The Queen of Hearts

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It was necessary to do something at once toward making all the
atonement that lay in my power. I felt that, as soon as I began
to cool down a little. There was but one plain, straight-forward
way left now out of the scrape in which I had been mad enough to
involve myself. I took my hat, and, without stopping an instant
to hesitate, hurried off to the bank to make a clean breast of it
to Mr. Fauntleroy.

When I knocked at the private door and asked for him, I was told
that he had not been at the bank for the last two days. One of
the other partners was there, however, and was working at that
moment in his own room.

I sent in my name at once, and asked to see him. He and I were
little better than strangers to each other, and the interview was
likely to be, on that account, unspeakably embarrassing and
humiliating on my side. Still, I could not go home. I could not
endure the inaction of the next day, the Sunday, without having
done my best on the spot to repair the error into which my own
folly had led me. Uncomfortable as I felt at the prospect of the
approaching interview, I should have been far more uneasy in my
mind if the partner had declined to see me.

To my relief, the bank porter returned with a message requesting
me to walk in.

What particular form my explanations and apologies took when I
tried to offer them is more than I can tell now. I was so
confused and distressed that I hardly knew what I was talking
about at the time. The one circumstance which I remember clearly
is that I was ashamed to refer to my interview with the strange
man, and that I tried to account for my sudden withdrawal of my
balance by referring it to some inexplicable panic, caused by
mischievous reports which I was unable to trace to their source,
and which, for anything I knew to the contrary, might, after all,
have been only started in jest. Greatly to my surprise, the
partner did not seem to notice the lamentable lameness of my
excuses, and did not additionally confuse me by asking any
questions. A weary, absent look, which I had observed on his face
when I came in, remained on it while I was speaking. It seemed to
be an effort to him even to keep up the appearance of listening
to me; and when, at last, I fairly broke down in the middle of a
sentence, and gave up the hope of getting any further, all the
answer he gave me was comprised in these few civil commonplace
words:

"Never mind, Mr. Trowbridge; pray don't think of apologizing. We
are all liable to make mista kes. Say nothing more about it, and
bring the money back on Monday if you still honor us with your
confidence."

He looked down at his papers as if he was anxious to be alone
again, and I had no alternative, of course, but to take my leave
immediately. I went home, feeling a little easier in my mind now
that I had paved the way for making the best practical atonement
in my power by bringing my balance back the first thing on Monday
morning. Still, I passed a weary day on Sunday, reflecting, sadly
enough, that I had not yet made my peace with Mr. Fauntleroy. My
anxiety to set myself right with my generous friend was so
intense that I risked intruding myself on his privacy by calling
at his town residence on the Sunday. He was not there, and his
servant could tell me nothing of his whereabouts. There was no
help for it now but to wait till his weekday duties brought him
back to the bank.

I went to business on Monday morning half an hour earlier than
usual, so great was my impatience to restore the amount of that
unlucky draft to my account as soon as possible after the bank
opened.

On entering my office, I stopped with a startled feeling just
inside the door. Something serious had happened. The clerks,
instead of being at their desks as usual, were all huddled
together in a group, talking to each other with blank faces. When
they saw me, they fell back behind my managing man, who stepped
forward with a circular in his hand.

"Have you heard the news, sir?" he said.

"No. What is it?"

He handed me the circular. My heart gave one violent throb the
instant I looked at it. I felt myself turn pale; I felt my knees
trembling under me.

Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy & Graham had stopped payment.

"The circular has not been issued more than half an hour,"
continued my managing clerk. "I have just come from the bank,
sir. The doors are shut; there is no doubt about it. Marsh &
Company have stopped this morning."

I hardly heard him; I hardly knew who was talking to me. My
strange visitor of the Saturday had taken instant possession of
all my thoughts, and his words of warning seemed to be sounding
once more in my ears. This man had known the true condition of
the bank when not another soul outside the doors was aware of it!
The last draft paid across the counter of that ruined house, when
the doors closed on Saturday, was the draft that I had so
bitterly reproached myself for drawing; the one balance saved
from the wreck was my balance. Where had the stranger got the
information that had saved me? and why had he brought it to my
ears?

