by Ellen Wood
When once Hatch was in the full flow of a narrative, there was no getting in a word edgeways, and Miss Brightman had to repeat her question twice: “Does Perry know the nature of the illness that affects Mrs. Brightman?”
“Why, in course he does, ma’am,” was Hatch’s rejoinder. “He couldn’t be off guessing it for himself, and the rest I told him. Why, ma’am, without his helping, we could never keep it dark from the servants at home. It was better to make a confidant of Perry, that I might have his aid in screening the trouble, than to let it get round to everybody. He’s as safe and sure as I be, and when it all first came out to him, he cried over it, to think of what his poor master must have suffered in mind before death took him. Well, ma’am, I made haste over my breakfast, and I went upstairs, and there was the bottles and the corkscrew, so I whips ’em off the table and puts them out of sight. Mrs. Brightman comes up presently, and looks about and goes down again. Three separate times she comes up, and the third time she gives the bell a whirl, and in runs the chambermaid, who was only outside. ‘I gave orders this morning,’ says my lady, ‘to have some brandy placed in the room.’ ‘Oh, I have got the brandy,’ says I, before the girl could speak; ‘I put it in the little cupboard here, ma’am.’ So away goes the girl, looking from the corners of her eyes at me, as if suspicious I meant to crib it for my own use: and my mistress began: ‘Draw one of them corks, Hatch.’ ‘No, ma’am,’ says I, ‘not yet; please don’t.’ ‘Draw ’em both,’ says missis — for there are times,” added Hatch, “when a trifle puts her out so much that it’s hazardous to cross her. I drew the cork of one, and missis just pointed with her finger to the tumbler on the wash-handstand, and I brought it forward and the decanter of water. ‘Now you may go,’ says she; so I took up the corkscrew. ‘I told you to leave that,’ says she, in her temper, and I had to come away without it, and the minute I was gone she turned the key upon me. Miss Annabel, I see the words are grieving of you, but they are the truth, and I can but tell them.”
“Is she there now — locked in?” asked Miss Brightman.
“She’s there now,” returned Hatch, with solemn enunciation, to make up for her failings in grammar, which was never anywhere in times of excitement; “she is locked in with them two bottles and the corkscrew, and she’ll just drink herself mad — and what’s to be done? I goes at once to Perry and tells him. ‘Let’s get in through the winder,’ says Perry — which his brains is only fit for a gander, as I’ve said many a time. ‘You stop outside her door to listen again downright harm,’ says I, ‘that’s what you’ll do; and I’ll go for Miss Brightman.’ And here I’m come, ma’am, running all the way.”
“What can I do?” wailed Miss Brightman.
“Ma’am,” answered Hatch, “I think that if you’ll go back with me, and knock at her room door, and call out that you be come to pay her a visit, she’d undo it. She’s more afeared of you than of anybody living. She can’t have done herself much harm yet, and you might coax her out for a walk or a drive, and then bring her in to dinner here — anything to get her away from them two dangerous bottles. If I be making too free, ma’am, you’ll be good enough to excuse me — it is for the family’s sake. At home I can manage her pretty well, but to have a scene at the hotel would make it public.”
“What is to be the ending?” I exclaimed involuntarily as Miss Brightman went in haste for her bonnet.
“Why, the ending must be — just what it will be,” observed Hatch philosophically. “But, Mr. Charles, I don’t despair of her yet. Begging your pardon, Miss Annabel, you’d better not come. Your mamma won’t undo her door if she thinks there’s many round it.”
Annabel stood at the window as they departed, her face turned from me, her eyes blinded with tears. I drew her away, though I hardly knew how to soothe her. It was a heavy grief to bear.
“My days are passed in dread of what tidings may be on the way to me,” she began, after a little time given to gathering composure. “I ought to be nearer my mother, Charles; I tell Aunt Lucy so almost every day. She might be ill and dead before I could get to her, up in London.”
“And you will be nearer to her shortly, Annabel. My dear, where shall our home be? I was thinking of Richmond — —”
“No, no,” she interrupted in sufficient haste to show me she had thoughts of her own.
“Annabel! It shall not be there: at your mother’s. Anywhere else.”
“It is somewhere else that I want to be.”
“Then you shall be. Where is it?”
She lifted her face like a pleading child’s, and spoke in a whisper. “Charles, let me come to you in Essex Street.”
“Essex Street!” I echoed in surprise. “My dear Annabel, I will certainly not bring you to Essex Street and its inconveniences. I cannot do great things for you yet, but I can do better than that.”
“They would not be inconveniences to me. I would turn them into pleasures. We would take another servant to help Watts and Leah; or two if necessary. You would not find me the least encumbrance; I would never be in the way of your professional rooms. And in the evening, when you had finished for the day, we would dine, and go down to mamma’s for an hour, and then back again. Charles, it would be a happy home: let me come to it.”
But I shook my head. I did not see how it could be arranged; and said so.
“No, because at present the idea is new to you,” returned Annabel. “Think it over, Charles. Promise me that you will do so.”
“Yes, my dear; I can at least promise you that.”
