A Life's Secret Part 38

'It's Baxendale, as sure as a trivet. Who else should it be? He have caught it at last.'

But there were pitying faces around. Humanity revolted at the sight; and quiet, inoffensive John Baxendale, had ever been liked in Daffodil's Delight. Robert Darby, his voice rising to a shriek with emotion, held out his armful of provisions.

'Look here! I wanted to work, but the Union won't let me. My wife and children be a starving at home, one of them dying: I came out, for I couldn't bear to stop indoors in the misery. There I met a friend--it seemed to me more like an angel--and he gave me money to feed my children; made me take it; he said if I had money and he had not, I'd do as much for him. See what I bought with it: I was carrying it home for my poor children when this cry arose. Friends, the one to give it me was Baxendale. And you have murdered him!' Another great cry, even as Darby concluded, arose to break the deep stillness. No stillness is so deep as that caused by emotion.

'He is not dead!' shouted the crowd. 'See! he is stirring! Who could have done this!'

CHAPTER V.

A GLOOMY CHAPTER.

The winter had come in, intensely hard. Frost and snow lay early upon the ground. Was that infliction in store--a bitter winter--to be added to the already fearful distress existing in this dense metropolis? The men held out from work, and the condition of their families was something sad to look upon. Distress of a different nature existed in the house of Mr. Hunter. It was a house of sorrow; for its mistress lay dying. The spark of life had long been flickering, and now its time to depart had come. Haggard, worn, pale, stood Mr. Hunter in his drawing-room. He was conversing with his brother Henry. Their topic was business. In spite of existing domestic woes, men of business cannot long forget their daily occupation. Mr. Henry Hunter had come in to inquire news of his sister-in-law, and the conversation insensibly turned on other matters.

'Of course I shall weather it,' Mr. Henry was saying, in answer to a question. 'It will be a fearful loss, with so much money out, and buildings in process standing still. Did it last very much longer, I hardly know that I could. And you, James?' Mr. Hunter evaded the question. Since the time, years back, when they had dissolved partners.h.i.+p, he had shunned all allusion to his own prosperity, or non-prosperity, with his brother. Possibly he feared that it might lead to that other subject--the mysterious paying away of the five thousand pounds.

'For my part, I do not feel so sure of the strike's being near its end,'

he remarked.

'I have positive information that the eligibility of withdrawing the strike at the Messrs. Pollocks' has been mooted by the central committee of the Union,' said Mr. Henry. 'If nothing else has brought the men to their senses, this weather must do it. It will end as nearly all strikes have ended--in their resuming work upon our terms.'

'But what an incalculable amount of suffering they have brought upon themselves!' exclaimed Mr. Hunter. 'I do not see what is to become of them, either, in future. How are they all to find work again? We shall not turn off the stranger men who have worked for us in this emergency, to make room for them.'

'No, indeed,' replied Mr. Henry. 'And those strangers amount to nearly half my complement of hands. Do you recollect a fellow of the name of Moody?'

'Of course I do. I met him the other day, looking like a walking skeleton. I asked him whether he was not tired of the strike. He said _he_ had been tired of it long ago; but the Union would not let him be.'

'He hung himself yesterday.'

Mr. Hunter replied only by a gesture.

'And left a written paper behind him, cursing the strike and the Trades'

Unions, which had brought ruin upon him and his family. 'I saw the paper,' continued Mr. Henry. 'A decent, quiet man he was; but timorous, and easily led away.'

'Is he dead?'

'He had been dead two hours when he was found. He hung himself in that shed at the back of Dunn's house, where the men held some meetings in the commencement of the strike. I wonder how many more souls this wretched state of affairs will send, or has sent, out of the world!'

'Hundreds, directly or indirectly. The children are dying off quickly, as the Registrar-General's returns show. A period of prolonged distress always tells upon the children. And upon us also, I think,' Mr. Hunter added, with a sigh.

'Upon us in a degree,' Mr. Henry a.s.sented, somewhat carelessly. He was a man of substance; and, upon such, the ill effects fall lightly. 'When the masters act in combination, as we have done, it is not the men who can do us permanent injury. They must give in, before great harm has had time to come. James, I saw that man this morning: your _bete noire_, as I call him. Mr. Hunter changed countenance. He could not be ignorant that his brother alluded to Gwinn of Ketterford. It happened that Mr.

Henry Hunter had been cognisant of one or two of the unpleasant visits forced by the man upon his brother during the last few years. But Mr.

Henry had avoided questions: he had the tact to perceive that they would only go unanswered, and be deemed unpleasant into the bargain.

