A fortnight in the country! and at her busiest time, with the London season coming on.
I thought of that, and then, as I glanced round at the flowers and inhaled their scents, the bright fields near Templemore Grange floated before my dimming eyes, a feeling of suffocation came upon me, and the room seemed to swing round. I believe that for the first time in my life I should have fainted, so painful were the memories evoked by her words, when a sharp knock and ring at the door echoed through the house, following instantly upon the dull fall of a letter, and the sharp click of the letter-box.
It was like an electric shock to me, and without a word I darted into the hall, panting with excitement, and my hand at my throat to tear away the stifling sensation.
But it was a letter. I could see it through the glass in the letter-box, and I seized it with trembling hands, inspired as it were by some strange power.
“Jack! dear Jack at last!” I gasped as I turned it over, and saw it was a strange, blue, official-looking letter, formally directed to me.
Even that did not surprise me. It was from Jack, I knew, and I tore open the blue envelope.
Yes, I knew it! The inner envelope was covered with Australian post-marks, and, ignorant as I might be of its contents, I was raising it to my lips to cover it with passionate kisses, when I saw it was open.
Then a mist came over my mental vision for a time, but only to clear away as, half stupefied, I turned the missive over and over, held it straight for a moment; and then, with a sigh of misery and despair, I stood mute, and as if turned to stone.
“Grace, my child! In mercy’s name tell me – ”
It was Madame, who passed her arm round me, and looked horror-stricken at my white face and lips. The next moment I dimly remember she had caught the letter – his letter – my letter – from my hand, and read it aloud: “Mr John Braywood, Markboro, R. County Melbourne,” and then, in her excitement, the great official sentence-like brand upon it – “Dead!”
Chapter Two.
The Sorrows of Madame Grainger
I tried so hard to bear up, to keep secret my loss, but it was all in vain. My long days of waiting for that answer had weakened and undermined my constitution, so that I had not strength to bear up against the shock, and the result was a very serious illness during which I was given over by the doctors, but somehow they were wrong. The change was long in coming, but it came, and by degrees I was convalescent, but only the shadow of my former self.
Poor Madame, as we always called her, the French title as she laughingly used to tell me, bringing her ten times as many customers as would have fallen to her lot had she called herself Mrs Grainger, she tended me through my long illness as if she had been my mother, and I believe she loved me dearly. At times I had hinted at being sent away; at the expense and trouble I must be, but she used to lay her hand upon my lips and kiss my forehead.
“Don’t be silly, my child,” she said. “You know I make money fast, and how could I spend what little you cost better than in taking care of you.
“Grace, my child,” she said one night, after a feeble protest on my part, “sorrow brings people closer together. You are a widow now like I am, although you never were a wife. We two, my dear, must never part.”
I could only kiss her hand and cry silently, as I lay back in my easy chair, thankful that if I could live my lot would be made less hard to bear. For all through my weak and weary illness, when I was not thinking of dear Jack, the thought that I must be up and doing was for ever intruding itself, and that thought of going out to battle with the world once more seemed to keep me back.
I need not have troubled about my future, for that was to be my home. With returning health came greater intimacy, and by degrees I learned that Madame Grainger’s troubles had been greater, perhaps, than mine, for after a brief spell of married happiness her husband, a clergyman, had succumbed to poverty and overwork, leaving her almost penniless, to drift at last into the life she had led and become a busy thriving woman.
“Yes,” she said to me more than once, “I have often regretted the society in which I used to move, but it is better to depend upon oneself, Grace, than to be a burden upon one’s friends. I offended many by taking to this life, but I should have ceased to respect myself had I remained a poverty-stricken widow existing on the charity of those who blame me the most for my course.”
“You must have had a hard fight,” I said.
“I did, my child,” she replied, “a very hard fight, and it was at a time when I used to think that it would have been better to have lain down and died, as just one year before, my poor husband had closed his eyes.”
“How well lean recall it all,” she said dreamily, “long as it is ago. You told me your little life Grace, let me tell you mine. Did I ever say to you that Mr Grainger was a clergyman?”
“Yes,” I said, watching her intently, “you told me so.”
“Poor fellow!” she said with a sigh, “he asked me quite suddenly one day to be his wife.
“I was astounded, and yet pleased, and in a moment I had said quietly that it was impossible.
“Mr Grainger rose from his seat, looking inexpressibly pained, and walked slowly up and down the room, while I sat back in my chair by the window, with my heart beating violently, and a sense of suffocation upon me that was absolutely painful. But I was pained, too, for him: grieved that he should ever have asked me – more than grieved to have caused him sorrow. For in his suffering he looked so calm and gentle – he, the tall, stalwart man, with his fast-greying hair, and countenance marked with the lines printed by maturing age and thought. He had been so kind and friendly, too, ever since he had been at the parsonage, and in our daily work we had been drawn so imperceptibly together, that I had hoped ours was to be a firm and lasting friendship; and now this meeting seemed to have brought it to an abrupt conclusion. Suddenly he stopped before me again, and stood looking down, while I crouched there almost fascinated by his gaze.
“‘Miss Denison – Laura,’ he said, in a low soft voice, ‘you must forgive me, and if you cannot accede to my proposal, let us be as we have been during the past happy year.’
“I tried to speak, but he held up his hand.
“‘Hear me out, dear friend,’ he said, ‘and let me speak again, for I still hope that I may have taken you by surprise. I have known you now for a year.’
“I tried to speak once more – to beg of him that he would let me leave the room – that he would bring our interview to an end; but my heart went on still with its heavy beat, and the suffocating sensation was still at my throat, so that I half lay there with my eyes closed, listening to his words, every one of which seemed to wake an echo, and increase the heavy throbbing of my heart.
“‘I had a love-dream once,’ he said; and his voice became very rich and soft. ‘I was tutor in a noble house. There was a daughter there whom I could have loved, had I but dared. Honour, position, all forbade it. She was heiress to thirty thousand pounds, and I was the young tutor to whose care the education of her brother had been trusted. She never knew my fancy, and I saw her married to a nobleman – happily, I hoped – while I – I returned to my books.’
“He paused again, and I sat up watching his half-averted face, as in those few words – so few but so pregnant of meaning – he laid bare to me his heart; and as he sighed, the heavy throbbing in my breast began to subside, and a strange feeling of pity for him to grow.
“‘I thought it but fair to tell you this,’ he said sadly, ‘to show you that I have no youthful first love to lay before you; but I felt that here, in this village, if your lot were joined to mine, the down-hill of life would be made happy for me, as God knows I would try to make it ever green and pleasant for you, while those around us should be taught to bless us for the help we gave. It is no romantic offer,’ he said, more cheerfully. ‘It is very matter-of-fact,