Hagar of the Pawnshop (Canadian Magazine, 1897-98)/The Sixth Customer and the Silver Teapot
VII.—THE SIXTH CUSTOMER AND THE SILVER TEAPOT.
OF all the people with whom Hagar had to do while managing the Lambeth pawnshop, she liked always to remember Margaret Snow. The memory of that pale, blind old maid, with her sorrowful story and her patient endurance, never died out of the girl's heart. The pitiful little episode of the silver teapot, which she pawned so unwillingly, and only out of sheer necessity; the sad tale recounted by the crushed creature, and the unexpected part which she took herself in the conclusion of such tale: all these things served to keep green the memory of the sad woman whom Hagar called her sixth customer. There was even something ludicrous in parts of the affair; something naive and childlike in the absolute simplicity of the romance; but Hagar never saw its humour. All she knew was that Margaret was a martyr and a saint, and that the world was the loser for not knowing her story. Such as it is, the tale runs thus:
It was dusk one November evening when Margaret entered the shop, with a parcel tied up in an old towel. Hagar knew her well by sight as a blind woman who lived in an attic at the top of the end house in Carby's Crescent, and as one who earned a hard and penurious living by weaving hand-baskets of straw for a great emporium at the corner of the outside street. These baskets—a spe[1]ciality of the great shop—were given to customers in which to carry away small parcels; and as the demand was constant, the supply was the same. Margaret could always sell as many of these baskets as she could weave; but, although skilful and nimble with her long fingers, she could rarely earn more than ten shillings a week.[2] On this she had to live, and dress, and buy food, so her existence was really a kind of miracle. Still, she had never asked charity of a single soul, being proud and reserved: and in all the years she had dwelt in Carby's Crescent she had never entered the pawnshop. Knowing this, Hagar was astonished to see her standing in one of the sentry-boxes, with the bundle placed on the counter before her.
"Miss Snow!" cried Hagar, in sheer surprise. "What is the matter? Is there anything that I can do for you?"
The thin pale face of the woman flushed as she heard herself called by her name; and her voice was hesitating and low as she laid one slender finger on the bundle, before making reply.
"I have been ill, Miss Stanley," she explained, softly, "so I have not done much work lately. Very little money has come in. I—I am obliged to—to pay my rent and—and" She broke down altogether, and added desperately: "Please lend me something on this."
Hagar became a business woman at once "What is it?" she said, undoing the bundle deftly.
"It is—it is—a silver teapot," faltered Miss Snow; "the only valuable I possess. I wish to pawn it for three months, until I can redeem it. I—I—hope to repay the money by then. Three—three pounds will be—" Her voice died away in her throat: and Hagar saw her poor thin hand steal up to her averted face to brush away a tear.
The teapot was a square one of Georgian design, with fluted sides, an elegantly-curved spout, and a smooth handle of ivory. Hagar was quite willing to lend on it the required three pounds, as the silver was worth more, until she made a curious discovery. The lid of the pot was closed tightly, and soldered all round, in a manner which made it quite impossible to be opened. This odd circumstance rendered the teapot for all practical purposes entirely useless; no one could use an hermetically sealed vessel.
"Why is this teapot closed?" asked Hagar in surprise.
"It was done thirty years ago by my order," replied the blind woman, in a calm voice; then, after a pause, she added in faint and hesitating tones: "There are letters in it."
"Letters? Whose letters?"
"Mine and—a person's with whom you have no concern. Please do not ask any more questions, Miss Stanley. Give me the money and let me go. I hope to redeem the teapot in three months."
Hagar hesitated and looked doubtful. "As it is sealed up, the teapot is hardly of much use," she said, after a pause. "Take it back, my dear Miss Snow, and I'll lend you the three pounds."
"Thank you, no," replied the old maid, coldly. "I take charity from no one. If you can't lend the money on the teapot, give me back my property."
