Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  “My dears, he is dead! But I have sent for a doctor. I have done all I could.”

  “When did he — when did they bring him home?” asked Sophy.

  “Perhaps ten minutes ago. Before you rang for Parker.”

  “How did he die? Where did they find him? He looked so well. He always seemed so strong. Oh! are you sure he is dead?”

  She went towards the door. Nurse laid her hand on her arm.

  “Miss Sophy, I have not told you all. Can you bear to hear it? Remember, master is in the next room, and he knows nothing yet. Come, you must help me to tell him. Now, be quiet, dear! It was no common death he died!” She looked in her face as if trying to convey her meaning by her eyes.

  Sophy’s lips moved, but nurse could hear no sound.

  “He has been shot as he was coming home along Turner Street, to-night.”

  Sophy went on with the motion of her lips, twitching them almost convulsively.

  “My dear, you must rouse yourself, and remember your father and mother have yet to be told. Speak! Miss Sophy!”

  But she could not; her whole face worked involuntarily. The nurse left the room, and almost immediately brought back some sal-volatile and water. Sophy drank it eagerly, and gave one or two deep gasps. Then she spoke in a calm, unnatural voice.

  “What do you want me to do, nurse? Go to Helen and poor Amy. See, they want help.”

  “Poor creatures! we must let them alone for a bit. You must go to master; that’s what I want you to do, Miss Sophy. You must break it to him, poor old gentleman! Come, he’s asleep in the dining-room, and the men are waiting to speak to him.”

  Sophy went mechanically to the dining-room door.

  “Oh! I cannot go in. I cannot tell him. What must I say?”

  “I’ll come with you, Miss Sophy. Break it to him by degrees.”

  “I can’t, nurse. My head throbs so, I shall be sure to say the wrong thing.”

  However, she opened the door. There sat her father, the shaded light of the candle-lamp falling upon, and softening his marked features, while his snowy hair contrasted well with the deep crimson morocco of the chair. The newspaper he had been reading had dropped on the carpet by his side. He breathed regularly and deeply.

  At that instant the words of Mrs. Hemans’s song came full in Sophy’s mind —

  ”Ye know not what ye do,

  That call the slumberer back

  From the realms unseen by you,

  To life’s dim weary track.”

  But this life’s track would be to the bereaved father something more than dim and weary, hereafter.

  “Papa,” said she softly. He did not stir.

  “Papa!” she exclaimed, somewhat louder.

  He started up, half awake.

  “Tea is ready, is it?” and he yawned.

  “No! papa, but something very dreadful — very sad, has happened!”

  He was gaping so loud that he did not catch the words she uttered, and did not see the expression of her face.

  “Master Henry has not come back,” said nurse. Her voice, heard in unusual speech to him, arrested his attention, and rubbing his eyes, he looked at the servant.

  “Harry! oh, no! he had to attend a meeting of the masters about these cursed turn-outs. I don’t expect him yet. What are you looking at me so strangely for, Sophy?”

  “O papa, Harry is come back,” said she, bursting into tears.

  “What do you mean?” said he, startled into an impatient consciousness that something was wrong. “One of you says he is not come home, and the other says he is. Now, that’s nonsense! Tell me at once what’s the matter. Did he go on horseback to town? Is he thrown? Speak, child, can’t you?”

  “No! he’s not been thrown, papa,” said Sophy sadly.

  “But he’s badly hurt,” put in the nurse, desirous to be drawing his anxiety to a point.

  “Hurt? Where? How? Have you sent for a doctor?” said he, hastily rising, as if to leave the room.

  “Yes, papa, we’ve sent for a doctor — but I’m afraid — -I believe it’s of no use.”

  He looked at her for a moment, and in her face he read the truth.

  His son, his only son, was dead.

  He sank back in his chair, and hid his face in his hands, and bowed his head upon the table. The strong mahogany dining-table shook and rattled under his agony.

  Sophy went and put her arms round his bowed neck.

