CHAPTER XXVI

THE END

The time passed, and now I was to prepare myself to receive my husband. My mind had been so wholly engrossed by my sister that I had given but little thought to the interview that was likely to happen that day, if it were true, as Mary had said, that my husband would come to Newcastle.

It was not my fault, but the fault of my having been born a woman--of my being human, in short--that, whilst I thought of my husband’s arrival, I should find myself looking into the glass and comparing my face with my sister’s. Never had I seen her so sweet, so lovely, indeed, as when I beheld her in the road when my little boy came running to me. How different was my face from hers! And yet, if he loved me, if his love for my memory was as deep as my sister had declared it in her letter, surely my face could not signify. Had I found him shorn of his youth, maimed, ravaged by disaster, it would not have mattered, I should but have loved him the more.

But then, I said to myself, whilst I looked in the glass, ‘What should it be to me if his love grows cold at the sight of my white hair and my altered countenance? Why should I care, though he came to me loving only Mary? for I swear’--and as I pronounced these words I knelt--‘I swear by my God that whilst Mary lives I will be no wife to John.’ And this I said on my knees, again and still again. Yet, when I arose, having been governed by a sudden bitter, powerful impulse to pronounce these words, my heart trembled within me, and I felt that I had sinned in directing myself by oath to a course, instead of trusting myself, child-like, to the guiding hand of Him whose loving eye had been, as I still hoped it was, upon me.

I was in my bedroom that evening; the time was a little before eight. The room, as you may remember, was at the back of the house, and no sound of traffic from the roadway reached me. On a sudden Mrs. Lee opened the door without knocking, and said, with something of alarm in the expression of her face, ‘Agnes, your husband awaits you in the dining-room.’

Had I not seen him when I secretly visited Bath, and had not Mary’s letter made me expect to see him at Jesmond almost immediately, I cannot tell what would have been the effect upon me of the announcement of his arrival. But I had had all day to think over it, and, as I have said, I had seen him when I went to Bath, though he did not know me; then, again, my capacity of emotion--or, in other words, my sensibility--was somewhat dulled by the manner in which my spirits had been strained since I had recovered my memory and received news of my family; for one reason or another, then, I merely started when Mrs. Lee announced my husband’s arrival, and, with a voice of composure, asked her to accompany me downstairs.

‘No,’ said she, ‘go alone, Agnes. It will be a meeting too sacred for me to witness. I have welcomed him to my house, and he awaits you. Go, then!’

I descended the stairs, but my heart beat very quickly. Sacred the meeting might be, but it could not possess the joy, the gladness, the happy tears, the pathos of the delight of reunion which must have made a golden and glorious memory of it whilst my life lasted had it chanced but four short months earlier. The dining-room door was ajar; I pushed it open and entered. A tall lamp stood upon the table; the globe was unshaded, and the light streamed full upon my husband, who stood at the table with his face turned towards the door. On seeing me, he cried, ‘Oh, Agnes! oh, my dearest wife!’ and in a moment he had embraced me, and once or twice he sobbed as he pressed his lips to my cheek. He held me to him for some moments, then released me, grasped my hands, and fell back a step to survey me.

‘That I should not have known you,’ he cried, ‘when I looked at you as you lay upon the sofa! That you should have come to Bath, as Mary told me, to see your children, walking until you fainted in your exhaustion, and not entering your own house because--because--ah, God!’ he cried, broke off, hid his face, and then, looking at me, exclaimed, ‘Speak to me, Agnes!’

‘Oh, John, I will speak to you! The love that I gave you when we were married is still yours. I will speak to you--but not as your wife. Look at these white hairs. Look at the deformity here and here. I have suffered much. For nearly three years have I been deprived of memory. I knew not my own name. I knew not,’ I added, in a low voice, ‘that I had a husband and children. My memory came back to me the other day, and then I heard that Mary was your wife. Would for her dear sake that I was dead, as you both believed me. Look in my face; you will see how I have suffered. But what have been my sufferings compared to Mary’s now? Oh! I have received a terrible letter from her.’

I put my hand in my pocket and extended the letter to him. He looked at it, and then at me, and then at it again, standing motionless, as though paralysed. Presently he exclaimed, in a voice a little above a whisper:

‘You will speak to me, you say, but not as my wife? You will speak to me, _but not as my wife_?’

‘Oh, John! I love you, but whilst Mary lives I am not your wife.’

