Gladys, the Reaper Part 72

He said that he had been to their house the previous day in the afternoon, and had found it occupied by sheriffs' officers and policemen, who were trying, in vain, to ascertain from the servants where their master and mistress were. All that they knew was that their master did not sleep in the house the previous night, and that their mistress left it that morning. Rowland had waited until late at night, but no further intelligence was gained.

He gleaned that Howel was accused of having forged cheques, at different times, to a very large amount, in the names both of Sir Samuel Spendall and Sir Horatio Simpson. The frauds had been discovered through a cheque on the latter's bank, purporting to be written by him for five hundred pounds, received by Howel a few weeks before. Sir Horatio Simpson having gone himself to his bankers for some money, it was found that he had overdrawn his account, and, upon examining his late cheques, he utterly disclaimed that of Howel, and declared it forged. The result of this was a general examination of his banking accounts for the last four years, and the discovery of forgeries, by alteration of figures and forged signatures, to the amount of some five or six thousand pounds.

At the same time Sir Samuel Spendall's attorneys found, from a rigid examination of that baronet's affairs, that Howel's claim on him did not amount to two-thirds of his demand, and that various signatures to betting debts, and loans of money, etc., were forgeries.

In addition to this, Howel's own debts, both on the turf and to his tradesmen, were enormous, and ignominy surrounded him on all sides.

Rowland groaned aloud as he told Gladys these horrible truths, and Gladys had no words of comfort; all she could say was,--

'It is not poor Netta's fault; it is not yours, Mr Rowland, or that of any one belonging to you.'

'But the shame, Gladys; you know my father, it will be his death.'

'Oh no, sir, he always expected something of the kind. I have often heard him say so. If we could only find Mrs Jenkins and her child it would not be so bad.'

Mr Jones came in, and Gladys left the room and went to Miss Gwynne.

Gladys has become the friend and confidential adviser of every member of that small household; no one but herself considers her as a servant. She acts as housekeeper for Mrs Jones, maid to Miss Gwynne, school teacher and district visitor to Mr Jones and Rowland, almoner and confidante to all. Gladys, within doors, Miss Gladys, without; no one knows that she has any other name. In spite of her beauty, her youth, her timidity, she goes amongst scenes and people, from whom most women, even the best, would shrink, and seems to bear about with her a charmed life and invisible strength that nothing can destroy.

Amongst the wretched Irish who inhabit a portion of that vast, depraved parish, she has an influence that even the clergy cannot boast, due to her Irish extraction and slight accent; and the sufferings she has herself undergone from gaunt famine and grim death, make her keenly alive to their wants and feelings. No one has such power over the poor untutored heathen children of the ragged school as she has, and no one loves them as she does. She, too, like her mistress, has found her vocation in their city home; who cannot find a vocation in any home, if they will only look around them for it?

Whilst Rowland and Mr Jones discuss the sad news Rowland has to tell, Miss Gwynne, Mrs Jones and Gladys discuss it also, for Mrs Jones has joined the pair in the dining room. There is but one feeling in that household--sorrow for Rowland and his family, anxiety about Netta. Tears are in the eyes of all those true-hearted women as they think of the probable fate of the once bright little belle of their country neighbourhood, deserted, perhaps amongst the wild wildernesses of London houses.

Mr Jones endeavours to console Rowland by suggesting that if Netta is left by her husband she will surely fall back upon her brother; and when he has exhausted what little portion of hope he can inspire, Rowland turns resolutely to subjects that must be attended to, even if his heart were breaking from sorrow.

The respected rector of that large parish was in very uncertain health, and had gone abroad with his family for three months, leaving all the parochial duties in the hands of his two curates. They were heavy enough for three clergymen, but Mr Jones and Rowland found them almost too weighty for them, una.s.sisted by their chief; however, they fought manfully through them, Sundays and week days.

Rowland refused Mr and Mrs Jones' invitation to dinner, and, crossing the square, entered his solitary lodging in one of the opposite houses, and began to write to his brother Owen. He told him all that he knew of Howel and Netta, and begged him to break it to their parents as best he might.

