it was on the afternoon of the fifth day after leaving home that hermia alighted from the london train at ashdown station. clement was there to meet her. she had written a few lines daily both to him and to aunt charlotte, just enough to allay their anxiety and nothing more.
when the train had gone on its way and the platform was clear of people, clement drew her into the little waiting-room, which at that hour they had all to themselves. he had already given john and miss brancker all particulars in connection with his second visit to stavering, and it seemed to him that the present would be a capital opportunity for doing the same by hermia. accordingly, he proceeded to tell her all about his interview with barney dale, and how it had resulted in a promise on his part that hermia should go to stavering as soon as possible, when an opportunity would be found by the old servitor for introducing her to miss pengarvon. of that which the girl's heart hungered most to know--whether one or both of her parents were still alive--clement could tell her nothing.
when he had brought his narrative to an end, hermia cried a little softly to herself. why she did so she could not have told anyone, but at her age so curiously are the emotions intermingled, and so close akin does joy seem to sorrow, that both alike find their readiest outlet in tears.
presently clement said,
"and now, darling, have you nothing to tell me in return? all of us, your uncle and aunt equally with myself, have been on the tenterhooks of suspense ever since you left home with such mysterious suddenness. i hope we may congratulate you on having achieved the object of your journey, whatever it may have been."
"you may, indeed you may," she exclaimed, turning on him an april-day face in which smiles and tears were exquisitely blended. "i have succeeded beyond my wildest hopes. i have much, very much to tell you--a surprise in store for you all such as none of you dreams of. but uncle john and aunt charlotte must be there when i relate my adventures, such as they are, because, you see, dear, what i have to tell concerns them equally with yourself, and i want one telling to be enough for everybody. so, not a word more about it till evening."
they parted at the gate of nairn cottage. clem, who was in a state of utter mystification, was to return at half-past seven.
at that hour they were all assembled--john, his sister, hermia, and clement, in the little sitting-room at the cottage.
there to her wondering listeners did hermia her tale unfold.
over the congratulations and felicitations that were exchanged between one and another of them, when at length she had come to the end of her recital, it needs not that we should linger. the dark cloud, in the shadow of which they had dwelt for so long a time, had lifted at last and vanished into thinnest air. their mood, however, was less one of jubilation than of reverent thankfulness. if hermia had not been dear to clement before, that night would not have failed to make her so. but, indeed, it was not possible for him to love her more than he did already.
"it seems a thousand pities," said john brancker, who for some minutes had been lost in thought, "that richard varrel should have gone to his grave without having had his mind disabused of the belief that he owed it to mr. hazeldine, and not to mr. avison himself, that he was brought to trial and the charge against him pressed sternly home. in point of fact, mr. hazeldine did everything that lay in his power with the view of extenuating varrel's crime; but mr. avison's orders in the matter were imperative, and he had no option but to carry them out. had varrel but known this at the time many things might perhaps have fallen out differently; but of course it was nobody's business to enlighten him, and to his hand was due the death of the man who had done his utmost to befriend him."
"there are two points," said clem, presently, "which i should certainly like to be enlightened upon. in the first place, i should like to know the sum total pocketed by varrel as the proceeds of his crime; and, in the second, what his object was in entrusting the parcel of notes to his mother's keeping.
"those were two points as to which mr. wingate was equally curious with yourself," replied hermia, "and he did not fail to question varrel upon them during the few minutes we were allowed to stay with him after he had signed the confession. as soon as varrel had realized that mr. hazeldine was dead, it was only natural that he should be desirous of getting away from the scene of his crime as speedily as possible. he must seize whatever he could lay hands on at once and decamp. to his intense amazement, the black bag in which he expected to find the gold mr. hazeldine was supposed to have brought from london, proved to be empty. all that his hurried search enabled him to lay hands on was a bag containing a hundred sovereigns and a parcel of notes of the value of five hundred pounds. the gold he divided with his mother before setting out for london; but mrs. varrel, as we have seen, refused to touch her portion of it. the notes he left in her charge because he felt sure their numbers were known, and that any attempt on his part to change them would simply have led to his arrest."
