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

CHAPTER VI
THE SEARCH RENEWED

James Fielding being gone, Sophy proceeded to put her long-cherished plans into execution. She gave notice to Mrs. Billow that she was going to leave. Had she been informed that the sky was on the point of falling, Mrs. Billow could not have been more astonished. Sophy had been there now more than five years, and her good landlady had come to look upon her as a daughter; as one, indeed, who by education and habits was far above herself; as one who had been brought up, and had married, in a station far above her own, and with whom, therefore, she could not feel upon quite equal terms, but yet she loved her as she might have done had Sophy really been a daughter. She had been so long Sophy's only friend; she had nursed her through her illness; she had soothed and consoled her when there were none else to do so; she had looked upon her child as almost belonging to her also; – so that when, after the first incredulous burst of astonishment was over, she saw that Sophy was really in earnest, and that she was going to leave her, Mrs. Billow sat down and had a great cry over it. She, too, was a lonely woman; her husband, from the nature of his pursuits, allowed her to have no friends; and he himself passed his existence in sleep and drunkenness; so that she had attached herself very much to her young widow lodger and her baby, and felt that, for her at least, it would be a heavy loss when she went.

When Mrs. Billow had recovered herself sufficiently to speak, she said —

"And where on earth are you going, my dear?"

"I am going to Italy," Sophy said, quietly.

"Italy!" Mrs. Billow said, in the greatest consternation; "going to foreign parts! Then I shall never see you again!" And here the good woman again gave way to plentiful tears.

"I shall only be gone a year, Mrs. Billow; I shall be sure to be back in that time."

But Mrs. Billow was not to be comforted.

"No, no, my dear, I shall never see you again. They all say it is only for a year when they go to foreign parts; but they never come back again. My nephew – that is, my sister Jane's son – William, he went to Australy. 'Never mind, mother,' he said to her, 'I shall be back in a year or two, a rich man;' and she never heard of him afterwards. It always is so – either you get wrecked under the sea, or eaten by savages, or something dreadful; any how, they never come back again."

Sophy after some difficulty persuaded Mrs. Billow that there was a great difference between Italy and Australia; that one was a four months' journey and the other four days; and that it all, with the exception of two hours, was by land.

Mrs. Billow was somewhat comforted by this information; but was still very despondent and low for the few days Sophy remained with her.

Mr. Billow, too, was much put out, and, indeed, felt himself personally aggrieved. She had been with them so long, that he had come to look upon the twelve shillings a week as a species of annuity which he received by right. As he said, he should never get another lodger who would suit him so well, who would give so little trouble, and ask no questions; indeed, that he did not think that he would take any lodger at all again, and that, therefore, it was a clear robbery of twelve shillings a week.

Sophy's friends, too, the Harleys, were greatly grieved when they heard that Sophy and her child were leaving, and could not understand why she wanted to go to Italy; but the only explanation they received was that she wished to learn the language. They tried very hard to dissuade her from her intention, but without avail; and in less than ten days after James Fielding had left town, Sophy and her child started for Italy, her destination being Florence.

That fortnight's travelling Sophy enjoyed as she had never enjoyed anything before. She journeyed by comparatively short stages; for time was no object to her, nor did she spare money. She was resolved to enjoy herself, and she entered into all the novelty of the scene with as much zest as a schoolgirl out for her holidays. It was all so new and so strange to her. She had never travelled before, except on that hurried flight to Scotland, when her heart was so troubled at the thought of the old man she had left behind. Her life had been always so monotonous and even, that the rapid motion, the strange sights and dresses, and the novelty of everything, flushed her cheeks and brightened her eyes with pleasurable excitement; besides, had she not at last entered upon that enterprise upon which her heart and thoughts had for the last three years been fixed – that enterprise, the result of which was to make her child rich; and although, before that was to come, she might have trouble and danger to encounter, still that was distant as yet: she had a year's holiday before her, and she was determined to make the most of it.

