The Grey Woman, Pt. 3

Portion the Third of The Grey Woman by Elizabeth Gaskell Far on in the night there were voices outside reached us in our hiding place. An angry knocking at the door, and we saw through the chinks the old woman rouse herself up to go and open it for her master, who came in, evidently half-drunk. To my sick horror he was followed by Lefebvre, apparently as sober and wily as ever. They were talking together as they came in, disputing about something. But the miller stopped the conversation to swear at the old woman for having fallen asleep, and, with tipsy anger and even with blows, drove the poor old creature out of the kitchen to bed. Then he and Lefebvre went on talking about the Sieur de Poissy's disappearance. It seemed that Lefebvre had been out all day, along with other of my husband's men, ostensibly assisting in the search. In all probability trying to blind the Sieur de Poissy's followers by putting them on a wrong scent. And also, I fancied, from one or two of Lefebvre's sly questions, combining the hidden purpose of discovering us. Although the miller was tenant and vassal to the Sieur de Poissy, he seemed to me to be much more in league with the people of Monsieur de la Tourelle. He was evidently aware, in part, of the life which Lefebvre and the others led, although, again, I do not suppose he knew or imagined one half of their crimes. And also, I think he was seriously interested in discovering the fate of his master, little suspecting Lefebvre of murder or violence. He kept talking himself, and letting out all sorts of thoughts and opinions, watched by the keen eyes of Lefebvre, gleaming out below his shaggy eyebrows. It was evidently not the cue of the latter to let out that his master's wife had escaped from that vile and terrible den. But though he never breathed a word relating to us, not the less was I certain he was thirsting for our blood and lying in wait for us at every turn of events. Presently he got up and took his leave, and the miller bolted him out and stumbled off to bed. Then we fell asleep, and slept sound and long. The next morning, when I awoke, I saw Amont, half-raised, resting on one hand, and eagerly gazing with straining eyes into the kitchen below. I looked too, and both heard and saw the miller and two of his men, eagerly and loudly talking about the old woman, who had not appeared as usual to make the fire in the stove and prepare her master's breakfast, and who now, late on in the morning, had been found dead in her bed, whether from the effect of her master's blows the night before, or from natural causes, who can tell? The miller's conscience upbraided him a little, I should say, for he was eagerly declaring his value for his housekeeper, and repeating how often she has spoken of the happy life she led with him. The men might have their doubts, but they did not wish to offend the miller, and all agreed that the necessary steps should be taken for a speedy funeral. And so they went out, leaving us in our loft, but so much alone, that, for the first time almost, we ventured to speak freely, though still in a hushed voice, pausing to listen continually. Amont took a more cheerful view of the whole occurrence than I did. She said that had the old woman lived, we should have had to depart that morning, and that this quiet departure would have been the best thing we could have had to hope for, as, in all probability, the housekeeper would have told her master of us and of our resting place, and this fact would, sooner or later, have been brought to the knowledge of those from whom we most desired to keep it concealed, but that now we had time to rest, and a shelter to rest in, during the first hot pursuit, which we knew to a fatal certainty was being carried on. Remnants of our food and the stored-up fruit would supply us with provision. The only thing to be feared was that something might be required from the loft, and the miller or someone else mount up in search of it. But even then, with a little arrangement of boxes and chests, one part might be so kept in shadow that we might yet escape observation. All this comforted me a little, but I asked, how were we ever to escape? The ladder was taken away, which was our only means of descent. But Amont replied that she could make a sufficient ladder of the rope lying coiled among other things, to drop us down the ten feet or so, with the advantage of it being portable, so that we might carry it away, and thus avoid all betrayal of the fact that anyone had ever been hidden in the loft. During the two days that intervened before we did escape, Amont made good use of her time. She looked into every box and chest during the man's absence at his mill, and finding in one box an old suit of man's clothes, which had probably belonged to the miller's absent son, she put them on to see if they would fit her. And when she found that they did, she cut her own hair to the shortness of a man's, made me clip her black eyebrows as close as though they had been shaved, and by cutting up old corks into pieces, such as would go into her cheeks, she altered both the shape of her face and her voice to a degree which I should not have believed possible. For this time I lay like one stunned, my body resting and renewing its strength, but I myself in an almost idiotic state, else surely I could not have taken the stupid interest which I remember I did in all Amont's energetic preparations for disguise. I absolutely