A Broken Heart

Author Unknown

Content Warning: #3 (explanation)

She was my sister, and as good and true a girl as ever breathed. It is five years ago now, but the sorrow and misery of it all seems as fresh as if it only happened yesterday, and I still feel that there ought to be some kind of punishment for a man—no I won't insult our kind by calling him a man!—for a scoundrel who can play so cruel and treacherous a part.

Poor little lassie, she came home one evening to our little place from the great house where she was parlourmaid, and before she'd been sitting chatting with us long I noticed a change in her. She seemed so bright, and there was a bit of colour kept coming and going in her soft round cheeks as she played with our little Tiny, and chatted to my wife; but every now and then she came over quite thoughtful and quiet. As I say, I noticed a little difference in her, but forgot it the next moment, as I was busy trying to work out a moulding from a drawing, for I always had an idea that I should like to get to be a master, and not always keep to being a journeyman.

I looked up once or twice, and saw that the wife and Mary had got their heads together, and they were evidently talking about something very interesting, but was not meant for me, and at last they got up and went out of the room.

I don't know how long they were gone, but by-and-by, after Tiny had been put to bed, they came back, Mary looking quite fluttered and flushed, and my wife with her eyes very wide open, as if she had something to tell.

"Tom," she says, quite excitedly, "Polly wants to tell you something."

"Next segment should make a quarter curve—tell me something ?" I says, absently, "well, tell away."

"Now, do put that stupid old drawing aside, Tom, and listen," cried my wife, "Polly wants to tell you something."

"No, no, Nelly. You tell," said the poor girl.

"No, you shall tell him yourself," says my wife; and she gave Mary a bit of a push, and ran out of the room.

"Oh, Tom!" says Mary, looking at me, and she began to cry.

"Why, hullo, my little lassie!" I says, taking holding of her arm and pulling her on to my knee, when she threw her arms round my neck, hid her face against my shoulder, and sobbed quite aloud.

I was took back for the moment, but I began next minute to pat her shoulder, and smoothed her hair just as I had done hundreds of times, for she had always been quite the little sister with me, and I had walked her to sleep when a big boy, and petted her, and one way and another made her look up to me more almost as a father than brother; in fact, she lived with us after mother died, till she was seventeen, when she went to her place.

"There, don't cry about it, Polly," I said, for it came into my head that she had lost her situation. "If you are not comfortable, my girl, come back home; there's plenty more places in the world."

"Oh, it isn't that, Tom, it isn't that," she sobbed, crying more than ever. "I'm very comfortable indeed, and every one is so kind to me, and—and I thought I ought to tell you, Tom, dear."

I pushed her back so as to take her bonny little face between my two great rough hands, and looked straight in her eyes, which didn't flinch from mine now, and, in spite of her tears, and her ruffled hair, and burning cheeks, there was something so bright, and proud, and happy in her face, that I half shouted—

"Why, Polly, you little witch, you've got a sweetheart!"

"Yes, dear," she says, demurely. "Don't be very cross with me, Tom. Please, I couldn't help it."

She put up her two hands to me as she spoke; and looked at me half in fear, half proud, as I rubbed one of my ears.

"Humph!" I says. "I suppose not; but what nonsense! You're quite a child."

"I'm eighteen, Tom, dear," she said, in her demure way, "and I wasn't happy till I'd told you."

"Well, that's right enough, Polly," I says, feeling somehow vexed and half jealous-like that she should care for anybody but me; "but who is he, and what is he, and what's he like, and is he a decent, respectable fellow?"

"Oh, yes, yes! Tom, dear," she says, laying her head on my shoulder, and keeping one arm round my neck; and, the ice being broken, she chatted away, telling me that he was an organ-builder, and that he had been to the house a great deal lately, fitting up a large chamber organ in one of the rooms, and that he loved her very dearly, and that he had wanted to make her presents, and had come to the house again and again, wanting her to go out with him, but that she would not, and that he was all that.was handsome, and good, and nice.

"And you're very sorry because you feel that you can't love him a bit," I says, grimly.

"Oh, Tom!" she cried, starting up to look in my face.

