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Roy Glashan's Library
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"Johnny Ludlow" was the name used by Ellen Wood as the by-line for a series of 90 popular stories and serial novels published in the British monthly Argosy, which she bought in 1867 and edited under her married name, Mrs. Henry Wood. The first story signed by and featuring "Johnny Ludlow" appeared in January 1868, the last in January-June 1891.
Six collections of stories in the series were published in book form. The first story, "Shaving the Ponies' Tails," was not included in any of these collections, presumably because some elements of the narrative and characterization are atypical in comparison with the rest of the series. The 48th story, "Fred Temple's Warning," was also omitted.
—Roy Glashan
THE snow was falling. At one of the narrow windows of the parlour at Copse farm, stood Susan Page, her bunch of short dark curls combed back from her thin face, her trim figure neat in a merino gown of dusky red. Her own portion of household-work was already done, and she was about to sit down, dressed for the day, to some sewing that lay on the work-table near.
"I was in hopes the snow was over: the morning looked so clear and bright," she said to herself, watching the large flakes. "Leek will have a job to get the truck to the church."
It was a long, narrow room. At the other end by the fire, sat Mr. Page in his arm-chair. He had dropped asleep, his cheek leaning on his hand. As Miss Susan sat down and took up her work, a large pair of scissors fell to the ground with a crash. "Hush—sh—sh!" said she softly, as if the scissors could hear, and glanced round at her father. He did not wake. That stroke of a year ago had dulled his faculties.
"I should uncommonly like to know who did this—whether Sally or the woman," she exclaimed, examining the work she had to do. One of Mr. Page's new shirts had been torn in the washing, and she was about to mend the rent. "That woman has a heavy hand: and Sally a careless one. It ought not to have been ironed."
The door opened, and John Drench came in. When he saw that Mr. Page slept, he walked up the room towards Miss Susan. In the past twelvemonth—for that length of time had rolled on since the trouble about Jessy and her mysterious disappearance—John Drench had had time to return to his first allegiance (or, as Miss Susan mentally put it, get over his folly); and he had decidedly done it.
"Did you want anything?" asked Susan in a cold tone. For she made a point of being short with him—for his own benefit.
"I wanted to ask the master whether he'd have that ditch made, that he was talking of," was the answer. "There's no hurry: not much to be done anywhere while this weather lasts."
She made no comment. John Drench stood, waiting for Mr. Page to wake, looking alternately at the snow and at Miss Susan's steel thimble and nimble fingers. Very deftly was she doing the work, holding the linen gingerly, that the well-ironed bosom and wristbands might not get a crease and unfit the shirt for wear. He was thinking what a good wife she would make: for there was nothing, in the shape of usefulness, that Susan Page could not put her hand to, and put it well.
"Miss Susan, I was going to ask a question of you," he began, standing uncomfortably on one leg. "I've been wanting to do it for this good bit now, but "
"Pick up my cotton," said Miss Susan tartly, dropping a reel on purpose.
"But I b'lieve I've wanted courage," resumed he, after doing as he was bid. "It is a puzzling task how to do it for the best, and what to say. If you "
Open flew the door, and in came Miss Page, in her thick white kitchen apron. Her gown-sleeves were rolled above her elbows, her floured hands were but lightly wiped. John Drench, struck into himself, thought he should never have pluck to speak again.
"Susan, do you know where that old red receipt book is?" she asked, in a low tone, glancing at her sleeping father. "I am not certain about the proportions for the lemon-cake."
"The red receipt book?" repeated Susan. "I have not seen it for ever so long."
"Nor I. I don't think I have had occasion to use it since last Christmas Eve. I know I had to look at it then for the lemon-cake. Sally says she's sure it is somewhere in this room."
"Then you had better send Sally to find it, Abigail."
Instead of that, Miss Page began looking herself. On the bookshelves; on the sideboard; in all the nooks and corners. It was found in the empty drawer—empty save for that—of an unused table that stood against the wall.
"Well, I declare!" she exclaimed, as she drew it out. "I wonder who put it in here!"
In turning over the leaves to look for what she wanted, a piece of paper, loosely folded, fell to the ground. John Drench picked it up.
"Why!" he said, "it is a note from Jessy."
It was the letter written to them by Jessy, saying she had found a situation and hoped to suit and be happy in it. The one letter: for no other had ever come. Abigail, missing the letter months ago, supposed it had got burnt.
"Yes," she said with a sigh, as she glanced over the few lines now, standing by Susan's work-table, "it is Jessy's letter. She might have written again. Every morning of my life for weeks and weeks, I kept looking for the letter-man to bring another. But the hope died out at last, for it never came."
