Run to Earth by M. E. Braddon

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

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One morning the little household at Susan Jernam's cottage, consisting
only of the mistress and her maid, was roused by a violent knocking at
the door. Mrs. Jernam was the first to open it, and to her surprise and
alarm, she found Mrs. Miller standing at the door, her face expressing
alarm and grief, and little Gerty, wrapped in a large woollen shawl, in
her arms. Her explanation of what had occurred thus to upset her was at
first incoherent enough, but by degrees Mrs. Jernam learned that Mrs.
Miller had come to entreat her to take care of the child for a day or
two as she was obliged to go to Plymouth at once.

"To Plymouth!" said Mrs. Jernam--"how's that?--but come in, come in"--
and they went into Mrs. Jernam's spotlessly neat parlour, that parlour
in which Valentine Jernam had been permitted to smoke, and had told his
aunt all his adventures, little recking of the final one then so close
upon him. In the parlour, Mrs. Miller set little Gerty down, and the
child, giddy and confused with her sudden waking, and being thus
carried through the chill morning air, climbed up on the trim little
sofa, and curling herself into a corner of it, sat quite motionless.
Then, her agitation finding vent in tears, Mrs. Miller told Susan
Jernam what had befallen. It was this:--

Just as day was dawning, a dog-cart, driven by a gentleman's servant,
had come to her door--the dog-cart was now standing at a little
distance from Mrs. Jernam's house--and she had been called out by the
servant, and told that he had been sent to bring her over to Plymouth,
with as little delay as possible. It appeared that her brother, who had
gone to Plymouth after depositing the child with her, had been run over
in the street by a heavy coal-waggon, and severely injured. He had been
carried to a hospital, and was for some time insensible. When he
recovered his speech he was delirious, and the surgeons pronounced his
case hopeless. He was now in a dying state, but conscious; and had been
visited by a clergyman named Colburne, the man's master, who had
induced him to express contrition for his past life, and to make such
reparation as now lay in his power. The first step towards this, as he
informed Mr. Colburne, was seeing his sister. There was no time to be
lost; the man's life was fast ebbing; it was only a matter of hours;
and the good clergyman, who had been with the dying man far into the
night before he had succeeded in inducing him to consent to this step,
hurried home, and sent his servant off to Allanbay before daybreak.

There was little delay. A few words of earnest sympathy from Mrs.
Jernam, an assurance that the child should be well cared for, and Mrs.
Miller left the house, ran down the road to the dog-cart, climbed into
it, and was driven away.

Rosamond came in from her own little dwelling to her aunt's, at an
early hour that day, and when the first surprise and pleasure of
finding the child there had passed away, the two women fell to
speculating on what kind of revelation it might be which awaited Mrs.
Miller.

"Depend upon it, aunt," said Susan, "we shall hear the truth about
little Gerty now."

* * * * *

The hours wore solemnly away in the great building, consecrated to
suffering and its relief, in which Black Milsom lay dying, with his
sister kneeling by his bed, while the good clergyman, who had had pity
on the soul of the sinner, sat on the other side, gravely and
compassionately looking at them both. The meeting between the brother
and sister had been very distressing, and the agony exhibited by the
poor woman when she was made aware that her brother had acknowledged
himself a criminal of the deepest dye, was intense. Calm--almost
stupor--had succeeded to her wild grief, and the clergyman had spoken
words of consolation and hope to the dying and the living. The surgeons
had seen the man for the last time; there was nothing more to be done
for him now--nothing to do but to wait for the equal foot approaching
with remorseless tread.

It was indeed a fearful catalogue of crime to which the Rev. Philip
Colburne had listened, and had written with his own hand at the dying
man's dictation. Not often has such a revelation been made to mortal
ears, and the two who heard it--the Christian minister and the
trembling, horrified sister--felt that the scene could never be effaced
from their memories.

With only two items in that awful list this story has to do.

The first is, the murder of Valentine Jernam. As Mrs. Miller heard her
brother, with gasping breath and feeble utterance, tell that horrible
story, her heart died within her. She knew it well. Who at Allanbay had
not heard of the murder of Mrs. Jernam's darling nephew, the bright,
popular, kind-hearted seaman, whose coming had been a jubilee in the
little port; whose disappearance had made so painful a sensation? She
had heard the story from his aunt, and Rosamond had told her how her
husband lived in the hope of finding out and punishing his brother's
murderer. And now he was found, this murderer, this thief, this guilt-
burdened criminal: and he was her only brother, and dying. Ah, well,
Valentine Jernam was avenged. Providence had exacted George Jernam's
vengeance: the wrath of man was not needed here.

