Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  When Sir Stephen left the house it was night. A little beyond Mr. Carlton’s, nearer the town, was a space unoccupied by houses; it was dark there, for no friendly gas-lamp threw out its light. Pacing this dark spot, was one with folded arms; he had so paced it since night set in. The baronet recognized his son.

  “The crisis has come,” said Sir Stephen. “Come: and passed.”

  Frederick Grey struggled with his agitation. He strove to be a man. But he essayed twice to speak before any words would issue from his bloodless lips.

  “And she is dead?”

  “No. She will recover.”

  He placed his arm within his son’s as he spoke, and walked on, perceiving little of the emotion. Sir Stephen was of equable mind himself; he liked to take things easily, and could not understand that Frederick must be different. Frederick, however, was different: he had inherited his mother’s sensitive temperament. Sir Stephen caught a glimpse of his face as they passed the window of Wilkes the barber, who had a flaring gas-jet therein to display the beauties of a stuffed gentleman, which turned upon a pivot.

  “What’s the matter, Frederick? Don’t you feel well?”

  “Oh yes. A little — anxious. Are you sure the crisis is favourable?”

  “Certain. If she dies now, it will be from weakness. I wonder Lady Jane allowed her to be ill at Carlton’s.”

  Even yet Frederick was not sufficiently himself to enter into any explanation. It was not Lady Jane’s fault, was all he said.

  “You won’t go back to-night, father?”

  “No. I shall stay until morning, but I am sure she is all right now. Youth and beauty can’t escape, you see. To think that it should have attacked Lucy Chesney! Fortunately she has a good constitution.”

  They walked on to Mr. John Grey’s, where Sir Stephen would remain for the night. Most cordially was he welcomed; Mrs. Grey said it seemed like old times to see him back again.

  There were many cases, even at that present time, where the fever had taken as great a hold as it had upon Lucy, and when the fact of Sir Stephen’s arrival became known — and the news spread like wildfire — Mr. Grey’s house was besieged with applicants, praying that Sir Stephen would afford the sick the benefit of his advice, before he went back to London. So much for popular opinion! A few years ago, Mr. Stephen Grey had been hunted from the town; scarcely a soul in it would have taken his advice gratis; but Sir Stephen Grey, the London physician, who attended upon royalty, had risen to a wonderful premium. Had all the faculty of the College of Physicians combined been at South Wennock, none would have been thought much of, in comparison with Sir Stephen Grey.

  Did he refuse to go? Not he. At the beck and call of any in South Wennock — for he was not one to pay back evil in its own coin, Sir Stephen went abroad. In at one house, out of another, until the little hours of the morning, went he. And not a fee would he take, either from rich or poor. No, no, it was for old friendship’s sake, he said, as he shook them by the hand; for old friendship’s sake.

  Twice in the evening he visited Lucy, and found that the favourable symptoms continued; nay, were growing more and more apparent. Jane would scarcely release his hand; she could not divest herself of the idea that he had saved Lucy. No, Sir Stephen said: Lucy’s constitution would have triumphed without him, under God.

  Mr. Carlton, who had recovered his equanimity, invited Sir Stephen into his drawing-room, and seemed disposed to be cordial; but Sir Stephen told him, and with truth, that he had no time that night even for a minute’s conversation; South Wennock would give him no rest.

  When Sir Stephen reached his brother’s house it was one o’clock, and, to his surprise, he saw another applicant waiting for him; a stout female of extraordinary size, who was dozing in a chair, under the hall lamp. His coming in aroused her, and she stood up, curtseying after her peculiar fashion.

  “You don’t remember me, sir.”

  “Why, bless my heart! — if I don’t think it’s Mother Pepperfly!” he exclaimed, after a minute’s doubtful stare. “What have you been doing with yourself? You have grown into two Mrs. Pepperflys.”

  “Growed into six, Mr. Stephen, if I’m to be reckoned by breadth. Hope you are well, sir, and your good lady!”

  “All well. And now, what do you want with me? To recommend you to a mill that grinds people slender again?”

