sent me on with this here parcel—and precious heavy he is for his size," replied Sam Doughty, as without ceremony he tumbled the parcel on to the bench by Lady Level's side. It was addressed to her, and she knew that it contained some books which Mr. Ravensworth had promised to send down. "Come down by the mid-day train," curtly added the boy for her information.
"Do you get paid for delivering parcels, Sam?"
"Me get paid!" returned the youth, with intense aggravation; "no such luck. Unless," added he, a happy thought striking him, "anybody likes to give me something for myself—knowing how weighty they be, and what a lug it is for one's arms."
"This parcel is not at all heavy," said Lady Level.
"I'm sure he is, then, for his size. You should lift, though, what I have to drag along sometimes. Why, yesterday that ever was, I brought a parcel as big as a house to the next door; one that come from Lunnon by the mid-day train just as this'n did; and Mother Snow she never gave me nothing but a jam tart, no bigger nor the round o' your hand. She were taking a tray on 'em out o' the oven."
"Jam tarts for her delectation!" was the thought that flashed through Lady Level's mind. "Who was the parcel for, Sam?" she asked aloud.
"'Twere directed to Mrs. Snow."
"Oh. Not to that lady who is staying there?"
"What lady be that?" questioned Sam.
"The one you told me about. The lady with the long gold earrings."
Sam's stolid countenance assumed a look of doubt, as if he did not altogether understand. His eyes grew wider.
"That un! Her bain't there now, her bain't. Her didn't stop. Her went right away again the next day after she come."
"Did she?" exclaimed Lady Level, taken by surprise. "Are you sure?"
"Be I sure as that's a newspaper in your hand?" retorted Sam. "In course I be sure. The fly were ordered down here for her the next morning, and she come on to the station in it, Mr. Snow a sitting outside."
"She went back to London, then!"
"She went just t'other way," contradicted the boy. "Right on by the down-train. Dover her ticket were took for."
Lady Level fell into a passing reverie. All the conjectures she had been indulging in lately—whither had they flown? At that moment Mrs. Edwards, having seen the boy from the house, came out to ask what he wanted. Sam put on his best behaviour instantly. The respect he failed to show to the young lady was in full force before Mrs. Edwards.
"I come to bring this here parcel, please, ma'am, for Lady Level," said he, touching his old cap.
"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Edwards. "I'll carry it indoors, my lady," she added, taking it up. "You need not wait, Sam."
Lady Level slipped a sixpence into his ready hand, and he went off contented. Mrs. Edwards carried away the parcel.
Presently Lady Level followed, her mind busy as she went upstairs. She was taking some contrition to herself. What if—if it was all, or a great deal of it, only her imagination—that her husband was not the disloyal man she had deemed him?
His chamber door was closed; she passed it and went into her own. Then she opened the door separating the rooms and peeped in. He was lying upon the bed, partly dressed, and wrapped in a warm dressing-gown; his face was turned to the pillow, and he was apparently asleep.
She stole up and stood looking at him. Not a trace of fever lingered in his face now; his fine features looked wan and delicate. Her love for him was making itself heard just then. Cautiously she stooped to imprint a soft, silent kiss upon his cheek; and then another.
She would have lifted her face then, and found she could not do so. His arm was round her in a trice, holding it there; his beautiful gray eyes had opened and were fixed on hers.
"So you care for me a little bit yet, Blanche," he fondly whispered.
"Better this than calling me hard names."
She burst into tears. "I should care for you always, Archibald, if—if—I were sure you cared for me."
"You may be very sure of that," he emphatically answered. "Let there be peace between us, at any rate, my dear wife. The clouds will pass away in time."
On the Monday morning following, Lord and Lady Level departed for London. The peace, patched up between them, being honestly genuine and hopeful on his lordship's part, but doubtful on that of my lady.
Still nothing had been said or done to lift the mystery which hung about Marshdale.
CHAPTER III.
ONE NIGHT IN ESSEX STREET
We go on now to the following year: and I, Charles Strange, take up the narrative again.
It has been said that the two rooms on the ground-floor of our house in Essex Street were chiefly given over to the clerks. I had a desk in the front office; the same desk that I had occupied as a boy; and I frequently sat at it now. Mr. Lennard's desk stood opposite to mine. On the first floor the large front room was furnished as a sitting-room. It was called Mr. Brightman's room, and there he received his clients. The back room was called my room; but Mr. Brightman had a desk in it, and I had another. His desk stood in the middle of the room before the hearthrug; mine was under the window.
One fine Saturday afternoon in February, when it was getting near five o'clock, I was writing busily at my desk in this latter room, when Mr. Brightman came in.
"Rather dark for you, is it not, Charles?" he remarked, as he stirred the fire and sat down in his arm-chair beside it.
"Yes, sir; but I have almost finished."
"What are you going to do with yourself to-morrow?" he presently asked, when I was putting up my parchments.
"Nothing in particular, sir." I could not help sometimes retaining my old way of addressing him, as from clerk to master. "Last Sunday I was with my uncle Stillingfar."
"Then you may as well come down to Clapham and dine with me. Mrs. Brightman is away for a day or two, and I shall be alone. Come in time for service."
I promised, and drew a chair to the fire, ready to talk with Mr. Brightman. He liked a little chat with me at times when the day's work was over. It turned now on Lord Level, from whom I had heard that morning. We were not his usual solicitors, but were doing a little matter of business for him. He and Blanche had been abroad since the previous November (when they had come up together from Marshdale), and had now been in Paris for about a month.
"Do they still get on pretty well?" asked Mr. Brightman: for he knew that there had been differences between them.
"Pretty well," I answered, rather hesitatingly.
And, in truth, it was only pretty well, so far as I was able to form a judgment. During this sojourn of theirs in Paris I had spent a few days there with a client, and saw Blanche two or three times. That she was living in a state of haughty resentment against her husband was indisputable. Why or wherefore, I knew not. She dropped a mysterious word to me now and then, of which I could make nothing.
While Mr. Brightman was saying this, a clerk came in, handed a letter to him and retired.
"What a nuisance!" cried he, as he read it by fire-light. I looked up at the exclamation.
"Sir Edmund Clavering's coming to town this evening, and wants me to be here to see him!" he explained. "I can't go home to dinner now."
"Which train is he coming by?" I asked.
"One that is due at Euston Square at six o'clock," replied Mr. Brightman, referring to the letter. "I wanted to be home early this evening."
"You are not obliged to wait, sir," I said. I wished to my heart later—oh, how I wished it!—that he had not waited!
"I suppose I must, Charles. He is a good client, and easily takes offence. Recollect that breeze we had with him three or four months ago."
The clocks struck five as he spoke, and we heard the clerks leaving as usual.