Chapter 20

I started violently. What! Did Julia wish to be released from that semi-engagement, and be free? Was it possible that any one else coveted my place in her affections, and in the new house which we had fitted up for ourselves? I felt like the dog in the manger. It seemed an unheard-of encroachment for any person to come between my cousin Julia and me.

"Do you ask me to set you free from your promise, Julia?" I asked, somewhat sternly.

"Why, Martin," she said, averting her face from me, "you know I should never consent to marry you, with the idea of your caring most for that girl. No, I could never do that. If I believed you would ever think of me as you used to do before you saw her, well, I would keep true to you. But is there any hope of that?"

"Let us be frank with one another," I answered; "tell me, is there any one else whom you would marry if I release you from this promise, which was only given, perhaps, to soothe my mothers last hours?"

Julia hung her head, and did not speak. Her lips trembled. I saw her take Johanna's hand and squeeze it, as if to urge her to answer the question.

"Martin," said Johanna, "your happiness is dear to every one of us. If we had believed there was any hope of your learning to love Julia as she deserves, and as a man ought to love his wife, not a word of this would have been spoken. But we all feel there is no such hope. Only say there is, and we will not utter another word."

"No," I said, "you must tell me all now. I cannot let the question rest here. Is there any one else whom Julia would marry if she felt quite free?"

"Yes," answered Johanna, while Julia hid her face in her hands, "she would marry my brother."

Captain Carey! I fairly gasped for breath. Such an idea had never once occurred to me; though I knew she had been spending most of her time with the Careys at the Vale. Captain Carey to marry! and to marry Julia! To go and live in our house! I was struck dumb, and fancied that I had heard wrongly. All the pleasant, distant vision of a possible marriage with Julia, when my passion had died out, and I could be content in my affection and esteem for her--all this vanished away, and left my whole future a blank. If Julia wished for revenge--and when is not revenge sweet to a jilted woman?--she had it now. I was as crestfallen, as amazed, almost as miserable, as she had been. Yet I had no one to blame, as she had. How could I blame her for preferring Captain Carey's love to my _réchauffé_ affections?

"Julia," I said, after a long silence, and speaking as calmly as I could, "do you love Captain Carey?"

"That is not a fair question to ask," answered Johanna. "We have not been treacherous to you. I scarcely know how it has all come about. But my brother has never asked Julia if she loves him; for we wished to see you first, and hear how you felt about Olivia. You say you shall never love again as you love her. Set Julia free then, quite free, to accept my brother or reject him. Be generous, be yourself, Martin."

"I will," I said.--"My dear Julia, you are as free as air from all obligation to me. You have been very good and very true to me. If Captain Carey is as good and true to you, as I believe he will be, you will be a very happy woman--happier than you would ever be with me."

"And you will not make yourself unhappy about it?" asked Julia, looking up.

"No," I answered, cheerfully, "I shall be a merry old bachelor, and visit you and Captain Carey, when we are all old folks. Never mind me, Julia; I never was good enough for you. I shall be very glad to know that you are happy."

Yet when I found myself in the street--for I made my escape as soon as I could get away from them--I felt as if every thing worth living for were slipping away from me. My mother and Olivia were gone, and here was Julia forsaking me. I did not grudge her her new happiness. There was neither jealousy nor envy in my feelings toward my supplanter. But in some way I felt that I had lost a great deal since I entered their drawing-room two hours ago.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.

OLIVIA'S HUSBAND.

I did not go straight home to our dull, gloomy, bachelor dwelling-place; for I was not in the mood for an hour's soliloquy. Jack and I had undertaken between us the charge of the patients belonging to a friend of ours, who had been called out of town for a few days. I was passing by the house, chewing the bitter cud of my reflections, and, recalling this, I turned in to see if any messages were waiting there for us. Lowry's footman told me a person had been with an urgent request that he would go as soon as possible to No. 19 Bellringer Street. I did not know the street, or what sort of a locality it was in.

"What kind of a person called?" I asked.

