Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “Is it anything about Laura?” asked Lucy in answer to Jane’s last observation.

  “Oh no. Nothing at all.”

  “Do you think, Jane, that Laura is happy? She seems at times so strangely restless, so petulant.”

  “Lucy, I hope she is happy: I cannot tell. I have observed what you say, but I know nothing.”

  “Mr. Carlton seems very indulgent to her,” returned Lucy.

  And in point of fact, Lucy had been quite struck with this indulgence. Jane’s own decision, not to visit at Mr. Carlton’s house, whether springing from repugnance, or pride, or what not, she had strictly adhered to; but she had not extended the prohibition to Lucy; and Lucy was often at Laura’s, and thus had an opportunity of seeing Mr. Carlton’s behaviour to his wife. She told Jane that she liked Mr. Carlton better than she had liked him as a little girl. She remembered, she said with a laugh, that she then entertained a great prejudice against him; but she liked him now very well, and he was certainly fond of Laura. Jane agreed that Mr. Carlton’s manners were gentlemanlike and agreeable; she had now and then met him in society, and nothing could be more courteous than was Mr. Carlton’s manner to herself; but, into his house Jane still declined to enter.

  “I think he has always been most indulgent to her,” observed Jane. “Laura, I fear, is of difficult temper; but —— Are we going to have visitors to-night?”

  The question was caused by a visitor’s knock. Impromptu evening visitors to Lady Jane Chesney were rare. The servant opened the drawing-room door.

  “Mr. Frederick Grey, my lady.”

  Lucy threw down her embroidery. Jane smiled; the dull evening had changed for Lucy.

  He came in with a radiant face. They questioned him upon his appearance in South Wennock, when they had believed him in London, reading hard for his degree. Frederick protested that his Uncle John had invited him down.

  “I suppose the truth is, you proffered him a visit,” said Jane. “Or perhaps came without any notice at all.”

  Frederick Grey laughed. The latter was in truth the fact. But Frederick never stood on ceremony at his Uncle John’s: he was as much at home there as at his father’s.

  And as the days went on and sickness in South Wennock increased, Mr. John Grey declared that his nephew’s visit was the most fortunate circumstance that could have happened. For the medical men were scarcely equal to the additional calls upon them, and Frederick took his full share of duty. So, after all, the visit, which he had intended to be nothing but a short and delightful holiday with Lucy Chesney, was changed into one of work, and — in one sense — disappointment. For he could only venture to see her occasionally, every other day or so; neither had he time for more; and then with the precaution of changing his clothes.

  Lady Laura Carlton’s feet seemed instinctively to take her to Blister Lane, past the front of Tupper’s cottage. Jealousy has carried women to less agreeable places. The unhappy suspicion — how miserably unhappy it was to be in its ultimate effects, neither Laura nor any one else could dream of — connecting her husband with that little child, had grown to a height that was scarcely repressible; and Laura was in the dangerous frame of mind that has been metaphorically likened to touchwood — wanting only a spark to kindle it into a flame.

  Not a day passed but she walked down Blister Lane. She would take her way up the Rise, turn down the lane, pass the cottage, which was situated at this end of it, walk on a little way, and then come back again. All as if she were merely walking to take the air. If she saw the little boy in the garden, she would stop and speak to him; her jaundiced eyes devouring the likeness which she thought she detected to Mr. Carlton. It seemed that’ she could never tire of the comparison.

  It was not altogether jealousy itself that took Lady Laura there, but a determination that had sprung from it. A resolve had seated itself firmly in her mind to sift the matter to its foundation; to bring to light the past. She cared not what means she used: the truth she would know, come what would. Of a sufficiently honourable nature on the whole, Lady Laura forgot honour now. Mr. Carlton had reproached her with “dodging” his steps; she was prepared to do that, and worse, on her way to discovery.

  It might have been described as a disease, this mania that was distracting her. What did she promise herself would be gained by thus haunting Blister Lane? She did not know. All she could have told was, that she was unable to rest away from the place. For one thing, she wanted to ascertain how frequently Mr. Carlton went to the cottage.

  But fortune had not favoured her. Not once had she chanced to light upon the time that Mr. Carlton paid his professional visit. Had she met him — of which there was of course a risk — an excuse was ready. As if fate wished to facilitate her project, Lady Laura had become acquainted with the fact that a young woman, expert in fine needlework, lived in Blister Lane; she immediately supplied her with some, and could have been going there to see about it had she been inconveniently met.

  One gloomy day in November, Laura bent her steps in the usual direction. It did not rain, but the skies were lowering, and anyone might have supposed that Lady Laura was better at home than out of doors. She, however, did not think so. In her mind’s fever, outward discomfort was as nothing.

