Edward alighted before Hester could recover from the surprise occasioned by his appearance.
"Yes, Mrs. Jobson," he said. "May I come into your house? I wish to speak to you."
Hester curtseyed, and stood aside to allow her visitor to pa.s.s her. Her manner was coldly respectful, and she looked at the young officer with a grave, reproachful face, which was strange to him. She ushered her guest into a parlour at the back of the shop; a prim apartment, splendid with varnished mahogany, sh.e.l.l-work boxes--bought during Hester"s honeymoon-trip to a Lincolnshire watering-place--and voluminous achievements in the way of crochet-work; a gorgeous and Sabbath-day chamber, looking across a stand of geraniums into a garden that was orderly and trimly kept even in this dull November weather.
Mrs. Jobson drew forward an uneasy easy-chair, covered with horsehair, and veiled by a crochet-work representation of a peac.o.c.k embowered among roses. She offered this luxurious seat to Captain Arundel, who, in his weakness, was well content to sit down upon the slippery cushions.
"I have come here to ask you to help me in my search for my wife, Hester," Edward Arundel said, in a scarcely audible voice.
It is not given to the bravest mind to be utterly independent and defiant of the body; and the soldier was beginning to feel that he had very nearly run the length of his tether, and must soon submit himself to be prostrated by sheer physical weakness.
"Your wife!" cried Hester eagerly. "O sir, is that true?"
"Is what true?"
"That poor Miss Mary was your lawful wedded wife?"
"She was," replied Edward Arundel sternly, "my true and lawful wife.
What else should she have been, Mrs. Jobson?"
The farmer"s daughter burst into tears.
"O sir," she said, sobbing violently as she spoke,--"O sir, the things that was said against that poor dear in this place and all about the Towers! The things that was said! It makes my heart bleed to think of them; it makes my heart ready to break when I think what my poor sweet young lady must have suffered. And it set me against you, sir; and I thought you was a bad and cruel-hearted man!"
"What did they say?" cried Edward. "What did they dare to say against her or against me?"
"They said that you had enticed her away from her home, sir, and that--that--there had been no marriage; and that you had deluded that poor innocent dear to run away with you; and that you"d deserted her afterwards, and the railway accident had come upon you as a punishment like; and that Mrs. Marchmont had found poor Miss Mary all alone at a country inn, and had brought her back to the Towers."
"But what if people did say this?" exclaimed Captain Arundel. "You could have contradicted their foul slanders; you could have spoken in defence of my poor helpless girl."
"Me, sir!"
"Yes. You must have heard the truth from my wife"s own lips."
Hester Jobson burst into a new flood of tears as Edward Arundel said this.
"O no, sir," she sobbed; "that was the most cruel thing of all. I never could get to see Miss Mary; they wouldn"t let me see her."
"Who wouldn"t let you?"
"Mrs. Marchmont and Mr. Paul Marchmont. I was laid up, sir, when the report first spread about that Miss Mary had come home. Things was kept very secret, and it was said that Mrs. Marchmont was dreadfully cut up by the disgrace that had come upon her stepdaughter. My baby was born about that time, sir; but as soon as ever I could get about, I went up to the Towers, in the hope of seeing my poor dear miss. But Mrs.
Simmons, Mrs. Marchmont"s own maid, told me that Miss Mary was ill, very ill, and that no one was allowed to see her except those that waited upon her and that she was used to. And I begged and prayed that I might be allowed to see her, sir, with the tears in my eyes; for my heart bled for her, poor darling dear, when I thought of the cruel things that was said against her, and thought that, with all her riches and her learning, folks could dare to talk of her as they wouldn"t dare talk of a poor man"s wife like me. And I went again and again, sir; but it was no good; and, the last time I went, Mrs. Marchmont came out into the hall to me, and told me that I was intrusive and impertinent, and that it was me, and such as me, as had set all manner of scandal afloat about her stepdaughter. But I went again, sir, even after that; and I saw Mr. Paul Marchmont, and he was very kind to me, and frank and free-spoken,--almost like you, sir; and he told me that Mrs. Marchmont was rather stern and unforgiving towards the poor young lady,--he spoke very kind and pitiful of poor Miss Mary,--and that he would stand my friend, and he"d contrive that I should see my poor dear as soon as ever she picked up her spirits a bit, and was more fit to see me; and I was to come again in a week"s time, he said."
"Well; and when you went----?"
"When I went, sir," sobbed the carpenter"s wife, "it was the 18th of October, and Miss Mary had run away upon the day before, and every body at the Towers was being sent right and left to look for her. I saw Mrs.
Marchmont for a minute that afternoon; and she was as white as a sheet, and all of a tremble from head to foot, and she walked about the place as if she was out of her mind like."
"Guilt," thought the young soldier; "guilt of some sort. G.o.d only knows what that guilt has been!"
He covered his face with his hands, and waited to hear what more Hester Jobson had to tell him. There was no need of questioning here--no reservation or prevarication. With almost as tender regret as he himself could have felt, the carpenter"s wife told him all that she knew of the sad story of Mary"s disappearance.
