Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Barbara clasped her hands. “How strange it is!” she exclaimed, in some excitement. “Mamma told me, yesterday, that she was convinced something or other was going to turn up relative to the murder. She had had the most distressing dream, she said, connected with Richard and Bethel, and somebody else, whom she appeared to know in the dream, but could not recognize or remember when she was awake. She was as ill as could be — she does put such faith in these wretched dreams.”

  “One would think you did also, Barbara, by your vehemence.”

  “No, no; you know better. But it is strange — you must acknowledge that it is — that, so sure as anything fresh happens touching the subject of the murder, so sure is a troubled dream the forerunner of it. Mamma does not have them at other times. Bethel denied to you that he knew Thorn.”

  “I know he did.”

  “And now it turns out that he does know him, and he is always in mamma’s dreams — none more prominent in them than Bethel. But, Archibald, I am not telling you — I have sent for Richard.”

  “You have?”

  “I felt sure that Levison was Thorn. I did not expect that others would recognize him, and I acted on the impulse of the moment and wrote to Richard, telling him to be here on Saturday evening. The letter is gone.”

  “Well, we must shelter him as best we can.”

  “Archibald — dear Archibald, what can be done to clear him?” she asked, the tears rising to her eyes.

  “Being Levison, I cannot act.”

  “What!” she uttered. “Not act — not act for Richard!”

  He bent his clear, truthful eyes upon her.

  “My dearest, how can I?”

  She looked a little rebellious, and the tears fell.

  “You have not considered, Barbara. Any one in the world but Levison; it would look like my own revenge.”

  “Forgive me!” she softly whispered. “You are always right. I did not think of it in that light. But, what steps do you imagine can be taken?”

  “It is a case encompassed with difficulties,” mused Mr. Carlyle. “Let us wait until Richard comes.”

  “Do you happen to have a five-pound note in your pocket, Archibald? I had not one to send to him, and borrowed it from Madame Vine.”

  He took out his pocket book and gave it to her.

  In the gray parlor, in the dark twilight of the April evening — or it was getting far into the night — were William Carlyle and Lady Isabel. It had been a warm day, but the spring evenings were still chilly, and a fire burned in the grate. There was no blaze, the red embers were smoldering and half dead, but Madame Vine did not bestir herself to heed the fire. William lay on the sofa, and she sat by, looking at him. Her glasses were off, for the tears wetted them continually; and it was not the recognition of the children she feared. He was tired with the drive to Lynneborough and back, and lay with eyes shut; she thought asleep. Presently he opened them.

  “How long will it be before I die?”

  The words took her utterly by surprise, and her heart went round in a whirl. “What do you mean, William? Who said anything about dying?”

  “Oh, I know. I know by the fuss there is over me. You heard what Hannah said the other night.”

  “What? When?”

  “When she brought in the tea, and I was lying on the rug. I was not asleep, though you thought I was. You told her she ought to be more cautious, for that I might not have been asleep.”

  “I don’t remember much about it,” said Lady Isabel, at her wits’ ends how to remove the impression Hannah’s words must have created, had he indeed heard them. “Hannah talks great nonsense sometimes.”

  “She said I was going on fast to the grave.”

  “Did she? Nobody attends to Hannah. She is only a foolish girl. We shall soon have you well, when the warm weather comes.”

  “Madame Vine.”

  “Well, my darling?”

  “Where’s the use of your trying to deceive me? Do you think I don’t see that you are doing it? I’m not a baby; you might if it were Archibald. What is it that’s the matter with me?”

  “Nothing. Only you are not strong. When you get strong again, you will be as well as ever.”

  William shook his head in disbelief. He was precisely that sort of child from whom it is next to impossible to disguise facts; quick, thoughtful, observant, and advanced beyond his years. Had no words been dropped in his hearing, he would have suspected the evil, by the care evinced for him, but plenty of words had been dropped; hints, by which he had gathered suspicion; broad assertions, like Hannah’s, which had too fully supplied it; and the boy in his inmost heart, knew as well that death was coming for him as that death itself did.

  “Then, if there’s nothing the matter with me, why could not Dr. Martin speak to you before me to-day? Why did he send me into the other room while he told you what he thought? Ah, Madame Vine, I am as wise as you.”

  “A wise little boy, but mistaken sometimes,” she said from her aching heart.