"Oh, well, I'll take it in pawn if you like," rejoined Hagar, with a shrug. "Here are three sovereigns, and I'll make out the ticket at once."
The hand of the blind woman closed on the money with a sigh of mingled regret and relief. When Hagar returned with the ticket she saw that Margaret was fondling the piece of silver as though unwilling to part with it. She drew back, flushing, on hearing the approaching footsteps of Hagar, and taking the ticket in silence, moved away with tears running down her withered cheeks. Hagar was touched by this mute misery.
"Can you find your way back home in the darkness?" she called out.
"My dear," said the elder woman with dignity, "day and night are the same to me. You forget that I am blind. Also," she added, with an attempt at lightness, "I know every inch of this neighbourhood."
When she departed Hagar put away the teapot, and wondered a little over the odd circumstance of it being closed, and containing love-letters. She was certain that the letters were full of love from the faltering way in which Margaret had mentioned them; also because they were her own and "a person's with whom you have no concern."
That last sentence, as spoken by the blind woman, showed Hagar only too truly her indomitable reserve and pride. She must have been reduced to her last crust before she could have brought herself to pawn the queer casket—and a teapot as a receptacle for love-letters was very queer indeed—which contained the evidence of her youth's dead romance. Thirty years ago the teapot had been sealed; Hagar knew also that thirty years ago the heart of this blind and unattractive old maid had been broken. Here indeed was material for a true romance—and that of the strangest, the most pitiful.
"What a strange place is a pawnshop!" said Hagar, philosophizing to herself. "All the flotsam and jetsam of human lives drift into it. Broken hearts, wrecked careers, worn-out and dead romances—this is the place for them all. I should like to know the story of that sealed-up teapot."
Indeed, so curious she was to know it that she felt half-inclined to call on the old maid, and ask for information. But Hagar, although a poor girl, and a wandering gipsy, and the manageress of a low London pawnshop, had a natural instinct of delicacy which withheld her from forcing the confidence of one disinclined to give it.
Miss Snow was a lady born, as all Carby's Crescent knew, and her unbending pride was proverbial. The few words with which she had checked Hagar's inquiries about the letters enshrined in the teapot showed plainly enough that the subject of the hinted romance was not one to be touched upon. Hagar therefore kept the teapot in the shop, and forbore to call upon its owner.
For some weeks Margaret continued to weave her baskets and take them to the shop which employed her. She went to church every Sunday morning, according to her usual custom; and other than these outings she remained secluded in her freezing garret. In that year the winter was particularly severe in London, and snow fell thickly before Christmas. In her desire to save money for the redemption of the teapot, Margaret denied herself a fire, and reduced the amount of food she took, to as little as would sustain life. In her thin clothing and well-worn shoes she went to shop and church amid falling snow, and in the teeth of cutting winds. Naturally, with lack of clothing, food and fire, with her weight of years, and emaciated frame, she fell ill. One morning she did not appear, and the woman of the house went up to find her in bed.
Still, her bold spirit, her inborn pride, kept her resolute to refuse charity; and she wove her baskets sitting up in her buckle-bed, between bouts of pain and anguish. In these straits she must have died, but that God in His pity for this helpless and tortured woman sent an angel to aid her. The angel was Hagar; and a very practical angel she proved to be.
Learning from the gossip of the neighbourhood that Miss Snow was ill, and remembering the episode of the silver teapot, Hagar marched up to the freezing garret and took charge of the old maid.
Margaret objected with all her feeble force; but the kind-hearted gipsy girl was not to be deterred from what she conceived to be her duty.
"You are ill and alone, so I must look after you," she said, throwing a rug, which she had brought, over the poor woman.
"But I cannot pay you. All I have of value is the silver teapot."
"Well," said Hagar, proceeding to kindle a good fire, "that is safe in my shop, so don't trouble about it. As to payment, we'll talk about that when you get better."
