CHAPTER XXIX.
THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.
Upon his arrival in town, Mr. Levinger drove to a private hotel in Jermyn Street, where he was in the habit of staying on the rare occasions when he visited London. He dressed and dined; then, having posted a letter to Emma stating that he would call for her and Miss Graves on the following morning in time to catch the eleven o’clock train, and escort them home, he ordered a hansom and told the cabman to take him to 8, Kent Street.
“It’s many a year since I have been in this place,” he thought to himself with a sigh, as the cab turned out of the Edgware Road, “and it doesn’t seem much changed. I wonder how she came to go to another house. Well, I shall know the worst, or the best of it, presently.” And again he sighed as the horse stopped with a jerk in front of No. 8.
‘You remember my words when you lie a-dying.’
Telling the man to wait, he rang the bell. The door was opened by Mrs. Bird herself, who, seeing an elderly gentleman in a fur coat, dropped a polite courtesy.
“Is this Mrs. Bird’s house, pray?” he asked in his gentle voice.
“Yes, sir; I am Mrs. Bird.”
“Indeed: then perhaps you received a telegram from me this morning,—Mr. Levinger?”
“Yes, sir, it came safely, and I ordered some things on the strength of it. Will you be so good as to step in, sir? I have heard poor Joan speak of you, though I never could make out what you were to her from her father down.”
“In a certain sense, madam, I am her guardian. Will you allow me to help you with that door? And now, how is she?”
“About as bad as she can be, sir; and if you are her guardian, I only wish that you had looked after her a little before, for I think that being so lonesome has preyed upon her mind, poor dear. And now perhaps you’ll step upstairs into her sitting-room, making as little noise as possible. The doctor and the nurse are with her, and you may wish to see them; it’s not a catching fever, so you can come up safely.”
He bowed, and followed Mrs. Bird to the little room, where she offered him a chair. Through the thin double doors that separated them from the bedchamber he could hear the sound of whispering, and now and again of a voice, still strong and full, that spoke at random. “Don’t cut my hair,” said the voice: “why do you cut my hair? He used to praise it; he’d never know me without my hair.”
“That’s her raving, poor love. She’ll go on in this kind of way for hours.”
Mr. Levinger turned a shade paler. He was a sensitive man, and these voices of the sick room pained him; moreover, he may have found a meaning in them.
“Perhaps you will give me a few details, Mrs. Bird,” he said, drawing his chair close to the window. “You might tell me first how Joan Haste came to be your lodger.”
So Mrs. Bird began, and told him all the story, from the day when she had seen Joan sitting upon her box on the opposite doorstep till the present hour that is, she told it to him with certain omissions. Mr. Levinger listened attentively.
“I was very wrong,” he said, when she had finished, “to allow her to come to London in this fashion. I reproach myself much about it, but the girl was headstrong and —there were reasons. It is most fortunate that she should have found so kind a friend as you seem to have been to her.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Mrs. Bird severely, “I must say that I think you were wrong. London is not a place to throw a young woman like Joan into to sink or to swim, even though she may have given you some trouble; and if anything happens to her I think that you will always have it on your conscience.” And she put her head on one side and looked at him through her spectacles.
Mr. Levinger winced visibly, and did not seem to know what to answer. At that moment the doctor came out of the sick room, leaving the door open; and, looking through it, Mr. Levinger saw a picture that he could never forget. Joan was lying upon an iron bedstead, and on a chair beside it, shimmering in the light, lay the tumbled masses of her shorn hair. Her face was flushed, and her large eyes shone with an unnatural brightness. One hand hung downwards almost to the floor, and with the other she felt feebly at her head, saying in a piteous voice, “Where is my hair? What have you done with my hair? He will never know me like this, or if he does he will think me ugly. Oh! please give me back my hair.” Then the nurse closed the door, and Mr. Levinger was glad of it.
“This is the gentleman, Doctor,” said Mrs. Bird, “who is interested in——”
The doctor bowed stiffly; then, seeing what manner of man Mr. Levinger was, relaxed, and said, “I beg your pardon. I suppose that your interest in my patient is of a parental character?”
“Not exactly, sir, but I consider myself in loco parentis. Can you give me any information, or perhaps I should say—any hope?”