  As she passed the gate of Tupper’s cottage, Mrs. Smith, in her widow’s cap, was leaning over it, gazing in the direction of South Wennock, as if expecting some one. She looked at Laura as she came up; but she did not know her for the wife of Mr. Carlton. And Lady Laura, with averted eyes and a crimson flush on her haughty cheeks, went right into the road through the mud, rather than pass near the gate. It was the only time she had seen Mrs. Smith since that first day, for the widow kept much within the house.

  On went Laura in her fury; and she never turned until she came to the cottage of the seamstress. It seemed that she required an excuse to her own mind for being in the lane that day. The conclusion she had arrived at in her insensate folly was, that the woman was looking out impatiently for the advent of Mr. Carlton. What passion that this earth contains can ever befool us like that of jealousy!

  She went in, gave some directions about the work, so confused and contradictory as nearly to drive the young woman wild, and then retraced her angry steps. Excessively astonished was she, to see, just on this side Tupper’s cottage, a sort of hand-carriage standing in the middle of the path, and the little boy seated in it. He looked weak and wan and pale, but his beautiful eyes smiled a recognition of Lady Laura.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “She took off her pattens and forgot them, and she has a hole in her boot,” lucidly replied the child.

  “Who’s ‘ she?’” resumed Laura.

  “The girl that Mr. Carlton sent. He says I must go out as long as I can, and she comes to draw me. The drum’s broke,” continued the boy, his countenance changing to intense trouble: “Mr. Carlton broke it. He kissed me because I didn’t cry, and he says he’ll bring me another.”

  “Is Mr. Carlton there now?” hastily asked Laura, indicating the cottage.

  “Yes. It was the drum broke, not the soldier. He hit it too hard.”

  A clanking of pattens was heard in the garden path, and a stout country girl came forth. She knew Lady Laura by sight, and curtsied to her. Laura recognized her as a respectable peasant’s daughter who was glad to go out by day, but who could not take a permanent situation on account of a bedridden mother.

  “The little boy looks ill,” remarked Lady Laura, rather taken to, and saying any words that came uppermost.

  “Yes, my lady; and they say he is weaker to-day than he has been at all.”

  “Mr. Carlton says so?”

  “His mother says so. Mr. Carlton hasn’t seen him yet. He has not been to-day.”

  Laura strode away, vouchsafing no further notice of the speaker, or so much as a word of adieu to the little child. In her heart of hearts she believed the girl was telling her a lie; was purposely deceiving her; and that Mr. Carlton was even then within the c
ottage. The child’s words, “the girl that Mr. Carlton sent,” were beating their refrain on her brain. Why should Mr. Carlton send a girl to take out any child, unless he held some peculiar interest in him? she was asking herself. Ah, if she could only have seen the thing as it actually had been! — how innocent it was! When the boy grew past running about, Mr. Carlton said he must still go into the open air. The mother hired this little carriage, and was regretting to Mr. Carlton that she could not hear of a person to draw it, He thought at once of this young woman, whose mother he was attending at the time; and said he would send her. That was the whole history. Laura Carlton, in her blind jealousy, knew not the bed that she was preparing for herself.

  She went straight home, walking rapidly, and entered the house by the surgery, as she would do now and then in her impatient moods, when she could not bear to wait while the front door was opened. Mr. Carlton’s assistant, Mr. Jefferson, was standing there, and raised his hat to her.

  “When do you expect Mr. Carlton in?” she asked, as she swept past.

  “Mr. Carlton is not out, Lady Laura.”

  “Mr. Carlton is out,” she rejoined, turning her angry face upon the surgeon.

  He looked surprised. “Indeed no, Lady Laura. Mr. Carlton came in about half-an-hour ago. He is down in the drug-room.”

  Lady Laura did not believe a word of it. Were they all in league to deceive her? She turned to the lower stairs, determined to see with her own eyes and confute the falsehood. This drug-room was a small boarded apartment, to which access could be had only through the cellar. Mr. Carlton kept drugs and other articles there pertaining to his profession. The servants had strict orders never to enter it, lest, as Mr. Carlton once told them, they might set their feet on combustible materials and get blown up. They took care to keep clear of it after that warning.

  Lady Laura passed through the cellar and peered in. Standing before an iron safe, its doors thrown wide open, was Mr. Carlton. Laura saw what looked like bundles of papers and letters within it; but so astonished was she to see her husband, that a sudden exclamation escaped her.

  You have heard of this room and this safe before. Mr. Carlton once locked up in it a letter which he had received from his father, that long-past evening when he first heard of the illness of Mrs.

  Crane. Laura knew of the safe’s existence, but had not felt any curiosity with regard to it. She had penetrated to this room once in her early married days, when Mr. Carlton was showing her over the house, but never since.

  A sudden exclamation escaped her. It appeared to startle Mr. Carlton. He shut the safe door in evident haste, and turned round.

  “Laura! Is it you? Whatever do you want down here?”

  Laura was unable to say at the moment what she wanted, and in her perplexity spoke something very near the truth. Mr. Jefferson had said he was there, but she thought he was out, and came to see.

