Chapter VIII: The Truth

"We both have undergone
That trouble which has left me thrice your own:
Henceforward I will rather die than doubt."
--TENNYSON.

Rather to his wife's disappointment, Mr. Bland decided at once that he could not go to London that day. In a few minutes, in the dingy waiting-room, while she sat on Mrs. Bland's damp but friendly lap, and while the noise of the rain died gradually away, as if to listen to her story, Lily told John's two friends how some wicked people had stolen her away from the fair and said that John and mother should not have her any more.

"Well! It is a queer story to be sure. There's something behind as we don't understand," said Mrs. Bland. "As to this child, Isaac, wherever John picked her up, she is a little lady. Now I wonder if those people knew----"

She murmured these words mysteriously, while Lily gazed at her with heartfelt anxiety in her blue eyes, and repeated, "Please take me home."

"Yes, little one, and that's what we are going to do," said the schoolmaster. "Lift her up, Jemima, if you please. I'll carry her, and the umbrella too, if it isn't too wet to be of use. London must keep for another day: this child's safety must be seen to first."

"It's very inconvenient."

"Our convenience is not at present the first thing to be considered," said Mr. Bland gravely. "And London town was not built in a day, and is not likely to disappear in one. Come, my dear. We will take John's little girl home, Jemima; she shall be warmed and fed. I will then hire Dobson's trap and drive her over to Markwood. You can give us the pleasure of your company, if you feel so inclined."

"You'll both get wet to the skin. Better write to John to come and fetch her," said Mrs. Bland, rather disapprovingly.

"I shall do as I would be done by," said the schoolmaster.

Lily curled one arm round her new friend's neck, regardless of his wet mackintosh. She pressed her cold little face against his rough grey whiskers, and kissed him affectionately. As he carried her away from the station, hidden under his large and dripping umbrella, she looked over his shoulder and saw in the wet and misty distance the woman from whom she had escaped, hurrying back through the mud to rejoin her charge. Lily hid her eyes, and tightened her hold on Mr. Bland. "Take me home quick," she whispered in his ear.

Later in the day the rain cleared off entirely, and there was a clear yellow light shining in the sky when Mr. Bland, with Lily wrapped in Mrs. Bland's largest cloak nestling close by his side, turned the steady old horse from the high road into the Markwood lane. This was a horse of great virtue, except that he would not understand that Mr. Bland and Lily were in a hurry. They met a good many stragglers from the fair, though Mr. Bland drove through by-lanes, so as to avoid the main street of Carsham. Some of these people were noisy, but the horse took no notice of them. One man called out, "Why, ain't that the little kid as was lost? There's been folks hunting for her all night, high and low, up and down, all round about Carsham. Where did you pick her up, master?"

"Never you mind, my friend," replied the schoolmaster. "She'll be safe at home in half-an-hour, and nobody need concern themselves further."

Dobson's old horse, not being accustomed to such long journeys, chose to proceed through Markwood at a foot's pace, and stopped at several houses before he reached the blacksmith's door. Mr. Bland was not great as a driver, and neither whip nor reins nor encouraging "chucks" had any effect on the animal. At last, Lily dancing on the seat with impatience, and followed by groups of such village children as were not at the fair, the trap drew up at John's gate in the glow of the evening sun.

A woman was passing at the moment; it was Mrs. Alfrick, who, not being altogether bad, had spent some hours of self-reproach. "Well, I never!" she said.

But neither Mr. Bland nor Lily took any notice of her, and she hurried on home with the wonderful news. Mr. Bland was quite occupied with climbing down from his high seat, begging Lily all the time to wait till he could lift her down. As soon as the child's feet touched the ground, she sprang across the yard. At the door she waited a moment; and Mr. Bland never forgot the pretty, refined little gesture with which she turned and held up her finger to him, then gave three gentle taps on the old door.

"Any common child would have burst right in," he said to his wife afterwards.

Mrs. Randal's kitchen was hardly as tidy and bright as usual that afternoon. She had not had the heart for her usual cleaning and polishing, having sat up half the night for John, who had never come in at all till a couple of hours ago. He had found no trace of the lost child; Lily's own father, when he lost her, could hardly have been in a state of deeper dejection, more hopeless despair.

"I never would have believed it of Polly," said Mrs. Randal. "To take that child to the fair, when she knew your wishes as well as yourself, not to mention how uneasy I should be--and then never to come near me, John, last night or this morning! I'd have gone up myself to the farm, but what with worrying there was no strength left in me--besides, I couldn't bear to be out of the house, for fear you should come home--but I did think Polly----"

"Don't you mention Polly no more," said John, in a rough hoarse voice which did not sound like his own.

