CHAPTEK XXXIV
BAD NEWS
The attorney entered the Mastersons' room a little before eleven nextmorning; Julia was there, and Mrs. Masterson. The latter on seeing himheld up her hands in dismay. 'Lord's wakes, Mr. Fishwick!' the goodwoman cried, 'why, you are the ghost of yourself! Adventuring does notsuit you, that's certain. But I don't wonder. I am sure I have not slepta wink these three nights that I have not dreamt of Bessy Canning andthat horrid old Squires; which, she did it without a doubt. Don't go tosay you've bad news this morning.'
Certain it was that Mr. Fishwick looked woefully depressed. The night'ssleep, which had restored the roses to Julia's cheeks and the light toher eyes, had done nothing for him; or perhaps he had not slept. Hiseyes avoided the girl's look of inquiry. 'I've no news this morning,' hesaid awkwardly. 'And yet I have news.'
'Bad?' the girl said, nodding her comprehension; and her colour slowlyfaded.
'Bad,' he said gravely, looking down at the table.
Julia took her fostermother's hand in hers, and patted it; they weresitting side by side. The elder woman, whose face was still furrowed bythe tears she had shed in her bereavement, began to tremble. 'Tell us,'the girl said bravely. 'What is it?'
'God help me,' Mr. Fishwick answered, his face quivering. 'I don't knowhow I shall tell you. I don't indeed. But I must.' Then, in a voiceharsh with pain, 'Child, I have made a mistake,' he cried. 'I am wrong,I was wrong, I have been wrong from the beginning. God help me! And Godhelp us all!'
The elder woman broke into frightened weeping. The younger grew pale andpaler: grew presently white to the lips. Still her eyes met his, and didnot flinch. 'Is it--about our case?' she whispered.
'Yes! Oh, my dear, will you ever forgive me?'
'About my birth?'
He nodded.
'I am not Julia Soane? Is that it?'
He nodded again.
'Not a Soane--at all?'
'No; God forgive me, no!'
She continued to hold the weeping woman's hand in hers, and to look athim; but for a long minute she seemed not even to breathe. Then in avoice that, notwithstanding the effort she made, sounded harsh in hisears, 'Tell me all,' she muttered. 'I suppose--you have foundsomething!'
'I have,' he said. He looked old, and worn, and shabby; and was at oncethe surest and the saddest corroboration of his own tidings. 'Two daysago I found, by accident, in a church at Bristol, the death certificateof the--of the child.'
'Julia Soane?'
'Yes.'
'But then--who am I?' she asked, her eyes growing wild: the world wasturning, turning with her.
'Her husband,' he answered, nodding towards Mrs. Masterson, 'adopted achild in place of the dead one, and said nothing. Whether he intended topass it off for the child entrusted to him, I don't know. He never madeany attempt to do so. Perhaps,' the lawyer continued drearily, 'he hadit in his mind, and when the time came his heart failed him.'
'And I am that child?'
Mr. Fishwick looked away guiltily, passing his tongue over his lips. Hewas the picture of shame and remorse.
'Yes,' he said. 'Your father and mother were French. He was a teacher ofFrench at Bristol, his wife French from Canterbury. No relationsare known.'
'My name?' she asked, smiling piteously.
'Pare,' he said, spelling it. And he added, 'They call it Parry.'
She looked round the room in a kind of terror, not unmixed with wonder.To that room they had retired to review their plans on their firstarrival at the Castle Inn--when all smiled on them. Thither they hadfled for refuge after the brush with Lady Dunborough and the rencontrewith Sir George. To that room she had betaken herself in the first flushand triumph of Sir George's suit; and there, surrounded by the sameobjects on which she now gazed, she had sat, rapt in rosy visions,through the livelong day preceding her abduction. Then she had been agentlewoman, an heiress, the bride in prospect of a gallantgentleman. Now?
What wonder that, as she looked round in dumb misery, recognising thesethings, her eyes grew wild again; or that the shrinking lawyer expectedan outburst. It came, but from another quarter. The old woman rose andtrembling pointed a palsied finger at him. 'Yo' eat your words!' shesaid. 'Yo' eat your words and seem to like them. But didn't yo' tell meno farther back than this day five weeks that the law was clear? Didn'tyo' tell me it was certain? Yo' tell me that!'
'I did! God forgive me,' Mr. Fishwick murmured from the depths of hisabasement.
'Didn't yo' tell me fifty times, and fifty times to that, that the casewas clear?' the old woman continued relentlessly. 'That there werethousands and thousands to be had for the asking? And her right besides,that no one could cheat her of, no more than me of the things myman left me?'
