At first she heard nothing but the ordinary salutations that passed between the Professor and the serving-maid, but she was patient and long-suffering in the cause of Curiosity, and after a while, she was rewarded. Silence ensued;—next, furtive whisperings between the two conspirators—then, a few words of awed surprise—and lastly, the Victory!
“Leonora!” she heard the Professor say, “Leonora! come to me!”
“My gracious!” thought the landlady, “if they ain’t got another gal in there! ’Oo’d ’ave thought it, and the Sig-nor looking so grave and solemn the while? I was a green’orn to have believed as they would ’ave been satisfied with Hannah between the two. That’s the Doctor’s doings, I’ll be bound! Them medicals are hup to heverythink. ’Ow did ’e smuggle the ’ussy in under my very eyes? In an ’amper, I suppose, which no more comes into my ’ouse. And I, who ’ave tried so ’ard to keep it quiet and respectable! I’ll ‘Nora’ them, when we meets again. And as for that there Hannah, ’ome she goes to-morrer.”
Mrs. Battleby, having applied her ear again to the keyhole, and heard Steinberg speak of “Mrs. Carlile,” and being convinced that the villainies going on were not confined to unmarried girls, bundled downstairs shaking with indignation, and began to seek industriously for pen, ink and paper, wherewith to inscribe a letter to Mrs. Stubbs of Settlefield.
She was some time before she found what she sought, letter-writing not being an every-day habit with her. At last, however, in a corner of the kitchen dresser, she unearthed the penny bottle of ink, which had remained there, without a cork, a couple of months, and been well thickened by the addition of a dozen flies, and in a drawer of the same article of furniture she discovered a steel pen with only one nib, with which she scratched as with a pin, on a dirty half sheet of paper, the following words,
“Dear Mrs. Stubbs,
“If you will please to come to London tomorrer, and fetch ’ome your daughter Hannah, I shall be obliged, as there is goings on hupstairs wich I don’t approve of, and I’m afraid she ain’t no good with the gentlemen.
“Your loving friend,
“Martha Battleby.”
The consternation which this mysterious epistle caused in the cottage home in Settlefield, may be better imagined than described.
Mrs. Stubbs, who was a laundress, and trying hard, with the assistance of her husband, to keep five or six hungry mouths full, was like many ignorant country people, excessively stern upon a lapse from Virtue. These brawny-armed daughters of the soil, who are spoilt for love-making before they are five-and-twenty—who deteriorate in every direction as soon as they become mothers, and remain like sacks of meal for ever afterwards—are invariably unable to understand how any women can be tempted to deviate from the straight and narrow path, from which they have never had the opportunity to swerve by so much as a hair’s breadth.
When Mary Stubbs therefore received Martha Battleby’s letter and had mastered its contents, she was more than angry with her recreant daughter.
“Look ’ere! John Stubbs,” she exclaimed, as she waved the epistle towards her husband, with a hand immersed in soap suds; “just see what your darter ’as been a’doin’ of! Gallivanting along with gentlemen, which never did no gal any good yet, and she keeping company with Joe Brushwood all the while. Let me git ’old of the ’ussy and I’ll kill ’er—see if I don’t. My family ’ave always been brought up honest and respectable, and I won’t ’ave any light-a-loves among ’em. I’ll go up to Lunnon by the fust train and give Miss Hannah sich a thrashing as she never ’ad in ’er days before.”
“Now! now!” replied Stubbs père, “be easy, my lass! The gal’s done no ’arm as I can see! She’s a nice-looking gal, and the gennelmen ’ave paid ’er a compliment or two, p’r’aps. And no wonder! They’re all the same when they sees a nice, fresh country lass, a’bringing in their tea, or what-not. Let it alone! The ould woman will write agen and apologise in a day or two.”
“Let it alone! you fool! What are you talking on? Let it alone, till our Hannah comes back to us with a babby at ’er back, like Emily Marks did last year! Will I let it alone? You wait and see,” cried Mrs. Stubbs, as she energetically wiped her steaming arms and hands on a coarse towel. “And there’s Joe Brushwood, too,” she continued, “I wonders what he’ll say to Miss Hannah’s goings-on!”
“Sure! you’d never go to make mischief atween the young people?” exclaimed the father.
“If anybody makes mischief it’ll be Hannah herself. You mind what she left ’er ’ome for, father! She wouldn’t give up them devilries of hern, not for Joe, nor me, nor no one, but went on talkin’ about woices and shadders till she made me sick. I said I’d ’ave none of it in my ’ouse, and so did Mrs. Brushwood, else Hannah might ’ave been a married woman by this time and safe out of ’arm’s way. But no! she wouldn’t, so I sent ’er to Lunnon to shake the nonsense out of ’er, and this is my reward. She’s a’going to the bad! But she is my lawfully begotten child, and I’ll murder ’er, but she shall give it all up from this day,—gentlemen and shadders and woices, and the whole bag-o’-tricks!”
“Well! well! I don’t say nothing against your going,” replied her husband, who like many of his kind was terribly hen-pecked, and afraid to interfere in any matter from fear of making it worse, “but take young Joe along of you. He’ll look arter your traps, for you must stay a night in Lunnon, I guess, and he’ll be powerfully persuasive with the gal, and help you to bring ’er to ’er right senses, eh?”
“Yes! that be wise on you, father,” responded his wife, as she put on her linen bonnet and went in search of her neighbour, Mrs. Brushwood.
It was soon arranged that young Joe, Hannah’s sweetheart, should accompany his prospective mother-in-law to Town, and convey the two women safely back again to Settlefield. Joseph Brushwood, the younger, was not a bad fellow for his station in life. His parents were well-to-do farmers, and the young man’s prospects were as bright as he had any right to expect. He was good-looking, too, in his countrified fashion, with bold black eyes and a thick bush of curling hair, and a ruddy complexion—a “follower” of whom any girl, like Hannah Stubbs, might have been proud, and for having attracted whom, she was much envied in the neighbourhood of Settlefield. But Joe had been brought up “pious”, and stuck to the Bible as his rule in all perplexities of life. He was like many other people in this world. He called himself a Christian, yet possessed not one virtue of the Great Lover of mankind. He did not regard the Almighty as a reality—he only knew Him through the Bible. He never prayed from his heart, nor because he felt the actual necessity of prayer. But he went to church every Sunday afternoon, because he had been reared to consider it his duty. He sat there, with his Sunday clothes on,—his dark hair well-oiled, and a bright blue or crimson tie beneath his turned-down collar, and all the young women thought how nice Joe Brushwood looked and wondered what he could see in that stout, awkward Hannah Stubbs to take his fancy. And Joe slumbered through the greater part of the service, and returned home with the comfortable feeling that he had performed his weekly duty, and was a pattern Christian.
He was the sort of bucolic ignoramus, who would be more “down” upon anything which was Greek to him, than any other man. He had no humility, though he had a good deal of rough good humour. He was flattered by Hannah’s undoubted affection for himself, but he did not care enough for her to give up anything for her sake.
He dressed himself in his smartest clothes to go to London with Mrs. Stubbs, though she told him as little as she could of her errand.
