Henry Dunbar by M. E. Braddon

M >> M. E. Braddon >> Henry Dunbar

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But not towards the church. Major Vernon was not going to church on this
bright winter's morning. He went the other way, tramping through the
snow, towards the eastern gate of Maudesley Park. He went in by the low
iron gate, for there was a bridle-path by this part of the park--that
very bridle-path by which Philip Jocelyn had ridden to Lisford so often
in the autumn weather.

Major Vernon struck across this path, following the tracks of late
footsteps in the deep snow, and thus took the nearest way to the Abbey.
There he found all very quiet. The supercilious footman who admitted him
to the hall seemed doubtful whether he should admit him any farther.

"Mr. Dunbar are hup," he said; "and have breakfasted, to the best of my
knowledge, which the breakfast ekewpage have not yet been removed."

"So much the better," Major Vernon answered, coolly. "You may bring up
some fresh coffee, John; for I haven't made much of a breakfast myself;
and if you'll tell the cook to devil the thigh of a turkey, with plenty
of cayenne-pepper and a squeeze of lemon, I shall be obliged. You
need'nt trouble yourself; I know my way."

The Major opened the door leading to Mr. Dunbar's apartments, and walked
without ceremony into the tapestried chamber, where he found the banker
sitting near a table, upon which a silver coffee service, a Dresden cup
and saucer, and two or three covered dishes gave evidence that Mr.
Dunbar had been breakfasting. Cold meats, raised pies, and other
comestibles were laid out upon the carved-oak sideboard.

The Major paused upon the threshold of the chamber and gravely
contemplated his friend.

"It's comfortable!" he exclaimed; "to say the least of it, it's very
comfortable, dear boy!"

The dear boy did not look particularly pleased as he lifted his eyes to
his visitor's face.

"I thought you were in London?" he said.

"Which shows how very little you trouble yourself about the concerns of
your neighbours," answered Major Vernon, "for if you had condescended to
inquire about the movements of your humble friend, you would have been
told that he had bought a comfortable little property in the
neighbourhood, and settled down to do the respectable country gentleman
for the remainder of his natural life--always supposing that the
liberality of his honoured friend enables him to do the thing decently."

"Do you mean to say that you have bought property in this
neighbourhood?"

"Yes! I am leasehold proprietor of Woodbine Cottage, near Lisford and
Shorncliffe."

"And you mean to settle in Warwickshire?"

"I do."

Henry Dunbar smiled to himself as his friend said this.

"You're welcome to do so," he said, "as far as I am concerned."

The Major looked at him sharply.

"Your sentiments are liberality itself, my dear friend. But I must
respectfully remind you that the expenses attendant upon taking
possession of my humble abode have been very heavy. In plain English,
the two thou' which you so liberally advanced as the first instalment of
future bounties, has melted like snow in a rapid thaw. I want another
two thou', friend of my youth and patron of my later years. What's a
thousand or so, more or less, to the senior partner in the house of D.,
D., and B.? Make it two five this time, and your petitioner will ever
pray, &c. &c. &c. Make it two five, Prince of Maudesley!"

There is no need for me to record the interview between these two men.
It was rather a long one; for, in congenial companionship, Major Vernon
had plenty to say for himself: it was only when he felt himself out of
his element and unappreciated that the Major wrapped himself in the
dignity of silence, at in some mystic mantle, and retired for the time
being from the outer world.

He did not leave Maudesley Abbey until he had succeeded in the object of
his visit, and he carried away in his pocket-book cheques to the amount
of two thousand five hundred pounds.

"I flatter myself I was just in the nick of time," the Major thought, as
he walked back to Woodbine Cottage, "for as sure as my name's what it
is, my friend means a bolt. He means a bolt; and the money I've had
to-day is the last I shall ever receive from that quarter."

Almost immediately after Major Vernon's departure, Henry Dunbar rang the
bell for the servant who acted as his valet whenever he required the
services of one, which was not often.

"I shall start for Paris to-night, Jeffreys," he said to this man. "I
want to see what the French jewellers can do before I trust Lady
Jocelyn's necklace into the hands of English workmen. I'm not well, and
I want change of air and scene, so I shall start for Paris to-night.
Pack a small portmanteau with everything that's indispensable, but pack
nothing unnecessary."

"Am I to go with you, sir?" the man asked.

Henry Dunbar looked at his watch, and seemed to reflect upon this
question some moments before he answered.

"How do the up-trains go on a Sunday?" he asked.

