Chapter 21

I awaited his return with impatience. With this doubt insinuated by Jack, it began to seem almost incredible that Olivia's exquisitely healthy frame should have succumbed suddenly under a malady to which she had no predisposition whatever. Moreover, her original soundness of constitution had been strengthened by ten months' residence in the pure, bracing air of Sark. Yet what was I to think in face of those undated documents, and of her own short letter to her husband? The one I knew was genuine; why should I suppose the others to be forged? And if forgeries, who had been guilty of such a cruel and crafty artifice, and for what purpose?

I had not found any satisfactory answer to these queries before Jack returned, his face kindled with excitement. He caught my hand, and grasped it heartily.

"I no more believe she is dead than I am," were his first words. "You recollect me telling you of a drunken brawl in a street off the Strand, where a fellow, as drunk as a lord, was for claiming a pretty girl as his wife; only I had followed her out of Ridley's agency-office, and was just in time to protect her from him--a girl I could have fallen in love with myself. You recollect?"

"Yes, yes," I said, almost breathless.

"He was the man, and Olivia was the girl!" exclaimed Jack.

"No!" I cried.

"Yes!" continued Jack, with an affectionate lunge at me; "at any rate I can swear he is the man; and I would bet a thousand to one that the girl was Olivia."

"But when was it?" I asked.

"Since he married again," he answered; "they were married on the 2d of October, and this was early in November. I had gone to Ridley's after a place for a poor fellow as an assistant to a druggist; and I saw the girl distinctly. She gave the name of Ellen Martineau. Those letters about her death are all forgeries."

"Olivia's is not," I said; "I know her handwriting too well."

"Well, then," observed Jack, "there is only one explanation. She has sent them herself to throw Foster off the scent; she thinks she will be safe if he believes her dead."

"No," I answered, hotly, "she would never have done such a thing as that."

"Who else is benefited by it?" he asked, gravely. "It does not put Foster into possession of any of her property; or that would have been a motive for him to do it. But he gains nothing by it; and he is so convinced of her death that he has married a second wife."

It was difficult to hit upon any other explanation; yet I could not credit this one. I felt firmly convinced that Olivia could not be guilty of an artifice so cunning. I was deceived in her indeed if she would descend to any fraud so cruel. But I could not discuss the question even with Jack Senior. Tardif was the only person who knew Olivia well enough to make his opinion of any value. Besides, my mind was not as clear as Jack's that she was the girl he had seen in November. Yet the doubt of her death was full of hope; it made the earth more habitable, and life more endurable.

"What can I do now?" I said, speaking aloud, though I was thinking to myself.

"Martin," he replied, gravely, "isn't it wisest to leave the matter as it stands? If you find Olivia, what then? she is as much separated from you as she can be by death. So long as Foster lives, it is worse than useless to be thinking of her. There is no misery like that of hanging about a woman you have no right to love."

"I only wish to satisfy myself that she is alive," I answered. "Just think of it, Jack, not to know whether she is living or dead! You must help me to satisfy myself. Foster has got the only valuable thing she had in her possession, and if she is living she may be in absolute want. I cannot be contented with that dread on my mind. There can be no harm in my taking some care of her at a distance. This mystery would be intolerable to me."

"You're right, old fellow," he said, cordially; "we will go to Ridley's together to-morrow morning."

We were there soon after the doors were open. There were not many clients present, and the clerks were enjoying a slack time. Jack had recalled to his mind the exact date of his former visit; and thus the sole difficulty was overcome. The clerk found the name of Ellen Martineau entered under that date in his book.

"Yes," he said, "Miss Ellen Martineau, English teacher in a French school; premium to be paid, about 10 Pounds; no salary; reference, Mrs. Wilkinson, No. 19 Bellringer Street."

"No. 19 Bellringer Street!" we repeated in one breath.

"Yes, gentlemen, that is the address," said the clerk, closing the book. "Shall I write it down for you? Mrs. Wilkinson was the party who should have paid our commission; as you perceive, a premium was required instead of a salary given. We feel pretty sure the young lady went to the school, but Mrs. Wilkinson denies it, and it is not worth our while to pursue our claim in law."

