BENNET’S DECLARATION.

At Redcot the dreary summer day wore heavily away. The servants moved stealthily and spoke in whispers, a form of respect which served as a useful check on their violent excitement. The children crept about, daunted by the nameless oppression. Ally tried hard to get at the bottom of the something wrong. She succeeded at last, through the most zealous scandal-monger among the servants who had the heart to seek to break Miss Ally’s proud spirit, and rout her saucy airs by the thunderclap of a tale which overwhelmed even a child.

‘It is your uncle and your aunt, my pretty dear, as is being tried this blessed day for breaking open Crabtree’s Bank at Newton. No, not for high treason or highway robbery, Miss Ally. What do put such nonsense into the child’s head? And they ain’t going to be beheaded, or hanged, or even sent beyond the seas; for, you see, they’re gentlefolks, and there’s one law for the rich and another for the poor--the better for the rich, Miss Ally. So you needn’t go for to sob and cry and bring me into trouble after you’ve plagued me with questions the whole of this here morning. The worst that can happen is that your uncle and aunt may be locked up a goodish while, so that you mayn’t see them again till you’re a big lady; but you’ll be gone to your own papa in India by that time, so you needn’t take on so.’

Even Tommy slunk about with his tail between his legs. Or he would sometimes put up his shaggy forepaws on his old mistress’s knee to attract her notice. Then he would give his moulted plume of a tail a beseeching little wag, and raise his hoary, towsy head--the eyes invisible, but the tip of his pink tongue propelled with a quiver, in his ardent desire to lick her hands and face, so to assure her of his heartfelt sympathy if she would but let him.

For the most part, John Prior shut himself up with his gnawing anxiety and sore humiliation, or wandered out aimlessly, keeping close to the house that he might avoid any encounter, even with his servants, which he could help. Latterly it had seemed as if he were seeking to walk his troubles down, for he was on his feet and abroad twelve hours out of the twenty-four. His wife, delicate as she was, underwent the fatigue with him. She had taken to volunteering her companionship as she had volunteered it in the early days of their married life, and, though he had not invited, neither had he refused the association. It might be, as she trusted, that he took a dumb solace from her silent sympathy.

But to-day he rejected all companionship, even from his fellow-sufferers, as he paced up and down the avenue or in and out of the shrubbery, past the disused barn and mill. They had been converted into picturesque objects by dint of Time’s tooth and such convenient accessories as ivy and bats, but the buildings had never wanted a certain air of abandonment and forlornness in the happiest circumstances. It was the same with the forsaken, overgrown quarry, in which he could not linger for a moment to-day. It was full of voices for him, children’s chatter; the echo of a gun with a boy’s shout of delight; Jack’s tones altogether altered--low and upbraiding; Susie’s, lying in every shrill cadence whether she mocked or lamented--how did it come that his daughter, her mother’s daughter, was a liar? Lambert Crabtree’s jeering, taunting accents; the murmur of a crowd; the blatant pleading of an advocate, the solemn utterance of a judge delivering sentence. When these torturing sounds filled his ears and fretted his soul to distraction, it was a small matter that the Ladslove meadows lay in profound tranquillity, his secret buried in their bosom, under the slanting rays of the sinking sun.

Mrs. Prior and Jane kept together, as most women will in such straits. They were faintly soothed by yielding to the gregarious impulse which came out in Jane when she was tried, as it might have done in the most frivolous of the sisterhood.

The mother and daughter were generally in the drawing-room, whose out-of-date gilded and glassy splendour had been got up by a Prior of Redcot in anticipation of his being named master of the foxhounds for the county. The faded garishness now distinguished a scene in which the sickness of hope deferred was not for the attainment or loss of a trivial ambition, but in the dread earnest and hard reality of waiting for a verdict in the unutterable humiliation of a criminal trial. It did not even imply the ghastly dignity of a murder, merely the coarse vulgarity and gross stupidity of a theft. Sometimes Mrs. Prior went softly away to her own room, and Jane knew that the simple old-fashioned mother had gone to pray for her children in jeopardy, though, perhaps, hardly in such deadly peril as they had passed through when she knew nothing of it. The daughter, wise in ancient and modern philosophy, knew nothing better to do than to slip from her chair, bow her head, cover her face, and follow her mother’s example.

