by Ellen Wood
“And you amidst the rest, I suppose,” remarked Mrs. Grey. Frederick laughed. “Carlton was as white as a sheet, and kept looking round as if he feared some interruption. Bad men are always cowards. By the way, Lady Jane has come back to the house on the Rise.”
“My boy, do you know I think you are too bitter against Mr. Carlton. It was certainly not a right thing to run away with a young lady, but that is not our affair; and it is very wrong to incite people against your papa — if he does do it; but, with all that, you are scarcely justified in calling him a bad man.”
“Ah, but that’s not all,” said Frederick. “Mother, I hate Mr. Carlton! As to being bitter against him, I only wish I could be bitter; bitter to some purpose.”
“Frederick!”
The boy half sank upon his knees bringing his face on a level with Mrs. Grey’s, and lowered his voice to a whisper.
“I believe it was Mr. Carlton who put the prussic acid into the draught.”
Mrs. Grey, startled to tremor, almost to anger, frightened at the temerity of Frederick, could only stare at him.
“Look here,” he continued, in some excitement. “The draught went out of our house right, I know, and the boy delivered it as it was sent. Why then did Mr. Carlton take it when it arrived, and exclaim that it smelt of prussic acid? It could not have smelt of prussic acid then; or, if it did, some magic had been at work.”
Mrs. Grey knew how fond her son was of fancies, but she had never seen him so terribly earnest as this. She put up her hand to arrest his words.
“It is of no use, mother; I must speak. This suspicion of Mr. Carlton fell upon me that night. When we heard of the death, I and Uncle John went down to Palace Street. Carlton was in the room, and he began talking of what had taken place, and of his own share in the previous events of the evening: how he had smelt the draught on its being brought in, and his coming off to ask Mr. Stephen Grey whether it was all right, and then going home and making up a draught on his own account and not getting back with it in time. He told all this readily and glibly, and Uncle John and Mr. Lycett took it in for gospel; but I did not. A feeling suddenly came over me that he was acting a part. He was too frank, too voluble; it was exactly as though he were rehearsing a tale learnt by heart; and I declare that a conviction flashed into my mind that it was he who had done it all.”
“You frighten me to faintness,” gasped Mrs. Grey. “Have you reflected on what might be the awful consequences to Mr. Carlton were such an accusation to get abroad?”
“I am not going to speak of it abroad; but, mother, I must tell you: it has been burning my heart away since that night. I dare not breathe it to papa or to Uncle John: they would call it one of my fancies, and say I was only fit for Bedlam. But you know how often you have been surprised at the quickness with which I read people and their motives, and you have called it a gift from God. That Carlton was acting a part that night, I am certain; there was truth neither in his eye nor on his lip. He saw that I doubted him, too, and wanted to get me from the chamber. Well, that was the first phase in my suspicion; and the next was his manner at the inquest. The same glib, ready tale was on his tongue; he seemed to have the whole story at his fingers’ ends. The coroner complimented him on the straightforward way in which he gave his evidence; but I know that I read LIE in it from beginning to end.”
“Answer me a question, Frederick. What has so prejudiced you against Mr. Carlton?”
“I was not previously prejudiced against him. I declare to you, mamma, that when I entered the room where the poor lady lay dead, I had not, and never had had, any prejudice against Mr. Carlton. I had felt rather glad that he set up in the place, because papa and Uncle John and Whittaker were so worried with the extent of the practice. It was when he spoke of the draught that an inward conviction stole over me that he was speaking falsely, deceitfully, and that he knew more about it than he cared to say.”
“I should call it an inward fiddlestick, were the subject less awfully serious,” reproved Mrs. Grey. “It would be better for you to bring reason and common sense to bear upon this, Frederick, than an inward conviction’ vague and visionary. Was this young lady not a stranger to Mr. Carlton?”
“I expect she was. To him as well as to us.”