"Well, I don't know what to say, little Polly," I says, wondering how time had gone, and how strange it was that.the little fair-haired girl should have grown into a woman who was thinking of being married. "It seems very queer and strange that you can't be happy without sweethearting. I thought you were too sensible a girl. But you did quite right in not going out with him, and in coming to tell us. But, look here, Polly, if he's a decent fellow, seeing that you've got no mother and father, why don't he come here like a man and speak to me?"

"He is coming, Tom, dear," she says, softly.

"Then why don't he come?" I says angrily.

"I told him he might come to-night, dear Tom, about eight," she faltered; "and then, if you liked him, and you thought it right, he might walk back with me to Chester square."

"Oh you did, did you?" I says, grimly. "I say, old lady, here's a pretty go!"

That was to my wife, who came peeping in just then and, woman like, as pleased as could be; and what does she do but bounce at us both, and kiss and hug us and look as pleased as could be, when just at that moment there was a double knock at the door, and my gentleman was let in.

There, don't set it down to prejudice, but I never liked him from the first. He was good-looking and well-dressed, and could talk, but there was not the honest, frank grip of the hand that I like in a man, and I seemed to think that he kind of looked down upon me. But there, the women liked him, and he seemed wonderfully fond of my little Polly, and it was quite plain enough that her girlish innocent young heart had gone right into his keeping, so I shut up what I thought and felt, and let matters take their course.

A year slips by pretty quickly, and though they both said it was being too particular, I had stuck out that they should wait a bit and then marry, for I said it would be quite soon enough, seeing how young she was.

It was about the end of that time I used to notice a change in little Polly. She was quieter, and there used to be a sad look in her eyes, and when I spoke to my wife about it, she said that John Wilson and Polly had a tiff or two, or something of that sort, and that lovers always quarrelled.

"We never did," I says, gruffly, "and if they begin now, how will it be afterwards?"

But I was too busy to pay much heed to it all, and somehow I suppose neither my wife nor Polly liked to say much about matters. I noticed though that there was less talk now about the wedding day, and Polly did not come to our place so often to sit and stitch with my wife, both of them being busy making and marking house linen for the little house they meant to have.

There was no end of things stowed away, that Polly had bought with her savings, and at one time I used to hear a good deal about what John Wilson had done, though I never saw anything. All the same, though, it came like a thunderclap upon me when, one evening, a cab drove up just as I had got home from work, with our Polly, looking very white, and I had to help the cabman to bring in her boxes.

She did not speak, but put a letter in my hands, and I read it afterwards. It was from Polly's mistress, and nothing could have been nicer and kinder. She said that my sister had been ill for some time now, and quite unfit to attend to her duties. That Polly would not speak out, but that it seemed to be due to mental trouble, and that it was no doubt on account of her engagement. Under these circumstances, there was nothing for it but for her to leave.

The mistress spoke very nicely, about regret at parting with her, and the like, and added that she would at any time give her the highest of recommendations.

I said very little. I remember kissing her, and saying it was all right, and that as long as I had a roof over my head, there was a place for my little sister as well, and then I left those two to talk, for I had to go to our society.

My wife was waiting for me when I got back, looking very pale and upset; and as soon as I had sat down, she put a letter in my hand.

I took it, and saw that it was for Polly. "Well, but," I said, "this isn't for us to read."

"Yes, yes," she said; "Polly gave it to me for us both to read."

I opened it, and found it was nearly a month old; and, on reading, I found it was from John Wilson to the poor little lassie, telling her that he thought they couldn't be happy together, and that the best thing they could do was to part.

"Then where's her pride?" I says, angrily. "She ought to be glad to have escaped from such a hound. Hang him! I never liked him. A stupid girl. And now I suppose the next thing we shall hear is that he is going to be married to some one better off."

"Yes, dear," said my wife. "Polly has heard so, and that's what has completely broken her down."

"Here, let's have a quiet talk to her," I says. "All right, my dear, I won't say an unkind word to her, but—what?"

"She went out, dear, an hour ago, and hasn't come back."

"Worse and worse," I said. "She's gone to see him then."

"Yes, dear, I'm afraid so."

"Well, old girl, we must make the best of it. Her sore little heart will heal up, I dare say."

It was then about ten, and we sat up waiting for her, growing every minute more uneasy, but she did not come; and so that miserable night passed away, and the next day, in making inquiries.

