CHAPTER III
ELIZABETH'S HISTORY
When Elisabeth uttered these words, Hepworth knew that his doom was spoken. He turned away and sank down in his chair, and dropped his face in his hands. Elisabeth stood in the same attitude, watching him attentively. For some moments neither spoke.
"Mr. Hepworth," said Elisabeth at last, "I'm sorry that you should have come to think of me in the way you have, and yet I'm glad in one way, because it gives me the chance of telling you about myself—and that'll be a relief to me, God knows. I've thought a good deal about that lately. Sometimes I've thought I was doing wrong in living here under false colours—it seemed to me that I ought to tell you all my story. I've meant to do it, many a time, but one thing or another stopped me. At first when I found what a comfortable home I'd got here I was afraid to speak, because—well, I won't say why, now, because I was quite wrong. Afterwards I was on the point of speaking more than once, and then it seemed that it might be presumption on my part to trouble you with my affairs. But now that you have said what you have, I think I should like to tell you my story—that is, if you'll listen to it."
Hepworth raised his head and looked at her. His face was wan and haggard in the lamp-light; it seemed to her that he had suddenly aged.
"Tell me, Elisabeth," he said. "Tell me whatever you choose. I am your friend, remember, and if I can do anything to help you I will."
"I am sure of that," she said, "but there's nobody that can help me—now. The sorrow that I've had! I'm past crying over it now, but once I used to lie awake the whole night long and just cry and cry until I was too tired even to do that. Then I got hard and careless, and I hated everything—just as I hate somebody now."
"Yes," said Hepworth. "I remember that I thought as much when we talked that day in the barn. I wondered at it then, because—"
"You won't wonder, sir, when you hear what I have to tell you," she said, quickly.
"Sit down and tell me about it," he said. "I should like to know."
She hesitated for a moment, and then took a chair near the table. There was a book lying close to her hand that Hepworth had left there some hours before, and as she spoke she took it up and turned the leaves over aimlessly. Something in the action suggested to him the hopelessness of the tale that she told.
"It's hard to begin what I have to tell," she said, "but it will be harder to go on with it, because it brings back things that I've tried to forget. I told you, Mr. Hepworth, that my name was Elisabeth Verrell. That was true—my husband was Walter Verrell. When I first knew him he was a clerk in one of the Bristol banks, and I was learning the dressmaking business in Bristol. I don't remember now how it was that we first met, but I have no relations of my own living, and I had had a lonely life as a girl, and when I got to know Walter it was nice to have a friend. We used to spend our spare time and our holidays together, and at last he asked me to be his wife, and I said yes without a minute's hesitation, because I loved him."
She paused for a moment, and Hepworth saw that tears had come into her eyes. He turned his head away. In his own heart there was a strange feeling. To hear her speak in this way of another man seemed to arouse a sense of jealousy within him. He had allowed himself to regard her as his own, and the sudden shock which came to him when she spoke of her husband created new impressions in his mind.
Elisabeth resumed.
"You will understand, " she said, "that we were poor when we married, Walter and I. His salary was a hundred pounds a year. I wanted to go on working at my business, for a while at any rate, but he wouldn't hear of it. We had nice rooms, and we furnished them ourselves, and we were very happy in them. We were all to ourselves then, and we never wanted anybody else, because—"
"Yes," said Hepworth. "I think I know what you mean. Go on."
"Well, sir," continued Elisabeth, looking at him wonderingly, as if she did not quite understand his interruption, "everything went well with us for a while. I think things began to go wrong as soon as Stephen Wood came to see us. He was a clerk in Water's bank, and Walter looked upon him as his closest friend. One night he brought him home to supper, and after that he came constantly. You wouldn't have thought, to look at that man, Mr. Hepworth, that he was bad. He had a nice, smooth way of talking, and he was always good company, and Walter was fond of him. When I used to think all these things over afterwards, that was the thing I couldn't understand—that Walter should have been fond of this man. For Walter himself was as simple-hearted as a child, while Stephen Wood was—well, may God reward him for what he was!"
She said these words with such vehemence that Hepworth turned and gazed at her in astonishment. Her face was just then full of vindictive hate; her eyes assumed the fierce, eager expression that he had seen in them in the village chapel. She paused a moment, and seemed to recall her thoughts to other matters.
