It was, perhaps, curious that I should meet Madame St. Vincent before she left the town. Janet was in trouble over a basket of b.u.t.ter and fowls that had been sent her by one of the country patients, and of which the railway people denied the arrival. I went again to the station in the afternoon to see whether they had news of it: and there, seated on the platform bench, her boxes around her, and waiting for the London train, was madame.
I showed myself as respectful to her as ever, for you can"t humiliate fallen people to their faces, telling her, in the pleasantest way I could, that I was sorry things had turned out so. The tone seemed to tell upon her, and she burst into tears. I never saw a woman so subdued in the s.p.a.ce of a few hours.
"I have been treated shamefully, Johnny Ludlow," she said, gulping down her sobs. "Day and night for the past nine months have I been about Lady Jenkins, wearing myself out in attendance on her. The poor old lady had learnt to love me and to depend upon me. I was like a daughter to her."
"I dare say," I answered, conveniently ignoring the dosing.
"And what I gave her, I gave her for the best," went on madame. "It _was_ for the best. People seventy years old need it. Their nerves and system require soothing: to induce sleep now and then is a boon to them.
It was a boon to her, poor old thing. And this is my recompense!--turned from the house like a dog!"
"It does seem hard."
"Seem! It _is_ hard. I have had nothing but hardships all my life," she continued, lifting her veil to wipe away the tears. "Where I am to go now, or how make a living, I know not. They told me I need not apply to Lady Jenkins for references: and ladies won"t engage a companion who has none."
"Is your husband really dead?" I ventured to ask.
"My poor husband is really dead, Johnny Ludlow--I don"t know why you should imply a doubt of it. He left me nothing: he had nothing to leave.
He was only a master in the college at Bretage--a place in the South of France--and he died, I verily believe, of poor living. We had not been married twelve months. I had a little baby, and that died. Oh, I a.s.sure you I have had my troubles."
"How are--Mr. and Mrs. Clement-Pell?" I next asked, with hesitation.
"And Conny?--and the rest of them?"
"Oh, they were well when I last heard," she answered, slightingly. "I don"t hear often. Foreign postage is expensive. Conny was to have come here shortly on a visit."
"Where is Gusty? Is----"
"I know nothing at all about my brothers," she interrupted sharply. "And this, I suppose, is my train. Good-bye, Johnny Ludlow; you and I at least can part friends. You are always kind. I wish the world was like you."
I saw her into the carriage--first-cla.s.s--and her boxes into the van.
And thus she disappeared from Lefford. And her brother, "Captain Collinson," as we found later, had taken his departure for London by an early morning train, telling little Pink, his landlord, as he paid his week"s rent, that he was going up to attend a levee.
It was found that the rumour of his engagement to Miss Belmont was altogether untrue. Miss Belmont was rather indignant about it, freely saying that she was ten years his senior. He had never hinted at such a thing to her, and she should have stopped him if he had. We concluded that the report had been set afloat by himself, to take attention from his pursuit of Mina Knox.
Madame St. Vincent had feathered her nest. As the days went on, and Lady Jenkins grew clearer, better able to see a little into matters, she could not at all account for the money that had been drawn from the bank. Cheque after cheque had been presented and cashed; and not one-tenth of the money could have been spent upon home expenses. Lady Jenkins had been always signing cheques; she remembered that much; never so much as asking, in her loss of will, what they were needed for. "I want a cheque to-day, dear Lady Jenkins," her companion would say, producing the cheque-book from her desk; and Lady Jenkins would docilely sign it. That a great portion of the proceeds had found their way to Mr.
Fabian Pell was looked upon as a certainty.
And to obtaining this money might be traced the motive for dosing Lady Jenkins. Once let her intellect become clear, her will rea.s.sert itself, and the game would be stopped. Madame St. Vincent had also another scheme in her head--for the past month or two she had been trying to persuade Lady Jenkins to make a codicil to her will, leaving her a few thousand pounds. Lady Jenkins might have fallen blindly into that; but they had not as yet been able to agree upon the details: Madame St.
Vincent urging that a lawyer should be called in from a distance; Lady Jenkins clinging to old Belford. That this codicil would have been made in time, and by the remote lawyer, there existed no doubt whatever.