"She is a heartless baggage!" cried Miss Susan. "In her grand lady's maid's place, amid her high people, she was content to forget and abandon us. I'd never have believed it of her."
There ensued a pause. The subject was a painful one. Mortifying too: for nobody likes to be forgotten by one that they have loved and cherished and brought up from a little child. Abigail Page had tears in her eyes.
"It's just a year ago to-day that she came into the church to help us dress it," said John Drench, his tender tone of regret grating on Miss Susan's ear. "In her blue mantle; looking sweeter and brighter than a fairy princess."
"Did you ever see a fairy princess, pray?" asked Miss Susan, sharply taking him up. "She acted like a princess, didn't she?"
"Best to forget her," interposed Abigail, suppressing a sigh. "As Susan says, she is heartless. Almost wicked: for what is worse than ingratitude? Never to write: never to let us know where her situation is and with what people: never to ask or care whether her poor father, who had nothing but love for her, is living or dead! Best to forget her."
She went out of the room with the note and receipt book as she spoke, softly closing the door behind her, as one does who is feeling trouble. Miss Susan worked on with rapid and angry stitches; John Drench looked out on the low-lying snow. The storm had passed: the sky was blue again.
Yes. Christmas Eve had come round, making it just a year since Jessy in her pretty blue mantle had chosen the sprays of holly in the church. They had never had from her but that one first unsatisfactory letter: they knew no more how she went, or why she went, or where she was, than they had known then. No news whatever came of her: she was as a myth; as a thing that had never had any place in the world. Within a week or two of the unsatisfactory journey to London, a letter came to the farm from Mr. Marcus Allen, enquiring after Jessy, expressing hopes that she had been found and was home again. It was not answered: Miss Page, busy with her father's illness, neglected it at first, and then thought it did not matter.
Mr. Page recovered from his stroke: but he would never be good for anything again. He was very much changed; would sit for hours and never speak: at times his daughters thought him a little silly, as if his intellect were failing. Miss Page, with John Drench's help, managed the farm: though she always made it a point of duty to consult her father and ask for his orders. In the month of June they heard again from Marcus Allen. He wrote to say that he was sorry not to fulfil his promise (made in the winter's visit) of coming during the time of haymaking, but he was busy finishing a painting and could not leave it: he hoped to come at some other time.
Susan Page worked on: John Drench looked from the window. The young lady was determined not to break the silence.
"The Dunn farm is to let," said he, suddenly.
"Is it," slightingly returned Miss Susan.
"My father has some thoughts of taking it for me. It's good land."
"No better than other land about here."
"It's very good, Susan. And just the place I should like. There's a nice convenient house, too."
Susan Page began rummaging in the deep table-drawer for her box of buttons. She had a great mind to hum a tune.
"But I couldn't take it, or let father take it for me, without you'd promise to go to it with me, Susan."
"Promise to go to it with you, John Drench!"
"I'd make you as good a husband as I know how. Perhaps you'll think of it."
No answer. She was doubling her thread to sew on the button. "Will you think of it, Miss Susan?"
"Well—yes, I will," she said in a softer tone. "And if I decide to bring my mind to have you, John Drench, I'll hope to make you a good and faithful wife."
He held out his hand to shake hers upon the bargain. Their eyes met in kindliness: and John Drench knew that the Dunn farm would have its mistress.
We were going to dress the church this year as we did the last. Tod and I got to it early in the afternoon, and saw the Miss Pages wading their way through the coppice, over their ankles in snow.
"Is Leek not here yet!" cried they in surprise. "We need not have made so much haste."
Leek with his large truck of holly was somewhere on the road. He had started, as Miss Page said, while they were at dinner. And he was not to be seen!
"It is all through his obstinacy," cried Susan. "I told him he had better take the highway, though it was a bit further round; but he said he knew he could get well through the little valley. That's where he has stuck."
John Drench came up as she was speaking. He had been on some errand to Church Dykely; and gave a bad account of the snow on the roads. This was the third day of it. The skies just now were blue as in spring; the sun, drawing towards the west, was without a cloud. After waiting a few minutes, John Drench started to meet Leek and help him on; and we cooled our heels in the church-porch, unable to get inside. As it was supposed Leek would be there sooner than anybody else, the key of the church had been given to him that he might get the holly in. There we waited in the cold. At last, out of patience, Tod and I went off in John Drench's wake.