When he had finished his letter he prepared to go out again. His landlady brought him some luncheon, but he could not touch it. He went first to his ragged school, and there the sight of those children of crime and infamy recalled his little niece to his mind, and made his heart sink still lower with the fear of what she might become. Never had he spoken with such feeling to the motley throng that stood about him as he did that day. Then he had to thread some of the haunts whence those children came to seek out the miserable parents to whom they had been a sort of introduction, and never before had he experienced so forcibly that he was their brother, even theirs, as now that he knew that his sister's husband was 'a thief and a forger;' he could almost fancy that they already pointed to him as belonging, at least, to one as degraded as themselves.

That evening he read prayers and lectured in one of the churches. He lectured extempore, and it was noted by all his congregation that more than once his feelings nearly overcame him. They thought and talked of the fact, when, at a later period, they heard of his family sorrow. But they all said that his 'word was with power,' and there was many a moist eye amongst them as he warned them, in language made even more forcible than usual by the events of the day, against the pleasures and vices of the world.

After the service many of the school teachers and Scripture-readers met him in the vestry to have their work allotted, and their word of advice and encouragement. Again he pressed upon them the subject brought home to his heart, that of resisting in youth the 'temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.'

His youthful regiment of soldiers talked to one another afterwards of the earnestness and piety of Him who led them on in their battle against evil, and prayed to become more like one who was so devoted to 'fighting that good fight,' which they had enlisted to join in.

Tired and exhausted, Rowland returned to his lodging. He tried to review the events of the day, but in doing so, fairly broke down. He had been striving to keep his mind in subjection by beating down his monster enemy, pride, for the last six years; but he found that he was still rampant within him. It was not simply the grief for a sister's distress and a brother-in-law's sin that he felt, but strong personal mortification. How could he think of self, of the Perrys, of his rector, of his family, of his paris.h.i.+oners and their opinion, above all, how could he think of Miss Gwynne, who disdained him,--at a time when every personal feeling ought to be merged into sympathy with others? He prayed and struggled against the tempter; prayed for his sister; above all, for Howel; in words too fervent and holy for these pages; and went to bed and slept from mere exhaustion of mind and body. Little did Netta imagine, when she made that disobedient step into the dark future, what misery it would bring upon all who loved her!

Pause, then, and think, all you young women who may be meditating a similar course, even whilst reading this story, or may be at issue with your parents, because their experience shows them a future which your inexperience cannot show you! Pause and think that Netta is no fict.i.tious character, her story no mere creation of an author's brain, but the portrait and history of one out of hundreds of wilful daughters brought to shame and grief, and bringing all belonging to them to shame and grief by an unblessed and unholy marriage.

CHAPTER XL.

THE FORGER'S WIFE.

Days and weeks pa.s.sed, and there was no intelligence of Netta. Rowland had heard from Owen of the domestic misery at home, and also that he had been to see Mrs Griffith Jenkins, who disclaimed all knowledge of her son's hiding place, or what had become of his wife and child. Her own grief was too real to allow even the sceptical Owen to doubt it; and when, in addition, she gave him to understand that she, too, was nearly ruined by Howel's forgeries, but that she would die rather than tell any one else of it, he could only pity the wretched mother who had, by her bad example and teaching, helped to train her son for the ruin into which he had fallen.

Rowland heard that Mr Deep had been arrested upon a charge of abetting Howel in his crimes, and that a search-warrant for the examination of his papers had brought to light other nefarious dealings, as well as an unsigned letter, supposed to be in Howel's writing, intimating his intention of going to America. This had caused inquiries to be made at the docks, and police emissaries to be despatched forthwith to America.

A person answering his description had sailed for that continent from Southampton the day after Howel left his house, but unaccompanied by wife or child.

Strange to say that the Epsom races had come off, and that Howel's horse, Magnificent, had actually won the Derby stakes! Too late! save for his creditors and those he had defrauded. Still, doubtless, one more bitter drop in the cup of his despair, wherever he might chance to be drinking it.

