Run to Earth by M. E. Braddon

M >> M. E. Braddon >> Run to Earth

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"Yes," answered the lady; "I received two letters from her before
coming here. I could scarcely be mistaken in her handwriting."

"You think not? Very well, then, please tell me if that is her hand,"
said the captain showing Mrs. Morden the address of the missive he had
just received.

"I should say decidedly, yes, that is her hand."

"Humph!" muttered the captain; "she said something about wanting me
when the hour of retribution drew near. Perhaps she has succeeded in
her schemes more rapidly than she expected, and the time is come."

The little girl had just quitted the room with her nurse, to be dressed
for her morning run in the gardens. Mrs. Morden and the captain were
alone.

"Lady Eversleigh asks me to go up to London," he said, at last; "and I
suppose I must do what she wishes. But, upon my word, I've watched over
little Gertrude so closely, and I've grown so foolishly fond of her,
that I don't like the idea of leaving her, even for twenty-four hours,
though, of course, I know I leave her in the best possible care."

"What danger can approach her here?"

"Ah; what danger, indeed!" returned the captain, thoughtfully. "Within
these walls she must be secure."

"The child shall not leave the castle, nor shall she quit my sight
during your absence," said Mrs. Morden. "But I hope you will not stay
away long."

"Rely upon it that I shall not remain away an hour longer than
necessary," answered the captain.

An hour afterwards he departed from Raynham in a post-chaise.

He left without having taken any farewell of Gertrude Eversleigh. He
could not trust himself to see her.

This grim, weather-beaten old soldier had surrendered his heart
entirely to the child of his dead friend. He travelled Londonwards as
fast as continual relays of post-horses could convey him; and on the
morning after he had received the letter from Lady Eversleigh, a post-
chaise covered with the dust of the roads, rattled up to the Clarendon
Hotel, and the traveller sprang out, after a sleepless night of
impatience and anxiety.

"Show me to Lady Eversleigh's rooms at once," he said to one of the
servants in the hall.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the man; "what name did you say?"

"Lady Eversleigh--Eversleigh--a widow-lady, staying in this house."

"There must be some mistake, sir. There is no one of that name at
present staying in the hotel," answered the man.

The housekeeper had emerged from a little sitting-room, and had
overheard this conversation.

"No, sir," she said, "we have no one here of that name."

Captain Copplestone's dark face grew deadly pale.

"A trap!" he muttered to himself; "a snare! That letter was a forgery!"

And without a word to the people of the house, he darted back to the
street, sprang into the chaise, crying to the postillions,

"Don't lose a minute in getting a change of horses. I am going back to
Yorkshire."

The intimacy with the household of Raynham Castle, begun by Mr.
Maunders at the supper in the servants'-hall, strengthened as time went
by, and there was no member of the castle household for whom Mr.
Maunders entertained so warm a friendship as that which he felt for
Matthew Brook, the coachman. Matthew began to divide his custom between
the rival taverns of Raynham, spending an evening occasionally at the
"Cat and Fiddle," and appearing to enjoy himself very much at that
Inferior hostelry.

About a fortnight had elapsed after the comfortable supper-party at the
castle, when Mr. Milsom took it into his head to make a formal return
for the hospitalities he had received on that occasion.

It happened that the evening chosen for this humble but comfortable
entertainment was the evening after Captain Copplestone's departure
from the castle.

The supper was well cooked, and neatly placed on the table. A foaming
tankard of ale flanked the large dish of hissing steaks; and the
gentlemen from the castle set to work with a good will to do justice to
Mr. Maunders's entertainment.

When the table had been cleared of all except a bowl of punch and a
tray of glasses, it is scarcely a matter for wonder if the quartette
had grown rather noisy, with a tendency to become still louder in its
mirth with every glass of Mr. Milsom's excellent compound.

They were enjoying themselves as much as it is in the power of human
nature to enjoy itself; they had proposed all manner of toasts, and had
drunk them with cheers, and the mirth was at its loudest when the clock
of the village church boomed out solemnly upon the stillness of night,
and tolled the hour of ten.

The three men staggered hastily to their feet.

"We must be off, Maunders, old fellow," said the coachman, with a
certain thickness of utterance.

"Right you are, Mat," answered Stephen. "You've had quite enough of
that 'ere liquor, and so have we all. Good night, Mr. Maunders, and
thank you kindly for a jolly evening. Come, Jim. Come, Mat, old boy--
off we go!"

