CHAPTER XXVI.

ALL A MISTAKE.

It took Richard Ferrier just three months to decide what course his future life should take. He was too old for the Army or Civil Service. The Church was equally out of the question, for a reason equally potent. Need we say that his first idea had been to earn his living by literature? In these days of extended education and cheap stationery, it always is the very first idea of any one whose ordinary source of income is suddenly cut short. Richard had always felt at college that he had a decided faculty for writing; but an uninterrupted stream of returned MS., 'declined, with thanks' by all sorts and conditions of editors, convinced him in less than three months that, if writing indeed were his vocation, it was one that he must forego until he could pay for the publishing of his own works, which was not exactly the view he had in wishing to adopt it.

He had no interest in the law, and he knew well enough that he had not talent to enable him to dispense with interest. Besides, his leanings had never been that way. The medical profession inspired him with far more interest. His favourite study had always been biology. He had enough money to live on sparingly till the necessary four years should have expired, and it seemed to him better to adopt a profession than to go in for trade in any form or shape. He had had enough of trade. He made a round of visits among special chums of his own, and during the time so occupied had thought long and seriously about his future, and, of all the ideas that came to him, that of being a doctor was the one with most attractions and fewest drawbacks. So early in March he entered himself as a student at Guy's, determined to throw himself heart and soul into his new career, and to let the dead past be. No return to the conditions of that past seemed possible to him, and, though he determined to think of it as little as he could, there were some things about it that haunted him disturbingly. But he hoped, among new friends and with new ambitions, to forget successfully. A man has his life to live, and life is not over at twenty-five, even when one has lost father, fortune, and heart's desire.

One windy, wild, bright March morning he was walking up to the hospital as usual from his lodgings in Kennington. He looked as cheerful as the morning itself as he strode along with an oak stick in his hand, and under his arm two or three shiny black note-books with red edges. Opposite St Thomas's Street he paused to watch for a favourable moment in which to effect a crossing; and before he had time to plunge into the chaos of vans, omnibuses, cabs, carriages, trucks, barrows and blasphemy, the touch of a hand on his arm made him turn sharply round. It was his foster-mother, with a basket on her arm, her attire several shades shabbier than he had been used to see it, and her worn face lighted up with pleasure at meeting him.

'Eh, but Ah'm glad to see thi face, my lad,' she said earnestly, as he turned and shook her hand heartily. 'I thowt as there was na more nor two pair o' shoulders like these, and I know'd it was thee or Rowley the minute Ah seed thee.'

The familiar North-country sing-song accent sent a momentary pain through the young man's heart as he answered,--

'I'm awfully glad to see you again; but what in the name of fortune are you doing here?'

'There's na fortune in't but bad fortune, lad,' she answered; 'tha know'd well enough when thee and Rowley fell out as Thornsett wouldn't be a home for any o' us for long.'

There was no reproach in her tone. Her speech was only a plain statement of fact.

'But what made you come to London?'

'T' master thowt as there'd be a big lot o' work to be gotten here, seeing as London be such a big place. Oh, but it is big, Master Dick. Ah'm getting a bit used to it now, but when first we came here the bigness and the din of it used to get into my head like, till times Ah felt a'most daft wi' it.'

By this time he had piloted her across, and they were walking side by side towards London Bridge, whither she told him she was bound.

'I'm afraid Hatfield found himself mistaken about the work; there are no mills in London,' said Richard.

'No, or if there be we never found them; but the master's had a bit o' luck, and he's getten took on at a place they call Dartford; m'appen you've heerd on it?'

'Well, I _am_ glad to hear that. I hope all the hands have done as well.'

'No one's gladder nor me. Ah can't say for the lump o' the hands; but him, ever since he heerd as t' mill was to stop, he's not been t' say the same man as wor so fond of you and Rowley, and as used to go to chapel regular, and was allus the best o' husbands.'

'I hope he's not unkind to you?' said the young man anxiously.

'Nay; he's steady enow, and kind enow, but he's changed like. He willn't go to chapel no more, an' he says as he don't believe as our trouble's t' visitings o' a kind Providence.'

No more did Richard, but he forbore to say so; and she went on, the pent-up anxiety and sorrow of the last few weeks finding vent at last,--

'An' he's bitter set against Rowley. I wonder by hours and hours whether there's summat atween 'em as I don't know of. Sithee, Dick, if tha'll tell me one thing it'll do no harm nor no good to no one but me, and it'll set my mind at rest. Was there owt i' what folks set down i' Thornsett? Was it Rowley as stole our Alice?'