They arrived in Soho about five o’clock, and presented themselves at Mrs. Battleby’s door. They were received by the landlady herself.
“O! there, I am glad to see you!” she exclaimed; “come in, do, and sit down and have your tea. Hannah has just gone on an errand for me, but she’ll be back in a jiffey. O! Mrs. Stubbs, ma’am, she ’ave give me sich a scare!”
“Well! I’m sure your letter give me a scare, Mrs. Battleby,” replied the visitor, as she settled herself in a chair, “and me and this gentleman, which he is my Hannah’s young man, started off as quick as we could to ’ear the rights and wrongs of it!”
“Lor! is this ’er sweetheart?” interposed Mrs. Battleby admiringly, “well, she have an inducement to keep straight, if any gal on hearth ’ave!”
Joe settled his collar and tie and looked conscious of the compliment, as Mrs. Stubbs proceeded:
“And keep straight she ’ave, I will take my solemn hoath of it, though I’m her lawful mother.”
“Lor! Mrs. Stubbs, you mustn’t take my words for more than meant,” said Mrs. Battleby, as she placed the tea-tray in front of her guests, “but Hannah, she do give me the squirms, there’s no denying of it, what with her ghosties and her woices, and now these gentlemen—till she’s a’most too much for me!”
At the word “ghosties” Mrs. Stubbs put down her teacup, and said solemnly,
“You don’t mean for to go to tell me, Mrs. Battleby, as she’s seen them shadders and things again!”
“Seen ’em! why, she’s allays on about ’em, till she makes my flesh creep. But I wouldn’t have writ to you, Mrs. Stubbs, if it ’adn’t been for the gentlemen upstairs—that is my hattic lodger Sig-nor Ricardo, and ’is friend Doctor Steinberg—which they arsks for leave to cure your gal of ’er seeing of things, which they calls highstrikes,—and gets ’er upstairs of evenings to sit with them, under pertence of physicking ’er, so the night before last I makes bold to listen at the door to see what they was a’doing with the gal, and I ’eard—well, Mrs. Stubbs, ma’am, I ’ardly likes to tell you what I ’eard!”
“But you must, ma’am, but you must!” exclaimed the other, eagerly, “I’ve come to Lunnon with this young man, a puppuss to ’ear all as you can tell us!”
“Well! then, Mrs. Stubbs, I must tell you fust, as the Sig-nor kep’ one of ’is rooms locked, night and day, but arter ’e got ’old, as I may say, of Hannah, I considered it my dooty to see what they did for myself, and I got another key fitted, and unlocked the door!”
“Which you did right, Mrs. Battleby!” agreed Mrs. Stubbs.
“And what did I find, but the ’ole room was hung with black curtings—walls, floor and winder—and sich a ’orrid smell, something between musk and cockroaches! Thinks I to myself, this ain’t for no good, so I listens to them, as I says before, and it’s a mixture, Mrs. Stubbs—a mixture of gals and Sorcery and Magic and the Devil, that’s what it is, and I cannot ’ave it in my ’ouse. The Professor ’e must go, and so must Hannah, though I’m sorry to say it of a daughter of yours—but it’s right-down wickedness, and I won’t countenance it!”
At this Joe Brushwood sprang to his feet.
“I know what it is,” he exclaimed, fiercely. “Hannah’s been raising them sperrits again, which she promised me to have no more to do with ’em, and if that’s the case, it’s all over between us, for I won’t ’ave a sorceress for a wife, to bewitch me half my time,—not if I dies a bachelor!”
“ ’Ush!” cried Mrs. Battleby, “ ’ere’s Hannah. Just put it to ’er, Mrs. Stubbs, ’ow she’s been employing ’er time with the Sig-nor and ’is friend, and judge for yourself!”
In another moment Hannah entered the kitchen. She had been out for a little walk and it had done her good. Her face was rosy and fresh and beaming with smiles. On her arm she carried a market basket, but as soon as she caught sight of her mother and Joe Brushwood, she threw it on the ground and flew towards them, her eyes sparkling with delight.
“Mother!” she cried rapturously; “ ’owever did you come ’ere. And Joe too!”—more bashfully—“O! I am glad to see you both again. I cries for ’ome every night afore I goes to sleep, mother!”
She would have embraced her, but the elder woman thrust her away.
“No! Hannah Stubbs, no!” she said, severely, as she glared at her daughter, “not till you gives me a hexplanation of your doings in this ’ere ’ouse—likewise to Joe Brushwood, which we’re ’ere for that, and nothink else.”
The rosy colour faded from Hannah’s face, as she encountered her mother’s angry glance.
“What ’ave I been a’doing of?” she faltered, “why, nothink, mother—leastways nothink wrong, as I knows on. I’ve tried to give satisfaction. Mrs. Battleby knows that, don’t you, Mum?”
“Well! I can’t say as I do, Hannah,” returned that worthy, “if seeing ghosts and sich-like, and playing with the Devil up in the gentlemen’s rooms, is giving satisfaction, I can’t see it, and that’s all!”
“Hannah! what ’ave you been a’doing up in the lodgers’ rooms?” demanded Mrs. Stubbs again.
“Only ’aving physic,” replied the girl, as she looked down upon the floor.
“Come! that ain’t true,” interposed Mrs. Battleby, “for you knows you go into a room all ’ung with black, and sees ghosties, which is only the Devil dressed up to deceive mankind.”
“Is this the case?” said her mother, sternly.
“I never see none,” replied Hannah, “leastways not in the room, and I ’ates them, mother—I’ve told you so, scores of times—but they will foller me, I can’t ’elp it.”
“Does you go to sleep in those gentlemen’s rooms?” continued Mrs. Stubbs.
“The physic they gives me, makes me do that!” replied the girl. “ ’Tain’t my fault!”
“Then I’ve done with yer for ever,” exclaimed Joe Brushwood, energetically, “a gal as goes to sleep in gentlemen’s rooms, ain’t the wife for a respectable young man, and it’s all over between us, Hannah Stubbs, you mark that! I’ve told you so, afore two witnesses, so you needn’t try for a breach of promise of marriage case!”
“O! no! no! Joe, don’t say that!” cried Hannah, tearfully, “I’ve been a true gal to you all along, Joe, and if—if—I’m so un’appy as to be prosecuted by shadders and things, you did ought to pity me, and not turn against me like that!”
“You leave the young man alone, Hannah,” interrupted her mother, “ ’e’s doing the right thing in casting you hoff, and I, for one, won’t blame ’im for it! Do you suppose any decent feller will marry you with these devils allays arter you? You’re a Witch! that’s what you are, and a Sorceress. You’ve sold yourself to the Devil and ought to be burnt alive, as they did to sich as you in the good old times. Likely a respectable man like Joe Brushwood, would own you now—when your own people won’t! I won’t ’ave you a’coming ’ome, contaminating your brothers and sisters with your devilish ways, no more won’t your father! You must make your living the best way you can for the future, for you don’t see me nor ’ome no more, and that I tells you straight.”
“Mother! mother! don’t go to say that!” cried Hannah, in despair, as she flung herself down upon the floor and burst into tears.
At that moment, the spare figure of the Professor appeared at the open door of the kitchen.
