Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  “Sit ye down, Mr. Markham,” he said, waving a hand as small as a woman’s, and all of a glitter with diamonds and emeralds, “sit ye down; and hark ye, Mr. William Byers, bring me another bottle of claret, and see that it’s a little better than the last. My two worthy friends have staggered off to bed, Mr. Markham, a little the worse for this evening’s bout, but you see I’ve contrived to keep my brains pretty clear of cobwebs, and am your humble servant to command.”

  Sir Lovel Mortimer was as effeminate in manners as in person. He had a clear treble voice, and spoke in the languid drawling manner peculiar to the maccaronis of Ranelagh and the Ring. He was the sort of fopling one reads about in the Spectator, and would have been a spectacle alike miraculous and disgusting to good country-bred Sir Roger de Coverley.

  Darrell Markham told the story of his recognition of the horse in a few words.

  “And you lost the beast—” drawled Sir Lovel.

  “A year ago last month.”

  Strange!” lisped the baronet. “I gave fifty guineas for the animal at a fair at Barnstaple last July.”

  “Do you remember the person of whom you bought him?”

  “Yes, perfectly. He was an elderly man, with white hair; he represented himself as a farmer from Dorsetshire.”

  “Then the trace of the villain who robbed me is lost,” said Darrell. “I would have given much had you got the horse straight from the scoundrel who robbed me of my purse and watch, and some documents of value to others besides myself, upon Compton Moor, last October.”

  Sir Lovel Mortimer’s restless black eyes flashed with an eager light as he looked at the speaker. Those ever-restless eyes were strangely at variance with the young baronet’s drawling treble voice and languid manner. It was as if the man’s effeminate languor were only an assumption, the falsehood of which the eager burning eyes betrayed in spite of himself.

  “Will you tell me the story of your encounter with the knight of the road?” he asked.

  Darrell gave a brief description of his meeting with the highwayman, omitting all that bore any relation to either Millicent or Captain George Duke.

  “I scarcely expect you to believe all this,” said Darrell, in conclusion, “or to acknowledge any claim of mine to the horse; but if you like to come down to the stable, you will see at least that the faithful creature remembers his old master.”

  “I have no need to go to the stable for confirmation of your words, Mr. Markham,” answered the young baronet; “I should be the last to doubt the truth of a gentleman’s assertion.”

  The landlord brought the claret and a couple of clean glasses, while the two men were talking, and Sir Lovel pledged his visitor in a bumper.

  The West-country baronet seemed delighted to secure Darrell’s society. He talked of the metropolis, boasted of his conquests among the fair sex as freely as if he had been a second Beau Fielding, and, slipping from one object to another, began presently to speak of politics. Darrell, who had listened patiently to his companion’s silly prattle, grew grave immediately.

  “You seem to take but little interest in either party, Mr. Markham,” Sir Lovel said at last, after vainly trying to discover the bent of Darrell’s mind.

  “Not over much,” answered the young man. “I was bred in the country, where all the share we had in public affairs was to set the bells ringing on the king’s birthday, and pray for his majesty in church on Sundays and holidays. We got our political opinions as we got the fashion of our waistcoats and wigs, a twelvemonth after they were out of date in London.”

  Sir Lovel shrugged his shoulders.

  “I see you don’t care to trust strangers with your real sentiments, Mr. Markham, and I make no doubt you are wise,” he said, with perfect good temper. “What say you to our eating a broiled capon together?” he asked presently. “My friends were too far gone to hold out for supper, and I shall be very glad of your company over a bowl of punch.”

  Darrell begged to be excused. He had to be on the road early the next morning he said, and sadly wanted a good night’s rest. But the baronet would take no refusal. He rang the bell, summoned Mr. William Byers, the landlord, who waited in person upon his important guest, and ordered the capon and the punch.

  “We can come to a friendly understanding about the horse while we sup, Mr. Markham,” said Sir Lovel.

