The Three Clerks Part 78

'I know it, Charley; you have kept your promise; I knew you would, and I know you will. I have the fullest trust in you; and now you shall come and see her.'

Charley was to return to town that night, and they had not therefore much time to lose; they went upstairs at once, and found Linda and Uncle Bat in the patient's room. It was a lovely August evening, and the bedroom window opening upon the river was unclosed. Katie, as she sat propped up against the pillows, could look out upon the water and see the reedy island, on which in happy former days she had so delighted to let her imagination revel.

'It is very good of you to come and see me, Charley,' said she, as he made his way up to her bedside.

He took her wasted hand in his own and pressed it, and, as he did so, a tear forced itself into each corner of his eyes. She smiled as though to cheer him, and said that now she saw him she could be quite happy, only for poor Alaric and Gertrude. She hoped she might live to see Alaric again; but if not, Charley was to give him her best-best love.

'Live to see him! of course you will,' said Uncle Bat.

'What's to hinder you?' Uncle Bat, like the rest of them, tried to cheer her, and make her think that she might yet live.

After a while Uncle Bat went out of the room, and Linda followed him. Mrs. Woodward would fain have remained, but she perfectly understood that it was part of the intended arrangement with Katie, that Charley should be alone with her. 'I will come back in a quarter of an hour,' she said, rising to follow the others.

'You must not let her talk too much, Charley: you see how weak she is.'

'Mamma, when you come, knock at the door, will you?' said Katie.

Mrs. Woodward, who found herself obliged to act in complete obedience to her daughter, promised that she would; and then they were left alone.

'Sit down, Charley,' said she; he was still standing by her bedside, and now at her bidding he sat in the chair which Captain Cutt.w.a.ter had occupied. 'Come here nearer to me,' said she; 'this is where mamma always sits, and Linda when mamma is not here.'

Charley did as he was bid, and, changing his seat, came and sat down close to her bed-head.

'Charley, do you remember how you went into the water for me?'

said she, again smiling, and pulling her hand out and resting it on his arm which lay on the bed beside her.

'Indeed I do, Katie--I remember the day very well.'

'That was a very happy day in spite of the tumble, was it not, Charley? And do you remember the flower-show, and the dance at Mrs. Val's?'

Charley did remember them all well. Ah me! how often had he thought of them!

'I think of those days so often--too often,' continued Katie.

'But, dear Charley, I cannot remember too often that you saved my life.'

Charley once more tried to explain to her that there was nothing worthy of notice in his exploit of that day.

'Well, Charley, I may think as I like, you know,' she said, with something of the obstinacy of old days. 'I think you did save my life, and all the people in the world won't make me think anything else; but, Charley, I have something now to tell you.'

He sat and listened. It seemed to him as though he were only there to listen; as though, were he to make his own voice audible, he would violate the sanct.i.ty of the place. His thoughts were serious enough, but he could not pitch his voice so as to suit the tone in which she addressed him.

'We were always friends, were we not?' said she; 'we were always good friends, Charley. Do you remember how you were to build a palace for me in the dear old island out there? You were always so kind, so good to me.'

Charley said he remembered it all--they were happy days; the happiest days, he said, that he had ever known.

'And you used to love me, Charley?'

'Used!' said he, 'do you think I do not love you now?'

'I am sure you do. And, Charley, I love you also. That it is that I want to tell you. I love you so well that I cannot go away from this world in peace without wis.h.i.+ng you farewell. Charley, if you love me, you will think of me when I am gone; and then for my sake you will be steady.'

Here were all her old words over again--'You will be steady, won't you, Charley? I know you will be steady, now.' How much must she have thought of him! How often must his career have caused her misery and pain! How laden must that innocent bosom have been with anxiety on his account! He had promised her then that he would reform; but he had broken his promise. He now promised her again, but how could he hope that she would believe him?

'You know how ill I am, don't you? You know that I am dying, Charley?'

Charley of course declared that he still hoped that she would recover.

'If I thought so,' said she, 'I should not say what I am now saying; but I feel that I may tell the truth. Dear Charley, dearest Charley, I love you with all my heart--I do not know how it came so; I believe I have always loved you since I first knew you; I used to think it was because you saved my life; but I know it was not that. I was so glad it was you that came to me in the water, and not Harry; so that I know I loved you before that.'

