CHAPTER XXI.
THE TELEGRAM FROM THE NORTH.
The days went on: the mysterious “knocks” did not recur, and as the police inspector made no more inquiries, and the Marvels attempted no further intercourse with the little house with the verandah, the very memory of them readily faded from the minds of the little household there, and especially from that of its mistress, ever becoming more pre-occupied with the prolonged delay of letters from Charlie, or indeed of any news from the Slains Castle.
Lucy’s brother-in-law, Mr. Brand, went down to Bath to attend Mr. Bray’s funeral, and his wife Florence accompanied him “to be with the dear old lady in her sorrow.” Indeed, Mr. Brand left his wife with the widow while he went to and fro between Bath and London, looking after his own business and winding up Mr. Bray’s affairs. Lucy would have liked to visit the old lady in the early days of bereavement, but, of course, in her circumstances any such expression of sympathy was out of the question. Still, every evening, no matter how tired and despondent she felt she wrote a loving little note to her mother’s old friend, so that every morning she might find it on her breakfast-table. Also, Lucy copied a little picture of the Surrey village where she knew Mrs. Bray had first met her dead husband, and she sent it to the widow as a tender sign of sympathy. Lucy did not wonder that Mrs. Bray herself never acknowledged these tokens of love, for she knew the lady was old and feeble, and that deep grief is sometimes very silent. She knew that Mrs. Bray received all her remembrances, for Florence wrote delivering the old lady’s “thanks for all kindnesses,” and adding how grateful she also was for Florence’s companionship, and for all the arrangements “Jem” was making for her welfare.
“There is not so much property left as one might have supposed, considering that Mr. Bray has earned such a large income for so many years,” wrote Florence. “But then the Brays have always lived among people of rank and wealth, and naturally they got into the habit of spending as their friends did.”
“Ah,” said Miss Latimer, as Lucy read the letter to her. “In that way, earned incomes, however big, soon break up and vanish, as did the clay jar in the fable, when it raced with the iron pot!”
Lucy resumed her reading. “Florence goes on: ‘Never mind; they have both enjoyed the best of everything, and have had many advantages which they might not have had, if people had not believed them to be rich. Jem is always saying that there’s nothing so expensive as poverty. Therefore, though there is not much property left, it won’t matter much, for in many ways Mrs. Bray’s spending days are necessarily over. Jem is managing so cleverly that she will scarcely know she is poorer than she used to be. She will even be able to afford to go on living in the same house, when she returns to London. It would be a great trial to her if she could not hope to do that—and it can be managed, for, you see, she is old and can’t live long. She trusts Jem implicitly and leaves everything to him. She always says, “I don’t want to know anything about money matters; I never have known and I don’t wish to begin now. I ask for nothing but my little comforts and Rachel to look after me.” And then Jem assures her that is quite easy, and so she is satisfied. I can’t think what Mrs. Bray would do without Rachel. She is more devoted to her mistress than ninety-nine daughters out of a hundred are to their mothers. I don’t anticipate that my girls will be half so kind to me when my dismal days come—and of course, I hope they’ll be married and gone off long before I’m an old woman. I should not like to be the mother of ungathered wall-flowers! But where am I likely to find a Rachel? I’ll just have to go and stay at an ”hydropathic“ when I’m an old woman. But old age is a long way off yet—and I devoutly trust that I’ll be dead before it comes.’”
Those last words struck Lucy. She had heard them before—the very same words—spoken by a humble working woman, whose strenuous labours could not provide for more than the wants of each day.
All that woman’s year’s work for a certain company had actually brought her in less than Jem Brand got as annual dividend upon each hundred pounds he had invested in its shares. Lucy had heard that woman say, “I’ve only one chance to escape the workhouse. I hope I’ll die before I am old.”
The poor overworked woman had felt thus for one reason, and now the wealthy idle woman felt so for another. What did it all mean? Where had life gone wrong? Of these two women, one had all that the other lacked, yet it did not suffice to save her from the worst bitterness of that other life. Lucy remembered having read somewhere that Lazarus does not perish for lack of aught that is good for Dives, but for lack of that excess by which Dives destroys himself.
But in these days Lucy did not think over theories and practices as she had been wont to do. She hardly dared to think at all, for the moment thought got a-working, it seized on the terrible reality that still neither word nor sign came from Charlie!
A delay so prolonged must mean something. If it meant some rearrangement of plan, or unexpected detention at the port of some Pacific Island, then surely a letter would have come. Nay, Lucy felt certain that if Charlie knew that any suspense were likely to arise, then a telegram would have arrived. Charlie and she had made their thrifty little pre-arrangements on that score. His firm had a code name, and they had agreed that this, with the name “Challoner”—the word “saw” to stand for “safe and well”—was to suffice for Lucy in case of any unforeseen contingencies.
But no letter came and no such telegram came!
Alarm had now a wider basis than anxiety for Charlie’s health. An inquiry sent to Mrs. Grant in Peterhead promptly brought back a quite remarkably brief answer that she too had heard nothing. Inquiries made at the London office of the shipping firm concerned with the Slains Castle elicited that they too had no tidings, though they made light of the fact, and dwelt on the many delays to which sailing-vessels were subject.