“Hope? Oh yes—lots of it,” answered the doctor, who was an able middle-aged man of the brusque and kindly order, one who understood his business, but took pleasure in disparaging both himself and it. “I always hope until I see a patient in his coffin. Not that things are as bad as that in this case. I trust that she will pull through—I fancy that she will pull through; but all the same, as I understand that expense is no longer an object, I am going to get in a second opinion to-morrow. You see I am barely forty myself, and my experience is consequently limited,” and he smiled satirically. “I have my views, but I dare say that they stand in need of correction; at any rate, without further advice I don’t mean to take the responsibility of the rather heroic treatment which I propose to adopt. The case is a somewhat peculiar one. I can’t understand why the girl should be in this way at all, except on the hypothesis that she is suffering from some severe mental shock; and I purpose, therefore, to try and doctor her mind as well as her body. But it is useless to bore laymen with these matters. I can only say, sir, that I am deeply interested in the case, and will do my utmost to pull her through. I would rather that she had been at the hospital; but, on the whole, she is not badly off here, especially as I have succeeded in getting the best nurse for her that I know anywhere. Good night.”
“Good night, Doctor, and whatever the issue, pray accept my thanks in advance, and remember that you need not spare money.”
“Don’t be afraid, sir—I sha’n’t. I’ll spend a thousand pounds over her, if necessary; and save your thanks at present, three weeks hence it may be another matter, or there may be only the bill to pay. Well, I must be off. Good night. Perhaps, Mrs. Bird, you will send out for the things the nurse wants,” and he went.
“That seems a capable man,” said Mr. Levinger; “I like the look of him. And now, madam, you will need some cash in hand. I have brought twenty pounds with me, which I suppose will be enough to go on with, without touching Joan’s money,” and he placed that sum upon the table.
“By the way, Mrs. Bird,” he added, “perhaps you will be good enough to send me a note or a telegram every day informing me of your patient’s progress—here is my address— also to keep an account of all sums expended, in which you can include an extra allowance of a pound a week to yourself, to compensate you for the trouble and anxiety to which this illness must put you.”
“Thank you, sir,” she answered, courtesying—“I call that very liberal; though, to tell you the truth, I am so fond of Joan that I would not take a farthing if I could afford it. But, what between two deaf-and-dumb people to look after and her on my mind, it is no use pretending that I can get through as much dressmaking work as I ought; and so, as you seem well able to pay, I will put my pride in my pocket and the money along with it. Also I will keep you informed daily, as you ask.”
“Two deaf-and-dumb people?”
“Yes, sir,”—and she told him about her husband and Sally.
“Really,” he said, when she had finished, surveying the frail little woman with admiration, “you seem to have more than your share of this world’s burden, and I respect you, madam, for the way in which you bear it.”
“Not a bit, sir,” she answered cheerily; “while it pleases God to give me my health, I wouldn’t change places with the Queen of England and all her glory.”
“I admire you still more, Mrs. Bird,” he answered, as he bowed himself out politely; “I wish that everybody could face their trials so cheerfully.” But within himself he said, “Poor Joan! no wonder she was wretched, shut up in this dreadful little house with deaf-and-dumb folk for companions. Well, I have done all I can for her now, but I wish that I had begun earlier. Oh! if I could have the last twenty years over again, things would be very different to-day.”
Mrs. Bird was delighted with Mr. Levinger. Never before, as she explained presently with much gesticulation to Jim, had she met so charming, so handsome, so thoughtful, and so liberal an elderly gentleman.
“But,” gesticulated Jim back, “if he is all this, why didn’t he look after Joan better before?”—a question that his wife felt herself unable to answer, beyond saying that Joan and all connected with her were “most mysterious, my dear, and quite beyond me.”
Indeed, now that she came to think of it, she saw that whereas she had given Mr. Levinger every information in her power, he had imparted none to her. To this moment she did not know what was the exact relationship in which he stood towards Joan. Though there were many dissimilarities between them, it had struck her, observing him, that his eyes and voice were not unlike Joan’s. Could he be her father? And, if so, how did it come about that he had allowed her to wander to London and to live there unprotected? Like the rest, it was a mystery, and one that after much cogitation Mrs. Bird was forced to give up as insoluble, though on the whole she came to the conclusion that her visitor was not a blood relation of Joan.
