"I"ll make it, if it is wanted. But what"s the matter?"
"You will indeed?"
""Gad, I"ll go myself and kick up the station-master. What"s the matter?"
"That if poor Mrs. Vavasour wishes to see her husband alive, she must be here in four-and-twenty hours. I"ll tell you all presently--"
"Mary, my coat and comforter!" cries Mark, jumping up.
"And, Mary, a pen and ink to write the message," says Tom.
"Oh! cannot I be of any use?" says Mary.
"No, you angel."
"You must not call me an angel, Mr. Thurnall. After all, what can I do which you have not done already?"
Tom started. Grace had once used to him the very same words. By the by, what was it in the two women which made them so like? Certainly, neither face nor fortune. Something in the tones of their voices.
"Ah! if Grace had Mary"s fortune, or Mary Grace"s face!" thought Tom, as he hurried back to Elsley, and Mark rushed down to the station.
Elsley was conscious when he returned, and only too conscious. All night he screamed in agonies of rheumatic fever; by the next afternoon he was failing fast; his heart was affected; and Tom knew that he might die any hour.
The evening train brings two ladies, Valencia and Lucia. At the risk of her life, the poor faithful wife has come.
A gentleman"s carriage is waiting for them, though they have ordered none; and as they go through the station-room, a plain little well-dressed body comes humbly up to them--
"Are either of these ladies Mrs. Vavasour?"
"Yes! I!--I!--is he alive?" gasps Lucia.
"Alive, and better! and expecting you--"
"Better?--expecting me?" almost shrieks she, as Valencia and Mary (for it is she) help her to the carriage. Mary puts them in, and turns away.
"Are you not coming too?" asks Valencia, who is puzzled.
"No, thank you, madam; I am going to take a walk. John, you know where to drive these ladies."
Little Mary does not think it necessary to say that she, with her father"s carriage, has been down to two other afternoon trains, upon the chance of finding them.
But why is not Frank Headley with them, when he is needed most? And why are Valencia"s eyes more red with weeping than even her sister"s sorrow need have made them?
Because Frank Headley is rolling away in a French railway, on his road to Ma.r.s.eilles, and to what Heaven shall find for him to do.
Yes, he is gone Eastward Ho among the many; will he come Westward Ho again, among the few?
They are at the door of Elsley"s lodgings now. Tom Thurnall meets them there, and bows them upstairs silently. Lucia is so weak that she has to cling to the banister a moment; and then, with a strong shudder, the spirit conquers the flesh, and she hurries up before them both.
It is a small low room--Valencia had expected that: but she had expected, too, confusion and wretchedness: for a note from Major Campbell, ere he started, had told her of the condition in which Elsley had been found. Instead, she finds neatness--even gaiety; fresh damask linen, comfortable furniture, a vase of hothouse flowers, while the air was full of cool perfumes. No one is likely to tell her that Mary has furnished all at Tom"s hint--"We must smarten up the place, for the poor wife"s sake. It will take something off the shock; and I want to avoid shocks for her."
So Tom had worked with his own hands that morning; arranging the room as carefully as any woman, with that true doctor"s forethought and consideration, which often issues in the loftiest, because the most unconscious, benevolence.
He paused at the door--
"Will you go in?" whispered he to Valencia, in a tone which meant--"you had better not."
"Not yet--I daresay he is too weak."
Lucia darted in, and Tom shut the door behind her, and waited at the stair-head. "Better," thought he, "to let the two poor creatures settle their own concerns. It must end soon, in any case."
Lucia rushed to the bed-side, drew back the curtains--
"Tom!" moaned Elsley.
"Not Tom!--Lucia!"
"Lucia?--Lucia St. Just!" answered he, in a low abstracted voice, as if trying to recollect.
"Lucia Vavasour!--your Lucia!"
Elsley slowly raised himself upon his elbow, and looked into her face with a sad inquiring gaze.
"Elsley--darling Elsley!--don"t you know me?"
"Yes, very well indeed; better than you know me. I am not Vavasour at all. My name is Briggs--John Briggs, the apothecary"s son, come home to Whitbury to die."
She did not hear, or did not care for those last words.
"Elsley! I am your wife!--your own wife!--who never loved any one but you--never, never, never!"
"Yes, my wife, at least!--Curse them, that they cannot deny!" said he, in the same abstracted voice.
"Oh G.o.d! is he mad?" thought she. "Elsley, speak to me!--I am your Lucia--your love--"
And she tore off her bonnet, and threw herself beside him on the bed, and clasped him in her arms, murmuring,--"Your wife! who never loved any one but you!"
Slowly his frozen heart and frozen brain melted beneath the warmth of her great love: but he did not speak: only he pa.s.sed his weak arm round her neck; and she felt that his cheek was wet with tears, while she murmured on, like a cooing dove, the same sweet words again--
"Call me your love once more, and I shall know that all is past."
"Then call me no more Elsley, love!" whispered he. "Call me John Briggs, and let us have done with shams for ever."
"No; you are my Elsley--my Vavasour! and I am your wife once more!" and the poor thing fondled his head as it lay upon the pillow. "My own Elsley, to whom I gave myself, body and soul; for whom I would die now, --oh, such a death!--any death!"
"How could I doubt you?--fool that I was!"
"No, it was all my fault. It was all my odious temper! But we will be happy now, will we not?"