Johnny Ludlow, Second Series

by Mrs. Henry Wood

“Yes. For Jael, though three-parts deaf, is a kind and excellent nurse.”

Robert Ashton wrote that night to Worcester; a sharp letter; bidding Captain Bird come over and see to his sister. The poor thing took to Jane wonderfully, and told her more than she’d have told any one else.

“I am twenty,” she said, “and George is six-and-thirty; there is all that difference between us. Our father and mother were dead, and I lived with my aunt in Gloucestershire: where George lived, I did not know. He had been adopted by a wealthy relative in London, and went into the army. My mother had been a lady, but married beneath her, and it was her family who took to George and brought him up a gentleman. Mine was a hard, dull life. My aunt—she was my father’s sister—counted ever-so-many children, and I had to nurse and see to them. Her husband was a master plumber and glazier. One day—it is fifteen months ago now—I shall never forget it—my brother George arrived. I did not know him: I had not seen him since I was thirteen, and then he was a fine handsome gentleman in an officer’s regimentals. He was rather shabby now, and he had come to see if he could borrow money, but my aunt’s husband would not lend him any; he told him he had much ado to keep his own family. I cried a good deal, and George said he would take me to London to his wife. I think he did it to spite them, because of their not lending the money, as much as to please me—he saw that I should be a loss there. We went up—and oh how nice I thought his wife! She was a kind, gentle lady, formerly Miss Lucy Ashton; but nearly always ailing, and afraid of George. George had gay acquaintances, men and women, and he let me go to theatres and balls with them. Lucy said it was wrong, that they were not nice friends for me; but I grew to like the gaiety, and she could do nothing. One night, upon going home from church, I found both George and Lucy gone from the lodgings. I had been spending the Sunday with some people they knew, the quietest of all their friends. There lay a note on the table from Lucy, saying they were obliged to leave London unexpectedly, and begging me to go at once—on the morrow—back to Gloucestershire, for which she enclosed a sovereign. I did not go: one invited me, and another invited me, and it was two months, good, before I went down. Ah me! I heard no more of George; he had got into some trouble in London, and was afraid to let it be known where he was. I have never heard of him or his wife to this hour. My aunt was glad to see me for the help I should be to her; but I felt ill always and could not do so much as I used. I didn’t know what ailed me; I didn’t indeed; I did not think it could be much; and then, when the time went on and it all happened, and they knew, and I knew, I came away with the baby because of the reproach and the shame. But George ought not to have left me to myself in London.”

And when Jane Ashton repeated all this to Robert, he said Bird deserved to be hanged and quartered.

There came no answer from Captain Bird. Perhaps Ashton of Timberdale did not really expect any would come.

But on the Sunday afternoon, from the train that passed Timberdale from Worcester about the time folks came out of church, there descended a poor, weak woman (looking like a girl too) in a worn shawl that was too thin for the weather. She waited until the roads should be clear, as if not wanting to be seen, and then wrapped the shawl close around her arms and went out with her black veil down. It was Lucy Bird. And she was so pretty still, in spite of the wan thin cheeks and the faded clothes! There were two ways of getting to Jael Batty’s from the station. She took the long and obscure one, and in turning the corner of the lane between the church and Timberdale Court, she met Robert Ashton.

But for her own movement, he might never have noticed her. It was growing dusk; and when she saw him coming, she turned sharp off to a stile and stood as if looking for something in the field. There’s not much to stare at in a ploughed field at dusk, as Ashton of Timberdale knew, and he naturally looked at the person who had gone so fast to do it. Something in the cut of the shoulders struck him as being familiar, and he stopped.

“Lucy! Is it you?”

Of course it was no use her saying it was not. She burst into tears, trembling and shaking. Robert passed round her his good strong arm. He guessed what had brought her to Timberdale.

“Lucy, my dear, have you come over from Worcester?”