Things were coming to a crisis. The Unionists had done their best to hold out against the masters; but they found the effort was untenable—that they must give in at last. The prospect of returning to work was eagerly welcomed by the greater portion of the men. Rather than continue longer in the wretched condition to which they were reduced, they would have gone back almost on any terms. Why, then, not have gone back before? as many asked. Because they preferred to resume work with the consent of the Union, rather than without it: and besides, the privations got worse and worse. A few of the men were bitterly enraged at the turn affairs seemed to be taking—of whom Sam Shuck was chief. With the return of the hands to work, Sam foresaw no field for the exercise of his own peculiar talents, unless it was in stirring up fresh discontent for the future. However, it was not yet finally arranged that work should be resumed: a little more agitation might be pleasant first, and possibly prevent it.
'It's a few white-livered hounds among yourselves that have spoilt it,' growled Sam to a knot of hitherto staunch friends, a day or two subsequent to that conjugal dispute between Mr. and Mrs. Dunn, which we had the gratification of assisting at in the last chapter. 'When such men as White, and Baxendale, and Darby, who have held some sway among you, turn sneaks and go over to the nobs, it's only to be expected that you'll turn sneaks and follow. One fool makes many. Did you hear how Darby got out his tools?'
'No.'
'The men opposed to the Union, opposed to us, heard of his wanting them, and they clubbed together, and made up the tin, and Darby is to pay 'em back so much a-week—two shillings I think it is. Before I'd lie under obligation to the non-Unionist men, I'd shoot myself. What good has the struggle done you?'
'None,' said a voice. 'It have done a good deal of harm.'
'Ay, it has—if it is to die out in this ignoble way,' said Sam. 'Better have been slaving like dray-horses all along, than break down in the effort to escape the slavery, and hug it to your arms again. If you had only half the spirit of men, you'd stop White's work for awhile, and Darby's too, as you did Baxendale's. Have you been thinking over what was said last night?' he continued, in a lower tone. The men nodded. One of them ventured to express an opinion that it was a 'dangerous game.'
'That depends upon how it's done,' said Shuck. 'Who has been the worse, pray, for the pitching into Baxendale? Can he, or anybody else, point a finger and say, "It was you did it?" or "It was you?" Why, of course he can't.'
'One might not come off again with the like luck.'
'Psha!' returned Sam, evincing a great amount of ridicule.
'But one mightn't, Shuck,' persisted his adversary.
'Oh, let the traitors alone, to go their own way in triumph if you like; get up a piece of plate for them, with their names wrote on it in gold,' satirically answered Sam. 'Yah! it sickens one to see you true fellows going over to the oppressionists.'
'How do you make out that White, and them, be oppressionists?'
'White, and them? they are worse than oppressionists a thousand times over,' fiercely cried Sam. 'I can't find words bad enough for them. It isn't of them I spoke: I spoke of the masters.'
'Well, Shuck, there's oppression on all sides, I think,' rejoined one of the men. 'I'd be glad to rise in the world if I could, and I'd work over hours to help me on to it and to educate my children a bit better than common; but if you come down upon me and say, "You shall not do it, you shall only work the stated hours laid down, and nobody shall work more," I call that oppression.'
'So it is,' assented another voice. 'The masters never oppressed us like that.'
'What's fair for one is fair for all,' said Sam. 'We must work and share alike.'
'That would be right enough if we all had talents and industry equal,' was the reply. 'But as we haven't, and never shall have, it can't be fair to put a limit on us.'
'There's one question I'd like to have answered, Shuck,' interposed a former speaker: 'but I'm afeared it never will be answered, with satisfaction to us. What is to become of those men that the masters can't find employment for? If every one of us was free to go back to work to-morrow, and sought to do so, where would we get it? Our old shops be half filled with strangers, and there'd be thousands of us rejected—no room for us. Would the Society keep us?' A somewhat difficult question to answer, even for Slippery Sam. Perhaps for that reason he suddenly called out 'Hush!' and bent his head and put up his finger in the attitude of listening.
'There's something unusual going on in the street,' cried he. 'Let's see what it is.'
They hurried out to the street, Sam leading the way. Not a genial street to gaze upon, that wintry day, taking it with all its accessories. Half-clothed, half-starved emaciated men stood about in groups, their pale features and gloomy expression of despair telling a piteous tale. A different set of men entirely, to look at, from those of the well-to-do cheerful old days of work, contentment, and freedom from care.
Being marshalled down the street in as polite a manner as was consistent with the occasion, was Mr. James Dunn. He was on his road to prison; and certain choice spirits of Daffodil's Delight, headed by Mrs. Dunn, were in attendance, some bewailing and lamenting aloud, others hooting and yelling at the capturers. As if this was not enough cause of disturbance, news arose that the Dunns' landlord, finding the house temporarily abandoned by every soul—a chance he had been looking for—improved the opportunity to lock the street-door and keep them out. Nothing was before Mrs. Dunn and her children now but the parish Union.
'I don't care whether it is the masters that have been in fault or whether it's us; I know which side gets the suffering,' exclaimed a mechanic, as Mr. Dunn was conveyed beyond view. 'Old Abel White told us true; strikes never brought nothing but misery yet, and they never will.'
Sam Shuck seized upon the circumstance to draw around him a select audience, and to hold forth to them. Treason, false and pernicious though it was, that he spoke, his oratory fell persuasively on the public ear. He excited the men against the masters; he excited them to his utmost power against the men who had gone back to work; he inflamed their passions, he perverted their reason. Altogether, ill-feeling and excitement was smouldering in an unusual degree in Daffodil's Delight, and it was kept up through the live-long day. Evening came. The bell rang for the cessation of work at Mr. Hunter's, and the men came pouring forth, a great many of whom were strangers. The gas-lamp at the gate shed a brilliant light, as the hands dispersed—some one way, some another. Those bearing towards Daffodil's Delight became aware, as they approached an obscure portion of the road which lay past a dead wall, that it bore an unusual appearance, as if dark forms were hovering there. What could it be? Not for long were they kept in ignorance. There arose a terrific din, enough to startle the unwary. Yells, groans, hootings, hisses, threats were poured forth upon the workmen; and they knew that they had fallen into an ambush of the Society's men. Of women also, as it appeared. For shrill notes and delicate words of abuse, certainly only peculiar to ladies' throats, were pretty freely mingled with the gruff tones of the men.
'You be nice nine-hour chaps! Come on, if you're not cowards, and have it out in a fair fight——'
'A fair fight!' shrieked a female voice in interruption 'who'd fight with them? Traitors! cowards! Knock 'em down and trample upon 'em!'
'Harness 'em together with cords, and drag 'em along like beasts o' burden in the face and eyes o' London!' 'Stick 'em up on spikes!' 'Hoist 'em on to the lamp-posts!' 'Hold 'em head down'ards in a horse-trough!' 'Pitch into 'em with quicklime and rotten eggs!' 'Strip 'em and give 'em a coat o' tar!' 'Wring their necks, and have done with 'em!'
