Mr. Carlton’s patients. It might appear, look you, as though we grudged him the few he had got together, and would wrest them from him. We wish nothing of the sort: the place is large enough for us all.”
“And what is the poor young lady to do, sir? To die?”
“To die!” echoed Stephen Grey. “Goodness forbid.”
“But she may die, sir, unless you or Mr. Grey can come to her aid. Mr. Carlton can be of no use to her, he is in London.”
Mr. Stephen Grey felt the force of the argument. While Mr. Carlton was in London, the best part of a hundred miles off, he could not be of much use to anybody in South Wennock.
“True, true,” said he, nodding his head. “I’ll go back with you, Judith. Very young, you say? Where’s her husband?”
“Gone travelling abroad, Sir,” replied Judith, somewhat improving upon the information supplied by Mrs. Gould. “Is there no nurse that can be got in, sir?” she continued. “I never saw such a stupid woman as that Mrs. Gould is in illness.”
“Nurse? To be sure. Time enough for that. Frederick,” Mr. Stephen called out to his son, as he crossed the hall, “if your uncle comes in before I am back, tell him I am at Widow Gould’s. A lady who has come to lodge there is taken ill.”
Judith ran on first, and got back before Mr. Stephen. Somewhat to her surprise, she found Mrs. Crane seated at the table, writing.
“You are better, ma'am!”
“No, I am worse. This has come upon me unexpectedly, and I must write to apprize a friend.”
The perspiration induced by pain was running off her as she spoke. She appeared to have written but two or three lines, and was thrusting the letter into an envelope. Mrs. Gould stood by, helplessly rubbing her hands, her head shaking with a tremulous motion, as though she had St. Vitus’s dance.
“Will you post it for me?”
“Yes, sure I will, ma'am” replied Judith, taking the note which she held out. “But I fear it is too late to go to-night.”
“It cannot be helped: put it in the post at all risks. And you had better call on one of the medical gentlemen you spoke of, and ask him to come and see me.”
“I have been, ma'am,” replied Judith, in a glow of triumph. “He is following me down. And that’s his ring,” she added, as the bell was heard. “It is Mr. Stephen Grey, ma'am; Mr. Grey was not at home. Of the two brothers Mr. Stephen is the pleasantest, but they are both nice gentlemen. You can’t fail to like Mr. Stephen.”
She went out with the letter, glancing at the superscription. It was addressed to London, to Mrs. Smith. On the stairs she encountered Mr. Stephen Grey.
“I suppose I am too late for the post tonight, sir?” she asked. “It is a letter from the lady.”
Mr. Stephen took out his watch. “Not if you make a run for it, Judith. It wants four minutes to the time of closing.”
Judith ran off. She was light and active, one of those to whom running is easy; and she saved the post by half a minute. Mr. Stephen Grey meanwhile, putting the widow Gould aside with a merry nod, entered the room alone. Mrs. Crane was standing near the table, one hand lay on it, the other was pressed on her side, and her anxious, beautiful eyes were strained on the door. As they fell on the doctor an expression of relief came into her face. Mr. Stephen went up to her, wondering at her youth. He took one of her hands in his, and looked down with his reassuring smile.
“And now tell me all about what’s the matter?”
She kept his hand, as if there were protection in it, and the tears came into her eyes as she raised them to him, speaking in a whisper.
“I am in great pain: such pain! Do you think I shall die?”
“Die!” cheerily echoed Mr. Stephen. “Not you. You may talk about dying in some fifty or sixty years to come, perhaps; but not now. Come, sit down, and let us have a little quiet chat together.”
“You seem very kind, and I thank you,” she said; “but before going further, I ought to tell you that I am Mr. Carlton’s patient, for I had written to engage him before I knew he was away. I am came an entire stranger to South Wennock, and I had heard of Mr. Carlton’s skill from some friends.”
“Well, we will do the best we can for you until Mr. Carlton’s return, and then leave you in his hands. Are you quite alone?”
“It happens unfortunately that I am. I have just sent a note to the post to summon a friend. You see I never expected to be ill for the next two months.”
“And very likely you will not be,” returned Mr. Stephen. “When you shall have got half-a-dozen children about you, young lady, you will know what importance to attach to false alarms. Your husband is abroad, I hear?”
And she inclined her head in the affirmative.
But it was no false alarm. The lady got worse with every minute; and when Judith came back Mr. Stephen met her, coming forth from the bedroom.
“You must help me, Judith,” he said. “Dame Gould is utterly useless. First of all, look in the lady’s travelling trunk. She says there are baby’s clothes and other things there. Make haste over it.”
“I’ll do anything and everything I can, sir,” replied Judith; “but I’d make her useful. I have no patience with her.”
“I’ll make her useful in one way if I don’t in another. Where is she now?”
“Sitting on the stairs outside, sir, with her hands to her ears.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Stephen, and he went out to the widow.
“Mrs. Gould, you know Grote’s Buildings?”
“In course, sir, I do,” was the whimpered answer, as she rose. “Oh, sir, I’m shook!”
“Go there without delay: you can shake as you go along, you know. Ask for Mrs. Hutton, and desire her to come here to me immediately. Tell her the nature of the case.”
Mrs. Gould lost no time in starting, glad to be out of the house. She returned with a short, stout barrel of a woman, with grizzled hair and black eyes. She was attired in a light-coloured print gown, and went simpering into the room, carrying a bundle, and dropping curtsies to Mr. Stephen Grey. Mr. Stephen stared at the woman for a full minute, as if in disbelief of his own eyes, and his face turned to severity.
“Who sent for you, Mrs. Pepperfly?”
“Well, sir; please, sir, I came,” was the response, the curtseys dropping all the while. “You sent for Hutton, sir; but she were called out this afternoon; and I was a stopping at number three, and thought I might come in her place.”
“Hutton was called out this afternoon?”
“This very blessed afternoon what’s gone, sir, just as four o’clock was a striking from St. Mark’s church. Mrs. Gilbert on the Rise is took with her fever again, sir, and she won’t have nobody but Hutton to nurse her.”
Mr. Stephen Grey ran over the sisterhood in his mind, but could think of none available just then. He beckoned the woman from the room.
“Hark ye, Mother Pepperfly,” he said, in a stern tone. “You know your failing; new if you dare to give way to it this time, as you have done before, you shall never again nurse a patient of mine or my brother’s. You can do your duty—none better—if you choose to keep in a fit state to do it. Take care you do so.”
Mrs. Pepperfly squeezed out a tear. She’d be upon her Bible oath, if Mr. Stephen chose to put her to it, not to touch nothing no stronger than table beer. Mr. Stephen, however, did not put her to the ordeal.
There was sufficient hustle in the house that might; but by the morning quiet and peace had supervened; and Nurse Pepperfly, on her best behaviour, was carrying about, wrapped in flannel, a wee wee infant.
Judith had not left Mrs. Crane’s side during the night, and the latter appeared to be drawn to her by some attraction, to find comfort in her genuine sympathy.
“You have been a good girl, Judith,” Mr. Stephen said to her as he was leaving in the morning, and she went down to open the door for him.
“Will she do well, sir?” asked Judith.
“Famously,” answered Mr. Stephen. “Never had a safer case in my life. Give a look to Mother Pepperfly, Judith. I trust her as far as I can see her. I shall be back in a couple of hours.”
Things went on well during the day. Mrs. Pepperfly busied herself chiefly with the baby, nursing it by the fire in the sitting-room; Judith attended on the sick lady. In the afternoon, Mrs. Crane, who was lying awake, suddenly addressed her.
“Judith, how is it you are able to be with me? I thought the landlady told me you were in service.”
“Not just now, ma'am. I have been in service, but have left my place, and am stopping with my sister, at the next door, while I look out for another.”
“Does your sister let lodgings, as Mrs. Gould does?”
“A lady lives at the next door, a Mrs. Jenkinson,” was Judith’s reply, “and my sister is her servant. Margaret has lived with her going on for eleven years.”
“So that just now you are at liberty?”
“Quite so, ma'am.”
“See now how merciful God is!” spoke Mrs. Crane, placing her hands together in an attitude of reverence. “Last night when I began to feel ill, and thought I should have nobody about me but that timid Mrs. Gould, I turned sick with perplexity,—with fear, I may say,—at the prospect of being left with her. And then you seemed to be raised up for me, as it were on purpose, and can be with me without let or hindrance. None but those who have stood in need of it,” she added after a pause, “can know the full extent of God’s mercy.”
A glow, partly of pleasure partly of shame, came over Judith’s face as she listened. In a little corner of her inmost heart there had lurked a doubt whether it was all as straight as it ought to be with the young lady who had come there in so strange a manner—whether that plain gold ring on her finger had been a genuine wedding-ring, or but a false bauble placed there to deceive. The above reverential words of trust convinced Judith that the lady, whoever she might be, and whatever might be the mystery, was as honest as she was, and she took shame to herself for doubting her. No girl, living a life of sin, could so speak with unaffected simplicity of the goodness of God. At least, so felt Judith.
“I think, Judith, you must have been accustomed to attend on the sick?”
“Pretty well, ma'am. In my last place, where I lived four years, my mistress’s sister was bed-ridden, and I waited on her. She was a great sufferer. She died just three weeks ago, and they did not want me any more: that’s why I am changing places.”
“The mourning you wear is for her?”
“Yes it is, ma'am. Mr. Stephen Grey was her doctor, and never failed to come every day all those four years; so that I feel quite at home with him, if that is a proper expression for a servant to use when speaking of a gentleman.”
“What was the matter with her?”
“It was an inward complaint, causing her distressing pain. We were always trying fresh remedies to give her ease, but they did not do much good. I don’t fancy Mr. Stephen ever thought they would; but she would have them tried. Ah, ma'am! we talk about suffering, and pity it, when people are laid up far a week or two; but only think what it must be to lie by for years, and be in acute pain night and day!”
The tears had come into Judith’s eyes at the remembrance. Mrs. Crane looked at her. She had a large, full forehead, strongly marked. One, gifted with phrenological lore, would have pronounced her largely gifted with concentration and reticence. Good qualities when joined to an honest heart.
“Judith, Where was my work-box put?”
“It is here, ma'am, on the drawers.”
“Unlock it, will you. You will find my keys somewhere about. Inside the little compartment that 1ifts up, you will see a locket set round with pearls.”
Judith did as she was bid, and brought forth the locket. It was a charming little trinket of blue enamel, the gold ring round it studded with pearls, and a place for hair in the front. A very fine gold chain about two inches long was attached, so that it could be worn to a necklace, or pendant to a bracelet.
“Take it, Judith. It is for you.”
“Oh, ma'am!”
“That is my own hair inside; but you can take it out if you like, and put in your sweetheart’s. I daresay you have one.”
“A costly toy like this is not fit for me, ma'am. I could not think of taking it.”
“But it is fit for you, and I am glad to give it you; and I owe you a great deal more than that, for what I should have done without you I don’t know,” reiterated the invalid. “Put it up in your treasure-box, Judith.”
“I’m sure I don’t know how to say enough thanks,” spoke Judith in her gratitude. “I shall keep it to my dying day, dear lady, and store up the hair in it for ever.”
(To be continued.)
LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER III.—THE ENCOUNTER AT THE RAILWAY STATION.
“Hark! what hour can that be?”
The question came from Mrs. Crane. She had been dozing, and awoke with a start at the striking of the Widow Gould’s kitchen clock.
“It is eight, ma'am,” replied Judith from her seat near the bed.
“Eight! why, you told me the London train came in at seven.”
“To Great Wennock it does, or, rather, a quarter before it. The omnibus gets here about half-past seven. It is in, I know, ma'am, for I saw it taking a passenger through the town.”
“Then where can she be?—the—the person I sent for yesterday,” returned Mrs. Crane in excitement; “she would get the letter this morning, and might have come off at once. You are sure you posted it in time last night, Judith?”
“Quite sure, ma'am; but there will be another train in late to-night.”
Mrs. Crane lay for a little time in thought. Presently she spoke again: “Judith, do you think my baby will live?”
“I don’t see why it should not, ma'am. It is certainly very little, but it seems quite healthy. I think it would have a better chance if you would nurse it, instead of letting it be brought up by hand.”
“But I have told you I cannot,” said Mrs. Crane, and the tone bore a peremptory sound. “It would not be convenient to me. Mrs. Smith will see all about it when she comes, and it is on his account, poor little fellow, that I am impatient for her. I am so pleased it’s a boy.”
“Ma'am, do you think you ought to talk so much?” asked Judith.
“Why should I not?” quickly returned the invalid. “I am as well as well can be: Mr. Stephen Grey said this afternoon he wished all his patients did as well as I am doing. Judith, I am glad I had Mr. Stephen Grey. What a kind man he is! He did nothing but cheer me up from first to last.”
“I think that is the great secret why all Mr. Stephen’s patients like him so much,” observed Judith.
“I am sure I like him,” was the lady’s answer “Mr. Carlton could not have done better for me than he has done.”
The evening and night passed, bringing not the expected visitor, and the invalid began to display symptoms of restlessness. On the following morning Mrs. Smith arrived, having evidently travelled by the night-train. This was Sunday; the baby having been born early on the Saturday morning. At least, some one arrived; a hard-featured, middle-aged woman, who was supposed by the household to be the Mrs. Smith expected. Mrs. Crane did not say, and caused herself to be shut up with the stranger.
The sitting-room and bed-room, it has been remarked, communicated with each other. Each had also a door opening on to rather a spacious landing, spacious in proportion to the size of the house. At one end of this landing was a large window that looked out on the street; at the other end, opposite, was a closet, and the doors of the two rooms were on one side; the railings of the balustrades were opposite the doors. It is as well to explain this, as you will find later.
Mrs. Pepperfly and Judith sat in the front room, the sitting-room, the stranger being shut up with the invalid. Their voices could be heard in conversation, it almost seemed in dispute. Mrs. Smith’s tones were full of what sounded like a mixture of lamentation, complaint, persuasion, remonstrance; and the sick lady’s were angry and retorting. The nurse was of a constitution to take things coolly, but Judith was apprehensive for the effect of the excitement on the invalid. Neither of them liked to interfere, Mrs. Crane having peremptorily ordered them not to disturb her with her friend. Suddenly the door between the two rooms was thrown open, and this friend appeared.
The nurse was lying back idly in her chair, jogging the infant on her lap with all the might of her two knees, after the approved nurse fashion; Judith sat at the window crimping a little cap border with as silver knife. Mrs. Smith, who had taken off neither bonnet nor shawl, caught up the child, and carrying it to the window, examined its face attentively.
