A Dark Night's Work (12 page)

Accordingly one Saturday in August, he came to Ford Bank, this time as a
visitor to Ellinor's home, instead of to his old quarters at Mr. Ness's.

The house was still as if asleep in the full heat of the afternoon sun,
as Mr. Corbet drove up. The window-blinds were down; the front door wide
open, great stands of heliotrope and roses and geraniums stood just
within the shadow of the hall; but through all the silence his approach
seemed to excite no commotion. He thought it strange that he had not
been watched for, that Ellinor did not come running out to meet him, that
she allowed Fletcher to come and attend to his luggage, and usher him
into the library just like any common visitor, any morning-caller. He
stiffened himself up into a moment's indignant coldness of manner. But
it vanished in an instant when, on the door being opened, he saw Ellinor
standing holding by the table, looking for his appearance with almost
panting anxiety. He thought of nothing then but her evident weakness,
her changed looks, for which no account of her illness had prepared him.
For she was deadly white, lips and all; and her dark eyes seemed
unnaturally enlarged, while the caves in which they were set were
strangely deep and hollow. Her hair, too, had been cut off pretty
closely; she did not usually wear a cap, but with some faint idea of
making herself look better in his eye, she had put on one this day, and
the effect was that she seemed to be forty years of age; but one instant
after he had come in, her pale face was flooded with crimson, and her
eyes were full of tears. She had hard work to keep herself from going
into hysterics, but she instinctively knew how much he would hate a
scene, and she checked herself in time.

"Oh," she murmured, "I am so glad to see you; it is such a comfort, such
an infinite pleasure." And so she went on, cooing out words over him,
and stroking his hair with her thin fingers; while he rather tried to
avert his eyes, he was so much afraid of betraying how much he thought
her altered.

But when she came down, dressed for dinner, this sense of her change was
diminished to him. Her short brown hair had already a little wave, and
was ornamented by some black lace; she wore a large black lace shawl—it
had been her mother's of old—over some delicate-coloured muslin dress;
her face was slightly flushed, and had the tints of a wild rose; her lips
kept pale and trembling with involuntary motion, it is true; and as the
lovers stood together, hand in hand, by the window, he was aware of a
little convulsive twitching at every noise, even while she seemed gazing
in tranquil pleasure on the long smooth slope of the newly-mown lawn,
stretching down to the little brook that prattled merrily over the stones
on its merry course to Hamley town.

He felt a stronger twitch than ever before; even while his ear, less
delicate than hers, could distinguish no peculiar sound. About two
minutes after Mr. Wilkins entered the room. He came up to Mr. Corbet
with a warm welcome: some of it real, some of it assumed. He talked
volubly to him, taking little or no notice of Ellinor, who dropped into
the background, and sat down on the sofa by Miss Monro; for on this day
they were all to dine together. Ralph Corbet thought that Mr. Wilkins
was aged; but no wonder, after all his anxiety of various kinds: Mr.
Dunster's flight and reported defalcations, Ellinor's illness, of the
seriousness of which her lover was now convinced by her appearance.

He would fain have spoken more to her during the dinner that ensued, but
Mr. Wilkins absorbed all his attention, talking and questioning on
subjects that left the ladies out of the conversation almost perpetually.
Mr. Corbet recognised his host's fine tact, even while his persistence in
talking annoyed him. He was quite sure that Mr. Wilkins was anxious to
spare his daughter any exertion beyond that—to which, indeed, she seemed
scarely equal—of sitting at the head of the table. And the more her
father talked—so fine an observer was Mr. Corbet—the more silent and
depressed Ellinor appeared. But by-and-by he accounted for this inverse
ratio of gaiety, as he perceived how quickly Mr. Wilkins had his glass
replenished. And here, again, Mr. Corbet drew his conclusions, from the
silent way in which, without a word or a sign from his master, Fletcher
gave him more wine continually—wine that was drained off at once.

