the vicar's statement that there was a certain section of the good people of ashdown who, notwithstanding the result of the trial, still regarded john brancker with the eye of suspicion, was a great shock to the latter; and yet, human nature being what it is, it could hardly have been otherwise. from the day of john's committal to prison on the capital charge, the question of his guilt or innocence had been a burning subject of discussion--not merely among the frequenters of bar-parlors and tap-rooms, but at dinner-parties and tea-gatherings--through the gradually ascending scale of social life till the highest rank of county society were reached, where it was kept in reserve by judicious hostesses as a topic which could always be depended on to give a fillip to the conversation whenever it seemed in danger of languishing. like all burning questions, it was not discussed without acrimony and vehemence. those who avowed themselves firm believers in the prisoner's innocence were confronted by others who were just as positive with regard to his guilt, although these latter were probably far from wishing to see their belief worked out to its logical conclusion. then, again, there was another class; that which is never satisfied unless it can back up its opinion with a wager. thus it naturally came to pass that when the trial resulted in john's acquittal, all those who had professed themselves believers in his guilt, as well as that other section who were out of pocket through having wagered the wrong way, felt themselves more or less aggrieved, a feeling which was further intensified by the undisguised elation of those who had pinned their faith to the opposite view. therefore it was that sundry people were even now going about hinting darkly at a miscarriage of justice, and averring that till certain points of evidence should be disproved, or explained away, no person of intelligence could fail to still have strong grounds for doubting the late prisoner's innocence.
when john brancker took his first walk into the town after mr. edislow's call upon him, he looked at the world from a new point of view. all at once he had become sensitive and suspicious. he felt himself to be a marked man. it seemed to him that numbers of those who passed him in the street looked askance at him, or, worse still, purposely averted their faces from him; and as he walked along his heart was a prey to a dumb, bitter anger which was compelled to feed on itself for lack of a definite object against which it could turn. if you have reason to believe that half-a-dozen people have done you an injustice, you can either meet them one by one and strive to prove to them where they are in the wrong, or otherwise you can afford to treat their opinion of you with indifference or contempt; but what are you to say or do if the assurance festers in your heart that some hundreds of your fellow-townsmen regard you with an eye of suspicion and distrust? in such a case you are helpless; there is nothing you can either say or do; you can only writhe in silence, trusting that for you, as for so many others, the whirligig of time will some day bring in his revenges.
that john, in the soreness of his heart, exaggerated the case as against himself, there can be little doubt. it was a part of his nature, perhaps a weakness of it, to be morbidly sensitive to the opinion of others. it seemed essential to the simple content which had hitherto been his portion through life, that he should stand well in the eyes of his fellows. he had been buoyed up during his imprisonment by the consciousness of his innocence, and by the certainty, which rarely deserted him, that the trial would result in his acquittal. it had so resulted, yet now that he was a free man again, a sheaf of poisoned arrows were being aimed at him in the dark from which he was powerless to protect himself. he put forth his hands to grasp his enemy, and encountered empty space. after that first day he took nearly all his walks among the fields and country lanes, and rarely went into the town till after dusk. his sister was not long in perceiving that something was the matter, and had little difficulty in worming out of him the cause of his unwonted depression of spirits; for john was one of those men to whom it is a relief to unburthen themselves to someone, and who find it next to impossible to live without the sympathy of those with whom their affections are bound up. what had affected him with a sort of bitter sadness filled miss brancker with a fine flame of indignation, which aroused whatever combative instinct there was within her--but to no purpose, for of all futile occupations, that of fighting against shadows is perhaps the most unsatisfactory.
"we must just try and live it down," said john, with a patient sigh.
"yes, and you eating your heart out meanwhile!" answered miss brancker, with an indignant flutter of her cap-strings.
"i really think that hermia ought to be told," said john to his sister a few days later. "my intention all along has been not to tell her till her twenty-first birthday, but that will not be here for several months, and in view of all that has happened of late, and, more especially, of the dark cloud which during the past few days has settled on my life----"
"of which i am quite sure hermy knows nothing," interposed miss brancker.
"but of which she is sure to hear sooner or later--in consideration of all these things, i have decided that i should not be justified in keeping the secret from her any longer."
"she will be greatly shocked."
"at first, i do not doubt; but at her age she will soon recover. after all, the story i have to tell is like a tale in two volumes, of which one volume is all i can offer her. where the other is, and whether she will ever find it, is more than either you or i can say."
john fixed on the following evening for his revelation, as the three were seated alone in the little parlor after tea. there was a keen frost outside, but the lamplighted interior had all that cosy cheerfulness which we associate in our thoughts with mid-winter weather. john sat on one side of the fireplace, more engaged with his own musings than with the newspaper in his hand, which he used occasionally by way of a fire-screen. a little way apart sat hermia, between whom and miss brancker was a small oval work-table. the spinster was busy with her crewels, while the girl was engaged in mending some delicate old lace belonging to her aunt. now and again aunt charlotte would glance up from her work to hermia's sunny face, who, all unconscious of the scrutiny and wrapped up in some pleasant daydream, would let her needle come to a pause every few minutes as if to count her heart-beats, a slow, faint smile curving her lips the while, and the luminous depths of her dark-blue eyes becoming more luminous still. then, with an almost imperceptible start, she would seem to call to mind where she was and the work on which she was engaged, and for a little while her needle would move in and out of the lace with the unerring precision of a machine.
