CHAPTER XII.

TOM DEXTER’S WIFE.

To tell you the truth, I sometimes think Harry is a little jealous of my writing. I don’t mean jealous in a bad sense; but, from one or two remarks he has let drop, he doesn’t like my going and shutting myself away and writing. He says when we have half an hour to spare we might as well spend it together.

Of course I am always glad to have a quiet hour with my husband, but it’s no good my trying to write while he’s in the room. He will keep on talking to me, and nothing will stop him; and if he doesn’t speak, I think every minute that he is going to, and that’s worse, for it makes me nervous and fidgety, and the ideas all get mixed up in my head together, and I can’t tell my story straightforward, as I always like to do.

Sometimes it is a whole fortnight before I get a chance of writing anything in my book that I keep, and it has been even longer than that.

This is what a real author or authoress never has to put up with. I believe, from what I’ve heard, that they have a beautiful room full of dictionaries for the hard words and the foreign words, and maps hung all round the room, and they sit in it all day long quite quiet, and nobody is allowed to come in and interrupt.

I should think anybody could write like that. It must be very easy, if you’ve got anything in you at all. But it’s very different when you’ve got a house, and an hotel, and servants, and a baby, and a husband to look after, and if you take your eyes off for a minute, something is bound to go wrong.

Once or twice while I have been sitting in my own room writing, having given orders that I was not to be disturbed, something has gone wrong, and Harry has said, “You were writing your book, I suppose;” and I’ve said, “Yes”; and then he’s said, “It’s my opinion, my dear, that if you don’t make haste and finish that book, that book will finish us.”

Of course to anybody who hates what they call “pens and ink”—and some people do, like poison—writing seems dreadfully silly and a waste of time; and I’m afraid that Harry, with all his good qualities, hasn’t much respect for literature. He certainly hasn’t the slightest idea how difficult it is to write. I once said to him that I believed he thought I could make out a bill with one hand and write my “Memoirs” with the other, and talk to a customer at the same time, and all he said was, “Why not?”

“Why not!” It really made me so cross I could have cried with vexation; for it was just when I had got in rather a muddle with my book about the ‘Stretford Arms,’ finding that the housemaid had taken a lot of pages that I had written notes on and lighted the fire with them, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember what the notes were.

All I remembered that was on them was some things I had taken down about Tom Dexter, our odd man, the one whose story I began to tell you when I was interrupted; but what the others were it was weeks before I remembered, and I quite wore myself out trying to think.

If there is one thing that annoys me more than another, it is trying to think of something I particularly want to think of and can’t.

Sometimes Harry will say, “What was the name of that man, or that woman, or that gentleman, or that lady,” as the case may be; and if I can’t think of it, it worries me all day, and I keep saying, perhaps, dozens of names, and not the right one; and after the house is closed and we’re gone to bed, it keeps me awake, and I keep on saying names over and over till Harry gets quite wild, and says, “Oh, bother the name! Do go to sleep, my dear. I want to be up at six to-morrow morning.”

Then I leave off trying to think the name out loud, and I think it to myself, and perhaps, after about an hour’s agony, I suddenly recollect it, and then I’m obliged to get it off my mind by waking Harry up and telling it him before I forget it.

It’s bad enough with a name, but it’s worse with a thing. I remember once in service tying a piece of cotton round my finger to remind me to do something that I particularly didn’t want to forget, and I went to bed with the cotton on my finger, and never thought any more about it until the next afternoon, and then I was a whole day trying to remember what I’d tied the cotton round my finger for; and go mad over it I really thought I should, it kept me on such tenter-hooks all the time.

What was in the notes that stupid girl destroyed I don’t suppose I shall ever remember: that is, not anything worth remembering.

The notes about our odd man, of course, I recollected, because they didn’t matter, he being in our service still at the time, and I could get all I wanted about him by talking to him.

When I was interrupted I had told you as far as where he went into the casual ward, with his wife and little girl, and how he came out.

It must have been a dreadful experience for him, poor fellow, seeing that it was not his own fault that the misery and ruin had come to him, after years of hard work.

When he got out of the casual ward, he and his wife and child walked along the streets, and his wife began to cry and to say it was all her fault, and she had brought him to it, and if she was dead he would be a happier man.

He tried to comfort her, and said it was no use talking about being dead. She could make him much happier by living, if she’d only give up the dreadful drink. He said they couldn’t go much lower than they’d got; now was the time to begin to go up again. If he tried and got work, would she keep straight, so that they could get a home together again?

“No; she knew she couldn’t,” she said. “It was no use. If she ever got any money again, she knew the temptation would be too strong for her—she’d tried over and over again to stop herself, and it was no use. She’d go away and leave Tom free, and then he might have a chance, and perhaps, some day, it might all come right; but she was sure, if she stopped with him, she would only keep him down as low as he was now, and perhaps bring him to worse, for she might bring him to crime.”

Tom didn’t argue any more with her, because it was no use: she was in that weak, low, dreadful state that people are in who have drunk a great deal and then can’t get it. Sometimes, in cases I have known of the sort, I’ve thought it would be a mercy, if people with that awful curse upon them, settled themselves quickly, for the sake of their friends and relations and those about them. If they are treated very skilfully when force is used to make them leave off, or if they are kept where they can’t get anything, and taken very great care of, they may, and do sometimes, get cured; but, as a rule, all the trouble and anxiety are of no use, and the dreadful end comes.

I have known such sad cases—most people in our line do know of them—that my heart has bled to think about them. It is such an awful thing—that slow, deliberate suicide by drink, those awful living wrecks, hardly human in their horribleness, that the poor victims of the disease—for it must be a disease—become.

I thought of what I knew while Tom Dexter was telling me his story, and I quite understood what an awful position it was for a man to be placed in: loving his wife as he did, and she loving him, and it all having come about through her grief at the loss of her boy, made it doubly terrible.

Really, it makes you shudder sometimes when you think what awful tragedies there are in some people’s lives; and oh, how thankful we ought to be who live peacefully and happily, and never know the dark and awful side that there is to life!

Tom told me that he himself almost gave up when he heard his wife talk like that, and the thought came into his head that it would be much better if they all three went to some nice quiet part of the canal, that was near where they were, and dropped in, and then there would be no more trouble for any of them.

