by Ellen Wood
The countess laughed, and said then Lucy must go for the time to Lady Jane’s.
Compared with the other arrangement, this seemed pleasant and feasible. Jane was communicated with, and she — only too glad to have Lucy — hastened to London to take charge of her down. When she arrived in Portland Place, and the little lord ran up to her, she gazed at him with some anxiety.
“Have you come to take away Lucy, sister Jane?”
“Yes, darling. But, Frank, who says you are ill? I think you look famous.”
Lady Oakburn interposed with a half apology for her previous anxiety. The young gentleman had picked up his crumbs (to use Sir Stephen’s expression) in so astonishing a manner the last day or two, his face had grown so blooming and himself so noisy, that her ladyship felt half ashamed of herself. But she should rejoice in the opportunity of once more meeting her brother, she avowed to Jane, and the trip would do Frank good, even if he did not need it.
Jane purposed to stay in London one clear day. She reached it on the Thursday, and would return with Lucy on the Saturday. On that day Lady Oakburn would also take her departure.
On the Friday, Jane went out on foot. She had several little errands to do, purchases to make, and would not be troubled with the carriage. In fact, Jane Chesney had never cared to use a carriage so much as many do; she was a good walker and liked exercise.
It happened that her way led her through Gloucester Terrace. The reminiscences that locality called up were very bitter to Jane. How little she had thought, that long-past day when she first went in search of Clarice, that years and years would pass and bring no trace of her!
She walked along slowly. She was just at the spot where the house of the Lortons was situated; and she was looking up to see whether she could remember which it was, when a lady passed her on the pavement: a little fat lady with a very pleasing expression. That expression struck upon Jane’s memory. Where had she seen it?
Fearing that she had passed, without speaking, some one whom she ought to know: an acquaintance possibly of her brief London life: Jane turned in the moment’s impulse, and found that the lady had also turned and was looking at her. The latter stepped back with a smile.
“Lady Jane Chesney! I beg your pardon for passing you. My thoughts were elsewhere at the moment.”
It was Mrs. West! But Mrs. West had grown so excessively stout that it was no wonder Jane had not recognized her. She was almost a second Mrs. Pepperfly. Jane’s heart gave a glad leap, and she held out her hand. This lady seemed to be the one only link between Clarice living and Clarice lost.
And now what a singular coincidence that Jane should have chanced to meet her there! Chanced? Something more than chance was at work in this commencement — for it was the commencement — of the unravelling of the fate of Clarice Chesney.
A few moments, and Lady Jane was seated in Mrs. West’s house close by, listening to that lady’s explanation. They had been abroad between six and seven years, she said; had educated their four daughters well — of whom she seemed not a little fond and proud, and regretted their absence from home that day, or she would have shown them to Lady Jane — and had now come back for good to England and Gloucester Terrace. Not to the same house: that was occupied: but to one within five or six doors of it.
Jane spoke of Clarice. And Mrs. West seemed thunderstruck, really thunderstruck, to hear that no tidings had been gained of her.
“It is like a romance,” she cried. “But for your telling me yourself, Lady Jane, I should scarcely believe it. It seems so impossible in these days that any one should be lost. We read advertisements in the Times of gentlemen missing; now and then of a lady; but I think — at least I have always supposed — that the ladies at least come to light again. I and Mr. West have often talked of this affair. He saw you, Lady Jane, as perhaps you may remember, the day you called at our house when I was at Ramsgate. We thought — we concluded — but perhaps you would not like me to repeat it to you?” broke off Mrs. West.
“Indeed I should,” replied Jane eagerly, not that she had any idea what it was Mrs. West hesitated to repeat. “The least word, the least surmise or conjecture, bearing upon my sister is of interest for me.”
“Well, then, the conclusion we came to was, that Miss Beauchamp’s marriage must have been an inferior one. That she had married in accordance with her temporary position, and did not like to avow it to her family, especially after they were ennobled. I am sure you will forgive my speaking thus freely, Lady Jane.”
Jane did not altogether understand. The tone of the words surprised her.
“But still, we never supposed that she would not avow it in time,” proceeded Mrs. West. “However inferior or unsuitable her marriage might have been, she would surely not keep it secret so long as this —— —”
“What marriage?” interrupted Jane. “Clarice was not married.”
“Oh yes, she was.”