"A woman, sir; not a lady. On foot--poorly dressed. She's been here before, and Dr. Lowry has visited the case twice. No. 19 Bellringer Street. Perhaps you will find him in the case-book, sir."

I went in to consult the case-book. Half a dozen words contained the diagnosis. It was the same disease, in an incipient form, of which my poor mother died. I resolved to go and see this sufferer at once, late as the hour was.

"Did the person expect some one to go to-night?" I asked, as I passed through the hall.

"I couldn't promise her that, sir," was the answer. "I did say I'd send on the message to you, and I was just coming with it, sir. She said she'd sit up till twelve o'clock."

"Very good," I said.

Upon inquiry I found that the place was two miles away; and, as our old friend Simmons was still on the cab-stand, I jumped into his cab, and bade him drive me as fast as he could to No. 19 Bellringer Street. I wanted a sense of motion, and a chance of scene. If I had been in Guernsey, I should have mounted Madam, and had another midnight ride round the island. This was a poor substitute for that; but the visit would serve to turn my thoughts from Julia. If any one in London could do the man good. I believed it was I; for I had studied that one malady with my soul thrown into it.

"We turned at last into a shabby street, recognizable even in the twilight of the scattered lamps as being a place for cheap lodging-houses. There was a light burning in the second-floor windows of No. 19; but all the rest of the front was in darkness. I paid Simmons and dismissed him, saying I would walk home. By the time I turned to knock at the door, it was opened quietly from within. A woman stood in the doorway; I could not see her face, for the candle she had brought with her was on the table behind her; neither was there light enough for her to distinguish mine.

"Are you come from Dr. Lowry's?" she asked.

The voice sounded a familiar one, but I could not for the life of me recall whose it was.

"Yes," I answered, "but I do not know the name of my patient here."

"Dr. Martin Dobrée!" she exclaimed, in an accent almost of terror.

I recollected her then as the person who had been in search of Olivia. She had fallen back a few paces, and I could now see her face. It was startled and doubtful, as if she hesitated to admit me. Was it possible I had come to attend Olivia's husband?

"I don't know whatever to do!" she ejaculated; "he is very ill to-night, but I don't think he ought to see _you_--I don't think he would."

"Listen to me," I said; "I do not think there is another man in London as well qualified to do him good."

"Why?" she asked, eagerly.

"Because I have made this disease my special study," I answered. "Mind, I am not anxious to attend him. I came here simply because my friend is out of town. If he wishes to see me, I will see him, and do my best for him. It rests entirely with himself."

"Will you wait here a few minutes?" she asked, "while I see what he will do?"

She left me in the dimly-lighted hall, pervaded by a musty smell of unventilated rooms, and a damp, dirty underground floor. The place was altogether sordid, and dingy, and miserable. At last I heard her step coming down the two flights of stairs, and I went to meet her.

"He will see you," she said, eying me herself with a steady gaze of curiosity.

Her curiosity was not greater than mine. I was anxious to see Olivia's husband, partly from the intense aversion I felt instinctively toward him. He was lying back in an old, worn-out easy-chair, with a woman's shawl thrown across his shoulders, for the night was chilly. His face had the first sickly hue and emaciation of the disease, and was probably refined by it. It was a handsome, regular, well-cut face, narrow across the brows, with thin, firm lips, and eyes perfect in shape, but cold and glittering as steel. I knew afterward that he was fifteen years older than Olivia. Across his knees lay a shaggy, starved-looking cat, which he held fast by the fore-paws, and from time to time entertained himself by teasing and tormenting it. He scrutinized me as keenly as I did him.

"I believe we are in some sort connected. Dr. Martin Dobrée," he said, smiling coldly; "my half-sister, Kate Daltrey, is married to your father, Dr. Dobrée."

"Yes," I answered, shortly. The subject was eminently disagreeable to me, and I had no wish to pursue it with him.

"Ay! she will make him a happy man," he continued, mockingly; "you are not yourself married, I believe, Dr. Martin Dobrée?"