In truth, save for that refuge to which One had recourse in His agony, till He could arise and do the will of His Father--but for that ‘Our Father’ He taught His brethren, the piteous figure drawn by the reverent old artist, the grand winged woman ‘Melancholy,’ crouched down hopeless among the most magnificent discoveries of science and the noblest sallies of intellect, must represent the creed of the world now and for evermore.

Sometimes Mrs. Prior would take up her quilt and begin to sew at it mechanically.

Then Jane would rise restlessly, stand before her mother, and put out imperious hands to take the work away. ‘How can you, mother? How will you bear to look at that embroidery again?’ she would say, with a wondering shudder.

Mrs. Prior would let the work fall in deference to her daughter’s objections, and yet would look up at her with a gently reproachful reminder. ‘How can I?’ she would echo; ‘how shall I bear to look again at the work I have been busy about so long, after I have taken it into my hands to-day? My dear, I think I can, because God made me and it, and does all things well, and will show me what I cannot understand, one day, if I wait. I knew a good man who, when dying young, said to the wife whom he dearly loved, who was breaking her heart over their early earthly separation, “I can believe the time will come when we shall count this day happy.”’

At another time Jane could do no more than pluck at her mother’s gown as she, the grown woman, had done when she was a little child, and, ‘with no language save a cry,’ utter that last appeal for help, ‘Mother! mother!’ which sounded, alas, so useless to-day.

But the mother could have told how pathetically sweet to her this return to her for aid was. She responded to it promptly and patiently, not asking for help herself, not caring though her need--which might well have been reckoned the greatest--was forgotten. She was comforted by the mere act of spending herself for her children, as she would have spent herself for her husband. ‘Yes, my darling, I am here. It will not be long till we hear more. Think of your poor father, and bear up for his sake,’ and she fondly stroked the head leaning against her, for it was her little Janie come back to her again.

‘But think of it,’ persisted Jane. ‘Jack and Susie tried as thieves.’

‘We must submit. It is God’s will,’ said Mrs. Prior with pale, loyal lips.

‘Mother,’ whispered Jane almost inaudibly, ‘can they be guilty? You know how Susie would have her own way. You know how she was persuaded from her earliest days that everything and everybody belonged to her in a fashion, to serve her purpose; how she was morally blind to their independent rights, whenever hers and theirs clashed.’

Mrs. Prior could not restrain a groan. ‘But she was a wife and mother, Jane,’ she protested desperately, as if the argument was well-nigh irresistible. ‘She must have known that such a crime, though it might have been a temporary service, would in the end be a fatal injury to Lambert Crabtree--the cruellest wrong to their children, as well as a breach of the laws both of God and man.’

‘And Jack,’ went on Jane, not following the course of her mother’s reasoning. ‘He was fond of Susie. She used to lead him a good deal. He was apt to look at things in a thoughtless, boyish light, as so much sport. She may have played upon him to regard the matter as something of a joke. She might convince him, and be convinced herself, poor, wretched Susie! that Lambert Crabtree could and would replace the money without loss of time. She may have told Jack it was only a kind of lark which had so much good in it that it would enable her husband to tide over a money difficulty. Then, after Jack and she had hoaxed the authorities, as they often played mischievous tricks here long ago, and raised a hue and cry about nothing, there would be another hue and cry when the bank-notes turned up just where they had disappeared in the safe, for Jack and she would manage to put the paper back--no fear, and the masquerading burglars would have a laugh in their sleeves.’

‘No, never, Jane,’ said Mrs. Prior with determination. ‘Your brother is not a baby or a fool. You have not done him justice. He has long outgrown such follies. To tamper with either public or private property which was none of his, perhaps to bring innocent people under suspicion and disgrace, could never have been Jack’s doing.’