recollect once the feeling of a smile coming over my stiff face, as some new exercise of her cleverness proved a success. But towards the second day she required me too to exert myself, and then all my heavy despair returned. I let her dye my fair hair and complexion with the decaying shells of the stored-up walnuts. I let her blacken my teeth, and even voluntarily broke a front tooth, the better to effect my disguise. But through it all I had no hope of evading my terrible husband. The third night, the funeral was over, the drinking ended, the guests gone, the miller put to bed by his men, being too drunk to help himself. They stopped a little while in the kitchen, talking and laughing about the new housekeeper likely to come, and they too went off, shutting but not locking the door. Everything favoured us. Amont had tried her ladder on one of the two previous nights, and could, by a dexterous throw from beneath, unfasten it from the hook to which it was fixed when it had served its office. She made up a bundle of worthless old clothes, in order that we might the better preserve our characters of a travelling peddler and his wife. She stuffed a hump on her back, she thickened my figure, she left her own clothes deep down beneath a heap of others in the chest, from which she had taken the man's dress which she wore, and with a few francs in her pocket, the sole money we had either of us had about us when we escaped. We let ourselves down the ladder, unhooked it, and passed into the cold darkness of night again. We had discussed the route which it would be well for us to take, while we lay perdu in our loft. Amont had told me then that her reason for inquiring, when we first left Les Rochers, by which way I had first been brought to it, was to avoid the pursuit which she was sure would first be made in the direction of Germany, but that now, she thought, we might return to that district of country where my German fashion of speaking French would excite least observation. I thought that Amont herself had something peculiar in her accent, which I heard M. de la Tourelle sneer at as Norman patois, but I said not a word beyond agreeing to her proposal that we should bend our steps towards Germany. Once there we should, I thought, be safe. Alas! I forgot the unruly time that was overspreading all Europe, overturning all law, and the protection which law gives. How we wandered, not daring to ask our way! How we lived, how we struggled through many a danger, and still more terrors of danger, I shall not tell you now. I will only relate two of our adventures before we reached Frankfurt. The first, although fatal to an innocent lady, was yet, I believe, the cause of my safety. The second, I shall tell you, that you may understand why I did not return to my former home, as I had hoped to do when we lay in the Miller's loft, and I first became capable of groping after an idea of what my future life might be. I cannot tell you how much in these doubtings and wanderings I became attached to Amont. I have sometimes feared since, lest I cared for her only because she was so necessary to my own safety. But no, it was not so, for not so only, or principally. She said once that she was flying for her own life as well as for mine. But we dared not speak much on our danger, or on the horrors that had gone before. We planned a little what was to be our future course, but even for that we did not look forward long. How could we, when every day we scarcely knew if we should see the sun go down? For Amont knew, or conjectured far more than I did, of the atrocity of the gang to which M. de la Torrelle belonged, and every now and then, just as we seemed to be sinking into the calm of security, we fell upon traces of a pursuit after us in all directions. Once, I remember, we must have been nearly three weeks, wearily walking through unfrequented ways, day after day, not daring to make inquiry as to our whereabouts, nor yet to seem purposeless in our wanderings. We came to a kind of lonely roadside farriers and blacksmiths. I was so tired that Amont declared that, come what might, we would stay there all night, and accordingly she entered the house, and boldly announced herself as a travelling tailor, ready to do any odd jobs of work that might be required, for a night's lodging and food for herself and wife. She had adopted this plan once or twice before, and with good success, for her father had been a tailor in Rouen, and as a girl she had often helped him with his work, and knew the tailor's slang and habits down to the particular whistle and cry, which in France tell so much to those of a trade. At this blacksmith's, as at most other solitary houses far away from a town, there was not only a store of men's clothes laid by, as wanting mending, when the housewife could afford time, but there was a natural craving after news from a distance, such news as a wandering tailor is bound to furnish. The early November afternoon was closing into evening as we sat down. She cross-legged onto the great table in the blacksmith's kitchen, drawn close to the window, I close behind her, sewing at another part of the same garment, and from time to time, well scolded by my seeming husband. All at once she turned around to speak to me. It was only one word. Courage. I had seen nothing. I sat out of the light, but I turned sick for an instant, and then I braced myself up into a strange strength of endurance. To go through, I know not what. The