Chapter Eleven.
Cary in a new Character.
“God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear.”
Browning.
I feel more and more certain that something is wrong in Charles Street. The invitation is declined, not by Hatty herself, but in a note from Mrs Crossland: “Miss Hester Courtenay has so sad a catarrh that it will not be safe for her to venture out for some days to come.” (Note 1.)
“Why, Cary, that is a disappointment for you,” said my Uncle Charles, kindly. “I think, Madam, as Hester cannot come, Mrs Crossland might have offered a counter-invitation to Caroline.”
“It would have been well-bred,” said Grandmamma. “Mrs Crossland is not very well connected. She was the daughter or niece of an archdeacon, I believe; rather raised by her marriage. I am sorry you are disappointed, child.”
This was a good deal for Grandmamma to say, and I thanked her.
Well, one thing had failed me; I must try another. At the next evening assembly I watched my chance, and caught Charlotte in a corner. I asked how Hatty was.
“Hatty?” said Charlotte, looking surprised. “She is well enough, for aught I know.”
“I thought she had a bad catarrh?” said I.
“Didn’t know she had one. She is going to my Lady Milworth’s assembly with Mrs Crossland.”
I felt more sure of ill-play than ever, but to Charlotte I said no more. The next person whom I pinned to the wall was Amelia. With her I felt more need of caution in one sense, for I did not know how far she might be in the plot, whatever it was. That no living mortal with any shadow of brains would have trusted Charlotte with a secret, I felt as sure as I did that my ribbons were white, and not red.
“Emily,” I said, “why did not Hatty come with you to-night?”
“I did not ask,” was Amelia’s languid answer. I do think she gets more and more limp and unstarched as time goes on.
“Is she better?”
“What is the matter with her?” Amelia’s eyes betrayed no artifice.
“A catarrh, I understand.”
“Oh, you heard that from Miss Newton. The Newtons asked her for an assembly, and Mrs Crossland did not want to give up my Lady Milworth, so she sent word Hatty had a catarrh, I believe. It is all nonsense.”
“And it is not telling falsehoods?” said I.
“My dear, I have nothing to do with it,” said Amelia, fanning herself. “Mrs Crossland may carry her own shortcomings.”
I felt pretty sure now that Amelia was not in the plot.
“Will you give a message to Hatty?” I said.
“If it be not too long to remember.”
“Tell her I wanted her to spend the day, and my Aunt Dorothea writ to ask her to come, and Mrs Crossland returned answer that she had too bad a catarrh, and must keep indoors for some days.”
“Did she—to Mrs Desborough?” said Amelia, with a surprised look. “I rather wonder at that, too.”
“Emily, help me!” I said. “These Crosslands want to keep Hatty and me apart. There is something wrong going on. Do help us, if you ever cared for either of us.”
Amelia looked quite astonished and nuzzled.
“Really, I knew nothing about it! Of course I care for you, Cary. But what can I do?”
“Give that message to Hatty. Bid her, from me, break through the snares, and come. Then we can see what must be done next.”
“I will give her the message,” said Amelia, with what was energy for her. “Cary, I have had nothing to do with it, if something be wrong. I never even guessed it.”
“I don’t believe you have,” said I. “But tell me one thing, Emily: are they scheming to make Hatty marry Mr Crossland?”
“Most certainly not!” cried Amelia, with more warmth than I had thought was in her. “Impossible! Why, Mr Crossland is engaged to Marianne Newton.”
“Is Miss Marianne Newton a friend of yours?”
“Yes, the dearest friend I have.”
“Then you will be on my side. Keep your eyes and ears open, and find out what it is. I tell you, something is wrong. Put yourself in the breach; help Miss Marianne, if you like; but, for pity’s sake, save Hatty!”
“But what makes you suppose that what is wrong has anything to do with Mr Crossland?”
“I do not know why I fancy it; but I do. I cannot let the idea go. I do not like the look of him. He does not look like a true man.”
“Cary, you have grown up since you came to London.”
“I feel like somebody’s grandmother,” said I. “But I think I have been growing; to it, Amelia, since I left Brocklebank.”