While these several complimentary suggestions were thrown from as many different quarters of the assailants, one of them had quietly laid hold of Abel White. There was little doubt—according to what came out afterwards—that he and Robert Darby were the two men chiefly aimed at in this night assault. Darby, however, was not there. As it happened, he had turned the contrary way on leaving the yard, having joined one of the men who had lent him some of the money to get his tools out of pledge, and gone towards his home with him.
'If thee carest for thy life, thee'll stop indoors, and not go a-nigh Hunter's yard again to work!'
Such were the words hissed forth in a hoarse whisper into the ear of Abel White, by the man who had seized upon him. Abel peered at him as keenly as the darkness would permit. White was no coward, and although aware that this attack most probably had him for its chief butt, he retained his composure. He could not recognise the man—a tall man, in a large loose blue frock, such as is sometimes worn by butchers, with a red woollen cravat wound roughly round his throat, hiding his chin and mouth, and a seal-skin cap, its dark 'ears' brought down on the sides of the face, and tied under the chin. The man may have been so wrapped up for protection against the weather, or for the purpose of disguise.
'Let me go,' said White.
'When thee hast sworn not to go on working till the Union gives leave.'
'I never will swear it. Or say it.'
'Then thee shall get every bone in th' body smashed. Thee'st been reported to Mr. Shuck, and to the Union.'
'I'd like to know your name and who you are,' exclaimed White. 'If you are not disguising your voice, it's odd to me.'
'D'ye remember Baxendale? He wouldn't take the oath, and he's lying with his ribs stove in.'
'More shame for you! Look you, man, you can't intimidate me. I am made of sterner stuff than that.'
'Swear!' was the menacing retort; 'swear that thee won't touch another stroke o' work.'
'I tell you that I never will swear it,' firmly returned White. 'The Union has hoodwinked me long enough; I'll have nothing to do with it.'
'There be desperate men around ye—them as won't leave ye with whole bones. You shall swear.'
'I'll have nothing more to do with the Union; I'll never again obey it,' answered White, speaking earnestly. 'There! make your most of it. If I had but a friendly gleam of light here, I'd know who you are, and let others know.'
The confusion around had increased. Hot words were passing everywhere between the assailants and the assailed—no positive assault as yet, save that a woman had shaken her fist in a man's face and spit at him. Abel White strove to get away with the last words, but the man who had been threatening him struck him a sharp blow between the eyes, and another blow from the same hand caught him behind. The next instant he was down. If one blow was dealt him, ten were from as many different hands. The tall man with the cap was busy with his feet; and it really seemed, by the manner he carried on the pastime, that his whole heart went with it, and that it was a heart of revenge.
But who is this, pushing his way through the crowd with stern authority. A policeman? The men shrank back, in their fear, to give him place. No; it is only their master, Mr. Clay.
'What is this?' exclaimed Austin, when he reached the point of battery. 'Is it you, White?' he added, stooping down. 'I suspected as much. Now, my men,' he continued in a stern tone, as he faced the excited throng, 'who are you? which of you has done this?'
'The ringleader was him in the cap, sir—the tall one with the red cloth round his neck and the fur about his ears,' spoke up White, who, though much maltreated, retained the use of his brains and his tongue. 'It was him that threatened me; he was the first to set upon me.'
'Who are you?' demanded Austin of the tall man.
The tall man responded by a quiet laugh of derision. He felt himself perfectly secure from recognition in the dark obscurity; and though Mr. Clay was of powerful frame, more than a match for him in agility and strength, let him only dare to lay a finger upon him, and there were plenty around to come to the rescue. Austin Clay heard the derisive laugh, subdued though it was, and thought he recognised it. He took his hand from within the breast of his coat, and raised it with a hasty motion—not to deal a blow, not with a pistol to startle or menace, but to turn on a dark lantern! No pistol could have startled them as did that sudden flash of bright light, thrown full upon the tall man's face. Off flew the fellow with a yell, and Austin coolly turned the lantern upon others.
'Bennet—and Strood—and Ryan—and Cassidy!' he exclaimed, recognising and telling off the men. 'And you, Cheek! I never should have suspected you of sufficient courage to join in a thing of this nature.'
Cheek, midway between shaking and tears, sobbed out that it was 'the wife made him;' and Mrs. Cheek roared out from the rear, 'Yes, it was, and she'd have shook the bones out of him if he hadn't come.'
But that light, turning upon them everywhere, was more than they had bargained for, and the whole lot moved away in the best manner that they could, putting the stealthiest and the quickest foot foremost; each one devoutly hoping, save the few whose names had been mentioned, that his own face had not been recognised. Austin, with some of his workmen who had remained—the greater portion of them were pursuing the vanquished—raised Abel White. His head was cut, his body bruised, but no serious damage appeared to have been done. 'Can you walk with assistance as far as Mr. Rice's shop?' asked Austin.
'I daresay I can, sir, in a minute: I'm a bit giddy now,' was White's reply, as he leaned his back against the wall, being supported on either side. 'Sir, what a mercy that you had that light with you!'
'Ay,' shortly replied Austin. 'Quale, there's the blood dripping upon your sleeve. I will bind my handkerchief round your head, White. Meanwhile, one of you go and call a cab; it may be better that we get him at once to the surgeon's.'
A cab was brought, and White assisted into it. Austin accompanied him. Mr. Rice was at home, and proceeded to examine into the damage. A few days' rest from work, and a liberal application of sticking-plaster, would prove efficacious in effecting a cure, he believed. 'What a pity but the ruffians could be stopped at this game!' the doctor exclaimed to Austin. 'It will come to attacks more serious if they are not.'
'I think this will do something towards stopping it,' replied Austin.
'Why? do you know any of them?'
Austin nodded. 'A few. It is not a second case of impossible identity, as was Baxendale's.'
'I'm sure I don't know how I am to go in home in this plight,' exclaimed White, catching sight of his strapped-up face and head, in a small looking-glass hanging in Mr. Rice's surgery. 'I shall frighten poor old father into a fit, and the wife too.'
'I will go on first and prepare them,' said Austin, good-naturedly. Turning out of the shop on this errand, he found the door blocked up. The door! nay, the pavement—the street; for it seemed as if all Daffodil's Delight had collected there. He elbowed his way through them, and reached White's home. There the news had preceded him, and he found the deepest distress and excitement reigning, the family having been informed that Abel was killed. Austin reassured them, made light of the matter, and departed.
Outside their closed-up home, squatting on the narrow strip of pavement, their backs against the dirty wall, were Mrs. Dunn and her children, howling pitiably. They were surrounded with warm partizans, who spent their breath sympathizing with them, and abusing the landlord.
'How much better that they should go into the workhouse,' exclaimed Austin. 'They will perish with cold if they remain there.'
'And much you masters 'ud care,' cried a woman who overheard the remark. 'I hope you are satisfied now with the effects of your fine lock-out! Look at the poor creatur, a sitting there with her helpless children.'
'A sad sight,' observed Austin; 'but not the effects of the lock-out. You must look nearer home.'
The day dawned. Abel White was progressing very satisfactorily. So much so that Mr. Rice did not keep him in bed. It was by no means so grave a case as Baxendale's. To the intense edification of Daffodil's Delight, which had woke up in an unusually low and subdued state, there arrived, about mid-day, certain officers within its precincts, holding warrants for the apprehension of some of the previous night's rioters. Bennet, Strood, Ryan, and Cheek were taken; Cassidy had disappeared.