blacksmith's forge was in a shed beside the house, and fronting the road. I heard the hammers stop plying their continual rhythmical beat. She had seen why they ceased. A rider had come up to the forge and dismounted, leading his horse in to be re-shod. The broad red light of the forge-fire had revealed the face of the rider to Amont, and she apprehended the consequence that really ensued. The rider, after some words with the blacksmith, was ushered in by him into the house-place where we sat. Here, good wife, a cup of wine and some galette for this gentleman. Anything, madame, that I can eat and drink in my hand, while my horse is being shod. I am in haste and must get on to Forbach tonight." The blacksmith's wife lighted her lamp. Amont had asked her for it five minutes before. How thankful we were that she had not more speedily complied with our request. As it was, we sat in dusk shadow, pretending to stitch away, but scarcely able to see. The lamp was placed on the stove, near which my husband, for it was he, stood and warmed himself. By and by he turned round, and looked all over the room, taking us in with about the same degree of interest as the inanimate furniture. Amont, cross-legged, fronting him, stooped over her work, whistling softly all the while. He turned again to the stove, impatiently rubbing his hands. He had finished his wine and galette, and wanted to be off. I am in haste, my good woman. Ask thy husband to get on more quickly. I will pay him double if he makes haste. The woman went out to do his bidding, and he once more turned round to face us. Amont went on to the second part of the tune. He took it up, whistled a second for an instant or so, and then, the blacksmith's wife re-entering, he moved towards her as if to receive her answer the most speedily. One moment, monsieur, only one moment. There was a nail out of the off-four shoe, which my husband is replacing. It would delay, monsieur, again, if that shoe also came off. Madame is right, said he, but my haste is urgent. If madame knew my reasons, she would pardon my impatience. Once a happy husband, now a deserted and betrayed man. I pursue a wife on whom I lavished all my love, but who has abused my confidence and fled from my house, doubtless to some paramour, carrying off with her all the jewels and money on which she could lay her hands. It is possible madame may have heard or seen something of her. She was accompanied in her flight by a base profligate woman from Paris, whom I, unhappy man, had myself engaged for my wife's waiting-maid, little dreaming what corruption I was bringing into my house. Is it possible? said the good woman, throwing up her hands. Amont went on whistling a little lower, out of respect to the conversation. However, I am tracing the wicked fugitives, I am on their track, and the handsome effeminate face looked as ferocious as any demon's. They will not escape me, but every minute is a minute of misery to me till I meet my wife. Madame has sympathy, has she not? He drew his face into a hard unnatural smile, and then both went out to the forge, as if once more to hasten the blacksmith over his work. Amont stopped her whistling for one instant. Go on as you are, without change of an eyelid even. In a few minutes he will be gone, and it will be over. It was a necessary caution, for I was on the point of giving way, and throwing myself weakly upon her neck. We went on, she whistling and stitching, I making semblance to sew. And it was well we did so, for almost directly he came back for his whip, which he had laid down and forgotten. And again I felt one of those sharp, quick-scanning glances, sent all round the room, and taking in all. Then we heard him ride away, and then, it had been long too dark to see well, I dropped my work and gave way to my trembling and shuddering. The blacksmith's wife returned, she was a good creature. Amont told her I was cold and weary, and she insisted on my stopping my work and going to sit near the stove, hastening at the same time her preparations for supper, which, in honour of us and of Monsieur's liberal payment, was to be a little less frugal than ordinary. It was well for me that she made me taste a little of the cider-soup she was preparing, for I could not have held up, in spite of Amont's warning look and the remembrance of her frequent exhortations, to act resolutely up to the characters we had assumed, whatever befell. To cover my agitation, Amont stopped her whistlings and began to talk. And by the time the blacksmith came in, she and the good woman of the house were in full flow. He began at once upon the handsome gentleman who had paid him so well. All his sympathy was with him, and both he and his wife only wished he might overtake his wicked wife and punish her as she deserved. And then the conversation took a turn, not uncommon to those whose lives are quiet and monotonous. Everyone seemed to vie with each other in telling about some horror. And the savage and mysterious band of robbers called the chauffeur, who infested all the roads leading to the Rhine with shinderhannes at their head, furnished many a tale which made the marrow of my bones run cold, and quenched even Amont's power of talking. Her eyes grew large and wild, her cheeks blanched, and for once she sought by her looks help from me. A new call upon me roused me. I rose and said, with their permission, my husband and I would seek our bed, for that we had travelled far and were