Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [classic literature books txt] 📗

for long, captain?" asked the landlord.

"Well, no; not for long, mate; for I've got an appointment to keep in this house, on the fifth of April, with a brother of mine, who's homeward-bound from Barbadoes. You see, my brother and me are partners; whatever good luck one has he shares it with the other. We've been uncommon lucky lately."

The captain slapped his hand upon one of his capacious pockets as he spoke. Dennis Wayman watched the gesture with eager eyes. All through Valentine's speech, Joyce Harker had been trying to arrest his attention, but trying in vain. When the owner of the 'Pizarro' began to talk, it was very difficult to stop him.

The captain bade the landlord a cheerful good day, and departed with his faithful follower.

Out in the street, Joyce Harker remonstrated with his employer.

"I told you that fellow was not to be trusted, captain," he said; "and yet you blabbed to him about the money."

"Nonsense, Joyce. I didn't say a word about money."

"Didn't you though, captain? You said quite enough to let that man know you'd got the cash about you. But you won't go back to that place till you go to meet Captain George on the fifth?"

"Of course not."

"You won't change your mind, captain?"

"Not I."

"Because, you see, I shall be down at Blackwall, looking after the repairs, for it will be sharp work to get finished against you want to sail for Rio. So, you see, I shall be out of the way. And if you did go back to that house alone, Lord knows what they might try on."

"Don't you be afraid, Joyce. In the first place I shan't go back there till twelve o'clock on the fifth. I'll come up from Plymouth by the night coach, and put up at the 'Golden Cross' like a gentleman. And, in the second place, I flatter myself I'm a match for any set of land-sharks in creation."

"No, you're not, captain. No honest man is ever a match for a scoundrel."

Jernam and his companion carried the captain's portmanteau between them. They hailed a hackney-coach presently, and drove to the "Golden Cross," through the chill, gray streets, where the closed shutters had a funereal aspect.

At the coach-office they parted, with many friendly words on both sides; but to the last, Joyce Harker was grave and anxious.

The last he saw of his friend and employer was the captain's dark face looking out of the coach-window; the captain's hand waved in cordial farewell.

"What a good fellow he is!--what a noble fellow!" thought the wizen little clerk, as he trudged back towards the City. "But was there ever a baby so helpless on shore?--was there ever an innocent infant that needed so much looking after?"

* * * * *


Valentine Jernam arrived at Plymouth early the next morning, and walked from Plymouth to the little village of Allanbay, in which lived the only relative he had in the world, except his brother George. Walking at a leisurely pace along the quiet road, Captain Jernam, although not usually a thoughtful person, was fain to think about something, and fell to thinking over the past.

Light-hearted and cheery of spirit as the adventurous sailor was now-a-days, his childhood had been a very sad one. Motherless at eight years of age, and ill-used by a drunken father, the boy had suffered as the children of the poor too often suffer.

His mother had died, leaving George an infant of less than twelve months old; and from the hour of her death, Valentine had been the infant's sole nurse and protector; standing between the helpless little one and the father's brutality; enduring all hardships cheerfully, so long as he was able to shelter little Georgy.

On more than one occasion, the elder boy had braved and defied his father in defence of the younger brother.

It was scarcely strange, therefore, that there should arise between the two brothers an affection beyond the ordinary measure of brotherly love. Valentine had supplied the place of both parents to his brother George,--the place of the mother, who lay buried in Allanbay churchyard; the place of the father, who had sunk into a living death of drunkenness and profligacy.

They were not peasant-born these Jernams. The father had been a lieutenant in the Royal Navy; but had deservedly lost his commission, and had come, with his devoted wife, to hide his disgrace at Allanbay. The vices which had caused his expulsion from the navy had increased with every year, until the family had sunk to the lowest depths of poverty and degradation, in spite of the wife's heroic efforts to accomplish the reform of a reprobate. She had struggled nobly till the last, and had died broken-hearted, leaving the helpless children to the mercy of a wretch whose nature had become utterly debased and brutalized.

Throughout their desolate childhood the brothers had been all in all to each other, and as soon as George was old enough to face the world with his brother, the two boys ran away to sea, and obtained employment on board a small trading vessel.

At sea, as on shore, Valentine stood between his younger brother and all hardships. But the rough sailors were kinder than the drunken father had been, and the two lads fared pretty well.