He regarded me awhile, then extended his arms, as though he would have me run to him that he might clasp me. I could not bear his look, and, sinking upon a chair, I hid my face upon the table. He put his arm around me and caressed me, kissing my hands and stroking my hair, and calling me his precious wife whom God had returned to him. My resolution was a bitter hard one in the face of those endearments! I felt that he loved me. I believed in my heart that his marriage to my sister was mainly for the sake of my children, and to shield her from the whispers of the gossips by giving her his name. But, nevertheless, she was his wife in the eyes of God and in her own pure heart; it was not for me, her twin sister, to dishonour her; and with a cry forced from me from the _pang_ of determination renewed, even as I sat with buried face, caressed by my husband, I sprang to my feet, stepped a few paces away, and confronted him with dry eyes.

‘Read this letter, John,’ I said; and I put Mary’s letter upon the table.

He picked it up with one hand, and with the other drew a letter from his pocket.

‘This, too,’ he said, ‘is from Mary.’

It was addressed to my husband. It contained not above twenty lines. She said that the white-haired lady who had been carried into the house was Agnes, ‘my sister and your wife.’ She gave him my address, which she had doubtless found on the card that had been stitched to my jacket, and bade him go to me without delay. She then, in a few words, pointed out that I had come to Bath to see my children, that I knew she had been married to him, and that I had meant to remain as though dead to them that _her_ happiness might not be disturbed. Wonderful was the sympathy of the sweet and gentle heart that could thus interpret me! She briefly concluded by saying that she left him and the children with tears and love, and that day and night she would pray to God to continue to bless the house in which she had passed so many happy years.

My heart wept tears of blood as I read this letter, but my eyes remained dry. My husband put the letter I had given to him upon the table after reading it, and stood with his head bowed. He looked pale, distress worked in his face, he had been travelling all day and was cold, and he was my husband and I loved him. I took him by the hand and led him to an arm-chair near the fire, and stood beside him.

‘John,’ I said, ‘Mary is your wife, and out of her letter I interpret what you yourself must know. Can I dishonour my beloved sister by replacing her? Would you wish it? Could you endure the thought of it? You must seek her, take her to you again, cherish her. I ask only for my children. Give me them, for they are mine and I must have them.’

‘I will seek her, Agnes, but you are my wife. I will seek her; but suppose I find her? It is not she who is my wife; it is you. Could I induce her to live with us under the same roof?’ He paused, and then said, a little wildly, ‘Why have you been silent for three years? What has become of you in all that long time?’

I took a chair opposite him, and told him all that had befallen me, from the hour of the boatman falling overboard down to the time of the recovery of my memory. He often started up, as though pity and grief would make him clasp me. Then I told him of Alice Lee, and of Mrs. Lee’s goodness to me--how dear, true, and devoted a friend she had proved to me; and I also told him of the many inquiries she had caused to be made on our return to England, and of the paragraphs relating my story which had appeared in the newspapers. He declared he had not heard one word of those paragraphs. He asked me to name the time when they had appeared, and, when I answered, he said that in those months he was taking a holiday in France with Mary and the children, and this was the reason, no doubt, of his not having seen the newspaper paragraphs; but he was amazed that none of his friends had acquainted him with the publication of a story which must certainly have led to his discovering me, particularly as my disappearance from Piertown and my supposed death at sea had been much talked of amongst our friends in Bath, whilst the account of the disaster had been printed in a local paper.

His mentioning the trip to France with Mary and the children led him to speak of the reason of his marrying my sister. I listened to him, and then said, ‘I have not one word to say. When I first received the news it grieved me indeed to think how short a time it takes for a man to banish the memory of his wife from his love.’

‘No!’ he said passionately, ‘your memory was never banished from my love. What has been my sin? How I grieved over your loss, Mary knows. But the years stole away, two years and eight months passed; all this while Mary was living with me, the children wanted a mother’s care, and Mary was with them, and I could not part with her for Johnny’s and the baby’s sake. But already your sister had remained too long under the roof of one who was supposed to be a widower. People had been talking for some time. Our visitors grew fewer and fewer. Either Mary must leave my children, or I must protect her with my name.’

‘John, I have not one word to say,’ I repeated, ‘but Mary is your wife, and if that be so, you cannot be my husband; therefore find her--you will send me my children?’ My voice failed me; nevertheless I arose, crossed to him, kissed his brow, and then found power to say: ‘I love you, but I also love my sister. Do not ask me to dishonour her. Sooner than do so I will kill myself,’ and speaking these words I pulled the bell.

A servant opened the door, and I asked her to request Mrs. Lee to join us. In a few moments the dear little creature entered. ‘This has been my true best friend,’ I cried, throwing my arms around her neck.