It was as Miss Susan surmised. Leek and his truck had stuck in the valley: a low, narrow neck of land connecting a by-way to the farm with the lane The snow was above the wheels: Leek could neither get on nor turn back. He and John Drench were hard at work, pulling and pushing; and the obstinate truck refusing to move an inch. With the help of our strength—if mine was not worth much, Tod's was—we got it on. But all this caused ever so much delay: and the dressing was begun when it ought to have been nearing its ending. I could not help thinking of the other Christmas Eve; and of pretty Jessy who had helped—and of Miss Susan's blowing her up for coming in her best blue mantle—and of the sudden looming in upon us of the stranger, Marcus Allen. Perhaps the rest were thinking about it as I was. One thing was certain—that there was no liveliness in this year's dressing; we were all as silent and dull as ditch-water. Charley Page, who had made enough noise last year, was away this; gone to spend the Christmas with some people m Gloucestershire.
The work was in progress, when who should look in upon us but Duffham. He was passing by to visit somebody ill in the cottages. "Rather late, shan't you be?" cried he, seeing that there was hardly any green up yet. And we told him about the truck sticking in the snow.
"What possessed Leek to take it through the valley," returned Duffham.
"Because he is fonder of having his own way than any mule," called out MiSs Susan from the aisle.
Duffham laughed. "Don't forget the gala bunch over the parson's head; it looked well last year," said he, turning to go out. And we told him there was no danger of forgetting it: it was one of our improvements on old Bumford's dressing.
The dark overtook us before half the work was done. There was nothing for it but to get candles from the Copse farm to finish by. Nobody volunteered to fetch them: a walk through the snow did not look lively in prospective to any one of us, and Leek was gone off somewhere. "I suppose it must be me," said John Drench, coming out from amidst the holly to start: when Miss Page suddenly thought that there might be candles in the church. On a winter's afternoon, when it grew dark early and the parson could not see through his spectacles to finish his sermon, Clerk Bumford would go stumping into the place under the belfry, and reappear with a lighted candle and hand it up to the pulpit. It was only natural to suppose the clerk should have a stock of candles in store.
John Drench struck some matches, and we went to explore Bumford's den—a place dimly lighted by the open slits in the belfry above. The first thing seen was his black gown hanging up, next a horn lantern on the floor and the grave-digging tools, then an iron candlestick with an end of candle in it, then a stick half a mile long that he menaced the boys with if they laughed in church; and next a round tin candle-box on a nail in the wall. It was a prize.
There were ten candles in it Ten! Leaving one, in case it should be wanted on the morrow afternoon, the nine others were set alight. One was put in the iron candlestick, the rest we stuck upright in dropped dabs of tallow, anywhere convenient: how else could they be set up? It was a grand illumination: and we laughed fit to choke over Clerk Bumford's dismay when he should find his store of candles gone.
That took time: the finding the candles, and the dropping the grease, and the talking and laughing. In the midst of it the clock struck five. Upon that, Miss Abigail told us to hinder no more time, or the work would not get done by midnight. So we set-to with a will In a couple of hours all the dressing was finished, and the branches were ready to be hung over the pulpit. John Drench felt for the string. He seemed to take his time over it.
"Where on earth is it?" cried he, searching his pockets. "I'm sure I brought some."
He might have brought it; but it was certain he had not got it then. Miss Abigail, who had no patience with carelessness, told him rather sharply that if he had put it in his pockets at all, there it would be now.
"Well, I did," he answered in his quiet way. "I put it in on purpose. I'm sure I don't know where it can have got to."
And there we were: stuck for a bit of string. Looking at one another like so many helpless noodles, and the flaring candles nearly come to an end. Tod said, tear a strip off the tail of Bumford's gown; he'd never miss it: for which Miss Abigail gave it him as sharply as if he had proposed to tear it off the parson's.
"I might get a bit at old Bumford's," I said, coming to the rescue. "In a few minutes I'll be back with it."
It was one of the lightest nights ever seen: the air clear, the moon bright, the ground white with snow. Rushing round the north and unfrequented side of the church, where the grass on the graves was long and nobody ever walked, save old Bumford when he wanted to cut across the near way to his cottage, I saw something stirring against the church wall. Something dark: that seemed to have been looking in at the window, and now crouched down with a sudden movement in the corner made by the buttress, as if afraid of being seen.
"Is that you, Leek?"
There was no answer: no movement: nothing but a dark heap lying low. I thought it might be a fox: and crossed over to look.
Well—I had had surprises in my life, but never one that so struck upon me as this. Foxes don't wear women's clothes: this thing did. I pulled aside the dark, covering cloak, and a face stood out white and cold in the moonlight—the face of Jessy Page.
You may fancy it is a slice of romance this; made up for effect out of my imagination: but it is the real truth, as everybody about the place can testify to, and its strangeness is talked of still. But there are stranger coincidences in life than this. On the Christmas Eve, a year before, Jessy Page had been helping to dress the church, in her fine blue mantle, in her beauty, in her light-hearted happiness: on this Christmas Eve when we were dressing it again, she reappeared. But how changed! Wan, white, faint, thin! I am not sure that I should have known her but for her voice. Shrinking, as it struck me, with shame and fear, she put up her trembling hands in supplication.