'It's a shame to grab us!' exclaimed timid Cheek, shaking from head to foot. 'White himself said as we was not the ringleaders.'
While these were secured, a policeman entered the home of Mr. Shuck, without so much as saying, 'With your leave,' or 'By your leave.' That gentleman, who had remained in-doors all the morning, in a restless, humble sort of mood, which imparted much surprise to Mrs. Shuck, was just sitting down to dinner in the bosom of his family: a savoury dinner, to judge by the smell, consisting of rabbit and onions.
'Now, Sam Shuck, I want you,' was the startling interruption.
Sam turned as white as a sheet. Mrs. Shuck stared, and the children stared.
'Want me, do you?' cried Sam, putting as easy a face as he could upon the matter. 'What do you want me for? To give evidence?'
'You know. It's about that row last night. I wonder you hadn't better regard for your liberty than to get into it.'
'Why, you never was such a fool as to put yourself into that!' exclaimed Mrs. Shuck, in her surprise. 'What could have possessed you?'
'I!' retorted Sam; 'I don't know anything about the row, except what I've heard. I was a good mile off from the spot when it took place.'
'All very well if you can convince the magistrates of that,' said the officer. 'Here's the warrant against you, and I must take you upon it.'
'I won't go,' said Sam, showing fight. 'I wasn't nigh the place, I say.'
The officer was peremptory—officers generally are so in these cases—and Sam was very foolish to resist. But that he was scared out of his senses, he would probably not have resisted. It only made matters worse; and the result was that he had the handcuffs clapped on. Fancy Samuel Shuck, Esquire, in his crimson necktie with the lace ends, and the peg-tops, being thus escorted through Daffodil's Delight, himself and his hands prisoners, and a tail the length of the street streaming after him! You could not have got into the police-court. Every avenue, every inch of ground was occupied; for the men, both Unionists and non-Unionists, were greatly excited, and came flocking in crowds to hear the proceedings. The five men were placed at the bar—Shuck, Bennet, Cheek, Ryan, and Strood: and Abel White and his bandaged head appeared against them. The man gave his evidence. How he and others—but himself, he thought, more particularly—had been met by a mob the previous night, upon leaving work, a knot of the Society's men, who had first threatened and then beaten him.
'Can you tell what their motive was for doing this?' asked the magistrate.
'Yes, sir,' was the answer of White. 'It was because I went back to work. I held out as long as I could, in obedience to the Trades' Union; but I began to think I was in error, and that I ought to return to work; which I did, a week or two ago. Since then, they have never let me alone. They have talked to me, and threatened me, and persuaded me; but I would not listen: and last night they attacked me.'
'What were the threats they used last night?'
'It was one man did most of the talking: a tall man in a cap and comforter, sir. The rest of the crowd abused me and called me names; but they did not utter any particular threat. This man said, Would I promise and swear not to do any more work in defiance of the Union; or else I should get every bone in my body smashed. He told me to remember how Baxendale had been served, and was lying with his ribs stove in. I refused; I would not swear; I said I would never belong to the Union again. And then he struck me.'
'Where did he strike you?'
'Here,' putting his hand up to his forehead. 'The first blow staggered me, and took away my sight, and the second blow knocked me down. Half a dozen set upon me then, hitting and kicking me: the first man kicked me also.'
'Can you swear to that first man?'
'No, I can't, sir. I think he was disguised.'
'Was it the prisoner, Shuck?'
White shook his head. 'It was just his height and figure, sir, but I can't be sure that it was him. His face was partially covered, and it was nearly dark, besides; there are no lights about, just there. The voice, too, seemed disguised: I said so at the time.'
'Can you swear to the others?'
'Yes, to all four of them,' said White, stoutly. 'They were not disguised at all, and I saw them after the light came, and knew their voices. They helped to beat me after I was on the ground.'
'Did they threaten you?'
'No, sir. Only the first one did that.'
'And him you cannot swear to? Is there any other witness who can swear to him?'
It did not appear that there was. Shuck addressed the magistrate, his tone one of injured innocence. 'It is not to be borne that I should be dragged up here like a felon, your worship. I was not near the place at the time; I am as innocent as your worship is. Is it likely I should lend myself to such a thing? My mission among the men is of a higher nature than that.'
'Whether you are innocent or not, I do not know,' said his worship; 'but I do know that this is a state of things which cannot be tolerated. I will give my utmost protection to these workmen; and those who dare to interfere with them shall be punished to the extent of the law: the ringleaders especially. A person has just as much right to come to me and say, "You shall not sit on that bench; you shall not transact the business of a magistrate," as you have to prevent these industrious men working to earn a living. It is monstrous.'
'Here's the witness we have waited for, please your worship,' spoke one of the policemen.
It was Austin Clay who came forward. He bowed to the magistrate, who bowed to him: they occasionally met at the house of Mr. Hunter. Austin was sworn, and gave his evidence up to the point when he turned the light of the lantern upon the tall assailant of White.
'Did you recognise the man?' asked the Bench.
'I did, sir. It was Samuel Shuck.'
Sam gave a howl, protesting that it was not—that he was a mile away from the spot.
'I recognised him as distinctly as I recognise him at this moment,' said Austin. 'He had a woollen scarf on his chin, and a cap covering his ears, no doubt assumed for disguise, but I knew him instantly. What is more, he saw that I knew him; I am sure he did, by the way he slunk off. I also recognised his laugh.'
'Did you take the lantern with you purposely?' asked the clerk of the court.
'I did,' replied Austin. 'A hint was given me in the course of yesterday afternoon, that an attack upon our men was in agitation. I determined to discover the ringleaders, if possible, should it take place, and not to let the darkness baffle justice, as was the case in the attack upon Baxendale. For this purpose I put the lantern in readiness, and had the men watched when they left the yard. As soon as the assault began, my messenger returned to tell me.'
'You hit upon a good plan, Mr. Clay.'
Austin smiled. 'I think I did,' he answered.
Unfortunately for Mr. Samuel Shuck, another witness had seen his face distinctly when the light was turned on; and his identity with 'the tall man disguised' was established beyond dispute. In an evil hour, Sam had originated this attack on White; but, not feeling altogether sure of the courage of his men, he had determined to disguise himself and take part in the business, saying not a word to anybody. He had not bargained for the revelation that might be brought by means of a dark lantern.
The proceedings in court were prolonged, but they terminated at length. Bennet, Strood, and Ryan were condemned to pay a fine of £5 each, or be imprisoned for two months. Cheek managed to get off. Mr. Sam Shuck, to whom the magistrate was bitterly severe in his remarks—for he knew perfectly well the part enacted by the man from the first—was sentenced to six months at the treadmill, without the option of a fine. What a descent for Slippery Sam!
