The Two Marys

Mrs Underwood’s countenance fell more and more. She looked haggard in the sudden severity of the conflict set up within her. “I – thinking of myself?” she said, almost weeping. But the accusation was too terrible to be met with mere tears, which are fit only for lesser matters. She gazed at her sister with large round eyes full of wretchedness. No crime in the world was so dreadful to her as this of thinking of one’s self; it is the thing of all others which cuts a virtuous Englishwoman to the heart. “For Geoff’s good, you know, you know, Anna,” she cried, “I would submit to anything. I would go to the stake; I would give myself to be cut in pieces.”

“Nobody is the least likely to cut you in pieces, my dear,” said Miss Anna coolly. “The stake is not an English institution. It is easy to promise things that never will be asked from you. The question is, will you let Geoff be happy, poor boy, in his own way?”

“Happy!” the poor lady cried in a lamentable voice; but then her voice failed her, though a dozen questions rose and fluttered through her mind. Could Geoff be happy in abandoning his mother? Would he give her up for a bit of a girl who never could love him half so well? Was it possible that there was anything wanting to his happiness now, watched over and cared for as he was? She sat gazing aghast into the vacant air before her, suddenly brought face to face with a question which was far more serious even than the loss of the money. If the money was to be lost, Mrs Underwood felt in herself the power of enduring everything. To be housemaid and valet to Geoff would be, in its way, a kind of blessedness; it would knit the domestic ties closer. She would have more of her boy if they lived in a smaller space, in a poorer way; and with that happiness before her, what did she care for poverty? But her sister’s suggestion brought in an entirely different circle of ideas. She saw herself dropping apart from Geoff’s life altogether. He, happy with his young wife: she, set aside from his existence: and she looked at that visionary picture aghast. To be cut in pieces was one thing, to stand aside and let him go away from her was another. Was it all selfishness, as Anna said?

“I see I have startled you,” said Miss Anna; “but it is too late for anything now; that eldest girl is not to be taken in. She will fight it out; she will drag us through the mire. Never mind, it was Geoff’s fault, and Geoff will have to bear the brunt. But you will be able to keep him to yourself, and that will be a consolation,” she added with a sneer. “Never mind what he has to put up with as long as you can keep him to yourself: that is everything to you, I know. And there’s the dressing bell, Mary. We must have our dinner, whatever happens,” Miss Anna said.

But Mrs Underwood, poor lady, did not have much dinner that day. She came down to the meal in her pretty cap, but it was a haggard countenance that showed beneath the lace. She could not talk nor eat, but sat mute at the head of the table choked with natural tears. To Geoffrey, who had come in hungry and full of thought from his wet walk, there seemed nothing wonderful in his mother’s woebegone condition; it chimed in with the tone of his own thoughts. To some certain extent she would feel for him, she would sympathise with him, though even she could never know the whole extent of the sacrifice he would be called upon to make. The dinner was a very silent one. Miss Anna tried a few sallies of her malicious observation, but in vain. The others were too much depressed to take any notice, even to resent them. The old butler made his solemn rounds about the table with a gradual increase of curiosity at every step. Whatever was the matter? the worthy servant asked himself. He was a north-countryman, and knew a little about the family history; but an unfortunate chance had taken him out at the moment when the strange visitor arrived who had caused so much commotion in the house a fortnight since. The twilight hour, when it was too late for visitors (as he chose to think) was Simmons’ hour for taking a little walk, sometimes to the post, sometimes to the fishmonger’s, who had a way of forgetting. He had missed the young ladies too, of whom the housemaid had told such stories downstairs. But he saw there was “summat up,” and he bent the whole powers of his mind, as was to be expected, to make out what it was. When Miss Anna’s speeches met with no response she turned to Simmons, as she had a habit of doing when she was in want of amusement. “Did you hear any news when you were out for your walk?” she said. “If it were not for Simmons I should know nothing about my fellow-creatures. You never bring in a word of gossip from year’s end to year’s end, Geoff; and what is the use of a man with a club to go to every day if he never brings one any news? Simmons, you are a person with a better sense of your responsibilities. Tell me something that is going on outside. What’s the last news in Grove Road?”

