Works of Ellen Wood, page 435
She neither said yes nor no; the bliss of meeting him, of being in his presence, of feeling her hand in contact with his, was all sufficient; rendering her far too confused to answer rationally.
And did Mr. Carlton love her? Yes, it has been said so — loved her with a powerful and impassioned love. He had been a man of wayward passions, stopping at little which could promote their gratification, and perhaps there were some passages in his bygone life which he did not care to glance back at; but his heart had never been awakened to love — to pure, spiritualized love — until he knew Laura Chesney. For some little time now it had been his ardent desire, his purpose, to make her his wife; and for Mr. Carlton to will a thing was to do it. Laura anticipated strong objection from her father and her family. Mr. Carlton cared no more for such objection than for the idle wind.
“Papa has been so impatient for you, Lewis,” she murmured.
“Is he worse to-night?”
“Oh no. But he is very irritable.”
“I did not intend to come in now,” remarked Mr. Carlton. “I have a call to make a little higher up, at Mrs. Newberry’s, and I thought I would take Captain Chesney on my return. I could remain longer by coming afterwards.”
“I think you had better just come in to papa first, if only for a few moments,” said Laura. “Perhaps,” she timidly added, “you can come in again when you have been to Mrs. Newberry’s?”
She touched the spring by which the gate was opened, a spring unknown to troublesome customers, and Mr. Carlton entered. He held out his arm to escort her to the house.
“No, no,” she whispered, with a deep blush. “Jane is at the window.”
“So much the better, my dearest. Yes, Laura, I will have you take it,” he said with firmness, placing her hand within his arm.
“You tell me you prefer that they should become acquainted with this by degrees, rather than that I should speak at once to Captain Chesney. But, Laura, I promise you one thing, — that I shall speak to him ere much more time has passed over our heads.”
Jane, who had merely been wanted for a minute by her father, was in the drawing-room again, and standing at the window with Lucy, when Laura advanced, leaning on the arm of Mr. Carlton. Jane’s face expressed its astonished disapprobation, and even the little girl was conscious that — according to the notions of the family — it ought not to have been.
“Jane, do you see Laura?”
“Laura is thoughtless, my dear. She forgets herself.”
Mr. Carlton went upstairs at once to Captain Chesney. He did not stay; and in coming down stepped in at the open door of the drawing-room. Lucy ran from it as he entered, and Laura had evidently only that moment gone in. Miss Chesney returned his salutation coldly.
“You have made a short visit to papa, Mr. Carlton,” she remarked. “I am coming in again after I have seen a patient higher up,” he replied. “What an unfavourable day it has been!”
“Yes. Do you know whether the inquest is over?” continued Jane, her reserve merging into curiosity.
“It is only just over. And that is why my visit to Captain Chesney is so late this evening. They had me before them three or four times.”
“What is the verdict, Mr. Carlton?” asked Laura; and the reader may remark that while she had called him by his Christian name, had spoken familiarly, when they were alone, she was formal enough with him now, in the presence of her sister. Deceit! deceit! it never yet brought forth good fruit.
“Nothing satisfactory,” was the surgeon’s answer. “They found that the cause of death was the prussic acid in the draught; but how it got into it they considered that there was no evidence to show.”
“What should you have called ‘satisfactory?’” asked Miss Chesney. Mr. Carlton smiled. “When I say not satisfactory, I mean that the whole affair still lies in uncertainty.”
“Do you suspect any one yourself, Mr. Carlton?”
“Not of wilfully causing the death. But,” he added, in a more hesitating tone, “I have, of course, my own opinion.”
“That it occurred through a mistake on the part of Mr. Stephen Grey?”
The surgeon nodded his head. “Through some mistake, undoubtedly; and it is impossible to look to any other quarter for it. But I should not care to express so much in public. It is not agreeable for a medical man to find himself obliged to cast reflection on a brother practitioner.”
