CHAPTER VII.
DESERTED.
With a silent grasp of the hand, Susan and Florence parted, for the latter did not feel that her intimacy warranted any inquiries into Julia’s affairs, and she was conscious that she had stayed from her father’s side too long already. He had been sleeping for some time, the servant told her when she entered the house; and she never knew whether he thoroughly comprehended the faltering tale she told him when he awoke, for the illness he had long striven to keep at bay now prostrated him, and he lay for weeks in a distressing state of weakness. From this he slowly recovered, beneath the unwearying care of his daughter; but his mind was irreparably affected, and his memory of the past so confused that it is difficult to say what he remembered and what he had forgotten.
The lonely Florence bore up bravely through this time of trial. If saddening thoughts of those happy days when she wandered hand in hand with Frank Dormer beside the Coquet ever came to trouble her, they were quickly banished; and even her mother’s journal, which had so long fed her hopes of his return, was laid at the bottom of her desk, that she might not be tempted to read and ponder over it.
As soon as Mr. Heriton was sufficiently recovered to bear the change which his medical man prescribed as absolutely necessary for his complete restoration to health, Florence went to consult her friend Susan Denham. She must choose some locality for her new home where there was a prospect of employment, and in her utter inexperience she gladly availed herself of Susan’s greater knowledge of the world.
They had seen very little of each other during these last few weeks, for Miss Denham had increased the number of her pupils, and was now rarely to be found at home. She had stolen over sometimes to inquire after Mr. Heriton; and once, when he was considered in danger, had insisted on sharing his daughter’s night watch; but she looked so harassed and fatigued that Florence would not permit her to do this again. The name of her cousin never passed her lips; and though surprised at her reticence Florence was too delicate not to imitate it.
With the shrewdness and tact which made her an invaluable adviser, Miss Denham had already thought over the half-formed plans of her friend, and was ready to enter into and assist them as soon as the subject was broached.
“You will want to get a few miles from town, and your lodgings must be cheap, yet respectable; the owners of the house must also be persons with whom you could safely leave Mr. Heriton during your own enforced absences.”
“Certainly. But will it not be difficult to procure such a home? I have looked down the columns of the daily papers to try and find something to suit us, until I am quite tired of the useless endeavors.”
Susan smiled slightly.
“Dear Miss Heriton, you must not expect too much. The ‘moderate terms’ of advertisers would still be, I fear, far beyond your limited means.”
“I will not be too particular,” cried Florence, coloring. “Indeed, it is only for papa’s sake that I am anxious to have rooms that will not too forcibly remind him of our changed fortunes. In fact, I must be prudent. Some one—I think it must have been Aunt Margaret—sent me anonymously a hundred pounds soon after papa was taken ill. Carefully as I have husbanded this sum, the daily expenses are fast reducing it; so, you see, I must learn to economize and make no wry faces about it.”
This was said so cheerfully that Susan gave her a little approving nod, and went on:
“I have been thinking that you might settle in the neighborhood of Kirton-on-the-Thames. It is a pleasantly situated market town, and I have written to a lady living in the vicinity whose children I used to teach. Mrs. Railton is in want of a morning governess, and will try you on my recommendation.”
“And must I go and look for lodgings in that neighborhood?” asked Florence, her heart failing her at the idea of the task.
“I think not, if you can content yourself with the accommodation you can have at a cottage about a mile from Mrs. Railton’s villa. The old couple it belongs to are eccentric, but thoroughly kind-hearted; and Mrs. Bick nursed me so tenderly through an attack of scarlet fever that I am always grateful to her, and have more than once spent my summer holidays beneath her roof. Do you think you can content yourself in a tiny country cottage, Miss Heriton?”
“Dear Susan, you shall see that I will put aside all my fastidious likes and dislikes. Indeed, I am more in earnest than you seem to imagine,” said Florence gravely.
“I do not doubt your earnestness; I only ask myself how you will bear with the difficulties of the career you have chosen—with the requirements of exacting mothers, the obstinacy or pettishness of their children. Can you, who have been accustomed to see yourself obeyed, learn to pay respect and obedience to persons in rank and education far your inferiors?”
“It is for papa’s sake. Surely I shall never forget that! Don’t dishearten me, Susan,” poor Florence pleaded.
“I do not wish to do so; only it is necessary that you should thoroughly comprehend what you are about to undertake.”
“Well, on the score of the cottage you may be easy,” was the reply; “for our apartments over the way are neither so elegant nor spacious that we shall have cause to regret them; besides which, Mrs. Jones daily mutters in my hearing that she can’t be bothered much longer with the trouble of sick people.”
As Susan was writing a note to Mrs. Bick, and jotting down a few hints for the journey likely to be useful to such inexperienced travelers, she suddenly looked up to inquire:
“Have you written to your aunt, Mrs. Blunden, lately? Will she not interfere to prevent the necessity of this step?”
“I think not—in fact, I scarcely wish it. I have written and thanked her for the timely assistance of the bank note, but I could not see papa subjected to her harsh speeches now that he is no longer able to defend himself,” And tears sprang into Florence’s eyes at the mere thought.
The note was finished, and the friends were parting with a grateful “Thanks, dear Susan!” and a fervent “Heaven prosper you, Miss Heriton!” when a step was heard on the stair.