“Mrs. Battleby!” he commenced, and then perceiving the attitude which Hannah had assumed, he broke off his request with, “Why! what is the matter? Is Hannah ill?”
“No! Sir, she hain’t hill,” replied Mrs. Stubbs, guessing his identity, “but she’s cast off by ’er friends and ’er young man, for hever.”
Ricardo looked at the stranger with mild surprise.
“But why?” he inquired, “what has she done?”
“And you can stand there, and arsk me that, you brazen-faced impostor?” cried Mrs. Stubbs, with undisguised fury, “when it’s all along of you and your diabolical practices, that the pore gal ’ave lost ’er good name and repitation? What have you done—that’s more to the puppuss, a’avin ’er up to your rooms a nights—your dark rooms ’ung with black—and playing with ’ell fire as you do? Why ’ave you been a’calling up sperrits and ghosties and sich-like, and frightening us all out of our wits. But since it is so, and Hannah, she ’ave been fool enough to play into your ’ands (wich I’m sure you’re old enough to know better than to lead young gals astray), she ain’t no more a child of mine, and she don’t come ’ome no more, neither, to contaminate ’er brothers and sisters. She belongs to the Devil and let ’im keep ’er! I don’t!”
“But, my dear Madam,” said the Professor, “you mistake altogether! My friend Doctor Steinberg has been trying to cure your daughter of her natural weakness——”
“Bah!” exclaimed the irate mother, more emphatically than politely. “Go along with yer!”
“Mrs. Battleby, you can explain this matter,” said Ricardo, turning to his landlady.
“No! Sig-nor, I can’t,” she replied, “I must make bold to tell you that I went into your locked-up room the other day, and I listened at your door last night and I know all! And I’ll be much obliged if you’ll find another lodging, Sig-nor, by this day week. Mysteries as is jined with books I can be easy with, but not Mysteries as is jined with gals!”
“Of what baseness do you suspect me?” said Ricardo, indignantly. “It is true that finding this girl to be a strong medium, my friend and I have used her to assist us in our studies in spiritualism, but if anyone is in fault in the matter, it is I. Hannah is perfectly blameless; indeed, she does not even know what has occurred. Pray, therefore, do not visit the misfortune on her innocent head. If Mrs. Stubbs does not believe in, or does not approve of, Spiritualism, she can at least sympathise with the marvellous power which her daughter possesses, and which is as rare as it is wonderful.”
“Sympathise!” screamed Mrs. Stubbs. “No! Sir, I don’t, nor with any dealings with the Devil, nor witches, nor sorcery, nor——”
“Devils! Witches! Fiddlesticks!” cried Ricardo, impatiently.
“It’ll fiddlestick you, Sir, and that misfortunate gal there, if you don’t take ’eed to your ways,” retorted his irate adversary. “Me and mine ’ave been brought hup Christuns from our birth—in sound Methody principles—and we won’t stand no devilry, nor doings of Satan—and no more will this young man ’ere!”
“No! no! certingly not!” exclaimed the chivalrous Joe, “hit’s hall hover with me and Hannah from this hour.”
“What! are you, too, going to turn against her, for a temperament which is no fault of her own?” exclaimed the Professor, addressing the young farmer. “You—who professed to be her lover! Shame on you! You are not a man! Men were different in my day. They stood by the women they had promised to defend, to the very last—I think Hannah is well quit of such as you.”
“O! do you, Sir?” interposed Mrs. Stubbs, “and we thinks we’re well quit of the Devil and hall his himps! As you’ve been the means of leading this un’appy gal astray, and ’aving ’er turned out of a good place, and spurned by ’er relations, p’r’aps you’ll see arter ’er for the future, and the Devil and you will ’elp ’er to make a living, for no one else will.”
The Professor looked like a grand old hero as he replied,
“I will! You may depend on that! Whilst I have a crust, she shall share it! I would be ashamed to own so cold and unfeeling a heart as you seem to possess, though you are her mother. Do not cry so bitterly, Hannah! I will see that you do not want! As for you, Sir,” he continued, turning to Joe Brushwood, “words cannot express the contempt I feel for you! You are a poltroon—a coward—a cur! In my country, they do not let men like you live! Mrs. Battleby, I accept your notice, and will leave your rooms as soon as I have found others. Till then, I hope you will allow Hannah to remain under your care, and to-morrow I will tell you with whom I have decided to place her. Good-night!”
He quitted the kitchen with the air of a preux chevalier, and the persons in it felt very small.
“Well! I ain’t a’going to stay ’ere any longer,” said Mrs. Stubbs, as she bounced up from her seat, “the very hair seems to collaborate me. I’ll get a bed at the Pig and Whistle, which the lady knows me well, and to-morrer p’r’aps you’ll let me know, Mrs. Battleby, what that old feller means to do for that misfortunate, wicked gal there. If ’e don’t provide for ’er, she must just go to the workus, for I washes my ’ands of ’er altogether!”
“Saying as I was no man, indeed,” added Joe, indignantly, “I’d like to take the old chap outside for a minute and I’d soon let ’im know which on us was the best man. A dried-up, withered old carcase like that, and an I-talian into the bargain, who’s been fed on macaroni and snails. I like ’is imperence!”
“Come on, Joe! don’t waste no more time ’ere,” exclaimed Mrs. Stubbs, “if we make ’aste, we shall be in time for a music ’all yet, and I do love a music ’all. It’ll put all this wickedness as we’ve been talking of, out of my ’ead.”
She went into the area as she spoke, followed by Mrs. Battleby, cackling all the while of the Devil and his ways.
Hannah was left for a moment alone with Joe.
“Joe!” she ejaculated, plaintively, as she raised her head, “don’t you leave me for a minute. Your words ’ave nigh broke my ’eart. I’ve allays loved you, Joe, and I’ve been true and faithful to you, ever since we was little children together. Don’t you believe what mother and Mrs. Battleby says—they’re talking of what they know nothing. I ain’t pretty, I know, Joe, but I’ve been a good gal to you. Don’t go for to forsake me like mother, for I shall kill myself if you do!”
She drew nearer to where the young man stood, sheepishly turning his billy-cock hat round and round in his hands, and laid hers gently upon his.
“Do you mind when we fust kep’ company, Joe—when we was nutting in Farmer Burrows’ copse, and you ketched my ’and and kissed me afore I knowed what you was after? That was two good years ago!”
“Well! what of that?” demanded Joe, as he twitched his hand away from that of the girl.
“Two years is a goodish time at our age,” continued Hannah, “and through it all I’ve ’oped to be your wife! Be you going to break your word to me now, lad?”
She spoke so wistfully that she made Joe feel very uncomfortable, though if he had had his own way, he would have stuck to her, whatever her proclivities.
“Well! Hannah, you see it’s just like this,” he replied, after an awkward pause, “Mother, she won’t ’ave any sperrits, nor anyone as deals with ’em, in ’er ’ouse, and there won’t be no other for me to take you to, till she and father kicks the bucket.”
“Not if we worked ’ard for it, Joe?” asked the girl.
