Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “But she went?”

  “She went; there was no stopping her. She packed her things in one large trunk, burned all her letters and papers, and left on the morning of the tenth of March. I well remember the day; it was a Friday. The next day, the Saturday, I was out with some friends, country people who had come to London for a few days’ pleasuring. They were at an inn near the Strand, and nothing would do but I must go and breakfast with them, which they had made me promise to do, and I went out early, before the post was in. When I got home at night there was a letter from Miss Beauchamp, asking me to go to her, for she was ill at South Wennock. I took the night train, and when I arrived I found the baby was born — the tiniest child I almost ever saw. I was very angry with her, my lady; I could not help it. And she had endangered her life for nothing, as may be said, for when she got to South Wennock, her husband was away.”

  “Away?” interrupted Lady Jane.

  “So she said. And by a word she let drop, I thought he was a surgeon, but I was not sure. I took the baby away with me that same evening. I could not stop, for, as bad luck would have it, my husband was coming home on the Monday, ill. She told me to have the baby baptized, and to name him ‘Lewis’ — and it occurred to me that it might be the name of its father. I took the liberty of adding George to it, after my husband.”

  There was a long pause. “Did you know she went by the name of Crane?” asked Lady Jane.

  “She told me in her letter to ask for her by that name. I inquired of her, after I reached South Wennock, whether it was her real name, and she laughed and said, no more real than Beauchamp, nor half so much so. It was a name that her husband and young Mr. West were very fond of calling her, partly because she had a peculiar way of arching her neck, partly to tease her. Some gentleman, named Crane, to whom she had an aversion, used to visit at the Wests’; and, to make her angry, they would call her by his name — Mrs. Crane. She said it had never struck her that she should want a name for South Wennock until she was close to the place, and then she thought of that one — Crane. It would do for her as well as any other, until she assumed her legal one, which she supposed she should now soon do. I found great fault: I said she ought to have assumed it and been with her husband before the child was born; and we had quite words about it. She defended him, and said it would have been so, but for the child’s coming before its time. She charged me not to write to her, not to communicate at all with her, until she wrote to me. We had nearly a fight upon another point. She wanted me to say I would be paid for the child; I steadily refused it. It was a boon to me to have the child, and I was at ease as to my circumstances. My lady, I took away the child, and I never heard one word from her, good or bad, afterwards.”

  “Never at all?”

  “Never at all. My husband was at home with a long illness, and afterwards removed to Paisley, where he had a good situation offered him. Some friends took our house at Islington, and there I left a letter, saying where we had gone, directing it ‘ Mrs. Crane, late Miss Beauchamp.’ It was never applied for.”

  “And you never wrote to South Wennock?” cried Lady Jane.

  “I never did. I own I was selfish. I was afraid of losing the child, and my husband had grown to love it as much as I did. I argued, if she wanted the child she would be sure to apply for it. Besides, I thought I might do some mischief by writing, and I did not know her real name or address.”

  “But what could you think of her silence? — of her leaving the child?”

  “We thought it might arise from one of two reasons. Either that she had gone with her husband to America, or some distant colony (she had said something about it in the early days when she was first at my house), and that her letters to me from thence must have miscarried; or else that — you must pardon me for speaking it, my lady — that she was not married, and shrank from claiming the child. I did not believe it was so, but my husband used to think it might be.”

  Jane made no reply.

  “Anyway, we were thankful to keep him. And when my husband died last spring, his thought in his last illness was more for the child than for me. I sold off then, and determined to come to South Wennock: partly to hear what I could of Mrs. Crane: partly to see if the child’s native air would do him good; he had never been strong. I never shall forget the shock when I got here and heard how Mrs. Crane had died.”

  Poor Jane thought she should never forget the shock of the previous night, when told that Mrs. Crane was Clarice Chesney.

  “What I can’t make out is, that her husband has never been heard of,” returned Mrs. Smith, breaking the silence which ensued. “I — I am trying to put two and two together, as the saying goes, but somehow I can’t do it; I get baffled. There’s a talk of a dark man having been seen on the stairs near her room that night; one would think he must have been the husband, stolen in there to work the ill.”

