Lottie had not been alarmed by not hearing from her mother, well knowing that, though Mrs. Stone was able to read, she had never penned a letter in the course of her life. Lottie talked cheerfully and hopefully to Steady on the evening following that on which the last meeting had been held, as they sat together by the little window after the work of the day was over.
“Now that Mr. Arthur has come back, it do seem as if everything were a-brightening,” said she. “He’s getting over his sickness wonderful, and I don’t believe as father’s was ever half so bad. Father will be a-coming home too; and Mr. Arthur will speak a word for him—I’m sure that he will—and get him work at the factory again, or maybe at the Castle. Mother won’t need to work so hard, and we’ll have a nice little cottage of our own, and not have to live in a lodging over a shop.”
Brightly glowed the reflection of the setting sun on the windows of the opposite side of the street; and Lottie’s black eyes, as she gazed on it, seemed to have caught the cheerful gleam. But even as she looked, the sun sank below the western horizon, the ruddy light gradually faded away, and the gray hue of twilight succeeded.
“There be mother!” suddenly exclaimed young Stone, rising quickly from his seat, as with weary step a lonely woman turned the corner of the street, bending as if under a heavy burden of years or sorrow, and never once lifting her drooping eyes towards her home as she approached it.
“Mother—alone! Oh, where—where has she left father?” exclaimed Lottie, starting up and running to meet her.
Deborah found the door open, and Lottie there with a look of eager inquiry on her face. But no word was uttered; for the sight of her mother’s countenance, and the scraps of shabby mourning which she wore, took from the young, warm-hearted girl all power of speech. She followed Deborah upstairs, thankful that Mrs. Green chanced to be at the moment out of the way.
“How’s father?” asked the son, who had met his mother on the staircase.
Deborah made no reply, but entered the room, sank wearily on a chair, and buried her face in her hands. She was a woman who seldom wept; but now her whole frame shook with convulsive sobs. Lottie knelt down beside her, looking up with anxious grief and fear into her mother’s face. She could with difficulty catch the meaning of Mrs. Stone’s scarcely articulate words:
THE MOTHER’S RETURN.
“Thank God, at least I was in time to see him, to be with him, at the last!”
Then the widow raised her head, stretched out her arms, and drew sobbing to her heart her two fatherless children.
Yes, the long-cherished dream of hope was over; the erring husband—forgiven, loved, and watched for—had returned to his native shore to die. Stone had seen his injured wife, and breathed his last sigh in her arms. Had he died a penitent? Deborah fondly clung to the hope; and when she had a little regained her composure, repeated to her children again and again every faintly-breathed sentence from the lips of the dying man that could possibly be deemed an expression of penitence or an utterance of prayer. Who could have borne to have quenched her hope, or who would dare to say that the daily supplication of wife and children for a wandering sinner had not been answered at last?
As Deborah had hardly had one hour’s uninterrupted sleep during the preceding week, she was almost overpowered by physical weariness as well as by mental distress; and Lottie had little difficulty in persuading her to go to bed at once. This was the poor widow’s only place of refuge from the intrusion of her neighbours; for no sooner was it noised through Axe that Mrs. Stone had returned home after attending the death-bed of her husband, than some impelled by sympathy, some by mere curiosity, visited her humble lodging, tormenting the weeping Lottie with questions, or well-meant attempts at offering consolation. She was thankful to close the door at last upon all, and with a very heavy heart prepare to go herself to rest.
“Shall we have just a bit of a prayer together, Steady, as we always have?” said the poor girl, with a faltering voice. It had been the habit of the brother and sister thus to pray, from the time when they had knelt as children together in their cottage home at Wildwaste, perhaps to be startled from their knees by the noisy entrance of a parent reeling home from the ale-house. Steady was very quiet, almost stolid; he had had no outburst of sorrow on hearing of the death of his father; perhaps those miserable days at Wildwaste had left deeper memories on a mind more slow to receive or to part with impressions; he had certainly never been buoyed up with the same joyous hopes as his sister had been, and was therefore less sensitive to disappointment. The lad knelt down without reply, leaving, as usual, to Lottie the uttering of the simple prayer, to which he was wont to add the closing Amen.
“Pray God bless and keep dear—;” Lottie could go no further. Alas! who has not felt how the first omission of a dear familiar name in prayer brings vividly to the soul of the mourner the reality of that separation, which, as regards this world, is softened by no hope. Lottie could only sob, while her brother, slowly and very briefly, concluded the little prayer.
