Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  Instead of the realization of this bright dream, he had found only disappointment.

  Susan Trott placed the materials for the captain’s favourite punch upon the table after she had removed the cloth; but Joseph Duncombe did not appear to see the cherry preparations for a comfortable evening. He rose hastily from his chair, put on his hat, and went out, much to the discomfiture of the worthy Mrs. Mugby.

  “After what I went through with standing over that roaring furnace of a kitchen-range, it does seem hard to see my sole just turned over and played with, like, and my chicking not so much as touched,” said the dame. “Oh, Miss Rosamond, Miss Rosamond, you’ve a deal to answer for!”

  Captain Duncombe walked along the dark road between the cottage and Ratcliff Highway at a rapid pace. He soon reached the flaring lights of the sailors’ quarter, through which he made his way as fast as he could to a respectable and comfortable little tavern near the Tower, much frequented by officers of the merchant service.

  He had promised to meet an old shipmate at this house, and was very glad of an excuse for spending his evening away from home.

  In the little parlour he found the friend he expected to see, and the two sailors took their glasses of grog together in a very friendly manner, and then parted, the captain’s friend going away first, as he had a long distance to walk, in order to reach his suburban home.

  The captain was sitting by the fire meditating, and sipping his last glass of grog, when the door was opened, and some one came into the room.

  Joseph Duncombe looked up with a start as the new-comer entered, and, to his intense astonishment, recognized George Jernam.

  “Jernam!” he cried; “you in London? Well, this is the greatest surprise of all.”

  “Indeed, Captain Duncombe,” answered the other, coolly; “the ‘Albatross’ only entered the port of London this afternoon. This is the first place I have come to, and of all men on earth I least expected to meet you here.”

  “And from your tone, youngster, it seems as if the surprise were by no means a pleasant one,” cried Joseph Duncombe. “May I ask how Rosamond Duncombe’s husband comes to address his wife’s father in the tone you have just used to me?”

  “You are Rosamond’s father,” answered George; “that is sufficient reason that Valentine Jernam’s brother should keep aloof from you.”

  “The man’s mad,” muttered Captain Duncombe; “undoubtedly mad.”

  “No,” answered George Jernam, “I am not mad — I am only too acutely conscious of the misery of my position. I love your daughter, Joseph Duncombe; love her as fondly and truly as ever a man loved the wife of his choice. And yet here am I skulking in London, alone and miserable, at the hour when I should be hurrying back to the home of my darling. Dear though she is to me — truly as I love her — I dare not go back to her; for between her and me there rises the phantom of my murdered brother Valentine!”

  “What on earth has my daughter Rosamond to do with the wretched fate of your brother?” asked the captain.

  “In her own person, nothing; but it is her misfortune to be allied to one who was in league with the assassin, or assassins, of my unhappy brother.”

  “What, in heaven’s name, do you mean?” asked the bewildered captain of the “Vixen.”

  “Do not press me for my meaning, Captain Duncombe,” answered George, in a repellant tone; “you are my father-in-law. The knowledge which accident revealed to me of one dark secret in your life of seeming honesty came too late to prevent that tie between us. When the fatal truth revealed itself to me I was already your daughter’s husband. That secures my silence. Do not force yourself upon me. I shall do my duty to your daughter as if you and your crime had never been upon this earth. But you and I can never meet again except as foes. The remembrance of my brother Valentine is part and parcel of my life, and a wrong done to him is twice a wrong to myself.”

  The captain of the “Vixen” had arisen from his chair. He stood before his son-in-law, breathless, crimson with passion.

  “George Jernam,” he cried, “do you want me to knock you down? Egad, my fine gentleman, you may consider yourself lucky that I have not done it before this. What do you mean by all that balderdash you’ve been talking? What does it all mean, I say? Are you drunk, or mad, or both?”

  “Captain Duncombe,” said George, calmly, “do you really wish me to speak plainly?”

  “It will be very much the worse for you if you don’t,” retorted the infuriated captain.