  “I don’t know,” shivered Lady Jane. “Since you have been speaking, other dark fears have come upon me. Fears which I dare not look at.”

  Yes: various fears, and thoughts, and remembrances were stirring within her. A recollection of that scrap of letter, found by Lady Laura in her drawer of fine laces soon after becoming Mr. Carlton’s wife. Laura had always persisted that the paper must have come from Cedar Lodge with her clothes: how else, she argued, could it have got there? Now Jane began to think (what she would have thought before but for its apparent impossibility) that the paper must have been in the drawer before Laura ever went into the house; that it must have slipped under the paper covering of the drawer, and lain there, it was impossible to say how long. It had never occurred to her or to Laura to connect Mr. Carlton with it at all; and the little matter had puzzled Jane more than she cared to think of. Could the letter have been written to Mr. Crane? Surely it had not been written to Mr. Carlton! But how came it in the drawer? Had Mr. Crane ever visited Mr. Carlton at South Wennock? And, again, there was Clarice’s denial that her name was Crane. What had been Mr. Carlton’s part in it all? was the chief question that now agitated Jane’s mind.

  She stayed with Mrs. Smith, talking and talking, and it was growing dusk when she left the cottage to walk home. But as Lady Jane went down Blister Lane and turned into the Rise, she started nervously at every shadow in the hedge, just as Mr. Carlton had started at them some years before.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  JUDITH’S STORY.

  IN the twilight of the winter’s evening, in the drawing-room of Lady Jane’s house, Frederick Grey was sitting with Lucy Chesney. The removal from Mr. Carlton’s that day did not appear to have harmed her; she seemed even stronger for it; and though Judith kept assuring her that she ought to go to her chamber and lie down, Lucy stayed where she was.

  The interview was a sad one. It was Frederick Grey’s farewell visit, for he was returning to London the following day. But the sadness did not arise from that cause, but from another. Lucy had been telling him something, and he grew hot and angry.

  The fact was, Lady Jane, in her perplexity and tribulation at finding the deceased lady, Mrs. Crane, to have been Clarice Chesney, had that morning dropped a word in Lucy’s hearing to the effect that the discovery might be the means of breaking off the contemplated marriage. Of course, Lucy was making herself very miserable, and her lover was very indignant.

  “On what grounds?” he chafed, for he had rather a hot temper of his own. “On what grounds?”

  “Jane thinks it will hardly be right that we should marry, if the mistake that brought Clarice her death was made by Sir Stephen. The mistake in the medicine, you know.”

  “Jane must be getting into her dotage,” he angrily exclaimed. “Sir Stephen never did make the mistake. Lucy, my darling, be at rest: we cannot be parted now.”

  Lucy’s tears were falling fast: she was weak from recent illness. To marry in opposition to Jane could never be thought of, and Jane was firm when she once took an idea into her head. In the midst of this, Jane came in from her visit to the little dead boy at Tupper’s
cottage, and Frederick Grey spoke out his mind, somewhat warmly. Judith, who entered the room to take her lady’s bonnet, stood in surprise and concern: her sympathies were wholly with Frederick Grey and Lucy. He had not observed Judith enter.

  “Oh, my lady,” she exclaimed impulsively, “it would not be right to separate them. Ought the innocent to suffer for the guilty?”

  “The guilty? the guilty?” mused Lady Jane. “How are we to know who is guilty?”

  Judith stood, a strange expression of eagerness, blended with indecision, on her white face. She looked at Lady Jane, she looked at Frederick Grey; and she suddenly put down the bonnet she held, and turned to them.

  “I will speak,” she exclaimed. “I will declare what I know. Ever since last night I have been telling myself that I ought to do it. And I wish I had done it years ago!”

  They looked at her in astonishment. What had come to quiet, sober Judith?

  “My lady, you ask who was guilty — how it is to be known? I think I know who it was; I believe it was Mr. Carlton. I could almost have proved it at the time.”

  “Oh, Judith!” exclaimed Frederick Grey reproachfully, while Jane dropped her head upon her hand, and Lucy gazed around, wondering if they had all gone crazy. “And you have suffered my father to lie under suspicion all these years!”