Little James was fortunately no drawback to this pleasure. Children generally go into either one extreme or the other: when travelling, they are either terribly peevish and irritable, or as good as gold. Fortunately, James chose the latter alternative; he either looked out of the windows and talked a great deal – principally about the horses and sheep and cattle grazing quietly in the meadows, as the train flew past them – or else slept for hours on the seat.

They went by train as far as Chambéry, and then by diligence and in sledges over Mont Cenis. Very cold this journey was; but Sophy was well wrapped up, and, with her child nestling on her lap, felt nothing but enjoyment as they passed over the pass and through the magnificent scenery which was all so new to her. At Susa they again took train, and thence through Turin to Genoa.

Here Sophy stopped for a day, and wandered through the long streets and narrow lanes, with the picturesque houses and quaint little jewellers' shops. The next morning they went by steamer to Leghorn, starting again next day by train to Florence. Past Pisa, with its leaning tower and lofty campaniles, visible for miles across the plain; and then along lovely valleys, studded with pretty villages, where every foot of ground is a garden; till at last the hills receded, and before them lay Florence in all its beauty. Here Sophy remained in a hotel for a week, waiting for answers to an advertisement she had inserted in the local paper on the day of her arrival —

"An English lady, with a little boy, desires to enter into an Italian family residing a short distance from Florence, where she can be treated as one of themselves."

To this she had many answers, but she finally selected one to which she was recommended by the proprietor of the hotel, to whom she had mentioned her wishes. He had, in turn, spoken to his wife, and she was sure that her brother Giacomo would be glad to receive the lady. Giacomo was written to, and came over to Florence with his wife. He lived in the valley through which Sophy had journeyed from Pisa, and his wife and he would be glad to receive the signora and her child, if she would not find the place too rough for her.

Sophy, before deciding, went over to see it, and when she did so, she accepted their proposal at once. The house stood by itself on the side of the hill, a little way out of a village, and the view from its windows was lovely. It was the property of her hosts, who owned, besides, about fifty acres of ground – a large farm in that locality, where ground is very valuable. The family consisted of her host, a fine specimen of the small Italian proprietario; his wife, a cheery, talkative woman of about forty; and three daughters, from seventeen to twenty-one, all lively, hearty girls, even more talkative than their mother.

Here Sophy and her child took up their abode. She had studied Italian for the four years that she had had this journey in anticipation, and could write and speak it grammatically, although, of course, her accent was very imperfect. At first she was unable to follow the rapid conversation around her, but before long she was quite at home at it, and could talk away as fast as themselves. Sophy insisted upon being treated as one of the family, helped the girls and their mother in their household work, and was very happy. Little James was soon as much at home as herself: he speedily picked up the language, and in six months spoke it as well, or better, than English, which, indeed, he would have quite lost, had not Sophy spoken to him in it when they were alone together.

It was a very quiet, happy life. In the morning Sophy assisted at the domestic work; that done, she sat under the shelter of the vines, working sometimes, and looking over the lovely country, with its picturesque houses – picturesque not only in shape but in colour, with their fancifully painted walls – with its innumerable little gardens – they could be hardly called fields – separated by trees, over and between which the vines clustered and hung with graceful festoons; with the hills rising on either side, cultivated to the very tops; and over all the bright Italian sky, with its intense, cloudless blue.

It was very charming; and as she sat there, and listened to her boy's laughter, as he romped with the sisters, by whom he was made chief pet and favourite, she would close her eyes, and almost wish it could last for ever. Had she been alone in the world, she would have been well content that it should be so. The interest of the money that she had would have been amply sufficient for her present mode of life, but, for her boy's sake, she must leave it, as he, the rightful heir to a noble property, must not grow up an Italian peasant. Her purpose must be carried out; yet still she felt it very hard to have to return again to England, with that heavy task before her of finding the will. Not that she ever wavered for an instant; but, as the time drew on, her spirits drooped, her cheek paled again, and she would sit for long hours without speaking, musing over every detail of her purposed plans. And so, at the end of the year, Sophy and her child took their leave of their quiet Italian home, not without many tears on their own parts and those of their friends; giving each of the women pretty presents and keepsakes, and promising that they should hear from her before long, and that some day she would pay them another, though it might be only a short, visit.