  “First, then, let me tell you that before I left River View Cottage last July, your daughter pressed me to avail myself of the contents of your desk one day when I was in want of foreign letter-paper.”

  “Well, what then?”

  “Very much against my own inclination, I consented to open that desk with a key in Rosamond’s possession. I did not pry into the secrets of its contents; but before me, in the tray intended for pens, I saw an object which could not fail to attract my attention — which riveted my gaze as surely as if I had ‘lighted on a snake.”

  “What in the name of all that’s bewildering could that object have been?” cried the captain. “I don’t keep many curiosities in my writing-desk!”

  “I will show you what I found that day,” answered George. “The finding of it changed the whole current of my life, and sent me away from that once happy home a restless and miserable wanderer.”

  “The man’s mad,” muttered Captain Duncombe to himself; “he must be mad!”

  George Jernam took from his waistcoat pocket a tiny parcel, and unfolding the paper covering, revealed a gold coin — the bent Brazilian coin — which he placed in the captain’s hands.

  “Why! heaven have mercy on us!” cried Joseph Duncombe, “if that isn’t the ghost’s money!”

  There was astonishment plainly depicted on his countenance; but no look of guilt. George Jernam watched his face as he contemplated the token, and saw that it was not the face of a guilty man.

  “Oh, captain, captain!” he exclaimed, remorsefully, “if I have suspected you all this time for nothing?”

  “Suspected me of what?”

  “Of being concerned, more or less, in my brother’s murder. That piece of gold which you now hold in your hand was a farewell token, given by me to him; you may see my initials scratched upon it. I found it in your desk.”

  “And therefore suspected that I was the aider and abettor of thieves and murderers!” exclaimed the captain of the “Vixen.” “George Jernam, I am ashamed of you.”

  There was a depth of reproach in the words, common-place though they were.

  George Jernam covered his face with his hands, and sat with bent head before the man he had so cruelly wronged.

  “If I was a proud man,” said Joseph Duncombe, “I shouldn’t stoop to make any explanation to you. But as I am not a proud man, and as you are my daughter’s husband, I’ll tell you how that bit of gold came into my keeping; and when I’ve told you my story, I’ll bring witnesses to prove that it’s true. Yes, George, I’ll not ask you to believe my word; for how can you take the word of a man you have thought base enough to be the accomplice of a murderer? Oh, George, it was too cruel — too cruel!”

  There was a brief silence; and then Captain Duncombe told the story of the appearance of old Screwton’s ghost, and the coin found in the kitchen at River View Cottage after the departure of that apparition.

  “I’ve faced many a danger in my lifetime, George Jernam,” said Captain Duncombe; “and I don’t think there’s any man who ever walked the ship’s deck beside me that would call me coward; and yet I’ll confess to you I was frightened that night. Flesh and blood I’ll face anywhere and anyhow; I’ll stand up alone, and fight for my life, one against six — one against twenty, if needs be; but when it comes to a visit from the other world, Joseph Duncombe is done. He shuts up, sir, like an oyster.”

  “And do you really believe the man you saw that night was a visitant from the other world?”

 
“What else can I believe? I’d heard the description of old Screwton’s ghost, and what I saw answered to the description as close as could be.”

  “Visitors from the other world do not leave substantial evidences of their presence behind them,” answered George. “The man who dropped that gold coin was no ghost. We’ll see into this business, Captain Duncombe; we’ll fathom it, mysterious as it is. I expect Joyce Harker back from Ceylon in a month or so. He knows more of my brother’s fate than any man living, except those who were concerned in the doing of the deed. He’ll get to the bottom of this business, depend upon it, if any man can. And now, friend — father, can you find it in your heart to forgive me for the bitter wrong I have done you?”

  “Well, George,” answered Joseph Duncombe, gravely, “I’m not an unforgiving chap; but there are some things try the easiest of men rather hard, and this is one of them. However, for my little Rosy’s sake, and out of remembrance of the long night-watches you and I have kept together out upon the lonesome sea, I forgive you. There’s my hand and my heart with it.”