My husband took her by the hand, and thanked her with deep feeling for her kindness to me; ‘But,’ he added, looking at her with grief strong in his face, ‘she asks for her children, and means to live away from me, and to think of me as a stranger.’

‘Mr. Campbell,’ said Mrs. Lee, speaking cheerfully, though with a little effort, ‘you must give your wife time. She has told you she was without memory for three years. The whole of her past life came to her suddenly, as I believe, as I truly believe, through the intercession of my sainted child. Here was a revelation that might wreck the reason. A lifetime is granted to a mortal to bear the sorrows and take the pleasures of a lifetime, but all that entered into the lifetime of your wife was utterly lost to her for three years, and then the mighty tide of memory floods her brain. Consider this, I pray you, and add to it the sad complication that has followed. Bear with her, grant her time; all will yet be well.’

‘My sister must not suffer through me,’ said I.

‘Neither must you suffer through your sister,’ she answered. ‘Mr. Campbell, I have ordered supper to be laid in the drawing-room, as I did not wish you to be interrupted. You must feel weary after your long journey.’

‘I can eat nothing, thanking you much. I have left my portmanteau at the Central Station Hotel. I had hoped to return with Agnes to-morrow morning.’

‘No, John, no!’ I cried. ‘When will you send the children to me?’

‘Are you so resolved?’ he said in a low voice.

‘I have sworn by my God,’ I cried, ‘that Mary shall not be dishonoured through me. She is your wife. It is your duty to seek her, to follow her, to find her. She is to be traced to Leicester, at all events.’

He took up his hat that lay upon a chair, moving as though in a dream.

‘God forgive you, Agnes,’ said he; ‘you are wronging and paining one who loves you.’

He went to the door, and held it a moment with his eyes fixed upon me. I directed my gaze downwards; for not long could I have withheld that appealing look.

‘God forgive you!’ said he again, and passed out, followed by Mrs. Lee, who closed the door behind her. She took him into the drawing-room, and a long half-hour passed. The hall-door was then opened and shut, footsteps sounded on the gravel-path, and Mrs. Lee came into the dining-room. She sank into a chair, and exclaimed, ‘Agnes, he is a good man, and he loves you. I have sent him away with a light heart. All will yet be well. We shall recover your sister, and she will live with me, and you will be a happy wife once more in your own home, with your husband and your children by your side.’

‘Will he send the children to me?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘On his return.’

I blessed him in my heart, and kissed him in fancy. But the strain had proved too great. The strength I had put forth to uphold me in my resolution, not to know him as my husband whilst Mary lived, had taxed me too heavily. I sat down at the table to support my head till the fit of giddiness should pass, and when I opened my eyes again, Mrs. Lee told me that I had been unconscious for nearly a quarter of an hour.

She saw me to bed, and that my thoughts should not keep me sleepless all night, she procured and insisted on my taking a soothing draught, which threw me into a sleep from which I did not awaken until past eight o’clock next morning. My mind went often to my husband throughout the day, but oftener to my children, whom I was to expect on the following afternoon, and oftener still to my sister. In what part of England did she mean to hide herself? And was it not true, as John had said, that, supposing her hiding-place to be discovered, she would insist on remaining apart from us all, insuring concealment by change of quarters. It was certain she would not dwell with my husband whilst I was alive. It was certain she could not live with us if I chose to return to my husband. What then could she do? She must live apart, and her pride and her condition, which her letter had hinted at, would compel her to live in obscurity, even though, instead of having a hundred a year to subsist upon, she had the wealth of a Princess.

I talked earnestly, with tears and with passion, to Mrs. Lee about her; asked her how we should go to work to find out where she was; ‘Because,’ I said, ‘if she should not consent to live with you, she might consent to live with me and my children. My husband must support me, and Mary and I might be able to put enough together to keep a little home on.’

But Mrs. Lee answered somewhat coldly, and without interest. Her sympathy was not with my sister; it was with me and my husband and children. She told me that I had no right to render my children fatherless, to deprive them of their natural protection, and of their home, indeed, by finding out where my sister was hidden and dwelling with her. Indeed she strongly discountenanced my resolution not to rejoin my husband, and I let the subject drop, fearful lest some hot sentence should escape me, which might give pain to a friend and benefactress whom I loved only a little less tenderly than I loved my own sister.

I busied myself that afternoon, helped by the old housekeeper, Sarah, to prepare a room for my children and the nurse. I walked into Newcastle and purchased two little bedsteads, and I bought several toys and boxes of sweets as surprises and welcomes for my little ones; and when the evening had come, my thoughts at the time being much with my husband, I sat down, and for above two hours occupied myself in filling page after page of a letter to him.

