Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/342

 10, 1864.] She took a trinket from the bag and laid it in Lady Jane’s hand. An elegant little locket, the back of blue enamel, the rim set round with pearls, with a short fine gold chain some three inches in length attached to it on either side. Lady Jane needed to cast but one glance at it.

“Oh, Judith!” she cried, “where did you get this? It belongs to Lady Clarice.”

“It did belong to her,” returned Judith, in a low tone. “My lady, I can tell you what became of her, I think—but the tale is full of horror and distress; one that you will not like to hear.”

“Tell it,” murmured Lady Jane, “tell it, whatever it may be.”

“That poor lady about whom so much has been said in South Wennock—who died the very night of your dream, my lady, not at Mrs. Jenkinson’s, but at the Widow Gould’s, next door to it—she gave me the locket.”

Lady Jane stood with dilating eyes. She could not sufficiently collect her ideas to understand as yet.

“I speak of Mrs. Crane, my lady, who died after taking the composing draught sent in by Mr. Stephen Grey.”

“She could not have been my sister!” panted Lady Jane, scarcely above her breath. “Judith, she could not have been my sister!”

“I truly believe she must have been so, my lady,” whispered Judith. “She told me it was her own hair inside. And that letter, which Lady Laura brought in tonight, was the one read by the coroner at the inquest; that was only partially read, that is to say, for the half of it was missing.”

Jane sank down on her knees, unable to support herself in her shock of discovery. Just as she had sunk in another shock of discovery once before, that long-ago evening when her father had brought home his unwelcome bride.

revelation disturbed the previous theory of Lady Jane. Mrs. Crane? then it appeared to be evident that Clarice had married the Mr. Crane spoken of by Mrs. West. But there were discrepancies still. How account for the assertion in that letter to her husband, that she did not go by her proper name, when she had called herself Mrs. Crane?

What feeling prompted Jane to withhold the news of this discovery from Laura? Any subtle instinct? What feeling prompted her to give orders for quitting Mr. Carlton’s house on the following morning?—hurrying away Lucy, almost at the risk of her health? Of the true facts of the case she was in complete uncertainty; but a dark suspicion kept floating within her that the man seen on the stairs by Mr. Carlton the night of the death was the husband, Crane. The poor lady had asserted her husband was travelling; but, by the letter above alluded to, it was apparent her husband was then in South Wennock. It was altogether incomprehensible. Judith wore a timid, downcast look when questioned by her mistress, as if fearing she should be asked too much.

“This is a sudden departure, Lady Jane,” cried Mr. Carlton, as she went in to his presence in the morning. “I thought you would have been here at least a few days longer. Mind! I do not give a guarantee that Lucy is fit to be moved.”

“I take the risk upon myself, Mr. Carlton. I—I thank you sincerely for your hospitality, for your kindness and attention to Lucy, but I am anxious to be in my own home. I feel that I must be free; free to pursue this investigation of which I spoke to you last night, regarding the fate of my sister Clarice. Had you been more open with me, Mr. Carlton, I might not have gone.”

A shade of annoyance passed across his countenance. “It is a singular thing that you should persist in attributing to me a knowledge of these things, Lady Jane!”

“My firm conviction is, that you do possess the knowledge,” was Jane’s answer. “But in speaking of Clarice last night, I may have somewhat misled you; I was misled myself. It was not at Mrs. Jenkinson’s she stayed when at South Wennock, but at the next door. That ill-fated lady who died at the Widow Gould’s was my sister Clarice.”

Mr. Carlton made no reply. He looked hard at Jane. “She called herself Mrs. Crane. Of course I can only conclude that she married, not Tom West, but the Mr. Crane who used to visit at the Wests’. You must have known him well, Mr. Carlton. What sort of a man was he?”

“Sort of man?” repeated Mr. Carlton, who seemed half buried in his own thoughts. “He was a short man, stout, had black hair. At least, if my memory serves me well. I protest that I have never seen or heard of him, since the time he used to go to the Wests. What have you learnt, Lady Jane, that can induce you to think that dead lady was your sister?”

“Short and stout, with black hair,” repeated Jane, unmindful of the rest. “It must have been him, the same you saw on the stairs.”

“That it was not,” burst forth Mr. Carlton, unusually heated. “The face I saw on the stairs—if I did see one—bore no earthly resemblance to any one I had ever seen in all my life.”