This point-blank question caught the young man right off his guard. His face gave the answer; his lips only stammered, 'How should I know? Besides, it can do no one any good now to know that.'

'Thi eyes is honester nor thi tongue,' Mrs Hatfield said, with a face full of trouble. 'Make thi tongue speak truth as well, lad, and tell me what tha knows. Tell me wheer shoo is.'

'If I had known you would have known too, long ago,' Richard answered.

'But tha hasn't told me a' tha knows e'en as 'tis.'

'I don't know anything,' Richard was beginning, when Mrs Hatfield clasped both her hands on his arm.

'Dick, Dick,' she said, 'tha's heerd o' her or tha's seen her. I've allus had a mother's heart for tha as well as for her, and now it's as if one o' my childer wouldn't help me to find t'other. What has tha heard? I see i' thi face 'twas Rowley. Eh, but I never thought the boy I nursed would ha' turned on them as loved him i' this fashion.'

The tears followed the words, which were not whispered, and the passers-by turned their heads wonderingly to look at the middle-aged countrywoman, with the basket, who was looking so earnestly and entreatingly into the face of the tall young medical student.

'Come in here,' he said, and led her into the waiting-room of the London Bridge Station, which was fortunately empty. She sat down and began to cry bitterly, while Richard stood helplessly looking at her.

'Don't cry,' he said; but she took no notice, and went on moaning to herself.

'Couldn't tha ha' stopped it?' she said, suddenly raising her tear-stained face. 'Tha couldst surely ha' stood i' the way o' such a sinful, cruel thing as that.'

'Good God, no!' cried Dick, losing control of his tongue at the sudden implication of himself in these charges; 'what could I do? I knew nothing of it till last October, and then I did the best I could.'

'And tha found out for sure. Tell me a' abaat it.'

'I'm not sure enough to tell any one anything,' he answered: 'but I was sure enough to throw away all my chances, because I felt I couldn't have anything more to do with a fellow who'd do such a beastly mean thing as that.'

He had no idea that he was not speaking the truth. He had by this time really convinced himself that he had been prompted in his quarrel by the highest moral considerations, and had taught himself to forget how other motives and influences had been at work, and how he had been forced to acknowledge this at the time.

'How did tha find it out?' Mrs Hatfield persisted: and Richard in desperation told her the whole story. It seemed to her as convincing as it had done to him.

The mother asked him innumerable questions about Alice--how had she looked, how had she spoken? It grieved him not to be able to give her pleasanter answers, but, rather to his surprise, her mind seemed to dwell less with sorrow on Alice's want and hard work, than with pleasure on the thought that her daughter had given up her lover, or, as she called it, returned to the narrow path. But why had she not returned to her mother? And that question Dick could not answer. All these questions and replies had taken some time, and the Dartford train had gone. Dick found out the time of the next train, and then came and sat down beside her, and did his best to cheer her, in which attempt his real affection for her assured him a measure of success. By the time the Dartford train was due she was calm again and reasonably cheerful. He led her to tell him of their life since they had come to London; how nearly everything had been turned into money; how the basket on her arm contained all that she had been able to keep; and how she was going down to join her husband, and to try to take root with him in a fresh soil. From her he heard for the first time of Count Litvinoff's visit to Thornsett, of the rioting of the mill hands, and, though she did not say so in so many words, he could see that she placed the two events in the relation of cause and effect. She told him, too, of Litvinoff's bravery, and of the fate of the luckless Isaac Potts; and Dick, though he couldn't help feeling interest and admiration at this recital, did not like the way in which Miss Stanley's name and Litvinoff's were coupled in Mrs Hatfield's account of the help, advice, and kindness shown to the hands before they dispersed from Thornsett. Her words suggested to him vague suspicions; but he couldn't think much just then, for it was time to take Mrs Hatfield's ticket and to see her off. This he did, and when he had seen her comfortably seated in a corner of a second-class carriage, he said good-bye to her, giving her at parting a very hearty hand-shake, and a sovereign, which he could ill afford.

'Good-bye, dear,' he said; 'you must write and tell me how you get on. Here's my address, and I hope with all my heart you will have good fortune.'

He drew back from the train as it began to move, and waved a farewell. She in turn waved her damp cotton handkerchief, and was borne out of sight.

