Here all was unchanged. There were the flaring tallow candles, set in a tin hoop that hung from the low ceiling, dropping hot grease ever and anon on the loungers at the bar. There was the music — the same Scotch reels and Irish jigs, played on squeaking fiddles, which were made more inharmonious by the accompaniment of shrill Pandean pipes. There was the same crowd of sailors and bare-headed, bare-armed, loud-voiced women assembled in the stifling bar, the same cloud of tobacco-smoke, the same Babel of voices to be heard from the concert-room within; while now and then, amongst the shouts and the laughter, the oaths and the riot, there sounded the tinkling of the old piano, and the feeble upper notes of a very poor soprano voice.
Black Milsom had drawn his hat over his eyes before entering the “Jolly
Tar.”
The bar of that tavern was sunk considerably below the level of the street, and standing on the uppermost of the steps by which Mr. Wayman’s customers descended to his hospitable abode, Black Milsom was able to look across the heads of the crowd to the face of the landlord busy behind his bar.
In that elevated position Black Milsom waited until Dennis Wayman happened to look up and perceive the stranger on the threshold.
As he did so, Thomas Milsom drew the back of his hand rapidly across his mouth, with a gesture that was evidently intended as a signal.
The signal was answered by a nod from Wayman, and then Black Milsom descended the three steps, and pushed his way to the bar.
“Can I have a bed, mate, and a bit of supper?” he asked, in a voice that was carefully disguised.
“Ay, ay, to be sure you can,” answered Wayman; “you can have everything that is comfortable and friendly by paying for it. This house is one of the most hospitable places there is — to those that can pay the reckoning.”
This rather clumsy joke was received with an applauding guffaw by the sailors and women next the bar.
“If you’ll step through that door yonder, you’ll find a snug little room, mate,” said Dennis Wayman, in the tone which he might have used in speaking to a stranger; “I’ll send you a steak and a potato as soon as they can be cooked.”
Thomas Milsom nodded. He pushed open the rough wooden door which was so familiar to him, and went into the dingy little den which, in the ‘Jolly Tar’, was known as the private parlour.
It was the room in which he had first seen Valentine Jernam. Two years and a half had passed since he had last entered it; and during that time Mr. Milsom had been paying the penalty of his misdeeds in Van Dieman’s Land. This dingy little den, with its greasy walls and low, smoky ceiling, was a kind of paradise to the returned wanderer. Here, at least, was freedom. Here, at least, he was his own master: free to enjoy strong drinks and strong tobacco — free to be lazy when he pleased, and to work after the fashion that suited him best.
He seated himself in one chair, and planted his legs on another. Then he took a short clay pipe from his pocket, filled and lighted it, and began to smoke, in a slow meditative manner, stopping every now and then to mutter to himself, between the puffs of tobacco.
Mr. Milsom had finished his second pipe of shag tobacco, and had given utterance to more than one exclamation of anger and impatience, when the door was opened, and Dennis Wayman made his appearance, bearing a tray with a couple of covered dishes and a large pewter pot.
“I thought I’d bring you your grub myself, mate,” he said; “though I’m precious busy in yonder. I’m uncommonly glad to see you back again. I’ve been wondering where you was ever since you disappeared.”
“You’d have left off wondering if you’d known I was on the other side of this blessed world of ours. I thought you knew I was—”
Mr. Milsom’s delicacy of feeling prevented his finishing this speech.
“I knew you had got into trouble,” answered Mr. Wayman. “At least, I didn’t know for certain, but I guessed as much; though sometimes I was half inclined to think you had turned cheat, and given me the slip.”
“Bolted with the swag, I suppose you mean?”
“Precisely!” answered Dennis Wayman, coolly.
“Which shows your suspicious nature,” returned Milsom, in a sulky tone. “When an unlucky chap turns his back upon his comrades, the worst word in their mouths isn’t half bad enough for him. That’s the way of the world, that is. No, Dennis Wayman; I didn’t bolt with the swag — not sixpence of Valentine Jernam’s money have I had the spending of; no even what I won from him at cards. I was nobbled one day, without a moment’s warning, on a twopenny-halfpenny charge of burglary — never you mind whether it was true, or whether it was false — that ain’t worth going into. I was took under a false name, and I stuck to that false name, thinking it more convenient. I should have sent to let you know, if I could have found a safe hand to take my message; but I couldn’t find a living creature that was anything like safe — so there I was, remanded on a Monday, tried on a Tuesday, and then a fortnight after shipped off like a bullock, along of so many other bullocks; and that’s the long and the short of it.”
After having said which, Mr. Milsom applied himself to his supper, which consisted of a smoking steak, and a dish of still more smoking potatoes.
Dennis Wayman sat watching him for some minutes in thoughtful silence. The intent gaze with which he regarded the face of his friend, was that of a man who was by no means inclined to believe every syllable he had heard. After Milsom had devoured about a pound of steak, and at least two pounds of potatoes, Mr. Wayman ventured to interrupt his operations by a question.
“If you didn’t collar the money, what became of it?” he asked.
“Put away,” returned the other man, shortly; “and as safe as a church, unless my bad luck goes against me harder than it ever went yet.”