  “I did not dare to speak,” was Judith’s answer. “Who was I, a poor humble servant, that I should accuse a gentleman — a gentleman like Mr. Carlton, thought well of in the place? No one would have listened to me, sir. Besides, in spite of my doubts, I could not believe he was guilty. I thought I must have made some strange mistake. And I feared that the tables might be turned upon me, and I should be accused.”

  Whatever she knew, and however long she might have suppressed it, there was no resource but to speak out fully now. She took up her position against the wall, partly hidden from what little light the fire gave by the folds of the crimson curtains. Lucy sat forward on the sofa as one bewildered, Lady Jane’s face was still shaded by her hand, Frederick Grey stood with his elbow on the mantel-piece.

  “I will not be Mr. Carlton’s accuser,” she began. “No, my lady, I will simply tell what I saw, and let others judge. The impression of his guilt on my mind may have been altogether some great mistake. I — I suppose I must begin at the beginning?”

  “You must begin at the beginning and go on to the end,” interposed Frederick Grey authoritatively.

  “And I’ll do it,” said Judith. “On the Sunday evening when that poor lady, Mrs. Crane, lay ill at the Widow Gould’s, I stepped in between eight and nine to wish her good night. I had a bad faceache, and was in great pain, and I wanted to get to bed. The widow and Nurse Pepperfly were at supper in the kitchen; I saw them as I passed the kitchen window, and I ran upstairs quietly, without disturbing them. I had no light, and I found the bedroom in darkness, but it was a fine moonlight night. I spoke to Mrs. Crane, but she was asleep, and did not answer, and I sat down by the bed, behind the curtain, and nursed my face for a minute or two. There came a ring at the door-bell, and I heard Mrs. Gould answer it, and attend the visitor upstairs. I thought it might be Mr. Stephen Grey, but as they came into the adjoining sitting-room I heard Mrs. Gould address him as Mr. Carlton. She went down again, and he came into the chamber, without the light. His coming in awoke Mrs. Crane, for I heard her start and stir, and he approached the bed. ‘Clarice,’ said he, Clarice, how could you be so imprudent, so foolish, as to come to South Wennock?” Oh, Lewis, I am so thankful you have returned!’ she answered in a joyful, loving tone, which struck me with amazement. ‘ Don’t be angry with me; we can keep our secret; but I could not bear the thought of being ill so far away. It is such a sweet little boy!’ ‘It was exceedingly wrong, Clarice,’ he went on in a vexed tone; but I heard no more, for I stole out of the room. I heard Mr. Carlton say ‘ Who’s there?’ but I sped downstairs quietly in my list shoes, for I did not like them to think they had been overheard. As I went by the kitchen, Mrs. Gould spoke to me, telling me, I remember, of an accident that had happened to Mr. Carlton that evening in coming from Great Wennock. I ran in home, and went to bed; but what with the pain in my face, and the words I had overheard next door, I could get no rest. It seemed a mystery to me, and nothing less, that the young lady should be so intimate with Mr. Carlton, when she had asked about him and spoken of him as a stranger. It came into my mind to wonder whether he could be her husband, but I thought I must be downright foolish to suppose such a thing. However, it was no business of mine, and I knew I could keep my own counsel.”

  “Go on, Judith,” said Lady Jane, for Judith had paused in thought.