  She turned away while she spoke, and Mr. Carlton looked after her in surprise, as she made her way quickly up the stairs.

  So in this instance, at least, there had been no treachery, and Lady Laura, so far, might have sat down with a mind at rest. The little child had evidently misunderstood her question, when she asked whether Mr. Carlton was within the cottage.

  CHAPTER XI.

  LADY JANE CHECKMATED.

  ON the morning subsequent to these events, Lady Jane and Lucy were sitting together after breakfast. Lucy had complained of headache, and was leaning her head upon her hand, when Judith came in with a note. It proved to be from Lady Laura. She had twisted her ankle, she said; was consequently a prisoner, and wished Lucy to go and help her to pass a dull day.

  “I should like to go, Jane,” said Lucy. “A walk in the air may take away my headache.”

  “You are sure you have no sore throat?” asked Jane, somewhat anxiously. She had put the question once before.

  Lucy smiled. Of course people were suspicious of headaches at this time. “I don’t think I have any sore throat, Jane. I ate my breakfast very well. I did not sleep well last night, and that has made my head feel heavy.”

  On her arrival at Mr. Carlton’s, Lucy found Laura on a sofa in her dressing-room; a pretty apartment on the first-floor.

  “Are you quite an invalid?” asked Lucy.

  “Not quite; I can manage to limp across the room. But the ankle is swollen and rather painful. Did Jane object to your coming?”

  “Not at all. How did you contrive to hurt it, Laura?”

  “I was in mischief,” returned Lady Laura, with a half laugh. “And you know, when people do get to mischief on the sly, punishment is sure to follow. Don’t our first lessons in the spelling-book tell us so?”

  “What was the mischief?” returned Lucy.

  “I and Mr. Carlton are not upon the best of terms; there is a grievance between us,” was Laura’s answer. “You need not look so serious, Lucy; I do not mean to imply that we are enemies, but we are not precisely as turtle-doves. He has secrets which he keeps from me; I know he has; and get at them I will. There’s deceit abroad just now, and I vow and declare that I’ll come to the bottom of it.”

  Lucy listened in wonder. Laura would say no more. “No,” she observed, “it is nothing particularly suited to your ears: let it pass, so far. He has a strong iron safe in the cellar, and in this safe he keeps papers and letters and things. I know, because I went down yesterday, when he had the door open, and he started like a coward, when he saw me, and shut it up. Well, I thought I should like to see what there is in that safe, and I stole down to the cellar last night with my bunch of keys, to try whether any one of them would unlock it.”

  “Oh, Laura!” broke forth Lucy, shocked and pained beyond expression. “How could you think of such a thing? — how could you do it?”

  “Wait until you have a husband like Mr. Carlton, who puts you out of temper with his underhand ways, and then see what you would ‘think’ and ‘do,’” retorted Lady Laura.

  And Lucy ventured no further remonstrance, for she had once been a child under Laura’s control, and was somewhat in awe of her still.

  “I went in the dark, lest the servants should see me,” proceeded Lady Laura, “taking some wax matches with me, to light when I got down. All went well. I tried the keys (none of which fitted, so I was baffled there), and blew out my lights to come back again. We have to go down three steps in coming out of the drug-room, where the safe is, and mount two to get into the cellar — wretched incapables the builders must have been, to make you go down steps only to come up again! Well, Lucy, I slipped on something at the top of these three steps, and down I went to the bottom. I could hardly get up at first, for the pain in my foot, and a regular fright I was in, fearing I must call the servants. However, I did succeed in crawling back. There’s the history of the whole matter.”

  And a very creditable one too! Lucy sat in wonder.

  “I have told it you out of bravado,” continued Laura, who seemed to be in a reckless mood; “and you may repeat it to Jane, if you like. When he came home he wanted to know how I had done it. ‘ Slipped,’ I answered; and he got no more out of me.”

  A silence ensued, which Lucy broke, passing to another theme.

  “We heard a rumour, Laura, that Mr. Carlton was likely to give up his practice here. Frederick Grey mentioned it.”

  “He says he shall. I don’t know. Of course London’s the best field for a medical man. Talking of Frederick Grey, what’s the reason that Mr. Carlton dislikes him so much?”

  “I know nothing about it,” replied Lucy.

  “I heard him going on to Mr. Jefferson about Frederick Grey’s being down here interfering with the practice. There never was any love between them. Young Grey used to be very outspoken, saying Mr. Carlton drove his father from the town.”

  “As he did,” returned Lucy quietly. “At least it was so reported in the old days, I remember. But that is all past and done with, and Frederick was but a boy then. He is not interfering with Mr. Carlton’s practice.”
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  “No; Mr. Carlton would see him far enough away, rather than allow that. Lucy! are you ill? Your eyes look heavy, and your cheeks are flushed.”