Johnny Ludlow, Fourth Series. Mrs. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ you see how it is, Johnny? That I shall never be better in this world?”

      “Your weakness may take a turn, Ellin; it may indeed. And—he may come back yet.”

      “He will never come back: rely upon that,” she quietly said. “He is waiting for me on the Eternal shores.”

      Her gaze went out afar, over the gravestones and the green meadows beyond, almost (one might fancy) into the blue skies, as if she could see those shores in the distant horizon.

      “Is it well to lose hope, Eileen mavourneen?”

      “The hope of his returning died out long ago,” she answered. “Those dreams that visited me so strangely last year, night after night, night after night, seemed to take that from me. Perhaps they came to do it. You remember them, Johnny?”

      “I cannot think, Ellin, how you could put faith in a parcel of dreams!”

      “It was not in the dreams I put faith—exactly. It was in the mysterious influence—I hope I don’t speak profanely—which caused me to have the dreams. A silent, undetected influence that I understood not and never grasped—but it was there. Curious dreams they were,” she added, after a pause; “curious that they should have come to me. William was always lost, and I, with others, was always searching for him—and never, never found him. They lasted, Johnny, for weeks and months; and almost from the time of their first setting-in, the impression, that I should never see him again, lay latent in my heart.”

      “Do they visit you still?”

      “No. At least, they have changed in character. Ever since the night that he seems to have been really lost, the 19th of October. How you look at me, Johnny!”

      “You speak so strangely.”

      “The subject is strange. I was at Worcester, you know, at Mary West’s, and we thought he had come. That night I had the pleasantest dream. We were no longer seeking for him; all the anxiety, the distress of that was gone. We saw him; he seemed to be with us—though yet at a distance. When I awoke, I said in my happiness, ‘Ah, those sad dreams will visit me no more, now he is found.’ I thought he was, you see. Since then, though the dreams continue, he is never lost in them. I see him always; we are often talking, though we are never very close together. I will be indoors, perhaps, and he outside in the garden; or maybe I am toiling up a steep hill and he stands higher up. I seem to be always going towards him and he to be waiting for me. And though I never quite reach him, they are happy dreams. It will not be very long first now.”

      I knew what she meant—and had nothing to say to it.

      “Perhaps it may be as well, Johnny,” she went on in speculative thought. “God does all things for the best.”

      “Perhaps what may be as well?”

      “That he should never have come back to marry me. I do not suppose I should have lived long in any case; I am too much like mamma. And to have been left a widower—perhaps—no, it is best as it is.”

      “You don’t give yourself a chance of getting better, Ellin—cherishing these gloomy views.”

      “Gloomy! They are not gloomy. I am as happy as I can be. I often picture to myself the glories of the world I am hastening to; the lovely flowers, the trees that overshadow the banks of the pure crystal river, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, and the beautiful golden light shed around us by God and the Lamb. Oh, Johnny, what a rest it will be after the weary sorrow here—and the weakness—and the pain!”

      “But you should not wish to leave us before your time.”

      “I do not wish it; it is God who is taking me. I think if I had a wish it would be to stay here as long as papa stays. For I know what my death will be to him. And what it will be to you all,” she generously added, holding out her hands to me, as the tears filled her eyes.

      I held them for a minute in mine. Ellin took up her parasol, preparatory to moving away; but laid it down again.

      “Johnny, tell me—I have often thought I should like to ask you—what do you think could have become of William? Have you ever picked up an idea, however faint, of anything that could tend to solve the mystery?”

      It was a hard question to answer, and she saw my hesitation.

      “I cannot admit that I have, Ellin. When looking at the affair in one light, I whisper to myself, ‘It might have been this way;’ when looking at it in another, I say, ‘It might have been that.’ Difficulties and contradictions encompass it on all sides. One impediment to elucidation was the length of time that elapsed before we began the search in earnest. Had we known from the first that he was really lost, and gone to work then, we might have had a better chance.”

      Ellin nodded assent. “Marianne Ashton still maintains that it was William she saw that day at the railway-station.”

      “I know she does. She always will maintain it.”

      “Has it ever struck you, Johnny, in how rather remarkable a way any proof that it was he, or not he, seems to have been withheld?”

      “Well, we could not get at any positive proof, one way or the other.”

      “But I mean that proof seems to have been withheld,” repeated Ellin. “Take, to begin with, the traveller’s luggage: but for its being lost (and we do not know that it was ever found), the name, sure to have been on it, would have told whether its owner was William Brook, or not. Then take Marianne Ashton: had she gained the platform but a few seconds earlier, she would have met the traveller face to face, avoiding all possibility of mistake either way. Next take the meeting of the two gigs that evening when Gregory West was returning from Spetchley. Gregory, a stranger to Worcester until recently, did not know William Brook; but had Philip West himself gone to Spetchley—as he ought to have done—he would have known him. Again, had Philip’s groom, Brian, been there, he would have known him: he comes from this neighbourhood, you know. Brian was going with the gig that afternoon, but just as it was starting Philip got a message from a client living at Lower Wick, and he had to send Brian with the answer, so Gregory went alone. You must see how very near proof was in all these moments, yet it was withheld.”

      Of course I saw it. And there was yet another instance: Had the Squire only pulled up when we passed the gig in Dip Lane, instead of driving on like the wind, we should have had proof that it was, or was not, Brook.

      “If it was he,” breathed Ellin, “it must have been that night he died. He would not, else, keep away from Timberdale.”

      My voice dropped to a lower key than hers. “Ellin! Do you really think it was he with St. George?”

      “Oh, I cannot say that. If any such thought intrudes itself, I drive it away. I do not like St. George, but I would not be unjust to him.”

      “I thought St. George was one of your prime favourites.”

      “He was never that. He used to be very kind to me, especially after William went away, and I liked him for it. But latterly I have taken a most unreasonable dislike to him—and really without any justifiable cause. He worries me—but it is not that.”

      “Worries you!”

      “In СКАЧАТЬ