  “The next day I was anything but well, for I had had no sleep, and the pain in my face worried me. In the afternoon it began to swell, and in the evening, when Mr. Stephen Grey came to see Mrs. Crane, he told me the swelling would make it easier, but that I ought to tie it up. It was just seven when Mr. Stephen came in, and he expected Mr. Carlton. He waited till a quarter past, but Mr. Carlton did not come. He observed that Mrs. Crane was flushed and looked feverish, and he spoke quite sharply to me and Mrs. Pepperfly, and said there had been too much gossiping going on. We replied that the lady would talk, feeling well, and we could not prevent her. He said he should send in a composing draught: and he left. I returned home to tie my face up, but at first I was puzzled what to tie it with, as my boxes were not at Mrs. Jenkinson’s, and a pocket-handkerchief was hardly warm or large enough. I found an old piece of black plush, which had covered a bonnet I had worn all the winter, and had unpicked that day. It was not worth much, and I cut it in two, and doubled the pieces together, so that they formed two ears or lappets, fastened them to some black tape, and tied them up round my chin and the sides of my face. I had on a black cap, being in mourning for my late mistress, and when I saw myself in the glass, I thought I did look a guy. What with my swollen face, which was glazed and white, and my black eyes, which seemed blacker than usual, and this flossy plush round my face, I was a sight to be seen!—’ Goodness me!’ exclaimed Margaret when I got downstairs, ‘ what have you been doing with yourself? One would think you had a pair of whiskers on?’ And she wasn’t far wrong, as appearance went, for the edge of the black quilled net-border close to my face, and the rough plush behind it, made a very good imitation of whiskers, I was dead tired; I felt as if I could sleep; and after sitting awhile with Margaret, I said I would go in and see if Mrs. Crane wanted anything more that I could do, and then come back and go to bed. As on the previous night, I saw that the nurse and Mrs. Gould were at supper in the kitchen — or, rather, sitting at the supper-table, for their supper seemed to be over. I went quietly upstairs; and, knowing those two were downstairs, I was surprised to hear a movement in the sitting-room. The first thought that struck me was, could Mrs. Crane have been so imprudent as to get out of bed for anything she might want, and I peeped in through the door, which was ajar. It was not Mrs. Crane; she was safe in bed, and the door between the two rooms was shut. It was Mr. Carlton. The light was on the mantel-piece, and he stood at the cheffonier. He had a very, very small bottle in his hand, putting a cork into it, and then he put it into his waistcoat pocket. Next he took up a larger bottle, the size of those which had contained night-draughts for Mrs. Crane; it had been standing close to his hand on the cheffonier, and the cork by it; he hastily put the cork into it, and put it on the little shelf of the cheffonier. He turned so quickly to leave the room, that I had not time to get out of the way. I did not know what he had been doing; I did not know it was anything wrong; but an instinct flashed across me that he would not like to find he had been watched; not that when I peeped in I had thought of doing anything mean or underhanded. I just drew up against the wall on the landing — the worst place I could have got to, for the moonlight came in upon my face — and he saw me. He could see nothing of me but my face; but he looked at me with a sort of frightened glare. My eyes, accustomed to the dark, could just discern his face: he had come from the lighted room.
‘Who and what are you?’ he whispered, but I thought my best plan was not to answer. I did not like to go forward and speak, so I kept still. He wheeled round, and went back to the sitting-room to bring out the light, which gave me the opportunity of slipping inside the closet. He—”

  “Oh, Judith!” interrupted Lady Jane, “ then the man’s face on the stairs, about which so much has been said, was yours!”

  - “My own and no other’s, my lady. I was afraid to explain so, lest I should be further questioned, and I let it pass. Mr. Carlton brought out the light, but of course he could not see me, and, after he had looked all about, he went downstairs. I heard him say something to Mrs. Gould about a man upstairs with black whiskers, and I laughed to myself at the joke. But I did not care that anyone should know I had played it, though it had been unintentionally done, and when Mr. Carlton was gone and the women were shut up in the kitchen again, I stole down and took off the black plush ears in the yard, and put them into my pocket. I then knocked at the window, as if I had just come in, which startled them both, and Mrs. Gould called me a fool, and asked why I could not come into the house quietly and decently. I said I had come in to wish Mrs. Crane good night, and I went on upstairs. Mrs. Crane laughed at my swollen face, saying it looked like a full moon; but I thought how much more she would have laughed had she seen it with the whiskers on.”

  Frederick Grey, who had stood with his eyes fixed on Judith, listening to every word, interrupted with a question.

  “Did you not suspect, did it not occur to you to suspect, that the draught might have been tampered with?”

  “Never, sir, for a moment. How was I likely to suspect such a thing? Was not Mr. Carlton a doctor, and in practice? I did not know that he had added anything to the draught; but if I had known it, I should only have supposed it to be some alteration that, as her attendant, he considered necessary to make.”