“You hid it?” said Wayman, interrogatively.
“I did.”
“Where?”
Mr. Milsom looked at his friend with a glance of profound cunning.
“Wouldn’t you like to know — oh, wouldn’t you just like to know, Mr. Wayman?” he said. “And wouldn’t you just dose me with a cup of drugged coffee, and cut off to ransack my hiding-place while I was lying helpless in your hospitable abode. That’s the sort of thing you’d do, if I happened to be a born innocent, isn’t it, Mr. Wayman? But you see I’m not a born innocent, so you won’t get the chance of doing anything of the kind.”
“Don’t be a fool,” returned Dennis Wayman, in a surly tone. “You’ll please to remember that one half of Valentine Jernam’s money belongs to me, and ought to have been in my possession long before this. I was an idiot to trust it in your keeping.”
“You trusted it in my keeping because you were obliged to do so,” answered Black Milsom, “and I owe you no gratitude for your confidence. I happened to know a Jew who was willing to give cash for the notes and bills of exchange; and you trusted them to me because it was the only way to get them turned into cash.”
The landlord of the ‘Jolly Tar’ nodded a surly assent to this rather cynical statement.
“I saw my friend the Jew, and made a very decent bargain,” resumed Milsom. “I hid the money in a convenient place, intending to bring you your share at the earliest opportunity. I was lagged that very night, and had no chance of touching the cash after I had once stowed it away. So, you see, it was no fault of mine that you didn’t get the money.”
“Humph!” muttered Mr. Wayman. “It has been rather hard lines for me to be kept out of it so long. And now you have come back, I suppose you can take me at once to the hiding place. I want money very badly just now.”
“Do you?” said Thomas Milsom, with a sneer. “That’s a complaint you’re rather subject to, isn’t it — the want of money? Now, as I’ve answered your questions, perhaps you’ll answer mine. Has there been much stir down this way while I’ve been over the water?”
“Very little; things have been as dull as they well could be.”
“Ah! so you’ll say, of course. Can you tell me whether any one has li
ved in my old place while my back has been turned?”
The landlord of the ‘Jolly Tar’ started with a gesture of alarm.
“It wasn’t there you hid the money, was it?” he asked, eagerly.
“Suppose it was, what then?”
“Why every farthing of it is lost. The place has been taken by a man, who has pulled the best part of it down, and rebuilt it. If you hid your money there, there’s little chance of your ever seeing it again,” said Wayman.
Black Milsom’s dark face grew livid, as he started from his chair and dragged on the crater coat which he had taken off on entering the room.
“It would be like my luck to lose that money,” he said; “it would be just like my luck. Come, Wayman. What are you staring at, man?” he cried impatiently. “Come.”
“Where?”
“To my old place. You can tell me all about the changes at we go. I must see to this business at once.”
The moon was shining over the masts and rigging in the Pool, and over the house-tops of Bermondsey and Wapping, as Black Milsom and his companion started on their way to the old house by the water.
They went, as on a former occasion, in that vehicle which Mr. Wayman called his trap; and as they drove along the lonely road, across the marshy flat by the river, Dennis Wayman told his companion what had happened in his absence.
“For a year the house stood empty,” he said; “but at the end of that time an old sea-captain took a fancy to it because of the water about it, and the view of the Pool from the top windows. He bought it, and pulled it almost all to pieces, rebuilt it, and I doubt if there is any of the old house standing. He has made quite a smart little place of it. He’s a queer old chap, this Cap’en Duncombe, I’m told, and rather a tough customer.”
“I’ll see the inside of his house, however tough he may be,” answered Milsom, in a dogged tone. “If he’s a tough customer, he’ll find me a tougher. Has he got any family?”
“One daughter — as pretty a girl as you’ll see within twenty miles of
London!”
“Well, we’ll go and have a look at his place to-night. We’d better put up your trap at the ‘Pilot Boat.’”
Mr. Wayman assented to the wisdom of this arrangement. The “Pilot Boat” was a dilapidated-looking, low-roofed little inn, where there were some tumble-down stables, which were more often inhabited by bloated grey water-rats than by horses. In these stables Mr. Wayman lodged his pony and vehicle, while he and Milsom walked on to the cottage.
“Why I shouldn’t have known the place!” cried Milsom, as his companion pointed to the captain’s habitation.
The transformation was, indeed, complete. The dismal dwelling, which had looked as if it were, in all truth, haunted by a ghost, had been changed into one of the smartest little cottages to be seen in the suburbs of eastern London.
The ditch had been narrowed and embanked, and two tiny rustic bridges, of fantastical wood-work, spanned its dark water. The dreary pollard-willows had vanished, and evergreens occupied their places. The black rushes had been exchanged for flowers. A trim little garden appeared where all had once been waste ground; and a flag-staff, with a bit of bunting, gave a naval aspect to the spot.
All was dark; not one glimmer of light to be seen in any of the windows.
The garden was secured by an iron gate, and surrounded by iron rails on all sides, except that nearest the river. Here, the only boundary was a hedge of laurels, which were still low and thin; and here Dennis Wayman and his companion found easy access to the neatly-kept pleasure-ground.