He was thinking that when, as they were walking along, he met an old friend of his that he hadn’t seen for a long time—a man that had worked with him, but had married a widow who kept a public-house, and was now well off.

He saw that things were bad with Tom at a glance—he saw it by his face and his clothes, and the clothes of his wife and child; but he was a good fellow, and instead of passing by on the other side, as many would have done, he came up to Tom, and took his hand, and said, “Hullo, old fellow! I’m sorry to see you under water. What does it mean?”

Tom stopped a minute and talked to him, and told him as well as he could without “rounding on his missus,” as he called it, and then his friend said, “Well, Tom, I’m awfully sorry, old fellow. Look here! let me lend you a couple of sovereigns, and you can pay me back as soon as you get a bit straight.”

The tears came into Tom’s eyes, and his throat swelled up; but, before he could say anything, his friend had turned off sharp and gone away.

Tom showed the sovereigns to his wife, and said, “There, my lass, look at that! there’s a chance for us to make another start. It’s a bit of good luck, and it’s a good omen; it means what the old proverb says, that when things are at the worst they will mend. Let us both try; we’ve had a rough lesson, and if we’ve learnt it, perhaps it will be all the better for us for the rest of our lives.”

Tom’s wife didn’t say anything, but only turned her head away.

That night he got a bit of a lodging for himself and his wife and his child, and he went to bed full of hope and faith in the future, and he determined the first thing in the morning to get out and look for work.

But when he woke up in the morning his wife was gone. She had got up quietly, while he was fast asleep, and had gone away, and left a bit of a note saying she was sure she should bring him to ruin again, and she didn’t want to do it now he had another chance. For his own sake and the sake of the child it was better he should be rid of her, for she was only a burden and a curse to him. If ever she cured herself, and felt that she could trust herself, she would come back to him; but if she didn’t, it was just as well he should never know what had become of her.

It was an awful letter for poor Tom to find just as everything looked so promising, and it dashed his hopes to the ground and made him very miserable.

He told me that when he read that letter he felt so low that the temptation came to him to go out and drink to drown his trouble and black thoughts that came into his mind. Then he thought of the little girl—the poor little girl, that had suffered so much already—and he made up his mind that he would do his duty by her, and be father and mother to her both, now her mother had gone away and left her; and he knelt down by her bed-side where she was fast asleep, and made a vow that he would never touch a drop of drink again as long as he lived.

He spent the whole of the first day trying to find some trace of his wife, but it was no good. Nobody knew them where they had taken the lodging, and no one had noticed the woman go away. He had a dreadful idea that she would kill herself, and he went to the police-station, and everywhere he could think of for days after that, to find out if anybody had been found in the water; or anything of the sort.

But while he was doing this he looked for work too, and after two days he got taken on for a short time at some works, and, when that job was over, he got another to help in a mews; and then, through somebody that knew him, he got a better place offered him down in the country at a little hotel, but it was one where he would have to sleep on the premises.

By this time he had given up all hope of tracing his wife, for he had been unable to find out anything concerning her, and now he was worried what to do about his little girl. He couldn’t take her into the country, because there would be no home for her, and, besides, there would be nobody to look after her.

But his good luck, which had never failed since those two sovereigns got him out of the difficulty, came to his aid now. He was able to get his little girl into a capital school, where she would be educated and trained for domestic service, and he felt it was the best thing for her to grow up like that under proper control, and with good people; and, though he felt parting with her very much, he was glad to think she would be so well cared for, and get such a good start in life.

When he had said good-bye to his little girl, and taken her to the school, which was a little way out of London, he felt that he was really making a fresh start. He went to his place, and was there till the house was given up as an hotel and turned into something else, and then, with a good character, he went to another place as outdoor man, and it was from this place that Harry, who had heard of him when he was inquiring for a trustworthy man, took him, and he came to us.

I didn’t know all his story at first, because he didn’t know it himself then. The most wonderful part of it happened after he was with us.

I knew he must make a good bit of money, because most of the visitors gave him something when they left, as he put their luggage on to the fly if they had one, and if they didn’t he wheeled it up to the station; and as he never drank, and was very careful, and hardly seemed to spend anything, I wondered what he was doing with his money.

But one day he told me that he was putting it all in the bank, and saving it, so that he might have a good home for his little girl when she was old enough to come home; and if she went into service, then it would be for her when he died or when she married.

“And you know, sometimes, ma’am,” he said, “I think that I may hear of my wife again. I often lie awake at night and wonder what’s become of her, and then the thought will come into my head that we may come together again. God’s mercy is very wonderful, and He brings strange things to pass. Oh, if I could only find her, and have my home again, as it used to be!”

“Poor fellow!” I said to myself; “he will go on thinking that all his life, and it will never happen.”

I thought so much of poor Tom Dexter and his story that I told Harry all about it, and while I was telling him, Mr. Wilkins was in the parlour. Somehow or other Mr. Wilkins had never taken to Tom—he was the only person about the place that hadn’t; but, after all, it was only human nature, because we had taken Tom on instead of somebody Mr. Wilkins wanted to recommend after Dashing Dick had turned out so dreadfully.

Harry said it was a very sad story, and he felt very sorry for Tom, and was glad he had got hold of him; but Mr. Wilkins was nasty, and said, he dare say that it was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, for it was generally the husband’s fault if the wife turned out badly.

I defended Tom heartily, and Mr. Wilkins and me had a few words, because he presumes a little sometimes. What put me out was his saying that he thought I’d better not put Tom’s story in my book, as very likely it was all a pack of lies. That made me say I knew very well what to put in my book without Mr. Wilkins’s advice, and one thing led to another, till Mr. Wilkins put on his hat and coat and went off in a huff; but not before he had been very objectionable about the Scotch whiskey, trying to make out it was not as good as usual, and talking about his having noticed that the spirits were of an inferior quality lately.

That put my back up, and I said I was very sorry that our spirits were not good enough for Mr. Wilkins; but, of course, if we lost his patronage we should try and bear up with Christian resignation under the loss.