“Well, you certainly are much less of a child than you were. I will do my best, Cary.” And Amelia looked as if she meant it.
“But take no one into your confidence,” said I.—“Least of all Charlotte.”
“Thank you, I don’t need that warning!” said Amelia, with her languid laugh, as she furled her fan and turned away. And as I passed on the other side I came upon Ephraim Hebblethwaite.
All at once my resolution was taken.
“Come this way, Ephraim,” said I; “I want to show you my Uncle Charles’s new engravings.”
I lifted down the large portfolio, with Ephraim’s help,—I don’t think Ephraim would let a cat jump down by itself if he thought the jump too far,—set it on a little table, and under cover of the engravings I told him the whole story, and all my uneasiness about Hatty. He listened very attentively, but without showing either the surprise or the perplexity which Amelia had done.
“If you suspect rightly,” said he, when I had finished my tale, “the first thing to be done is to get her out of Charles Street.”
“Do you think me too ready to suspect?” I replied.
“No,” was his answer; “I am afraid you are right.”
“But what do they want to do with her, or to her?” cried I, under my breath.
“Cary,” said Ephraim, gravely, “I am very glad you have told me this. I will go so far as to tell you in return that I too have my suspicions of young Crossland, though they are of rather a different kind from yours. You suspect him, so far as I understand you, of matrimonial designs on Hatty, real or feigned. I am afraid rather that these appearances are a blind to hide something deeper and worse. I know something of this man, not enough to let me speak with certainty, but just sufficient to make me doubt him, and to guide me in what direction to look. We must walk carefully on this path, for if I mistake not, the ground is strewn with snares.”
“What do you mean?” I cried, feeling terrified.
“I would rather not tell you till I know more. I will try to do that as soon as possible.”
“I never thought of anything worse,” said I, “than that knowing, as he is likely to do, that Hatty will some day have a few hundreds a year of her own, he is trying to inveigle her to marry him, and is not a man likely to be kind to her and make her happy.”
“He is certainly likely to make her very unhappy,” replied Ephraim. “But I do not believe that he has any intentions of marriage, towards Hatty or anybody else.”
“But don’t you think he may make her think so? Amelia told me he was engaged in marriage with a gentlewoman she knows.”
“I am sorry for the gentlewoman. Make her think so? Yes, and under cover of that, work out his plot. I would advise Miss Bracewell to beware that she is not made a catspaw.”
I told Ephraim what I had said to Amelia.
“Then she is put on her guard: so far, well.”
“Ephraim, have you heard anything more of Angus?”
“Nothing but what you know already.”
“Nor, I suppose, of Colonel Keith? I wish I knew what he is doing.”
“He has not had much chance of doing anything yet,” said Ephraim, rather drily. “A sick-bed is not the most favourable place for helping one’s friends out of prison.”
“Has Colonel Keith been ill?” cried I.
“Mr Raymond did not tell you?”
“He never told me a word. I do not know what he may have said to Annas.”
“A broken arm, and a fever on the top of it,” said Ephraim. “The doctor talks of letting him go out to-morrow, if the weather suit.”
“O Ephraim!” cried I. “But where is he?”
“Don’t tell any one, if I tell you. Remember, Colonel Keith is a proscribed man.”
“I will do no harm to Annas’s brother, trust me!” said I.
“He is at Raymond’s house, where he and I have been nursing him.”
“In a fever!”
“Oh, it is not a catching fever. Think you either of us would have come here if it were?”
“Ephraim, is Mr Raymond to be trusted?” said I. “I am sure he is a good man, but he is a shocking Whig. And I do believe one of the queerest things in this queer world is the odd notions that men take of what it is their duty to do.”
“Have you found that out?” said he, looking much diverted.
“I am always finding things out,” I answered. “I had no idea there was so much to be found. But, don’t you see, Mr Raymond might fancy it his duty to betray Colonel Keith? Is there no danger?”
“Not the slightest,” said Ephraim, warmly. “Mr Raymond would be much more likely to give up his own life. Don’t you know, Cary, that Scripture forbids us to betray a fugitive? And all the noblest instincts of human nature forbid it too.”