"There's an express from the north stops at Rugby at six o'clock, sir.
You might meet that, if you left Shorncliffe by the 4:35 train."

"I could do that," answered the banker; "it's only three o'clock. Pack
my portmanteau at once, Jeffreys, and order the carriage to be ready for
me at a quarter to four. No, I won't take you to Paris with me. You can
follow me in a day or two with some more things."

"Yes, sir."

There was no such thing as bustle and confusion in a household organized
like that of Mr. Dunbar. The valet packed his master's portmanteau and
dressing-case; the carriage came round to the gravel-drive before the
porch at the appointed moment; and five minutes afterwards Mr. Dunbar
came out into the hall, with his greatcoat closely buttoned over his
broad chest, and a leopard-skin travelling-rug flung across his
shoulder.

Round his waist he wore the chamois-leather belt which he had made with
his own hands at the Clarendon Hotel. This belt had never quitted him
since the night upon which he made it. The carriage conveyed him to the
Shorncliffe station. He got out and went upon the platform. Although it
was not yet five o'clock, the wintry light was fading in the grey sky,
and in the railway station it was already dark. There were lamps here
and there, but they only made separate splotches of light in the dusky
atmosphere.

Henry Dunbar walked slowly up and down the platform. He was so deeply
absorbed by his own thoughts that he was quite startled presently when a
young man came close behind him, and addressed him eagerly.

"Mr. Dunbar," he said; "Mr. Dunbar!"

The banker turned sharply round, and recognized Arthur Lovell.

"Ah! my dear Lovell, is that you? You quite startled me."

"Are you going by the next train? I was so anxious to see you."

"Why so?"

"Because there's some one here who very much wishes to see you; quite an
old friend of yours, he says. Who do you think it is?"

"I don't know, I can't guess--I've so many old friends. I can't see any
one, Lovell. I'm very ill, I saw a physician while I was in London; and
he told me that my heart is diseased, and that if I wish to live I must
avoid any agitation, any sudden emotion, as I would avoid a deadly
poison. Who is it that wants to see me?"

"Lord Herriston, the great Anglo-Indian statesman. He is a friend of my
father's, and he has been very kind to me--indeed, he offered me an
appointment, which I found it wisest to decline. He talked a great deal
about you, when my father told him that you'd settled at Maudesley, and
would have driven over to see you if he could have managed to spare the
time, without losing his train. You'll see him, wont you?"

"Where is he?"

"Here, in the station--in the waiting-room. He has been visiting in
Warwickshire, and he lunched with my father _en passant_; he is going to
Derby, and he's waiting for the down-train to take him on to the main
line. You'll come and see him?"

"Yes, I shall be very glad; I----"

Henry Dunbar stopped suddenly, with his hand upon his side. The bell had
been ringing while Lovell and the banker had stood upon the platform
talking. The train came into the station at this moment.

"I shan't be able to see Lord Herriston to-night," Mr. Dunbar said,
hurriedly; "I must go by this train, or I shall lose a day. Good-bye,
Lovell. Make my best compliments to Herriston; tell him I have been very
ill. Good-bye."

"Your portmanteau's in the carriage, sir," the servant said, pointing to
the open door of a first-class compartment. Henry Dunbar got into the
carriage. At the moment of his doing so, an elderly gentleman came out
of the waiting-room.

"Is this my train, Lovell?" he asked.

"No, my Lord. Mr. Dunbar is here; he goes by this train. You'll have
time to speak to him."

The train was moving. Lord Herriston was an active old fellow. He ran
along the platform, looking into the carriages. But the old man's sight
was not as good as his legs were; he looked eagerly into the
carriage-windows, but he only saw a confusion of flickering lamplight,
and strange faces, and newspapers unfurled in the hands of wakeful
travellers, and the heads of sleepy passengers rolling and jolting
against the padded sides of the carriage.

"My eyes are not what they used to be," he said, with a good-tempered
laugh, when he went back to Arthur Lovell. "I didn't succeed in getting
a glimpse of my old friend Henry Dunbar."

CHAPTER XXX.

STOPPED UPON THE WAY.

Mr. Dunbar leant back in the corner of his comfortable seat, with his
eyes closed. But he was not asleep, he was only thinking; and every now
and then he bent forward, and looked out of the window into the darkness
of the night. He could only distinguish the faint outline of the
landscape as the train swept on upon its way, past low meadows, where
the snow lay white and stainless, unsullied by a passing footfall; and
scanty patches of woodland, where the hardy firs looked black against
the glittering whiteness of the ground.

