‘Are these all the guests of your Dorcas meeting?’ asked Alexander. ‘Or are the Edgeworths to be here?’
‘I am sure they will be here,’ said Dulcia. ‘They are not the people to shirk what is in their way. That is not the effect that breeding and knowledge of the world have had upon them. They will come out with their faces turned to the music, if I know them: and I know them well.’
‘Why, is there any music for them to face?’
‘The hardest music of all, the music of slandering tongues. But if you do not know, Mr Burtenshaw, remain in ignorance. It is a case where ignorance is bliss. I could find it in my heart to envy you.’
‘Speak out plainly, I adjure you. It is no case of bliss to be half told, and then put off. I can’t do with whispering and clapping of hands to mouths. I only imagine things worse than the truth.’
‘They have already been imagined,’ said his daughter.
‘Rosamund,’ said Alexander, resorting to an earlier phrase, ‘if you do not speak plainly at once, you will be disobeying me.’
‘I think there is some rumour about Mr and Mrs Edgeworth’s causing the death of the child,’ said Beatrice, in a low tone. 264
‘The death of the child? The son they have lost? I thought it was something about Edgeworth’s not being the father, something in that line. I didn’t know there was anything else in the wind; I haven’t caught a breath.’
‘If that is what he thought, it was a strange thing to require his daughter to explain,’ said Miss Burtenshaw, shrugging her shoulders rather hopelessly.
‘We all require such things explained,’ said Fabian.
‘Well, now,’ said Alexander, ‘then this comes first. Was Edgeworth the father of the boy? Well, if he was not, what is it to do with us? You can go on driving yourself mad and getting nothing. Rosamund, put it out of your mind. It is not a fit thing for you to think about.’
‘Certainly not, if we can’t get certainty,’ said Fabian. ‘It would be too much for any woman.’
‘It is only fit for me to speak about,’ said Miss Burtenshaw, with a light and resigned sigh.
‘Well, but the next thing is involved with the first,’ went on her father. ‘A couple know a child is not their own, and prevent their child from inheriting; well, it is easy to see how the rumour arose. But it is all conjecture; we can’t be satisfied. And we must remember there are ladies in the room.’
‘These afterthoughts, Father!’
‘Satisfied is not the word I should use, Uncle.’
‘Well, I would, in the sense I was using it. You don’t know the meaning of words. And you all seem pretty satisfied in the other sense.’
‘We are not that, because we may speak the truth. Truth never does harm.’
‘That is untrue,’ said Florence; ‘but truth will do no harm in this case, if we can get at it.’
265‘I wonder what we should do, if we found the rumour was true,’ said Dulcia. ‘Would it be going too far to imagine it for a moment, for the sake of getting a morbid shiver?’
‘It would be a waste of time,’ said Florence.
‘You are right, Mrs Smollett. It was a skunkish suggestion.’
‘Well, I suppose the rumour will die away, and nothing come of it,’ said Alexander.
‘We do not wish anything to come of it, Father.’
‘I am sure I don’t; I am not one for hinting and suggesting, and gloating over the truth, what would be almost welcomed as the truth, anyhow.’
‘You are right, Mrs Smollett,’ said Dulcia. ‘My foolish words did harm.’
There was silence.
‘Now I think what we all want to do,’ said Dulcia, ‘is to bear witness to our belief in the innocence of the Edgeworths, in thought, word, and deed. Hands up, all who hold that belief!’
Some members lifted hands, and perceiving the response was not unanimous, dropped them, smiling at themselves. Mrs Bode supported her daughter, who stood with an air of leadership. Florence turned away, and her husband jotted something in his notebook, as if unaware of the proceedings. Alexander flung up his hand, and leaned back to maintain the position.
‘Mrs Smollett, you second us?’ said Dulcia. ‘You of all people the friend of our friends! Your support was a sine qua non.’
‘That is what it is,’ said Florence.
Fabian shut his book and put it in his pocket.
‘Mrs Smollett, it was well meant,’ said Dulcia in a faltering tone. ‘I felt I owed some atonement.’
‘I owed none.’