“I know all one’s feelings are against it,” said I, “but I did not know that there was anything about it in the Bible.”
“Look in the twenty-third of Deuteronomy,” replied Ephraim, “the fifteenth verse. The passage itself refers to a slave, but it must be equally applicable to a political fugitive.”
“I will look,” I answered. “But tell me, Ephraim, can nothing be done for Angus?”
“If it can, it will be done,” he made answer.
He said no more, but from his manner I could not but fancy that somebody was trying to do something.
I never had two letters at once, by the same post, in my life: but this morning two came—one from Flora, and one from my Aunt Kezia. Flora’s is not long: it says that she and Annas have reached the Isle of Wight in safety, and were but three hours a-crossing from Portsmouth; and she begs me, if I can obtain it, to send her some news of Angus. My Lady De Lannoy was extreme kind to them both, and Flora says she is very comfortable, and would be quite happy but for her anxiety about my Uncle Drummond and Angus. My Uncle Drummond has not writ once, and she is very fearful lest some ill have befallen him.
My Aunt Kezia’s letter is long, and full of good counsel, which I am glad to have, for I do find the world a worse place than I thought it, and yet not in the way I expected. She warns me to have a care lest my tongue get me into trouble; and that is one of the dangers I find, and did not look for. Father is well, and all other friends: and I am not to be surprised if I should hear of Sophy’s marriage. Fanny gets on very well, and makes a better housekeeper than my Aunt Kezia expected. But I have spent much thought over the last passage of her letter, and I do not like it at all:—
“Is Hatty yet in Charles Street? We have had but one letter from the child in all this time, and that was short and told nothing. I hope you see her often, and can give us some tidings. Squire Bracewell writ to your father a fortnight gone that he was weary of dwelling alone, and as the Prince’s army is in retreat, he thinks it now safe to have the girls home. If this be so, we shall soon have Hatty here. I have writ to her, by your father’s wish, that she is not to tarry behind.”
I cried aloud when I came to this: “The Prince in retreat from Derby! Uncle Charles, do you know anything of it? Sure, it can never be true!”
“Nonsense!” he made answer. “Some silly rumour, no doubt.”
“But my Uncle Bracewell writ it to my Aunt Kezia, and he dwells within fifteen miles,” I said.
My Uncle Charles looked much disturbed.
“I must go forth and see about this,” answered he.
“With your catarrh, Mr Desborough!” cried my Aunt Dorothea.
For above a week my Uncle Charles has not ventured from the door, having a bad catarrh.
“My catarrh must take care of itself,” he made answer. “This is serious news. Dobson, have you heard aught about the Prince being in retreat?”
Dobson, who was setting down the chocolate-pot, looked up and smiled.
“Yes, Sir, we heard that yesterday.”
“You idiot! why did you not tell me?” cried my Uncle Charles. “In retreat! I cannot believe it.”
“Run to the coffee-house, Dobson,” said Grandmamma, “and ask what news they have this morning.”
So Dobson went off, and has not yet returned. My Aunt Dorothea laughs all to scorn, but my Uncle Charles is uneasy, and I am sure Grandmamma believes the report. It is dreadful if it is true. Are we to sit down under another thirty years of foreign oppression?
Before Dobson could get back, Mrs Newton came in her chair. She is a very stout old lady, and she puffed and panted as she came up the stairs, leaning on her black footman, with her little Dutch pug after, which is as fat as its mistress, and it panted and puffed too. Her two daughters came in behind her.
“Oh, my dear—Mrs Desborough! My—dear creature! This is—the horridest news! We must—go back to our—red ribbons and—black cockades! Could I ever have—thought it! Aren’t you—perfectly miserable? Dear, dear me!”
“Ma is miserable because red does not suit her,” said Miss Marianne. “I can wear it quite well, so I don’t need to be.”
“Marianne!” said her sister, laughing.
“Well, you know, Theresa, you don’t care two pins whether the Prince wins or loses. Who does?”
“The Prince and my Lord Tullibardine,” said Miss Newton.
“Oh, of course, those who looked to the Prince to make their fortunes are disappointed enough. I don’t.”
“I rather thought Mr Crossland did,” said Miss Newton, with a mischievous air.