The country was all so much alike under its thick shroud of snow, that
Mr. Dunbar tried in vain to distinguish any landmarks upon the way.

The train by which he travelled stopped at every station; and, though
the journey between Shorncliffe and Rugby was only to last an hour, it
seemed almost interminable to this impatient traveller, who was eager to
stand upon the deck of Messrs. ----'s electric steamers, to feel the icy
spray dashing into his face, and to see the town of Dover, shining like
a flaming crescent against the darkness of the night, and the Calais
lights in the distance rising up behind the black edge of the sea.

The banker looked at his watch, and made a calculation about the time.
It was now a quarter past five; the train was to reach Rugby at ten
minutes to six; at six the London express left Rugby; at a quarter to
eight it reached London; at half-past eight the Dover mail would leave
London Bridge station; and at half-past seven, or thereabouts, next
morning, Henry Dunbar would be rattling through the streets of Paris.

And then? Was his journey to end in that brilliant city, or was he to go
farther? That was a question whose answer was hidden in the traveller's
own breast. He had not shown himself a communicative man at the best of
times, and to-night he looked like a man whose soul is weighed down by
the burden of a purpose which must he achieved at any cost of personal
sacrifice.

He could not hear the names of the stations. He only heard those
guttural and inarticulate sounds which railway officials roar out upon
the darkness of the night, to the bewilderment of helpless travellers.
His inability to distinguish the names of the stations annoyed him. The
delay attendant upon every fresh stoppage worried him, as if the pause
had been the weary interval of an hour. He sat with his watch in his
hand; for every now and then he was seized with a sudden terror that the
train had fallen out of its regular pace, and was crawling slowly along
the rails.

What if it should not reach Rugby until after the London express had
left the station?

Mr. Dunbar asked one of his fellow-travellers if this train was always
punctual.

"Yes," the gentleman answered, coolly; "I believe it is generally pretty
regular. But I don't know how the snow may affect the engine. There have
been accidents in some parts of the country."

"In consequence of the depth of snow?"

"Yes. I understand so."

It was about ten minutes after this brief conversation, and within a
quarter of an hour of the time at which the train was due at Rugby, when
the carriage, which had rocked a good deal from the first, began to
oscillate very violently. One meagre little elderly traveller turned
rather pale, and looked nervously at his fellow-passengers; but the
young man who had spoken to Henry Dunbar, and a bald-headed
commercial-looking gentleman opposite to him, went on reading their
newspapers as coolly as if the rocking of the carriage had been no more
perilous than the lullaby motion of an infant's cradle, guided by a
mother's gentle foot.

Mr. Dunbar never took his eyes from the dial of his watch. So the
nervous traveller found no response to his look of terror.

He sat quietly for a minute or so, and then lowered the window near him,
and let in a rush of icy wind, whereat the bald-headed commercial
gentleman turned upon him rather fiercely, and asked him what he was
about, and if he wanted to give them all inflammation of the lungs, by
letting in an atmosphere that was two degrees below zero. But the little
elderly gentleman scarcely heard this remonstrance; his head was out of
the window, and he was looking eagerly Rugby-wards along the line.

"I'm afraid there's something wrong," he said, drawing in his head for a
moment, and looking with a scared white face at his fellow-passengers;
"I'm really afraid there's something wrong. We're eight minutes behind
our time, and I see the danger-signal up yonder, and the line seems
blocked up with snow, and I really fear----"

He looked out again, and then drew in his head very suddenly.

"There's something coming!" he cried; "there's an engine coming----"

He never finished his sentence. There was a horrible smashing, tearing,
grinding noise, that was louder than thunder, and more hideous than the
crashing of cannon against the wooden walls of a brave ship.

That horrible sound was followed by a yell almost as horrible; and then
there was nothing but death, and terror, and darkness, and anguish, and
bewilderment; masses of shattered woodwork and iron heaped in direful
confusion upon the blood-stained snow; human groans, stifled under the
wrecks of shivered carriages: the cries of mothers whose children had
been flung out of their arms into the very jaws of death; the piteous
wail of children, who clung, warm and living, to the breasts of dead
mothers, martyred in that moment of destruction; husbands parted from
their wives; wives shrieking for their husbands; and, amidst all, brave
men, with white faces, hurrying here and there, with lamps in their
hands, half-maimed and wounded some of them, but forgetful of themselves
in their care for the helpless wretches round them.