  “It’s nothing to die, when God loves us. Lord Vane says so. He had a little brother who died.”

  “A sickly child, who was never likely to live, he had been pale and ailing from a baby,” spoke Lady Isabel.

  “Why! Did you know him?”

  “I — I heard so,” she replied, turning off her thoughtless avowal in the best manner she could.

  “Don’t you know that I am going to die?”

  “No.”

  “Then why have you been grieving since we left Dr. Martin’s? And why do you grieve at all for me? I am not your child.”

  The words, the scene altogether, overcame her. She knelt down by the sofa, and her tears burst forth freely. “There! You see!” cried William.

  “Oh, William, I — I had a little boy of my own, and when I look at you, I think of him, and that is why I cry.”

  “I know. You have told us of him before. His name was William, too.”

  She leaned over him, her breath mingling with his; she took his little hand in hers; “William, do you know that those whom God loves best He takes first? Were you to die, you would go to Heaven, leaving all the cares and sorrows of the world behind you. It would have been happier for many of us had we died in infancy.”

  “Would it have been happier for you?”

  “Yes,” she faintly said. “I have had more than my share of sorrow. Sometimes I think that I cannot support it.”

  “Is it not past, then? Do you have sorrow now?”

  “I have it always. I shall have it till I die. Had I died a child, William, I should have escaped it. Oh! The world is full of it! full and full.”

  “What sort of sorrow?”

  “All sorts. Pain, sickness, care, trouble, sin, remorse, weariness,” she wailed out. “I cannot enumerate the half that the world brings upon us. When you are very, very tired, William, does it not seem a luxury, a sweet happiness, to lie down at night in your little bed, waiting for the bliss of sleep?”

  “Yes. And I am often tired; so tired as that.”

  “Then just so do we, who are tired of the world’s cares, long for the grave in which we shall lie down to rest. We covet it, William; long for it; but you cannot understand that.”

  “We don’t lie in the grave, Madame Vine.”

  “No, no, child. Our bodies lie there, to be raised again in beauty at the last day. We go into a blessed place of rest, where sorrow and pain cannot come. I wish — I wish,” she uttered, with a bursting heart, “that you and I were both there!”

  “Who says the world’s so sorrowful, Madame Vine? I think it is lovely, especially when the sun’s shining on a hot day, and the butterflies come out. You should see East Lynne on a summer’s morning, when you are running up and down the slopes, and the trees are waving overhead, and the sky’s blue, and the roses and flowers are all out. You would not call it a sad world.”

  “A pleasant world one might regret to leave if we were not wearied by pain and care. But, what is this world, take it at
its best, in comparison with that other world, Heaven? I have heard of some people who are afraid of death; they fear they shall not go to it; but when God takes a little child there it is because He loves him. It is a land, as Mrs. Barbauld says, where the roses are without thorns, where the flowers are not mixed with brambles—”

  “I have seen the flowers,” interrupted William, rising in his earnestness. “They are ten times brighter than our flowers here.”

  “Seen the flowers! The flowers we shall see in Heaven?” she echoed.

  “I have seen a picture of them. We went to Lynneborough to see Martin’s picture of the Last Judgment — I don’t mean Dr. Martin,” said William interrupting himself.

  “I know.”

  “There were three pictures. One was called the ‘Plains of Heaven,’ and I liked that best; and so we all did. Oh, you should have seen it! Did you ever see them, Madame Vine?”

  “No. I have heard of them.”

  “There was a river, you know, and boats, beautiful gondolas they looked, taking the redeemed to the shores of Heaven. They were shadowy figures in white robes, myriads of them, for they reached all up in the air to the holy city; it seemed to be in the clouds coming down from God. The flowers grew on the banks of the river, pink, and blue, and violet, all colors they were, but so bright and beautiful; brighter than our flowers are.”

  “Who took you to see the pictures?”

  “Papa. He took me and Lucy; and Mrs. Hare went with us, and Barbara — she was not our mamma then. But, madame” — dropping his voice— “what stupid thing do you think Lucy asked papa?”

  “What did she ask him?”

  “She asked whether mamma was amongst that crowd in the white robes; whether she was gone up to Heaven? Our mamma that was, you know, and lots of people could hear what she said.”

  Lady Isabel dropped her face upon her hands.

  “What did your papa answer?” she breathed.