I know it was very wrong of me to say that, because in our business you must always keep your temper, and try to please customers and not offend them. And Mr. Wilkins is really an important local man in his way, and might, if he left us and went to the other house, take a few of the local people with him, though I may say without pride, and not wishing to run my neighbours down, that as the other house is quite a common sort of place, and more used by waggoners and labourers, and with only a very common tap-room, that there wouldn’t be any grave danger of Mr. Wilkins stopping away long, if he did go.

Still, it was not my place to be rude to him, and I never should have been, but for his presuming so much about my “Memoirs.” It wasn’t the first time he had done it, as I have told you before; though, of course, in his heart he meant no harm. Poor old gentleman, it was only his ignorance!

Why I have mentioned about my little difference with Mr. Wilkins is to explain how Tom Dexter and his story got impressed on his mind. It was through this that one day Mr. Wilkins came to me with the Morning Advertiser, which he had borrowed from our coffee-room, in his hand, and he said, “I say, Mrs. Beckett, just look at this advertisement.”

I took it and read it, and I said, “Dear me, I wonder if it’s the same?”

The advertisement was this:—

“Thomas Dexter, formerly of —— Street, London, if alive, is requested to communicate with Mrs. Lyons, such and such an address, London.”

Of course Mr. Wilkins must have his joke, and say what nonsense to say “if alive,” as if Thomas Dexter could communicate with anybody if he was dead; but I didn’t take any notice of him, but went straight out to the stables, where Tom was at work, and showed him the advertisement.

He stared at it, and said, “That’s me, right enough, ma’am, for that’s the street we used to live in before things went wrong.”

“What does it mean, Tom?” I said.

“What does it mean, ma’am?” he said, his face quite bright with happiness; “why, it means that my prayer’s been answered, and that I’m going to hear of my wife again, after all these years.”

“Tom, my good fellow,” I said, “I’m sure I hope it is so, and I don’t want to dispirit you, but don’t build on it too much, for fear it should be something else. It might be—well, it might be to tell you——”

I hesitated to say what was in my mind.

“To tell me she’s dead! No, ma’am, it ain’t that, I’m sure of it. It’s to tell me she’s alive and cured, and ready for the home as I’ve been saving up to give her all these years.”

He was so sure, that I didn’t argue with him any more, but I asked him what he was going to do, and he said, “Write to the address at once.”

I got him a sheet of paper and an envelope, and I helped him to compose the letter, for I was quite anxious to know the result. It was only to say that Tom Dexter was at the ‘Stretford Arms’ Hotel.

I told Tom to go and post the letter himself, and he did; and all that evening and the next day we were quite excited. I don’t know which was the worst, Tom or me. I could see what a state of mind he was in, though he didn’t show it so much outwardly. For the first time he made a mistake with the luggage, and in the morning he got wrong with the boots, having actually taken them from the doors without chalking the numbers on, and a nice state of confusion it was, for our hotel happened to be quite full at the time, there being a grand ball at a mansion in the neighbourhood the night before, and we having had to put up some of the guests, and that, with our other visitors had filled us quite up.

But I forgave him, though mixing the boots is a dreadful thing in an hotel, and has been done sometimes as a trick in a big hotel by young fellows for a lark, and all the bells have been ringing in the morning, and gentlemen swearing, wanting to catch trains, and everybody having the wrong boots.

Tom was awfully sorry, and couldn’t think how he could have been so foolish, but I knew; and between us we got the boots right, being able to guess fairly well, some being patents and some lace-ups and heavies, and you can generally tell the patent-leather customers from the others by their general appearance.

All that day I was on tenter-hooks, and I wasn’t right till the next morning, and when the post came in there was a letter for “Mr. Dexter.” I took it to Tom myself, and my heart almost stood still while he opened it.

“Tain’t her writing, ma’am, on the envelope,” he said; and his lip trembled as he tore the envelope open clumsily, as people do who don’t often have letters.

He opened it at last and got the letter out, a bit torn in opening the envelope. He looked at it hard a minute; then he dropped it, and his face went blood-red, then deadly white. Then he put his hands up over his face, and cried like a child.

“Tom,” I said, “my poor Tom! Tell me, is she——”

“It’s all right, ma’am,” he said. “I’ve expected it; but it took me a bit aback. She’s alive and well, and she’s waiting for me—waiting to show me that she’s the good, loving little woman of the dear old days—waiting for her husband and her daughter, and the home that she’s going to be the light of and the joy of, please God, for all the rest of her life!”

* * * * *

Tom Dexter and his wife and their little girl—not very little now—are in a happy home. Tom left us, and sorry were we to part with him, and he with us; but it was his wife’s wish that they should be together, and she was housekeeper to the lady who had saved her from ruin, and made a new woman of her, and wanted her always to live near her.

After she left Tom, she had gone away to drown herself, and had been taken by the police for trying to do so, but had given a false name to the magistrate, and Tom had heard nothing about it. A lady was in court, and had promised to look after the poor woman, if she was given up to her, and, after a week’s remand, this was done. Tom’s wife didn’t tell the lady she was married, but said she was a widow; and the lady took her to be her servant, and tried to wean her from the drink. She had lost a sister from it, and devoted her life to good work, as some people do who have a great sorrow.

It was hard work, for Mrs. Dexter fretted about her husband and her lost home now, and the temptation would come, and then, somehow or other, she would get the drink.

But the lady would not turn her away; she was grieved, but she determined to try and try again, and at last a whole year went by and Tom’s wife had kept the pledge she had made.

But she then felt, if she was to go back to her husband, and have her liberty, she might break down again.

She was afraid of herself.

She said she would try another year, and she did, and then she felt safe; and one day she told her mistress all her story, and how strong the yearning had come upon her for her husband and her home again.

And then the lady put that advertisement in the paper, and Tom and his wife came together again, as he always believed they would, and now there isn’t a happier home in all England.

Tom works on the lady’s estate, and is a great favourite with her, and he has a cottage all his own, with roses and a big garden, and only the other day he sent me the loveliest pumpkin of his own growing, and with it was a letter from his wife thanking me for——

* * * * *

The beer sour! Who says so? Mr. Wilkins? Let me taste it. So it is; it’s the thunderstorm. I suppose the whole lot’s gone wrong. Harry! Harry! Where’s your master? Up in the billiard-room? Good gracious! isn’t that billiard-table fitted up yet? The men have been at it all day!

