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

>seeming, peaceful. But the heart of the deserted wife knew not peace.

She was perpetually brooding over the strange circumstances of George’s

departure—perpetually asking herself why it was he had left her.

 

She could shape no answer to that constantly repeated question.

 

Had he ceased to love her? No! surely that could not be, for the change

which arises in the most inconstant heart is, at least, gradual. George

Jernam had changed in a day—in an hour.

 

Reason upon the subject as she might, the conviction at which Rosamond

arrived at last was always the same. She believed that the mysterious

change that had arisen in the husband she so fondly loved was a change

in the mind itself—a sudden monomania, beyond the influence of the

outer world—a wild hallucination of the brain, not to be cured by any

ordinary physician.

 

Believing this, the wife’s heart was tortured as she thought of the

perils that surrounded her husband’s life—perils that were doubly

terrible for one whose mind had lost its even balance.

 

She watched every alteration in the atmosphere, every cloud in the sky,

with unspeakable anxiety. As the autumn gave place to winter, as the

winds blew loud above the broad expanse of ocean, as the foam-crests of

the dark waves rose high, and gleamed white and silvery in the dim

twilight, her heart sank with an awful fear for the absent wanderer.

 

Night and day her prayers arose to heaven—such prayers as only the

loving heart of woman breathes for the object of all her thoughts.

 

While Rosamond occupied the abode which Captain Jernam had chosen for

her, River View Cottage was abandoned entirely to the care of Mrs.

Mugby and Susan Trott, and the trim house had a desolate look in the

dismal autumn days, and the darkening winter twilights, carefully as it

was kept by Mrs. Mugby, who aired the rooms, and dusted and polished

the furniture every day, as industriously as if she had been certain of

the captain’s return before nightfall.

 

“He may come this night, or he may not come for a year,” she said to

Susan very often, when Miss Trott was a little disposed to neglect some

of her duties, in the way of dusting and polishing; “but mark my words,

Susan, when he does come, he’ll come sudden, without so much as one

line of warning, or notice enough to get a bit of dinner ready for

him.”

 

The day came at last when the housekeeper was gratified to find that

all her dusting and polishing had not been thrown away. Captain

Duncombe returned exactly as she had prophesied he would return,

without sending either note or message to give warning of his arrival.

 

He rang the bell one day, and walked into the garden, and from the

garden into the house, with the air of a man who had just come home

from a morning’s walk, much to the astonishment of Susan Trott, who

admitted him, and who stared at him with eyes opened to their widest

extent, as he strode hurriedly past her.

 

He went straight into the parlour he had been accustomed to sit in. A

fire was burning brightly in the polished steel grate, and everything

bore the appearance of extreme comfort.

 

The merchant-captain looked round the room with an air of satisfaction.

 

“There’s nothing like a trip to the Indies for making a man appreciate

the comforts of his own home,” he exclaimed. “How cheery it all looks;

and a man must be a fool who couldn’t enjoy himself at home after

tossing about in a hurricane off Gibraltar for a week at a stretch. But

where’s your mistress?” cried Joe Duncombe, suddenly, turning to the

astonished Susan. “Where’s Mrs. Jernam?—where’s my daughter? Doesn’t

she hear her old father’s gruff voice? Isn’t she coming to bid me

welcome after all I’ve gone through to earn more money for her?”

 

Before Susan could answer, Mrs. Mugby had heard the voice of her

master, and came hurrying in to greet him.

 

“Thank you for your hearty welcome,” said the captain, hurriedly; “but

where’s my daughter? Is she out of doors this cold winter day, gadding

about London streets?—or how the deuce is it she doesn’t come to give

her old father a kiss, and bid him welcome home?”

 

“Lor’, sir,” cried Mrs. Mugby, “you don’t mean to say as you haven’t

heard from Miss Rosa—begging your pardon, Mrs. Jernam—but the other

do come so much more natural?”

 

“Heard from her!” exclaimed the captain. “Not I, I haven’t had a line

from her. But heaven have mercy on us! how the woman does stare! There

isn’t anything wrong with my daughter, is there? She’s well—eh?”

 

The captain’s honest face grew pale, as a sudden fear arose in his

mind.