“I ain’t got no work, nor ever shall, but what’s on the farm,” returned Joe, stolidly, “besides which, Hannah, I don’t approve of sich goings on myself. It’ll lead to ’ell some time or other, you mark my word!”
“But, Joe, it ain’t my fault,” cried the girl, earnestly, “by the blessed Cross it ain’t. I’se as feared on ’em as you could be! I screams if they come near me! I don’t know why they should, or why I sees ’em. It’s my misfortune, Joe, and if it loses me you, it’ll be my death as well.”
And she began to sob afresh.
“Now, Hannah, don’t do that, for mercy’s sake,” urged her lover, “for I must go. Your mother’ll be rare fashed at my staying be’ind, as it is. Now, do dry your eyes, like a good lass, for matters is too far gone to be mended by crying.”
“You means to leave me then in right earnest?” said the girl. “You sides with mother and the rest, and will turn your back on me just because I’se un’appy?”
“What can I do? my mother, she won’t ’ear on’t, and yourn is as bad. They’d worry my life out atween ’em, if I went agen ’em, and how should we live then? that’s the question. No! no! we’d better be square and part at onst. Besides, the old gennelman says ’e’s a going to look arter you, and you couldn’t do with two on us. So good-bye, Hannah, and I wishes you well, but you mustn’t expect to see me any more.”
So saying, Joe Brushwood ran after Mrs. Stubbs, and was soon in the full enjoyment of a music hall programme.
Hannah was not a fine lady to faint from her emotion, but may be she felt it all the same. When Mrs. Battleby returned to the kitchen, she found her standing by the table, with her most sullen look on, as if she dared a stranger to intermeddle with her grief.
“Well!” cried the landlady, coarsely, “I ’opes you’re satisfied with the mischief as you’ve done! There’s the mother as bore you, ’alf drownded in grief, and as ’ansome a young feller as ever I clapped eyes on, done with you for ever—and all on account of your goings-on with the gentlemen upstairs. You’ve made a pretty pickle for yourself, it seems to me.”
“Mrs. Battleby,” said the girl, suddenly, “can I speak to the Sig-nor afore I goes to my bed?”
“In course, if you wants to! ’E and you leaves this ’ouse as soon as may be, but I’ve no call to part you, whilst you remains ’ere. The Sig-nor’s in ’is room. You can go up if you’ve a mind to. You’re not under my horders any longer. You belongs to ’im now. ’E is to pervide for you, so you needn’t arsk me nothink any more.”
And Mrs. Battleby turned her back on Hannah and walked into the scullery. The girl went up the stairs and knocked softly at the Professor’s door. He was deeply absorbed in a treatise on his favourite study, but he gave his permission to enter, in a pleasant voice.
“Well! my poor girl, and what may you want?” he inquired, as he caught sight of Hannah’s blotched and swollen visage, “I hope you have made it up with your mother and sweetheart. It is better to give in our own wishes a little than to quarrel, Hannah!”
“Yes, Sir,” she answered, in a muffled voice. She did not seem like the Hannah of the day before. Something had suddenly gentled her, and cast a soft shadow over her plain face. “But we ain’t made it up. Mother, she’s firm, and so is Joe, that they won’t see me again. I take it rather unkind on their parts, Sir, for I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. But Mrs. Battleby says as ’ow, when the Doctor ’ave put me to sleep up ’ere, ghosties and sperrits walk about the room, dressed in white gownds, and speak with you. Is that true, Sir? ’Ave sperrits come as she say?”
Ricardo looked very uneasy. He would have given a great deal to be able to answer “No!” But he could not!
“Mrs. Battleby has told you the truth, Hannah,” he replied, “though, Heaven is my witness, I never imagined I should bring you into such trouble with your family by permitting it. You have different powers from most people, my child! The shadows and figures, that you have seen, you say, all your life, and the voices which you have heard, should have taught you that. Doctor Steinberg and I are much interested in such visions, and we thought by letting your powers have free vent whilst with us, that you would not be so troubled with them when alone. And if Mrs. Battleby had not been so dishonourable as to listen at the keyhole, no one would ever have been the wiser. As it is, it has turned out very unfortunately for all of us. But I will see that you get another situation, Hannah, so don’t be anxious about that. You shall not want, whilst I can support you.”
“Yes, Sir, thank you kindly! It’s very good of you I’m sure, to think to make it up to me like that, but it won’t give me back my mother, nor Joe!”
“No! not directly, but surely they will come round after a while?”
“I don’t think so,” said Hannah, shaking her head, “country folk is very hard to turn. I don’t believe as I shall ever see any of ’em again. But I thought I’d just arsk you if it was true, Sir!”
Ricardo hid his face in his hands.
“What have I done?” he murmured. “Fool that I am, I have ruined this poor child’s life! Don’t you hate me, Hannah, for this?”
“ ’Ate you, Sir?” she echoed, “but for why? You didn’t mean to ’arm me, I’m sure of that—nor the Doctor neither! It’s Joe as I oughter hate, I s’pose, or mother, but I can’t find it in my ’eart to do it! They was so good to me afore these sperrits come round me. Arter all, I oughter ’ate them the most, for they’s done the mischief for me. Good-night, Sir, and thank ye for what you’ve said.”
She quitted his presence with a kind of rough curtsey, but the Professor could hear her heart-breaking sobs as she descended the staircase. He leant his head thoughtfully upon his hand, and tried to decide what was best to be done. For his own gratification—in order to further his researches into Occultism—he had spoilt this girl’s life, parted her from her lover and her home—thrown her, ignorant and without protection, upon a world that did not want her. How could he make amends? He pondered over the question for a long time—then suddenly drew out his watch. It was not yet eight o’clock. He hastily transcribed a telegram to Karl Steinberg, and rang his bell. It was answered by Mrs. Battleby.
“What may you please to want, Sir?” she demanded, “Hannah, she ’ave gone to bed, as well she may. I’m sure if I had been found out in sich practices, I should be glad enough to ’ide my ’ead anywheres, sooner than face honest and God-fearing people!”
“Mrs. Battleby!” replied the Professor, in an unusually stern voice, “I am going to quit your apartments as soon as I can find others to suit me. So long as I remain here, be good enough to spare me the expression of your sentiments regarding Hannah, or anybody else. I wish that telegram to be sent as soon as possible!” and he held out the paper to her as he spoke.
“It’s quite unpossible as I can send it, Sig-nor,” said the landlady, with asperity, “considering as there’s only me in the ’ouse. You’ve took Hannah away from me, Sig-nor, and so you must please to wait on yourself, and send your own telegrams.”
The Professor rose with a sigh, and assumed his coat and hat.
The message was of importance, so he was fain to put up with the woman’s insolence. He felt he could not finally decide this momentous question, without the counsel of his friend. The words were transmitted to the Hospital by a little after eight o’clock, and by half-past nine, Steinberg entered the room.
“Why! what’s the matter now?” he exclaimed; “not ill, I hope, Ricardo.”
“No! but much perplexed,” replied his friend, and thereupon he related the circumstances regarding Hannah Stubbs, over which he had been brooding for so long.
Karl Steinberg looked very grave. Here was, apparently, not only the end of Hannah Stubbs, but of their studies in Spiritualism. Where should they ever find such another medium?
