CHAPTER XXIV. IN THE SHADOW OF ST. PAUL’S.
In ten days I was at home again—and my mother’s arms were round me.
I had left her for my sea-voyage very unwillingly—seeing that she was in delicate health. On my return, I was grieved to observe a change for the worse, for which her letters had not prepared me. Consulting our medical friend, Mr. MacGlue, I found that he, too, had noticed my mother’s failing health, but that he attributed it to an easily removable cause—to the climate of Scotland. My mother’s childhood and early life had been passed on the southern shores of England. The change to the raw, keen air of the North had been a trying change to a person at her age. In Mr. MacGlue’s opinion, the wise course to take would be to return to the South before the autumn was further advanced, and to make our arrangements for passing the coming winter at Penzance or Torquay.
Resolved as I was to keep the mysterious appointment which summoned me to London at the month’s end, Mr. MacGlue’s suggestion met with no opposition on my part. It had, to my mind, the great merit of obviating the necessity of a second separation from my mother—assuming that she approved of the doctor’s advice. I put the question to her the same day. To my infinite relief, she was not only ready, but eager to take the journey to the South. The season had been unusually wet, even for Scotland; and my mother reluctantly confessed that she “did feel a certain longing” for the mild air and genial sunshine of the Devonshire coast.
We arranged to travel in our own comfortable carriage by post—resting, of course, at inns on the road at night. In the days before railways it was no easy matter for an invalid to travel from Perthshire to London—even with a light carriage and four horses. Calculating our rate of progress from the date of our departure, I found that we had just time, and no more, to reach London on the last day of the month.
I shall say nothing of the secret anxieties which weighed on my mind, under these circumstances. Happily for me, on every account, my mother’s strength held out. The easy and (as we then thought) the rapid rate of traveling had its invigorating effect on her nerves. She slept better when we rested for the night than she had slept at home. After twice being delayed on the road, we arrived in London at three o’clock on the afternoon of the last day of the month. Had I reached my destination in time?
As I interpreted the writing of the apparition, I had still some hours at my disposal. The phrase, “at the month’s end,” meant, as I understood it, at the last hour of the last day in the month. If I took up my position “under the shadow of Saint Paul’s,” say, at ten that night, I should arrive at the place of meeting with two hours to spare, before the last stroke of the clock marked the beginning of the new month.
At half-past nine, I left my mother to rest after her long journey, and privately quit the house. Before ten, I was at my post. The night was fine and clear; and the huge shadow of the cathedral marked distinctly the limits within which I had been bid to wait, on the watch for events.
The great clock of Saint Paul’s struck ten—and nothing happened.
The next hour passed very slowly. I walked up and down; at one time absorbed in my own thoughts; at another, engaged in watching the gradual diminution in the number of foot passengers who passed me as the night advanced. The City (as it is called) is the most populous part of London in the daytime; but at night, when it ceases to be the center of commerce, its busy population melts away, and the empty streets assume the appearance of a remote and deserted quarter of the metropolis. As the half hour after ten struck—then the quarter to eleven—then the hour—the pavement steadily became more and more deserted. I could count the foot passengers now by twos and threes; and I could see the places of public refreshment within my view beginning already to close for the night.
I looked at the clock; it pointed to ten minutes past eleven. At that hour, could I hope to meet Mrs. Van Brandt alone in the public street?
The more I thought of it, the less likely such an event seemed to be. The more reasonable probability was that I might meet her once more, accompanied by some friend—perhaps under the escort of Van Brandt himself. I wondered whether I should preserve my self-control, in the presence of that man, for the second time.
While my thoughts were still pursuing this direction, my attention was recalled to passing events by a sad little voice, putting a strange little question, close at my side.
“If you please, sir, do you know where I can find a chemist’s shop open at this time of night?”
I looked round, and discovered a poorly clad little boy, with a basket over his arm, and a morsel of paper in his hand.
“The chemists’ shops are all shut,” I said. “If you want any medicine, you must ring the night-bell.”
“I dursn’t do it, sir,” replied the small stranger. “I am such a little boy, I’m afraid of their beating me if I ring them up out of their beds, without somebody to speak for me.”
The little creature looked at me under the street lamp with such a forlorn experience of being beaten for trifling offenses in his face, that it was impossible to resist the impulse to help him.
“Is it a serious case of illness?” I asked.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Have you got a doctor’s prescription?”
He held out his morsel of paper.
“I have got this,” he said.
I took the paper from him, and looked at it.