CHAPTER XIII.

A LOVE STORY.

He said it was bad enough in the big hotels in our country, but abroad it was something awful to be ill in them. He had a friend of his taken very ill in Italy, in a Grand Hotel, and he used to go and sit with him and try to cheer him up, and he said directly he began to be ill and it was thought he was going to die, the hotel tariff went up about two hundred per cent. for everything. The poor gentleman died in the hotel, and the friends had to be telegraphed for to come and settle up, and a nice settle up it was. Not only was the bill something terrible—such a thing as a cup of beef-tea being about five shillings, and double and treble charged for every little thing in the way of refreshment for the invalid, brought up into the room—but, after the poor gentleman was dead, the manager of the hotel sent the friends in a bill, charging them for the bed, the bed-linen, the curtains, the carpets, and the furniture, and even the wall-paper.

When Mr. Stuart told me that, I said, “Good gracious! whatever for?” And then he explained to me that it is the custom in some of the countries in the South of Europe to be awfully afraid of death—especially in Naples, where the poor gentleman died—and everybody shrinks away from death; the friends leaving the poor invalid to die alone, with only a priest in the room, even though the dying person has all his senses about him; and after there has been death in a room no one will touch anything that has been in it, and so everything is given away or sold cheap to the poor, and everything is had in new, even the walls being stripped and all new paper put on them.

You may be sure in a Grand Hotel in these places the refurnishing is made as expensive as possible, because it is all put down in the corpse’s friends’ bill.

Mr. Stuart—or, as we got to call him, after he’d stayed at the ‘Stretford Arms’ Hotel several times, “The Traveller”—when he found that Harry and I were interested in these things about hotels abroad, and the ways of the people, told us a lot of things, and I put them down in my book, thinking perhaps they would be useful to me some day.

What brought it up about people dying in hotels, was our having a young lady very, very ill indeed, in our house at the time, and we were really afraid that she was going to die, for the doctor shook his head over her; and it was talking about the case, and the worry it was to us having it in the hotel, that led Mr. Stuart to tell us what he did.

Fancy everybody going away and leaving their own relations directly the doctor says that their last moments are coming! It must be awful to the dying people to look round and find all the faces that they love gone from the bedside. Mr. Stuart told us that this custom is so well known among the Naples people, that one day a little girl, who was dying of consumption and had come to her last hour, opened her eyes and saw her father, who was her only relation, stealing out of the room. She looked at him a moment, and then, in a feeble voice and with tears in her eyes, she whispered, “Ah, papa, I see it is all over with me now, for you are going away.”

That made her father feel so sorry that he came back, and sat down, and held his little girl’s hand till she died. But everybody in Naples, when they heard of it, said, “How awful! and how could he do such a thing?” and for a long time afterwards people seemed to shrink from him.

I shouldn’t like to live in a country like that, especially as you are put under ground in twenty-four hours, and the men who put you in your coffin, and go to your funeral, are covered with a long white sack from head to foot, with two holes cut in it for their eyes. So Mr. Stuart said, and he showed us some photographs of them, and made me feel ill for a week.

I said to Harry, when Mr. Stuart had gone to his room and left us thinking over what he had told us, that I hoped the young lady wasn’t going to die in our hotel. To have anybody die in the place—especially a small place like ours—is most unfortunate, and makes everybody uncomfortable, besides interfering with business.

I don’t say this in a hard-hearted way; but I am sure everybody who knows anything about our business will understand what I mean. The other people staying in the house don’t like it, and they generally leave, and, if it gets about, people avoid the hotel for a time, for fear they should be put in the same room directly after. I dare say they are in big hotels, because I know that when anybody dies in them they are fetched away at once, and nothing is said about it. Harry told me about an hotel a friend of his was manager of in the City, where the undertaker in the same street kept a special room for hotel customers. I said, “Oh, Harry, don’t talk like that!” And Harry said, “It’s quite true, and the undertaker’s man calls round the last thing of a night and asks if there are any orders.”

I knew that couldn’t be true, so I told Harry it was very dreadful of him to make light of such awful things. It always seems strange to me, but how many people there are who will make jokes about death and tell comic stories about it! I think there is some reason for it in human nature, but I am not clever enough to say what it is. I always notice, in our parlour, if one of the customers tells a very awful story, and the conversation gets on things to freeze your blood, there’s always somebody ready with another, and they go on until, when it’s closing time, I’m sure that some of them are half afraid to go home in the dark.

Writing about people dying in hotels reminds me of what I heard one of my masters tell one of my missuses, while I was in service. He had been down to Brighton, staying at an hotel, and one Sunday afternoon, in the smoking-room, he met a nice, middle-aged gentleman, and they got into conversation. The middle-aged gentleman told my master that he had been very ill, and had been travelling about for six months in search of health, but that he was quite well now, and that the day after to-morrow he was going to his house in the country. He seemed so pleased, for he said he had not seen his wife and children for six months, and they would be so delighted to see him well and strong again.

That evening, my master and the gentleman dined together in the coffee-room, and over their dinner it was arranged that they would go for a long walk together in the morning to the Devil’s Dyke. They would have breakfast early and start directly after, so as to take their time for the excursion.

The next morning my master was down early to his breakfast; but the other gentleman hadn’t come down at nine o’clock, so my master asked the number of his room, and thought he would go and hurry him up.

He went upstairs, and knocked at the bedroom door, but got no answer. Then he knocked louder, and said, “What about our walk to the Dyke? It’s nine o’clock now.”

Still no answer.

“He must be very fast asleep,” said master to himself; and then he banged quite hard.

Still no answer.

It was so strange, that my master got frightened, and called the waiter up; and when they had both banged and could hear nothing, they sent for the landlord, and he ordered the door to be burst open.

The gentleman was there. He was sitting fully dressed at the table in the room. In front of him was a letter which he had been writing; but his head was down on the table, as if he had fallen asleep writing it.

The landlord went up to him and touched him on the shoulder. Then he started back, with an exclamation of horror.

The poor gentleman was dead.

He had evidently died as he was writing the letter; but he looked for all the world as if he was sleeping peacefully.