“It is not like her,” she remarked to Judith, jerking her head in the direction Of the bed-room.
“How can you judge yet awhile?” asked Judith. “It’s nothing but a poor little mite at present.”
“Mite? I never saw such a mite! One can hardly believe such an atom could be endowed with life.”
“You can’t expect a child born before its time to be a giant,” remarked Mrs. Pepperfly as she passed into the next room.
“Before its time, indeed!” irascibly echoed the stranger; “what business had she to be exposing herself to railway jerks and shaking omnibuses? Nasty dangerous things! The jolts of that omnibus sent me flying up to its top, and what must they have done by a slight young thing such as she is? Now, a mile of ruts to get over; now, a mile of flint stones! I think the commissioners of roads here must be all abed and asleep.”
“People are continually talking of the badness of the road between this and the Great Wennock Station,” observed Judith. “It is said that Mr. Carlton made a complaint to the authorities, telling them it was ruin to his horse and carriage to go over it. Then they had those flint stones laid down, and that has made it worse.”
“Who’s Mr. Carlton?”
“He is one of the medical gentlemen living down here.”
“And why couldn’t they attend to his complaint?”
“I suppose they did attend to it; they put the flint stones down in places afterwards, and they had done nothing to the road for years.”
“What has this child been fed on?” demanded Mrs. Smith, abruptly quitting the unsatisfactory subject of the roads.
“Barley-water and milk, half and half,” replied Judith. “It was a puzzle to Mrs. Pepperfly at first what to give it, as it’s so small.”
“I don’t like the look of her,” curtly returned the stranger, alluding to Mrs. Pepperfly.
“If we were all bought and sold by our looks, some of us would remain on hand, and she’s one,” said Judith. “But she has her wits about her; provided she keeps sober there’s not a better nurse living, and when people know her failing they can guard against it.”
“What are you? another nurse?”
“I am only a neighbour. But the lady took a fancy to me, and I said I would stop with her a few days. My home just now is at the next door, so I can run in and out. I am sure she is a lady,” added Judith.
“She is a lady born and bred, but she took and married as-as I think she ought not to have married. But she won’t hear a word said against him.”
“Will he be coming here?” continued Judith.
“It’s no business of mine whether he comes or not. They’ll do as they please, I suppose. Where’s this infant’s things? They must be made into a bundle; and some food prepared for it.”
“You are not going to take the baby away!” exclaimed Judith, looking all amazement.
“Indeed but I am. The trains don’t run thick on a Sunday; but there’s one leaves the station at seven, and I shall travel by it.”
“And you are thinking to take this little mortal all the way to London? said Judith, breathlesely.
“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t take it away, and there’s a cause why I should,” persisted Mrs. Smith; “whether it’s to London, or whether it’s elsewhere, is my affair, Wrapped in flannel and lying in my arms in a first-class carriage, it will take no more harm than in this room.”
Judith felt that it was not her place to interfere with Mrs. Crane’s arrangements, whatever they might be, or to put prying questions to the stranger before her, and she relapsed into silence.
“You were expected last night, ma'am,” said Mrs. Pepperfly, returning to the room from the inner chamber.
“I dare say,” was the curt answer, “but I couldn’t come. I travelled all night to come as soon as I did.”
“And you’ll travel all night again tonight?” questioned the nurse.
“It won’t kill me.”
At that moment Mr. Stephen Grey’s step was heard on the stairs. He went on at once to the bed-chamber by the direct door, not coming to the sitting—room; Mrs. Crane was flushed and feverish with excitement, and the surgeon saw it with surprise; he had left her so calm and well at his early visit that morning.
“What have you been doing to yourself?” he exclaimed.
“I feel a little hot,” was the answer, given in a half-contrite tone, “it is nothing; it will soon go off. The person I told you of is come, and she—she—" Mrs. Crane paused for a minute and then went on—“she lectured me upon being so imprudent as to travel, and I got angry with her.”
Mr. Stephen Grey looked vexed. “So sure as I have a patient going on unusually well, so sure does she go herself and upset it by some nonsensical folly or other. I will send you a composing draught; and now, my dear, understand me: I positively interdict all talking and excitement whatever for a day or two to come.”
“Very well,” she answered in a tone of acquiescence. “But let me ask you one thing—can I have the baby baptised?”
“Baptised! why should you wish it baptised? It is not ill.”
“It is going away to-day to be nursed.”
“Have you heard of a fit person to undertake it?” he rejoined, never supposing but the baby was to he sent to some one in the vicinity. “I wish you would nurse it yourself, better for you, and the child too.”
“I told you that circumstances do not permit me to nurse it,” was her answer; “and I am sure my husband would not be pleased if I did. I wish it to he baptised before it goes away; perhaps there is some clergyman or curate in the town who would kindly come in and do it.”
“I can arrange that,” said Mr. Stephen. “Only you keep quiet. What is the young giant’s name to be?”
“I must think of that,” said Mrs. Crane.
However, later in the morning, when church was over, and the Reverend William Lycett, curate of St. Mark’s, called to perform the rite, Judith went down to him and said that the sick lady had changed her mind with regard to having it baptised so soon, and was sorry to have troubled him. So Mr. Lycett, with a kind hope that both the lady and baby were going on satisfactorily, went away again. The event had caused quite a commotion in the little town, and its particulars were known from one end of it to the other.
The omnibus, so often referred to, allowed itself half an hour to start and jolt over the unpromising two miles of road. When ordered to do so, it would call for any passengers in South Wennock who might be going by it, and it was so ordered to call for Mrs. Smith. At a quarter past six,—for it liked to give itself plenty of time,—it drew up at Mrs. Gould’s house in Palace Street, and Mrs. Smith stepped into it with two bundles: one bundle containing the baby, the other the baby’s clothes.
It happened that she was the only passenger that Sunday evening; the omnibus therefore, not having a full load, tore and jolted along to its heart’s content, pretty nearly shaking Mrs. Smith to pieces. In vain, when she dared free a hand for a moment, did she hammer at the windows and the roof; but her hands had full occupation, the one taking care of the breathing bundle, the other clasping hold of the cushions, the woodwork, any part to steady herself. In vain she shriekcd out to the driver that her brains were being shaken out of her, herself battered to atoms; the driver was a phlegmatic man and rarely paid attention to these complaints of his passengers. He knew, shaken or not, they must go by him, unless they had a private conveyance; and the knowledge made him independent. The consequence of all the speed and jolting on this particular evening was, that the omnibus arrived at the Great Wennock station unusually early, twenty minutes before the up-train would start, and five minutes before the down-train was expected in.
Mrs. Smith, vowing vengeance against the driver and the omnibus, declared she would lay a complaint, and bounced out to do so. But the clerk at the station—and there was only one on duty that Sunday evening, and he a very young man—aggravatingly laughed in Mrs. Smith’s face at the account she gave of her bruises, and said the omnibus had nothing to do with him. Mrs. Smith, overflowing with wrath, took herself and her bundles into the first-class waiting-room, and there sat down. The room opened on one side to the platform, and on the other to the road, lately the scene of Mrs. Smith’s unpleasant journey.
Five minutes, and the down-train came steaming in. Some five or six passengers alighted, not more; the English as a nation do not prefer Sundays for making long journeys, and the train went steaming on again. The passengers all dispersed, save one; they belonged to Great Wennock; that one crossed the line when it was clear and came into the waiting-room.
It was Mr. Carlton, the medical gentleman whom the sick lady had wished to employ. He was of middle height, slender, and looking younger than his years, which may have been seven or eight-and-twenty; his hair and complexion were fair, his eyes a light blue, his features regular. It was a well-looking face, but singularly impassive, and there was something in the expression of the thin and closely-compressed lips not pleasing to many an eye. Altogether his appearance was that of a gentleman in rather a remarkable degree.
Discerning some one sitting there in the dusky twilight,—for the station generally neglected to light up its waiting-rooms on a Sunday night,—he lifted his hat momentarily and walked straight across to the door of egress, where he stood gazing down the road. Nothing was to be seen save the omnibus drawn up close, its horses steaming still.
“Taylor,” said Mr. Carlton, as the railway clerk came out whistling and took a general view outside, having probably nothing else to do, “do you know whether my groom has been here with the carriage?”
“No, sir, not that I have seen; but we only opened the station five minutes ago.”
Mr. Carlton retraced his steps indoors, glancing keenly at the middle-aged woman seated there. She paid no attention to him; she was allowing her anger to effervesce. It was too dark for either to discern the features of the other; a loss not felt, as they were strangers. He went again to the door, propped himself against its post, and stood peering down the South Wennock road, softly whistling.
“Dobson,” he called out, as the driver of the omnibus came in sight to look after his patient horses, “did you see my servant anywhere as you came along? I sent him orders to be here to meet the train.”
“Naw sir, I didn’t see nothing on him,” was Dobson'e reply. “Like to take advantage of the ‘bus, sir?—it be a-going back empty.”
“No, thank you,” replied Mr. Carlton, some sarcasm in his tone. “You had the chance of bumping me to a jelly once; I don’t intend to give it you a second time.”
“That was afore I knowed who your was, sir. I don’t bump our gentry. I takes care of my driving when I’ve got any of them inside.”
“They may trust you if they will. If my carriage is not here shortly, I shall walk.”
Dobson, seeing no chance of a customer, ascended to his seat, whipped up his horses, and set off home; his hat bobbing upwards with his speed, and his omnibus flying behind him.
By this time it wanted ten minutes to seven: the period, as Mrs. Smith had been informed, when she could get her ticket. She deposited the live bundle at the very back of the wide sofa, and went to procure it. Mr. Carlton turned in at the door again, whistling still, when a faint, feeble cry was heard to proceed from the sofa.
It brought him and his whistling to a standstill. He stood looking at the sofa, wondering whether his ears had deceived him. The cry was repeated.
“Why, bless my heart, if I don’t believe it is a child!” he exclaimed
Approaching the sofa, he dived into the wrappings and flannels, and felt something warm and soft. He could not see; the obscurity was too great, although a distant lamp from the platform shed its rays partially in. Mr. Carlton drew some wax matches from his pocket; struck one, and held its light over the face of the child. He had rarely in his life seen so small a one, and the little thing begun to cry as Mrs. Smith come in.
“So you have woke up, have you!” cried she. “It’s an odd thing to me that you could sleep through the doings of that wicked omnibus. Come along, baby; five minutes yet before we get into the train.”
“I thought magic must be at work, to hear a human cry from what looked like a packet of clothes,” said Mr. Carlton. “I lighted a match to make sure whether it was a child or a rabbit.”
“It is as much like a rabbit as a child yet, poor little thing; I never saw such a baby born.”
“It is not at its full time,” observed Mr. Carlton.
“Full time!” repeated Mrs. Smith, who had by no means recovered the equanimity that had been shaken out of her, and resented the remark as an offence. “Who are you, young men, that you should offer your opinion to me? What do you know of infants, pray?”
“At least as much as you, my good lady,” was the answer, given with unruffled equanimity. “I have brought plenty of them into the world.”
“Oh, then, you are a doctor, I suppose,” she said, somewhat mollified.
“Yes, I am a doctor; and, as a doctor, I will tell you that little specimen of humanity is not fit to travel.”
“I don’t say it is; but necessity has to do many things without reference to fitness.”
“When was it born?”
“Yesterday morning. Sir, have you any influence in this neighbourhood?”
“Why do you ask?” returned Mr. Carlton.
“Because, if you have, I hope you will use it to put down that dangerous omnibus. The way it jolts and rattles over the road is enough to kill anybody who’s inside of it. I went by it to South Wennock this morning, and that was bad enough, as the other passengers could testify; but in coming back by it this evening I did really think I should have lost my life. Jolting one’s head up to the roof, taking one’s feet off the floor, jolting one’s body against the sides and seat! I shall be sore all over for a week to come; and the more I knocked and called, the faster the sinner drove. And I with this baby to protect all the while.”
“It is a shame,” replied Mr. Carlton. “What surprises me is, that South Wennock does not rise against it. There’ll be some serious result one of these days, and then it will be altered.”
“The serious result has come,” wrathfully returned Mrs. Smith. “A young lady, hardly fit to travel in an easy carriage, went in the omnibus to South Wennock last Friday, and, the consequence was the birth of this poor little infant.”
“Indeed! And what of her?”
“Well, she is going on all right, as it happens; but it might have been just the other way, you know.”
“Mr. Carlton nodded. “One of the Messrs. Grey’s patients, I suppose? Was it young Mrs. Lipscome, of the Rise?”
“No, it was not, sir; and who it was don’t matter. Whether it was a lsdy-in-waiting to Queen Victoria or a poor peasant girl, the injury’s the same. And much that rascally omnibus cares.”
“Now then! Take seats for the up-train,” cried a man, thrusting in his head.
Mrs. Smith gathered her two bundles together, and went out. And Mr. Carlton crossed to the other door, for his ear had caught the sound of carriage wheels in the distance.
CHAPTER IV. AN ACCIDENT.
Dashing up with the speed of the omnibus came an open carriage, driven by a servant in livery. The man was the same who had been so supercilious to Judith Ford at Mr. Carlton’s residence; the carriage, a light, elegant vehicle, was the same spoken of by Mrs. Gould as the “cabrioily.”
Mr. Carlton stepped out of the station as it stopped, and peered at his servant, as well as the dusky night would permit. The man had transgressed against the rules of sobriety once or twice, and his master suspected the delay might have had its rise in the same cause now. But he seemed sober enough as he jumped down.
“What were the orders you received, Evan?”
“I’m very sorry to be late, sir; I can’t in the least make out how it was,” was the deprecating answer. “When I met the umnibus a-coming back, sir, I’m sure you might have knocked me down with a feather. I know I started in time, end-”
“No lie, Evan,” quietly interrupted Mr. Carlton. “You know you did not start in time.”
He motioned the man round to the other aside, ascending himself to the driver’s seat. It was not often Mr. Carlton took the reins; perhaps he still doubted his servant’s perfect sobriety on this night.
“You have not got the lamps lighted.”
“No, sir, I thought they’d not be wanted. And they wouldn’t be, neither, but for them clouds as is obscuring of the moon.”
Mr. Carlton drove off. Not quite with the reckless speed that characterised the omnibus, but pretty fast. The light carriage had good springs; those of the omnibus had probably been gone long ago. There was one smooth bit of road about midway between the two towns, and they had reached this, and were bowling along quickly, when, without any warning, the horse started violently and fell. Mr. Carlton and his man were both thrown out, and the shafts of the carriage were broken.