early risers. I added that we would get up betimes and finish our piece of work. The blacksmith said we should be early birds if we rose before him, and the good wife seconded my proposal with kindly bustle. One or other such story as those they had been relating, and I do believe Amont would have fainted. As it was, a night's rest set her up. We arose and finished our work betimes, and shared the plentiful breakfast of the family. Then we had to set forth again, only knowing that to Forbach we must not go, yet believing, as was indeed the case, that Forbach lay between us and that Germany to which we were directing our course. Two days more we wandered on, making a round, I suspect, and returning upon the road to Forbach, a league or two nearer to that town than the blacksmith's house. But as we never made inquiries, I hardly knew where we were. Then we came one night to a small town, with a good large rambling inn, in the very centre of the principal street. We had begun to feel as if there were more safety in towns than in the loneliness of the country. As we had parted with a ring of mine, not many days before, to a travelling jeweller, who was too glad to purchase it far below its real value, to make many inquiries as to how it came into the possession of a poor working tailor, such as Amont seemed to be, we resolved to stay at this inn all night, and gather such particulars and information as we could, by which to direct our onward course. We took our supper in the darkest corner of the Salamanger, having previously bargained for a small bedroom across the court and over the stables. We needed food sorely, but we hurried on our meal from dread of anyone entering that public room who might recognise us. Just in the middle of our meal, the public diligence drove lumbering up under the porte-cochère and disgorged its passengers. Most of them turned into the room where we sat, cowering and fearful, for the door was opposite to the porter's lodge, and both opened on to the wide-covered entrance from the street. Among the passengers came in a young fair-haired lady, attended by an elderly French maid. The poor young creature tossed her head, and shrank away from the common room, full of evil smells and promiscuous company, and demanded in German-French to be taken to some private apartment. We heard that she and her maid had come in the coupé, and probably from pride, poor young lady, she had avoided all association with her fellow passengers, thereby exciting their dislike and ridicule. All these little pieces of hearsay had a significance to us afterwards, though at the time the only remark made that wore upon the future was our maunt's whisper to me that the young lady's hair was exactly the colour of mine, which she had cut off and burnt in the stove in the miller's kitchen in one of her descents from our hiding-place in the loft. As soon as we could, we struck round in the shadow, leaving the boisterous and merry fellow-passengers to their supper. We crossed the court, borrowed a lantern from the hostler, and scrambled up the rude steps to our chamber above the stable. There was no door into it. The entrance was the hole in which the ladder fitted. The window looked into the court. We were tired and soon fell asleep. I was wakened by a noise in the stable below. One instant of listening, and I awakened our maunt, placing my hand on her mouth to prevent any exclamation in her half-roused state. We heard my husband speaking about his horse to the hostler. It was his voice, I am sure of it. Our maunt said so too. We durst not move to rise and satisfy ourselves. For five minutes or so he went on giving directions. Then he left the stable, and softly stealing to our window, we saw him cross the court and re-enter the inn. We consulted as to what we should do. We feared to excite remark or suspicion by descending and leaving our chamber, or else immediate escape was our strongest idea. Then the hostler left the stable, locking the door on the outside. We must try and drop through the window, if indeed it is well to go at all, said our maunt. With reflection came wisdom. We should excite suspicion by leaving without paying our bill. We were on foot, and might easily be pursued. So we sat on our bed's edge, talking and shivering, while from across the court the laughter rang merrily, and the company slowly dispersed one by one, their lights flitting past the windows, as they went upstairs and settled, each one to his rest. We crept into our bed, holding each other tight, and listening to every sound, as if we thought we were tracked, and might meet our death at any moment. In the dead of night, just at the profound stillness preceding the turn into another day, we heard a soft, cautious step crossing the yard. The key into the stable was turned. Someone came into the stable. We felt, rather than heard him there. The horse started a little, and made a restless movement with his feet. Then whinnied recognition. He who had entered made two or three low sounds to the animal, then led him into the court. A maunt sprang to the window with the noiseless activity of a cat. She looked out, but dared not speak a word. We heard the great door into the street open, a pause for mounting, and the horse's footsteps were lost in the distance. Then a maunt came back to me. It was he! He is gone, said she, and once more we lay down trembling and shaking. This time we fell sound asleep. We slept long and late. We were