Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Read online

  “We’re worse to-night, then,” said the usher; “so much the better. We’re off our head, and we’re not likely to take much notice; so much the better;” and this benevolent young man began to undress. To undress, but not to go to bed; for from a small trunk he takes out a dark shock-frock, a pair of leather gaiters, a black scratch wig, and a countryman’s slouched hat. He dresses himself in these things, and sits down at a little table with his desk before him.

  The boy rambles on. He is out nutting in the woods with his little sister in the glorious autumn months gone by.

  “Shake the tree, Harriet, shake the tree; they’ll fall if you only shake hard enough. Look at the hazel-nuts! so thick you can’t count ‘em. Shake away, Harriet; and take care of your head, for they’ll come down like a shower of rain!”

  The usher takes the coil of rope from his desk, and begins to unwind it; he has another coil in his little trunk, another hidden away under the mattress of his bed. He joins the three together, and they form a rope of considerable length. He looks round the room; holds the light over the boy’s face, but sees no consciousness of passing events in those bright feverish eyes.

  He opens the window of his room; it is on the second story, and looks out into the playground — a large space shut in from the lane in which the school stands by a wall of considerable height. About half the height of this room are some posts erected for gymnastics; they are about ten feet from the wall of the house and the usher looks at them dubiously. He lowers the rope out of the window and attaches one end of it to an iron hook in the wall — a very convenient hook, and very secure apparently, for it looks as if it had been only driven in that very day.

  He surveys the distance beneath him, takes another dubious look at the posts in the playground, and is about to step out of the window, when a feeble voice from the little bed cries out — not in any delirious ramblings this time—”What are you doing with that rope? Who are you? What are you doing with that rope?”

  Jabez looks round, and although so good a young man, mutters something very much resembling an oath.

  “Silly boy, don’t you know me? I’m Jabez, your old friend—”

  “Ah, kind old Jabez; you won’t send me back in Virgil, because I’ve been ill; eh, Mr. North?”

  “No, no! See, you want to know what I am doing with this rope; why, making a swing, to be sure.”

  “A swing? Oh, that’s capital. Such a jolly thick rope too! When shall I be well enough to swing, I wonder? It’s so dull up here. I’ll try and go to sleep; but I dream such bad dreams.”

  “There, there, go to sleep,” says the usher, in a soothing voice. This time, before he goes to the window, he puts out his tallow candle; the rushlight on the hearth he extinguishes also; feels for something in his bosom, clutches this something tightly; takes a firm grasp of the rope, and gets out of the window.

  A curious way to make a swing! He lets himself down foot by foot, with wonderful caution and wonderful courage. When he gets on a level with the posts of the gymnasium he gives himself a sudden jerk, and swinging over against them, catches hold of the highest post, and his descent is then an easy one for the post is notched for the purpose of climbing, and Jabez, always good at gymnastics, descends it almost as easily at another man would an ordinary staircase. He leaves the rope still hanging from his bedroom window, scales the playground wall, and when the Slopperton clocks strike twelve is out upon the highroad. He skirts the town of Slopperton by a circuitous route, and in another half hour is on the other side of it, bearing towards the Black Mill. A curious manner of making a swing this midnight ramble. Altogether a curious ramble for this good young usher; but even good men have sometimes strange fancies, and this may be one of them.

  One o’clock from the Slopperton steeples: two o’clock: three o’clock. The sick little boy does not go to sleep, but wanders, oh, how wearily, through past scenes in his young life. Midsummer rambles, Christmas holidays, and merry games; the pretty speeches of the little sister who died three years ago; unfinished tasks and puzzling exercises, all pass through his wandering mind; and when the clocks chine the quarter after three, he is still talking, still rambling on in feeble accents, still tossing wearily on his pillow.

  As the clocks chime the quarter, the rope is at work again, and five minutes afterwards the usher clambers into the room.

  Not very good to look upon, either in costume or countenance; bad to look upon, with his clothes mud-bespattered and torn; wet to the skin; his hair in matted locks streaming over his forehead; worse to look upon, with his light blue eyes, bright with a dangerous and wicked fire — the eyes of a wild beast baulked of his prey; dreadful to look upon, with his hands clenched in fury, and his tongue busy with half suppressed but terrible imprecations.