As she disappeared Dick began to wonder what he should do with himself. The lecture he had been about to attend was hopelessly lost and there was nothing particular to be done till after lunch. Obedient to what would have been the instinct of most young men under such circumstances, his first thought was to take a ticket to Charing Cross, that being a more cheerful place for the consideration of any problem than the station where he found himself. In common with every other traveller on the South-Eastern Railway, he had long since arrived at the conclusion that London Bridge was the most unreasonably comfortless and altogether objectionable station in England--which is saying a good deal. He was just turning to go down to the booking office when--

'Great heavens, how wonderful!' he said. As he turned he found himself face to face with the girl whose mother had just left him. She was close to him, and had instinctively held out her hand, which he had clasped in greeting before he noticed that she was not alone. Her companion was evidently a gentleman. Her dress was much better than had been that of the girl for whom he had carried the brown-paper parcel five months ago. Richard noticed this with a pang of uneasiness as he said,--

'Why, Alice, I am very glad to see you; you're looking much better. Where are you off to? What are you doing?'

'Oh, dear, I'm so sorry, Mr Richard; I'm just going by this train to stay at Chislehurst with some friends of this gentleman's. Mr Petrovitch, Mr Ferrier.'

The men bowed--Petrovitch with easy courtesy, and Ferrier with a frigid reserve which would only allow him to raise his hat about an eighth of an inch--and as they did so the train steamed in.

'You must not miss this train,' said Petrovitch; 'there is not another for so long a time.'

'Good-bye, Mr Richard,' she said. 'When you see father or mother, tell them I'm well and happier, and have good friends.'

Ferrier had it on the tip of his tongue to tell her how he had just seen her mother, but Petrovitch, with an air of authority, cut short their farewells by hurrying her into the train.

'Good-bye,' said Richard, rather at a loss in this unexpected and bewilderingly brief meeting; 'couldn't you write to me? I'm at Guy's--Guy's Hospital, you know.'

'Stand back, sir,' said the guard, slamming the door with one hand and putting his whistle to his lips with the other, as the train gave a lurch and began to move off.

'Bon voyage, Mrs Litvinoff,' said Petrovitch, bringing a startled look and a vivid blush into Alice's face, and giving Richard the biggest surprise of his life. His blank astonishment was too evident for Petrovitch to ignore it. He looked at Richard inquiringly.

'Er--er, I beg your pardon,' stammered Ferrier, as soon as he could find words. 'You called that--a--lady Mrs Litvinoff?'

'I did, sir,' answered the other, with a rather angry flash of his deep-set eyes. 'I might have called her Countess Litvinoff, if you attach any importance to titles.'

'Good God!' said Richard, very slowly. He sat down on the wooden seat without another word.

'I wish you good-morning, sir,' said Petrovitch, making for the incline which leads off the platform.

Before he had made three paces young Ferrier had pulled himself together, and had overtaken him and laid a hand on his arm.

'Forgive me, sir--I am afraid you think me very strange and unmannerly--but I have a deeper interest in this matter than you can possibly imagine. I must beg you to allow me a few moments for explanation.'

'Certainly, sir; I shall be happy to walk your way,' answered the Russian, less stiffly.

No more was said till they got outside the station. It was not easy for Richard to know how to begin. He did not know how much this man knew of Alice, and he felt it would be unfair to tell her story, as far as he knew it, to one who seemed to know her only as a married woman. But, on the other hand, how much did he himself know of her story? He walked along beside Petrovitch for at least ten minutes before he could make up his mind how to begin. At length the other half-stopped and looked at him in a way that compelled speech of some kind.

'The reason I was so surprised when I heard you call that--lady Mrs Litvinoff, was that I have known her from a child, and did not know that she was married. I--I--also knew a Count Litvinoff in London a few months ago, and certainly did not know that he was married. The connection of the two names startled me. I must also tell you that it did more than startle me; it relieved me.'

'You are, then, very much interested in my friend?' said Petrovitch.

'Well,' said Richard, finding it desperately hard to break through his English reserve, and yet feeling that he could not in common fairness expect to get any information from one who called himself a 'friend' of Alice's without showing good reasons for asking for such information. 'Well, I am interested, very much interested, but not quite in the way that men generally are when they talk about being interested in a woman. Look here,' he said, stopping, and finding his powers of diplomacy absolutely failing him, falling back on the naked truth, 'that young woman has been the cause--the innocent cause, mind--of a complete separation between my brother and myself. I thought my brother had done her a great wrong. Can you tell me whether he did or not? His name is Roland Ferrier.'