“What do you intend to do?” he inquired of the Professor.
“I have been thinking over it for a long time,” replied Ricardo, “and I can arrive at but one conclusion. I shall marry the girl!”
If he had announced that he intended to murder Hannah Stubbs and all her family, he could not have astonished the Doctor more. He positively leapt from his chair, as he exclaimed,
“Good God! are you mad? Do you know what you are saying? Marry that clod. Bind yourself for life to a mere animal like Hannah Stubbs! O! you are jesting with me!”
“I am doing no such thing,” replied Ricardo, “I am in sober earnest! I have unintentionally done this girl a great injury. Through my means she is left without protection, lover, or family affection. I propose to remedy the evil by making her my wife, and providing for her as far as I am able.”
“But not as your wife—Ricardo, my dear friend, think! think what you are contemplating! Make Hannah your servant—your housekeeper—your nurse—what you will, but keep her in the station to which she was born. Take other rooms, or a little house, and install her there as mistress of your property, but, for Heaven’s sake, do not contemplate such a mad, impossible self-sacrifice as to marry a woman like that!”
But the Professor was firm.
“What did you tell me the other day, that the world would say if I took Hannah as my servant, and sat, shut up with her alone, night after night? You said it would talk scandal of us, and doubtless you were right! As my wife, no one will dare to say anything against her or what I may choose to do! And do you not guess what is at the bottom of this resolution, Steinberg? I cannot part again with Leonora! She would be lost to me for ever! Where should I find another rara avis like this girl, to bring her back from the grave? No! no! I must retain her services, and I see no other way to do it. Leonora has but just been able to manifest herself to us. You saw her beautiful face peeping through the mist last night, but as yet she cannot communicate with me—she cannot set this gnawing doubt at rest. Can I give up my researches just as they are beginning to reward me for my trouble?—just as I am on the brink of ascertaining what I have thirsted to know for so many weary years? No! Steinberg, I feel it to be impossible! I must go on now until I know the truth, and I know of no means of ascertaining it, but through Hannah Stubbs!”
“But make her anything but your wife!” repeated the Doctor, “think of the dishonour—the degradation! You—Marchese di Sorrento—the scion of a princely family—to ally yourself with a common serving girl, a clod of the soil! O! it is monstrous. I cannot bear to think of it! It is an infamy—an anomaly—an insult to your birth and your ancestors!”
“I cannot see it in that light,” said Ricardo. “In the first place, I am no longer Marchese di Sorrento! I have voluntarily abandoned the title, and Hannah shall never know that it was mine. To her, I shall be no more than Signor Ricardo, Professor of the Italian Language. Taking this away, I do not see that the advantages of such a marriage will be all on her side. I am poor and I am old——”
“Nonsense! a man of fifty! Were you to acknowledge your true rank and status, you might marry a woman with money, to-morrow!”
The Professor smiled faintly.
“And Hannah can give me more than any money can buy—she can give me Leonora! Ah! my friend, you do not yet realise what I suffered in the loss of my wife—in the loss of my faith in her! To regain that, I would sacrifice everything I possess in this world! I am fifty, in years—yes! but in feeling I am seventy—a hundred! Hannah is low born—I admit it—and ignorant, but she brings Youth and Health and Innocence as her portion, and she brings what is better than all—Leonora!”
“If you have quite made up your mind on the subject, I suppose it is of no use my talking to you any more,” said Steinberg, in a tone of annoyance.
“No! not if you would try to make me give up my wife, who has not yet even spoken to me. With Hannah always at my commands, what may I not accomplish? I can go on and on, until I hold Leonora in my arms again, fresh, pure and beautiful, as when I first received her as my bride. Do you not see, Steinberg—cannot you understand—that it is not Hannah whom I wish to marry, but Leonora whom I wish to call back to my love and my embrace? And how can I accomplish this, except by having the medium under my own control? Were I to engage Hannah as my servant, and give her every comfort, I could never be sure that she would not leave me for a better situation, but as my wife, she—I mean, Leonora—will always be with me to my life’s end.”
“I understand your feelings perfectly,” replied the Doctor, “but I would not have you do this extraordinary thing in too great a hurry. I am not yet satisfied that the pursuit of Spiritualism is entirely without its dangers, or that these spirits are always the persons whom they profess to be! What should you do, if, after you had taken this irremediable step of marriage, you were to discover that the form which looks to you now like that of your lost wife, were that of some stranger?”
“I should try again until I found her,” replied the Professor, “I should consider my whole life well spent, if I only caught a glimpse of her at the last!”
“And if this is to be, where do you propose to take Hannah?” continued his friend.
“I have hardly thought of it! I want your advice on several things. First, shall I mention my project of marrying her to her parents?”
“I should not! Since they have cast her off, I should take the girl away with me as my servant, and let the matter alone for a little while. If she is attached to her lover, as you seem to imagine, she will probably refuse to listen to your proposal for some time further.”
“True! then as to a residence——”
“I have something to say about that,” interposed Steinberg. “Some time ago an acquaintance of mine offered me the lease of a cottage in Hampstead for the rent of twenty-five pounds. I did not care for the idea of setting up house by myself, and I did not think I could afford it, but if you would like me to live with you and share expenses, I believe we might be very comfortable together, and I could still share your midnight studies with Hannah.”
“It is the very thing!” cried Ricardo, slapping his knee. “You and I will pursue our several avocations whilst Hannah looks after the cottage, and then in the evenings we will return home, to find all things ready and comfortable for us, and to spend the hours in our favourite pursuit. But supposing you, too, take it into your head to marry, my friend, what then? Will the cottage hold us all?”
“Have no fears on that subject,” replied the Doctor, “I am not such a fool! Excuse me, Professor, but you have heard my sentiments regarding Marriage and Women long ago. I am wedded to my profession, and have no wishes outside of Science. If I did not believe Spiritualism to be a very great Science, disbelieved in by many, simply because it is altogether above their heads, I should not pursue the knowledge of it. But as it is——”
“As it is,” interrupted the Professor, gaily, “you do believe in it, and we will live happily together in the little cottage at Hampstead, with our good Hannah to look after our temporal wants and assist us in our spiritual researches. My dear Steinberg, I know of nothing that has given me so much pleasure as this proposal of yours, for a long time.”
“I am looking forward to it also,” said Steinberg, “I have long felt the want of a home and a congenial companion in my leisure hours. My quarters at the Hospital are too easy of access. I am never sure of not being disturbed out of canonical hours, and a man does require a few moments in the day that he can call his own. I must leave you now, but I will write to my friend to-night about the cottage, and let you know as soon as possible when we can take possession of it. I have a few articles of furniture—so have you—and the rest I will procure on credit. Have no fears, Professor, the cottage will be ours within the week? But take my advice and think seriously—very seriously—before you decide on the step you contemplate.”
He ran off, leaving Ricardo with his own thoughts, but when the morning came, he was still of the same mind—he could not part with Leonora, and if a marriage with Hannah Stubbs was the only way by which to secure that end, a marriage there must be. He decided, however, to keep his own counsel on the matter until he had left Mrs. Battleby’s house.