awakened by many hurrying feet, and many confused voices. All the world seemed awake and astir. We rose and dressed ourselves, and coming down, we looked around among the crowd collected in the courtyard, in order to assure ourselves he was not there before we left the shelter of the stable. The instant we were seen, two or three people rushed to us. Have you heard? Do you know? That poor young lady! Oh, come and see! And so we were hurried, almost in spite of ourselves, across the court and up the great open stairs of the main building of the inn, into a bedchamber where lay the beautiful young German lady, so full of graceful pride the night before, now white and still in death. By her stood the French maid, crying and gesticulating. Oh, madame, if you had but suffered me to stay with you! Oh, the baron, what will he say? And so she went on. Her state had but just been discovered. It had been supposed that she was fatigued and was sleeping late, until a few minutes before. The surgeon of the town had been sent for, and the landlord of the inn was trying vainly to enforce order until he came, and from time to time, drinking little cups of brandy and offering them to the guests who were all assembled there, pretty much as the servants were doing in the courtyard. At last the surgeon came, all fell back and hung on the words that were to fall from his lips. Si, said the landlord, this lady came last night by the diligence with her maid, doubtless a great lady, for she must have a private sitting-room. She was madame the baroness de Rue de, said the French maid, and was difficult to please in the matter of supper and a sleeping-room. She went to bed well, though fatigued. Her maid left her. I begged to be allowed to sleep in her room, as we were in a strange inn, the character of which we knew nothing, but she would not let me, my mistress was such a great lady, and slept with my servants, continued the landlord. This morning we thought madame was still slumbering, but when eight, nine, ten, and near eleven o'clock came, I bade her maid use my pasqui and enter her room. The door was not locked, only closed, and here she was found. Dead is she not, monsieur, with her face down on her pillow, the beautiful hair all scattered wild. She never would let me tie it up, saying it made her headache. Such hair, said the waiting maid, lifting up a long golden tress and letting it fall again. I remembered Amont's words the night before, and crept close up to her. Meanwhile the doctor was examining the body underneath the bed-clothes, which the landlord until now had not allowed to be disarranged. The surgeon drew out his hand, all bathed and stained with blood, and holding up a short sharp knife with a piece of paper fastened round it. Here has been foul play, he said. The deceased lady has been murdered. This dagger was aimed straight at her heart. Then, putting on his spectacles, he read the writing on the bloody paper, dimmed and horribly obscured as it was. Numéro un, ainsi les chauffeurs s'avangent. Let us go, said I to Amont, or let us leave this horrible place. Wait a little, said she. Only a few minutes more, it will be better. Immediately the voices of all proclaimed their suspicions of the cavalier who had arrived last the night before. He had, they said, made so many inquiries about the young lady, whose supercilious conduct all in the Salamange had been discussing on his entrance. They were talking about her as we left the room. He must have come in directly afterwards, and not until he had learnt all about her had he spoken of the business which necessitated his departure at dawn of day, and made his arrangements with both landlord and hostler for the possession of the keys of the stable and portcochère. In short, there was no doubt as to the murderer. Even before the arrival of the legal functionary who had been sent for by the surgeon, but the words on the paper chilled everyone with terror. Les chauffeurs, who were they? No one knew. Some of the gang might even then be in the room, overhearing and noting down fresh objects for vengeance. In Germany I had heard little of this terrible gang, and I had paid no greater heed to stories related once or twice about them in Karlsruhe than one does to tales about ogres. But here, in their very haunts, I learnt the full amount of the terror they inspired. No one would be legally responsible for any evidence criminating the murderer. The public prosecutor shrank from the duties of his office. What do I say? Neither Amont nor I, knowing far more of the actual guilt of the man who had killed that poor sleeping young lady, durst breathe a word. We appear to be wholly ignorant of everything, we who might have told so much. But how could we? We were broken down with terrific anxiety and fatigue, with the knowledge that we, above all, were doomed victims, and that the blood, heavily dripping from the bedclothes onto the floor, was dripping thus out of the poor dead body, because, when living, she had been mistaken for me. At length Amont went up to the landlord, and asked permission to leave his inn, doing all openly and humbly, so as to excite neither ill-will nor suspicion. Indeed, suspicion was otherwise directed, and he willingly gave us leave to depart. A few days afterwards we were across the Rhine in Germany, making our way towards Frankfurt, but still keeping our disguises, and Amont still working at her trade. On the way we met a young man, a wandering