It was an ordinary prescription for a tonic mixture. I looked first at the doctor’s signature; it was the name of a perfectly obscure person in the profession. Below it was written the name of the patient for whom the medicine had been prescribed. I started as I read it. The name was “Mrs. Brand.”
The idea instantly struck me that this (so far as sound went, at any rate) was the English equivalent of Van Brandt.
“Do you know the lady who sent you for the medicine?” I asked.
“Oh yes, sir! She lodges with mother—and she owes for rent. I have done everything she told me, except getting the physic. I’ve pawned her ring, and I’ve bought the bread and butter and eggs, and I’ve taken care of the change. Mother looks to the change for her rent. It isn’t my fault, sir, that I’ve lost myself. I am but ten years old—and all the chemists’ shops are shut up!”
Here my little friend’s sense of his unmerited misfortunes overpowered him, and he began to cry.
“Don’t cry, my man!” I said; “I’ll help you. Tell me something more about the lady first. Is she alone?”
“She’s got her little girl with her, sir.”
My heart quickened its beat. The boy’s answer reminded me of that other little girl whom my mother had once seen.
“Is the lady’s husband with her?” I asked next.
“No, sir—not now. He was with her; but he went away—and he hasn’t come back yet.”
I put a last conclusive question.
“Is her husband an Englishman?” I inquired.
“Mother says he’s a foreigner,” the boy answered.
I turned away to hide my agitation. Even the child might have noticed it!
Passing under the name of “Mrs. Brand”—poor, so poor that she was obliged to pawn her ring—left, by a man who was a foreigner, alone with her little girl—was I on the trace of her at that moment? Was this lost child destined to be the innocent means of leading me back to the woman I loved, in her direst need of sympathy and help? The more I thought of it, the more strongly the idea of returning with the boy to the house in which his mother’s lodger lived fastened itself on my mind. The clock struck the quarter past eleven. If my anticipations ended in misleading me, I had still three-quarters of an hour to spare before the month reached its end.
“Where do you live?” I asked.
The boy mentioned a street, the name of which I then heard for the first time. All he could say, when I asked for further particulars, was that he lived close by the river—in which direction, he was too confused and too frightened to be able to tell me.
While we were still trying to understand each other, a cab passed slowly at some little distance. I hailed the man, and mentioned the name of the street to him. He knew it perfectly well. The street was rather more than a mile away from us, in an easterly direction. He undertook to drive me there and to bring me back again to Saint Paul’s (if necessary), in less than twenty minutes. I opened the door of the cab, and told my little friend to get in. The boy hesitated.
“Are we going to the chemist’s, if you please, sir?” he asked.
“No. You are going home first, with me.”
The boy began to cry again.
“Mother will beat me, sir, if I go back without the medicine.”
“I will take care that your mother doesn’t beat you. I am a doctor myself; and I want to see the lady before we get the medicine.”
The announcement of my profession appeared to inspire the boy with a certain confidence. But he still showed no disposition to accompany me to his mother’s house.
“Do you mean to charge the lady anything?” he asked. “The money I’ve got on the ring isn’t much. Mother won’t like having it taken out of her rent.”
“I won’t charge the lady a farthing,” I answered.
The boy instantly got into the cab. “All right,” he said, “as long as mother gets her money.”
Alas for the poor! The child’s education in the sordid anxieties of life was completed already at ten years old!
We drove away.
CHAPTER XXV. I KEEP MY APPOINTMENT.
THE poverty-stricken aspect of the street when we entered it, the dirty and dilapidated condition of the house when we drew up at the door, would have warned most men, in my position, to prepare themselves for a distressing discovery when they were admitted to the interior of the dwelling. The first impression which the place produced on my mind suggested, on the contrary, that the boy’s answers to my questions had led me astray. It was simply impossible to associate Mrs. Van Brandt (as I remembered her) with the spectacle of such squalid poverty as I now beheld. I rang the door-bell, feeling persuaded beforehand that my inquiries would lead to no useful result.
As I lifted my hand to the bell, my little companion’s dread of a beating revived in full force. He hid himself behind me; and when I asked what he was about, he answered, confidentially: “Please stand between us, sir, when mother opens the door!”
A tall and truculent woman answered the bell. No introduction was necessary. Holding a cane in her hand, she stood self-proclaimed as my small friend’s mother.
“I thought it was that vagabond of a boy of mine,” she explained, as an apology for the exhibition of the cane. “He has been gone on an errand more than two hours. What did you please to want, sir?”
I interceded for the unfortunate boy before I entered on my own business.