I took no notice whatever of his question, or the preceding remark, but passed on to formal inquiries concerning his health. My close study of his malady helped me here. I could assist him to describe and localize his symptoms, and I soon discovered that the disease was as yet in a very early stage.

"You have a better grip of it than Lowry," he said, sighing with satisfaction. "I feel as if I were made of glass, and you could look through me. Can you cure me?"

"I will do my best," I answered.

"So you all say," he muttered, "and the best is generally good for nothing. You see I care less about getting over it than my wife does. She is very anxious for my recovery."

"Your wife!" I repeated, in utter surprise; "you are Richard Foster, I believe?"

"Certainly," he replied.

"Does your wife know of your present illness?" I inquired.

"To be sure," he answered; "let me introduce you to Mrs. Richard Foster."

The woman looked at me with flashing eyes and a mocking smile, while Mr. Foster indulged himself with extorting a long and plaintive mew from the poor cat on his knees.

"I cannot understand," I said. I did not know how to continue my speech. Though they might choose to pass as husband and wife among strangers, they could hardly expect to impose upon me.

"Ah! I see you do not," said Mr. Foster, with a visible sneer. "Olivia is dead."

"Olivia dead!" I exclaimed.

I repeated the words mechanically, as if I could not make any meaning out of them. Yet they had been spoken with such perfect deliberation and certainty that there seemed to be no question about the fact. Mr. Foster's glittering eyes dwelt delightedly upon my face.

"You were not aware of it?" he said, "I am afraid I have been too sudden. Kate tells us you were in love with my first wife, and sacrificed a most eligible match for her. Would it be too late to open fresh negotiations with your cousin? You see I know all your family history."

"When did Olivia die?" I inquired, though my tongue felt dry and parched, and the room, with his fiendish face, was swimming giddily before my eyes.

"When was it, Carry?" he asked, turning to his wife.

"We heard she was dead on the first of October," she answered. "You married me the next day."

"Ah, yes!" he said; "Olivia had been dead to me for more than twelve months and the moment I was free I married her, Dr. Martin. We could not be married before, and there was no reason to wait longer. It was quite legal."

"But what proof have you?" I asked, still incredulous, yet with a heart so heavy that it could hardly rouse itself to hope.

"Carry, have you those letters?" said Richard Foster.

She was away for a few minutes, while he leaned back again in his chair, regarding nic with his half-closed, cruel eyes. I said nothing, and resolved to betray no emotion. Olivia dead! my Olivia! I could not believe it.

"Here are the proofs," said Mrs. Foster, reentering the room. She put into my hand an ordinary certificate of death, signed by J. Jones, M.D. It stated that the deceased, Olivia Foster, had died on September the 27th, of acute inflammation of the lungs. Accompanying this was a letter written in a good handwriting, purporting to be from a clergyman or minister, of what denomination it was not stated, who had attended Olivia in her fatal illness. He said that she had desired him to keep the place of her death and burial a secret, and to forward no more than the official certificate of the former event. This letter was signed E. Jones. No clew was given by either document as to the place where they were written.

"Are you not satisfied?" asked Foster.

"No," I replied; "how is it, if Olivia is dead, that you have not taken possession of her property?"

"A shrewd question," he said, jeeringly. "Why am I in these cursed poor lodgings? Why am I as poor as Job, when there are twenty thousand pounds of my wife's estate lying unclaimed? My sweet, angelic Olivia left no will, or none in my favor, you may be sure; and by her father's will, if she dies intestate or without children, his property goes to build almshouses, or some confounded nonsense, in Melbourne. All she bequeaths to me is this ring, which I gave to her on our wedding-day, curse her!"

He held out his hand, on the little finger of which shone a diamond, which might, as far as I knew, be the one I had once seen in Olivia's possession.

"Perhaps you do not know," he continued, "that it was on this very point, the making of her will, or securing her property to me in some way, that my wife took offence and ran away from me. Carry was just a little too hard upon her, and I was away in Paris. But consider, I expected to be left penniless, just as you see me left, and Carry was determined to prevent it."