  “All for nothing!” he mutters. “All the toil, the scheming, and the danger for nothing — all the work of the brain and the hands wasted — nothing gained, nothing gained!”

  He hides away the rope in his trunk, and begins to unbutton his mud-stained gaiters. The little boy cries out in a feeble voice for his medicine.

  The usher pours a tablespoonful of the mixture into a wine glass with a steady hand, and carries it to the bedside.

  The boy is about to take it from him, when he utters a sudden, cry.

  “What’s the matter?” asks Jabez, angrily.

  “Your hand! — your hand! What’s that upon your hand?” A dark stain scarcely dry — a dark stain, at the sight of which the boy trembles from head to foot.

  “Nothing, nothing!” answers the tutor. “Take your medicine, and go to sleep.”

  No, the boy cries hysterically, he won’t take his medicine; he will never take anything again from that dreadful hand. “I know what that horrid stain is. What have you been doing? Why did you climb out of the window with a rope? It wasn’t to make a swing; it must have been for something dreadful! Why did you stay away three hours in the middle of the night? I counted the hours by the church clocks. Why have you got those strange clothes on? What does it all mean? I’ll ask the Doctor to take me out of this room! I’ll go to him this moment, for I’m afraid of you.” The boy tries to get out of bed as he speaks; but the usher holds him down with one powerful hand, which he places upon the boy’s mouth, at the same time keeping him from stirring and preventing him from crying out.

  With his free right hand he searches among the bottles on the table by the bedside.

  He throws the medicine out of the glass, and pours from another bottle a few spoonfuls of a dark liquid labelled, “Opium — Poison!”

  “Now, sir, take your medicine, or I’ll report you to the principal to-morrow morning.”

  The boy tries to remonstrate, but in vain; the powerful hand throws back his head, and Jabez pours the liquid down his throat.

  For a little time the boy, quite delirious now, goes on talking of the summer rambles and the Christmas games, and then falls into a deep slumber.

  Then Jabez North sets to work to wash his hands. A curious young man, with curious fashions for doing things — above all, a curious fashion of washing his hands.

  He washes them very carefully in a small quantity of water, and when they are quite clean, and the water has become a dark and ghastly colour, he drinks it, and doesn’t make even one wry face at the horrible draught.

  “Well, well,” he mutters, “if nothing is gained by to-night’s work, I have at least tried my strength, and I now know what I’m made of.”

  Very strange stuff he must have been made of — very strange and perhaps not very good stuff, to be able to look at the bed on which the innocent and helpless boy lay in a deep slumber, and say, “At any rate, he will tell no tales.”

  No! he will tell no tales, nor ever talk again of summer rambles, or of Christmas holidays, or of his dead sister’s pretty words. Perhaps he will join that wept-for little sister in a better world, where there are no such good young men as Jabez North.

  That worthy gentleman goes down aghast, with a w
hite face, next morning, to tell Dr. Tappenden that his poor little charge is dead, and that perhaps he had better break the news to Allecompain Major, who is sick after that supper, which, in his boyish thoughtlessness, and his certainty of his little brother’s recovery, he had given last night.

  “Do, yes, by all means, break the sad news to the poor boy; for I know, North, you’ll do it tenderly.”

  CHAPTER IV. RICHARD MARWOOD LIGHTS HIS PIPE.

  DAREDEVIL DICK hears the alarum at five o’clock, and leaves his couch very cautiously. He would like, before he leaves the house, to go to his mother’s door, if it were only to breathe a prayer upon the threshold. He would like to go to his uncle’s bedside, to give one farewell look at the kind face; but he has promised to be very cautious, and to awaken no one; so he steals quietly out through the drawing-room window — the same window by which he entered so strangely the preceding evening — into the chill morning, dark as night yet. He pauses in the little garden-walk for a minute while he lights his pipe, and looks up at the shrouded windows of the familiar house. “God bless her!” he mutters; “and God reward that good old man, for giving a scamp like me the chance of redeeming his honour!”