Lottie rose on the morrow with the feeling that there was a great blank in her life; and yet it was not in the nature of things that she should sorrow as long and as deeply for such a parent as Abner had been, as for one who had faithfully fulfilled the duties of husband and father. She resolved to devote herself more than ever to her mother; and was almost glad, for her sake, that she herself had been obliged to leave Wildwaste. The return of Arthur and Lina Madden from Palestine had diverted the attention of gossips from the subject of Lottie’s mysterious sovereigns, and as it was widely known that she had been seen on the box of a carriage in which not only Arthur but Mr. Eardley had been seated, slander itself was forced to own that “the gentlefolk, anyways, seemed to know as how Lottie had come honestly by that money; though ’twas a pity, it was, that she made such a mystery about it.”
In the afternoon the unwelcome step of Mrs. Green was heard on the stair. It was her third visit on that day to the widow’s little room, as she had twice before bustled up “just to see if she could do nothing for the poor soul,” as she said, but in reality to pick up scraps of gossip to retail to the baker’s sisters and the linen-draper’s wife. This time, however, Mrs. Green came up eager to impart news rather than to hear it. Unceremoniously seating herself in the darkened room of sorrow in which were the newly-made widow and her fatherless girl, she said to Lottie, who was preparing the simple afternoon meal, “I say, Lottie Stone, I think that there new house at Wildwaste is somehow bewitched! Here’s you a-running away from it, you can’t or you won’t say why; and now there’s its own master suddenly disappeared, and no one knows what’s become of him.”
“Disappeared!” echoed Lottie, in surprise.
“Ay; no one’s seen nothing of him since last night, and all Wildwaste’s in a commotion. He’d been to bed, too, that was clear; and no one saw him leave the house in the morning; and Hannah says that she could take her oath that the chain was up on the house-door when she went to it at seven. But Mr. Gritton’s not in the Lodge; it’s been searched from top to bottom.”
“He’s been lost in the bog—like that miserable Dan Ford,” said Deborah, gloomily.
“No, not that,” replied Mrs. Green; “the bog’s not in a dangerous state just now; we’ve had so much hot sunshine, that you might ride a horse across the common from one end to the other.”
“Is my dear lady much frightened about her brother?” asked Lottie, who had been listening with breathless interest.
“Not half so much frightened as one might expect, Hannah says; nor half so much surprised at his disappearing. It seems as if she’d a notion where he has gone, though she does not choose to tell what she knows. But Miss Gritton ain’t very well, they says; depend on’t, she’s in for the fever. There’s nothing in the world so catching as small-pox.”
Lottie’s heart sank within her.
“Mrs. Bolder thinks,” continued Mrs. Green, “that Mr. Gritton has just gone off to Lunnon to be out of the way of infection; but it’s odd enough that he should have gone away without his hat, for that’s hanging up in the hall; and its odder still that he should have been pulling about the furniture like a madman. Hannah told Mrs. Bolder, though she did not say a word of it to trouble Miss Gritton, that she found the study in strange disorder—the table pulled out of its place, the very drugget rolled up!”
Lottie was hardly able to stifle the sudden exclamation which rose to her lips.
Having unburdened herself of her news, Mrs. Green suddenly remembered that her kettle would be boiling over, and bustled out of the room. Lottie waited impatiently for a few seconds, till she was certain that the landlady was out of hearing, and then with energy exclaimed, “Mother, mother, I must be off to Wildwaste; I’m sure and certain I’m wanted.”
“I’m sorry you ever left your good place there, Lottie; maybe they would not take you back now,” said Deborah sadly. As Lottie had had the small-pox in her childhood, her mother did not fear her catching the complaint.
“Whether they will take me back or not, mother, I must go,” said Lottie emphatically; “master’s lost—maybe I’ll find him!” and hurriedly, as if every moment were precious, she took down from their peg her straw-bonnet and cloak.
“It’s getting on in the day, my child, and a walk to Wildwaste is a deal too long for you now. To-morrow I’ll get the baker to take you in his cart—at least a good bit of the way.”
Lottie clasped her hands with a look of anxious entreaty. “Don’t stay me, mother, don’t stay me. If Wildwaste were twice as far off, I’d walk all the same. I can’t stop till to-morrow; I should not close an eye all the night!”
Deborah had never before known her young daughter’s mind so resolutely bent upon any course; she saw that some very urgent motive indeed was drawing Lottie towards Wildwaste. She believed this motive to be affection towards her young mistress, and gave up opposing the wishes of her child; only insisting on her taking with her a small bundle of clothes, and refreshing herself by a cup of tea before she started. In less than a quarter of an hour Lottie was hastening on her way towards Wildwaste.