When his landlady brought up his breakfast on the following morning, she informed him in a severe tone, that Mrs. Stubbs was down below and would be glad to hear what were his intentions with regard to her misguided daughter, as she had to return to Settlefield by the twelve o’clock train.
“My intentions are, as I told the woman last night, to provide for Hannah,” replied the Professor, “Doctor Steinberg and I intend to take a house and live together for the future, and we shall engage Hannah to do our housework, and pay her at the rate of twenty pounds a year. Will that satisfy her mother?”
As Hannah had never received more than ten pounds before, Mrs. Battleby said that she considered the Sig-nor’s offer to be very handsome, adding “that she didn’t know ’ow it ’appened, but some people was so lucky, they seemed allays to fall on their feet.”
But when she rejoined her crony, Mrs. Stubbs, her sentiments appeared to have undergone a change.
“Now! wot wickedness do you think them two is up to?” she commenced. “The Professor’s been just a’telling me that ’e and ’is accomplish the Doctor, is going to set up ’ouse and keep Hannah atween ’em, and won’t they be up to all sorts of mischief, the three on ’em together! I’ll tell you what it is, Mrs. Stubbs, that gal of yourn is right-down ’ardened, she is, and don’t want no ’ome, nor mother, nor nothink! She’d rayther be off with them two old scamps, so let ’er go, says I, till she comes back to ’er senses.”
“Well, if she’s got another sitivation, it’s all as I looks for, for the gal must earn her living and learn to look arter ’erself into the bargain. Joe Brushwood, he seems quite set against ’er like, and wouldn’t come over this morning, though I arsked ’im ever so! ’Owever, if Hannah’s pervided for, that’s all I arsks and I shall tell ’er father as it’s all right, and she don’t want to marry Joe, for men are so inquisitive and troublesome, there’s no a’bearing ’em. Well! good-bye, Mrs. Battleby, and please to tell my gal as she’s seen the larst of me and the rest, for we repugniates ’er!”
And gathering her Scotch plaid shawl about her, Mrs. Stubbs laboured up the area steps and was lost to view. Hannah did not come down to her breakfast that morning, but appeared an hour later, with red eyes, a swollen nose, and blubber lips that looked as if she must keep them open in order to breathe.
She did not speak for some time after she entered the kitchen, and when she did, it was to ask when Mrs. Battleby expected her mother to call.
“Your mother!” exclaimed the landlady, in her shrill voice, “why, she’s been and gone this hour!”
“Gone!” cried Hannah, “and won’t she come back? Shan’t I see ’er again?”
“Not you, I guess, and she was glad enough to go, pore creetur, and ’ide ’er shame in the country. Your young man too—though in course ’e ain’t your young man no longer—’e wouldn’t step in, not for a minute, ’e was so afeared of seeing you again. You’ve disgraced ’em all, Hannah Stubbs, that’s the long and the short of it, and they don’t want to look upon you no more, so the best thing you can do is to go arter your old gentleman and see what ’e can do for you.”
“What old gentleman?” inquired the girl, “the Professor? O! ’e is good, I know, and kind. ’E said that ’e would see as I never wanted nothing, but ’e ain’t mother and ’e ain’t Joe!”
And she commenced to weep afresh.
“Now, look ’ere,” said Mrs. Battleby, “it’s no good your doing that. It won’t bring ’em back to you, nor wipe out the ’arm you’ve done ’em. You’d much better go upstairs and clear the Sig-nor’s breakfast things, for that’s what you’ve got to do for the future, ’e tells me. It’s your business now, plain enough, so just dry your eyes and do your dooty, for I’ve got no time to waste over it to-day.”
Hannah did as she was told, and the Professor took the opportunity to tell her about the new cottage and what he intended her to do for him there, and she went downstairs again, satisfied, that if she had lost the good-will of her friends, she had not, at least, the prospect of starvation before her eyes.
Karl Steinberg’s negociations for the cottage at Hampstead, proved eminently successful. The rooms were too small for most tenants, so it was still unlet, and before the end of the week, he had signed the agreement for it, and had such articles of furniture as were absolutely necessary, put in. Ricardo and Hannah moved to their new abode on the appointed day—their departure being loudly lamented by Mrs. Battleby, who, finding her quiet, well-behaved lodger had taken her at her word, was very doubtful where she should find such another occupant for her attics.
The Professor was delighted at the prospect of the change. He had seen the black draperies carefully taken down from the séance chamber—had packed his precious books himself—and put together his few articles of furniture, and now had the pleasure of looking forward to arranging them in their place again, without any prospect of being turned out at a moment’s notice.
Hannah also, though still in great grief for the loss of her young man and the anger of her mother, was much cheered by the idea of having twenty pounds a year, and reigning sole mistress over the little domicile at Hampstead.
It was a tiny house, consisting of a sitting-room and kitchen on the ground floor, with two bedrooms and two dressing-rooms above—the larger of which were to belong to Ricardo and his friend, whilst Hannah slept in one of the smaller, and the other was to be hung with the black draperies and devoted to their séances.
There was so much to do on first taking possession of the cottage, that they determined to postpone the pursuit of their studies until they felt more at home. The Professor had his teaching to attend to, as usual, and the Doctor his hospital, and when they met in the evenings they were too much engaged in carpentering and painting to be able to attend to anything else. Meanwhile, however, the resolution he had arrived at respecting Hannah Stubbs, had not deserted the Professor’s mind, and it was not long before he mooted the question to her.
He saw more of the girl than the Doctor did. Steinberg had his hospital duties to attend to, and occasionally they kept him from home all the evening, but Ricardo’s work was more irregular. Sometimes he had but two or three lessons to give during the day—sometimes eight or nine. One day he would be employed all the morning and have his afternoon free—on another, he would lounge in his arm-chair, robed in a dressing-gown, and reading his favourite authors, until noon, and rush away directly after his luncheon, not to appear again until it was time for supper.
Hannah had but little hard work to do, as neither of the gentlemen took dinner at home, and their morning and evening meals were very light.
She had the whole day to scrub and polish the rooms, and being a clean girl by nature, she took a pride in making them as bright as it was in the power of soap and water to do.
It was one of the Professor’s afternoons at home, and she was in the midst of cleaning her little kitchen when he called her into the front room.
“Hannah, I feel lonely,” he said, “I want you to leave off work and come and sit with me!”
“Lor! Sig-nor, it’s impossible! I’se all of a muck, and the kitchen’s flooded with water!”
“Then wipe it up as soon as you can, and come to me. I want you to sew some buttons on my clean shirt!”
The girl did as she was desired, for amongst the anomalies that beset this strange creature, was her capacity for needlework, the most delicate of which did not seem to come amiss to her clumsy fingers. As soon as she had mopped up her kitchen floor, she put on a clean apron and brought her work basket into the Professor’s room. There she found various articles awaiting her, to mend, and taking a chair at the furthest end of the little apartment, she applied herself to her work.
“Hannah!” said the Professor, presently, between the puffs of his meerschaum pipe, “have you ever thought about getting married?”
The girl reddened; looked up quickly; and then dashed her hand across her eyes to brush away a tear.
“Lor! Sir, in course I ’ave! You’re a’forgetting of Joe!”