I got in about tea time, fagged out. I'd been to John Wilson's house, and to the place where he worked, and we had some words, for he told me he hadn't seen her for a month, and didn't want to see her again—and yet I didn't knock him down. I felt that I ought, but I was too miserable then.

I hadn't been in five minutes, when there was a knock at the door. My wife ran to open it, saw a policeman standing there, and she sank down in the passage, swooning dead away.

"Are you Mr. Thomas Reeves, sir?" he says.

"Yes. What is it?"

"You had better call some friend to your good lady, while you come along with me."

As he spoke he put a crumpled note in my hand, one that looked as if it had been wet and then dried. It was directed to me, but the ink was sadly blotched.

I opened it after we'd got some one to attend to my wife, as if in a dream, and read, as everything seemed to swim round me.

"Dearest Tom and Sister,
"Pray to God to forgive me for what I've done. I couldn't live, for my heart is broken.

"POLLY." 

I looked at the constable, with the letter trembling in my hand, and then, putting on my hat, I followed him.

"She's lying at —— dead-house, sir," he said to me, as I looked to him to speak. "She went straight to Westminster Bridge about eight last night, and someone caught her dress as she was going over, but it gave way, and she fell. They picked her up this afternoon, four miles down the river, and found that letter in her pocket."

I kept the newspapers that the account was in, and cut out one of the pieces, meaning to take it to him, and after making him read it, catch him by the throat, and pretty well crush the life out of his scoundrelly body; but I did not go, for there was the clay-cold form of my sister lying in her coffin upstairs, and while she was there I seemed as if I could do nothing but sit and think.

I had to go to the inquest, and so had my wife, and we said what we knew, and the coroner's jury made some very bitter remarks about the scoundrel who had behaved so ill; but somehow his statement that he had not seen her for more than a month was taken as sufficient, and he was not called, and there the matter, as far as he was concerned, was at an end.

I found out afterwards that he knew from the newspapers every fact, and that the ring he had given her in token of their engagement was found upon her hand; but he made no sign, and he had his reasons for keeping out of the way, and hiding the matter from his friends, for he was just about to be married.

I say I learned all this afterwards, and very strangely. Just then we were too full of trouble to think of him, only in connection with what I had vowed to do the first time we met.

The morning of the funeral was, I remember, a bright spring one. I went upstairs with my wife, and we stood together by the coffin to have the last look at Mary's poor pale face. It was very calm and beautiful then, and I thought, as I stood there, surely there must be forgiveness for such a sin as her's, and for the first time since the trouble had come upon us, I went down on my knees by her as she slept, and cried like a child.

It was very weak, but somehow it made me feel very strong and stern, as I took my wife's hand, and went downstairs; and a quarter of an hour later we were on our way.in the funeral carriage to the cemetery.

I don't know how it was, but I was sitting with my head bent forward, thinking bitterly that, as there was no law to punish such men as John Wilson for his treatment of my sister and her unborn babe, I'd make a law of my own—such an one as no father or brother would condemn—and till I had had him by the throat, I felt that I could never rest.

But I ended by forgiving John Wilson, for, as we were passing through one of the busy streets, there was a shouting and screaming, and the rush of wheels. I saw a hansom cab dash by, and then there was a crash, and the people came running up.

It was very horrible, and at such a time. The cab-horse had taken fright, and the cab had been dashed right against the wheel of the hearse, injuring the latter but slightly, but throwing out the two men the cab contained, one of whom the fallen horse had struck, in its plunging, with his hoof.

I had leaped out, and was one of the first to drag the poor wretch out of danger, or he would have been killed. As it was, his cheek was frightfully gashed, and the blood was streaming down upon his white waistcoat, and the wedding favors in his coat.

I felt sick as I made way for someone else, for just then his wild, frighted eyes met mine, and we stood there—John Wilson, on his way to a neighboring church, to take to himself a wife; and I, the brother of the broken-hearted girl—brother and betrayer at the coffin side.

The rest seems now like a dream. I went back to the carriage, and the hearse drove on; and, as we stood together at the cemetery, by Mary's resting-place, I tried to forgive John Wilson's wrong, for I saw his punishment had come from other hands than mine.

Warragul Guardian, Thursday 28 July 1881, supplement page 1.