“Well, I hope there are other people in the world beside Mr Crossland,” said Miss Marianne.
“All right, my dear,” replied her sister. “If you don’t care, I am sure I need not. I am not in love with Mr Crossland—not by any means. I never did admire the way in which his nose droops over his mouth. He has fine teeth—that is a redeeming point.”
“Is it? I don’t want him to bite me,” observed Miss Marianne.
Miss Newton went off into a little (subdued) burst of silvery laughter, and I sat astonished. Was this the sort of thing which girls called love?—and was this the way in which fashionable women spoke of the men whom they had pledged themselves to marry? I am sure I like Mr Crossland little enough; but I felt almost sorry for him as I listened to the girl who professed to love him.
Meanwhile, Grandmamma and Mrs Newton were lamenting over the news—as I supposed: but when I began to listen, I found all that was over and done with. First, the merits of Puck, the fat pug, were being discussed, and then the wretchedness of being unable to buy or wear French cambrics, and the whole history of Mrs Newton’s last cambric gown: they washed it, and mended it, and ripped it, and made it up again. And then Grandmamma’s brocaded silk came on, and how much worse it wore than the last: and when I was just wondering how many more gowns would have to be taken to pieces, Mrs Newton rose to go.
“Really, Mrs Desborough, I ought to make my apologies for coming so early. But this sad news, you know,—the poor Prince! I could not bear another minute. I knew you would feel it so much. I felt as if I must come. Now, my dear girls.”
“Ma, you haven’t asked Mrs Desborough what you came for,” said Miss Marianne.
“What I— Oh!” and Mrs Newton turned back. “This absurd child! Would you believe it, she gave me no peace till I had asked if you would be so good as to allow your cook to give mine her receipt for Paradise pudding. Marianne dotes on your Paradise puddings. Do you mind? I should be so infinitely obliged to you.”
“Dear, no!” said Grandmamma, taking a pinch of snuff, just as Dobson tapped at the door. “Dobson, run down and tell Cook to send somebody over to Mrs Newton’s with her receipt for Paradise pudding. Be sure it is not forgotten.”
“Yes, Madam,” said Dobson. “If you please, Madam, the army is a-going back; all the coffee-houses have the news this morning.”
“Dear, it must be true, then,” said Grandmamma, taking another pinch. “What a pity!—Be sure you do not forget the Paradise pudding.”
“Yes, Madam. They say, Madam, the Prince was nigh heart-broke that he couldn’t come on.”
“Ah, I dare say. Poor young gentleman!” said Mrs Newton. “Dear Mrs Desborough, do excuse me, but where did you meet with that lovely crewel fringe on your curtains? It is so exactly what I wanted and could not get anywhere.”
“I got it at Cooper and Smithson’s—Holborn Bars, you know,” said Grandmamma. “This is sad news, indeed. But your curtains, my dear, have an extreme pretty trimming.”
“Oh, tolerable,” said Mrs Newton, gathering up her hoop.
Away they went, with another lament over the Prince and the news; and I sat wondering whether everybody in this world were as hollow as a tobacco-pipe. I do think, in London, they must be.
Then my thoughts went back to my Aunt Kezia’s letter.
“Grandmamma,” I said, after a few minutes’ reflection, “may I have a chair this afternoon? I want to go and see Hatty.”
Grandmamma nodded. She had come, I think, to an awkward place in her tatting.
“Take Caesar with you,” was all she said.
So after dinner I sent Caesar for the chair, and, dressed in my best, went over to Charles Street to see Hatty. I sent in my name, and waited an infinite time in a cold room before any one appeared. At last Charlotte bounced in—I cannot use another word, for it was just what she did—saying,—
“O Cary, you here? Emily is coming, as soon as she can settle her ribbons. Isn’t it fun? They are all coming out in red now.”
“I don’t think it is fun at all,” said I. “It is very sad.”
“Oh, pother!—what do you and I care?” cried she.
“You do not care much, it seems,” said I: but Charlotte was off again before I had finished.
A minute later, the door opened much more gently, and Amelia entered in her calm, languid way. But as soon as she saw me, her eyes lighted up, and she closed the door and sat down.