‘It is hard upon Mat Crabtree,’ said Jane, with a long heavy sigh, after a pause. ‘His honourable name is dragged through the mire. The bank which his grandfather founded and his father did so much for, is irretrievably ruined--a calamity that will be talked of for half a century as “the failure of Crabtree’s Bank.” So will the consequent blight on the neighbourhood, even without the horrid addition of the bank robbery at the hands of Mrs. Lambert Crabtree and her brother. Mat Crabtree may well rue the day that our families became connected. He will have little cause to think kindly of us in the future.’

‘Mat Crabtree is a good man and will judge fairly,’ answered Mrs. Prior. Then a little flicker of a smile played for a second about her mouth. ‘Of course that fancy about him and Miss Gray was an absurd mistake. He was in her confidence and knew of her engagement to Jack almost from the first. The last sign of his giving us up was his turning back when he was here yesterday, and claiming my ear to tell me, as if I required to be told! “Take care of Jane--don’t let her worry too much over this idiotic trial.”’

Jane said no more of Mat Crabtree’s desertion of Redcot. A blush as wavering as her mother’s smile stole for an instant the wanness from her face.

The dusk was beginning to fall on the poor family, at last all huddled about the darkening drawing-room window, which commanded the carriage drive. John Prior was in the central arm-chair, his wife was seated a little behind him. She had one fine, thin hand on the back of his chair, and he permitted the hand to lie there, though he could not have been unconscious of its presence, seeing that more than once he rested his own gaunt hand for an instant on the other. Jane was opposite, declining to sit, her young limbs braced till they were like iron under the necessity of standing by the hour, where she could see and hear the farthest.

These were by no means the only watchers. There were loiterers along the road, some of them colliers from Kershaw in their upper-world fustians. There was a party of people in the lodge, and the house servants were gathered about the lower doors and windows more or less openly. For there was not wanting a rough notion that if ‘Miss Susie that was’ and Mr. Jack ‘got off,’ there should be a welcome home, containing at least an element of triumph and rejoicing. These rash anticipators were not so silent that the eager clack of their tongues did not strike painfully at intervals on the quiet trio in the drawing-room.

The window was open, everybody agreeing that the evening was warm; but the true explanation was, that even if darkness set in the tramp of the horse’s feet would still be heard coming up the avenue. All hope had long been relinquished that the trial would prove a mere form and be quashed at an early stage. It must have been dragging on through the long hours that seemed a very life-time to the family at Redcot. The question was, What were they waiting for? Had the end come on the first day? Could what appeared the interminable delay be bringing back Susie and Jack, released, if not vindicated, to their friends?

Before it was too late to distinguish a carriage, there was a little half-stifled cry, ‘There she is!’ as first the regular beat of a horse’s feet broke upon the stillness, and then the Redcot phaeton with its solitary occupant came in sight, approaching nearer and nearer. No Susie, no Jack, not even Mat Crabtree; only _she_, bringing the news as she had promised. The father, and mother, and sister sat spell-bound. They could not call out; they could only look at each other with protesting eyes. That strange paralysis which often attends on the chief crisis in a life had befallen the Priors. They saw and heard the phaeton stop, and Bennet Gray alight. They knew she was running the gauntlet of the servants’ inquiring eyes, even of their irrestrainable tongues, as she must have run similar gauntlets more than once on the road. The breathless listeners heard the foot on the stairs, but no one ran out to meet and greet Bennet, and charge her to tell how the trial had gone.

She came in bare-headed and bare-handed. She had pulled off her gloves and taken off her hat as she mounted the stairs in her hurry. Her brown hair was crushed and disordered by the long pressure of her hat, her face was flushed. She looked younger than they had ever seen her--quite girlish--as she returned thus solitary and unsupported from her expedition. She walked past Jane and John Prior--who had started to his feet, straight to Mrs. Prior, with whom Miss Gray had held none but the most perfunctory intercourse for a number of weeks, took the elder woman in her arms and kissed her. Then they all knew it had gone ill with Jack and Susie.

Mrs. Prior did not resist, neither did she return the embrace. She said, with dry lips, ‘He is found guilty?’

