Henty George Alfred
A Search For A Secret: A Novel. Volume 3

He wrote word that he was now quite well and strong again, and that he hoped to be in England in a year at the farthest; but he promised to give me at any rate a couple of months notice, and said that he should expect to have everything ready to be married a week after he landed; for that after waiting all these years he did not see any reason why he should be kept without me a single day, after he returned, longer than necessary.

This was only yesterday. All this has happened in a week. I can hardly steady myself down – I can hardly believe that all this happiness is true, and that in another year Percy will be home to claim me. But yet it is all true, and it seems to have given me back my youth and life again. Every one tells me that in this short week I am so changed, that they look at me almost with wonder, and are hardly able to believe that I am the same person they knew ten days ago, as a quiet, melancholy-looking woman. Thank God for it all – for all His exceeding mercy and goodness to me!

This great grief has had one good effect. It has removed the only obstacle to my marriage with Percy. Three days after I received the joyful news, a letter came to me from Lady Desborough. It was such a letter as I had not imagined that she could have written. She said that, in her grief, she had thought often of me, and had seen how wrong she had been in her conduct towards us. She had said to herself that, if the opportunity could but come over again, she would act differently. That opportunity, by God's mercy, had come, and she wrote to say that she should no longer, in any way, raise the slightest obstacle to our union. She besought me to forget the past, and the weary years of separation and waiting which her cruelty had entailed upon us, and she prayed me to forgive her, and to think of it as if it had never been.

This letter gave me, for Percy's sake, great pleasure. I, of course, responded to it; and from that time we exchanged letters regularly.

CHAPTER IX
PREPARED FOR THE ATTEMPT

And now I have told of the joyful news which has so wonderfully altered the current of my life, and restored me to youth and happiness, I must relate another incident which happened, indeed, two months prior to it in point of time, but which I record after it, because the other is so infinitely more important to myself, and, indeed, filled my heart, to the exclusion of all else. And yet, until I received the news of Percy's recovery – I had almost written resurrection, for to me it is indeed a coming back from the grave – I had, from the time the event happened, thought a great deal about it. Not, indeed, that I attached, or do attach, the slightest importance to it, as far as regards myself; but it has brought back to my mind all the circumstances connected with the series of efforts which we made to find the will of Mr. Harmer, from six to seven years ago, and which terminated in the death of the unfortunate Robert Gregory. This research, so long abandoned, has now, strangely enough, been once again taken in hand; and this time even more methodically and determinately than at any of our former attempts, and that by the very person whose conduct indirectly caused the original loss of the will – Sophy Gregory.

It was about a month after my return from my visit to London, that I was in the parlour alone, when Hannah came in and said that a person wished to speak to me.

"Do you know who it is, Hannah?"

"No, miss. She is a servant, I should say, by her looks."

"Did she ask for me, or for Mrs. Mapleside?"

"For you, miss, special."

"Very well, Hannah, then show her in."

And Hannah accordingly ushered my visitor into the room. She was a woman of apparently three or four and thirty, and was paler, I think, than any person I ever saw. Not the pallor produced by illness, although that may have had something to do with it; but a complete absence of colour, such as may be caused by some wearing anxiety, or some very great and sudden shock; her eyes, too, had a strange unnatural look, which, coupled with her unusual paleness, gave her a very strange appearance; indeed, it struck me at once that there was something wrong with her mind, and had not Hannah closed the door as soon as she had shown her in, I should certainly have told her to remain in the room with us. I had not the least recollection of having seen her face before, and waited in silence for her to address me, but as she did not, I said: —

"Did I understand that you wished to speak to me? my name is Miss Ashleigh."

"Then you have no recollection of me?" she asked.

The instant she spoke I recognized her voice: it was Sophy.

"Sophy!" I almost cried out.

"Yes, indeed, Agnes, it is Sophy."