journeyman from Heidelberg. I knew him, although I did not choose that he should know me. I asked him, as carelessly as I could, how the old miller was now. He told me he was dead. This realization of the worst apprehensions caused by his long silence shocked me inexpressibly. It seemed as though every prop gave way from under me. I had been talking to Amont only that very day, of the safety and comfort of the home that awaited her in my father's house, of the gratitude which the old man would feel towards her, and how there, in that peaceful dwelling, far away from the terrible land of France, she should find ease and security for all the rest of her life. And this I thought I had to promise, and even yet more had I looked for for myself. I looked to the unburdening of my heart and conscience by telling all I knew to my best and wisest friend. I looked to his love as a sure guidance, as well as a comforting stay. And behold, he was gone away from me for ever. I had left the room hastily, on hearing of this sad news from the Heidelberger. Pleasantly, Amont followed. Poor madame, said she, consoling me to the best of her ability. And then she told me by degrees what more she had learned respecting my home, about which she knew almost as much as I did, from my frequent talks on the subject, both at Les Rochers and on the dreary doleful road we had come along. She had continued the conversation after I left, by asking about my brother and his wife. Of course they lived on at the mill. But the man said, with what truth I know not, but I believed it firmly at the time, that Babette had completely got the upper hand of my brother, who only saw through her eyes and heard with her ears. That there had been much Heidelberg gossip of late days about her sudden intimacy with a grand French gentleman, who had appeared at the mill, a relation by marriage—married, in fact, to the miller's sister, who, by all accounts, had behaved abominably and ungratefully. But that was no reason for Babette's extreme and sudden intimacy with him, going about everywhere with the French gentleman. And since he left, as the Heidelberger said he knew for a fact, corresponding with him constantly. Yet her husband saw no harm in it all seemingly, though to be sure he was so out of spirits, what with his father's death and the news of his sister's infamy, that he hardly knew how to hold up his head. Now, said Amont, all this proves that M. de Torel has suspected that you would go back to the nest in which you are reared, and that he has been there, and found that you have not yet returned. But probably he still imagines that you will do so, and has accordingly engaged your sister-in-law as a kind of informant. Madame has said that her sister-in-law bore her no extreme goodwill, and the defamatory story he has got the start of us in spreading will not tend to increase the favour in which your sister-in-law holds you. No doubt the assassin was retracing his steps when we met him near Faubach, and having heard of the poor German lady with her French maid and her pretty blonde complexion, he followed her. If Madame will still be guided by me and my child, I beg of you still to trust me, said Amont, breaking out of her respectful formality, into the way of talking more natural to those who had shared and escaped from common dangers. More natural, too, where the speaker was conscious of a power of protection which the other did not possess. We will go on to Frankfurt, and lose ourselves, for a time at least, in the numbers of people who throng a great town. And you have told me that Frankfurt is a great town. You will still be husband and wife, you will take a small lodging, and you shall housekeep and live indoors. I, as the rougher and the more alert, will continue my father's trade, and seek work at the tailor shops. I could think of no better plan, so we followed this out. In a back street at Frankfurt, we found two furnished rooms to let on the sixth storey. The one we entered had no light from the day. The dingy lamp swung perpetually from the ceiling, and from that, or from the open door leading into the bedroom beyond, came our only light. The bedroom was more cheerful, but very small. Such as it was, it almost exceeded our possible means. The money from the sale of my ring was almost exhausted, and Amont was a stranger in the place, speaking only French, moreover, and the good Germans were hating the French people right-heartily. However, we succeeded better than our hopes, and even laid by a little against the time of my confinement. I never stirred abroad, and saw no one, and Amont's want of knowledge of German kept her in a state of comparative isolation. At length my child was born, my poor, worse than fatherless child. It was a girl, as I had prayed for. I had feared lest a boy might have something of the tiger nature of its father, but a girl seemed all my own, and yet not all my own, for the faithful Amont's delight and glory in the babe almost exceeded mine, and out would show it certainly did. We had not been able to afford any attendance beyond what a neighbouring sage farm could give, and she came frequently, bringing in with her a little store of gossip, and wonderful tales culled out of her own experience every time. One day she began to tell me about a great lady in whose service her daughter had lived as a scullion, or some such thing. Such a beautiful lady, with such a handsome husband! But grief comes to the palace