It was the work of an instant. One moment spinning along the road; the next, lying on it. Mr. Carlton was the first to rise. He was certainly shaken, and one of his legs seemed not quite free from pain; but there was no material damage. What had made the horse start he could not imagine; there was nothing to cause it, so far as he could see. Mr. Carlton went to his head and strove to raise him, but it was more than he could accomplish.
“Evan,” he called out.
There was no reply. Mr. Carlton turned to look for his man, and found him lying without motion on the ground. Evan appeared to be senseless.
“Well, this is a pretty state of things!” cried the surgeon aloud.
“What’s the to-do? What’s up?” exclaimed a voice in the rear. It came from a peasant woman who was approaching a gate that led to a roadside field. And at that moment the moon came out from behind its obscuring clouds, and threw its light upon the scene.
“Are there any men about?” asked Mr. Carlton. “I must have help.”
She shook her head. “There’s nobody about but me: my husband”—pointing to a hut just inside the gate-“is down with fever. Did the horse fall? Why—goodness save us! There’s a man a-lying there!”
“I must have help,” repeated Mr. Carlton. “Neither man nor horse can lie here.”
The woman stooped over the horse. “I don’t think he’s much hurt,” she said, after touching the animal here and there. “Some of them horses be as obstinate as mules after a fall, and won’t get up till it suits ’em to do it. May-be one of his legs be sprained. What caused it, sir?”
“That’s more than I know,” was the surgeon’s answer. “He was always sure-footed until to-night. His falling is to me perfectly inexplicable.”
The woman seemed to muse. She had left the horse, and was now regarding Evan. The man lay quite still, and she raised herself again.
“I don’t like them unaccountable accidents,” she observed in dreamy tone: “them accidents that come; and nobody can tell Why. They bode ill luck.”
“They bring ill luck enough, without boding it,” returned Mr. Carlton.
“They bode it too,” said the woman, with a nod of the head. “Take care, sir, that no ill happens to you in the next few hours or few days.”
“What ill should happen to me?” asked Mr. Carlton, smiling inwardly at the woman’s superstition.
“We can none of us tell beforehand, sir, what the ill hanging over us may be, or from what quarter it will come,” was the answer. “Perhaps you were going a journey?—I don’t know, sir, of course—or who you may be; but if you were, I should say halt in it, and turn aside from the road you were bound for.”
“My good woman, I do think you must be out of your mind!” exclaimed Mr. Carlton.
“No, I am not, sir: but perhaps I have observed more and keener than most folks do. I’m certain—I’m convinced by experience, that many of these accidents, these hindrances, are only warnings—if we was but wise enough to take ’em as such. You now, sir, were on your road to some place—"
“To South Wennock, a mile off,” interrupted Mr. Carlton, some satire in his tone.
“South Wennock; so be it, sir. Then what I’d say is, was I you I’d not go on to South Wennock: I’d rather turn myself round and go back whence I come. This may be sent as a warning to stop your journey there.”
But for the untoward and vexatious circumstances around him, the surgeon would have laughed outright. “Why, I live at South Wennock,” he exclaimed, raising his head from his man-servant, over whom it had been again bent. “But the question now is not what luck, good or ill, may be in store for me,” he added, turning to the horse, “but where and how I can get assistance. Here’s a helpless horse, and there’s a helpless man. First of all, can you bring me a little water.”
She went away without a word, and brought a brown pitcher full of it, and a small cup. Mr. Carlton took them from her.
“And now can you go to the Red Lion at South Wennock, and tell them to send the necessary aid?”
“I’m willing, sir. My husband won’t take no harm at being left: though it’s mighty ill he is.”
“Who attends him?”
“I’ve had nobody to him as yet. We poor folks can’t afford a doctor till things come to the very worst with us, and life’s almost on the ebb.”
“Which is unwise policy of you,” remarked Mr. Carlton. “Well, my good woman, you do this little service for me, and I’ll step in us soon as you bring assistance, and see what I can do for your husband.”
“Are you a doctor, sir?”
“I am. Let Mrs. Fitch send an easy carriage: and a couple of men had better come with it. But, I think as you do, that my horse is lying there in temper more than in real hurt.”
“Is he hurt, sir, do you think?” she asked, pointing to the men.
“I think he is only stunned. Make the best of your way for this help, there’s a good soul. Tell Mrs. Fitch it is for Mr. Carlton.”
The woman, strong and sturdy, strode away with a will that Mr. Carlton himself could not have surpassed, and was back again with all requisite aid, in a short space of time. Mr. Carlton had got his horse up then. It appeared to have sprained its leg, but to have received no other damage. Evan was still unconscious. The surgeon snatched a moment to go in and look at the women’s husband, whom he found suffering from low fever. He told her, if she would come to his house the following morning, he would give her certain medicines suitable for him.
Great commotion the damaged procession caused when it made its entry into South Wennock; greater commotion still at the dwelling of Mr. Carlton. The horse was led round to the stable and a veterinary surgeon sent for, and Mr. Carlton himself attended to his man. Evan had recovered consciousness during the journey, and his master found his injuries were but slight.
Mr. Carlton had remembered the value of appearance when he took this house,-one of more pretension than a young surgeon need have entered upon. On either side the entrance was a sitting-room: a rather fine staircase led above to o handsome drawing-room, and to spacious bed-rooms. The drawing-room and some of the bed-rooms were not furnished; but there was plenty of time for that.
Evan attended to, Mr. Carlton went down to the hall, and turned ine front; the other, a large low, bay window, looking on the garden, at the side of the house. Both the windows had the blinds drawn now, and the room was only lighted by fire. Mr. Carlton gave it a vigorous poke to stir it into a blaze, and rang the bell.
It was answered by a maid-servant, a respectable woman of middle age. This woman, Evan the groom, and a boy, comprised the household. The boy’s work was to carry out the medicines, and to stop in the surgery and answer callers at other times.
“I want Ben, Hannah.”
“Yes, sir; I’ll send him in. You’ll take something to eat, won’t you, sir?”
“I should like something; I have had nothing since breakfast this morning. What have you in the house?”
“There’s cold beef, sir, and there’s———”
“That will do,” interrupted Mr. Carlton; “the cold beef. Send Ben here.”
Ben made his appearance: the same young gentleman who had been insolent to Judith Ford on the Friday evening. He stood before his master the very picture of humility.
“Any messages or letters for me, Ben?”
“There haven’t been any letters, sir,” was Ben’s answer. “Two or three folks have been in to see you, but they went away again when they found you were out. And there came a message yesterday from Captain Chesney, sir, and another from him this morning. He was worser, the black man said, and in a dreadful way at your being away; and he telled the man to say, that if you weren’t with him to day, he should call in Mr. Grey.”
“He may call in the deuce if he likes,” was Mr. Carlton’s answer, spoken in momentary irritation. “Is that all, Ben?”
“It’s all, sir.”
Ben might have said with more correctness all that he remembered. He withdrew, and Mr. Carlton stood a moment in thought. Then he went to the hall and caught up his hat, just as Hannah was coming from the kitchen at the back with a tray in her hand. She looked surprised to see her master going out, thinking he was waiting to take the refreshment.
“When I come back,” he said to her. “You can put it ready.”
He took his way to the Rise, intending to pay a visit to the gentleman who had sent the irritable messages, Captain Chesney. Some doctors might not have been so ready to go off at an inconvenience to a patient, whom they know perfectly well to be in no sort of danger: Mr. Carlton himself would certainly not, for his disposition was more of a haughty than a complaisant one; but he was swayed by a different motive from any connected with his profession.
About three months previously, Captain Chesney, a post-captain on half-pay, had settled at South Wennock, removing to it from the neighbourhood of Plymouth. The house he took was called Cedar Lodge, a small white villa, standing back from the high road amidst a wilderness of a garden. Not that it deserved the name, “wilderness,” from being badly kept, but on account of the thick shrubs and trees that crowded it. It was excellently kept; for the old naval captain was a precise man, and would insist on things being neat and nice about him, however short the money might run that kept them so. Like many another captain in our navy, his means were at all times lamentably low.
The captain had three daughters, Jane, Laura, and Lucy. There was a wide difference in their ages: as is frequently the case when the father of a family serves his country, whether by sea or by land, and his absences from home are of long duration: but there’s no time to notice these young ladies yet, and their turn will come.
Labouring under frequent attacks of gout, Captain Chesney'e naturally hot temper had grown irritable and more irritable. The gout perhaps was the chief cause: certainly the irritability was much more marked when the gout was upon him. Accident had led to his calling in Mr. Carlton. When the captain first arrived at South Wennock, he was suffering, and he sent out his black servant, Pompey, an attached man who had been with him for years, to “bring back a doctor.” Pompey, a stranger to the place, made his inquiries and arrived at the house of Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey and Mr. Stephen were both out; but their assistant promised Pompey that one of them should attend before the day closed; and it was then late in the afternoon. Pompey went back with the message, and it put the captain into one of his fits of irritation. A doctor he wanted at once, and a doctor he’d have: and Pompey was ordered out again to find another. He went direct to Mr. Carlton’s, having noted the plate upon the door in returning from Mr. Grey’s: “Mr. Lewis Carlton, Consulting Surgeon.” Mr. Carlton was at home, and from that hour to this had attended Captain Chesney. The captain during the winter had had attack upon attack, and Mr. Carlton had been in the house most days; had become, so to say, intimate with the family.
Mr. Carlton proceeded up the Rise. Captain Chesney’s house was on the right, about half-way up the hill. Opening the gate, a winding path between the thick trees took him to the house door; and it was only through that path that a glimpse of the road could be caught from the lower windows. Before those windows was a sloping green lawn, to which they opened; and a flower garden lay on the side of the house. It was a pretty place, though small; in every way, save for its size, fitted for the abode of a gentleman.
Mr. Carlton glanced at the sitting-room windows, and saw a faint glimmer of fire. But a bright light burnt in the room above, the chamber of Captain Chesney.
“Not home from church yet,” murmured Mr. Carlton to himself, as he rang the bell. “Miss Chesney generally goes to that late one at the other and of the town. I wonder if—all—are gone?”
The honest black face of Pompey shone with delight when he saw who was the visitor. “Massa had been talking, only then, of sending him off for the other doctor, Mr. Grey,” he whispered; and Mr. Carlton with a haughty throw-back of his own head as he heard it,—for, somewhat curious to say, this irritation on the part of his patient tended to render him irritable,—stepped upstairs to the captain’s room.
The captain was in bed. Mr. Carlton had just brought him through one of his worst attacks of gout, and he was really progressing towards convalescence as fast as he possibly could. There was no need whatever for Mr. Carlton or any other doctor to visit him; but it was always during the period of recovery that Captain Chesney was most impatient and irritable. He was a short man, as are most sailors, with a pair of brilliant brown eyes, overhanging grey eyebrows, and grey hair. The daughter who was sitting with him, Laura Chesney, and whom he despatched from the room when he heard the step of the surgeon, had just such eyes, as brilliant and as beautiful.
Mr. Carlton took his seat between the bed and the fire, facing Captain Chesney, and waiting until that gentleman’s explosive anger should be over, before he proceeded to question his patient professionally.
“I could not help myself, Captain Chesney,” he quietly said when there was a lull in the storm; and it may be remarked that in the presence of the captain, Mr. Carlton retained his own personal suavity unruffled, however provoking the captain’s tongue might be. “I received a telegraphic message from my father, desiring me to go to town without a moment’s delay if I wished to see him alive. The hasty note I sent to you explained this.”
“And I might have died!” growled the captain.
“Pardon me, sir. Far from dying, I knew you were not in the least danger. Had you been so in ever so slight a degree, I should have requested one of the Messrs. Grey to attend you for me.”
“Had you not come in to-night I should have sent for them myself,” retorted the captain. “It’s monstrous to suppose I am to lie here in this pain with no doctor to come near me.”
“But, Captain Chesney, I feel sure the pain is nothing like what it has been. Have you not been up to—day?”
“No, I have not been up. And I don’t choose to get up,” added the irritable captain.
“Well, we will have you up tomorrow, and you will be all the better for it,” said the surgeon soothingly.
“Ugh!” grunted the captain. “Did you find your father dead?”
“No. I am glad to say I found him a trifle better than he had been when they telegraphed for me. But his life, I think, cannot be much prolonged. The obligation to attend his summons promptly; to see him, if possible, before death, lay urgently upon me, Captain Chesney; for he and I had been at variance,” continued Mr. Carlton, vouchsafing a piece of confidence into which he was rarely betrayed.
It was nothing to Captain Chesney. His medical attendant was his medical attendant, and nothing else; none less likely than the haughty old man to make of him even a temporary friend.
“He has not been a good father to me,” resumed the surgeon, looking dreamily into the fire. “Anything but that. And I lost my mother when I was an infant. But for that loss I might be different from what I am.”
“Men in this life are mostly what their own actions make them, sir; without reference to their father and mother,” returned the captain in a hard tone.
“Ah,” said Mr. Carlton. “But I meant with regard to happiness. You don’t know what my childhood and youth were—wanting my mother. Had she lived, it would have been so different.”
“Is your father a poor man?” asked the captain, taking a momentary interest in the question.
“Oh dear no. He is a rich one. And I "—Mr. Carlton suddenly laid pointed emphasis on the words—“am his only son, his only child.”
“I think that physic ought to he changed.”
The remark recalled Mr. Carlton to the present. He stood up, reached the medicine bottle pointed to by Captain Chesney, and was the composed professional attendant again. A very few minutes, and the visit ceased.
As Mr. Carlton left the chamber, the captain caught hold of the silken ribbon tied to his bedstead, that communicated with the bell-rope, and rang a peel loud enough to awaken the seven sleepers. It was for Pompey to show the doctor out; and Pompey generally was favoured with this sort of peal.
Mr. Carlton closed the bed-room door, stepped along the corridor, and met a girl, young and beautiful, who appeared at the door of another room. It was Laura Chesney, and her luminous dark eyes were raised to Mr. Carlton as he took her hand, and then were dropped behind the dark lashes which closed on her hot cheek.
A hot cheek then; a cheek like a burning rose. That his presence called those blushes none could doubt; and in Mr. Carlton’s low tones, as he addressed her, there was a trembling tenderness which told its own tale. Never man loved woman more passionately than he, the surgeon, had learnt to love Laura Chesney.
“Oh, Laura! I did not expect this. I thought you were out.”
“No. Jane and Lucy went to church, but I stayed with papa. When did you return?” she softly whispered.
