Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  ‘Perhaps the law might?’ She spoke dreamily, not in answer to him, but in commune with herself, as if debating the question. ‘Fare you well for the present, young man; but I have not done with you.’

  To his intense satisfaction she turned out of the office, catching up the flowers as she went. Austin attended her to the outer gate. She strode straight on, not deigning to cast a glance to the busy yard, with its sheds, its timber, its implements of work, and its artisans, all scattered about it.

  ‘Believe me,’ he said, holding out his hand as a peace-offering, ‘I am not willingly discourteous. I wish I could see my way clear to help you.’

  She did not take the hand; she walked away without another word or look, and Austin went back again. Mr. Hunter advanced to meet him from the upper end of the yard, and went with him into the small room.

  ‘What was all that, Clay? I scarcely understood.’

  ‘I daresay not, sir, for I had no time to be explanatory. It seems she — Miss Gwinn — has come to town on business. She procured my address from Mrs. Thornimett, and came here to ask of me if I had seen anything of her enemy — meaning Mr. Henry Hunter. I feared lest he should be coming in; I could only beg of you to find Mr. Henry, and warn him not. That is all, sir.’

  Mr. Hunter stood with his back to Austin, softly whistling — his habit when in deep thought. ‘What can be her motive for wanting to find him?’ he presently said.

  ‘She speaks of revenge. Of course I do not know for what: I cannot give a guess. There’s no doubt she is mistaken in the person, when she accuses Mr. Henry Hunter.’

  ‘Well,’ returned Mr. Hunter, ‘I said nothing to my brother, for I did not understand what there was to say. It will be better not to tell him now; the woman is gone, and the subject does not appear to be a pleasant one. Do you hear?’

  ‘Very well, sir.’

  ‘I think I understood, when the affair was spoken of some time ago, that she does not know him as Mr. Hunter?’

  ‘Of course she does not,’ said Austin. ‘She would have been here after him before now if she did. She came this morning to see me, not suspecting she might meet him.’

  ‘Ah! Better keep the visit close,’ cried Mr. Hunter, as he walked away.

  Now, it had occurred to Austin that it would be better to do just the opposite thing. He should have told Mr. Henry Hunter, and left that gentleman to seek out Miss Gwinn, or not, as he might choose. A sudden meeting between them in the office, in the hearing of the yard, and with the lady in excitement, was not desirable; but that Mr. Henry Hunter should clear himself, now that she was following him up, and convince her it was not he who was the suspected party, was, Austin thought, needful — that is, if he could do it. However, he could only obey Mr. Hunter’s suggestions.

  Austin resumed his occupation. His brain and fingers were busy over the plan, when he saw a gig drive into the yard. It contained the great engineer, Sir Michael Wilson. Mr. Henry Hunter came down the yard to meet him; they shook hands, and entered the private room together. In a few minutes Mr. Henry came to Austin.

  ‘Are you particularly engaged, Clay?’

  ‘Only with this plan, sir. It is wanted as soon as I can get it done.’

  ‘You can leave it for a quarter of an hour. I wish you to go round to Dr. Bevary. I was to have been at his house now — half-past eleven — to accompany him on a visit to a sick friend. Tell him that Sir Michael has come, and I have to go out with him, therefore it is impossible for me to keep my engagement. I am very sorry, tell Bevary: these things always happen crossly. Go right into his consulting-room, Clay; never mind patients; or else he will be chafing at my delay, and grumble the ceiling off.’

  Austin departed. Dr. Bevary occupied a good house in the main street, to the left of the yard, to gain which he had to pass the turning to Daffodil’s Delight. Had Dr. Bevary lived to the right of the yard, his practice might have been more exclusive; but doctors cannot always choose their localities, circumstances more frequently doing that for them. He had a large connexion, and was often pressed for time.

  Down went Austin, and gained the house. Just inside the open door, before which a close carriage was standing, was the doctor’s servant.

  ‘Dr. Bevary is engaged, sir, with a lady patient,’ said the man. ‘He is very particularly engaged for the moment, but I don’t think he’ll be long.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ said Austin, not deeming it well strictly to follow Mr. Henry Hunter’s directions; and he turned, without ceremony, to the little box of a study on the left of the hall.

  ‘Not there, sir,’ interposed the man hastily, and he showed him into the drawing-room on the right; Dr. Bevary and his patient being in the consulting-room.