"Then you are sure of her death?" I said.

"So sure," he replied, calmly, "that we were married the next day. Olivia's letter to me, as well as those papers, was conclusive of her identity. Will you like to see it?"

Mrs. Foster gave me a slip of paper, on which were written a few lines. The words looked faint, and grew paler as I read them. They were without doubt Olivia's writing:

"I know that, you are poor, and I send you all I can spare--the ring you once gave to me. I am even poorer than yourself, but I have just enough for my last necessities. I forgive you, as I trust that God forgives me."

* * * * *

There was no more to be said or done. Conviction had been brought home to me. I rose to take my leave, and Foster held out his hand to me, perhaps with a kindly intention. Olivia's ring was glittering on it, and I could not take it into mine.

"Well, well," he said, "I understand; I am sorry for you. Come again, Dr. Martin Dobrée. If you know of any remedy for my ease, you are no true man if you do not try it."

I went down the narrow staircase, closely followed by Mrs. Foster. Her face had lost its gayety and boldness, and looked womanly and careworn, as she laid her hand upon my arm before opening the house-door.

"For God's sake, come again," she said, "if you can do any thing for him! We have money left yet, and I am earning more every day. We can pay you well. Promise me you will come again."

"I can promise nothing to-night," I answered.

"You shall not go till you promise," she said, emphatically.

"Well, then, I promise," I answered, and she unfastened the chain almost noiselessly, and opened the door into the street.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-NINTH.

SAD SEWS.

A fine, drizzling rain was falling; I was just conscious of it as an element of discomfort, but it did not make me quicken my steps. I wanted no rapidity of motion now. There was nothing to be done, nothing to look forward to, nothing to flee away from. Olivia was dead!

I had said the same thing again and again to myself, that Olivia was dead to me; but at this moment I learned how great a difference there was between the words as a figure of speech and as a terrible reality. I could no longer think of her as treading the same earth--the same streets, perhaps; speaking the same language; seeing the same daylight as myself. I recalled her image, as I had seen her last in Sark; and then I tried to picture her white face, with lips and eyes closed forever, and the awful chill of death resting upon her. It seemed impossible; yet the cuckoo-cry went on in my brain, "Olivia is dead--is dead!"

I reached home just as Jack was coming in from his evening amusement. He let me in with his latch-key, giving me a cheery greeting; but as soon as we had entered the dining-room, and he saw my face, he exclaimed. "Good Heavens! Martin, what has happened to you?"

"Olivia is dead," I answered.

His arm was about my neck in a moment, for we were like boys together still, when we were alone. He knew all about Olivia, and he waited patiently till I could put my tidings into words.

"It must be true," he said, though in a doubtful tone; "the scoundrel would not have married again if he had not sufficient proof."

"She must have died very soon after my mother," I answered, "and I never knew it!"

"It's strange!" he said. "I wonder she never got anybody to write to you or Tardif."

There was no way of accounting for that strange silence toward us. We sat talking in short, broken sentences, while Jack smoked a cigar; but we could come to no conclusion about it. It was late when we parted, and I went to bed, but not to sleep.

For as soon as the room was quite dark, visions of Olivia haunted me. Phantasms of her followed one another rapidly through my brain. She had died, so said the certificate, of inflammation of the lungs, after an illness of ten days. I felt myself bound to go through every stage of her illness, dwelling upon all her sufferings, and thinking of her as under careless or unskilled attendance, with no friend at hand to take care of her. She ought not to have died, with her perfect constitution. If I had been there she should not have died.

About four o'clock Jack tapped softly upon the wall between our bedrooms--it was a signal we had used when we were boys--as though to inquire if I was all right; but it was quiet enough not to wake me if I were asleep. It seemed like the friendly "Ahoy!" from a boat floating on the same dark sea. Jack was lying awake, thinking of me as I was thinking of Olivia. There was something so consolatory in this sympathy that I fell asleep while dwelling upon it.

