Chapter 14

"That's bad!" he said; "but it might be worse. I've lots of tin, and we always went shares."

"I must look out for something to do to-morrow," I remarked.

"Ay, yes!" he answered, dryly; "you might go as assistant to a parish doctor, or get a berth on board an emigrant-ship. There are lots of chances for a young fellow."

He sat smoking his cigar--a dusky outline of a human figure, with a bright speck of red about the centre of the face. For a few minutes he was lost in thought.

"I tell you what," he said, "I've a good mind to marry Julia myself. I've always liked her, and we want a woman in the house. That would put things straighter, wouldn't it?"

"She would never consent to leave Guernsey," I answered, laughing. "That was one reason why she was so glad to marry me."

"Well, then," he said, "would you mind me having Olivia?"

"Don't jest about such a thing," I replied; "it is too serious a question with me."

"You are really in love!" he answered. "I will not jest at it. But I am ready to do any thing to help you, old boy."

So it proved, for he and Dr. Senior did their best during the next few weeks to find a suitable opening for me. I made their house my home, and was treated as a most welcome guest in it. Still the time was irksome--more irksome than I ever could have imagined. They were busy while I was unoccupied.

Occasionally I went out to obey some urgent summons, when either of them was absent; but that was a rare circumstance. The hours hung heavily upon me; and the close, sultry air of London, so different from the fresh sea-breezes of my native place, made me feel languid and irritable.

My mother's letters did not tend to raise my spirits. The tone of them was uniformly sad. She told me the flood of sympathy for Julia had risen very high indeed: from which I concluded that the public indignation against myself must have risen to the same tide-mark, though my poor mother said nothing about it. Julia had resumed her old occupations, but her spirit was quite broken. Johanna Carey had offered to go abroad with her, but she had declined it, because it would too painfully remind her of our projected trip to Switzerland.

A friend of Julia's, said my mother in another letter, had come to stay with her, and to try to rouse her.

It was evident she did not like this Kate Daltrey, herself, for the dislike crept out unawares through all the gentleness of her phrases. "She says she is the same age as Julia," she wrote, "but she is probably some years older; for, as she does not belong to Guernsey, we have no opportunity of knowing." I laughed when I read that. "Your father admires her very much," she added.

No, my mother felt no affection for her new guest.

There was not a word about Olivia. Sark itself was never mentioned, and it might have sunk into the sea. My eye ran over every letter first, with the hope of catching that name, but I could not find it. This persistent silence on my mother's part was very trying.

I had been away from Guernsey two months, and Jack was making arrangements for a long absence from London as soon as the season was over, leaving me in charge, when I received the following letter from Johanna Carey:

"DEAR MARTIN: Your father and Julia have been here this afternoon, and have confided to me a very sad and very painful secret, which they ask me to break gently to you. I am afraid no shadow of a suspicion of it has ever fallen upon your mind, and, I warn you, you will need all your courage and strength as a man to bear it. I was myself so overwhelmed that I could not write to you until now, in the dead of the night, having prayed with all my heart to our merciful God to sustain and comfort you, who will feel this sorrow more than any of us. My dearest Martin, my poor boy, how can I tell it to you? You must come home again for a season. Even Julia wishes it, though she cannot stay in the same house with you, and will go to her own with her friend Kate Daltrey. Your father cried like a child. He takes it more to heart than I should have expected. Yet there is no immediate danger; she may live for some months yet. My poor Martin, you will have a mother only a few months longer. Three weeks ago she and I went to Sark, at her own urgent wish, to see your Olivia. I did not then know why. She had a great longing to see the unfortunate girl who had been the cause of so much sorrow to us all, but especially to her, for she has pined sorely after you. We did not find her in Tardif's house, but Suzanne directed us to the little graveyard half a mile away. We followed her there, and recognized her, of course, at the first glance. She is a charming creature, that I allow, though I wish none of us had ever seen her. Your mother told her who she was, and the sweetest flush and smile came across her face! They sat down side by side on one of the graves, and I strolled away, so I do not know what they said to one another. Olivia walked down with us to the Havre Gosselin, and your mother held her in her arms and kissed her tenderly. Even I could not help kissing her.

"Now I understand why your mother longed to see Olivia. She knew then--she has known for months--that her days are numbered. When she was in London last November, she saw the most skilful physicians, and they all agreed that her disease was incurable and fatal. Why did she conceal it from you? Ah, Martin, you must know a woman's heart, a mother's heart, before you can comprehend that. Your father knew, but no one else. What a martyrdom of silent agony she has passed through! She has a clear calculation, based upon the opinion of the medical men, as to how long she might have lived had her mind been kept calm and happy. How far that has not been the case we all know too well.

