Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [epub ebook reader .TXT] 📗

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Before he went, George promised that he would himself await the return

of his father-in-law before he started on a new voyage.

 

“I can afford to be idle for twelve months, or so,” he said; “and my

dear little wife shall not be left without a protector.”

 

So the young couple settled down comfortably in the commodious cottage,

which was now all their own.

 

To Rosamond, her new existence was all unbroken joy. She had loved her

husband with all the romantic devotion of inexperienced girlhood. To

her poetic fancy he seemed the noblest and bravest of created beings;

and she wondered at her own good fortune when she saw him by her side,

fond and devoted, consent to sacrifice all the delights of his free,

roving life for her sake.

 

“I don’t think such happiness can last, George,” she said to him one

day.

 

That vague foreboding was soon to be too sadly realized! The sunshine

and the bright summer peace had promised to last for ever; but a dark

cloud arose which in one moment overshadowed all that summer sky, and

Rosamond Jernam’s happiness vanished as if it had been indeed a dream.

 

CHAPTER XIX.

 

A FAMILIAR TOKEN.

 

Joseph Duncombe had been absent from River View Cottage little more

than a month, and the life of its inmates had been smooth and

changeless as the placid surface of a lake. They sought no society but

that of each other. Existence glided by, and the eventless days left

little to remember except the sweet tranquillity of a happy home.

 

It was on a wet, dull, unsettled July day that Rosamond Jernam found

her life changed all at once, while the cause for that dark change

remained a mystery to her.

 

After idling away half the morning, Captain Jernam discovered that he

had an important business letter to write to the captain of his trading

ship, the “Pizarro.”

 

On opening his portfolio, the captain found himself without a single

sheet of foreign letter-paper. He told this difficulty to his wife, as

it was his habit to tell her all his difficulties; and he found her, as

usual, able to give him assistance.

 

“There is always foreign letter-paper in papa’s desk,” she said; “you

can use that.”

 

“But, my dear Rosy, I could not think of opening your father’s desk in

his absence.”

 

“And why not?” cried Rosamond, laughing. “Do you think papa has any

secrets hidden there; or that he keeps some mysterious packet of old

love-letters tied up with a blue ribbon, which he would not like your

prying eyes to discover? You may open the desk, George. I give you my

permission; and if papa should be angry, the blame shall fall upon me

alone.”

 

The desk was a large old-fashioned piece of furniture, which stood in

the corner of Captain Duncombe’s favourite sitting-room.

 

“But how am I to open this ponderous piece of machinery?” asked George.

“It seems to be locked.”

 

“It is locked,” answered his wife. “Luckily I happen to have a key

which precisely fits it. There, sir, is the key; and now I leave you to

devote yourself to business, while I go to see about dinner.”

 

She held up her pretty rosy lips to be kissed, and then tripped away,

leaving the captain to achieve a duty for which he had no particular

relish.

 

He unlocked the desk, and found a quire of letter-paper. He dipped a

pen in ink, tried it, and then began to write.

 

He wrote, “London, July 20th,” and “My Dear Boyd;” and having

written thus much, he came to a stop. The easiest part of the letter

was finished.

 

Captain Jernam sat with his elbows resting on the table, looking

straight before him, in pure absence of mind. As he did so, his eyes

were caught suddenly by an object lying amongst the pens and pencils in

the tray before him.

 

That object was a bent gold coin.

 

His face grew pale as he snatched up the coin, and examined it closely.

It was a small Brazilian coin, bent and worn, and on one side of it was

scratched the initial “G.”

 

That small battered coin was very familiar to George Jernam’s gaze, and

it was scarcely strange if the warm life-blood ebbed from his cheeks,

and left them ashy pale.

 

The coin was a keepsake which he had given to his murdered brother,

Valentine, on the eve of their last parting.

 

And he found it here—here, in Joseph Duncombe’s desk!

 

For some moments he sat aghast, motionless, powerless even to think. He

could not realize the full weight of this strange discovery. He could

only remember the warm breath of the tropical night on which he and his

brother had bidden each other farewell—the fierce light of the

tropical stars beneath which they had stood when they parted.

 

Then he began to ask himself how that farewell token, the golden coin,

which he had taken from his pocket in that parting hour, and upon which

he had idly scratched his own initial, had come into the possession of

Joseph Duncombe.

 

He was not a man of the world, and he was not able to reason calmly and

logically on the subject of his brother’s untimely fate. He shared

Joyce’s rooted idea, that the escape of Valentine’s murderer was only

temporary, and that, sooner or later, accident would disclose the

criminal.

 

It seemed now as if the eventful moment had come. Here, on this spot,

near the scene of his brother’s disappearance, he came upon this

token—this relic, which told that Valentine had been in some manner

associated with Joseph Duncombe.

 

And yet Joseph Duncombe and George had talked long and earnestly on the

subject of the murdered sailor’s fate, and in all their talk Captain

Duncombe had never acknowledged any acquaintance with its details.

