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DISAPPEARANCE.
"I am afraid I must ask you to leave us now, Miss Marston," said
Mr. Brett, seated with pen, ink, and paper, to receive his new
client's instructions.
"No," said Mr. Redmain; "she must stay where she is. I fancy
something happened last night which she has got to tell us
about."
"Ah! What was that?" asked Mr. Brett, facing round on her.
Mary began her story with the incident of her having been pursued
by some one, and rescued by the blacksmith, whom she told her
listeners she had known in London. Then she narrated all that had
happened the night before, from first to last, not forgetting the
flame that lighted the closet as they approached the window.
"Just let me see those memoranda," said Mr. Brett to Mr. Redmain,
rising, and looking for the paper where he had left it the day
before.
"It was of that paper I was this moment thinking," answered Mr.
Redmain.
"It is not here!" said Mr. Brett.
"I thought as much! The fool! There was a thousand pounds there
for her! I didn't want to drive her to despair: a dying man must
mind what he is about. Ring the bell and see what Mewks has to
say to it."
Mewks came, in evident anxiety.
I will not record his examination. Mr. Brett took it for granted
he had deliberately and intentionally shut out Mary, and Mewks
did not attempt to deny it, protesting he believed she was boring
his master. The grin on that master's face at hearing this was
not very pleasant to behold. When examined as to the missing
paper, he swore by all that was holy he knew nothing about it.
Mr. Brett next requested the presence of Miss Yolland. She was
nowhere to be found. The place was searched throughout, but there
was no trace of her.
When the doctor arrived, the bottle Joseph had taken from her was
examined, and its contents discovered.
Lady Malice was grievously hurt at the examination she found had
been going on.
"Have I not nursed you like my own brother, Mr. Redmain?" she
said.
"You may be glad you have escaped a coroner's inquest in your
house, Lady Margaret!" said Mr. Brett.
"For me," said Mr. Redmain, "I have not many days left me, but
somehow a fellow does like to have his own!"
Hesper sought Mary, and kissed her with some appearance of
gratitude. She saw what a horrible suspicion, perhaps even
accusation, she had saved her from. The behavior and
disappearance of Sepia seemed to give her little trouble.
Mr. Brett got enough out of Mewks to show the necessity of his
dismissal, and the doctor sent from London a man fit to take his
place.
Almost every evening, until he left Durnmelling, Mary went to see
Mr. Redmain. She read to him, and tried to teach him, as one
might an unchildlike child. And something did seem to be getting
into, or waking up in, him. The man had never before in the least
submitted; but now it looked as if the watching spirit of life
were feeling through the dust-heap of his evil judgments, low
thoughts, and bad life, to find the thing that spirit had made,
lying buried somewhere in the frightful tumulus: when the two met
and joined, then would the man be saved; God and he would be
together. Sometimes he would utter the strangest things--such as
if all the old evil modes of thinking and feeling were in full
operation again; and sometimes for days Mary would not have an
idea what was going on in him. When suffering, he would
occasionally break into fierce and evil language, then be
suddenly silent. God and Satan were striving for the man, and
victory would be with him with whom the man should side.
For some time it remained doubtful whether this attack was not,
after all, going to be the last: the doctor himself was doubtful,
and, having no reason to think his death would be a great grief
in the house, did not hesitate much to express his doubt. And,
indeed, it caused no gloom. For there was little love in the
attentions the Mortimers paid him; and in what other hope could
Hesper have married, than that one day she would be free, with a
freedom informed with power, the power of money! But to the
mother's suggestions as to possible changes in the future, the
daughter never responded: she had no thought of plans in common
with her.
Strange rumors came abroad. Godfrey Wardour heard something of
them, and laughed them to scorn. There was a conspiracy in that
house to ruin the character of the loveliest woman in creation!
But when a week after week passed, and he heard nothing of or
from her, he became anxious, and at last lowered his pride so far
as to call on Mary, under the pretense of buying something in the
shop.
His troubled look filled her with sympathy, but she could not
help being glad afresh that he had escaped the snares laid for
him. He looked at her searchingly, and at last murmured a request
that she would allow him to have a little conversation with her.
She led the way to her parlor, closed the door, and asked him to
take a seat. But Godfrey was too proud or too agitated to sit.
"You will be surprised to see me on such an errand, Miss
Marston!" he said.
"I do not yet know your errand," replied Mary; "but I may not be
so much surprised as you think."
"Do not imagine," said Godfrey, stiffly, "that I believe a word
of the contemptible reports in circulation. I come only to ask
you to tell me the real nature of the accusations brought against
Miss Yolland: your name is, of course, coupled with them."