"Well, sir," she continued, "we had been married nearly a year, and I was expecting my child to be born, when a man came one morning to tell me that my husband had been arrested on a charge of forgery. I never understood all the ins and outs of the matter, but I think they said that Walter had signed the firm's name to a bill, and had collected the money and used it himself. Of course it was a lie from beginning to end, but the man who paid the money had been brought to the bank to identify the man he paid it to, and he picked out Walter at once, and nothing could shake him—he was certain of it. I believe he really did think he was right, but he was wrong for all that."
Elisabeth paused again, apparently sorely moved by these recollections, and it was some minutes before she proceeded.
"Well, sir, they took Walter before the magistrates, and he had a solicitor to defend him, but he did nothing. You see, they wanted to know where Walter was at the time the money was collected, which was at noon, when he left the bank for an hour. Now, I was not well that day, and he had been anxious about me, and had run home to see how I was. If only someone had seen him that could have sworn to him it would have saved him ! But no one did see him but myself, and of course they said my evidence was nothing. So they committed him to the Assizes—"
Elisabeth began to weep at this point. Hepworth sat and watched her, with a wild longing to take her in his arms and bid her sob out her sorrow on his breast. The sight of her tears moved him strangely. Twice he tried to speak, but could find no words. So they sat there, silent, until Elisabeth recovered her composure, and went on.
"I was taken ill at that time," she said, "and my child was born—dead—and for some time they thought I was going to die too. But I got better, and then I asked for news of my husband. Mr. Hepworth, the Assizes were over, and they had tried him, and found him guilty, and the judge had sentenced him to five years' penal servitude."
Hepworth thought she would break down again at this point. But she went on hurriedly, as though she feared to linger over details.
"I didn't cry after that, sir, though I had wept day and night before. I grew hard and angry, for it seemed to me that we were friendless. And I gave up believing in God, because I felt certain that if there was a God he would never allow innocent people to go through such misery as we were enduring."
When she said this Elisabeth looked up at Hepworth with something of defiance in her eyes. She was clearly remembering the discussion she had had with him after his sermon in the village chapel. Hepworth remembered it too, but in face of her trouble and the story she had told he could say nothing.
"Well, sir," she continued, "things went on for a while until I was better, and then I had to sell up our home to pay the lawyers who defended my husband, and I had to begin earning my own living. It was then that Stephen Wood began coming to see me again. I had heard that he used to call and enquire after me when I was ill, and so I wasn't sorry to see him again, for he seemed to be the only friend we had. After I found work at my own business he used to meet me sometimes and walk to my lodgings with me. I didn't know what he was then. But I soon found out, for one night he came to my rooms on some pretence or other, and he told me that he loved me and asked me to go away with him to America. I was so amazed at his wickedness that I couldn't answer him at first, and he went on to say that it was folly for me to waste five years on Walter, who might never come out of prison again—yes, he said that!—and that if I would only go away with him, he would take me where no one could find us. Then I ordered him to leave the house that instant, and he laughed at me. I knew him, then, sir, for what he was. I could have forgiven him a good deal, because if a man loves a woman he'll say things that—well, that he wouldn't say otherwise—but I couldn't forgive him for laughing at my sorrow and trouble. I knew him then to be bad and heartless.
"Well, sir, it's no good dwelling on that matter. I got rid of him, then, but he came again, and he waylaid me in the streets, and at last, when I'd one day told him that I would never speak to him again, no matter what he did or said, he told me that I was a fool to wait for Walter, for he'd embezzled the money to give to another woman. That made me hate him—because I knew it was a lie. Thank God! I never believed it for a moment. But it suggested an idea to me. It was Stephen Wood himself that had committed the crime. He wasn't unlike Walter; they might have passed for brothers. I could see it all, and I knew why Stephen Wood had professed his friendship for the man he betrayed.
"I left Bristol, after that, sir, and come to Clothford, where one of my friends had set up a business. I was safe there from Stephen Wood, and I was comfortably provided for until my friend died. The person who took her business over, failed to carry it on, and I was in sore straits until that day you met me in Sicaster market-place. Since then you know my story.
"But now, sir, about my husband. Mr. Hepworth, I don't know, oh, I wish I did!—whether he's alive or dead. For, oh, sir, when he had been in prison nearly two years he tried to escape, and they followed him over the moors and shot at him—and—and some time after they found a body, and they said it was his—and—and—"
Here Elisabeth brought her story to an end. She suddenly burst into a storm of passionate weeping. Hepworth looked at her for a moment, and then he rose softly and left the room.