The Duchess of Rosemary Lane. A Novel

The candle which Mr. Chester held above his head as he opened the door threw a lurid glow around his fearful form. In a paroxysm of blind delirium the furious wretch threw himself upon his arch enemy. The candle fell to the ground and was extinguished. But the madman needed no light to guide him. He would kill this monster who came to destroy him; he would squeeze the breath out of him; he would tear him limb from limb. He raised Mr. Chester in his arms as though he were a reed, and dashed him on to the bed. He knelt upon him, and struck at him with wild force, and pressed his hands upon his throat, with murderous intent. Mr. Chester was as a child in his grasp-powerless to defend himself, powerless to escape, only able, at intervals, to scream for help.

The sounds of this terrible struggle aroused the whole house, and every person leaped from bed, the most courageous among them running to ascertain the cause of the disturbance. Mrs. Chester was the first to reach the room. She had no candle, but she saw enough to convince her that her husband's life was in danger. She threw herself upon the delirious man, and added her affrighted shrieks to the confusion. The lodgers came hurrying up, and their candles cast a light upon the scene.

Then Mrs. Chester saw clearly before her-saw the distorted face of the man who was striving to strangle her husband-saw in his hand a tin whistle, with which, deeming it to be a dagger, he was stabbing at the form writhing in his grasp.

"O God!" she shrieked. "It is Ned-my boy Ned! Ned-Ned! for the love of God, come off! Are you blind or mad? It is your father you are killing!"

Her words fell upon heedless ears. So strung to a dangerous tension was his tortured imagination, that the entreating voices, the lights, the hands about him striving to frustrate his deadly purpose, were unheard, unseen, unfelt.

The men grappled with him, but their united efforts were unavailing; their blows had no more effect upon him than falling rain. Thus the terrible struggle continued.

"Ned-Ned!" cried Mrs. Chester again, forcing her face between him and the object of his fury, so that, haply, he might recognise her, "for gracious God's sake, take your hands away! Your mother is speaking to you."

The lines in his forehead deepened-the mole on his temple became suffused with blood-the cruel, frenzied expression on his face grew darker and stronger. He dashed her aside with a curse, and, had it not been that one of the bystanders pulled her out of reach of his arm, he would have left his mark upon her.

But as her son turned from her, the struggle came to an end, without being brought to this happier pass by the force of either words or blows. Simply by the appearance of a little child. In this wise:

The conversation that had taken place between husband and wife in Mrs. Chester's bedroom had awakened Sally and her baby-treasure. Sally did not move when her father went out of the room, but when, alarmed by his cries for help, her mother followed him, Sally got out of bed, and lifted her baby treasure to the ground. Hand in hand, they crept to the top of the house.

They reached the room in which the struggle was taking place-and reached it just in time. Another minute, and it might have been fatally too late.

The grown-up persons were too intently engrossed in the action of the terrible scene to observe the entrance of the children, and thus it was that they made their way to the bedside. At this precise moment it was that Ned, the lovely lad, flung his mother from him with brutal force, and that his eyes met those of Sally's baby-treasure, who was gazing upon him with a look of curious terror.

Her white dress, her beautiful face, her blue eyes staring fixedly at him, her golden hair hanging around her pretty head, produced a powerful and singular effect upon him.

The horrible shapes by which he had been pursued faded from his sight, and something sweeter took their place. The dark blood deserted his face, and the furious fire died out of his soul, leaving him once more pale, haggard and degraded, and weak as trickling water.

With shaking limbs he fell upon his knees before the baby-child, and placed his trembling hands upon her shoulders.

'The men and women in the room were spell-bound, not daring to interpose between him and the child, lest they should awake the savage spirit within him.

Brief as was this interval, Mr. Chester had been raised from the bed, and carried from the room. His wife was too intent upon the movements of her son to follow him.

For a very few moments did the lovely lad remain in his kneeling position, embracing the child. Utterly exhausted, by drink, by want of rest, by the terrific excitement of this and previous sleepless nights, his eyes closed, and with wild shudders he sank fainting to the ground.

In response to Mrs. Chester's entreaties, the lodgers assisted her to place him on the bed, and this being done she asked them to go down for her clothes, and to bring her word how her husband is.

"And take the children away," she said with a wan smile. "I shall stop with my boy and nurse him. I am not frightened of him. He will not hurt me. See, the poor lad has no more strength than a baby."

As they left the room with the children, the mother bent over her degraded son, with love and pity in her heart, and her scalding tears fell on his white lips and on the lucky mole on his temple which was to bring sudden wealth and honour to its possessor.