"I shall never get better," groaned Margaret, and turned her face to the wall. And indeed, Hagar thought, that was true enough. Worn by years of cold and privation, Margaret's body was too feeble to resist much longer the inroads of disease. When she left her garret again it would be feet foremost; and another London pauper would be added to the great army of the unknown dead. With Margaret the sands of time were running out very rapidly.
Hagar was like a sister to her. She kept her supplied with fire and food and blankets; she gave her wine to drink; and, when she could get away from the shop, she came oftentimes to sit by that poor bedside. It was on such an occasion that she heard the one romance of Margaret's life, and learnt why the love-letters—they truly were love-letters—had been placed in the silver teapot.
It was late in December, and the ground was white with snow. The shops, even in Carby's Crescent, were being decked with holly and mistletoe for the season of Yule; and, after closing the premises, Hagar had come to pass an hour with Margaret. There was a good fire—one which would have made wrathful the miserly heart of the late Jacob Dix—and a fair amount of light from two candles placed on the mantelpiece. Margaret was cheerful, even gay, on this evening; and with her hand in Hagar's she thanked the girl for her kindness.
"But indeed thanks are weak," said the blind woman; "you have fed the hungry and clothed the naked. After thirty years of doubt, my dear, you have restored my faith in human nature."
"How did you lose it?"
"Through a man, my dear; one who said that he loved me, yet who broke off our engagement without any reason."
"That was strange. Why did you not ask him for his reason?"
"I could not," said Margaret, with a sigh; "he was in India. But it is a long story, my dear. If you care to listen"
"I shall be delighted," said Hagar, quickly—"especially if it explains why you sealed up the letters in the teapot."
"Yes; it explains that. In that teapot—which was the only present I ever received from John Mask—I placed his cruel letters thirty years ago; also mine to him, which he sent back."
"Why did he send back your letters?" asked Hagar.
"I don't know; I cannot say; but he returned them. Oh!" she cried with a burst of anguish, "how cruel, how cruel! and I loved him so—I loved him! But he forgot me and married Jane Lorrimer. Now they are rich and prosperous and happy, while I—I am dying a pauper in a garret. And the silver teapot is pawned," she finished pathetically.
Hagar patted the thin hand which gripped the bedclothes. "Tell me the story," said she, soothingly—"that is, if it will not cause you too much pain.
"Pain," echoed Margaret, bitterly. "When the heart is broken it feels no pain, and mine was broken thirty years ago by John Mask." She remained silent for a moment, and then continued: "I lived at Christchurch, in Hants, my dear, in a little cottage just outside the town. This I inherited from my parents, together with a trifle of money—not much, indeed, but sufficient to live upon. Both my father and mother had died, leaving me alone in the world at the age of twenty; so I lived in my cottage with Lucy Dyke and a little maid as my servants. Lucy was near my own age, and looked after the house well. I was blind, you see, my dear," said Margaret, softly "and could do nothing for myself. Dear Lord but I have had to earn my bread since then."
Overcome by bitter memories, she paused for a moment. Hagar did not dare to break the silence; and in a short time Margaret resumed her tale.
"Also, I had a dear friend called Jane Lorrimer, who lived near with her parents, and who visited me constantly. We were like sisters, and I loved her better than anyone in the world till John Mask came to Christchurch. He was visiting the rector of the parish, and I met him. Although I never saw his face, I was told that he was very handsome; and he had a sweet low voice, which charmed me greatly. You know, my dear, how we poor blind folk love a sympathetic voice. Well, I loved John, but I had no idea that there would be any return of that love; for how could a blind girl hope that a handsome young man would look on her—especially," added Margaret in a melancholy tone, "when Jane was so handsome?"
"But he did not love Jane," observed Hagar, significantly.
"No," said the blind woman, proudly; "he loved me, and this he told me after we had known each other a year. We became engaged, and life was then at its brightest for me. However, he was going out to India to be a tea-planter; and he said when he was settled there and had made a fair amount of money that he would send for me. Alas! alas! that promise was never kept."
