by Ellen Wood
Nothing more! Duffham sat listening to her. He pushed back the pretty golden hair (no more blue ribbons in it now), lost in thought.
“Nothing more, Jessy? There must have been something more, I think, to have brought you into this state. What was it?”
“No,” she faintly said: “only the hard work I had to do; and the thought of how I left my home; and — and my unhappiness. I was unhappy always, nearly from my first entering. The work was hard.”
“What was the work?”
“It was — —”
A long pause. Mr. Duffham, always looking at her, waited.
“It was sewing; dress-making. And — there was sitting up at nights.”
“Who was the lady you served? What was her name?”
“I can’t tell it,” answered Jessy, her cheeks flushing to a wild hectic.
The surgeon suddenly turned the left hand towards him, and looked at the forefinger. It was smooth as ivory.
“Not much sign of sewing there, Jessy.”
She drew it under the clothes. “It is some little time since I did any; I was too ill,” she answered. “Mr. Duffham, I have told you all there is to tell. The place was too hard for me, and it made me ill.”
It was all she told. Duffham wondered whether it was, in substance, all she had to tell. He went down and entered the parlour with a grave face: Mr. Page, his daughters, and John Drench were there. The doctor said Jessy must have perfect rest, tranquillity, and the best of nourishment; and he would send some medicine. Abigail put a shawl over her head, and walked with him across the garden.
“You will tell me what your opinion is, Mr. Duffham.”
“Ay. It is no good one, Miss Abigail.”
“Is she very ill?”
“Very. I do not think she will materially rally. Her chest and lungs are both weak.”
“Her mother’s were before her. As I told you, Jessy looks to me just as my mother used to look in her last illness.”
Mr. Duffham went through the gate without saying more. The snow was sparkling like diamonds in the moonlight.
“I think I gather what you mean,” resumed Abigail. “That she is, in point of fact, dying.”
“That’s it. As I truly believe.”
They looked at each other in the clear light air. “But not — surely, Mr. Duffham, not immediately?”
“Not immediately. It may be weeks off yet. Mind — I don’t assert that she is absolutely past hope; I only think it. It is possible that she may rally, and recover.”
“It might not be the happier for her,” said Abigail, under her breath. “She is in a curiously miserable state of mind — as you no doubt saw. Mr. Duffham, did she tell you anything?”
“She says she took a place as lady’s-maid; that the work proved too hard for her; and that, with the remorse for her ingratitude towards her home, made her ill.”
“She said the same to Susan this afternoon. Well, we must wait for more. Good-night, Mr. Duffham: I am sure you will do all you can.”
Of course Duffham meant to do all he could; and from that time he began to attend her regularly.
Jessy Page’s coming home, with, as Miss Susan had put it, the vagabond manner of it, was a nine days’ wonder. The neighbours went making calls at the Copse Farm, to talk about it and to see her. In the latter hope they failed. Jessy showed a great fear of seeing any one of them; would put her head under the bed-clothes and lie there shaking till the house was clear; and Duffham said she was not to be crossed.
Her sisters got to know no more of the past. Not a syllable. They questioned and cross-questioned her; but she only stuck to her text. It was the work that had been too much for her; the people she served were cruelly hard.
“I really think it must be so; that she has nothing else to tell,” remarked Abigail to Susan one morning, as they sat alone at breakfast, “But she must have been a downright simpleton to stay.”
“I can’t make her out,” returned Susan, hard of belief. “Why should she not say where it was, and who the people are? Here comes the letter-man.”
The letter-man — as he was called — was bringing a letter for Miss Page. Letters at the Copse Farm were rare, and she opened it with curiosity. It proved to be from Mrs. Allen of Aberystwith; and out of it dropped two cards, tied together with silver cord.
Mrs. Allen wrote to say that her distant relative, Marcus, was married. He had been married on Christmas-Eve to a Miss Mary Goldbeater, a great heiress, and they had sent her cards. Thinking the Miss Pages might like to see the cards (as they knew something of him) she had forwarded them.