  Ten minutes of impatience to Austin. What could any lady mean by keeping him so long, in his own house? Then they came forth. The lady, a very red and portly one, rather old, was pushed into her carriage by the help of her footman, Austin watching the process from the window. The carriage then drove off.

  The doctor did not come in. Austin concluded the servant must have forgotten to tell him he was there. He crossed the hall to the little study, the doctor’s private room, knocked and entered.

  ‘I am not to care for patients,’ called out he gaily, believing the doctor was alone; ‘Mr. Henry Hunter says so.’ But to his surprise, a patient was sitting there — at least, a lady; sitting, nose and knees together, with Dr. Bevary, and talking hurriedly and earnestly, as if they had the whole weight of the nation’s affairs on their shoulders.

  It was Miss Gwinn. The flowers had apparently found their home, for they were in a vase on the table. Austin took it all in at a glance.

  ‘So it is you, is it, Austin Clay?’ she exclaimed. ‘I was acquainting Dr. Bevary with your refusal to give me that man’s address, and asking his opinion whether the law could compel you. Have you come after me to say you have thought better of it?’

  Austin was decidedly taken aback. It might have been his fancy, but he thought he saw a look of caution go out to him from Dr. Bevary’s eyes.

  ‘Was your visit to this lady, Mr. Clay?’

  ‘No, sir, it was to you. Sir Michael Wilson has come down on business, and Mr. Henry Hunter will not be able to keep his appointment with you. He desired me to say that he was sorry, but that it was no fault of his.’

  Dr. Bevary nodded. ‘Tell him I was about to send round to say that I could not keep mine with him so it’s all right. Another day will — —’

  A sharp cry. A cry of passion, of rage, almost of terror. It came from Miss Gwinn; and the doctor, breaking off his sentence, turned to her in amazement.

  It was well he did so; it was well he caught her hands. Another moment, and she would have dashed them through the window, and perhaps herself also. Driving by, in the gig, were Sir Michael Wilson and Mr. Henry Hunter. It was at the latter she gazed, at him she pointed.

  ‘Do you see him? Do you see him?’ she panted to the doctor. ‘That’s the man; not the one driving; the other — the one sitting this way. Oh, Dr. Bevary, will you believe me now? I told you I met him at Ketterford; and there he is again! Let me go!’

  She was strong almost as a wild animal, wrestling with the doctor to get from him. He made a motion to Austin to keep the door, and there ensued a sharp struggle. Dr. Bevary got her into an arm-chair at last, and stood before her, holding her hands, at first in silence. Then he spoke calmly, soothingly, as he would to a child.

  ‘My dear lady, what will become of you if you give way to these fits of violence? But for me, I really believe you would have been through the window. A pretty affair of spikes that would be! I should have had you laid up in my house for a month, covered over with sticking-plaster.’

  ‘If you had not stopped me I might have caught that gig,’ was her passionate rejoinder.

  ‘Caught that gig! A gig going at the rate of ten miles an hour, if it was going one! By the time you had got down the steps of my door it would have been out of sight. How people c
an drive at that random rate in London streets, I can’t think.’

  ‘How can I find him? How can I find him?’

  Her tone was quite a wail of anguish. However they might deprecate her mistaken violence, it was impossible but that both her hearers should feel compassion for her. She laid her hand on the doctor’s arm.

  ‘Will you not help me to find him, Dr. Bevary? Did you note him?’

  ‘So far as to see that there were two persons in the gig, and that they were men, not women. Do you feel sure it was the man you speak of? It is so easy to be mistaken in a person who is being whirled along swiftly.’

  ‘Mistaken!’ she returned, in a strangely significant tone. ‘Dr. Bevary, I am sure it was he. I have not kept him in my mind for years, to mistake him now. Austin Clay,’ she fiercely added, turning round upon Austin, ‘you speak; speak the truth; I saw you look after them. Was it, or was it not, the man whom I met at Ketterford?’

  ‘I believe it was,’ was Austin’s answer. ‘Nevertheless, Miss Gwinn, I do not believe him to be the enemy you spoke of — the one who worked you ill. He denies it just as solemnly as you assert it; and I am sure he is a truthful man.’

  ‘And that I am a liar?’

  ‘No. That you believe what you assert is only too apparent. I think it a case, on your side, of mistaken identity.’

