"Margaret Ingram. She was of a Gloucestershire family, but her parents were dead, and she had no near relatives."
Martha cried, somewhat tartly:
"An" what hez all this te de wi" us, sir?"
"Let be, wife. Bide i" patience. T" gentleman will tell us, ne doot."
John"s voice was hard, almost dissonant. The solicitor gave him a rapid glance. That harsh tone boded ill for the smooth accomplishment of his mission. Martha wondered why her husband gazed so fixedly at the other man who spoke not. But she toyed nervously with her ap.r.o.n and held her peace. Mr. Dobson resumed:
"The young couple could not start housekeeping openly. Lieutenant Grant depended solely on the allowance made to him by his father, whose ideas of family pride were so extreme that such a marriage must unquestionably have led to a rupture. Moreover, a campaign in northern India was then threatening. It broke out exactly a year and two months after the marriage. Mr. Grant"s regiment was ordered to the front, and when he sailed from Southampton he left his young wife and an infant, a boy, four months old, installed in a comfortable flat in Clarges Street, Piccadilly. It is important that the exact position of family affairs at this moment should be realized. General Grant, father of the young officer, had suffered from an apopletic stroke soon after his son"s marriage, and to acquaint him with it now meant risking his life. Young Grant"s action was known to and approved by several trustworthy friends.
He and his wife were very happy, and Mrs. Grant was correspondingly depressed when the exigencies of the national service took her husband away from her. The parting between the young couple was a bitter trial, rendered all the more heartrending by reason of the concealment they had practiced. However, as matters had been allowed to drift thus far, no one will pretend that there was any special need to worry General Grant at the moment of his son"s departure for a campaign. Lieutenant Grant hoped to return with a step in rank. Then, whatever the consequences, there must be a full explanation. He had not a great deal of money, but sufficient for his wife"s needs. He left her two hundred pounds in notes and gold, and his bankers were empowered to pay her fifty pounds monthly. His own allowance from General Grant was seventy-five pounds a month, and it was with great difficulty that he maintained his position in such an expensive regiment as the Guards. The campaign eased the pressure, or he could not have kept it up for long."
"Are all these details quite necessary, Dobson?" said the colonel, for the steady glare of the farmer, the growing pallor of poor Martha, around whose heart an icy hand was taking sure grip, were exceedingly irksome.
"They are if I am to do you justice," replied the lawyer.
"Never mind me. Tell them of Margaret--and the boy."
"I will pa.s.s over the verification of my statement," went on Mr. Dobson, bending over the folded papers. "Seven months pa.s.sed. Mrs. Grant expected soon to be delivered of another child. She heard regularly from her husband. His regiment was in the Khyber Pa.s.s, when one evening she was robbed of her small store of jewelry and a considerable sum of money by a trusted servant. The theft was reported in the papers, and General Grant read of his son"s wife being a resident in Clarges Street. He went to the flat next day, saw the poor girl, behaved in a way that can only be ascribed to the folly of an old man broken by disease, and cut off supplies at once. Within a week Mrs. Grant found herself in poverty, and her husband at least a month"s post distant. She did not lose her wits.
She sold her furniture and raised money enough to support herself and her baby boy for some time. Of course, she was very much distressed, as General Grant wrote to her, called her an adventuress, and stated that he had disinherited his son on her account. This was only partly true.
He tore up one will, but made no other, and forgot that there was a second copy in possession of my firm. Mrs. Grant then did a foolish thing. She concealed her troubles from her husband"s friends, who would have helped her. She took cheap lodgings in another part of London, and changed her name. This seems to be accounted for by the fact that General Grant, in his insane suspicions, set private detectives to watch her. Moreover, the bankers wrote her a curt letter which added to her miseries. She rented rooms in St. Martin"s Court, Ludgate Hill, and gave her name as Mrs. Martineau."
Martha sprang at the solicitor with an eerie screech:
"Hev ye coom to steal oor bairn, the bonny lad we"ve reared i" infancy an" childhood? Leave this house! John--husband--will ye let "em drive me mad?"
John took her in his arms.
"Martha," he said, with a break in his voice that shook his hearers and stilled his wife"s cries; "dinnat mak" oor burthen harder te bear. A man"s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps!"
Servants, men and women, came running at their mistress"s scream of terror. They stood, abashed, in the kitchen pa.s.sage. None paid heed to them.
Colonel Grant rose and approached the trembling woman cowering at her husband"s side. Her old eyes were streaming now; she gazed at him with the pitiful anguish of a stricken animal. He took her wrinkled hand and bent low before her.
"Madam," he said, "G.o.d forbid that my son should lose his mother a second time!"
He could say no other word. Even in her agony, Martha felt hot tears falling on her bare arm, and they were not her own.
"Eh, but it"s a sad errand ye"re on," she sobbed.
"Wife, wife!" cried John huskily, "if thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small. Colonel Grant is a true man. It"s in his fece.