These violent interruptions to the social routine, to the organised relations between masters and men, cannot take place without leaving their effects behind them: not only in the bare cupboards, the confusion, the bitter feelings while the contest is in actual progress, but in the results when the dispute is brought to an end, and things have resumed their natural order. You have seen some of its disastrous working upon the men: you cannot see it all, for it would take a whole volume to depicture it. But there was another upon whom it was promising to work badly; and that was Mr. Hunter. At this, the eleventh hour, when the dispute was dying out, Mr. Hunter knew that he would be unable to weather the short remains of the storm. Drained, as he had been at various periods, of sums paid to Gwinn of Ketterford, he had not the means necessary to support the long-continued struggle. Capital he possessed still; and, had there been no disturbance, no strike, no lock-out—had things, in short, gone on upon their usual course uninterruptedly, his capital would have been sufficient to carry him on: not as it was. His money was locked up in arrested works, in buildings brought to a standstill. He could not fulfil his contracts or meet his debts; materials were lying idle; and the crisis, so long expected by him, had come.
It had not been expected by Austin Clay. Though aware of the shortness of capital, he believed that with care difficulties would be surmounted. The fact was, Mr. Hunter had succeeded in keeping the worst from him. It fell upon Austin one morning like a thunderbolt. Mr. Hunter had come early to the works. In this hour of embarrassment—ill as he might be, as he was—he could not be absent from his place of business. When Austin went into his master's private room he found him alone, poring over books and accounts, his head leaning on his hand. One glance at Austin's face told Mr. Hunter that the whispers as to the state of affairs, which were now becoming public scandal, had reached his ears.
'Yes, it is quite true,' said Mr. Hunter, before a word had been spoken by Austin. 'I cannot stave it off.'
'But it will be ruin, sir!' exclaimed Austin.
'Of course it will be ruin. I know that, better than you can tell me.'
'Oh, sir,' continued Austin, with earnest decision, 'it must not be allowed to come. Your credit must be kept up at any sacrifice.'
'Can you tell me of any sacrifice that will keep it up?' returned Mr. Hunter.
Austin paused in embarrassment. 'If the present difficulty can be got over, the future will soon redeem itself,' he observed. 'You have sufficient capital in the aggregate, though it is at present locked up.'
'There it is,' said Mr. Hunter. 'Were the capital not locked up, but in my hands, I should be a free man. Who is to unlock it?'
'The men are returning to their shops,' urged Austin. 'In a few days, at the most, all will have resumed work. We shall get our contracts completed, and things will work round. It would be needless ruin, sir, to stop now.'
'Am I stopping of my own accord? Shall I put myself into the Gazette, do you suppose? You talk like a child, Clay.'
'Not altogether, sir. What I say is, that you are worth more than sufficient to meet your debts; that, if the momentary pressure can be lifted, you will surmount embarrassment and regain ease.'
'Half the bankruptcies we hear of are caused by locked-up capital—not by positive non-possession of it,' observed Mr. Hunter. 'Were my funds available, there would be reason in what you say, and I should probably go on again to ease. Indeed, I know I should; for a certain heavy—heavy——' Mr. Hunter spoke with perplexed hesitation—'A heavy private obligation, which I have been paying off at periods, is at an end now.'
Austin made no reply. He knew that Mr. Hunter alluded to Gwinn of Ketterford: and perhaps Mr. Hunter suspected that he knew it. 'Yes, sir; you would go on to ease—to fortune again; there is no doubt of it. Mr. Hunter,' he continued with some emotion, 'it must be accomplished somehow. To let things come to an end for the sake of a thousand or two, is—is——'
'Stop!' said Mr. Hunter. 'I see what you are driving at. You think that I might borrow this "thousand or two," from my brother, or from Dr. Bevary.'
'No,' fearlessly replied Austin, 'I was not thinking of either one or the other. Mr. Henry Hunter has enough to do for himself just now—his contracts for the season were more extensive than ours: and Dr. Bevary is not a business man.'
'Henry has enough to do,' said Mr. Hunter. 'And if a hundred-pound note would save me, I should not ask Dr. Bevary for its loan. I tell you, Clay, there is no help for it: ruin must come. I have thought it over and over, and can see no loophole of escape. It does not much matter: I can hide my head in obscurity for the short time I shall probably live. Mine has been an untoward fate.'
'It matters for your daughter, sir,' rejoined Austin, his face flushing.
'I cannot help myself, even for her sake,' was the answer, and it was spoken in a tone that, to a fanciful listener, might have told of a breaking heart.
'If you would allow me to suggest a plan, sir——'
'No, I will not allow any further discussion upon the topic,' peremptorily interrupted Mr. Hunter. 'The blow must come; and, to talk of it will neither soothe nor avert it. Now to business. Not another word, I say.—Is it to-day or to-morrow that Grafton's bill falls due?'
'To-day,' replied Austin.
'And its precise amount?—I forget it.'
'Five hundred and twenty pounds.'
'Five hundred and twenty! I knew it was somewhere about that. It is that bill that will floor us—at least, be the first step to it. How closely has the account been drawn at the bank?'
'You have the book by you, sir. I think there is little more than thirty pounds lying in it.'
'Just so. Thirty pounds to meet a bill of five hundred and twenty. No other available funds to pay in. And you would talk of staving off the difficulty?'
'I think the bank would pay it, were all circumstances laid before them. They have accommodated us before.'
'The bank will not, Austin. I have had a private note from them this morning. These flying rumours have reached their ears, and they will not let me overdraw even by a pound. It had struck me once or twice lately that they were becoming cautious.' There was a commotion, as of sudden talking, outside at that moment, and Mr. Hunter turned pale. He supposed it might be a creditor: and his nerves were so shattered, as was before remarked, that the slightest thing shook him like a woman. 'I would pay them all, if I could,' he said, his tone almost a wail. 'I wish to pay every one.'
'Sir,' said Austin, 'leave me here to-day to meet these matters. You are too ill to stay.'
'If I do not meet them to-day, I must to-morrow. Sooner or later, it is I who must answer.'
'But indeed you are ill, sir. You look worse than you have looked at all.'
'Can you wonder that I look worse? The striking of the docket against me is no pleasant matter to anticipate.' The talking outside now subsided into laughter, in which the tones of a female were distinguishable. Mr. Hunter thought he recognised them, and his fear of a creditor subsided. They came from one of his women servants, who, unconscious of the proximity of her master, had been laughing and joking with some of the men, whom she had encountered upon entering the yard.
'What can Susan want?' exclaimed Mr. Hunter, signing to Austin to open the door.
'Is that you, Susan?' asked Austin, as he obeyed.
'Oh, if you please, sir, can I speak a word to my master?'
'Come in,' called out Mr. Hunter. 'What do you want?'
'Miss Florence has sent me, sir, to give you this, and to ask you if you'd please to come round.'
She handed in a note. Mr. Hunter broke the seal, and ran his eyes over it. It was from Florence, and contained but a line or two. She informed her father that the lady who had been so troublesome at the house once before, in years back, had come again, had taken a seat in the dining-room, removed her bonnet, and expressed her intention of there remaining until she should see Mr. Hunter.
'As if I had not enough upon me without this!' muttered Mr. Hunter. 'Go back,' he said aloud to the servant, 'and tell Miss Florence that I am coming.'
A few minutes given to the papers before him, a few hasty directions to Austin, touching the business of the hour, and Mr. Hunter rose to depart.
'Do not come back, sir,' Austin repeated to him. 'I can manage all.'