"Don't betray me!—don't call out!" she implored in weak, feverish, anxious tones. "Go away and leave me. Let me lie here unsuspected until they have all gone away."
What ought I to do? I was just as bewildered as it's possible for a fellow to be. It's no exaggeration to say that I thought her dying: and it would never do to leave her there to die.
The stillness was broken by a commotion. While she lay with her thin hands raised, and I was gazing down on her poor face, wondering what to say, and how to act, Miss Susan came flying round the corner after me.
"Johnny Ludlow! Mr. Johnny! Don't go. There's no need. We have found the string under the unused holly. Why!—what's that?"
No chance of concealment for Jessy now. Susan Page made for the buttress, and saw the white face lying in the moonlight.
"It's Jessy," I whispered.
With a shriek that might have scared away all the ghosts in the churchyard, Susan Page called out for Abigail. They heard it through the window, and came rushing out, thinking Susan must have fallen at least into the fangs of a winter wolf. Miss Susan's voice shook as she spoke: spoke in a whisper.
"Here's Jessy—come back at last!"
Disbelieving Abigail Page went down on her knees in the snow to trace the features, and convince herself. Yes, it was Jessy. She had fainted now, and lay motionless. Leek came up then, and stood staring.
Where had she come from?—how had she got there? It was just as though she had dropped from the moon. And what was to be done with her?
"She must—come home," said Abigail.
But she spoke hesitatingly, as though some impediments might lie in the way: and she looked round in a dreamy way on the open country, all so white and dreary in the moonlight.
"Yes, there's no other place—of course it must be the farm," she added. "Perhaps you can bring her between you. But I'll go on and speak to my father first"
It might have been easy enough for one to carry her, she was so thin and light. John Drench lifted her and they all went off: leaving me and Leek to finish up in the church, and put out the guttering candles.
William Page was sitting in his favourite place, the wide chimney-corner of the kitchen, quietly smoking his pipe, when his daughter broke in upon him with the strange news. Just in the same way that, a year before, she had broken in upon him with that other news—that a gentleman had arrived, uninvited, on a visit to the farm This news was more startling than that.
"Are they bringing her home?—how long will they be?" cried the old man with feverish eagerness, as he let fall his pipe, and broke it. "Abigail, will they be long?"
"Father, I want to say something: I came on to say it," returned Miss Page,—and she was trembling too. "I don't like her face: it is wan, and thin, and full of suffering: but there's a look in that—that seems to tell of shame."
"To tell of what?" he asked, not catching the word.
"May heaven forgive me if I misjudge her! The fear crossed me, as I saw her lying there, that her life may not have been innocent since she left us: why else should she come back in this most strange way? Must we take her in all the same, father?"
"Take her in!" he repeated in amazement. "Yes. What are you thinking of, child, to ask it?"
"It's the home of me and Susan, father: it has been always an honest one in the sight of the neighbours. May be, they'll be hard upon us for receiving her into it."
He stared like one who does not understand, and then made a movement with his hands, as if warding off her words and the neighbours' hardness together.
"Let her come, Abigail! Let her come, poor stray lamb. Christ wouldn't turn away a little one that had strayed from the fold: should her own father do it?"
And when they brought her in, and put her in an easy chair by the sitting-room fire, stirring it into a hot blaze, and gave her hot tea and brandy in it, William Page sat down by her side, and shed fast tears over her, as he fondly stroked her hand.
GAY and green looked the church on Christmas morning, the sun shining in upon us as brightly as it did a year before. The news of Jessy Page's return and the curious manner of it, had spread about; causing the congregation to turn their eyes in natural instinct on the Pages' pew. Perhaps not one but recalled the last Christmas—and the gallant stranger who had sat in it and found the places for Jessy. Only Mr. Page was there to-day. He came slowly in with his thick stick—for he walked badly since his illness, and dragged one leg behind the other. Before the thanksgiving prayer, the parson opened a paper and read out a notice. Such things were uncommon in our church, and it caused a stir.
"William Page desires to return thanks to Almighty God for a great mercy vouchsafed to him."
We walked to the Copse farm with him after service. Considering that he had been returning thanks, he seemed dreadfully subdued. He didn't know how it was yet; where she had been, or why she had come home in the manner she did, he told the Squire: but, anyway, she had come. Come to die, it might be, but come home; and that was enough.
Mrs. Todhetley went upstairs to see her. They had given her the best bed, the one they had put Marcus Allen in. She lay in it like a lily.—It was what Mrs. Todhetley said when she came down: "like a lily, so white and delicate."—There was no talking. Jessy mostly kept her eyes shut and her face turned away. Miss Page whispered that they had not questioned her yet; she seemed too weak to bear it. "But what do you think?" asked Mrs. Todhetley in return. "I am afraid to think," was all the answer. In coming away, Mrs. Todhetley stooped over the bed to kiss her.