My master saw the letter, and read it.

It was this:—

And there the letter ended. The last three words were written differently to the others. There must have been a sudden trembling of the hand, a mist before the eyes, perhaps, and then the pen dropped where it was found—on the floor. And the poor gentleman fell forward and died—died just as he was thinking of the happy meeting with his wife and little ones, and bidding them be ready to welcome him.

Of course, the doctor was sent for, and there had to be an inquest. The doctor said that it was heart disease, and that the gentleman had died in a moment.

It was very awful, and most painful to my master and the landlord, or, rather, the landlord’s brother, who managed the hotel.

Of course the poor wife had to be told what had happened. At first they were going to send her a telegram to the address they found on a letter in the gentleman’s pocket, but they decided it would be such a terrible shock, and so the landlord’s brother, “Mr. Arthur,” as he was called, and quite a character, so master said, decided that he would go himself and break the terrible news to the poor lady as gently as possible.

He couldn’t go till the next day. And so it happened that he arrived by the very train that the poor gentleman was to have gone by himself. He took a fly from the station to the house—a lovely little villa, standing in its own grounds—and when he drove up, two sweet little girls came rushing down the garden-path, crying out, “Papa, dear papa! Mamma, mamma, papa’s come home—papa’s come home!”

And then their mamma, her face flushed with joy, came quickly out, and ran down after the children to the gate to welcome her husband.

Poor Mr. Arthur! Master said that when he told him about it his eyes filled with tears, and he could hardly speak.

He said it was a minute before he could open his lips; but the poor lady had read bad news in his face, and she gasped out,

“My husband! he is ill! he is worse! Oh, tell me; tell me. For God’s sake, tell me!”

And the little girls looked up with terrified faces, and ran to their mamma, and clung to her.

And then Mr. Arthur begged the lady to come into the house; and then, as gently as he could, he told her the terrible news.

Wasn’t it dreadful?

Oh, dear me! if anything of that sort had happened in our house it would almost have broken my heart.

Harry would have had to go; and all the time he was away I should have been picturing that poor lady——

But I won’t write any more about it. It makes me feel so unhappy. Oh dear, oh dear! what terrible sorrows there are in the world! When one thinks of them, and contrasts one’s own happy lot with them, how thankful one ought to be! Fancy, if my Harry were ever away, and—— No! no! no! I will not think of such things. I’m a little low to-day and out of sorts, and when I am like that I get the most melancholy ideas, and find myself crying before I know what I’m doing.

Harry says I want a change; that I’ve been working too hard, and been too anxious—and that’s quite true, for our business has got almost beyond us, and the trouble of servants and one thing and another has upset me.

But I must get this Memoir done while I have a few minutes to spare. I call them Memoirs from the old habit; but, of course, they are hardly that, though I suppose an hotel could have memoirs.

It was about the young lady who was taken so seriously ill in our house, and that we were afraid was going to die.

She came down with her mamma early in the spring, having been recommended for change of air; but not wanting to be too far away, because she was under a great London doctor—a specialist I think he was called—and she had to go up and see him once a week.

Her mamma was about fifty—a very grave, I might say “hard,” lady. I didn’t like her much when she first came; there was something about her that seemed to keep you at your distance—“stand-offish” Harry called it—and she never unbent an atom, no matter how civil you tried to be.

But the daughter, who was about two-and-twenty, was the sweetest young lady, so pale and delicate-looking; but with a sweet, sad smile that Harry said was heavenly. And certainly it was, though I couldn’t say myself what is the difference between a heavenly smile and an earthly one: but there must be, or people wouldn’t use the word.

Miss Elmore—that was the young lady’s name—always had a kind word for me when I went into her room; but she talked very little, only thanking me for any little attention I showed her, and saying she was afraid she was giving a great deal of trouble.

Of course I said, “Oh dear no,” and it was a pleasure to wait on her. And so it was, for she was so patient, and I could see that she was a great sufferer, and it seemed to me that she was very unhappy.

Her mother was generally sitting by her when she didn’t get up, and used to read to her; but whenever I heard her reading, it was a religious book, and full of things about death—solemn and sad things, not at all fit to be continually dinned into the ears of an invalid.

Perhaps it was the lady herself being so stern, and having such a hard, rasping voice, that made the things I heard her read seem so unsympathetic. Of course, I don’t want to say that people who are very ill oughtn’t to have religious books read to them—we ought all to be prepared, and to think of our future; but I never could see that sick people, who, of course, are low and cast down, ought to be continually preached at and reminded of their sins. When I told Harry the things I’d heard Mrs. Elmore reading to her daughter, he said it wasn’t right. He said it was like giving an invalid “a religious whacking,” when what was wanted for a person in such delicate health was religious coddling. I think the way he put it was quite right. It seemed to me that if a person’s body is too weak for anything but beef-tea their mind couldn’t be able to digest a beef-steak. Not that I think a sick person wants feeding on religious slops, but certainly they want whatever they take in that way to be nourishing and comforting. There was too much Cayenne pepper for an invalid in Mrs. Elmore’s religious beef-tea. I couldn’t help hearing a lot of it when I was tidying up the room, which I always did myself, and some of the passages out of the books might be part of a bad-tempered gaol chaplain’s sermon to convicted murderers. I couldn’t believe that a sweet, quiet girl, like Miss Elmore, could have done anything bad enough to be read at in such a scarifying fashion.

But the poor girl used to lie and listen—only sometimes I thought her face would flush a little, as though she felt she didn’t deserve such a lecture. Her mother had a way of reading passages at her, if you know what I mean, as much as to say, “There, you wicked girl, that’s what you deserve!”

I never heard them talk about anything. When the mother wasn’t reading to the young lady, she would sit and knit, looking as hard and cold as a stone statue.

After they had been with us a fortnight, and the day came round for the young lady to go to London to see the doctor, she wasn’t well enough; but had to keep her bed all day.

After that she grew rapidly worse, and our nearest doctor was called in. He looked very grave, and asked a lot of questions, and said he should like a consultation with the London specialist.

The mother said it would be very expensive to have him down, so our doctor said he was going to town, and he would go up and see him, as he wanted particulars of her case from him, and to know what the treatment had been.