There was less trouble with Mrs. Brightman that day than had been anticipated. She opened her door at once to her sister-in-law, who brought her back to the Terrace. Hatch had been wise. In the afternoon we all went for a drive in a fly, and returned to dinner. And the following day Mrs. Brightman, with her servants, departed for London in her travelling-carriage, no scandal whatever having been caused at the Queen’s Hotel. I went up by train early in the morning.
It is surprising how much thinking upon a problem simplifies it. I began to see by degrees that Annabel’s coming to Essex Street could be easily managed; nay, that it would be for the best. Miss Brightman strongly advocated it. At present a large portion of my income had to be paid over to Mrs. Brightman in accordance with her husband’s will, so that I could not do as I would, and must study economy. Annabel would be rich in time; for Mrs. Brightman’s large income, vested at present in trustees, must eventually descend to Annabel; but that time was not yet. And who knew what expenses Tom Heriot might bring upon me?
Changes had to be made in the house. I determined to confine the business rooms to the ground floor; making Miss Methold’s parlour, which had not been much used since her death, my own private consulting-room. The front room on the first floor would be our drawing-room, the one behind it the dining-room.
Leah was in an ecstasy when she heard the news. The workmen were coming in to paint and paper, and then I told her.
“Of course, Mr. Charles, it — is — —”
“Is what, Leah?”
“Miss Annabel.”
“It should be no one else, Leah. We shall want another servant or two, but you can still be major-domo.”
“If my poor master had only lived to see it!” she uttered, with enthusiasm. “How happy he would have been; how proud to have her here! Well, well, what turns things take!”
CHAPTER V.
CONFESSION.
October came in; and we were married early in the month, the wedding taking place from Mrs. Brightman’s residence, as was of course only right and proper. It was so very quiet a wedding that there is not the least necessity for describing it — and how can a young man be expected to give the particulars of his own? Mr. Serjeant Stillingfar was present; Lord and Lady Level, now staying in London, drove down for it; and Captain Chantrey gave his niece away. For Mrs. Brightman had chosen to request him to accept her invitation to do so, and to be accompanied by his wife, Lady Grace. Miss Brightman was also present, having
travelled up from Hastings the day before. Three or four days later on, she would sail for Madeira.
I could not spare more than a fortnight from work, leaving Lennard as my locum tenens. Annabel would have been glad to spare less, for she was haunted by visions of what might happen to her mother. Though there was no especial cause for anxiety in that quarter just now, she could never feel at ease. And on my part I was more anxious than ever about Tom Heriot, for more reasons than one.
The fortnight came to an end, all too soon: and late on the Saturday evening we reached home. Watts threw open the door, and there stood Leah in a silk gown. The drawing-room, gayer than it used to be, was bright with a fire and preparations for tea.
“How homelike it looks!” exclaimed Annabel. “Charles,” she whispered, turning to me with her earnest eyes, as she had been wont to do when a child: “I will not make the least noise when you have clients with you. You shall not know I am in the house: I will take care not to drop even a reel of cotton on the carpet. I do thank you for letting me come to Essex Street: I should not have seemed so completely your wife had you taken me to any but your old home.”
The floors above were also in order, their chambers refurnished. Leah went up to them with her new mistress, and I went down to the clerks’ office, telling Annabel I should not be there five minutes. One of the clerks, Allen, had waited; but I had expected Lennard.
“Is Mr. Lennard not here?” I asked. “Did he not wait? I wrote to him to do so.”
“Mr. Lennard has not been here all day, sir,” was Allen’s reply. “A messenger came from him this morning, to say he was ill.”
We were deep in letters and other matters, I and Allen, when the front door opened next the office door, and there stood Arthur Lake, laughing, a light coat on his arm.
“Fancy! I’ve been down the river for a blow,” cried he. “Just landed at the pier here. Seeing lights in your windows, I thought you must have got back, Charley.”
We shook hands, and he stayed a minute, talking. Then, wishing good-night to Allen, he backed out of the room, making an almost imperceptible movement to me with his head. I followed him out, shutting the office door behind me. Lake touched my arm and drew me outside.
“I suppose you’ve not heard from Tom Heriot since you were away,” breathed Lake, in cautious tones, as we stood together on the outer step.
“No; I did not expect to hear. Why?”
“I saw him three days ago,” whispered Lake. “I had a queer-looking letter on Wednesday morning from one Mr. Dominic Turk, asking me to call at a certain place in Southwark. Of course, I guessed it was Tom, and that he had moved his lodgings again; and I found I was right.”
“Dominic Turk!” I repeated. “Does he call himself that?”
Lake laughed. “He is passing now for a retired schoolmaster. Says he’s sure nobody can doubt he is one as long as he sticks to that name.”
“How is he? Has any fresh trouble turned up? I’m sure you’ve something bad to tell me.”
“Well, Charley, honestly speaking, it is a bad look-out, in more ways than one,” he answered. “He is very ill, to begin with; also has an idea that a certain policeman named Wren has picked up an inkling of his return, and is trying to unearth him. But,” added Lake, “we can’t very well talk in this place. I’ve more to say — —”
“Come upstairs, and take tea with me and Annabel,” I interrupted.