“To-night only. Laura!” he continued, his tone one of wild fervour, “to meet you thus, unlooked-for, seems like a sudden glimpse of heaven.”
One lingering pressure of the hands, and then Mr. Carlton was on his way down again, for Pompey had appeared on the scene. Laura listened for the closing of the hall door; for the last echoes of the footfalls on the gravel-path, footfalls that for her ear were as the sweetest music; and when they had died away to silence, she heaved a sobbing sigh, born of intense emotion, and stepped on to her father’s room.
Just as Mr. Carlton had gone through the gate, two ladies came up to it—or, rather, a lady and a little girl. He was passing them with merely a word of salutation, a lift of the hat, when the lady stopped, and addressed him in low and gentle tones.
“You are back then, Mr. Carlton. Have you seen papa?”
“I have been paying him a visit now, Miss Chesney. He is very considerably better. The pain has not gone, but I am sure it is nothing like what it was, even when I left. A day or two, and he will, I hope, be downstairs again.”
The little girl came round to him with a dancing step. “Mr. Carlton, I want you to get papa well soon. He has promised when he is well to take me out for a whole day’s holiday.”
“Very well, Miss Lucy,” answered the surgeon, in a merry tone. “I’ll get him well with all due speed, for the sake of your whole day’s holiday. Good night, young lady; good night, Miss Chesney.”
He held the gate open for them to pass through, lifted his hat again, closed the gate after them, and went on down the road. The moon had grown brilliantly bright, and he glanced up at it. Not in reality to look at it, for he had plunged into deep thought. The few words he had spoken to Captain Chesney had brought vividly before him his past life; its good and ill doings, its discomforts, its recklessness, its sins. His father, who was in the same profession as himself, a surgeon, in large practice in a populous but not desirable quarter of London, lying eastward, had been rather given to sins and recklessness himself, and no good example had our been placed before the boy, Lewis. Had his mother lived, as he remarked to Captain Chesney, things would have been widely different. Allowed to have his own way in childhood, allowed to have it in youth and in early manhood, insomuch as that no control or supervision was exercised over him, no fatherly guidance was extended to him, it was little wonder that he got into various dangers and difficulties; and, as a sequence, into displeasure with his father. When an array of debts was brought home to stare old Mr. Carlton in the face, he flew into a terrible passion, and swore that he would not pay them. A half peace was patched up after a while; the debts were settled, and Mr. Carlton the younger established himself at South Wennock; but the father and son still continued much at variance, no cordiality existing between them. Now the thing was altered. Mr. Carlton senior on a bed of sickness was quite a different man from Mr. Carlton in rude health, and he had allowed himself to be fully reconciled to his son. He had shown him his will, in which he, Lewis, who named sole heir; and he had hinted at the good round sum laid by in bank securities. And Mr. Carlton stepped on now, dreaming a glowing dream; a dream that had become the one wild hope of his life—a marriage with Laura Chesney.
His supper was laid ready when he got home. Before sitting down to it, he drew three or four letters from his pocket, took them from the envelopes, and began to look over them as if for the purpose of sorting.
“I must keep that,” he said to himself, glancing down the writing of the one; “these I suppose may be burnt. Stay, though—I’ll have my supper first.”
He sat down before the tray and cut himself wine meat. Barely had he begun to eat it when Ben came in with a face of contrition, holding a note in his hand.
“What now, boy?” asked Mr. Carlton.
“I’m sorry I forgot it, air, when you asked me. I put it in the letter-rack in the surgery, and it clean slipped my memory. It was brought here, sir, the same night that you went away.”
Mr. Carlton, laying down his knife and fork, opened the note and ran his eyes over its contents. Ben, who had gone away, heard his master shouting to him.—
“Come beck, sir! Who brought this?”
Ben could not tell who brought it: except that it was a woman with a big bonnet on; a bonnet as big as a house.
Mr. Carlton read the note again, read it attentively. Then he rose, hastily sorted the letters on the table, putting the one which he wished to preserve into its envelope, and throwing the rest indiscriminately into the fire. "I'll take this down at once and then it will be safe," he said to himself, alluding to the letter he had preserved. "If I don't keep it as a proof, the old man, when he gets well, may be for saying that he never wrote it."
The "old man" thus somewhat irreverently alluded to, was Mr. Carlton's father. Mr. Carlton carried the letter down-stairs to a private safe and locked it up. When he returned to the sitting-room he put his hand in his pocket for the note just brought to him by his servant-boy, and could not find it. It was not in any of his pockets, it was not on the table; and Mr. Carlton came to the conclusion that he had burnt it with the rest.
"How stupid I am!" he exclaimed. "What was the number, now? Thirteen, I think. Thirteen, Palace Street. Yes, that was it."
He passed into the hall without further delay, put on his hat, and left the house. Hannah heard him, and went into the parlour to remove the tray.
"I never see such patients as his!" she exclaimed wrathfully, when she found her master's supper had been interrupted midway. "They can't even let him get his meals in peace."
(To be continued.)
LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER V.WAS THE HOUSE HAUNTED?
The moon shone brightly on the long street of South Wennock, as Mr. Carlton the surgeon stepped along it with a fleet foot. He was on his way to the house in Palace Street, number thirteen.
The widow herself came to the door in answer to his ring. She dropped a curtsey when she saw who stood there.
“Is this Mrs. Gould’s?”
“Yes, sir; if you please, sir. I am Mrs. Gould, sir.”
“I have just opened a note, on my return from London; one that was left at my house a day or two ago; requesting me to call here to see a patient,” said Mr. Carlton. “A Mrs.—Mrs.———
“Mrs. Crane, sir,” said the widow, supplying the name for which Mr. Carlton appeared at fault. “It’s all happily over, sir, and she is doing well.”
Mr. Carlton stared at her as if he were thunderstruck. “Over!” he repeated. “Happily over! Why she-I understood—if I read her note aright—did not expect it for two months to come!”
“No more she didn’t, sir, and it was all that omnibus’s doings. It pretty near shook the life out of her.”
“Omnibus!” he returned, seeming completely at sea. “What omnibus? what are talking of?”
“Perhaps you don’t know the circumstances yet, sir,” returned the widow. “The lady arrived here from London, sir, a stranger, and was recommended by Mrs. Fitch to my apartments. So young, she looked, quite a girl———"
“But about her illness?” interposed Mr. Carlton, whose time was being wasted.
“I was coming to it, sir. Afore she had well done her tea that same evening, she got ill: the omnibus had shook her frightfully, she said—and you know what that omnibus is yourself, sir. Instead of getting better she got worse, and early the next morning the baby was born. Such a mite of a baby, sir!” added Mrs. Gould in a confidential tone. “I have seen many a wax-doll bigger.”
A conviction came into the surgeon’s mind that the mite of a baby he had seen at Great Wennock Station, that evening, must be the one in question. “Who attended?” he inquired.
“Mr. Stephen Grey. But he only attended for you, sir, I believe, as the lady wished to have you. She had been recommended to you.”
“Recommended to me!”
“Well, yes, sir; we understood her to say so. She’ll explain to you herself, no doubt. Of course, we can’t but think the circumstances altogether are somewhat strange.”
“Is she doing well?”
“Couldn’t be doing better. Will you walk up, sir?”
The colloquy had taken place at the open door; the widow standing inside, Mr. Carlton out. He made a movement to enter, but stopped in hesitation.
“It is late to disturb her to-night. She may be asleep.”
“She is not asleep, sir. Leastways she wasn’t five minutes ago, when I went up to get Pepperfly down to her supper, which she’s now having with me in the kitchen. I daresay she’d like you to go up, sir, and to know that you are back again.”
Ho went in, leaving his hat on the stand that stood in the passage. Mrs. Gould ran briskly towards the kitchen.
“Just one moment, sir, while I get a light, for there’s none upstairs,” she said in a tone of apology for leaving him waiting. “When the nurse came down Mrs. Crane sent the candle away by her, saying she’d rather be without it.”
Passing the parlour door and the room behind it—which room was a bed-chamber, and Mrs. Gould took the opportunity of sleeping in it when her permanent lodger was absent—she tripped into the kitchen, a very small apartment built out at the back, seized the candle on the table, by which Mrs. Pepperfly was eating her supper, unceremoniously left that lady in the dark, and was back in an instant to marshal Mr. Carlton up the stairs. Arrived at the door of the sitting room, he took the light from her hand.
“That will do, thank you, Mrs. Gould,” he said, sinking his voice to a whisper. “I had better go in alone. She may have dropped asleep.”
Mrs. Gould was nothing loth to be dismissed. She had been disturbed at her supper and was glad to return to it. In consequence of her having gone to church that evening, the meal was being taken later than usual. She closed the door on Mr. Carlton, leaving him alone.
He passed through the sitting-room, softly opened the door of the bed-chamber and entered it, shading the light with his hand. The chamber was quite still, and he believed Mrs. Crane to be alone. In point of fact, however, Judith was sitting at the extreme end of it, behind the bed-curtains, drawn round that side of the bed, and at the foot. Quiet as his movements were, they awoke Mrs. Crane, who had fallen into a doze, and she looked round with a start, and raised her head—awe are all apt to do when suddenly awakened, especially in illness.
Mr. Carlton put down the light, approached the bed, and addressed her. But ere he had said many words or she had scarcely responded, a sound, as of a rustling movement on the other side of the bed, caught his ear.
“What is that?” he abruptly called out.
“What is what?” repeated the invalid, whose ears had not been so quick as his own.
Mr. Carlton stepped round the bed. “Is any one here?” he asked.
There appeared to he no one, for the question elicited neither sound not answer. Sufficient light came from the candle to enable him to discern a second door on that side. He drew it open: it was pushed to, but not latched, and the moonlight streamed full upon the lending from the staircaise window. But Mr. Carlton could neither see nor hear any one, and he came to the conclusion that he had been mistaken.
“I thought I heard some one in the room,” he said, in a tone of apology, as he returned to the chamber.
“Indeed there is no one here,” said the sick lady. “The nurse went down to her supper. It must have been in the next house: we hear the noises there nearly as plainly as though they were in this.”
“That was it, then,” said Mr. Carlton.
You will be at no loss, however, to understand that the noise had been caused by Judith. Finding it was Mr. Calton who had entered, and not deeming it right to make a third at an interview between a doctor and his patient, she had hastened to escape through the half-opened door, near to which she was sitting. Her slippers were entirely of list—for Judith Ford had been furnished with all the requisites for a sick-mom in her last place—and the stairs were carpeted, and she ran swiftly and silently down them, unconscious of the commotion she had so innocently caused. Mrs. Crane had not known she was there; in fact, it was but a minute or two previously that Judith had entered. She, Judith, made her way to the kitchen, where Mrs. Gould and the nurse were in the full enjoyment of cold boiled bacon and pickled onions, by the light of a fresh candle.
“Where on earth did you spring from?” exclaimed the widow.
“From upstairs,” replied Judith.
“I never heard you come in. I thought you were keeping house next door, while your sister had her Sunday evening out.”
“So I was, but Margaret has come home now, and I just stepped in to see if I could do anything. I saw you two were at supper as I passed the window, and didn’t disturb you. Mrs. Crane was asleep, however, when I got upstairs, and Mr. Carlton has come in now.”
“I say, Judith,” cried the widow eagerly, “did Mr. Carlton say anything to you about the accident?”
“Mr. Carlton did not say anything to me at all. He did not see me. As soon as I knew who had come in, I stole away quietly. What accident?”
“There has been a shocking accident tonight to him and his carriage. They were talking about it in the bar, at the Cross-Keys, when I went for our supper beer.”
“An accident to Mr. Carlton?”
Mrs. Gould nodded. She had just taken a large onion in her mouth, and could not make it convenient to speak immediately.
“It happened as he was coming from Great Wennock, where his servant had took his carriage to meet him at the train,” she presently resumed. “The carriage was overturned and smashed to pieces, and his horse and servant were both killed.”
'“How dreadful!” involuntarily spoke Judith.
“I was just telling Mrs. Pepperfly of it, when the ring came to the door, and I assure you, Judy, when I opened it and saw Mr. Carlton hisself standing there, it did give me a turn. Me and Mrs. Pepperfly had been wondering whether he wasn’t killed too—for nobody seemed to know how it was with him at the Cross-Keys—and there stood he! I couldn’t make bold to ask questions, for he has the character of being one of them proud men that won’t brook none. At any rate he’s not dead. I say, Mrs. Pepperfly, don’t you think you ought to go upstairs while he’s there?”
Mrs. Pepperfly, fond of her supper at least in equal degree with the widow, resented the suggestion, and held up her plate, in a defiant spirit, for some more bacon.
“If he wants me he can ring for me,” was her answer, curtly delivered. “How is your face to-night, Judith?”
“Well,it has been very painful all the evening. I think I shall go home and get to bed,” continued Judith. “It may become easier there.”
She did not linger, but bade them night and hastened away. She had suffered much from tooth-ache or face-ache the last day or two. Mrs. Pepperfly and the widow sat on at their supper, until disturbed by the departure of Mr. Carlton. He had not remained long.
Of course tales never lose by carrying, especially if they are bad ones; and that you all know. The current report of the accident in South Wennock that night was precisely the one mentioned by Mrs. Gould—that Mr. Carlton’s carriage was smashed to pieces and his horse and man were killed. On the following morning, however, things were found to be looking a little brighter: the groom, under his master’s treatment, was progressing quickly towards recovery, the horse’s sprain was going on well, and the carriage had gone to the coachmaker’s to be repaired.
Mr. Carlton had to make his visits on foot that day. Towards the middle of it, in passing through High Street, he encountered Mr. Stephen Grey. The two had never met professionally, but they knew each other sufficiently well to nod in passing. Mr. John Grey had more than once been in attendance in conjunction with Mr. Carlton, but it happened that Mr. Stephen had not. Each stopped simultaneously now.
As Mr. Stephen Grey had remarked casually to Judith the previous Friday, there was plenty of room for Mr. Carlton in South Wennock as well as for themselves. Indeed, the death of their brother Robert, combined with the increasing size of the place, had caused the practice to be more than John and Stephen Grey and their assistant could manage, therefore they felt not a shade of jealousy of the new surgeon, who had come to set up amidst them. Honourable, fair-dealing, right-minded men were the brothers Grey, entirely above rankling spite and petty meanness.
Mr. Stephen Grey had halted to speak of Mrs. Crane. He had been happy to attend her, he said, and would now resign her into the hands of Mr. Carlton.
“She is doing quite well,” remarked Mr. Carlton.