"Six glasses of sherry before dessert," thought Mr. Corbet to himself.
"Bad habit—no wonder Ellinor looks grave." And when the gentlemen were
left alone, Mr. Wilkins helped himself even still more freely; yet
without the slightest effect on the clearness and brilliancy of his
conversation. He had always talked well and racily, that Ralph knew, and
in this power he now recognised a temptation to which he feared that his
future father-in-law had succumbed. And yet, while he perceived that
this gift led into temptation, he coveted it for himself; for he was
perfectly aware that this fluency, this happy choice of epithets, was the
one thing he should fail in when he began to enter into the more active
career of his profession. But after some time spent in listening, and
admiring, with this little feeling of envy lurking in the background, Mr.
Corbet became aware of Mr. Wilkins's increasing confusion of ideas, and
rather unnatural merriment; and, with a sudden revulsion from admiration
to disgust, he rose up to go into the library, where Ellinor and Miss
Monro were sitting. Mr. Wilkins accompanied him, laughing and talking
somewhat loudly. Was Ellinor aware of her father's state? Of that Mr.
Corbet could not be sure. She looked up with grave sad eyes as they came
into the room, but with no apparent sensation of surprise, annoyance, or
shame. When her glance met her father's, Mr. Corbet noticed that it
seemed to sober the latter immediately. He sat down near the open
window, and did not speak, but sighed heavily from time to time. Miss
Monro took up a book, in order to leave the young people to themselves;
and after a little low murmured conversation, Ellinor went upstairs to
put on her things for a stroll through the meadows by the river-side.

They were sometimes sauntering along in the lovely summer twilight, now
resting on some grassy hedge-row bank, or standing still, looking at the
great barges, with their crimson sails, lazily floating down the river,
making ripples on the glassy opal surface of the water. They did not
talk very much; Ellinor seemed disinclined for the exertion; and her
lover was thinking over Mr. Wilkins's behaviour, with some surprise and
distaste of the habit so evidently growing upon him.

They came home, looking serious and tired: yet they could not account for
their fatigue by the length of their walk, and Miss Monro, forgetting
Autolycus's song, kept fidgeting about Ellinor, and wondering how it was
she looked so pale, if she had only been as far as the Ash Meadow. To
escape from this wonder, Ellinor went early to bed. Mr. Wilkins was
gone, no one knew where, and Ralph and Miss Monro were left to a half-
hour's
tete-a-tete
. He thought he could easily account for Ellinor's
languor, if, indeed, she had perceived as much as he had done of her
father's state, when they had come into the library after dinner. But
there were many details which he was anxious to hear from a comparatively
indifferent person, and as soon as he could, he passed on from the
conversation about Ellinor's health, to inquiries as to the whole affair
of Mr. Dunster's disappearance.

Next to her anxiety about Ellinor, Miss Monro liked to dilate on the
mystery connected with Mr. Dunster's flight; for that was the word she
employed without hesitation, as she gave him the account of the event
universally received and believed in by the people of Hamley. How Mr.
Dunster had never been liked by any one; how everybody remembered that he
could never look them straight in the face; how he always seemed to be
hiding something that he did not want to have known; how he had drawn a
large sum (exact quantity unknown) out of the county bank only the day
before he left Hamley, doubtless in preparation for his escape; how some
one had told Mr. Wilkins he had seen a man just like Dunster lurking
about the docks at Liverpool, about two days after he had left his
lodgings, but that this some one, being in a hurry, had not cared to stop
and speak to the man; how that the affairs in the office were discovered
to be in such a sad state that it was no wonder that Mr. Dunster had
absconded—he that had been so trusted by poor dear Mr. Wilkins. Money
gone no one knew how or where.

"But has he no friends who can explain his proceedings, and account for
the missing money, in some way?" asked Mr. Corbet.

"No, none. Mr. Wilkins has written everywhere, right and left, I
believe. I know he had a letter from Mr. Dunster's nearest relation—a
tradesman in the City—a cousin, I think, and he could give no
information in any way. He knew that about ten years ago Mr. Dunster had
had a great fancy for going to America, and had read a great many
travels—all just what a man would do before going off to a country."

"Ten years is a long time beforehand," said Mr. Corbet, half smiling;
"shows malice prepense with a vengeance." But then, turning grave, he
said: "Did he leave Hamley in debt?"