Amelia spoke in a hurried whisper as she kissed me.
“One word, before any one comes,” she said. “Insist on seeing Hatty. Don’t go without it.”
“Will they try to prevent me?” I replied.
Before she could answer, Mrs Crossland sailed in, all over rose-coloured ribbons.
“Why, Miss Caroline, what an unexpected pleasure!” said she, and if she had added “an unwelcome one,” I fancy she would have spoken the truth. “Dear, what was Cicely thinking of to put you in this cold room? Pray come up-stairs to the fire.”
“Thank you,” said I, and rose to follow her.
The room up-stairs was warm and comfortable, but Hatty was not there. A girl of about fourteen, in a loose blue sacque, which looked very cold for the weather, came forward and shook hands with me.
“My daughter,” said Mrs Crossland. “Annabella, my dear, run up and ask Miss Hester if she feels well enough to come down. Tell her that her sister is here.”
“Allow me to go up with Miss Annabella, and perhaps save her a journey,” said I. “Messages are apt to be returned and to make further errands.”
“Oh, but—pray do not give yourself that trouble,” said Miss Annabella, glancing at her mother.
“Certainly not. I cannot think of it,” answered Mrs Crossland, hastily. “Poor Miss Hester has been suffering so much from toothache—I beg you will not disturb her, Miss Caroline.”
I suppose I was rude: but how could I help it?
“Why should I disturb her more than Miss Crossland?” I replied. “Sisters do not make strangers of each other.”
“Oh, she does not expect you: and indeed, Miss Caroline,—do let me beg of you,—Dr Summerfield did just hint yesterday—just a hint, you understand,—about small-pox. I could not on any account let you go up, for your own sake.”
“Is my sister so ill as that?” I replied. “I think we might have expected to be told it sooner. Then, Madam, I shall certainly go up. Miss Crossland, will you show me the way?”
I do not know whether Mrs Crossland thought me bold and unladylike, but if she had known how every bit of me was trembling, she might perhaps have changed that view.
“O Miss Caroline, how can you? I could not allow Annabella to do such a thing. Think of the clanger!—Annabella, come back! You shall not go into an infected air.”
“Pardon me, Madam, but I thought you proposed yourself to send Miss Annabella. Then I will not trouble any one. I can find the way myself.”
And resolutely closing the door behind me, up-stairs I walked. I did not believe a word about Hatty having the small-pox: but if I had done, I should have done the same. I heard behind me exclamations of— “That bold, brazen thing! She will find out all. Annabella, call Godfrey! call him! That hussy must not—”
I was up-stairs by this time. I rapped at the first door, and had no answer; the second was the same. From the third I heard the sound of weeping, and a man’s voice, which I thought I recognised as that of Mr Crossland.
“I shall not allow of any more hesitation,” he was saying. “You must make your choice to-day. You have given me trouble enough, and have made far too many excuses. I shall wait no longer.”
“Oh, once more!—only once more!” was the answer, interrupted by heartrending sobs,—in whose voice I rather guessed than heard.
Neither would I wait any longer. I never thought about ceremony and gentility, any more than about the possible dangers, known and unknown, which I might be running. I opened the door and walked straight in.
Mr Crossland stood on the hearth, clad in a queer long black gown, and a black cap upon his head. On a chair near him sat a girl, her head bowed down in her hands upon the table, weeping bitterly. Her long dark hair was partly unfastened, and falling over her shoulder: what I could see of her face was white as death. Was this white, cowed creature our once pert, bright Hatty?
“What do you want?” said Mr Crossland, angrily, as he caught sight of me. “Oh, I beg pardon, Miss Caroline. Your poor sister is suffering so much to-day. I have been trying to divert her a little, but her pain is so great. How very good of you to come! Was no one here to show you anywhere, that you had to come by yourself?”
The bowed head had been lifted up, and the face that met my eyes was one of the extremest misery. She held out her arms to me with a low, sad, wailing cry—
“O Cary, Cary, save me! Cannot you save me?”
I walked past that black-robed wretch, and took poor Hatty in my arms, drawing her head to lie on my bosom.