The express going northwards had run into the train from Shorncliffe,
which had come upon the main line just nine minutes too late.

One by one the dead and wounded were earned away from the great heap of
ruins; one by one the prostrate forms were borne away by quiet bearers,
who did their duty calmly and fearlessly in that hideous scene of havoc
and confusion. The great object to be achieved was the immediate
clearance of the line; and the sound of pickaxes and shovels almost
drowned those other dreadful sounds, the piteous moans of sufferers who
were so little hurt as to be conscious of their sufferings.

The train from Shorncliffe had been completely smashed. The northern
express had suffered much less; but the engine-driver had been killed,
and several of the passengers severely injured.

Henry Dunbar was amongst those who were carried away helpless, and, to
all appearance, lifeless from the ruin of the Shorncliffe train.

One of the banker's legs was broken, and he had received A blow upon the
head, which had rendered him immediately unconscious.

But there were cases much worse than that of the banker; the surgeon who
examined the sufferers said that Mr. Dunbar might recover from his
injuries in two or three months, if he was carefully treated. The
fracture of the leg was very simple; and if the limb was skilfully set,
there would not be the least fear of contraction.

Half-a-dozen surgeons were busy in one of the waiting-rooms at the Rugby
station, whither the sufferers had been conveyed, and one of them took
possession of the banker.

Mr. Dunbar's card-case had been found in the breast-pocket of his
overcoat, and a great many people in the waiting-room knew that the
gentleman with the white lace and grey moustache, lying so quietly upon
one of the broad sofas, was no less a personage than Henry Dunbar, of
Maudesley Abbey and St. Gundolph Lane. The surgeon knew it, and thought
his good angel had sent this particular patient across his pathway.

He made immediate arrangements for bearing off Mr. Dunbar to the nearest
hotel; he sent for his assistant; and in a quarter of an hour's time the
millionaire was restored to consciousness, and opened his eyes upon the
eager faces of two medical gentlemen, and upon a room that was strange
to him.

The banker looked about him with an expression of perplexity, and then
asked where he was. He knew nothing of the accident itself, and he had
quite lost the recollection of all that had occurred immediately before
the accident, or, indeed, from the time of his leaving Maudesley Abbey.

It was only little by little that the memory of the events of that day
returned to him. He had wanted to leave Maudesley; he had wanted to go
abroad--to go upon a journey--that was no new purpose in his mind. Had
he actually set out upon that journey? Yes, surely, he must have started
upon it; but what had happened, then?

He asked the surgeon what had happened, and why it was that he found
himself in that strange place.

Mr. Daphney, the Rugby surgeon, told his patient all about the accident,
in such a bland, pleasant way, that anybody might have thought the
collision of a couple of engines rather an agreeable little episode in a
man's life.

"But we are doing admirably, sir," Mr. Daphney concluded; "nothing could
be more desirable than the way in which we are going on; and when our
leg has been set, and we've taken a cooling draught, we shall be, quite
comfortable for the night. I really never saw a cleaner fracture--never,
I can assure you."

But Mr. Dunbar raised himself into a sitting position, in spite of the
remonstrances of his medical attendant, and looked anxiously about him.

"You say this place is Rugby?" he asked, moodily.

"Yes, this is Rugby," answered the surgeon, smiling, and rubbing his
hands, almost as if he would have said, "Now, isn't _that_ delightful?"
"Yes, this is the Queen's Hotel, Rugby; and I'm sure that every
attention which the proprietor, Mr.----"

"I must get away from this place to-night," said Mr. Dunbar,
interrupting the surgeon rather unceremoniously.

"To-night, my dear sir!" cried Mr. Daphney; "impossible--utterly
impossible--suicide on your part, my dear sir, if you attempted it, and
murder upon mine, if I allowed you to carry out such an idea. You will
be a prisoner here for a month or so, sir, I regret to say; but we shall
do all in our power to make your sojourn agreeable."

The surgeon could not help looking cheerful as he made this
announcement; but seeing a very black and ominous expression upon the
face of his patient, he contrived to modify the radiance of his own
countenance.

"Our first proceeding, sir, must be to straighten this poor leg," he
said, soothingly. "We shall place the leg in a cradle, from the thigh
downwards: but I won't trouble you with technical details. I doubt if we
shall be justified in setting the leg to-night; we must reduce the
swelling before we can venture upon any important step. A cooling
lotion, applied with linen cloths, must be kept on all night. I have
made arrangements for a nurse, and my assistant will also remain here
all night to supervise her movements."

