Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  “Good afternoon, ma’am,” he said to the woman standing at the lodge-door. “Is your son at home?”

  “Yes, sir,” Margery Melwood answered, with a sigh. “Humphrey’s at home.”

  “Could I see him?”

  The woman hesitated a little.

  “Did you want to see him very particular, sir?” she asked.

  “Yes, I do want to see him particularly. He knows me; I’m an old friend of Lord Haughton’s.”

  “You couldn’t make it convenient to call to-morrow, or Monday, sir?”

  “No. I’m going up to town by the first train to-morrow morning.”

  The woman came to the gate, unlocked it, and admitted Herr von Volterchoker. The lodge was only divided from the mansion by a lawn and shrubbery. Beyond this lawn there rose a steep terraced slope from which the towers of the old house frowned on the wintry landscape.

  Lord Haughton’s mansion looked very black and gloomy now, for there were no lights in the mullioned windows, no sign of habitation upon this the principal side of the house.

  Herr von Volterchoker followed Margery Melwood into the lodge. The fire burned cheerily in the comfortable little chamber, a green log of resinous wood hissed and sputtered and flamed upon the top of the coals, like some clamorous young pretender who creates a flare and blaze, but gives no honest warmth. There was a tray, and some teacups and saucers set out upon the round table; there were gaudy-coloured pictures on the walls, and a pert little Dutch clock in a corner, ticking loud enough for the noblest eight-day that ever Transatlantic poet heard upon the stairs of quaint, Puritan farmhouse. There was every sign of comfort in the simple rustic chamber.

  Herr von Volterchoker’s quick eye took notice of all this, and then turned to Humphrey Melwood, who was sitting by the fire, with his elbow resting upon the little tea-table, his legs stretched out upon the hearth, his chin drooping on his breast, and his eyes fixed in a vacant stare.

  At the first glance, the intruder saw that the young man had been drinking. His face was wan and haggard, his rumpled hair was tossed in a mass upon his forehead, his dress was loose and disorderly.

  At the second glance, Herr von Volterchoker saw, hanging loosely round Humphrey Melwood’s neck, that very scarf which the gamekeeper had bought a year before of the widow-woman at Avondale.

  Yes, there were the gaudy colours, the colours that matched those scraps of worsted that had been found clenched by the stiffened fingers of the dead woman’s hand.

  Herr von Volterchoker put his hand almost involuntarily on the waistcoat-pocket in which he carried the envelope containing the shreds of coloured worsted.

  “I think I’ve got you pretty tight, Mr. Humphrey Melwood,” he thought; “but it isn’t you I want, it’s your master. It’ll be rather a sell for me if the murdered woman turns out to be some simple-hearted beauty that you wanted to get rid of. But I don’t think there’s much chance of that. There was a look in that drowned woman’s face that I’ve seen in Gervoise Palgrave’s son. And then, again, the woman flew out at my lord, and caught hold of his bridle as he rode through Avondale. Why should she do that unless — unless she was his wife — his miserable, abandoned wife? I don’t forget what he said on the day when I tattooed the child’s arm: ‘ There is a person who will try to get this boy into her power,’ said Mr. Jarvis, alias Gervoise Palgrave. Who should that person be except the mother of the boy?”

  These thoughts travelled through the clown’s mind swift as lightning. He only stood for a minute or so looking round the flrelit room, and yet he thought all this, and saw that Humphrey Melwood wore a velveteen coat, and remembered how Bill, the ostler from the King’s Head, had said that the man who fetched the woman away from the stable wore such a coat.

  “Good evening, Mr. Melwood,” he said; “I suppose you’ve forgotten me.”

  “I have, indeed,” the young man answered, in a thick voice; “wh-where ‘v I see y’ — b’fore?”

  “On the night after the steeplechase at Avondale — the night when Gervoise Palgrave’s son was stolen.”

  Humphrey Melwood started up and struck his hand upon the table.

  “Hold y’r tongue!” he said. “Master Gervoise don’t care about people knowing he ever had a son — he don’t care about folks talking of his first marriage.”