"Why wasn't it?" asked Hagar, bluntly.
"Who can tell?" said Margaret, sadly. "Not I; not Jane. She was as surprised as I was when the end came. Although blind, my dear, I can write fairly well, and John made me promise to correspond with him. I did so for more than a year, and he answered faithfully."
"Who read his letters to you?"
"Sometimes Jane, sometimes Lucy Dyke. Ah! they were both good friends to me in my trouble. At first John's letters were very affectionate, but as the months went by they grew colder and colder. Oftentimes Jane said that she would not read them to me. I wrote to John asking the meaning of this change; but his replies were not satisfactory. At last, eighteen months after his departure, I received back my letters."
"Really! Did Jane or Lucy bring them to you?"
"No; Jane was absent in London seeing friends; and Lucy at the moment was out of the house. The little maid brought me the packet. I opened it, thinking it might be a present from John, as he had given me nothing but the silver teapot, which he presented to me before he departed. I made the little maid wait till I opened the packet; and I asked her to read the letter from John enclosed."
"Did she?"
"Yes; oh, the pain of it!" cried Margaret. "He said that it was best that our engagement should end, and that he returned to me my letters, thirteen in all. Not an excuse, or a sigh, or a regret. Only two curt, cruel lines, breaking off our engagement, and the packet of my letters. I was distracted with grief; and I placed the letters in my bosom while I wept."
"What did Lucy say when she returned?"
"She was very angry with the little maid for having read the letter to me and causing me such pain. She wanted me to destroy my own letters, but I refused. I kept them by me day and night; John had touched them, and they were all that remained to me of him. Then I saw that my romance was dead and done with. I took my own letters and those he had written me, and tying them up in a bundle, I placed them with my own hands in the silver teapot. Then I went to a jeweller, and had the lid closed. It has not been opened since."
"Did you tell Lucy or Jane that you had done this?"
"I told no one. I kept my own secret, and none guessed what the teapot contained of my one hour of happiness. Then shortly afterwards misfortunes fell on me. I lost my money through the wickedness of my trustee, and had to give up my house and dismiss Lucy and my little maid. Jane went out to India to an uncle, and she took with her Lucy as maid. In six months from her departure I heard that she had married John Mask."
"Did she write and tell you so?"
"No; she never wrote to me, nor did he. As for myself, after receiving back my letters with those cruel two lines, after enshrining them in the teapot, I strove to forget him. I never wrote a line to him; I never mentioned him. He had treated me cruelly, and he was dead to me. That was the end of my romance, my dear."
"And how did you come to London?"
"I lost my all, as I told you," said Margaret, simply; "and, as I could not bear to live poor where I had been well off, I left Christchurch and came to London. Oh, my dear, why should I tell you of the miseries I endured! Blind and poor and friendless, I suffered greatly; but it was all nothing compared to the suffering of that hour when John broke my heart. Finally, I drifted here, to earn my bread by weaving baskets; and here I die. Alas! poor Margaret Snow!"
"And John Mask and his wife?"
"They live in the West End, in Berkeley Square, rich and prosperous, with sons and daughters by their side. Lucy is the housekeeper. Oh, I learnt it all from a friend of mine in Christchurch. Ah! how happy—how happy they are!"
"Did you reveal yourself to them?"
"No. Why should I? They would not care for me to haunt them like a ghost of the past. They are rich and honoured and happy."
"And you lie here, poor and dying!" said Hagar, bitterly.
"Yes; it is hard—hard. But I must not complain. God has sent you to me to make my last moments happy. You are good—good, my dear. You have done much for me; but one thing more you must do. Open the teapot."
"What!" cried Hagar, in surprise—"open what has been closed for thirty years!"
"Yes; I wish you to read me John's letters before I die. Let me go to my rest knowing that he loved me once. To-morrow, my dear, you must do this for me. Promise."