I was still groping, like a man in the dark, for an answer to
those two questions--I was still bewildered by the unfathomable
mystery of doubt into which they had plunged me--when the
discovery of the stopping of the bank was followed almost
immediately by a second shock, far more dreadful, far heavier to
bear, so far as I was concerned, than the first.

While I and my clerks were still discussing the failure of the
firm, two mercantile men, who were friends of mine, ran into the
office, and overwhelmed us with the news that one of the partners
had been arrested for forgery. Never shall I forget the terrible
Monday morning when those tidings reached me, and when I knew
that the partner was Mr. Fauntleroy.

I was true to him--I can honestly say I was true to my belief in
my generous friend--when that fearful news reached me. My
fellow-merchants had got all the particulars of the arrest. They
told me that two of Mr. Fauntleroy's fellow-trustees had come up
to London to make arrangements about selling out some stock. On
inquiring for Mr. Fauntleroy at the banking-house, they had been
informed that he was not there; and, after leaving a message for
him, they had gone into the City to make an appointment with
their stockbroker for a future day, when their fellow-trustee
might be able to attend. The stock-broker volunteered to make
certain business inquiries on the spot, with a view to saving as
much time as possible, and left them at his office to await his
return. He came back, looking very much amazed, with the
information that the stock had been sold out down to the last
five hundred pounds. The affair was instantly investigated; the
document authorizing the selling out was produced; and the two
trustees saw on it, side by side with Mr. Fauntleroy's signature,
the forged signatures of their own names. This happened on the
Friday, and the trustees, without losing a moment, sent the
officers of justice in pursuit of Mr. Fauntleroy. He was
arrested, brought up before the magistrate, and remanded on the
Saturday. On the Monday I heard from my friends the particulars
which I have just narrated.

But the events of that one morning were not destined to end even
yet. I had discovered the failure of the bank and the arrest of
Mr. Fauntleroy. I was next to be enlightened, in the strangest
and the saddest manner, on the difficult question of his
innocence or his guilt.

Before my friends had left my office--before I had exhausted the
arguments which my gratitude rather than my reason suggested to
me in favor of the unhappy prisoner--a note, marked immediate,
was placed in my hands, which silenced me the instant I looked at
it. It was written from the prison by Mr. Fauntleroy, and it
contained two lines only, entreating me to apply for the
necessary order, and to go and see him immediately.

I shall not attempt to describe the flutter of expectation, the
strange mixture of dread and hope that agitated me when I
recognized his handwriting, and discovered what it was that he
desired me to do. I obtained the order and went to the prison.
The authorities, knowing the dreadful situation in which he
stood, were afraid of his attempting to destroy himself, and had
set two men to watch him. One came out as they opened his cell
door. The other, who was bound not to leave him, very delicately
and considerately affected to be looking out of window the moment
I was shown in.

He was sitting on the side of his bed, with his head drooping and
his hands hanging listlessly over his knees when I first caught
sight of him. At the sound of my approach he started to his feet,
and, without speaking a word, flung both his arms round my neck

My heart swelled up.

"Tell me it's not true, sir! For God's sake, tell me it's not
true!" was all I could say to him.

He never answered--oh me! he never answered, and he turned away
his face.

There was one dreadful moment of silence. He still held his arms
round my neck, and on a sudden he put his lips close to my ear.

"Did you get your money out?" he whispered. "Were you in time on
Saturday afternoon?"

I broke free from him in the astonishment of hearing those words.

"What!" I cried out loud, forgetting the third person at the
window. "That man who brought the message--"

"Hush!" he said, putting his hand on my lips. "There was no
better man to be found, after the officers had taken me--I know
no more about him than you do--I paid him well as a chance
messenger, and risked his cheating me of his errand."

"_You_ sent him, then!"

"I sent him."

My story is over, gentlemen. There is no need for me to tell you
that Mr. Fauntleroy was found guilty, and that he died by the
hangman's hand. It was in my power to soothe his last moments in
this world by taking on myself the arrangement of some of his
private affairs, which, while they remained unsettled, weighed
heavily on his mind. They had no connection with the crimes he
had committed, so I could do him the last little service he was
ever to accept at my hands with a clear conscience.

