CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.
DEAD TO HONOR.
The mail from Jersey on Monday morning brought us no letter from my father. But during the afternoon, as I was passing along the Canichers, I came suddenly upon Captain Carey and Julia, who wore a thick veil over her face. The Canichers is a very narrow, winding street, where no conveyances are allowed to run, and all of us had chosen it in preference to the broad road along the quay, where we were liable to meet many acquaintances. There was no escape for any of us. An enormously high, strong wall, such as abound in St. Peter-Port, was on one side of us, and some locked-up stables on the other. Julia turned away her head, and appeared absorbed in the contemplation of a very small placard, which did not cover one stone of the wall, though it was the only one there. I shook hands with Captain Carey, who regarded us with a comical expression of distress, and waited to see if she would recognize me; but she did not.
"Julia has had a letter from your father," he said.
"Yes?" I replied, in a tone of inquiry.
"Or rather from Dr. Collas," he pursued. "Prepare yourself for bad news, Martin. Your father is very ill; dangerously so, he thinks."
The news did not startle me. I had been long aware that my father was one of those medical men who are excessively nervous about their own health, and are astonished that so delicate and complicated an organization as the human frame should ever survive for sixty years the ills it is exposed to. But at this time it was possible that distress of mind and anxiety for the future might have made him really ill. There was no chance of crossing to Jersey before the next morning.
"He wished Dr. Collas to write to Julia, so as not to alarm your mother," continued Captain Carey, as I stood silent.
"I will go to-morrow," I said; "but we must not frighten my mother if we can help it."
"Dr. Dobrée begs that you will go," he answered—"you and Julia."
"Julia!" I exclaimed. "Oh, impossible!"
"I don't see that it is impossible," said Julia, speaking for the first time. "He is my own uncle, and has acted as my father. I intend to go to see him; but Captain Carey has promised to go with me."
"Thank you a thousand times, dear Julia," I answered, gratefully. A heavy load was lifted off my spirits, for I came to this conclusion—that she had said nothing, and would say nothing, to the Careys about his defalcations. She would not make her uncle's shame public.
I told my mother that Julia and I were going over to Jersey the next morning, and she was more than satisfied. We went on board together as arranged—Julia, Captain Carey, and I. But Julia did not stay on deck, and I saw nothing of her during our two-hours' sail.
Captain Carey told me feelingly how terribly she was fretting, notwithstanding all their efforts to console her. He was full of this topic, and could think and speak of nothing else, worrying me with the most minute particulars of her deep dejection, until I felt myself one of the most worthless scoundrels in existence. I was in this humiliated state of mind when we landed in Jersey, and drove in separate cars to the hotel where my father was lying ill.
The landlady received us with a portentous face. Dr. Collas had spoken very seriously indeed of his patient, and, as for herself, she had not the smallest hope. I heard Julia sob, and saw her lift her handkerchief to her eyes behind her veil.
Captain Carey looked very much frightened. He was a man of quick sympathies, and nervous about his own life into the bargain, so that any serious illness alarmed him. As for myself, I was in the miserable condition of mind I have described above.
We were not admitted into my father's room for half an hour, as he sent word he must get up his strength for the interview. Julia and myself alone were allowed to see him. He was propped up in bed with a number of pillows; with the room darkened by Venetian blinds, and a dim green twilight prevailing, which cast a sickly hue over his really pallid face. His abundant white hair fell lankly about his head, instead of being in crisp curls as usual. I was about to feel his pulse for him, but he waved me off.
"No, my son," he said, "my recovery is not to be desired. I feel that I have nothing now to do but to die. It is the only reparation in my power. I would far rather die than recover."
I had nothing to say to that; indeed, I had really no answer ready, so amazed was I at the tone he had taken. But Julia began to sob again, and pressed past me, sinking down on the chair by his side, and laying her hand upon one of his pillows.