  “Go! you are not Harry,” said he; but the action roused him.

  “Where is he? where is the” — said he, with his strong face set into the lines of anguish, by two minutes of such intense woe.

  “In the servants’ hall,” said nurse. “Two policemen and another man brought him home. They would be glad to speak to you when you are able, sir.”

  “I am now able,” replied he. At first when he stood up he tottered. But steadying himself, he walked, as firmly as a soldier on drill, to the door. Then he turned back and poured out a glass of wine from the decanter which yet remained on the table. His eye caught the wine-glass which Harry had used but two or three hours before. He sighed a long quivering sigh, and then mastering himself again, he left the room.

  “You had better go back to your sisters, Miss Sophy,” said nurse.

  Miss Carson went. She could not face death yet.

  The nurse followed Mr. Carson to the servants’ hall. There on their dinner-table lay the poor dead body. The men who had brought it were sitting near the fire, while several of the servants stood round the table, gazing at the remains.

  THE REMAINS!

  One or two were crying; one or two were whispering; awed into a strange stillness of voice and action by the presence of the dead. When Mr. Carson came in they all drew back and looked at him with the reverence due to sorrow.

  He went forward and gazed long and fondly on the calm, dead face; then he bent down and kissed the lips yet crimson with life. The policemen had advanced, and stood ready to be questioned. But at first the old man’s mind could only take in the idea of death; slowly, slowly came the conception of violence, of murder. “How did he die?” he groaned forth.

  The policemen looked at each other. Then one began, and stated that having heard the report of a gun in Turner Street, he had turned down that way (a lonely, unfrequented way Mr. Carson knew, but a short cut to his garden door, of which Harry had a key); that as he (the policeman) came nearer, he had heard footsteps as of a man running away; but the evening was so dark (the moon not having yet risen) that he could see no one twenty yards off. That he had even been startled when close to the body by seeing it lying across the path at his feet. That he had sprung his rattle; and when another policeman came up, by the light of the lantern they had discovered who it was that had been killed. That they believed him to be dead when they first took him up, as he had never moved, spoken, or breathed. That intelligence of the murder had been sent to the superintendent, who would probably soon be here. That two or three policemen were still about the place where the murder was committed, seeking out for some trace of the murderer. Having said this, they stopped speaking.

  Mr. Carson had listened attentively, never taking his eyes off the dead body. When they had ended, he said —

  “Where was he shot?”

  They lifted up some of the thick chestnut curls, and showed a blue spot (you could hardly call it a hole, the flesh had closed so much over it) in the left temple. A deadly aim! And yet it was so dark a night!

  “He must have been close upon him,” said one policeman.

  “And have had him between him and the sky,” added the other.

  There was a little commotion at the door of the room, and there stood poor Mrs. Carson, the mother.

  She had heard unusual noises in the house, and had sent down her maid (much more a companion to her than her highly-educated daughters) to discover what was going on. But the maid either forgot, or dreaded, to return; and with nervous impatience Mrs. Carson came down herself, and had traced the
hum and buzz of voices to the servants’ hall.

  Mr. Carson turned round. But he could not leave the dead for any one living.

  “Take her away, nurse. It is no sight for her. Tell Miss Sophy to go to her mother.” His eyes were again fixed on the dead face of his son.

  Presently Mrs. Carson’s hysterical cries were heard all over the house. Her husband shuddered at the outward expression of the agony which was rending his heart.

  Then the police superintendent came, and after him the doctor. The latter went through all the forms of ascertaining death, without uttering a word, and when at the conclusion of the operation of opening a vein, from which no blood flowed, he shook his head, all present understood the confirmation of their previous belief. The superintendent asked to speak to Mr. Carson in private.

  “It was just what I was going to request of you,” answered he; so he led the way into the dining-room, with the wine-glass still on the table.

  The door was carefully shut, and both sat down, each apparently waiting for the other to begin.

  At last Mr. Carson spoke.

  “You probably have heard that I am a rich man.”