Such a slow, listless step, as if the very exertion of dragging the weary limbs along was too toilsome to be endured. And then the door opened, Julia Denham came in, and Florence could scarcely repress a cry of pitying astonishment.
The well-rounded figure had sharpened and wasted, the bright color had fled her cheek, and her mouth, despite its resolute set, was drawn down at the corners, and every feature lined with suffering. Her fine, dark eyes were fuller, brighter than of old, but the light in them was so hard and fierce that those who encountered her quick glances involuntarily shrank from them.
Susan gave a sigh, and murmured to Florence: “Go, dear—go!” But before she could move to obey, Julia’s eyes fell upon her. Drawing herself up more proudly than ever, she disdainfully rejected the hand Miss Heriton proffered, saying:
“Have you come to exult over me? Has Susan been regaling your ears with all the last items of scandal?”
“I have told Miss Heriton nothing,” her cousin quietly observed. “Do me more justice than to imagine that I should make your position a subject for gossip.”
“My position!” Julia angrily repeated. “What do you intend Miss Heriton to understand by that expression? Is she to join the throng of my accusers who dare to hint that I am no wife? That I invent the tale to cover my shame? As if,” she added, with increasing bitterness, “as if it were not the greatest disgrace of all to have given this hand”—dashing it violently against the table—“to a false and scheming profligate!”
Feeling the awkwardness of remaining, Florence repeated her farewells, and had nearly reached the door when Julia, with more gentleness, asked her to stay.
“Susan, perhaps, will not advise your compliance with my request, Miss Heriton; for, like the shocked matrons who no longer consider me worthy to teach their hopeful progeny, she distrusts every word I utter.
“You do—you do!” she added vehemently, when Susan gently denied this. “When you asked me where our marriage was celebrated, and I answered that I could not tell, that—trusting implicitly to his assurances that secrecy was necessary until he had established himself—I went where he chose to take me, and left the certificate of the rite in his care, you sighed and shook your head.”
“Not because I doubted your assertions, Julia; only from regret that your confidence had been so rashly given and so terribly misplaced.”
“Yes, yes—I know,” was the impatient retort. “You would like to lecture and pity me. It is to avoid this that I go out and wander in the streets and parks till utter exhaustion drives me home. I do not need you to tell me that I have my deserts. I know that my eagerness to marry a man who would make me wealthy, and give me all the social advantages I craved for, has brought me to what I am. Is there a person I pass in my wanderings who does not stare after me and whisper: ‘There goes the woman who tries to prove herself the wife of Mason, the defaulter—Mason, the rogue’?”
Susan would have spoken, but she was checked with an imperative:
“Hush! I want Miss Heriton to tell me all she heard that morning.”
Florence instantly related every detail connected with her visit to Lieutenant Mason’s chambers, feeling the while that the deserted wife would gain no information from this bare narrative, yet unwilling to offend her by appearing to withhold anything.
“Gilbert—the servant you saw—has disappeared,” commented Julia, when she paused. “There is nothing to be learned from him. But this gentleman—who is he?”
“I cannot tell you,” was the truthful answer.
“But you heard his name—surely you heard his name? Don’t deceive me, Miss Heriton.”
“I would not do so for worlds! But when I tell you that there was a certain something about his voice and gestures which seemed familiar to me, I have told all I know. I did not hear his name mentioned.”
Julia’s lips quivered, and the large drops of mental suffering stood upon her brow.
“I could have borne desertion, for my husband has taught me to despise him; but he has left the brand of shame upon me, and I cannot shake it off. He knew that I could not prove our marriage.”
There was such profound misery in her accents that Florence and Susan both moved toward her—indeed, the latter had been always gentle and patient with her wayward relative, striving by increasing her own labors to prevent Julia enduring any straits from the loss of her pupils—but they were coldly repulsed.
“There is only one thing in the world you can either of you do for me now, and that is to prove my innocence to those who have maligned me, if ever it lies in your power.”
The promise was readily given, Florence adding:
“But let us hope that Lieutenant Mason will yet repent his conduct, and return to you.”
“I have left off hoping,” said Julia, with a wan smile, as she threw her shawl over her arm and retreated to the inner room.
She came back directly with a tiny locket in her hand.
“I think I heard that you are going to leave this neighborhood, Miss Heriton. Will you wear this sometimes in remembrance of Julia Mason?”
Before Florence could accept or reject the gift she had passed to her cousin, and, laying her hands on her shoulders, looked sorrowfully in her face.
“If I were only like you, Susan—only good, patient, and contented as you have been!”
The next moment she had gone, and they heard her turn the key in the lock. Susan Denham had lost all her usual composure now, and was trembling excessively.
“Pray for her, Florence,” she whispered, “for her strange manner terrifies me. If she would weep or accept my sympathy, I should have hope of its wearing off; as it is, I know not what to do or say, and I begin to dread the result.”
Florence essayed to comfort and cheer her; but it was with more sorrow than surprise that she learned on the following morning that Julia Denham had disappeared.
Her grieved cousin sought for her fruitlessly in all directions—inserted advertisements in the newspapers, and even enlisted the services of the detectives. But Julia had glided away in her ordinary costume, taking nothing in her hand that might lead to her identification, and was as thoroughly lost as if the earth had opened and received her.