  George’s eyes were full of tears as he grasped his old captain’s strong hand.

  “God bless you,” he murmured; “and heaven be praised that I came into this room to-night! You don’t know the weight you’ve lifted off my heart; you don’t know what I’ve suffered.”

  “More fool you,” cried Joe Duncombe; “and now say no more. We’ll start for Devonshire together by the first coach that leaves London to-morrow morning.”

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  “TREASON HAS DONE HIS WORST.”

  Black Milsom, otherwise Mr. Maunders, kept a close watch on Raynham Castle, through the agency of his friend, James Harwood, whose visits he encouraged by the most liberal treatment, and for whom he was always ready to brew a steaming jorum of punch.

  Mr. Maunders showed a great deal of curiosity concerning the details of life within the castle, and was particularly fond of leading Harwood to talk about the excessive care taken of the baby-heiress, and the precautions observed by Lady Eversleigh’s orders. One day, when he had led the conversation in the accustomed direction, he said:

  “One would think they were afraid somebody would try to steal the child.”

  “So you would, Mr. Maunders. But you see every situation in life has its trials, and a child can’t be a great heiress for nothing. One day, when I was sitting in the rumble of the open carriage, I heard Captain Copplestone let drop in his conversation with Mrs. Morden as how the child has enemies — bitter enemies, he said, as might try to do her harm, if she wern’t looked after sharp.”

  “I’ve known you a good long time now, Mr. Harwood, and you’ve partaken of many a glass of rum-punch in my parlour,” said Black Milsom, otherwise Mr. Maunders, of the “Cat and Fiddle “; “and in all that time you’ve never once offered to introduce me to one of your fellow-servants, or asked me to take so much as a cup of tea in your servants’-hall.”

  “Begging your pardon, Mr. Maunders,” said the groom, in an insinuating tone; “as to askin’ a friend to take a cup of tea, or a little bit of supper, without leave from Mrs. Smithson, the housekeeper, is more than my place is worth.”

  “But you might get leave I should think, eh, James Harwood?” returned Milsom; “especially if your friend happened to be a respectable householder, and able to offer a comfortable glass to any of your fellow-servants.”

  “I’m sure if I had thought as you’d accept a invitation to the servants’-’all, I’d have asked leave before now,” replied James Harwood; “but I’m sure I thought as you wouldn’t demean yourself to take your glass of ale, or your cup of tea, any-wheres below the housekeeper’s room — and she’s a rare starched one is Mrs. Smithson.”

  “I’m not proud,” said Mr. Milsom. “I like a convivial evening, whether it’s in the housekeeper’s room or the servants’-hall.”

  “Then I’ll ask leave to-night,” answered James Harwood.

  He sent a little scrawl to Milsom next day, by the hands of a stable-boy, inviting that gentleman to a social rubber and a friendly supper in the servants’-hall that evening at seven o’clock.

  To spend a few hours inside Raynham Castle was the privilege which Black Milsom most desired, and a triumphant grin broke out upon his face, as he deciphered James Harwood’s clumsy scrawl.

  “How easy it’s done,” he muttered to himself; “how easy it’s done, if a man has only the patience to wait.”

  The servants’-hall was a pleasant place to live in, but if Mrs. Smithson, the housekeeper, was liberal in her ideas she was also strict, and on some points especially severe; and the chief of these was the precision with which she required the doors of the castle to be locked for the night at half-past ten o’clock.

  On more than one occasion, lately, Mrs. Smithson had a suspicion that there was one offender against this rule. The offender in question was Matthew Brook, the head-coachman, a jovial, burly Briton, with convivial habits and a taste for politics, who preferred enjoying his pipe and glass and political discussion in the parlour of the “Hen and Chickens” public-house to spending his evenings in the servants’-hall at Raynham Castle.

  He was rarely home before ten; sometimes not until half-past ten; and one never-to-be-forgotten night, Mrs. Smithson had heard him, with her own ears, enter the doors of the castle at the unholy hour of twenty minutes to eleven!