“I do not see that there can be the slightest shadow of doubt upon the point,” remarked Miss Chesney. “The medicine was taken straight from Mr. Stephen Grey’s hands to the sick-room, therefore how else could it have got into it? And your having smelt the prussic acid when the draught was brought up, is a certain proof that it must have been done in the mixing. Has anything come out about the poor young lady’s connections? who she was, or where she came from?”
“Not anything,” replied Mr. Carlton. “They cannot even discover her Christian name.”
“And have you not found out who it was who recommended her to you, Mr. Carlton?” inquired Laura.
“I cannot find out at all. I wrote on Tuesday to the various friends in London whom I thought at all likely to have mentioned me, and have had answers from some of them to-day; but they deny all knowledge of Mrs. Crane. You see, there is a great uncertainty in every way; for we are not even sure that she did come from London.”
Laura resumed. “It is said she was very beautiful. Was she so, Mr. Carlton?”
Mr. Carlton paused ere he gave his answer. “In health, and up and dressed, she may have been so; but I did not see her dressed, you know. I saw her only in bed, and by candle-light.”
He spoke the last words as he crossed the hall to depart, for he was in haste to pay his visit to the house higher up the Rise.
CHAPTER XVI.
MISS CHESNEY’S FEAR.
LAURA CHESNEY stood at the window, watching the retreating form of the surgeon as he passed hastily down the garden path in the growing twilight. A short time, and he would be back again as he had promised; and Laura’s heart beat at the thought, at the anticipated rapture of seeing him again, and she remained silent, losing herself in dreams of the sweetest delusion.
Only to be rudely awakened. Miss Chesney stepped to Laura’s side and spoke, her gentle voice sounding strange in its sternness.
“Laura, could it be that I saw you walking through the garden when Mr. Carlton came, arm-in-arm with him?”
Laura turned away her face from her sister’s view, or even in that fading hour Miss Chesney would have seen the red flush that overspread it at the words. She made no answer.
“It was not seemly, Laura. Mr. Carlton is only a surgeon: a man, so far as we know, without connections. And you are a Chesney.”
“With connections” retorted Laura, who was growing vexed and angry. “And much good they do me!”
“Laura dear, we are, as may be said, of the noblesse: we may not lose caste.”
“I think we have lost caste already, with these wretched, paltry debts hanging over and following us about from place to place like a shadow,” was the petulant answer. “They degrade us pretty well.”
“You mistake, Laura. If you intend that as a refutation to my argument, you look at things in a wrong light. In one sense of the word the debts degrade us, because there always is degradation attaching itself to these petty debts; but they cannot in the slightest degree sully our caste; they cannot detract from our birth or tarnish it. Do not again allow Mr. Carlton to place himself familiarly on a level with you.”
Loving him, as she did, with an impassioned, blind, all-absorbing love, Laura Chesney in her heart bitterly resented this reflection on Mr. Carlton. She was fast falling into that sadly mistaken, unhealthy frame of mind in which every consideration is lost in the one swaying passion — love. Openly she did not dare to dissent from her sister; it might have brought on an explanation for which Laura was not prepared; and Jane, deeming she had said enough, passed to a different topic.
“What did the flyman say?”
“He insisted on the money being paid to him between now and twelve o’clock on Saturday; failing it then, he will proceed against papa publicly. Jane, I am sure the man will carry out his threat. He was not loud and angry, not even uncivil; but he was resolute.”
“And how is it to be procured?” moaned Jane, leaning her head upon her hand. “I would almost sell myself,” she added, with a rush of feeling, “rather than bring these annoyances before papa! Oh, if I could only take these troubles more effectually off him!”
“Papa can battle with them a great deal better than you can, Jane,” said Laura, who was far from sharing Jane’s ultra-filial feeling on the point. “And it is more fitting that he should do so.”
“It is not more fitting,” retorted Jane Chesney, whose usually gentle spirit could be roused by any reproach cast on him. “He is my dear, dear father, and I ask no better than to devote my life to warding off care from his.”
“Would you wish no better?” asked Laura in low, wondering tones, as she glanced at the bliss presenting itself for her future life — the spending it with Lewis Carlton.