266‘So your suspicions have made you a great game!’ said a voice at the door, as Gretchen entered with her son.
There was silence.
‘I suppose we could hear a pin drop,’ muttered Fabian to his wife. ‘But nobody seems to drop one.’
‘We did not see you, dear Mrs Jekyll,’ said Dulcia.
‘A difficult and thankless part, the pin,’ said Fabian.
‘It was I who saw you.’
‘Then you saw us bearing witness to our belief in your daughter and her husband.’
‘You found it noble in yourselves to acquit your friends of what you put on to them. It shows you are not far from the same thing.’
‘Mrs Jekyll, you are not yourself,’ said Dulcia, guiding Gretchen to a seat, and proffering a cup of tea as though to a patient.
‘This goes a long way to mend matters.’
‘There are no matters to mend. Rumours and reports arise, and have no more in them than a cloud of dust. We were dispelling the cloud, when you came. I vouch for it that the last particles vanished, as you entered.’
‘That is how I caught a glimpse of them, I suppose.’
‘Mrs Smollett, I ask for your help. You can swear that no breath of scandal attaches to our friends?’
‘I had not thought of scandal in that connexion.’
Beatrice came up with tea for Oscar.
‘That is the way, my dear,’ said her uncle. ‘You do what you can, and set an example.’
‘I hardly think Mrs Jekyll would thank us, if we all followed her example,’ said his daughter, laughing.
267 ‘I would show the spirit was willing.’
‘But the flesh is weak, Father dear.’
‘Thank you. It is sugared, is it?’ said Oscar.
‘One large lump and one small, and a tablespoonful of milk,’ said Beatrice, moving away.
‘I don’t wonder you are definite about it, Mr Jekyll,’ said Dulcia. ‘It is the one break you have in a long stretch of duty.’
‘Meals come in all lives,’ said Gretchen.
‘Mrs Jekyll, you are yourself. Hail to your authentic touch!’
‘Here are the Edgeworths!’ said Alexander.
Duncan and his wife and daughter entered, with Grant and Sibyl in the rear.
‘You are in time to know the hearts of your friends,’ said Gretchen at once. ‘They have acquitted you of the death of your child, after accusing you of it.’
‘It sounds as if it had been a waste of time,’ said Nance.
‘Who could think a friend would cause the death of a child?’ said Sibyl. ‘It is a contradiction in terms.’
‘The contradiction was not as sound as that,’ said Gretchen.
‘There has been some village gossip, has there?’ said Duncan.
‘Mr Edgeworth,’ said Dulcia, ‘that is what there has been. The merest, lightest gossip, blown away like a piece of thistledown. It had been dispersed when you entered. It was the final dispersing that Mrs Jekyll saw.’
‘Thistledown in dispersing goes a good many ways,’ said Gretchen.
‘I should like to go into the village,’ said Dulcia, ‘and bruit your fair name abroad from one end to the other, to leave no corner unpenetrated by the light of your house. Woe would be to him who should gainsay me!’
268‘Let us leave the village its rumours,’ said Sibyl. ‘This one is not the first or the last. Don’t deprive the bumpkins of their diversions.’
‘No one in his mind would give an ear to rumour about your family,’ said Alexander. ‘I am one of the ordinary people, and I swear to it.’
‘I am not that. No, no,’ said Fabian.
‘All this swearing!’ said Beatrice, with a wryness in her smile.
‘Well, we will say “Yea, yea”, and “Nay, nay”,’ said Alexander.
‘Burtenshaw should beware of family influence,’ said Oscar to Nance.
‘Should the work of the meeting be going on, or is it a social occasion?’ said Duncan. ‘We wished to accept your invitation, but not to hinder your routine.’
‘Thank you, Mr Edgeworth,’ said Miss Burtenshaw; ‘I don’t know when the orphanage will get its winter petticoats, if we go on like this.’
‘We hope before the winter,’ said Duncan.
‘Beatrice, you and I must set an example.’
‘I have been going on with a petticoat in the intervals,’ said Beatrice, lifting the garment.
‘One orphan off our minds,’ said Fabian.