  The superintendent bowed in assent.

  “Well, sir, half — nay, if necessary, the whole of my fortune I will give to have the murderer brought to the gallows.”

  “Every exertion, you may be sure, sir, shall be used on our part; but probably offering a handsome reward might accelerate the discovery of the murderer. But what I wanted particularly to tell you, sir, is that one of my men has already got some clue, and that another (who accompanied me here) has within this quarter of an hour found a gun in the field which the murderer crossed, and which he probably threw away when pursued, as encumbering his flight. I have not the smallest doubt of discovering the murderer.”

  “What do you call a handsome reward?” said Mr. Carson.

  “Well, sir, three, or five hundred pounds is a munificent reward: more than will probably be required as a temptation to any accomplice.”

  “Make it a thousand,” said Mr. Carson decisively. “It’s the doing of those damned turn-outs.”

  “I imagine not,” said the superintendent. “Some days ago the man I was naming to you before, reported to the inspector when he came on his beat, that he had to separate your son from a young man, who by his dress he believed to be employed in a foundry; that the man had thrown Mr. Carson down, and seemed inclined to proceed to more violence, when the policeman came up and interfered. Indeed, my man wished to give him in charge for an assault, but Mr. Carson would not allow that to be done.”

  “Just like him! — noble fellow!” murmured the father.

  “But after your son had left, the man made use of some pretty strong threats. And it’s rather a curious coincidence that this scuffle took place in the very same spot where the murder was committed; in Turner Street.”

  There was some one knocking at the door of the room. It was Sophy, who beckoned her father out, and then asked him, in an awestruck whisper, to come upstairs and speak to her mother.

  “She will not leave Harry, and talks so strangely. Indeed — indeed — papa, I think she has lost her senses.”

  And the poor girl sobbed bitterly.

  “Where is she?” asked Mr. Carson.

  “In his room.”

  They went upstairs rapidly and silently. It was a large comfortable bedroom; too large to be well lighted by the flaring, flickering kitchen-candle which had been hastily snatched up, and now stood on the dressing-table.

  On the bed, surrounded by its heavy, pall-like green curtains, lay the dead son. They had carried him up, and laid him down, as tenderly as though they feared to waken him; and, indeed, it looked more like sleep than death, so very calm and full of repose was the face. You saw, too, the chiselled beauty of the features much more perfectly than when the brilliant colouring of life had distracted your attention. There was a peace about him which told that death had come too instantaneously to give any previous pain.

  In a chair, at the head of the bed, sat the mother — smiling. She held one of the hands (rapidly stiffening, even in her warm grasp), and gently stroked the back of it, with the endearing caress she had used to all her children when young.

  “I am glad you are come,” said she, looking up at her husband, and still smiling. “Harry is so full of fun, he always has something new to amuse us with; and now he pretends he is asleep, and that we can’t waken him. Look! he is smiling now; he hears I have found him out. Look!”

  And, in truth, the lips, in the rest of death, did look as though they wore a smile, and the waving light of the unsnuffed candle almost made them seem to move.

  “Look, Amy,” said she to her youngest child, who knelt at her feet, trying to soothe her, by kissing her garments.

  “Oh, he was always a rogue! You remember, don’t you, love? how full of play he was as a baby; hiding his face under my arm, when you wanted to play with him. Always a rogue, Harry!”

  “We must get her away, sir,” said nurse; “you know there is much to be done before” —

  “I understand, nurse.” said the father, hastily interrupting her in dread of the distinct words which would tell of the changes of mortality.

  “Come, love,” said he to his wife. “I want you to come with me. I want to speak to you downstairs.”

  “I’m coming,” said she, rising; “perhaps, after all, nurse, he’s really tired, and would be glad to sleep. Don’t let him get cold, though, — he feels rather chilly,” continued she, after she had bent down, and kissed the pale lips.

