Chapter XXX

STUMBLED ACROSS—INTERVIEWED—TAKEN AT HIS WORD.

One night, before it was late, as Oliver was stooping over Jack, trying to ascertain whether he were really muttering irrelevantly,

‘There’s Ruby, and Rover, and Ranter, too,’

or asking for something the sufferer wanted, a man’s figure in professional black, which was yet not the doctor’s, appeared on the opposite side of the bed. Oliver looked up—it was Mr. Holland, the Dadds’ and Oliver’s minister. He had not been there before—partly because he had been away on sick leave, partly because he had returned, only half recruited, after the anxiously economised weeks at the sea-side with his family—difficult for the poor minister to afford in more ways than one. And his wife had so implored him not to put his shaken health and strength, not fairly reestablished, to the severe test of a fever-laden atmosphere, that he had yielded reluctantly, and kept away from the unconscious Jack and his burdened father and mother, till Mr. Holland could do so no longer. Come what might of it, though it should cost him his own life, and his wife should be left a widow and his children fatherless, the pastor must be at his post; and when he went to it, he found the rebel of his congregation hanging over the sick man—indifferent to inhaling the tainted vapours at the fountain-head.

Mr. Holland coloured high and hesitated.

Oliver looked up and spoke without the slightest difficulty, rather with a roughish freedom, born of the necessity of the moment.

‘Hallo, sir! are you there? Look here, Holland; from the colour of your coat, you have seen more sickness than I. Can you feel a pulse? Can you pronounce on the state of a tongue? You come as a stranger, you can tell how Jack strikes you. What do you think of his chance?’

Mr. Holland stepped forward and did as he was required. Oliver and he consulted together and watched and nursed Jack, without a thought of anybody besides, for some hours. Then, after the clergyman had taken up his hat to go, he hesitated once more, put it down again, and touched Oliver’s arm with a hand that shook slightly.

‘Brother,’ said Mr. Holland solemnly, in phraseology adopted both by Papists and Puritans in exceptional circumstances and seasons of strong feeling, ‘have you any objection to joining with me in prayer, and offering up an intercession for our sick brother?’

‘None in the world,’ replied Oliver promptly. And the two men prayed aloud by the voice of the one, for Jack Dadd.

The next Sunday, Mr. Holland preached a sermon, which slightly bewildered his hearers, on the text, ‘Not they who say “Lord, Lord,” but they who do the will of my Father.’

The early October mornings were getting always darker—with a darkness which partook of white haze as well as dank wet, dimmer, chiller, when Oliver—buttoning up his great coat, as he came out of the Dadds’ house into the street, where last night’s lamps were still burning, and which had not yet woke up for the day, since not even an early milkman had put in an appearance—was startled by a woman in a bonnet and veil, hugging a shawl round her, coming out upon him from the nearest alley, and accosting him in a gasping, constrained voice.

‘Please, sir, can you tell me how Mr.—how Mr. Jack Dadd is going on this morning?’ enquired the speaker, with little pants between the broken utterances of the words.

In place of answering the question, Oliver exclaimed in amazement, ‘Miss ’Liza Polley! What are you doing here at this hour of the morning?’

‘Oh, Mr. Oliver, don’t betray me!’ cried poor ’Liza, in her natural voice, though it was quivering with distress and terror. ‘I thought you would not know me. But never mind that just now; tell me quick, how is Jack? Oh! will he die, Mr. Oliver? Will Jack die?’

‘I hope not,’ said Oliver gently; ‘he’s no worse, and every hour gained is in his favour. But this is not a time for you to be out. It was not six when Mrs. Dadd took my seat. Let me see you home, Miss ’Liza, at once.’

‘Oh! no, no, Mr. Oliver,’ refused ’Liza, in a fresh paroxysm of alarm and trouble. Mother would be fit to kill me outright, if I came in with a man—with a gentleman, at this hour of the morning—though it is morning—not night,’ pleaded ’Liza piteously; ‘and old Betty Miles has come to wash, and had the door opened for her’—taking further refuge in the business of the day’s having really begun—‘or else I should not have dared to get up, and slip out at all. Oh dear! You do not know how hard mother has grown, how hard everything is, since poor ’Mily went wrong,’ protested ’Liza, weeping, not violently, but in a crushed manner. ‘It is so dull you cannot think! We dare not lift up our heads from our work, or make a joke, or speak of running out to pay a single call. Mother says we are all as bad as ’Mily, and have no sense or feeling. She is ashamed of us. No respectable people will wish us to darken their doors, or dream of returning our visits. But oh! it would be nothing, Mr. Oliver,’ broke off ’Liza, returning to the dominant cause of her misery, ‘if Jack Dadd were only a little better. Mother may do or say what she chooses,’ continued the girl, writhing like any other worm trodden on, and turning on its oppressor, ‘I must and will hear how Jack is, or I shall go mad. Mother may serve me as she served ’Mily. I don’t care, there! Anybody may hear me, and go and tell mother that likes.’