as well as to the garret, and why or wherefore, no one knew. But somehow, the Baron de Rode must have incurred the vengeance of the terrible chauffeur, for not many months ago, as Madame was going to see her relations in Alsace, she was stabbed dead as she lay in bed at some hotel on the road. Had I not seen it in the Gazette? Had I not heard? Why, she had been told that as far off as Lyon, there were placards offering a heavy reward on the part of the Baron de Rode for information respecting the murderer of his wife, but no one could help him, for all who could bear evidence were in such terror of the chauffeur. There were hundreds of them, she had been told, rich and poor, great gentlemen and peasants, all leagued together by most frightful oaths, to hunt to the death anyone who bore witness against them, so that even they who survived the tortures to which the chauffeur subjected many of the people whom they plundered, dared not to recognize them again, would not dare even did they see them at the bar of a court of justice, for if one were condemned, were there not hundreds sworn to avenge his death? I told all this to Amont, and we began to fear that if Monsieur de la Tourelle, or Lefebvre, or any of the gang at Les Rochers had seen these placards, they would know that the poor lady stabbed by the former was the Baroness de Rode, and that they would set forth again in search of me. This fresh apprehension tolled on my health, and impeded my recovery. We had so little money, we could not call in a physician, at least, not one in established practice. But Amont found out a young doctor, for whom indeed she had sometimes worked, and offering to pay him in kind, she brought him to see me, her sick wife. He was very gentle and thoughtful, though like ourselves very poor. But he gave much time and consideration to the case, saying once to Amont that he saw my constitution had experienced some severe shock from which it was probable that my nerves would never entirely recover. By and by I shall name this doctor, and then you will know, better than I can describe, his character. I grew strong in time, stronger at least. I was able to work a little at home, and to sun myself and my baby at the garret window in the roof. It was all the air I dared to take. I constantly wore the disguise I had first set out with, as constantly had I renewed the disfiguring dye which changed my hair and complexion. But the perpetual state of terror in which I had been during the whole months, succeeding my escape from Les Rochers, made me loathe the idea of ever again walking in the open daylight, exposed to the sight and recognition of every passing by. In vain Amont reasoned. In vain the doctor urged. Docile in every other thing, in this I was obstinate. I would not stir out. One day Amont returned from her work full of news, some of it good, some such as to cause us apprehension. The good news was this. The master for whom she worked as journeyman was going to send her with some others to a great house at the other side of Frankfurt, where there were to be private theatricals, and where many new dresses and much alteration of old ones would be The tailors employed were all to stay at this house until the day of representation was over, as it was at some distance from the town, and no one could tell when their work would be ended, but the pay was to be proportionately good. The other thing she had to say was this. She had that day met the travelling jeweller to whom she and I had sold my ring. It was rather a peculiar one given to me by my husband. We had felt at the time that it might be the means of tracing us, but we were penniless and starving, and what else could we do? She had seen that this Frenchman had recognised her at the same instant that she did him, and she thought, at the same time, that there was a gleam of more than common intelligence on his face as he did so. This idea had been confirmed by his following her for some way on the other side of the street, but she had evaded him with her better knowledge of the town, and the increasing darkness of the night. Still, it was well that she was going to such a distance from our dwelling on the next day, and she had brought me in a stock of provisions, begging me to keep within doors, with a strange kind of fearful oblivion of the fact that I had never set foot beyond the threshold of the house since I had first entered it, scarce ever ventured down the stairs. But although my poor, my dear, very faithful amante was like one possessed that last night, she spoke continually of the dead, which is a bad sign for the living. She kissed you, yes, it was you, my daughter, my darling, whom I bore beneath my bosom, away from the fearful castle of your father. I call him so for the first time. I must call him so once again before I have done. Amante kissed you, sweet baby, blessed little comforter, as if she could never leave off. Then she went away, alive. Two days, three days passed away. That third evening I was sitting within my bolted doors, you asleep on your pillow by my side. Then a step came up the stair, and I knew it must be for me, for ours were the topmost rooms. Someone knocked. I held my very breath, but someone spoke, and I knew it was the good Doctor Vos. Then I crept to the door and answered. Are you alone? asked I. Yes, said he, in a still lower voice. Let me in. I let him in, and he was as alert as I in bolting and barring the door. Then he came and