Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Mr. Carlton did not reply, but he gazed at Mrs. Pepperfly as eagerly as he had gazed at the suffering boy, and with far more mental perplexity, though it did not show itself on his impassive face.

  “How very absurd!” he uttered, after a while.

  “Just what I says to myself,” responded the woman. “And what good’ll it do her? If we could come at anything certain as to who the poor young lady was, and how the draught were converted into poison, ’twould be some satisfaction; but there ain’t none to be gained, as it is. I told the Widder Smith so, with my own lips.”

  “You have talked to her, then, about it?”

  “Talked to her!” ejaculated Nurse Pepperfly. “She haven’t let my tongue have a holiday from talking of it, since we two met in the new omnibus.”

  “The new omnibus!” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

  Mrs. Pepperfly liked few things better than gossiping, and she forthwith recounted to Mr. Carlton the history of her meeting with the widow, and the subsequent progress of their acquaintance. Ere it was well concluded, her duties called her into the adjoining chamber.

  Mr. Carlton had listened in silence, and now stood, apparently revolving the news. He walked to the window, opened it, thrust his head out into a stifling back-yard, where certainly little air could be found, if that were his motive, and after a while drew it in again.

  “Have you mentioned this to any one?” he asked, as the woman reappeared, and something sharp in his tone grated on her ear.

  “Never to a blessed soul,” protested Mother Pepperfly, conveniently oblivious to all recollection of Judith. “The widder charged me not, sir.”

  “And I would recommend you not to do so,” returned Mr, Carlton. “I have not forgotten the worry and annoyance the affair caused, if you have. I was besieged with curiosity-mongers by night and by day until it had blown over. They left me no leisure to attend to my own business; and I should be exceedingly sorry to be subjected to a similar annoyance — as I should be, were the affair raked up again. So be silent, as Mrs. Smith tells you. What’s her motive for wanting silence?” he abruptly added.

  “She hasn’t give none to me, sir. She hasn’t said as she’s got a motive, or that she does want to find out anything. But when a person harps everlastingly upon one string, hammering away like a bell and a clapper, one can’t help suspecting, sir, that there’s a motive at the bottom of it.”

  “I wonder — who she can be!” he said, musingly pausing in the sentence. ——

  “She’s uncommon close about herself,” was Mrs. Pepperfly’s observation. —

  Mr. Carlton said no more. Indeed there was not time for it, for he was called to by Mr. Lycett. An hour later he left Mrs. Knagg’s, his business there being over.

  He reached home, buried in a reverie. The name, Smith, the information now furnished by Nurse Pepperfly, drew him to the not unnatural conclusion that she might be the Mrs. Smith spoken of as having taken away Mrs. Crane’s infant; the woman he had himself seen at Great Wennock railway-station. If so, could this be the same child? He had asked the boy’s age that morning, and Mrs. Smith replied “six;” and the boy did not in appearance look more than six. That other child, if alive, would be much older; but Mr. Carlton knew that the appearance of children in regard to age is often deceptive.

  He entered his surgery, spoke a word or two to his assistant, Mr. Jefferson, mixed up a small phial of medicine with his own hands, and went out again, glancing at his watch. It was then past six, but their dinner-hour was seven.

  Near to his own house was a toy-shop, and as Mr. Carlton passed it he saw displayed in the window a certain toy — a soldier beating a drum. By pulling a wire, the arms moved and the drum sounded. He went in, bought it, and carried it away with him.

  Walking quickly up the Rise, he soon came to Tupper’s cottage. Mrs. Smith was seated in the parlour, darning socks; the little boy sat at the table, chattering and eating his supper, which consisted of cold lamb and bread.

  “Well, and how is the little man now?” was Mr. Carlton’s salutation as he went in, with a pleasant tone and smile.

  Mrs. Smith looked surprised. She had not expected the surgeon to call again that day.

  “I have been thinking it might be as well if he took a little tonic medicine, which I did not order him this morning,” said that gentleman, producing the bottle from his pocket. “So I brought it myself, as I was coming up here. You will find the directions on the label. Have the other things come?”