Mr. Levinger duly carried out his programme, and on the morrow escorted his daughter and Ellen back to Bradmouth. He did not, however, think fit to tell them the true cause of his visit to London, which he accounted for by saying that he had come up to bargain with a dealer in curiosities about some ancient British ornaments that were on the market. Nor, oddly enough, did Ellen chance to mention that she had seen Joan selling mantles at Messrs. Black and Parker’s; the fact being that, as regards this young woman, there reigned a conspiracy of silence. Neither at Rosham nor at Monk’s Lodge was her name ever mentioned, and yet she was seldom out of the minds of the members of either of those households. Ellen, when the preparations for her approaching marriage allowed her time for thought, never ceased to congratulate herself upon her presence of mind in preventing the recognition of Joan by Henry. It was clear to her that her obstinate brother had begun to settle down and to see matters in a truer light, especially as regarded Emma; but it was also clear that had he once found the missing Joan there would have been new troubles. Well, he had not found her, so that danger was gone by. And Ellen rejoiced accordingly.
Mrs. Bird kept her promise, writing and telegraphing regularly to Mr. Levinger to inform him of Joan’s progress. Indeed, for some time the messenger from the Bradmouth post-office arrived almost daily with a yellow envelope at Monk’s Lodge. One of these telegrams Emma opened by chance, as her father happened to be out and the boy said that it required an answer. It ran: “Patient had serious relapse last night. Doctor proposes to call in——” [here followed the name of a very eminent authority on such cases] “do you sanction expense? Reply, Bird.” Emma was naturally quite unable to reply, and so soon as he came in she handed the telegram to Mr. Levinger, explaining why she had opened it. He read it, then said, with as much severity as he ever showed towards his daughter:
“I wish, my dear Emma, that in future you would be so kind as to leave my letters and telegrams alone. As you have opened it, however, and your curiosity is doubtless excited, I may as well tell you that this is a business cypher, and has to do with nothing more romantic than the Stock Exchange.”
“I am very sorry, father,” she answered coldly for, trusting as she was by nature, she did not believe him, “I will be more careful in future.”
Then she left the room, feeling that another enigma had been added to the growing stock of family mysteries.
Slowly the days went by, till at length it became clear to those who tended her that Joan would recover from her illness.
The last and greatest crisis had come and gone, the fever had left her, and she no longer wandered in her mind, but lay upon the bed a shadow of her former self, so weak that she could scarcely speak above a whisper. All day long she lay thus, staring at the dingy ceiling above her with her brown eyes, which, always large, now looked positively unnatural in her wasted face a very pathetic sight to see. At times the eyes would fill with tears, and at times she would sigh a little, but she never smiled, except in acknowledgment of some service of the sick room. Once she asked Mrs. Bird if any one had discovered that she was ill, or come to see her, and on receiving a reply in the affirmative, asked eagerly,—
“Who? What was his name?”
“Mr. Levinger,” the little woman answered.
“It is very kind of him,” Joan murmured, and turned her head upon the pillow, where presently Mrs. Bird saw such a mark as might have been left by the falling of a heavy raindrop.
Then it was that Mrs. Bird’s doubts and difficulties began afresh. From what she had heard while attending on Joan in her delirium, she was now convinced that the poor girl’s story was true, and that the letter which she had written was addressed not to any imaginary person, but to a living man who had worked her bitter wrong. This view indeed was confirmed by the doctor, who added, curiously enough, that had it not been for her condition he did not believe that she would have lived. In these circumstances the question that tormented Mrs. Bird was whether or no she would do right to post that letter. At one time she thought of laying the matter before Mr. Levinger, but upon consideration she refrained from so doing. He was the girl’s guardian, and doubtless he knew nothing of her disgrace. Why, then, should she expose it, unless such a step became absolutely necessary? Ultimately he would have to be told, but there seemed no need to tell him until an appeal to the man’s honour and pity had failed. After much thought Mrs. Bird adopted a third course, and took the doctor into her confidence. He was a man of rough manners, plain speech, and good heart, and her story did not in the least surprise him.