I was very much shocked at the terrible change which seven years had made in her. My poor friend what must she have suffered, what had my grief and sorrow been to hers? We had both lost those we loved best in the world, but I had no painful or shameful circumstances in the death of my lover, as there had been in the death of her husband. Percy had died honourably, in the field of battle; Robert had fallen, shot as a burglar by a woman's hand; beside, I was not alone in the world, I had my brother Harry, and my dear Polly, and Ada, and many kind and sympathizing friends. Sophy was quite alone. Truly my own sufferings seemed but small in my eyes when I thought of hers, and I was very much moved by pity and tenderness for my old friend, as I thought of what she had gone through. All these thoughts rushed through me, as I embraced her with almost more than the warmth of my old affection for her; for it seemed to me that the sorrow which we both suffered was an additional tie between us. It was some time before we were composed enough to speak, or rather before I was; for she, although she had responded to my embrace, and was evidently glad to see me, was plainly in a state of too great tension of mind to find relief as I did in tears.

When I came to look at her face more quietly, I was still puzzled by it. It was not so much that it was changed and aged, as that there was something which seemed to me to be quite different, to what I remembered: what it was I could not for some time make out. At last I exclaimed, —

"Why, Sophy, you have put on a black wig and dyed your eyebrows. They were quite fair before, and now they are black."

"It was only last night that I did so," she said quietly. "I did not wish to be recognized down here for a very particular reason, which I will tell you presently."

Now I knew what the change in Sophy's face was, I could recall it, and saw that the alteration in her was not really so great as I had imagined. She certainly looked many years older than she was, but it was the black hair and eyebrows which gave the pale and unnatural appearance to her face, which had so struck me when she first entered the room.

"And now, Sophy," I said, "tell me all about yourself; where have you been living, and how have you been getting on all this time, and what are your plans for the future? Your little child, too, Sophy? What has become of it? You have not lost it, have you?"

"No, Agnes," Sophy said quietly, "I have not lost Jamie, and he is a very good, dear little fellow; but I have left him now for some time, and so I would rather talk of something else. And now I will give you the history of my life, as nearly as I can, from the time I went away from here."

But although Sophy had thus volunteered me this information, it was some little time before she could begin the sad narrative of her early married days. And yet she was not agitated as she told it – she seemed rather cold and strange; and I think the very manner which would have repelled other people drew me towards her. I had felt so much the same; I was still so quiet and old from my great loss, that I saw in that abstracted air of hers, and the impassive tone in which she spoke of times when she must have suffered so deeply, that she, like me, had had so great a grief, that nothing again would ever move her from her quiet self-possession. And yet I fancied afterwards that it was not exactly so, for it was upon a point in the future that all her thoughts and energies were centered, while all mine were buried in the past.

But by degrees Sophy told me all her history, from the date of her elopement up to the present time. She did not, at that time, enter into all the details of her life, but she has done so in the two visits she has paid me since she came down. As much of her history as is at all important in itself – more especially as having any reference to my own story, – particularly their life in London when first married, and the events prior to Robert's coming down to try and recover the will, I have told at some length. The rest of her tale I have had to relate very briefly; and I have now written it out in chapters, and arranged them with my own story, as well as I could, according to the date at which the various events took place, so that our two stories may be read in their proper order.

When Sophy had finished her tale, she told me that she had left her boy in London, and had come down to devote herself to the task she had so long had before her.

"What is this task, Sophy?" I asked. "You have alluded to it several times in the course of your story. What is it?"

"I am resolved, Agnes," Sophy said quietly, "for my boy's sake, and for yours, to find Mr. Harmer's missing will."

"Oh no, no Sophy!" I said, frightened at the thought, "pray give up all thought of it. That will has proved a curse to us all. It has cost one life if not two already, it has ruined your happiness and mine. Oh, Sophy! if it still exist let it lie where it is, it will do none of us any good now."

"I must find it," Sophy continued, quite unmoved; "you have tried together and failed; your sister tried alone, but without success; Robert tried, and died in the attempt; it is my turn now, if it costs me, too, my life. I ought to have tried first of all, for through my sin it was that the will was lost. Had I not deceived and left him, my grandfather would have lived perhaps for years, the will would have been handed back to the lawyer, and we should all have been happy. I lost it Agnes, and I will find it. From the day when I heard how Robert died, this has been the one purpose of my life. I will find that will, I will make my son a rich man yet, I will atone to you all, as far as I can, for the grief and loss I have caused you. I have thought it all over, Agnes, till my brain seemed to be on fire with it."