The second crime with which this story has to do was one of old date,
one of the earliest in Black Milsom's dreadful career. The dying wretch
told Mr. Colburne how he had headed a gang of thieves, chiefly composed
of sailors who had deserted their ships, some twenty-one or two years
before this time, when retribution had come upon him, and in their
company had robbed the villa of an English lady at Florence. This crime
had been committed with the connivance and assistance of the Italian
woman who was nurse to the English lady's child. Milsom, then a
handsome young fellow, had offered marriage to the woman, which offer
was accepted; and she had made his taking her and the child with him--
for nothing would induce her to leave the infant--a condition of her
aid. He did so; but the hardship of her new life soon killed the
Italian woman; and the child was left to the mercy of Milsom and an old
hag who acted as his drudge and accomplice. What mercy she met with at
those hands the reader knows, for that child was the future wife of Sir
Oswald Eversleigh. Mr. Colburne listened to this portion of Milsom's
confession with intense interest.

"The name?" he asked; "the name of the lady who lived at Florence, the
mother of the child? Tell me the name!"

"Verner," said the dying man, in a hoarse whisper, "Lady Verner; the
child's name was Anna."

He was very near his end when he finished his terrible story. While Mr.
Colburne was trying to speak peace to the poor darkened, frightened,
guilty soul, Mrs. Miller knelt by the bedside, sobbing convulsively.
Suddenly she remembered the child she had the care of. Had his account
of her been true? Was she also the victim of a crime? She waited, with
desperate impatience, but with the habitual respect of her class, until
Mr. Colburne had ceased to speak. Then she put her lips close to the
dying man's ear, and said--

"Thomas, Thomas, for God's sake tell me about the child--who is she? Is
what you told me true? If not, set it right--oh, brother, brother, set
it right--before it is too late."

The imploring tone of her voice reached her brother's dull ear; a faint
spasm, as though he strove in vain to speak, crossed his white drawn
lips. But the disfigured head in its ghastly bandages was motionless;
the shattered arm in its wrappings made no gesture. In terror, in
despair, his sister started to her feet, and looked eagerly, closely,
into his face. In vain the white lips parted, the eyelids quivered, a
shiver shook the broad, brawny chest--then all was still, and Black
Milsom was dead!

On the following morning Mr. Colburne took Mrs. Miller back to
Allanbay, after giving her a night's rest in his own hospitable home.
He left her at her own cottage, and went to Mrs. Jernam's house, as he
had promised the afflicted woman he would save her the pain of telling
the terrible story which was to clear up the mystery surrounding the
merchant captain's fate. When the clergyman reached the house, and
lifted his hand to the bright knocker, he heard a sound of many and
gleeful voices within--a sound which died away as he knocked for
admittance.

Presently the door was opened by Mrs. Jernam's trim maid, who replied,
when Mr. Colburne asked if he could see Mrs. Jernam, and if she were
alone--as a hint that he did not wish to see any one beside--

"Please, sir, missus is in, but she ain't alone; Captain George and
Mrs. George's father have just come--not half an hour ago."

* * * * *

And so Joyce Harker's self-imposed task was at an end, and George
Jernam's long brooding upon his brother's fate was over. A solemn
stillness came upon the happy party at Allanbay, and Rosamond's tears
fell upon little Gerty, as she slept upon her bosom--slept where
George's child was soon to slumber. Mr. Colburne asked no questions
about the child. Mrs. Miller had said nothing to him respecting her
charge, and Milsom's death, ensuing immediately on her question, had
caused it to pass unnoticed. George Jernam, his wife, and Captain
Duncombe started for London early the next day. They had come to a
unanimous conclusion, on consultation with Mrs. Miller, that there was
a mystery about the child, and that the best thing to be done was to
communicate with the police at once. "Besides," said George, "I must
see Mr. Larkspur, and tell him he need not trouble himself farther; now
that accident, or, as I believe Providence, has done for us what all
his skill failed to do."

When George Jernam presented himself at Mr. Larkspur's office he
underwent a rigid inspection by that gentleman's "deputy," and having,
by a few hints as to the nature of his business, led that astute person
to think that it bore on his principal's present quest, he was
entrusted with the address of Mr. Andrews, in Percy Street.