“There is no news, Miss Anna, as I am aware of,” said Simmons, coughing a little behind his hand by way of prelude. “There is nothink that is of any consequence;” and then he began to tell of the gentleman at No. 5, whose conduct troubled the entire neighbourhood. Miss Anna had an eager interest in everything that was going on. She asked about the gentleman at No. 5 as if she had no greater interest in life. Her beautiful eyes sparkled and shone with eagerness. All the details about him were acceptable to her. A spectator would have vowed that she never had known a personal anxiety in her life.

Geoff sat late that night thinking over all that had happened and was going to happen. He had begun to ask himself what he could do to make a little money, and the answer had not been a satisfactory one. It is very common in novels, and even in society, to represent every young man who is without occupation as doing literary work and finding it always ready to his hand. And, naturally, Geoff thought of that among other things. But he did not know what to write about, nor to whom to take his productions if they were written. He knew what he had learned at school and at Oxford, but he did not know very much else. Classics and philosophy are very excellent things, but it is hard to make money of them immediately, save by being a professor or a schoolmaster, which were occupations Geoff did not incline to and was not fitted for. He did not understand much about politics; he was not deeply read in general literature; he had no imagination of the creative sort. In short, like a great many others, though he had all the will in the world to embrace the profession of literature, which seems such an easy one, he did not know how to do it; and to hope to support his mother and her sister upon the few briefs which he was likely to get was ridiculous. As well attempt to support them by sweeping chimneys. He reflected with a doleful smile that even that required, if not special aptitude, at least special training, of which he had none. He was thinking of this drearily enough long after the rest of the household had, as he supposed, gone to bed, and all was still.

Suddenly his door creaked a little, softly opened, and his mother stole in. She was dressed in an old-fashioned dressing-gown, of what was then called a shawl pattern, with a muslin cap on her head tied round with a broad black ribbon. She had been going to bed, but had not been able to go to bed without a little reconciliation and kind good-night to her boy. “Did we quarrel, mother? I did not know it,” he said.

“Oh, quarrel, Geoff! we never quarrelled in our lives. You have always been the best of sons, and I hope I have always appreciated you. I couldn’t go to bed, my darling boy, if there was the least little thing between me and you.”

“But there is nothing, mother,” he said, caressing the hand she had laid upon his.

“Yes, there is something; I could not rest for thinking of it. Oh, is it true, my darling, is it true that you want to be – married? If you had that in your mind I would never stand in your way, you may be sure never, whatever it might cost me. What is my happiness but in seeing yours, my boy? I would never say a word. I would give up and go away; oh, not far, to vex you, only far enough not to be spying upon you and her; to leave you free, if you are sure it is really, really for your happiness, my own boy.”

“Mother!” cried Geoff, staring at her, “I think you must have taken leave of your senses. I – marry? at such a moment as this?”

“Anna thinks it would be the only thing to do. She thinks, Geoff, she says, it is – the youngest of the two.”

Here Geoff, unable to quench entirely the traitor in him, blushed like a girl, growing red up to his hair under his mother’s jealous eyes. “This is mere folly,” he said, trying to laugh. “Why, I have only seen her twice.”

“Sometimes that is enough,” Mrs Underwood said mournfully. “Things look so different at my time of life and yours. I dare say you think it is very fine to fall in love at first sight; but oh, when you think of it – on one side those that have loved you and cherished you all your life, on the other somebody you know nothing about – that you have only seen twice!”

“My dear mother,” the young man said. He made this beginning as if he intended to follow it up with a warm disclaimer and protestation of his own superiority to any such youthful delusion. But when he had said these words he stopped short suddenly and said no more.

His mother had her eyes fixed upon him, anxiously expecting to hear something in his defence; but when he thus broke down, and it appeared that he had no plea at all, no justification to offer, her heart sank within her. She stood by him for a minute waiting, and then she put her hand tremblingly upon his shoulder. “Have you nothing to say to me, Geoff?”