  Her husband put his arm around her waist, and they left the room. Then the three sisters burst into unrestrained wailings. They were startled into the reality of life and death. And yet in the midst of shrieks and moans, of shivering and chattering of teeth, Sophy’s eye caught the calm beauty of the dead; so calm amidst such violence, and she hushed her emotion.

  “Come,” said she to her sisters, “nurse wants us to go; and besides, we ought to be with mamma. Papa told the man he was talking to, when I went for him, to wait, and she must not be left.”

  Meanwhile, the superintendent had taken a candle, and was examining the engravings that hung round the dining-room. It was so common to him to be acquainted with crime, that he was far from feeling all his interest absorbed in the present case of violence, although he could not help having much anxiety to detect the murderer. He was busy looking at the only oil-painting in the room (a youth of eighteen or so, in a fancy dress), and conjecturing its identity with the young man so mysteriously dead, when the door opened, and Mr. Carson returned. Stern as he had looked before leaving the room, he looked far sterner now. His face was hardened into deep-purposed wrath.

  “I beg your pardon, sir, for leaving you.” The superintendent bowed. They sat down, and spoke long together. One by one the policemen were called in, and questioned.

  All through the night there was bustle and commotion in the house. Nobody thought of going to bed. It seemed strange to Sophy to hear nurse summoned from her mother’s side to supper, in the middle of the night, and still stranger that she could go. The necessity of eating and drinking seemed out of place in the house of death.

  When night was passing into morning, the dining-room door opened, and two persons’ steps were heard along the hall. The superintendent was leaving at last. Mr. Carson stood on the front-door step, feeling the refreshment of the caller morning air, and seeing the starlight fade away into dawn.

  “You will not forget,” said he. “I trust to you.” The policeman bowed.

  “Spare no money. The only purpose for which I now value wealth is to have the murderer arrested, and brought to justice. My hope in life now is to see him sentenced to death. Offer any rewards. Name a thousand pounds in the placards. Come to me at any hour, night or day, if that be required. All I ask of you is, to get the murderer hanged. Next week, if possible — to-day is Friday. Surely with the clues you already possess, you can muster up evidence su
fficient to have him tried next week.”

  “He may easily request an adjournment of his trial, on the ground of the shortness of the notice,” said the superintendent.

  “Oppose it, if possible. I will see that the first lawyers are employed. I shall know no rest while he lives.”

  “Everything shall be done, sir.”

  “You will arrange with the coroner. Ten o’clock if convenient.”

  The superintendent took leave.

  Mr. Carson stood on the step, dreading to shut out the light and air, and return into the haunted, gloomy house.

  “My son! my son!” he said at last. “But you shall be avenged, my poor murdered boy.”

  Ay! to avenge his wrongs the murderer had singled out his victim, and with one fell action had taken away the life that God had given. To avenge his child’s death, the old man lived on; with the single purpose in his heart of vengeance on the murderer. True, his vengeance was sanctioned by law, but was it the less revenge?

  Are ye worshippers of Christ? or of Alecto?

  Oh! Orestes, you would have made a very tolerable Christian of the nineteenth century!

  XIX. JEM WILSON ARRESTED ON SUSPICION,

  ”Deeds to be hid which were not hid,

  Which, all confused, I could not know,

  Whether I suffered or I did,

  For all seemed guilt, remorse, or woe.”

  — COLERIDGE.

  I left Mary, on that same Thursday night which left its burden of woe at Mr. Carson’s threshold, haunted with depressing thoughts. All through the night she tossed restlessly about, trying to get quit of the ideas that harassed her, and longing for the light when she could rise, and find some employment. But just as dawn began to appear, she became more quiet, and fell into a sound heavy sleep, which lasted till she was sure it was late in the morning, by the full light that shone in.

  She dressed hastily, and heard the neighbouring church clock strike eight. It was far too late to do as she had planned (after inquiring how Alice was, to return and tell Margaret), and she accordingly went in to inform the latter of her change of purpose, and the cause of it; but on entering the house she found Job sitting alone, looking sad enough. She told him what she came for.