Abigail took the cards up. “Mr. Marcus Allen. Mrs. Marcus Allen.” And on hers was the address: “Gipsy Villas, Montgomery Road, Brompton.” “I think he might have been polite enough to send us cards also,” observed Abigail.
Susan put the cards on the waiter when she went upstairs with her sister’s tea. Jessy, looking rather more feverish than usual in a morning, turned the cards about in her slender hands.
“I have heard of her, this Mary Goldbeater,” said Jessy, biting her parched lips. “They say she’s pretty, and — and very rich.”
“Where did you hear of her?” asked Susan.
“Oh, in — let me think. In the work-room.”
“Now what do you mean by that?” cried Miss Susan. “A work-room implies a dressmaker’s establishment, and you tell us you were a lady’s-maid.”
Jessy seemed unable to answer.
“I don’t believe you were at either the one place or the other. You are deceiving us, Jessy.”
“No,” gasped Jessy.
“Did you ever see Mr. Marcus Allen when you were in town?”
“Mr. Marcus Allen?” repeated Jessy after a pause, just as if she were unable to recall who Mr. Marcus Allen was.
“The Mr. Marcus Allen you knew at Aberystwith; he who came here afterwards,” went on Susan impatiently. “Are you losing your memory, Jessy?”
“No, I never saw the Marcus Allen I knew here — and there,” was Jessy’s answer, her face white and still as death.
“Why! — Did you know any other Marcus Allen, then?” questioned Susan, in surprise. For the words had seemed to imply it.
“No,” replied Jessy. “No.”
“She seems queerer than usual — I hope her mind’s not going,” thought Susan. “Did you ever go to see Madame Caron, Jessy, while you were in London?”
“Never. Why should I? I didn’t know Madame Caron.”
“When Marcus Allen wrote to excuse himself from visiting us in the summer, he said he would be sure to come later,” resumed Susan. “I wonder if he will keep his promise.”
“No — never,” answered Jessy.
“How do you know?”
“Oh — I don’t think it. He wouldn’t care to come. Especially now he’s married.”
“And you never saw him in town, Jessy? Never even met him by chance?”
“I’ve told you — No. Do you suppose I should be likely to call upon Marcus Allen? As to meeting him by chance, it is not often I went out, I can tell you.”
“Well, sit up and take your breakfast,” concluded Susan.
A thought had crossed Susan Page’s mind — whether this marriage of Marcus Allen’s on Christmas-Eve could have had anything to do with Jessy’s return and her miserable unhappiness. It was only a thought; and she drove it away again. As Abigail said, she had been inclined throughout to judge hardly of Jessy.
The winter snow lay on the ground still, when it became a question not of how many weeks Jessy would live, but of days. And then she confessed to a secret that pretty nearly changed the sober Miss Pages’ hair from black to grey. Jessy had turned Roman Catholic.
It came out through her persistent refusal to see the parson, Mr. Holland, a little man with shaky legs. He’d go trotting up to the Copse Farm once or twice a-week; all in vain. Miss Abigail would console him with a good hot jorum of sweet elder wine, and then he’d trot back again. One day Jessy, brought
to bay, confessed that she was a Roman Catholic.
There was grand commotion. John Drench went about, his hands lifted in the frosty air; Abigail and Susan Page sat in the bedroom with (metaphorically speaking) ashes on their heads.
People have their prejudices. It was not so much that these ladies wished to cast reflection on good Catholics born and bred, as that Jessy should have abandoned her own religion, just as though it had been an insufficient faith. It was the slight on it that they could not bear.
“Miserable girl!” exclaimed Miss Susan, looking upon Jessy as a turncoat, and therefore next door to lost. And Jessy told, through her sobs, how it had come to pass.