And Sophy's eyes looked so strange and wild, that I really thought, and think still, that her brain has a little turned by long thinking upon this subject. I saw at once that it would be worse than useless to endeavour to dissuade her from what I feel is a perfectly hopeless attempt. After a pause I said, "Well, Sophy, tell me at least what your plan is, and in any way in which I can give you assistance without mixing myself up in your project, I will do so. But I must tell you at once that I will take no active part in it whatever, because in the first place after the time which has now elapsed, I question much whether I should feel justified in acting even as I acted when the loss of the will was a recent event; in the next place, one life has already been lost in the search, indeed I may say two, and I consider all has been attempted which could be done, and lastly, I believe the search to be perfectly hopeless. But in any way in which I can help you without taking an active part, I will do so, not with any hope of finding the will, but for our old friendship's sake.

"I do not know at present," said Sophy quietly, "that I require any assistance, but there is one point which you may be able to inform me, and on which depends very much the method in which I shall set about my work. The only question I have to ask, Agnes, is does Miss Harmer's confessor live in the house with her, or in the priest's house in the village?"

"Just as before, Sophy, in the village. One would have thought that it would have been far more convenient for him to have lived at the house. But Miss Harmer, who I hear is just as obstinate at eighty as ever she was, insists on making no change, but on doing as has always been done. Ever since her sister's death her maid sleeps in the room with her, and the other servants in the room immediately adjoining, instead of in the servants' quarter, at the end of the house as they used to do. But now what else can I do to help you?"

"Nothing," Sophy said, "what you have told me is exactly what I have hoped and wished, although I was afraid it would not be so. Had it been otherwise, I had arranged other methods of going to work; but the one which I shall now try – and I look upon its success as nearly certain – could not have been carried out unless the confessor had lived as before. Now I see that every thing is in my favour. Do you know, Agnes, I have every minute detail arranged in my mind. It was for that I went to Italy. It was necessary that I should be able to speak the language like a native, and I can do so. I wanted to see the Bishop of Ravenna, and I saw him. So you see I am getting on already;" and she gave a laugh that made me feel quite uncomfortable, it was so wild and strange.

"The Bishop of Ravenna," I said, "I seem to have heard that name before; oh, I remember! it is the man that Miss Harmer telegraphed the news of her brother's death to."

"It is, Agnes, and that is why I went to see him. Do you know I have copied out every word, in the letters that you and your papa wrote to me, which is in any way related to the will, and have learnt them by heart."

"But what are you going to do first Sophy?"

"You think no one will know me?"

"I am quite sure they will not; even I, knowing who you are, and what you have done to yourself can hardly see any resemblance between your face now, and what it was then."

"I intend, Agnes, to go as servant to the priest."

"You, Sophy, as a servant! You must not think of such a thing. There are so many, many things against it. Oh, pray give it all up Sophy! Even supposing that you go through all this without detection, what nearer will you be to the will, as his servant, than as you are now?" I argued and pleaded, but neither argument nor entreaty had the slightest effect upon her. Her mind was so entirely fixed upon her plan, that she hardly even paid attention to what I said, and soon after took her leave.

I have seen her two or three times since, but shall say nothing of it here, more than that she is still engaged upon her hopeless task. When she gives it up, and goes out, as I suppose she will eventually to Australia, I will write down the particulars.

I believe she is on this point rather out of her mind, and I do hope the poor thing will not do anything wild, and get into mischief.

At the time she first came down I had not heard of Percy being alive, and consequently I had really, putting aside that I knew it to be utterly hopeless, hardly any interest at all in the search. Now, that he is alive, I should of course, for his sake, like to recover the money, but I know I might as well wish to come into possession of a snug estate in the moon. No good can come of this madcap scheme, and I only hope that there may be no harm. I shall wait with great anxiety to see if she gets found out, and to ascertain what plan she proposes to herself for finding out where the will is concealed; for that she fancies she has an idea, which will enable her to do so, is certain; if it seems likely to get her into any danger, I must, for her own sake, poor thing, take some step or other to prevent her carrying on schemes which might end, as her husband's did, fatally for her.