 

This was strange.

 

Still more incomprehensible to George Jernam was the fact that

Valentine should have parted with the farewell token, except with his

life, for his last words to his brother had been—

 

“I’ll keep the bit of gold, George, to my dying day, in memory of your

fidelity and love.”

 

There had been something more between these two men than a common

brotherhood: there had been the bond of a joyless childhood spent

together, and their affection for each other was more than the ordinary

love of brothers.

 

“I don’t believe he would have parted with that piece of gold,” cried

George, “not if he had been without a sixpence in the world.”

 

“And he was rich. It was the money he carried about him which tempted

his murderer. It was near here that he met his fate—on this very spot,

perhaps. Joyce told me that before my father-in-law built this house,

there was a dilapidated building, which was a meeting-place for the

vilest scoundrels in Ratcliff Highway. But how came that coin in Joseph

Duncombe’s desk?—how, unless Joseph Duncombe was concerned in my

brother’s murder?”

 

This idea, once aroused in the mind of George Jernam, was not to be

driven away. It seemed too hideous for reality; but it took possession

of his mind, nevertheless, and he sat alone, trying to shut horrible

fancies out of his brain, but trying uselessly.

 

He remembered Joseph Duncombe’s wealth. Had all that wealth been

honestly won?

 

He remembered the captain’s restlessness—his feverish desire to run

away from a home in which he possessed so much to render life happy.

 

Might not that eagerness to return to the sailor’s wild, roving life

have its root in the tortures of a guilty conscience?

 

“His very kindness to me may be prompted by a vague wish to make some

paltry atonement for a dark wrong done my brother,” thought George.

 

He remembered Joseph Duncombe’s seeming goodness of heart, and wondered

if such a man could possibly be concerned in the darkest crime of which

mankind can be guilty. But he remembered also that the worst and vilest

of men were often such accomplished hypocrites as to remain unsuspected

of evil until the hour when accident revealed their iniquity.

 

“It is so, perhaps, with this man,” thought George Jernam. “That air of

truth and goodness may be but a mask. I know what a master-passion the

greed of gain is with some men. It has doubtless been the passion of

this man’s heart. The wretches who lured Valentine Jernam to this house

were tools of Joseph Duncombe’s. How otherwise could this token have

fallen into his hands?”

 

He tried to find some other answer to this question; but he tried in

vain. That little piece of gold seemed to fasten the dark stigma of

guilt upon the absent owner of the house.

 

“And I have shaken this man’s hand!” cried George. “I am the husband of

his daughter. I live beneath the shelter of his roof—in this house,

which was bought perhaps with my brother’s blood. Great heavens! it is

too horrible.”

 

For two long hours George Jernam sat brooding over the strange

discovery which had changed the whole current of his life. Rosamond

came and peeped in at the door.

 

“Still busy, George?” she asked.

 

“Yes,” he answered, in a strange, harsh tone, “I am very busy.”

 

That altered voice alarmed the loving wife. She crept into the room,

and stood behind her husband’s chair.

 

“George,” she said, “your voice sounded so strange just now; you are

not ill, are you, darling?”

 

“No, no; I only want to be alone. Go, Rosamond.”

 

The wife could not fail to be just a little offended by her husband’s

manner. The pretty rosy lips pouted, and then tears came into the

bright blue eyes.

 

George Jernam’s head was bent upon his clasped hands, and he took no

heed of his wife’s sorrow. She could not leave him without one more

anxious question.

 

“Is there anything amiss with you, George?” she asked.

 

“Nothing that you can cure.”

 

The harshness of his tone, the coldness of his manner, wounded her

heart. She said no more, but went quietly from the room.

 

Never before had her beloved George spoken unkindly to her—never

before had the smallest cloud obscured the calm horizon of her married

life.

 

After this, the dark cloud hung black and heavy over that once happy

household; the sun never shone again upon the young wife’s home.

 

She tried to penetrate the secret of this sudden change, but she could

not do so. She could complain of no unkindness from her husband—he

never spoke harshly to her after that first day. His manner was gentle

and indulgent; but it seemed as if his love had died, leaving in its

place only a pitiful tenderness, strangely blended with sadness and

gloom.

 

He asked Rosamond several questions about her father’s past life; but

on that subject she could tell him very little. She had never lived

with her father until after the building of River View Cottage, and she

knew nothing of his existence before that time, except that he had only

been in England during brief intervals, and that he had always come to

see her at school when he had an opportunity of doing so.

 

“He is the best and dearest of fathers,” she said, affectionately.

 

George Jernam asked if Captain Duncombe had been in England during that

spring in which Valentine met his death.

 

After a moment’s reflection, Rosamond replied in the affirmative.

 

“I remember his coming to see me that spring,” she said. “He came early

in March, and again in April, and it was then he began