CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.
IN EXILE.
I left Guernsey the day before my father and Julia returned from Jersey.
My immediate future was not as black as it might have been. I was going direct to the house of my friend Jack Senior, who had been my chum both at Elizabeth College and at Guy's. He, like myself, had been hitherto a sort of partner to his father, the well-known physician, Dr. Senior of Brook Street. They lived together in a highly-respectable but gloomy residence, kept bachelor fashion, for they had no woman-kind at all belonging to them. The father and son lived a good deal apart, though they were deeply attached to one another. Jack had his own apartments, and his own guests, in the spacious house, and Dr. Senior had his.
The first night, as Jack and I sat up together in the long summer twilight, till the dim, not really dark, midnight came over us, I told him every thing; as one tells a friend a hundred things one cannot put into words to any person who dwells under the same roof, and is witness of every circumstance of one's career.
As I was talking to him, every emotion and perception of my brain, which had been in a wild state of confusion and conflict, appeared to fall into its proper rank. I was no longer doubtful as to whether I had been the fool my father called me. My love for Olivia acquired force and decision. My judgment that it would have been a folly and a crime to marry Julia became confirmed.
"Old fellow," said Jack, when I had finished, "you are in no end of a mess."
"Well, I am," I admitted; "but what am I to do?"
"First of all, how much money have you?" he asked.
"I'd rather not say," I answered.
"Come, old friend," he said, in his most persuasive tones, "have you fifty pounds in hand?"
"No," I replied.
"Thirty?"
I shook my head, but I would not answer him further.
"That's bad!" he said; "but it might be worse. I've lots of tin, and we always went shares."
"I must look out for something to do to-morrow," I remarked.
"Ay, yes!" he answered, dryly; "you might go as assistant to a parish doctor, or get a berth on board an emigrant-ship. There are lots of chances for a young fellow."
He sat smoking his cigar—a dusky outline of a human figure, with a bright speck of red about the centre of the face. For a few minutes he was lost in thought.
"I tell you what," he said, "I've a good mind to marry Julia myself. I've always liked her, and we want a woman in the house. That would put things straighter, wouldn't it?"
"She would never consent to leave Guernsey," I answered, laughing. "That was one reason why she was so glad to marry me."
"Well, then," he said, "would you mind me having Olivia?"
"Don't jest about such a thing," I replied; "it is too serious a question with me."
"You are really in love!" he answered. "I will not jest at it. But I am ready to do any thing to help you, old boy."
So it proved, for he and Dr. Senior did their best during the next few weeks to find a suitable opening for me. I made their house my home, and was treated as a most welcome guest in it. Still the time was irksome—more irksome than I ever could have imagined. They were busy while I was unoccupied.
Occasionally I went out to obey some urgent summons, when either of them was absent; but that was a rare circumstance. The hours hung heavily upon me; and the close, sultry air of London, so different from the fresh sea-breezes of my native place, made me feel languid and irritable.
My mother's letters did not tend to raise my spirits. The tone of them was uniformly sad. She told me the flood of sympathy for Julia had risen very high indeed: from which I concluded that the public indignation against myself must have risen to the same tide-mark, though my poor mother said nothing about it. Julia had resumed her old occupations, but her spirit was quite broken. Johanna Carey had offered to go abroad with her, but she had declined it, because it would too painfully remind her of our projected trip to Switzerland.
A friend of Julia's, said my mother in another letter, had come to stay with her, and to try to rouse her.
It was evident she did not like this Kate Daltrey, herself, for the dislike crept out unawares through all the gentleness of her phrases. "She says she is the same age as Julia," she wrote, "but she is probably some years older; for, as she does not belong to Guernsey, we have no opportunity of knowing." I laughed when I read that. "Your father admires her very much," she added.
No, my mother felt no affection for her new guest.
There was not a word about Olivia. Sark itself was never mentioned, and it might have sunk into the sea. My eye ran over every letter first, with the hope of catching that name, but I could not find it. This persistent silence on my mother's part was very trying.
I had been away from Guernsey two months, and Jack was making arrangements for a long absence from London as soon as the season was over, leaving me in charge, when I received the following letter from Johanna Carey:
"DEAR MARTIN: Your father and Julia have been here this afternoon, and have confided to me a very sad and very painful secret, which they ask me to break gently to you. I am afraid no shadow of a suspicion of it has ever fallen upon your mind, and, I warn you, you will need all your courage and strength as a man to bear it. I was myself so overwhelmed that I could not write to you until now, in the dead of the night, having prayed with all my heart to our merciful God to sustain and comfort you, who will feel this sorrow more than any of us. My dearest Martin, my poor boy, how can I tell it to you? You must come home again for a season. Even Julia wishes it, though she cannot stay in the same house with you, and will go to her own with her friend Kate Daltrey. Your father cried like a child. He takes it more to heart than I should have expected. Yet there is no immediate danger; she may live for some months yet. My poor Martin, you will have a mother only a few months longer. Three weeks ago she and I went to Sark, at her own urgent wish, to see your Olivia. I did not then know why. She had a great longing to see the unfortunate girl who had been the cause of so much sorrow to us all, but especially to her, for she has pined sorely after you. We did not find her in Tardif's house, but Suzanne directed us to the little graveyard half a mile away. We followed her there, and recognized her, of course, at the first glance. She is a charming creature, that I allow, though I wish none of us had ever seen her. Your mother told her who she was, and the sweetest flush and smile came across her face! They sat down side by side on one of the graves, and I strolled away, so I do not know what they said to one another. Olivia walked down with us to the Havre Gosselin, and your mother held her in her arms and kissed her tenderly. Even I could not help kissing her.
"Now I understand why your mother longed to see Olivia. She knew then—she has known for months—that her days are numbered. When she was in London last November, she saw the most skilful physicians, and they all agreed that her disease was incurable and fatal. Why did she conceal it from you? Ah, Martin, you must know a woman's heart, a mother's heart, before you can comprehend that. Your father knew, but no one else. What a martyrdom of silent agony she has passed through! She has a clear calculation, based upon the opinion of the medical men, as to how long she might have lived had her mind been kept calm and happy. How far that has not been the case we all know too well.
"If your marriage with Julia had taken place, you would now have been on your way home, not to be parted from her again till the final separation. We all ask you to return to Guernsey, and devote a few more weeks to one who has loved you so passionately and fondly. Even Julia asks it. Her resentment gives way before this terrible sorrow. We have not told your mother what we are about to do, lest any thing should prevent your return. She is as patient and gentle as a lamb, and is ready with a quiet smile for every one. O Martin, what a loss she will be to us all! My heart is bleeding for you.
"Do not come before you have answered this letter, that we may prepare her for your return. Write by the next boat, and come by the one after. Julia will have to move down to the new house, and that will be excitement enough for one day.
"Good-by, my dearest Martin. I have forgiven every thing; so will all our friends as soon as they know this dreadful secret.
"Your faithful, loving cousin, "JOHANNA CAREY."
I read this letter twice, with a singing in my ears and a whirling of my brain, before I could realize the meaning. Then I refused to believe it. No one knows better than a doctor how the most skilful head among us may be at fault.
My mother dying of an incurable disease! Impossible! I would go over at once and save her. She ought to have told me first. Who could have attended her so skilfully and devotedly as her only son?
Yet the numbing, deadly chill of dread rested upon my heart. I felt keenly how slight my power was, as I had done once before when I thought Olivia would die. But then I had no resources, no appliances. Now I would take home with me every remedy the experience and researches of man had discovered.