I say nothing in defense of his character--nothing in palliation
of the offense for which he suffered. But I cannot forget that in
the time of his most fearful extremity, when the strong arm of
the law had already seized him, he thought of the young man whose
humble fortunes he had helped to build; whose heartfelt gratitude
he had fairly won; whose simple faith he was resolved never to
betray. I leave it to greater intellects than mine to reconcile
the anomaly of his reckless falsehood toward others and his
steadfast truth toward me. It is as certain as that we sit here
that one of Fauntleroy's last efforts in this world was the
effort he made to preserve me from being a loser by the trust
that I had placed in him. There is the secret of my strange
tenderness for the memory of a felon; that is why the word
villain does somehow still grate on my heart when I hear it
associated with the name--the disgraced name, I grant you--of the
forger Fauntleroy. Pass the bottles, young gentlemen, and pardon
a man of the old school for having so long interrupted your
conversation with a story of the old time.

THE TENTH DAY.

THE storm has burst on us in its full fury. Last night the stout
old tower rocked on its foundations.

I hardly ventured to hope that the messenger who brings us our
letters from the village--the postman, as we call him--would make
his appearance this morning; but he came bravely through rain,
hail and wind. The old pony which he usually rides had refused to
face the storm, and, sooner than disappoint us, our faithful
postman had boldly started for The Glen Tower on foot. All his
early life had been passed on board ship, and, at sixty years of
age, he had battled his way that morning through the storm on
shore as steadily and as resolutely as ever he had battled it in
his youth through the storm at sea.

I opened the post-bag eagerly. There were two letters for Jessie
from young lady friends; a letter for Owen from a charitable
society; a letter to me upon business; and--on this last day, of
all others--no newspaper!

I sent directly to the kitchen (where the drenched and weary
postman was receiving the hospitable attentions of the servants)
to make inquiries. The disheartening answer returned was that the
newspaper could not have arrived as usual by the morning's post,
or it must have been put into the bag along with the letters. No
such accident as this had occurred, except on one former
occasion, since the beginning of the year. And now, on the very
day when I might have looked confidently for news of George's
ship, when the state of the weather made the finding of that news
of the last importance to my peace of mind, the paper, by some
inconceivable fatality, had failed to reach me! If there had been
the slightest chance of borrowing a copy in the village, I should
have gone there myself through the tempest to get it. If there
had been the faintest possibility of communicating, in that
frightful weather, with the distant county town, I should have
sent there or gone there myself. I even went the length of
speaking to the groom, an old servant whom I knew I could trust.
The man stared at me in astonishment, and then pointed through
the window to the blinding hail and the writhing trees.

"No horse that ever was foaled, sir," he said, "would face _that_
for long. It's a'most a miracle that the postman got here alive.
He says himself that he dursn't go back again. I'll try it, sir,
if you order me; but if an accident happens, please to remember,
whatever becomes of _me,_ that I warned you beforehand."

It was only too plain that the servant was right, and I dismissed
him. What I suffered from that one accident of the missing
newspaper I am ashamed to tell. No educated man can conceive how
little his acquired mental advantages will avail him against his
natural human inheritance of superstition, under certain
circumstances of fear and suspense, until he has passed the
ordeal in his own proper person. We most of us soon arrive at a
knowledge of the extent of our strength, but we may pass a
lifetime and be still ignorant of the extent of our weakness.

Up to this time I had preserved self-control enough to hide the
real state of my feelings from our guest; but the arrival of the
tenth day, and the unexpected trial it had brought with it, found
me at the end of my resources. Jessie's acute observation soon
showed her that something had gone wrong, and she questioned me
on the subject directly. My mind was in such a state of confusion
that no excuse occurred to me. I left her precipitately, and
entreated Owen and Morgan to keep her in their company, and out
of mine, for the rest of the day. My strength to preserve my
son's secret had failed me, and my only chance of resisting the
betrayal of it lay in the childish resource of keeping out of the
way. I shut myself into my room till I could bear it no longer. I
watched my opportunity, and paid stolen visits over and over
again to the barometer in the hall. I mounted to Morgan's rooms
at the top of the tower, and looked out hopelessly through
rain-mist and scud for signs of a carriage on the flooded
valley-road below us. I stole down again to the servants' hall,
and questioned the old postman (half-tipsy by this time with
restorative mulled ale) about his past experience of storms at
sea; drew him into telling long, rambling, wearisome stories, not
one-tenth part of which I heard; and left him with my nervous
irritability increased tenfold by his useless attempts to
interest and inform me. Hour by hour, all through that miserable
day, I opened doors and windows to feel for myself the capricious
changes of the storm from worse to better, and from better to
worse again. Now I sent once more for the groom, when it looked
lighter; and now I followed him hurriedly to the stables, to
countermand my own rash orders. My thoughts seemed to drive over
my mind as the rain drove over the earth; the confusion within me
was the image in little of the mightier turmoil that raged
outside.

