Chapter XXXIV: The Uncertain Witness

“Mary Nicholson!”

“Well, Mrs. Frost?”

“Mary Nicholson, where have you flirted off to, I should like to know? Oh, Michael, you can’t tell what a trial that flighty creature is. If ever I take another young person to bring up and be responsible for during my whole life, you set me down as a born idiot, nothing less. Mary Nicholson, I say, what are you doing?”

“Only putting—oh, dear, only—why nothing at all, Mrs. Frost,” cried Mrs. Nicholson, appearing in the door of her bedroom with her foxy little front all awry on her forehead, and a cap half on, the faded pink ribbons of which she was tying.

“There it is,” said Mrs. Frost, with an indulgent smile, “always the pink ribbons when a gentleman knocks. Now I tell you, Michael, this giddy creature is setting her cap for you—her cap pink with bows and streamers. Did you ever see anything so giddy? Well, Mary Nicholson, for once Mr. Hurst really wants to see you. Sit down, and do, for mercy’s sake, stop fidgeting with them cap strings—it’s enough to make one sick.”

“Don’t be too severe on the lady,” said Michael, blandly; “for my part, I think the pink ribbons charming: they give a delicate flush to the complexion.”

“Mr. Hurst!” exclaimed Mrs. Frost, austerely.

“Oh, Mr. Hurst!” murmured Mrs. Nicholson, gratefully.

Michael smiled deprecatingly on Mrs. Frost, and ardently on Mrs. Nicholson.

“Then you really cannot remember any thing about this ceremony, Mrs. Frost?” he said, anxiously. “Still it must have taken place in your house, and Mrs. Nicholson was undoubtedly present, for her name is on the certificate.”

“I—I—did you mean me?” gasped Mrs. Nicholson. “Of course I had a certificate; who doubts it?—who dares attempt to take away my character? Mrs. Frost, you may call me young and giddy, and a flirt, but don’t insinuate to Mr. Hurst that I never had a certificate, because I had.”

“You don’t understand,” said Hurst, soothingly, “it is not of your marriage certificate we speak; but of one to which you were a witness, years ago, when you first came to visit Mrs. Frost. Try and think: it seems almost hopeless to ask one so blooming to remember back more than twenty years; but every thing depends on it, Mrs. Nicholson—every thing that I can have or hope for on earth. If you can only remember the circumstances under which you wrote this name, it will put a million of dollars in my pocket.”

“A million of dollars! Oh, Mr. Hurst!”

“A million of dollars! Besides giving you and Mrs. Frost a house of your own, with an income that will make you the envy of half New York. A thousand dollars a year—two, three thousand, if you want it!”

Mrs. Frost’s eyes began to glitter, and her head went off again, nod—nod—nod, till Hurst really longed to take hold of her and set it straight. But Mrs. Nicholson looked rather bewildered and very blank: she did not seem to relish the idea of living forever with Mrs. Frost, even in a grand house, and with an abundant income. But she sat looking at the marriage certificate, wondering vaguely how her name got on the paper, and feeling a little frightened, as if she suspected some ghost work.

“Surely you can remember?” whispered Hurst, pale with expectation.

Mrs. Nicholson shook her head. The elder woman’s eyes glowed brighter and brighter, like fire through frosted glass: he was enraged at Mary Nicholson’s hesitation.

“Can’t you remember, Mary Nicholson?”

“I am trying my best,” answered the old lady, “my very best. William Bentley, and Mehitable Hart, Mary Nicholson. Well, it’s strange!”

“What is strange?” cried Mrs. Frost.

“Why, that this should be my writing, and I not remember it.”

“Think—think, it is so many years ago, Mrs. Nicholson,” cried Hurst, breathless with anxiety.

“Does she remember it?” inquired the bewildered woman, looking at Mrs. Frost, who tried to shake her head, but only introduced a few more energetic spasms in the wrong direction.

“No, I don’t remember; how should I? My name isn’t on the paper,” cried Mrs. Frost, sharply. “My husband was a strange man in some things, and kept his own secrets close as a vice. He was always marrying people behind my back; I believe if he could a-done it, he’d have married me without letting me know it, and claimed me afterward: that was Mr. Frost all over.”