“Quite so,” said Mr. Stephen Grey, who had taken the remark as a question. “I have not long come from her. If you will step down there with me know, I will explain matters, and———"
“Would you oblige me by not giving up charge until to-night or to-morrow morning?” interrupted Mr. Carlton. “What with the confusion caused by last night’s accident, and the patients who have grown impatient at my absence and are exacting double attention, I am so busy to-day that I don’t know which way to turn. Before I take Mrs.—Mrs. What’s the name?”
“Crane.”
“Mrs. Crane. It is not a difficult name to remember, and yet it seems to slip from me. Before I take her from your hands I should wish to meet you there, just for explanation, and I here really not time for it now. When I reached home last evening and read the note she had sent to me on Friday last, I went to call, but it was late, she seemed drowsy, and I did not undertake charge. Either to-night or tomorrow morning, Mr. Grey, I shall have the pleasure of meeting you.”
“Whichever may be convenient to you,” returned Mr. Stephen. “It’s quite the same to me.”
“To-night, then, at seven,” said Mr. Carlton. “If I find that I cannot by any possibility get there”—he paused in consideration—“why then, it must be left until to-morrow morning, at ten. But I hope I shall be there this evening. She seems young, this lady.”
“Quite young. She says she’s two-and-twenty, but I should not have thought her so much. How did you manage to meet with that unpleasant accident?”
“I don’t know any more than you know, who were not present. I fancied the horse shied; but it all happened so swiftly I could not be sure. If he did shy, it was very slightly, and I saw nothing that could have induced it; but why he should have fallen, or over what, is entirely unexplainable. It was on that smooth bit of road; the only smooth bit there is, midway between here and Great Wennock. Evan is doing well, and as to the home, he is very slightly injured.”
“The report in the town was, that you were all done for, all killed together; you, the groom, horse, phaeton, and all.”
Mr. Carlton laughed. It was difficult to resist the good-humour of Mr. Stephen Grey. And so they parted, each walking a different way.
At seven precisely that evening Stephen Grey was at Mrs. Crane’s, waiting for Mr. Carlton. Mrs. Crane was flushed, and appeared to be a little feverish.
“There has been too much chattering going on,” he observed to Judith, who was sitting in the front room.
“She will talk, sir,” answered Judith. “Feeling well, as she does, I suppose it’s natural.”
“But not expedient,” he returned. “Where’s the nurse?”
“She was here not two minutes before you came in, sir. Perhaps she’s gone down to get something.”
Mr. Stephen rang the bell, and the nurse was heard puffing up in answer. She was sure to puff when going upstairs, however slow her pace might be.
“Mrs. Pepperfly, how’s this? You have allowed your charge to talk too much.”
“Well, sir, and she will talk,” was Mrs. Pepperfly’s answer, nearly the same as the one given by Judith. “She’s all right, sir; a little hot maybe to-night; but it’s no harm: she’s too young and healthy for harm to come anigh her, through a bit of talking.”
“I’ll not have her talk until she is stronger,” said Mr. Stephen. “You must stop it. I must send her in a composing draught now, as I did last night.”
Mr. Stephen Grey gave Mr. Carlton more grace than most busy medical men would have given—waiting for him until a quarter past seven. After his departure, Judith went in home; her face was paining her very much; and Mrs. Pepperfly stopped on guard. Scarcely had she gone when Mrs. Crane called to her from the next room.
“Judith. Come here, Judith. I want you.”
“Now, mum, you are not to talk,” cried Mrs. Pepperfly, hastening in. “Mr. Stephen have been a blowing of me up like anything, for suffering it. He as good as said it was my fault.”
Mrs. Crane laughed; laughed out merrily, the nurse’s tone was so resentfully serious. “Oh, well, I’ll be good,” she said. “But I do want to speak to Judith for a minute. Is she not there?”
“No, mum, she’s gone in home—and Mr. Stephen had better have blown her up instead of me; for I’m sure it’s to her you talk. Settle yourself just for a wink or two of sleep, there’s a dear lady.”
About eight o’clock the nurse was called down to supper. It was her usual hour for taking it, and she had been exceedingly wrathful the previous night at its having been delayed; the wrath, perhaps, causing the widow to get it ready punctually on this. Almost immediately afterwards Mr. Carlton arrived in a hot heat. He had walked from the Rise, he said to Mrs. Gould, who opened the door to him, and was sorry Mr. Stephen Grey had gone. The truth was, Mr. Carlton need not have missed the appointment, but he had lingered at Captain Chesney’s. In Laura’s society the time seemed to have wings. Mrs. Gould attended him upstairs, for he said he would see the patient, and then she went down again.
Mr. Carlton had not been talking with the invalid many minutes when a ring at the bell was heard, and somebody ascended the stairs. The surgeon went into the sitting room, possibly thinking it might be Mr. Stephen Grey. It was, however, Mrs. Pepperfly.
“It’s the draught, please, sir,” said she.
“Draught?” he repeated, taking a small bottle from her hand. “What draught? One that Mr. Stephen Grey has sent in?”
“Yes, sir, the sleeping draught. He said she was excited to-night through talking, and must take one.”
Mr. Carlton undid the paper, took out the cork, and smelt it. “How strongly it smells of oil of almonds!” he exclaimed.
“Do it, sir?”
“Do it! why, can’t you smell it yourself?” he returned. And once more taking out the cork, which he had replaced, he held the phial towards her.
“Yes, sir; but I have got a cold. And when I does have them colds upon me, my nose ain’t worth a rush.”
The surgeon was still occupied with the draught, smelling it. Then he tasted it, just putting his finger to the liquid and that to his tongue.
“Extraordinary!” he remarked, in an undertone. “Why should Grey be giving her this? Here, take possession of it, nurse,” he added. “It is to be given the last thing.”
He returned to the bed-room as he spoke, and Mrs. Pepperfly placed the phial on the cheffonier, where other medicine bottles were arrayed. Then she put her head inside the bed-chamber. Mr. Carlton was standing talking to the sick lady.
“Do you want anything, please, ma'am?”
“Nothing at present,” replied Mrs. Crane. “You can go down.”
The nurse did as she was bid, and not long afterwards Mr. Carlton said good-night to Mrs. Crane, and passed through the sitting room to take his departure. As he went out on the landing to descend the stairs he saw what he thought was a face, leaning against the wall by the bed-room door and staring at him; a man’s face, with thick black whiskers; a strange face, looking stern, white, and cold in the moonlight. Mr. Carlton was of remarkably strong nerve—a bold, fearless man; but the impression this made upon him was so great that for once in his life he was startled.
“Who and what are you?” he whispered, his voice insensibly assuming a tone of awe, of shuddering terror: for in good truth that face did not look like any earthly one that Mr. Carlton had ever in his life seen.
There was no reply; there was neither movement nor sound. Uncertain whether the moonlight was not playing him some fantastic trick, the surgeon strode back to the room, brought out the solitary candle and threw its rays around.
Not a soul was there; neither man nor woman, neither ghost nor spirit. And yet Mr. Carlton felt certain that a face had been there. An unaccountable feeling, vague superstition mixed with real fear, came over him and shook him as he stood; and yet I say he was by nature a fearless man, and perhaps this was the first time in his remembrance that such terror had assailed him. He threw the light around the landing; he threw it down the stairs; there was no upper story; but nothing was to be seen, and all was silent and still. Carrying the light still, he went into the bed-room by the door on the landing and threw its rays there. Mrs. Crane glanced up from the bed in surprise.
“Were you looking for anything?” she asked.
“Nothing particular. Good night.”
He went straight on to the sitting-room through the intervening door, glancing around him still into every nook and corner, and put the candle back on the mantel-piece whence he had taken it—for Mrs. Crane rather liked lying in the dark. Then he wiped his hot face and descended the stairs, willing to persuade himself that he had been mistaken.
“I think I must be a fool,” he muttered. “What has come over me to—night? Is the house haunted?”
Soon, all too soon, ere ten o’clock had struck, the house was haunted. Haunted by a presence that had no business there—Death.
CHAPTER VI.THE COMPOSING DRAUGHT.
It was Mrs. Gould who ran up to open the door for Mr. Carlton. He spoke with her a minute or two, and then departed, she returning to the kitchen and the society of Mrs. Pepperfly.
It may strike the reader that all these details have been given at some length; but, as was afterwards found, every little event of that ill-starred night bore its own significance.
Mrs. Gould and the nurse were in the full title of gossip: the former leaning back in her chair at her case before the supper-table, on which stood a suspicious-looking green bottle, its contents white, of which both ladies, if the truth may be told, had been partaking. The latter was bending over the fire, stirring something in a saucepan, when there came a loud, sharp rap at the kitchen window. Both started and screamed: the widow clapped her glass and teaspoon down on the table, and Mrs. Pepperfly nearly dropped the candle into the saucepan. Although they knew, had they taken a moment’s leisure to reflect, that the knock came from Judith, who frequently took that mode of making her visit known on coming in from the other house, it considerably startled them.
Judith it was. And she laughed at them as she stepped inside the passage from the yard, and entered the kitchen.
“What a simpleton you be, Judy, to come frightening folks in that fashion!” cried the widow, irascibly. “One would think you were a child. Can’t you come into the house quiet and decent?”
“It was as good as a play to see the start you two gave,” cried Judith. “My face is bad, and I am going to hell,” she added, changing her tone, “but I thought I’d step in first and see if I could do anything more for Mrs. Crane. I suppose she’s not asleep?”
“She’s not asleep yet, for Mr. Carlton’s but just gone. You can go up and ask her.”
It was nurse Pepperfly who spoke: the widow was resentful yet. Mrs. Pepperfly regarded Judith with complaisance, for she took a great deal of care and trouble off her hands, which must otherwise have fallen to the nurse’s exclusive share.
Judith proceeded up-stairs. She felt very tired, for she had been up all Friday and Saturday nights, and though she had gone to bed on Sunday night, she had slept but little, owing to the pain in her face. She was rather subject to this pain, feeling it whenever she took the slightest cold.
“Is that you, Judith?” cried. Mrs. Crane. “How is your face-ache now?”
“The pain’s getting easier, ma'am,” was Judith’s answer. “Mr. Stephen Grey said it would, now the swelling had come on. I stepped in to ask whether I can do anything more for you to-night?”
“No, thank you, there’s nothing more to be done. I suppose the nurse won’t be long before she brings up the gruel. You can tell her I am ready for it as you go down. You will be glad to get to bed, Judith.”
“Well, ma'am, I shall; and that’s the truth. To lie tossing about with pain, as I did last night, tires one more than sitting up.”
“And the two previous nights you were sitting up. I don’t forget it, Judith, if you do.”
“Oh, ma'am, that’s nothing. It’s a mercy that you have not required more sitting up than that. Many do require it.”
“I!” returned Mrs. Crane in a hearty tone. “I don’t believe I required it at all. I am as well as I possibly can be. Mr. Carlton has just said so. I should like to get up tomorrow, Judith.”
Judith shook her head, and said something about the danger of being “too venturesome.” “You’ll get about all the surer, ma'am, for being quiet for another day or two.”
At that moment, in came Mrs. Pepperfly; a flaring candle in one hand, and a tray with a basin of gruel on it in the other. Judith, generally suspicious of Mrs. Pepperfly, went close and glanced attentively into the basin, lest that lady should have seasoned it with a few drops of tallow in the ascent. The light shone full on Judith’s swollen face, and Mrs. Crane burst into a fit of laughter.
“I can’t help it,” she said, as they turned to her in amazement. “It is your face that I am laughing at, Judith. It looks like the moon at the full; the cheeks are so round.”
“Oh! ma'am, I don’t mind the look, so that I am easy. The swelling will soon go down again.”
Judith wished her good night and departed. Nurse Pepperfly arranged the basin of gruel conveniently on the bed, and stood by while it was eaten.
“And now for my composing draught,” I said Mrs. Crane.
“I can’t give you that yet, mum,” dissented the nurse. “The idea of your taking it right atop of the gruel!”
“I don’t suppose it would hurt. It came, didn’t it.”
“It came while Mr. Carlton was here, mum. It was that what I brought up, and Mr. Carlton he tasted of it. Just like them doctors! they are sure to put their tongues to each others’ medicines.”
“Mr. Carlton’s going to meet Mr. Stephen Grey here at ten to-marrow,” she observed. “And then I shall be under his charge exclusively.”
“I heered some'at on it, mum,” was Mrs. Pepperfly'e answer.
She had turned to busy herself about the room, making the night arrangements. By the aid of blankets, a bed had been extemporised for herself on the sofa in the sitting-room, and there she slept, the door between the two rooms being left open that the patient might be still under her supervision. Mrs. Pepperfly had really been on her good behaviour hitherto; afraid, perhaps, to run counter to the strict mandate of Mr. Stephen Grey, given to her on entering.
About half-past nine or a quarter to ten, when Mrs. Crane had been made comfortable for the night, the nurse pronounced it time for the composing draught.
“Just light me to get it, will you?” she asked of Mrs. Gould, who had been in the chamber helping to straighten the bed, and who happened to have the candle in her hand.
The bottle was on the cheffonier where the nurse herself had placed it. She took it to the side of the bed.
“Ready, mum?”
“Quite,” said Mrs. Crane.
She, the nurse, poured the contents into a large wine-glass, and Mrs. Crane drank them down, but not before she had made some remark about cherry pie.
“How it do smell!” cried Mrs. Gould, who stood by with the candle, whispering the words to the nurse.
“Mr. Carlton said it did,” was the answering whisper. “Them doctors’ noses be quick.”
“It don’t want much quickness to smell this,” sniffed the landlady.
“It was just at the moment as I’d took my drop short, and you know———”
An awful cry; bringing the nurse’s confession to a stand-still; an awful cry of alarm and agony. But whether it came from Mrs. Crane on the bed, or Mrs. Gould by her side, or from both, Nurse Pepperfly was too much startled to know.
Oh, then was commotion in the chamber! What was amiss with their patient? Was it a fainting fit?—was it a convulsion?—or was it death? Was it the decree of God that was taking her from the world? or had some fatal drug been given to her in error?
There is no mistaking death by those accustomed to the sight; and Mrs. Pepperfly, more thoroughly sobered in brain than she often was, wrung her hands wildly.
“It’s death!” she exclaimed to the landlady. “As sure as you and me’s standing upright here, it’s death, and she is gone! That physic must have been poisoned; and perhaps they’ll try us both for giving it to her, and hang us after it.”