Before we assembled at the dinner-table, Owen whispered to me
that he had made my excuses to our guest, and that I need dread
nothing more than a few friendly inquiries about my health when I
saw her again. The meal was dispatched hastily and quietly.
Toward dusk the storm began to lessen, and for a moment the idea
of sending to the town occurred to me once more. But, now that
the obstacle of weather had been removed, the obstacle of
darkness was set up in its place. I felt this; I felt that a few
more hours would decide the doubt about George, so far as this
last day was concerned, and I determined to wait a little longer,
having already waited so long. My resolution was the more
speedily taken in this matter, as I had now made up my mind, in
sheer despair, to tell my son's secret to Jessie if he failed to
return before she left us. My reason warned me that I should put
myself and my guest in a false position by taking this step, but
something stronger than my reason forbade me to let her go back
to the gay world and its temptations without first speaking to
her of George in the lamentable event of George not being present
to speak for himself.

We were a sad and silent little company when the clock struck
eight that night, and when we met for the last time to hear the
last story. The shadow of the approaching farewell--itself the
shade of the long farewell--rested heavily on our guest's
spirits. The gay dresses which she had hitherto put on to honor
our little ceremony were all packed up, and the plain gown she
wore kept the journey of the morrow cruelly before her eyes and
ours. A quiet melancholy shed its tenderness over her bright
young face as she drew the last number, for form's sake, out of
the bowl, and handed it to Owen with a faint smile. Even our
positions at the table were altered now. Under the pretense that
the light hurt my eyes, I moved back into a dim corner, to keep
my anxious face out of view. Morgan, looking at me hard, and
muttering under his breath, "Thank Heaven, I never married!"
stole his chair by degrees, with rough, silent kindness, nearer
and nearer to mine. Jessie, after a moment's hesitation, vacated
her place next, and, saying that she wanted to sit close to one
of us on the farewell night, took a chair at Owen's side. Sad!
sad! we had instinctively broken up already, so far as our places
at the table were concerned, before the reading of the last story
had so much as begun.

It was a relief when Owen' s quiet voice stole over the weary
silence, and pleaded for our attention to the occupation of the
night.

"Number Six," he said, "is the number that chance has left to
remain till the last. The manuscript to which it refers is not,
as you may see, in my handw riting. It consists entirely of
passages from the Diary of a poor hard-working girl--passages
which tell an artless story of love and friendship in humble
life. When that story has come to an end, I may inform you how I
became possessed of it. If I did so now, I should only forestall
one important part of the interest of the narrative. I have made
no attempt to find a striking title for it. It is called, simply
and plainly, after the name of the writer of the Diary--the Story
of Anne Rodway."

In the short pause that Owen made before he began to read, I
listened anxiously for the sound of a traveler's approach
outside. At short intervals, all through the story, I listened
and listened again. Still, nothing caught my ear but the trickle
of the rain and the rush of the sweeping wind through the valley,
sinking gradually lower and lower as the night advanced.

BROTHER OWEN'S STORY

of

ANNE RODWAY.

[TAKEN FROM HER DIARY.]

* * * MARCH 3d, 1840. A long letter today from Robert, which
surprised and vexed me so that I have been sadly behindhand with
my work ever since. He writes in worse spirits than last time,
and absolutely declares that he is poorer even than when he went
to America, and that he has made up his mind to come home to
London.

