Mrs. Bellbridge eyed her husband, prepared for a furious outbreak of rage. He stood silent, staring stupidly straight before him. The shock that had fallen on his dull brain had stunned it. For the time, he was a big idiot — speechless, harmless, helpless.
She put back the rubbish, and replaced the plank, and picked up the chisel. “Come, James,” she said; “pull yourself together.” It was useless to speak to him. She took his arm and led him out to the cab that was waiting at the door.
The driver, helping him to get in, noticed a piece of paper lying on the front seat. Advertisements, seeking publicity under all possible circumstances, are occasionally sent flying into the open windows of vehicles. The driver was about to throw the paper away, when Mrs. Bellbridge (seeing it on the other side) took it out of his hand. “It isn’t print,” she said; “it’s writing.” A closer examination showed that the writing was addressed to herself. Her correspondent must have followed her to the church, as well as to the house in St. John’s Wood. He distinguished her by the name which she had changed that morning, under the sanction of the clergy and the law.
This was what she read: “Don’t trouble yourself, madam, about the diamonds. You have made a mistake — you have employed the wrong man.”
Those words — and no more. Enough, surely, to justify the conclusion that he had stolen the diamonds. Was it worth while to drive to his lodgings? They tried the experiment. The Expert had gone away on business — nobody knew where.
The newspaper came as usual on Friday morning. To Mrs. Bellbridge’s amazement it set the question of the theft at rest, on the highest authority. An article appeared, in a conspicuous position, thus expressed:
“Another of the many proofs that truth is stranger than fiction has just occurred at Liverpool. A highly respected firm of shipwreckers in that city received a strange letter at the beginning of the present week. Premising that he had some remarkable circumstances to communicate, the writer of the letter entered abruptly on the narrative which follows: A friend of his — connected with literature — had, it appeared, noticed a lady’s visiting card on his desk, and had been reminded by it (in what way it was not necessary to explain) of a criminal case which had excited considerable public interest at the time; viz., the trial of Captain Westerfield for willfully casting away a ship under his command. Never having heard of the trial, the writer, at his friend’s suggestion, consulted a file of newspapers — discovered the report — and became aware, for the first time, that a collection of Brazilian diamonds, consigned to the Liverpool firm, was missing from the wrecked vessel when she had been boarded by the salvage party, and had not been found since. Events, which it was impossible for him to mention (seeing that doing so would involve a breach of confidence placed in him in his professional capacity), had revealed to his knowledge a hiding-place in which these same diamonds, in all probability, were concealed. This circumstance had left him no alternative, as an honest man, but to be beforehand with the persons, who (as he believed) contemplated stealing the precious stones. He had, accordingly, taken them under his protection, until they were identified and claimed by the rightful owners. In now appealing to these gentlemen, he stipulated that the claim should be set forth in writing, addressed to him under initials at a post-office in London. If the lost property was identified to his satisfaction, he would meet — at a specified place and on a certain day and hour — a person accredited by the firm and would personally restore the diamonds, without claiming (or consenting to receive) a reward. The conditions being complied with, this remarkable interview took place; the writer of the letter, described as an infirm old man very poorly dressed, fulfilled his engagement, took his receipt, and walked away without even waiting to be thanked. It is only an act of justice to add that the diamonds were afterward counted, and not one of them was missing.”
Miserable, deservedly-miserable married pair. The stolen fortune, on which they had counted, had slipped through their fingers. The berths in the steamer for New York had been taken and paid for. James had married a woman with nothing besides herself to bestow on him, except an incumbrance in the shape of a boy.
Late on the fatal wedding-day his first idea, when he was himself again after the discovery in the summer-house, was to get back his passage-money, to abandon his wife and his stepson, and to escape to America in a French steamer. He went to the office of the English company, and offered the places which he had taken for sale. The season of the year was against him; the passenger-traffic to America was at its lowest ebb, and profits depended upon freights alone.
If he still contemplated deserting his wife, he must also submit to sacrifice his money. The other alternative was (as he expressed it himself) to “have his pennyworth for his penny, and to turn his family to good account in New York.” He had not quite decided what to do when he got home again on the evening of his marriage.
At that critical moment in her life the bride was equal to the demand on her resources.
If she was foolish enough to allow James to act on his natural impulses, there were probably two prospects before her. In one state of his temper, he might knock her down. In another state of his temper, he might leave her behind him. Her only hope of protecting herself, in either case, was to tame the bridegroom. In his absence, she wisely armed herself with the most irresistible fascinations of her sex. Never yet had he seen her dressed as she was dressed when he came home. Never yet had her magnificent eyes looked at him as they looked now. Emotions for which he was not prepared overcame this much injured man; he stared at the bride in helpless surprise. That inestimable moment of weakness was all Mrs. Bellbridge asked for. Bewildered by his own transformation, James found himself reading the newspaper the next morning sentimentally, with his arm round his wife’s waist.