"I promise," said Hagar, folding the blankets over her. "To-morrow I shall have the teapot opened, and bring you the letters—your own and John Mask's."
With this promise she took her leave for the night, after first seeing that Margaret was warm and comfortable. In her own bed, Hagar meditated on the sadness of the story which had been told to her, on the passionate love of the man for the blind woman, which had died away so strangely. That he should have ceased to love Margaret was not uncommon, as men, particularly when absent, are only too often prone to forget those they leave at home; but it was curious that he should have married Jane Lorrimer. A doubt stole into Hagar's mind as to whether Margaret had been treated fairly; whether there might not have been other reasons for the sudden ending of her romance than she knew of. For such suspicion Hagar had no grounds to go upon; but all the same she could not rid her mind of the doubt. Perhaps the letters might set it at rest; perhaps all had happened as Margaret had told. Nevertheless, Hagar was anxious that the morrow should come—that the teapot should be opened and the letters read. Then she would learn if treachery and woman's wiles had parted the lovers, or if the story was merely one—as Margaret believed—of a faithless man and a broken-hearted woman.
The next day Hagar left the shop in charge of Bolker, and took the silver teapot to a jeweller in the adjacent thoroughfare. He soon melted the solder, and opened the lid. Within, beneath a pile of dried rose-leaves, she found the packet of letters, tied up with a blue ribbon. There was something sacrilegious to her imaginative mind in thus disturbing the relics of this dead-and-done-with romance; and it was with reverent care that Hagar carried the teapot and its contents to the house in Carby's Crescent. After thirty years of mouldering under the rose-leaves, these letters, yellow and faded, were restored to the light of day; and the woman who had written them when young and fair was now lying withered and dying in the winter of her age. Hagar was profoundly moved as she sat by that humble bedside with the ancient love-letters on her lap.
"Read them all," said Margaret, with the tears running down her face; "read the letters of John in which he told me of his love thirty years ago. Thirty years! Ah, dear God! when I was young and fresh! Oh, oh, oh! Youth and love!" she wept, beating the bedclothes with trembling hands—"love and youth! Gone! gone!—and I lie dying!"
Steadying her voice with an effort in the presence of this sacred grief, Hagar read the letters written from India by the absent lover. There were ten or twelve of them—charming letters, full of pure and undying love. From first to last there was no sentiment but what breathed devotion and trust. The writer spoke tenderly of his poor blind love; he promised to make her her path with roses, and in every way to show himself worthy of honour and affection. Up to the twelfth letter there was not a hint of parting or of a desire to break off the engagement; only in the thirteenth letter—two curt lines, as Margaret had said—came the announcement, with the swiftness and unexpectedness of a thunderbolt. "It is better that our engagement should end," wrote John, coldly; "therefore I return you the thirteen letters you wrote me." And that was all. This unexpected communication, coming so suddenly after the fervour of the dozen letters, took away Hagar's breath.
"Excepting in the last I do not see anything cruel or cold in these letters, Miss Snow," said Hagar, when she had ended her reading.
Margaret put up one thin hand to her head. "No, no," she stammered, confusedly; "and yet I am sure John wrote cruelly. It is so long ago that perhaps I forget; but his last letters were cold, and hinted at a desire that we should part. I remember Jane and Lucy reading them to me."
"I don't see any hint of that," replied Hagar, doubtfully; "in fact, in the last two or three he asks, as you have heard, why you wish the marriage postponed."
"I never wished that!" murmured Margaret, perplexed. "I wanted to marry John and be with him always. Certainly I never said such a thing when I wrote to him. Of that I am sure."
"We can soon prove it," said Hagar, taking up the other packet. "Here are your letters to John—all of them. Shall I read them?"
Receiving an eager assent, the girl arranged the epistles in order of dates, and read them slowly. They were scrawled rather than written, in the large, childish handwriting of the blind; and most of them were short, but the first six were full of love and a desire to be near John. The seventh letter, which was better written than the previous ones, breathed colder sentiments; it hinted that the absent lover could do better than marry a blind girl—who might be a drag on him, it said.