The banker groaned aloud.

"I want to get to London," he said. "I must get to London!"

The surgeon and his assistant removed Mr. Dunbar's clothes. His trousers
had to be cut away from his broken leg before anything could be done.
Mr. Daphney removed his patient's coat and waistcoat; but the linen
shirt was left, and the chamois-leather belt worn by the banker was
under this shirt, next to and over a waistcoat of scarlet flannel.

"I wear a leather belt next my flannel waistcoat," Mr. Dunbar said, as
the two men were undressing him; "I don't wish it to be removed."

He fainted away presently, for his leg was very painful; and on reviving
from his fainting fit, he looked very suspiciously at his attendants,
and put his hand to the buckle of his belt, in order to make himself
sure that it had not been tampered with.

All through the long, feverish, restless night he lay pondering over
this miserable interruption of his journey, while the sick-nurse and the
surgeon's assistant alternately slopped cooling lotions about his
wretched broken leg.

"To think that _this_ should happen," he muttered to himself every now
and then. "Amongst all the things I've ever dreaded, I never thought of
this."

His leg was set in the course of the next day, and in the evening he had
a long conversation with the surgeon.

This time Henry Dunbar did not speak so much of his anxiety to get away
upon the second stage of his continental journey. His servant Jeffreys
arrived at Rugby in the course of the day; for the news of the accident
had reached Maudesley Abbey, and it was known that Mr. Dunbar had been a
sufferer.

To-night Henry Dunbar only spoke of the misery of being in a strange
house.

"I want to get back to Maudesley," he said. "If you can manage to take
me there, Mr. Daphney, and look after me until I've got over the effects
of this accident, I shall be very happy to make you any compensation you
please for whatever loss your absence from Rugby might entail upon you."

This was a very diplomatic speech: Mr. Dunbar knew that the surgeon
would not care to let so rich a patient out of his hands; but he fancied
that Mr. Daphney would have no objection to carrying his patient in
triumph to Maudesley Abbey, to the admiration of the unprofessional
public, and to the aggravation of rival medical men.

He was not mistaken in his estimate of human nature. At the end of the
week he had succeeded in persuading the surgeon to agree to his removal;
and upon the second Monday after the railway accident, Henry Dunbar was
placed in a compartment which was specially prepared for him in the
Shorncliffe train, and was conveyed from Shorncliffe station to
Maudesley Abbey, without undergoing any change of position upon the
road, and very carefully tended throughout the journey by Mr. Daphney
and Jeffreys the valet.

They wheeled Mr. Dunbar's bed into his favourite tapestried chamber, and
laid him there, to drag out long dreary days and nights, waiting till
his broken bones should unite, and he should be free to go whither he
pleased. He was not a very patient sufferer; he bore the pain well
enough, but he chafed perpetually against the delay; and every morning
he asked the surgeon the same question--

"When shall I be strong enough to walk about?"

CHAPTER XXXI.

CLEMENT AUSTIN MAKES A SACRIFICE.

Margaret Wilmot had promised to become the wife of the man she loved;
but she had given that promise very reluctantly, and only upon one
condition. The condition was, that, before her marriage with Clement
Austin took place, the mystery of her father's death should be cleared
up for ever.

"I cannot be your wife so long as the secret of that cruel deed remains
unknown," she said to Clement. "It seems to me as if I have already
been, wickedly neglectful of a solemn duty. Who had my father to love
him and remember him in all the world but me? and who should avenge his
death if I do not? He was an outcast from society; and people think it a
very small thing that, after having led a reckless life, he should die a
cruel death. If Henry Dunbar, the rich banker, had been murdered, the
police would never have rested until the assassin had been discovered.
But who cares what became of Joseph Wilmot, except his daughter? His
death makes no blank in the world: except to me--except to me!"

Clement Austin did not forget his promise to do his uttermost towards
the discovery of the banker's guilt. He believed that Henry Dunbar was
the murderer of his old servant; and he had believed it ever since that
day upon which the banker stole, like a detected thief, out of the house
in St. Gundolph Lane.

It was just possible that Henry Dunbar might avoid Joseph Wilmot's
daughter from a natural horror of the events connected with his return
to England; but that the banker should resort to a cowardly stratagem to
escape from an interview with the girl could scarcely be accounted for,
except by the fact of his guilt.

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