“Very well. What motive, then, could Mr. Carlton have had to harm her? The very worst man permitted to live on earth would not poison a fellow-creature, and a stranger, for the sake of pastime; and Mr. Carlton is an educated man, a man of a certain refinement; and, so far as I have seen — for I met him two or three times before I left home — he is pleasant and agreeable. Assuming, for the moment’s argument, that your views were correct, what motive could have actuated Mr. Carlton?”
Frederick Grey leaned his head on his hand. The question was a poser; in fact, it was the precise point that had puzzled him throughout. Judith Ford, the widow Gould, Mr. Stephen himself, had all testified that the lady had come to South Wennock a stranger to Mr. Carlton as to the Greys.
“I don’t deny that that’s a point difficult to get over, or that the case is completely shrouded in mystery,” he confessed at length. “It puzzles me so that sometimes I can’t sleep, and I get thinking that I must be wronging Carlton. I ask myself what he meant to gain by it. Nothing, that I can see. Of course he now keeps up the prejudice against papa to get his patients; but he could not have entered upon it from that motive—”
“For shame, Frederick!”
“Dear mamma, I am sorry you are so vexed, and I wish I had not mentioned it at all. I tell you I have lain awake night after night, thinking it over in all its aspects, and I see that any probable increase of practice could not have been his motive, for the draught might have been made up by me or by Mr. Whittaker, for all Mr. Carlton knew; and in that case the odium could not have fallen upon papa. I see that you are angry with me, and I only wish I could dismiss this suspicion of Carlton from my mind. There is one loophole for him; that the man he saw concealed on the stairs may have been the villain, after all.”
“What man? What stairs?” exclaimed Mrs. Grey in astonishment.
“As Mr. Carlton was leaving the sick lady’s room that same night, he saw — Hush! Here’s papa!” cried the boy, breaking off abruptly. “Don’t breathe a word of what I have been saying, there’s a dear mother.”
Mr. Stephen Grey came in, a gloomy cloud on his usually cheerful face. He threw himself into an arm-chair opposite his wife’s sofa, his mood one of great weariness.
“Are you tired, Stephen?” she asked.
“Tired to death,” he answered; “tired of it all. We shall have to make a move.”
“A move!” she repeated, while Frederick turned from the window, where he was now standing, and looked at his father.
“We must remove from this place, Mary, to one where the gossip of Stephen Grey having supplied poison in mistake for good medicine will not have penetrated. It grows worse every day, and John’s temper is tried. No wonder: he is worked like a horse. Just now he came in, jaded and tired, and found three messengers waiting to see him, ready to squabble among themselves who should get him first. ‘I am really unable to go,’ he said. ‘I have been with a patient for the last seven hours, and am good for nothing. Mr. Stephen will attend.’ No, there was not one would have Mr. Stephen: their orders were, Mr. Grey or nobody. John has gone, unfit as he is to do so: but this sort of thing cannot last.”
“Of course it cannot,” said Mrs. Stephen Grey. “How extraordinary it is! Why should people be so prejudiced in the face of evident facts?”
“I had a talk with John yesterday, and broached to him what has been in my own mind for weeks. He and I must part. John must take a partner who will be more palatable to South Wennock than I now am, and I must try my fortune elsewhere. If I am to be ruined, it is no use dragging John down with me: and, were I to remain with him, I believe the whole practice would be taken from us.”
Mrs. Grey’s heart sank within her. Can any one wonder? — hearing that her home of ye
ars must be broken up. “Where could we go to?” she cried in agitation.
“I don’t know. Perhaps London would be best. There, a person does not know his next-door neighbour, and no one will know me as the unfortunate practitioner from South Wennock.”
“It is a great misfortune to have fallen upon us!” she murmured.
‘“It is unmerited,” returned Stephen Grey; “that’s my great consolation. God knows how innocent I was in that unhappy business, and I trust He will help me to earn a living elsewhere. It’s possible that it may turn out for the best in the end.”
“What man was it that Mr. Carlton saw on the stairs that night?” inquired Mrs. Grey, after a pause, her thoughts reverting, in spite of herself, from their own troubles. And Frederick, as he heard the question, glanced uneasily at his mother, lest she should be about to betray his confidence.