“Do you know that she was?” gasped Jane. “How do you know it?”
Mrs. West paused in surprise. She was asking herself how it was that Lady Jane did not know it. It was so long ago that she forgot partially, but at length came to the unwelcome conclusion that she had neglected to make her acquainted with it. Not with the marriage itself; of that Mrs. West knew positively nothing: but of the grounds they had for assuming it to have taken place.
“Tell me about it now,” implored Jane.
“We learnt it through an old servant,” said Mrs. West. “A young woman named Mary Grove, who had lived with me as parlour-maid, and left just about the time that Miss Beauchamp left. Mary had fallen into bad health — indeed she was never strong, and I used to think the work too much for her — and she went home to be nursed. They were Suffolk people. She took another place in London when she grew better; and upon calling here one day to see us some considerable time afterwards, she told me that she had met Miss Beauchamp, and saw from her appearance that she was married.”
“When did she meet her? — and where?” eagerly inquired Lady Jane. l( She had met her sometime in the course of the winter after Miss Beauchamp left us; at its turn, I think: I know the girl said it was a frosty day. And it was somewhere in this” — Mrs. West hesitated and spoke very slowly—” in this neighbourhood, I think, though I cannot remember precisely where. Mary accosted Miss Beauchamp, saying something to the effect that she was married, and Miss Beauchamp replied that she was so. She had married upon leaving Mrs. West’s. The girl said she seemed in great spirits and looked remarkably well.”
“When was it that you heard this?” asked Jane.
“I am not sure of the precise time, Lady Jane. It was after the interview I had with you.”
“I wish you had told me of it.”
“Indeed I am very sorry that I did not. I suppose I thought it not worth troubling you about. It was so very little news, you see; and there was nothing about it certain; no details. And in truth, Lady Jane, if I must confess it, I supposed that perhaps Miss Beauchamp did not care that you should know of her marriage just at first, but would take her own time for declaring it. One thing I may mention: that this information of the girl’s had the effect of removing from my mind any fear on the subject of Miss Beauchamp — I ought to say of Lady Clarice.”
“I wonder whether I could see that girl?”
Mrs. West shook her head. “She is dead, poor thing. She grew ill again, and died just before we went on the Continent.”
Lady Jane was revolving matters in her mind. That Clarice had married, there was now no room for doubt. The question remained, to whom?
“If she quitted your house to be married,” she said aloud to Mrs. West, “we may safely argue that she must already have made the acquaintance of the gentleman. And how could she have done so, and where could she have met him?”
“I thought that over with myself at the time the girl told me this, and it struck me that she might have met him here,” was the reply. “My husband’s brother was then living with us, Tom West, and a ve
ry open-hearted, pleasant young fellow he was. He had just passed for a surgeon, and he used to fill the house with his companions; more so than I liked; but we knew he would soon be leaving, so I said nothing. Two of my cousins were on a visit to me that spring, merry girls, and they and Miss Beauchamp and Tom were much together.”
“Could he have married her?” breathlessly interrupted Lady Jane.
“Oh no.”
“Are you sure?” pursued Jane.
Mrs. West paused. It was the first time the idea had been presented to her.
“I do not think it likely,” she said at length. “Tom West was of an open disposition, above concealment, and they must both have been very sly, if it did take place — excuse my plainness of thought, Lady Jane; I am speaking of things as they occur to me. No, no. If they had wished to marry, why have concealed it? Tom West was his own master, and I am sure we should have made no objection to Miss Beauchamp; we liked her very much. If she married any one of them, it was not Tom.”
“Where is Mr. Tom West?”
“Oh, poor fellow, he went abroad directly; about — let me see? — about the following February, I think. He was appointed assistant-surgeon to the staff in India, and there he died.”
“What more probable than that she should have accompanied him?” exclaimed Lady Jane.
Mrs. West threw her reflections into the past.
“I do not think so,” she said. “It seems to me next to impossible. With him I am quite certain she did not go, for we saw him off, and arranged his baggage, and all that. He was at our house until he sailed. No; if he had been married, especially to Miss Beauchamp, rely upon it, Lady Jane, he would not have kept it from us.”
“Other gentlemen visited at your house, you say?” continued Jane.
“Plenty of them; Tom was rich in friends. Most of them were in the medical line, students or young practitioners. I dare say you may have observed how fond they are of congregating together.