Lucy’s anxiety swamped all her other worries, though unconsciously to herself those worries might still prey on the nerve and fortitude which endurance of the great trial demanded.
What did it matter now when the little china tea-set which had been one of her birthday gifts to Charlie was dashed to the ground and almost every piece of it shivered to fragments? It grieved her once; now it did not affect her at all, save as a type of the general wreckage into which life seemed breaking up.
She did not give much attention to Clementina’s eagerly-tendered defence concerning the accident, given thus—
“I had nothing to do with it, ma’am. I was in the back kitchen at the time, and I’d left it sitting safely on the dresser. Then all of a sudden I heard the crash, and when I looked in, there it was—all in fragments on the floor.”
“You must have placed it too near the edge of the dresser, Clementina,” urged Miss Latimer, “and the slight oscillation caused by some heavy vehicle passing by must have caused it to tilt over.”
It was strange that Clementina repudiated this explanation.
“I didn’t hear any heavy traffic,” she answered. “There’s never much of it near here, anyway. No, ma’am, such things will happen sometimes, and there’s no accounting for them and there’s no use in trying to do it.”
If Lucy’s attention could have been directed towards anything but the terrible fear which absorbed all her soul, she might have noticed that at this time Miss Latimer became rather anxious and observant concerning Clementina. The old lady was aware that the servant was growing restless and uneasy. Her superstitions seemed all astir. She began to see omens on every side. The tense atmosphere of the household mind evidently affected her very much. Miss Latimer could only hope that it would not affect her so much as to cause her to “give notice.” For in many ways the old lady’s experience told her that Clementina was a treasure not to be found every day, since she was scrupulously honest, clean and industrious, and the very last person likely to have questionable “followers.”
So the dreary days went on in the shadow of the storm-cloud, now so lowering that it became too much to hope that it would pass over harmlessly.
The monotony was broken at last by a telegram which came in late one evening. But it did not come to end Lucy’s agony of suspense, either by joy or sorrow. It was simply a telegram from Mrs. Grant of Peterhead, announcing that by the time it reached Lucy she would be on her way to London, as she had despatched the message just as her train was starting. She might be expected by the first train reaching London in the morning.
“What does this mean?” asked Lucy with white lips.
Miss Latimer and Tom strove to soothe her by assuring her that naturally Mrs. Grant was as anxious as herself. Perhaps she wanted to seek further information about the Slains Castle, or possibly to consult with Lucy as to whether there were joint steps that they might take in search of news. Lucy was not readily pacified. Her first fear had been that Mrs. Grant had had private word of the loss of the ship and her passenger and crew, and that she kindly wished to communicate this news to Lucy personally. It was comparatively easy to persuade her that this was most unlikely. Her next misgiving was more difficult to dislodge. It was that Mrs. Grant had at last heard from her husband with some bad news of Charlie—a private matter with which, of course, owners and underwriters could have nothing to do. This foreboding could only be allayed by Mrs. Grant herself.
The north train arrived so early at the terminus not far from Pelham Street that Mrs. Challoner and Tom were able to go and meet the traveller before they were respectively due at the Institute and the office. They had breakfast (as indeed they often did) by gaslight, and then hurried off, Lucy taking Hugh with them. Lucy could not bear him to be out of her sight now for one moment more than was necessary, and Hugh himself begged to be taken. Miss Latimer had not yet come downstairs when they departed, but Clementina protested that “the precious darling” might well be left with her—her work was so well in hand that she need do nothing but amuse him—it was a pity he had even been roused up when he might have had another hour’s sweet sleep, and she wondered his ma wasn’t afraid to take him out when the morning was so dull and raw, an argument which would have overcome Lucy but for Hugh’s plucking at her gown and pleading, “Take me with you, mamma, take me with you.”
It was no distracted weeping woman who descended from the through train. Mrs. Grant came out briskly, and looking round at once recognised the group awaiting her, though she had never before seen more of them than a photograph of Lucy. The worthy lady had travelled with plenty of comfortable wraps and a hamper of home-made food. It gave Lucy some reassurance to note this practical attention to creature necessities. She could scarcely realise that the sailor’s wife, a resident in a seaport town, had already stood so often, for herself and for others, in catastrophes of life and death, hope and despair, that she had learned that our bodies require adequate support and consolation if they are, ably and long, to serve and second our spiritual nature, above all our powers of endurance and initiative.
“I’ve got no news for you, neither good nor bad,” she said promptly. “If aught has happened to your husband it has happened to my good man too. But it’s my private belief that the office folks here know a little more than they will admit. I got a letter from them yesterday afternoon saying that they know nothing at all, and I disbelieve that so much that it was this very letter which made me start off here straightway. If they do know anything I’ll manage to get it out of them.
“I don’t imagine they know much,” she hurried on, noting the whiteness of Lucy’s face. “If they knew much we should hear fast enough, never you fear. But whatever they know, little or much, I’ll know too, before I go home!”
As she spoke, the cab drew up at the Challoners’ house. In the dining-room the lamps were still alight, revealing the bounteous breakfast-table which Clementina had spread after removing the impromptu cups of tea which Lucy and Tom had hastily snatched before going out. But as Tom opened the hall door with his latchkey he was met by a pungent odour not given off by toast and ham.
“An escape of gas!” he cried.
(To be continued.)