“No one can tell. And Carlton fancied afterwards that he might have been mistaken — that the moonlight deceived him. But there’s not the least doubt that some one was there, concealing himself, and I and John have privately urged it upon the police never to cease their search for him. That man was the culprit.”
“You think so?” cried Mrs. Stephen, after a pause.
“I feel sure of it. No reasonable being can entertain a doubt of it. But for this mistaken idea that people have picked up — that the mistake was mine in mixing the sleeping draught — there would not be two opinions upon it in the town. The only point I cannot understand, is — Carlton’s having smelt the poison in the draught when it was delivered; but I can only come to the conclusion that Carlton was mistaken, unaccountable as it seems for him to have fancied a smell where no smell was.”
“How full of mystery it all sounds!”
“The affair is a mystery altogether; it’s nothing but mystery from beginning to end. Of course the conclusion drawn is — and the coroner was the first to draw it — that that man was the ill-fated young lady’s husband, stolen into the house for the purpose of deliberately destroying her. If so, we may rest satisfied that it will be cleared up sometime, for murder is safe to come out, sooner or later.”
As Stephen Grey concluded the last words he quitted the room. Mrs. Grey rose and approached her son.
“My dear, you hear what your papa says. How is it possible that you can suffer your suspicions to stray to any other than that man upon the stairs?”
The boy turned, and wound his mother’s arm about him as he answered, his frank, earnest eyes lifted trustingly to hers.
“I am just puzzled to death over it, mother mine. I don’t feel a doubt but that some wicked fellow was there; I can’t doubt it; and of course he was not there for any good. Still, I cannot get over that impression of falseness made upon me by Mr. Carlton. There is such a thing as bribery, you know.”
“Bribery!” repeated Mrs. Grey, not following his drift.
“If Carlton did not commit the evil himself, he may be keeping the counsel of the man who did. Mother dear, don’t take your arm from me in anger. I can’t drive the feeling away from me. Mr. Carlton may not have been the actual culprit; but, that he knows more of the matter than he suffers to appear, I am as certain of as that I am living.”
And Mrs. Stephen Grey shivered within her as she listened to the words, terrified for the consequences should they be overheard.
“Frederick, this is nothing but one of your crotchets. Be still; be still!”
CHAPTER XXXV.
AN UNLUCKY ENCOUNTER.
RECLINING languidly in an easy-chair one bright afternoon, was Lady Jane Chesney. The reaction of the passionate excitement, arising from the blow dealt out to her so suddenly, had set in, and she felt utterly weary both in mind and body. Some little bustle and talking was heard outside, as if a visitor had entered, and then the room door opened. There stood Laura Carlton.
“Well, Jane! I suppose I may venture to come in?”
She spoke in a half laughing, half deprecating tone, and looked out daringly at Jane from her dazzling beauty. A soft damask glowed in her cheek, a brilliant light in her eye. She wore a rich silk dress with brocaded flounces, and a white lace bonnet all gossamer and prettiness. Jane retained her hand as she gazed at her.
“You are happy, Laura?”
“Oh, so happy!” was the answer. “But I want to be reconciled to you all. Papa is dreadfully obstinate when he is crossed, I know that; but he need not hold out so long. And you, Jane, to have been here going on for a fortnight, and not to have taken any notice of me!”
“I have been ill,” said Jane.
“Oh, I dare say! I suppose the fact is, papa forbade you to call at my house, or to receive me here.”
“No, he did not. But let us come to a thorough understanding at once, Laura, as you are here; it may spare trouble to both of us; perhaps some heart-burning. I must decline, myself, to visit at your house. I will receive you here with pleasure, and be happy to see you whenever you like to come; but I cannot receive Mr. Carlton.”
“Why will you not visit at my house?”
“Because it is Mr. Carlton’s. I would prefer not to meet him — anywhere.”
Laura’s resentment bubbled up. “Is your prejudice against Mr. Carlton to last for ever?”