"No, no," cried Mr. Maunders, the hospitable; "I'm not a-going to let
Matthew Brook leave my house at ten o'clock when he can stay as long as
he likes. You and he beat me at whist, but I mean to be even with him
at cribbage. We'll have a friendly hand and a friendly glass, and I'll
see him as far as the gates afterwards. You'll let him in, Plumpton,
come when he will, I know. If he can stay over his time at the other
house, he can stay over his time with me. Come, Brook, you won't say
no, will you, to a friend?" asked Milsom.

Matthew Brook looked at Mr. Milsom, and at his fellow-servants, in a
stupid half-drunken manner, and rubbed his big head thoughtfully with
his big hand.

"I'm blest if I know what to do," he said; "I've promised Stephen I
wouldn't stay out after time again--and--"

"Not as a rule, perhaps," answered Mr. Milsom; "but once in a way can't
make any difference, I'm sure, and Stephen Plumpton is the last to be
ill-natured."

"That I am," replied the good-tempered footman. "Stay, if you like to
stay, Mat. I'll leave my door unfastened, and welcome."

On this, the two other men took a friendly leave of their host and
departed, walking through the village street with legs that were not by
any means too steady.

There was a triumphant grin upon Mr. Milsom's face as he shut the door
on these two departing guests.

"Good night, and a good riddance to you," he muttered; "and now for
Matthew Brook. You'll sleep sound enough to-night, Stephen Plumpton,
I'll warrant. So sound that if Old Nick himself went through your room
you'd scarcely be much wiser."

He went back to the little parlour in which he had left his guest, the
coachman. As he went, he slipped his forefinger and thumb into his
waistcoat pocket, where they closed upon a tiny phial. It contained a
pennyworth of laudanum, which he had purchased a week or so before from
the Raynham chemist, as a remedy for the toothache.

Here he found Matthew Brook seated with his arms folded on the table,
and his eyes fixed on the cribbage-board with that stolid, unseeing
gaze peculiar to drunkenness.

"He's pretty far gone, as it is," Mr. Milsom thought to himself, as he
looked at his guest; "it won't take much to send him further. Take
another glass of punch before we begin, eh, Brook?" he asked, in that
tone of jolly good-fellowship which had made him so agreeable to the
castle servants.

"So I will," cried Matthew; "'nother glass--punish the punch--eh--old
boy? We'll punish glass--'nother punch--hand cribbage--glorious
evenin'--uproarious--happy--glorious--God save--'nother glass."

While Mr. Brook attempted to shuffle the cards, dropping them half
under the table during the process, Black Milsom moved the bowl and
glasses to a table behind the coachman's back.

Here he filled a glass for Mr. Brook, which the coachman emptied at a
draught; but after having done so he made a wry face, and looked
reproachfully at his host.

"What the deuce was that you gave me?" he asked, with some indignation.

"What should it be but rum-punch?" answered Milsom; "the same as you've
been drinking all the evening."

"I'll be hanged if it is," answered Mr. Brook; "you've been playing off
some of your publican's tricks upon me, Mr. Maunders, pouring the dregs
of some stale porter into the bowl, or something of that kind. Don't
you do it again. I'm a 'ver goo'-temper' chap, ber th' man tha'
takes--hic--libert' with--hic--once don't take--hic--libert' with m'
twice. So, don't y' do that 'gen!"

This was said with tipsy solemnity; and then Mr. Brook made another
effort to shuffle the cards, and stooped a great many times to pick up
some of those he had dropped, but seemed never to succeed in picking up
all of them.

"I'll tell you what it is, Maunders," he said, at last; "I'm getting an
old man; my sight isn't what it used to be. I'm bless' if--can tell a
king from--queen."

Before he could complete the shuffling of the cards to his own
satisfaction, Mr. Brook's eyelids began to droop over his watery eyes,
and all at once his head fell forward on the table, amongst the
scattered cards, his hair flopping against a fallen candlestick and
smoking tallow candle.

Mr. Milsom's air of jolly good-fellowship disappeared: he sprang up
suddenly, went to his friend, and shook him, rather roughly for such
friendship.

Matthew snored a little louder, but slept on.

"He's fast as a rock," muttered Black Milsom; "but I must wait till
it's likely Stephen Plumpton will be as sound asleep as this one."

Mr. Milsom went to his kitchen and ordered his only servant--a sturdy
young native of the village--to go off to bed at once.

"I've got a friend in the parlour: but I'll see him out myself when he
goes," said Mr. Milsom. "You pack off to bed as soon as you've put out
the lights in the bar, and shut the back-door."