All that he had left behind him was sold, hunters inclusive, and this Magnificent alone, particularly after the Derby, yielded a princely fortune. Too late, either for further crimes, or poor Netta's hoped-for reformation.

It was hard work for Rowland to go through his heavy parochial duties with this great misfortune hanging over his head. But if the sympathy and kindness of friends could help him in his work, and support him under the pressure of anxiety, he was helped and supported. Still it was evident to all that he fled from society, and in spite of the delicate tact of the Joneses and Freda, he had scarcely been near them since that first day. Whether it was pride or susceptibility, he could scarcely tell himself, but he could not bring himself to thrust his sorrow and those of his family upon others. He caused every possible search to be made, through the police and otherwise for Netta, but in vain.

But Providence answered his prayers, when his own efforts seemed fruitless, and that through the instrumentality of one of the poor children, for whose benefit he had exerted such talents as G.o.d had given him.

Some four years before, a miserable girl of eleven years old had become one of his ragged school children. I say _his_, because even his rector allowed him the merit of establis.h.i.+ng the school. Through this child, Rowland became acquainted with her mother, a wretched, starving widow, living in squalor and iniquity. Miss Gwynne had helped her temporally, Rowland spiritually, and when she had died, about a year ago, he had strong hopes that much suffering had brought forth a sincere repentance.

Her little girl was one of the many examples of the blessed effects of a ragged school. At her mother's death she was fifteen years old, teachable and anxious to be taught. Rowland prevailed on a respectable woman, the lodging-house keeper, in whose house Netta had found a refuge, to try her as a servant, and she had turned out well.

So it was that this girl, having an idea that Rowland could effect wonders, waited for him one Sunday evening after service, and asked if she might speak with him. She told him, with a long preface of apologies, that she did not know if she was right in saying what she was going to say, but that there was a poor lady in her mistress's second floor, who was very ill, out of her mind she thought, and who hadn't a friend in the world. The lady had forbidden her mistress to speak to any doctor or clergyman about her, but she had not forbidden her. And indeed it seemed almost worse to see a lady in such trouble and sickness than it did those who were used to it, as she, and the like of her had been, and would be still, but for Mr Prothero.

'What is her name?' asked Rowland eagerly.

'Mrs Mills, sir.'

Rowland's sudden hope fell.

'And she has a little girl, sir, who isn't well either, and who does nothing but cry and moan.'

'What is her name?'

'Her mamma calls her Minette, or some such name, sir.'

'I will come with you now,' said Rowland, in great agitation. 'Make haste; I suppose she has been with you some time.'

'More than a month, sir, and she is always expecting some one to come--and no one comes.'

Rowland strode on, fast--faster than he had once before walked with Gladys--heedless of everything around him. In about a quarter of an hour he and the girl reached the lodging house.

'You will tell missus how it was, please, sir. I don't think she can be angry, sir.'

'I am sure she will not be angry; tell her that I want to see her.

Mrs Saunders, the landlady, came at once.

Rowland inquired into the particulars of Netta's arrival at her house, her illness, etc., and heard what we already know of Howel's sudden departure; and the following account, in addition of the month Netta had spent since he left her.

'The morning after Mr Mills left, sir,' said the landlady 'Mrs Mills did not ring for breakfast, or show any sign of being up. I waited for a long time, and then I went and listened at the bedroom door. I heard a kind of moaning, and was so frightened, I made so bold as to go in. I found the poor lady lying down on the bed, beside the little girl, who was still asleep. She seemed more dead than alive, and looked at me terrified-like, as if she didn't know who was coming in. When she saw me, she tried to get up and look cheerful, and to give account of her never having undressed. I went and made her some tea, and got her to go into the sitting-room by the fire which the girl lighted, for she was as cold as death. Then I dressed the little girl, who awoke and began to cry when she saw how pale her mamma looked, and I told her to try to make her mamma eat and drink. And the little dear, like an angel as she is, began to comfort her mother, and to coax her, and when I saw the poor lady begin to shed tears over the child I went away.