  Darrell bowed. The friendly understanding the two men came to was to the effect that Markham should pay the baronet twenty guineas and give him the grey horse in exchange for Balmerino — the grey being worth about twenty pounds, and Sir Lovel being willing to lose ten by his bargain. So Darrell and the baronet parted excellent friends, and early the next morning Balmerino was brought round to the front door of the inn, saddled and bridled for his old master.

  The animal was in splendid condition, and Darrell felt a thrill of pleasure as he sprang into the saddle. It seemed as if the horse recognized the light hand of his familiar rider. The pavement of the Reading street clattered under his hoofs, and in ten minutes the traveller was out upon the Bath road with the town melting into the distance behind him.

  Darrell dined at Marlborough, where he gave Balmerino two or three hours’ rest. It was dusk when he left the inn door, and a thick white fog shut out the landscape on either side of the high road. This fog had grown dark and dense when Darrell found himself in the loneliest part of the road between Marlborough and Bath. He had a well-filled purse, heavy enough to tempt the marauding hands of highway robbers; but he had a good pair of pistols, and felt safely armed against all attack. But, for the second time in his life, he had reason to repent of his rashness, for in the very loneliest turn of the road he heard the clattering of many hoofs close behind him, and by the time he had his pistols ready he was surrounded by three men, one of whom, coining behind him, threw up his arm as he was about to fire at the first of his assailants, while the third struck the same kind of swinging blow upon his head that had laid him prostrate a year before upon the moorland road between Compton and Marley.

  When Darrell Markham recovered his senses he found himself lying on his back in a shallow dry ditch; the fog had cleared away, and the stars shone with a pale and chilly glimmer in the wintry sky. The young man’s pockets had been rifled and his pistols taken from him; but tied to the hedge above him stood the grey horse which he had left in the custody of Sir Lovel Mortimer.

  Stupefied by the blow that had prostrated him, and with every bone in his body stiff from lying for four or five hours in the cold and damp, Darrell was just able to get into the saddle and ride about a mile and a half to the nearest roadside inn.

  The country people who kept this hostelry were almost frightened when they saw the traveller’s white face and blood-stained forehead; but any story of outrage upon the high road found ready listeners and hearty sympathy.

  The landlord stood open-mouthed as Darrell told of his adventure of the night before, and the exchange of the horses.

  “Was the West-country baronet a fine ladyfied little chap, with black eyes and small white hands?” he asked eagerly.

  “Yes.”

  The man looked triumphantly round at the bystanders. “I’m blest if I didn’t guess as much,” he said. “It’s Captain Fanny.”

  “Captain Fanny?”

  “Yes; one of the most daring villains in all the West of England, and one that is like an eel for giving folks the slip when they fancy they’ve caught him. He has been christened Captain Fanny on account of his small hands and feet and his lackadaisical ways.”

  The ostler came in as the landlord was speaking.

  “I don’t know whether you knew of this, sir,” he said, handing Darrell a slip of paper; “I found it tied to the horse’s bridle.”

  The young man unfolded the paper and read these words:

  “With Sir Lovel Mortimer’s compliments to Mr. Markham, and in strict accordance with the old adage which teaches us that exchange is no robbery.”

  CHAPTER VIII. HOW A STRANGE PEDLAR WORKED A GREAT
CHANGE IN THE MIND AND MANNERS OF SALLY PECKER.

  DARRELL MARKHAM waited at the roadside inn till the tedious post of those days brought him a packet containing money from his friend and patron, Lord C —— . He was vexed and humiliated by his encounter with Captain Fanny. For the second time in his life he had been worsted, and for the second time he found himself baulked of his revenge. The rural constable to whom he told the story of the robbery only shrugged his shoulders, and offered to tell him of a dozen more such adventures which had occurred within the last week or two; so Darrell had nothing to do but to submit quietly to the loss of his money and his horse, and ride on to execute his commissions in Somersetshire — commissions from which little good ever came, as the reader knows; for it seemed as if that kingly house on which misfortune had so long set her seal, was never more to be elevated from the degradation to which it had sunk.