When Mr. Hunter entered his own house, letting himself in with a latch key, Florence, who had been watching for him, glided forward.
'She is in there, papa,' pointing to the closed door of the dining-room, and speaking in a whisper. 'What is her business here? what does she want? She told me she had as much right in the house as I.'
'Ha!' exclaimed Mr. Hunter. 'Insolent, has she been?'
'Not exactly insolent. She spoke civilly. I fancied you would not care to see her, so I said she could not wait. She replied that she should wait, and I must not attempt to prevent her. Is she in her senses, papa?'
'Go up stairs and put your bonnet and cloak on, Florence,' was the rejoinder of Mr. Hunter. 'Be quick.' She obeyed, and was down again almost immediately, in her deep mourning.' 'Now, my dear, go round to Dr. Bevary, and tell him you have come to spend the day with him.'
'But, papa——'
'Florence, go! I will either come for you this evening, or send. Do not return until I do.'
The tone, though full of kindness, was one that might not be disobeyed, and Florence, feeling sick with some uncertain, shadowed-forth trouble, passed out of the hall door. Mr. Hunter entered the dining-room.
Tall, gaunt, powerful of frame as ever, rose up Miss Gwinn, turning upon him her white, corpse-like looking face. Without the ceremony of greeting, she spoke in her usual abrupt fashion, dashing at once to her subject. 'Now will you render justice, Lewis Hunter?'
'I have the greater right to ask that justice shall be rendered to me,' replied Mr. Hunter, speaking sternly, in spite of his agitation. 'Who has most cause to demand it, you or I?'
'She who reigned mistress in this house is dead,' cried Miss Gwinn. You must now acknowledge her.'
'I never will. You may do your best and worst. The worst that can come is, that it must reach the knowledge of my daughter.'
'Ay, there it is! The knowledge of the wrong must not even reach her; but the wrong itself has not been too bad for that other one to bear.'
'Woman!' continued Mr. Hunter, growing excited almost beyond control, 'who inflicted that wrong? Myself, or you?'
The reproach told home, if the change to sad humility, passing over Miss Gwinn's countenance, might be taken as an indication.
'What I said, I said in self-defence; after you, in your deceit, had brought wrong upon me and my family,' she answered in a subdued voice.
'That was no wrong,' retorted Mr. Hunter, 'It was you who wrought all the wrong afterwards, by uttering the terrible falsehood, that she was dead.'
'Well, well, it is of no use going back to that,' she impatiently said. 'I am come here to ask that justice shall be rendered, now that it is in your power.'
'You have had more than justice—you have had revenge. Not content with rendering my days a life's misery, you must also drain me of the money I had worked hard to save. Do you know how much?'
'It was not I,' she passionately uttered, in a tone as if she would deprecate his anger. 'He did that.'
'It comes to the same. I had to find the money. So long as my dear wife lived, I was forced to temporize: neither he nor you can so force me again. Go home, go home, Miss Gwinn, and pray for forgiveness for the injury you have done both her and me. The time for coming to my house with your intimidations is past.'
'What did you say?' cried Miss Gwinn. 'Injury upon you?'
'Injury, ay! such as rarely has been inflicted upon mortal man. Not content with that great injury, you must also deprive me of my substance. This week the name of James Lewis Hunter will be in the Gazette, on the list of bankrupts. It is you who have brought me to it.'
'You know that I have had no hand in that; that it was he: my brother—and hers,' she said. 'He never should have done it had I been able to prevent him. In an unguarded moment I told him I had discovered you, and who you were, and—and he came up to you here and sold his silence. It is that which has kept me quiet.'
'This interview had better end,' said Mr. Hunter. 'It excites me, and my health is scarcely in a state to bear it. Your work has told upon me, Miss Gwinn, as you cannot help seeing, when you look at me. Am I like the hearty, open man whom you came up to town and discovered a few years ago?'
'Am I like the healthy unsuspicious woman whom you saw some years before that?' she retorted. 'My days have been rendered more bitter than yours.'
'It is your own evil passions which have rendered them so. But I say this interview must end. You——'
'It shall end when you undertake to render justice. I only ask that you should acknowledge her in words; I ask no more.'
'When your brother was here last—it was on the day of my wife's death—I was forced to warn him of the consequences of remaining in my house against my will. I must now warn you.'
'Lewis Hunter,' she passionately resumed, 'for years I have been told that she—who was here—was fading; and I was content to wait until she should be gone. Besides, was not he drawing money from you to keep silence? But it is all over, and my time is come.'
The door of the room opened and some one entered. Mr. Hunter turned with marked displeasure, wondering who was daring to intrude upon him. He saw—not any servant, as he expected, but his brother-in-law, Dr. Bevary. And the doctor walked into the room and closed the door, just as if he had as much right there as its master.
When Florence Hunter reached her uncle's house, she found him absent: the servants said he had gone out early in the morning. Scarcely had she entered the drawing-room when his carriage drove up: he saw Florence at the window and hastened in. 'Uncle Bevary, I have come to stay the day with you,' was her greeting. 'Will you have me?'
'I don't know that I will,' returned the doctor, who loved Florence above every earthly thing. 'How comes it about?' In the explanation, as she gave it, the doctor detected some embarrassment, quite different from her usual open manner. He questioned closely, and drew from her what had occurred. 'Miss Gwinn of Ketterford in town!' he exclaimed, staring at Florence as if he could not believe her. 'Are you joking?'
'She is at our house with papa, as I tell you, uncle.'
'What an extraordinary chance!' muttered the doctor.
Leaving Florence, he ran out of the house and down the street, calling after his coachman, who was driving to the stables. Had it been anybody but Dr. Bevary, the passers-by might have deemed the caller mad. The coachman heard, and turned his horses again. Dr. Bevary spoke a word in haste to Florence.
'Miss Gwinn is the very person I was wanting to see; wishing some marvellous telegraph wires could convey her to London at a moment's notice. Make yourself at home, my dear; don't wait dinner for me, I cannot tell when I shall be back.' He stepped into the carriage and was driven away very quickly, leaving Florence in some doubt as to whether he had not gone to Ketterford—for she had but imperfectly understood him. Not so. The carriage set him down at Mr. Hunter's. Where he broke in upon the interview, as has been described.
'I was about to telegraph to Ketterford for you,' he began to Miss Gwinn, without any other sort of greeting. And the words, coupled with his abrupt manner, sent her at once into an agitation. Rising, she put her hand upon the doctor's arm.
'What has happened? Any ill?'
'You must come with me now and see her,' was the brief answer.
Shaking from head to foot, gaunt, strong woman though she was, she turned docilely to follow the doctor from the room. But suddenly an idea seemed to strike her, and she stood still. 'It is a ruse to get me out of the house. Dr. Bevary, I will not quit it until justice shall be rendered to Emma. I will have her acknowledged by him.'
'Your going with me now will make no difference to that, one way or the other,' drily observed Dr. Bevary.
Mr. Hunter stepped forward in agitation. 'Are you out of your mind, Bevary? You could not have caught her words correctly.'
'Psha!' responded the doctor, in a careless tone. 'What I said was, that Miss Gwinn's going out with me could make no difference to any acknowledgment.'