“There’s nothing wonderful about this, Mrs. Bird,” he said. “I have seen the same thing with variations dozens of times in my twenty years of experience. It’s no use your starting off to call this man a scoundrel and a brute. It’s fashionable, I know, but it does not follow that it is accurate: you see it is just possible that the girl may have been to blame herself, poor dear. However, she is in a mess, and the thing is to get her out of it, at the expense of the man if necessary, for we are interested in her and not in him. That letter of hers is a beautiful production in a queer kind of way, and ought to have an effect on the individual, if he is not already married, or a bad lot both of which things are probable. I tell you what, I will make a few inquiries about him, and let you know my opinion to-morrow. What did you say his name was? Henry Graves? Thanks; good-bye. No, no opiate to-night, I think.”
On the following day the doctor returned, and having visited Joan and reported favourably of her progress, he descended to the front parlour, where Mrs. Bird was waiting for him.
“She’s getting on well,” he said—“a good deal better than I expected, indeed. Well, I have looked up Sir Henry Graves, for he’s a baronet. As it chanced, I came across a man at the hospital last night who used to stay with his father down at Rosham. The old man, Sir Reginald, died a few months ago; and Henry, the second son—for his elder brother broke his neck in a steeplechase—succeeded him. He is, or was, a captain in the Navy, rather a distinguished man in a small way; and not long ago he met with an accident, broke his leg or something of that sort, and was laid up at an inn in a place called Bradmouth. It seems that he is a good sort of fellow, though rather taciturn. That’s all I could find out about him.”
“Joan comes from Bradmouth, and she lived in an inn there,” answered Mrs. Bird.
“Oh! did she? Well, then there you have the whole thing; nothing could be more natural and proper, or rather improper.”
“Perhaps so, sir,” said Mrs. Bird reprovingly; “though, begging your pardon, I cannot see that this is a matter to joke about. What I want to know now is shall I send the gentleman that letter?”
The doctor rubbed his nose reflectively and answered, “If you do he will probably put it at the back of the fire; but so far as I can judge, being of course totally unacquainted with the details, it can’t hurt anybody much, and it may have a good effect. She has forgotten that she ever wrote it, and you may be sure that unless he acts on it he won’t show it about the neighbourhood. Yes, on the whole I think that you may as well send it, though I dare say that it will put him in a tight place.”
“That is where I should like to see him,” she answered, pursing up her lips.
“I dare say. You’re down on the man, are you not, Mrs. Bird? And so am I, speaking in a blessed ignorance of the facts. By all means let him be put into a tight place, or ruined, for anything I care. He may be comparatively innocent, but my sympathies are with the lady, whom I chance to know, and who is very good looking. Mind you let me know what happens that is, if anything does happen.”
That afternoon Mrs. Bird wrote her letter, or rather she wrote several letters, for never before did the composition of an epistle give her so much thought and trouble. In the end it ran as follows:—
“SIR,—
“I am venturing to take what I dare say you will think a great liberty, and a liberty it is, indeed, that only duty drives me to. For several months a girl called Joan Haste has been staying in my house as a lodger. Some weeks ago she was taken seriously ill with a brain fever, from which she has nearly died; but it pleased God to spare her life, and now, though she is weak as water, the doctor thinks that she will recover. On the night that she became ill she returned home not at all herself, and made a confession to me, about which I need say nothing. Afterwards she wrote what I enclose to you. You will see from the wording of it that she was off her head when she did it, and now I am sure that she remembers nothing of it. I found the letter and kept it; and partly from what fell from her lips while she was delirious, partly because of other circumstances, I became sure that you are the man to whom that letter is addressed. If I have made any mistake you must forgive me, and I beg that you will then return the enclosed and destroy my letter. If, sir, I have not made a mistake, then I hope that you will see fit to act like an honest man towards poor Joan, who, whatever her faults may be—and such as they are you are the cause of them—is as good-hearted as she is sweet and beautiful. It is not for me to judge you or reproach you; but if you can, I do pray you to act right by this poor girl, who otherwise must be ruined, and may perhaps drift into a life of sin and misery, the responsibility for which will be upon your hands.
“Sir, I have nothing more to say: the paper I enclose explains everything.
“I am, sir,
Your humble servant,
“JANE BIRD.
“P.S. Sir, I may say that there is no need for you to hurry to answer this, since, even if you wished to do so, I do not think that it would be safe for you to see Joan, or even to write anything that would excite her, for ten days at least.”