‘Oh, no! it is not so bad as that,’ said Bennet, coming to herself and proceeding to tell them the whole truth before she delivered Mat Crabtree’s messages. She sat down among them, and would not listen to any word of rest or refreshment. She did not want it; she had more to say. She spoke in a solemn resolute way, as of one who had to make a confession like that made on a death-bed. ‘If it come to the worst, I’ll wait till his sentence is fulfilled, and the first day he is free I will marry the man who sought me when I was a poor governess. I was not playing at teaching then--I was in sober, sometimes sad enough earnest, working for my bread, alone in the world.’

‘Where was it?’ asked a voice. ‘How did Jack come to know you?’

‘It was in Berkshire. He was visiting there--in the very family where they made me feel neither a guest nor a friend, but that did not matter to him.’

‘And it was there Mat Crabtree saw you?’ said Jane.

‘Yes. The meeting made an impression upon him, because the news had just come that I had succeeded unexpectedly to the fortune of the great chancery lawyer, my father’s cousin. People talked of it--called me “the fortunate Miss Gray,”’ the speaker’s lip quivered, ‘and I daresay pointed me out to strangers. But Jack was gone before then; he knew nothing of the change in my fortunes. I had tried him, too. We have all been hard on Jack--all, except his mother here, who has not looked at me since she knew I deceived her, and she was right.’

‘Hush! hush! child,’ said Mrs. Prior falteringly. ‘Say no more, since Jack loves you--and you love him--I believe that now.’

‘Yes, but wait till you hear more. I refused to engage myself to him while I was still poor. I had to think and act for myself--I had learned to do it. I distrusted his strength and constancy, I distrusted his friends and their influence over him. He was among bad companions--bad, I mean, for him--idle, pleasure-loving men of the world. I said if he would have me marry him he must break off from old habits and associates, and the result was his voyage to Australia. He went there to see if we could go out as settlers, even though he were to break with Redcot--do you hear that? But he would not have lost sight of his mother. He had hardly been gone when Josh Gray, who had been kind to my father, while he had taken no notice of his family after his death, died in his turn, and I was next of kin.’

‘But did you not write to Jack?’ asked two of her listeners simultaneously.

‘I had written in order that he might hear from me on landing, and I could not write again till he sent me his address, for he was to go up the country without loss of time and try if he could find an opening. In the meantime Jane wrote to the head of an old school of mine in search of a governess for Ally and her brothers, so that the application came round to me. I was of age. I was my own mistress; nobody had any right to control me. I longed to see what you were all like without your knowing what I was to Jack. I was tempted to make an experiment, and to judge for myself with regard to Jack Prior’s family and his relations to them. It was silly and wrong, though I never meant to harm any of you--I meant only to do you good. All the same,’ shaking her head and discussing her past actions with grave impartiality, ‘I had no right to impose on you.’

‘Could you not have confided in us from the beginning?’ urged Mrs. Prior in self-defence.

‘What! proposed to bribe you to receive and like me; resolved to come alone to you with the tale before you had heard of our engagement, or he had heard of my fortune--no, I could not have done that. I did write from Redcot after I heard from Jack, but he missed the letter. He never knew what windfall had come to us--till--till he was ready to renounce it all. But now,’ hurrying on, to save herself from breaking down, ‘I have judged--I know everything. I hope you will forgive my deception and be friends with me at last, for I have made up my mind. I will never forsake Jack Prior in his adversity. If it is any consolation to you to hear, you do hear that a woman who loves him, and is rich in this world’s goods, will stand by him through everything, and save him if it be in human power to save him.’

‘Oh, Bennet, his Bennet, God for ever bless you! It is I who have been blind in my wicked jealousy; it is you who must forgive me,’ cried the poor mother, falling upon the girl’s neck to weep there.

But John Prior rose feebly and protested, as he had protested before, only more tenderly. ‘It cannot be, my dear, you are young, you are carried away by your feelings at this moment; you do not know what you are saying or what you are undertaking. When you are older and wiser you will understand better. Neither Jack nor anyone else could consent to such a terrible sacrifice.’