Wandering about one evening in London when she was very unhappy, she entered a Catholic place of worship styled an “Oratory.” — The Miss Pages caught up the word as “oratorio,” and never called it anything else. — There a priest got into conversation with Jessy. He had a pleasant, kindly manner that won upon her and drew from her the fact that she was unhappy. Become a Catholic, he said to her; it would bring her back to happiness: and he asked her to go and see him again. She went again; again and again. And so, going and listening to him, she at length did turn, and was received by him into his church.
“Are you the happier for it?” sharply asked Miss Abigail.
“No,” answered Jessy with distressed eyes. “Only — only — —”
“Only what, pray?”
“Well, they can absolve me from all sin.”
“Oh, you poor foolish misguided child!” cried Abigail in anguish; “you must take your sins to the Saviour: He can absolve you, and He alone. Do you want any third person to stand between you and Him?”
Jessy gave a sobbing sigh. “It’s best as it is, Abigail. Anyway, it is too late now.”
“Stop a bit,” cried sharp Miss Susan. “I should like to have one thing answered, Jessy. You have told us how hard you were kept to work: if that was so, pray how did you find leisure to be dancing abroad to Oratorios? Come?”
Jessy could not, or would not, answer.
“Can you explain that!” said Miss Susan, some sarcasm in her tone.
“I went out sometimes in an evening,” faltered Jessy. And more than that could not be drawn from her.
They did not tell Mr. Page: it would have distressed him too much. In a day or two Jessy asked to see a priest. Miss Abigail flatly refused, on account of the scandal. As if their minister was not good enough!
One afternoon I was standing by Jessy’s bed — for Miss Abigail had let me go up to see her. Mrs. Todhetley, that first day, had said she looked like a lily: she was more like one now. A faded lily that has had all its beauty washed out of it.
“Good-bye, Johnny Ludlow,” she said, opening her eyes, and putting out her feeble hand. “I shall not see you again.”
“I hope you will, Jessy. I’ll come over to-morrow.”
“Never again in this world.” And I had to lean over to catch the words, and my eyes were full.
“In the next world there’ll be no parting, Jessy. We shall see each other there.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You will be there, Johnny; I can’t tell whether I shall be. I turned Roman Catholic, you see; and Abigail won’t let a priest come. And so — I don’t know how it will be.”
The words struck upon me. The Miss Pages had kept the secret too closely for news of it to have come abroad. It seemed worse to me to hear it than to her to say it. But she had grown too weak to feel things strongly.
“Good-bye, Johnny.”
“Good-bye, Jessy dear,” I whispered. “Don’t fear: God will be sure to take you to heaven if you ask Him.”
Miss Abigail got it out of me — what she had said about the priest. In fact, I told. She was very cross.
“There; let it drop, Johnny Ludlow. John Drench is gone off in the gig to Coughton to bring one. All I hope and trust is, that they’ll not be back until the shades of night have fallen upon the earth! I shouldn’t like a priest to be seen coming into this door. Such a reproach on good Mr. Holland! I’m sure I trust it will never get about!”
We all have our prejudices, I repeat. And not a soul amongst us for miles round had found it necessary to change religions since the Reformation.
Evening was well on when John Drench brought him in. A mild-faced man, wearing a skull-cap under his broad-brimmed hat. He saw Jessy alone. Miss Page would not have made a third at the interview though they had bribed her to it — and of course they wouldn’t have had her. It was quite late when he came down. Miss Page stopped him as he was going out, after declining refreshment.
“I presume, sir, she has told you all about this past year — that has been so mysterious to us?”
“Yes; I think all,” replied the priest.
“Will you tell me the particulars?”
“I cannot do that,” he said. “They have been given to me under the seal of confession.”
“Only to me and to her sister Susan,” pleaded Abigail. “We will not even disclose it to our father. Sir, it would be a true kindness to us, and it can do her no harm. You do not know what our past doubts and distress have been.”
But the priest shook his head. He was very sorry to refuse, he said, but the tenets of his Church forbade his speaking. And Miss Page thought he was sorry, for he had a benevolent face.