“Yes, my dear, you shall be saved,” I said,—I hope, God said through me. “Mr Crossland, will you have the goodness to leave my sister to me?”
If looks had power to kill, I think I should never have spoken again in this world. Mr Crossland turned on his heel, and walked out of the room without another word. The moment he was gone, I made a rush at the door, drew out the key (which was on the outside), locked it, and put the key on the table. Then I went back to Hatty.
“My poor darling, what have they done to you?”
Somehow, I felt as if I were older than she that day.
But she could not tell me at first. “O Cary, Cary!” seemed to be all that she could say. I rang the bell, and when somebody tried the door, I asked the unknown helper to send Miss Amelia Bracewell.
“I beg your pardon, Madam, I dare not,” answered a girl’s voice. “Nobody is allowed to enter this chamber but my mistress and Fa— and my master.”
It seemed as if an angel must be helping me, and whispering what to do. Perhaps it was so.
“Will you be so good as to take a message to the black servant who came with me?” I said.
“Certainly, Madam.”
“Then please to tell him that I wish to speak with him at the door of this room.”
“Madam, forgive me, but I dare not bring any one here.”
I tore a blank leaf out of a book on the table. I had a pencil in my pocket. “Give him this, then; and let no one take it from you. You shall have a guinea to do it.”
“Gemini!” I heard the girl whisper to herself in amazement.
I wrote hastily:—“Beg my Uncle Charles to come this moment, and bring Dobson. Tell him, if he ever loved either me or Miss Hester, he will do this. It is a matter of life and death.”
“Promise me,” I said, unlocking the door to give it to her, “that this piece of paper shall be in my black servant’s hands directly, and that no one else shall see it.”
I spoke to a young girl, apparently one of the lower servants of the house. Her round eyes opened wide.
“Please do it, Betty!” sobbed poor Hatty. “Do it, for pity’s sake!”
“I’ll do it for yours, Miss Hester,” said the girl, and her kindly, honest-looking face reassured me. She hid the paper in her bosom, and ran down. I locked the door again, and went back to Hatty.
“O Cary, dear, God sent you!” she sobbed. “I thought I must give in.”
“What are they trying to make you do, Hatty?”
To my amazement, she replied,—“To be a nun.”
“To be what?” I shrieked. “Are these people Papists, then?”
“Not to acknowledge it. I had not an idea when we came—nor the Bracewells, I am sure.”
“And did they want all three of you to be nuns?”
“No—only me, I believe. I heard Father Godfrey saying to the Mother that neither Charlotte nor Amelia would answer the purpose: but what the purpose was, I don’t know.”
“Who are you talking about? Who is Father Godfrey?—Mr Crossland?”
“Yes. He is a Jesuit priest.”
“You mean his mother, then, by ‘the Mother’?”
“Oh, she is not his mother. I don’t think they are related.”
“What is she?”
“The Abbess of a convent of English nuns at Bruges.”
“And is that poor little girl, Miss Annabella, one of the conspirators?”
“She is the decoy. I think her wits have been terrified out of her; she only does as she is told.”
“Hatty,” I said, “you do not believe the doctrines of Popery?”
“I don’t know what I believe, or don’t believe,” she sobbed. “If you can get me out of here and back home, I shall think there is a God again. I was beginning to doubt that and everything else.”
A voice came up the stairs, raised rather loudly.
“You must pardon me, Madam, but I am quite sure both my nieces are here,” said my Uncle Charles’s welcome tones.
I rushed to the door again.
“This way, Uncle Charles!” I cried. “Hatty, where is your bonnet?”
“I don’t know. They took all my outdoor things away.”
“Tie my scarf over your head, and get into the chair. As my Uncle Charles is here, I can walk very well.”
He had come up now, and stood looking at Hatty’s white, miserable face. If he had seen it a few minutes earlier, he would have thought the misery far greater.
“Well, this is a pretty to-do!” cried my Uncle. “Hatty, child, these wretches have used you ill. Why on earth did you stay with them?”
“At first I did not want to get away, Uncle,” she said, “and afterwards I could not.”