With a hullabaloo that might have been heard over the way, Mrs. Gould tore down the stairs. She was nearly out of her senses just then, scared out of them with consternation and terror. Partly at the event just happened, partly at the nurse’s remark as to possible consequences to themselves, was she terrified. She burst out at the front door, left it open, and ran panting up the street, some confused notion in her mind of fetching Mr. Grey. Before she gained his house, however, she encountered Mr. Carlton.
Without a word of explanation, for she was too breathless and bewildered to give it, she seized his arm, turned to run back again, and to pull him with her. Mr. Carlton did not relish so summary a mode of proceeding.
“Stop!” he exclaimed, “stop! What means this? What’s the matter?”
“She’s dead!” shriekod Mrs. Gould. “She is lying dead and stark upon her bed.”
“Who is dead?” repeated Mr. Carlton.
“Our lodger. The lady you came to see this evening—Mrs. Crane. The blessed breath have just gone out of her.”
Almost with the first word of explanation Mr. Carlton shook her arm away and darted off towards the house, she following in his wake. He disappeared within it; and just at the moment the Reverend William Lycett passed, the curate of St. Mark’s church. Mrs. Gould seized upon his arm as she had previously seized on Mr. Carlton’s, sobbed forth some confused words, and took him up the stairs.
The nurse was standing at the foot of the bed, her eyes round with alarm; and Mr. Carlton had thrown down the bed-clothes and placed his ear close to the heart that lay there. He felt the damp forehead, he touched one of the hands.
“This is awful!” he exclaimed, turning round his pale face. “I left her well little more than an hour ago.”
“Is she dead?” asked Mr. Lycett.
“She is dead,” replied the surgeon. “What had you been giving her?” he demanded of Mrs. Pepperfly, his tone becoming stern and sharp.
It was the first indication of the consequences to them, and Mrs. Pepperfly replied meekly, her apron held to her lips.
“Sir, I give her her gruel, and after that I give her her draught. It’s of no good denying of it.”
“That draught!” repeated Mr. Carlton to himself in a low tone of reproach. Not so low, however, but Mr. Lycctt caught the words. “I was wrong not to take it away with me.”
“Has she died from poison?” whispered Mr. Lycett.
“From poison—as I believe. What else can she have died from?”
Mr. Carlton, as he spoke, had his head bent over the mouth of the dead, inhaling the breath; or, rather, the odour where the breath had once been.
“You are not acquainted with the properties of drugs as may be gathered from their smell, I presume, Mr. Lycett, or else”
“Pardon me,” was the interruption, “I am quite well acquainted with them. My father is a surgeon, and half my boyhood was spent in his surgery.”
“Then just put your nose here and tell me what you find.”
The clergyman did as desired; but he drew back his face instantly.
“Prussic acid,” he said in a whisper; and Mr. Carlton gave a grave nod of assent. He turned to Mrs. Pepperfly.
“What do you say she had been taking? Gruel? and the draught? The gruel first, of course?”
“In course, sir. She took that soon after you left. There’s the basin, by token, never took down again.”
Mr. Carlton laid hold of the basin pointed out to him. A little gruel remained in it still, which he smelt and tasted.
“There’s nothing wrong here,” he observed.
“And her draught, sir, we gave her some time after, three-q1mrters of an hour, maybe. Not a minute had she took it when—I shan’t overget the fright for a year to come—she was gone.”
“A year!” echoed Mrs. Gould from the door, where she had stood trembling and sobbing, her head just pushed into the chamber. “I shan’t overget it for my whole life.”
“Where is the bottle?” inquired Mr. Carlton.
“The bottle!” repeated the nurse. “Where now did I put it? Oh, it’s behind you, sir. There, on the little table by the bed’s head.”
The bottle which ha contained the draught lay there, the cork in. Mr. Carlton took out the cork, smelt it, recorked it, and laid it on the table, an angry scowl on his face.
“Do you smell anything wrong?” asked Mr. Lycett.
For answer the surgeon handed him the phial, and Mr. Lycett removed the cork for one moment, and put it in again. It was quite sufficient.
“Where did the draught come from?” inquired the curate. But the next moment his eyes full on the label, and he saw it had come from the surgery of the Messrs. Grey.
Mr. Carlton replaced the phial from whence he had taken it, and looked at the landlady. “Mrs. Gould, I think you had better go up and ask Mr. Stephen Grey to step here.”
Glad to be away from the death chamber, yet afraid to stay by herself alone, the woman was not sorry to be sent upon the errand. The streets under the bright moon were as light as day, and she discerned Mr. John Grey standing at his own door long before she reached him. The sight seemed to give an impetus to her speed and her excitement, and she broke into sobs again as she made a dash at him.
“Oh, sir! this will kill some of us”
Mr. Grey, a man of strong mind, decisive in speech—sometimes, if put out, a little stern in manner,—looked calmly at the widow. Like Judith Ford, he had no patience with nervous nonsense. He was a tall man, with aquiline features and keen dark eyes.
“What will kill some of us, Mrs. Gould? Our nerves?”
“Where’s Mr. Stephen, sir? Oh, sir, she’s dead! And it is that draught which Mr. Stephen sent down to-night that has killed her.”
“Who is dead?” returned Mr. Grey in wonderment “What draught? What are you talking of?”
“The lady Mr. Stephen is attending at my house, sir. He sent her a sleeping draught tonight, and there must have been poison in it, for she died the minute she had swallowed it. I mean the young lady, Mrs. Crane, sir,” she added, perceiving that Mr. Grey appeared not to understand her.
“Dead?” he uttered.
“Stone dead, sir. Mr. Carlton said I had better come up for Mr. Stephen Grey. He’s there with Mr. Lycett.”
Mr. Grey closed his own door and entered his brother’s house. Frederick Grey was coming across the hall.
“Is your father in, Frederick?”.
“No. I don’t suppose he’ll be long. I don’t know where he’s gone, though. Uncle John, we had a letter from mamma this evening.”
“Did he make up a draught to-night for Mrs. Crane, do you know?” continued Mr. Grey, passing unnoticed his nephew’s gratuitous information.
“Yes, I know he did, for I was in the surgery at the time. A composing draught. Why? It was sent.”
“Why, it have just killed her, Master Frederick,” put in Mrs. Gould. “It were prussic acid, they say, and no composing draught at all.”
“What thundering nonsense!” echoed the boy, who appeared to have caught only the latter words.
“Nonsense, is it, sir?” sobbed the Widow. “She’s dead.”
Frederick Grey glanced quickly at his uncle, as if for confirmation or the contrary.
“I am going down there, Frederick. Mrs. Gould says she is dead. As soon as your father comes in, ask him to follow me.”
The lad stood looking after them as they went down the street, his brain busy. At that moment he saw their assistant, Mr. Whittaker, approaching from the opposite side of the street. Frederick Grey took his cap from the hall where it was hanging, and went out to meet him.
“Mr. Whittaker, they are saying the new patient, Mrs. Crane, is dead. Do you believe it?”
“Rubbish,” retorted Mr. Whittaker. “Mr. Stephen told me to-night she was as good as well. Who says it?”
“Mother Gould. She has been up here to fetch Uncle John, and he has left word that papa is to follow soon. Tell him, will you?”
He vaulted off ere he had well finished speaking, caught up Mrs. Gould at her own door, and ran up-stairs after his uncle. Mr. Grey had already entered the chamber of Mrs. Crane. He first satisfied himself that she was really dead, and then set to search out the particulars. Mr. Carlton directed his attention to the bottle.
“Mr. Grey,” he began, “you know how chary we medical fraternity are of bringing an accusation or casting blame on one another; but I do fear some most unfortunate error has been committed. The phial has most undoubtedly contained prussic acid in some state, and it appears only too certain that it is prussic acid she has died from.”
“The phial has certainly had prussic acid in it,” returned Mr. Grey; “but it is impossible that it can have been sent by my brother.”
“He may not have made it up himself,” returned. Mr. Carlton. “Is the writing his? ‘Composing draught to be taken the last thing. Mrs. Crane.’”
“That is his, and I believe he made up the draught himself. But as to his having put prussic acid in it, I feel sure he did not.”
“I was here when it came, and I detected the smell at once,” said Mr. Carlton. “At the first moment I thought it was oil of almonds; the next felt sure it was prussic acid. Not that I suspected for an instant there was sufficient to destroy life, the slightest modicum of a drop, perhaps; though why Mr. Stephen Grey should have put it in I did not understand. Now I cannot tell you why it was, but I could not get that smell out of my head. I think it may have been from reading that case of fatal error in the Lancet last week. You know what I mean?”
Mr. Grey nodded.
“And before I left I told Mrs. Crane not to take the draught unless she heard from Mr. Stephen Grey again. As I went home I called at your house; but Mr. Stephen was not at home. I intended just to mention the smell to him. Had he said it was all right, there was an end of apprehension; but mistakes have been so frequent of late as to put medical men on their guard.”
“True,” assented Mr. Grey.
“I have but a word to finish,” continued Mr. Carlton. “When I found I could not see Mr. Stephen Grey, I went home, made up a composing draught, and was coming out with it when an urgent message came for me to see a patient. It lay in my way here, and I was as quick as could be, but—as you see—not sufficiently so.”
Mr. Carlton slightly pointed to the bed as he concluded. Frederick Grey, who had stood by, listening eagerly, suddenly stepped up to him.
“Have you that draught with you, sir?”
“Of course I have,” replied Mr. Carlton. But he did not seem pleased with the lad’s tones, so unaccountably abrupt and haughty. “Here it is,” he added, taking it from his pocket. “You will find no prussic acid in that.”
Frederick Grey received the small bottle in his hand, uncorked it, smelt it, and tasted it, just as Mr. Carlton had done by the fatal one. Doctors, as Mrs. Pepperfly remarked, like to put their tongues to physic; and Frederick had possibly caught the habit, for he was ale ready being initiated into the mysteries of the profession, under his uncle and father.
“No, there’s no prussic acid in that,” said he. “Neither was there in the draught made up by my father. I stood by him the whole of the time and watched him mix it.”
They were interrupted by Mr. Stephen Grey. To describe his grief and consternation when he saw the dead, would be impossible. Mr. Whittaker had given him the message, had told him Mrs. Gould had been to them with a tale that the lady was dead; but Mr. Stephen, who knew of old Mrs. Gould and her fears, had set it down in his own mind that the lady had only fainted. Mr. Stephen heard the details with astonishment. They were unaccountable; but he warmly repudiated the suspicion as to the error having been made by himself.
“The thing appears to be perfectly unexplainable,” exclaimed Mr. Lycett.
Stephen Grey laid his hand lightly on the brow of the corpse. “I declare,” said he, in an earnest, solemn tone, “in the presence of what remains of this poor young lady; nay, I declare it in a more solemn presence—that of God, who now hears me—that there was no prussic acid, or any other poison whatever, in the sleeping draught I sent here this night. Some foul play has been at work; or else some most grievous and unaccountable mischance has been unwittingly committed. Mr. Carlton, we must do our best in striving to unfathom this. You will aid me in it?”
Mr. Carlton did not hear the words. He had fallen into a reverie. Perhaps he was trying to account for the events of that night. His thoughts at that moment were not so much given to the unhappy dead, as to the face he had seen, or thought he had seen, upon the staircase landing earlier in the evening. That the face was none of his own fancy’s conjuring up; that it was not an appearance from the world of spirits, but one belonging to a living, breathing person, he felt in his judgment convinced. Did he connect that face with the dark deed which had followed? Did he suspect that that stealthy visitor, whoever it might be, was the serpent standing and waiting to deal the deadly blow? It cannot at present be told; but it is certain that Mr. Carlton did attach a dread fear, not the less strong for its being vague and undefined, to that shadowy face.
Vague indeed! More than once he caught himself fancying—nay, almost wishing—that it was but a supernatural appearance from the other world.
(To be continued.)
“AN APOSTLE INDEED.”
Early in December, 1836, the news went far and wide through the South of Ireland, that the “Apostle of Temperance,” Father Mathew, had paid the last debt of nature. He died, as he had lived, devoted to the good cause of reclaiming his volatile countrymen from their arch—enemy, the whiskey-bottle; and his name ought to stand, in Ireland at least, written in the brightest and most indelible colours among the roll of her philanthropists and patriots.
Theobald Mathew’s life, from first to last, was in full keeping and harmony with his profession as a priest of the church in which his lot was cast. We have been, of late years, by far too much familiarized with such warlike spirits as Dr. Cahill and John McHale, as types of the Irish Roman Catholic clergy, to fancy that one so meek, so gentle, so humble, so self-denying as “Father Mathew,” could have submitted to the ecclesiastical tonsure in the sister island, and worn the monastic cowl. Yet so it was: Father Mathew was not only a Roman Catholic, but a Roman Catholic priest; nor only a priest but a monk—a humble Capuchin. But under the Capuchin’s coarse dress he concealed the heart of a Christian and a gentleman. No doubt, some portion of those qualities he owed to the fact that gentle blood flowed in his veins; and that, instead of being taken (as most Irish priests are) from the plough-tail to the altar, via Maynooth, he was brought up in the refined society of his kinsman, the late Earl of Llandaff, and of his sister, Lady Elizabeth Mathew; and that, in the family-circle of Thomastown House, and amongst its guests, as a boy, he rubbed off some of that rust, and most of those angles, which, somehow or other, seem to mark for life the man who has once passed the gates of Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/424 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/425 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/426
LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER VII.THE COBWEBBED JAR.
What was now to be done? How were they to set about fathoming—as Mr. Stephen Grey suggested—this dreadful business? It was so shrouded in mystery! The poor form, calm and still now, lay upon the bed, and the wondering gentlemen stood around it. Medical men come in contact with strange phases of human life, as exhibited in man’s passage from the cradle to the grave, but this little knot of the brethren could only acknowledge to themselves, that of all strange occurrences which had ever passed under their notice, this one appeared to be about the strangest.
Mr. Carlton suddenly left his place from the far side of the bed, held the door open, and motioned the two women from the room. He then in like manner motioned young Frederick Grey. But the boy, who was standing against the wall, close to it, did not stir in answer.
“I’d rather stay in, Mr. Carlton,” he fearlessly said. “Is there any reason why I may not?”
Mr. Carlton hesitated. The words of the boy, spoken out so boldly, had caused the three gentlemen near the bed to look round. Mr. Carlton evidently did wish him to be outside the room, but he as evidently did not see his way quite clear to get him there.
“Is he discreet?” he asked, looking to the two brothers for an answer.
“Perfectly so,” replied Mr. John Grey, who did not himself see any reason why his nephew should be expelled.