  There is a thick fog, but no rain. Daredevil Dick knows his way so well, that neither fog nor darkness are any hindrance to him, and he trudges on with a cheery step, and his pipe in his mouth, towards the Slopperton railway station. The station is half an hour’s walk out of the town, and when he reaches it the clocks are striking six. Learning that the train will not start for half an hour, he walks up and down the platform, looking, with his handsome face and shabby dress, rather conspicuous. Two or three trains for different destinations start while he is waiting on the platform, and several people stare at him, as he strides up and down, his hands in his pockets, and his weather-beaten hat slouched over his eyes — (for he does not want to be known by any Slopperton people yet awhile, till his position is better) — and when one man, with whom he had been intimate before he left the town, seemed to recognize him, and approached as if to speak to him, Richard turned abruptly on his heel and crossed to the other side of the station.

  If he had known that such a little incident as that could have a dark and dreadful influence on his life, surely he would have thought himself foredoomed and set apart for a cruel destiny.

  He strolled into the refreshment-room, took a cup of coffee, changed a sovereign in paying for his ticket, bought a newspaper, seated himself in a second-class carriage, and in a few minutes was out of Slopperton.

  There was only one other passenger in the carriage — a commercial traveller; and Richard and he smoked their pipes in defiance of the guards at the stations they passed. When did ever Daredevil Dick quail before any authorities? He had faced all Bow Street, chaffed Marlborough Street out of countenance, and had kept the station-house awake all night singing, “We won’t go home till morning.”

  It is rather a dull journey at the best of times from Slopperton to Gardenford, and on this dark foggy November morning, of course, duller than usual. It was still dark at half-past six. The station was lighted with gas, and there was a little lamp in the railway carriage, but for which the two travellers would not have seen each other’s faces. Richard looked out of the window for a few minutes, got up a little conversation with his fellow traveller, which soon flagged (for the young man was rather out of spirits at leaving his mother directly after their reconciliation), and then, being sadly at a loss to amuse himself, took out his uncle’s letter to the Gardenford merchant, and looked at the superscription. The letter was not sealed, but he did not take it from the envelope. “If he said any good of me, it’s a great deal more than I deserve,” said Richard to himself; “but I’m young yet, and there’s plenty of time to redeem the past.”

  Time to redeem the past! O poor Richard!

  He twisted the letter about in his hands, lighted another pipe, and smoked till the train arrived at the Gardenford station. Another foggy November day had set in.

  If Richard Marwood had been a close observer of men and manners, he might have been rather puzzled by the conduct of a short, thick-set man, shabbily dressed, who was standing on the platform when he descended from the carriage. The man was evidently waiting for some one to arrive by this train: and as surely that some one had arrived, for the man looked perfectly satisfied when he had scanned, with a glance marvellously rapid, the face of every passenger who alighted. But who this some one was, for whom the man was waiting, it was rather difficult to discover. He did not speak to any one, nor approach any one, nor did he appear to have any particular purpose in being there after that one rapid glance at all the travellers. A very minute observer might certainly have detected in him a slight interest in the movements of Richard Marwood; and when that individual left the station the stranger strolled out after him, and walked a few paces behind him down the back street that led from the station to the town. Presently he came up closer to him, and a few minutes afterwards suddenly and unceremoniously hooked his arm into that of Richard.

  “Mr. Richard Marwood, I think,” he said.

  “I’m not ashamed of my name,” replied Daredevil Dick, “and that is my name. Perhaps you’ll oblige me with yours, since you’re so uncommonly friendly.” And the young man tried to withdraw his arm from that of the stranger; but the stranger was of an affectionate turn of mind, and kept his arm tightly hooked in his.

  “Oh, never mind my name,” he said: “you’ll learn my name fast enough, I dare say. But,” he continued, as he caught a threatening look in Richard’s eye, “if you want to call me anything, why, call me Jinks.”

  “Very well then, Mr. Jinks, since I didn’t come to Gardenford to make your acquaintance, and as now, having made your acquaintance, I can’t say I much care about cultivating it further, why I wish you a very good morning!” As he said this, Richard wrenched his arm from that of the stranger, and strode two or three paces forward.