His mother lifted her tired eyes, full of a new sorrow, but his face was hidden in his hands, and she could read nothing there.

"I met Polly on the road last night," he said. "We had words, and no wonder. All's broke off between us two. So now you know, mother, and just please to say no more about it."

"Oh, my boy, it's a double trouble," sighed Mrs. Randal, while the fresh tears welled up in her sore and aching eyes.

Presently John went out of the house, and she sat brooding over the fire, falling half asleep now and then from utter weariness. From this dozing state she was suddenly roused by those three little taps on the door. It seemed to her at first that she was dreaming.

"Who's there?" she said in a low voice.

Then the latch was lifted, the door opened very slowly, inch by inch, and a fair little face looked in.

"Mother!" said Lily.

Mrs. Randal, in breathless surprise, was still holding the child in her arms when Mr. Bland followed her into the kitchen.

"Here we are, among old friends," he said, his kind face alight with smiles. "How are you to-day, Mrs. Randal? And where's John?"

"Ob, mother, we rode in a trap all the way--such a long way--and the horse went so slow!" Lily was explaining. "And the men said there was the little girl as was lost and her folks was looking for her; but Mr. Bland said it didn't matter now she was found. Mother, where's John?"

"I don't know, my precious. Go and look for him; he's wearying for you," said Mrs. Randal tenderly. "He's in the forge or the garden, maybe. Now, Mr. Bland, you're welcome indeed. Please to sit down. You've brought back the sunshine to our house, sir. John's well-nigh distracted over losing that child."

"That was only to be expected," said the schoolmaster, sitting down in John's chair. "And now I should like to know how she got lost, for her story was difficult to understand. Knowing John's views, I was surprised that she ever found herself at Carsham on fair-day."

"No wonder," said Mrs. Randal with a sigh. "You couldn't be more surprised than I was. Mary Alfrick took her to the fair."

"Did she really? Are you sure of that?"

"As sure as we can be. Ah, that's half my grief, and a half that can't be mended, Mr. Bland. The best girl and the faithfullest and steadiest girl for miles round. Well, you know the name she had in this country for being superior. Ever since my John got engaged to her, I've felt that his future life was safe to be all right and happy, and I've left off fretting over leaving him, as I must some day--a day not far off, too, for I'm not the woman I was. Well, Mr. Bland, those two have quarrelled over this business of the fair, and of losing Lily. They've had words--John told me himself--and all's over between them."

Mrs. Randal's voice was choked by tears.

"My dear friend," said Mr. Bland, "I'm most sincerely sorry to hear what you tell me. And you think this melancholy split is quite beyond mending?"

Mrs. Randal nodded and shook her head; she could not speak.

"'Life is thorny, and youth is vain,'" muttered the schoolmaster, who was well read in the poets. "Thus we break in an instant what we would give our lives to repair. But I cannot reconcile the child's own story with what you have told me, Mrs. Randal. She described herself as going to the fair with other children. She told me that _Mrs._ Alfrick--not _Miss_, or _Mary_--had sent her out of the theatre because she was frightened--that she and another child had then danced to an organ, after which she was decoyed away by the people from whom my wife and I recovered her."

"Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Randal vaguely. "All I know is, Mr. Bland, John told me as he and Polly Alfrick had had words about it and broke off the engagement. But do go on, please. Who was it as run away with Lily--and how did you chance to find her?"

In answer, Mr. Bland gave an eloquent account of the scene in the Moreton Road waiting-room that morning. It appeared from this that he had not seen Lily's captors. He knew from her own chatter that they were a man and a woman--"ugly and nasty," she described them. With a grave face and earnest manner, watching Mrs. Randal all the time, he went on to repeat more of the child's talk. He thought it of great importance, for it had convinced him that Lily was a child stolen with the intention of gaining a reward; and he was inclined to think that the same man and woman were the cause of both her disappearances.

While these two were talking in the kitchen, Lily, happy and excited, had found her John in the garden. He was gathering some late apples, and it was not a wise day to choose for this, as grass and leaves and fruit were all soaking from the late torrents of rain. But John was not in a wise frame of mind. He was so miserable that he set to work on the first thing that occurred to him, without stopping to consider. There was already a heap of shining apples under the damp tree when Lily came running down the path. It would have grieved Mrs. Randal to see them, for after such treatment they were not likely to keep, and it was the best apple-tree in the garden.