‘Grant, you are silent this afternoon,’ said Dulcia. ‘And as for Mrs Edgeworth, if I may be Irish, there has not been a sound out of her this blessed day.’
‘Mrs Edgeworth,’ said Alexander, ‘Dulcia is right. We are waiting to hear your voice. We want to hear it as much as we have ever wanted to.’
‘Thistledown is in the air,’ said Gretchen. ‘It does hang about.’
‘We should be going,’ said Cassie.
269 ‘We also should be putting things together,’ said Beatrice, expressing her departure in its own terms. ‘We have not done much. I must ask permission to take my petticoat home.’
‘I will take mine,’ said Mrs Bode.
‘Now, Mother, don’t undertake more than you will carry out,’ said Dulcia, with serious warning.
‘The petticoat will be none the worse for a change of air,’ said Fabian.
‘Dr Smollett, you would be surprised how much worse they are. That is why we had to instigate the system of permission.’
‘I do not understand the constitution of a petticoat.’
‘Not its pre-natal one, anyhow,’ said Dulcia, clearly.
‘Shall I take mine?’ said Florence, looking at it.
‘I will not have one about,’ said her husband. ‘They are puny things and outside my sphere of knowledge.’
‘No, do not ask me, Rosamund,’ said Dulcia, putting her hands behind her. ‘I am going to be firm. I know I should not touch it, and I will not enter upon the farce of taking it. And one petticoat is enough in a family.’
‘All this running off without a thought for the orphans!’ said Fabian.
‘I am quite stiff with sitting for so long,’ said Alexander.
‘There was no reason for you to stay,’ said his daughter.
‘Oh, wasn’t there? There was then,’ said Alexander, putting his face close to hers. ‘There was that scrap with old Gretchen. It had me petrified. I can’t get it out of my head.’
‘I don’t care to have it in my head,’ said Florence.
‘Mrs Smollett,’ said Dulcia, ‘would you say we gave our friends the impression that we wholeheartedly believed in them?’
‘I should say I did, and that is my concern.’
270‘We could wish Mrs Smollett were less aloof,’ said Beatrice, smiling.
The Edgeworths and Gretchen walked away together.
‘Things have gone far,’ said Nance. ‘How far, I suppose we shall never be told.’
Duncan proceeded in silence, his breath deep.
‘What impossible things come into people’s minds!’ said Sibyl. ‘Who would guess the thoughts of decent men and women?’
‘People commit crimes for small reasons,’ said Gretchen, ‘and I suppose they realize it. They never think other people far from themselves.’
‘Father, don’t listen,’ said Sibyl. ‘People are not as bad as that. They only liked to gossip. Our friends are as good as we are. We will not be left with no faith in anyone or anything.’
‘I am going to the village shop,’ said Cassie. ‘Mother and I will follow.’
The mother and daughter entered the shop, and as they approached the counter, a woman drew back to give them place.
‘It is Marshall!’ said Cassie. ‘I have wondered if we should meet again. Tell me what you can of yourself, Marshall. I have wished I had followed your movements.’
‘I am here for a while, ma’am, to see my friends, before I go away to be married.’
‘I have been married without going away. And Miss Sibyl is married to Mr Grant. I expect you have heard of our changes and our troubles?’
‘Yes, ma’am; everyone has told me how it is different.’
‘Don’t let us take your place,’ said Gretchen; ‘we must follow in turn.’
271The woman took a money order from an envelope and asked to have it changed. The others recognized the envelope as the counterpart of that which Sibyl had dropped on the night of her return. This one bore a postmark, but no other difference.
‘Have you heard from Miss Sibyl lately?’ said Gretchen.
‘I do not hear from anyone, ma’am. I thought I was forgotten.’
‘You must come and see them all, and tell them of the man you are to marry. Why not come with us to-day? Bygones are bygones, and we will none of us throw up the past. You are right that all is different.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Marshall, putting away her change.
‘You are rich,’ said Gretchen, with a smile, seeing other orders in the envelope.
‘I earned the money, ma’am,’ said the woman, drawing back.