  It seemed as if the very mention of his foster-brother’s name had sobered the young man. The stupid, vacant look of his eyes gave place to a sudden brightness; a dark crimson colour dyed his olive skin. He was used to drinking, and the fames of the liquor he had taken speedily dispersed as his intellect was aroused from its dull torpor.

  “Mother,” he said, “if this gentleman wants to talk to me about private business, you’d better go up-stairs.”

  “But you won’t drink any more, Humphrey,” urged Margery Melwood, in a pleading tone, glancing anxiously at a half-empty brandy-bottle on the mantelpiece as she spoke.

  “No, I sha’n’t drink any more,” the young man answered moodily; “I don’t see that there’s much good in drink. It doesn’t stop a man from thinking, or save him from horrid dreams when he goes to sleep.”

  Margery Melwood sighed as she looked at her son, and then went slowly up a little staircase leading out of the room, and closed by a door that was like the door of a cupboard.

  Humphrey turned his chair with an impatient gesture — the action of a man whose mind was so disturbed as to create a vague sense of bodily discomfort — and faced the fire. The yellow flare of the resinous pine-wood shone full upon his haggard cheeks, his black gipsy eyes, sombre-looking and bloodshot to-night.

  “Well,” he said abruptly; “what is it you want with me, Mr. — I’m blest if I remember your name!”

  “My name is Vokes — William Yokes.”

  “Well, Mr. Vokes — Mr. William Yokes — what has brought you to Palgrave Chase?”

  “A very important business, and a very strange business, Mr. Melwood,” answered the clown, dropping his voice almost to a whisper. “ I only reached Pendon in time to be a witness of Lord Haughton’s second marriage. I want to know how his first wife came by her death.”

  The tawny hue of the gamekeeper’s face changed to a dark livid pallor.

  “What’s Lord Haughton’s first wife to you that you should bother your head about her?” he asked in a defiant tone.

  The clown was silent for a few moments, reflecting on this question. Humphrey took the brandy-bottle from the mantelpiece, poured some of the spirit into one of the tea-cups at his elbow, and drained the cup as carelessly as if its contents had been water.

  “O ho, Mr. Humphrey Melwood,” thought the clown, “if that’s a specimen of your habits, you’re rather a dangerous friend and ally for the Earl of Haughton.”

  “What was the woman to you that you should trouble your head about her?” repeated Humphrey.

  “I’ll tell you,” the clown answered gravely; “Lord Haughton’s wife was my niece.”

  “Your niece!”

  “Yes, my own flesh and blood; do you understand? I’m an old man, and I’ve knocked about the world a good deal; but my feelings mayn’t be quite dead for all that. The wife of Gervoise Palgrave was my niece, and I want to know how she met with her death. She was seen at Avondale on the afternoon of the day before yesterday. She was seen alive on that day; and she was seen to speak to Lord Haughton as he rode through the town with Miss Hurst. Between ten and eleven o’clock that night she was seen to leave the stables of the King’s Head with a man; a broad-shouldered, stalwart fellow, in a velveteen coat; and the next time she was seen she was carried dead through Pendon churchyard. I want to know what happened in the interim.”

  Humphrey Melwood wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the cuff of his coat.

  “What should I know about her?” he muttered; “why do you ask me about her?”

  “My dear fellow,” the clown answered, with an entire change of manner, “I only want information, but I must get it how and where I can. Y
ou are a friend of Lord Haughton’s. I expected that you’d know all the particulars of his wife’s death. It was odd, wasn’t it, that she should be drowned upon the eve of the earl’s second marriage? It was still more strange that I should happen to be at Pendon on the day of the inquest at the Rose and Crown, and should see the poor dead creature, and recognise her as my niece, whom I hadn’t seen for many a year, for I’ve been a wanderer upon the face of the earth, and parted from all my kith and kin. Well, well, it’s a strange world, a very strange world. You can’t give me any information about that poor creature’s death?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever see her?”

  “Never,” answered the young man, after a brief pause.