'I met him near your yard. Perhaps he was going in there.'

The sound of the m.u.f.fled knocker, announcing a visitor, was heard the moment after Mr. Henry spoke, and Mr. Hunter started as though struck by a pistol-shot. At a calmer time he might have had more command over himself; but the sudden announcement of the presence of the man in town--which fact he had not been cognisant of--had startled him to tremor. That Gwinn, and n.o.body else, was knocking for admittance, seemed a certainty to his shattered nerves. 'I cannot see him: I cannot see him!' he exclaimed, in agitation; and he backed away from the room door, unconscious what he did in his confused fear, his lips blanching to a deadly whiteness.

Mr. Henry moved up and took his hand. 'James, there has been estrangement between us on this point for years. As I asked you once before, I now ask you again: confide in me and let me help you. Whatever the dreadful secret may be, you shall find me your true brother.'

'Hus.h.!.+' breathed Mr. Hunter, moving from his brother in his scared alarm. 'Dreadful secret! who says it? There is no dreadful secret. Oh Henry! hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+ The man is coming in! You must leave us.' Not the dreaded Gwinn, but Austin Clay. He was the one who entered. Mr. Hunter sat down, breathing heavily, the blood coming back to his face; he nearly fainted in the revulsion of feeling brought by the relief. Broken in spirit, health and nerves alike shattered, the slightest thing was now sufficient to agitate him.

'You are ill, sir!' exclaimed Austin, advancing with concern.

'No--no--I am not ill. A momentary spasm; that's all. I am subject to it.'

Mr. Henry moved to the door in vexation. There was to be no more brotherly confidence between them now than there had formerly been. He spoke as he went, without turning round. 'I will come in again by-and-by, James, and see how Louisa is.'

The departure seemed a positive relief to Mr. Hunter. He spoke quietly enough to Austin Clay. 'Who has been at the office to-day?'

'Let me see,' returned Austin, with a purposed carelessness. 'Lyall came, and Thompson----'

'Not men on business, not men on business,' Mr. Hunter interrupted with feverish eagerness. 'Strangers.'

'Gwinn of Ketterford,' answered Austin, with the same a.s.sumption of carelessness. 'He came twice. No other strangers have called, I think.'

Whether his brother's request, that he should be enlightened as to the 'dreadful secret,' had rendered Mr. Hunter suspicious that others might surmise there was a secret, certain it is that he looked up sharply as Austin spoke, keenly regarding his countenance, noting the sound of his voice. 'What did he want?'

'He wanted you, sir. I said you were not to be seen. I let him suppose that you were too ill to be seen. Bailey, who was in the counting-house at the time, gave him the gratuitous information that Mrs. Hunter was very ill--in danger.'

Why this answer should have increased Mr. Hunter's suspicions, he best knew. He rose from his seat, grasped Austin's arm, and spoke with menace. 'You have been prying into my affairs! You sought out those Gwinns when you last went to Ketterford! You----'

Austin withdrew from the grasp, and stood before his master, calm and upright. 'Mr. Hunter!'

'Was it not so?'

'No, sir. I thought you had known me better. I should be the last to "pry" into anything that you might wish to keep secret.'

'Austin, I am not myself to-day, I am not myself,' cried the poor gentleman, feeling how unjustifiable had been his suspicions. 'This grief, induced by the state of Mrs. Hunter, unmans me.'

'How is she, sir, by this time?'

'Calm and collected, but sinking fast. You must go up and see her. She said she should like to bid you farewell.' Through the warm corridors, so well protected from the bitter cold reigning without, Austin was conducted to the room of Mrs. Hunter. Florence, her eyes swollen with weeping, quitted it as he entered. She lay in bed, her pale face raised upon pillows; save for that pale face and the laboured breathing, you would not have suspected the closing scene to be so near. She lifted her feeble hand and made prisoner of Austin's. The tears gathered in his eyes as he looked down upon her.

'Not for me,' dear Austin, she whispered, as she noted the signs of sorrow. 'Weep rather for those who are left to battle yet with this sad world.' The words caused Austin to wonder whether she could have become cognisant of the nature of Mr. Hunter's long-continued trouble. He swallowed down the emotion that was rising in his throat.

'Do you feel no better?' he gently inquired.

'I feel well, save for the weakness. All pain has left me. Austin, I shall be glad to go. I have only one regret, the leaving Florence. My husband will not be long after me; I read it in his face.'

'Dear Mrs. Hunter, will you allow me to say a word to you on the subject of Florence?' he breathed, seizing on the swiftly-pa.s.sing opportunity.

'I have wished to do it before we finally part.'

'Say what you will.'