‘I should like you to have some things of Richard’s,’ said Cassie, as they reached the house. ‘You were fond of him, and you may find them useful in the future.’
‘Thank you, ma’am. I was sorry to leave him, and didn’t think I ought; but I shouldn’t have met the man, if I had stayed; and it is him I think of now.’
‘All’s well that ends well,’ said Gretchen. ‘The man will last you longer. Now you will have tea here with us, and go down later with Bethia.’
‘I will fetch the things,’ said Cassie. ‘They are in the nursery chest.’
‘Can I go for you, ma’am? You will want to pour out tea. I shall be down in a minute.’
‘Does she know where to go?’ said Gretchen. ‘The nursery has been changed. Did you tell her it was a storey higher?’ She 272 broke off as her daughter did not hear, and listened to the steps mounting the stairs.
‘Come with me, Cassie,’ said she in another manner. ‘I shall not keep you long. Don’t question me. Do as I say.’
Cassie obeyed by earlier habit an earlier tone, and they entered the room where Marshall was standing at the chest.
‘Well, this is an ill-fated room,’ said Gretchen, sitting down. ‘We will not leave you alone in it. You have heard of the thing that happened here?’
‘Yes, ma’am, I have; the poor little boy!’
‘The nurse was more careless than you would have been. She left him asleep with the windows shut. He could never have fastened them himself.’
‘No, ma’am, not with those latches.’
‘But he must have turned on the gas.’
‘Yes, ma’am, he must,’ said Marshall, moving to glance at the fittings behind the cupboard. ‘That is what it must have been.’
‘There was no gas in the house when you were here?’
‘No, ma’am. I went to the housemaid’s sink for hot water. I call the nurse fortunate now.’
Gretchen went to the door and locked it, and returned with the key.
‘So you succeeded the first time?’ she said.
Marshall stared at her, barely following.
‘You only tried once?’ said Gretchen, looking almost quizzically into her face.
The woman recoiled, her eyes held.
‘Now listen,’ said Gretchen, restraining Cassie, who gave a cry and started forward. ‘If you do not tell the truth, you are in the last danger. If you tell it, you are safe. You understand?’
273Marshall bent her head, her eyes on the old woman’s.
‘You need not look at me as if I were a snake. There are people nearer to that. I see you will save yourself, as others would.’
Marshall broke into weeping.
‘I never wanted to do it. It wasn’t me that thought of it. I should never think of these things. I was told it would be worse for me, if I didn’t. And it was a lot of money, and my man was ill. I couldn’t see how I was not to. And I was frightened I should never get out of the house. It wasn’t worth it to me.’
‘Who was it who paid you to do it?’
‘I don’t know, ma’am; I am speaking honest; the letter had no name. And the envelope that brought the money had no writing.’
‘Have you the letter?’
‘No, ma’am. It said I was to burn it, and I did.’
‘It is not the first time you have done harm to this house. You wrote that letter to your master about the child. What was in your mind that time?’
‘Nothing, ma’am; I did not think of it. It was Miss Sibyl who wrote to me to do it. It is no good not to tell, as you will only find out. You will tell her I couldn’t help it. She sent me money, and made me more angry at being sent away. But the money was not much, and it did not seem very bad.’
‘You were to do something worse, indeed. Was this last letter written in large, printed letters, like the envelope?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Marshall, staring at Gretchen, as though seeing no good in any denial.
‘And you kept the envelope to keep the orders in?’
‘Yes, ma’am; I didn’t think of harm coming from that.’
‘There was a deal of good coming from it,’ said Gretchen, going to the door. ‘They are all in the drawing-room. I suppose 274 they didn’t like the Dorcas tea. They will soon forget it, as I have. Cassie, take her other arm; I am not as strong as I was. Marshall, give no trouble, and you have nothing to fear.’
The three women went to the drawing-room, locked together. Gretchen was resolute, Cassie shaken, and Marshall slavish and terrified. The eyes of all turned towards them.
‘What is this?’ said Duncan.
‘The solution of the mystery,’ said Gretchen, ‘the truth of what happened in your house! Your nurse shut your windows, and your child turned on the gas! This is the person who did both!’