CHAPTER VIII

Early the next morning, while Mrs. Chester, weary and sad-hearted, was watching by the bedside of her son, the tongues of the neighbours were wagging over extravagant accounts of the occurrences of the night. The early breakfasts were eaten with more than ordinary relish, and a pleasant animation pervaded the neighbourhood. The pictures that were drawn by the gossips of the return of the prodigal son, and of the scenes that took place in the house of the Chesters, culminating with the frightful struggle, were not drawn in black and white. Colour was freely and liberally laid on, and the most praiseworthy attention was paid to detail during the circulation of the various editions. Thus, Mrs. Smith, who had it from Mrs. Jones, who had it from Mrs. Weatherall, who had it from Mrs. Chizlet, who had it from Mrs. Johnson, who had it from Mrs. Ball, who had it from Mrs. Pascoe, who had it from Mrs. Midge, "who lives in the house, my dear!" happening to meet Mrs. Phillips, was most careful and precise in her description of Ned Chester prowling about the house for nights and nights, of his adventures during the last four years, of the interview between him and his father, of the father wishing to turn the son out of the house, of the son refusing to go, of the mother interposing, and begging on her knees that her husband would not be so cruel to their only boy, of his flinging her brutally aside, of the commencement of the struggle and its duration, of the setting fire to the house, and the mercy it was that the lodgers weren't all burnt in their beds, and of a hundred other details the truth of which it was next to impossible to doubt.

On the second day, an entrancing addition was made to these pictures. It was discovered that there was a child in the house, a mere baby-"one of the most beautiful little creatures you ever set eyes on, Mrs. Phillips!" – a child whom none of the neighbours had ever before seen. Now, whose child was it? Clearly, the child of the prodigal son. The likeness was so wonderful that there could be no doubt of it. This at once cleared up a mysterious thread in the terrible struggle between father and son. For it now came to be said that when Ned Chester's hand, with a glittering knife in it, was raised to strike the deadly blow, the child, with its lovely face and golden hair, had with bold innocence seized her father's hand, and taken the knife from him. Aroused by the child's beauty to a proper sense of the dreadful deed he was about to commit, Ned Chester burst into tears, fell upon his knees, and clasped his baby to his breast. This was a good domestic touch, and was enthusiastically received.

But where was the mother of the interesting child who had so providentially arrested the uplifted hand of her father, and saved him from the commission of a dreadful crime? An answer to this question was easily found. Ned Chester had married, and had come home with his child. He had married a lady "with money." First she was a governess; then the daughter of a sea-captain; then the daughter of a retired sugar-baker, who had amassed an independence; lastly, she was a nobleman's daughter, who had fallen in love and had eloped with handsome Ned. Where, then, was the mother? Dead? Oh, no. The noble father, after hunting for his daughter for three years, at length discovered her, and tore her from her husband's arms-this being distinctly legal according to the Rosemary Lane understanding of the law as it affected the families of the aristocracy. But Ned Chester, determined not to be parted from his little girl, had fled with her to the home of his childhood, which he reached after many perilous escapes from the pursuing father-in-law. The romance attached to this imaginative and highly-coloured version rendered it very alluring, and it was implicitly believed in. Thus the story grew, and passed from mouth to mouth.

While the gossips were busy with her and hers, Mrs. Chester had her hands and heart full. Her husband, bruised in body and spirit, lay ill in hospital, her son, beset by dangerous fancies, lay ill at home. In these larger responsibilities, the small circumstance of the non-appearance of the new tenant who had brought a strange child into her domestic circle scarcely found place in her mind.

The lovely lad, Ned Chester, was in the sorest of straights. What kind of life he had led during the years he had been absent from home might readily be guessed from his present condition. It not being safe to leave him alone, Mrs. Chester was at her wits' end how to manage, but she found an unexpected and useful ally in the strange child who had found a place in her poor household. She made the discovery on the second day of her son's illness, when, with eyes dilated with terror, he was describing, with wonderful minuteness, two horrible creatures created by his delirium, which were standing at the foot of his bed. Mrs. Chester listened to him with a sinking heart.

"There! there!" he cried, rising in his bed, and clutching his mother's hand with such violence that she moaned with pain. "Do you not see them? They are coming closer and closer! Give me a knife! Give me a knife!"

With shuddering shrieks he hid his face in the bedclothes, and during this interval Sally and her baby-treasure entered the room.

"Go out, child! go out!" exclaimed Mrs. Chester, fearful lest, should her son see the children, he should do them some violence in his paroxysm. But Sally's cravings were too strong for obedience. The breadwinner of the family being no longer able to work, the supplies ran short, and Sally's need for food for herself and her precious charge was most pressing. She had come to ask for bread.