'Only in words,' she stayed to say. 'Just let him say it in words.' But nobody took any notice of the suggestion.
His bearing calm and self-possessed, his manner authoritative, Dr. Bevary passed out to his carriage, motioning the lady before him. Self-willed as she was by nature and by habit, she appeared to have no thought of resistance now. 'Step in,' said Dr. Bevary. She obeyed, and he seated himself by her, after giving an order to the coachman. The carriage turned towards the west for a short distance, and then branched off to the north. In a comparatively short time they were clear of the bustle of London. Miss Gwinn sat in silence; the doctor sat in silence. It seemed that the former wished, yet dreaded to ask the purport of their present journey, for her white face was working with emotion, and she glanced repeatedly at the doctor, with a sharp, yearning look. When they were clear of the bustle of the streets; and the hedges, bleak and bare, bounded the road on either side, broken by a house here and there, then she could bear the silence and suspense no longer.
'Why do you not speak?' broke from her in a tone of pain.
'First of all, tell me what brought you to town now,' was his reply. 'It is not your time for being here.'
'The recent death of your sister. I came up by the early train this morning. Dr. Bevary, you are the only living being to whom I lie under an obligation, or from whom I have experienced kindness. People may think me ungrateful; some think me mad; but I am grateful to you. But for the fact of that lady's being your sister I should have insisted upon another's rights being acknowledged long ago.'
'You told me you waived them in consequence of your brother's conduct.'
'Partially so. But that did not weigh with me in comparison with my feeling of gratitude to you. How impotent we are!' she exclaimed, throwing up her hands. 'My efforts by day, my dreams by night, were directed to one single point through long, long years—the finding James Lewis. I had cherished the thought of revenge until it became part and parcel of my very existence; I was hoping to expose him to the world. But when the time came, and I did find him, I found that he had married your sister, and that I could not touch him without giving pain to you. I hesitated what to do. I went home to Ketterford, deliberating——'
'Well?' said the doctor. For she had stopped abruptly.
'Some spirit of evil prompted me to disclose to my good-for-nothing brother that the man, Lewis, was found. I told him more than that, unhappily.'
'What else did you tell him?'
'Never mind. I was a fool: and I have had my reward. My brother came up to town and drew large sums of money out of Mr. Hunter. I could have stopped it—but I did not.'
'If I understand you aright, you have come to town now to insist upon what you call your rights?' remarked the doctor.
'Upon what I call!' returned Miss Gwinn, and then she paused in marked hesitation. 'But you must have news to tell me, Dr. Bevary. What is it?'
'I received a message early this morning from Dr. Kerr, stating that something was amiss. I lost no time in going over.'
'And what was amiss?' she hastily cried. 'Surely there was no repetition of the violence? Did you see her?'
'Yes, I saw her.'
'But of course you would see her,' resumed Miss Gwinn, speaking rather to herself. 'And what do you think? Is there danger?'
'The danger is past,' replied Dr. Bevary. 'But here we are.'
The carriage had driven in through an inclosed avenue, and was stopping before a large mansion: not a cheerful mansion, for its grounds were surrounded by dark trees, and some of its windows were barred. It was a lunatic asylum. It is necessary, even in these modern days of gentle treatment, to take some precaution of bars and bolts; but the inmates of this one were thoroughly well cared for, in the best sense of the term. Dr. Bevary was one of its visiting inspectors.
Dr. Kerr, the resident manager, came forward, and Dr. Bevary turned to Miss Gwinn. 'Will you see her, or not?' he asked.
Strange fears were working within her, Dr. Bevary's manner was so different from ordinary. 'I think I see it all,' she gasped. 'The worst has happened.'
'The best has happened,' responded Dr. Bevary. 'Miss Gwinn, you have requested me more than once to bring you here without preparation should the time arrive—for that you could bear certainty, but not suspense. Will you see her?'
Her face had grown white and rigid as marble. Unable to speak, she pointed forward with her hand. Dr. Bevary drew it within his own to support her. In a clean, cool chamber, on a pallet bed, lay a dead woman. Dr. Kerr gently drew back the snow-white sheet, with which the face was covered. A pale, placid face, with a little band of light hair folded underneath the cap. She—Miss Gwinn—did not stir: she gave way to neither emotion nor violence; but her bloodless lips were strained back from her teeth, and her face was as white as that of the dead.
'God's ways are not as our ways,' whispered Dr. Bevary. 'You have been acting for revenge: He has sent peace. Whatsoever He does is for the best.'
She made no reply: she remained still and rigid. Dr. Bevary stroked the left hand of the dead, lying in its utter stillness—stroked, as if unconsciously, the wedding-ring on the third finger. He had been led to believe that it was placed on that finger, years and years ago, by his brother-in-law, James Lewis Hunter. And had been led to believe a lie! And she who had invented the lie, who had wrought the delusion, who had embittered Mr. Hunter's life with the same dread belief, stood there at the doctor's side, looking at the dead.
It is a solemn thing to persist though but tacitly in the acting of a vile falsehood, in the mysterious presence of death. Even Miss Gwinn was not strong-minded enough for that. As Dr. Bevary turned to her with a remark upon the past, she burst forth into a cry, and gave utterance to words that fell upon the physician's ear like a healing balm, soothing and binding up a long-open wound.
Those readers will be disappointed who look for any very romantic dénoûment of 'A Life's Secret.' The story is a short and sad one. Suggesting the wretchedness and evil that may result when truth is deviated from; the lengths to which a blind, unholy desire for revenge will carry an ill-regulated spirit; and showing how, in the moral government of the world, sin casts its baleful consequences upon the innocent as well as the guilty.
When the carriage of Dr. Bevary, containing himself and Miss Gwinn, drove from Mr. Hunter's door on the unknown errand, he—Mr. Hunter—staggered to a seat, rather than walked to it. That he was very ill that day, both mentally and bodily, he was only too conscious of. Austin Clay had said to him, 'Do not return: I will manage,' or words to that effect. At present Mr. Hunter felt himself incapable of returning. He sank down in the easy chair, and closed his eyes, his thoughts thrown back to the past. An ill-starred past: one that had left its bane on his after life, and whose consequences had clung to him. It is impossible but that ill-doing must leave its results behind: the laws of God and man alike demand it. Mr. Hunter, in early life, had been betrayed into committing a wrong act; and Miss Gwinn, in the gratification of her passionate revenge, had visited it upon him all too heavily. Heavily, most heavily was it pressing upon him now. That unhappy visit to Wales, which had led to all the evil, was especially present to his mind this day. A handsome young man, in the first dawn of manhood, he had gone to the fashionable Welsh watering-place—partly to renew a waste of strength more imaginary than real; partly in the love of roving natural to youth; partly to enjoy a few weeks' relaxation. 'If you want good and comfortable lodgings, go to Miss Gwinn's house on the South Parade,' some friend, whom he encountered at his journey's end, had said to him. And to Miss Gwinn's he went. He found Miss Gwinn a cold, proud woman—it was she whom you have seen—bearing the manners of a lady. The servant who waited upon him was garrulous, and proclaimed, at the first interview, amidst other gossip, that her mistress had but a limited income—a hundred, or a hundred and fifty pounds a year, she believed; that she preferred to eke it out by letting her drawing-room and adjoining bed-room, and to live well; rather than to rusticate and pinch. Miss Gwinn and her motives were nothing to the young sojourner, and he turned a careless, if not a deaf ear, to the gossip. 'She does it chiefly for the sake of Miss Emma,' added the girl: and the listener so far roused himself as to ask apathetically who 'Miss Emma' was. It was her mistress's young sister, the girl replied: there must be twenty good years between them. Miss Emma was but nineteen, and had just come home from boarding-school: her mistress had brought her up ever since her mother died. Miss Emma was not at home now, but was expected on the morrow, she went on. Miss Emma was not without her good looks, but her mistress took care they should not be seen by everybody. She'd hardly let her go about the house when strangers were in it, lest she should be met in the passages. Mr. Hunter laughed. Good looks had attractions for him in those days, and he determined to see for himself, in spite of Miss Gwinn, whether Miss Emma's looks were so good that they might not be looked at. Now, by the merest accident—at least, it happened by accident in the first instance, and not by intention—one chief point of complication in the future ill was unwittingly led to. In this early stage of the affair, while the servant maid was exercising her tongue in these items of domestic news, the friend who had recommended Mr. Hunter to the apartments, arrived at the house and called out to him from the foot of the stairs, his high clear voice echoing through the house.