"If your marriage with Julia had taken place, you would now have been on your way home, not to be parted from her again till the final separation. We all ask you to return to Guernsey, and devote a few more weeks to one who has loved you so passionately and fondly. Even Julia asks it. Her resentment gives way before this terrible sorrow. We have not told your mother what we are about to do, lest any thing should prevent your return. She is as patient and gentle as a lamb, and is ready with a quiet smile for every one. O Martin, what a loss she will be to us all! My heart is bleeding for you.

"Do not come before you have answered this letter, that we may prepare her for your return. Write by the next boat, and come by the one after. Julia will have to move down to the new house, and that will be excitement enough for one day.

"Good-by, my dearest Martin. I have forgiven every thing; so will all our friends as soon as they know this dreadful secret.

"Your faithful, loving cousin, JOHANNA CAREY."

I read this letter twice, with a singing in my ears and a whirling of my brain, before I could realize the meaning. Then I refused to believe it. No one knows better than a doctor how the most skilful head among us may be at fault.

My mother dying of an incurable disease! Impossible! I would go over at once and save her. She ought to have told me first. Who could have attended her so skilfully and devotedly as her only son?

Yet the numbing, deadly chill of dread rested upon my heart. I felt keenly how slight my power was, as I had done once before when I thought Olivia would die. But then I had no resources, no appliances. Now I would take home with me every remedy the experience and researches of man had discovered.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.

OVERMATCHED.

My mother had consulted Dr. Senior himself when she had been in London. He did not positively cut off all hope from me, though I knew well he was giving me encouragement in spite of his own carefully-formed opinion. He asserted emphatically that it was possible to alleviate her sufferings and prolong her life, especially if her mind was kept at rest. There was not a question as to the necessity for my immediate return to her. But there was still a day for me to tarry in London.

"Martin," said Jack, "why have you never followed up the clew about your Olivia--the advertisement, you know? Shall we go to those folks in Gray's-Inn Road this afternoon?"

It had been in my mind all along to do so, but the listless procrastination of idleness had caused me to put it off from time to time. Besides, while I was absent from the Channel Islands my curiosity appeared to sleep. It was enough to picture Olivia in her lowly home in Sark. Now that I was returning to Guernsey, and the opportunity was about to slip by, I felt more anxious to seize it. I would learn all I could about Olivia's family and friends, without betraying any part of her secret.

At the nearest cab-stand we found a cabman patronized by Jack--a red-faced, good-tempered, and good-humored man, who was as fond and proud of Jack's notice as if he had been one of the royal princes.

Of course there was not the smallest difficulty in finding the office of Messrs. Scott and Brown. It was on the second floor of an ordinary building, and, bidding the cabman wait for us, we proceeded at once up the staircase.

There did not seem much business going on, and our appearance was hailed with undisguised satisfaction. The solicitors, if they were solicitors, were two inferior, common-looking men, but sharp enough to be a match for either of us. We both felt it, as if we had detected a snake in the grass by its rattle. I grew wary by instinct, though I had not come with any intention to tell them what I knew of Olivia. My sole idea had been to learn something myself, not to impart any information. But, when I was face to face with these men, my business, and the management of it, did not seem quite so simple as it had done until then.

"Do you wish to consult my partner or me?" asked the keenest-looking man. "I am Mr. Scott."

"Either will do," I answered. "My business will be soon dispatched. Some months ago you inserted an advertisement in the _Times_."

"To what purport?" inquired Mr. Scott.

"You offered fifty pounds reward," I replied, "for information concerning a young lady."

A gleam of intelligence and gratification flickered upon both their faces, but quickly faded away into a sober and blank gravity. Mr. Scott waited for me to speak again, and bowed silently, as if to intimate he was all attention.

"I came," I added, "to ask you for the name and address of that young lady's friends, as I should prefer communicating directly with them, with a view to cooperation in the discovery of her hiding-place. I need scarcely say I have no wish to receive any reward. I entirely waive any claim to that, if you will oblige me by putting me into connection with the family."

"Have you no information you can impart to us?" asked Mr. Scott.

"None," I answered, decisively. "It is some months since I saw the advertisement, and it must be nine months since you put it into the _Times_. I believe it is nine months since the young lady was missing."

"About that time," he said.

"Her friends must have suffered great anxiety," I remarked.

"Very great indeed," he admitted.

"If I could render them any service, it would be a great pleasure to me," I continued; "cannot you tell me where to find them?"

"We are authorized to receive any information," he replied. "You must allow me to ask if you know any thing about the young lady in question?"

"My object is to combine with her friends in seeking her," I said, evasively. "I really cannot give you any information; but if you will put me into communication with them, I may be useful to them."

"Well," he said, with an air of candor, "of course the young lady's friends are anxious to keep in the background. It is not a pleasant circumstance to occur in a family; and if possible they would wish her to be restored without any _éclat_. Of course, if you could give us any definite information it would be quite another thing. The young lady's family is highly connected. Have you seen any one answering to the description?"

