Johnny Ludlow, Third Series. Henry Wood

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      He stared as one who does not understand, and then made a movement with his hands, as if warding off her words and the neighbours’ hardness together.

      “Let her come, Abigail! Let her come, poor stray lamb. Christ wouldn’t turn away a little one that had strayed from the fold: should her own father do it?”

      And when they brought her in, and put her in an easy-chair by the sitting-room fire, stirring it into a blaze, and gave her hot tea and brandy in it, William Page sat down by her side, and shed fast tears over her, as he fondly stroked her hand.

      Gay and green looked the church on Christmas morning, the sun shining in upon us as brightly as it shone a year before. The news of Jessy Page’s return and the curious manner of it, had spread; causing the congregation to turn their eyes instinctively on the Pages’ pew. Perhaps not one but recalled the last Christmas—and the gallant stranger who had sat in it, and found the places in the Prayer-book for Jessy. Only Mr. Page was there to-day. He came slowly in with his thick stick—for he walked badly since his illness, and dragged one leg behind the other. Before the thanksgiving prayer the parson opened a paper and read out a notice. Such things were uncommon in our church, and it caused a stir.

      “William Page desires to return thanks to Almighty God for a great mercy vouchsafed to him.”

      We walked to the Copse Farm with him after service. Considering that he had been returning thanks, he seemed dreadfully subdued. He didn’t know how it was yet; where she had been, or why she had come home in the manner she did, he told the Squire; but, anyway, she had come. Come to die, it might be; but come home, and that was enough.

      Mrs. Todhetley went upstairs to see her. They had given her the best bed, the one they had given to Marcus Allen. She lay in it like a lily. It was what Mrs. Todhetley said when she came down: “like a lily, so white and delicate.” There was no talking. Jessy for the most part kept her eyes shut and her face turned away. Miss Page whispered that they had not questioned her yet; she seemed too weak to bear it. “But what do you think?” asked Mrs. Todhetley in return. “I am afraid to think,” was all the answer. In coming away, Mrs. Todhetley stooped over the bed to kiss her.

      “Oh don’t, don’t!” said Jessy faintly: “you might not if you knew all. I am not worth it.”

      “Perhaps I should kiss you all the more, my poor child,” answered Mrs. Todhetley. And she came downstairs with red eyes.

      But Miss Susan Page was burning with impatience to know the ins and outs of the strange affair. Naturally so. It had brought more scandal and gossip on the Copse Farm than even the running away of the year before. That was bad enough: this was worse. Altogether Jessy was the home’s heartsore. Mr. Page spoke of her as a lamb, a wanderer returned to the fold, and Susan heard it with compressed lips: in her private opinion, she had more justly been called an ungrateful girl.

      “Now, then, Jessy; you must let us know a little about yourself,” began Susan on this same afternoon when she was with her alone, and Jessy lay apparently stronger, refreshed with the dinner and the long rest. Abigail had gone to church with Mr. Page. Susan could not remember that any of them had gone to church before on Christmas-Day after the morning service: but there was no festive gathering to keep them at home to-day. Unconsciously, perhaps, Susan resented the fact. Even John Drench was dining at his father’s. “Where have you been all this while in London?”

      Jessy suddenly lifted her arm to shade her eyes; and remained silent.

      “It is in London, I conclude, that you have been? Come: answer me.”

      “Yes,” said Jessy faintly.

      “And where have you been? In what part of it?—who with?”

      “Don’t ask me,” was the low reply, given with a suppressed sob.

      “Not ask you! But we must ask you. And you must answer. Where have you been, and what have you been doing?”

      “I—can’t tell,” sobbed Jessy. “The story is too long.”

      “Story too long!” echoed Susan quickly, “you might say in half-a-dozen words—and leave explanations until to-morrow. Did you find a place in town?”

      “Yes, I found a place.”

      “A lady’s-maid’s place?—as you said.”

      Jessy turned her face to the wall, and never spoke.

      “Now, this won’t do,” cried Miss Susan, not choosing to be thwarted: and no doubt Jessy, hearing the determined tone, felt something like a reed in her hands. “Just you tell me a little.”

      “I am very ill, Susan; I can’t talk much,” was the pleading excuse. “If you’d only let me be quiet.”

      “It will no more hurt you to say in a few words where you have been than to make excuses,” persisted Miss Susan, giving a flick to the skirt of her new puce silk gown. “Your conduct altogether has been most extraordinary, quite baffling to us at home, and I must hear some explanation of it.”

      “The place I went to was too hard for me,” said Jessy after a pause, speaking out of the pillow.

      “Too hard!”

      “Yes; too hard. My heart was breaking with its hardness, and I couldn’t stop in it. Oh, be merciful to me, Susan! don’t ask any more.”

      Susan Page thought that when mysterious answers like these were creeping out, there was all the greater need that she should ask for more.

      “Who found you the place at first, Jessy?”

      Not a word. Susan asked again.

      “I—got it through an advertisement,” said Jessy at length.

      Advertisements in those days, down in our rural district, were looked upon as wonderful things, and Miss Susan opened her eyes in surprise. A faint idea was upon her that Jessy could not be telling the truth.

      “In that letter that you wrote to us; the only one you did write; you asserted that you liked the place.”

      “Yes. That was at first. But afterwards—oh, afterwards it got cruelly hard.”

      “Why did you not change it for another?”

      Jessy made no answer. Susan heard the sobs in her throat.

      “Now, Jessy, don’t be silly. I ask why you did not get another place, if you were unable to stay in that one?”

      “I couldn’t have got another, Susan. I would never have got another.”

      “Why not?” persisted Susan.

      “I—I—don’t you see how weak I am?” she asked with some energy, lifting her face for a moment to Susan.

      And its wan pain, its depth of anguish, disarmed Susan. Jessy looked like a once fair blossom on which a blight had passed.

      “Well, Jessy, we will leave these matters until later. But there’s one thing you must answer. What induced you to take this disreputable mode of coming back?”

      A dead silence.

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