'So far as I know Mrs Litvinoff's story,' said Petrovitch, speaking very deliberately, 'no wrong of any sort has ever been done her by any one of that name.'

'Ay, but,' said Richard, 'so far as you know; but do you know all? Do you know with whom she did go when she left her home?'

'I do.'

'It was not my brother?'

'It was not your brother.'

Richard had just said that he felt greatly relieved. If that statement was true, his looks certainly belied him.

'One question more,' he said. 'I want to know exactly how far wrong I have been. Do you know if my brother has had any communication at all with her since she left her home?--did he know where she was?'

'I believe that he has had no communication with her, and that he did not know where she was.'

'Can you tell me who this Litvinoff is, then? Is he the Count Michael Litvinoff that I know, or knew? If so, did he marry, and when did he marry her? and why did she leave him?--for she _did_ leave some man; she told me so.'

'Ah,' said Petrovitch, 'you said one more question; that question I answered because I thought you were really concerned in knowing the answer. Forgive me, these other matters I think do not concern you.'

'Well,' Richard answered, 'I knew that girl when she was a baby, and I've always been fond of her, and I should naturally be glad to hear anything about her. I am glad to see her looking so much better, and better cared for than when I met her last.'

Petrovitch bent his head silently.

They had stopped by this time just opposite the Borough Market.

'I am sorry you will not tell me more about her; but since you have told me that my brother has not injured her in any way, I don't know that I have any right to ask you more. I must thank you for telling me what you have done, and ask you to excuse my seeming curiosity.'

Petrovitch bowed; young Ferrier did the same, and they parted--Petrovitch turned across the bridge, while Richard retraced his steps towards the station. He made his way to the telegraph office, and sent off this message:--'Richard Ferrier, Guy's Hospital, London, to Gates, The Hollies, Firth Vale.--Please wire me my brother's address at once if you know it.'

Then he crossed the station-yard, and ran down the steep stone steps which are part of the shortest cut to the hospital, and as he went he felt more wretched than he had ever been before. He had always believed in himself so intensely that an actual injury would have been less hard to bear than this sudden shattering of his faith in his own judgment. He had been so utterly mistaken--so wrong all round. Everything had seemed to point to his brother's guilt. Now everything seemed to have pointed to his innocence. If Richard's eyes had not been so blinded by--what? It was a moment for seeing things clearly, and Richard saw that his own passion and jealousy had perverted his view of all that had taken place in the autumn. That meeting in Spray's Buildings--of course it was the likeliest thing in the world that Roland really had seen Litvinoff, and at the thought of that sympathetic nobleman the young man ground his teeth. How completely he had been fooled! It must be the same Litvinoff--for had not Alice been present at his lecture in Soho? How had Alice met such a man? Oh, that might have happened in a thousand ways. Had Litvinoff really married her? Richard thought he had not. He remembered Litvinoff's moustache, and felt sure that he had not. Felt sure? How could he feel sure of anything, when here, where he had been so absolutely certain, he was proved to have been wrong?

What fearful blunders he had made--what a horrible muddle he had got everything into--what irretrievable mischief he had done! But, though he blamed himself deeply and bitterly, he still, not unnaturally, blamed Litvinoff with still more bitter earnestness. One thing only was clear to him. He must find Roland at once, tell him all the circumstances, and beg his pardon. It would be all right again between him and his brother, towards whom he now felt a rush of reactionary affection. But how about the mill hands, now scattered far and wide beyond recall--beyond the reach of his help--through this same mad folly of his? In an impulse to do something for at least one of those who had suffered through him, he turned off from the hospital and took a hansom to his rooms, where he unlocked his desk, and, taking a five-pound note from his slender stock of money, enclosed it in an envelope, which he addressed to Mrs Hatfield at the address she had given him, in a hand not his own. He would do more for them when he and his brother had begun to work the mill again. That would be one big result of his new knowledge. His medical studies would be at an end, and he would be once more Ferrier of Thornsett. But that was poor compensation for all the rest.

When Mr Gates' answering telegram came it was a wet blanket on Richard's longing to make his confession and talk things over with Roland--for it ran thus:--'Robert Gates, The Hollies, Firth Vale, to Richard Ferrier, Guy's Hospital.--Don't know his address--he is expected here in a few days. Has left Chelsea, and is making visits on his way here. Glad you want him. Letter follows.'