Upon going downstairs in the morning I found that Jack was already off, having left a short note for me, saving he would visit my patients that day. I had scarcely begun breakfast when the servant announced "a lady," and as the lady followed close upon his heels, I saw behind his shoulder the familiar face of Johanna, looking extremely grave. She was soon seated beside me, watching me with something of the tender, wistful gaze of my mother. Her eyes were of the same shape and color, and I could hardly command myself to speak calmly.

"Your friend Dr. John Senior called upon us a short time since," she said; "and told us this sad, sad news."

I nodded silently.

"If we had only known it yesterday," she continued, "you would never have heard what we then said. This makes so vast a difference. Julia could not have become your wife while there was another woman living whom you loved more. You understand her feeling?"

"Yes," I said; "Julia is right."

"My brother and I have been talking about the change this will make," she resumed. "He would not rob you of any consolation or of any future happiness; not for worlds. He relinquishes all claim to or hope of Julia's affection--"

"That would be unjust to Julia," I interrupted. "She must not be sacrificed to me any longer. I do not suppose I shall ever marry--"

"You must marry, Martin," she interrupted in her turn, and speaking emphatically; "you are altogether unfitted for a bachelor's life. It is all very well for Dr. John Senior, who has never known a woman's companionship, and who can do without it. But it is misery to you--this cold, colorless life. No. Of all the men I ever knew, you are the least fitted for a single life."

"Perhaps I am," I admitted, as I recalled my longing for some sign of womanhood about our bachelor dwelling.

"I am certain of it," she said. "Now, but for our precipitation last night, you would have gone naturally to Julia for comfort. So my brother sends word that he is going back to Guernsey to-night, leaving us in Hanover Street, where we are close to you. We have said nothing to Julia yet. She is crying over this sad news--mourning for your sorrow. You know that my brother has not spoken directly to Julia of his love; and now all that is in the past, and is to be as if it had never been, and we go on exactly as if we had not had that conversation yesterday."

"But that cannot be," I remonstrated. "I cannot consent to Julia wasting her love and time upon me. I assure you most solemnly I shall never marry my cousin now."

"You love her?" said Johanna.

"Certainly," I answered, "as my sister."

"Better than any woman now living?" she pursued.

"Yes," I replied.

"That is all Julia requires," she continued; "so let us say no more at present, Martin. Only understand that all idea of marriage between her and my brother is quite put away. Don't argue with me, don't contradict me. Come to see us as you would have done but for that unfortunate conversation last night. All will come right by-and-by."

"But Captain Carey--" I began.

"There! not a word!" she interrupted imperatively. "Tell me all about that wretch, Richard Foster. How did you come across him? Is he likely to die? Is he any thing like Kate Daltrey?--I will never call her Kate Dobrée as long as the world lasts. Come, Martin, tell me every thing about him."

She sat with me most of the morning, talking with animated perseverance, and at last prevailed upon me to take her a walk in Hyde Park. Her pertinacity did me good in spite of the irritation it caused me. When her dinner-hour was at hand I felt bound to attend her to her house in Hanover Street; and I could not get away from her without first speaking to Julia. Her face was very sorrowful, and her manner sympathetic. We said only a few words to one another, but I went away with the impression that her heart was still with me.

CHAPTER THE FORTIETH.

A TORMENTING DOUBT.

At dinner Jack announced his intention of paying a visit to Richard Foster.

"You are not fit to deal with the fellow," he said; "you may be sharp enough upon your own black sheep in Guernsey, but you know nothing of the breed here. Now, if I see him, I will squeeze out of him every mortal thing he knows about Olivia. Where did those papers come from?"

"There was no place given," I answered.

"But there would be a post-mark on the envelop," he replied; "I will make him show me the envelop they were in."

"Jack," I said, "you do not suppose he has any doubt of her death?"

"I can't say," he answered. "You see he has married again, and if she were not dead that would be bigamy--an ugly sort of crime. But are you sure they are married?"

"How can I be sure?" I asked fretfully, for grief as often makes men fretful as illness. "I did not ask for their marriage-certificate."

"Well, well! I will go," he answered.