He wen"t rive Martin frae yer arms, an" no man can tak" him frae yer heart."
Colonel Grant drew himself up. He caught Bolland"s shoulder.
"Bear with me," he said. "I have suffered much. I lost my wife and two children, one unborn. They were torn from me as though by a destroying tempest. One is given back, after thirteen long years of mourning. Can you not spare me a place in his affections?"
"Ay, ay," growled John. "We"re n.o.bbut owd folk at t" best, an" t" lad was leavin" oor roof for school in a little while. We can sattle things like sensible people, if on"y Martha here will gie ower greetin". It troubles me sair to hear her lamentin". We"ve had no sike deed i"
thirty-fower years o" married life."
The man was covering his own distress by solicitude in his wife"s behalf. She knew it. She wiped her eyes defiantly with her ap.r.o.n and made pretense to smile, though she had received a shock she would remember to her dying day. Some outlet was necessary for her surcharged feelings. She whisked around on the crowd of amazed domestics, dairymaids and farmhands, pressing on each other"s heels in the pa.s.sage.
"What are ye gapin" at?" she cried shrilly. "Is there nowt te de? If tea"s overed, git on wi" yer work, an" be sharp aboot it, or I"ll side ye quick!"
The stampede that followed relieved the situation. The servants faded away under her fiery glance. Colonel Grant smiled.
"I am glad to see," he said, "that you maintain discipline in your regiment."
"They"re all ears an" ne brains," she said. "My, but I"m that upset I hardly ken what I"m sayin". Mebbe ye"ll finish yer tale, sir. I"m grieved I med sike a dash at ye, but I couldn"t bide----"
"There, there," said John, with his gruff soothing, "sit ye doon an"
listen quietly. I guessed their business t" first minnit I set eyes on t" colonel. Why, Martha, look at him. He hez Martin"s eyes and Martin"s mouth. Noo, ye"d hev dark-brown hair, I reckon, when ye were a lad, sir?"
For answer, Colonel Grant stooped to the lawyer"s papers and took from them a framed miniature.
"That is my portrait at the age of twelve," he said, placing it before them.
"Eh, but that caps owt!" cried Martha. "It"s Martin hissel! Oh, my honey, how little did I think what was coomin" when I set yer shirt an"
collar ready, an" med ye tidy te gan te tea wi" t" fine folk at t"
vicarage. An" noo ye"re a better bred "un than ony of "em. The Lord love ye! Here ye are, smilin" at me. They may mak" ye a colonel or a gin"ral, for owt I care: ye"ll nivver forgit yer poor old m.u.t.h.e.r, will ye, my bairn!"
She kissed the miniature as if it were Martin"s own presentment. The men left her to sob again in silence. Soon she calmed herself sufficiently to ask:
"But why i" t" wulld did that poor la.s.s throw herself an" her little "un inte t" street?"
Mr. Dobson took up his story once more:
"She explained her action in a pathetic letter to her husband. She was ill, lonely, and poverty-stricken. She brooded for days on General Grant"s cruel words and still more cruel letter. They led her to believe that she was the unwitting cause of her husband"s ruin. She resolved to free him absolutely and at the same time preserve his name from notoriety. Therefore she wrote him a full account of her change of name, and told him that her children would die with her."
"That was a mad thing te de."
"Exactly. The doctor who knew her best told her husband six months later that Mrs. Grant was, in his opinion, suffering from an unrecognized attack of puerperal fever. It was latent in her system, and developed with the trouble so suddenly brought upon her."
"Yon was a wicked owd man----"
"The general was called to account by a higher power. Mrs. Grant wrote him also a statement of her intentions. Next morning he read of her death, and a second attack of apoplexy proved fatal. Her letter did not reach her husband until after a battle in which he was wounded. He cabled to us, and we made every inquiry, but it was remarkable how chance baffled our efforts. In the first instance, the policeman whom you encountered in Ludgate Hill and who knew you had adopted the child, had left the force and emigrated, owing to some unfortunate love affair. In the second, several newspapers reported the child as dead, though the records of the inquest soon corrected that error. Thirdly, someone named Bolland died in the hotel where you stayed and was buried at Highgate----"
"My brother," put in John.
"Yes; we know now. But conceive the barrier thus placed in our path when the dates of the two events were compared long afterwards."
The farmer looked puzzled. The solicitor went on:
"Of course, you wonder why there should have been any delay, but the Coroner"s notes were lost in a fire. Nevertheless, we advertised in dozens of newspapers."
"We hardly ever see a paper, sir," said Martha.
"Yet, the wonder is that some of your friends did not see it and tell you. Finally, a sharp-witted clerk of ours solved the Highgate Cemetery mystery, and the advertis.e.m.e.nts were repeated. Colonel Grant was back in India by that time trying hard to leave his bones there, by all accounts, and perhaps we did not spend as much money on this second quest as if he were at home to authorize the expenditure."