  Not more than two or three paces though, for the affectionate Mr. Jinks caught him again by the arm, and a friend of Mr. Jinks, who had also been lurking outside the station when the train arrived, happening to cross over from the other side of the street at this very moment, caught hold of his other arm, and poor Daredevil Dick, firmly pinioned by these two new-found friends, looked with a puzzled expression from one to the other.

  “Come, come,” said Mr. Jinks, in a soothing tone, “the best thing you can do is to take it quietly, and come along with me.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Richard. “Here’s a spoke in the wheel of my reform; it’s those cursed Jews, I suppose, have got wind of my coming down here. Show us your writ, Mr. Jinks, and tell us at whose suit it is, and for what amount? I’ve got a considerable sum about me, and can settle it on the spot.”

  “Oh, you have, have you?” Mr. Jinks was so surprised by this last speech of Richard’s that he was obliged to take off his hat, and rub his hand through his hair before he could recover himself. “Oh!” he continued, staring at Richard, “Oh! you’ve got a considerable sum of money about you, have you? Well, my friend, you’re either very green, or you’re very cheeky; and all I can say is, take care how you commit yourself. I’m not a sheriff’s officer. If you’d done me the honour to reckon up my nose you might have knowed it” (Mr. Jinks’s olfactory organ was a decided snub); “and I ain’t going to arrest you for debt.”

  “Oh, very well then,” said Dick; “perhaps you and your affectionate friend, who both seem to be afflicted with rather an over-large allowance of the organ of adhesiveness, will be so very obliging as to let me go. I’ll leave you a lock of my hair, as you’ve taken such a wonderful fancy to me.” And with a powerful effort he shook the two strangers off him; but Mr. Jinks caught him again by the arm, and Mr. Jinks’s friend, producing a pair of handcuffs, locked them on Richard’s wrists with railroad rapidity.

  “Now, don’t you try it on,” said Mr. Jinks. “I didn’t want to use these, you know, if you’d have come quietly. I’ve heard you be
long to a respectable family, so I thought I wouldn’t ornament you with these here objects of bigotry” (it is to be presumed Mr. Jinks means bijouterie); “but it seems there’s no help for it, so come along to the station; we shall catch the eight-thirty train, and be in Slopperton before ten. The inquest won’t come on till to-morrow.”

  Richard looked at his wrists, from his wrists to the faces of the two men, with an utterly hopeless expression of wonder.

  “Am I mad,” he said, “or drunk, or dreaming? What have you put these cursed things upon me for? Why do you want to take me back to Slopperton? What inquest? Who’s dead?”

  Mr. Jinks put his head on one side, and contemplated the prisoner with the eye of a connoisseur.

  “Don’t he come the hinnocent dodge stunnin’?” he said, rather to himself than to his companion, who, by the bye, throughout the affair had never once spoken. “Don’t he do it beautiful? Wouldn’t he be a first-rate actor up at the Wictoria Theayter in London? Wouldn’t he be prime in the ‘Suspected One,’ or ‘Gonsalvo the Guiltless?’ Vy,” said Mr. Jinks, with intense admiration, “he’d be worth his two-pound-ten a week and a clear half benefit every month to any manager as is.”

  As Mr. Jinks made these complimentary remarks, he and his friend walked on. Richard, puzzled, bewildered, and unresisting, walked between them towards the railway station; but presently Mr. Jinks condescended to reply to his prisoner’s questions, in this wise:

  “You want to know what inquest? Well, a inquest on a gentleman what’s been barbarously murdered. You want to know who’s dead? Why, your uncle is the gent as has been murdered. You want to know why we are going to take you back to Slopperton? Well, because we’ve got a warrant to arrest you upon suspicion of having committed the murder.”

  “My uncle murdered!” cried Richard, with a face that now for the first time since his arrest betrayed anxiety and horror; for throughout his interview with Mr. Jinks he had never once seemed frightened. His manner had expressed only utter bewilderment of mind.