Mr. Milsom then returned to the apartment where his sleeping guest
reposed.

The coachman's capacious overcoat hung on a chair near where its owner
slept.

Mr. Milsom deliberately put on this coat, and the hat which Mr. Brook
had worn with it. There was a thick woollen scarf of the coachman's
lying on the floor near the chair, and this Black Milsom also put on,
twisting it several times round his neck, so as to completely muffle
the lower part of his face.

He was of about the same height as Matthew, and the thick coat gave him
bulk.

Thus attired he might, in an uncertain light, have been very easily
mistaken for the man whose clothes he wore.

Mr. Milsom gave one last scrutinizing look at the sleeping coachman,
and then extinguished the candle.

The fire he had allowed to die out while he sat smoking: the room was,
therefore, now in perfect darkness.

He paused by the door to look about him. All was alike still and
lonely. The village street could have been no more silent and empty if
the two rows of houses had been so many vaults in a cemetery.

Black Milsom walked rapidly up the village street, and entered the
gardens of the castle by a little iron gate, of which Matthew Brook,
the reprobate and offender, had a key. This key Black Milsom had often
heard of, and knew that it was always carried by Brook in a small
breast-pocket of his overcoat.

From the garden he made his way quickly, silently, to the quadrangle on
which Stephen Plumpton's bed-chamber opened.

Here all was dark and silent.

Milsom went straight to the little half-glass door which served both as
door and window for the small sleeping-chamber of Stephen Plumpton.

He opened this door with a cautious hand, and stepped softly into the
room. Stephen lay with his head half covered with the bed-clothes, and
his loud snoring resounded through the chamber.

"The rum-punch has done the trick for you, my friend," Mr. Milsom said
to himself.

He crossed the room with slow and stealthy footsteps, opened the door
communicating with the rest of the house, and went along the passage
leading to the hall.

With cautious steps he groped his way to the door opening on the
secondary staircase, and ascended the thickly carpeted staircase
within.

Here a lamp was left dimly burning all night, and this lamp showed him
another cloth-covered door at the top of the first flight of stairs.

Black Milsom tried this door, and found it also unfastened.

This door, which Black Milsom opened, communicated with the little
passage that had been made across the room usually tenanted by Captain
Copplestone. Within this room there was a still smaller chamber--little
more, indeed, than a spacious closet--in which slept the faithful old
servant, Solomon Grundy.

Both the doors were open, and Black Milsom heard the heavy breathing of
the old man--the breathing of a sound sleeper.

Beyond the short passage was the door opening into the sitting-room
used by the young heiress of Raynham.

Black Milsom had only to push it open. The intruder crept softly across
the room, drew aside a curtain, and opened the massive oak door which
divided the sitting-room from the bed-room.

Mr. Milsom had taken care to make himself familiar with the smallest
details of the castle household, and he had even heard of Mrs. Morden's
habit of sleeping within closely drawn curtains, from his general
informant, James Harwood, the groom, who had received his information
from one of the housemaids, in that temple of gossip--the servants'
hall.

Gertrude Eversleigh slept in a white-curtained cot, by the side of Mrs.
Morden's bed.

Black Milsom lifted the coverlet, threw it over the face of the
sleeping child, and with one strong hand lifted her from her cot, her
face still shrouded by the thick down coverlet, which must effectually
prevent her cries. With the other hand he snatched up a blanket, and
threw it round the struggling form, and then, bundled in coverlet and
blanket, he carried the little girl away.

Only when his feet were on the turf, and the castle stood up black
behind him, did he withdraw the coverlet from the mouth of the half-
suffocated child.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

CAUGHT IN THE TOILS.

Captain Copplestone did not waste half an hour on the road between
London and Raynham.

No words can paint his agony of terror, the torture of mind which he
endured, as he sat in the post-chaise, watching every landmark of the
journey, counting every minute of the tedious hours, and continually
putting his head out of the front window, and urging the postillions to
greater speed.

He hated himself for having been duped by that forged letter.

"I had no business to leave the child," he kept repeating to himself;
"not even to obey her mother. My place was by little Gertrude, and I
have been a fool to desert my post. If any harm has come to her in my
absence, by the heaven above me, I think I shall be tempted to blow out
my brains."

Once having decided that the letter, purporting to be written by Lady
Eversleigh, was a forgery, he could not doubt that it formed part of
some plot against the household of Raynham Castle.

To Captain Copplestone, who knew that the life of his friend had been
sacrificed to the dark plottings of a traitor, this idea was terrible.