We went down-stairs. Mrs Crossland was standing in the door of the drawing-room, with thin, shut-up lips, and a red, angry spot on either cheek. Inside the room I caught a glimpse of Annabella, looking woefully white and frightened. Mr Crossland I could nowhere see.
“Madam,” said my Uncle Charles, sarcastically, “I will thank you to give up those other young ladies, my nieces’ cousins. If they wish to remain in London, they can do so, but it will not be in Charles Street. Did you not tell me, Cary, that their father wished them to come home?”
“My Aunt Kezia said that he intended to write to them to say so,” I answered, feeling as though it were about a year since I had received my Aunt Kezia’s letter.
“Really, Sir!” Mrs Crossland began, “the father of these gentlewomen consigned them to my care—”
“And I take them out of your care,” returned my Uncle Charles. “I will take the responsibility to Mr Bracewell.”
“I’ll take all the responsi-what’s-its-name,” said Charlotte, suddenly appearing among us. “Thank you, Mr Desborough; I’d rather not stop here when Hatty is gone. Emily!” she shouted.
Amelia came down-stairs with her bonnet on, and Charlotte’s in her hand. “You can’t go without a bonnet, my dear child.”
“Oh, pother!” cried Charlotte, seizing her bonnet by the strings, and sticking it on the top of her head anyhow it liked.
“One word before we leave, Mr Desborough, if you please,” said Amelia, with more dignity than I had thought she possessed. “I have strong reason to believe these persons to be Popish recusants, and the last to whom my father would have confided us, had he known their real character. They have not used any of us so kindly that I need spare them out of any tenderness.”
“I thank you, Miss Bracewell,” said my Uncle Charles, who also, I thought, was showing qualities that I had not known to be in him. (How scenes like these do bring one’s faculties out!) “I rather thought there was some sort of Jesuitry at work. Madam,” he turned to Mrs Crossland, “I am sure there is no necessity for me to recall the penal laws to your mind. So long as these young ladies are left undisturbed in my care, in any way,—so long, Madam,—they will not be put in force against you. You understand me, I feel sure. Now, girls, let us go.”
So, we three girls walking, and Hatty in the chair, with Dobson and Caesar as a guard behind, we reached Bloomsbury Square.
“Charles, what is it all about?” said Grandmamma, taking a bigger pinch than usual, and spilling some of it on her lace stomacher.
“A spider’s web, Madam, from which I have been freeing four flies. But one was a blue-bottle, and broke some of the threads,” said my Uncle Charles, laughing, and patting my shoulder.
“Really!” said Grandmamma. “I am pleased to see you, young ladies. Hester, my dear, are you sure you are quite well?”
“I shall be better now,” Hatty tried to say, in a trembling voice,—and fainted away.
There was a great commotion then, four or five talking at once, making impossible recommendations, and getting in each other’s way; but at the end of it all we got poor Hatty into bed in my chamber, and even Grandmamma said that rest was the best thing for her. My Aunt Dorothea mixed a cordial draught, which she gave her to take; and as Hatty’s head sank on the pillow, she said to my surprise,—
“Oh, the rest of being free again! Cary, I never expected you to be the heroine of the family.”
“I think you are the heroine, Hatty.”
“Most people would have thought I should be. But I have proved weak as water—yet not till after long suffering and hard pressure. You will never see the old Hatty again, Cary.”
“Oh yes, dear!” said I. “Wait a few days, till you have had a good rest, and we have fed you up. You will feel quite different a week hence.”
“My body will, I dare say, but me—that inside feeling and thinking machine—that will never be the same again. I want to tell you everything.”
“And I want to hear it,” I replied. “But don’t talk now, Hatty; go to sleep, like a good girl. You will be much better for a long rest.”
I drew the curtains, and asked Amelia to stay until Hatty was asleep. I knew she would not talk much, and Hatty would not care to tell her things as she would me. Going down-stairs, my Uncle Charles greeted me, laughing, with,—
“Here she comes, the good Queen Bess! Cary, you deserve a gold medal.”
Grandmamma bade me come to her, and tell her all I knew. She exclaimed several times, and took ever so many pinches of snuff, till she had to call on my Aunt Dorothea to refill the box. At the end of it she called me a good child, and the Jesuits traitors and scoundrels, to which my Uncle Charles added some rather stronger language.
