Johnny Ludlow Third Series Part 7

"No," she faintly said: "only the hard work I had to do; and the thought of how I left my home; and--and my unhappiness. I was unhappy always, nearly from my first entering. The work was hard."

"What was the work?"

"It was----"

A long pause. Mr. Duffham, always looking at her, waited.

"It was sewing; dress-making. And--there was sitting up at nights."

"Who was the lady you served? What was her name?"

"I can't tell it," answered Jessy, her cheeks flus.h.i.+ng to a wild hectic.

The surgeon suddenly turned the left hand towards him, and looked at the forefinger. It was smooth as ivory.

"Not much sign of sewing there, Jessy."

She drew it under the clothes. "It is some little time since I did any; I was too ill," she answered. "Mr. Duffham, I have told you all there is to tell. The place was too hard for me, and it made me ill."

It was all she told. Duffham wondered whether it was, in substance, all she had to tell. He went down and entered the parlour with a grave face: Mr. Page, his daughters, and John Drench were there. The doctor said Jessy must have perfect rest, tranquillity, and the best of nourishment; and he would send some medicine. Abigail put a shawl over her head, and walked with him across the garden.

"You will tell _me_ what your opinion is, Mr. Duffham."

"Ay. It is no good one, Miss Abigail."

"Is she very ill?"

"Very. I do not think she will materially rally. Her chest and lungs are both weak."

"Her mother's were before her. As I told you, Jessy looks to me just as my mother used to look in her last illness."

Mr. Duffham went through the gate without saying more. The snow was sparkling like diamonds in the moonlight.

"I think I gather what you mean," resumed Abigail. "That she is, in point of fact, dying."

"That's it. As I truly believe."

They looked at each other in the clear light air. "But not--surely, Mr.

Duffham, not immediately?"

"Not immediately. It may be weeks off yet. Mind--I don't a.s.sert that she is absolutely past hope; I only think it. It is possible that she may rally, and recover."

"It might not be the happier for her," said Abigail, under her breath.

"She is in a curiously miserable state of mind--as you no doubt saw. Mr.

Duffham, did she tell you anything?"

"She says she took a place as lady's-maid; that the work proved too hard for her; and that, with the remorse for her ingrat.i.tude towards her home, made her ill."

"She said the same to Susan this afternoon. Well, we must wait for more.

Good-night, Mr. Duffham: I am sure you will do all you can."

Of course Duffham meant to do all he could; and from that time he began to attend her regularly.

Jessy Page's coming home, with, as Miss Susan had put it, the vagabond manner of it, was a nine days' wonder. The neighbours went making calls at the Copse Farm, to talk about it and to see her. In the latter hope they failed. Jessy showed a great fear of seeing any one of them; would put her head under the bed-clothes and lie there shaking till the house was clear; and Duffham said she was not to be crossed.

Her sisters got to know no more of the past. Not a syllable. They questioned and cross-questioned her; but she only stuck to her text. It was the work that had been too much for her; the people she served were cruelly hard.

"I really think it must be so; that she has nothing else to tell,"

remarked Abigail to Susan one morning, as they sat alone at breakfast, "But she must have been a downright simpleton to stay."

"I can't make her out," returned Susan, hard of belief. "Why should she not say where it was, and who the people are? Here comes the letter-man."

The letter-man--as he was called--was bringing a letter for Miss Page.

Letters at the Copse Farm were rare, and she opened it with curiosity.

It proved to be from Mrs. Allen of Aberystwith; and out of it dropped two cards, tied together with silver cord.

Mrs. Allen wrote to say that her distant relative, Marcus, was married.

He had been married on Christmas-Eve to a Miss Mary Goldbeater, a great heiress, and they had sent her cards. Thinking the Miss Pages might like to see the cards (as they knew something of him) she had forwarded them.

Abigail took the cards up. "Mr. Marcus Allen. Mrs. Marcus Allen." And on hers was the address: "Gipsy Villas, Montgomery Road, Brompton." "I think he might have been polite enough to send us cards also," observed Abigail.

Susan put the cards on the waiter when she went upstairs with her sister's tea. Jessy, looking rather more feverish than usual in a morning, turned the cards about in her slender hands.

"I have heard of her, this Mary Goldbeater," said Jessy, biting her parched lips. "They say she's pretty, and--and very rich."

"Where did you hear of her?" asked Susan.

"Oh, in--let me think. In the work-room."

"Now what do you mean by that?" cried Miss Susan. "A work-room implies a dressmaker's establishment, and you tell us you were a lady's-maid."

Jessy seemed unable to answer.

"I don't believe you were at either the one place or the other. You are deceiving us, Jessy."

"No," gasped Jessy.

"Did you ever see Mr. Marcus Allen when you were in town?"

"Mr. Marcus Allen?" repeated Jessy after a pause, just as if she were unable to recall who Mr. Marcus Allen was.

"The Mr. Marcus Allen you knew at Aberystwith; he who came here afterwards," went on Susan impatiently. "Are you losing your memory, Jessy?"

"No, I never saw the Marcus Allen I knew here--and there," was Jessy's answer, her face white and still as death.

"Why!--Did you know any other Marcus Allen, then?" questioned Susan, in surprise. For the words had seemed to imply it.

"No," replied Jessy. "No."