Mr. Carlton closed the door and returned to the group. “Mr. Stephen Grey has suggested a doubt of foul play,” he began; “but is it possible that there can be any feasible grounds for it? I ask, gentlemen, because you are all better acquainted with these two women than I am. If either, or both of them———"
“Goodness, man!” interrupted Mr. Stephen Grey, in his impulsive fashion, “you can’t suppose I suspect Mother Pepperfly or the old widow! Pepperfly has her besetting sin, drink; and the widow is a foolish, timorous body; but they’d no more commit murder than you or I would commit it. What could you be thinking of, Mr. Carlton?”
“Pardon me,” rejoined Mr. Carlton; “I merely drew the conclusion from your own remark. I’m sure I have no cause to cast a doubt on them, but there has been no one else about the lady.”
“If I understand Mr. Stephen Grey aright, he did not intend to cast suspicion upon any one,” interposed Mr. Lycett. “His remark arose simply from the want of being able to account for the mystery.”
“Precisely so,” assented Stephen Grey. “If my thoughts had a bent one way more than another, it was whether the medicine could have been exchanged or tampered with between my house and this.”
“It is not likely,” said Mr. Grey. “Dick carries out his medicines in a covered basket. But another idea has suggested itself to me. Stephen, you have seen more of this unfortunate young lady than any one present; I never set eyes on her until now, and I daresay you, Lycett, can say the same. Mr. Carlton here has seen her once only———"
“Twice,” interrupted Mr. Carlton. “Last night and this. I should not have come down to-night had I known the hour fixed for my meeting Mr. Stephen Grey here had so long passed. But I was with patients on the Rise, and the time slipped by unheeded.”
“At any rate you have not seen much of her,” rejoined Mr. John Grey. “My brother Stephen has, comparatively speaking; and what I was about to ask him was this: whether it is at all probable that she herself added the poison to the draught. Was she in low spirits, Stephen?”
“Not in the least,” returned Stephen Grey. “She has been as gay and cheerful as a person can be. Besides, she could not have added anything to the draught without being seen by the nurse; and we have her testimony that it was in her possession in the other room until the moment when she administered it.”
“Another thing,” observed Mr. Carlton; “if the poison was added to the draught after it came here, how could it have smelt of it on its arrival?”
“There lies the greatest enigma of all—why the draught should smell of poison when it got here,” cried Stephen Grey.
“Nay,” dissented his brother; there’s no wonder at its smelling of poison if the poison was in it; the mystery is, how and where it got into it. In my opinion, setting aside her tragical end, there is a great deal of mystery in the affair altogether. Who was she? Where did she come from? Why did she come here, a stranger to the place and to everybody in it? And what a young thing she appears to be!”
She did indeed look young. A fair, pale, sweet face, lying there with its golden-brown hair falling around it. In the alarm of the first moment Mrs. Pepperfly had snatched off the cap, and the hair fell down. Her mouth was upon, and the pretty pearly teeth were visible. They sighed as they looked upon her.
“May her soul have found its rest!” murmured the clergyman, bending over her for a moment ere they took their departure.
Mr. Carlton lingered behind the rest. He visited her box with his own hands, the nurse lighting him, but it contained no clue whatever as to who she was. Nothing but clothes were in it; not a card, not a scrap of paper, not a letter; nothing was there to solve the riddle.
“Was this one trunk all she brought?” he asked.
“All, sir,” replied Mrs. Pepperfly. “There’s her work-box a standing on the drawers there, by the bed’s head.”
The surgeon turned to the work-box, and examined it searchingly and thoroughly, as he had the trunk. Its contents consisted of cotton, needles, and such like accessories to work. There was a piece of embroidery in a midway stage; a baby’s little cambric night-cap just begun; and a few paper patterns. Nothing whatever that could throw any light upon herself or her previous history. Her pocket—a loose pocket which Mrs. Pepperfly drew from under the pillow, where the invalid had kept it—contained a purse alone. Nothing else: and in the purse there was not much money. Her keys lay on the drawers.
Mr. Carlton locked both the boxes, and sealed them with his own seal. “I don’t know much about the routine of these affairs,” he observed, “but it is right, I suppose, to make all sale until the police come—they can break my seals if they will.”
Barely had he spoken when a policeman appeared upon the scene. The news had travelled to the station, and the sergeant himself had come down. He was a big man, with round red cheeks, and a small, sharp-pointed nose. He listened in silence to the details which were given him partly by Mr. Carlton, partly by the nurse, and took possession of the basin that had contained the gruel and the bottle.
Next he laid hold of the candle and began to peer about the two rooms, for what purpose, or how it could at all help the inquiry, he alone knew. He carried the candle out in the landing and examined that, gazing up at the walls, raising his face to the window, through which the moonlight shone so brightly in.
“Is that a door?” he suddenly asked.
Without waiting for a reply he strode to the opposite end of the landing to the window, and pulled a door open. The walls had been grained to imitate grey marble, and this door was grained also. It looked like part of the wall, and it opened with a key only. It was that key which had attracted the keen sight of the sergeant.
“It’s only a closet for brooms and the slop-pail, sir,” spoke up Mrs. Gould, who was shivering timidly on the top stairs, holding on by the balustrade.
Even so. It was a very innocent closet, containing only a pail and a couple of brooms. The officer satisfied himself on that point, and closed the door again; but Mr. Carlton, who had not previously known any closet was there, immediately saw that it might have afforded a temporary hiding place for the owner of that face he had seen so close to it earlier in the evening—if indeed that face had not been a myth of his own imagination.
Mr. Carlton could do nothing more, and he took his departure, the face all too present to him as he walked through the moonlit streets. It may be asked why he did not speak of it to the police—why he had not spoken of it to the gentlemen who had been gathered with him round the death-bed. But of what was he to speak? That he thought he saw a strange-looking face, a face half ghostly, half human; a face which had jet black whiskers on its cheeks; that he had thought he saw this on the staircase in the moonbeams, and that when he brought out the candle and threw its rays around nothing was to be seen? It could not, if it belonged to a human, walking being, have had time to get down the stairs unseen; that was impossible; and he had satisfied himself that it had not taken refuge in the bed-room. It is true there was this closet, which he had not known of, but he did not believe it could have gone in there and closed the door again before he was out with the light. Had he spoken of this, nine persons out of ten would have answered him—it was nothing but your own imagination.
And he was not sure that it was not his imagination. When he had descended the stairs after seeing it, he put the question in a careless sort of way to the landlady, as she came from the kitchen and Mrs. Pepperfly’s society to open the door for him—was any strange man on the staircase or in the house?—and Mrs. Gould had answered, with some inward indignation, that there was no man at all in the house, or likely to be in it. Beyond that Mr. Carlton had not spoken of the circumstance.
He went straight on to his home through the moonlit streets, and soon afterwards Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/445 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/446 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/447 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/448 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/449 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/450 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/451
LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER IX.THE CORONER'S INQUEST.
The rain was pouring down in torrents; nevertheless the street of South Wennock was alive with bustle, especially in the vicinity of the Red Lion Inn. It was Thursday, the day appointed for the inquest on the deceased Mrs. Crane.
The county coroner, whose residence was in the county town, was momentarily expected, and presently his gig dashed up, he and his clerk in it. It had been wished to hold the inquest on the Wednesday, but the coroner put it off to suit his own convenience. He was a lawyer; a short, stout man, with black hair and a jovial-looking face; and as he emerged from under the large gig umbrella, he shook hands with some of the bystanders, his acquaintances. The clerk followed with a blue bag.
The coroner popped into the bar, swallowed a glass of hot brandy-and-water, and then proceeded to the board-room to swear the jury. It was a long room, the club-room of the inn: a table covered with green baize ran down it, at which they seated themselves, and the coroner opened proceedings. Then they departed to Palace Street to view the body.
They went splashing through the rain and the mud, their umbrellas of little use, for the wind, remarkably high, kept turning them inside out. A genteel attendance escorted them: all the gentleman idlers in the place, all the curious tradespeople, the unwashed mob, and the street urchins. By the pertinacity with which these last dodged the jury's heels, it might be thought that they believed the august functionaries to be living curiosities from a travelling wild-beast show.
The necessary inspection over, they splashed back to the Red Lion, and the business began. We may glance at the evidence of two or three of the witnesses, but not at all, for it would only be a repetition of what is already known, and tire the reader. Difficulty the first was: What was the young lady's Christian name? Nobody could answer; her linen, it was said, was marked with a large C, the initial letter of the word Crane, but with nothing else. Some suggested that this was more probably the initial of her Christian name—Caroline or Charlotte—but it was impossible to say. Her boxes had been examined officially, the large trunk and the workbox; but no clue to whom she was, or what she was, was found; no to whom she was, or what she was, was found; no scrap of paper indicated her previous abode, or why she came there.
Mrs. Fitch, the landlady of the Red Lion, told what she knew of the stranger's arrival by the omnibus, the previous Friday, and that she had recommended her to the lodgings in Palace Street. Mr. Stephen Grey testified to his being summoned to her on the same night, to the subsequent birth of the infant, and to her safe and healthy condition afterwards, up to seven o'clock on the Monday evening, at which hour he last saw her alive. Mr. John Grey and Mr. Brooklyn from Great Wennock, who had conjointly made the post-mortem examination, gave evidence of the cause of her death—poison, by prussic acid; and there were other points of evidence, technical or otherwise, not necessary to go into in detail.
There had been a question by the coroner as to whether Mr. Stephen Grey should give his evidence; that gentleman expressed himself anxious and willing to tender it; and at length the coroner decided to admit it, warning Mr. Stephen that he need not say anything to criminate himself, and that what he did say might possibly be used as evidence against him. Mr. Stephen smiled, and replied that all he had it in his power to say might be used against him if it could be. He spoke to the making up of the sleeping draught, to the ingredients of which it was composed. Frederick Grey, his son, testified that he had seen it made up, minutely describing what had been put into it, as his father had done, and to the sending the draught by Dick, the boy. Dick, who was the next witness, protested, with a very red and startled face, caused by finding himself before a coroner's court, that he had taken it safely and given it into the hands of Nurse Pepperfly.
"Call Nurse Pepperfly," said the coroner.
Nurse Pepperfly was called for in the adjoining room and escorted in, in rather a shaky state, not induced by the imbibing of strong waters—from such she had that morning kept herself free—but from the general agitation caused by the anticipated proceedings. She had attired herself in her best, of course; a short black stuff gown, the worse for stains and dirt, a scarlet woollen shawl, and a rusty black bonnet with a bow at the top. The wind, as she came along the street, had taken the shawl, the bonnet, and the grey hairs underneath, and played with them after its own boisterous fashion; so that altogether Nurse Pepperfly presented a somewhat bewildered and untidy appearance. She wore pattens and white stockings, the latter a mass of splashes, and very distinctly visible from the shortness of the gown; but the extraordinary rotundity of Mrs. Pepperfly's person seemed almost to preclude the possibility of any gown's being made long enough to hide her legs. She took off her pattens when close to the coroner, and held them in one hand; her umbrella, dripping with rain, being in the other. A remarkable umbrella, apparently more for show than use, since its sticks and wires projected a full foot at the bottom through the gingham, and there was no handle visible at the top. There was a smothered smile at her appearance when she came in, and her evidence caused some diversion, not only in itself, but from the various honorary titles she persisted in according to the coroner and jury.
"Your name's Pepperfly?" began the coroner.
"Which it is, my lord, with Betsy added to it," was the response, given with as deep a curtsy as the witness's incumbrances of person would allow her.
"You mean Elizabeth?" said the coroner, raising his pen from his note-book, and waiting.
"Your worship, I never knowed myself called by any thing but Betsy. It may be as 'Lizabeth was written in the register at my baptism, but I can't speak to it. Mother"
"That will do," said the coroner, and after a few more questions he came to the chief point. "Did you take in some medicine last Monday evening for the lady you were nursing—Mrs. Crane?"
"Yes, my lord, I did. It were a composing draught; leastways, that's what it ought to have been."
"What time was that?"
"It were after dark, sir, and I was at my supper."
"Can't you tell the time?"
"It must have struck eight, I think, your worship, for I had begun to feel dreadful peckish afore I went down, and eight o'clock's my supper hour. I had just finished it, sir, when the ring came it were pickled herrings that we had"
"The jury do not want to know what you had for supper; confine yourself to the necessary points. Who brought the medicine?"
"That boy of the Mr. Greys: Dick. An insolent young rascal, Mr. Mayor, as you ever set eyes on. He whips up the cover of his basket, and out he takes a small bottle wrapped in white paper and gives it me. I should like to tell you, my lord, what he said to me."
"If it bears upon the case, you can tell it," replied the coroner.
"'Now, Mother Pepperfly,' said he, 'how are you off for Old Tom to-night?' My fingers tingled to get at his ears, my lord mayor and corporation, but he backed out of my reach."
Mrs. Pepperfly in her indignation had turned round to the jury, expecting their sympathy, and the room burst into a laugh.
"He backed away out of my reach, gentlemen, afeard of getting his deserts, and he stopped in the middle of the road and made a mocking face at me, knowing I'd no chance of getting to him, for they are as lissome as cats, them boys, and I'm rather stout to set up a run."
"I told you to confine yourself to evidence," said the coroner, in a reproving tone. "What did you do with the medicine?"
"I took it up-stairs, gentlefolks, and Mr. Carlton came out of the lady's room, for he had just called in, and asked what it was I had got. I said it was the sleeping draught from Mr. Grey's, and he took it out of my hand, and said how it smelt of oil of almonds."
"Oil of almonds? Are you sure that's what he said?"
"Of course I am sure," retorted Mrs. Pepperfly, "I didn't dream it. He took out the cork and he smelt the stuff, and then he said it. 'What could Mr. Stephen Grey be giving her oil of almonds for?' he said."
"Did you smell it?"
"I can't say I did, your lordship, much; though Mr. Carlton was surprised I couldn't, and put it towards me but my nose hadn't got no smell in it just at that particular moment, and so I told him."
"Why had it not?" inquired the coroner.
Mrs. Pepperfly would have liked to evade the question. She fidgeted first on one leg, then on the other, put down her pattens and took them up again, and gave her umbrella a shake, the effect of which was to administer a shower of rain-drops to all the faces in her vicinity.
"Come," said the coroner, sharply, "you stand there to tell the truth. If the stuff emitted so strong a smell, how was it you could not smell it?"
"I had just swallowed a wee drop of gin, sir," replied Mrs. Pepperfly, in a subdued tone.