"what can have come to her?" queried miss brancker of herself. "she is not the same girl she was even so short a time ago as last week. of course, loving john as she does, it lifted a great load off her mind--though neither she nor i had ever the least doubt as to the result of the trial--when he was acquitted; but is there not something more than that which so often causes her cheeks to flush and then pale again as they never used to do, and has set the seal of some secret happiness on her face?" then she added, as sagely as if she knew all about such matters: "and what but one thing should there be in all the world to cause a young maiden to fall into daydreams and forget where she is, and, although her eyes are wide open, to see nothing of what is going on around her! 'she walks in meads of asphodel, and sunlight dwells in all her ways,'" quoted the spinster, who was still as fond of poetry as any girl of eighteen. and with that she gave a little sigh, and went on with her work.
it was from one of these daydreams that john's voice, addressing her after a rather long silence, brought back hermia with a start.
"my dear," he said, speaking slowly and softly, "do you ever go back in memory to that far-off time before you came to us, or try to piece together whatever fragments you may still retain of the earliest recollections of your childhood?"
the dazzling light in hermia's eyes, as she turned them on him the moment he spoke to her, died out of them as her mind took in the purport of his question.
"when i was much younger than i am now," she replied, "i often used to try to piece together what, even then, seemed like the broken fragments of a number of dreams all jumbled up together, but i never could make anything of them. nowadays, my mind seldom travels back so far. why, indeed, should it? i suppose everything has been told me which it is good for me to know, and assuming that to be so, why should i trouble further?"
"nothing has been told you yet," said john, gently.
a startled look came into her eyes. "then something remains to be told," she said with a little break in her voice--"something about the parents of whom i remember nothing--nothing!"
"my dear, neither my sister nor i have any more knowledge of your parents than you yourself have."
her cheek paled suddenly, "oh!--can that be true? and yet you are my uncle and aunt! how, then?" she stared helplessly from one to the other.
john drew his chair closer to hermy's, and taking one of her hands in both his, pressed it tenderly. "ah," he said, with an infinite pathos in his voice, "therein lies the secret--the secret which has been kept from you for so many years, but which must be told you at last." here he pressed her hand a little harder. "my darling child--for so i may surely call you--it seems a cruel thing to be compelled to say, but we are not your uncle and aunt--i and my sister. in point of fact, we are no relatives at all."
hermia's eyes were not bent on john, but on the fire, but just then they saw no more of what they seemed to be gazing at, than if they had been struck with blindness. twice her lips shaped themselves as if to speak, but no sound came from them. a large tear gathered in the corner of each eye, lingered there for a moment, and then fell. john himself was unable to continue for a little while.
"and now," he went on, "having told you so much, i must, of course, tell you the rest, for my sister agrees with me that the time has come when you should be made aware of as much of your history as it is in our power to impart to you. after all, there is not much to tell, as you will be able presently to judge for yourself." he paused for a few moments as if to gather his thoughts, and then resumed.
"seventeen years ago, at which time we were living in the suburbs of london, my sister drew my attention to an advertisement in one of the daily papers, which specified that the advertiser was desirous of entering into communication with some thoroughly respectable and trustworthy people, who were willing to adopt a little girl about three years of age, and bring her up as if she were a child of their own. my sister and i having made tip our minds years before that we should never marry, had long been desirous of brightening our lives by the adoption of a child, who should grow up with us, and be in everything as though she were really our own, and here seemed the opportunity we were seeking, ready to our hand. accordingly, i at once answered the advertisement, and a couple of days later was called upon by a mr. hodgson, who, from the first time of seeing him, i set down in my mind as a lawyer. the result was that a few days later, you, my dear hermia, were handed over to our care, and have lived with us ever since.
"once every year mr. hodgson visits us at the cottage, when he always dines with us, and you will doubtless remember having seen him here on several occasions. the object of his annual visit is to see you, probably in order that he may be able to report to those who employ him that you are alive and well. we were told, when you first came to us, that your name was hermia rivers, but beyond that we were told nothing. no hint whatever with regard to your parentage or family history has ever escaped mr. hodgson's lips, and it was understood between us all along that i was to ask no questions, and none has ever been asked. two inferences, however, may be drawn which would seem to make it pretty clear that your relatives, whatever else they may be, must be people of some means. the first inference is, that were they not such, they would hardly be in a position to engage the services of a man of the stamp of mr. hodgson. the second is, that although we were quite willing to take and adopt you without any payment whatever--and, indeed, to have made our doing so a question of gain would have been altogether counter to our feelings in the matter--mr. hodgson insisted that the sum of sixty-five pounds a year should be paid for you till you should come of age; after which, he said, in all probability some fresh arrangement might become desirable. accordingly, the sixty-five pounds has been paid punctually ever since, but not one farthing of it has been touched by us. year by year it has been allowed to accumulate in your own name in umpleby's bank at dulminster, where at the present moment, there stands to your credit a sum of over twelve hundred pounds."