  “Ah, well, it’s an unlucky business altogether. I suppose Miss Hurst, the present Countess of Haughton, has been told nothing about this first wife of Gervoise Palgrave?”

  “I don’t know,” Humphrey Melwood answered sullenly. “If you want to know the Earl of Haughton’s business, you’d better go and question him.”

  “But, my dear fellow, be reasonable,” exclaimed the clown. “Lord Haughton has started for the Continent, with his lovely young bride. You don’t want me to follow him, and spoil all the pleasure of the honeymoon by asking him awkward questions about his first wife?”

  “God forbid!” muttered Humphrey with a groan.

  “Very well, then, I must ask questions of you; and if I were you, I’d answer ’em civilly. You’ll find it wise to do so. However, I’ll wish you good-night now, and look in again another time. You don’t seem in the humour for a pleasant chat. I’ll leave you to the young man’s best companion — the brandy-bottle — and your own thoughts. Ta-ta!”

  Herr von Volterchoker waved his hand gracefully, opened the door, and went out. It was quite dark now, and the ground was white with snow, against which the yews and cypress looked blacker than ever.

  The interior of the lodge was lighted by the red glow of the fire. Herr von Volterchoker paused for a few moments upon a narrow slip of grass that bordered the broad gravelled carriage road, and looked in at the latticed window, whence he beheld a strange piece of dumb-show in the firelit chamber.

  Humphrey Melwood suddenly sprang up from his moody attitude by the fire, knocking over his chair as he rose, snatched a gun from its place above the little chimneypiece, cocked it, and rushed towards the door of the lodge.

  But within a few paces of the door he stopped as suddenly as he had risen from his chair. He let the stock of the gun fall slowly to the ground, passed his hand across his forehead with a convulsive shudder, like a man who awakes from some hideous dream. Then he went back to the chimneypiece, replaced the gun, and sat down once more before the fire, with his feet on the fender, his elbows on his knees, and his face hidden in his hands.

  Herr von Volterchoker watched him for a minute or so as he sat in this attitude before the fire, and then turned away with a contemptuous shrug.

  “It’s no great credit to any fellow to reckon you up,” he muttered to himself. “My game here lies straight before me, as smooth as a turnpike-road. I must work the master through the man. You’re in luck’s way, Mr. Yokes. That unde dodge was rather a good one, I flatter myself.”

  CHAPTER XVII. HUNTING UP THE PAST.

  HERR VON VOLTEROHOKER left Pendon the day after his interview with Humphrey Melwood; but before departing he informed the landlord of the Rose and Crown that he should soon be again a guest at that cosy little hostelry. Arrived in the great City, he took a cab at the railway-station, and ordered the man to drive to one of the dingiest localities in Lambeth. The cabman drove across Westminster-bridge, and turned aside under a railway-arch in the Westminster-road. The clown stopped the cab, and got out under the archway. He paid and dismissed the driver, and then walked away at a pretty brisk rate. He turned a corner presently, and penetrated into a narrow little street, dingier and dirtier even than the one he had left.

  There were some children playing in a group upon the door-step, before a miserable little chandler’s shop, in which the atmosphere was made horrible by the odour of red herrings, strong yellow soap, cheese, and tobacco. Herr von Volterchoker thrust the juvenile population right and left of him as ruthlessly as if they had been a litter of youthful pigs, and strode into the shop. He took no notice of the proprietress of the establishment, nor of the slip-shod matrons and old-faced children crowding about the counter, but pushed his way through a narrow pass between a pile of firewood and a treacle-tub, and opened a little door.

  Beyond this door there was a square yard of passage, and a staircase so narrow that the two walls were black and greasy with the friction of people’s shoulders; so close and low, that the unaccustomed visitant suffered temporary asphyxia, and was powerless to draw breath until he reached a better atmosphere.