I should only weary you to give you, even in the most abridged form, the substance of that long letter. It was a justification of my behaviour; it was an entreaty for my sister; and I also pointed out to him that now my children were coming to me, I could no longer remain dependent upon Mrs. Lee. I would be satisfied with the interest of the money my mother had given to me, and if that did not suffice to maintain my children and myself, I would endeavour by my industry to make up what was wanting.

My children came next day. My husband sent Mrs. Lee a telegram, giving the hour at which the train arrived, and I went to the railway station to meet my children. There were many people on the platform, and I do not doubt that my behaviour was observed, and that numbers went away saying that they had seen a mad woman. My joy at the sight of my children was indeed extravagant. First, I would take the baby from the nurse and hug it, and then pick up Johnny and hold him, and then put the little fellow down and take the baby again, laughing and crying alternately with such gestures of delight, with such impassioned speech to one or the other of the little ones, that, as I have said, many of the people who observed me must have certainly thought me crazy.

As we drove to Jesmond I plied the nurse with all sorts of questions, and heard, though I did not need to be told, of the devotion of Mary to my children. As for the nurse, I could not but treat her as a stranger. She had been with me a few months only before I was lost to my family, and now, after three years, she was as strange to me as though I had just engaged her. She it was, however, who told me of my sister’s fright and grief, when, at Piertown, the evening approached, the weather grew boisterous, and I did not return; how my sister had sent boatmen to seek for me, but how they came back in a very short while, bringing no news, and offering no hope; how further search was made next day when my husband arrived. And she told me of his grief, how his heart seemed broken, how messages were sent to adjacent ports along the line of coast stating the disaster, and requesting that a lookout should be kept, and that a search should be made; and then she spoke of the family’s return to Bath, of their going into mourning for me, though for months my husband refused to believe I was lost to him, in spite of the boatman’s body having been washed ashore, and his boat discovered upside down. She told me enough in her plain way to make me understand that I had been mourned by my husband with a passion of grief that had broken him down and forced him away for his health, and almost ruined his practice by rendering him for months unfit for business.

I secretly wept as I listened to her and often kissed my children, for his face as he had turned to look at me was before me, and his cry of ‘God forgive you, Agnes!’ rang in my ears.

Two days after I had written to him I received a reply. He enclosed a cheque, told me what he was earning, and said that all should be mine if I would grant him a trifle to live upon in lodgings, because now that his children were gone and I refused to return to him his home was desolate, his life was made insupportable by the memories which arose as he sat alone of an evening. He would shut up the house, he said, and go into lodgings and there await me, for he had faith in my love and believed that I would return to him yet. He had much to tell me about Mary, repeated all that he had said in his conversation with me about his reasons for marrying her, said that he had made up his mind not to endeavour to discover her, because if he succeeded in finding her he was without any proposal to make. She was not his wife, he could not insult her by asking her to live with him, and she would not live with me if I rejoined him. Even if he could find her he would not propose, because he would not wish, that she and I should live together, for in that case it might come to his never seeing me nor his children again. Much more he said with which I will not weary you.

But his appeals left my resolution unaltered. Day followed day and I was for ever hoping to receive a letter from my sister, or to hear from my husband that he had learnt where she was in hiding. But the silence remained unbroken. What could I do? Even should I make appeals to her through the newspapers and she read them she was not likely to tell me where she lived and what she was doing. I could not myself seek for her. It was impossible to know, indeed, whether she had not left England. I ascertained from my husband that she had withdrawn her securities, so there was no clue to her whereabouts to be obtained from the bank where she had deposited the documents. Bitterest of all was this consideration--that even if I employed some shrewd person to seek after her and he should find her, there was no other proposal to make than that she should live with me; a proposal that I knew would be hopeless, because she would feel that whilst she lived with me I could not live with my husband, and her reason in disappearing was that she should be as dead to us voluntarily as I had been forced to be through calamity, that I might return to my home.

* * * * *

Six months passed. Occasionally I heard from my husband. He had locked up the house and gone into lodgings, and every letter contained an impassioned entreaty to me to return to him with the children.

One evening I was sitting with Mrs. Lee reading aloud to her. We had passed the afternoon in a long drive with the children; they were in bed sleeping soundly, and I had come down from seeing after them and was now sitting reading aloud to Mrs. Lee. It was the 21st of April, and, I believe, six months to the very day since the date of my husband’s visit to Jesmond.