CHAPTER X
THE SPY IN THE CAMP

It is a year now since I wrote any of this story, and this time I shall really finish it. How little do we foresee the course of events! and certainly, when I last laid down my pen, I little thought that this story would have ended as it has. Most of what follows I have at times gathered from Sophy's lips, the rest from my own knowledge of the affair.

Sophy Gregory did not leave me, the first time when she came, until it was getting dusk, as she did not wish to arrive at Sturry until after dark, for a single woman with a bundle entering that quiet village would be almost certain to attract attention. Then she rose to go, and submitted to my embrace as before, in a quiet, impassive way; and yet, as she turned to leave me, there was a strange, wistful look in her eyes, as if with me she felt that she had left the last of her old landmarks behind, that she had finally started on the strange course which she had chosen. But whatever her thoughts were, there was no sign of wavering or hesitation. Steadily and quietly as she had said good-bye, she went out, down the steps, and through the gathering darkness.

By the time she was past the barracks and out into the bleak country beyond, night had fairly fallen, and the wind blew keenly across the flats. But Sophy hardly felt it; she had entered upon her task at last, and it would have been no ordinary event which would have attracted her attention now.

Presently the long, straight, level road rose suddenly, and she heard the heavy water-shed wheel working, and could dimly see the black mass of the building to her right. She was nearly at Sturry now; a little further on and she could just see two white foaming streams on her left, and she knew now she was passing the great mill. Another hundred yards and she was in the village itself. There was hardly any one about, but the windows were a-glow with the bright fires within. Sophy shivered slightly and drew her shawl more closely round her, as she hurried on; but it was her own bitter memories, and no thought of the cutting wind, which had so chilled her. The last time she had passed through the village was on the night she had eloped; the time before that she had driven through it in her pony chaise with her two pretty ponies.

Sophy passed through the village and went up the hill beyond it till she reached the plantation where she had so often met Robert Gregory, and the lane where the dog-cart had stood waiting on that evening for her. Absorbed as she was in the future, concentrated as all her energies and thoughts were upon that one point, she could not help being moved by that sad remembrance of the past. That night – oh, how different might her life have been had she not taken that false step! How different – oh, how different! and with a wailing cry Sophy sat down upon some stones at the corner of the lane, and cried with a terrible sorrow over her lost life, cried as she had not cried since her husband's death. A long time she sat there and wept; passionately and bitterly at first, quietly and tranquilly afterwards. When she rose at last and went on, it was with feebler steps than before, but with a mind lightened and relieved. It seemed to her that a great weight was taken from her brain. She had, for so many weary months, thought of this one idea to the exclusion of all other, that her brain sorely needed relief; and that long fit of crying took off the deadening strain, and I do believe saved her reason. Her eyes had a softer look afterwards, and her manner was less hard and cold. I noticed the change when I saw her a month afterwards, and told her that she looked much more like herself, and that her eyes had lost a strange look which they had about them. She answered that she knew that it was so, and she had herself, at times, thought that her brain was failing her; she told me she believed that that fit of crying had been mercifully sent as a relief to her, for she had felt a different woman ever since.

And so Sophy rose from the heap of stones, weaker indeed in body, but with a clearer and brighter intellect; and although her search was by no means given up, she went about it in a more steady and thoughtful, if with a less fixed and cunning method; and she herself told me, "If at times my old, strange, wild feeling comes over me, I shut myself up in my room, and think over my past life; I am able now to pray God to have pity on me, to bring wrong right, and to spare my reason for my child's sake."

Sophy went on until at last she came to the well-remembered east lodge, where she had lived so long as a child, not dreaming then but that it was her proper home; and afterwards, as long as she lived at Harmer Place, she had been in the habit of going down at least once a week to see her foster-mother. She knocked at the door, and without waiting for an answer, lifted the latch and went in.