After he came back from London he appeared graver still, and I could see that he was getting nervous about the case.

The young lady didn’t get any better; and I could see myself she was getting weaker and weaker. So one day I said to the doctor, “Doctor, I should be obliged if you will tell me what you think. Is there any danger?”

“Yes, Mrs. Beckett,” he said; “there is danger; but I haven’t given up hope yet.”

“What is it, sir?” I said. “I mean, what is the young lady suffering from?”

He looked at me a minute, and then he said in a quiet way, “A broken heart. That’s not the professional term, but that’s the plain English for it.”

And then he put his hat on, and went out before I could ask him any more.

What he’d told me made me more interested in the young lady than ever, and I felt as sorry for her as though she had been my own sister.

The next day, when the doctor had been, I caught him before he got to the front door, and asked him to come into our parlour. And then I tackled him straight.

“Did he think the young lady was going to die in our house?”

“Do you want her moved?” he said, in his quiet way, looking at me over his spectacles.

“No, sir; I don’t want anything unfeeling, I hope; but I should like to know.”

“My dear lady,” he said, “I can’t tell you what I don’t know myself. Doctors are no good in these cases. I won’t say that the young lady will not get strength enough to be taken to her home; but I see no signs of any improvement at present.”

“Do you know her story, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Won’t you tell me?”

He hesitated.

“I don’t know why I shouldn’t,” he said. “It was told me by the London doctor, who knows her family, and he didn’t bind me to secrecy.”

Then he told me all about the poor young lady, and what had made her so ill.

It seems she had fallen in love with a handsome young gentleman, who had been staying for a long time at a boarding-house, where she and her mother were living.

He was quite a gentleman in every way, and as soon as he found they were falling in love with each other—as young people will do, in spite of all rules and regulations and etiquette, or whatever you call it—he asked the young lady if he might pay his addresses to her.

I think that’s the Society name for what we call “walking out and keeping company;” but I only go by what I’ve read in novels.

Well, Miss Elmore, who was an honest, straightforward, pure-minded young lady, with no fashionable nonsense about her, told the young gentleman that she loved him—of course, not straight out like that, but in a modest, ladylike way, and said that he must ask her mamma.

The young fellow did, and the mamma, who hadn’t taken the slightest notice of her daughter—being wrapped up in the local Methodist clergyman and the chapel people in the place—was very much astonished. She said she had never thought of such a thing; but if the young gentleman wished to marry her daughter, he had better tell her what his position was, etc.

The young gentleman told her about his family, which was a very good one—almost county people, in fact—and then, after a lot of stammering, he let out that he was only a younger son, and that he was by profession an actor.

An actor!

The doctor told me that the London doctor told him that, when Mrs. Elmore heard this, she dropped her knitting, and nearly had a fit.

It seems that she was one of the sort that look upon the theatre, and everything connected with it, as awful.

As soon as she had recovered from her horror, she told the young gentleman that, rather than allow her daughter to marry a man who was such a lost sinner, she would see her in her coffin.

The young fellow tried to argue the point a little, but it was no use. Mrs. Elmore forbade him ever to speak to her daughter again, and she went at once and packed up, and took her daughter away to another boarding-house, telling the landlady that she was surprised that she received such people as the young gentleman.

She gave the poor young lady a terrible lecture, and forbade her ever to mention the young man’s name. And then she called in her favourite clergyman, the Methodist parson, and the two of them went at the poor girl hammer and tongs, just as if she had committed some awful crime.

After that the young people didn’t meet. The young lady wouldn’t disobey her mother, and so the young fellow, who had been taking a long rest during the summer, went back to London; and in the autumn, when his theatre reopened—the one he belonged to—he began to play again, and made quite a hit. Poor fellow, it was natural he should; for the part he played was that of a young man, who loves a girl and is told he shall never have her, and isn’t able to see her. I wonder how many of the people who applauded him for that knew that he wasn’t acting at all, but just being himself?

After he was gone, and the young lady couldn’t even see him, she began to get ill, and went home, and the doctor said it was debility, and care must be taken of her or she might go into a decline.

Then her mother, to get the young man out of her head, began to read her those unkind books about sinners, and tried in that manner to show her the error of her ways.

The treatment didn’t answer, for the young lady got slowly worse, until she came to our place, and then you know what happened.

“Oh, Harry,” I said, after the doctor had told me the story; “isn’t it dreadful? Fancy that sweet young lady dying of a broken heart, and at the ‘Stretford Arms,’ too!”

It quite upset me, and I was so miserable that I began to feel ill myself.

Harry was grieved too; but men don’t show grief the same way we do. Harry swore. He said Mrs. Elmore was a wicked old woman, and she ought to be ashamed of herself. What did it matter how a gentleman earned his living, if he earned it honestly, and as a gentleman should?

Mr. Wilkins, who got hold of the story—I never knew anything to go on in our house that that little man didn’t get hold of—must, of course, take a different view of the matter. It was just his contrariness.

He said that, after all, perhaps the mother wasn’t so much to blame. He knew the time when actors weren’t thought much of—in fact, in the history of our parish there was a record of actors having been put in the stocks; and in the eyes of the law, not so very long ago, they were rogues and vagabonds, and the parish beadle could order them off, and do all manner of things to them.

I said, “If it came to what was done once, people had their noses cut off for speaking their opinions.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Wilkins, “that hasn’t gone out yet. I know a place where a man has his nose taken off still, if he ventures to have an opinion of his own.”

And then the horrid little man looked straight at me, and nodded his head and said, “Ahem!”

“If you mean me, Mr. Wilkins,” I said, “I think you’ve made a mistake. I’m not in the habit of snapping people’s noses off, as you call it. And I think you must have a good many noses, for I’m sure you’ve got an opinion of your own about everything that is said, whether it concerns you or not.”

With that I took my work, and went into our little inner room to get away from him, for I wasn’t in the humour for an argument. And I wasn’t going to sit still and listen to that poor young lady’s lover being abused by an ignorant parish clerk, who had never lived in London and seen the world, as I had, with her perhaps dying upstairs.