* * * * *

"So, you see, I don't get my five hundred, because I didn't find out
Captain Jernam's murderer," said Mr. Larkspur, after a long and
agitating explanation had put Lady Eversleigh in possession of all the
foregoing circumstances. "And here's Captain Jernam's brother comes and
takes the job of finding little missy out of my hands--does my work for
me as clean as a whistle."

"But I did not know I was doing it, Mr. Larkspur," said George. "I did
not know the little Gerty that my Rosamond is so sorry to part with,
was Miss Eversleigh; you found it out, from what I told you."

"As if any fool could fail to find out that," said Mr. Larkspur good-
humouredly. He had a strong conviction that neither the relinquishment
of Lady Eversleigh's designs of punishing her enemies, nor the finding
of the heiress by other than his agency, would inflict any injury upon
him--a conviction which was amply justified by his future experience.

"My good friend," said Lady Eversleigh, "if I do not need your aid to
restore my child to me, I need it to restore me to my mother. I cannot
realize the truth that I have a mother, I can only feel it. I can only
feel how she must have suffered by remembering my own anguish. And
hers, how much more cruel, how prolonged, how hopeless! You will see to
this at once, Mr. Larkspur, while I go to my child."

"Lord bless you, my lady," said Mr. Larkspur, cheerily, "there's no
occasion to look very far. You have not forgotten the lady, she that
lives so quiet, yet so stylish, near Richmond, and that Sir Reginald
Eversleigh pays such attention to? You remember all I told you about
her, and how I found out that she was Mr. Dale's aunt, and he know
nothing about her?"

"Yes, yes," said Lady Eversleigh, breathlessly, "I remember."

"Well, my lady, that party near Richmond is Lady Verner, your
ladyship's mother."

Lady Eversleigh was well nigh overwhelmed by the throng of feelings
which pressed upon her. She, the despised outcast, the first-cousin of
the man who had scorned her, a connection of the great family into
which she had married, her husband's equal in rank, and in fortune!
She, the woman whose beauty had been used to lure Valentine Jernam to
his death, she who had almost witnessed his murder; she owed to
Valentine's brother the discovery of her parentage, the defeat of her
calumniators, her restoration to a high place in society, and to family
ties, the destruction of Reginald Eversleigh's designs on Lady Verner's
property, and--greatest, best boon of all--the recovery of her child.
Her own devices, her own wilfulness had but led her into deeper danger,
into more bitter sorrow; but Providence had done great things for her
by the hands of this stranger, between whom and herself there existed
so sinister a link.

"Can you ever forgive me, Captain Jernam," she said, "for my share in
your brother's fate? Must I always be hateful in your sight? Will Mrs.
Jernam ever permit me to thank her for her goodness to my child?"

For the answer, George Jernam stooped and kissed her hand, with all the
natural grace inspired by natural good-feeling, and Lady Eversleigh
felt that she had gained a friend where she had feared to meet a
relentless foe. The little party remained long in consultation, and it
was decided that nothing was to be done about Lady Verner until Lady
Eversleigh had reclaimed her child. George Jernam entreated her to
permit him to go to Allanbay and bring the little girl to her mother,
but she would not consent. She insisted upon George's bringing his wife
to see her immediately, as the preparations for departure did not admit
of her calling upon Mrs. Jernam. The gentle, happy Rosamond complied
willingly, and so thoroughly had the beautiful lady won the girl's
heart before they were long together, that Rosamond herself proposed
that George should accompany Lady Eversleigh to Allanbay. With pretty
imperiousness she bore down Lady Eversleigh's grateful scruples, and
the result was, that the two started that same evening, travelled as
fast as post-horses could carry them, and arrived at Allanbay before
even Lady Eversleigh's impatience could find the journey long. Susan
Jernam had kept the child with her, and she it was who put little Gerty
into her mother's arms. Rarely in her life had Lady Eversleigh lain
down to rest with do tranquil a heart as that with which she slept
under the humble roof of Captain Jernam's aunt.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

"CONFUSION WORSE THAN DEATH."

Sir Reginald Eversleigh had paid Victor Carrington a long visit, at the
cottage at Maida Hill, on the day which had witnessed the distressing
interview and angry parting between Douglas Dale and Madame Durski.
They had talked a great deal, and Reginald had been struck by the
strange excitement--the almost feverish exultation--in Carrington's
tone and manner. He was not more openly communicative as to his plans
than usual, but he expressed his expectation of triumph in a way which
Eversleigh had never heard him do before.