Thus began the career of the two Jernams. Through all changes of fortune, the brothers had clung to each other. Despite all differences of character, their love for each other had known neither change nor diminution; and to-day, walking alone upon this quiet country road, the tears clouded Valentine Jernam's eyes as he remembered how often he had trodden it in the old time with his little brother in his arms.

"I shall see his dear face on the fifth," he thought; "God bless him!"

The old aunt lived in a cottage near the entrance to the village. She was comfortably off now--thanks to the two merchant captains; but she had been very poor in the days of their childhood, and had been able to do but little for the neglected lads. She had given them shelter, however, when they had been afraid to go home to their father, and had shared her humble fare with them very often.

Mrs. Jernam, as she was called by her neighbours, in right of her sixty years of age, was sitting by the window when her nephew opened the little garden-gate: but she had opened the door before he could knock, and was standing on the threshold ready to embrace him.

"My boy," she exclaimed, "I have been looking for you so long!"

That day was given up to pleasant talk between the aunt and nephew. She was so anxious to hear his adventures, and he was so willing to tell them. He sat before the fire smoking, while Susan Jernam's busy fingers plied her knitting-needles, and relating his hair-breadth escapes and perils between the puffs of blue smoke.

The captain was regaled with an excellent dinner, and a bottle of wine of his own importation. After dinner, he strolled out into the village, saw his old friends and acquaintances, and talked over old times. Altogether his first day at Allanbay passed very pleasantly.

The second day at Allanbay, however, hung heavily on the captain's hands. He had told all his adventures; he had seen all his old acquaintances. The face of the ballad-singer haunted him perpetually; and he spent the best part of the day leaning over the garden-gate and smoking. Mrs. Jernam was not offended by her nephew's conduct.

"Ah! my boy," she said, smiling fondly on her handsome kinsman, "it's fortunate Providence made you a sailor, for you'd have been ill-fitted for any but a roving life."

The third day of Valentine Jernam's stay at Allanbay was the second of April, and on that morning his patience was exhausted. The face which had made itself a part of his very mind lured him back to London. He was a man who had never accustomed himself to school his impulses; and the impulse that drew him back to London was irresistible.

"I must and will see her once more," he said to himself; "perhaps, if I see her face again, I shall find out it's only a common face after all, and get the better of this folly. But I must see her. After the fifth, George will be with me, and I shan't be my own master. I must see her before the fifth."

Impetuous in all things, Valentine Jernam was not slow to act upon his resolution. He told his aunt that he had business to transact in London. He left Allanbay at noon, walked to Plymouth, took the afternoon coach, and rode into London on the following day.

It was one o'clock when Captain Jernam found himself once more in the familiar seafaring quarter; early as it was, the noise of riot and revelry had begun already.

The landlord looked up with an expression of considerable surprise as the captain of the 'Pizarro' crossed the threshold.

"Why, captain," he said, "I thought we weren't to see you till the fifth."

"Well, you see, I had some business to do in this neighbourhood, so I changed my mind."

"I'm very glad you did," answered Dennis Wayman, cordially; "you've just come in time to take a snack of dinner with me and my missus, so you can sit down, and make yourself at home, without ceremony."

The captain was too good-natured to refuse an invitation that seemed proffered in such a hearty spirit. And beyond this, he wanted to hear more about Jenny Milsom, the ballad-singer.

So he ate his dinner with Mr. Wayman and his wife, and found himself asking all manner of questions about the singing-girl in the course of his hospitable entertainment.

He asked if the girl was going to sing at the tavern to-night.

"No," answered the landlord; "this is Friday. She only sings at my place on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays."

"And what does she do with herself for the rest of the week?"

"Ah! that's more than I know; but very likely her father will look in here in the course of the afternoon, and he can tell you. I say, though, captain, you seem uncommonly sweet on this girl," added the landlord, with a leer and a wink.

"Well, perhaps I am sweet upon her," replied Valentine Jernam "perhaps I'm fool enough to be caught by a pretty face, and not wise enough to keep my folly a secret."

"I've got a Little business to see to over in Rotherhithe," said Mr. Wayman, presently; "you'll see after the bar while I'm gone, Nancy. There's the little private room at your service, captain, and I dare say you can make yourself comfortable there with your pipe and the newspaper. It's ten to one but what Tom Milsom will look in before the day's out, and he'll tell you all about his daughter."

Upon this the landlord departed, and Valentine Jernam retired to the little den called a private room, where he speedily fell asleep, wearied out by his journey on the previous night.

His slumbers were not pleasant. He sat in an uneasy position, upon a hard wooden chair, with his arms folded on the table