"Can you describe the young lady?" I inquired.

"Well, no. We have such hosts of young ladies here. But she was pretty, decidedly pretty; she made that impression upon me, at least. We are too busy to take particular notice; but I should know her again if she came in. I think she would have been here again, before this, if she had not got that engagement."

"Do you know where the school is?" I asked.

"No. Mrs. Wilkinson was the party," he said. "We had nothing to do with it, except send any ladies to her who thought it worth their while. That was all."

As we could obtain no further information, we went away, and paced up and down the tolerably quiet street, deep in consultation. That we should have need for great caution, and as much craftiness as we both possessed, in pursuing our inquiries at No. 19 Bellringer Street, was quite evident. Who could be this unknown Mrs. Wilkinson? Was it possible that she might prove to be Mrs. Foster herself? At any rate, it would not do for either of us to present ourselves there in quest of Miss Ellen Martineau. It was finally settled between us that Johanna should be intrusted with the diplomatic enterprise. There was not much chance that Mrs. Foster would know her by sight, though she had been in Guernsey; and it would excite less notice for a lady to be inquiring after Olivia. We immediately turned our steps toward Hanover Street, where we found her and Julia seated at some fancy-work in their sombre drawing-room.

Julia received me with a little embarrassment, but conquered it sufficiently to give me a warm pressure of the hand, and to whisper in my ear that Johanna had told her every thing. Unluckily, Johanna herself knew nothing of our discovery the night before. I kept Julia's hand in mine, and looked steadily into her eyes.

"My dear Julia," I said, "we bring strange news. We have reason to believe that Olivia is not dead, but that something underhand is going on, which we cannot yet make out."

Julia's face grew crimson, but I would not let her draw her hand away from my clasp. I held it the more firmly; and, as Jack was busy talking to Johanna, I continued speaking to her in a lowered tone.

"My dear," I said, "you have been as true, and faithful, and generous a friend as any man ever had. But this must not go on, for your own sake. You fancied you loved me, because every one about us wished it to be so; but I cannot let you waste your life on me. Speak to me exactly as your brother. Do you believe you could be really happy with Captain Carey?"

"Arthur is so good," she murmured, "and he is so fond of me."

I had never heard her call him Arthur before. The elder members of our Guernsey circle called him by his Christian name, but to us younger ones he had always been Captain Carey. Julia's use of it was more eloquent than many phrases. She had grown into the habit of calling him familiarly by it.

"Then, Julia," I said, "what folly it would be for you to sacrifice yourself to a false notion of faithfulness! I could not accept such a sacrifice. Think no more of me or my happiness."

"But my poor aunt was so anxious for you to have a home of your own," she said, sobbing, "and I do love you dearly. Now you will never marry. I know you will not, if you can have neither Olivia nor me for your wife."

"Very likely," I answered, trying to laugh away her agitation; "I shall be in love with two married women instead. How shocking that will sound in Guernsey! But I'm not afraid that Captain Carey will forbid me his house."

"How little we thought!" exclaimed Julia. I knew very well what her mind had gone back to--the days when she and I and my mother were furnishing and settling the house that would now become Captain Carey's home.

"Then it is all settled," I said, "and I shall write to him by to-night's post, inviting him back again--that is, if he really left you last night."

"Yes," she replied; "he would not stay a day longer."

Her face had grown calm as we talked together. A scarcely perceptible smile was lurking about her lips, as if she rejoiced that her suspense was over. There was something very like a pang in the idea of some one else filling the place I had once fully occupied in her heart; but the pain was unworthy of me. I drove it away by throwing myself heart and soul into the mystery which hung over the fate of Olivia.