A tall woman of about fifty years old came out from the inner room on hearing the door open, for she had not heard Sophy's gentle knock.

She looked suspiciously for a moment at her visitor, and then seeing by her attire, which was that of a respectable servant, that although she had a bundle in her hand, she was no ordinary tramp, she asked civilly, "What may you please to want?"

"Don't you know me, Mammy Green?" Sophy said, calling her by her old childish name.

The woman fell back as if struck by a blow, her candle dropped from her hand and was extinguished; then she seized Sophy's arm and almost dragged her to the fire, that she might see her features more distinctly, and then as Sophy smiled sadly, she recognized her face again, and with a cry of "Sophy! Sophy!" caught her in her strong arms and kissed her, and cried over her. Sophy cried too, and the old woman recovered from her unwonted emotion first, for Sophy was weak and exhausted by the day's excitement, and her foster-mother soothed and petted her as she would have done a child. When Sophy was composed again, her nurse took off her bonnet and shawl, and made her sit down quietly in the great oak settle by the fire, while she put some wood on and made a cheerful blaze. Then she lit the candle again, and laid the little round table with the tea-things; in a short time the kettle boiled, and Sophy, after taking a cup of tea, felt once more herself.

"And are you come down to live with me again, my dear?" her nurse asked presently.

"We will talk all that over to-morrow, Mammy Green, and I will tell you some of my history, and what I intend doing. I am tired now, I suppose my little bedroom is nearly as it used to be?"

"Yes, just the same, deary," the woman said, and taking down a key she unlocked the door, and Sophy saw her little room quite unchanged, and looking exactly as it did when she slept there last, twelve years before. Her little drawings hung on the wall, the elaborate sampler she had worked when quite a child, was in its frame in its old place over the mantle. Not a speck of dirt was visible anywhere, and a sweet scent of rosemary and lavender filled the room. Everything was just as she had left it; the white coverlid lay on the bed, which needed only its sheets to be ready for sleeping in.

"The bed is quite aired," her nurse said, "I have the room opened, and aired, and dusted once a week, and I take the bed off and put it before the fire all day once a month, and the blankets and sheets are kept in the closet against the kitchen chimney, so they are always warm and dry. I have always been hoping you would come back to me again some day, and I was determined you should find it all ready."

She then took the paper ornament off the grate, the fire was ready laid behind it; this she lit, and in a few minutes, by the time she had made the bed, the fire burned brightly up. Sophy, exhausted and tired with her day's excitement, was soon in bed, and her old nurse then came in to see if she wanted anything else, and to tuck her up and kiss her as she had done when she was a child; and Sophy, when she had said "good night, Mammy Green," lay drowsily watching the dancing shadows cast by the fire on the wall, and could hardly believe that she was not a child again, and that all these last twenty years were not a troubled feverish dream.

Sophy's last injunction to her foster-mother before going to bed was, that on no account – should she see any one in the morning – was she to mention that she had returned; but that Mrs. Green was to tell all whom she met, that a young woman who had been in service in London, had come down with a letter from some old friend there, asking her to take her in until she could find a place in the country, which she was anxious to do for the sake of her health.

Accordingly, when Mrs. Green went down into the village early in the morning, before Sophy was awake, to purchase a few little luxuries – such as white sugar, some ham, and a little fresh meat – she told her neighbours that a friend of her old acquaintance Martha White, who had gone up to London to service eight years before, had come down with a letter from her, asking her to take her friend in for a while, as she had been ill, and was ordered country air.

When Sophy awoke, she heard her old nurse moving about in the next room. On calling to her, she came in, with many inquiries as to how Sophy had slept, and Sophy was able honestly to answer, that she had not slept so well for weeks. The first question, in return, was, whether her nurse had seen any one that morning; and when she found that she had, she insisted on her repeating, word for word, what she had said; and not until she had done so twice was Sophy satisfied that her nurse had in no way betrayed her secret. In a quarter of an hour she was dressed, and found breakfast in the next room – tea and fresh cream, eggs newly laid, for Mrs. Green kept a number of fowls, and a rasher of ham.

