Johnny Ludlow, Fourth Series. Mrs. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ scenes, which he would carry me to, my health might be re-established. Poor papa! Only the other day he said to me, ‘My dear, don’t you think you might bring yourself to try it,’ and I was so silly as to burst into tears. The tears came into papa’s eyes too, and he promised never to suggest it to me again.”

      The tears were trickling down her cheeks, now as she spoke. “What a world of crosses and contradiction it is!” she cried, smiling through them as she rose. “And, Johnny, all this is between ourselves, remember.”

      Yes, it was between ourselves. We strolled across the churchyard to a tomb that stood in a corner facing the western sun. It was of white marble, aromatic shrubs encircling it within ornamental railings, and an inscription on it to her who lay beneath—“Maria, the beloved wife of John Delorane.”

      Ellin lingered on through the frosts of winter. Except that she grew thinner and weaker and her cheeks brighter, there really did not seem to be much the matter. Darbyshire saw her every day, other medical men occasionally, but they could not save her. When the snowdrops were peeping from the ground, and the violets nestled in their mossy shelters, and the trees and hedges began to show signs of budding, tokens of the renewal of life after the death of winter, Ellin passed away to that other life, where there is no death and the flowers bloom for ever. And another inscription was added to the white tombstone in the churchyard—“Ellin Maria, the only child of John and Maria Delorane.”

      “You should have seen St. George at the funeral,” said Tom Coney to us, as we turned aside after church one hot summer’s day to look at the new name on grave, for we were away from Crabb Cot when she died. “His face was green; yes, green—hold your tongue, Johnny!—green, not yellow; and his eyes had the queerest look. You were right, Todhetley; you used to say, you know, that St. George was wild after poor Ellin.”

      “Positive of it,” affirmed Tod.

      “And he can’t bear the place now she’s gone out of it,” continued Tom Coney. “Report says that he means to throw up his post and his prospects, and run away for good.”

      “Not likely,” dissented Tod, tossing his head. “A strong man like St. George does not die of love nowadays, or put himself out of good things, either. You have been reading romances, Coney.”

      But Tom Coney was right. When the summer was on the wane St. George bade a final adieu to Timberdale. And if it was his love for Ellin, or her death, that drove him away, he made no mention of it. He told Timberdale that he was growing tired of work and meant to travel. As he had a good income, Timberdale agreed that it was only natural he should grow tired of work and want to travel. So he said adieu, and departed: and Mr. Delorane speedily engaged another head-clerk in his place, who was to become his partner later.

      St. George wrote to Sir. Delorane from Jamaica, to which place he steamed first, to take a look at his cousins. The letter contained a few words about William Brook. St. George had been instituting inquiries, and he said that, by what he could learn, it was certainly William Brook who was drowned in Kingston harbour the day before he ought to have sailed for England in the Dart. He, St. George, felt perfectly assured of this fact, and also that if any man had sailed in the Idalia under Brook’s name, it must have been an impostor who had nefariously substituted himself. St. George added that he was going “farther afield,” possibly to California: he would write again from thence if he arrived without mishap.

      No other letter ever came from him. So whether the sea swallowed him up, as, according to his report, it had swallowed his rival, none could tell. But it would take better evidence than that, to convince us William Brook had not come home in the Idalia.

      And that is all I have to tell. I know you will deem it most unsatisfactory. Was it William Brook in the gig, or was it not? We found no trace of him after that stormy night: we have found none to this day. And, whether that was he, or was not he, what became of him? Questions never, as I believe, to be solved in this life.

      There was a peculiar absence of proof every way, as Ellin remarked; nothing but doubt on all sides. Going over the matter with Darbyshire the other evening, when, as I have already told you, he suggested that I should relate it, we could not, either of us, see daylight through it, any more than we saw it at the time of its occurrence.

      There was the certainty (yes, I say so) that Brook landed at Liverpool the evening of the 18th of October; he would no doubt start for home the morning of the 19th, by rail, which would take him through Birmingham to Worcester; there was also what the shopwoman in Bold Street said, though hers might be called negative testimony, as well as the lady’s in the train. There was Mrs. James Ashton’s positive belief that she saw him arrive that afternoon at Worcester by the Birmingham train, shake hands with St. George and talk with him: and there was our recognition of him an hour or two later in St. George’s gig in Dip Lane——

      “Hold there, Johnny,” cried Darbyshire, taking his long clay pipe from his mouth to interrupt me as I went over the items. “You should say supposed recognition.”

      “Yes, of course. Well, all that points to its having been Brook: you must see that, Mr. Darbyshire. But, if it was in truth he, there’s a great deal that seems inexplicable. Why did he set off to walk from Worcester to Timberdale—and on such a night!—why not have gone on by rail? It is incredible.”

      “Nay, lad, we are told he—that is, the traveller—set off to walk to Evesham. St. George says he put him down in Dip Lane; and Lockett, you know, saw somebody, that seems to answer the description, turn from the lanes into the Evesham road.”

      I was silent, thinking out my thoughts. Or, rather, not daring to think them out. Darbyshire put his pipe in the fender and went on.

      “If it was Brook and no stranger that St. George met at Worcester Station, the only possible theory I can form on that point is this, Johnny: that St. George then proposed to drive him home. He may have said to him, ‘You walk on, and I will get my gig and overtake you directly:’ it is a lame theory, you may say, lad, but it is the only one I can discern, and I have thought of the matter more than you suppose. St. George started for home earlier than he had meant to start, and this may have been the reason: though he says it was because he saw it was going to be so wild a night. Why they should not have gone in company to the Hare-and-Hounds, and started thence, in the gig together, is another question.”

      “Unless Brook, being done up, wished not to show himself at Worcester that day—to get on at once to Timberdale.”

      Darbyshire nodded: the thought, I am sure, was not strange to him. “The most weighty question of all remains yet, lad: If St. George took up Brook in his gig, what did he do with him? He would not want to be put down in Dip Lane to walk to Evesham.”

      He caught up his churchwarden pipe, relighted it at the fire, and puffed away in silence. Presently I spoke again.

      “Mr. Darbyshire, I do not like St. George. I never did. You may not believe me, perhaps, but the first time I ever saw his face—I was a little fellow—I drew back startled. There was something in its expression which frightened me.”

      “One of your unreasonable dislikes, Johnny?”

      “Are they unreasonable? But I have not taken many such dislikes in my life as that one was. Perhaps I might say any such.”

      “St. George was liked by most people.”

      “I know he was. Any way, my dislike remained with me. I never spoke of it; no, not even to Tod.”

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