  Happening to raise his eyes, Austin caught those of Dr. Bevary fixed upon him with a keen, troubled, earnest gaze. It asked, as plainly as a gaze could ask, ‘Do you believe so? or is the falsehood on his side?’

  ‘Will you disclose to Dr. Bevary the name of that man, if you will not to me?’

  Again the gentlemen’s eyes met, and this time an unmistakeable warning of caution gleamed forth from Dr. Bevary’s. Austin could only obey it.

  ‘I must decline to speak of him in any way, Miss Gwinn,’ said he; ‘you had my reasons before. Dr. Bevary, I have given you the message I was charged with. I must wish you both good day.’

  Austin walked back, full of thought, his belief somewhat wavering. ‘It is very strange,’ he reflected. ‘Could a woman, could any one be so positive as she is, unless thoroughly sure? What is the mystery, I wonder? That it was no sentimental affair between them, or rubbish of that sort, is patent by the difference of their ages; she looks pretty nearly old enough to be his mother. Mr. Henry Hunter’s is a remarkable face — one that would alter little in a score of years.’

  The bell was ringing twelve as he approached the yard, and the workmen were pouring out of it, on their way home to dinner. Plentiful tables awaited them; little care was on their minds; flourishing was every branch of the building trade then. Peter Quale came up to Austin.

  ‘Sam Shuck have just been up here, sir, a-eating humble pie, and praying to be took on again. But the masters be both absent; and Mr. Mills, he said he didn’t choose, in a thing like this, to act on his own responsibility, for he heard Mr. Hunter say Shuck shouldn’t again be employed.’

  ‘I would not take him on,’ replied Austin, ‘if it rested with me; an idle, skulking, deceitful vagabond, drunk and incapable at one time, striving to spread discontent among the men at another. He has been on the loose for a fortnight now. But it is not my affair, Quale; Mr. Mills is manager.’

  The yard, between twelve and one, was pretty nearly deserted. The gentleman, spoken of as Mr. Mills, and Austin, usually remained; the principals would sometimes be there, and an odd man or two. The timekeeper lived in the yard. Austin rather liked that hour; it was quiet. He was applying to his plan with a zest, when another interruption came, in the shape of Dr. Bevary. Austin began to think he might as well put the drawing away altogether.

  ‘Anybody in the offices, Mr. Clay, except you?’ asked the doctor.

  ‘Not indoors. Mills is about somewhere.’

  Down sat the doctor, and fixed his keen eyes upon Austin. ‘What took place here this morning with Miss Gwinn?’

  ‘No harm, sir,’ replied Austin, briefly explaining. ‘As it happened, Mr. Henry kept away. Mr. Hunter came in and saw her; but that was all.’

  ‘What is your opinion?’ abruptly asked the doctor. ‘Come, give it freely. You have your share of judgment, and of discretion too, or I should not ask it. Is she mistaken, or is Henry Hunter false?’

  Austin did not immediately reply. Dr. Bevary mistook the cause of his silence.

  ‘Don’t hesitate, Clay. You know I am trustworthy; and it is not I who would stir to harm a Hunter. If I seek to come to the bottom of this affair, it is that I may do what I can to repair damage; to avert some of the fruits of wrong-doing.’

  ‘If I hesitated, Dr. Bevary, it was that I am really at a loss what answer to give. When Mr. Henry Hunter denies that he knows the woman, or that he ever has known her, he appears to me to speak open truth. On the other hand, these recognitions of Miss Gwinn’s, and her persistency, are, to say the least of them, suspicious and singular. Until within an hour I had full trust in Mr. Henry Hunter; now I do not know what to think. She seemed to recognise him in the gig so surely.’

  ‘He does not appear’ — Dr. Bevary appeared to be speaking to himself, and his head was bent— ‘like one who carries about with him some dark secret.’

  ‘Mr. Henry Hunter? None less. Never a man whose outside gave indications of a clearer conscience. But, Dr. Bevary, if her enemy be Mr. Henry Hunter, how is it she does not know him by name?’

  ‘Ay, there’s another point. She evidently attaches no importance to the name of Hunter.’

  ‘What was the name of — of the enemy she talks of?’ asked Austin. ‘We must call him “enemy” for want of a better name. Do you know it, doctor?’