"When my supper were over, Mrs. Gould says to me, 'Just a drain, mum, to keep the herrings down, it's obligatory for your health;' and knowing I'm weak in the stomach, gentlefolks, which gets upset at nothing, I let myself be over-persuaded, and took a drain but you couldn't have put it into a thimble."
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LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER XI.THE TORN NOTE.
The whole inquest-room, speaking metaphorically, was on its legs—coroner, jury, spectators—as the rushing tide of eager faces surged into it. What were the tidings they had brought?—what new evidence had come to light? Nothing very great, after all.
It was only a part of a letter. In the pocket of the dress which the unhappy lady had worn on the Friday, the day of her arrival at South Wennock, had just been found a half sheet of note paper, with some lines of writing on it and a great blot. “It was a somewhat remarkable fact that this dress, hanging up the whole of the time behind the bed-room door, had been overlooked both by the police and by Mr. Carlton, and was not searched by either. The coroner smoothed the crumpled sheet of writing, read it aloud for the information of the jury, and then passed it round for their inspection. It ran as follows:—
“13, Palace Street, South Wennock,
Friday Evening, March 10, 1848.
“My dearest Husband,—You will be surprised to hear of my journey, and that I am safe at South Wennock. I know you will be angry, but I cannot help it, and we will talk over things when we meet. I have asked the people here about a medical man, and they strongly recommend one of the Messrs. Grey, but I tell them I would prefer Mr. Carlton. What do you say? I must ask him to come and see me this evening, for the railway omnibus shook me dreadfully, and I feel anything but———”
In that abrupt manner ended the writing. There was nothing more, except the great blot referred to. Whether she had been suddenly interrupted, or whether the accident of the blot caused her to begin a fresh letter, could not be told; and perhaps would now never be known.
But with all the excitement, the noise, and the expectation, it positively threw no light whatever upon the mystery—of the mystery of who she was, of her arrival, or the worse mystery of her death. The coroner sat, after the letter had been passed back to him, mechanically smoothing the creased sheet with his fingers, while he thought.
“Call Mr. Carlton,” he suddenly said.
Mr. Carlton was found in the yard of the inn, talking to some of the many outside idlers whom the proceedings had gathered together there. After the rebuff administered to him by the coroner, as to his having gone away before, he was determined not so to offend a second time, but waited within call.
“Wanted again!” he exclaimed, when the officer come to him. “I hope the jury will have enough of me.”
“There’s something fresh turned up, sir. You might have heard here the noise they made, bringing it up the street.”
“Something fresh!” the surgeon eagerly repeated. “What is it? Not about the face?” he added, a strange dread mingling with his whispered tones.
“I don’t rightly know what it is, sir. The crowd jammed into the room so that I couldn’t hear.”
“Mr. Carlton, look at this, will you,” said the coroner, handing him the torn note, when he appeared. “Can you tell me if it is in the handwriting of the deceased?”
Mr. Carlton took the sheet, glanced at it, clutched it in his hand and strode to a distant window. There he stood reading it, with his back to the room. He read it twice; he turned it over and looked at the other side; ho turned it back and read it again. Then he returned to the table where sat the coroner and jury, who had followed his movements in eager expectation.
“How can I tell, Mr. Coroner, whether it is in her handwriting or not?”
“You received a note from her. Can you not remember what the writing was like?”
Mr. Carlton paused a moment and then slowly shook his head. “I did not take particular notice of the handwriting. If we had the two together we might compare them. By the way,” he added, “I may perhaps mention that I searched for the note in question when I went home just now, and could not find it. There’s no doubt I threw it into the fire at the time.”
Perfectly true. As soon as Mr. Carlton had got home from his examination-in-chief, he had set himself to search for the note. His conviction at the time was that he must have burnt it with the loose letters and envelopes lying on the table, those which he had thrown on the fire in a heap; it had been his conviction ever since; nevertheless he did institute a search on going home from the inquest. He Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/500 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/501 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/502 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/503 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/504 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/505 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/506 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/507 Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/508
LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER XIII.MISS CHESNEY'S FEAR.
Laura Chesney stood at the window, watching the taunting form of the surgeon, Mr. Carlton, as he passed hastily down the garden path in the growing twilight. A short while and he would be back again as he had promised; and Laura's heart beat at the thought, at the anticipated rapture of seeing him again, and she remained silent, losing herself in dreams of the sweetest delusion.
Only to he rudely awakened. Miss Chesney stepped to Laura's side and spoke, her gentle voice sounding strange in its sternness.
"Laura, could it be that I saw you walk through the garden when Mr. Carlton came, arm-in-arm with him?"
Laura turned her face away from her sister's view, or even in that fsding hour Miss Chesney would have seen the red flush that overspread it at the words, dyeing it of a blood-red. She made no answer.
"It was not seemly, Laura. Mr. Carlton is but a surgeon: a man, so far as we know, without connections. And you are a Chesney."
"With connections," retorted Laura, who growing vexed and angry. "And much good they do me!"
"Laura dear, we are, as may be said, of the noblesse: we may not lose caste."
"I think we have lost caste already, with these wretched, paltry debts hanging over and
following us about from place to place like a shadow," was the petulant answer. "They degrade us pretty well."
"You mistake, Laura. If you intend that as a refutation to my argument, you must look at things in a wrong light. In one sense of the word the debts degrade us, because there always is a degredation attaching itself to these petty debts; but they cannot in the slightest degree sully our caste; they cannot detract from our good birth or tarnish it. Do not again allow Mr. Carlton to put himself on a familiar level with you."
Loving him a she did with an impassioned, blind, all-absorbing love, Laura Chesney bitterly in her heart resented this reflection on Mr. Carlton. She was fast falling into that sadly mistaken, unhealthy frame of mind in which every consideration is lost in the one swaying passion—love. Openly she did not dare to dissent from her sister; it might have brought on an explanation for which Laura was not prepared; and Jane, deeming she had said enough, passed to a different topic.
"What did the fly driver say?"
"He insisted on the money's being paid to him between now and twelve o'clock on Saturday; failing it then, he will proceed against papa publicly. June, I am sure the man will carry out his threat. He was not loud and angry, not even uncivil; but he was resolute."
"And how is it to be procured?" moaned Jane, leaning her head upon her hand. "I would almost sell myself," she added, with a burst of feeling, "rather then bring these annoyances before pupa? Oh, if I could but take these troubles more effectually off him!"
"Papa can do battle with them a great deal better than you can, Jane," said Laura, who was far from sharing Jane's ultra filial feeling on the point. "And it is more fit that he should."
"It in not more fit," retorted Jane Chesney, whose usually gentle spirit could be roused by any reproach cast on him. "He is my dear dear father, and I ask no better than to devote my life to warding off care from his."
"Would you wish no better?" asked Laura, in a low, wondering tone, as she glanced at the bliss presenting itself for her future life—the spending it with Lewis Carlton.
"Nor with better," replied Jane. And the younger sister gazed at her in compassion and half in disbelief.
"There are other petty cares coming upon us, Laura," returned June, in a different tone. "Rhode has given me warning to leave."
"Rhode has!" quickly echoed Laura in surprise. "What for?"
"To 'better herself,' she said. I suspect the true motive is, that she is tired of the place. There is a great deal to do; and she hinted, somewhat insolently, that she did not like a service where applicants were continually coming for money only to he put off; it 'tried her temper.' I told her the might go the instant I could procure a fresh servant. I do not choose to keep dissatisfied people in the house longer than can he helped. She What is it, Lucy?"
The little girl had come running in, eagerly. "June, a young woman wants to see you."
"Another creditor," thought June with a sinking heart. "Is it the woman from the fruit shop, Lucy?"
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(To be continued.)
THE MODERN PULPIT.
Some men simply purchase sermons and preach them. It would not be correct to say that they serve God and their congregations with what "costs them nothing," although manuscript sermons—as we discover from advertisements in the Times, and other papers—can be had cheap.
With some preachers sermonising is a labour of love, with others it is a work of great ingenuity. Sermons are supposed to be manufactured out of texts of Scripture. Some may, possibly, doubt this, on account of the small number of modern sermons which retain any-thing like the meaning or spirit of the text. Like the logwood port manufactured in England, they possess no true flavour of the grape, of "wine on the lees."
The division of a text of scripture into various parts for the production of a sermon is sometimes called a skeleton, and sometimes a plan. Both terms are equally happy, and graphically descriptive of the process. Some sermons are composed to such an extent of divisions and sub-divisions, that they are not inappropriately called "skeletons," or "bags of bones."
In making a skeleton—that is, a real skeleton, of man, beast, or bird—it is necessary to scrape away all the flesh, and work and rub till the bones are 'very dry.'' When brought to this state of perfection, it is put on wires. The sermoniser adopts a similar plan. He divests his text of everything but the mere words, which he separates from each other.
After such a separation of parts, we could scarcely expect the original words or thoughts to be re-arranged in their natural order, were this even intended. It requires some skill and practice, after taking a watch to pieces, to put the wheels and spindles, and spring, and the rest of the parts into their proper position, so as to produce regular motion.
The discourses put together in this way by the sermoniser, after the inhuman process of dissecting the "living words," are as curious, as specimens of composition, as they are deficient in natural arrangement,—
For rattling bones together fly
From the four corners of the sky.
But, strange to say, while we might defy even Milton himself to create a soul under their ribs, or to produce a healthful circulation of divine truth through their frames, the preacher manages to ride off upon them with ease and rapidity; they are not unsuited for the parade and exercise of the modern pulpit.
But the effect of such a process on a passage of scripture is to divest it of its divine nature—of its inspiration. It is now no longer what was; it is not even like it. The author of the words would not know them in their skeleton form. Were St. Paul to see one of his sentences reduced to this condition, he would deny that any word, or bone of it, belonged to him.
Sermonising consists of two parts, the constructive and the destructive parts. We have given an analytical outline of the destructive part, the synthetical, or constructive, requires a more perfect illustration.
The skeleton of a sermon is often called the "division" of a discourse. By division we are not to understand a logical division, which requires a logical differentia, or such a division as exhausts the subject, and brings the whole of it under consideration. The reader may perhaps call to mind divisions stated in this way:—
Here, it is true, we have "a neat logical division," and there can be no doubt that it exhausts the subject. Whether the illustration of the second head would be likely to exhaust, most, the patience of the hearer, or the power of the preacher, would depend on circumstances.
Here we are reminded of one of the most pungent and witty things ever penned on the subject of bad sermons. It is given in the work of an old German, on retributive punishments, in which he says that in the next world all unworthy and prosy clergymen will be condemned to pass the whole of their time in reading the bad sermons they have composed in this. A most horrible punishment.
How often have we admired the patience with which pious people hear some of these preachers out. "Here's at you, till twelve o'clock to-night!" exclaimed a good Presbyterian, placing his great coat beneath him on the hard bench, when the preacher came to "twenty-sixthly."
The division of a discourse, as we have already observed, is sometimes called a "plan." The sermoniser works out these plans or divisions with all the ingenuity and perseverance of the Chinese in cutting and putting
LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER XV.THE FACE AGAIN.
A conflict was going on in the mind of Laura Chesney. Two passions, bad and good, were at work there, each striving for the mastery.
Should it be obedience or dieobedience? Should she bear on in the straight line of duty, and be obedient to her father, to all the notions of right in which she had been reared; or should she quit her home in defiance, quit it clandestinely, to become the wife of Mr. Carlton? Reader! It has indeed come to this, grievous as it is to have to write it, st the present day, of a well-trained gentlewoman.
On the day that Mr. Carlton had asked for Laura, Captain Chesney commanded her before him. He did not spare her; every reproach that the case seemed to demand was lavished upon her by the indignant captain; and he finally forbade her ever to give another thought to Mr. Carlton. The abuse he heaped upon the unconscious surgeon would have been something grand if spoken upon the boards of a theatre; it simply made Laura rebellious. He told her that, except in his professional capacity, he disliked Mr. Carlton, and that nothing in the world would ever induce him to admit the man to his family. And this he confirmed with sundry unnecessary words.
Laura retired, apparently acquiescent. Not to him did she dare show disobedience, and the captain concluded that the affair was settled and over. Whether Laura’s rebellious feelings would have subsided afterwards into duty had she been let alone, it is impossible to say; but Mr. Carlton took every possible occasion of fostering them.
He did not want for opportunity. Laura-careless, wilful, reprehensible Laura—had yielded to his persuasions of meeting him in secret. Evening after evening, at the dusk hour, unless unavoidably kept away by the exigencies of patients, was Mr. Carlton in the dark grove of trees that skirted Captain Chesney’s house; and Laura found no difficulty in joining him. The captain and Miss Chesney would as soon have suspected her of stealing out to meet a charged cannon as a gentleman, and Laura’s movements were free.
But it was not possible that this state of things could continue. Laura had not been reared to deceit, and she did feel ashamed of herself. She felt also something else—a fear of detection. Each evening as she glided, trembling, into that grove, he protested with tears to Mr. Carlton that it must be the last; that she dared not come again. And suppose she made it the last, he answered, what then? were they to bid each other adieu for ever?
Ah, poor Laura Chesney’s heart was only too much inclined to open to the specious argument he breathed into it—that there was but one way of ending satisfactorily the present unhappy state of things: that of flying with him. It took but a few days to accomplish—the convincing her that it would be best for them in every way, and inducing her to promise to consent. So long as she was Miss Laura Chesney, Captain Chesney’s obstinacy would continue, he argued; but when once they were married, he would be easily brought to forgive. Mr. Carlton believed this when he said it. He believed that these loud, hot-tempered men, who were so fond of raging out, never bore malice long. Perhaps as a rule he was right, but in all rules there are exceptional cases. With many tears, with many sighs, with many qualms of self-reproach, Laura yielded her consent, and Mr. Carlton laid his plans, and communicated them to her. But for his having been forbidden the house, Laura might never have ventured on the step; but to continue to steal out in fear and trembling to see him, she dared not; and to live without seeing him would have been the bitterest fate of all.
In the few days that had elapsed since the rupture between her father and her lover, Laura Chesney seemed to have lived years. In her after life, when she glanced back at this time, she asked herself whether it was indeed possible that but those few days, a fortnight at most, had passed over her head, during which she was making up her mind to leave her home with Mr. Carlton. Only a few days! to deliberate upon a step that must fix the destiny of her whole life!
But we must hasten on.
It was about a month subsequent to the death of Mrs. Crane, and the moon’s rays were again gladdening the earth. The rays were weak and watery. Dark clouds passed frequently over the face of the sky, and sprinkling showers, threatening heavier rain, fell at intervals.
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