“I don’t know what you would like me to say, mother,” he replied somewhat impatiently. “What you are speaking of is preposterous. What might have happened in happier circumstances I can’t tell – but that I should think of marrying anybody just now, and above all one of the people whose fortune we have taken from them – ”

“Geoff! we never meant to take anybody’s money. We never dreamt that it was not our own; we don’t know even yet,” said his mother, faltering.

“No; we don’t know even yet; and perhaps I am wrong in urging you to a decision. Perhaps we ought to wait and see what evidence there is. It is a hard thing to contemplate, anyhow, mother.”

“Oh, my dear! very hard, very hard! and if it separates you from me!”

“I do not see how it can do that in any case,” he said coldly. It chilled him to think that her chief terror in the matter was lest there should be any opening of happiness to him in it. It was preposterous, as he had said; but still, was that the chief thing she feared – that he should have a life of his own, that he should be happy? It made him recoil a little from her. “Go to bed, mother; there is nothing that need disturb your rest, at least for to-night.”

She would have stayed and questioned and groped into every corner of his heart, if she could, and protested that it was for him, not herself, that she feared anything; but Geoff was not so tractable as usual to-night. He opened the door for her, and kissed her and bade her good-night with something like a dismissal. Then Mrs Underwood perceived by a logic peculiar to herself that Anna was right, and that her worst fears were true.

CHAPTER XI

DR BREWER came in upon the girls that same evening somewhat abruptly. He was a busy man, with little time to spare, and he thought his sudden arrival like a gale of wind was a good thing for them in the languor of their grief; but there was no languor about them as he found them. The table was covered with papers, dispatch boxes, and writing materials. Grace had turned out all the contents of her father’s boxes, and was gathering together and examining every scrap of written paper, while Milly, with a pen in her hand, obediently wrote down the description of each. One little pile of business papers had been put by itself; letters were lying open, innocent little account books, memoranda of all kinds. It was like a man’s mind turned inside out, with all its careless thoughts, and those futile recollections of no importance which stick fast in corners when all that is worth remembering fades away. The doctor was astonished by the sight, and alarmed as well. He knew that the scrutiny of a couple of innocent girls innocently spying thus into every recess of the thoughts, even of the most virtuous of men, might not be desirable.

“Hallo!” he cried, “you are so very busy, I fear I am an intruder. Is this necessary, do you think? Would it not be better to take all these things home?”

“Oh, doctor, you are our only friend – you can never be an intruder,” cried Grace. “Yes, we intended to take everything home; but something has happened since – something that makes every scrap important. We are obliged to do it. It is for the sake of the children!”

“You are giving yourselves a great deal of pain, and you have had enough already,” he said, seating himself at the table between them. “My dear young ladies, you are sure I don’t want to interfere in your family affairs; but I feel responsible to your poor mother for you.”

“What does it matter about us? Dr Brewer, we have made a great discovery to-day!”

“I heard you were out,” he said. “I was very glad to hear that you had been out – a little change is what you want. A great discovery! Well, so long as it is a pleasant one – ”

“I don’t know whether it is a pleasant one or not.”

“You shall have my opinion if you will trust me with this important secret,” said the doctor, smiling. He was a man with daughters of his own. He knew the exaggerations, the excitements of youth; and he was very tender of these fatherless children. His friendly countenance, the very breadth and size of the man was a support to them, as they sat slim and slight on either side of him. But when he said this, they looked at each other with that look of consultation which had amused him so often. The doctor thought it was an unnecessary formula on the part of Grace, who always had her own way; but he liked her the better for thus consulting the silent member of their co-partnership before she spoke. To his surprise, however, that silent member returned a glance of meaning – a sort of unspoken veto upon the intended disclosure.

“We have been to the place where papa was when he caught his cold – the same place; and in the same way.”

Here again little Milly, shy and acquiescent as she was, signalled her disapproval. “Don’t,” she seemed to say, with those soft lips which never before had expressed anything but concurrence. The spectator was much more interested, perversely, than if the sisters had been as usual in perfect accord.

“Then you have found your relations?” he said.