Sophy did not go straight back, but proceeded to Bologna, and made an excursion from there, which lasted three days; then – having carried out the two objects she had proposed to herself when she left England – she went back again over the St. Gothard; travelling, as before, without haste, until she returned to King Edward Street, Lambeth.

Great was the pleasure with which she was received by Mrs. Billow and her other friends. Her rooms were still unlet – for Mr. Billow had remained firm to his determination to receive no other lodgers – and so Sophy went into them again, telling Mrs. Billow, however, that she should not, probably, occupy them for long, as she should shortly be going away again. James Fielding and his wife came over to see her as soon as he heard of her return. His business was still prospering, and Sophy liked his wife very much, but refused to go and stay with them, as they wanted her to do.

About ten days after her return, she said, one day, to the Harleys, who were sitting with her —

"I am going into the country in a fortnight or so. I have been so long accustomed to fields and trees, that I long to be in them again, or, at any rate, out of London. I have nothing to do now, and feel lonely and sad here. It is such a change for Jamie, too, after the open-air life he has had for the last year. But I want to ask you something. I may, at any moment, have to go far away again, and this time I cannot take him with me. If I come up suddenly, and leave him with you, will you take care of him as your own? It may be for three months – it may be for three years. Of course, I shall pay you; but it is not that. Will you take care of him as your own?"

Both husband and wife agreed willingly to take the child, if necessary, but asked what his mother could be going to do that she could not take her boy with her? But to this they received no reply: she had to go, and that was all she would tell them.

The next day, when Mrs. Billow was out, and Jamie had gone over for a game of play with his friends opposite, Sophy went down into the kitchen, perfectly astounding Mr. Billow – who was, as usual, dozing over the fire – by her appearance there.

"Mrs. Billow is out, and I want to have some talk with you alone, Mr. Billow," she said quietly, sitting down opposite to the old man.

"What can I do for you, Mrs. Gregory?" he asked, when he had roused himself a little.

"Nothing, just at present, Mr. Billow. I want to ask you a question. I know that, in your way of business, you become connected with all sorts of strange characters."

Mr. Billow opened his eyes in greater surprise than before. Was she coming, as her husband had done more than five years before, to ask to be introduced to two men for some desperate business? or what could she want? He was too astonished to speak, and Sophy continued —

"Now, do you think, Mr. Billow, that, in the circle of your acquaintance, you could find any one who could imitate a handwriting so exactly that it should not be known?"

"Do you mean you want a forger?"

"Not exactly that," Sophy said, quite composedly – for she had thought all this over so frequently, that it seemed to come quite as a matter of course to her – "not exactly that, Mr. Billow. I want a man who can exactly imitate a handwriting, so that, if I send you a specimen of the hand I want copied, and the words of a letter to be written in that handwriting, the letter can be executed so that no one will know the difference. I may as well mention, that it is not for any purpose of getting money, or anything of that sort; it is a simple ordinary letter."

"It is such an extraordinary thing for you to ask."

"Quite so, Mr. Billow, I am quite aware of that; but that is my business, not yours. Of course it is an unusual thing, and I am ready to pay an unusual price for it. What could you get me such a thing done for?"

Mr. Billow thought for some little time.

"It is not at all in my line," he said, at last, "still, I could get at a man who would do it; but I daresay he would charge a twenty pound note."

"Very well, Mr. Billow, when the time comes, which may not be for a long time yet, I will send you a specimen of handwriting, a copy of the letter to be written, and thirty pounds, and I shall expect it back in two or three days at most after you receive it. That is all I wanted to say, Mr. Billow, I need not ask you not to mention it to your wife."