  The better atmosphere was only good by comparison; for the room which Herr von Volterchoker entered was dark with a brown fog which crept in from out of doors, and misty with the steam of a washing-tub on a bench near the window. A couple of coloured shirts dangled, dripping wet, from a frayed rope that was hung across the room. They looked something like military trophies hanging from the roof of a chapel, and were quite as ragged. A woman was standing before the wash-tub, with her bare arms plunged in the dirty soapsuds. A boy was standing near the dingy fireplace; not standing in the normal position of humanity, but supporting himself upon the palms of his poor little hands, and with his feet in the air. The woman looked round, and the boy turned a somersault, and dropped into his natural position dextrously enough, as Herr von Volterchoker’s creaking footstep sounded upon the carpetless floor.

  The woman was a careworn, slovenly matron, of about forty. The boy was pale and thin; but he was very pretty, and had something of the haughty face of his father, Gervoise Palgrave, Earl of Haughton. He ran forward eagerly to meet the clown.

  “We thought you were never coming back again, uncle,” he said. “O, do tell me about papa!”

  “What should I tell you about him,” the clown answered sulkily enough, “except what I told you before? He’s gone to America, and he’ll never come back till he’s made a large fortune; and that won’t be for a long time — not till you’re a man; so what you’ve got to do is to be a very good boy, and to obey your uncle.”

  The boy looked wistfully at the clown’s face.

  “I don’t think you are my uncle,” he said; “papa never said you were.”

  “Your papa was a little too high in his notions,” Herr von Volterchoker answered curtely, “and he looked down upon his poor relations. However, let bygones be bygones; I’m willing to forget and forgive. Are you happy with Mrs. Beppo, Master Georgey?”

  “Happy!” repeated the boy; “no, I’ve never been happy since papa went away. I can’t be happy without him; I loved him so — I loved him so dearly; and it was unkind of him to send me away that night — that cruel night, when you tied a handkerchief over my mouth, and sent me away with Beppo and the monkey.”

  “Stash that!” cried Herr von Volterchoker fiercely. “Did anybody ever hear such a young varmint to talk! Now, you look here, Georgey,” added the clown, seating himself upon the only available chair, and taking the boy between his knees, “whatever was done that night was done for your good, and whatever has been done all along has been done for your good; and if your friends didn’t love you, they wouldn’t have done it. So cheer up, my little lad, and be a good boy, and mind what your affectionate uncle says to you. Things have taken a turn with me; and instead of leaving you here with Beppo, to learn posturing and go out by and by with the organ and the monkey, I’ve half a mind to send you to a nice comfortable boarding-school — twenty pounds a-year, everything found, and no holidays. How would you like that, Master Georgey?”

  The boy hesitated, and looked at the woman bending over the washtub.

  “Mrs. Beppo has been very good to me,” he said gently. The woman turned round and smiled at the boy.

  “Shur
e, now, I’ve done my best, Jargy darlint,” she cried; “but it’s little enough the best is in a place where praytees is fourteenpence a stone. But I never did see a more contented little craytur. Shure, I often thinks it’s a fairy changeling he is, and not a boy at all at all.”

  Herr yon Volterchoker looked rather contemptuously at the enthusiastic Irishwoman.

  “Stick to your washing,” he said; “I want to talk to the little one.”

  “Well, thin, if the luck’s changed wid yer honour, ye’ll maybe give us a trifle to drink yer health wid,” said the Irishwoman in a very insinuating tone.

  Herr von Volterchoker took a sovereign from his pocket, and flung it on the little table.

  “I suppose that’ll satisfy you, Biddy,” he said.

  “Hooroo!” cried the woman; “sure yer honour’s a prince this mornin’. I haven’t seen the loikes of that since I forgot meself and me familee so much as to marry a low-lived organ-grindher — not but what Beppo’s better than some, and it isn’t complainin’ I am. But you’re not goin’ to take the child away, are ye now, asthore? The bit o’ money you pay us comes uncommon handy; and sure the craytur’s such a blessed little darlint, that the heart that didn’t take to um would be hardher than stone.”

  “Hold your tongue, Biddy,” exclaimed the clown impatiently; “I’m not going to take the boy away just yet, but I’m going to take him for a walk this afternoon. — Will you go, Georgey?”