But she would have her way. ‘You and he must and will consent.’ She reminded him of an Englishman of rank and repute who had fallen from his high estate, fallen by his own dishonest deed, and of an English lady in his circle, his contemporary in rank and in age--which was not that of impulsive youth, but of sober, reasonable middle-age--to whom he had been engaged in marriage. She had heard when his sentence was passed, she knew that he had crossed the seas as a convict; and the moment she could follow she had gone to him and kept her engagement by becoming his wife. The thing was no secret, and, though England was a nation of shopkeepers, it had not cried shame on the woman for her tender forgiveness and generous fidelity. Not that the cases were parallel, Bennet had only quoted this as an extreme example. She had nothing to forgive. Jack was innocent. Everyone who knew him, and many who did not know him, had sufficient fairness and judgment to recognise that.

It was clear that Bennet was in an over-wrought state, with which nobody could very well cope. At last Mrs. Prior, who had begun to wait upon her, got her to eat something and to go to her room, on the plea that if she did not take food and try to sleep she would not be able to return to Crowminster and be in the court next day. Even then, as they passed the door of the nursery, and heard Ally still chattering, Miss Gray would go in to kiss the children and bid them good-night. And when sleepy Sam mumbled ‘Good-night, Miss Gray,’ she confided to the stupefied child and his electrified nurse--her own eyes shining like stars as she spoke, ‘I am not going to be Miss Gray always, Sam. I am going to be “Aunt Bennet;” won’t you like that, my boy?’

‘But you ain’t our aunt,’ objected Ally. ‘Whatever we may like, we have only Aunt Jane and Aunt Susie, besides Aunt Wood, whom you never saw. But, oh, do tell me, Miss Gray, is Aunt Susie locked up with Uncle Jack, and fed on bread and water? How can Uncle Jack let her? It is naughty of him.’

‘And you, too, Ally!’ said Bennet, bitterly.

‘Pretty Auntie Susie!’ cooed Sam, ‘Molly and Piers’ mamma, who kisses them and gives them sweets, and sends them out of her way. Are you going to be like Aunt Susie?’

Bennet turned away with a shudder.

In her own room, where Mrs. Prior still followed her, Bennet broke down and sobbed passionately. ‘Oh! dear Mrs. Prior,’ she said between her sobs, ‘he is your Jack as well as mine. You have known and understood him since he was a baby. Do you believe he will survive the shame and misery? He may die in the midst of it; for if it come at all it will last for long years. If we live to be together again it cannot be until our unhappy youth is past. I feel driven to wish that he had forfeited his bail, fled and been outlawed, though I scouted the suggestion when somebody made it only this morning,’ she said wistfully.

‘No,’ denied Mrs. Prior staunchly, ‘a true man should act as Jack has acted.’

‘I used to have such horrid dreams of storms and shipwrecks, after I sent him to Australia,’ said Bennet again. ‘I knew I should never be at peace till I had him back. Yet I have lived well-nigh to own that it would have been well for him and all who loved him if he had been washed overboard some wild dark night, and perished, while the world was still bright to him, and his faith in God and man unshaken.’

Mrs. Prior bade the girl remember that Jack had still something to look forward to and live for even when life was hardest, though he should be cut off from his family and Redcot for many a day. And this was supposing there were found a judge and jury who could condemn an innocent man. As for time, it was passing continually, moment by moment, wearing away, whether in joy or sorrow, without sign or perception on man’s part, till time itself should be no more by the decree of Him with whom a thousand years were as one day. And if we were poor creatures of a day, we were all the more in His hands who not only told the number of the stars, but bound up the broken in heart. Mrs. Prior dried Bennet’s tears, and, in spite of all protest, undressed the girl with Jack’s mother’s own hands, and kissed and blessed her, for she had taken her daughter to her heart in their extremity, and surely the fulness of the reconciliation and the extent of the adoption were thrice welcome to both, even in the sorest hours of their lives. At last, when she could minister no more to Bennet or any other she loved, the mother was at liberty to mourn for her young son, her only son, in the depths of her heart.