“Nor wish better,” replied Jane. And the younger sister gazed at her in compassion and half in disbelief.
“There are other petty cares coming upon us, Laura,” resumed Jane in a different tone. “Rhode has given me warning.”
“Rhode has!” quickly echoed Laura in surprise. “What for?”
“To ‘better herself,’ she said. I suspect the true motive is, that she is tired of the place. There is a great deal to do; and she hinted, somewhat insolently, that she did not like a service where applicants were continually coming for money only to be put off; it ‘tried her temper.’ I told her she might go the instant I could procure a fresh servant. I do not choose to keep dissatisfied people in the house longer than can be helped. She — What is it, Lucy?”
The little girl had come running in, eagerly. “Jane, a young woman wants to see you.”
“Another creditor,” thought Jane with a sinking heart. “Is it the woman from the fruit-shop, Lucy?”
“Oh no. Rhode says it is a young woman come after the place. She has taken her into the kitchen, and wished me to ask if you would please to see her.”
Miss Chesney looked as though she scarcely understood. “A young woman come after the place!” she repeated. “Why, it is not an hour since Rhode told me she must leave! Ring the bell, Lucy.” Rhode came in, in answer. Miss Chesney requested an explanation with quiet dignity, and Rhode turned red, and put on a defiant look, as if she could be again insolent if she pleased.
“I have made up my mind to it some days, Miss Chesney, and I dare say I may have spoken of it abroad. The young woman says Mrs. Fitch at the Lion told her of the place.”
“Show the young woman into the dining-room,” said Miss Chesney. And she proceeded thither, encountering Pompey on her way, who informed her of the termination of the inquest, and its result.
In the dining-room stood Judith Ford. She had come straight up as soon as the inquest was over. Neatly dressed in good mourning, steady in demeanour, her face full of sense and thought, Jane Chesney took a fancy to her at the first glance. Judith gave a few particulars as to herself, and concluded with observing that she had been informed by Mrs. Fitch it was a housemaid who was required, but the servant Rhode had now told her it was a cook.
“In point of fact, it maybe said to be both,” replied Miss Chesney. “We require a servant who can undertake both duties — a maid-of-all-work, as it is called. We are gentle-people and highly connected,” she hastened to add, not in a spirit of proud, mistaken boasting, but as if it were due to their own dignity to explain so far: “but my father, Captain Chesney, has a very limited income, which obliges us to keep as few servants as possible. Could you take such a place?” Judith reflected a moment before giving her reply. In her time she had lived in the capacity of cook and was equal to its duties, but it was not the place she would have preferred.
“Should I be the only servant kept, ma’am?” she inquired, feeling, in the midst of her demur, that she should like much the gentle lady before her for a mistress.
“The only maid-servant. We keep a man who attends on papa and waits at table; he helps a good deal also in the kitchen, gets in coal, cleans the knives, and does similar work; and he generally answers the door. I do not think you would find the work too much.”
“I think I might venture upon it,” observed Judith, half in soliloquy. “I once lived alone in a place. It was a gentleman’s family, ma’am, too. I have never served in any other.”
“We could not take a servant from a trades-person’s family,” returned Miss Chesney, who was deeply intrenched in her aristocratic prejudices. “Where is it that you say you are staying?”
“Number fourteen, Palace Street.”
The sound struck on Miss Chesney’s ear. “Number fourteen, Palace Street! Why! that must be close to the house where that sad tragedy has just taken place!”
“It is next door to it, ma’am,” was Judith’s answer.
All Jane Chesney’s curiosity, all her marvel — and the best of us possess a good share of it — was aroused. “Did you see the young lady?” she inquired, quite eagerly, in her interest.
“I saw her several times; I was with her,” was Judith’s answer. “Mr. Stephen Grey could not get the nurse for her that he wished, and he was glad for me to be with her. He saw a great deal of me, ma’am, in my last place.”
“It was a terrible thing,” remarked Miss Chesney.
“It was an awful thing,” said Judith, “wherever the blame may lie.”
“That of course lies with Mr. Stephen Grey. There cannot be two opinions upon it.”