All were not introduced to our society: Tom used to have them in his own room. Three or four were intimate with us, and had, as may be said, the run of the house, as Tom himself had.”
“Who were they?” asked Jane. “It may have been one of them. What were their names?”
“Let me try to recollect,” said Mrs. West. “We have mostly lost sight of them since that period. There was a Mr. Boys, who is now a doctor in good practice in Belgravia; and there was young Manning, a harum-scarum fellow who came to no good; and there was Mr. Carlton. I think that was all.”
“Mr. Carlton!” repeated Jane, struck with the name. “What Mr. Carlton was that?”
“His father was a surgeon in practice at the East-end of London,” replied Mrs. West. “He used to be very much here with Tom.”
“Was his name Lewis?”
“Lewis? Well, I think it was. Did you know him, Lady Jane?”
“A gentleman of that name married my sister, Lady Laura. I know him.”
“He was a good-looking, clever man, this Mr. Carlton — older than Tom, and by far the most gentlemanly of them all. We have quite lost sight of him. Stay. There was another used to come, a Mr. Crane; and I don’t know what became of him. We did not like him.”
“If it be the same Mr. Carlton, he is in practice at South Wennock,” observed Jane, very much struck, she could scarcely tell why, with this portion of the intelligence. “Our family highly disapproved of Lady Laura’s choice, and declined to countenance him.”
“We fancied at the time that Mr. Carlton was paying attention to one of my two cousins; at least, she thought so. But his visits here ceased before Tom went out. I have an idea that he went to settle somewhere in the country.”
“Did it ever occur to you to fancy that any one of these gentlemen paid attention to my sister?” inquired Jane.
“Never,” said Mrs. West: “never at all. I remember that Tom and my cousins used to joke Miss Beauchamp about young Crane, but I believe they did so simply to tease her. She appeared to dislike him very much, and she could not bear being joked about him. None of us, except Tom, much liked Mr. Crane.”
“And the remaining two gentlemen you have mentioned? — Mr.
Manning and Mr. — I forget the other name.”
“Mr. Boys: Dr. Boys now. Oh no, it was neither of them, I am sure. They were not quite so intimate with us as the rest were. If she married any one of the young men, it must lie between Tom, Mr. Carlton, and Mr. Crane. But, to hear that she had done so, would astonish me more than anything ever astonished me yet. Tom, I am fully persuaded, she did not marry; or Mr. Carlton either. If he had a preference any way, it was, I say, for my cousin, though the preference never came to anything. As to young Crane — if Miss Beauchamp’s dislike to him was not genuine, she must have been a good actor. I cannot — looking back — I cannot think that she married any one of them,” concluded Mrs. West.
This was all. It was only a small item of news. Lady Jane sat some time longer, but she had gained the extent of Mrs. West’s information, and she went away revolving it.
She went down to South Wennock revolving it; she did nothing but revolve it after she was settled at home. And the conclusion she arrived at was, that Clarice had married one of those young men — and she thought the most likely one was Mr. Tom West.
And what of the Mr. Carlton? Could it be the one who was now Laura’s husband? Lady Jane felt little, if any, doubt about it. The description, personal and circumstantial, tallied with him in all points; and the name, Lewis Carlton, was not a common one. Ever and anon there would come over Jane, with a shiver, a remembrance of that portentous dream, in which it had seemed to be shown her that her sister Clarice was dead, and that Mr. Carlton had had some hand in causing the death. Had one of these young men married Clarice, and worked her ill? and was Mr. Carlton privy to it? But Jane, a just woman, shrank from asking that question, even of her own mind. She had no grounds whatever for suspecting Mr. Carlton of such a thing; and surely it was wrong to dwell upon a dream for them. There was one question, however, that she could ask him in all reason — and that was, whether he was the Mr. Carlton mentioned by Mrs. West; if so, it was possible that he could impart some information of her sister. Jane did not think it very likely that he could, but it was certainly possible.
And in the meantime, while Jane was seeking for an opportunity for doing this, or perhaps deliberating upon the best way of asking it, and how much she should say about Clarice, and how much she should not, a fever broke out at South Wennock.
CHAPTER X.
TAKING THE AIR.