"Mr. Wardour," said Mary, "if I thought you would believe what I
told yon, I would willingly do as you ask me. As it is, allow me
to refer you to Mr. Brett, the lawyer, whom I dare say you know."
Happily, the character of Mr. Brett was well known in Testbridge
and all the country round; and from him Godfrey Wardour learned
what sent him traveling on the Continent again--not in the hope
of finding Sepia. What became of her, none of her family ever
learned.
Some time after, it came out that the same night on which the
presence of Joseph rescued Mary from her pursuer, a man speaking
with a foreign accent went to one of the surgeons in Testbridge
to have his shoulder set, which he said had been dislocated by a
fall. When Joseph heard it, he smiled, and thought he knew what
it meant.
Hesper was no sooner in London, than she wrote to Mary, inviting
her to go and visit her. But Mary answered she could no more
leave home, and must content herself with the hope of seeing Mrs.
Redmain when she came to Durnmelling.
So long as her husband lived, the time for that did not again
arrive; but when Mary went to London, she always called on her,
and generally saw Mr. Redmain. But they never had any more talk
about the things Mary loved most. That he continued to think of
those things, she had one ground of hoping, namely, the kindness
with which he invariably received her, and the altogether gentler
manner he wore as often and as long as she saw him. Whether the
change was caused by something better than physical decay, who
knows save him who can use even decay for redemption? He lived
two years more, and died rather suddenly. After his death, and
that of her father, which followed soon, Hesper went again to
Durnmelling, and behaved better to her mother than before. Mary
sometimes saw her, and a flicker of genuine friendship began to
appear on Hesper's part.
Mr. Turnbull was soon driving what he called a roaring trade. He
bought and sold a great deal more than Mary, but she had business
sufficient to employ her days, and leave her nights free, and
bring her and Letty enough to live on as comfortably as they
desired--with not a little over, to use, when occasion was, for
others, and something to lay by for the time of lengthening
shadows.
Turnbull seemed to hare taken a lesson from his late narrow
escape, for he gave up the worst of his speculations, and
confined himself to "_genuine business-principles_"--the
more contentedly that, all Marston folly swept from his path, he
was free to his own interpretation of the phrase. He grew a rich
man, and died happy--so his friends said, and said as they saw.
Mrs. Turnbull left Testbridge, and went to live in a small
county-town where she was unknown. There she was regarded as the
widow of an officer in her Majesty's service, and, as there was
no one within a couple of hundred miles to support an assertion
to the contrary, she did not think it worth her while to make
one: was not the supposed brevet a truer index to her
consciousness of herself than the actual ticket by ill luck
attached to her--Widow of a linen-draper?
George carried on the business; and, when Mary and he happened to
pass in the street, they nodded to each other.
Letty was diligent in business, but it never got into her heart.
She continued to be much liked, and in the shop was delightful.
If she ever had another offer of marriage, the fact remained
unknown. She lived to be a sweet, gracious little old lady--and
often forgot that she was a widow, but never that she was a wife.
All the days of her appointed time she waited till her change
should come, and she should find her Tom on the other side,
looking out for her, as he had said he would. Her mother-in-law
could not help dying; but she never "forgave" her--for what,
nobody knew.
After a year or so, Mrs. Wardour began to take a little notice of
her again; but she never asked her to Thornwick until she found
herself dying. Perhaps she then remembered a certain petition in
the Lord's prayer. But will it not be rather a dreadful thing for
some people if they are forgiven as they forgive?
Old Mr. Duppa died, and a young man came to minister to his
congregation who thought the baptism of the spirit of more
importance than the most correct of opinions concerning even the
baptizing spirit. From him Mary found she could learn, and would
be much to blame if she did not learn. From him Betty also heard
what increased her desire to be worth something before she went
to rejoin Tom.
Joseph Jasper became once more Mary's pupil. She was now no more
content with her little cottage piano, but had an instrument of
quite another capacity on which to accompany the violin of the
blacksmith.
To him trade came in steadily, and before long he had to build a
larger shoeing-shed. From a wide neighborhood horses were brought
him to be shod, cart-wheels to be tired, axles to be mended,
plowshares to be sharpened, and all sorts of odd jobs to be done.
He soon found it necessary to make arrangement with a carpenter
and wheelwright to work on his premises. Before two years were
over, he was what people call a flourishing man, and laying by a
little money.
"But," he said to Mary, "I can't go on like this, you know, miss.
I don't want money. It must be meant to do something with, and I
must find out what that something is."
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