'Lewis! Will you come out and take a stroll?'
Lewis Hunter hastened down, proclaiming his acquiescence, and the maid proceeded to the parlour of her mistress.
'The gentleman's name is Lewis, ma'am. You said you forgot to ask it of him.'
Miss Gwinn, methodical in all she did, took a sheet of note-paper and inscribed the name upon it, 'Mr. Lewis,' as a reminder for the time when she should require to make out his bill. When Mr. Hunter found out their error—for the maid henceforth addressed him as 'Mr. Lewis,' or 'Mr. Lewis, sir'—it rather amused him, and he did not correct the mistake. He had no motive whatever for concealing his name: he did not wish it concealed. On the other hand, he deemed it of no importance to set them right; it signified not a jot to him whether they called him 'Mr. Lewis' or 'Mr. Hunter.' Thus they knew him as, and believed him to be, Mr. Lewis only. He never took the trouble to undeceive them, and nothing occurred to require the mistake to be corrected. The one or two letters only which arrived for him—for he had gone there for idleness, not to correspond with his friends—were addressed to the post-office, in accordance with his primary directions, not having known where he should lodge.
Miss Emma came home: a very pretty and agreeable girl. In the narrow passage of the house—one of those shallow residences built for letting apartments at the sea-side—she encountered the stranger, who happened to be going out as she entered. He lifted his hat to her.
'Who is that, Nancy?' she asked of the chattering maid.
'It's the new lodger, Miss Emma: Lewis his name is. Did you ever see such good looks? And he has asked a thousand questions about you.'
Now, the fact was, Mr. Hunter—stay, we will also call him Mr. Lewis for the time being, as they had fallen into the error, and it may be convenient to us—had not asked a single question about the young lady, save the one when her name was first spoken of, 'Who is Miss Emma?' Nancy had supplied information enough for a 'thousand' questions, unasked; and perhaps she saw no difference.
'Have you made any acquaintance with Mr. Lewis, Agatha?' Emma inquired of her sister.
'When do I make acquaintance with the people who take my apartments?' replied Miss Gwinn, in a tone of reproof. 'They naturally look down upon me as a letter of lodgings—and I am not one to bear that.'
Now comes the unhappy tale. It shall be glanced at as briefly as possible in detail; but it is necessary that parts of it should be explained.
Acquaintanceship sprang up between Mr. Lewis and Emma Gwinn. At first, they met in the town, or on the beach, accidentally; later, I very much fear that the meetings were tacitly, if not openly, more intentional. Both were agreeable, both were young; and a liking for each other's society arose in each of them. Mr. Lewis found his time hang somewhat heavily on his hands, for his friend had left; and Emma Gwinn was not prevented from walking out as she pleased. Only one restriction was laid upon her by her sister: 'Emma, take care that you make no acquaintance with strangers, or suffer it to be made with you. Speak to none.'
An injunction which Miss Emma disobeyed. She disobeyed it in a particularly marked manner. It was not only that she did permit Mr. Lewis to make acquaintance with her, but she allowed it to ripen into intimacy. Worse still, the meetings, I say, from having been at first really accidental, grew to be sought. Sought on the one side as much as on the other. Ah! young ladies, I wish this little history could be a warning to you, never to deviate from the strict line of right—never to stray, by so much as a thoughtless step, from the straight path of duty. Once allow yourselves to do so, and you know not where it may end. Slight acts of disobedience, that appear in themselves as the merest trifles, may yet be fraught with incalculable mischief. The falling into the habit of passing a pleasant hour of intercourse with Mr. Lewis, sauntering on the beach in social and intellectual converse—and it was no worse—appeared a very venial offence to Emma Gwinn. But she did it in direct disobedience to the command and wish of her sister; and she knew that she so did it. She knew also that she owed to that sister, who had brought her up and cared for her from infancy, the allegiance that a child gives to a mother. In this stage of the affair, she was chiefly to blame. Mr. Lewis did not suppose that blame attached to him. There was no reason why he should not while away an occasional hour in pleasant chat with a young lady; there was no harm in the meetings, taking them in the abstract. The blame lay with her. It is no excuse to urge that Miss Gwinn exercised over her a too strict authority, that she kept her secluded from society with an unusually tight hand. Miss Gwinn had a motive in this: her sister knew nothing of it, and resented the restriction as a personal wrong. To elude her vigilance, and walk about with a handsome young man, seemed a return justifiable, and poor Emma Gwinn never dreamt of any ill result. At length it was found out by Miss Gwinn. She did not find out much. Indeed, there was not much to find, except that there was more friendship between Mr. Lewis and Emma than there was between Mr. Lewis and herself, and that they often met to stroll on the beach, and enjoy the agreeable benefit of the sea-breezes. But that was quite enough for Miss Gwinn. An uncontrollable storm of passionate anger ensued, which was vented upon Emma. She stood over her, and forced her to attire herself for travelling, protesting that not another hour should she pass in the house while Mr. Lewis remained. Then she started with Emma, to place her under the care of an aunt, who lived so far off as to be a day's journey.
'It's a shame!' was the comment of sympathetic Nancy, who deemed Miss Gwinn the most unreasonable woman under the sun. Nancy was herself engaged to an enterprising porter, to whom she intended to be married some fine Easter, when they had saved up sufficient to lay in a stock of goods and chattels. And she forthwith went straight to Mr. Lewis, and communicated to him what had occurred, giving him Miss Emma's new address.
'He'll follow her if he have got any spirit,' was her inward thought. 'It's what my Joe would do by me, if I was forced off to desert places by a old dragon.'
It was precisely what Mr. Lewis did. Upon the return of Miss Gwinn, he gave notice to quit her house, where he had already stayed longer than he intended to do originally. Miss Gwinn had no suspicion but that he returned to his home—wherever that might be.