"You seem quite sanguine, Victor," said Sir Reginald. "Mind, I don't
ask questions, but you really are sure all is going well?"

"Our affairs march, _mon ami_. And you are making your game with the
old lady at Richmond admirably, are you not?"

"Nothing could be better, and indeed I ought to succeed, for it's dull
work, I can tell you, especially when she begins talking resignedly
about the child that was stolen a few centuries ago, and her hopes of
meeting it in a better world. Horrid bore--dreadful bosh; but anything
is worth bearing if money is to be made of it--good, sure, sterling
money. I think it will do me good to see some real money--bank-notes
and gold, and that sort of thing--for an accommodation bill is the only
form of cash I've handled since I came of age. How happy we shall be
when it all comes right--your game and mine!" continued the baronet.
"My plans are very simple. I shall only exchange my shabby lodgings in
the Strand for apartments in Piccadilly, overlooking the Park, of
course. I shall resume my old position among my own set, and enjoy life
after my own fashion; and when once I am possessor of a handsome
fortune, I dare say I shall have no difficulty in getting a rich wife.
And you, Victor, how shall you employ our wealth?"

"In the restoration of my name," replied the Frenchman, with suppressed
intensity. "Yes, Sir Reginald, the one purpose of my life is told in
those words. I have been an outcast and an adventurer, friendless,
penniless; but I am the last scion of a noble house, and to restore to
that house some small portion of its long-lost splendour has been the
one dream of my manhood. I am not given to talk much of that which lies
nearest my heart, and never until to-night have I spoken to you of my
single ambition; but you, who have watched me toiling upon a weary
road, wading through a morass of guilt, must surely have guessed that
the pole-star must needs be a bright one which could lure me onward
upon so hideous a pathway. The end has come at last, and I now speak
freely. My name is not Carrington. I am Viscomte Champfontaine, of
Champfontaine, in the department of Charente, and my name was once the
grandest in western France; but the Revolution robbed us of lands and
wealth, and there remain now but four rugged stone towers of that
splendid chateau which once rose proudly above the woods of
Champfontaine, like a picture by Gustave Dore. The fountain in the
field still flows, limpid as in those days when the soldier-Gaul
pitched his tent beside its waters, and took for himself the name of
Champfontaine. To restore that name, to rebuild that chateau--that is
the dream which I have cherished."

Excited by this unwonted revelation of his feelings, and by the
anticipation of the realization of all his hopes, the Frenchman rose,
and paced rapidly up and down the room.

"I will go to Champfontaine," he said. "I will look once more upon the
crumbling towers, so soon to be restored to their primitive strength
and grandeur."

Reginald watched him wonderingly. This enthusiasm about an ancient name
was beyond his comprehension. He too, bore a name that had been
honourable for centuries, and he had recklessly degraded that name. He
had begun life with all the best gifts of fortune in his hands, and had
squandered all.

"I hear your cousin Douglas is very ill," said Carrington, checking his
excited manner, and speaking with a sudden change of tone, which
produced a strange thrill of Sir Reginald's somewhat weak nerves. "I
should recommend you to go and call upon him at his chambers. Never
mind any coolness there may have been between you. You needn't see him,
you know; in fact it will be much better for you to avoid doing so. But
just call and make the inquiry. I am really anxious to know if there is
anything the matter with him."

Sir Reginald Eversleigh looked at the Frenchman with a half doubtful,
half horror-stricken look--such a look as Faust may have cast at
Mephistopheles, when Gretchen's soldier-brother fell, stricken by the
invisible sword of the demon.

"I'll tell you what it is, Victor," he said, after a pause, "unless our
luck changes pretty quickly, I shall throw up the sponge some fine
morning, and blow my brains out. Affairs have been desperate with me
for a long time, and your fine schemes have not made me a halfpenny
richer. I begin to think that, in spite of all your cleverness, you're
no better than a bungler."

"I shall begin to think so myself," answered Victor, between his set
teeth, "unless success comes to us speedily. We have been working
underground, and the work has been slow and wearisome; but the end
cannot be far distant," he added, with a heavy sigh. "Go and inquire
after your cousin's health."

And so Reginald Eversleigh strove to dismiss the subject from his mind.
So powerful is self-deception, that he almost succeeded in persuading
himself that he had no part in Carrington's plots--that he did not know
at what he was aiming and that he was, personally, absolved from any
share in the crime that was being perpetrated, if crime there was; but
that there was, he even affected himself to doubt.