How happy I should be at this news, if he only returned to me a
prosperous man! As it is, though I love him dearly, I cannot look
forward to the meeting him again, disappointed and broken down,
and poorer than ever, without a feeling almost of dread for both
of us. I was twenty-six last birthday and he was thirty-three,
and there seems less chance now than ever of our being married.
It is all I can do to keep myself by my needle; and his
prospects, since he failed in the small stationery business three
years ago, are worse, if possible, than mine.

Not that I mind so much for myself; women, in all ways of life,
and especially in my dressmaking way, learn, I think, to be more
patient than men. What I dread is Robert's despondency, and the
hard struggle he will have in this cruel city to get his bread,
let alone making money enough to marry me. So little as poor
people want to set up in housekeeping and be happy together, it
seems hard that they can't get it when they are honest and
hearty, and willing to work. The clergyman said in his sermon
last Sunday evening that all things were ordered for the best,
and we are all put into the stations in life that are properest
for us. I suppose he was right, being a very clever gentleman who
fills the church to crowding; but I think I should have
understood him better if I had not been very hungry at the time,
in consequence of my own station in life being nothing but plain
needlewoman.

March 4th. Mary Mallinson came down to my room to take a cup of
tea with me. I read her bits of Robert's letter, to show her
that, if she has her troubles, I have mine too; but I could not
succeed in cheering her. She says she is born to misfortune, and
that, as long back as she can remember, she has never had the
least morsel of luck to be thankful for. I told her to go and
look in my glass, and to say if she had nothing to be thankful
for then; for Mary is a very pretty girl, and would look still
prettier if she could be more cheerful and dress neater. However,
my compliment did no good. She rattled her spoon impatiently in
her tea-cup, and said, "If I was only as good a hand at
needle-work as you are, Anne, I would change faces with the
ugliest girl in London." "Not you!" says I, laughing. She looked
at me for a moment, and shook her head, and was out of the room
before I could get up and stop her. She always runs off in that
way when she is going to cry, having a kind of pride about
letting other people see her in tears.

March 5th. A fright about Mary. I had not seen her all day, as
she does not work at the same place where I do; and in the
evening she never came down to have tea with me, or sent me word
to go to her; so, just before I went to bed, I ran upstairs to
say good-night.

She did not answer when I knocked; and when I stepped softly in
the room I saw her in bed, asleep, with her work not half done,
lying about the room in the untidiest way. There was nothing
remarkable in that, and I was just going away on tiptoe, when a
tiny bottle and wine-glass on the chair by her bedside caught my
eye. I thought she was ill and had been taking physic, and looked
at the bottle. It was marked in large letters,
"Laudanum--Poison."

My heart gave a jump as if it was going to fly out of me. I laid
hold of her with both hands, and shook her with all my might. She
was sleeping heavily, and woke slowly, as it seemed to me--but
still she did wake. I tried to pull her out of bed, having heard
that people ought to be always walked up and down when they have
taken laudanum but she resisted, and pushed me away violently.

"Anne!" says she, in a fright. "For gracious sake, what's come to
you! Are you out of your senses?"

"Oh, Mary! Mary!" says I, holding up the bottle before her, "if I
hadn't come in when I did--" And I laid hold of her to shake her
again.

She looked puzzled at me for a moment--then smiled (the first
time I had seen her do so for many a long day)--then put her arms
round my neck.

"Don't be frightened about me, Anne," she says; "I am not worth
it, and there is no need."

"No need!" says I, out of breath--"no need, when the bottle has
got Poison marked on it!"

"Poison, dear, if you take it all," says Mary, looking at me very
tenderly, "and a night's rest if you only take a little."

I watched her for a moment, doubtful whether I ought to believe
what she said or to alarm the house. But there was no sleepiness
now in her eyes, and nothing drowsy in her voice; and she sat up
in bed quite easily, without anything to support her.

"You have given me a dreadful fright, Mary," says I, sitting down
by her in the chair, and beginning by this time to feel rather
faint after being startled so.

She jumped out of bed to get me a drop of water, and kissed me,
and said how sorry she was, and how undeserving of so much
interest being taken in her. At the same time, she tried to
possess herself of the laudanum bottle which I still kept cuddled
up tight in my own hands.

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