So he could not see Roland that day, after all, and there was nothing for it but to possess his soul in patience until he heard again from Gates. So he spent the evening with some congenial acquaintances who had diggings in Trinity Square, and managed to get through the night without being driven to distraction by his remorseful self-tormenting thoughts. But the next morning he remembered, with a start, for the first time, that, not content with believing his brother to be guilty of a disgraceful action, he had accused him of it to Clare Stanley, and, worse than that, to Alice's own mother. He felt he could never face Clare again after that, come what might. But the Hatfields? At least it would be only fair to make what reparation he could by undeceiving them. He would go down to Dartford that very day, and tell them how mistaken he had been. He went by the same train which had carried Mrs Hatfield thither on the preceding day.

Arrived at Dartford the Dismal, Richard betook himself to the address that had been given him, which, after some difficulty, he found to be one of a row of small, ill-favoured, squalid cottages a little way out of the town. There were a good many children about, who stared at him with open-eyed curiosity, and did dreadful things to their mouths with their grimy little fingers in the excitement of seeing a gentleman stop at No. 5 Earl's Terrace. The battered, blistered green door had no knocker. The handle of Richard's umbrella afforded an impromptu one, and, in answer to the spirited solo which he proceeded to execute with it, the door was opened, and by his foster-mother herself.

She looked very pale and worried, and had evidently been crying. She didn't seem surprised to see him; she was in that state of mind when nothing seems worth being surprised about.

'Come in, lad,' she said. 'Ah got thi kind token. Ah know'd 'twas thee as sent it, and m'appen Ah'll need it more nor tha thowt when tha sent it, for t' maister's giv' up his work an' gone off.'

She had set a chair for him, and as she finished this speech she sat down herself and looked hopelessly at him.

'Gone--gone! Left you! Why, he must be out of his mind.'

'His mind's right enough; it's his soul as Ah'm feared about, Dick. He's gone to have it out wi' Rowley, and get at the rights of it.'

'But where is Roland? Where's he gone to?'

'He's gone to Thornsett.'

'Why, Roland isn't there.'

'Thank God! God be praised, if it'll on'y please His good providence to keep 'em fra meetin'!'

'But how came he to go? How did it happen? Tell me all about it?'

It seemed that when her husband had met her at Dartford Station, she, pleased with having met Richard, had told him of the rencontre. That he had closely questioned her, and when at last he had learned every word that had passed between them, he had turned suddenly on her, and told her that this was the first time he had ever even thought of such a thing being possible as that Roland had been the cause of Alice's ruin, and that now he did know he would not lose a day in facing him with the accusation.

'Do you mean to say,' said Richard, 'that it's through me he thinks that Roland took her away?'

'I don't say it was thy fault, lad. I'm more to blame than thee. I should a-kept my clattering tongue quiet, and I should a-known my own man better after a' these years nor to think that if he had a-thowt it was Rowley he wouldna ha' faced him wi' it long sin'.'

'This is devilish pleasant!' said Richard, rising and taking a stride across the little room; but how did he go?'

It appeared he had started off with but a pound, or little more, in his pocket, intending to walk the greater part of the way, and only telling her that she wouldn't hear of him until she saw him back again.

'And what do you think will happen when they do meet?' he asked.

'Oh, Ah'm feared to think!' she said, wringing her hands and beginning to weep.

'I'll tell you what I'll do,' said Richard. 'I'll go straight down to Thornsett now, and keep a look-out for Hatfield. I'll stop any more mischief, any way. I think I can promise you that nothing much will happen if they do meet.'

She caught hold of his hand, and began to thank him.

'Oh, don't thank me!' he said; 'the whole sad business has been my fault from beginning to end. I found out yesterday, almost directly I left you, that Rowley was as innocent of doing any harm to Alice as I am, and I found out, too, that she is well and pretty happy, and, I heard, married. If it hadn't been for me, Hatfield wouldn't have gone off on this wild-goose chase. But I must get back now; my train goes in twenty minutes, and I want to catch the three o'clock train for Firth Vale.'

He caught the three o'clock train to Firth Vale, having managed, by a very hurried farewell, to escape the torrent of questions Mrs Hatfield would have liked to pour out. He felt that, all things considered, the less he said about the matter the better. He had been wrong too often, and too much.