Ah, well: it was a deep-laid plot altogether. And my visit to Lefford, with Tod"s later one, had served, under Heaven, to frustrate it.
Lady Jenkins grew rapidly better, now that she was no longer drugged. In a few days she was herself again. Cattledon came out amazingly strong in the way of care and kindness, and was gracious to every one, even to Lettice.
"She always forbade me to say that I took the brandy-and-water," Lady Jenkins said to me one day when I was sitting with her under the laburnum tree on her lawn, talking of the past, her bright green silk dress and pink cap ribbons glistening in the sun. "She made my will hers. In other respects she was as kind as she could be to me."
"That must have been part of her plan," I answered. "It was the great kindness that won you to her. After that, she took care that you should have no will of your own."
"And the poor thing might have been so happy with me had she only chosen to be straightforward, and not try to play tricks! I gave her a handsome salary, and new gowns besides; and I don"t suppose I should have forgotten her at my death."
"Well, it is all over, dear Lady Jenkins, and you will be just as well and brisk as you used to be."
"Not quite that, Johnny," she said, shaking her head; "I cannot expect that. At seventy, grim old age is laying its hand upon us. What we need then, my dear," she added, turning her kindly blue eyes upon me, in which the tears were gathering, "is to go to the mill to be ground young again. And that is a mill that does not exist in this world."
"Ah no!"
"I thank G.o.d for the mercy He has shown me," she continued, the tears overflowing. "I might have gone to the grave in the half-witted state to which I was reduced. And, Johnny, I often wonder, as I lie awake at night thinking, whether I should have been held responsible for it."
The first use Lady Jenkins made of her liberty was to invite all her relations, the young nephews and nieces, up to dinner, as she used to do. Madame St. Vincent had set her face against these family entertainments, and they had fallen through. The ex-mayor, William Lawrence, and his good old wife, made part of the company, as did Dr.
Knox and Janet. Lady Jenkins beamed on them once more from her place at the head of the table, and Tamlyn sat at the foot and served the big plum-pudding.
"Never more, I trust, shall I be estranged from you, my dears, until it pleases Heaven to bring about the final estrangement," she said to the young people when they were leaving. And she gave them all a sovereign a-piece.
Cattledon could not remain on for ever. Miss Deveen wanted her: so Mina Knox went to stay at Jenkins House, until a suitable lady should be found to replace Madame St. Vincent. Upon that, Dan Jenkins was taken with an anxious solicitude for his aunt"s health, and was for ever finding his way up to inquire after it.
"You will never care to notice me again, Dan," Mina said to him, with a swelling heart and throat, one day when he was tilting himself by her on the arm of the sofa.
"Shan"t I!" returned Dan.
"Oh, I am so ashamed of my folly; I feel more ashamed of it, day by day," cried Mina, bursting into tears. "I shall never, never get over the mortification."
"Won"t you!" added Dan.
"And I never liked him much: I think I _dis_-liked him. At first I did dislike him; only he kept saying how fond he was of me; and Madame St.
Vincent was always praising him up. And you know he was all the fashion."
"Quite so," a.s.sented Dan.
"Don"t you think it would be almost as well if I were dead, Dan--for all the use I am likely to be to any one?"
"Almost, perhaps; not quite," laughed Dan; and he suddenly stooped and kissed her.
That"s all. And now, at the time I write this, Dan Jenkins is a flourishing lawyer at Lefford, and Mina is his wife. Little feet patter up and down the staircase and along the pa.s.sages that good old Lady Jenkins used to tread. She treads them no more. There was no mill to grind her young again here; but she is gone to that better land where such mills are not needed.
Her will was a just one. She left her property to her nephews and nieces; a substantial sum to each. Dan had Jenkins House in addition.
But it is no longer Jenkins House; for he had that name taken off the entrance pillars forthwith, replacing it by the one that had been there before--Rose Bank.
THE ANGELS" MUSIC.
I.
How the Squire came to give in to it, was beyond the ken of mortal man.
Tod turned crusty; called the young ones all the hard names in the dictionary, and said he should go out for the night. But he did not.