Ned Chester raised his wild and haggard face from the pillow, and his eyes fell upon the form of the strange child. The effect produced upon him by her appearance during the fateful struggle with his father was repeated. The terrible look departed from his eyes, the delirious fancies faded from his imagination.

"They are gone-they are gone!" he sighed, and sinking back upon his bed again, he gazed with a kind of worship upon the child, and gradually passed into a more peaceful mood.

Dr. Lyon, an able, sensible, poor doctor, to whom the tide which leads to fortune had never yet come, regarded her husband's condition as the more serious of the two.

"Your son will get over it," he said to Mrs. Chester; "with him it is only a matter of time and nursing. He is playing havoc with his constitution, but he is young as yet. It is different with your husband, who is no longer a young man. He has been a heavy drinker all his life. He has received a shock," continued Dr. Lyon, "which may lead to a serious result."

These words brought to Mrs. Chester's mind forebodings of fresh trouble; visions of a coroner's inquest flitted before her, and of her son arraigned for the murder of his father. She trembled from fear, but wisely held her tongue; meanwhile it devolved upon Sally to provide for the material wants of her treasure-baby. She proved equal to the occasion, and played the part of Little Mother in a manner at once affectionate and ingenious. Children in Sally Chester's station of life learn quickly some very strange lessons being from necessity precocious. Of course she knew her way to the pawnbroker's. She had noted the superior texture of her baby-treasure's garments, and one by one they were "put in pawn," and were replaced by such of Sally's belongings as the Little Mother could conveniently spare. Thus the little stranger was gradually transformed, until she became in outward appearance as to the manner born in the locality in which her childhood was to be passed, and in this way Sally obtained food, and supported herself and her charge during the illness of her lovely lad of a brother.

Every movement made, and every word spoken, by the strange child were, of course, of the deepest interest to Sally, and were magnified by Sally's admiring sense. The child could babble but a few words, and of these "mama" was the principal. That she was conscious of a marked and inexplicable change in her condition of life was clearly evident, but, except for a certain wonderingly-mournful manner in which she gazed around her, fixing her eyes always on one object for full two or three minutes before removing them to another, and for a habit she had, for the first few weeks of her sojourn in Rosemary Lane, of sobbing quietly to herself, there was nothing especially noticeable in her but her beauty-which was so remarkable as to draw upon her the affectionate attention of every person who saw her.

By this time Ned Chester had recovered from his delirium, and once more took his place among the residents of Rosemary Lane, evincing, for the present, no inclination to play truant again.

He took a strange pleasure in the society of the child, and exhibited so marked a partiality for her that the impression among the neighbours that he was her father gained strength. But upon being questioned on the matter, he denied it distinctly. "She's no child of mine," he said roughly, and called his mother to prove it. Then the true story became known-to the displeasure of the Rosemary Lane folk, who, by a singular process of reasoning, considered themselves injured because the romance was stripped from the history. Baby's beauty alone prevented her from being looked upon with disfavour.

As the days went by, Mrs. Chester found it a harder and harder task to live, and but for the kindness of the neighbours to Sally and the baby, the children would have often gone to bed with empty stomachs. Looking about for a friend in her distress, Mrs. Chester consulted Dr. Lyon, with a vague hope that he might be able to assist her. He listened patiently and kindly to Mrs. Chester's story.

"Let us look the matter straight in the face," he said, when she had concluded; "you have no resources-no money, I mean."

"None," she sighed.

"Your husband is in the hospital, and there is no saying how long it will be before he comes out. I should say that if even he does come out, which is doubtful, he will be no longer able to work."

There was no cruel delicacy about Dr. Lyon; he knew the class he ministered for, and he invariably spoke plainly and to the point, and always with kindness.

Mrs. Chester nodded a mournful assent.

"Your furniture has been seized for rent, and you have no home-to speak of."

Mrs. Chester nodded again.

"And," he continued, "it is clearly a necessity that you must live. Listen to this letter."

He read to her a letter from a country union, forty miles from London, which wanted a matron; residence and rations free; wages 18l. per annum.

"I think I have sufficient influence to obtain the situation for you," said Dr. Lyon. "You are a kind woman, and I can recommend you."

Hope lighted up Mrs. Chester's face-for one moment only.

"It's forty miles away," she murmured, and added, "and there's Sally!"

"Upon that," said Dr. Lyon, "I cannot advise you. Go home, and sleep upon it, and give me your answer the day after to-morrow."

She thanked him' and walked slowly out of his consulting-room, which was about as large as a pill box; but returned within five minutes to ask him now much a week eighteen pounds a year would give her.

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