"We have hit upon a splendid plan," said Jack: "Miss Carey will take Simmons's cab to Bellringer Street, and reach the house about the same time as I visit Foster. That is for me to be at hand if she should need any protection, you know. I shall stay up-stairs with Foster till I hear the cab drive off again, and it will wait for me at the corner of Dawson Street. Then we will come direct here, and tell you every thing at once. Of course, Miss Dobrée will wish to hear it all."

"Cannot I go with Johanna?" she asked.

"No," I said, hastily; "it is very probable Mrs. Foster knows you by sight, though she is less likely to know Johanna. I fancy Mrs. Wilkinson will turn out to be Mrs. Foster herself. Yet why they should spirit Olivia away into a French school, and pretend that she is dead, I cannot see."

Nor could any one of the others see the reason. But as the morning was fast waning away, and both Jack and I were busy, we were compelled to close the discussion, and, with our minds preoccupied to a frightful extent, make those calls upon our patients which were supposed to be in each case full of anxious and particular thought for the ailments we were attempting to alleviate.

Upon meeting again for a few minutes at luncheon, we made a slight change in our plan; for we found a note from Foster awaiting me, in which he requested me to visit him in the future, instead of Dr. John Senior, as he felt more confidence in my knowledge of his malady.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST.

MARTIN DOBRÉE'S PLEDGE.

I followed Simmons's cab up Bellringer Street, and watched Johanna alight and enter the house. The door was scarcely closed upon her when I rang, and asked the slatternly drudge of a servant if I could see Mr. Foster. She asked me to go up to the parlor on the second floor, and I went alone, with little expectation of finding Mrs. Foster there, unless Johanna was there also, in which case I was to appear as a stranger to her.

The parlor looked poorer and shabbier by daylight than at night. There was not a single element of comfort in it. The curtains hung in rags about a window begrimed with soot and smoke. The only easy-chair was the one occupied by Foster, who himself looked as shabby and worn as the room. The cuffs and collar of his shirt were yellow and tattered; his hair hung long and lank; and his skin had a sallow, unwholesome tint. The diamond ring upon his finger was altogether out of keeping with his threadbare coat, buttoned up to the chin, as if there were no waistcoat beneath it. From head to foot he looked a broken-down, seedy fellow, yet still preserving some lingering traces of the gentleman. This was Olivia's husband!

A good deal to my surprise, I saw Mrs. Foster seated quietly at a table drawn close to the window, very busily writing--engrossing, as I could see, for some miserable pittance a page. She must have had some considerable practice in the work, for it was done well, and her pen ran quickly over the paper. A second chair left empty opposite to her showed that Foster had been engaged at the same task, before he heard my step on the stairs. He looked weary, and I could not help feeling something akin to pity for him. I did not know that they had come down as low as that.

"I did not expect you to come before night," he said, testily; "I like to have some idea when my medical attendant is coming."

"I was obliged to come now," I answered, offering no other apology. The man irritated me more than any other person that had ever come across me. There was something perverse and splenetic in every word he uttered, and every expression upon his face.

"I do not like your partner," he said; "don't send him again. He knows nothing about his business."

He spoke with all the haughtiness of a millionnaire to a country practitioner. I could hardly refrain from smiling as I thought of Jack's disgust and indignation.

"As for that," I replied, "most probably neither of us will visit you again. Dr. Lowry will return to-morrow, and you will be in his hands once more."

"No!" he cried, with a passionate urgency in his tone--"no, Martin Dobrée; you said if any man in London could cure me, it was yourself. I cannot leave myself in any other hands. I demand from you the fulfilment of your words. If what you said is true, you can no more leave me to the care of another physician, than you could leave a fellow-creature to drown without doing your utmost to save him. I refuse to be given up to Dr. Lowry."

"But it is by no means a parallel ease," I argued; "you were under his treatment before, and I have no reason whatever to doubt his skill. Why should you feel safer in my hands than in his?"

"Well!" he said, with a sneer, "if Olivia were alive, I dare scarcely have trusted you, could I? But you have nothing to gain by my death, you know; and I have so much faith in you, in your skill, and your honor, and your conscientiousness--if there be any such qualities in the world--that I place myself unfalteringly under your professional care. Shake hands upon it, Martin Dobrée."

