by Ellen Wood
“Oh, Charley, I am so glad! I thought you were never, never coming to us.”
“I did not know you were here until last night. You should have sent me word.”
“I told mamma so; but she was not well. She is not well yet. The journey tired her, you see, and the sea was rough. Come upstairs and see her, Charley. Papa has just gone out.”
Mrs. Carlen sat over the fire in the drawing-room in an easy-chair, a shawl upon her shoulders. It was a dull evening, twilight not far off, and she sat with her back to the light. It struck me she looked thin and ill. I had been over once or twice to stay with them in Brussels; the last time, eighteen months ago.
“Are you well, mamma?” I asked as she kissed me — for I had not left off calling her by the fond old childhood’s name. “You don’t look so.”
“The journey tired me, Charley,” she answered — just as Blanche had said to me. “I have a little cold, too. Sit down, my boy.”
“Have you come back here for good?” I asked.
“Well, yes, I suppose so,” she replied with hesitation. “For the present, at all events.”
Tea was brought in. Blanche made it; her mother kept to her chair and her shawl. The more I looked at her, the greater grew the conviction that something beyond common ailed her. Major Carlen was dining out, and they had dined in the middle of the day.
Alas! I soon knew what was wrong. After tea, contriving to get rid of Blanche for a few minutes on some plausible excuse, she told me all. An inward complaint was manifesting itself, and it was hard to say how it might terminate. The Belgian doctors had not been very reassuring upon the point. On the morrow she was going to consult James Paget.
“Does Blanche know?” I asked.
“Not yet. I must see Mr. Paget before saying anything to her. If my own fears are confirmed, I shall tell her. In that case I shall lose no time in placing her at school.”
“At school!”
“Why, yes, Charley. What else can be done? This will be no home for her when I am out of it. Not at an ordinary school, though. I shall send her to our old home, White Littleham Rectory. Mr. and Mrs. Ravensworth are there still. She takes two or three pupils to bring up with her own daughter, and will be glad of Blanche. There — we will put that subject away for the present, Charley. I want to ask you about something else, and Blanche will soon be back again. Do you see much of Tom Heriot?”
“I see him very rarely indeed. He is not quartered in London, you know.”
“Charles, I am afraid — I am very much afraid that Tom is wild,” she went on, after a pause. “He came into his money last year: six thousand pounds. We hear that he has been launching out into all sorts of extravagance ever since. That must mean that he is drawing on his capital.”
I had heard a little about Tom’s doings myself. At least, Lake had done so, which came to the same thing. But I did not say this.
“It distresses me much, Charles. You know how careless and improvident Tom is, and yet how generous-hearted. He will bring himself to ruin if he does not mind, and what would become of him then? Major Carlen says — Hush! here comes Blanche.”
I cannot linger over this part of my story. Mrs. Carlen died; and Blanche was sent to White Littleham.
And, indeed, of the next few passing years there is not much to record. I obtained my certificate, as a matter of course. Then I managed, by Mr. Brightman’s kindness in sparing me, and by my uncle’s liberality, to keep a few terms at Oxford. I was twenty-three when I kept the last term, and then I was sent for some months to Paris, to make myself acquainted with law as administered in the French courts. That over, arrangements were made for my becoming Mr. Brightman’s partner. If he had had sons, one of them would probably have filled the position. Having none, he admitted me on easy terms, for I had my brains about me, as the saying runs, and was excessively useful to the firm. A certain sum was paid down by Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar, and the firm became Brightman and Strange. I was to receive at first only a small portion of the profits. And let me say here, that all my expenses of every description, during these past years, had been provided for by that good man, Charles Stillingfar, and provided liberally. So there I was in an excellent position, settled for life when only twenty-four years of age.
After coming home from Paris to enter upon these new arrangements, I found Mr. Brightman had installed a certain James Watts in Essex Street as care-taker and messenger, our former man, Dickory, having become old and feeble. A good change. Dickory, in growing old, had grown fretful and obstinate, and liked his own way and will better than that of his masters. Watts was well-mannered and well-spoken; respectable and trustworthy. His wife’s duties were to keep the rooms clean, in which she was at liberty to have in a woman to help once or twice a week if she so minded, and up to the present time to prepare Mr. Brightman’s daily luncheon. They lived in the rooms on the bottom floor, one of which was their bedroom.