  ‘No. Can’t get it out of her. Never could get it out of her. I asked her again to-day, but she evaded the question.’

  ‘Mr. Hunter thought it would be better to keep her visit this morning a secret from his brother, as they had not met. I, on the contrary, should have told him of it.’

  ‘No,’ hastily interposed Dr. Bevary, putting up his hand with an alarmed, warning gesture. ‘The only way is, to keep her and Henry Hunter apart.’

  ‘I wonder,’ mused Austin, ‘what brings her to town?’

  The doctor threw his penetrating gaze into Austin’s eyes. ‘Have you no idea what it is?’

  ‘None, sir. She seemed to intimate that she came every year.’

  ‘Good. Don’t try to form any, my young friend. It would not be a pleasant secret, even for you to hold!’

  He rose as he spoke, nodded, and went out, leaving Austin Clay in a state of puzzled bewilderment. It was not lessened when, an hour later, Austin encountered Dr. Bevary’s close carriage, driving rapidly along the street, the doctor seated inside it, and Miss Gwinn beside him.

  CHAPTER VI. TRACKED HOME.

  I think it has been mentioned that the house next door to the Quales’, detached from it however, was inhabited by two families: the lower part by Mr. Samuel Shuck, his wife, and children; the upper and best part by the Baxendales. No two sets of people could be more dissimilar; the one being as respectable as the other was disreputable. John Baxendale’s wife was an invalid; she had been so, on and off, for a long while. There was an only daughter, and she and her mother held themselves very much aloof from the general society of Daffodil’s Delight.

  On the morning following the day spoken of in the last chapter as distinguished by the advent of Miss Gwinn in London, Mrs. Baxendale found herself considerably worse than usual. Mr. Rice, the apothecary, who was the general attendant in Daffodil’s Delight, and lived at its corner, had given her medicine, and told her to ‘eat well and get up her strength.’ But, somehow, the strength and the appetite did not come; on the contrary, she got weaker and weaker. She was in very bad spirits this morning, was quite unable to get up, and cried for some time in silence.

  ‘Mother, dear,’ said Mary Baxendale, going into her room, ‘you’ll have the doctor gone out, I fear.’

  ‘Oh, Mary! I cannot get up — I cannot go,’ was the answer, deli
vered with a burst of sobbing sorrow. ‘I shall never rise from my bed again.’

  The words fell on the daughter with a terrible shock. Her fears in regard to her mother’s health had long been excited, but this seemed like a confirmation of a result she had never dared openly to face. She was not a very capable sort of girl — the reverse of what is called strong-minded; but the instinct imparted by all true affection warned her to make light of her mother’s words.

  ‘Nay, mother, it’s not so bad as that,’ she said, checking her tears. ‘You’ll get up again fast enough. You are feeling low, maybe, this morning.’

  ‘Child, I am too weak to get up — too ill. I don’t think I shall ever be about again.’

  Mary sat down in a sort of helpless perplexity.

  ‘What is to be done?’ she cried.

  Mrs. Baxendale asked herself the same question as she lay. Finding herself no better under Mr. Rice’s treatment, she had at length determined to do what she ought to have done at first — consult Dr. Bevary.

  From half-past eight to ten, three mornings in the week, Dr. Bevary gave advice gratis; and Mrs. Baxendale was on this one to have gone to him — rather a formidable visit, as it seemed to her, and perhaps the very thought of it had helped to make her worse.

  ‘What is to be done?’ repeated Mary.

  ‘Could you not wait upon him, child, and describe my symptoms?’ suggested the sick woman, after weighing the dilemma in her mind. ‘It might do as well. Perhaps he can write for me.’

  ‘Oh, mother, I don’t like to go!’ exclaimed Mary, in the impulse of the moment.

  ‘But, my dear, what else is to be done?’ urged Mrs. Baxendale. ‘We can’t ask a great gentleman like that to come to me.’

  ‘To be sure — true. Oh, yes, I’ll go, mother.’

  Mary got herself ready without another word. Mrs. Baxendale, a superior woman for her station in life, had brought up her daughter to be thoroughly dutiful. It had seemed a formidable task to the mother, the going to this physician, this ‘great gentleman;’ it seemed a far worse to the daughter, and especially the having to explain symptoms and ailments at second-hand. But the great physician was a very pleasant man, and would nod good-humouredly to Mary, when by chance he met her in the street.