  “I don’t know. Nothing, I think; he was talking to Barbara. But it was very stupid of Lucy, because Wilson has told her over and over again that she must never talk of Lady Isabel to papa. Miss Manning told her so too. When we got home, and Wilson heard of it, she said Lucy deserved a good shaking.”

  “Why must not Lady Isabel be talked of to him?”

  A moment after the question had left her lips, she wondered what possessed her to give utterance to it.

  “I’ll tell you,” said William in a whisper. “She ran away from papa. Lucy talks nonsense about her having been kidnapped, but she knows nothing. I do, though they don’t think it, perhaps.”

  “She may be among the redeemed, some time, William, and you with her.”

  He fell back on the sofa-pillow with a weary sigh, and lay in silence. Lady Isabel shaded her face, and remained in silence also. Soon she was aroused from it; William was in a fit of loud, sobbing tears.

  “Oh, I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! Why should I go and leave papa and Lucy?”

  She hung over him; she clasped her arms around him; her tears, her sobs, mingling with his. She whispered to him sweet and soothing words; she placed him so that he might sob out his grief upon her bosom; and in a little while the paroxysm had passed.

  “Hark!” exclaimed William. “What’s that?”

  A sound of talking and laughter in the hall. Mr. Carlyle, Lord Mount Severn, and his son were leaving the dining-room. They had some committee appointed that evening at West Lynne and were departing to keep it. As the hall-door closed upon them, Barbara came into the gray parlor. Up rose Madame Vine, scuffled on her spectacles, and took her seat soberly upon a chair.

  “All in the dark, and your fire going out!” exclaimed Barbara, as she hastened to stir the latter and send it into a blaze. “Who’s on the sofa? William, you ought to be to bed!”

  “Not yet, mamma. I don’t want to go yet.”

  “But it is quite time that you should,” she returned, ringing the bell. “To sit up at night is not the way to make you strong.”

  William was dismissed. And then she returned to Madame Vine, and inquired what Dr. Martin had said.

  “He said the lungs were undoubtedly affected; but, like all doctors, he would give no decisive opinion. I could see that he had formed one.”

  Mrs. Carlyle looked at her. The firelight played especially upon the spectacles, and she moved her chair into the shade.

  “Dr. Martin will see him again next week; he is coming to West Lynne. I am sure, by the tone of his voice, by his evasive manner, that he anticipates the worst, although he would not say so in words.”

  “I will take William into West Lynne myself,” observed Barbara. “The doctor will, of course, tell me. I came in to pay my debts,” she added, dismissing the subject of the child, and holding out a five-pound note.

  Lady Isabel mechanically stretched out her hand for it.

  “Whilst we are, as may be said, upon the money topic,” resumed Barbara, in a gay tone, “will you allow me to intimate that both myself and Mr. Carlyle very much disapprove of your making presents to the children. I was calculating, at a rough guess the cost of the toys and things you have bought for them, and I think it must amount to a very large portion of the salary you have received. Pray do not continue this, Madame Vine.”

  “I have no one else to spend my money on; I love the children,” was madame’s answer, somewhat sharply given, as if she were jealous of the interference between her and the children, and would resent it.

  “Nay, you have yourself. And if you do not require much outlay, you have, I should suppose, a reserve fund to which to put your money. Be so kind as to take the hint, madame, otherwise I shall be compelled more peremptorily to forbid your generosity. It is very good of you, very kind; but if you do not think yourself, we must for you.”

  “I will buy them less,” was the murmured answer. “I must give them a little token of love now and then.”

  “That you are welcome to do — a ‘little token,’ once in a way, but not the costly toys you have been purchasing. Have you ever had an acquaintance with Sir Francis Levison?” continued Mrs. Carlyle, passing with abruptness from one point to another.

  An inward shiver, a burning cheek, a heartpang of wild remorse, and a faint answer. “No.”

  “I fancied from your manner when I was speaking of him the other day, that you knew him or had known him. No compliment, you will say, to assume an acquaintance with such a man. He is a stranger to you, then?”

  Another faint reply. “Yes.”

  Barbara paused.

  “Do you believe in fatality, Madame Vine?”

  “Yes, I do,” was the steady answer.