So saying, Sophy Gregory went up to her own room again, leaving Mr. Billow so extremely surprised that he was unable to settle comfortably off to sleep again for the rest of the evening.

Sophy did not carry out the intention she had expressed of going into the country with her child; for a day or two before she had intended to start, a letter came from her foster-mother, saying, that it wanted a month yet of her usual time of writing; but that Miss Harmer had broken so much during the last two months, that she thought she ought to write to Sophy as she had put so much stress upon it. The writer went on to say that as far as she heard the village people say, there was no immediate danger at all, but that she had given up going in to Canterbury to mass, and kept entirely in the house.

Sophy, after she got this letter, sat for a long time quietly looking into the fire. The colour died out from her face, and her expression changed and hardened strangely. So it was come at last, this time for which she had waited so long and so patiently; it was now or never this great prize was to be won, this grievous wrong to be righted. She did not doubt or hesitate a moment, yet still she could not help being sorry. She was so happy with her boy, she loved him so much that it seemed hard to go away and leave him; and perhaps – who could say? never see him again. But all this feeling, natural as it was, she shortly put aside, and began once again to think over her plans; at last – with a face very different from that with which she had sat down – she got up, put on her things, and went out, across the water to a strange looking shop near Drury Lane Theatre; here she purchased some of the things she needed, and ordered others, which would require preparation, to be made up at once, and sent home the next evening.

Then back again to King Edward Street. Mr. Billow told her that Jamie was over at Mr. Harley's, and there she went. There was something so unusual and strange in her look and manner that both Mr. and Mrs. Harley noticed it at once, and asked if she were ill, or if anything was the matter.

Sophy shook her head, and sat down without speaking; her child ran up to her side to show her some new toy which his friends had given him: but she did not look down at him, she only put her hand on his head and stroked it gently while she was speaking.

"The other day, Mrs. Harley," she began, "you said that when I came up from the country you would take care of Jamie for me. I find that I must go away upon this business at once, the day after to-morrow; are you willing to take him now?"

"Certainly, if you require it," Mrs. Harley said; "but must this be, Sophy? I don't know why, but this strange mystery makes me quite uneasy; and you look so white and unlike yourself."

"I am quite well," Sophy replied; but she could not say more, for Jamie awakening to the fact that his mammy was going away without him, set up such a terrible roaring that all farther conversation was suspended for some time; at last, on the promise that he should go out the next day and choose any plaything he liked, his tears were dried, and for the rest of the day he was occupied debating with himself, and with every one else, on the respective merits of a big farm-yard, a big Noah's ark, a big ship, or a big horse. The next day Sophy packed up; she did this quietly and methodically, talking very little to Jamie, but with every faculty absorbed in the one thought of the work she had before her. In the afternoon she bade good-bye to her friends opposite, left them money for half a year's keep for James, and said she would send the next instalment when the time came. Just as she was going out Mrs. Harley said —

"But you have not given us your address, Sophy. Where are we to write to you?"

"Not at all," she said. "Please put an advertisement in the Times the first Monday of each month – 'S. G., Jamie is well.' If anything should be the matter in the mean time, advertise in the same way. I shall be sure to see it. Good-bye, God bless you! take care of Jamie."

Mr. and Mrs. Harley had a long talk together after Sophy had gone across to her own house, and they came to the conclusion that it was very strange; and they were both inclined to believe that their friend's brain must be a little touched; still, what could they do? she was not mad enough to be shut up. Altogether it was very strange.

That evening Sophy wrote a letter to James Fielding saying that she was going away for a time, but imploring him on no account to institute any inquiry after her, as such a proceeding might damage her to an extent he could not possibly imagine. She told him that she had left Jamie with the Harleys, and recalled his promise that in case of anything happening to her, he would take care of her boy. She inclosed her will appointing him to be her boy's guardian, and her sole executor in case of her death.

In the morning she got up early, and dressed very quietly, keeping the blinds down, so as not to disturb Jamie. She took a little breakfast, kissed her sleeping child – one long, loving kiss, – and was gone.