“I must beg you to forgive your son this time,” I said. “I found him lost in the streets; and I have brought him home.”
The woman’s astonishment when she heard what I had done, and discovered her son behind me, literally struck her dumb. The language of the eye, superseding on this occasion the language of the tongue, plainly revealed the impression that I had produced on her: “You bring my lost brat home in a cab! Mr. Stranger, you are mad.”
“I hear that you have a lady named Brand lodging in the house,” I went on. “I dare say I am mistaken in supposing her to be a lady of the same name whom I know. But I should like to make sure whether I am right or wrong. Is it too late to disturb your lodger to-night?”
The woman recovered the use of her tongue.
“My lodger is up and waiting for that little fool, who doesn’t know his way about London yet!” She emphasized those words by shaking her brawny fist at her son—who instantly returned to his place of refuge behind the tail of my coat. “Have you got the money?” inquired the terrible person, shouting at her hidden offspring over my shoulder. “Or have you lost that as well as your own stupid little self?”
The boy showed himself again, and put the money into his mother’s knotty hand. She counted it, with eyes which satisfied themselves fiercely that each coin was of genuine silver—and then became partially pacified.
“Go along upstairs,” she growled, addressing her son; “and don’t keep the lady waiting any longer. They’re half starved, she and her child,” the woman proceeded, turning to me. “The food my boy has got for them in his basket will be the first food the mother has tasted today. She’s pawned everything by this time; and what she’s to do unless you help her is more than I can say. The doctor does what he can; but he told me today, if she wasn’t better nourished, it was no use sending for him. Follow the boy; and see for yourself if it’s the lady you know.”
I listened to the woman, still feeling persuaded that I had acted under a delusion in going to her house. How was it possible to associate the charming object of my heart’s worship with the miserable story of destitution which I had just heard? I stopped the boy on the first landing, and told him to announce me simply as a doctor, who had been informed of Mrs. Brand’s illness, and who had called to see her.
We ascended a second flight of stairs, and a third. Arrived now at the top of the house, the boy knocked at the door that was nearest to us on the landing. No audible voice replied. He opened the door without ceremony, and went in. I waited outside to hear what was said. The door was left ajar. If the voice of “Mrs. Brand” was (as I believed it would prove to be) the voice of a stranger, I resolved to offer her delicately such help as lay within my power, and to return forthwith to my post under “the shadow of Saint Paul’s.”
The first voice that spoke to the boy was the voice of a child.
“I’m so hungry, Jemmy—I’m so hungry!”
“All right, missy—I’ve got you something to eat.”
“Be quick, Jemmy! Be quick!”
There was a momentary pause; and then I heard the boy’s voice once more.
“There’s a slice of bread-and-butter, missy. You must wait for your egg till I can boil it. Don’t you eat too fast, or you’ll choke yourself. What’s the matter with your mamma? Are you asleep, ma’am?”
I could barely hear the answering voice—it was so faint; and it uttered but one word: “No!”
The boy spoke again.
“Cheer up, missus. There’s a doctor outside waiting to see you.”
This time there was no audible reply. The boy showed himself to me at the door. “Please to come in, sir. I can’t make anything of her.”
It would have been misplaced delicacy to have hesitated any longer to enter the room. I went in.
There, at the opposite end of a miserably furnished bed-chamber, lying back feebly in a tattered old arm-chair, was one more among the thousands of forlorn creatures, starving that night in the great city. A white handkerchief was laid over her face as if to screen it from the flame of the fire hard by. She lifted the handkerchief, startled by the sound of my footsteps as I entered the room. I looked at her, and saw in the white, wan, death-like face the face of the woman I loved!
For a moment the horror of the discovery turned me faint and giddy. In another instant I was kneeling by her chair. My arm was round her—her head lay on my shoulder. She was past speaking, past crying out: she trembled silently, and that was all. I said nothing. No words passed my lips, no tears came to my relief. I held her to me; and she let me hold her. The child, devouring its bread-and-butter at a little round table, stared at us. The boy, on his knees before the grate, mending the fire, stared at us. And the slow minutes lagged on; and the buzzing of a fly in a corner was the only sound in the room.
The instincts of the profession to which I had been trained, rather than any active sense of the horror of the situation in which I was placed, roused me at last. She was starving! I saw it in the deadly color of her skin; I felt it in the faint, quick flutter of her pulse. I called the boy to me, and sent him to the nearest public-house for wine and biscuits. “Be quick about it,” I said; “and you shall have more money for yourself than ever you had in your life!” The boy looked at me, spit on the coins in his hand, said, “That’s for luck!” and ran out of the room as never boy ran yet.