There was a silence.
‘How do you know?’ said Duncan.
‘I will tell you later. It is enough that I do know. I suppose you want the suspicion lifted from yourself and your wife? You remember you have one account already with this woman.’
‘You wrote me that letter a year ago,’ said Duncan to the nurse.
‘I did not think of it, sir. I did not want to do it. It was Miss Sibyl who wrote to me to do it, and sent the money. She said it was right to take revenge. And I was afraid not to obey her; I was always afraid of Miss Sibyl.’
Duncan and Nance turned to Sibyl, who had fallen backwards on the couch. Cassie moved instinctively towards her, but her mother held her back.
‘People don’t look round for something to fall on when they faint. She is only in an awkward place. The truth has come out about her early doings, and few of us like that.’ Gretchen’s tone was almost kind.
‘Well, let us get back to the main thing,’ said Grant.
275 Gretchen took the envelope from Marshall’s bag, and showed it, with the orders folded to its shape.
‘This came to Marshall with the money. A letter came to her before, telling her to do what she did. There is no trace to be followed. It is a home-made envelope, addressed in a printed hand. Someone has covered his tracks. But it is enough to have suspicion lifted from the innocent.’
Sibyl stirred on the sofa, unable to be still without support.
‘Get up and talk of your early mischief,’ said Gretchen. ‘To know all is to forgive all.’
Sibyl gave a drawn out wail.
‘I know it was a mean thing to do; I was too wretched to think. I was so young and alone, and no one was kind. They seemed to think it was wrong to love Almeric, and all it meant was misery. I thought Alison would go away, if Father knew: I did not think of her taking Almeric. No one will know what that time was.’
‘You knew it was Miss Sibyl, who sent you the money to write that letter?’ said Duncan to the nurse.
‘She wrote herself, sir, and put her name.’
‘Yes, I did, Father,’ said Sibyl, with a note of eagerness. ‘I told you, I had to do something. It was foolish to write myself, and sign the letter. It does not make things better to be stupid. It has made it come out, and given you a shock you might have been saved. But I am not a person who should do subtle things; I know myself now.’
Duncan allowed her hand to rest in his, and kept his eyes on Marshall.
‘You do not know who it was, who paid you to do this second thing?’
276 ‘No, sir, if it was not Miss Sibyl. I did not want to do it; I hated to be cruel; but the letter said I should suffer if I would not, and I was afraid. And I wanted the money for my man.’
‘Can we get on the track of the person?’ said Duncan. ‘Is it safe to have such a creature at large, with some grudge against us?’
‘Would anyone commit a second crime in the same quarter?’ said Nance.
‘What object could there have been in the first?’
‘Let us think,’ said Sibyl, putting her hand to her head, while Cassie and Nance looked at her, and looked away. ‘Anyone with anything to gain, for himself, or anyone else, would have had one. That is, you, Father’ – she gave a little laugh – ‘or Cassie; or Mrs Jekyll or Oscar, for Cassie. I can’t think of anyone else, and that does not take us further.’
‘Was Marshall willing to write this letter for you?’
‘Yes, Father. She was anxious for revenge for herself. If I had not known that, I should not have put it on her.’
‘Be silent. The moral line is not yours.’ Duncan turned again to the nurse. ‘Marshall, had you still a feeling of revenge, when this behest was laid upon you?’
‘I had not done anything to be sent away for, sir,’ said the woman, barely following his words.
Duncan addressed his family.
‘This seems to me a primitive creature, in the grip of a bitterness of spirit. It is likely that the crime is her own, and that she contrived the envelope in case of discovery. Such people have their own cunning. And the earlier episode gave the suggestion. Was there a postmark on the envelope?’
‘A London postmark, that tells nothing,’ said Gretchen.
277‘Is it our duty to follow up the crime for the sake of the innocent?’
‘She was promised her safety, if she spoke the truth. We have no proof that she has not spoken it. She has given us a good deal.’
‘Then go, poor creature,’ said Duncan, with relief both formed and formless at his heart; ‘and in your future life be human, if you cannot be a woman. Your traces will be kept, and further crime will recoil upon you.’