  All this time, while Darrell turned his horse’s head from the west and journeyed by easy stages slowly back to town; while Sally Pecker at the Black Bear, and everybody in Compton, from the curate, the lawyer, and the doctor, to the lowliest cottager in the village, was busy with preparations for the approaching Christmas, Millicent Duke waited and watched day after day for the return of her husband. All Compton might think the Captain dead, but Millicent could not think so. She seemed possessed by some settled conviction that all the storms which ever rent the skies or shook the ocean would never cause the death of George Duke. She watched for his coming with a sick dread that every day might bring him. She rose in the morning with the thought that ere the early winter’s night closed in he would be seated by the hearth. She never heard a latch lifted without trembling lest his hand should be upon it, nor listened to a masculine footfall in the village High Street without dreading lest she should recognize his familiar step. Her meeting with George Duke’s shadow upon the moonlit pier at Marley had added a superstitious terror to her old dread and dislike of her husband. She thought of him now as a being possessed of unholy privileges. He might be near her, bat unseen and impalpable; he might be hiding in the shadowy corners of the dark wainscot, or crouching in the snow outside the latticed window. He might be a spy upon her inmost thoughts, and knowing her distrust and aversion, might stay away for long years, only to torment her the more by returning when she had forgotten to expect him, and had even learned to be happy.

  You see there is much allowance to be made for her lonely life, her limited education, and the shade of superstition inseparable from a poetic temperament, and a mind whose sole aliment had been such novels as people wrote and read a hundred years ago.

  She never heard from her brother Ringwood, and the few reports of him that came to her from other source? only told of riot and dissipation, of tavern brawls and midnight squabbles in the streets about Covent Garden. She knew that he was wasting his substance amongst bad men, but she never once thought of her own interest in his fortune, or of the possibility that her brother’s death might make her mistress of the stately old mansion in which she had been born.

  Sally Pecker was in the full flood-tide of her Christmas preparations. Fat geese dangled from the hooks in the larder, with their long necks hanging within a little distance of the ground; brave turkeys and big capons hung cheek by jowl with the weighty sirloin of beef which was to be the principal feature of the Christmas dinner. Everywhere, from the larder to the scullery, from the cellars to the sink, there were the tokens of plenty and the abundant promise of good cheer. Samuel was allowed to employ himself in the decoration of the old hostelry; he was permitted to get on rickety ladders and endanger his neck in the process of hanging up holly and mistletoe; but all the more serious and substantial preparations devolved upon Sarah. In the kitchen, as in the pantry, Sally was the presiding deity. Betty the cookmaid plucked the geese, while her mistress made the Christmas pies and prepared the ingredients for the pudding, which was to be carried into the oak parlour on the ensuing day, garnished with holly and all ablaze with burnt brandy. So important were these preparations, that as late as nine o’clock on the night of the twenty-fourth of December, the maid and her mistress were still hard at work in the great kitchen at the Black Bear. This kitchen lay at the back of the house, and was divided from the principal rooms and the entrance-hall and bar by a long passage, which kept the clatter of plates and dishes, the smell of cooking, and all the other tokens of preparation, from the ears and noses of Mrs. Pecker’s customers, who knew nothing of the dinner they had ordered until they saw it smoking upon the table before them.

  Sally Pecker and her maid were quite alone in the kitchen, for Samuel was busy with his duties in the bar, and the two chambermaids were waiting upon the visitors who had been dropped at the Bear by the Carlisle coach. The pleasant seasonable frost, in which all Compton had rejoiced, had broken up with that pertinacious spirit of contradiction with which a hard frost generally does break up just before Christmas, and a drizzling rain fell silently without the closely barred window-shutters.

  “I never see such weather,” said Mrs. Pecker, slamming the back door with an air of vexation after having taken a survey of the night; “nothing but rain, rain, rain, coming down as straight as one of Samuel’s pencil streaks between the figures in a score. Christmas scarcely seems Christmas in such weather as this. We might as well have ducks and green peas and cherry pie to-morrow, for all I can see, for it’s so close and muggy that I can scarcely bear to come nigh the fire.” The servants at the Black Bear knew the value of a good place and a peaceful life far too well ever to contradict their mistress, so Betty the cookmaid coincided immediately with Mrs. Pecker, and declared that the weather certainly was uncomfortably warm; very much in the same spirit as that of the Danish courtier who was so eager to agree with Prince Hamlet.