I turned to speak my first words of comfort to the mother. The cry of the child stopped me.
“I’m so hungry! I’m so hungry!”
I set more food before the famished child and kissed her. She looked up at me with wondering eyes.
“Are you a new papa?” the little creature asked. “My other papa never kisses me.”
I looked at the mother. Her eyes were closed; the tears flowed slowly over her worn, white cheeks. I took her frail hand in mine. “Happier days are coming,” I said; “you are my care now.” There was no answer. She still trembled silently, and that was all.
In less than five minutes the boy returned, and earned his promised reward. He sat on the floor by the fire counting his treasure, the one happy creature in the room. I soaked some crumbled morsels of biscuit in the wine, and, little by little, I revived her failing strength by nourishment administered at intervals in that cautious form. After a while she raised her head, and looked at me with wondering eyes that were pitiably like the eyes of her child. A faint, delicate flush began to show itself in her face. She spoke to me, for the first time, in whispering tones that I could just hear as I sat close at her side.
“How did you find me? Who showed you the way to this place?”
She paused; painfully recalling the memory of something that was slow to come back. Her color deepened; she found the lost remembrance, and looked at me with a timid curiosity. “What brought you here?” she asked. “Was it my dream?”
“Wait, dearest, till you are stronger, and I will tell you all.”
I lifted her gently, and laid her on the wretched bed. The child followed us, and climbing to the bedstead with my help, nestled at her mother’s side. I sent the boy away to tell the mistress of the house that I should remain with my patient, watching her progress toward recovery, through the night. He went out, jingling his money joyfully in his pocket. We three were left together.
As the long hours followed each other, she fell at intervals into a broken sleep; waking with a start, and looking at me wildly as if I had been a stranger at her bedside. Toward morning the nourishment which I still carefully administered wrought its healthful change in her pulse, and composed her to quieter slumbers. When the sun rose she was sleeping as peacefully as the child at her side. I was able to leave her, until my return later in the day, under the care of the woman of the house. The magic of money transformed this termagant and terrible person into a docile and attentive nurse—so eager to follow my instructions exactly that she begged me to commit them to writing before I went away. For a moment I still lingered alone at the bedside of the sleeping woman, and satisfied myself for the hundredth time that her life was safe, before I left her. It was the sweetest of all rewards to feel sure of this—to touch her cool forehead lightly with my lips—to look, and look again, at the poor worn face, always dear, always beautiful, to my eyes. change as it might. I closed the door softly and went out in the bright morning, a happy man again. So close together rise the springs of joy and sorrow in human life! So near in our heart, as in our heaven, is the brightest sunshine to the blackest cloud!
CHAPTER XXVI. CONVERSATION WITH MY MOTHER.
I REACHED my own house in time to snatch two or three hours of repose, before I paid my customary morning visit to my mother in her own room. I observed, in her reception of me on this occasion, certain peculiarities of look and manner which were far from being familiar in my experience of her.
When our eyes first met, she regarded me with a wistful, questioning look, as if she were troubled by some doubt which she shrunk from expressing in words. And when I inquired after her health, as usual, she surprised me by answering as impatiently as if she resented my having mentioned the subject. For a moment, I was inclined to think these changes signified that she had discovered my absence from home during the night, and that she had some suspicion of the true cause of it. But she never alluded, even in the most distant manner, to Mrs. Van Brandt; and not a word dropped from her lips which implied, directly or indirectly, that I had pained or disappointed her. I could only conclude that she had something important to say in relation to herself or to me—and that for reasons of her own she unwillingly abstained from giving expression to it at that time.
Reverting to our ordinary topics of conversation, we touched on the subject (always interesting to my mother) of my visit to Shetland. Speaking of this, we naturally spoke also of Miss Dunross. Here, again, when I least expected it, there was another surprise in store for me.
“You were talking the other day,” said my mother, “of the green flag which poor Dermody’s daughter worked for you, when you were both children. Have you really kept it all this time?”
“Yes.”
“Where have you left it? In Scotland?”
“I have brought it with me to London.”
“Why?”
“I promised Miss Dunross to take the green flag with me, wherever I might go.”
My mother smiled.
“Is it possible, George, that you think about this as the young lady in Shetland thinks? After all the years that have passed, you believe in the green flag being the means of bringing Mary Dermody and yourself together again?”