late as the hour was when clement hazeldine left nairn cottage, he felt that he could not sleep until he had seen his brother and told him the news. a brisk walk of half-an-hour brought him to beecham.
he found edward sitting in slippered ease over a volume of montesquieu--as one who hoped some day to help in framing the laws of his country--and a cigar. ten minutes sufficed him to give his brother the pith of hermia's narrative. he had brought varrel's confession, and he finished his recital by producing it and handing it to the other.
never was a man more astounded than edward hazeldine was at the news told him by his brother. to think, to realize as a fact that, after all, his father's death was not due to his own act! it seemed almost too incredible to be true. of course, the fact remained, and could in no wise be gainsaid, that mr. hazeldine had fully intended to take his own life, and would undoubtedly have done so had not fate intervened and brought about the same end after a different fashion; but even so, the relief to edward hazeldine was more than he could find words to give expression to. it took him some time to recover himself; the cool, almost frigid, self-possession which was one of his most salient attributes had for the time being deserted him. one of his first remarks, after his wonder had in some measure spent itself, was,
"thank heaven! there will now be no need to refund the twelve thousand pounds--for, of course, the confession will have to be made public." then presently he added, "do you mean to say, clem, that this fellow varrel made no allusion to the fact that the large amount of money which was proved to be missing from the bank's coffers had not been taken by him?"
"it would certainly seem that he did not. as i have already told you, he fainted before having come to the end of what he had evidently intended to say, and he died a few hours later. what further revelations he would have made had he lived a little while longer, it is now, of course, impossible to say."
"a lucky thing for us he died when he did!" said edward, more to himself than to his brother. "the world will not fail to saddle him with the double crime."
as the brothers shook hands at parting, by which time it was past midnight, edward said:
"by the way, clem, that girl of yours must be one in a thousand. i hereby retract every word in her disparagement that i have ever given utterance to. i shall be proud to be introduced to her." then more earnestly, and with what for him was an unwonted display of feeling: "in such a business as we have been discussing it is only a part of the selfishness of human nature that we should think of ourselves first, but i hope you'll believe me when i say that not the least portion of the happiness your news has caused me is due to the fact that the last shred of suspicion, which for so long a time has clung to that noble-hearted creature, john brancker, will now be torn away, and his good name be given back to him as pure and unsullied as, in reality, it has been from the first!"
in the course of the following afternoon, miss brancker, hermia, and clement arrived at stavering, and, under the guidance of the latter, proceeded to take up their quarters at the "king's arms" hotel.
a few hours later, clement walked over to the "chequers inn," at dritton, in search of barney dale, whom he found seated among his cronies in his usual corner. drawing the old man aside, clement said. "miss hermia rivers is in stavering--at the 'king's arms' hotel. how soon can you make it convenient to call and see her?"
"and have you brought her--the bonnie darling?" exclaimed barney. "well, well, i suppose i must do what i promised. but the mistress grows queerer every day, and what the upshot will be when i bring 'em together, i canna as much as guess. but i'll be there to-morrow some time in the afternoon, and maybe--but i mun think it all over between now and then;" and with that barney went back to his pipe and tankard of ale.
next morning clement hired a conveyance, and drove aunt charlotte and hermia as far as the park entrance to broome, where they all alighted. everything remained as when clement had been there last. leading the way through the door in the wall, he brought the ladies to where the mutilated griffin, which he had sketched, lay unheeded among the weeds and grass. hermia sighed as she looked at it.
"how vividly the sight of it brings back that wet and gloomy afternoon," she said, "when the carriage came to a halt at those very gates, and i sat staring out of the window, more tired than curious. so tired out, indeed, was i, that i felt utterly indifferent as to where i was being taken, or what was going to be done with me. it seems to me, however, that i have to thank the old griffin for a good deal. but for it we might not have been here to-day."
after that they strolled along the grass-grown drive as far as a point whence they could obtain a view of the front of the hall. clem, on whose arm hermia was leaning, felt her shiver involuntarily.