In spite of my repugnance, I could not resist taking his offered hand. His eyes were fastened upon me with something of the fabled fascination of a serpent's. I knew instinctively that he would have the power, and use it, of probing every wound he might suspect in me to the quick. Yet he interested me; and there was something not entirely repellent to me about him. Above all for Olivia's sake, should we find her still living, I was anxious to study his character. It might happen, as it does sometimes, that my honor and straight-forwardness might prove a match for his crafty shrewdness.

"There," he said, exultantly, "Martin Dobrée pledges himself to cure me.--Carry, you are the witness of it. If I die, he has been my assassin as surely as if he had plunged a stiletto into me."

"Nonsense!" I answered; "it is not in my power to heal or destroy. I simply pledge myself to use every means I know of for your recovery."

"Which comes to the same thing," he replied; "for, mark you, I will be the most careful patient you ever had. There should be no chance for you, even if Olivia were alive."

Always harping on that one string. Was it nothing more than a lore of torturing some one that made him reiterate those words? Or did he wish to drive home more deeply the conviction that she was indeed dead?

"Have you communicated the intelligence of her death to her trustee in Australia?" I asked.

"No; why should I?" he said, "no good would come of it to me. Why should I trouble myself about it?"

"Nor to your step-sister?" I added.

"To Mrs. Dobrée?" he rejoined; "no, it does not signify a straw to her either. She holds herself aloof from me now, confound her! You are not on very good terms with her yourself, I believe?"

"The cab was still standing at the door, and I could not leave before it drove away, or I should have made my visit a short one. Mrs. Foster was glancing through the window from time to time, evidently on the watch to see the visitor depart. Would she recognize Johanna? She had stayed some weeks in Guernsey; and Johanna was a fine, stately-looking woman, noticeable among strangers. I must do something to get her away from her post of observation.

"Mrs. Foster," I said, and her eyes sparkled at the sound of her name, "I should be exceedingly obliged to you if you will give me another sight of those papers you showed to me the last time I was here."

She was away for a few minutes, and I heard the cab drive off before she returned. That was the chief point gained. When the papers were in my hand, I just glanced at them, and that was all.

"Have you any idea where they came from?" I asked.

"There is the London post-mark on the envelop," answered Foster.--"Show it to him, Carry. There is nothing to be learned from that."

"No," I said, comparing the handwriting on the envelop with the letter, and finding them the same. "Well, good-by! I cannot often pay you as long a visit as this."

I hurried off quickly to the corner of Dawson Street, where Johanna was waiting for me. She looked exceedingly contented when I took my seat beside her in the cab.

"Well, Martin," she said, "you need suffer no more anxiety. Olivia has gone as English teacher in an excellent French school, where the lady is thoroughly acquainted with English ways and comforts. This is the prospectus of the establishment. You see there are 'extensive grounds for recreation, and the comforts of a cheerfully happy home, the domestic arrangements being on a thoroughly liberal scale.' Here is also a photographic view of the place: a charming villa, you see, in the best French style. The lady's husband is an _avocat_; and every thing is taught by professors--cosmography and pedagogy, and other studies of which we never heard when I was a girl. Olivia is to stay there twelve months, and in return for her services will take lessons from any professors attending the establishment. Your mind may be quite at ease now."

"But where is the place?" I inquired.

"Oh! it is in Normandy--Noireau," she said--"quite out of the range of railways and tourists. There will be no danger of any one finding her out there; and you know she has changed her name altogether this time."

"Did you discover that Olivia and Ellen Martineau are the same persons?" I asked.

An expression of bewilderment and consternation came across her contented face.

"No, I did not," she answered; "I thought you were sure of that."

But I was not sure of it; neither could Jack be sure. He puzzled himself in trying to give a satisfactory description of his Ellen Martineau; but every answer he gave to my eager questions plunged us into greater uncertainty. He was not sure of the color either of her hair or eyes, and made blundering guesses at her height. The chief proof we had of Olivia's identity was the drunken claim made upon Ellen Martineau by Foster, a month after he had received convincing proof that she was dead. What was I to believe?