'I did, God forgive me!' the lawyer said.
'But yo' did cheat me!' she continued with quavering insistence, herwithered face faintly pink. 'Where is the home yo' ha' broken up? Whereare the things my man left me? Where's the bit that should ha' kept mefrom the parish? Where's the fifty-two pounds yo' sold all for and ha'spent on us, living where's no place for us, at our betters' table? Yo'ha' broken my heart! Yo' ha' laid up sorrow and suffering for the girlthat is dearer to me than my heart. Yo' ha' done all that, and yo' cancome to me smoothly, and tell me yo' ha' made a mistake. Yo' are arogue, and, what maybe is worse, I mistrust me yo' are a fool!'
'Mother! mother!' the girl cried.
'He is a fool!' the old woman repeated, eyeing him with a dreadfulsternness. 'Or he would ha' kept his mistake to himself. Who knows ofit? Or why should he be telling them? 'Tis for them to find out, not forhim! Yo' call yourself a lawyer? Yo' are a fool!' And she sat down in apalsy of senile passion. 'Yo' are a fool! And yo' ha' ruined us!'
Mr. Fishwick groaned, but made no reply. He had not the spirit to defendhimself. But Julia, as if all through which she had gone since the dayof her reputed father's death had led her to this point, only that shemight show the stuff of which she was wrought, rose to the emergency.
'Mother,' she said firmly, her hand resting on the older woman'sshoulder, 'you are wrong--you are quite wrong. He would have ruined usindeed, he would have ruined us hopelessly and for ever, if he had keptsilence! He has never been so good a friend to us as he has shownhimself to-day, and I thank him for his courage. And I honour him!' Sheheld out her hand to Mr. Fishwick, who having pressed it, his faceworking ominously, retired to the window.
'But, my deary, what will yo' do?' Mrs. Masterson cried peevishly. 'Heha' ruined us!'
'What I should have done if we had never made this mistake,' Juliaanswered bravely; though her lips trembled and her face was white, andin her heart she knew that hers was but a mockery of courage, that mustfail her the moment she was alone. 'We are but fifty pounds worsethan we were.'
'Fifty pounds!' the old woman cried aghast. 'Yo' talk easily of fiftypounds. And, Lord knows, it is soon spent here. But where will yo'get another?'
'Well, well,' the girl answered patiently, 'that is true. Yet we mustmake the best of it. Let us make the best of it,' she continued,appealing to them bravely, yet with tears in her voice. 'We are alllosers together. Let us bear it together. I have lost most,' shecontinued, her voice trembling. Fifty pounds? Oh, God! what was fiftypounds to what she had lost. 'But perhaps I deserve it. I was too readyto leave you, mother. I was too ready to--to take up with new thingsand--and richer things, and forget those who had been kin to me and kindto me all my life. Perhaps this is my punishment. You have lost yourall, but that we will get again. And our friend here--he, too,has lost.'
Mr. Fishwick, standing, dogged and downcast, by the window, did not saywhat he had lost, but his thoughts went to his old mother at Wallingfordand the empty stocking, and the weekly letters he had sent her for amonth past, letters full of his golden prospects, and the great case ofSoane _v_. Soane, and the grand things that were to come of it. What ahome-coming was now in store for him, his last guinea spent, his hopeswrecked, and Wallingford to be faced!
There was a
brief silence. Mrs. Masterson sobbed querulously, or now andagain uttered a wailing complaint: the other two stood sank in bitterretrospect. Presently, 'What must we do?' Julia asked in a faint voice.'I mean, what step must we take? Will you let them know?'
'I will see them,' Mr. Fishwick answered, wincing at the note of pain inher voice. 'I--I was sent for this morning, for twelve o'clock. It is aquarter to eleven now.'
She looked at him, startled, a spot of red in each cheek. 'We must goaway,' she said hurriedly, 'while we have money. Can we do better thanreturn to Oxford?'
The attorney felt sure that at the worst Sir George would do somethingfor her: that Mrs. Masterson need not lament for her fifty pounds. Buthe had the delicacy to ignore this. 'I don't know,' he said mournfully.'I dare not advise. You'd be sorry, Miss Julia--any one would be sorrywho knew what I have gone through. I've suffered--I can't tell you whatI have suffered--the last twenty-four hours! I shall never have anyopinion of myself again. Never!'
Julia sighed. 'We must cut a month out of our lives,' she murmured. Butit was something else she meant--a month out of her heart!
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