'Dear Katie, you have not loved me, or thought of me, more than I have loved and thought of you.'

'Ah, Charley,' she said, smiling in her sad sweet way--'I don't think you know how a girl can love; you have so many things to think of, so much to amuse you up in London; you don't know what it is to think of one person for days and days, and nights and nights together. That is the way I have thought of you, I don't think there can be any harm,' she continued, 'in loving a person as I have loved you. Indeed, how could I help it? I did not love you on purpose. But I think I should be wrong to die without telling you. When I am dead, Charley, will you think of this, and try--try to give up your bad ways? When I tell you that I love you so dearly, and ask you on my deathbed, I think you will do this.'

Charley went down on his knees, and bowing his head before her and before his G.o.d, he made the promise. He made it, and we may so far antic.i.p.ate the approaching end of our story as to declare that the promise he then made was faithfully kept.

'Katie, Katie, my own Katie, my own, own, own Katie--oh, Katie, you must not die, you must not leave me! Oh, Katie, I have so dearly loved you! Oh, Katie, I do so dearly love you! If you knew all, if you could know all, you would believe me.'

At this moment Mrs. Woodward knocked at the door, and Charley rose from his knees. 'Not quite yet, mamma,' said Katie, as Mrs.

Woodward opened the door. 'Not quite yet; in five minutes, mamma, you may come.' Mrs. Woodward, not knowing how to refuse, again went away.

'Charley, I never gave you anything but once, and you returned it to me, did you not?'

'Yes,' said he, 'the purse--I put it in your box, because----'

And then he remembered that he could not say why he had returned it without breaking in a manner that confidence which Mrs.

Woodward had put in him.

'I understand it all. You must not think I am angry with you. I know how good you were about it. But Charley, you may have it back now; here it is;' and putting her hand under the pillow, she took it out, carefully folded up in new tissue paper. 'There, Charley, you must never part with it again as long as there are two threads of it together; but I know you never will; and Charley, you must never talk of it to anybody but to your wife; and you must tell her all about it.'

He took the purse, and put it to his lips, and then pressed it to his heart. 'No,' said he, 'I will never part with it again. I think I can promise that.' 'And now, dearest, good-bye,' said she; 'dearest, dearest Charley, good-bye; perhaps we shall know each other in heaven. Kiss me, Charley, before you go,' So he stooped down over her, and pressed his lips to hers.

Charley, leaving the room, found Mrs. Woodward at the other end of the pa.s.sage, standing at the door of her own dressing-room.

'You are to go to her now,' he said. 'Good-bye,' and without further speech to any of them he hurried out of the house.

None but Mrs. Woodward had seen him; but she saw that the tears were streaming down his cheeks as he pa.s.sed her, and she expressed no surprise that he had left the Cottage without going through the formality of making his adieux.

And then he walked up to town, as Norman once had done after a parting interview with her whom he had loved. It might be difficult to say which at the moment suffered the bitterest grief.

CHAPTER XLIII

MILLBANK

The immediate neighbourhood of Millbank Penitentiary is not one which we should, for its own sake, choose for our residence, either on account of its natural beauty, or the excellence of its habitations. That it is a salubrious locality must be presumed from the fact that it has been selected for the site of the inst.i.tution in question; but salubrity, though doubtless a great recommendation, would hardly reconcile us to the extremely dull, and one might almost say, ugly aspect which this district bears.

To this district, however, ugly as it is, we must ask our readers to accompany us, while we pay a short visit to poor Gertrude. It was certainly a sad change from her comfortable nursery and elegant drawing-room near Hyde Park. Gertrude had hitherto never lived in an ugly house. Surbiton Cottage and Albany Place were the only two homes that she remembered, and neither of them was such as to give her much fitting preparation for the melancholy shelter which she found at No. 5, Paradise Row, Millbank.

But Gertrude did not think much of this when she changed her residence. Early one morning, leaning on Charley's arm, she had trudged down across the Park, through Westminster, and on to the close vicinity of the prison; and here they sought for and obtained such accommodation as she thought fitting to her present situation. Charley had begged her to get into a cab, and when she refused that, had implored her to indulge in the luxury of an omnibus; but Gertrude's mind was now set upon economy; she would come back, she said, in an omnibus when the day would be hotter, and she would be alone, but she was very well able to walk the distance once.