“We don’t know if they are relations. Yes, I think so; we had the strangest reception. Doctor, I don’t know how to tell you. We are sure there is something underneath – an inheritance, of which papa has been cheated, which we, or rather our Lenny, is the right heir of. I suppose such things are quite common in England?” cried Grace, full of excitement. “You will be able to tell us what people do?”

“An inheritance!” the doctor said, amazed. And then he laughed a little, and shook his head. “No, my dear child, I don’t think such things are at all common in England. They happen in novels, but not anywhere else, so far as I know.”

This disconcerted the girls for a moment. For to be told that your own story is like a novel is always disagreeable, and throws an air of contempt upon the sternest facts. “It does not matter,” said Grace shortly, “however much it may be like a novel, it is nevertheless true. We found the address in papa’s letter case – nothing but the address – and we felt sure that was where he had gone, to see old friends, he said. We went there this afternoon thinking we too, perhaps, might find friends, or at least hear something about that last visit. We were received by the strangest, beautiful old lady – oh, she was like a novel if you please! – who would have nothing to say to us. But the others,” said Grace, getting somewhat confused, “acknowledged that there was some one who had gone to see them that day, Tuesday, and had left in the rain – who was a relation – who was – or, at least, they said, pretended to be. Only it was quite a different name.”

Dr Brewer held up his hands to stop this broken flood of disclosure. “Stop a little, and take me with you,” he said. “A beautiful old lady – and the others who said – but it was quite a different name. Now, tell me what all this means.”

Then they both began to talk together explaining to him. “There was one lady, and her son, who were very kind,” Milly said.

“She told us it was an impostor or a madman who had come, and said he was – somebody,” cried Grace; “but that that person had died long ago; and that our father was far more respectable; and that we could raise a great law-suit if we liked; but the others said if we were his daughters, it would make a great difference – oh, a very great difference to them.”

“But they were very kind, and kissed us, and promised to come and see us,” cried Milly, breathless, coming in again at the end.

“This is a very curious story,” said Dr Brewer. “I don’t pretend to understand it very well, but so far as I can make out – What was the name? Of course there are family quarrels now and then, and sons who bring a great deal of trouble upon everybody – ”

“That could never be the case with papa,” cried Grace proudly; “I am sure he must have been wronged.”

“Many an excellent man has been foolish in his youth,” said the doctor; “we must not take things too solemnly. If you will tell me the name, perhaps I may recollect if it has figured in the papers.”

Here both the girls were up in arms. They confronted him with flaming eyes, and a blaze of anger.

“Doctor, I think you don’t understand at all! If you think our dear father, whom we have just lost,” – and here Grace’s voice wavered, and Milly dried her eyes – “was likely to do anything that would be in the papers – ”

“Why, my dear children,” cried the doctor, “how unreasonable you are! Of course, he was in the papers a hundred times over. A man of note in his community – a public man with letters to the Colonial Secretary, and who entertained the Prince, as you told me yourselves – ”

Here they looked at each other again, and blushed at their mistake.

“Yes, to be sure,” said Grace. “Dr Brewer is right, and we are silly. I was thinking of something else.”

“Probably, for instance,” said the doctor, “there were advertisements in what people call the agony column, entreating him to go home. You don’t know the agony column? Oh, it is very easy to laugh; but there are sometimes appeals there that remind one of sad stories one has known. A doctor, you know, hears a hundred stories. What was the name?”

Once more that consulting look, and once more a blush of excitement tinged with real diffidence, and a little embarrassment of shame. They could not bear to think of a name which was fictitious, of anything that was untrue about their history. “You know,” said Grace, hesitating, feeling for the moment as if no inheritance, not even an old castle or even a title, which had vaguely glanced across her mind as a possibility, could make up for this falsehood – “you know, we are not at all sure that it was papa. He never mentioned anything of the kind, nor did we ever hear it before. The name was Crosthwaite. It is not pretty; it is an odd name.”

“Crosthwaite – Crosthwaite: where have I heard it? It is not pretty, as you say; it is a north-country name, Yorkshire perhaps, or – where did I hear it? Ah, I remember, some one had been making inquiries down-stairs.”