With stealthy footsteps they invaded Captain Duncombe’s little domain, and walked slowly round the house, examining every door and window as they went.
“Is the captain a rich man?” asked Milsom.
“Yes; I believe he’s pretty well off — some say uncommonly well off. He spent over a thousand pounds on this place.”
“Curse him for his pains!” returned Black Milsom, savagely. “He knows how to take care of his property. It would be a very clever burglar that would get into that house. The windows are all secured with outside shutters, that seem as solid as if they were made of iron, and the doors don’t yield the twentieth part of an inch.”
Then, after completing his examination of the house, Milsom exclaimed, in the same savage tone —
“Why, the man has swept away every timber of the place I lived in.”
“I told you as much,” answered Wayman; “I’ve heard say there was nothing left of old Screwton’s house but a few solid timbers and a stack of chimneys.”
Screwton was the name of the miser whose ghost had been supposed to haunt the old place.
Black Milsom gave a start as Dennis uttered the words “stack of chimneys.”
“Oh!” he said, in an altered tone; “so they left the chimney-stack, did they?”
Mr. Wayman perceived that change of tone.
“I begin to understand,” he said; “you hid that money in one of the chimneys.”
“Never you mind where I hid it. There’s little chance of its being found there, after bricklayers pulling the place to pieces. I must get into that house, come what may.”
“You’ll find that difficult,” answered Wayman.
“Perhaps. But I’ll do it, or my name’s not Black Milsom.”
* * * * *
Captain Joseph Duncombe, or Joe Duncombe, as he generally called himself, was a burly, rosy-faced man of fifty years of age; a hearty, honest fellow. He was a widower, with only one child, a daughter, whom he idolized.
Any father might have been forgiven for being devotedly fond of such a daughter as Rosamond Duncombe.
Rosamond was one of those light-hearted, womanly creatures who seem born to make home a paradise. She had a sweet temper; a laugh which was like music; a manner which was fascination itself.
When it is also taken into consideration that she had a pretty little nose, lips that were fresh and rosy as ripe red cherries, cheeks that were like dewy roses, newly-gathered, and large, liquid eyes, of the deepest, clearest blue, it must be confessed that Rosamond Duncombe was a very charming girl.
If Joseph Duncombe doted on this bright-haired, blue-eyed daughter, his love was not unrecompensed. Rosamond idolized her father, whom she believed to be the best and noblest of created beings.
Rosamond’s remembrance of her mother was but shadowy. She had lost that tender protector at a very early age.
Within the last year and a half her father had retired from active service, after selling his vessel, the “Vixen,” for a large price, so goodly a name had she borne in the merchant service.
This retirement of Captain Duncombe’s was a sacrifice which he made for his beloved daughter.
For himself, the life of a seaman had lost none of its attractions. But when he saw his fair young daughter of an age to leave school, he determined that she should have a home.
He had made a very comfortable little fortune during five-and-thirty years of hard service. But he had never made a sixpence the earning of which he need blush to remember. He was known in the service as a model of truth and honesty.
Driving about the eastern suburbs of London, he happened one day to pass that dreary plot of waste ground on which the miser’s tumble-down dwelling had been built. It was a pleasant day in April, and the place was looking less dreary than usual. The spring sunshine lit up the broad river, and the rigging of the ships stood out in sharp black lines against a bright blue sky.
A board against the dilapidated palings announced that the ground was to be sold.
Captain Duncombe drew up his horse suddenly.
“That’s the place for me!” he exclaimed; “close by the old river, whose tide carried me down to the sea on my first voyage five-and-thirty years ago — within view of the Pool, and all the brave old ships lying at anchor. That’s the place for me! I’ll sweep away that old ramshackle hovel, and build a smart water-tight little cottage for my pet and me to live in; and I’ll stick the U
nion Jack on a main-top over our heads, and at night, when I lie awake and hear the water rippling by, I shall fancy I’m still at sea.”
A landsman would most likely have stopped to consider that the neighbourhood was lonely, the ground damp and marshy, the approach to this solitary cross-road through the most disreputable part of London. Captain Duncombe considered nothing, except two facts — first the river, then the view of the ships in the Pool.
He drove back to Wapping, where he found the house-agent who was commissioned to sell old Screwton’s dwelling. That gentleman was only too glad to get a customer for a place which no one seemed inclined to have on any terms. He named his price. The merchant-captain did not attempt to make a bargain; but agreed to buy the place, and to give ready money for it, as soon as the necessary deeds were drawn up and signed. In a week this was done, and the captain found himself possessor of a snug little freehold on the banks of the Thames.
He lost no time in transforming the place into an abode of comfort, instead of desolation. It was only when the transformation was complete, and Captain Duncombe had spent upwards of a thousand pounds on his folly, that he became acquainted with the common report about the place.
Sailors are proverbially superstitious. After hearing that dismal story, Joseph Duncombe was rather inclined to regret the choice he had made; but he resolved to keep the history of old Screwton a secret from his daughter, though it cost him perpetual efforts to preserve silence on this subject.
In spite of his precaution, Rosamond came to know of the ghost.
Visiting some poor cottagers, about a quarter of a mile from River
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 442