“Can’t,” said he; “my dinner’s waiting. I’m back two hours later than I expected to be; it has been frizzling, I expect, all the time. Besides, old fellow, I’d rather you and I were alone. There’s fearful peril looming ahead, unless I’m mistaken. Can you come round to my chambers to-morrow afternoon?”
“No: we are going to Mrs. Brightman’s after morning service.”
“It must be left until Monday, then; but I don’t think there’s much time to be lost. Good-night.”
Lake hastened up the street, and I returned to Allen and the letters.
With this interruption, and with all I found to do, the five minutes’ absence I had promised my wife lengthened into twenty. At last the office was closed for the night, Allen left, and I ran upstairs, expecting to have kept Annabel waiting tea. She was not in the drawing-room, the tea was not made, and I went up higher and found her sobbing in the bedroom. It sent me into a cold chill.
“My love, what is this? Are you disappointed? Are you not happy?”
“Oh, Charles,” she sobbed, clinging to me, “you know I am happy. It is not that. But I could not help thinking of my father. Leah got talking about him; and I remembered once his sitting in that very chair, holding me on his knee. I must have been about seven years old. Miss Methold was ill — —”
At that moment there came a knock and a ring at the front door. Not a common knock and ring, but sharp, loud and prolonged, resounding through the house as from some impatient messenger of evil. It startled us both. Annabel’s fears flew to her mother; mine to a different quarter, for Lake’s communication was troubling and tormenting me.
“Charles! if — —”
“Hush, dear. Listen.”
As we stood outside on the landing, her heart beating against my encircling hand, and our senses strained to listen, we heard Watts open the front door.
“Has Mr. Strange come home?” cried a voice hurriedly — that of a woman.
“Yes,” said Watts.
“Can I speak to him? It is on a matter of life and death.”
“Where do you come from?” asked Watts, with habitual caution.
“I come from Mr. Lennard. Oh, pray do not waste time!”
“All right, my darling; it is not from your mother,” I whispered to Annabel, as I ran down.
A young woman stood at the foot of the stairs; I was at a loss to guess her condition in life. She had the face and manner of a lady, but her dress was poor and shabby.
“I have come from my father, sir — Mr. Lennard,” she said in a low tone, blushing very much. “He is dangerously ill: we fear he is dying, and so does he. He bade me say that he must see you, or he cannot die in peace. Will you please be at the trouble of coming?”
One hasty word despatched to my wife, and I went out with Miss Lennard, hailing a cab, which had just set down its freight some doors higher up. “What is the matter with your father?” I questioned, as we whirled along towards Blackfriars Bridge, in accordance with her directions.
“It is an attack of inward inflammation,” she replied. “He was taken ill suddenly last night after he got home from the office, and he has been in great agony all day. This evening he grew better; the pain almost subsided; but the doctor said that might not prove a favourable symptom. My father asked for the truth — whether he was dying, and the answer was that he might be. Then my father grew terribly uneasy in mind, and said he must see you if possible before he died — and sent me to ascertain, sir, whether you had returned home.”
The cab drew up at a house in a side street, a little beyond Blackfriars Bridge. We entered, and Miss Lennard left me in the front sitting-room. The remnants of faded gentility were strangely mixed with bareness and poverty. Poor Lennard was a gentleman born and bred, but had been reduced by untoward misfortune. Trifling ornaments stood about; “antimacassars” were thrown over the shabby chairs. Miss Lennard had gone upstairs, but came down quickly.
“It is the door on the left, sir, on the second landing,” said she, putting a candle in my hand. “My father is anxiously expecting you, but says I am not to go up.”
It was a small landing, nothing in front of me but a bare white-washed wall, and two doors to the left. I blundered into the wrong one. A night-cap border turned on the bed, and a girlish face looked up from under it.
“What do you want?” she said.
“Pardon me. I am in search of Mr. Lennard.”
“Oh, it is the next room. But — sir! wait a moment. Oh, wait, wait!”
I turned to her in surprise, and she put up two thin white hands in an implori
ng attitude. “Is it anything bad? Have you come to take him?”
“To take him! What do you mean?”
“You are not a sheriff’s officer?”
I smiled at her troubled countenance. “I am Mr. Strange — come to see how he is.”
Down fell her hands peacefully. “Sir, I beg your pardon: thank you for telling me. I know papa has sometimes been in apprehension, and I lie here and fear things till I am stupid. A strange step on the stairs, or a strange knock at the door, sets me shaking.”
The next room was the right one, and Lennard was lying in it on a low bed; his face looked ghastly, his eyes wildly anxious.
“Lennard,” I said, “I am sorry to hear of your illness. What’s the matter?”
“Sit down, Mr. Strange; sit down,” he added, pointing to a chair, which I drew near. “It is an attack of inflammation: the pain has ceased now, but the doctor says it is an uncertain symptom: it may be for better, or it may be for worse. If the latter, I have not many hours to live.”