“I like them both,” I said to Mr. Brightman, when I had been back a day or two. “Things will be comfortable now.”
“Yes, Charles; I hope you will find them so,” he answered.
For it ought to be mentioned that, in becoming Mr. Brightman’s partner, it had been settled that I should return as an inmate to the house. He said he should prefer it. And, indeed, I thought I should also. So that I had taken up my abode there at once.
The two rooms on the ground floor were occupied by the clerks. Mr. Lennard had his desk in the back one. Miss Methold’s parlour, a few steps lower, was now not much used, except that a client was sometimes taken into it. The large front room on the first floor was Mr. Brightman’s private room; the back one was mine; but he had also a desk in it. These two rooms opened to one another. The floor above this was wholly given over to me; sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room. The top floor was only used for boxes, and on those rare occasions when someone wanted to sleep at the office. Watts and his wife were to attend to me; she to see to the meals, he to wait upon me.
“I should let her get in everything without troubling, and bring up the bills weekly, were I you, Charles,” remarked Mr. Brightman, one evening when he had stayed later than usual, and was in my room, and we fell to talking of the man and his wife. “Much better than for her to be coming to you everlastingly, saying you want this and you want that. She is honest, I feel sure, and I had the best of characters with both of them.”
“She has an honest face,” I answered. “But it looks sad. And what a silent woman she is. Speaking of her face though, sir, it puts me in mind of someone’s, and I cannot think whose.”
“You may have seen her somewhere or other,” remarked Mr. Brightman.
“Yes, but I can’t remember where. I’ll ask her.”
Mrs. Watts was then coming into the room with some water, which Mr. Brightman had rung for. She looked about forty-five years old; a thin, bony woman of middle height, with a pale, gray, wrinkled face, and gray hairs banded under a huge cap, tied under her chin.
“There’s something about your face that seems familiar to me, Mrs. Watts,” I said, as she put down the glass and the bottle of water. “Have I ever seen you before?”
She was pouring out the water, and did not look at me. “I can’t say, sir,” she answered in a low tone.
“Do you remember me? That’s the better question.”
She shook her head. “Watts and I lived in Ely Place for some years before we came here, sir,” she then said. “It’s not impossible you may have seen me in the street when I was doing the steps; but I never saw you pass by that I know of.”
“And before that, where did you live?”
“Before that, sir? At Dover.”
“Ah! well,” I said, for this did not help me out with my puzzle; “I suppose it is fancy.”
Mr. Brightman caught up the last word as Mrs. Watts withdrew. “Fancy, Charles; that’s what it must be. And fancy sometimes plays wonderful tricks with us.”
“Yes, sir; I expect it is fancy. For all that, I feel perp
lexed. The woman’s voice and manner seem to strike a chord in my memory as much as her face does.”
* * * * *
“Captain Heriot, sir.”
Sitting one evening in my room at dusk in the summer weather, the window open to the opposite wall and to the side view of the Thames, waiting for Lake to come in, Watts had thus interrupted me to show in Tom Heriot. I started up and grasped his hands. He was a handsome young fellow, with the open manners that had charmed the world in the days gone by, and charmed it still.
“Charley, boy! It is good to see you.”
“Ay, and to see you, Tom. Are you staying in London?”
“Why, we have been here for days! What a fellow you are, not to know that we are now quartered here. Don’t you read the newspapers? It used to be said, you remember, that young Charley lived in a wood.”
I laughed. “And how are things with you, Tom?”
“Rather down; have been for a long time; getting badder and badder.”
My heart gave a thump. In spite of his laughing air and bright smile, I feared it might be too true.
“I am going to the deuce, headlong, Charley.”
“Don’t, Tom!”
“Don’t what? Not go or not talk of it? It is as sure as death, lad.”