  Mrs. Pepperfly shook her head dolefully, intimating that no such mill could have any effect upon her, and proceeded to explain her business. Which she persisted in doing at full length, in spite of the hour and Sir Stephen’s fatigue.

  It appeared — rather to Mrs. Pepperfly’s own discomfiture — that Mrs. Smith was not able to invite her to a bed, owing to the only spare one being occupied by the maid-servant; but she was treated to a refreshing tea and liberal supper, and enjoyed her evening very much; the Widow Gould’s presence adding to the general sociability. The widow left early; she kept good hours; but Mrs. Pepperfly was in no hurry to depart. She really did make herself useful in attending to the child, and sat by him for some time after he was carried up to his room. She offered to remain with him for the night, but this Mrs. Smith entirely declined. It had not yet come to sitting up nights with him.

  In the course of the evening, the news which had been spreading through South Wennock reached Tupper’s cottage: Mr. Carlton’s boy, who had carried up some medicine, imparting it. The great London doctor, Sir Stephen Grey, had been telegraphed for, and come down to Lady Lucy, and was now paying visits to the sick throughout the town, going to cure them all. Mrs. Smith devoured the news, as a parched traveller alights upon water. She loved the child passionately, hard and cold as were her outward manners; and it seemed that this whispered a faint hope for his life. Not that she had reason to be dissatisfied with Mr. Carlton; she acknowledged that gentleman’s skill, and was sure he did his best; but the very name of a great physician brings magic with it. She asked Mrs. Pepperfly to find out where Sir Stephen was staying, as she went home, and to call and beg him to step up in the morning; and to be sure and say he would receive his fee, whatever amount it might be, lest he might think it was only a poor cottage, and decline the visit. Upon this last clause in the message the nurse laid great stress, when delivering it to Sir Stephen.

  But not one word did she say, or hint impart, that this Mrs. Smith was the same person who had played a part in the drama which had driven Stephen Grey from his former home. Mrs. Pepperfly was a shrewd woman; she did not want common sense: and she judged that that past reminiscence could not be pleasant to Sir Stephen. At any rate she would not be the one to recall it to him. She simply spoke of Mrs. Smith as a “party” who had settled lately at South Wennock, and she reiterated the prayer for Sir Stephen to go up.

  “But I have no time to do so,” cried Sir Stephen. “What’s the matter with the boy? The fever?”

  “Bless you, no, sir,” replied Mrs. Pepperfly. “He haven’t enough of fever in him, poor little object! He’s going off as fast as he can go in a decline and a white swelling in his knee.”

  “Then I can do no good.”

  “Don’t say that, Mr. Stephen, sir. If you only knowed the good a doctor does, just looking at ‘em, you wouldn’t say it. But in course you do know it, sir, just as well as me. He mayn’t save their lives by an hour, and mostly don’t in them hopeless cases; but think of the comfort it brings to the mind! If you could step up for a minute in the morning, sir, she’d be everlastingly grateful.”

  Telling her he must leave it to the morning to decide, though he gave a half promise to find time if possible, Sir Stephen dismissed Mrs. Pepperfly. He had a good laugh afterwards with his brother John at her size. “What about the old failing?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s not quite cured,” was the reply, “but it is certainly no worse. She keeps within bounds.”

  With the morning, Sir Stephen was up and out early. Many were still sending for him. Indeed every one in the town would fain have had a visit from him, could they have invented t
he least shadow of an excuse, illness or no illness. His first care was Lucy Chesney, who was decidedly better: temperature normal, intellects collected: in short, Lucy was out of danger.

  “And now for this cottage of Tupper’s, if I must go up,” he exclaimed to his son, who had walked with him to Mr. Carlton’s but had not entered. “I declare it is unreasonable of people! What good can I do to a dying boy?”

  One thing must be mentioned. Frederick Grey had not the remotest idea that there was any suspicion, anything singular, attaching to this woman and child. That suspicion was confined as yet to very few in South Wennock. He had incidentally heard that such people were living in Tupper’s cottage, but he supposed them to be entire strangers.