  “Oh yes, sir; they were here by one o’clock.”

  “Ah, yes. And so you are eating your supper, my little man! It’s rather early for that, isn’t it?”

  “He gets so hungry about this time,” said the mother in tones of apology. “And he is so fond of loin of lamb, that he won’t rest if he knows it is in the house. There’s his cup of milk on the table.”

  “As I am here, I may as well look at his knee again, Mrs. Smith,” said the surgeon.

  She rose from her seat to remove the bandage; but Mr. Carlton preferred to undo it himself.

  “It doesn’t hurt to-night,” cried he.

  “That’s all right then,” said Mr. Carlton. “And now will you tell me your name, my little gentleman, for I have not heard it?”

  “It’s George, sir,” interposed the mother before the child could speak. “It was his father’s name.”

  “George, is it?” repeated Mr. Carlton, as he replaced the bandage. “And where are the soldiers, George?”

  “Gone home from drill,” was the laughing answer. “That one stands now.”

  “To be sure it does,” said Mr. Carlton. “Have you got one to play the drum to the rest while they are at drill?”

  He took the toy from his pocket and displayed it. Nothing could exceed the child’s delight at the vision. His eyes sparkled; his pale cheeks flushed a vivid crimson; his little thin hands trembled with eagerness. Mr. Carlton saw what a sensitive nature it was, and felt a pleasure as he resigned the toy.

  “You are very kind, sir,” exclaimed the widow, her own face lighting up with pleasure. “His fondness for soldiers is something marvellous. I’m sure I don’t know any other doctor who would have done so much.”

  “I saw it as I came by a shop a few minutes ago; and thought it would please him,” was the reply of Mr. Carlton. “These poor sick children should have their innocent pleasures gratified when it is possible. Good evening to you, Master George.”

  The widow followed him into the garden. Perhaps the tender tone of some words in the last sentence had aroused her fears. “Have you a bad opinion of him, sir?” she whispered. “Won’t he get well?”

  “I’ll do my best to get him well,” replied Mr. Carlton. “I cannot give you an opinion yet, one way or the other.

  He shook hands with her and turned away. Mr. Carlton was affable with all classes of patients, cold and impassive though his usual manners were. But had Mr. Carlton been standing with his face to the road, while he spoke to the woman, he would have seen a lady pass, no doubt to his astonishment, for it was his own wife.

  Not more astonished, perhaps, than she was to see him. She was passing the cottage — she best knew for what purpose — and turned her eyes stealthily towards its path. What she had hoped to see was the little boy; what she really did see was her husband, shaking hands with the boy’s mother. Laura Carlton, feeling as one guilty, just as some of us may have felt when unexpectedly detected in a mean action, made one bound forward, and crouched close to the hedge, which there took an inward curve. ——

  Had Mr. Carlton been on his way to any other patient up the lane — and many cottages were scattered at this end of it — he must have seen her; but he turned towards South Wennock, and marched away quickly.

  Lady Laura came out of hiding. Her cheeks were glowing, her pulses were beating. Not altogether with the thought of the detection she had escaped: there was another feeling also. Conscience makes cowards of us all, you know, — often very foolish cowards.
It would have been so very easy for Laura, had her husband seen her, to be doing just what she was doing, and nothing else — taking a walk down Blister Lane. She had a right to do so as well as other people had. It was a cool, shady, very pleasant lane, and Laura Carlton, of all people, might be supposed to cling to it from past associations —— for was it not the trysting-place that long-ago evening, when she had stolen out to meet and run away with him, now her husband?

  Mr. Carlton went safely beyond sight, and Laura began to retrace her steps. Standing on one leg on the low wooden gate was the little child, his new toy in his left hand. He had come limping out to look after his benefactor, Mr. Carlton. The mother had gone indoors again. Laura halted. She gazed at him for quite two minutes, saying nothing; and the boy, who had little of that timid shyness which usually attends sensitive children, looked up at her in return.

  “What’s your name?” began Laura.

  “Lewis.” —

  “What’s your mother’s name?”

  “Smith.”