I shut my door, but I could hear Wilkins keeping on the conversation, and talking loud, for me to hear, just for aggravation, and running down actors, just as if he knew anything at all about them. I don’t suppose he ever saw one in his life, except at a country fair, and, of course, that was not at all the sort of person that the young gentleman was.

Of course I knew what had made Mr. Wilkins so disagreeable of late. I had had to keep him in his place about my “Memoirs.” After he found out that I was going to use old Gaffer Gabbitas’s story in my book, he came to me one day, with a lot of scrawl in a penny copy-book, and said he’d begun to collect things for his own “Memoirs,” and would I look over them and help him to do them? I said, “Your ‘Memoirs’! What do you mean, Mr. Wilkins?”

He said, “I’ve been thinking that we might do ‘The Memoirs of a Parish Clerk’ together. I’ve seen a lot of strange things in my time, and they’d be very nice reading. If you like to help me, we’ll go halves in the money.”

I said, “Let me look at what you’ve written.”

You never saw such stuff in your life. It is really ridiculous what an idea some people have of writing books. Mr. Wilkins had begun about his being born, and everybody saying what a fine baby he was, as if he could possibly have heard the remark; and then he had put in a lot of nonsense, which I suppose he thought very funny, about his father and mother quarrelling what name he was to have, and going through the Bible to find one, and his father wanting to call him Genesis, which made his mother go to the other extreme, and insist on Revelations.

That’s the sort of stuff you’d expect a parish clerk to write; but the impudence of the thing amused me. As if anybody would care two pins about the christening of Mr. Wilkins.

I looked at some of the other notes, and I saw quite enough. He’d put a lot about his being sent to the national school, and had made out that he was quite a scholar directly, and then there was something about his learning a trade, and his falling in love with the young woman at Jones’s farm; and if he hadn’t gone and written out some poetry that he sent the girl, which was nothing more than some valentine words as old as the hills.

When I gave him the book back I was obliged to tell him that that sort of stuff wasn’t writing—not writing for books—and that I didn’t think his “Memoirs” would be of much interest to anybody but himself.

The little man was disappointed. I could see that. I dare say he put it down to me being jealous of him; but he never mentioned the subject again. Only, after that, he was always making some nasty remark or other, and if ever I had an opinion about anything, he always started arguing the other way. I knew I had offended him; but you can’t help offending somebody now and then, if you’ve got any spirit of your own. I’m sorry I ever let him give me any information at all. I dare say he’ll go to his grave believing that he’s as much the author of these tales about the ‘Stretford Arms’ as I am myself.

It was through this having happened that made Mr. Wilkins so nasty about the young lady’s lover. At another time he would have sided with me. He didn’t drop it even the next day, for in the evening, when the room was full, he pulled out a newspaper, and asked me if I’d seen the case in the police-court, of an actor having pawned the sheets from his lodgings.

I saw he was going to begin again, so I said “Mr. Wilkins, will you let me have a word with you, please?” and I beckoned him outside the door.

Then I said to him, “Mr. Wilkins, what you heard yesterday about that young lady’s affairs was a private conversation between me and my husband. You’ll oblige me by not referring to it again. I can’t have ladies and gentlemen who stay at this hotel talked over in the bar-parlour—at least, not their private affairs, which you have only learned through being considered a friend of ours.”

He winced a little. But he said, “Mrs. Beckett, ma’am, I hope I know myself better than to do anything that is not right and gentlemanly.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wilkins,” I said; and then we went in, and if that horrid Graves the farrier didn’t say, “All right, Wilkins, I’ll tell Mr. Beckett.” And then they all roared, and that wretched little Wilkins giggled, and said, “They’re only jealous, aren’t they, Mrs. Beckett?”

I declare I could have boxed his ears. I went quite red, and then they all roared again. And that Graves said, “All right, we won’t tell this time; but, Wilkins, old man, you must be careful. Beckett’s got a pistol.”

I gave Graves a look, and went into the bar. I’m glad he doesn’t come often; he ought to go to the tap-room at the other house. It’s more in his line.

But about the poor young lady, whose lover was an actor——

* * * * *

Oh, Harry, how you frightened me, coming behind me like that! Supper been ready half an hour! Has it? All right, dear, I’m coming.

CHAPTER XIV

THE YOUNG PLAY-ACTOR.

After the doctor had told me the story of the young lady, who was so ill in our house, you may be sure that I took more interest in her than I had ever done before. There is nothing which touches a woman’s heart so much as an unhappy love affair, and poor Miss Elmore’s was unhappy enough in all conscience, for it had brought her to what looked like being her death-bed.

One day the doctor told me he had had a very serious talk with Mrs. Elmore—I told you about her being so hard—and had as good as said to her that there was only one thing could save the young lady, and that was to let her see her sweetheart again.

Mrs. Elmore sniffed and tossed her head, and said, “And what about my daughter’s soul? Was it a fit preparation for the other world, if she was dying, to have a play-actor standing by her bed-side? The only persons who had a right there were the doctor and the clergyman.” It was no good to argue—all Mrs. Elmore would say was that never, with her consent, should her daughter see that lost young man again. “What was the good?” she said. She would never consent to the marriage, and if what the doctor said was true, that she was breaking her heart about the young fellow, what was the good of seeing him if she couldn’t marry him? Besides, she was sure her daughter wasn’t so bad as the doctors tried to make out. She would be better again if she would only make an effort, and allow herself to rally, and fix her thoughts upon respectable things instead of play-actors.

You wouldn’t think a mother would talk like it, but Mrs. Elmore did. The human nature in her seemed to have dried up—if I may use the expression.

The doctor said it was no good talking to the mother any more, so he went and saw our local Methodist clergyman, that Mrs. Elmore sat under every Sunday, and that came sometimes to visit the sick young lady.

He put the case straight to him, and told him he believed that the poor girl’s life might be saved if her mother could be induced to consent to the match, and perhaps he, the clergyman, might be able to persuade her.

Now, our Methodist clergyman was a very nice gentleman indeed, and he was quite affected by the way the doctor told the story. He said, “I don’t know that I could induce Mrs. Elmore to let her daughter marry this young play-actor, while he is still acting in what we, rightly or wrongly, consider to be a sinful place, and a place full of devilish wiles and temptations; but if he would give up his present life, and take to another calling, perhaps it might be different.”

