Thus Dr. Hermann found himself face to face with the very last members of the family he desired to meet, and had to make the best of the situation. Of secrets of the late Joseph Brownlow he said nothing, but based his application on the offer of a practice and lectureship he said he had received from New Orleans. He had evidently never credited that Mrs. Brownlow meant to resign the whole property without giving away among her children the accumulation of ready money in hand, and as he knew himself to be worth buying off, he reckoned upon Janet's full share. He had taken Mrs. Brownlow's own statements as polite refusals, and a lady's romance until he found the uncle and nephew viewing the resignation of the whole as common honesty, and that she was actually gone. They would not give him her address, and prevented his coming in contact with the housekeeper, so that no more molestation might be possible, and meantime they offered him terms such as they thought she would ratify.
All that Joseph Brownlow had left was entirely in her power, and the amount was such that if she had died intestate, each of her six children would have been entitled to about £l600, exclusive of the house in London. Janet had no right to claim anything now or at her mother's death, but the uncle and nephew knew that Mrs. Brownlow would not endure to leave her destitute, and they thought the deportation to America worth a considerable sacrifice. Therefore they proposed that on the actual bona fide departure, £500 should be paid down, the interest of the £1100 should be secured to her, and paid half-yearly through Mr. Wakefield, who was to draw up the agreement; but the final disposal of the sum was not to be promised, but to depend on Mrs. Brownlow's will.
Such a present boon as £500 had made Hermann willing to agree to anything. Bobus had seen the lawyer in London, and with him concocted the agreement for signature, making the payments pass through the Wakefield office, the receipts being signed by Janet Hermann herself.
"Why must all payments go through the office?" asked Caroline.
"Because there's no trusting that slippery Greek," said Bobus.
"I should have liked my poor Janet to have been forced to communicate with me every half-year," she sighed.
"What, when she has never chosen to write all this time?"
"Yes. It is very weak, but I can't help it. It would be something only to see her name. I have never known where to write to her, or I would have done so."
"O, very well," said Bobus, "you had better invite them both to share the menage in Collingwood Street."
"For shame, Bobus," said Jock. "You have no right to say such things."
"Only that all this might as well have been left undone if my mother is to rush on them to ask their pardon and beg them to receive her with open arms. I mean, mother," he added with a different manner, "if you give one inch to that Greek, he will make it a mile, and as to Janet, if she can't bring down her pride to write to you like a daughter, I wouldn't give a rap for her receipt, and it might lead to intolerable pestering. Now you know she can't starve on £50 a year besides her medical education. Wakefield will always know where she is, and you may be quite easy about her."
Caroline gave way to her son's reasoning, as he thought, but no sooner was she alone with Jock than she told him that he must take her to London to see Janet in her lodgings before the departure for the States.
He was at her service, and as they did not mean to sleep in town, they started at a preposterously early hour, with a certain mirth and gaiety at thus eloping together, as the mother's spirits rose at the bare idea of seeing the first-born child for whom she had famished so long. Jock was such a perfect squire of dames, and so chivalrously charmed to be her escort, that her journey was delightful, nor did she grow sad till it was over. Then, she could not eat the food he would have had her take at the station, and he saw tears standing in her eyes as he sat beside her in the omnibus. When they were set down they walked swiftly and without a word to the lodgings.
Dr. and Mrs. Hermann had "left two days ago," said the untidy girl, whose aspect, like that of the street and house, betokened that Janet was drinking of her bitter brewst.
"What shall we do, mother?" asked Jock. "You ought to rest. Will you go to Mrs. Acton or Mrs. Lucas, while I run down to Wakefield's office and find out about them?"
"To Miss Ray's, I think," she said faintly. "Nita may know their plans. Here's the address," taking a little book from her pocket, and ruffling over the leaves, "you must find it. I can't see. O, but I can walk!" as he hailed a cab, and helped her into it, finding the address and jumping after her, while she sank back in the corner.
Very small and shrunken did she look when he took her out at the door leading to rooms over a stationer's shop. The sisters were somewhat better off than formerly, though good old Miss Ray was half ashamed of it, since it was chiefly owing to the liberal allowance from Mrs. Brownlow for the chaperonage in which she felt herself to have so sadly failed.
Jock saw his mother safe in the hands of the kind old lady, heard that the pair were really gone, and departed for his interview with Mr. Wakefield. No sooner had the papers been signed, and the £500 made over to them, than the Hermanns had hurried away a fortnight earlier than they had spoken of going. It was much like an escape from creditors, but the reason assigned was an invitation to lecture in New York.
So there was nothing for it but to put up with Miss Ray's account of Janet, and even that was second-hand, for the gentle spirit of the good old lady had been so roused at the treachery of the stolen marriage that she had refused to see the couple, and when Nita had once brought them in, she had retired to her bedroom.
Nita was gone on a professional engagement into the country for a week. According to what she had told her sister, Demetrius and Janet were passionately attached, and his manner was only too endearing; but Miss Ray had disliked the subject so much that she had avoided it in a way she now regretted.
"Everything I have done has turned out wrong," she said with tears running down her cheeks. "Even this! I would give anything to be able to tell you of poor Janet, and yet I thought my silence was for the best, for Nita and I could not mention her without quarrelling as we had never done before. O, Mrs. Brownlow, I can't think how you have ever forgiven me."
"I can forgive every one but myself," said Caroline sadly. "If I had understood how to be a better mother, this would never have been."
"You! the most affectionate and devoted."
"Ah! but I see now it was only human love without the true moving spring, and so my poor child grew up without it, and these are the fruits."
"But my dear, my dear, one can't _give_ these things. Poor Janet always was a headstrong girl, like my poor Nita. I know what you mean, and how one feels that if one had been better oneself," said poor Miss Ray, ending in utter entanglement, but tender sympathy.
"She might have been a child of many prayers," said the poor mother.
"Ah! but that she can still be," said the old lady. "She will turn back again, my dear. Never fear. I don't think I could die easy if I did not believe she would!"
Jock brought back word that the lawyer had been entirely unaware of the Hermanns' departure, and thought it looked bad. He had seen them both, and his report was less brilliant than Nita's. Indeed Jock kept back the details, for Mr. Wakefield had described Mrs. Hermann as much altered, thin, haggard, shabby, and anxious, and though her husband fawned upon her demonstratively before spectators, something in her eyes betokened a certain fear of him. He had also heard that Elvira was still making visits. There was a romance about her, which, in addition to her beauty and future wealth, made people think her a desirable guest. She was always more agreeable with strangers than in her own family; and as to the needful funds, she had her ample allowance; and no doubt her expectations secured her unlimited credit. Her conduct was another pang, but it was lost in the keener pain Janet had given.