“It’s all clear to me,” murmured the girl to herself, as she rapidly walked along the street; “master has gone down into that dismal place to look after his money, and somehow he has locked himself in and cannot get out; and no one thinks of looking for him there; and so he’ll be starved to death, or maybe go right mad in that horrible vault. Hannah is hard of hearing—if he called ever so loud she’d never hear him in the kitchen; and my lady is upstairs, so his voice would never reach her. It makes one’s blood cold to think of his trying to get help, and shouting and calling, and never a soul going near him! I must go and tell those who are searching where to look.” Lottie had been walking very fast, but she slackened her pace as a difficulty occurred to her mind. “But I must not tell any one of that vault—no, not even Miss Isa; have I not solemnly promised to keep the secret? I must go down myself all alone to that gloomy place. But what if master should be hiding there on purpose; or if some one should come on a sudden and find me down there amongst all the silver and gold, might I not be taken for a thief? I have suffered so much already, I could not abide any more of these cruel suspicions; and maybe I’d be sent to prison this time, and that would break mother’s heart altogether.” The simple girl was so much startled by the images of terror called up by her excited fancy, that for a moment she felt inclined to turn back. “Suppose I tell Miss Isa—only Miss Isa; that would keep my character clear; and it cannot do harm for her to know where her own brother hoards all his money. But that promise—that fatal promise! What would the Lord have me to do? It is so miserable to be able to ask advice of no one, not even of my own dear mother! I seem going right into the darkness—but then, as Mr. Eardley would say, I’ve the trumpet of conscience, and the light of the Word, and the Lord Himself will guide me, and make me triumph over all difficulties, if I put my firm trust in Him. It seems so wonderful that the glorious King of Heaven should think of or care for a poor ignorant child like me!”
The shades of evening were gathering around her before the weary Lottie trod the well-known path over the common that led to Wildwaste Lodge. She looked up anxiously at the windows as she approached the house; she was uneasy regarding the health of her dear young mistress. When Hannah, after tedious delay, answered Lottie’s timid ring at the door-bell, her first anxious question was, “Oh, tell me, how is Miss Isa?” Lottie had to repeat it, for the old servant seemed more deaf, as well as more ill-tempered than usual.
“She has a headache—natural enough, turning herself into a sick-nurse for a stranger as gives more trouble than thanks. And she’s a worritting after master, who has disappeared, no one knows how. But what brings you back, like a bad halfpenny, Lottie?” added the peevish old woman; “you chose to take yourself off without warning, leaving all the work of the house on my hands, and now you may just keep away—there’s no one as wants you here!” and Hannah almost shut the door in the face of the girl.
“Let me in—for just this night—oh, let me in. I’ve walked all the six miles from Axe; I can’t go back in the dark all alone!” pleaded Lottie, whose brow and lip were moist with toil-drops, and who felt the absolute necessity of searching the vault without the delay of another hour. “Hannah, I’ll work like a slave; I’ll do anything that you bid me; just speak a word for me to my mistress, pray her to let me stop, at least—at least till the morning.”
“How can I be worritting Miss Isa, with asking any-think for the like of you,” said Hannah ungraciously, opening the door, however, a little wider, so as to give admittance to Lottie. “You may go there into the kitchen—everything there wants cleaning and looking arter, for not a minute have I had to myself this blessed day, what with the fetching and carrying upstairs, downstairs, and all the stir about master, which has turned the house upside down. There—you get water from the pump, and fill the kettle, and wash up the plates, while I go up with the medicine; there’s Miss Madden’s bell ringing like mad!”
Lottie retired to the kitchen, but neither to rest nor to work. After listening for a few moments to the slow step of the old servant as she mounted the stairs, grumbling at every step, the girl seized her opportunity, and darted into the study. The table had not been drawn back to its place, the brown drugget lay as Gaspar had left it; but though Lottie knew the situation of the trap-door in the floor, she could not at once discover it, either owing to the opening being so well concealed, or from her own nervous haste causing confusion in her mind. Having at last, rather by feeling than by sight, found the portion of the planks that could be moved, Lottie lifted the trap-door and again timidly gazed down into the darkness below. Before she ventured to descend she paused and listened, to make certain that Hannah was still upstairs. She heard the woman’s heavy step in the room above, and then, feeling that every minute was precious, Lottie hastily descended the ladder. Not having brought a light with her, and the vault being utterly dark, the girl had to grope to find the handle of that inner door which Gaspar had closed, but not locked, behind him. Lottie pressed against the door, but felt that something within resisted her efforts to push it open. She used more strength, pressing with knee and shoulder; the resisting body, whatever it might be, yielded a little under her efforts. There was an opening sufficiently wide to admit the girl’s hand. Lottie sank on her knees, and put down her hand in order to feel what was the nature of the obstruction which the darkness prevented her from seeing, and uttered a shriek of horror upon touching a clammy human face! A frightful conviction flashed on her mind that her master had been murdered for his money, and that it was his corpse which lay within the vault.
“Oh, they’ve killed him!” she exclaimed aloud in accents of terror, starting to her feet, as she uttered the exclamation of fear.