"It is a very common one," I answered. "I have seen scores of young ladies who might answer to it. I am surprised that in London you could not trace her. Did you apply to the police?"

"The police are blockheads," replied Mr. Scott.--"Will you be so good as to see if there is any one in the outer office, Mr. Brown, or on the stairs? I believe I heard a noise outside."

Mr. Brown disappeared for a few minutes; but his absence did not interrupt our conversation. There was not much to be made out of it on either side, for we were only fencing with one another. I learned nothing about Olivia's friends, and I was satisfied he had learned nothing about her.

At last we parted with mutual dissatisfaction; and I went moodily downstairs, followed by Jack. We drove back to Brook Street, to spend the few hours that remained before the train started for Southampton.

"Doctor," said Simmons, as Jack paid him his fare, with a small coin added to it, "I'm half afeard I've done some mischief. I've been turning it over and over in my head, and can't exactly see the rights of it. A gent, with a pen behind his ear, comes down, at that orfice in Gray's Inn Road, and takes my number. But after that he says a civil thing or two. 'Fine young gents,' he says, pointing up the staircase. 'Very much so,' says I. 'Young doctors?' he says. 'You're right,' I says. 'I guessed so,' he says; 'and pretty well up the tree, eh?' 'Ay,' I says; 'the light-haired gent is son to Dr. Senior, the great pheeseecian; and the other he comes from Guernsey, which is an island in the sea.' 'Just so,' he says; 'I've heard as much.' I hope I've done no mischief, doctor?"

"I hope not, Simmons," answered Jack; "but your tongue hangs too loose, my man.--Look out for a squall on the Olivia coast, Martin," he added.

My anxiety would have been very great if I had not been returning immediately to Guernsey. But once there, and in communication with Tardif, I could not believe any danger would threaten Olivia from which I could not protect or rescue her. She was of age, and had a right to act for herself. With two such friends as Tardif and me, no one could force her away from her chosen home.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.

HOME AGAIN.

My mother was looking out for me when I reached home the next morning. I had taken a car from the pier-head to avoid meeting any acquaintances; and hers was almost the first familiar face I saw. It was pallid with the sickly hue of a confirmed disease, and her eyes were much sunken; but she ran across the room to meet me. I was afraid to touch her, knowing how a careless movement might cause her excruciating pain; but she was oblivious of every thing save my return, and pressed me closer and closer in her arms, with all her failing strength, while I leaned my face down upon her dear head, unable to utter a word.

"God is very good to me," sobbed my mother.

"Is He?" I said, my voice sounding strange to my own ears, so forced and altered it was.

"Very, very good," she repeated. "He has brought you back to me."

"Never to leave you again, mother," I said--"never again!"

"No; you will never leave me alone again here," she whispered. "Oh, how I have missed you, my boy!"

I made her sit down on the sofa, and sat beside her, while she caressed my hand with her thin and wasted fingers.

I must put an end to this, if I was to maintain my self-control.

"Mother," I said, "you forget that I have been on the sea all night, and have not had my breakfast yet."

"The old cry, Martin," she answered, smiling. "Well, you shall have your breakfast here, and I will wait upon you once more."

I watched her furtively as she moved about, not with her usual quick and light movements, but with a slow and cautious tread. It was part of my anguish to know, as only a medical man can know, how every step was a fresh pang to her. She sat down with me at the table, though I would not suffer her to pour out my coffee, as she wished to do. There was a divine smile upon her face; yet beneath it there was an indication of constant and terrible pain, in the sunken eyes and drawn lips. It was useless to attempt to eat with that smiling face opposite me. I drank thirstily, but I could not swallow a crumb. She knew what it meant, and her eyes were fastened upon me with a heart-breaking expression.

That mockery of a meal over, she permitted me to lay her down on the sofa, almost as submissively as a tired child, and to cover her with an eider-down quilt; for her malady made her shiver with its deadly coldness, while she could not bear any weight upon her. My father was gone out, and would not be back before evening. The whole day lay before us; I should have my mother entirely to myself.

We had very much to say to one another; but it could only be said at intervals, when her strength allowed of it. We talked together, more calmly than I could have believed possible, of her approaching death; and, in a stupor of despair, I owned to myself and her that there was not a hope of her being spared to me much longer.

"I have longed so," she murmured, "to see my boy in a home of his own before I died. Perhaps I was wrong, but that was why I urged on your marriage with Julia. You will have no real home after I am gone, Martin; and I feel as if I could die so much more quietly if I had some knowledge of your future life. Now I shall know nothing. I think that is the sting of death to me."

"I wish it had been as you wanted it to be," I said, never feeling so bitterly the disappointment I had caused her, and almost grieved that I had ever seen Olivia.

"I suppose it is all for the best," she answered, feebly. "O Martin! I have seen your Olivia."

"Well?" I said.