By a refinement of cruelty, not one word had been said to prepare little Syd for the dreary change that was now close at hand in her young life. The poor child had seen the preparations for departure, and had tried to imitate her mother in packing up. She had collected her few morsels of darned and ragged clothing, and had gone upstairs to put them into one of the dilapidated old trunks in the garret play ground, when the servant was sent to bring her back to the sitting-room. There, enthroned in an easy-chair, sat a strange lady; and there, hiding behind the chair in undisguised dislike of the visitor, was her little brother Roderick. Syd looked timidly at her mother; and her mother said:
“Here is your aunt.”
The personal appearance of Miss Wigger might have suggested a modest distrust of his own abilities to Lavater, when that self-sufficient man wrote his famous work on Physiognomy. Whatever betrayal of her inner self her face might have presented, in the distant time when she was young, was now completely overlaid by a surface of a flabby fat which, assisted by green spectacles, kept the virtues (or vices) of this woman’s nature a profound secret until she opened her lips. When she used her voice, she let out the truth. Nobody could hear her speak, and doubt for a moment that she was an inveterately ill-natured woman.
“Make your curtsey, child!” said Miss Wigger. Nature had so toned her voice as to make it worthy of the terrors of her face. But for her petticoats, it would have been certainly taken for the voice of a man.
The child obeyed, trembling.
“You are to go away with me,” the school-mistress proceeded, “and to be taught to make yourself useful under my roof.”
Syd seemed to be incapable of understanding the fate that was in store for her. She sheltered herself behind her merciless mother. “I’m going away with you, mamma,” she said —“with you and Rick.”
Her mother took her by the shoulders, and pushed her across the room to her aunt.
The child looked at the formidable female creature with the man’s voice and the green spectacles.
“You belong to me,” said Miss Wigger, by way of encouragement, “and I have come to take you away.” At those dreadful words, terror shook little Syd from head to foot. She fell on her knees with a cry of misery that might have melted the heart of a savage. “Oh, mamma, mamma, don’t leave me behind! What have I done to deserve it? Oh, pray, pray, pray have some pity on me!”
Her mother was as selfish and as cruel a woman as ever lived. But even her hard heart felt faintly the influence of the most intimate and most sacred of all human relationships. Her florid cheeks turned pale. She hesitated.
Miss Wigger marked (through her own green medium) that moment of maternal indecision — and saw that it was time to assert her experience as an instructress of youth.
“Leave it to me,” she said to her sister. “You never did know, and you never will know, how to manage children.”
She advanced. The child threw herself shrieking on the floor. Miss Wigger’s long arms caught her up — held her — shook her. “Be quiet, you imp!” It was needless to tell her to be quiet. Syd’s little curly head sank on the schoolmistress’s shoulder. She was carried into exile without a word or a cry — she had fainted.
10.— The School.
Time’s march moves slowly, where weary lives languish in dull places.
Dating from one unkempt and unacknowledged birthday to another, Sydney Westerfield had attained the sixth year of her martyrdom at School. In that long interval no news of her mother, her brother, or her stepfather had reached England; she had received no letter, she had not even heard a report. Without friends, and without prospects, Roderick Westerfield’s daughter was, in the saddest sense of the word, alone in the world.
The hands of the ugly old clock in the school-room were approaching the time when the studies of the morning would come to an end. Wearily waiting for their release, the scholars saw an event happen which was a novelty in their domestic experience. The maid-of-all-work audaciously put her head in at the door, and interrupted Miss Wigger conducting the education of the first-class.
“If you please, miss, there’s a gentleman —”
Having uttered these introductory words, she was reduced to silence by the tremendous voice of her mistress.
“Haven’t I forbidden you to come here in school hours? Go away directly!”
Hardened by a life of drudgery, under conditions of perpetual scolding, the servant stood her ground, and recovered the use of her tongue.
“There’s a gentleman in the drawing-room,” she persisted. Miss Wigger tried to interrupt her again. “And here’s his card!” she shouted, in a voice that was the louder of the two.
Being a mortal creature, the schoolmistress was accessible to the promptings of curiosity. She snatched the card out of the girl’s hand.
Mr. Herbert Linley, Mount Morven, Perthshire. “I don’t know this person,” Miss Wigger declared. “You wretch, have you let a thief into the house?”
“A gentleman, if ever I see one yet,” the servant asserted.
“Hold your tongue! Did he ask for me? Do you hear?”
“You told me to hold my tongue. No; he didn’t ask for you.”
“Then who did he want to see?”
“It’s on his card.”
Miss Wigger referred to the card again, and discovered (faintly traced in pencil) these words: “To see Miss S.W.”
The schoolmistress instantly looked at Miss Westerfield. Miss Westerfield rose from her place at the head of her class.
The pupils, astonished at this daring act, all looked at the teacher — their natural enemy, appointed to supply them with undesired information derived from hated books. They............