Marshall went weeping to the hall, accompanied by Nance and Grant, and Duncan turned to Gretchen.
‘Mrs Jekyll, a word! Did you contrive this story to avert suspicion from Cassie? It would be understandable in a mother; I should understand it.’ There was an odd hope in Duncan’s tone. ‘I do not judge a mother as if she were a man. The truth should not go beyond this house.’
‘It should not, Mrs Jekyll,’ said Sibyl earnestly.
Gretchen gave a laugh that carried conviction to Duncan.
‘What is your proof that the woman was guilty?’ he said.
‘I promised to give it, and therefore I will. She went direct to the nursery, though it was a different room when she was here. She knew the window latches, which were altered when the change was made. She knew where the gas turned on, when gas was brought to the village since she went. She was easily brought to confession. What would you call proof? No one saw her do it, of course.’
‘It is proof,’ said Duncan, turning to the window and tapping his hands upon the sill. ‘We owe you our gratitude.’
‘Do you want any more?’ said Gretchen, taking advantage of his back to direct her eyes to Sibyl.
‘No, Mrs Jekyll,’ said Sibyl. 278
‘So that is what you did with your brooch,’ said Gretchen, guiding her backwards with her hand, and speaking with her face close to hers. ‘You sold it and sent the money to Marshall. And you made your envelope yourself, and printed your letters; and you tried more than once to get it all to your liking. And this time you were past the folly of using your own name. Now, if there is danger in the future to Cassie or Cassie’s child, remember the secret will not die with an old woman.’
Grant and Nance came back, and Duncan turned to meet them.
‘Father,’ said Sibyl, taking his arm, with a feeling that boldness would serve her as well as anything else, ‘you will not think of what I did, when I was so alone and wretched? It was partly that I felt you should know the truth. I did not feel to Grant as I do now. You will forgive your especial daughter and Mother’s?’
‘Nance was Aunt Ellen’s especial daughter,’ said Grant, as if voicing a mechanical thought.
Gretchen turned on him a look of pity.
‘It was a thing your mother’s daughter and mine could do. I have to face the truth. Your husband must also face it.’
‘We must go home,’ said Grant. ‘It is time we went. Come – come –’ It seemed he could not use his wife’s name. ‘We should both go now.’
‘We must spread the truth,’ said Nance. ‘If people do not know what to think, they will go on thinking anything.’
‘I will see they know,’ said Gretchen, ‘and then I shall be through. It is my last piece of work. I am not looking for another. And put it from your minds. It is all over.’
But it was not all over. An hour later Grant returned and sought his uncle.
279Duncan was sitting with his family in a rare mood of disliking to be alone.
‘I have had a difference with Sibyl, Uncle. We have parted for the time, probably for ever. She is going to-morrow to Aunt Maria. I don’t know if she will return.’
‘So the girl’s early stumble is putting you about like that! When it came from a worse one of your own! Why should a woman’s youth be spotless, any more than a man’s? You are a good person to want a youth to be perfect. What would happen if she looked at yours? I’d as soon have a girl’s young days to peer at as a boy’s. And a boy’s pernicketiness no longer becomes you.’
Grant was silent.
‘Go back to your wife, and to the house where she is to have your child. What business have you anywhere else?’
‘I hoped you would let me stay, and live here as I used. Things are at an end between Sibyl and me. I shall of course be responsible for her support.’
‘Or would you look for her to see to yours? If you don’t like a woman’s ways, why did you marry? The girl has had more than one glimpse of a man’s, thanks to you. And has now had another, as you tell me.’
‘Let them live their own lives, Father,’ said Nance. ‘If Sibyl knows her mind, and Grant keeps her in comfort, what need is there for anyone to judge?’
‘I will have no daughter of mine apart from her husband; and no daughter of mine need try to talk for me. I am able to talk for myself.’
‘You cannot arrange for what daughters of yours do. If you could, things would be different. Father, let it go for the time. Let us live each day by itself.’
280‘You worry me and see I have no peace, old man as I am. I will not try to withstand you. You are too much for me. It has all been too much.’