John swung himself down from the tree, when Lily's voice called him, and caught the child up in his arms.

"So you've come back, little one!" he said.

The strong young man was very pale, his eyes were wild and hollow; he looked--and his looks told the truth--as if he had been tramping all night and had eaten nothing for many hours.

"Who brought you back? Where did you come from?" he said to Lily.

In answer she poured out a torrent of musical chatter, chiefly about Mr. and Mrs. Bland and the drive in the trap and the slowness of the old horse. John listened for some time in silence. Presently he sat down on the garden bench, where many happy hours had been spent on summer evenings, and took the little girl on his knee.

"Look here--let's get a bit further back," he said. "Mr. and Mrs. Bland found you at the station--how did you get there, little one?"

"In a cart. Oh, it was dark and nasty and cold. And then they put me to bed in a room, and I was frightened--but I said my prayers--and do you know"--her voice was smothered against John's shoulder--"I asked GOD to please to bring me back to you. And so He did--didn't He?"

"Yes--well, who put you to bed, dear?"

"Oh, she did--Dick's wife--I don't know what her name was--but she said how she and Dick was my true friends, and she said they was going to take me to such a beautiful house where my papa lived, and brothers and sisters, and lots of beautiful pictures--and I seemed to know----"

Lily stopped, wrinkling her brows with a puzzled expression.

"Go on; what did you seem to know? did you remember about that house?" said John.

He spoke very gently, but he had arrived at that moment in life--some of us have known it--when we realise that something we have cared about very much is lost for ever--really for ever--that no change in this world's circumstances can bring it back again. Yes, this little treasure of his had a home of her own; he quite knew it and believed it. She had returned to him, but only for a short time. He must lose her, and he had already lost Mary.

"Did you remember about that house, Lily?" he repeated.

"No--I don't think so. I seemed to be carried upstairs, and there was the blue lady up on the wall, she looked at me. But it was a little dream."

"Well now, this woman, and this man Dick--what was they like to look at?"

"Oh, ugly!" said the child, shaking her head in disgust. "Her face was all red, and I couldn't bear her to kiss me, I tried to get my face away. Dick had something else to do than to look after little girls, you know. He looked after the horse, and he played the organ--but he seemed awful pleased to see me, and him and her, they both looked at my locket and twisted it about, and they said to be sure it was the same."

"Had Dick got a little bit of a moustache, and a whitish sort of unwholesome-looking face?"

"I don't know. Yes, I think so."

"It's the same couple as before," said John to himself. "Now they've some object. Was they really going to take that child home, I wonder? Look here, Lily, how did they come to leave you alone at the station?"

Lily shook her head. "She wrapped me up on the seat, and told me not to stir till she come back. She said she wouldn't be a minute, but she was ever such a time, and Mr. and Mrs. Bland they come and took me away."

"Well--and so you're back again. How did those people get you away from the fair?"

There was a certain sternness in John's voice now.

"Was it naughty to dance under the tree?" Lily asked in rather frightened tones. "Mrs. Alfrick said I was a naughty girl 'cause I cried at all them murders, and then she sent Lizzie and me out of the theatre, and while we was waiting we heard the music and ran and danced a bit, and then Dick's wife she came out of the house and spoke to me and give me some candy, and then she got me to come along with her, and then I couldn't go back to Lizzie, and I cried ever so, and then they carried me and put me in the cart. Was I naughty, John?"

"No, dearie," the young man answered. "There was nothing to blame in you. Those that took you to the fair, it was all their doings, and no thanks to them as worse didn't come of it."

"She said you'd let me go," said Lily, with wide blue eyes fixed upon his face.

"She never said that, did she? Well, I never would have believed it of her."

His eyes fell, and his face became crimson. Lily stared at him in astonishment.

"I telled her you said I wasn't to go," she murmured, "and she said that was 'cause there was nobody to take me. And she said she'd take me along of the other children, if I'd make haste and get ready. And I run up and got my Sunday hat, and then she fetched down my locket and tied it on for me, and she said it was a pretty locket and she'd never seen it before, and she wanted to know if you gave it me, and I telled her I'd had it always and I wasn't never to lose it."

"What are you talking about, child?" said John, bewildered.

"About my locket. Here 'tis. I haven't lost it, please."

"What did you mean, saying as Mary Alfrick had never seen that locket before? Why, she's tied it round your neck on Sunday, dozens of times."