“Have you made holes in your money?”
“Fairly so. I think I may say so, considering that the whole of it is spent.”
“Oh, Tom!”
“Every individual stiver. But upon my honour as a soldier, Charley, other people have had more of it than I. A lot of it went at once, when I came into it, paying off back debts.”
“What shall you do? You will never make your pay suffice.”
“Sell out, I expect.”
“And then?”
Tom shrugged his shoulders in answer. They were very slender shoulders. His frame was slight altogether, suggesting that he might not be strong. He was about as tall as I — rather above middle height.
“Take a clerkship with you, at twenty shillings a week, if you’d give it me. Or go out to the Australian diggings to pick up gold. How grave you look, Charles!”
“It is a grave subject. But I hope you are saying this in joke, Tom.”
“Half in joke, half in earnest. I will not sell out if I can help it; be sure of that, old man; but I think it will have to come to it. Can you give me something to drink, Charley? I am thirsty.”
“Will you take some tea? I am just going to have mine. Or anything else instead?”
“I was thinking of brandy and soda. But I don’t mind if I do try tea, for once. Ay, I will. Have it up, Charley.”
I rang the bell, and Mrs. Watts brought it up.
“Anything else, sir?” she stayed to ask.
“Not at present. Watts has gone out with that letter, I suppose? —— Why, you have forgotten the milk!”
She gave a sharp word at her own stupidity, and left the room. Tom’s eyes had been fixed upon her, following her to the last. He began slowly pushing back his bright brown hair, as he would do in his boyhood when anything puzzled him.
“Oh, I remember,” he suddenly exclaimed. “So you have her here, Charley!”
“Who here?”
“Leah.”
“Leah! What do you mean?”
“That servant of yours.”
“That is our messenger’s wife: Mrs. Watts.”
“Mrs. Watts she may be now, for aught I know; but she was Leah Williams when we were youngsters, Charley.”
“Impossible, Tom. This old woman cannot be Leah.”
“I tell you, lad, it is Leah,” he persisted. “No mistake about it. At the first moment I did not recollect her. I have a good eye for faces, but she is wonderfully altered. Do you mean to say she has not made herself known to you?”
I shook my head. But even as Tom spoke, little items of remembrance that had worried my brain began to clear themselves bit by bit. Mrs. Watts came in with the milk.
She had put it down on the tray when Tom walked up to her, holding out his hand, his countenance all smiles, his hazel eyes dancing.
“How are you, Leah, after all these years? Shake hands for auld lang syne. Do you sing the song still?”
Leah gave one startled glance and then threw her white apron up to her face with a sob.
“Come, come,” said Tom kindly. “I didn’t want to startle you, Leah.”
“I didn’t think you would know me, sir,” she said, lifting her woebegone face. “Mr. Charles here did not.”
“Not know you! I should know you sooner than my best sweetheart,” cried Tom gaily.
“Leah,” I interposed, gravely turning to her, “how is it that you did not let me know who you were? Why have you kept it from me?”
She stood with her back against Mr. Brightman’s desk, hot tears raining down her worn cheeks.
“I couldn’t tell you, Master Charles. I’m sorry you know now. It’s like a stab to me.”
“But why could you not tell me?”
“Pride, I suppose,” she shortly said. “I was upper servant at the Rectory; your mamma’s own maid, Master Charles: and I couldn’t bear you should know that I had come down to this. A servant of all work — scrubbing floors and washing dishes.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” struck in Tom cheerfully. “Most of us have our ups and downs, Leah. As far as I can foresee, I may be scouring out pots and pans at the gold-diggings next year. I have just been saying so to Mr. Charley. Your second marriage venture was an unlucky one, I expect?”
Leah was crying silently. “No, it is not that,” she answered presently in a low tone. “Watts is a steady and respectable man; very much so; above me, if anything. It — it — I have had cares and crosses of my own, Mr. Tom; I have them always; and they keep me down.”
“Well, tell me what they are,” said Tom. “I may be able to help you. I will if I can.”