‘Jack is highly honoured,’ said Oliver, at a loss for any other observation. ‘But now, don’t you think, since he is no worse, and will soon, I trust, be a great deal better, it would be as well for you to take care of yourself, and do what your mother wishes you, for his sake, as well as hers, Miss ’Liza?’

‘Oh! hush, hush! Don’t say my name, in case anybody hear you,’ ’Liza objected with the greatest inconsistency. ‘You are a kind chap—that is, you are very good; but I did not mean you or anybody to see or know me. I thought you would not penetrate my disguise,’ said ’Liza with solemn simplicity.

‘I was too clever,’ said Oliver, tempted to laugh.

‘But you will not think ill of me?’ besought ’Liza—sinking again, in a moment, from the part of the heroine of romance she had formerly longed to play, which, even this morning, she had found some faint compensation in trying to support, for Jack was not dead, only very ill—into the affronted, unhappy, childish young woman. ‘You will not tell upon me? You see Jack Dadd and I have known each other all our days, and sometimes—well, he has looked and said things—though he was not always kind. He was fair angry because I let you talk to me first when you came back,’ explained ’Liza, with a little hysterical giggle. ‘I am sure, Mr. Oliver, we two said nothing which all the world might not have heard, and Jack had given himself no right to interfere with me for speaking to anybody. Now mother says nobody will ever care to come near us again, after the disgrace ’Mily has brought upon the family.’ ’Liza began to droop afresh, and to cry without the most distant admixture of small triumphant laughter. ‘It would be very hard and cruel, if it were true, for how could we—Ann and I, help it? Mother was always putting ’Mily before us,’ complained ’Liza resentfully, ‘and Jack and ’Mily would carry on together, just to plague me, I believe. Oh dear! what am I doing?’—stopping short and wringing her hands—‘Blaming Jack when he may be dying or dead for aught I know; and I may never see or speak to him again in my life. But I should not mind that, if God would only let Jack live and get well and be happy, though it were all away from me. Oh! Mr. Oliver, will he live? Will Jack live?’

The poor delicate girl was quite spent and shaken. She was forced to let Oliver—who was not without some apprehension of arousing the blind fury of Mrs. Polley—give her his arm within sight of her mother’s door.

‘So that was the way of it?’ Oliver said to himself softly, as he walked away. ‘Poor thing! poor old Jack—who can hardly move a finger at this moment! And I came between them and made mischief, did I? without the faintest suspicion, in my stupid bungling? But, let us be thankful, it may not be too Late to set this right if the beggar will only recover.’

Oliver was coming in to Jack, not going from him, when the gas-lights in the streets of Friarton looked white and bright and encouraging as they look with the night setting in—not yellow and faded and dispiriting, after a career of unwarrantable dissipation, according to their faithless discomfiting habit with the first streak of dawn.

There were still many people about, largely the promenaders, shoppers, and callers belonging to the classes to which day brings work and evening recreation, with the recreation consisting mainly of what is best expressed by the old-fashioned word ‘gadding’—going abroad and foraging for some little excitement in the way of gossip or otherwise. This was the season when the Polley girls had been wont to disport themselves among their acquaintances, till the striking of a clock sent them scampering and scuttling home, like Cinderella minus her glass slipper.

And sure enough ’Mily Polley came forward in her conspicuous hat and outrageous skirt, bustling along as if all the business of Friarton were left for her to do, and meeting Oliver Constable in the face.