  The boy was in bed upstairs, and Mrs. Smith was putting her house in order, for she had sent the girl for some milk. She had not expected the doctor so early. He passed quickly up the stairs, leaving her to follow, for he had not a minute to lose. The little fellow, in his restlessness, had one arm out of his nightgown sleeve, leaving it exposed. Sir Stephen’s attention was caught by a mark on the arm, underneath the shoulder. He looked at it attentively; it was a very peculiar mark, almost black, and as large as a bean. He was talking to the child when Mrs. Smith came up.

  “Is there any hope, sir?” she whispered, after Sir Stephen had examined the child and was preparing to do down.

  “Not the least. He won’t be here long.”

  Mrs. Smith paused. “At any rate, you tell it me plain enough, sir,” she said presently, somewhat resentfully. “There’s nothing in that very soothing to a mother’s feelings.”

  “Why should I not tell you?” rejoined Sir Stephen. “You said you wished for my candid opinion, and I gave it. You are not his mother.”

  “Not his mother!” she echoed.

  “That you are not. That child’s one of mine.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” she exclaimed in astonishment.

  “I mean that I brought that child into the world. “Look here,” he added, retracing his steps to the bed, and pulling aside the nightgown to exhibit the mark. “I know the child by that, and could swear to him among a thousand.” —

  She made no reply. They descended to the kitchen, where Frederick was waiting. Sir Stephen talked as he went down.

  “The mother of that child was the unfortunate lady who died at the Widow Gould’s in Palace Street some years ago: Mrs. Crane. I have reason to remember it, if no one else has.”

  The widow fixed her eyes on Sir Stephen. “I asked Mrs. Pepperfly — who was the attendant nurse upon that lady — whether the infant was born with any mark upon it, and she told me it had none.”, “I don’t care what Mrs. Pepperfly told you,” returned Sir Stephen. “She may have forgotten the mark; or may possibly not have seen it at the time, for her perceptive faculties are sometimes obscured by gin. I tell you that it is the same child.”

  Frederick Grey was listening with all his ears, in doubt whether he might believe them. He scarcely understood. Mrs. Smith gave in the point: at least so far as that she did not further dispute it.

  “You are the gentleman, sir, who attended that lady. Mr. — Mr.—”

  “Mr. Stephen Grey, then: Sir Stephen, now. I am; and I am he against whom was brought the accusation of having carelessly mixed poison with her draught.”

  “And you did not do it?” she whispered.

  “I! My good woman, what you may be to that dead lady, I know not; but you may put perfect faith in this that I tell you. Over her poor dead body, and in the presence of her Maker and mine, I took an oath that the draught went out of my hands a good and wholesome mixture, that no poison was put into it: and I again swear it to you now, within shadow of her dying child.”

  “Who did do it?” continued the woman, breathing hardly.

  “Nay, I know not,” replied Sir Stephen, as he sat down to write a prescription with his pencil, ink not being at hand. “Smith! Smith!” he repeated to himself, the name, in connection with the past, striking upon his memory. “Why, you must be the Mrs. Smith who came to take away the child!”

  Possibly Mrs. Smith saw no further use in denying it; possibly she no longer cared to do so. “And what if I am, sir?”

  “What if you are!” echoed Sir Stephen, starting from the chair, and regarding her in astonishment. “Why, my good woman, do you know that pretty nearly the whole world was searched to find you? No one connected with the affair was wanted so much as you were.”

  “What for?”

  “To give what testimony you could; to throw some light upon the mystery; to declare who and what the young lady was,” reiterated Sir Stephen, speaking very fast.

  “But if I couldn’t?” rejoined Mrs. Smith.

  “But I don’t suppose you couldn’t. I expect you could.”

  “Then, sir, you expect wrong. I declare to Goodness that I know no more who the lady was — that is, what her family was, or what her connections were — than that child upstairs knows. I have come down to South Wennock now to find out; and I never knew that Mrs. Crane was dead until after I arrived here.”

  Sir Stephen Grey was surprised. Frederick, who was leaning his elbow on the back of a chair, carelessly played with his watch-chain. “Where’s her husband?” asked Sir Stephen, sitting down again. “Sir, it’s just what I should like to know. I have never heard of him since I took the baby from South Wennock.”