"Julia, my love," he continued, feebly, "you know how I have wronged you; but you are a true Christian. You will forgive your uncle when he is dead and gone. I should like to be buried in Guernsey with the other Dobrées."
Neither did Julia answer, save by sobs. I stepped toward the window to draw up the blinds, but he stopped me, speaking in a much stronger voice than before.
"Leave them alone," he said. "I have no wish to see the light of day. A dishonored man does not care to show his face. I have seen no one since I left Guernsey, except Collas."
"I think you are alarming yourself needlessly," I answered. "You know you are fidgety about your own health. Let me prescribe for you. Surely I know as much as Collas."
"No, no, let me die," he said, plaintively; "then you can all be happy. I have robbed my only brother's only child, who was dear to me as my own daughter. I cannot hold up my head after that. I should die gladly if you two were but reconciled to one another."
By this time Julia's hand had reached his, and was resting in it fondly. I never knew a man gifted with such power over women and their susceptibilities as he had. My mother herself would appear to forget all her unhappiness, if he only smiled upon her.
"My poor dear Julia!" he murmured; "my poor child!"
"Uncle," she said, checking her sobs by a great effort, "if you imagine I should tell any one—Johanna Carey even—what you have done, you wrong me. The name of Dobrée is as dear to me as to Martin, and he was willing to marry a woman he detested in order to shield it. No, you are quite safe from disgrace as far as I am concerned."
"God in heaven bless you, my own Julia!" he ejaculated, fervently. "I knew your noble nature; but it grieves me the more deeply that I have so thoughtlessly wronged you. If I should live to get over this illness, I will explain it all to you. It is not so bad as it seems. But will you not be equally generous to Martin? Cannot you forgive him as you do me?"
"Uncle," she cried, "I could never, never marry a man who says he loves some one else more than me."
Her face was hidden in the pillows, and my father stroked her head, glancing at me contemptuously at the same time.
"I should think not, my girl!" he said, in a soothing tone; "but Martin will very soon repent. He is a fool just now, but he will be wise again presently. He has known you too long not to know your worth."
"Julia," I said, "I do know how good you are. You have always been generous, and you are so now. I owe you as much gratitude as my father does, and any thing I can do to prove it I am ready to do this day."
"Will you marry her before we leave Jersey?" asked my father.
"Yes," I answered.
The word slipped from me almost unawares, yet I did not wish to retract it. She was behaving so nobly and generously toward us both, that I was willing to do any thing to make her happy.
"Then, my love," he said, "you hear what Martin promises. All's well that ends well. Only make up your mind to put your proper pride away, and we shall all be as happy as we were before."
"Never!" she cried, indignantly. "I would not marry Martin here, hurriedly and furtively; no, not if you were dying, uncle!"
"But, Julia, if I were dying, and wished to see you united before my death!" he insinuated. A sudden light broke upon me. It was an ingenious plot—one at which I could not help laughing, mad as I was. Julia's pride was to be saved, and an immediate marriage between us effected, under cover of my father's dangerous illness. I did smile, in spite of my anger, and he caught it, and smiled back again. I think Julia became suspicious too.
"Martin," she said, sharpening her voice to address me, "do you think your father is in any danger?"
"No, I do not," I answered, notwithstanding his gestures and frowns.
"Then that is at an end," she said. "I was almost foolish enough to think that I would yield. You don't know what this disappointment is to me. Everybody will be talking of it, and some of them will pity me, and the rest laugh at me. I am ashamed of going out-of-doors anywhere. Oh, it is too bad! I cannot bear it."
She was positively writhing with agitation; and tears, real tears I am sure, started into my father's eyes.
"My poor little Julia!" he said; "my darling! But what can be done if you will not marry Martin?"
"He ought to go away from Guernsey," she sobbed. "I should feel better if I was quite sure I should never see him, or hear of other people seeing him."
"I will go," I said. "Guernsey will be too hot for me when all this is known."
"And, uncle," she pursued, speaking to him, not me, "he ought to promise me to give up that girl. I cannot set him free to go and marry her—a stranger and adventuress. She will be his ruin. I think, for my sake, he ought to give her up."