“To be sure! You must forgive me, Hannah! But you will never see any more of Joe, you tell me!”
“I don’t think so, Sig-nor! ’E’s a young man of ’is word, Joe is, and what ’e says ’e sticks to,” replied Hannah, with a heavy sigh.
“But you don’t mean to remain unmarried for ever, for his sake, do you, Hannah? He is not worth it!”
“I don’t suppose as any one else will want to marry me,” replied the girl, humbly, “I knows as I ain’t much to look at, nor clever, nor nothink of that sort, but I loved ’im, Sir, true, only ’e didn’t seem to vally it!”
“No! He was a fool,” said the Professor, “but all men are not the same, Hannah! There are plenty that may want to marry you yet—and I am one!”
Hannah looked up quickly, as if she did not believe she could have heard aright.
“I begs your pardin, Sir, what did you say?”
“I said that I would marry you, if you are willing, Hannah, and then you will at least be provided for, for life!”
“But you’re quite an old man,” replied the girl, naïvely.
Ricardo winced under the truth.
“You are right,” he answered, presently, “I am old, at least compared with that young cub who has kicked you off. But men older than myself marry young wives every day, and I should make you a kind husband. I am a gentleman also—you know that without my telling you—and a gentleman raises the woman he marries, to his own position, and though I am not a rich man, I am better off than you would ever be if you married a man of your own standing. I am a very lonely man now, Hannah, and you are a kind, amiable girl, and I am sure you would make me a good wife. What do you say to my proposal? Shall we be married?”
“You’re joking with me, Sig-nor,” said Hannah, “it can’t never be!”
“Why not?” inquired Ricardo.
“O! ’cos I’m so different from you every ways, and you’d be ashamed to say I was your wife. And what would the Doctor say, too?”
“Never mind the Doctor! This is a matter that concerns you and me only. I don’t mean that we should go on differently from what we are doing now. I am not rich enough to keep a servant to wait upon you! You would have to look after the house and get the breakfast, just as you do now. Only—you would be my wife and bear my name, and if I am ever better off than I am at present, you will share my good fortune with me.”
“O! I’d be glad and proud to do all I can for you and the Doctor, Sig-nor,—now and allays—” replied the girl. “Only—for ’tother—why I can’t speak like a lady—you’d laugh at me for my hignorance and I’d be shamed to open my mouth afore you, if so be I was, what you say.”
“I know you have not had any advantages in the way of education, Hannah, but I should be willing to teach you many things, and being always with me, and hearing me talk, you would soon improve yourself. Is it a bargain, or not?”
“O! lor! Sir, I don’t know what to say, sure,” cried Hannah, in a frightened voice. “It’s a honner, I know, but it don’t seem nateral-like. And I’m not sure as it would be right, neither, for I can’t ’elp thinking of Joe, and his falseness to me, and I can’t promise to give it up, neither!”
“I like you all the better for saying so, Hannah, and don’t imagine that I shall expect you to love me! If you continue kind and attentive, that is all that I shall ask. And if I did not believe that you would be so, I should not wish you to be my wife, even if you were a Princess of the Blood Royal. Cannot you make up your mind on the subject?”
“Well! I don’t suppose as I could do better,” replied the girl, with another deep sigh, “so p’r’aps I’d better say ‘Yes’, Sir!”
It was not a very ardent way of accepting his proposal, but Ricardo wanted no more than her acquiescence. He did not even put down his pipe to kiss the girl, nor press her hand. He only smiled and said,
“Well! I’m glad you’ve come to that conclusion, and you and I will go out together some day and get it quietly over.”
He said nothing to Karl Steinberg on the subject until a week afterwards, when he came in one morning, with the girl, from the Registrar’s office, and told him that they were man and wife.
Hannah grinned as the news was made public, but disappeared immediately afterwards into the kitchen, to prepare the family breakfast.
Ricardo waited for Steinberg to speak, but he sat silent and apart, with knitted brows, and a perplexed countenance.
“And so, my dear friend, you have no congratulations to offer me?” said the Professor at length.
“Frankly, my dear Ricardo, no! You know what my sentiments are regarding the step you have taken, which appears an act of madness to me. However, it is done and cannot be undone, so the less said the better.”
“And you know the motives which induced me to propose it,” replied the Professor. “They are not altered, Karl, they never will be! I feel as if the ceremony of this morning had united me to Leonora over again. I am as rapturously happy as if the grave had restored her to me. There is no such thought as love, or any other nonsense, for this girl. I will be good to her, but to me she is Leonora’s medium—nothing more! Come! at least congratulate me on having reached the climax of my desires regarding Occultism.”
“I wish you all happiness and success in every possible way, my dear Ricardo,” exclaimed Steinberg, as he stretched his hand across the table and grasped that of his friend. “But here is Mrs. Ricardo with our breakfast. I hope your morning stroll has given you a good appetite, Professor!”
“The best in the world,” cried the older man, gaily, as he drew his chair to the table.
Hannah had placed the coffee and rolls and eggs before them and was about to return to the kitchen.
“But surely your wife will breakfast with us, now?” remarked Steinberg.
“Of course! to be sure,” said the Professor. “Hannah, my dear, sit down and take your breakfast with the Doctor and me!”
“O! no, Sir, indeed I’d rayther not!” exclaimed the girl, as she beat a retreat to her own quarters. Her husband smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“Let her do as she likes,” he observed; “she will be happier in the pursuits of her old life. And it would be most awkward to have her always listening to our conservation, particularly at this juncture. Steinberg, I must have a séance to-night. Will you try and come home early? I have married to-day, not Hannah Stubbs, but my Leonora, and I shall not close my eyes until I have seen and spoken to her again. The last séance! I shall never forgive Mrs. Battleby for having interrupted us! In another moment I should have held my wife in my arms. But I will sit and sit for her, until that happy moment arrives. Is the room quite ready?”
“I finished it yesterday, and it is one of my leisure evenings, so that I shall be back as soon as yourself. Tell Hannah—I beg your pardon, I must call her Mrs. Ricardo now——”
“No such thing!” cried the Professor, “continue to call her Hannah as usual. I wish all things to go on exactly as before!”
“Tell Hannah, then, to be sure and get us a good supper, for I feel so much exhaustion after these séances, as if my brain and body were alike scooped out and empty.”
“Yes! yes! I will see to all that!” replied Ricardo, as they parted to pursue their avocations.
The Professor ordered his wife to procure a couple of fowls for supper, which Hannah quite imagined was in honour of the morning ceremony, and gave her five pounds as a wedding present, which delighted the simple creature as much as if he had settled an income upon her.
But when he and Steinberg returned home and intimated their intention to hold a séance in the dark chamber, Mrs. Ricardo showed signs of insubordination, and vehemently opposed their desire.
“O! no!” she exclaimed; “nothink won’t ever make me henter that dark ’ole again! Wasn’t it that as brought the whole of my misfortins on my ’ead? It lost me Joe and mother and the rest, and I won’t never try it again. You didn’t ought to arsk me, Sig-nor! You deceived me onst, and I said it should be for the larst time. If I’d a known as when I went to sleep, ghosties and sperrits and shadders walked about the room, I’d ’ave chucked all the physic out of the winder. But never again—no! not if you paid me a ’undred pounds!”