"Stop! Stop!" cried Margaret, breathlessly. "I never wrote that letter!"
She was sitting up in the bed, with her grey hair pushed off her thin, eager face; and turning her sightless eyes towards Hagar, she seemed almost to see the astonished face of the girl in the intensity of her desire.
"I never wrote that letter!" repeated Margaret, in a shrill voice of excitement; "you are making some mistake."
"Indeed I read only what is written," said Hagar; "let me continue. When I finish the other five letters we shall discuss them. But I fear—I fear"
"You fear what?"
"That you have been deceived. Wait—wait! say nothing until I finish reading."
Margaret sank back on her pillow with a grey face and quick in-drawn breathing. She dreaded what was coming, as Hagar well knew; so the girl continued hurriedly to read the letters, lest she should be interrupted. They were all—that is, the last five or six—written in better style of handwriting than the former ones; and each letter was colder than the last. The writer did not want to leave her quiet English home for distant India. She was afraid that the engagement was a mistake; when she consented to the marriage she did not know her own mind. Moreover, Jane Lorrimer loved him; she was
"Jane!" interrupted Margaret, with a cry—"what had Jane to do with my love for John? I never wrote those last letters; they are forgeries!"
"Indeed they look like it," said Hagar, examining the letters; "the handwriting is that of a person who can see—much better than the writing of the early letters."
"I always wrote badly," declared Margaret, feverishly. "I was blind; it was hard for me to pen a letter. John did not expect—expect—oh, dear Lord, what does it all mean?"
"It means that Jane deceived you."
"Deceived me!" wailed Margaret, feebly—"deceived her poor blind friend! No, no!"
"I am certain of it!" said Hagar, firmly. "When you told me your story, I was doubtful of Jane; now that I have read those forged letters—for forged they are—I am certain of it. Jane deceived you, with the aid of Lucy!"
"But why, dear Lord, why?"
"Because she loved John and wished to marry him. You stood in the way, and she removed you. Well, she gained her wish; she parted you from John, and became Mrs. Mask."
"I can't believe it; Jane was my friend."
"Naturally; and for that reason deceived you," said Hagar, bitterly. "Oh, I know well what friendship is! But we must find out the truth. Tell me the exact address of Mrs. Mask."
"For what reason?"
"Because I shall call and see her. I shall learn the truth, and right you in the eyes of John."
"What use?" wept Margaret, bitterly. "My life is over, and I am dying. What use?"
Feeble and hopeless, she would have made no effort herself; but Hagar was determined that the secret, buried in the silver teapot for thirty years, should be known, if not to the world, at least to John Mask. These many days he had deemed Margaret faithless, and had married a woman who, he believed, gave him that love which the blind girl had refused. Now he should learn that the wife was the traitress, that the rejected woman had been true and faithful even unto death. Hagar made up her mind to this course, and forcing the address from the unwilling lips of Margaret, she went the very next day to the stately mansion in Berkeley Square. So came Nemesis to the faithless friend after the lapse of thirty years. The justice of the gods is slow, but it is certain.
Margaret lay weeping in her bed. As yet her feeble brain could not grasp the truth. John, whom she had believed faithless, had been true; and in his eyes all these years it was she who had been cruel. To her all was confusion and doubt. Not until the afternoon of the next day did she learn the truth for certain. It was Hagar who told it to her.
"I went to the house in Berkeley Square," said Hagar, "and I asked for Mrs. Mask. She was out, and I saw the housekeeper—none other than your former servant, Lucy Dyke; Mrs. Jael now," added the girl, contemptuously—"well off, trusted, and comfortable. That is the reward of her treachery."
"No, no! Lucy—surely she did not deceive me?"