“Killed whom?—in mercy speak!” cried the agonized voice of Isa from above. Miss Gritton had chanced to enter the study in search of some papers, and was with astonishment bending over the open trap-door, when she caught the sound of the terrible words from below. Isa could scarcely see the top rounds of the ladder, so obscure had the twilight become; she knew not whither it might lead, or what horrors might lie at the bottom, yet she hesitated not for one instant, and almost before the sound of her terrified question had died away, she was at the side of Lottie in the utter darkness of the vault.
“Master has been murdered!” gasped the young maid. Gaspar could hear her exclamation distinctly, but was unable to speak a word in reply.
“Gaspar—O my brother!” cried Isa, in a tone of piercing distress.
That cry from the lips of a sister broke the spell of the strange trance with which Gaspar Gritton had been bound. During all the long hours of his terrible imprisonment he had been unable to stir or to make the least sound; and though he was conscious of Lottie’s presence when she touched him, and could hear her voice, he had still remained as it were dead, helpless as a corpse in his living grave. But to Isa’s call, to his inexpressible relief, Gaspar was able to answer; the hitherto paralyzed limbs stirred with life, and with a murmured “God be praised!” he awoke from what appeared to him like a dream of unutterable horror.
FOUND IN THE VAULT.
But Gaspar’s powers were in a very feeble state; he was unable at first even to move far enough from the door which divided him from his sister for it to be opened sufficiently wide to admit of her passing through.
“Oh, for a light!” exclaimed Isa; then hearing Hannah’s step in the study above, she called out loudly, “Bring light—help—quick, quick—your master’s dying down here in the vault!”
Some minutes of terrible anxiety followed; Isa dreaded to see what light might reveal, for the idea of murder, first suggested by Lottie, was uppermost in her mind. Hannah had rushed towards the hamlet to summon aid; Isa sent Lottie up the ladder for a light; the girl had hardly procured it when the hall of the Lodge was filled with a party of workmen, whom Hannah’s loud call for assistance had brought to the house.
By the help of the men’s strong arms, Mr. Gritton was carried up from his gloomy prison-vault, and laid on his bed. Thankful indeed was Isa to find that her brother was unwounded, and apparently unhurt, though in a very weak and nervous condition. She neither questioned him, nor suffered him to be questioned, but she marked the glances of surprise and suspicion exchanged between the workmen, who had seen what they were never designed to see, and learned what they were never intended to know. Gaspar’s secret was a secret no longer, except as regarded his way of acquiring the hoards of treasure, of which an exaggerated account spread through all the hamlet before the morning.
Having thanked, rewarded, and dismissed the workmen, Isa sat for hours watching by her brother, and listening to a confession from his lips which filled her heart with mingled grief, shame, thankfulness, and hope.
There are some men whom judgments only harden—a thunderbolt might shatter, but it never would melt them—Gaspar’s nature resembled not such. He felt on that solemn night much as Dives might have felt had his tortured spirit received a reprieve, and been permitted once more to dwell upon earth. He had been given a glimpse, as if by the lurid light of the devouring flame, of the utter worthlessness of all for which man would exchange his immortal soul. The impression might become weakened by time, but upon that night it was strong. Gaspar unburdened his soul to his sister; he told her all, even to Lottie’s discovery of the treasure, and besought Isa’s counsel in the difficult strait into which his covetousness had brought him.
Confession—reparation! From these Gaspar shrank, as the patient from the knife of the surgeon. Could no milder remedy be found, could there be no compromise with conscience? Isa dared suggest none, though she would have given all that she possessed on earth to save her brother from the bitter humiliation of acknowledging to Cora Madden the base fraud which he had committed. The strength of Isa’s faith and obedience was brought to painful proof on that night. If she had yielded but a point, if she had counselled delay, if she had administered an opiate to the tortured conscience of her brother, as all her tender woman’s nature, ay, and all her woman’s pride, pleaded for her to do, Gaspar would, like Felix, have put off the hated duty for a more convenient season, and the precious moment for action would have passed away for ever. But Isa had the fear of God before her eyes; she had a keen perception that this was a crisis in the spiritual life of her brother, that his soul’s interests for eternity might hang on the result of his decision on that night. Her voice had aroused him from the death-like stupor of the body, her voice was to be also the means of quickening the lethargic soul. The whisper of delay in his case could but be the breathing of the enemy who would lure him to destruction. Isa reminded Gaspar of the resolution of Zaccheus, when he had received the Lord into his home and his heart: it was not “I will give,” but I give; it was not “I will restore,” but I restore. Gaspar was irresolute, undecided, but his good angel was beside him to help his weak nature in the great mental conflict. It was almost midnight before that trying interview ended, and the brother and sister separated, the one to sink into a troubled slumber, the other to return to the chamber of Cora, intrusted by Gaspar with the responsible and most painful charge of making for him that humiliating confession which he himself had not the courage to make.