“Well,” said the doctor, “there is no time to lose. He ought to come down at once, but it’s no good his coming down while he is a play-actor, because the mother wouldn’t allow him to see his sweetheart. I can’t go to London, because I have a lot of people ill here, and a case I can’t leave. Would you go to London and see the young fellow?”

“Why not write to him?” said the clergyman.

“That’s no use,” said the doctor; “it couldn’t be explained in a letter. Come, it is a life that hangs on your decision. Won’t you go?”

The clergyman hesitated. He said he didn’t know the young fellow, and he wasn’t authorized by the young lady or her mamma, and it seemed such a queer thing for him to do.

But at last he consented, and the doctor so worked him up, that he promised to go that very evening. They didn’t know the young fellow’s private address; but the doctor knew the theatre he was playing at, because, of course, he was advertised among the company.

The clergyman said it was a dreadful thing for him to have to go to a theatre. He had never been inside one in his life, and he didn’t feel quite sure what would happen to him. He told the doctor that he looked upon it that perhaps he might be going to rescue a young man from perdition, and to do that, of course, a clergyman might go into a worse place than a theatre.

Our doctor—a very jolly sort of man, and fond of his joke, and not above coming into our parlour and having a little something warm when he is out on his rounds late on a cold night—told us all about what the clergyman said afterwards, and he told us that he couldn’t for the life of him help telling the dear old parson to be very careful in the theatre, as there were beautiful sirens there, and he told him to remember about St. Anthony. I didn’t know what he meant about St. Anthony, no more did Harry, because I asked him who St. Anthony was afterwards; but I didn’t tell the doctor I didn’t know, because I never like to show ignorance, if I can help it.

I suppose St. Anthony went to a theatre and fell in love with one of the lovely ladies. Perhaps it was that.

But our clergyman—the Methodist one—went. I call him ours, though we are Church of England, and our clergyman I told you about, is the Rev. Tommy Lloyd, who carries stones and roots in his pocket—Harry, in his exaggerating way, says he carries rocks and trunks of trees there. He went up to London, and, as we learnt afterwards, he got to the theatre about half-past eight in the evening. He saw the place all lit up, and he wondered how he was to find the young fellow—Mr. Frank Leighton his name was.

He went into the place where they take the money, and said, “Please can I have a few moments’ conversation with Mr. Leighton, on a private matter?”

The people in the pay-box stared at him, and said, “Stage door.”

“Thank you,” said the clergyman. And, seeing a door, he went through it, and up a flight of stairs.

“Your check, sir,” said the man at the top of the stairs.

“What?” said the clergyman.

“Your check,” said the man; “you’ve got a check, haven’t you?”

“I have a cheque-book,” said the clergyman, “but not with me. What, my good friend, do you want with a cheque from me?”

The man looked at him as if he was something curious, and said, “A voucher; you have a voucher, haven’t you?”

The clergyman thought perhaps they were very particular whom they admitted behind the scenes, and he thought that was very proper, so he said, “I have not a personal voucher with me, but there is my card. I am a clergyman, and well known in the district.”

“Can’t pass your card, sir,” said the man politely; “you’d better see the manager.”

“Thank you,” said the clergyman; “where shall I find him?”

“Here he comes, sir.”

At that moment a gentleman came up the stairs in full evening dress, and with very handsome diamond studs. The clergyman told the doctor that he noticed everything, all being so new and strange to him.

The man took the clergyman’s card, and showed it to the gentleman in full dress, and said, “Gentleman wants to be passed in.”

“Very sorry,” said the manager; “but we’ve no free list.”

“I think there is some mistake,” replied the clergyman. “I have no desire to see the performance. I want a few moments’ private conversation with Mr. Frank Leighton.”

The manager stared. “Oh!” he said. “But, my dear sir, how do you propose to converse with him privately this way? You can’t shout at him from the dress circle.”

“I know nothing of theatres. Is not this the stage door?”

“Oh, you thought this was the stage door. I see. Simmons!”

A commissionaire in uniform stepped forward.

“Show this gentleman the stage door.”

“Yes, sir.”

And with that our clergyman was taken outside by the commissionaire, and they went along the street and then down a dirty narrow court; and when they got to the end of the court there was a dirty old door, and the commissionaire pushed that open and said, “This is the stage-door, sir,” and left our clergyman there.

He told the doctor that it was a narrow passage, with a little room just off it; and in this little room, which was very dingy, was an old gentleman with grey hair, who said, “What do you want, sir?”

“I want a few minutes’ conversation with Mr. Frank Leighton, on a private matter. There is my card.”

The man took the card, and said, “Wait a minute, sir.”

Then he pushed another door open and went through.

Presently he came back again, and said, “Will you take a seat a minute, sir?” And the clergyman went into the dingy little room and sat down.

There was a young lady who had come through from downstairs, and she had evidently just come off the stage, for the doorkeeper said, “Is Mr. Leighton on yet?” “Yes,” she said; “he’s on to the end of the act now.”

Presently there was the report of a pistol, and the clergyman jumped up.

“Good gracious! what’s that?” he exclaimed.

“Oh,” said the young lady, “that’s Mr. Leighton; he’s just tried to commit suicide!”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed the clergyman, horrified. “How terrible—let me go to him.” And before anybody could stop him he had rushed through the door.

At first he could not see where he was for things sticking out here and there; but presently, through some scenery, he saw a young fellow lying on the floor, with a pistol beside him. A gentleman was leaning over him and feeling his heart.

“He is not dead,” said the gentleman; “thank God! thank God!”

Our clergyman said, “Thank God!” too, and rushed to where the young gentleman was lying, and said, “Oh, my unhappy young friend, how could you do such a terrible thing! I am a clergyman; let me——”

Before he could say another word there was a wild roar of voices, and the suicide sat up and said, “What the——”

And the people at the sides yelled, “Mind your head.” And the curtain came down with a bang.

And then the clergyman knew he had made a dreadful mistake, and that it was all in the play, because the suicide jumped up and said, “What in heaven’s name do you mean, sir?” And the manager came on and was furious, and the people in front of the house were yelling and hooting, and there was a nice commotion.