  “But you must in a measure know who she was! You could not have come here, as you did, to take the child from an utter stranger.” Mrs. Smith was silent. “I knew her because she lodged at my house,” she said at length. “I don’t know why I should not say it.”

  “And her husband? Was he lodging with you also?”

  “No. Only herself. Sir, I declare upon my sacred word that I don’t know who she really was, or who her husband, Mr. Crane, was. It’s partly because I didn’t want to be bothered with people asking me things I was unable to answer, that I have kept myself quiet here, saying nothing about its being the same child.”

  “And you did not know she was dead?”

  “I did not know she was dead. I have been living with the child in Scotland, where my husband was in a manufactory; and times upon times have we wondered what had become of Mrs. Crane, that she did not come or send for her child. We thought she must have gone to America with her husband. There was some talk of it.”

  “And you know nothing about the death? — or the circumstances attending it?” reiterated Sir Stephen.

  “I know nothing whatever about it,” was the reply, spoken emphatically. “Except what has been told me since I came here this time. Mrs. Crane lodged with me in London, and left me suddenly to come to South Wennock. I received a note a day or two afterwards, saying her baby was on the point of being born, and asking me to come and fetch it. It had been arranged that I should have the nursing of it. That’s all I know.”

  “Do you know why she came to South Wennock?”

  “I believe to meet her husband. But there seemed to be some mystery connected with him, and she was not very communicative to me.”

  It seemed that this was nearly all Mrs. Smith knew. At least it was all she would say, and it threw little if any more light upon the past than Sir Stephen had known before. He left her with a recommendation to tell what she knew to the police.

  “I dare say I shall,” she said. “But I must take my own time over it. I have my reasons. It won’t be my fault, sir, if the thing is not brought to light.”

  Sir Stephen was half-way down the garden with his son, when Mrs. Smith came running after him.

  “Sir, you have forgotten: you have not taken your fee.”

  “I don’t take fees in South Wennock,” he said, with a smile. “Follow my direction, and you may give the child a little ease; but nothing can save him.”

  In going out at the gate they met Mr. Carlton, who was abroad early with his patients. What on earth had brought them there? was the question in his eyes, if not on his lips.

  “
You have been to see my patient!” he exclaimed aloud, in no conciliatory tone.

  “Is it your patient?” cried Sir Stephen. “I declare I thought it was Lycett’s, and I had no time to ask extraneous particulars. I have recommended a little change in the treatment and left a prescription; just to give ease: nothing else can be done.”

  He spoke in the carelessly authoritative manner of a physician accustomed to be obeyed; he meant no offence, nor dreamt of any; but it grated on the ear of Mr. Carlton.

  “What brought you here at all?” he asked, really wondering what could have brought Sir Stephen to that particular place.

  “Mrs. Smith sent for me,” said Sir Stephen. “I suppose you know what child it is?”

  “What child it is?” repeated the surgeon, after an almost imperceptible pause. “It won’t be long here; I know that much, in spite of any physician’s prescriptions.”

  “It is the child of that lady who died in Palace Street, where I attended for you. She who was killed by prussic acid,”

  “Nonsense,” said Mr. Carlton, “There’s no nonsense about it,” rejoined Sir Stephen. “Mrs. Smith tried to persuade me that I was wrong, but I convinced her to the contrary.”

  A change crossed the face of Mr. Carlton; a peculiar expression, not unlike that of a stag at bay. Lifting his eyes he caught those of Frederick Grey riveted upon his.

  “Is it possible to recognize an infant after the lapse of years, do you think, Sir Stephen?”

  “Not unless it is born with a distinguishing mark, as this was. I should know that boy if I met him in old age in the wilds of Africa.”

  “What is the mark?” asked Mr. Carlton, looking as if he doubted whether there was any at all.

  “It’s under the right arm, near the armpit; one you can’t forget, once seen. Go and look at it.”

  They parted, shaking hands. Sir Stephen turned out at the gate, Mr. Carlton towards the door of the cottage. He had all but entered it, when he heard himself called by Sir Stephen.