  The back door communicating with this kitchen at the Black Bear was the entrance generally used by any of the village tradesmen who brought Mrs. Pecker their goods; as well as by tramps and beggars and such idle ne’er-do-weels, who were apt to hang about the premises with an eye to broken victuals or silver spoons, and who were generally sent off with a sharp answer from Sarah or her handmaidens.

  On this Christmas-eve Mrs. Pecker was expecting a parcel of groceries from the nearest market town — a parcel which was to be brought to her by the Compton carrier.

  “Purvis is late, Betty,” she said, as the clock struck nine, “and I shall want the plums for my next batch of pies. Drat the man! He’s gossiping and drinking at every house he calls at, I’ll be bound.”

  Betty murmured something about Christmas, and taking a friendly glass like, for the sake of the season; but Mrs. Pecker cut short her maid’s apology for the delinquent carrier, and said sharply, —

  “Christmas or no Christmas, folks should attend to the business they live by; and as for friendly glasses out of compliment to the season, it’s a rare season that isn’t a good season for drink with the men; for every wind that blows is an excuse for a fresh glass with them. I haven’t kept the head inn in Compton without finding out what they are.”

  It seemed as if the carrier had been aware of the contumely showered on his guilty head, for at this very moment a sharp rap at the window-shutters arrested Mrs. Pecker in the full torrent of her scorn.

  “That’s Purvis, I’ll lay my life,” she exclaimed; “the fool don’t know the door from the window, because it’s Christmas time, I suppose. Run, Betty, and fetch the parcel. You’ll have to feel in my pocket for the six pence that’s to pay him, for I can’t take my hands out of the flour.”

  The girl hurried to open the door, and went out into the yard; but she presently returned to say that it was not Purvis, but a pedlar who wanted to show Mrs. Pecker some silks and laces.

  “Silks and laces!” cried Sally; “I want no such furbelows. Tell the man to go about his business directly. I won’t have any such vagabonds prowling about the premises.”

  The girl went back to the door and remonstrated with the man, who said very little, and spoke in an indi
stinct mumbling voice that scarcely reached Mrs. Pecker’s ears; but whatever he did say, it was to the effect that he would not leave the place until he had seen the mistress of the Black Bear.

  Betty came back to tell Mrs. Pecker this.

  “Won’t he?” exclaimed the redoubtable Sarah, raising her voice for the edification of the pedlar; “we’ll soon see about that. Tell him that we’re not without constables in Compton, and that our magistrates are pretty hard against tramps and vagabonds.”

  “But you won’t be hard upon me, will you, Mrs. Pecker? I don’t think you’ll find it in your heart to be hard upon me,” said the man, putting his head into the kitchen.

  He was a stalwart broad-shouldered fellow, with a big hook-nose, twinkling black eyes, and a complexion that had grown almost copper-coloured by exposure to all kinds of weather. He wore a three-cornered hat, which was trimmed with tarnished lace, and perched carelessly on one side of his head. His sleek hair was of a purplish black; and he wore a stiff black beard upon his fat double chin. Gold earrings twinkled in his ears, and something very much like a diamond glittered amongst the dingy lace of his ragged cravat. The bronzed dirty hand with which he held open the box while he addressed Mrs. Pecker was bedizened by rings, which might have been either copper or rich barbaric gold.

  “You’ll not refuse to look at the silks, Mrs. Sally,” he said, in an insinuating tone; “or to give a poor tired wayfarer a glass of something good on this merry Christmas night?”

  Mrs. Pecker took her hands out of the flour; but white as they were, they were not a shade whiter than her usually rubicund face. For once in a way the landlady of the Black Bear seemed utterly at a loss for a sharp answer.