“But you remember Mr. William Bentley coming here, one night, with one of the Hart girls and going into his study?” said Hurst.

“I remember them coming; and yes, yes, I dare say they did go into the study. Mary Nicholson, you were here that night: I remember your saying something about Mehitable Hart. What was it now?”

“I can’t recollect, Mrs. Frost.”

“But you must recollect, Mary Nicholson.”

“Dear me, how can I?”

Hurst began to despair. His witness only became more and more confused.

“Mrs. Frost, if you would be so kind, just step into the next room, and leave me alone with Mrs. Nicholson a few minutes.”

“Alone with Mrs. Nicholson!”

“You understand, she has not exactly your clear memory; age tells on her a little.”

“Age! Mr. Hurst, age!” wailed Mrs. Nicholson, “why, why, indeed, I don’t think you can honestly call it that. My memory, sir, is clear as a bell—clear as spring-water, Mr. Hurst. Indeed, it’s very cruel to take me by surprise, and, because I can’t think all at once, call it age.”

Hurst smiled gently, and looked at Mrs. Frost, who had arisen, and stood nodding her head at them over one shoulder.

“No, Mr. Hurst, it ain’t proper, and I won’t,” cried the old lady, subsiding into her chair, and beginning to rock with spasmodic jerks.

“Perhaps you are right,” said Hurst. “Mrs. Nicholson is a little nervous, though; allow us to sit by the window. Her memory will come back. It’s only because the whole thing seemed so unimportant at the time. But you will understand, Mrs. Nicholson,” he continued, leading the old lady to a chair by the window, and pressing her hand softly as he went, “you will understand that it was the marriage of my father and mother you witnessed that night. If I can prove that marriage—and you are the only witness living—it makes me the richest man in New York. It gives me the power to help my friends to any extent; and who among all those friends will have the claim on me that you will possess—you to whom I shall owe all my wealth and good fortune?”

“But you will not make me live with her?” said the poor woman, in a whisper, and casting frightened looks at the rocking-chair.

“With her! No, no. You have seen Mr. Bentley’s house? been in it, I dare say?”

“Yes, once; Miss Hetty asked me, and I went. What a grand house it is!”

“When I am its master—and that your evidence will make me—what think you of being housekeeper there, mistress of every one?”

“Me? Oh, Mr. Hurst! you take away my breath. But her—what will she do?”

“She shall have a house by herself, with a good, strong person to wait on her.”

“Strong! Yes, she will need to be that.”

“I know—I know, but you shall be that person no longer—you who are a friend of my mother’s!”

“Your mother—your mother, who was she?”

“Miss Hetty Hart, the woman whom you saw married in Mr. Frost’s study, more than twenty years ago, when your name was put to this certificate.”

“Yes, yes, that is my name and my writing; but as for the ceremony, somehow my mind is a little confused yet.”

“Very natural. It was a long time ago, but I remember it all.”

“You!”

“Yes, distinctly; you have told me the story a hundred times, when I was a little boy: how Mr. William Bentley—a handsome fellow, wasn’t he?—came to Mr. Frost’s house, one evening, with Miss Hart and another young person—her name is on the certificate, you see—all dressed in white, but without any thing else particular about them.”

“Yes, yes, I think I do remember about the dresses—muslin, with tucks and worked edging. I had a dress like that once,” cried the old lady, eagerly.

“Oh, yes, I knew the whole thing would come to your recollection; such scenes sometimes sleep in the mind for years, and then come out clear when some object brings them forcibly to the thought. Now it is a long time since you told me about this wedding, but I remember it all—you give a story so vividly, my dear Mrs. Nicholson.”

“Do I? Well, I didn’t know that; but of course I shouldn’t have told it if it hadn’t been so.”

“That was what I was saying to Mrs. Frost, when she hinted that you were a little in years and might have forgotten. ‘No, my dear Mrs. Frost,’ said I, ‘there exist people who never grow old, and of such is Mrs. Mary Nicholson—her memory may sleep, nothing more.’ Mrs. Frost will see that I am right. How quickly your mind seizes on facts! You even remember the dress.”

“Oh, yes, I am almost—quite sure of the dress!”