“There can, ma’am,” dissented Judith, in an impressive but respectful manner. “The jury — to go no further — were of a different opinion.”
“I can understand their verdict; that is, understand the feeling which prompted them to return it. They did not like to bring in one against their fellow-townsman. Mr. Stephen has been so much respected in the town — as I hear; but we are little more than strangers in South Wennock.”
“The case is altogether shrouded in mystery,” said Judith, her own voice assuming unconsciously a tone of awe as she spoke. “It may come to light some time; I trust it will; whenever it does, I am sure it will be found that Mr. Stephen Grey was innocent.”
“Do you think there was no mistake made in the medicine?”
“I feel persuaded there was none; that it was sent cut from Mr. Stephen Grey’s pure and proper. That the young lady was murdered, — as deliberately and wickedly murdered as any one ever was in this world — is my firm belief.”
“By whom?”
“Ah, ma’am, there it all lies. That is the mystery that no one can fathom.”
“Pompey has been saying that the people were talking when they came out of the inquest-room about a strange face on the stairs. They said that, but for that, the verdict might have gone against Mr. Stephen Grey.”
This interposition came from Lucy Chesney; she had come silently into the room to look at the young woman who was seeking to live with them. The unfortunate affair in Palace Street, with its singular attendant circumstances, had excited all her interest — as such affairs will and do excite the interest of children — and every little additional detail was eagerly picked up by Lucy.
“What strange face was seen on the stairs?” exclaimed Jane Chesney, forgetting reproof in her surprise.
“Pompey says that Mr. Carlton saw a man with a strange face by the lady’s bedroom door, just before her death, Jane.”
Jane Chesney recalled her scattered senses. “Lucy, go up to papa,” she said. “You should not have come in here without asking my permission, and you must not listen to all the idle tales brought home by Pompey.”
The little girl went away in obedience, but half reluctantly, and Miss Chesney asked an explanation of Judith.
“When Mr. Carlton paid a visit to Mrs. Crane the night of the death, he thought, in leaving, that he saw a strange face on the stairs. Mr. Carlton now says he thinks it was only his fancy; but, ma’am, the coroner seemed to attach a great deal of importance to it. It is a pity,” added Judith, again falling into soliloquy, “but all the circumstances could be brought into the full, clear light of day.”
“Seemed to attach — you do not mean to say you were at the inquest!” exclaimed Miss Chesney.
“Yes, I was, ma’am. I have now come from it.”
“I never heard of such a thing,” cried Miss Chesney, recovering from her astonishment. It did sound very strange to her that a servant should attend a coroner’s inquest for — as she supposed-pleasure.
“I was anxious to be there,” explained Judith, “and I did not know but I might be called upon also as a witness. Though I had known the young lady only three or four days, ma’am, I had learnt to love her, and since she died I have hardly touched food. I could not have rested without hearing the evidence. And I am very glad I did hear it,” she added, pointedly and emphatically. “My having been at the inquest will not make me the less good servant, ma’am.” Miss Chesney could not avoid a smile. Of course it would not, she answered; but the admission had sounded singular. However, she was not one to carry on gossip with a servant, and she quitted the subject for the other, which had brought Judith to the house.
The result of the interview was, that Judith’s character was to be inquired into of her late mistress, and she was told to come again in a day or two for a final answer.
Miss Chesney, deep in thought, entered the drawing-room with a quiet step; and a choking sensation of pain, of dread, rushed over her, for she fancied she saw her sister Laura’s face lifted hurriedly from the shoulder of Mr. Carlton. She must have been deceived, she repeated to herself the next moment; yes, she must have been deceived.
But he was certainly standing there; they were standing together in the remaining rays of light that came in at the window. Jane Chesney’s eyes suddenly opened to much that had hitherto been obscure — to Laura’s fastidiousness latterly on the subject of her own dress, to the look of radiant happiness sometimes to be seen on her face, to her unaccountable restlessness when they were expecting the daily professional visit of the surgeon. Could it be possible that she was learning to love him?