You may be inclined to ask why Miss Gwinn had fallen into anger so great. That she loved her young sister with an intense and jealous love was certain. Miss Gwinn was of a peculiar temperament, and she could not bear that one spark of Emma's affection should stray from her. Emma, on the contrary, scarcely cared for her eldest sister: entertaining for her a very cool regard indeed, not to be called a sisterly one: and the cause may have lain in the stern manners of Miss Gwinn. Deeply, ardently as she loved Emma, her manners were to her invariably cold and stern: and this does not beget love from the young. Emma also resented the jealous restrictions imposed on her, lest she should make any acquaintance that might lead to marriage. It had been better possibly that Miss Gwinn had disclosed to her the reasons that existed against it. There was madness in the Gwinn family. One of the parents had died in an asylum, and the medical men suspected (as Miss Gwinn knew) that the children might be subject to it. She did not fear it for herself, but she did fear it for Emma: in point of fact, the young girl had already, some years back, given indications of it. It was therefore Miss Gwinn's intention and earnest wish—a very right and proper wish—that Emma should never marry. There was one other sister, Elizabeth, a year older than Emma. She had gone on a visit to Jersey some little time before; and, to Miss Gwinn's dismay and consternation, had married a farmer there, without asking leave. There was nothing for Miss Gwinn but to bury the dismay within her, and to resolve that Emma should be guarded more closely than before. But Emma Gwinn, knowing nothing of the prompting motives, naturally resented the surveillance.
Mr. Lewis followed Emma to her place of retirement. He had really grown to like her: but the pursuit may have had its rise as much in the boyish desire to thwart Miss Gwinn—or, as he expressed it, 'to pay her off'—as in love. However that might have been, Emma Gwinn welcomed him all too gladly, and the walks were renewed.
It was an old tale, that, which ensued. Thanks to improved manners and morals, we can say an 'old' tale, in contradistinction to a modern one. A secret marriage in these days would be looked upon askance by most people. Under the purest, the most domestic, the wisest court in the world, manners and customs have taken a turn with us, and society calls underhand doings by their right name, and turns its back upon them. Nevertheless, private marriages and run-a-way marriages were not done away with in the days when James Lewis Hunter contracted his.
I wonder whether one ever took place—where it was contracted in disobedience and defiance—that did not bring, in some way or other, its own punishment? To few, perhaps, was it brought home as it was to Mr. Hunter. No apology can be offered for the step he took: not even his youth, or his want of experience, or the attachment which had grown up in his heart for Emma. He knew that his family would have objected to the marriage. In fact, he dared not tell his purpose. Her position was not equal to his—at least, old Mr. Hunter, a proud man, would not have deemed it to be so—and he would have objected on the score of his son's youth. The worst bar of all would have been the tendency to insanity of the Gwinns—but of this James Hunter knew nothing. So he took that one false, blind, irrevocable step of contracting a private marriage; and the consequences came bitterly home to him. The marriage was a strictly legal one. James Hunter was honourable enough to take care of that: and both of them guarded the secret jealously. Emma remained at her aunt's, and wore her ring inside her dress, attached to a neck ribbon. Her husband only saw her sometimes; to avoid suspicion he lived chiefly at his father's home in London. Six months afterwards, Emma Gwinn—nay, Emma Hunter—lay upon her death-bed. A fever broke out in the neighbourhood, which she caught; and a different illness also supervened. Miss Gwinn, apprised of her danger, hastened to her. She stood over her in a shock of horror—whence had those symptoms arisen, and what meant that circle of gold that Emma in her delirium kept hold of on her neck? Medical skill could not save her, and just before her death, in a lucid interval, she confessed her marriage—the bare fact only—none of its details; she loved her husband too truly to expose him to the dire wrath of her sister. And she died without giving the slightest clue to his real name—Hunter. It was the fever that killed her.
Dire wrath, indeed! That was scarcely the word for it. Insane wrath would be better. In Miss Gwinn's injustice (violent people always are unjust) she persisted in attributing Emma's death to Mr. Lewis. In her bitter grief, she jumped to the belief that the secret must have preyed upon Emma's brain in the delirium of fever, and that that prevented her recovery. It is very probable that the secret did prey upon it, though, it is to be hoped, not to the extent assumed by Miss Gwinn.
Mr. Lewis knew nothing of the illness. He was in France with his father at the time it happened, and had not seen his wife for three weeks. Perhaps the knowledge of his absence abroad, caused Emma not to attempt to apprise him when first seized; afterwards she was too ill to do so. But by a strange coincidence he arrived from London the day after the funeral.
Nobody need envy him the interview with Miss Gwinn. On her part it was not a seemly one. Glad to get out of the house and be away from her reproaches, the stormy interview was concluded almost as soon as it had begun. He returned straight to London, her last words ringing their refrain on his ears—that his wife was dead and he had killed her: Miss Gwinn being still in ignorance that his proper name was anything but Lewis. Following immediately upon this—it was curious that it should be so—Miss Gwinn received news that her sister Elizabeth, Mrs. Gardener, was ill in Jersey. She hastened to her: for Elizabeth was nearly, if not quite, as dear to her as Emma had been. Mrs. Gardener's was a peculiar and unusual illness, and it ended in a confirmed and hopeless affection of the brain.
Once more Miss Gwinn's injustice came into play. Just as she had persisted in attributing Emma's death to Mr. Lewis, so did she now attribute to him Elizabeth's insanity: that is, she regarded him as its remote cause. That the two young sisters had been much attached to each other was undoubted: but to think that Elizabeth's madness came on through sorrow for Emma's death, or at the tidings of what had preceded it, was absurdly foolish. The poor young lady was placed in an asylum in London, of which Dr. Bevary was one of the visiting physicians; he was led to take an unusual interest in the case, and this brought him acquainted with Miss Gwinn. Within a year of her being placed there, the husband, Mr. Gardener, died in Jersey. His affairs turned out to be involved, and from that time the cost of keeping her there devolved on Miss Gwinn.
Private asylums are expensive, and Miss Gwinn could only maintain her sister in one at the cost of giving up her own home. Ill-conditioned though she was, we must confess she had her troubles. She gave it up without a murmur: she would have given up her life to benefit either of those, her young sisters. Retaining but a mere pittance, she devoted all her means to the comfort of Elizabeth, and found a home with her brother, in Ketterford. Where she spent her days bemoaning the lost and cherishing a really insane hatred against Mr. Lewis—a desire for revenge. She had never come across him, until that Easter Monday, at Ketterford. And that, you will say, is scarcely correct, since it was not himself she met then, but his brother. Deceived by the resemblance, she attacked Mr. Henry Hunter in the manner you remember; and Austin Clay saved him from the gravel-pit. But the time soon came when she stood face to face with him. It was the hour she had so longed for: the hour of revenge. What revenge? But for the wicked lie she subsequently forged, there could have been no revenge. The worst she could have proclaimed was, that James Lewis Hunter, when he was a young man, had so far forgotten his duty to himself, and to the world's decencies, as to contract a secret marriage. He might have got over that. He had mourned his young wife sincerely at the time, but later grew to think that all things were for the best—that it was a serious source of embarrassment removed from his path. Nothing more or less had he to acknowledge.