"I never said--I don't know"--Lily stared and hesitated, herself quite as much at a loss as John. He looked angry, too, and she was frightened. A little over-wrought, tired with the excitement of those two days, the child was ready to burst out crying. She could not answer John, the meaning of his question being entirely beyond her.

"There, there!" he said suddenly. "Never mind, Lily. Mary ought to have known better than talk all that stuff and take you to the fair. That's all. It can't be helped now. Don't cry, my pretty flower; it was no fault of yours, you know. Taking you inside such places as them theatres too! Mrs. Alfrick and all was there, then, as well as Mary?"

Lily nodded. She still looked puzzled, her brain being rather too young to understand John's mistake. But her next words enlightened him, though dimly.

"Polly was coming down to tea with mother and me. She'd got my pinnies to iron. I 'spect I ought to have stopped for her. Mrs. Alfrick said she wasn't coming yet awhile, and mother had gone to Mrs. Nash and left me all alone."

John passed his hand over his face. Slowly, gradually, the knowledge was dawning on him that he had made a tremendous mistake. He tried hard not to frown, not to frighten Lily by any hard word or rough tone. He spoke after a minute's pause, asking the question on which his life's happiness now seemed to depend, while his heart beat so heavily that the words could hardly make their way.

"Who was it as took you to Carsham, Lily?"

"Mrs. Alfrick," was the instant answer.

"And Polly--was she there too?"

Lily shook her head violently. "No."

"But she was at the fair. I know she was, for I met her. Didn't you see her--wasn't she with you there?"

"No."

Lily had never been known to speak a word that was not true.

John stared at her in silent surprise, but never thought of doubting her.

"This is a black business," he said after a minute, more to himself than to her. "Somebody's been telling lies. The next thing is to get to the bottom of it. Come along, little one. Let's go and say thank-you to Mr. Bland for bringing of you home. He must have had a job, a troublesome piece of goods like you!"

Something of John's old happy smile shone in his face as he kissed the child and lifted her to his shoulder and carried her through the garden where flowers were almost over, under the dripping apple-trees.

"Good afternoon, John," said the old schoolmaster, stretching out his hand. "We didn't expect to meet again so soon."

"No, sir. Thank you for bringing her home," said John.

He stood in the middle of the kitchen with a grave, thoughtful face. He did not look altogether unhappy, but a kind of bewilderment seemed to weigh upon him. The eyes of his mother and his old friend were full of sympathy; they knew that the loss of Lily had not been the only trouble of those twenty-four hours. The child, when he put her down, still clung to his hand.

"Go to mother, dear," said John, and Mrs. Randal held out her arms.

For a minute there was no sound but the loving words that she whispered in Lily's ear.

"Mother, there's been some big mistake," John burst out suddenly. "The child says it wasn't Mary as took her to the fair after all. It was Mrs. Alfrick as walked her off before Mary came down."

Mrs. Randal stared and shook her head.

"Oh, that can't be, John. Granny Pierce told me she'd seen them. And--why--you met Polly yourself coming back. You said so."

"Yes, of course," John said impatiently. "Polly knew the child was lost--she'd been looking for her--but I see now it wasn't Polly as lost her. I expect she went after them, when she found her stepmother had taken the child. That's what she would be sure to do. What a blind fool I've been!"

His voice shook.

"Well, my lad, that quarrel will be soon made up," said Mr. Bland consolingly; but John seemed hardly to hear.

"I don't understand, my dear," murmured Mrs. Randal. "Granny Pierce said----"

"Oh, mother, don't you go setting that poor old creature's word against our Lily's here. She's told me the solid truth. Polly never fetched her yesterday; she never even saw her at the fair. I believe that child's word, mother, for she's never told you nor me a lie in her life yet."

"No more she has," said Mrs. Randal, stroking Lily's fair curls. "But, John, if that's so, why hasn't Polly been down here before now? I'm sure she must have known as I wanted her bad enough."

"She wasn't likely, mother, after the words as passed between her and me."

There was another painful minute of silence. Mr. Bland's kind eyes were full of tears as he watched his old scholar. Lily jumped suddenly down from Mrs. Randal's knee and clutched at John's hand.

"Come along!" she cried. "Let's go and fetch Polly."

John lifted her in his arms for a moment, then set her down on the floor. "Stop here, little one," he said.

Then he left the house, without another word to any of them, shutting the door and the gate sharply behind him.

"That matter will soon be settled, I trust," said the schoolmaster. "And now, my good friend, may I point out that your kettle is boiling over."