CHAPTER VII
A BROKEN LIFE

And so I returned to dear old Canterbury. I had so many friends there, and the town itself, which I loved better than them all, that as I looked out of the window of the fly as I drove through its well-remembered streets, it seemed to me as if the events of the last four years were all obliterated from my mind, and that I was coming back after only a short absence to my dear old home. Mrs. Mapleside, with whom, as I have said, I was going to stay, was an elderly lady when I was a young girl. She was then known as Miss Mapleside; but she had now taken brevet rank, and was grievously displeased if she were addressed in any other way; she was now more than seventy-five, but was still brisk and lively, and her heart was kindness itself. She was short, but very upright, and generally dressed in brown plum-coloured, or black silk. She inclined to bright colours in her bonnet, and rather prided herself upon her taste in dress. Personally she was the reverse of vain, and wore the most palpable wig I ever saw, and a pair of spectacles, with tortoiseshell rims of an immense thickness. She had besides a pair of heavy gold double eye-glasses, which hung upon her chain on state occasions, and which she sometimes put on; but I think this was merely from a little harmless pride in their possession, for whenever she had really to look at anything, she always pulled out her tortoiseshell spectacles, and not unfrequently tried to put them on, forgetful that the gold spectacles were already fixed on her nose.

Mrs. Mapleside lived in a pretty little house on the terrace overlooking the market-place; and when I arrived that evening, she received me with an almost motherly affection and interest. She would hardly allow me to go upstairs, to take my things off. She was sure that I must be so terribly fatigued, for to her a three hours' journey by rail was an undertaking not to be lightly entered upon, and involving immense risk and fatigue. The old lady had once when a girl made a journey to London, and the coach had been snowed up, and they had been two days on the road; and she still retained a vivid remembrance of her sufferings. For the last fifty years she had never been beyond Whitstable or Ramsgate, to one or other of which places she made an expedition for a fortnight or so every two years; always going in the coach, as long as coaches ran, and after that in some friend's carriage; for the railway to her was a terrible monster, and nothing would convince her that collisions and catastrophes of all sorts were not its normal state of being. She expressed her gratitude to Providence most warmly that I should have been preserved from destruction on the way, and seemed to think that an almost special dispensation had taken place in my favour.

Mrs. Mapleside read the Times regularly, getting it on the third day from the library, and her principal object of interest in it was to search for railway accidents; and as few days pass without some mishap of greater or less importance being recorded, she was constantly quoting them in support of her pet theory. It was in vain that I assured her that the number of accidents was as nothing in proportion to the immense number of trains which ran daily. This was a light in which she would not look at it; but had an argument, quite original to herself, with which she always triumphantly confuted anything I could urge on the opposite side of the question.

"Now, my dear," she would say, "this accident happened by the train which left York at ten o'clock in the morning. Will you be kind enough to look in Bradshaw, which I never can understand, and see by which train we must have left Canterbury, to have reached York in time to have gone on by that ten-o'clock train?"

I would get the book and find that if we had gone up to London by the four o'clock train the evening before, and then on by the night mail to York, and had slept there for a few hours, we could have gone on by the ten o'clock train to which the accident happened.

"There, my dear," she would exclaim triumphantly, "you see we have had a wonderful escape. If we had started by that four o'clock train on our way to Scotland we should have been very likely killed, and if you remember, if we had gone by the twelve o'clock train the day before to Bath, we should have been in that dreadful accident at the bridge, where so many people were killed. No, no, my dear, there is hardly a day passes when if we had taken our places by one of the trains from here, and gone on a journey to some part of England or other, we should not have met with some accident or other; perhaps only run over a signalman, but even that would have been very unpleasant to the feelings. You may say what you like, my dear, but nothing will persuade me that we do not have almost daily the most providential escapes from destruction."