“Best let the past lie,” he gently added. “Suffice it to know that she is happy now, poor child, and will die in peace.”
They buried her in the churchyard beside her mother. When the secret got about, some said it was not right — that she ought to have been taken elsewhere, to a graveyard devoted to the other faith. Which would just have put the finishing stroke on old Page — broken all that was left of his heart to break. The Squire said he didn’t suppose it mattered in the sight of God: or would make much difference at the Last Day.
And that ended the life of Jessy Page: and, in one sense, its episode of mystery. Nothing more was ever heard or known of where she had been or what she had done. Years have gone by since then; and William Page is lying beside her. Miss Page and Charley live on at the Copse Farm; Susan became Mrs. John Drench ages ago. Her husband, a man of substance now, was driving her into Alcester last Tuesday (market-day) in his four-wheeled chaise, two buxom daughters in the back seat. I nodded to them from Mr. Brandon’s window.
The mystery of Jessy Page (as we grew to call it) remained a mystery. It remains one to this day. What the secret was — if there was a secret — why she went in the way she did, and came back in what looked like shame and fear and trembling, a dying girl — has not been solved. It never will be in this world. Some old women put it all down to her having changed her religion and been afraid to tell: while Miss Abigail and Miss Susan have never got rid of a vague doubt, touching Marcus Allen. But it may be only their fancy; they admit that, and say to one another when talking of it privately, that it is not right to judge a man without cause. He keeps a carriage-and-pair now; and gives dinners, and has handsome daughters growing up; and is altogether quite up to the present style of expensive life in London.
And I never go into church on a Christmas morning — whether it may be decorated in our simple country fashion, or in accordance with your new “artistic” achievements — but I think of Jessy Page. Of her sweet face, her simplicity, and her want of guile: and of the poor wreck that came back, broken-hearted, to die.
CRABB RAVINE.
I.
“Yes! Halloa! What is it?”
To be wakened up short by a knocking, or some other noise, in the night, is enough to make you start up in bed, and stare round in confusion. The room was dark, barring the light that always glimmers in at the window on a summer’s night, and I listened and waited for more. Nothing came: it was all as silent as the grave.
We were staying at Crabb Cot. I had gone to bed at half-past nine, dead tired after a day’s fishing. The Squire and Tod were away: Mrs. Todhetley went over to the Coneys’ after tea, and did not seem in a hu
rry to come back. They fried one of the fish I had caught for my supper; and after that, there being no one to speak to, I went to bed.
It was a knocking that had wakened me out of my sleep: I was sure of that. And it sounded exactly as though it were at the window — which was very improbable. Calling out again to know who was there, and what was wanted — though not very loudly, for the children slept within earshot — and getting no answer, I lay down again, and was all but asleep when the noise came a second time.
It was at the dining-room window, right underneath mine. There could be no mistake about it. The ceilings of the old-fashioned house were low; the windows were very near each other, and mine was down at the top. I thought it time to jump out of bed, and take a look out.
Well, I was surprised! Instead of its being the middle of the night, it must be quite early still; for the lamp was yet alight in the dining-room. It was a cosy kind of room, with a bow window jutting on to the garden, of which the middle compartment opened to the ground, as French windows do. My window was a bow also, and close above the other. Throwing it up, I looked out.
There was not a soul to be seen. Yet the knocking could not have been from within, for the inside shutters were closed: they did not reach to the top panes, and the lamplight shone through them on the mulberry tree. As I leaned out, wondering, the crazy old clock at North Crabb Church began to tell the hour. I counted the strokes, one by one — ten of them. Only ten o’clock! And I thought I had been asleep half the night.
All in a moment I caught sight of some one moving slowly away. He was keeping in the shade; close to the shrubs that encircled the lawn, as if not caring to be seen. A short, thin man, in dark clothes and round black felt hat. Who he was, and what he wanted, was more than I could imagine. It could not be a robber. Robbers don’t come knocking at houses before people have gone to bed.