"I did so want to see her," she continued--"though she has brought us all into such trouble. I loved her because you love her. Johanna went with me, because she is such a good judge, you know, and I did not like to rely upon my own feelings. Appearances are very much against her; but she is very engaging, and I believe she is a good girl. I am sure she is good."

"I know she is," I said.

"We talked of you," she went on--"how good you were to her that week in the spring. She had never been quite unconscious, she thought; but she had seen and heard you all the time, and knew you were doing your utmost to save her. I believe we talked more of you than of any thing else."

That was very likely, I knew, as far as my mother was concerned. But I was anxious to hear whether Olivia had not confided to her more of her secret than I had yet been able to learn from other sources. To a woman like my mother she might have intrusted all her history.

"Did you find any thing out about her friends and family?" I asked.

"Not much," she answered. "She told me her own mother had died when she was quite a child; and she had a step-mother living, who has been the ruin of her life. That was her expression. 'She has been the ruin of my life!' she said; and she cried a little, Martin, with her head upon my lap. If I could only have offered her a home here, and promised to be a mother to her!"

"God bless you, my darling mother!" I said.

"She intends to stay where she is as long as it is possible," she continued; "but she told me she wanted work to do--any kind of work by which she could earn a little money. She has a diamond ring, and a watch and chain, worth a hundred pounds; so she must have been used to affluence. Yet she spoke as if she might have to live in Sark for years. It is a very strange position for a young girl."

"Mother," I said, "you do not know how all this weighs upon me. I promised Julia to give her up, and never to see her again; but it is almost more than I can bear, especially now. I shall be as friendless and homeless as Olivia by-and-by."

I had knelt down beside her, and she pressed my face to hers, murmuring those soft, fondling words, which a man only hears from his mother's lips. I knew that the anguish of her soul was even greater than my own. The agitation was growing too much for her, and would end in an access of her disease. I must put an end to it at once.

"I suppose Julia is gone to the new house now," I said, in a calm voice.

"Yes," she answered, but she could say no more.

"And Miss Daltrey with her?" I pursued.

The mention of that name certainly roused my mother more effectually than any thing else I could have said. She released me from her clinging hands, and looked up with a decided expression of dislike on her face.

"Yes," she replied. "Julia is just wrapped up in her, though why I cannot imagine. So is your father. But I don't think you will like her, Martin. I don't want you to be taken with her."

"I won't, mother," I said. "I am ready to hate her, if that is any satisfaction to you."

"Oh, you must not say that," she answered, in a tone of alarm. "I do not wish to set you against her, not in the least, my boy. Only she has so much influence over Julia and your father; and I do not want you to go over to her side. I know I am very silly; but she always makes my flesh creep when she is in the room."

"Then she shall not come into the room," I said.

"Martin," she went on, "why does it rouse one up more to speak evil of people than to speak good of them? Speaking of Kate Daltrey makes me feel stronger than talking of Olivia."

I laughed a little. It had been an observation of mine, made some years ago, that the surest method of consolation in cases of excessive grief, was the introduction of some family or neighborly gossip, seasoned slightly with scandal. The most vehement mourning had been turned into another current of thought by the lifting of this sluice.

"It restores the balance of the emotions," I answered. "Anything soft, and tender, and touching, makes you more sensitive. A person like Miss Daltrey acts as a tonic; bitter, perhaps, but invigorating."

The morning passed without any interruption; but in the afternoon Grace came in, with a face full of grave importance, to announce that Miss Dobrée had called, and desired to see Mrs. Dobrée alone. "Quite alone," repeated Grace, emphatically.

"I'll go up-stairs to my own room," I said to my mother.

"I am afraid you cannot, Martin," she answered, hesitatingly. "Miss Daltrey has taken possession of it, and she has not removed all her things yet. She and Julia did not leave till late last night. You must go to the spare room."

"I thought you would have kept my room for me, mother," I said, reproachfully.

"So I would," she replied, her lips quivering, "but Miss Daltrey took a fancy to it, and your father and Julia made a point of indulging her. I really think Julia would have had every thing belonging to you swept into the streets. It was very hard for me, Martin. I was ten times more vexed than you are to give up your room to Miss Daltrey. It was my only comfort to go and sit there, and think of my dear boy." "Never mind, never mind," I answered. "I am at home now, and you will never be left alone with them again--nevermore, mother."

I retreated to the spare room, fully satisfied that I should dislike Miss Daltrey quite as much as my mother could wish. Finding that Julia prolonged her visit downstairs, I went out after a while for a stroll in the old garden, where the trees and shrubs had grown with my growth, and were as familiar as human friends to me. I visited Madam in her stall, and had a talk with old Pellet; and generally established my footing once more as the only son of the house; not at all either as if I were a prodigal son, come home repentant. I was resolved not to play that _rôle_, for had I not been more sinned against than sinning?