whispered to me his doleful tale. He had come from the hospital in the opposite quarter of the town, the hospital which he visited. He should have been with me sooner, but he feared lest he should be watched. He had come from Amont's death-bed. Her fears of the jeweller were too well-founded. She had left the house where she was employed that morning to transact some errand connected with her work in the town. She must have been followed and dogged on her way back through solitary wood-paths, for some of the wood-rangers belonging to the great house had found her lying there, stabbed to death, but not dead, with the poignard again plunged through the fatal writing once more, but this time with the word UN underlined, so as to show that the assassin was aware of his previous mistake, NUMERO UN, and SI LE CHAUFFEUR SE VENGE. They had carried her to the house and given her restoratives, till she had recovered the feeble use of her speech. But oh! faithful dear friend and sister, even then she remembered me, and refused to tell, but no one else among her fellow-workmen knew where she lived or with whom. Life was ebbing away fast, and they had no resource but to carry her to the nearest hospital, where of course the fact of her sex was made known. Fortunately, both for her and for me, the doctor in attendance was the very Dr. Vos, whom we already knew. To him, while awaiting her confessor, she told enough to enable him to understand the position in which I was left. Before the priest had heard half her tale, Amont was dead. Dr. Vos told me he had made all sorts of detour, and waited thus, late at night, for fear of being watched and followed. But I do not think he was. At any rate, as I afterwards learnt from him, the baron Roeder, on hearing of the similitude of this murder with that of his wife in every particular, made such a search after the assassins, that although they were not discovered, they were compelled to take to flight for the time. I can hardly tell you now by what arguments Dr. Vos, at first merely my benefactor, sparing me a portion of his small modicum, at length persuaded me to become his wife. His wife he called it, I called it, for we went through the religious ceremony, too much slighted at the time, and as we were both Lutherans, and Monsieur de la Troel had pretended to be of the Reformed religion, the divorce from the latter would have been easily procurable by German law, both ecclesiastical and legal, could we have summoned so fearful a man into any court. The good doctor took me and my child, by stealth, to his modest dwelling, and there I lived in the same deep retirement, never seeing the full light of day, although, when the dye had once passed away from my face, my husband did not wish me to renew it. There was no need. My yellow hair was grey, my complexion was ashen-coloured. No creature could have recognised the fresh-coloured, bright-haired young woman of eighteen months before. The few people whom I saw knew me only as Madame Vos, a widow much older than himself, whom Dr. Vos had secretly married. They called me the Grey Woman. He made me give you his surname. Till now you have known no other father. While he lived you needed no father's love. Once only, only once more, did the old terror come upon me. For some reason which I forget, I broke through my usual custom, and went to the window of my room, for some purpose, either to shut or to open it. Looking out into the street for an instant, I was fascinated by the sight of Monsieur de la Tourelle, gay, young, elegant as ever, walking along on the opposite side of the street. The noise I had made with the window caused him to look up. He saw me, an old Grey Woman, and he did not recognise me. Yet it was not three years since we had parted, and his eyes were keen and dreadful, like those of the lynx. I told Mr. Vos on his return home, and he tried to cheer me. The shock of seeing Monsieur de la Tourelle had been too terrible for me. I was ill for long months afterwards. Once again I saw him, dead. He and Lefebvre were at last caught, hunted down by the Baron in some of their crimes. Dr. Vos had heard of their arrest, their condemnation, their death, but he never said a word to me, until one day he bade me show him that I loved him, by my obedience and my trust. He took me a long carriage journey, whereto I know not, for we never spoke of that day again. I was led through a prison into a closed courtyard, where, decently draped in the last robes of death concealing the marks of decapitation, lay Monsieur de la Tourelle and two or three others whom I had known at Les Rochers. After that conviction, Dr. Vos tried to persuade me to return to a more natural mode of life and to go out more, but although I sometimes complied with his wish, yet the old terror was ever strong upon me, and he, seeing what an effort it was, gave up urging me at last. You know all the rest—how we both mourned bitterly the loss of that dear husband and father, for such I will call him ever, and as such you must consider him, my child, after this one revelation is over. Why has it been made, you ask? For this reason, my child, the lover whom you have only known as Monsieur Le Brun, a French artist, told me but yesterday his real name, dropped because the bloodthirsty Republicans might consider it as too aristocratic. It is Maurice de Boissy. End of Portion the Third End of The Grey Woman by Elizabeth Gaskell Read by Phil Benson in Sydney, Australia