  “I don’t,” and yet the very question proved that she did not wholly disbelieve it. “No, I don’t,” added Barbara, stoutly, as she approached the sofa vacated by William, and sat down upon it, thus bringing herself opposite and near to Madame Vine. “Are you aware that it was Francis Levison who brought the evil to this house?”

  “The evil — —” stammered Madame Vine.

  “Yes, it was he,” she resumed, taking the hesitating answer for an admission that the governess knew nothing, or but little, of past events. “It was he who took Lady Isabel from her home — though perhaps she was as willing to go as he was to take her; I do know—”

  “Oh, no, no!” broke from the unguarded lips of Madame Vine. “At least — I mean — I should think not,” she added, in confusion.

  “We shall never know; and of what consequence is it? One thing is certain, she went; another thing, almost equally certain, is, she did not go against her will. Did you ever hear the details?”

  “N — o.” Her answer would have been “Yes,” but possibly the next question might have been, “From whom did you hear them?”

  “He was staying at East Lynne. The man had been abroad; outlawed; dared not show his face in England; and Mr. Carlyle, in his generosity, invited him to East Lynne as a place of shelter, where he would be safe from his creditors while someth
ing was arranged. He was a connection in some way of Lady Isabel’s, and they repaid Mr. Carlyle, he and she, by quitting East Lynne together.”

  “Why did Mr. Carlyle give that invitation?” The words were uttered in a spirit of remorseful wailing. Mrs. Carlyle believed they were a question put, and she rose up haughtily against it.

  “Why did he give the invitation? Did I hear you aright, Madame Vine? Did Mr. Carlyle know he was a reprobate? And, if he had known it, was not Isabel his wife? Could he dream of danger for her? If it pleased Mr. Carlyle to fill East Lynne with bad men to-morrow, what would that be to me — to my safety, to my well-being, to my love and allegiance to my husband? What were you thinking of, madame?”

  “Thinking of?” She leaned her troubled head upon her hand. Mrs. Carlyle resumed, —

  “Sitting alone in the drawing-room just now, and thinking matters over, it did seem to me very like what people call a fatality. That man, I say, was the one who wrought the disgrace, the trouble to Mr. Carlyle’s family; and it is he, I have every reason now to believe, who brought a nearly equal disgrace and trouble upon mine. Did you know—” Mrs. Carlyle lowered her voice— “that I have a brother in evil — in shame?”

  Lady Isabel did not dare to answer that she did know it. Who had there been likely to inform her, the strange governess of the tale of Richard Hare!

  “So the world calls it — shame,” pursued Barbara, growing excited. “And it is shame, but not as the world thinks it. The shame lies with another, who had thrust the suffering and shame upon Richard; and that other is Francis Levison. I will tell you the tale. It is worth the telling.”

  She could only dispose herself to listen; but she wondered what Francis Levison had to do with Richard Hare.

  “In the days long gone by, when I was little more than a child, Richard took to going after Afy Hallijohn. You have seen the cottage in the wood; she lived there with her father and Joyce. It was very foolish for him; but young men will be foolish. As many more went after her, or wanted to go after her, as she could count upon her ten fingers. Among them, chief of them, more favored even than Richard, was one called Thorn, by social position a gentleman. He was a stranger, and used to ride over in secret. The night of the murder came — the dreadful murder, when Hallijohn was shot down dead. Richard ran away; testimony was strong against him, and the coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of ‘Wilful Murder against Richard Hare the younger.’ We never supposed but what he was guilty — of the act, mind you, not of the intention; even mamma, who so loved him, believed he had done it; but she believed it was the result of accident, not design. Oh, the trouble that has been the lot of my poor mamma!” cried Barbara, clasping her hands. “And she had no one to sympathize with her — no one, no one! I, as I tell you, was little more than a child; and papa, who might have done it, took part against Richard. It went on for three or four years, the sorrow, and there was no mitigation. At the end of that period Richard came for a few hours to West Lynne — came in secret — and we learnt for the first time that he was not guilty. The man who did the deed was Thorn; Richard was not even present. The next question was, how to find Thorn. Nobody knew anything about him — who he was, what he was, where he came from, where he went to; and thus more years passed on. Another Thorn came to West Lynne — an officer in her majesty’s service; and his appearance tallied with the description Richard had given. I assumed it to be the one; Mr. Carlyle assumed it; but, before anything could be done or even thought of Captain Thorn was gone again.”