After Sir Reginald left him, Victor Carrington threw himself into a
chair in a fit of deep despondency. After a time that mood passed away,
and he roused himself, and thought of what he had to do that day. He
had seen Miss Brewer only the previous day. He had learned how much
alarmed Paulina was about her lover's health, and with what good
reason. Victor Carrington came to a resolution that this day should be
the last of waiting--of suspense. He took a phial from the press where
he kept all deadly drugs, placed it in his breast-pocket, and went to
his mother's sitting-room. The widow was sitting, as usual, at her
embroidery-frame. She counted some stitches before she raised her head
to look at her son. But when she did look up, her own face changed, and
she said,--

"Victor, you are ill. I know you are. You look very ill--not like
yourself. What ails you?"

"Nothing, mother," replied Victor; "nothing that a little fresh air and
exercise will not remove. I have been a little over-excited, that is
all. I have been thinking of the old home that sheltered my grandfather
before the sequestrations of '93--the home that could be bought back
to-day for an old song, and which a few thousands, judiciously
invested, might restore to something of its old grandeur. One of the
Champfontaines received Francis I. and his sister Marguerite in the old
chateau which they burnt during the Terror. Mother, I will tell you a
secret to-day: ever since I can remember having a wish, the one great
desire of my life has been the desire to restore the place and the
name; and I hope to accomplish that desire soon, mother--very soon."

"Victor, this is the talk of a madman!" exclaimed the Frenchwoman,
alarmed by her son's unwonted vehemence.

"No, mother, it is the talk of a man who feels himself on the verge of
a great success--or--a stupendous failure."

"I cannot understand--"

"There is no need for you to understand any more than this: I have been
playing a bold game, and I believe it will prove a winning one."

"Is this game an honest one, Victor?"

"Honest? oh, yes!" answered the surgeon, with an ominous laugh, "why
should I be not honest? Does not the world teach a man to be honest?
See what noble rewards it offers for honesty."

He took a crumpled letter from his pocket as he spoke, and threw it
across the table to his mother.

"Read that, mother," he said; "that is my reward for ten years' honest
toil in a laborious profession. Captain Halkard, the inaugurator of an
Arctic expedition for scientific purposes, writes to invite me to join
his ship as surgeon. He has heard of my conscientious devotion to my
profession--my exceptional talents--see, those are his exact words, and
he offers me the post of ship's surgeon, with a honorarium of fifty
pounds. The voyage is supposed to last six months; it is much more
likely to last a year; it is most likely to last for ever--for, from
the place to which these men are going, the chances are against any
man's return. And for unutterable hardship, for the hazard of my life,
for my exceptional talents, my conscientious devotion, he offers me
fifty pounds. That, mother, is the price which honesty commands in the
great market of life."

"But it might lead to something, Victor," murmured the mother, as she
put down the letter, pleased by the writer's praises of her son.

"Oh, yes, it might lead to a few words of commendation in a scientific
journal; possibly a degree of F.R.G.S.; or very probably a grave under
the ice, with a grizzly bear for sexton."

"You will not accept the offer?"

"Not unless my great scheme fails at the last moment--as it cannot
fail--as it cannot!" he repeated, with the air of a man who tries to
realize a possibility too horrible for imagination.

* * * * *

It was very late that night before Paulina Durski, worn out by the
emotion she had undergone, could be persuaded to retire to rest. After
Douglas had left her, all the firmness forsook her, all her pride was
overthrown. Despair unutterable took possession of her. With him went
her last hope--her one only chance of happiness. She flung herself,
face downwards, on her sofa, and gave way to the wildest, most
agonizing grief. Thus Miss Brewer found her, and eagerly questioned her
concerning the cause of her distress. But she could obtain no
explanation from Paulina, who only answered, in a voice broken by
convulsive sobs, "Some other time, some other time; don't ask me now."
So Miss Brewer was forced to be silent, if not content, and at length
she persuaded Paulina to go to bed.

The faithful friend arranged everything with her own hands for Madame
Durski's comfort, and would not consent to leave her till she had lain
down to rest. The broken-hearted woman bade her friend good night
calmly enough, but before Miss Brewer reached the door, she heard
Paulina's sobs burst forth again, and saw that she had covered her face
with her hands, and buried it in the pillow.