"I knew the wretches I had to deal with; I was forewarned that
treachery and cunning would be on the watch to do that child wrong," he
said to himself, during those hours of self-reproach; "and yet I
allowed myself to be duped by the first trick of those hidden foes. Oh,
great heaven! grant that I may reach Raynham before they can have taken
any fatal advantage of my absence."

It was daybreak when the captain's post-chaise dashed into the village
street of Raynham. He murmured a thanksgiving and a prayer, almost in
the same breath, as he saw the castle-turrets dark against the chill
gray sky.

The vehicle ascended the hill, and stopped before the arched entrance
to the castle. An old woman, who acted as portress, opened the carved
iron gates. He glanced at her, but did not stop to question her. One
word from her would have put an end to all suspense; but in this last
moment the soldier had not courage to utter the question which he so
dreaded to have answered--Was Gertrude safe?

In another moment that question was answered for Captain Copplestone--
answered completely, without the utterance of a word.

The principal door of the castle was open, and in the doorway stood two
men.

One was Mr. Ashburne, the magistrate; the other was Christopher Dimond,
the constable of Raynham.

The sight of these two men told Captain Copplestone that his fears were
but too surely realized. Something had happened amiss--something of
importance--or Gilbert Ashburne, the magistrate, would not be there.

"The child!" gasped the captain; "is she dead--murdered?"

"No, no, not dead," answered Mr. Ashburne.

"Not dead! Thank God!" exclaimed the soldier, in a devout whisper.
"What then? What has happened?" he asked, scarcely able to command
himself so far as to utter these few words with distinctness. "For
pity's sake speak plainly. Can't you see that you are keeping me in
torture? What has happened to the child?"

"She has disappeared."

"She has disappeared!" echoed the captain. "I left strict orders that
she should not be permitted to stir beyond the castle walls. Who dared
to disobey those orders?"

"No one," answered Mr. Ashburne. "Miss Eversleigh was not allowed to
quit her own apartments. She disappeared in the night from her own cot,
while that cot was in its usual place, beside Mrs. Morden's bed."

"But who could penetrate into that room in the night, when the castle
doors are secured against every one? Where is Mrs. Morden? Let me see
her; and let every servant of the house be assembled in the great
dining-room."

Captain Copplestone gave this order to the butler, who had come out to
the hall on hearing the arrival of the post-chaise. The man bowed, and
departed on his errand.

"I fear you will gain nothing by questioning the household," said Mr.
Ashburne. "I have already made all possible inquiries, assisted by
Christopher Dimond here, but can obtain no information that throws the
smallest ray of light upon this most mysterious business."

"I thank you," replied the captain; "I am sure you have done all that
friendship could suggest; but I should like to question those people
myself. This business is a matter of life and death for me."

He went into the great dining-room--the room in which the inquiry had
been held respecting the cause of Sir Oswald's death. Mr. Ashburne and
Christopher Dimond accompanied him, and the servants of the household
came in quietly, two and three at a time, until the lower end of the
room was full. Mrs. Morden was the last to come. She made no
protestations of her grief--her self-reproach--for she never for a
moment imagined that any one could doubt the intensity of her feelings.
She stood before the captain, calm, collected, ready to answer his
questions promptly and conscientiously.

He questioned the servants one by one, beginning with Mrs. Smithson,
the housekeeper, who was ready to declare that no living creature,
except the members of the household, could have been within the castle
walls on the night of Gertrude Eversleigh's disappearance.

"That anybody could have come into this house and gone out of it in a
night, unknown to me, is a moral impossibility," said the housekeeper;
"the doors were locked at half-past ten, and the keys were brought in a
basket to my room. So, you see it's quite impossible that any one could
have come in or gone out before the doors were open in the morning."

"What time was the child's disappearance discovered?"

"At a quarter to five in the morning," answered Mrs. Morden; "before
any one in the house was a-stir. My darling has always been in the
habit of waking at that hour, to take a little milk, which is left in a
glass by her bedside. I woke at the usual time, and rose, in order to
give her the milk, and when I looked at her cot, I saw that it was
empty. The child was gone. The silk coverlet and one blanket had
disappeared with her. I gave the alarm immediately, and in a quarter of
an hour the whole household was a-stir."

"And did you hear nothing during that night?" asked the captain,
turning suddenly to address Solomon Grundy, who had entered amongst the
rest of the servants.

"Nothing, captain."

"Humph," muttered the old soldier, "a sorry watch-dog."