  “Is that your mother? — the — the — person who was out here a minute ago?”

  “Yes,” replied the boy.

  Laura’s face darkened. “How many brothers and sisters have you?”

  “None. There’s only me. I had a little baby brother; but mother says he died before I was born.”

  There was a long pause. Laura devoured the child with her eyes. “Where’s your father?” she began again.

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh!” retorted Laura scornfully. “Dead, is he! I suppose that’s why your mother wears a widow’s cap!”

  The boy made no reply. Possibly he did not understand. Laura put her hand down over the gate and touched his light hair, pushing it back from his forehead. He held up the toy to show her.

  “Yes, very pretty,” said she carelessly. But suddenly it struck her that she had seen this toy, or one resembling it, in the toy-shop near their house. “Who gave you that?” she resumed.

  “Mr. Carlton. He brought it to me just now.”

  Lady Laura’s eyes flashed. The boy began making the soldier play the drum.

  “He’s to play to the others at drill,” said he, looking up. “Mr. Carlton says so.”

  “What others?”

  “My soldiers. They are shut up in the box now in mother’s drawer.”

  “And so Mr. Carlton gave you this, did he?” repeated Laura in strangely resentful tones. “He has just brought it you, has he?”

  “Wasn’t it good of him!” returned the child, paying more attention to the plaything than to the question. “See how he drums! Mother says—”

  “Lewis! Are you going to stop there all night? Come in directly and finish your supper!”

  It was the voice of Mrs. Smith, calling from the cottage. Laura Carlton started as if she had been shot, and departed in the direction of South Wennock.

  CHAPTER VII.

  MR. AND LADY LAURA CARLTON AT HOME.

  LADY LAURA CARLTON stood in her drawing-room, dressed for dinner. Hastening home from that expedition of hers to Tupper’s cottage, of which you read in the last chapter, where she saw Mr. Carlton and spoke afterwards to the little child, she made some slight alteration in her attire and descended. In the few minutes her dressing occupied, her maid thought her petulant: but that was nothing new. As she entered the drawing-room she rang the bell violently.

  MR. AND LADY LAURA CARLTON AT HOME. 3”

  “Where’s Mr. Carlton?”

  “Not in, my lady.”

  “Let dinner be served.”

  Lady Laura Carlton was boiling over with indignation. In this little child at Tupper’s cottage, she had seen what she thought a likeness to her husband; a most extraordinary likeness; and she was suffering herself to draw inferences therefrom, more natural perhaps than agreeable. She recalled with unnecessary bitterness past suspicions of disloyalty on Mr. Carlton’s part, which, whether well-founded or not, she had believed in. She remembered what might be called their renewed interchange of good-feeling only on the previous night. Lady Laura now believed that he was even then deceiving her, and a miserable feeling of humiliation took possession of her spirit, and she stamped her foot in passion.

  She lost sight of probabilities in her jealous indignation. Resentment against the woman at Tupper’s cottage seated itself in her heart, filling its every crevice. What though the woman was getting in years? though she was hard-featured, singularly unattractive, not a lady? In Lady Laura’s jealous mood, had she been hideous as a kangaroo it would have made no difference.

  Earlier in the day, when she had first passed the cottage with Lady Jane, the likeness she detected to her husband, or fancied she detected, excited only a half doubt in her mind, a sort of disagreeable perplexity. But the doubt rankled there; and as the day went on, Lady Laura, than whom a worse or more irritable subject for this sort of suspicion could not exist, felt impelled to wend her steps thither again. She could not have gone at a worse moment; for what she saw had had the effect of changing all her doubts into certainties.

  She sat down to dinner, scarcely able to suppress her emotion, or keep in bare subjection the indignation that was rending her heart and her temper. It was no very unusual thing for her to sit down alone, for Mr. Carlton’s professional engagements rendered him somewhat irregular. The servants in waiting saw that their lady was put out, but of course it was no business of theirs. Perhaps they thought it was occasioned by the absence of their master.