Charlotte seems to have known nothing of what was going on; or, I should rather say, to have noticed nothing. She is such a careless girl in every way that I am scarce surprised. Amelia did notice things, but she had a mistaken notion of what they meant. She fancied that Hatty was in love with Mr Crossland, and that she, not knowing of his engagement in marriage with Miss Marianne Newton, was very jealous of what she thought his double-dealing. Until after I spoke to her, she had no notion that there might be any sort of Popish treachery. Something which happened soon after that, helped to turn her mind in that direction. But Hatty says she knew next to nothing.
“But,” says my Uncle Charles, “how could a Jesuit priest marry anybody? It seems to be all in a muddle.”
That I cannot answer.
Hatty is better to-day, after a quiet night’s rest. She still looks woefully ill, and Grandmamma will not let her speak yet. Now that Grandmamma is roused about it, she is very kind to Hatty and me also. I do hope, now, that things have done happening! The poor Prince is a fugitive somewhere in Scotland, and everybody says, “the rebellion is quashed.” They did not call it a rebellion until he turned back from Derby. My Uncle Bracewell has writ to my Uncle Charles again with news, and has asked him to see Amelia and Charlotte sent off homeward. Hatty will tarry here till we can return together.
At last our poor Hatty has told her story: and a sad, sad story it is. It seems that Mr Crossland was pretending to make court to her at first, and she believed in him, and loved him. At that time, she says, she would not have brooked a word against him; and as to believing him to be the wretch he has turned out, she would as soon have thought the sun created darkness. There was no show of Popery at all in the family. They went to church like other people, and talked just like others. From a word dropped by Miss Theresa Newton, Hatty began to think that Mr Crossland’s heart was not so undividedly her own as she had hoped; and she presently discovered that he was not to be trusted on that point. They had a quarrel, and he professed penitence, and promised to give up Miss Marianne; and for a while Hatty thought all was right again. Then, little by little, Mrs Crossland (whose right name seems to be Mother Mary Benedicta of the Annunciation—what queer names they do use, to be sure!)—well, Mrs Crossland began to tell Hatty all kinds of strange stories about the saints, and miracles, and so forth, which she said she had heard from the Irish peasantry. At first she told them as things to laugh at; then she began to wonder if there might be some truth in one or two of them; there were strange things in this world! And so she went on from little to little, always drawing back and keeping silence for a while if she found that she was going too fast for Hatty to follow.
“I can see it all now, looking back,” said Hatty. “It was all one great whole; but at the time I did not see it at all. They seemed mere passing remarks, bits of conversation that came in anyhow.”
Hatty felt sure that Mrs Crossland was a concealed Papist long before she suspected the young man. And when, at last, both threw the mask off, they had her fast in their toils. She was strictly warned never to talk with me except on mere trifling subjects; and she had to give an account of every word that had been said when she returned. If she hid the least thing from them, she was assured it would be a terrible sin.
“But you don’t mean to say you believed all that rubbish?” cried I.
“It was not a question of belief,” she answered. “I loved him. I would have done anything in all the world to win a smile from him; and he knew it. As to belief—I do not know what I believed: my brain felt like a chaos, and my heart in a whirl.”
“And now, Hatty?” said I. I meant to ask what she believed now: but she answered me differently.
“Now,” she said, in a low, hopeless voice, “the shrine is deserted, and the idol is broken, and the world feels a great wide, empty place where there is no room for me—a cold, hard place that I must toil through, and the only hope left is to get to the end as soon as possible.”
Oh, I wish Flora or Annas were here! I do not know how to deal with my poor Hatty. Thoughts which would comfort me seem to fall powerless with her; and I have nobody to counsel me. I suppose my Aunt Kezia would say I must set the Lord before me; but I do not see how to do it in this case. I am sure I have prayed enough. What I want is an angel to whisper to me what to do again; and my angel has gone back into Heaven, I suppose, for I feel completely puzzled now. At any rate, I do hope things have done happening.
Note 1. Our forefathers thought colds a much more serious affair than we do. They probably knew much less about them.