“Certainly not! I am only humoring one of the fancies of poor Miss Dunross. Could I refuse to grant her trifling request, after all I owed to her kindness?”
The smile left my mother’s face. She looked at me attentively.
“Miss Dunross seems to have produced a very favorable impression on you,” she said.
“I own it. I feel deeply interested in her.”
“If she had not been an incurable invalid, George, I too might have become interested in Miss Dunross—perhaps in the character of my daughter-in-law?”
“It is useless, mother, to speculate on what might have happened. The sad reality is enough.”
My mother paused a little before she put her next question to me.
“Did Miss Dunross always keep her veil drawn in your presence, when there happened to be light in the room?”
“Always.”
“She never even let you catch a momentary glance at her face?”
“Never.”
“And the only reason she gave you was that the light caused her a painful sensation if it fell on her uncovered skin?”
“You say that, mother, as if you doubt whether Miss Dunross told me the truth.”
“No, George. I only doubt whether she told you all the truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t be offended, my dear. I believe Miss Dunross has some more serious reason for keeping her face hidden than the reason that she gave you.”
I was silent. The suspicion which those words implied had never occurred to my mind. I had read in medical books of cases of morbid nervous sensitiveness exactly similar to the case of Miss Dunross, as described by herself—and that had been enough for me. Now that my mother’s idea had found its way from her mind to mine, the impression produced on me was painful in the last degree. Horrible imaginings of deformity possessed my brain, and profaned all that was purest and dearest in my recollections of Miss Dunross. It was useless to change the subject—the evil influence that was on me was too potent to be charmed away by talk. Making the best excuse that I could think of for leaving my mother’s room, I hurried away to seek a refuge from myself, where alone I could hope to find it, in the presence of Mrs. Van Brandt.
CHAPTER XXVII. CONVERSATION WITH MRS. VAN BRANDT.
THE landlady was taking the air at her own door when I reached the house. Her reply to my inquiries justified my most hopeful anticipations. The poor lodger looked already “like another woman”; and the child was at that moment posted on the stairs, watching for the return of her “new papa.”
“There’s one thing I should wish to say to you, sir, before you go upstairs,” the woman went on. “Don’t trust the lady with more money at a time than the money that is wanted for the day’s housekeeping. If she has any to spare, it’s as likely as not to be wasted on her good-for-nothing husband.”
Absorbed in the higher and dearer interests that filled my mind, I had thus far forgotten the very existence of Mr. Van Brandt.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Where he ought to be,” was the answer. “In prison for debt.”
In those days a man imprisoned for debt was not infrequently a man imprisoned for life. There was little fear of my visit being shortened by the appearance on the scene of Mr. Van Brandt.
Ascending the stairs, I found the child waiting for me on the upper landing, with a ragged doll in her arms. I had bought a cake for her on my way to the house. She forthwith turned over the doll to my care, and, trotting before me into the room with her cake in her arms, announced my arrival in these words:
“Mamma, I like this papa better than the other. You like him better, too.”
The mother’s wasted face reddened for a moment, then turned pale again, as she held out her hand to me. I looked at her anxiously, and discerned the welcome signs of recovery, clearly revealed. Her grand gray eyes rested on me again with a glimmer of their old light. The hand that had lain so cold in mine on the past night had life and warmth in it now.
“Should I have died before the morning if you had not come here?” she asked, softly. “Have you saved my life for the second time? I can well believe it.”
Before I was aware of her, she bent her head over my hand, and touched it tenderly with her lips. “I am not an ungrateful woman,” she murmured—“and yet I don’t know how to thank you.”
The child looked up quickly from her cake. “Why don’t you kiss him?” the quaint little creature asked, with a broad stare of astonishment.
Her head sunk on her breast. She sighed bitterly.
“No more of Me!” she said, suddenly recovering her composure, and suddenly forcing herself to look at me again. “Tell me what happy chance brought you here last night?”
“The same chance,” I answered, “which took me to Saint Anthony’s Well.”
She raised herself eagerly in the chair.
“You have seen me again—as you saw me in the summer-house by the waterfall!” she exclaimed. “Was it in Scotland once more?”
“No. Further away than Scotland—as far away as Shetland.”
“Tell me about it! Pray, pray tell me about it!”
I related what had happened as exactly as I could, consistently with maintaining the strictest reserve on one point. Concealing from her the very existence of Miss Dunross, I left her to suppose that the master of the house was the one person whom I had found to receive me during my sojourn under Mr. Dunross’s roof.
“That is strange!” she exclaimed, after she had heard me attentively to the end.