And turning her back, Mrs. Ricardo walked away into her kitchen.
The Professor and the Doctor looked at each other with comical dismay.
“Is she in earnest, do you think?” whispered Ricardo to his friend.
Steinberg made a grimace.
“I don’t know I’m sure. I don’t know enough of women, but one thing is certain—performing the office of a medium does not come within the legalities of Marriage, and if she will not do it of her own free will you have no means by which you can compel her!”
The men were silent for a few minutes, and then the Professor exclaimed,
“Karl! don’t look at me in that way, as if you thought I’d bought ‘a pig in a poke!’ ”
“I don’t say that, but I think you have a difficult task before you—to convince Ignorance that it is a duty which it owes to Mankind, to sacrifice itself for the good of the Human Race. However, Hannah has a kind heart and an amiable nature, and if you will have patience, I daresay you may be able to induce her to do, for love of you, what she would refuse on compulsion. Cheer up, Ricardo. Don’t look so down-hearted, man, but tell your wife to get the supper ready and let us all try to be jolly together!”
“But I shall not see Leonora!” said the Professor, in a tone of disappointment.
“Not to-night, that’s certain, unless she comes to you in your dreams. But it is only a pleasure deferred! Hannah will come round after a while. Take my advice, and don’t mention the subject again to-night.”
Ricardo did as his friend suggested, and when the supper was ready, he insisted upon Hannah coming into the room and sitting down to table with them. She was very shy and awkward, and looked all the time as if she longed to bolt back to her own domains, but the two gentlemen reassured her, by taking no notice of her ignorance of their ways, and talking to each other, rather than to her. When the supper table was cleared, Ricardo asked her to bring in her needle-work and sit with them, but though she acquiesced in his desire, she did not reappear, and the friends finished the evening alone.
She felt that she had wounded her husband, and disappointed him in some way, by refusing to go into the séance chamber, and she was fearful of the request being renewed.
The next day passed much the same. The Professor spoke kindly to her, when he had occasion to speak, but he addressed her as seldom as possible, and sat for the greater part of the time that he spent at home, with his head buried in his hands.
On the third day, whilst the Doctor was out, Hannah brought her husband an apple-green merino dress, and a bright blue bonnet, and some under-linen which she had purchased with part of the money he had given her.
“I never ’ad sich beautiful things in my life afore,” she said, with a broad grin, as she displayed them for his approval, “ain’t they ’ansome?”
“Very pretty, indeed, Hannah—very pretty!” replied the Professor, as he returned to his book.
“I never ’ad so much money in my ’and at a time afore either,” continued Hannah, “and I thought these would be nice for me to walk out with you, Sig-nor, in the Parks or elsewheres!”
“Yes! my girl, yes!” he said, as he raised his head for an instant and smiled at her.
Ricardo’s smile was very sweet. It broke Hannah down completely, and she began to sob.
“Why! what’s the matter now?” he inquired. “Is there anything more that you want, my dear? If there is, and I can afford it, it shall be yours.”
“O! no! no! ’tain’t that,” cried the girl, “but you’ve been that good to me, Sig-nor, and I can see as you’re not ’appy, and I’m afeared you’re sorry now that you was so foolish as to marry a pore, ignorant creetur like me. I’d been fitter for Joe, Sir, but even ’e didn’t think me good enough, and I’m so feared you’ve repented of your goodness to me.”
And Hannah wept unaffectedly. The Professor drew her towards him and kissed her wet cheek. “You are quite mistaken, my dear. I do not regret, nor repent, anything. But if you really think that I have been kind to you, wouldn’t you like to do something for me in return?”
“I’d cut off my right ’and for you this moment,” replied Hannah, with fervour.
“Well, sit down by my side, and let me tell you a little story. When I was a young man, Hannah, five-and-twenty years ago, I married a young lady, whom I loved very much indeed!”
“Lor!” cried the girl, “you was married to a real lady, and yet you can bear with me!”
“Well! she died! I need not tell you how she died, but her death made me a very miserable man, because we had had a little misunderstanding beforehand, and it happened so suddenly, that there was no time for a reconciliation. The wish to see her, or hear from her again, haunted me for years, but I thought there was no hope of it, until I fell upon some old scientific books and learned that it is possible for those whom we call dead, to re-visit this earth!”
“Lor!” exclaimed Hannah, with wide open eyes, “but that’s all rubbidge, sure-ly!”
“Why! how can you ask me such a question? What do you suppose the apparitions—the ladies and gentlemen—whom you see sometimes, are?”
“I dunno, I’m sure! Shadders, I s’pose, but they gives me the creeps! O! Sig-nor I can’t abear ’em! I’d rayther run a hundred miles the other way.”
“But why do you fear them, Hannah? They cannot harm you!”
“I dunno that! They looks very queer sometimes, and the woices as I ’ears—gruff ’uns and squeaky ’uns!—they makes me trimble all over, as if I’d got cold!”
“But they cannot hurt you, Hannah,” persisted the Professor, “and when I met you at Mrs. Battleby’s, and heard that you possessed that wonderful capacity for seeing spirits, I was delighted. I felt that my dead wife would come back to me through you, and she has! On three occasions I have communicated with her, but not long enough to hear her say that she has forgiven me, and loves me still—and now, just when I hoped I should see her as often as I chose, you tell me you will not sit with me any more! That is what has made me sad, Hannah.”
Notwithstanding her rough training and ignorance, Hannah had much natural intelligence, and she realised the situation at once.
“That’s what you married me for, then,” she remarked.
The Professor felt ashamed. He did not know what to say. He began by answering, “No! no!” but broke off short.
“I will not tell you a lie,” he said. “When I married you, my dear, I certainly did hope that, having you always with me, I should also have the constant pleasure of communicating with my dead wife. For I am getting an old man now, Hannah, and I should like to make sure that there is another life, before I quit this one. But all that I said to you, when I asked you to become my wife, was true. I will make your future my care to the utmost of my ability, and when I die, you will find that you are not left quite penniless. My savings have been scanty, but, such as they are, they will all be yours. It was your mediumship (by which I mean your power of seeing and attracting spirits from the other world), that first drew me to you, Hannah, but if you really dislike sitting with me, I will not ask you to do so again. And in all other things, you will find me the same, I hope, and your friend, my dear, till Death parts us.”
“I see,” said the girl, thoughtfully, “I’m to take all, as you may say, and give nothink in return. I see it plain now, Professor, and I’m not that sort, as you’ll find. I know you’re good and true, and that you’ll take care as the sperrits and things don’t ’urt me, while I’m asleep. So, if you please, I’ll sit as often as you wishes, and we’ll go into the dark room to-night, as soon as the Doctor returns ’ome. I couldn’t ’ave ever wore this beautiful gownd,” added Hannah with a sob in her throat, “and remembered the while as you give it me, and I ’ad done nothink for you in return. So that’s settled, ain’t it?—and you won’t never ’ear me say again as I won’t do anythink as you arsk me!”
And from that day the séances commenced anew.