"Oh don't, don't!" said Jessy faintly: "you might not if you knew all. I am not worth it." t
"Perhaps I should kiss you all the more, my poor child," answered Mrs. Todhetley. And she came down stairs with red eyes.
But Miss Susan Page was burning with impatience to know the ins and the outs of the strange affair. Naturally so. It had brought more scandal and gossip on the Copse farm than even the running away of the year before. That was bad enough: this was worse. Altogether Jessy was the home's heartsore. Mr. Page spoke of her as a lamb, a wanderer returned to the fold, and Susan heard it with compressed lips: in her private opinion, she had more justly been called an ungrateful girL
"Now then, Jessy; you must let us know a little about yourself," began Susan on this same Sunday afternoon when she was with her alone, and Jessy lay apparently stronger, refreshed with the dinner and the long rest. Abigail had gone with Mr. Page to church. Susan could not remember that they had ever gone to church before on Christmas Day after the morning service: but there was no festive gathering to keep them at home to-day. Unconsciously perhaps, Susan resented the fact. "Where have you been all this while in London?"
Jessy suddenly lifted her arm to shade her eyes; and remained silent.
"It is in London, I conclude, that you have been? Come: answer me."
"Yes," said Jessy faintly.
"And where have you been? In what part of it?—who with?"
"Don't ask me," was the low reply, given with a sob of pain.
"Not ask you! But we must ask you. And you must answer. Where have you been, and what have you been doing?"
"I—can't tell," sobbed poor Jessy, catching up her breath. "The story is too long."
"Story too long! " echoed Susan quickly. "You might say in half a dozen words—and leave close explanations till to-morrow. Did you get a place up in town?"
"Yes, I got a place."
"A lady's maid's place?—as you said."
Jessy turned her face to the wall, and never spoke.
"Now, this won't do," cried Miss Susan, not choosing to be baffled: and no doubt Jessy, hearing the determined tone, felt something like a reed in her hands. "Just you tell me a little."
"I am very ill, Susan; I can't talk much," was the pleading excuse. "If you'd only let me be quiet."
"It will no more hurt you to say in a few words where you have been than to make excuses that you can't say," persisted Miss Susan, giving a flick to the skirt of her new puce silk gown. "Your conduct altogether has been most extraordinary, quite baffling to us at home, and I must hear some explanation of it"
"The place I went to was too hard for me," said Jessy after a pause, speaking out of the pillow.
"Too hard!"
"Yes; too hard. My heart was breaking with its hardness, and I couldn't stop in it. Oh, be merciful to me, Susan! don't ask more."
Susan Page thought that when mysterious answers like these were creeping out, there was all the greater need that she should ask more.
"Who got you the place at first, Jessy? "
Not a word. Susan asked again.
"I—got it through an advertisement," said Jessy at length.
Advertisements in those days, down in our rural district, were looked upon as wonderful things, and Miss Susan opened her eyes in surprise. A faint idea pervaded her that Jessy could not be telling the truth.
"In that letter that you wrote to us; the only one you did write; you asserted that you liked the place."
"Yes. That was at first. But after—oh, after it got cruelly hard."
"Why did you not change it for another?"
Jessy made no answer. Susan heard the sobs in her throat
"Now, Jessy, don't be silly. I ask why you did not get another place, if you were unable to stay in that one?"
"I couldn't have got another, Susan. I would never have got another."
"Why not?" persisted Susan.
"I—I—don't you see how weak lam?" she asked with some energy, showing her face for a moment to Susan.
And its wan pain, its depth of anguish, disarmed Susan. Jessy looked like a once fair blossom on which a blight had passed.
"Well, Jessy, we will leave these matters until later. But there's one thing you must answer. What induced you to take this disreputable mode of coming back?"
A dead silence.
"Could you not have written to say you were coming, as any sensible person would, and been properly met and received? Instead of appearing like a vagabond, to be picked up by anybody."
"I never meant to come home here."
"But why?" asked Susan.
"Oh, because—because of my ingratitude in running away—and never writing—and—and all that."
"That is, you were ashamed to come and face us."
"Yes, I was ashamed," said Jessy, shivering.
"And no wonder. Why did you go?"
"Jessy gave a despairing sigh. Leaving that question in abeyance, Susan returned to the former one.
"If you did not mean to come home, what brought you down here at all?"
"It didn't matter where I went. And my heart was yearning for a look at the old place—and so I came."
