Part 38 (1/2)

And now she did watch her.

Mary took the paper and flattened it; then suddenly stood stiff up, with irrepressible movement, as if petrified by some horror abruptly disclosed; her face, strung and rigid; her lips compressed tight, to keep down some rising exclamation. She dropped on her seat, as suddenly as if the braced muscles had in an instant given way. But she spoke no word.

”It is his handwriting--isn't it?” asked Esther, though Mary's manner was almost confirmation enough.

”You will not tell. You never will tell?” demanded Mary, in a tone so sternly earnest, as almost to be threatening.

”Nay, Mary,” said Esther, rather reproachfully, ”I am not so bad as that. O Mary, you cannot think I would do that, whatever I may be.”

The tears sprang to her eyes at the idea that she was suspected of being one who would help to inform against an old friend.

Mary caught her sad and upbraiding look.

”No! I know you would not tell, aunt. I don't know what I say, I am so shocked. But say you will not tell. Do.”

”No, indeed I willn't tell, come what may.”

Mary sat still looking at the writing, and turning the paper round with careful examination, trying to hope, but her very fears belying her hopes.

”I thought you cared for the young man that's murdered,” observed Esther, half-aloud; but feeling that she could not mistake this strange interest in the suspected murderer, implied by Mary's eagerness to screen him from anything which might strengthen suspicion against him. She had come, desirous to know the extent of Mary's grief for Mr. Carson, and glad of the excuse afforded her by the important sc.r.a.p of paper. Her remark about its being Jem's handwriting, she had, with this view of ascertaining Mary's state of feeling, felt to be most imprudent the instant after she had uttered it; but Mary's anxiety that she should not tell was too great, and too decided, to leave a doubt as to her interest for Jem. She grew more and more bewildered, and her dizzy head refused to reason.

Mary never spoke. She held the bit of paper firmly, determined to retain possession of it, come what might; and anxious, and impatient, for her aunt to go. As she sat, her face bore a likeness to Esther's dead child.

”You are so like my little girl, Mary!” said Esther, weary of the one subject on which she could get no satisfaction, and recurring, with full heart, to the thought of the dead.

Mary looked up. Her aunt had children, then. That was all the idea she received. No faint imagination of the love and the woe of that poor creature crossed her mind, or she would have taken her, all guilty and erring, to her bosom, and tried to bind up the broken heart. No! it was not to be. Her aunt had children, then; and she was on the point of putting some question about them, but before it could be spoken another thought turned it aside, and she went back to her task of unravelling the mystery of the paper, and the handwriting. Oh! how she wished her aunt would go!

As if, according to the believers in mesmerism, the intenseness of her wish gave her power over another, although the wish was unexpressed, Esther felt herself unwelcome, and that her absence was desired.

She felt this some time before she could summon up resolution to go.

She was so much disappointed in this longed-for, dreaded interview with Mary; she had wished to impose upon her with her tale of married respectability, and yet she had yearned and craved for sympathy in her real lot. And she had imposed upon her well. She should perhaps be glad of it afterwards; but her desolation of hope seemed for the time redoubled. And she must leave the old dwelling-place, whose very walls, and flags, dingy and sordid as they were, had a charm for her. Must leave the abode of poverty, for the more terrible abodes of vice. She must--she would go.

”Well, good-night, Mary. That bit of paper is safe enough with you, I see. But you made me promise I would not tell about it, and you must promise me to destroy it before you sleep.”

”I promise,” said Mary hoa.r.s.ely, but firmly. ”Then you are going?”

”Yes. Not if you wish me to stay. Not if I could be of any comfort to you, Mary”; catching at some glimmering hope.

”Oh no,” said Mary, anxious to be alone. ”Your husband will be wondering where you are. Some day you must tell me all about yourself. I forget what your name is?”

”Fergusson,” said Esther sadly.

”Mrs. Fergusson,” repeated Mary half unconsciously. ”And where did you say you lived?”

”I never did say,” muttered Esther; then aloud, ”In Angel's Meadow, 145, Nicholas Street.”

”145, Nicholas Street, Angel Meadow. I shall remember.”

As Esther drew her shawl around her, and prepared to depart, a thought crossed Mary's mind that she had been cold and hard in her manner towards one, who had certainly meant to act kindly in bringing her the paper (that dread, terrible piece of paper!) and thus saving her from--she could not rightly think how much, or how little she was spared. So desirous of making up for her previous indifferent manner, she advanced to kiss her aunt before her departure.

But, to her surprise, her aunt pushed her off with a frantic kind of gesture, and saying the words--