"it gives me quite an eerie feeling to look at it, even by broad daylight," she said. "what it must look like when the shades of evening are closing round it, or by the dim light of a clouded moon, i dare scarcely imagine. i shall dream about it more than once in time to come."
"were i a story writer, and wanted to describe a haunted house, i should come to broome," remarked aunt charlotte, sententiously.
she also felt the influence of the place and scene.
"it is a sort of feeling that would wear off upon further acquaintance," said clem. "if, now, one could give a free hand to a london upholsterer, not forgetting the landscape-gardener, and if after they had done their best, one could fill the old house with a party of gay young people, with the addition of half-a-dozen romping children, what a transformation should we behold!"
hermia shook her head.
"broome as it appeals to the imagination, but broome as clem would have it would be----"
"as commonplace as himself," interrupted the latter, with a laugh. "that was a spot of rain, we had better be getting back to the landau."
barney dale reached the hotel about half-past five, and clem, who was on the look-out for him, at once took him into the sitting-room where hermia was awaiting his arrival. then he left them together. hermia advanced with a blush and a smile, and yet with a strange trembling of her limbs, and held out her hand.
"i cannot express to you how happy it makes me to see you again, mr. dale," she said, in soft, emotional tones, which fell like music on the old man's ears.
"again! how again?" he asked, as he peered closely into her face. "when might you have seen me last, missy?" then half-aloud, but evidently thinking himself unheard, "the likeness! the likeness! the same eyes and hair--the very marrow of the other!"
"as far as my memory serves, i saw you last on the day you brought me to broome," answered hermia. "i had a long, long ride in a carriage with you and someone else--a woman. but come, let us sit, and then we can talk more comfortably."
he loosed the hand he had been holding, and let her lead him to a sofa, where they sat down, side by side.
"then a little later," resumed hermia, "i can call to mind being in a room--a very gloomy room--in which sat two ladies, very stately and upright, but, to my childish eyes, very, very awful-looking. i stood before them with my hands behind my back, while they talked to each other about me in french or italian. then, after a little while, you came into the room carrying two candlesticks, with lighted candles in them, on a silver tray, whereupon miss pengarvon--for she it must have been--at once extinguished one of the candles, after which you were bidden to take me away. i have a good memory, have i not, mr. dale?"
barney's eyes were fixed intently on her face as if he were still tracing, feature by feature, the likeness between it and some other face which dwelt in his memory. he did not heed her question. his lips moved, but no sound came from them; he was talking silently to himself.
"and now, mr. dale," resumed hermia, presently, "i want you to tell me what the relationship is between miss pengarvon and myself--for that we are related in some way i feel as sure as that i am sitting here."
"you munna ask me, miss hermy," answered the old man with a long, slow shake of his head. "i darena answer any questions. my mistress bound me by an oath not to speak a word to a soul about--about the matter that is between her and me till she gives me leave to do so."
hermia drew a little nearer to him, and took one of his gnarled and withered hands between her soft palms.
"at least you cannot refuse to tell me this," she said, her blue eyes luminous with a sort of yearning pathos. "you cannot refuse to tell me whether my father and mother are still living?"
then, as the old man did not answer:
"think, think what it must be not to know even as much as that," she added pleadingly. "in so far, i am worse off--heaven help me!--than the meanest beggar's child that tramps the streets."
"let the mistress blame me, i dunna care. she shall be told," muttered barney, half-aloud. then he cleared his voice, and squeezing one of the little hands that held his, he said, "my bonnie darling, i never knew your father--never even heard his name, and canna tell you aught about him. but your mother--ah! your mother!" he paused, and hermia saw a tear shining in the corner of either eye.
"yes--what of her?" she asked, with a catching of her breath, for her heart but too truly presaged what she was about to be told.
"she died a few weeks after you were born."
hermia dropped the old man's hand, and turning, bowed her head and covered her face with her hands. silently she wept; barney's tears brimmed over and trickled down his worn cheeks. in a little while he wiped them away with his cotton handkerchief, and rising, went softly out of the room. he found clement outside. "go in and comfort the poor child," he said. "she needs it sorely, and your own heart will teach you how best to do it."