"I made her confess it," said Hagar, sternly. "I told her of the letters in the teapot; of your hard life, and of your dying bed. At first she denied everything; but when I threatened to tell Mr. Mask the wretch confessed the truth. Yes, my poor Miss Snow, you were deceived—bitterly deceived—by your friend and your servant. They made a sport of your blindness and love."
"Cruel! cruel!" moaned Margaret, trembling violently.
"Yes, it was cruel; but it is the way of the world," said Hagar, with bitterness. "It seems that Jane was in love with your John; but as he was true to you, she could not hope to marry him. Determined, however, to do so, she bribed Lucy with money, and the pair resolved to part you from John by means of lying letters. Those you wrote to India never reached him. Instead of your epistles, Jane wrote those which I read to you, urging a breaking-off of the engagement, and hinting at her own love. John thought they came from you, and wrote back—as you have heard now—asking why you wished the marriage broken off. When Lucy or Jane read the letters to you thirty years ago, they altered the sense so that you should think John cruel. But why explain further?" cried Hagar, with a burst of deep anger. "You saw—you know how they succeeded. John broke off the engagement and sent you back your letters. For that your treacherous enemies were not prepared. If Lucy had been in the house, you would never have received the packet. No wonder she wanted you to burn the letters, seeing that the forged ones were amongst them. Had you not hidden them away in the silver teapot, Lucy would have found means to destroy them. However, you know how they have been preserved these thirty years, to prove the truth at last. Revenge yourself, Miss Snow! Jane is the honoured wife of John; Lucy is the confidential housekeeper, comfortable and happy. Tell John the truth, and punish these vixens!"
"Oh, what shall I do? What can I do?" cried Margaret. "I do not want to be cruel, but they ruined my life. Jane"
"She is coming to see you; and John also," said Hagar, rapidly. "The two will be here in an hour. Then you can denounce the treachery of Jane, and show John those letters to prove it. Ruin her! She ruined you."
Margaret said nothing. She was a religious woman, and nightly recited the Lord's Prayer; "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." Now—and in no idle fashion—she was called upon to prove the depth of her belief—the extent of her charity. She was asked to forgive her bitterest enemies those two women who had ruined her life, and who had built up prosperous existences on such ruins. It was hard to say "Go in peace" to these. Hagar was implacable, and urged revenge; but Margaret—weak, sweet soul—leant to the side of charity. Waiting the arrival of her false friend, her lost lover, she prayed for guidance and for strength to sustain her in the coming ordeal. It was the last and most painful phase of her long, long martyrdom.
Mrs. Mask arrived an hour afterwards, as Hagar had announced, but alone. Her husband had been detained by business, she explained to the girl, and would come on later. Like herself, he was anxious to see their dying friend.
"Does he know the truth?" asked Hagar before admitting the visitor.
Jane was now a large and prosperous woman, with an imperious temper, and in an ordinary case would have replied sharply. But the discovery of her treachery, the knowledge that her victim was dying, had broken her down entirely. With a pale face and quivering lips, she shook her head, and signed that she could not bring herself to speak. Hagar stood aside and permitted her to pass in silence. She would have lashed the perfidious woman with her tongue, but deemed it more just that the traitress should be punished by the friend she had wronged so bitterly. Mrs. Mask entered the room, and slowly walked over to the bedside. The blind woman recognized her footstep.
"Jane," said Margaret, reproachfully, "have you come to look at your work?"
The prosperous lady recoiled as she saw the wreck of the merry, happy girl she had known thirty years before. Tongue-tied by the knowledge that Margaret spoke truly, she could only stand like a culprit beside the bed, and like a culprit await her sentence. Hagar remained at the door to listen.
"Have you nothing to say?" gasped Margaret, faintly—"you who lied about me with your accomplice—who made my John believe me faithless? My John! alas! he has been yours—won by dishonour—these thirty years!"
"I—I loved him!" stammered the other woman at last, goaded into defending herself.
"Yes, you loved him and betrayed me. For years I have suffered hunger and cold; for years I have lived with a broken heart, alone and miserably!"
