Chapter 122
"No, sir," with some hesitation.
"Can you give me her address? I am her brother. This lady is her mother, and we are very anxious to find her."
The photographer was gained by the frank address and manner. "I am sorry," he said, "but the truth is that there was a monster excitement about the disappearance of the girl, and as Mrs. Harte was said to have been concerned, there was constant resort to the studio to interview her; and I cannot but think she treated me ill, sir, for she quitted me at an hour's notice."
"And left no address?" exclaimed her mother, grievously disappointed.
"Not with me, madam; but she was intimate with a young lady employed in our establishment, and she may know where to find her."
And, through a tube, the photographer issued a summons, which resulted in the appearance of a pleasant-looking girl, who, on hearing that Mrs.
Harte's mother and brother were in search of her, readily responded that Mrs. Harte had written to her a month ago from Philadelphia, asking her to forward to her any letters that might come to the room she usually occupied at New York. She had found employment, and there could be no doubt that she would be heard of there.
It was very near now. There was something very soothing in the services of that Sunday of waiting, when the Church seemed a home on the other side the sea, and on the Monday they were on their way, hearing, but scarcely heeding, the talk in the cars of the terrible yellow-fever visitation then beginning at New Orleans.
They arrived too late to do anything, but in early morning they were on foot, breakfasting with the first relay of guests at the hotel, and inquiring their way along the broad tree-planted streets of the old Quaker city.
It was again at a photograph shop that they paused, but as they were looking for the number, the private door opened, and there issued from it a grey figure, with a black hat, and a bag in her hand. She stood on the step, they on the side-walk. She had a thin, worn, haggard face, a strange, grey look about it, but when the eyes met on either side there was not a moment's doubt.
There was not much demonstration. Caroline held out her hand, and Janet let hers be locked tight into it. Jock took her bag from her, and they went two or three paces together as in a dream, till Jock spoke first.
"Where are we going? Can we come back with you, Janet, or will you come to the hotel with us?"
"I was just leaving my rooms," she said. "I was on my way to the station."
"You will come with me," said Caroline under her breath; and Janet pa.s.sively let herself be led along, her mother unconsciously holding her painfully fast.
So they reached the hotel, and then Jock said, "I shall go and read the papers; send a message for me if you want me. You had rather be left to yourselves."
The mother knew not how she reached her bedroom, but once there, and with the door locked, she turned with open arms. "Oh! Janet, one kiss!"
and Janet slid down on the floor before her, hiding her face in her dress and sobbing, "Oh! mother, mother, I am not worthy of this!"
Then Caroline flung herself down by her, and gathered her into her arms, and Janet rested her head on her shoulder for some seconds, each sensible of little save absolute content.
"And you have come all this way for me?" whispered Janet, at last raising her head to gaze at the face.
"I did so long after you! My poor, poor child, how you have suffered,"
said Caroline, drawing through her fingers the thin, worn, bony, hard-worked hand.
"I deserved a thousand times more," said Janet. "But it seems all gone since I see you, mother. And if you forgive, I can hope G.o.d forgives too."
"My child, my child," and as the strong embrace, and the kiss was on her brow, Janet lay still once more in the strange rest and relief. "It is very strange," she said. "I thought the sight of you would wither me with shame, but somehow there's no room for anything but happiness."
Renewed caresses, for her mother was past speaking.
"And Lucas is with you? Not Babie?"
"No, Babie is left with Mrs. Evelyn."
"So poor little Elvira came safe home?"
"Yes, and is Mrs. Allen Brownlow. Poor child, you rescued her from a sad fate. She believed to the last you were coming
Janet went on asking questions about the others. Her mother dreaded to put any, and only replied. Janet asked where they had been living, and she answered:
"In the old house, while the two Johns have been studying medicine."
"Not Lucas?" cried Janet, sitting upright in her surprise.
"Yes, Lucas. The dear fellow gave up all his prospects in the army, because he thought it would be more helpful to me for him to take this line, and he has pa.s.sed so well, Janet. He has got the silver medal, and his essay was the prize one."
"And--" Janet stood up and walked to the window, as she said "and you have told him--"
"Yes. But, Janet, it was too late. Some hints of your father's had been followed up, and the main discovery worked out, though not perfected."
Janet's eyes glistened for a moment as they used to do in angry excitement, and she asked, "Could he bear it?"
"He was chiefly concerned lest I should be disappointed. Then he reminded me that the benefit to mankind had come all the sooner."
"Ah!" said Janet with a gasp, "there's the difference!" She did not explain further, but said, "It has not poisoned his life!"
Then seeking in her bag, she took out a packet. "I wish you to know all about it, mother," she said. "I wrote this to send home by Elvira, but then my heart failed me. It was well, since she lost my note. I kept it, and when I did not hear from you, I thought I would leave it to be posted when all was over with me. I should like you to read it, and I will tell you anything else you like to know."