“What is strange?” I asked.
She hesitated, searching my face earnestly with her large grave eyes.
“I hardly like speaking of it,” she said. “And yet I ought to have no concealments in such a matter from you. I understand everything that you have told me—with one exception. It seems strange to me that you should only have had one old man for your companion while you were at the house in Shetland.”
“What other companion did you expect to hear of?” I inquired.
“I expected,” she answered, “to hear of a lady in the house.”
I cannot positively say that the reply took me by surprise: it forced me to reflect before I spoke again. I knew, by my past experience, that she must have seen me, in my absence from her, while I was spiritually present to her mind in a trance or dream. Had she also seen the daily companion of my life in Shetland—Miss Dunross?
I put the question in a form which left me free to decide whether I should take her unreservedly into my confidence or not.
“Am I right,” I began, “in supposing that you dreamed of me in Shetland, as you once before dreamed of me while I was at my house in Perthshire?”
“Yes,” she answered. “It was at the close of evening, this time. I fell asleep, or became insensible—I cannot say which. And I saw you again, in a vision or a dream.”
“Where did you see me?”
“I first saw you on the bridge over the Scotch river—just as I met you on the evening when you saved my life. After a while the stream and the landscape about it faded, and you faded with them, into darkness. I waited a little, and the darkness melted away slowly. I stood, as it seemed to me, in a circle of starry lights; fronting a window, with a lake behind me, and before me a darkened room. And I looked into the room, and the starry light showed you to me again.”
“When did this happen? Do you remember the date?”
“I remember that it was at the beginning of the month. The misfortunes which have since brought me so low had not then fallen on me; and yet, as I stood looking at you, I had the strangest prevision of calamity that was to come. I felt the same absolute reliance on your power to help me that I felt when I first dreamed of you in Scotland. And I did the same familiar things. I laid my hand on your bosom. I said to you: ‘Remember me. Come to me.’ I even wrote—”
She stopped, shuddering as if a sudden fear had laid its hold on her. Seeing this, and dreading the effect of any violent agitation, I hastened to suggest that we should say no more, for that day, on the subject of her dream.
“No,” she answered, firmly. “There is nothing to be gained by giving me time. My dream has left one horrible remembrance on my mind. As long as I live, I believe I shall tremble when I think of what I saw near you in that darkened room.”
She stopped again. Was she approaching the subject of the shrouded figure, with the black veil over its head? Was she about to describe her first discovery, in the dream, of Miss Dunross?
“Tell me one thing first,” she resumed. “Have I been right in what I have said to you, so far? Is it true that you were in a darkened room when you saw me?”
“Quite true.”
“Was the date the beginning of the month? and was the hour the close of evening?”
“Yes.”
“Were you alone in the room? Answer me truly!”
“I was not alone.”
“Was the master of the house with you? or had you some other companion?”
It would have been worse than useless (after what I had now heard) to attempt to deceive her.
“I had another companion,” I answered. “The person in the room with me was a woman.”
Her face showed, as I spoke, that she was again shaken by the terrifying recollection to which she had just alluded. I had, by this time, some difficulty myself in preserving my composure. Still, I was determined not to let a word escape me which could operate as a suggestion on the mind of my companion.
“Have you any other question to ask me?” was all I said.
“One more,” she answered. “Was there anything unusual in the dress of your companion?”
“Yes. She wore a long black veil, which hung over her head and face, and dropped to below her waist.”
Mrs. Van Brandt leaned back in her chair, and covered her eyes with her hands.
“I understand your motive for concealing from me the presence of that miserable woman in the house,” she said. “It is good and kind, like all your motives; but it is useless. While I lay in the trance I saw everything exactly as it was in the reality; and I, too, saw that frightful face!”
Those words literally electrified me.
My conversation of that morning with my mother instantly recurred to my memory. I started to my feet.
“Good God!” I exclaimed, “what do you mean?”
“Don’t you understand yet?” she asked in amazement on her side. “Must I speak more plainly still? When you saw the apparition of me, did you see me write?”
“Yes. On a letter that the lady was writing for me. I saw the words afterward; the words that brought me to you last night: ‘At the month’s end, In the shadow of Saint Paul’s.’”
“How did I appear to write on the unfinished letter?”
“You lifted the writing-case, on which the letter and the pen lay, off the lady’s lap; and, while you wrote, you rested the case on her shoulder.”
“Did you notice if the lifting of the case produced any effect on her?”
“I saw no effect produced,” I answered. “She remained immovable in her chair.”