“And the way in which they entered the study. There was a little confusion, you remember, owing to the minister not being prepared.”

“Yes, yes, how kind you are! I never should have recalled all these things but for you. Now they stand out quite clear. I never saw any thing like it; and these people were really your father and mother?”

“They were, indeed. But till this time I have been kept an orphan—worse than an orphan. But for this certificate I should now be ashamed to speak of a father or mother.”

“Poor fellow! I understand. But the certificate——”

“Makes a man of me—an honorable, rich, powerful man.”

“Oh, I’m so glad! But how did you find the paper?”

This question was put in a raised voice, and old Mrs. Frost caught it.

“Yes, how on earth came you to find the paper, Michael? I want to know that!”

“I found it, with a bundle of letters which my aunt and mother wrote to Mr. Frost, in the old chest of drawers, in my room up-stairs.”

“The old chest of drawers—my husband’s chest—why, Michael, how did you get in there? It hasn’t been unlocked these fifteen years.”

“True, Mrs. Frost; but in that time locks rust out. I had but to give a stout pull, and found my fortune in the old papers.”

“Then Mary Nicholson didn’t give you my keys? It wasn’t her?” cried the old woman, going up to the china vase, and nodding vehemently over it, as she thrust her old, withered hands into the rubbish it contained. “I can’t find them. Mary Nicholson! Mary Nicholson!”

“Let me search!” cried Hurst, drawing a clenched hand from his pocket, as he started up. “The jar is deep. Yes, yes, something jingles—this must be your keys, grandmother!”

“Yes, so it is. Well, well, it’s all right; but Mary Nicholson might have done it, you know.”

“Don’t say a word against her, grandmother; her memory is bright as a school girl’s. I never saw any thing like it. Now if Mr. Bentley, or his lawyers, were to question you, my dear Mrs. Nicholson, you could describe the whole wedding, I dare say—how the minister looked, and all.”

“Why, of course! Didn’t I remember about the tucked dress?” cried the old lady, exultingly.

“But you won’t let those lawyers browbeat you out of it? they always fancy an elderly woman must forget, and so presume upon it.”

“Elderly! Well, well, let them question me; I shall stick to the truth. How could I have told you all about it, if I hadn’t been there?”

“But you had, perhaps, better not mention me; they would fancy you could not trust your own memory.”

“They’ll see, they’ll see,” responded the old lady, lifting her head, and giving it a gentle toss that set the faded ribbons fluttering around her face. “If I didn’t witness that marriage, who did, I’d like to know?”

“Your memory has made me worth a million. Grandmother here could not quite make it out; but she is so much older.”

“Wasn’t there—sure of it,” said the old lady, who was becoming slightly irritated by all this flattery of Mary Nicholson.

“I dare say, dear grandmother; besides, your signature is not here to prove it; but you can do me a great kindness, a very great one.”

“Well, what is it? Something Mary Nicholson can’t do, or you never would have thought of asking me.”

“It is about my mother.”

“What, Hetty Hart? Poor thing! what about her?”

“Mrs. Bentley—Bentley is her name, and mine. She is a widow, remember, with a dower claim on one-third of the Bentley property; but at this moment without a home.”

“Why, isn’t she at Mr. Bentley’s?”

“No, I brought her away quietly, this morning. She is not well, and I did not like to leave her among our enemies.”

“Poor, nervous creature!” muttered Mrs. Frost “Well, where is she? and what do you want?”

“She is up-stairs in my room—I took the liberty. She will not prove troublesome. She only wants to be alone. If Mrs. Nicholson will take her a bit of toast and a cup of tea, now and then, I shall not forget it. You are not angry, dear grandmother?”

Here Michael would have kissed the old woman, but that the vibrations of her head rendered the salute impossible.

“There, there, remember Mary Nicholson is by, and don’t be foolish—of course I ain’t angry. Mary Nicholson, go round to the corner and get a mince-pie, and send a piece up with the toast; then cut the rest into three parts. Michael has found out who he is, and what belongs to him, so we’ll have a celebration for once. Get a pound of crackers and four ounces of smoked beef, and—and—that’ll do, Mary Nicholson!”