"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