“I cannot say. I confess that it is strong against him at present. I never liked him, Laura; and his underhand conduct with regard to you has not tended to lessen that dislike. I cannot extend my hand in greeting to Mr. Carlton. It is altogether better that we should not meet. Like him, I never can.”
“And never will, so long as you persist in shutting yourself out from all intercourse with him,” retorted Laura. “What! would it hurt you, Jane, to meet my husband?”
“We will drop the subject,” said Jane. “To pursue it would produce no good result. When I tell you that my own feelings (call them prejudices if you will) forbid me to see Mr. Carlton, I tell you truth. And some deference is due to the feelings of my father. I will not reproach you, Laura, for the step you took: the time has gone by for that; but you must not ask me to countenance Mr. Carlton.”
“You speak of deference to papa’s feelings, Jane! I don’t think he showed much to yours. What a simpleton he has made of himself!”
Jane Chesney’s face burnt with a sudden glow, and her drooping eyelids were not raised. The old spirit, always ready to uphold her father, whether he was right or whether he was wrong, had gone out of her crushed heart for ever.
“What sort of a woman is she?” resumed Laura.
“Oh, Laura, what matters it?” Jane answered in a tone that betrayed how full of pain was the subject. “He has married her, and that is enough. I cannot talk of it?”
“Why did you not bring away Lucy?”
“I was not permitted to bring her.” —
“And do you mean to say that you shall live here, all by yourself?”
“With whom have I to live? I may as well occupy this house as any other. My income will afford nothing better. That I do not repine at; it is enough for me; and to be able to live at peace in it is a great improvement upon the embarrassment we used to undergo in the days gone by.”
“But it is so lonely an existence for you! It seems like isolation.”
Jane was silent. The sense of her lonely lot was all too present with her as her sister spoke: but she knew that she must bear it.
“How much are you to be allowed, Jane.”
“Five hundred a year.”
‘Five hundred a year for the Lady Jane Chesney!” returned Laura, with flashing eyes. “It is not half enough, Jane.”
“It is enough for comfort. And grandeur I have done with. May I express a hope, Laura, that you find your income equal to your expectations,” she added in a spirit of kindness.
Laura’s colour deepened. Laura was learning to estimate herself by her new standard, as the Earl of Oakburn’s daughter; she was longing for the display and luxury that rank generally gives. But Mr. Carlton’s father had not come forward with assistance; and they had
to content themselves with what Mr. Carlton made by his profession. He had been compelled to tell his wife she must practise economy; and every hour of the day Laura caught herself wishing for a thousand and one articles that only wealth can purchase. Her vanity had certainly not lessened with her accession to a title.
“I think it shameful of papa not to allow me an income, now that he enjoys the Chesney estates, or else present my husband with a sufficient sum of money,” exclaimed Laura in resentful tones. “Mr. Carlton, I am sure, feels his injustice, though he does not speak of it.”
“Injustice!” interrupted Jane with marked emphasis.
“Yes, it is unjust; shamefully unjust. What was my offence? — that I chose the husband he would have denied me. And now look at what he has done? — married a woman obnoxious to us all. If it was derogatory in Miss Laura Chesney to choose a surgeon when she had not a cross or a coin to bless herself with, I wonder what it is for the Earl of Oakburn to lower himself to his daughter’s governess?”
Jane made no reply. There was some logic in Laura’s reasoning; although she appeared to ignore the fact that she owed obedience to her father, and had forfeited it.
“You were devoted to him, Jane, and how has he repaid you? Just done that which has driven you from home. He has driven you away with as little compunction, I dare say, as he would drive away a dog. — Jane, be quiet; I will say what I have to say. He has his new lady, and much value you and I are to him henceforth!”
“You are wrong, Laura,” Jane answered with emotion. “I came away of my own free will when he would have kept me. He — but I — I — cannot bear to speak of it. I do not defend his marriage; but he is not the first man who has been led away by a designing woman.”
“He is a hard man,” persisted Laura, working herself into a state of agitation; “he is heartless as the grave. Why else has he not forgiven Clarice?”
“Clarice! He has forgiven her.”