"You look better, much better, this morning, deary," her nurse said, as she came in; "but still there is something quite strange about you, which makes you look altogether different to what you used to."

"Never mind now, nurse: I will tell you all about it after breakfast."

Presently her nurse put down a cup of tea she was in the act of raising to her lips.

"There is one question I must ask you, deary; it has been on my lips ever since you came in last night, only you looked so tired and weary I was feared to sorrow you. But in the short letters you sent me when I wrote to you, as you asked me, about the old lady's health up there, you used to write about your little boy. Have you – have you lost the little darling, Sophy?"

"No, Mammy Green – no. Thank God! he is alive and well; but I have left him with some kind friends in London while I came down here."

"Thank God! indeed, Miss Sophy. Do you know, I have been so anxious ever since you came in about him, only I daren't, for the life of me, ask you last night, though I almost had to bite my tongue off to keep quiet. There – go on with your breakfast now, deary. Now my mind is at rest, you need not tell me any more till you are quite ready to do so yourself."

After breakfast was over, Sophy tucked up her sleeves, and, in spite of many remonstrances, helped to clear the things away, and wash them up. When all was tidy, they sat down to the fire – Mrs. Green knitting, and Sophy hemming an apron, to keep her fingers employed while she talked – and then she began, and told as much of her past history as she deemed it expedient for the woman to know.

Mrs. Green interrupted her frequently with ejaculations of wonder and pity.

When Sophy had finished her story, she told her old nurse that she had come down for the express purpose of finding the will, by which she would become the heiress of Harmer Place; and that it was to this end that she had begged her to write, letting her know how Miss Harmer was, as – in the way in which she intended to attempt to find the will – it was useless for her to attempt anything as long as Miss Harmer was in good health.

"My dear," her old nurse said, shaking her head, "well or ill, it will make no difference. It is my belief, and always has been, that that woman has got a stone for a heart, and, well or ill, you might as well try to stop one of them engines which go running along the valley, as try and change what she has once resolved upon."

"I have no idea of changing her mind," Sophy said, quietly; "my opinion on that subject perfectly agrees with yours. I am going quite another way to work, and in this I require your help. I wish to get the place of servant to Miss Harmer's confessor."

This proposal so much roused Mrs. Green's indignation and amazement, that for a long time Sophy could not utter a word.

"What! Miss Sophy, who was the lawful mistress of the Hall, to go for a servant! and – most of all – as a servant to a Popish priest! What was she thinking of? A servant, indeed! She had thought, from the way Sophy had spoken of what she had been doing, that she had money; if not, it was of no consequence. She had two hundred pounds in the savings' bank, which she had laid by in the good times; and was it likely that, as long as that lasted, she would let her Miss Sophy go out as a servant? No, indeed!"

Sophy had to wait patiently till the storm was past, and she then explained to her nurse that it was not because she wanted money that she did this, for that she had an abundant supply; that she was very much obliged to her dear old Mammy Green for her offer, but it was not a question of money at all; and that it was absolutely necessary, for the recovery of the will, that she should enter the priest's service.

The nurse for a long time obstinately refused to do anything whatever to forward the design, and it was only by dint of coaxings and arguments innumerable, and, indeed, by the threat, if she would not assist her, that she must proceed – difficult as it would be – by herself, that she at last succeeded in persuading Mrs. Green into giving her assistance in the enterprise. At last, however, she gave in, and consented – although under protest that she disapproved of it all, and that she washed her hands of the whole affair – to do what Sophy desired of her.

Accordingly the next day Mrs. Green went down into the village, putting some eggs and a chicken into a basket, and under pretence of offering them for sale to the priest entered into conversation with his old servant. She mentioned to her that she had a friend down from London who had been in service there, but whose health was very bad, and who was ordered by the doctor to go down into the country and to take some very quiet situation there. Mrs. Green said that her friend had saved some money in service and would not mind paying handsomely for such a place as she wanted, as the doctor said her life depended upon it.