Henry Wood - A Life's Secret

'If you had not stopped me I might have caught that gig,' was her passionate rejoinder.

'Caught that gig! A gig going at the rate of ten miles an hour, if it was going one! By the time you had got down the steps of my door it would have been out of sight. How people can drive at that random rate in London streets, I can't think.'

' How can I find him? How can I find him?'

Her tone was quite a wail of anguish. However they might deprecate her mistaken violence, it was impossible but that both her hearers should feel compassion for her. She laid her hand on the doctor's arm.

'Will you not help me to find him, Dr. Bevary? Did you note him?'

'So far as to see that there were two persons in the gig, and that they were men, not women. Do you feel sure it was the man you speak of? It is so easy to be mistaken in a person who is being whirled along swiftly.'

'Mistaken!' she returned, in a strangely significant tone. 'Dr. Bevary, I am sure it was he. I have not kept him in my mind for years, to mistake him now. Austin Clay,' she fiercely added, turning round upon Austin, ' you speak; speak the truth; I saw you look after them. Was it, or was it not, the man whom I met at Ketterford?'

'I believe it was,' was Austin's answer. 'Nevertheless, Miss Gwinn, I do not believe him to be the enemy you spoke of—the one who worked you ill. He denies it just as solemnly as you assert it; and I am sure he is a truthful man.'

'And that I am a liar?'

'No. That you believe what you assert is only too apparent. I think it a case, on your side, of mistaken identity.'

Happening to raise his eyes, Austin caught those of Dr. Bevary fixed upon him with a keen, troubled, earnest gaze. It asked, as plainly as a gaze could ask, ' Do you believe so? or is the falsehood on his side?'

'Will you disclose to Dr. Bevary the name of that man, if you will not to me?'

Again the gentlemen's eyes met, and this time an unmistakeable warning of caution gleamed forth from Dr. Bevary's. Austin could only obey it.

'I must decline to speak of him in any way, Miss Gwinn,' said he; 'you had my reasons before. Dr. Bevary, I have given you the message I was charged with. I must wish you both good day.'

Austin walked back, full of thought, his belief somewhat wavering. 'It is very strange,' he reflected. 'Could a woman, could any one be so positive as she is, unless thoroughly sure? What is the mystery, I wonder? That it was no sentimental affair between them, or rubbish of that sort, is patent by the difference of their ages; she looks pretty nearly old enough to be his mother. Mr. Henry Hunter's is a remarkable face—one that would alter little in a score of years.'

The bell was ringing twelve as he approached the yard, and the workmen were pouring out of it, on their way home to dinner. Plentiful tables awaited them; little care was on their minds; flourishing was every branch of the building trade then. Peter Quale came up to Austin.

'Sam Shuck have just been up here, sir, a-eating humble pie, and praying to be took on again. But the masters be both absent; and Mr. Mills, he said he didn't choose, in a thing like this, to act on his own responsibility, for he heard Mr. Hunter say Shuck shouldn't again be employed.'

'I would not take him on,' replied Austin, 'if it rested with me; an idle, skulking, deceitful vagabond, drunk and incapable at one time, striving to spread discontent among the men at another. He has been on the loose for a fortnight now. But it is not my affair, Quale; Mr. Mills is manager.'

The yard, between twelve and one, was pretty nearly deserted. The gentleman, spoken of as Mr. Mills, and Austin, usually remained; the principals would sometimes be there, and an odd man or two. The timekeeper lived in the yard. Austin rather liked that hour; it was quiet. He was applying to his plan with a zest, when another interruption came, in the shape of Dr. Bevary. Austin began to think he might as well put the drawing away altogether.

'Anybody in the offices, Mr. Clay, except you?' asked the doctor.

'Not indoors. Mills is about somewhere.'

Down sat the doctor, and fixed his keen eyes upon Austin. 'What took place here this morning with Miss Gwinn?'

'No harm, sir,' replied Austin, briefly explaining. 'As it happened, Mr. Henry kept away. Mr. Hunter came in and saw her; but that was all.'

'What is your opinion?' abruptly asked the doctor. 'Come, give it freely. You have your share of judgment, and of discretion too, or I should not ask it. Is she mistaken, or is Henry Hunter false?'

Austin did not immediately reply. Dr. Bevary mistook the cause of his silence.

'Don't hesitate, Clay. You know I am trustworthy; and it is not I who would stir to harm a Hunter. If I seek to come to the bottom of this affair, it is that I may do what I can to repair damage; to avert some of the fruits of wrong-doing.'

'If I hesitated, Dr. Bevary, it was that I am really at a loss what answer to give. When Mr. Henry Hunter denies that he knows the woman, or that he ever has known her, he appears to me to speak open truth. On the other hand, these recognitions of Miss Gwinn's, and her persistency, are, to say the least of them, suspicious and singular. Until within an hour I had full trust in Mr. Henry Hunter; now I do not know what to think. She seemed to recognise him in the gig so surely.'

'He does not appear'—Dr. Bevary appeared to be speaking to himself, and his head was bent—'like one who carries about with him some dark secret.'

'Mr. Henry Hunter? None less. Never a man whose outside gave indications of a clearer conscience. But, Dr. Bevary, if her enemy be Mr. Henry Hunter, how is it she does not know him by name?'

'Ay, there's another point. She evidently attaches no importance to the name of Hunter.'

'What was the name of—of the enemy she talks of?' asked Austin. 'We must call him "enemy" for want of a better name. Do you know it, doctor?'

'No. Can't get it out of her. Never could get it out of her. I asked her again to-day, but she evaded the question.'

'Mr. Hunter thought it would be better to keep her visit this morning a secret from his brother, as they had not met. I, on the contrary, should have told him of it.'

'No,' hastily interposed Dr. Bevary, putting up his hand with an alarmed, warning gesture. 'The only way is, to keep her and Henry Hunter apart.'

'I wonder,' mused Austin, 'what brings her to town?'

The doctor threw his penetrating gaze into Austin's eyes. 'Have you no idea what it is?'

'None, sir. She seemed to intimate that she came every year.'

'Good. Don't try to form any, my young friend. It would not be a pleasant secret, even for you to hold!'

He rose as he spoke, nodded, and went out, leaving Austin Clay in a state of puzzled bewilderment. It was not lessened when, an hour later, Austin encountered Dr. Bevary's close carriage, driving rapidly along the street, the doctor seated inside it, and Miss Gwinn beside him.

I think it has been mentioned that the house next door to the Quales', detached from it however, was inhabited by two families: the lower part by Mr. Samuel Shuck, his wife, and children; the upper and best part by the Baxendales. No two sets of people could be more dissimilar; the one being as respectable as the other was disreputable. John Baxendale's wife was an invalid; she had been so, on and off, for a long while. There was an only daughter, and she and her mother held themselves very much aloof from the general society of Daffodil's Delight.

On the morning following the day spoken of in the last chapter as distinguished by the advent of Miss Gwinn in London, Mrs. Baxendale found herself considerably worse than usual. Mr. Rice, the apothecary, who was the general attendant in Daffodil's Delight, and lived at its corner, had given her medicine, and told her to 'eat well and get up her strength.' But, somehow, the strength and the appetite did not come; on the contrary, she got weaker and weaker. She was in very bad spirits this morning, was quite unable to get up, and cried for some time in silence.