There came the interruption of the hotel luncheon, after which a room was engaged for Janet, and the use of a private parlour secured for the afternoon and evening. Jock came and went. He was very much excited about the frightful reports he heard of the ravages of yellow fever in the south, and went in search of medical papers and reports. Janet directed him where to seek them. "I was just starting to offer myself as an attendant," she said. "I shall still go, to-morrow."
"You? Oh, Janet, not now!" was her mother's first exclamation.
"You will understand when you have read," quietly said Janet.
All that afternoon, according to her manifest wish, her mother was reading that confession of hers, while she sat by replying to each question or comment, in the repose of a confidence such as had not existed for fifteen years.
"Magnum Bonum," wrote Janet. "So my father named it. Alas! it has been Magnum Malum to me. I have thought over how the evil began. I think it must have been when I brooded over the words I caught at my father's death-bed, instead of confessing to my mother that I had overheard them.
It might be reserve and dread of her grief, but it was not wholly so.
I did not respect her as I ought in my childish conceit. I was an old-fas.h.i.+oned girl. Grandmamma treated her like a petted eldest child, and I had not learnt to look up to her with any loyalty. My uncle and aunt too, even while seeming to uphold her authority, betrayed how cheaply they held her."
"No wonder," said Caroline. "I was a very foolish creature then."
"I saw you differently too late," said Janet. "Thus unchecked by any sober word, my imagination went on dwelling on those words, which represented to me an arcanum as wonderful as any elixir of life that alchemists dream of, and I was always figuring to myself the honour and glory of the discovery, and fretting that it was destined to one of my brothers rather than myself. Even then, I had some notion of excelling them, and fretted at our residence at Kenminster because I was cut off from cla.s.ses and lectures. Then came the fortune, and I saw at the first glance that wealth would hinder all the others, even Robert, from attempting to fulfil the conditions, and I imagined myself persevering and winning the day. As to the concealment of the will, I can honestly say that, to my inexperienced fancy, it appeared utterly unlike my father's and grandmother's, and at the moment I hid it, I only thought of the disturbance and discomfort, which scruples of my mother's would create, and the unpleasantness it would make with Elvira, with whom I had just been quarrelling. When as I grew older, and found the validity of wills did not depend on the paper they were written upon, I had qualms which I lulled by thinking that when my education was safe, and Elvira safely married to Allen, I would look again and then bring it to light, if needful. My mother's refusal to commit the secret to me on any terms entirely alienated me, I am grieved to say. I have learnt since that she was quite right, and that she could not help it. It was only my ignorance that rebelled; but I was enraged enough to have produced the will, and perhaps should have done so, if I had not been afraid both of losing my own medical training, and of causing Robert to take up that line, in which I knew he could succeed better than anyone."
"Janet, this must be fancy!"
"No, mother. There's no poison like a blessing turned into a curse. This is the secret history of what made me such a disagreeable, morose girl.
"Then came the opportunity that enabled me to glance at the book of my father's notes. Barbara's eyes made me lock the desk in haste and confusion. It was really and truly accident that I locked the book out instead of in. As you know, Barbara hid away the davenport, and I could not restore the book, when I had pored over it half the night, and found myself quite incompetent to understand the details, though I perceived the main drift. I durst not take the book out of the house, and the loss of my keys cut me off from access to it. Meantime I studied, and came to the perception that a woman alone could never carry out the needful experiments, I must have a man to help me, but I was too much warped by this time to see how my mother was thus justified. I still looked on her as insanely depriving me of my glory, the world of the benefit for a mere narrow scruple. Then I fell in with Demetrius Hermann. How can I tell the story? How he seemed to me the wisest and acutest of human beings, the very man to a.s.sist in the discovery, and how I betrayed to him enough by my questions to make him think me a prize, both for my secret and my fortune. He says I deceived him. Perhaps I did. Any way, we are quits. No, not quite, for I loved him as I should not have thought it in me to love anyone, and the very joy and gladness of the sensation made me see with his eyes, or else be preposterously blind.
I think his southern imagination made his expectations of the secret unreasonable, and I followed his bidding blindly and implicitly in my two attempts to bring off Magnum Bonum, which I had come to believe my right, unjustly withheld from me. The second attempt, as you know, ended in the general crash.
"Afterwards, all the overtures were made by my husband. I would not share in them. I was too proud and would not come as a beggar, or see him threaten and cringe as unhappily I knew he could do, nor would I be seen by my mother or brothers. I knew they would begin to pity me, and I could not brook that. My mother's a.s.surance of exposure, if he made any use of the stolen secret, made Demetrius choose to go to America.