It was running too great a risk to make any further inquiries at No. 19 Bellringer Street. Mrs. Wilkinson was the landlady of the lodging-house, and she had told Johanna that Madame Perrier boarded with her when she was in London. But she might begin to talk to her other lodgers, if her own curiosity were excited; and once more my desire to fathom the mystery hanging about Olivia might plunge her into fresh difficulties, should they reach the ears of Foster or his wife.

"I must satisfy myself about her safety now," I said. "Only put yourself in my place, Jack. How can I rest till I know more about Olivia?"

"I do put myself in your place," he answered. "What do you say to having a run down to this place in Basse-Normandie, and seeing for yourself whether Miss Ellen Martineau is your Olivia?"

"How can I?" I asked, attempting to hang back from the suggestion. It was a busy time with us. The season was in full roll, and our most aristocratic patients were in town. The easterly winds were bringing in their usual harvest of bronchitis and diphtheria. If I went, Jack's hands would be more than full. Had these things come to perplex us only two months earlier, I could have taken a holiday with a clear conscience.

"Dad will jump at the chance of coming back for a week," replied Jack; "he is bored to death down at Fulham. Go you must, for my sake, old fellow. You are good for nothing as long as you're so down in the mouth. I shall be glad to be rid of you."

We shook hands upon that, as warmly as if he had paid me the most flattering compliments.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-SECOND.

NOIREAU

In this way it came to pass that two evenings later I was crossing the Channel to Havre, and found myself about five o'clock in the afternoon of the next day at Falaise. It was the terminus of the railway in that direction; and a very ancient conveyance, bearing the name of La Petite Vitesse, was in waiting to carry on any travellers who were venturesome enough to explore the regions beyond. There was space inside for six passengers, but it smelt too musty, and was too full of the fumes of bad tobacco, for me; and I very much preferred sitting beside the driver, a red-faced, smooth-cheeked Norman, habited in a blue blouse, who could crack his long whip with almost the skill of a Parisian omnibus-driver. We were friends in a trice, for my _patois_ was almost identical with his own, and he could not believe his own ears that he was talking with an Englishman.

"La Petite Vitesse" bore out its name admirably, if it were meant to indicate exceeding slowness. We never advanced beyond a slow trot, and at the slightest hint of rising ground the trot slackened into a walk, and eventually subsided into a crawl. By these means the distance we traversed was made to seem tremendous, and the drowsy jingle of the collar-bells, intimating that progress was being accomplished, added to the delusion. But the fresh, sweet air, blowing over leagues of fields and meadows, untainted with a breath of smoke, gave me a delicious tingling in the veins. I had not felt such a glow of exhilaration since that bright morning when I bad crossed the channel to Sark, to ask Olivia to become mine.

The sun sank below the distant horizon, with the trees showing clearly against it, for the atmosphere was as transparent as crystal; and the light of the stars that came out one by one almost cast a defined shadow upon our path, from the poplar-trees standing in long, straight rows in the hedges. If I found Olivia at the end of that starlit path my gladness in it would be completed. Yet if I found her, what then? I should see her for a few minutes in the dull _salon_ of a school perhaps with some watchful, spying Frenchwoman present. I should simply satisfy myself that she was living. There could be nothing more between us. I dare not tell her how dear she was to me, or ask her if she ever thought of me in her loneliness and friendlessness. I began to wish that I had brought Johanna with me, who could have taken her in her arms, and kissed and comforted her. Why had I not thought of that before?

As we proceeded at our delusive pace along the last stage of our journey, I began to sound the driver, cautiously wheeling about the object of my excursion into those remote regions. I had tramped through Normandy and Brittany three or four times, but there had been no inducement to visit Noireau, which resembled a Lancashire cotton-town, and I had never been there.

"There are not many English at Noireau?" I remarked, suggestively.