"So he ought, and so he will, my love," answered my father. "When he thinks of all we owe to you, he will promise you that."
I pondered over what our family owed to Julia for some minutes. It was truly a very great debt. Though I had brought her into perhaps the most painful position a woman could be placed in, she was generously sacrificing her just resentment and revenge against my father's dishonesty, in order to secure our name from blot.
On the other hand, I had no reason to suppose Olivia loved me, and I should do her no wrong. I felt that, whatever it might cost me, I must consent to Julia's stipulation.
"It is the hardest thing you could ask me," I said, "but I will give her up. On one condition, however; for I must not leave her without friends. I shall tell Tardif, if he ever needs help for Olivia, he must apply to me through my mother."
"There could be no harm in that," observed my father.
"How soon shall I leave Guernsey?" I asked.
"He cannot go until you are well again, uncle," she answered. "I will stay here to nurse you, and Martin must take care of your patients. We will send him word a day or two before we return, and I should like him to be gone before we reach home."
That was my sentence of banishment. She had only addressed me once during the conversation. It was curious to see how there was no resentment in her manner toward my father, who had systematically robbed her, while she treated me with profound wrath and bitterness.
She allowed him to hold her hand and stroke her hair; she would not have suffered me to approach her. No doubt it was harder for her to give up a lover than to lose the whole of her property.
She left us, to make the necessary arrangements for staying with my father, whose illness appeared to have lost suddenly its worst symptoms. As soon as she was gone he regarded me with a look half angry, half contemptuous.
"What a fool you are!" he said. "You have no tact whatever in the management of women. Julia would fly back to you, if you only held up your finger."
"I have no wish to hold up my finger to her," I answered. "I don't think life with her would be so highly desirable."
"You thought so a few weeks ago," he said, "and you'll be a pauper without her."
"I was not going to marry her for her money," I replied. "A few weeks ago I cared more for her than for any other woman, except my mother, and she knew it. All that is changed now."
"Well well!" he said, peevishly, "do as you like. I wash my hands of the whole business. Julia will not forsake me if she renounces you, and I shall have need of her and her money. I shall cling to Julia."
"She will be a kind nurse to you," I remarked.
"Excellent!" he answered, settling himself languidly down among his pillows. "She may come in now and watch beside me; it will be the sort of occupation to suit her in her present state of feeling. You had better go out and amuse yourself in your own way. Of course you will go home to-morrow morning."
I would have gone back to Guernsey at once, but I found neither cutter nor yacht sailing that afternoon, so I was obliged to wait for the steamer next morning. I did not see Julia again, but Captain Carey told me she had consented that he should remain at hand for a day or two, to see if he could be of any use to her.
The report of my father's illness had spread before I reached home, and sufficiently accounted for our visit to Jersey, and the temporary postponement of my last trip to England before our marriage. My mother, Johanna, and I, kept our own counsel, and answered the many questions asked us as vaguely as the Delphic oracle.
Still an uneasy suspicion and suspense hung about our circle. The atmosphere was heavily charged with electricity, which foreboded storms. It would be well for me to quit Guernsey before all the truth came out. I wrote to Tardif, telling him I was going for an indefinite period to London, and that if any difficulty or danger threatened Olivia, I begged of him to communicate with my mother, who had promised me to befriend her as far as it lay in her power. My poor mother thought of her without bitterness, though with deep regret. To Olivia herself I wrote a line or two, finding myself too weak to resist the temptation. I said:
"MY DEAR OLIVIA: I told you I was about to be married to my cousin Julia Dobrée; that engagement is at an end. I am obliged to leave Guernsey, and seek my fortune elsewhere. It will be a long time before I can see you again, if I ever have that great happiness. Whenever you feel the want of a true and tender friend, my mother is prepared to love you as if you were her own daughter. Think of me also as your friend. MARTIN DOBRÉE."