“I saw it differently in my dream. She raised her hand—not the hand that was nearest to you, but nearest to me. As I lifted the writing-case, she lifted her hand, and parted the folds of the veil from off her face—I suppose to see more clearly. It was only for a moment; and in that moment I saw what the veil hid. Don’t let us speak of it! You must have shuddered at that frightful sight in the reality, as I shuddered at it in the dream. You must have asked yourself, as I did: ‘Is there nobody to poison the terrible creature, and hide her mercifully in the grave?’”
At those words, she abruptly checked herself. I could say nothing—my face spoke for me. She saw it, and guessed the truth.
“Good heavens!” she cried, “you have not seen her! She must have kept her face hidden from you behind the veil! Oh, why, why did you cheat me into talking of it! I will never speak of it again. See, we are frightening the child! Come here, darling; there is nothing to be afraid of. Come, and bring your cake with you. You shall be a great lady, giving a grand dinner; and we will be two friends whom you have invited to dine with you; and the doll shall be the little girl who comes in after dinner, and has fruit at dessert!” So she ran on, trying vainly to forget the shock that she had inflicted on me in talking nursery nonsense to the child.
Recovering my composure in some degree, I did my best to second the effort that she had made. My quieter thoughts suggested that she might well be self-deceived in believing the horrible spectacle presented to her in the vision to be an actual reflection of the truth. In common justice toward Miss Dunross I ought surely not to accept the conviction of her deformity on no better evidence than the evidence of a dream? Reasonable as it undoubtedly was, this view left certain doubts still lingering in my mind. The child’s instinct soon discovered that her mother and I were playfellows who felt no genuine enjoyment of the game. She dismissed her make-believe guests without ceremony, and went back with her doll to the favorite play-ground on which I had met her—the landing outside the door. No persuasion on her mother’s part or on mine succeeded in luring her back to us. We were left together, to face each other as best we might—with the forbidden subject of Miss Dunross between us.
CHAPTER XXVIII. LOVE AND MONEY.
FEELING the embarrassment of the moment most painfully on her side, Mrs. Van Brandt spoke first.
“You have said nothing to me about yourself,” she began. “Is your life a happier one than it was when we last met?”
“I cannot honestly say that it is,” I answered.
“Is there any prospect of your being married?”
“My prospect of being married still rests with you.”
“Don’t say that!” she exclaimed, with an entreating look at me. “Don’t spoil my pleasure in seeing you again by speaking of what can never be! Have you still to be told how it is that you find me here alone with my child?”
I forced myself to mention Van Brandt’s name, rather than hear it pass her lips.
“I have been told that Mr. Van Brandt is in prison for debt,” I said. “And I saw for myself last night that he had left you helpless.”
“He left me the little money he had with him when he was arrested,” she rejoined, sadly. “His cruel creditors are more to blame than he is for the poverty that has fallen on us.”
Even this negative defense of Van Brandt stung me to the quick.
“I ought to have spoken more guardedly of him,” I said, bitterly. “I ought to have remembered that a woman can forgive almost any wrong that a man can inflict on her—when he is the man whom she loves.”
She put her hand on my mouth, and stopped me before I could say any more.
“How can you speak so cruelly to me?” she asked. “You know—to my shame I confessed it to you the last time we met—you know that my heart, in secret, is all yours. What ‘wrong’ are you talking of? Is it the wrong I suffered when Van Brandt married me, with a wife living at the time (and living still)? Do you think I can ever forget the great misfortune of my life—the misfortune that has made me unworthy of you? It is no fault of mine, God knows; but it is not the less true that I am not married, and that the little darling who is playing out there with her doll is my child. And you talk of my being your wife—knowing that!”
“The child accepts me as her second father,” I said. “It would be better and happier for us both if you had as little pride as the child.”
“Pride?” she repeated. “In such a position as mine? A helpless woman, with a mock-husband in prison for debt! Say that I have not fallen quite so low yet as to forget what is due to you, and you will pay me a compliment that will be nearer to the truth. Am I to marry you for my food and shelter? Am I to marry you, because there is no lawful tie that binds me to the father of my child? Cruelly as he has behaved, he has still that claim upon me. Bad as he is, he has not forsaken me; he has been forced away. My only friend, is it possible that you think me ungrateful enough to consent to be your wife? The woman (in my situation) must be heartless indeed who could destroy your place in the estimation of the world and the regard of your friends! The wretchedest creature that walks the streets would shrink from treating you in that way. Oh, what are men made of? How can you—how can you speak of it!”