"n.o.body took much notice of me, sir, in the confusion of the place,"
Mrs. Jobson continued; "and there is a parlour-maid at the Towers called Susan Rose, that had been a schoolfellow with me ten years before, and I got her to tell me all about it. And she said that poor dear Miss Mary had been weak and ailing ever since she had recovered from the brain-fever, and that she had shut herself up in her room, and had seen no one except Mrs. Marchmont, and Mr. Paul, and Barbara Simmons; but on the 17th Mrs. Marchmont sent for her, asking her to come to the study. And the poor young lady went; and then Susan Rose thinks that there was high words between Mrs. Marchmont and her stepdaughter; for as Susan was crossing the hall poor Miss came out of the study, and her face was all smothered in tears, and she cried out, as she came into the hall, "I can"t bear it any longer. My life is too miserable; my fate is too wretched!" And then she ran upstairs, and Susan Rose followed up to her room and listened outside the door; and she heard the poor dear sobbing and crying out again and again, "O papa, papa! If you knew what I suffer! O papa, papa, papa!"--so pitiful, that if Susan Rose had dared she would have gone in to try and comfort her; but Miss Mary had always been very reserved to all the servants, and Susan didn"t dare intrude upon her. It was late that evening when my poor young lady was missed, and the servants sent out to look for her."
"And you, Hester,--you knew my wife better than any of these people,--where do you think she went?"
Hester Jobson looked piteously at the questioner.
"O sir!" she cried; "O Captain Arundel, don"t ask me; pray, pray don"t ask me."
"You think like these other people,--you think that she went away to destroy herself?"
"O sir, what can I think, what can I think except that? She was last seen down by the water-side, and one of her shoes was picked up amongst the rushes; and for all there"s been such a search made after her, and a reward offered, and advertis.e.m.e.nts in the papers, and everything done that mortal could do to find her, there"s been no news of her, sir,--not a trace to tell of her being living; not a creature to come forward and speak to her being seen by them after that day. What can I think, sir, what can I think, except--"
"Except that she threw herself into the river behind Marchmont Towers."
"I"ve tried to think different, sir; I"ve tried to hope I should see that poor sweet lamb again; but I can"t, I can"t. I"ve worn mourning for these three last Sundays, sir; for I seemed to feel as if it was a sin and a disrespectfulness towards her to wear colours, and sit in the church where I have seen her so often, looking so meek and beautiful, Sunday after Sunday."
Edward Arundel bowed his head upon his hands and wept silently. This woman"s belief in Mary"s death afflicted him more than he dared confess to himself. He had defied Olivia and Paul Marchmont, as enemies, who tried to force a false conviction upon him; but he could neither doubt nor defy this honest, warm-hearted creature, who wept aloud over the memory of his wife"s sorrows. He could not doubt her sincerity; but he still refused to accept the belief which on every side was pressed upon him. He still refused to think that his wife was dead.
"The river was dragged for more than a week," he said, presently, "and my wife"s body was never found."
Hester Jobson shook her head mournfully.
"That"s a poor sign, sir," she answered; "the river"s full of holes, I"ve heard say. My husband had a fellow-"prentice who drowned himself in that river seven year ago, and _his_ body was never found."
Edward Arundel rose and walked towards the door.
"I do not believe that my wife is dead," he cried. He held out his hand to the carpenter"s wife. "G.o.d bless you!" he said. "I thank you from my heart for your tender feeling towards my lost girl."
He went out to the gig, in which Mr. Morrison waited for him, rather tired of his morning"s work.
"There is an inn a little way farther along the street, Morrison,"
Captain Arundel said. "I shall stop there."
The man stared at his master.
"And not go back to Marchmont Towers, Mr. Edward?"
"No."
Edward Arundel had held Nature in abeyance for more than four-and-twenty hours, and this outraged Nature now took her revenge by flinging the young man prostrate and powerless upon his bed at the simple Kemberling hostelry, and holding him prisoner there for three dreary days; three miserable days, with long, dark interminable evenings, during which the invalid had no better employment than to lie brooding over his sorrows, while Mr. Morrison read the "Times"
newspaper in a monotonous and droning voice, for his sick master"s entertainment.
How that helpless and prostrate prisoner, bound hand and foot in the stern grasp of retaliative Nature, loathed the leading-articles, the foreign correspondence, in the leviathan journal! How he sickened at the fiery English of Printing-House Square, as expounded by Mr.
Morrison! The sound of the valet"s voice was like the unbroken flow of a dull river. The great names that surged up every now and then upon that sluggish tide of oratory made no impression upon the sick man"s mind. What was it to him if the glory of England were in danger, the freedom of a mighty people wavering in the balance? What was it to him if famine-stricken Ireland were perishing, and the far-away Indian possessions menaced by contumacious and treacherous Sikhs? What was it to him if the heavens were shrivelled like a blazing scroll, and the earth reeling on its shaken foundations? What had he to do with any catastrophe except that which had fallen upon his innocent young wife?