"And if we had not found you under the church wall—and we never should but for Johnny Ludlow's running out to get some string—where should you have gone, pray?"
"Crawled under some haystack, and let the cold and hunger kill me."
"Don't be a simpleton," reproved Susan.
"I wish it had been so," returned Jessy. "I'd rather be dying there in quiet. Oh, Susan, I am ill; I am indeed! Let me lie at peace! The appeal shut up Susan Page. She did not want to be too hard.
Mr. Duffham came in after church. Abigail had told him that she did not like Jessy's looks; nor yet her cough. He went up alone, and was at the bed side before Jessy was aware. She put up her hand to hide her face, but not in time: Duffham had seen it. Doctors don't get shocks in a general way: they are too familiar with appearances that frighten others: but he started a little. If ever he saw coming death in a face, he thought he saw it in that of Jessy Page.
He drew away the shading hand, and looked at her. Duffham was pompous on the whole and thought a good deal of his gold-headed cane, but he was a tender man with the sad and sick. After that, he sat down and began asking her a few things—where she had been, and what she had done. Not out of curiosity, or quite with the same motive that Miss Susan had just asked; but because he wished to find out whether her illness was most on the body or the mind. She would not answer. Only cried softly.
"My dear," said Duffham, "I must have you tell me a little of the past Don't be afraid: it shall go no farther. If you only knew the strange confidences that are sometimes placed in me, Jessy, you would not hesitate."
No, she would not speak of her own accord, so he set on to pump her. Doing it very kindly and soothingly: had Jessy spent her year in London robbing all the banks, one might have thought she could but have yielded to his wish to come to the bottom of it Duffham listened to her answers, and sat with a puzzled face. She told him what she had told Susan: that her post of lady's maid had been too hard for her and worn her to what she was; that she had shrunk from returning home on account of her ingratitude, and should not have returned ever of her own will. But she had yearned for a sight of the old place, and so came down by rail, and walked over after dark. In passing the church she saw it lighted up; and lingered, peeping in. She never meant to be seen; she should have gone away somewhere before morning. Nothing more.
Nothing more! Duffham sat listening to her. He pushed back the pretty golden hair (no more blue ribbons in it now), lost in thought.
"Nothing more, Jessy? There must have been something more, I think, to have brought you into this state. What was it?"
"No," she faintly said: "only the hard work I had to do; and the thought of how I left my home; and—and my unhappiness. I was unhappy always, nearly from my first entering. The work was hard."
s"What was the work?"
"It was—"
A long pause. Mr. Duffham, always looking at her, waited. "It was dress-making. And—there was sitting-up at nights."
"Who was the lady you served? What was her name?"
"I can't tell it," answered Jessy, her cheeks flushing to a wild hectic.
The surgeon suddenly turned the left hand towards him and looked at the forefinger. It was smooth as ivory. "Not much sign of hard work there, Jessy."
She drew it under the clothes. "It is some little time since I did any; I was too sick," she answered. "Mr. Duffham, I have told you all there is to tell. The place was too hard for me, and it made me ill."
It was all she told. Duffham wondered whether it was, in substance, all she had to tell. He went down and entered the parlour with a grave face: Mr. Page, his daughters, and John Drench were there. The doctor said Jessy must have perfect rest, tranquillity, and the best of nourishment; and he would send some medicine. Abigail put a shawl over her head, and walked with him across the garden. "You will tell me what your opinion is, Mr. Duffham."
"Ay. It is no good one, Miss Abigail."
"Is she very ill?"
"Very. In so far as that I do not think she will materially rally. Her chest and lungs are both weak."
"Her mother's were before her. I told you Jessy looks to me just as my mother used to look in her last illness."
Mr. Duffham went through the gate without saying more. The snow was sparkling like diamonds in the moonlight.
"I think I gather what you mean," resumed Abigail. "That she is, in point of fact, dying."
"That's it. As I truly believe."
They looked at each other in the clear light air. "But not—surely, Mr. Duffham, not immediately?"
"Not immediately. It may be weeks off yet. Mind—I don't assert that she is absolutely past hope: I only think it. It is possible that she may rally and recover."
"It might not be the happier for her," said Abigail under her breath. "She is in a curiously miserable state of mind—as you no doubt saw. Mr. Duffham, did she tell you anything?"
"She says she took a place as lady's maid; that the work proved too hard for her; and that, with the remorse for her ingratitude towards her home, made her ill."
"She said the same to Susan this afternoon. Well, we must wait for more. Good night, #Mr. Duffham; I am sure you will do all you can."
Of course Duffham meant to do all he could: and from that time he began to attend her regularly.
Jessy Page's coming home, with, as Miss Susan had put it, the vagabond manner of it, was a nine days' wonder. The neighbours went making calls at the Copse farm, to talk about it and to see her. In the latter hope they failed. Jessy showed a great fear of seeing any one of them: would put her head under the bed-clothes and lie there shaking till the house was clear: and Duffham said she was not to be crossed.
Her sisters got to know no more of the past. Not a syllable. They questioned and cross-questioned her; but she only stuck to her text. It was the work that had been too much for her; the people she served were cruelly hard.
"I really think it must be so: that she has nothing else to tell," remarked Abigail to Susan one morning as they sat alone at breakfast. "But she must have been a downright simpleton to stay."
"I can't make her out," returned Susan, hard of belief. "Why should she not say where it was, and who the people are? Here comes the letter-man.
The letter-man—as he was called with us—was bringing a letter for Miss Page. Letters at the Copse farm were rare, and she opened it with curiosity. It proved to be from Mrs. Allen of Aberystwith: and out of it dropped two cards, tied together with silver cord.
Mrs. Allen wrote to say that her distant relative, Marcus, was married. He had been married on Christmas Eve to a Miss Mary Goldbeater, a rich heiress, and they had sent her cards. Thinking the Miss Pages might like to see the cards (as they knew something of him) she had forwarded them.
Abigail took the cards up. "Mr. Marcus Allen. Mrs. Marcus Allen." And on hers was the address: "Gipsy Villas, Montgomery Road, Brompton."
"I think he might have been polite enough to send us cards also," observed Abigail.
Susan put the cards on the waiter when she went up-stairs with her sister's tea. Jessy, looking rather more feverish than usual in a morning, turned the cards about in her slender hands.
"I have heard of her, this Mary Goldbeater," said Jessy, biting her parched lips. "They say she's pretty: and—and very rich."
"Where did you hear of her?" asked Susan.
"Oh, in—let me think. In the work-room."
"Did you ever see Mr. Marcus Allen when you were in town?"
"Mr. Marcus Allen?" repeated Jessy after a pause—just as if she were unable to recall who Mr. Marcus Allen was.
"The Mr. Marcus Allen you knew at Aberystwith; he who came here afterwards," went on Susan impatiently. "Are you losing your memory, Jessy?"
"No, I never saw the Marcus Allen I knew here—and there," was Jessy's answer, her face white and still as death.
"Why!—Did you know any other Marcus Allen, then?" questioned Susan, in surprise. For the words had seemed to imply it.
"No," replied Jessy. "No."
"She seems queerer than usual—I hope her mind's not going," thought Susan. "Did you ever go to see Madame Caron, Jessy, while you were in London?"
"Never. Why should I? I didn't know her."
"When Marcus Allen wrote to excuse himself from visiting us in the summer, he said he would be sure to come later," resumed Susan. "I wonder if he will keep his promise."
"No: never," answered Jessy.
"How do you know?"
"Oh—I don't think it He'd not care to come, I fancy. Especially now he's married."
"And you never saw him in town, Jessy? Never even met him by chance?"
"I've told you—No. Do you suppose I should be likely to call upon Marcus Allen? As to meeting him by chance, it is hot often I went out, I can tell you."
"Well, sit up and take your breakfast," concluded Susan.
A thought had crossed Susan Page's mind—whether this marriage of Marcus Allen's on Christmas Eve could have had anything to do with Jessy's return and her miserable unhappiness. It was but a thought: and she drove it away again. As Abigail said, she had been inclined throughout to judge hardly of Jessy.
The winter snow lay on the ground still, when it became a question not of how many weeks Jessy would live, but of days. And then she confessed to a secret that pretty nearly changed the sober Miss Pages' hair from black to grey. Jessy had turned Roman Catholic.
It came out through her persistent refusal to see the old parson: a fat little man with shaky legs. He'd go trotting up to the Copse farm once or twice a week; all in vain. Miss Abigail would console him with a good hot jorum of sweet elder wine, and then he'd trot back again. One day Jessy, brought to bay, confessed that she was a Roman Catholic.
There was fine commotion. John Drench went about with his hands lifted in the frosty air; Abigail and Susan Page sat in the bedroom with (metaphorically speaking) ashes on their heads.
"Miserable creature!" exclaimed Miss Susan, privately looking upon Jessy as next door to lost. And Jessy told, through her sobs, how it had come to pass.
Wandering about one evening in London when she was very unhappy, she entered a catholic place of worship styled an "Oratory." —The Miss Pages caught up the word as "oratorio," and never called it anything else.—There a priest got into conversation with Jessy. He had a pleasant kind manner that won upon her and drew from her the fact that she was unhappy. Become a catholic, he said to her; that it would bring back her happiness: and he asked her to go and see him again. She went again; again and again. And so, going and listening to him, she at length did turn, and was received by him into his church.
"Are you the happier for it?" sharply asked Miss Abigail.
"No," answered Jessy with distressed eyes. "Only—only "
"Only what, pray?"
"Well, they can absolve me from all sin."
"Oh you poor foolish misguided child!" cried Abigail in anguish. "you must take your sins to the Saviour: He can absolve you, and He alone. Do you want any third person, and that a man, to stand between you and Him?"
Jessy gave a sobbing sigh. "It's best as it is, Abigail. Anyway, it is too late now."
They did not tell Mr. Page: it would have distressed him too much
Jessy asked to see a priest. Miss Abigail flatly refused, on account of the scandal.
One afternoon I was standing by Jessy's bed—for Miss Abigail had let me go up to see her. Mrs. Todhetley, that first day, had said she looked like a lily: she was more like one now. A faded lily that has had all its brightness washed out of it.
"Good bye, Johnny Ludlow," she said, opening her eyes, and putting out her feeble hand. "I shall not see you again."
"I hope you will, Jessy. I'll come over to-morrow."
"Never again in this world." And I had to lean over to catch the words, and my eyes were full.
"In the next world there'll be no parting, Jessy. We shall see each other there."
"I don't know," she said. "You will be there, Johnny; I can't tell whether I shall be. I turned Roman Catholic, you see; and Abigail won't let a priest come. And so—I don't know how it will be."
It was not pleasant to hear that: it seemed worse for me to hear it than to her to say it. But she had got too weak to feel things strongly.
"Good bye, Johnny."
"Good bye, Jessy dear," I whispered. "Don't fear: God will be sure to take you to Heaven if you ask Him."
Miss Abigail got it out of me—what she had said about the priest. In fact, I told. She was very cross.
"There; let it drop, Johnny Ludlow. John Drench is gone off in the gig to find one. All I hope and trust is, that they'll not be back until the shades of night have fallen to hide the earth! I'd not like for a priest to be seen coming into this door."
We all have our prejudices. And not a soul amongst us for miles round had found it necessary to change religions since the Reformation.
Evening was well on when John Drench brought him in. A mild-faced man, wearing a skull-cap under his hat. He saw Jessy alone. Miss Page would not have made a third at the interview though they had bribed her to—and of course they'd not have had her. It was quite night when he came down. Miss Page stopped him as he was going out.
"I presume, sir, she has told you all about this past year—that has been so mysterious to us? "
"Yes; I think all," replied the priest.
"Will you tell me the particulars?"
"I cannot do that," he said. "They have been given to me under the seal of confession."
"Only to me and to her sister Susan," pleaded Abigail. "We will not even disclose it to our father. Sir, it would be a true kindness to us, and it can do no harm. You do not know what our past doubts and distress have been."
But the priest shook his head. He was very sorry to refuse, he said, but the tenets of his church forbade his speaking. And Miss Page thought he was sorry, for he had a benevolent face.
"Best let the past lie, daughter," he said. "Suffice it to know that she is happy now and will die in peace."
THEY buried her in the churchyard beside her mother. When the secret got about, some said it was not right—that she ought to have been taken elsewhere, dying a Roman Catholic. Which would just have put the finishing stroke on old Page—broken all of his heart there was left to break. The squire said he didn't suppose it mattered in the sight of God: or would make much difference at the Last Day.
And that ended the life of Jessy Page: and, in one sense, its episode of mystery. Nothing more was ever heard or known of where she had been or what she had done. Years have gone by since; and William Page is lying by her. Miss Page and Charley live on at the Copse farm; Susan has been Mrs. John Drench ages ago. Her husband, a man of substance now, was driving her into Alcester last Tuesday (market-day) in his four-wheeled chaise, two buxom daughters in the back seat. I nodded to them from Mr. Brandon's window.
There's nothing more to tell. The mystery of Jessy Page (as we grew to call it) remains a mystery. What the secret was—if there was a secret—why she went in the way she did, and came back in what looked like shame and fear and trembling, a dying girl—has not been solved. It never will be in this world. Some put it all down to her having changed her religion and been afraid to tell: while Miss Abigail has never got rid of a vague doubt, touching Marcus Allen. But it maybe only her fancy; and it's not right to judge a man without cause. He keeps a carriage-and-pair now, with servants outside it; and gives dinners, and has handsome daughters growing up; and is altogether grand, quite up to the present style of expensive life in London.
And I never go into church on a Christmas morning: whether it may be one of our simple country ones, green with its branches of holly, or one of your new "artistic" achievements, great in flowers of many colours, and tawdry scrolls, but I think of Jessy Page. Of her sweet face, her simplicity, and her want of guile: and of the poor wan wreck that came back, broken-hearted, to die.
Roy Glashan's Library
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