  In point of fact, that gentleman was even then making his way home, speeding in haste from a second visit to Mrs. Knagg’s, which he had hurried to pay on his return from Tupper’s cottage, after leaving the toy with the child. Not that a second visit there was in the least required or expected of him, and Nurse Pepperfly opened her eyes in surprise when she saw him enter. “He had just called in in passing to see that all was going on well,” he observed to the nurse; and particularly kind and attentive that functionary thought it of him. Lingering a moment, he beckoned her from the room, put a professional question or two as to the case in hand, and then led the way easily and naturally to the case at Tupper’s cottage, the knee of the boy.

  “I suppose there is no want of means?” he casually remarked. “The little fellow ought to have the best of nourishment.”

  “And so he do,” was the response of Mrs. Pepperfly. “I never see a mother so fond of a child, though she’s a bit rough in her ways. If he could eat gold she’d give it him. As to money, sir, there ain’t no want of that; she seems to have plenty of it.”

  “Have you not any idea who she can be?”

  “Well, sir, in course ideas come to one promiscuous, without fetching ’em up ourselves,” answered Mrs. Pepperfly. “I should think she’s the person that took away the babby — though I can’t say that my memory serves to recognize her.”

  “May be,” carelessly remarked Mr Carlton. “Remember that you keep a quiet tongue about this, Mrs. Pepperfly,” he concluded, as he went out.

  “Trust me for that, sir,” readily affirmed Mrs. Pepperfly, And Mr. Carlton, conscious that his dinner-hour had struck, hastened home, and found his wife at table.

  “Have you begun, Laura? Oh, that’s all right. I have been detained.”

  Lady Laura made no reply, and Mr. Carlton sat down. She motioned to one of the servants to move the fish towards his master, who usually carved. For some minutes Mr. Carlton played with his dinner — played with it; did not eat it — and then he sent away his plate nearly untouched. This he appeared to do throughout the meal. Lady Laura observed it, but said nothing; she certainly was, as the servants expressed it amongst themselves, “put out,” and when she did speak it was only in monosyllables or abrupt sentences. “Are you going out this evening, Laura?” asked Mr. Carlton.

  “No.”

  “I thought you were engaged to the Newberrys.”

  “I am not going.”

  He ceased; he saw, as well as the servants, that the lady was out of sorts. S
he never spoke another word until the cloth had been drawn, the dessert on the table, and the servants had gone. Mr. Carlton poured out two glasses of wine and handed one to Lady Laura. She did not thank him; she did not take the glass.

  “Shall I give you some grapes, my love?”

  “Your love!” she burst forth, with scornful, mocking emphasis. “How dare you insult me by calling me ‘your love?’ Go to your other loves, Mr. Carlton, and leave me. It is time you did so.”

  He looked up, astounded at the outbreak; innocent in himself, so far as he knew, of any offence that could have caused it.

  “Laura! What is the matter?”

  “You know,” she replied; “your conscience tells you. How dare you so insult me, Mr. Carlton?”

  “I have not insulted you. I am not conscious of any offence against you. What has put you out?”

  “Oh, fool that I was,” she passionately wailed, “to desert, for you, my father’s home! What has been my recompense? Disinheritance by my father, desertion by my family, that I might have expected; but what has my recompense been from you?”

  “Laura, I protest I do not know what can have caused this! If you have anything to say against me, say it out.”

  “You do know,” she retorted. “Oh, it is shameful! shameful so to treat me! — to bring this contumely upon me! I, an earl’s daughter!”

  “You must be out of your mind,” exclaimed Mr. Carlton, half doubting perhaps whether such was not the fact. “What ‘ contumely’ have I brought upon you?”

  “Don’t insult me further! don’t attempt to defend yourself!” retorted Laura, well-nigh mad indeed with passion. “ Think rather of yourself, of your own conduct. Such transgressions on the part of a married man reflect bitter disgrace and humiliation upon the wife; they expose her to the contemptuous pity of the world. And they have so exposed me.”

  “Pshaw!” exclaimed Mr. Carlton, growing cross, for this was but a repetition of scenes enacted before. “ I thought these heroics, these bickerings, were done with. Remember what you said last night. What has raked them up?”