"There is only one entrance to the castle which is at all weakly
guarded," said the magistrate, presently; "and that is a small door
belonging to the bed-room occupied by one of the footmen. But this man
tells me that he was in his room that night at his usual hour, and that
the door was locked and bolted in the usual way."

As he said this, the magistrate looked towards the end of the
apartment, where Stephen Plumpton stood amongst his fellow servants.
The young man had been weak enough, or guilty enough, to commit himself
to a false statement; first, because he did not want to betray the
misdoings of Matthew Brook, and secondly, because he feared to admit
his own culpable carelessness.

"My telling the truth won't bring the child back," he argued with
himself. "If it would, I'd speak out fast enough."

"You say that it is impossible that any one can have entered this
house, and left it, during that night," said Captain Copplestone to the
housekeeper; "and yet some one must have left the house, even if no one
entered it, or Gertrude Eversleigh must be hidden within these walls.
Has the castle been thoroughly searched? There are stories of children
who have hidden themselves in sport, to find the sport end in terrible
earnest."

"The castle has been searched from garret to cellar," answered Mrs.
Morden. "Mrs. Smithson and I have gone together into every room, and
opened every cupboard."

The captain dismissed the assembly, after having asked many questions
without result. When this was done, he went alone to the library, where
he shut himself in, and seated himself at the writing-table, with pen
and ink before him, to meditate upon, the steps which should be first
taken in the work that lay before him.

That work was no less painful a task than the writing of a letter to
Lady Eversleigh, to inform her of the calamity which had taken place--
of the terrible realization of her worst fears. Captain Copplestone's
varied and adventurous life had never brought him a severer or more
painful duty, but he was not the man to shirk or defer it, because it
involved suffering to himself.

The letter was written, and despatched by the evening post, and then
the captain shut himself up in his own room, and gave way to the
bitterest grief he had ever experienced.

Who shall describe the agony which Lady Eversleigh suffered when
Captain Copplestone's letter reached her? For the first half-hour after
she read it, a blight seemed to fall upon her senses, and she sat still
in her chair, stupefied; but when she rallied, her first impulse was to
send for Andrew Larkspur, who was now nearly restored to his usual
state of sound health.

She rang the bell, and summoned Jane Payland.

"There is a lawyer's clerk living in this house," she said; "Mr.
Andrews. Go to him immediately, and ask him to favour me with an
interview. I wish to consult him on a matter of business."

"Yes, ma'am," answered Miss Payland, looking inquisitively at the ashen
face of her mistress. "There's something fresh this morning," she
muttered to herself, as she tripped lightly up the stairs to do her
bidding.

Mr. Larkspur--or Mr. Andrews--presented himself before Lady Eversleigh
a few minutes after he received her message. He found her pacing the
room in a fever of excitement.

"Good gracious me, ma'am!" he exclaimed; "is there anything amiss?"

"Yes," she answered, handing him the letter.

Mr. Larkspur read the letter to the end, and then read it again.

"This is a bad job," he said, calmly; "what's to be done now?"

"You must accompany me to Raynham Castle--you must help me to find my
child!" cried Honoria, in wild excitement. "You are better now, Mr.
Larkspur, you can bear the journey? For Heaven's sake, do not say you
cannot aid me. You must come with me, Andrew Larkspur. I do not offer
to bribe you--I say you must come! Bring me my darling safe to my
arms, and you may name your own reward for that priceless service."

"No, no," said Mr. Larkspur; "I don't say _that_. I am well enough, so
far as that goes, but how about our little schemes in London?"

"Never mind them--never think of them! What are they to me now?"

"Very well, my lady," answered Mr. Larkspur; "if it must be so, it must
be. I must turn my back upon the neatest business that ever a Bow
Street officer handled, just as it's getting most interesting to a
well-regulated mind."

"And you'll come with me at once?"

"Give me one hour to make my plans, ma'am, and I'm your man," replied
Mr. Larkspur. "I'll pack a carpet-bag, leave it down stairs, take a
hackney coach to Bow Street, see my deputy, and arrange some matters
for him, and be ready one hour from this time, when you'll be so kind
as to call for me in a post-chaise--not forgetting to bring my carpet-
bag with you in the boot, if you please. And now you be so good as to
keep up your spirits, ma'am, like a Trojan--which I've heard the
Trojans had an uncommon hard time of it in their day. If the child is
to be found, Andrew Larkspur is the man to find her; and as to reward,
we won't talk about that, if you please, my lady. I may be a hard-
fisted one, but I'm not the individual to trade upon the feelings of a
mother that has lost her only child."