I yielded—-and spoke of it no more. Every word she uttered only increased my admiration of the noble creature whom I had loved, and lost. What refuge was now left to me? But one refuge; I could still offer to her the sacrifice of myself. Bitterly as I hated the man who had parted us, I loved her dearly enough to be even capable of helping him for her sake. Hopeless infatuation! I don’t deny it; I don’t excuse it—hopeless infatuation!
“You have forgiven me,” I said. “Let me deserve to be forgiven. It is something to be your only friend. You must have plans for the future; tell me unreservedly how I can help you.”
“Complete the good work that you have begun,” she answered, gratefully. “Help me back to health. Make me strong enough to submit to a doctor’s estimate of my chances of living for some years yet.”
“A doctor’s estimate of your chances of living?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”
“I hardly know how to tell you,” she said, “without speaking again of Mr. Van Brandt.”
“Does speaking of him again mean speaking of his debts?” I asked. “Why need you hesitate? You know that there is nothing I will not do to relieve your anxieties.”
She looked at me for a moment, in silent distress.
“Oh! do you think I would let you give your money to Van Brandt?” she asked, as soon as she could speak. “I, who owe everything to your devotion to me? Never! Let me tell you the plain truth. There is a serious necessity for his getting out of prison. He must pay his creditors; and he has found out a way of doing it—with my help.”
“Your help?” I exclaimed.
“Yes. This is his position, in two words: A little while since, he obtained an excellent offer of employment abroad, from a rich relative of his, and he had made all his arrangements to accept it. Unhappily, he returned to tell me of his good fortune, and the same day he was arrested for debt. His relative has offered to keep the situation open for a certain time, and the time has not yet expired. If he can pay a dividend to his creditors, they will give him his freedom; and he believes he can raise the money if I consent to insure my life.”
To insure her life! The snare that had been set for her was plainly revealed in those four words.
In the eye of the law she was, of course, a single woman: she was of age; she was, to all intents and purposes, her own mistress. What was there to prevent her from insuring her life, if she pleased, and from so disposing of the insurance as to give Van Brandt a direct interest in her death? Knowing what I knew of him—believing him, as I did, to be capable of any atrocity—I trembled at the bare idea of what might have happened if I had failed to find my way back to her until a later date. Thanks to the happy accident of my position, the one certain way of protecting her lay easily within my reach. I could offer to lend the scoundrel the money that he wanted at an hour’s notice, and he was the man to accept my proposal quite as easily as I could make it.
“You don’t seem to approve of our idea,” she said, noticing, in evident perplexity, the effect which she had produced on me. “I am very unfortunate; I seem to have innocently disturbed and annoyed you for the second time.”
“You are quite mistaken,” I replied. “I am only doubting whether your plan for relieving Mr. Van Brandt of his embarrassments is quite so simple as you suppose. Are you aware of the delays that are likely to take place before it will be possible to borrow money on your policy of insurance?”
“I know nothing about it,” she said, sadly.
“Will you let me ask the advice of my lawyers? They are trustworthy and experienced men, and I am sure they can be of use to you.”
Cautiously as I had expressed myself, her delicacy took the alarm.
“Promise that you won’t ask me to borrow money of you for Mr. Van Brandt,” she rejoined, “and I will accept your help gratefully.”
I could honestly promise that. My one chance of saving her lay in keeping from her knowledge the course that I had now determined to pursue. I rose to go, while my resolution still sustained me. The sooner I made my inquiries (I reminded her) the more speedily our present doubts and difficulties would be resolved.
She rose, as I rose—with the tears in her eyes, and the blush on her cheeks.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, “before you go! And don’t mind my crying. I am quite happy now. It is only your goodness that overpowers me.”
I pressed her to my heart, with the unacknowledged tenderness of a parting embrace. It was impossible to disguise the position in which I had now placed myself. I had, so to speak, pronounced my own sentence of banishment. When my interference had restored my unworthy rival to his freedom, could I submit to the degrading necessity of seeing her in his presence, of speaking to her under his eyes? That sacrifice of myself was beyond me—and I knew it. “For the last time!” I thought, as I held her to me for a moment longer—“for the last time!”
The child ran to meet me with open arms when I stepped out on the landing. My manhood had sustained me through the parting with the mother. It was only when the child’s round, innocent little face laid itself lovingly against mine that my fortitude gave way. I was past speaking; I put her down gently in silence, and waited on the lower flight of stairs until I was fit to face the world outside.