I was reading aloud mechanically; my thoughts had all day been very much with my husband and my sister, and I felt dull in my heart, when we were startled by a loud postman’s knock on the hall door, and a minute later the housemaid entered with a letter. It was addressed to me, and it was in my husband’s handwriting, and I said to Mrs. Lee, ‘Here is a letter from John.’

But on opening the envelope I found that the enclosure consisted of a letter addressed to Mrs. John Campbell at my house in Bath. I turned it about before opening it. It was sealed with black wax, but the envelope was not black-edged, and the handwriting was entirely strange to me.

‘Can this be news of Mary?’ said I in a low voice, and looking at the post-mark I said, ‘it is from Manchester.’

‘Open it, my love, and read it,’ said Mrs. Lee; ‘there is no other way to put an end to your conjectures.’

The superscription of the letter was that of a vicarage taking its name from a very little town or village within an easy distance of Manchester. It was dated seven days earlier than this date of my receipt of it. I read it aloud:

‘Dear Madam,--As the clergyman who attended your sister, Mary Hutchinson, during her last moments, and as her friend and confidant during the few months she resided in this neighbourhood, it is my sad duty to inform you that she died on Saturday evening last. She was confined of a still-born child on the previous Tuesday, was very ill, having been long previously in a weakly condition, but rallied, and the doctor had great hopes, when a change happened for the worse, and I was sent for.

‘My wife had helped to nurse her through her illness; she was seldom absent from her side. The sad and singular story of your sister was well known to us. She took lodgings in this quiet place about five months since, and speedily attracted my attention by her frequent attendance at church, by her devotional behaviour during the services, and by her isolation, that seemed strange in one so young and beautiful. My wife and I found out where she lodged, and called. Our relations quickly grew friendly and ripened into intimacy. She told us her story, the story of your own strange and dreadful experiences, imploring our secrecy, and assuring us that nothing could ever prevail on her to make her whereabouts known to you and her husband. We admired the nobility of her resolution, nor was it possible for us to counsel her otherwise than as her own pure heart dictated. Indeed, dear madam, we had nothing to oppose to her own views. She was right. God has now taken her to Himself, and be satisfied that she is happy, for surely she was of those who are tried by the Lord in this world only that they shall enter more surely as partakers of the glory of God and the life everlasting of His Kingdom.

‘I propose that the funeral shall take place on Tuesday, if by that date you and Mr. Campbell can conveniently reach this place. Almost her last thoughts were with you and your husband and your two children, and she desired me to send you her blessing, to tell you that she was without pain, that the peace of God was upon her spirit, and that she desired rest. One of the last wishes she expressed was that her money should be divided between and settled upon your two children.

‘I am, dear madam, ‘Sincerely yours, ‘JOHN F. TRUSCOTT.

‘P.S.--I reopen this letter after an interval of a week, to express my deep regret that owing to an oversight on the part of one of my servants it was not posted when written. It was placed upon the mantelpiece and the servant was directed to post it, but, by some means I am unable to account for, it got hidden behind a large clock that stands upon my mantelpiece. I beg your forgiveness. I am bitterly grieved by this act of neglect. The remains of your dear sister were buried on Wednesday. I trust this letter may safely reach your hands, and should you or Mr. Campbell be unable to immediately visit us I shall be happy to attend to any requests you may have to make.’

I read this letter aloud with tearless eyes to the last syllable of it, then remained gazing at it as though I had been turned to stone, and thus I sat, and nothing broke the silence in that room for many minutes but the tick of the clock or the fall of an ember in the grate.

Then, lifting up my eyes and looking at Mrs. Lee, I said, ‘Mary is dead!’

‘She is dead,’ said Mrs. Lee, beginning to weep, ‘and so is Alice, and so is Edith, and how much happier are they than we!’

‘She is dead,’ I cried, ‘my sister is dead!’ and I rose and stepped about the room murmuring to myself, ‘She is dead---and I was not there to attend upon her---and whilst she lay dying I might have been playing with my children and not thinking of her---’And then, seeing Mrs. Lee weeping, the sight of her tears loosened mine, and I flung myself upon my knees at her side and buried my face in her lap.

I felt my dear friend’s soft hand upon my head, and I heard her whisper in my ear, ‘Agnes, it is at such a moment as this that you need your husband’s love and sympathy.’

‘Oh, John!’ I cried, starting to my feet, ‘if you were but here.’

‘He is lonely--his grief will not be less than yours, Agnes,’ said Mrs. Lee. ‘Prove now a true wife to your husband.’

‘I will go to him,’ I cried.

She kissed me, and again I knelt by her side, and with clasped hands and streaming eyes we talked of Mary and of Alice and of my husband.

THE END

PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected.