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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
ACCORDING to Mrs. Todhetley's belief, some people are born to be unlucky. Not only individuals, but whole families. "I have noticed it times and again, Johnny, in going through life," she has said to me: "ill-luck in some way lies upon them, and upon all they do; they cannot prosper, from their cradle to their grave." That there will be some compensating happiness for these people hereafter—for they do exist—is a belief we all like to cherish.
I am now going to tell of people in rather humble life whom this ill-luck seemed to attend. That might never have brought the family into notice, ups and downs being so common in the world: but two mysterious disappearances occurred in it, which caused them to be talked about; and those occurrences I must relate before coming to Dorothy's proper history. They took place before my time; in fact when Squire Todhetley was a young man, and it is from him that I repeat it.
At this end of the village of Islip, going into it from Crabb, there stood on the right-hand side of the road a superior cottage residence, with lovely yellow roses intertwining themselves about its porch. Robert Grape and his wife lived in it, and were well enough to do. He was in the "post-horse duty," the Squire said— whatever that might mean; and she had money on her own account. The cottage was hers absolutely, and nearly one hundred pounds a-year income. The latter, however, was only an annuity, and would die with her.
There were two children living: Dorothy, softened by her friends into Dolly; and Thomas. Two others, who came between them, went off in what Mrs. Grape used to call a "galloping consumption." Dolly's cheeks were bright and her eyes were blue, and her soft brown hair fell back in curls from her dimpled face. All the young men about, including the Squire, admired the little girl; more than their mothers did, who said she was growing up vain and light-headed. Perhaps she might be; but she was a modest, well-behaved little maiden. She went to school by day, as did her brother.
Mr. Grape's occupation, connected with the "post-horse duty," appeared to consist in driving about the country in a gig. The length of these journeys varied, but he would generally be absent about three weeks. Then he would come home for a short interval, and go off again. He was a well- conducted man and was respected.
One Monday morning in summer, when the sun was shining on the yellow roses and the dew glittered on the grass, Robert Grape was about to start on one of these journeys. Passing out to his gig, which waited at the gate, after kissing his wife and daughter, he stopped to pluck a rose. Dolly followed him out. She was sixteen now and had left school.
"Take care your old horse does not fall this time, father," said she, gaily and lightly.
"I'll take care, lass, if I can," he answered.
"The truth is, Robert, you want a new horse," said Mrs. Grape, speaking from the open door.
"I know I do, Mary Ann. Old Jack's no longer to be trusted."
"Shall you be at Bridgenorth to-morrow?"
"No; on Wednesday evening. Good-bye once more. You may expect me home at the time I've said." And, with those last words he mounted his gig and drove away.
From that day, from that hour, Robert Grape was never more seen by his family. Neither did they hear from him: but he did not, as a rule, write to them when on his journeys. They said to one another what delightful weather he was having this time, and the days passed pleasantly until the Saturday of his expected return.
But he did not come. Mrs. Grape had prepared a favourite dinner of his for the Sunday, lamb and peas, and a lemon cheese-cake. They had to take it without him. Three or four more days passed, and still they saw nothing of him. Mrs. Grape was not at all uneasy.
"I think, children, he must have been mistaken in a week," she said to Dolly and Tom. "It must be next Saturday that he meant. I shall expect him then."
He did not come. The Saturday came, but he did not. And the following week Mrs. Grape wrote a letter to the inn at Bridgenorth, where he was in the habit of putting-up, asking when he had left it, and for what town.
Startling tidings came back in answer. Mr. Grape had quitted the place nearly four weeks ago, leaving his horse and gig at the inn. He had not yet returned for them. Mrs. Grape could not make it out; she went off to Worcester to take the stage-coach for Bridgenorth, and there made inquiries. The following was the substance of what she learned:—
On Wednesday evening, the next day but one after leaving his home, Mr. Grape approached Bridgenorth. Upon entering the town, the horse started and fell: his master was thrown out of the gig, but not hurt; the shafts were broken and the horse lamed. "A pretty kettle of fish, this is," cried Mr. Grape in his good-humoured way to the ostler, when the damaged cavalcade reached the inn: "I shall have to take a week's holiday now, I suppose." The man's answer was to the effect that the old horse was no longer of much good; Mr. Grape nodded assent, and remarked that he must be upon the look-out for another.
In the morning, he quitted the inn on foot, leaving the horse to the care of the veterinary surgeon, who said it would be four or five days before he would be fit to travel, and the gig to have its shafts repaired. Mr. Grape observed to the landlord that he should use the opportunity to go on a little expedition which otherwise he could not have found time for, and should be back before the horse was well. But he never had come back. This was recounted to Mrs. Grape.
"He did not give any clue as to where he was going," added the landlord; "he started away with nothing but his umbrella and what he might have put in his pockets, saying he should walk the first stage of his journey. His portmanteau is up in his bedroom now."
All this sounded very curious to Mrs. Grape. It was unlike her open, out-speaking husband. She inquired whether it was likely that he had been injured in the fall from the gig and could be lying ill somewhere.
The landlord shook his head in dissent. "He said he was not hurt a bit," replied he, "and he did not seem to be. He ate a good supper that night and made a famous breakfast in the morning."
An idea flashed across Mrs. Grape's mind as she listened. "I think he must have gone off for a ramble about the Welsh mountains," spoke she. "He was there once when a boy, and often said how much he should like to go there again. In fact he said he should go when he could spare the time."
"May be so," assented the landlord. "Them Welsh mountains be pleasant to look upon; but if a mist comes on, or one meets with an awkward pass, or anything of that sort—well, ma'am, let's hope we shall see him back yet."
After bringing all the inquiries to an end that she was able to make, Mrs. Grape went home in miserable uncertainty. She did not give up hope; she thought he must be lying ill amongst the Welsh hills, perhaps had caught a fever and lost his senses. As the days and the weeks passed on, a sort of nervous expectancy set in. Tidings of him might come to her any day, living or dead. A sudden knock at the door made her jump; if the postman by some rare chance paid them a visit—for letters were not written in those days by the bushel—it set her trembling. More than once she had hastily risen in the middle of the night, believing she heard a voice calling to her outside the cottage. But tidings of Robert Grape never came.
That was disappearance the first.
In the spring of the following year Mrs. Grape sold her pretty homestead and removed to Worcester. Circumstances had changed with her. Beyond what little means had been, or could be, saved, the children would have nothing to help them on in the world. Tom, thirteen years old now, must have a twelvemonth's good schooling before being placed at some business. Dolly must learn a trade by which to get her living. In past times, young people who were not specially educated for it, or were of humble birth, did not dream of making themselves into governesses.
"You had better go to the mantua-making, Dolly," said Mrs. Grape. "It's nice genteel work."
Dolly drew a wry face. "I should not make much hand at that, mother."
"But what else is there? You wouldn't like the stay- making——"
"Oh dear, no."
"Or to serve in a pastry-cook's shop, or anything of that sort. I should not like to see you in a shop, myself; you are too—too giddy," added Mrs. Grape, pulling herself up from saying too pretty. "I think it must be the mantua- making, Dolly: you'll make a good enough hand at it, once you've learnt it. Why not?"
THE house rented by Mrs. Grape at Worcester was near the
London Road. It was semi-detached, and built, like its
fellow in rather a peculiar way, as though the architect had
found himself cramped for space in width but had plenty of
it in depth. It was close to the road, about a yard only of
garden ground lying between. The front-door opened into the
sitting-room; not a very uncommon case then with houses of
its class. It was a fair-sized room, light and pretty, the
window being beside the door. Another door, opposite the
window, led to the rest of the house: a small back-parlour,
a kitchen, three rooms above, with a yard and a strip of
garden at the back. It was a comfortable house, at a small
rent; and, once Mrs. Grape had disposed her tasty furniture
about it to advantage, she tried to feel at home and to put
aside her longing to be back under the old roof at
Islip.
In the adjoining house dwelt two Quaker ladies named Deavor, an aunt and niece, the latter a year or two older than Dolly. They showed themselves very friendly to the new- comers, as did their respectable old servant-maid, and the two families became intimate neighbours.
Dolly, seventeen now, was placed with Miss Pedley, one of the first dressmakers in the city, as out-door apprentice. She was bound to her for three years, and went to and fro daily. Tom was day-scholar at a gentleman's school in the neighbourhood.
One Saturday evening in summer, when they had been about three months in their new abode, Mrs. Grape was sitting at the table in the front-room, making up a smart cap for herself. She had never put on mourning for her husband, always cherishing the delusive hope that he would some day return. Tom sat by her, doing his lessons; Dolly was near the open window, nursing a grey kitten. Tom looked as hot as the evening, as he turned over the books before him with a puzzled face. He was a good-looking boy, with soft brown eyes, and a complexion as brilliant as his sister's.
"I say, mother," cried he, "I don't think this Latin will be of much good to me. I shan't make any hand at it."
"You will be like me then, Tom, for I'm sure I shall never make much of a hand at dressmaking," spoke up Dolly. "Miss Pedley sees it too."
"Be quiet, Dolly; don't talk nonsense," said Mrs. Grape. "Let Tom finish his tasks."
Thus reprimanded, silence ensued again. It grew dusk; candles were lighted and the window was shut down, as the breeze blew them about; but the bright moonlight still streamed in. Presently Dolly left the room to give the kitten its supper. Suddenly, Tom shut up his books with a bang.
"Finished, Tom?"
"Yes, mother."
He was putting them away when a knock came to the front- door. Tom opened it.
"Halloa, Bill!" said he.
"Halloa, Tom!" responded a boy's voice. "I've come up to ask if you'll go fishing with me to-morrow."
"To-morrow!" echoed Tom in surprise. "Why, to-morrow's Sunday!"
"Bother! I mean Monday. I'm going up to the Weir at Powick: there's first-rate fishing there. Will you come, Tom?"
Mrs. Grape wondered who the boy was; she knew the voices of some of Tom's schoolfellows, but did not recognize this one. Tom, standing on the low step outside, had partly closed the door behind him, and she could not see out; but she heard every word as plainly as though the speakers had been in the room.
"I should like to go, but I'm sure I could never get leave from school," said Tom. "Why, the Midsummer examination comes on the end of next week; our masters just do keep us to it!"
"Stingy old misers! You might take French leave, Tom."
"Mother would never let me do that," returned Tom; and he probably made a sign to indicate that his mother was within hearing, as both voices dropped to a lower key; but Mrs. Grape still heard distinctly. "Are you going to take French leave yourself, Bill?" added young Grape. "How else shall you manage to get off?"
"Oh, Monday will be holiday with us; it's a Saint's Day. Look here, Tom; you may as well come. Fishing, up at Powick, is rare fun; and I've some prime bait."
"I can't," pleaded Tom: "no good thinking about it. You must get one of your own fellows instead."
"Suppose I must. Well, good-night."
"Good-night, Bill."
"I touched you last," added the strange voice. There was a shout of laughter, the door flew back, Tom's hand came in to snatch up his cap, which lay on a table near, and he went flying after the other boy.
They had entered upon the fascinating game of "Titch- touch-last." Mrs. Grape got up, laid her finished cap upon the table, shook the odds and ends of threads from her black gown, and began to put her needles and cotton in the little work-box. While she was doing this, Dolly came in from the kitchen. She looked round the room.
"Why, where's Tom, mother?"
"Some boy called to speak to him, and they are running about the road at Titch-touch-last. The cap looks nice, does it not, Dolly?"
"Oh, very," assented Dolly. It was one she had netted for her mother; and the border was spread out in the shape of a fan—the fashion then—and trimmed with yellow gauze ribbon.
The voices of the boys were still heard, but at a distance. Dolly went to the door, and looked out.
"Yes, there the two are," she cried. "What boy is it, mother?"
"I don't know," replied Mrs. Grape. "I did not see him, or recognize his voice. Tom called him 'Bill.'"
She went also to the door as she spoke, and stood by her daughter on the low broad step. The voices were fainter now, for the lads, in their play, were drawing further off and nearer to the town. Mrs. Grape could see them dodging around each other, now on this side the road, now on that. It was a remarkably light night, the moon, in the cloudless sky, almost dazzlingly bright.
"They'll make themselves very hot," she remarked, as she and Dolly withdrew indoors. "What silly things boys are!"
Carrying her cap upstairs, Mrs. Grape then attended to two or three household matters. Half-an-hour had elapsed when she returned to the parlour. Tom had not come in. "How very thoughtless of him!" she cried; "he must know it is his bed-time."
But neither she nor Dolly felt any uneasiness until the clock struck ten. A shade of it crept over Mrs. Grape then. What could have become of the boy?
Standing once more upon the door-step, they gazed up and down the road. A few stragglers were passing up from the town: more people would be out on a Saturday night than on any other.
"How dost thee this evening, friend Grape?" called out Rachel Deavor, now sitting with her niece at their open parlour window in the moonlight. Mrs. Grape turned to them, and told of Tom's delinquency. Elizabeth Deavor, a merry girl, came out laughing, and linked her arm within Dolly's.
"He has run away from thee to take a moonlight ramble," she said jestingly. "Thee had been treating him to a scolding, maybe."
"No, I had not," replied Dolly. "I have such a pretty grey kitten, Elizabeth. One of the girls at Miss Pedley's gave it to me."
They stood on, talking in the warm summer night, Mrs. Grape at the window with the elder Quakeress, Dolly at the gate, with the younger, and the time went on. The retiring hour of the two ladies had long passed, but they did not like to leave Mrs. Grape to her uncertainty: she was growing more anxious with every minute. At length the clocks struck half-past eleven, and Mrs. Grape, to the general surprise, burst into tears.
"Nay, nay, now, do not give way," said Rachel Deavor kindly. "Doubtless he has but gone to the other lad's home, and is letting the time pass unthinkingly. Boys will be boys."
"That unaccountable disappearance of my husband makes me more nervous than I should otherwise be," spoke Mrs. Grape in apology. "It is just a year ago. Am I going to have a second edition of that, in the person of my son?"
"Hush thee now, thee art fanciful; thee should not anticipate evil. It is a pity but thee had recognized the boy who came for thy son; some of us might go to the lad's house."
"I wish I had," sighed Mrs. Grape. "I meant to ask Tom who it was when he came in. Tom called him 'Bill;' that is all I know."
"Here he comes!" exclaimed Dolly, who was now standing outside the gate with Elizabeth Deavor. "He is rushing round the corner, at full speed, mother."
"Won't I punish him!" cried Mrs. Grape, in her relieved feelings: and she too went to the gate.
Dolly's hopeful eagerness had misled her. It was not Tom. But it was one of Tom's schoolfellows, young Thorn, whom they all knew. He halted to explain that he had been to a boys' party in the Bath Road, and expected to "catch it" at home for staying so late. Dolly interrupted him to speak of Tom.
"What an odd thing!" cried the lad. "Oh, he'll come home presently, safe enough. Which of our fellows are named Bill, you ask, Miss Grape? Let's see. There's Bill Stroud; and Bill Hardwick—that is, William——"
"It was neither Stroud nor Hardwick; I should have known the voices of both," interrupted Mrs. Grape. "This lad cannot, I think, be in your school at all, Thorn: he said his school was to have holiday on Monday because it would be a Saint's Day."
"Holiday, because it was a Saint's Day!" echoed Thorn. "Oh then, he must have been one of the college boys. No other school goes in for holidays on the Saints' Days but that. The boys have to attend service at college, morning and afternoon, so it's not a complete holiday: they can get it easily, though, by asking leave."
"I don't think Tom knows any of the college boys," debated Dolly.
"Yes, he does; our school knows some of them," replied Thorn. "Good-night: I can't stay. He is sure to turn up presently."
But Tom Grape did not turn up. At midnight his mother put on her bonnet and shawl and started out to look for him in the now deserted streets of the town. Now and again she would inquire of some late wayfarer whether he had met a boy that night, or perhaps two boys, and described Tom's appearance; but she could learn nothing. The most feasible idea she could call up, and the most hopeful, was that Tom had really gone home with the other lad and that something must have happened to keep him there; perhaps an accident. Dolly felt sure it must be so. Elizabeth Deavor, running in at breakfast-time next morning to ask for news, laughingly said Tom deserved to be shaken.
But when the morning hours passed and did not bring the truant or any tidings of him, this hope died away. The first thing to be done was to find out who the other boy was, and to question him. Perhaps he had also disappeared!
Getting from young Thorn the address of those of the college boys—three—who, as he chanced to know, bore the Christian name of William, Mrs. Grape went to make inquiries at their houses. She could learn nothing. Each of the three boys disclaimed all knowledge of the affair; their friends corroborating their assertion that they had not been out on the Saturday night. Four more of the King's scholars were named William, they told her; two of them boarding in the house of the head-master, the Reverend Allen Wheeler.
To this gentleman's residence, in the College Green, Mrs. Grape next proceeded. It was then evening. The head-master listened courteously to her tale, and became, in his awakened interest, as anxious as she was to find the right boy. Mrs. Grape said she should not know him, but should know his voice. Not one of the three boys, already seen, possessed the voice she had heard.
The two boarders were called into the room, as a mere matter of form; for the master was able to state positively that they were in bed at the hour in question. Neither of them had the voice of the boy who had called for Tom. It was a very clear voice, Mrs. Grape said; she should recognize it instantly.
"Let me see," said the master, going over mentally the list of the forty King's scholars: "how many more of you boys are named William, beyond those this lady has seen?"
The boys considered, and said there were two others; William Smith and William Singleton; both called familiarly "Bill" in the school. Each of these boys had a clear, pleasant voice, the master observed; but neither of them had applied for leave for Monday, nor had he heard of any projected fishing expedition to Powick.
To the house of the Singletons next went Mrs. Grape: but the boy's voice there did not answer to the one she had heard. The Smith family she could not see; they had gone out for the evening: and she dragged herself home, utterly beaten down both in body and spirit.
Another night of anxiety was passed, and then Mrs. Grape returned to Mr. Smith's and saw "Bill." But Bill was hoarse as a raven; it was not at all the clear voice she had heard; though he looked desperately frightened at being questioned.
So there it was. Tom Grape was lost. Lost! and no clue remained as to the why and wherefore. He must have gone after his father, said the sympathizing townspeople, full of wonder; and a superstitious feeling crept over Mrs. Grape.
But ere the week was quite over, news came to the desolate home: not of Tom himself; not of the manner of his disappearance; only of the night it happened. On the Friday evening Mrs. Grape and Dolly were sitting together, when a big boy of sixteen appeared at their door, Master Fred Smith, lugging in his brother Bill.
"He is come to confess, ma'am," said the elder. "He blurted it all out to me just now, too miserable to keep it in any longer, and I've brought him off to you."
"Oh, tell me, tell me where he is!" implored Mrs. Grape from her fevered lips; as she rose and clasped the boy, Bill, by the arm.
"I don't know where he is," answered the boy in trembling earnestness. "I can't think where; I wish I could. I know no more than the dead."
"For what have you come here then?"
"To confess that it was I who was with him. You didn't know my voice on the Monday because I had such a cold," continued he, laying hold of a chair-back to steady his shaking hands. "I must have caught it playing with Tom that night; we got so hot, both of us. When I heard he had never been home since, couldn't be found anywhere, I felt frightened to death and didn't like to say it was me who had been with him."
"Where did you leave him? Where did you miss him?" questioned the mother, her heart sinking with despair.
"We kept on playing at titch-touch-last; neither of us would give in, each wanted to have the last touch; and we got down past the Bath Road, and on up Sidbury near to the canal bridge. Tom gave me a touch; it was the last; and he rushed through the Commandery gates. I was getting tired then, and a thought came to me that instead of going after him I'd play him a trick and make off home; and I did so, tearing over the bridge as hard as I could tear. And that's all the truth," concluded the boy, bursting into tears, "and I never saw Tom again, and have no more to tell though the head-master hoists me for it to-morrow."
"It is just what he said to me, Mrs. Grape," put in the brother quietly, "and I am sure it is the truth."
"Through the Commandery gates," repeated Mrs. Grape, pressing her aching brow. "And you did not see him come out again?"
"No, ma'am, I made off as hard as I could go. While he was rushing down there—I heard his boots clattering on the flags—I rushed over the bridge homewards."
The boy had told all he knew. Now that the confession was made, he would be too glad to add more had he been able. It left the mystery just as it was before; no better and no worse. There was no outlet to the Commandery, except these iron gates, and nothing within it that could have swallowed up Tom. It was a cul-de-sac, and he must have come out again by these self-same gates. Whither had he then gone?
It was proved that he did come out. When Mr. Bill Smith's confession was made public, an assistant to a doctor in the town remembered to have seen Tom Grape, whom he knew by sight, as he was passing the Commandery about that same time to visit a patient in Wyld's Lane. Tom came flying out of the gates, laughing, and looking up and down the street. "Where are you, Bill?" he called out. The young doctor, whose name was Seton, looked back at Tom, as he went on his way.
But the young man added something more, which nobody else had thought to speak of, and which afforded a small loop- hole of conjecture as to what poor Tom's fate might have been. Just about that hour a small barge on the canal, after passing under Sidbury bridge, came in contact with another barge. Very little damage was done, but there was a great deal of shouting and confusion. As Mr. Seton walked over the bridge, not a second before he saw Tom, he heard the noise and saw people making for the spot. Had Tom Grape made for it? He could easily have reached it. And if so, had he, amidst the general pushing and confusion on the canal bank, fallen into the canal? It was hardly to be imagined that any accident of this kind could happen to him unseen; though it might be just possible, for the scene for some minutes was one of tumult; but nothing transpired to confirm it. The missing lad did not reappear, either dead or alive.
And so poor Tom Grape had passed out of life mysteriously as his father had done. Many months elapsed before his mother gave up her search for him; she was always thinking he would come home again, always hoping it. The loss affected her more than her husband's had, for Tom vanished under her very eye, so to say; all the terror of it was palpably enacted before her, all the suspense had to be borne and lived through; whereas the other loss took place at a distance and she only grew to realize it by degrees; which of course softened the blow. And the time went on by years, but nothing was seen of Tom Grape.
That was disappearance the second.
Dolly left her place of business at the end of the three years for which she had been apprenticed, and set up for herself; a brass plate on her mothers door—"Miss Grape, Mantua-maker"— proclaiming the fact to the world. She was only twenty then, with as sweet a face, the Squire says, as Worcester, renowned though it is for its pretty faces, ever saw. She had never in her heart taken kindly to her business, so would not be likely to set the world on fire with her skill; but she had tried to do her best and would continue to do it. A little work began to come in now and then; a gown to be turned or a spencer to be made, though not so many of them as Dolly hoped for: but, as her mother said, Rome was not built in a day.
"MOTHER, I think I shall go to college this morning."
So spoke Dolly at the breakfast-table one Sunday in July. The sun was shining in at the open window, the birds were singing.
"It's my belief, Dolly, you would go off to college every Sunday of your life, if you had your way," said Mrs. Grape.
Dolly laughed. "And so I would, mother."
For the beautiful cathedral service had charms for Dolly. Islip Church was a very primitive church, the good old clergyman was toothless, the singing of the two psalms was led off by the clerk in a cracked bass voice; there was no organ. Accustomed to nothing better than this, the first time Dolly found herself at the cathedral, after their removal to Worcester, and the magnificent services burst upon her astonished senses, she thought she must have ascended to some celestial sphere. The fine edifice, the musical chanting of the prayers by the minor canons, the singing of the numerous choir, men and boys in their white surplices, the deep tones of the swelling organ, the array of white-robed prebendaries, the dignified and venerable bishop— Cornwall—in his wig and lawn sleeves, the state, the ceremony of the whole, and the glittering colours of the famed east window in the distance; all this laid hold of Dolly's senses for ever. She and her mother attended St. Martin's Church generally, but Dolly would now and then lure her mother to the cathedral. Latterly Mrs. Grape had been ailing and did not go anywhere.
"If you could but go to college to-day, mother!" went on Dolly.
"Why!"
"Mr. Benson preaches. I met Miss Stafford yesterday afternoon, and she told me Mr. Benson had come into residence. The Herald said so too."
"Then you must go betimes if you would secure a seat," remarked Mrs. Grape. "And mind you don't get your new muslin skirt torn."
So Dolly put on her new muslin, and her bonnet, and started.
When the Reverend Christopher Benson, Master of the Temple, became one of the prebendaries of Worcester, his fame as a preacher flew to all parts of the town. You should hear the Squire's account of the crush in getting into the cathedral on the Sundays that he was in residence: four Sundays in the year; or five, as the case might be; all told. Members of other churches, Dissenters of different sects, Quakers, Roman Catholics, and people who never went anywhere at other times, scrupled not to run to hear Mr. Benson. For reading like unto his, or preaching like unto his, had rarely been heard in that cathedral or in any other. Though it might be only the Gospel that fell to his share in the communion service, the crowd listened, enraptured, to his sweet, melodious tones. The college doors were besieged before the hour for opening them; it was like going into a theatre.
Dolly, on this day, made one in the crowd at the cloister entrance; she was pushed here and there; and although she hurried well with the rest as soon as the doors were unlocked, every seat was taken when she reached the chancel. She found standing room opposite the pulpit, near King John's tomb, and felt very hot in the crush.
"Is it always like this, here?"
The whispered words came from a voice at her side. Dolly turned, and saw a tall, fine-looking, well-dressed man about thirty, with a green silk umbrella in his hand.
"No," she whispered back again. "Only for four or five Sundays, at this time of the year, when Mr. Benson preaches."
"Indeed," said the stranger. "His preaching ought to be something extraordinary to attract such a crowd as this."
"And so it is," breathed Dolly. "And his reading—oh, you never heard any reading like it."
"Very eloquent, I suppose?"
"I don't know whether it may be called eloquence," debated Dolly, remembering that a chance preacher she once heard, who thumped the cushions with his hands and shook the air with his voice, was said to be eloquent. "Mr. Benson is the quietest preacher and reader I ever listened to."
The stranger seemed to be a kind sort of man. During the stir made by the clergy, preceded by the six black-robed, bowing bedesmen, going up to the communion-table, he found an inch of room on a bench, and secured it for Dolly. She thanked him gratefully.
Mr. Benson's sermon came to an end, the bishop gave the blessing from his throne, and the crowd poured out. Dolly, by way of a change, made her exit from the great north entrance. The brightness of the day had changed; a sharp shower was falling.
"Oh dear! My new muslin will be wet through!" thought Dolly. "This parasol's of no use."
"Will you allow me to offer you my umbrella—or permit me to hold it over you?" spoke the stranger, who must have followed her out. And Dolly hesitated and flushed, and did not know whether she ought to say yes or no.
He held the umbrella over Dolly, letting his own coat get wet. The shower ceased presently; but he walked on by her side to her mother's door, and then departed with a bow fit for an emperor.
"What a polite man!" thought Dolly. "Quite a gentleman." And she mentioned the occurrence to her mother; who seemed to-day more poorly than usual.
They sat at the open window in the afternoon, and Dolly read aloud the evening psalms. It was the fifth day of the month. As Dolly finished the last verse and closed the book, Mrs. Grape, after a moment's silence, repeated the words:—
"The Lord shall give strength unto His people: the Lord shall give His people the blessing of peace."
"What a beautiful promise that is, Dolly!" she said in hushed tones. "Peace! Ah, my dear, no one can know what that word means until they have been sorely tried. Peace everlasting!"
Mrs. Grape leaned back in her chair, gazing upwards. The sky was of a deep blue; a brilliant gold cloud, of peculiar shape, was moving slowly across it just overhead.
"One could almost fancy it to be God's golden throne in the brighter land," she murmured. "My child, do you know, the thought comes across me at times that it may not be long before I am there. And I am getting to long for it."
"Don't say that, mother," cried the startled girl.
"Well, well, dear, I don't want to frighten you. It is all as God pleases."
"I shall send to ask Mr. Nash to come to see you to- morrow, mother. Do you feel worse?"
Mrs. Grape slightly shook her head. Presently she spoke.
"Is it not almost teatime, Dolly?—whoever is that?"
A gentleman, passing, with a red rose in his button-hole and silk umbrella in his hand, was taking off his hat to Dolly. Dolly's face turned red as the rose as she returned the bow, and whispered to her mother that it was the polite stranger. He halted to express a hope that the young lady had not taken cold from the morning shower.
He turned out to be a Mr. Mapping, a traveller in the wine trade for some London house. But, when he was stating this to Mrs. Grape during the first visit paid her (for he contrived to make good his entrance to the house), he added in a careless, off-hand manner, that he was thankful to say he had good private means and was not dependent upon his occupation. He lingered on in Worcester, and became intimate with the Grapes.
Events thickened. Before the next month, August, came in, Mrs. Grape died. Dolly was stunned; but she would have felt the blow even more keenly than she did feel it had she not fallen over head and ears in love with Alick Mapping. About three hundred pounds, all her mother's savings, came to Dolly; excepting that, and the furniture, she was unprovided for.
"You cannot live upon that: what's a poor three hundred pounds?" spoke Mr. Mapping a day or two after the funeral, his tone full of tender compassion.
"How rich he must be himself!" thought poor Dolly.
"You will have to let me take care of you, child."
"Oh dear!" murmured Dolly.
"We had better be married without delay. Once you are my wife—— "
"Please don't go on!" interposed Dolly in a burst of sobs. "My dear mother is hardly buried."
"But what are you to do?" he gently asked. "You will not like to live here alone—and you have no income to live here upon. Your business is worth nothing as yet; it would not keep you in gloves. If I speak of these things prematurely, Dolly, it is for your sake."
Dolly sobbed. The future looked rather desolate.
"You have promised to be my wife, Dolly: remember that."
"Oh, please don't talk of it yet awhile!" sobbed Dolly.
"Leave you here alone I will not; you are not old enough to take care of yourself; you must have a protector. I will take you with me to London, where you will have a good home and be happy as a cricket: but you must know, Dolly, that I cannot do that until we are married. All sensible people must say that you will be quite justified under the circumstances."
Mr. Alick Mapping had a wily tongue, and Dolly was persuaded to listen. The marriage was fixed for the first week in September, and the banns were put up at St. Martin's Church; which, as every one knows, stands in the corn- market. Until then, Mr. Mapping returned to London; to make, as he told Dolly, preparations for his bride. An acquaintance of Mrs. Grape's, who had been staying with Dolly since the death, would remain with her to the last. As soon as Dolly was gone, the furniture would be sold by Mr. Stretch, the auctioneer, and the proceeds transmitted to Dolly in London. Mrs. Grape had given all she possessed to Dolly, in the fixed and firm belief that her son was really no more.
But all this was not to be put in practice without a warning from their neighbour, the Quaker lady; she sent for Dolly, being confined to her own chamber by illness.
"Thee should not be in this haste, Dorothy," she began. "It is not altogether seemly, child, and it may not be well for thee hereafter. Thee art too young to marry; thee should wait a year or two——"
"But I am not able to wait," pleaded poor Dolly, with tears in her eyes. "How could I continue to live alone in the house—all by myself?"
"Nay, but thee need not have done that. Some one of discreet age would have been glad to come and share expenses with thee. I might have helped thee to a suitable person myself: a cousin of mine, an agreeable and kindly woman, would like to live up this way. But the chief objection that I see to this hasty union, Dorothy," continued Miss Deavor, "is that thee knows next to nothing about the young man."
Dolly opened her eyes in surprise. "Why, I know him quite well, dear Miss Rachel. He has told me all about himself."
"That I grant thee. Elizabeth informs me that thee has had a good account from himself as to his means and respectability. But thee has not verified it."
"Verified it!" repeated Dolly.
"Thee has not taken steps to ascertain that the account he gives is true. How does thee know it to be so?"
Dolly's face flushed. "As if he would deceive me! You do not know him, Miss Deavor."
"Nay, child, I wish not to cast undeserved aspersion on him. But thee should ask for proof that what he tells thee is correct. Before thee ties thyself to him for life, Dorothy, thee will do well to get some friend to make inquiries in London. It is my best advice to thee, child; and it is what Mary Ann Grape, thy mother, would have done before giving thee to him."
Dolly thanked Miss Deavor and went away. The advice was well meant, of course; she felt that; but quite needless. Suspect Alick Mapping of deceit! Dolly would rather have suspected herself. And she did nothing.
The morning of the wedding-day arrived in due course. Dolly was attiring herself for the ceremony in a pretty new grey gown, her straw bonnet trimmed with white satin lying on the bed (to resume her black on the morrow), when Elizabeth Deavor came in.
"I have something to say to thee, Dolly," she began, in a grave tone. "I hardly knew whether to speak to thee or not, feeling not altogether sure of the thing myself, so I asked Aunt Rachel, and she thinks thee ought to be told."
"What is it?" cried Dolly.
"I think I saw thy brother Tom last night."
The words gave Dolly a curious shock. She fell back in a chair.
"I will relate it to thee," said Elizabeth. "Last evening I was at Aunt Rachel's window above-stairs, when I saw a boy in dark clothes standing on the pavement outside, just opposite thy gate. It was a bright night, as thee knows. He had his arms folded and stood quite still, gazing at this house. The moonlight shone on his face and I thought how much it was like poor lost Tom's. He still stood on; so I went downstairs and stepped to our gate, to ask whether he was in want of any one: and then, Dolly, I felt queerer than I ever felt in my life, for I saw that it was Tom. At least, I thought so."
"Did he speak?" gasped Dolly.
"He neither spoke nor answered me: he turned off, and went quickly down the road. I think it was Tom; I do indeed."
"What am I to do?" cried Dolly. "Oh, if I could but find him!"
"There's nothing to do, that we can see," answered the young Quakeress. "I have talked it over with Aunt Rachel. It would appear as though he did not care to show himself: else, if it were truly thy brother, why did he not come in? I will look out for him every night and speak to him if he appears again. I promise thee that, Dolly."
"Why do you say 'appears,' Elizabeth?" cried the girl. "You think it was himself, do you not; not his—his spirit?"
"Truly, I can but conclude it was himself."
Dolly, in a state of bewilderment, what with one thing and another, was married to Alick Mapping in St. Martin's Church, by its white-haired Rector, Digby Smith. A yellow post-chaise waited at the church-gates and carried them to Tewkesbury. The following day they went on by coach to Gloucester, where Mr. Mapping intended to stay a few days before proceeding to London.
They took up their quarters at a comfortable country inn on the outskirts of the town. On the second day after their arrival, Dolly, about to take a country walk with her husband, ran downstairs from putting her bonnet on, and could not see him. The barmaid told her he had gone into the town to post a letter, and asked Dolly to step into the bar- parlour to wait.
It was a room chiefly used by commercial travellers. Dolly's attention was caught by something over the mantelpiece. In a small glass-case, locked, there was the portrait of a man cleverly done in pencil; by its side hung a plain silver watch with a seal and key attached to a short black ribbon: and over all was a visiting-card, inscribed in ink, "Mr. Gardner." Dolly looked at this and turned sick and faint: it was her father's likeness, her father's watch, seal, and ribbon. Of an excitable nature, she burst into tears, and the barmaid ran in. There and then, the mystery so long hanging about Robert Grape's fate was cleared up, so far as it ever would be in this world.
He had left Bridgenorth, as may be remembered, on the Thursday morning. Towards the evening of the following day, Friday, as Dolly now heard, he appeared at this very inn. This same barmaid, an obliging, neat, and modest young woman, presenting a rare contrast to the barmaids of the present day, saw him come in. His face had a peculiar, grey shade upon it, which attracted her notice, and she asked him if he felt ill. He answered that he felt pretty well then, but supposed he must have had a fainting-fit when walking into the town, for to his surprise he found himself on the grass by the roadside, waking up from a sort of stupor. He engaged a bedroom for the night, and she thought he said—but she had never been quite sure—that he had come to look out for a horse at the fair to be held in Gloucester the next day. He took no supper, "not feeling up to it," he said, but drank a glass of weak brandy-and-water, and ate a biscuit with it, before going up to bed. The next morning he was found dead; had apparently died quietly in his sleep. An inquest was held, and the medical men testified that he had died of heart disease. Poor Dolly, listening to this, wondered whether the pitch out of the gig at Bridgenorth had fatally injured him.
"We supposed him to be a Mr. Gardner," continued the barmaid, "as that card"—pointing to it—"was found in his pocket-book. But we had no clue as to who he was or whence he came. His stockings were marked with a 'G' in red cotton; and there was a little loose money in his pocket and a bank-note in his pocket-book, just enough to pay the expenses of the funeral."
"But that likeness," said Dolly. "How did you come by it? Who took it?"
"Ah, ma'am, it was a curious thing, that—but such things do not happen by chance. An idle young man of the town used to frequent our inn; he was clever at drawing, and would take off a likeness of any one near him with a few strokes of a pen or pencil in a minute or two, quite surreptitious like and for his own amusement. Wonderful likenesses they were. He was in the bar-parlour, this very room, ma'am, while the stranger was drinking his brandy-and- water, and he dashed off this likeness."
"It is exactly like," said poor Dolly. "But his name was Grape, not Gardner. It must have been the card of some acquaintance."
"When nobody came forward to identify the stranger, the landlord got the sketch given up to him," continued the young woman. "He put it in this case with the watch and seal and card, and hung it where you see, hoping that sometime or other it might be recognized."
"But did you not let it be known abroad that he had died?" sighed Dolly.
"Why, of course we did; and put an advertisement in the Gloucester papers to ask if any Mr. Gardner was missing from his friends. Perhaps the name, not being his, served to mislead people. That's how it was, ma'am."
So that the one disappearance, that of Robert Grape, was now set at rest.
WE found her out through Mr. Brandon's nephew, Roger
Bevere, a medical student, who gave his people trouble, and
one day got his arm and head broken. Mr. Brandon and the
Squire were staying in London at the Tavistock Hotel. I,
Johnny Ludlow, was also in London, visiting Miss Deveen.
News of the accident was brought to Mr. Brandon; the young
man had been carried into No. 60, Gibraltar Terrace,
Islington, and a doctor named Pitt was attending him.
We went to see him at once. A narrow, quiet street, as I recollected well, this Gibraltar Terrace, the dwellings it contained facing each other, thirty in a row. No. 60 proved to be the same house to which we had gone once before, when inquiring about the illness of Francis Radcliffe, and Pitt was the same doctor. It was the same landlady also; I knew her as soon as she opened the door; a slender, faded woman, long past middle life, with a pink flush on her thin cheeks, and something of the lady about her.
"What an odd thing, Johnny!" whispered the Squire, recognizing the landlady as well as the house. "Mapping, I remember her name was."
Mr. Brandon went upstairs to his nephew. We were shown by her into the small parlour, which looked as faded as it had looked on our last visit, years before: as faded as she was. While relating to us how young Bevere's accident occurred, she had to run away at a call from upstairs.
"Looks uncommonly careworn, doesn't she, Johnny!" remarked the Squire. "Seems a nice sort of person, though."
"Yes, sir. I like her. Does it strike you that her voice has a home-ring in it? I think she must be from Worcestershire."
"A home-ring—Worcestershire!" retorted he. "It wouldn't be you, Johnny, if you did not get up some fancy or other. Here she comes! You are not from Worcestershire, are you, ma'am?" cried the Squire, going to the root of the question at once, in his haste to convict my fancy of its sins.
"Yes, I am, sir," she replied; and I saw the pink flush on her cheeks deepen to crimson. "I knew you, sir, when I was a young girl, many years ago. Though I should not have recognized you when you were last here, but that you left your card. We lived at Islip, sir; at that pretty cottage with the yellow roses round the porch. You must remember Dolly Grape."
"But you are not Dolly Grape!" returned the Squire, pushing up his spectacles.
"Yes, sir, I was Dolly Grape. Your mother knew us well; so did you."
"Goodness bless my heart!" softly cried the Squire, gazing at her as if the news were too much for him. And then, starting up impulsively, he grasped her hand and gave it a hearty shake. A sob seemed to take her throat. The Squire sat back again, and went on staring at her.
"My father disappeared mysteriously on one of his journeys; you may remember us by that, sir."
"To be sure I remember it—Robert Grape!" assented the Squire. "Had to do with the post-horse duty. Got as far as Bridgenorth, and was never heard of again. And it is really you—Dolly Grape! And you are living here—letting lodgings! I'm afraid the world has not been overkind to you."
She shook her head; tears were running down her faded cheeks.
"No, it has not, sir," she answered, as she wiped them away with her handkerchief. "I have had nothing but ups and downs in life since leaving Worcester: sad misfortunes: sometimes, I think, more than my share. Perhaps you heard that I married, sir—one Mr. Mapping?"
The Squire nodded slightly. He was too busy gazing at her to pay attention to much else.
"I am looking at you to see if I can trace the old features of the old days," he said, "and I do now; they grow upon my memory; though you were but a slip of a girl when I used to see you. I wonder I did not recognize you at first."
"And I wonder that you can even recognize me now, sir," she returned: "trouble and grief have so much altered me. I am getting old, too."
"Have you lived in this house long?"
"Nearly ten years, sir. I live by letting my rooms."
The Squire's voice took a tone of compassion.
"It can't be much of a living, once the rent and taxes are paid."
Mrs. Mapping's mild blue eyes, that seemed to the Squire to be of a lighter tinge than of yore, wore a passing sadness. Any one able to read it correctly might have seen she had her struggles.
"Are you a widow?"
"I—call myself one, sir," she replied, with hesitation.
"Call yourself one!" retorted the Squire, for he liked people to be straightforward in their speech. "My good woman, you are a widow, or you are not one."
"I pass for one, sir."
"Now, what on earth do you mean?" demanded he. "Is your husband— Mapping—not dead?"
"He was not dead when I last heard of him, sir; that's a long while ago. But he is not my husband."
"Not your husband!" echoed the Squire, pushing up his spectacles again. "Have you and he quarrelled and parted?"
Any countenance more pitifully sad than Mrs. Mapping's was at that moment, I never wish to see. She stood smoothing down her black silk apron (which had a slit in it) with trembling fingers.
"My history is a very painful one," she said at last in a low voice. "I will tell it if you wish; but not this morning. I should like to tell it you, sir. It is some time since I saw a home-face, and I have often pictured to myself some kind friendly face of those old happy days looking at me while I told it. Different days from these."
"These cannot be much to boast of," repeated the Squire. "It must be a precarious sort of living."
"Of course it fluctuates," she said. "Sometimes my rooms are full, at other times empty. One has to put the one against the other and strive to tide over the hard days. Mr. Pitt is very good to me in recommending the rooms to medical students; he is a good-natured man."
"Oh, indeed! Listen to that, Johnny! Pitt good-natured! Rather a loose man, though, I fancy, ma'am."
"What, Mr. Pitt? Sir, I don't think so. He has a surgery close by, and gets a good bit of practice——"
The rest was interrupted by Mr. Pitt himself; he came to say we might go up to Mr. Brandon in the sick-room. We had reason to think ill enough of Pitt in regard to the Radcliffe business; but the Squire could not tackle him about the past offhand, this not being just the time or place for it. Later, when he did so, it was found that we had been misjudging the man. Pitt had not joined Stephen Radcliffe in any conspiracy; and the false letter, telling of Frank's death at Dr. Dale's, had not been written by him. So we saw that it must have been concocted by Stephen himself.
"Any way, if I did write such a letter, I retained no consciousness of it afterwards," added Pitt, with candour. "I am sorry to say, Mr. Todhetley, that I gave way to drink at that time, and I know I was often not myself. But I do not think it likely that I wrote it; and as to joining Mr. Radcliffe in any conspiracy against his brother, why, I would not do such a thing, drunk or sober, and I never knew it had been done."
"You have had the sense to pull up," cried the Squire, in reference to what Pitt had admitted.
"Yes," answered Pitt, in a voice hardly above a whisper. "And I never think of what I might have become by this time, but for pulling up, but I thank God."
These allusions, however, may perhaps only puzzle the reader. And it is not with Mr. Pitt, his virtues or his failings, that this paper concerns itself, but with the history of Dorothy Grape.
We must take it up from the time Dorothy arrived in London with her husband, Alick Mapping, after their marriage at Worcester, as already narrated. The sum of three hundred pounds, owned by Dolly, passed into Mr. Mapping's possession on the wedding-day, for she never suggested such a thing as that it should be settled on herself. The proceeds, arising from the sale of the furniture, were also transmitted to him later by the auctioneer. Thus he had become the proprietor of Dolly, and of all her worldly goods. After that, he and she faded out of Worcestershire memory, and from the sight of Worcestershire people—except for one brief meeting, to be mentioned presently.
The home in London, to which her husband conveyed her, and of which he had boasted, Dolly found to be lodgings. Lodgings recently engaged by him, a sitting-room and bedroom, in the Blackfriars Road. They were over a shop, kept by one Mrs. Turk, who was their landlady. "I would not fix upon a house, dear, without you," he said; and Dolly thanked him gratefully. All he did was right to her.
She was, as he had told her she would be, happy as a cricket, though bewildered with the noisy bustle of the great town, and hardly daring to venture alone into its busy streets, more crowded than was Worcester Cathedral on the Sundays Mr. Benson preached. The curious elucidation at Gloucester of what her father's fate had been was a relief to her mind, rather than the contrary, once she had got over its sadness; though the still more curious doubt about her brother Tom, whispered to her by Elizabeth Deavor on her wedding morning, was rarely absent from her thoughts. But Dolly was young, Dolly was in love, and Dolly was intensely happy. Her husband took her to the theatres, to Vauxhall, and to other places of amusement; and Dolly began to think life was going to be a happy valley into which care would never penetrate.
This happy state of things changed. Mr. Mapping took to be a great deal away from home, sometimes for weeks together. He laid the fault upon his business; travellers in the wine trade had to go all over England, he said. Dolly was not unreasonable and accepted the explanation cheerfully.
But something else happened now and then that was less satisfactory. Mr. Mapping would appear at home in a condition that frightened Dolly: as if he had made the mistake of tasting the wine samples himself, instead of carrying them to his customers. Never having been brought into contact with anything of the kind in her own home, she regarded it with terror and dismay.
Then another phase of discomfort set in: money seemed to grow short. Dolly could not get from her husband what was needed for their moderate expenses; which were next to nothing when he was away from home. She cried a little one day when she wanted some badly and he told her he had none to give her. Upon which Mr. Mapping turned cross. There was no need of tears, he said: it would all come right if she did not bother. Dolly, in her secret heart, hoped he would not have to break in upon what he called their "nest-egg," that three hundred pounds in the bank. A nest-egg which, as he had more than once assured her, it was his intention to keep intact.
Only in one thing had Mr. Mapping been arbitrary: he would not allow her to hold any communication with Worcester. When they first came to London, he forbade Dolly to write to any of her former friends, or to give them her address. "You have no relatives there," he said, "only a few acquaintances, and I would prefer, Dolly, that you dropped them altogether." Of course she obeyed him: though it prevented her writing to ask Elizabeth Deavor whether she had again seen Tom.
Things, despite Mr. Mapping's assurances, did not come right. As the spring advanced, his absences became more marked and the money less plentiful. Dolly shed many tears. She knew not what to do; for, as the old song says, not e'en love can live on flowers. It was a very favourite song of Dolly's, and her tuneful voice might often be heard trilling it through from beginning to end as she sat at work.
"Young Love lived once in a humble shed, Where roses breathing And woodbines wreathing Around the lattice their tendrils spread, As wild and as sweet as the life he led.
"The garden flourished, for young Hope nourished, And Joy stood by to count the hours: But lips, though blooming, must still be fed, And not e'en Love can live on flowers.
"Alas, that Poverty's evil eye Should e'er come hither Such sweets to wither; The flowers laid down their heads to die, And Love looked pale as the witch drew nigh.
"She came one morning, and Love had warning, For he stood at the window, peeping for day: 'Oh, oh,' said he, 'is it you,—good-bye'—And he opened the window and flew away."
Dolly's love did not fly away, though the ugly witch, Poverty, was certainly showing herself. Mrs. Turk grew uneasy. Dolly assured her there was no occasion for that; that if the worst came to the worst, they must break into the "nest-egg" which they had lying by in the Bank of England—the three hundred pounds left her by her mother.
One bright day in May, Dolly, pining for the outdoor sunshine, betook herself to Hyde Park, a penny roll in her pocket for her dinner. The sun glittered in the blue sky, the air was warm, the birds chirped in the trees and hopped on the green grass. Dolly sat on a bench enjoying the sweetness and tranquillity, thinking how very delightful life might be when no evil stepped in to mar it.
Two Quakeress ladies approached arm-in-arm, talking busily. Dolly started up with a cry: for the younger one was Elizabeth Deavor. She had come to London with a friend for the May meetings. The two girls were delighted to see each other, but Elizabeth was pressed for time.
"Why did thee never write to me, Dorothy? I had but one letter from thee, written at Gloucester, telling me, thee knows, all about thy poor father." And, to this question, Dolly murmured some lame excuse.
"I wanted to write to thee, but I had not thy address. I promised thee I would look out for Tom—"
"And have you seen him again?" interrupted Dolly in excitement. "Oh, Elizabeth?"
"I have seen the boy again, but it was not Tom: and I am very sorry that my fancy misled me and caused me to excite thy hopes. It was only recently, in Fourth month. I saw the same boy standing in the same place before thy old gate, his arms folded, and looking at the house as before, in the moonlight. I ran out, and caught his arm, and held it while he told me who he was and why he came there. It was not thy brother, Dorothy, but the likeness to him is marvellous."
"No!—not he?" gasped Dolly, woefully disappointed.
"It is one Richard East," said Elizabeth; "a young sailor. He lived with his mother in that house before she died, when he was a little boy; and when he comes home from a voyage now, and is staying with his friends in Melcheapen Street, he likes to go up there and have a good look at it. This is all. As I say, I am sorry to have misled thee. We think there cannot be a doubt that poor Tom really lost his life that night in the canal. And art thee nicely, Dorothy?—and is thy husband well? Thee art looking thin. Fare thee well."
Summer passed, Dolly hardly knew how. She was often reduced to straits, often and often went dinnerless. Mrs. Turk only had a portion of what was due to her by fits and starts. Mr. Mapping himself made light of troubles; they did not seem to touch him much; he was always in spirits and always well dressed.
"Alick, you should draw a little of that money in the bank," his wife ventured to suggest one day when Mrs. Turk had been rather troublesome. "We cannot go on like this."
"Break in upon our 'nest-egg!'" he answered. "Not if I know it, Dolly. Mrs. Turk must wait."
A little circumstance was to happen that gave some puzzle to Dolly. She had been married about fourteen months, and her husband was, as she believed, on his travels in Yorkshire, when Lord-Mayor's day occurred. Mrs. Gurk, a good woman in the main, and compassionating the loneliness of the young wife, offered to take her to see the show, having been invited to an upper window of a house in Cheapside. Of all the sights in the world that Dolly had heard of, she quite believed that must be the greatest, and felt delighted. They went, took up their station at the window, and the show passed. If it had not quite come up to Dolly's expectation, she did not say so.
"A grand procession, is it not, Mrs. Mapping?" cried her companion, gazing after it with admiring eyes.
"Very," said Dolly. "I wonder—Good gracious!" she broke off, with startling emphasis, "there's my husband!"
"Where?" asked Mrs. Turk, her eyes bent on the surging crowd below.
"There," said Dolly, pointing with her finger; "there! He is arm-in-arm with two others; in the middle of them. How very strange! It was only yesterday I had a letter from him from Bradford, saying he should be detained there for some time to come. How I wish he had looked up at this window!"
Mrs. Turk's sight had failed to single him out amongst the moving crowd. And as Mr. Mapping did not make his appearance at home that evening, or for many evenings to come, she concluded that the young wife must have been mistaken.
When Mr. Mapping did appear, he said the same, telling Dolly she must have "seen double," for that he had not been in London. Dolly did not insist, but she felt staggered and uncomfortable; she felt certain it was her husband she saw.
How long the climax would have been postponed, or in what way it might have disclosed itself, but for something that occurred, cannot be conjectured. This wretched kind of life went on until the next spring. Dolly was reduced to perplexity. She had parted with all the pretty trinkets her mother left her; she would live for days together upon bread-and-butter and tears: and a most unhappy suspicion had instilled itself into her mind—that the nest-egg no longer existed. But even yet she found excuses for her husband; she thought that all doubt might still be explained away. Mrs. Turk was very good, and did not worry; Dolly did some plain sewing for her, and made her a gown or two.
On one of these spring days, when the sun was shining brightly on the pavement outside, Dolly went out on an errand. She had not gone many steps from the door when a lady, very plainly dressed, came up and accosted her quietly.
"Young woman, I wish to ask why you have stolen away my husband?"
"Good gracious!" exclaimed the startled Dolly. "What do you mean?"
"You call yourself Mrs. Mapping."
"I am Mrs. Mapping."
The stranger shook her head. "We cannot converse here," she said. "Allow me to go up to your room"—pointing to it. "I know you lodge there."
"But what is it that you want with me?" objected Dolly, who did not like all this.
"You think yourself the wife of Alick Mapping. You think you were married to him."
Dolly wondered whether the speaker had escaped from that neighbouring stronghold, Bedlam. "I don't know what it is you wish to insinuate," she said. "I was married to Mr. Mapping at St. Martin's Church in Worcester, more than eighteen months ago."
"Ay! But I, his wife, was married to him in London seven years ago. Yours was no marriage; he deceived you."
Dolly's face was turning all manner of colours. She felt frightened almost to death.
"Take me to your room and I will tell you all that you need to know. Do not fear I shall reproach you; I am only sorry for you; it has been no fault of yours. He is a finished deceiver, as I have learnt to my cost."
Dolly led the way. Seated together, face to face, her eyes strained on the stranger's, she listened to the woeful tale, which was gently told. That it was true she could not doubt. Alick Mapping had married her at St. Martin's Church in Worcester, but he had married this young woman some years before it.
"You are thinking that I look older than my husband," said she, misinterpreting Dolly's gaze. "That is true. I am five years older, and am now approaching my fortieth year. He pretended to fall in love with me; I thought he did; but what he really fell in love with was my money."
"How did you come to know about me?—how did you find it out?" gasped Dolly.
"It was through Mrs. Turk, your landlady," answered the true wife. "She has been suspecting that something or other was wrong, and she talked of it to a friend of hers who chances to know my family. This friend was struck with the similarity of name—the Alick Mapping whose wife was here in the Blackfriars Road, and the Alick Mapping whose wife lived at Hackney."
"How long is it since he left you?" asked poor Dolly.
"He has not left me. He has absented himself inexplicably at times for a year or two past, but he is still with me. He is at home now, at this present moment. I have a good home, you must understand, and a good income, which he cannot touch; he would think twice before giving up that. Had you money?" continued the lady abruptly.
"I had three hundred pounds. He told me he had placed it in the Bank of England; I think he did do that; and that he should never draw upon it, but leave it there for a nest- egg."
Mrs. Mapping smiled in pity. "You may rely upon it that there's not a shilling left of it. Money in his hands, when he can get hold of any, runs out of them like water."
"Is it true that he travels for a wine house?"
"Yes—and no. It is his occupation, but he is continually throwing up his situations: pleasure has more attraction for him than work; and he will be a gentleman at large for months together. Yet not a more clever man of business exists than he is known to be, and he can get a place at any time."
"Have you any children?" whispered Dolly.
"No. Shall you prosecute him?" continued the first wife, after a pause.
"Shall I—what?" cried Dolly, aghast.
"Prosecute him for the fraud he has committed on you?"
"Oh dear! the exposure would kill me," shivered the unhappy girl. "I shall only hope to run away and hide myself forever."
"Every syllable I have told you is truth," said the stranger, producing a slip of paper as she rose to depart. "Here are two or three references by which you can verify it, if you doubt me. Mrs. Turk will do it for you if you do not care to stir in it yourself. Will you shake hands with me?"
Dolly assented, and burst into a whirlwind of tears.
Nothing seemed to be left for her, as she said, but to run away and hide herself. All the money was gone, and she was left penniless and helpless. By the aid of Mrs. Turk, who proved a good friend to her, she obtained a situation in a small preparatory school near Croydon, as needle-woman and companion to the mistress. She called herself Mrs. Mapping still, and continued to wear her wedding-ring; she did not know what else to do. She had been married; truly, as she had believed; and what had come of it was surely no fault of hers.
A little good fortune fell to her in time; a little bit. For years and years she remained in that school at Croydon, until, as it seemed to herself, she was middle-aged, and then the mistress of it died. Having no relatives, she left her savings and her furniture to Dolly. With the money Dolly set up the house in Gibraltar Terrace, put the furniture into it, and began to let lodgings. A young woman, who had been teacher in the school, and whom Dolly regarded as her sister, and often called her so, removed to it with her and stayed with her until she married.
Those particulars—which we listened to one evening from her own lips—were gloomy enough. The Squire went into an explosion over Alick Mapping.
"The despicable villain! What has become of him?"
"I never saw him after his wife came to me," she answered, "but Mrs. Turk would get news of him now and then. Since Mrs. Turk's death, I have heard nothing. Sometimes I think he may be dead."
"I hope he was hung!" flashed the Squire.
Well—to hasten on. That was Dorothy Grape's history since she left Worcester; and a cruel one it was!
We saw her once or twice again before quitting London. And the Squire left a substantial present with her, for old remembrance sake.
"She looks as though she needed it, Johnny," said he. "Poor thing! poor thing! And such a pretty, happy little maiden as she used to be, standing in her pinafore amongst the yellow roses in the porch at Islip! Johnny, lad, I hope that vagabond came to be hanged!"
IT was ever so long afterwards, and the time had gone on
by years, when we again fell into the thread of Dorothy
Grape's life. The Squire was in London for a few days upon
some law business, and had brought me with him.
"I should like to see how that poor woman's getting on, Johnny," he said to me one morning. "Suppose we go down to Gibraltar Terrace?"
It was a dull, damp, misty day at the close of autumn; and when the Squire turned in at No. 60, after dismissing the cab, he stood still and stared, instead of knocking. A plate was on the door, "James Noak, carpenter and joiner."
"Has she left, do you think, Johnny?"
"Well, sir, we can ask. Perhaps the carpenter is only lodging here?"
A tidy young woman, with a baby in her arms, answered the knock. "Does Mrs. Mapping live here still?" asked the Squire.
"No, sir," she answered. "I don't know the name."
"Not know the name!" retorted he, turning crusty; for he disliked, of all things, to be puzzled or thwarted. "Mrs. Mapping lived here for ten or a dozen years, anyhow."
"Oh, stay, sir," she said, "I remember the name now. Mapping; yes, that was it. She lived here before we came in."
"Is she dead?"
"No, sir. She was sold up."
"Sold up?"
"Yes, sir. Her lodging-letting fell off—this neighbourhood's not what it was: people like to get further up, Islington way—and she was badly off for a long while, could not pay her rent, or anything; so at last the landlord was obliged to sell her up. At least, that's what we heard after we came here, but the house lay empty for some months between. I did not hear what became of her."
The people at the next house could not tell anything; they were fresh-comers also; and the Squire stood in a quandary. I thought of Pitt the surgeon; he was sure to know; and ran off to his surgery in the next street.
Changes seemed to be everywhere. Pitt's small surgery had given place to a chemist's shop. The chemist stood behind his counter in a white apron. Pitt? Oh, Pitt had taken to a practice further off, and drove his brougham. "Mrs. Mapping?" added the chemist, in further answer to me. "Oh yes, she lives still in the same terrace. She came to grief at No. 60, poor woman, and lodges now at No. 32. Same side of the way; this end."
No. 32 had a plate on the door: "Miss Kester, dressmaker," and Miss Kester herself—a neat little woman, with a reserved, not to say sour, face and manner, and a cloud of pins sticking out of her brown waistband—answered the knock. She sent us up to a small back-room at the top of the house.
Mrs. Mapping sat sewing near a fireless grate, her bed in one corner; she looked very ill. I had thought her thin enough before; she was a shadow now. The blue eyes had a piteous look in them, the cheeks a hectic.
"Yes," she said, in answer to the Squire, her voice faint and her cough catching her every other minute, "it was a sad misfortune for me to be turned out of my house; it nearly broke my heart. The world is full of trouble, sir."
"How long is it since?"
"Nearly eighteen months, sir. Miss Kester had this room to let, and I came into it. It is quiet and cheap: only half-a-crown a-week."
"And how do you get the half-crown?" questioned the Squire. "And your dinner and breakfast—how do you get that?"
Mrs. Mapping passed her trembling fingers across her brow before she answered—
"I'm sorry to have to tell of these things, sir. I'm sorry you have found me out in my poverty. When I think of the old days at home, the happy and plentiful days when poor mother was living, and what a different life mine might have been but for the dreadful marriage I made, I—I can hardly bear up against it. I'm sure I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for giving way."
For the tears were streaming down her thin cheeks. The Squire set up a cough on his own account; I went to the window and looked down at some grimy back-gardens.
"When I am a little stronger, and able to do a full day's work again, I shall get on, sir, but I've been ill lately through going out in the wet and catching cold," she said, mastering the tears. "Miss Kester is very good in supplying me with as much as I can do."
"A grand 'getting on,'" cried the Squire. "You'd be all the better for some fire in that grate."
"I might be worse off than I am," she answered meekly. "If it is but little that I have, I am thankful for it."
The Squire talked a while longer; then he put a sovereign into her hand, and came away with a gloomy look.
"She wants a bit of regular help," said he. "A few shillings paid to her weekly while she gets up her strength might set her going again. I wonder if we could find any one to undertake it?"
"You would not leave it with herself in a lump, sir?"
"Why, no, I think not; she may have back debts, you see, Johnny, and be tempted to pay them with it; if so, practically it would be no good to her. Wish Pitt lived here still! Wonder if that Miss Kester might be trusted to—— There's a cab, lad! Hail it."
The next morning, when we were at breakfast at the hotel—which was not the Tavistock this time—the Squire burst into a state of excitement over his newspaper.
"Goodness me, Johnny! here's the very thing."
I wondered what had taken him, and what he meant; and for some time did not clearly understand. The Squire's eyes had fallen upon an advertisement, and also a leading article, treating of some great philanthropic movement that had recently set itself up in London. Reading the articles, I gathered that it had for its object the distribution of alms on an extensive scale and the comprehensive relieving of the distressed. Some benevolent gentlemen (so far as we could understand the newspaper) had formed themselves into a band for taking the general welfare of the needy into their hands, and devoted their lives to looking after their poverty-stricken brothers and sisters. A sort of universal, benevolent, set-the-world-to-rights invention.
The Squire was in raptures. "If we had but a few more such good men in the world, Johnny! I'll go down at once and shake their hands. If I lived in London, I'd join them."
I could only laugh. Fancy the Squire going about from house to house with a bag of silver to relieve the needy!
Taking note of the office occupied by these good men, we made our way to it. Only two of them were present that morning: a man who looked like a clerk, for he had books and papers before him; and a thin gentleman in spectacles.
The Squire shook him by the hand at once, breaking into an ovation at the good deeds of the benevolent brotherhood, that should have made the spectacles before us, as belonging to a member of it, blush.
"Yes," he said, his cool, calm tones contrasting with the Squire's hot ones, "we intend to effect a work that has never yet been attempted. Why, sir, by our exertions three parts of the complaints of hunger, and what not, will be done away with."
The Squire folded his hands in an ecstasy of reverence. "That is, you will relieve it," he remarked. "Bountiful Samaritans!"
"Relieve it, certainly—where the recipients are found to be deserving," returned the other. "But non- deserving cases— impostors, ill-doers, and the like—will get punishment instead of relief, if we can procure it for them."
"Quite right, too," warmly assented the Squire. "Allow me to shake your hand again, sir. And you gentlemen are out every day upon this good work! Visiting from house to house!"
"Some of us are out every day; we devote our time to it."
"And your money, too, of course!" exclaimed the Squire. "Listen, Johnny Ludlow," he cried, turning to me, his red face glowing more and more with every word, "I hope you'll take a lesson from this, my lad! Their time, and their money too!"
The thin gentleman cleared his throat. "Of course we cannot do all in the way of money ourselves," he said; "some of us, indeed, cannot do anything in that way. Our operations are very large: a great deal is needed, and we have to depend upon a generous public for help."
"By their making subscriptions to it?" cried the Squire.
"Undoubtedly."
The Squire tugged at an inner pocket. "Here, Johnny, help me to get out my cheque-book." And when it was out, he drew a cheque for ten pounds there and then, and laid it on the table.
"Accept this, sir," he said, "and my praises with it. And now I should like to recommend to your notice a case myself—a most deserving one. Will you take it in hand?"
"Certainly."
The Squire gave Mrs. Mapping's address, telling briefly of her present distress and weakly state, and intimated that the best mode of relief would be to allow her a few shillings weekly. "You will be sure to see to her?" was his parting injunction. "She may starve if you do not."
"Have no fear: it is our business to do so," repeated the thin gentleman. "Good-day."
"Johnny," said the Squire, going up the street sideways in his excitement, "it is refreshing to hear of these self- denying deeds. These good men must be going on straight for heaven!"
"Take care, sir! Look where you are going."
The Squire had not been going on straight himself just then, and had bumped up against a foot-passenger who was hurrying along. It was Pitt, the surgeon. After a few words of greeting, the Squire excused his flurry by telling him where he had come from.
"Been there!" exclaimed Pitt, bursting into a laugh. "Wish you joy, sir! We call it Benevolence Hall."
"And a very good name, too," said the Squire. "Such men ought to be canonized, Pitt."
"Hope they will be?" answered Pitt in a curious kind of tone. "I can't stop now, Mr. Todhetley; am on my way to a consultation."
"He slips from one like an eel," cried the Squire, looking after the doctor as he hurried onwards: "I might have spoken to him about Mrs. Mapping. But my mind is at ease with regard to her, Johnny, now that these charitable men have the case in hand: and we shall be up again in a few weeks."
IT was nearly two months before we were again in London,
and winter weather: the same business, connected with a
lawsuit, calling the Squire up.
"And now for Mrs. Mapping," he said to me during the afternoon of the second day. So we went to Gibraltar Terrace.
"Yes, she is in her room," said Miss Kester in a resentful tone, when she admitted us. "It is a good thing somebody's come at last to see after her! I don't care to have her alone here on my hands to die."
"To die!" cried the Squire sharply, supposing the dressmaker spoke only in temper. "What is she dying of?"
"Starvation," answered Miss Kester.
"Why, what on earth do you mean, ma'am?" demanded he. "Starvation!"
"I've done what I could for her, so far as a cup of tea might go, and a bit of bread-and-butter once a day, or perhaps a drop of broth," ran on Miss Kester in the same aggrieved tone. "But it has been hard times with myself lately, and I have my old mother to keep and a bedridden sister. What she has wanted is a supply of nourishing food; and she has had as good as none of any sort since you were here, sir, being too weak to work: and so, rapid consumption set in."
She whisked upstairs with the candle, for the short winter day was already closing, and we followed her. Mrs. Mapping sat in an old easy-chair, over a handful of fire, her thin cotton shawl folded round her: white, panting, attenuated, starved; and—there could not be much mistake about it—dying.
"Starved? dying? dear, dear!" ejaculated the Squire, backing to the other chair and sitting down in a sort of terror. "What has become of the good people at Benevolence Hall?"
"They!" cried Miss Kester contemptuously. "You don't suppose those people would spend money to keep a poor woman from dying, do you, sir?"
"Why, it is their business to do it," said the Squire. "I put Mrs. Mapping's case into their hands, and they undertook to see to it."
"To see to it, perhaps, sir, but not to relieve it; I should be surprised if they did that. One of them called here ever so many weeks ago and frightened Mrs. Mapping with his harsh questions; but he gave her nothing."
"I don't understand all this," cried the Squire, rumpling his hair. "Was it a gentleman?"—turning to Mrs. Mapping.
"He was dressed as one," she said, "but he was loud and dictatorial, almost as though he thought me a criminal instead of a poor sick woman. He asked me all kinds of questions about my past life, where I had lived and what I had done, and wrote down the answers."
"Go on," said the Squire, as she paused for breath.
"As they sent me no relief and did not come again, Miss Kester, after two or three weeks had gone by, was good enough to send a messenger to the place: her nephew. He saw the gentlemen there and told them I was getting weaker daily and was in dreadful need, if they would please to give me a trifle; he said he should never have thought of applying to them but for their having come to see after me. The gentlemen answered unfavourably; inquiries had been made, they sternly told him, and the case was found to be one not suitable for relief, that I did not deserve it. I—I— have never done anything wrong willingly," sobbed the poor woman, breaking down.
"I don't think she has, sir; she don't seem like it; and I'm sure she struggled hard enough to get a living at No. 60," said Miss Kester. "Any way, they did nothing for her—they've just left her to starve and die."
I had seen the Squire in many a temper, but never in a worse than now. He flung out of the room, calling upon me to follow him, and climbed into the hansom that waited for us outside.
"To Benevolence Hall," roared he, "and drive like the deuce."
"Yes, sir," said the man. "Where is Benevolence Hall?"
I gave him the address, and the man whirled us to Benevolence Hall in a very short time. The Squire leaped out and indoors, primed. In the office stood a young man, going over some accounts by gaslight. His flaxen hair was parted down the middle, and he looked uncommonly simple. The rest of the benevolent gentlemen had left for the day.
What the Squire said at first, I hardly know: I don't think he knew himself. His words came tumbling out in a way that astonished the clerk.
"Mrs. Mapping," cried the young man, when he could understand a little what the anger was about. "Your ten pounds?—meant for her, you say——"
"Yes, my ten pounds," wrathfully broke in the Squire; "my ten-pound cheque that I paid down here on this very table. What have you done with it?"
"Oh, that ten pounds has been spent, partly so, at least, in making inquiries about the woman, looking-up her back history and all that. Looking-up the back lives of people takes a lot of money, you see."
"But why did you not relieve her with it, or a portion of it? That is the question I've come to ask, young man, and I intend to have it answered."
The young man looked all surprise. "Why, what an idea!" lisped he. "Our association does not profess to help sinners. That would be a go!"
"Sinners!"
"We can't be expected to take up a sinner, you know—and she's a topping one," continued he, keeping just as cool as the Squire was hot. "We found out all sorts of dreadful things against the woman. The name, Mapping, is not hers, to begin with. She went to church with a man who had a living wife——"
"She didn't," burst in the Squire. "It was the man who went to church with her. And I hope with all my heart he came to be hanged!"
The clerk considered. "It comes to the same, doesn't it?" said he, vaguely. "She did go to church with him; and it was ever so long before his proper wife found it out; and she has gone on calling herself Mapping ever since! And she managed so badly in a lodging-house she set up, that she was sold out of it for rent. Consider that! Oh, indeed, then, it is not on such people as these that our good gentlemen would waste their money."
"What do they waste it on?" demanded the Squire.
"Oh, come now! They don't waste it. They spend it."
"What on? The sick and needy?"
"Well, you see, the object of this benevolent association is to discover who is deserving and who is not. When an applicant comes or sends for relief, representing that he is sick and starving, and all the rest of it, we begin by searching out his back sins and misfortunes. The chances are that a whole lot of ill turns up. If the case be really deserving, and—and white, you know, instead of black—we relieve it."
"That is, you relieve about one case in a hundred, I expect?" stormed the Squire.
"Oh, now you can't want me to go into figures," said the clerk, in his simple way. "Anybody might know, if they've some knowledge of the world, that an out-and-out deserving case does not turn up often. Besides, our business is not relief but inquiry. We do relieve sometimes, but we chiefly inquire."
"Now look you here," retorted the Squire. "Your object, inquiring into cases, may be a good one in the main and do some excellent service; I say nothing against it; but the public hold the impression that it is relief your association intends, not inquiry. Why is this erroneous impression not set to rights?"
"Oh, but our system is, I assure you, a grand one," cried the young fellow. "It accomplishes an immense good."
"And how much harm does it accomplish? Hold your tongue, young man! Put it that an applicant is sick, starving, dying, for want of a bit of aid in the shape of food, does your system give that bit of aid, just to keep body and soul together while it makes its inquiries—say only to the value of a few pence?"
The young fellow stared. "What a notion!" cried he. "Give help before finding out whether it ought to be given or not? That would be quite a Utopian way of fixing up the poor, that would."
"And do you suppose I should have given my ten pounds, but for being misled, for being allowed to infer that it would be expended on the distressed?" stamped the Squire. "Not a shilling of it. No money of mine shall aid in turning poor helpless creatures inside out to expose their sins, as you call it. That's not charity. What the sick and the famished want is a little kindly help—and the Bible enjoins us to give it."
"But most of them are such a bad lot, you know," remonstrated the young man.
"All the more need they should be helped," returned the Squire; "they have bodies and souls to be saved, I suppose. Hold your silly tongue, I tell you. I should have seen to this poor sick woman myself, who is just as worthy as you are and your masters, but for their taking the case in hand. As it is she has been left to starve and die. Come along, Johnny! Benevolence Hall, indeed!"
Back to Gibraltar Terrace now, the Squire fretting and fuming. He was hot and hasty, as the world knows, given to saying anything that came uppermost, justifiable or the contrary: but in this affair it did seem that something or somebody must be wrong.
"Johnny," said the Squire, as the cab bowled along, waking up out of a brown study, "it seems to me that this is a serious matter of conscience. It was last Sunday evening, wasn't it, that you read the chapter in St. Matthew which tells of the last judgment?"
"Tod read it, sir. I read the one that followed it."
"Any way, it was one of you. In that chapter Christ charges us to relieve the poor if we would be saved—the hungry and thirsty, the sick, the naked. Now, see here, lad: if I give my alms to this new society that has sprung up, and never a stiver of it to relieve the distress that lies around me, would the blame, rest on me, I wonder? Should I have to answer for it?"
It was too complicated a question for me. But just then we drew up at Miss Kester's door.
Mrs. Mapping had changed in that short time. I thought she was dying, thought so as I looked at her. There was a death-shade on the wan face, never seen but when the world is passing away. The Squire saw it also.
"Yes," said Miss Kester, gravely, in answer to his whisper. "I fear it is the end."
"Goodness bless me!" gasped the Squire. And he was for ordering in pretty nearly every known restorative the shops keep, from turtle-soup to calves'-foot jelly. Miss Kester shook her head.
"Too late, sir; too late. A month ago it would have saved her. Now, unless I am very much mistaken, the end is at hand."
Well, he was in a way. If gold and silver could revive the dying, she'd have had it. He sent me out to buy a bottle of port wine, and got Miss Kester's little apprentice to run for the nearest doctor.
"Not rally again at all, you say! all stuff and nonsense," he was retorting on Miss Kester when I returned. "Here's the wine, at last! Now for a glass, Johnny."
She sipped about a teaspoonful by degrees. The shade on her face was getting darker. Her poor thin fingers kept plucking at the cotton shawl.
"I have never done any harm that I knew of: at least, not wilfully," she slowly panted, looking piteously at the Squire, evidently dwelling upon the accusation made by Benevolence Hall: and it had, Miss Kester said, troubled her frightfully. "I was only silly—and inexperienced—and—and believed in everybody. Oh, sir, it was hard!"
"I'd prosecute them if I could," cried the Squire, fiercely. "There, there; don't think about it any more; it's all over."
"Yes, it is over," she sighed, giving the words a different meaning from his. "Over; over: the struggles and the disappointments, the privations and the pain. Only God sees what mine have been, and how I've tried to bear up in patience. Well, well; He knows best: and I think—I do think, sir—He will make it up to us in heaven. My poor mother thought the same when she was dying."
"To be sure," answered the Squire, soothingly. "One must be a heathen not to know that. Hang that set-the-world-to- rights company!" he muttered in a whisper.
"The bitterness of it all has left me," she whispered, with pauses between the words for want of breath; "this world is fading from my sight, the world to come opening. Only this morning, falling asleep in the chair here, after the fatigue of getting up—and putting on my things—and coughing—I dreamt I saw the Saviour holding out His hand to welcome me, and I knew He was waiting to take me up to God. The clouds round about Him were rose colour; a light, as of gold, lay in the distance. Oh, how lovely it was! nothing but peace. Yes, yes, God will forgive all our trials and our shortcomings, and make it up to us there."
The room had a curious hush upon it. It hardly seemed to be a living person speaking. Any way, she would not be living long.
"Another teaspoonful of wine, Johnny," whispered the Squire. "Dear, dear! Where on earth can that doctor be?"
I don't believe a drop of it went down her throat. Miss Kester wiped away the damp from her brow. A cough took her; and afterwards she lay back again in the chair.
"Do you remember the yellow roses in the porch," she murmured, speaking, as must be supposed, to the Squire, but her eyes were closed: "how the dew on them used to glisten again in the sun on a summer's morning? I was picking such a handful of them last night—beautiful roses, they were; sweet and beautiful as the flowers we shall pick in heaven."
The doctor came upstairs, his shoes creaking. It was Pitt. Pitt! The girl had met him by chance, and told him what was amiss.
"Ah," said he, bending over the chair, "you have called me too late. I should have been here a month or two ago."
"She is dying of starvation," whispered the Squire. "All that money—ten pounds—which I handed over to that blessed fraternity, and they never gave her a sixpence of it—after assuring me they'd see to her!"
"Ah," said Pitt, his mouth taking a comical twist. "They meant they'd see after her antecedents, I take it, not her needs. Quite a blessed fraternity, I'm sure, as you say, Squire."
He turned away to Mrs. Mapping. But nothing could be done for her; even the Squire, with all his impetuosity, saw that. Never another word did she speak, never another recognizing gaze did she give. She just passed quietly away with a sigh as we stood looking at her; passed to that blissful realm we are all travelling to, and which had been the last word upon her lips— Heaven.
And that is the true story of Dorothy Grape.
Roy Glashan's Library
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