At the first glance she appeared perfectly unabashed. The only difference in her was that to the girlish pertness and boldness there was added a touch of the hard brazenness which defies such a position as hers. She was alone—she espied Oliver at once. Her sharp eyes had never been known to miss man or woman, and now—far from being cast down, they were roving on all sides, challenging every passer-by. There was the complete contrast between ’Liza and ’Mily Polley which is generally to be found between the sinned against and the sinner. ’Mily attempted no foolish disguise. She was not seeking to escape from Oliver’s recognition. She darted up to him, hailing him loudly—‘Mr. Oliver Constable, it is a treat to see you now-a-days.’

Oliver stopped and spoke to ’Mily. She made no enquiry for Jack Dadd, or the most distant allusion to Oliver’s recent loss. On the contrary, in full view of his mourning, she referred to the changes which had occurred lately, with boisterous gaiety. ‘And there are more and greater changes coming, I can tell you, Mr. Oliver,’ said ’Mily, in her glibest manner. ‘I am turning my back on this dull hole, I’m glad to say. I am to be married next Thursday; the day is so near that I need not make a mystery of it. I dare say you have heard, though you have not wished me joy yet. If you were quicker about it, I might give you an invitation to my wedding.’

‘Do,’ said Oliver, on the impulse of the moment; ‘and I’ll be happy to come in the character of an old friend.’

‘Will you?’ asked ’Mily, quickly and doubtfully. ‘Will you, indeed, Mr. Oliver? Do you mean what you say?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘That will be awfully good of you. I’ll be as proud as a peacock; no’—with a sudden flush—‘not that, but very much obliged and thankful to show his friends that all the people I ever knew have not turned their backs upon me.’ She finished with bitterness, still her voice and face betrayed some shame and regret. ‘Would you mind walking and talking with me a bit, Mr. Oliver?’ she asked almost gently. ‘We’ll turn down into Jervis’s yard, where there is nobody working at this hour. I should like to speak out to you this once. It is not late, and though it were, there’s nobody to hinder me from stopping out till after ten, now. But, oh! Mr. Oliver’—breaking out passionately—‘it was mother herself put the finishing touch to my folly. I had been wild and flown in her face, and disobeyed her, but I was not bad, when she turned me from my father’s door, and locked it in my face. She has herself to thank for what came of it,—no, no, I don’t mean that’—cried ’Mily, calling herself back with an accent of terror in her despair—‘What is it the Bible says about them as curses father and mother? And it is only them as honours father and mother that lives long; so that any way I’m booked to die young like Jack Dadd and Fan—I beg your pardon, Mr. Oliver—Mrs. Harry Stanhope. Well, I’ve got an inkling there are worse fates going. But it was heartless and ill-done of me,’ confessed poor ’Mily, with something like real contrition in the tears which welled up into her round eyes,—‘to come forward and look in your face, and at the band round your hat, and begin with my idle nonsense—only it’s such sore nonsense now-a-days—you can’t guess, Mr. Oliver. Did you ever think it would come to this—that my banns should be put up here, in Friarton, and my marriage day next week, yet neither mother, nor ’Liza, nor any of them, should care to come near me? That they should not be able to tell what I’m to wear, or seek to bid me good-bye before I go?’

‘It will be better when you are gone,’ said Oliver. ‘Forgiveness and forgetfulness will come in time. You will try to do your best, ’Mily, God helping you, in the future, and when you come back——’

‘I’ll never come back, never,’ said ’Mily, with strong conviction. ‘I’ll never show my face here again, though I’ve sought to look as if I did not care that I had met the disgrace, I deserved, I suppose. But you’ll come to my marriage, Mr. Oliver,’ pleaded ’Mily, ‘and wish me the best that can happen to me, now? Birt will be pleased, because of your college breeding and connections, and will think more of me since a gentleman like you does not hold it beneath him to stand by me. And you will tell them at home some day, Mr. Oliver, what I wore—you’ll take a good stare at my bonnet and gown for the purpose—and how I looked, and that I had taken care, as far as I could, out of the little bit of money my aunt ’Mily, as was also my godmother, left me, that everything about the marriage should be as slap-bang as the Cobbes could manage it? No doubt mother’s daughter, considering what mother has made of the shop, and what her bank-book comes to, might have been entitled to a great deal more. I know I used to fancy I might be married in a white satin and go off in a carriage and pair at least,’ replied ’Mily, half-proudly, half ruefully; ‘still you’ll see there will be nothing in the way the marriage is gone about, to affront mother and the rest—though none of them has come to look after my credit and theirs,’ ended ’Mily, with a considerable flavour of the old woman lingering about her still.