This was Mrs. Mapleside's great hobby. She had only one other curious conviction; and that was that the population of London was composed almost exclusively of bad characters, and that an inhabitant there must expect, as an ordinary occurrence, to have his house destroyed by fire. The columns of the Times afforded her an immense array of facts in support of this theory; and as some one had unfortunately once told her, that not one in fifty of the cases before the London magistrates were reported, the argument that these cases were as nothing in proportion to the population, carried no weight with her whatever. She was absolutely pathetic in her description of the fires.

"There, my dear," she would say, "four fires on last Tuesday night: only think, Agnes, what a terrible spectacle to look out of one's window and see the town blazing in four directions all at once; the clank of the engines – I saw a fire once my dear, and I shall never forget it, – and the roaring of the flames, and the cries of the lookers on; and the poor people getting their furniture out of the next houses, and the water running down the street; and only think of seeing all this in four directions at once."

These are Mrs. Mapleside's peculiarities, and nothing will shake her faith in her view of the subjects; on all other points she is the most easy old lady possible, hardly having any opinion of her own, and ready to do, or say anything to give pleasure to others. On the whole she is one of the kindest and most cheerful old ladies in the world.

Her welcome to me was, as I have said, most affectionate, and when tea was over, she made me sit down in a large easy chair by the fire – for although it was hardly cold enough for one, she had it lighted because she was sure I should come in perished with cold from my journey.

I sat there, contented and snug, listening and yet hardly hearing Mrs. Mapleside as she ran on, telling me all the changes which had taken place in Canterbury in those four years that I had been away. The old names sounded very pleasant to me, and called up many happy memories of the past; and that night, when I had gone up to my own room, I threw up the window, and looked out; and as I heard the old cathedral bells chiming the hour, I felt once more at home again, and that my life, although it could no longer be bright and happy as I had hoped, might yet be a very contented and cheerful one.

In a day or two all my old friends called upon me, and in a week I felt completely at home. The place itself was so perfectly unchanged, the very goods in the shop windows seemed arranged in precisely the same order in which they had been when I had last walked down the High Street. I found my acquaintances and friends exactly as I had left them; I had changed so much that it seemed almost strange to me that they should have altered so little. I had at seventeen been as merry and as full of fun as any of them. My separation from Percy and my ill health, had certainly changed me a good deal a year and a half after that; but in the three years before papa's death I had again recovered my spirits, and had been able to take my place again with my old playfellows and friends. Only two months back I had been as merry and perhaps more happy than any of them, but now how changed I was! they were still lively girls, I was a quiet sad woman. It was not of course in feature that I was so much altered, it was in expression. I think sometimes now, when I look in the glass, that if I could but laugh again, and if my eyes could once more light up, I should not be so much changed from what I was seven years ago; but I know that can never be again. I have fought my fight for happiness, and have lost; I staked my whole life upon one throw, and after so many years weary waiting, when it seemed as if the prize would soon be mine, the cup was dashed in an instant from my lips; and henceforth I know that I am no longer an actor in the long drama of life, but a mere spectator – content to look on at the play, and to feel, I hope, an interest in the success of others.

So I told all my friends who came to see me on my first arrival – and who were proposing little schemes of pleasure and amusement – that I should not, at any rate for some time, enter into any society even of the quietest kind; but that I should be glad, very glad if they would come and sit with me, and talk to me, and make me a confidant in their hopes and plans, as they had done long ago. At first my old playfellows were rather shy of me, I seemed so different to themselves, so grave and sad in my deep mourning, that they could hardly feel at home with me. They knew that I had gone through some great sorrow, and perhaps guessed at its nature, but they had heard no particulars, nor who it was that I mourned; for although my engagement with Percy had been generally known, it had been supposed by every one – from my illness after the will was lost, and from Percy's departure for India – that it had been broken off; and we had never deemed it necessary to tell any one how the matter really stood, as a long engagement like ours is such a very uncertain affair, even at the best. So every one supposed that I had become engaged in London, and that death had in someway broken it off, and I have never given any further explanation of it.