"I—I—oh, I am sorry!"
"Sorry! Can your sorrow give me back thirty years of wasted life—of long-enduring agony? Can sorrow make me what I should have been—what you are—a happy wife and mother?"
"Margaret," implored Jane, sinking on her knees, "forgive me! In spite of all my prosperity, I have suffered in secret. My sin has come home to me many a time, and made me weep. I searched for you when I returned to England; I could not find you. Now I am willing to make what expiation you wish."
"Then tell your husband how you tricked him and ruined me."
"No—no! Anything but that, Margaret! For God's sake! I should die of shame if he knew. He loves me now; we are old; we have children. Two of my boys are in the army; my daughter is a wife and mother. What you will, but not that; it would destroy all; it would kill me!"
She bowed her head on the bed-clothes and wept. Margaret reflected. Her revenge was within her grasp. John was coming, and a word from her would make him loathe the woman he had loved and honoured these many years—would make him despise the mother of his children. No, she could not be so cruel as to ruin the innocent to punish the guilty. Besides, Jane had loved him, and it was that love which had made her sin. Margaret raised herself feebly, and laid her thin hand on the head of the woman who had martyrized her.
"I forgive you, Jane. Go in peace. John shall never know."
Jane lifted up her face in amazement at this God-like forgiveness. "You will not tell him?" she muttered.
"No. No one shall tell him. Hagar, swear to me that you will keep silent."
"I swear," said Hagar, a little sullenly. "But you are wrong."
"No; I am right. To gain forgiveness we must forgive others. My poor Jane, you were tempted, and you fell. Of Lucy I shall say nothing; God will bring home her sin to her inAh! dear Lord! Hagar! I—I—I die!"
Hagar ran to the bedside, and placed her arms round the lean frame of poor Margaret. Her face was grey, her eyes glazed, and her body fell back in the arms of Hagar like a dead thing. She was dying; the end of her martyrdom was at hand.
"Give! give" she whispered, striving to raise one feeble hand.
"The teapot!" said Hagar. "Quick—give it to her!"
Jane seized the teapot—ignorant that it contained the letters which proved her guilt—and placed it in the hands of the poor soul. She clasped it feebly to her breast, and a smile of delight crept slowly over her grey face.
"John's gift!" she faltered, and—died.
A moment later the door was pushed open, and a portly man with grey hair entered the room. He saw Jane sobbing by the bedside, Hagar kneeling with tears in her eyes, and on the bed the dead body of the woman he had loved.
"I am too late," said he, approaching. "Poor Margaret!"
"She has just died," whispered Hagar. "Take your wife away."
"Come, my dear," said John, raising the repentant woman; "we can do no good. Poor Margaret! to think that she would not marry me! Well, it is best so; God has given me a good and true wife in her place."
With Jane on his arm, the former lover of Margaret moved towards the door. "I shall of course see to the funeral," he said in a pompous tone. "She shall be buried like a princess."
"Indeed, Mr. Mask!—and she lived like a beggar!"
A faint flush of colour crept into the man's cheeks, withered with age. "That was not my fault," he said, haughtily; "had I known of her wants, I would have helped her; though, indeed," he added, bitterly, "she deserves little at the hands of one whom she wronged so deeply. I loved her, and she was faithless."
"Ah!" cried Hagar, and for the moment she felt inclined to tell the truth, but the memory of her promise restrained her; also a glance at the white face of Jane, who thought that her secret was about to be revealed.
"What do you say?" asked John, looking back.
"Nothing. But—the silver teapot?"
"My gift. Let it be buried with her."
He passed through the door without another word, leaving Hagar alone with the dead. Had he known of the contents of the teapot which the dead woman held clasped in her arms, he might not have departed with his wife by his side. But he went out ignorant and happy.
Hagar looked at the retiring forms of the married pair; at the white face of the dead woman at the bare, bleak room and the silver teapot. Then she laughed!