"No; I never heard of that," said Miss Monro, rather unwillingly, for she
considered it as a piece of loyalty to the Wilkinses, whom Mr. Dunster
had injured (as she thought) to blacken his character as much as was
consistent with any degree of truth.

"It is a strange story," said Mr. Corbet, musing.

"Not at all," she replied, quickly; "I am sure, if you had seen the man,
with one or two side-locks of hair combed over his baldness, as if he
were ashamed of it, and his eyes that never looked at you, and his way of
eating with his knife when he thought he was not observed—oh, and
numbers of things!—you would not think it strange."

Mr. Corbet smiled.

"I only meant that he seems to have had no extravagant or vicious habits
which would account for his embezzlement of the money that is
missing—but, to be sure, money in itself is a temptation—only he, being
a partner, was in a fair way of making it without risk to himself. Has
Mr. Wilkins taken any steps to have him arrested in America? He might
easily do that."

"Oh, my dear Mr. Ralph, you don't know our good Mr. Wilkins! He would
rather bear the loss, I am sure, and all this trouble and care which it
has brought upon him, than be revenged upon Mr. Dunster."

"Revenged! What nonsense! It is simple justice—justice to himself and
to others—to see that villainy is so sufficiently punished as to deter
others from entering upon such courses. But I have little doubt Mr.
Wilkins has taken the right steps; he is not the man to sit down quietly
under such a loss."

"No, indeed! he had him advertised in the
Times
and in the county
papers, and offered a reward of twenty pounds for information concerning
him."

"Twenty pounds was too little."

"So I said. I told Ellinor that I would give twenty pounds myself to
have him apprehended, and she, poor darling! fell a-trembling, and said,
'I would give all I have—I would give my life.' And then she was in
such distress, and sobbed so, I promised her I would never name it to her
again."

"Poor child—poor child! she wants change of scene. Her nerves have been
sadly shaken by her illness."

The next day was Sunday; Ellinor was to go to church for the first time
since her illness. Her father had decided it for her, or else she would
fain have stayed away—she would hardly acknowledge why, even to herself,
but it seemed to her as if the very words and presence of God must there
search her and find her out.

She went early, leaning on the arm of her lover, and trying to forget the
past in the present. They walked slowly along between the rows of waving
golden corn ripe for the harvest. Mr. Corbet gathered blue and scarlet
flowers, and made up a little rustic nosegay for her. She took and stuck
it in her girdle, smiling faintly as she did so.

Hamley Church had, in former days, been collegiate, and was, in
consequence, much larger and grander than the majority of country-town
churches. The Ford Bank pew was a square one, downstairs; the Ford Bank
servants sat in a front pew in the gallery, right before their master.
Ellinor was "hardening her heart" not to listen, not to hearken to what
might disturb the wound which was just being skinned over, when she
caught Dixon's face up above. He looked worn, sad, soured, and anxious
to a miserable degree; but he was straining eyes and ears, heart and
soul, to hear the solemn words read from the pulpit, as if in them alone
he could find help in his strait. Ellinor felt rebuked and humbled.

She was in a tumultuous state of mind when they left church; she wished
to do her duty, yet could not ascertain what it was. Who was to help her
with wisdom and advice? Assuredly he to whom her future life was to be
trusted. But the case must be stated in an impersonal form. No one, not
even her husband, must ever know anything against her father from her.
Ellinor was so artless herself, that she had little idea how quickly and
easily some people can penetrate motives, and combine disjointed
sentences. She began to speak to Ralph on their slow, sauntering walk
homewards through the quiet meadows:

"Suppose, Ralph, that a girl was engaged to be married—"

"I can very easily suppose that, with you by me," said he, filling up her
pause.

"Oh! but I don't mean myself at all," replied she, reddening. "I am only
thinking of what might happen; and suppose that this girl knew of some
one belonging to her—we will call it a brother—who had done something
wrong, that would bring disgrace upon the whole family if it was
known—though, indeed, it might not have been so very wrong as it seemed,
and as it would look to the world—ought she to break off her engagement
for fear of involving her lover in the disgrace?"