A GLOOMY time had come on at South Wennock. Usually a remarkably healthy place — indeed, had it not been so, the few medical men established there could not have sufficed for it — it was something new to be visited by an epidemic, and people took alarm. The fever was a severe one, and a few patients had died; but still it was not so bad as it might have been; as it is occasionally in other places. The town was hurriedly adopting all sorts of sanitary precautions, and the doctors were worked off their legs.
Lady Jane Chesney regretted on Lucy’s account that it should have happened at the present moment. Not that she was uneasy about her; Jane was one of those happy few who can put their full and entire trust in God’s good care, and so be calm in the midst of danger: “Whoso dwelleth under the defence of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” But she was sorry this, sickness should prevail now, because it made the visit for Lucy a sad one.
Jane lived in the same quiet style as ever. Since the addition to her income through the money left her by old Lady Oakburn, she had added only one man-servant to her modest household. The two maids, of whom Judith was one, and this man, comprised it. Not that Jane economized. She dressed well, and her housekeeping was liberal; and she gave away a great deal in a quiet way. But the young, full of life, loving gaiety, might have called her house a dull one. She feared Lucy was finding it so; and it certainly did not need the sickness and alarm to add to it.
&nb
sp; Jane was saying this as she sat one night alone with Lucy. They had promised to spend the evening with some friends, but just as they were about to leave home, a note was brought in from the lady to whom they were engaged. One of her servants was taken ill, and she feared it might be the fever: perhaps therefore Lady Jane would prefer to put off her visit.
“I should not have minded for myself,” remarked Jane, as they sat down to a quiet evening at home, “but I will not risk it for you, Lucy. I am so sorry, my dear, that South Wennock should be in this uncertain state just now. You will have reason to remember your dull visit to me.”
Lucy laughed. She did not look very dull as she sat there in her evening dress of gay silk, some sort of enamelled ornaments, a necklace and bracelets glistening with steel mountings, on her fair neck and arms. She had taken up some embroidery, was already busy with its intricacies, and she looked up with a laughing eye at Jane.
“Indeed I am not sorry to be kept at home, Jane. Dull as you call my visit, all my work seems to get on very slowly; and you know I promised myself to do so much. But, Jane — if I may say one thing,” Lucy added, her gay tones changing to seriousness, “you seem dull and dispirited. You have seemed so ever since we came from London.”
Jane paused a moment. “Not dispirited, Lucy, dear. I have been preoccupied: I acknowledge that.”
“What about?” asked Lucy.
“I would rather not tell you, Lucy. It is only a little matter on my mind: a little doubt: something I am trying to find out. I cannot help thinking about it constantly, and I suppose it has made me silent.”
You need not ask the source of Jane’s preoccupation. That it was connected with her sister Clarice you will have already divined. Since the information received from Mrs. West, that Clarice had married, Lady Jane had been unable to divest herself of an impression that that little child at Tupper’s cottage was Clarice’s child. The only possible ground for her fancy was the extraordinary likeness (at least, as Jane saw it) in that child’s eyes and general expression to Clarice. The features were not like hers; quite unlike, indeed; but the eyes and their expression were Clarice’s over again. Added to this — and perhaps the fact somewhat strengthened Jane’s doubts — was the manner of his ostensible mother, Mrs. Smith. From the very first, Jane had thought she looked old to be the mother of so young a child; but she had hard features, and such women, as Jane knew, often look much older than they really are. Several times since her return from London Jane had passed the cottage and talked to the little boy over the gate. Once she had gone in — having been civilly invited by Mrs. Smith to rest herself — and she had indirectly tried to ascertain some particulars of the child’s past life: where he was born, and where he had lived. But Mrs. Smith suddenly grew uncommunicative and would not answer. The boy was her own, she said; she had had another son, older than this, but he had died; she had married very late in life. Her husband had occupied a good post in a manufactory at Paisley in Scotland, and there her little boy had been reared. Upon her husband’s death that summer, she had left the place and come back to her native country, England. So far, Mrs. Smith was communicative enough; but beyond these points she would not go; and upon Lady Jane’s rather pressing one or two questions, the widow became quite rude. Her business was her own, she said, and she did not recognize the right of strangers to pry into it. Lady Jane was baffled. Of course it might all be as the woman said; but there was a certain secrecy in her manner that made Jane suspicious. She had, however, no plea for pressing the matter further; and she preferred to wait and, as it were, feel her way. But she thought of it incessantly, and it had rendered her usually equable manner occupied and absent; so much so as to have been observed by Lucy.