  There was one appalling fact of which Mrs. Smithson was entirely ignorant. And that was the fact that Matthew Brook had entered the castle by a little half-glass door on several occasions, half an hour or more after the great oaken door leading into the servants’-hall had been bolted and barred with all due solemnity before the approving eyes of the housekeeper herself.

  The little door in question opened into a small ground-floor bed-room, in which one of the footmen slept; and nothing was more easy than for this man to shelter the nightly misdoings of his fellow-servant by letting him slip quietly through his bedroom, unknown to any member of the household.

  James Harwood, the groom was a confirmed gossip; and, of course, he had not failed to inform his friend, Mr. Maunders, otherwise Black Milsom, of Matthew Brook’s little delinquencies. Mr. Maunders listened to the account with interest, as he did to everything relating to affairs in the household of which Harwood was a member.

  It was some little time after this conversation that Mr. Milsom was invited to sup at the castle.

  Several friendly rubbers were played by Mrs. Trimmer, the cook; Matthew Brook, the coachman; James Harwood, and Thomas Milsom, known to the company as Mr. Maunders. Honest Matthew and he were partners; and it was to be observed, by any one who had taken the trouble to watch the party, that Milsom paid more attention to his partner than to his cards, whereby he lost the opportunity of distinguishing himself as a good whist-player.

  The whist-party broke up while the cloth was being laid on a large table for supper, and the men adjourned to the noble old stone quadrangle, on which the servant’s-hall abutted. James Harwood, Brook, Milsom, and two of the footmen strolled up and down, smoking under a cold starlit sky. The apartments occupied by the family were all on the garden front, and the smoking of tobacco in the quadrangle was not forbidden.

  Milsom, who had until this time devoted his attention exclusively to the coachman, now contrived to place himself next to James Harwood, as the party paced to and fro before the servants’ quarters.

  “Which is the little door Brook slips in at when he’s past his time?” he asked, carelessly, of Harwood, taking care, however, to drop his voice to a whisper.

  “We’re just coming to it,” answered the groom; “that little glass door on my right hand. Steph’s a good-natured fellow, and always leaves his door unfastened when old Mat is out late. The room he sleeps in was once a lobby, and opens into the passage; so it comes very convenient to Brook. Everybody likes old Mat Brook, you see; and there isn’t one amongst us would peach if he got into trouble.”

  “An
d a jolly old chap he is as ever lived,” answered Black Milsom, who seemed to have taken a wonderful fancy to the convivial coachman.

  “You come down to my place whenever you like, Mr. Brook,” he said, presently, putting his arm through that of the coachman, in a very friendly manner. “You shall be free and welcome to everything I’ve got in my house. And I know how to brew a decent jorum of punch when I give my mind to it, don’t I, Jim?”

  Mr. James Harwood protested that no one else could brew such punch as that concocted by the landlord of the “Cat and Fiddle.”

  The supper was a very cheery banquet; ponderous slices of underdone roast beef disappeared as if by magic, and the consumption of pickles, from a physiological or sanitary point of view, positively appalling. After the beef and pickles came a Titanic cheese and a small stack of celery; while the brown beer pitcher went so often to the barrel that it is a matter of wonder that it escaped unbroken.

  At a quarter past ten Mr. Maunders bade his new acquaintance good night; but before departing he begged, as a great favour, to be permitted one peep at the grand oak hall.

  “You shall see it,” cried good-natured Matthew Brook. “It’s a sight worth coming many a mile to see. Step this way.”

  He led the way along a dark passage to a door that opened into the great entrance-hall. It was indeed a noble chamber. Black Milsom stood for some moments contemplating it in silence, with a reverential stare.

  “And which may be the back staircase, leading to the little lady’s rooms?” he asked, presently.

  “That door opens on to the foot of it,” replied the coachman. “Captain Coppletone sleeps in the room you come to first, on the first floor; and the little missy’s rooms are inside his’n.”