Leah sighed and moved to the door. “You are just as kind-hearted as ever, Mr. Tom; I see that; and I thank you. Nobody can help me, sir. And my trouble is secret to myself: one I cannot speak of to anyone in the world.”
Just as kind-hearted as ever! Yes, Tom Heriot was that, and always would be. Embarrassed as he no doubt was for money, he slipped a gold piece into Leah’s hand as she left the room, whispering that it was for old friendship’s sake.
And so that was Leah! Back again waiting upon me, as she had waited when I was a child. It was passing strange.
I spoke to her that night, and asked her to confide her trouble to me. The bare suggestion seemed to terrify her.
“It was a dreadful trouble,” she admitted in answer; “a nightly and daily torment; one that at times went well-nigh to frighten her senses away. But she must keep it secret, though she died for it.”
And as Leah whispered this to me under her breath, she cast dread glances around the walls on all sides, as if she feared that eaves-droppers might be there.
What on earth could the secret be?
* * * * *
And now, for a time, I retire into the background, and cease personally to tell the story.
CHAPTER VI.
BLANCHE HERIOT.
On one of those promising days that we now and then see in February, which seem all the more warm and lovely in contrast with the passing winter, the parsonage of White Littleham put on its gayest appearance within — perhaps in response to the fair face of nature without. A group of four girls had collected in the drawing-room. One was taking the brown holland covers from the chairs, sofa, and footstools; another was bringing out certain ornaments, elegant trifles, displayed only on state occasions; the other two were filling glasses with evergreens and hot-house flowers. It was the same room in which you once saw poor Mrs. Strange lying on her road to death. The parsonage received three young ladies to share in the advantages of foreign governesses, provided for the education of its only daughter, Cecilia.
Whilst the girls were thus occupied, a middle-aged lady entered, the mistress of the house, and wife
of the Reverend John Ravensworth.
“Oh, Mrs. Ravensworth, why did you come in? We did not want you to see it until it was all finished.”
Mrs. Ravensworth smiled. “My dears, it will only look as it has looked many a time before; as it did at Christmas—”
“Mamma, you must excuse my interrupting you,” cried the young girl who was arranging the ornaments; “but it will look very different from then. At Christmas we had wretched weather, and see it to-day. And at Christmas we had not the visitors we shall have now.”
“We had one of the two visitors, at any rate, Cecilia.”
“Oh, yes, we had Arnold. But Arnold is nobody; we are used to him.”
“And Major Carlen is somebody,” interposed the only beautiful girl present, looking round from the flowers with a laugh. “Thank you, in papa’s name, Cecilia.”
Very beautiful was she: exceedingly fair, with somewhat haughty blue eyes, delicate features, and fine golden hair. Blanche Heriot (as often as not called Blanche Carlen at the Rectory) stood conspicuous amidst the rest of the girls. They were pleasing-looking and lady-like, but that was all. Rather above middle-height, slender, graceful, she stood as a queen beside her companions. Under different auspices, Blanche Heriot might have become vain and worldly; but, enshrined as she had been for the last few years within the precincts of a humble parsonage, and trained in its doctrines of practical Christianity, Blanche had become thoroughly imbued with the influences around her. Now, in her twentieth year, she was simple and guileless as a child.
It was so long since she had seen her father — as she was pleased to call Major Carlen — that she had partly forgotten what he was like. He was expected now on a two days’ visit, and for him the house was being made to look its best. The other visitor, coming by accident at the same time, was Arnold Ravensworth, the Rector’s nephew.
Major Carlen’s promised visit was an event to the quiet Rector and his wife. All they knew of him was that he was step-father to Blanche, and a man who moved in the gay circles of the world. The interest of Blanche Heriot’s money had paid for her education and dress. The Major would have liked the fingering of it amazingly; but to covet is one thing, to obtain is another. Blanche’s money was safe in the hands of trustees; but before Mrs. Carlen died she had appointed her husband Blanche’s personal guardian, with power to control her residence when she should have attained her eighteenth year. That had been passed some time now, and Major Carlen had just awakened to his responsibilities.