“It was Geoffrey,” cried Milly unawares: and then blushed more deeply than she had hitherto blushed either for shame or anger, and caught herself up, and drew back a little, in embarrassment which did not seem to have any adequate cause.

“Then you know the people?” the doctor said in surprise.

“We know only their Christian names,” Grace, somewhat startled too, explained eagerly to cover her sister. “The son is Geoffrey, and the old lady is Miss Anna.”

“Bless me!” cried the doctor, “this is very peculiar. Oh! but you said there was another lady – a lady and her son? Yes, yes, I see – a Mrs Somebody – and this Miss Anna.”

“Mrs Underwood,” Grace said.

Dr Brewer’s surprise grew more and more. “I know a Geoffrey Underwood,” he said, “a young barrister – a very nice young fellow. To be sure! he belongs to two ladies who live up Hampstead way. This is very curious. He is an excellent young fellow. He will tell me at once what the mystery is – if there is any mystery; but, my dear young ladies, I am afraid your romance will come to nothing if Geoffrey Underwood is in it; for you may be sure he is not a young fellow to lend himself to any bad business. Your beautiful old lady may be cracked, you know; she must be off her head – a harmless lunatic perhaps. I very much disapprove of it,” said the doctor, with professional warmth; “entirely, in every way – but still there are people who, out of mistaken kindness, insist upon keeping such cases at home – a thing that never ought to be done.”

Grace had listened with some dismay, feeling her house of cards tumbling about her ears. “She was not insane, if that is what you mean. They were afraid of her. She was the one who talked the most. I am sure she was not insane; and then Mrs Underwood, too – you remember, Milly? – she said, ‘If it is so we are relations;’ and then her son, he said, ‘It will make the greatest difference to us all.’ ”

“He said so? then perhaps after all there is something in it,” said Dr Brewer. The doctor began to look serious. “One can never understand the outs and ins of a family. So many people that have a good deal of money to leave make foolish wills. It may be something of that kind. Bless me! poor young Underwood, a fine young fellow. It will be hard upon him. You must excuse me if I see both sides of the case,” he added gravely; “young Underwood is – ” and here he came to a dead pause.

It would be impossible to imagine anything more uncomfortable than the sensations of these two girls. They were silent for a little, and nothing was said round the table except a faint sound from the doctor of concern and sympathy, accompanied by the shaking of his head. Grace burst forth at last, unable to restrain herself.

“But, doctor, if it belongs to us rightfully, if it ought to come to my brother Lenny – a family estate. – I don’t know what it is – perhaps something that has belonged to us for hundreds and hundreds of years, perhaps something that would change his position altogether, and make him somebody of importance: is it not my duty to stand up for my brother, to get him whatever he has a right to – although other people may have to suffer?” the girl cried, with passion.

Milly by this time began to cry quietly, with her hands over her face; and Grace stood alone, the champion of the family rights.

“Yes, yes,” the doctor said – “yes, yes; of course everybody should have their rights; other people must always be a secondary consideration.” He added, after a moment’s pause, “But don’t take up any false ideas about family estates. Young Underwood is sufficiently well off, I have always heard. He has had a good education. I don’t suppose he makes very much money by his profession, so he must be able to live without that. But his people are very quiet people. They live quite out of the way; they are scarcely in society at all. Dismiss from your mind all idea of hereditary estates or important position. All the same, money in the funds is very nice – when there is enough of it.”

“Money in the funds!” said Grace, her countenance falling; while Milly took one of her hands from her face, and looked over the other like a sort of woebegone and misty Aurora from behind the clouds.

“Nothing more romantic than that, I fear,” said Dr Brewer; “but that’s a very good thing, a very nice thing. No, life in England is not romantic to speak of; it’s a very businesslike affair. If people have enough to live on, it doesn’t trouble them very much how it comes. Land is dear. It’s very nice if you have enough of it, but it’s an expensive luxury. You get better percentage for your money even in the funds – and no risks.”

“But, perhaps,” said Grace, “as – Geoffrey – is not the right heir – it might be something different. Perhaps if it came back to the old family there might be something more. Sometimes – things pass away, don’t they, when it is not the direct line?”