 

“Don’t tell me my daughter is ill,” he gasped; “or worse—”

 

“No, no, no, captain,” cried Mrs. Mugby. “I heard from Mrs. Jernam only

a week ago, and she was quite well; but she is residing down in

Devonshire, where she removed with her husband last July; and I made

sure you would have received a letter telling you of the change.”

 

“What!” roared Joseph Duncombe; “did my daughter go and turn her back

upon the comfortable little box her father built for her—the place he

spent his hard-won earnings upon for her sake? So Rosy got tired of the

cottage, did she? It wasn’t good enough for her, I suppose. Well, well,

that does seem rather hard somehow—it does seem hard.”

 

The captain dropped heavily down into the chair nearest him. He was

deeply wounded by the idea that his daughter had deserted the home

which he had made for her.

 

“Begging your pardon, sir,” interposed Mrs. Mugby, in her most

insinuating tone, “which I am well aware it’s not my place to interfere

in family matters; but knowing as devotion itself is a word not strong

enough to express Mrs. Jernam’s feelings for her pa, I cannot stand by

and see her misunderstood by that very pa. It was no doings of hers as

she left River View, Captain Buncombe, for the place was very dear to

her; but Captain Jernam, he took it into his head all of a sudden he’d

set off for foreign parts in his ship the ‘Albert’s horse’; and before

he went, he insisted on taking Mrs. Jernam down to Devonshire, which

burying her alive would be too mild a word for such cruelty, I think.”

 

“What! he deserted his post, did he?” exclaimed the captain. “Ran away

from his pretty young wife, after promising to stop with her till I

came back! Now, I don’t call that an honest man’s conduct,” added the

captain, indignantly.

 

“No more would any one, sir,” answered the housekeeper. “A wild, roving

life is all very well in its way, but if a man who is just married to a

pretty young wife, that worships the very ground he walks on, can’t

stay at home quiet, I should like to know who can?”

 

“So he went to sea himself, and took his wife down to Devonshire before

he sailed, eh?” said the captain. “Very fine goings on, upon my word!

And did Miss Rosy consent to leave her father’s home without a murmur?”

he asked, angrily.

 

“Begging your pardon, sir,” pleaded Mrs. Mugby, “Miss Rosamond was not

the one to murmur before servants, whatever she might feel in her

heart. I overheard her crying and sobbing dreadful one night, poor

dear, when she little thought as there was any one to overhear her.”

 

“Did she say anything to you before she left?”

 

“Not till the night before she went away, and then she came to me in my

kitchen, and said, ‘Mrs. Mugby, it’s my husband’s wish I should go down

to Devonshire and live there, while he’s away with his ship. Of course,

I am very sorry to leave the house that my dear father made such a

happy home for me, and in which he and I lived so peaceably together;

but I am bound to obey my husband, let him ask what he will. I shall

write to my dear father, and tell him how sorry I am to leave my

home.’”

 

“Did she say that?” said the captain, evidently touched by this proof

of his child’s affection. “Then I won’t belie her so much as to doubt

her love for me. I never got her letter; and why George Jernam should

kick up his heels directly I was gone, and be off with his ship

goodness knows where, is more than I can tell. I begin to think the

best sailor that ever roamed the seas is a bad bargain for a husband.

I’m sorry I ever let my girl marry a rover. However, I’ll just settle

my business in London, and be off to Devonshire to see my poor little

deserted Rosy. I suppose she’s gone to live at that sea-coast village

where Jernam’s aunt lives?”

 

“Yes, sir, Allandale—or Allanbay—or some such name, I think, they

call the place.”

 

“Yes, Allanbay—I remember,” answered the captain. “I’ll try and get

through the business I’ve got on hand to-night, and be off to

Devonshire to-morrow.”

 

Mrs. Mugby exerted herself to the uttermost in her endeavour to make

the captain’s first dinner at home a great culinary triumph, but the

disappointment he had experienced that morning had quite taken away his

appetite. He had anticipated such delight from his unannounced return

to River View Cottage; he had pictured to himself his daughter’s

rapturous welcome; he had fancied her rushing to greet him at the first

sound of his voice; and had almost felt her soft arm clasped around his

neck, her kisses on his face.

 

Instead of the realization of this bright dream, he had found only

disappointment.

 

Susan Trott placed the materials for the captain’s favourite punch upon

the table after she had removed the cloth; but Joseph Duncombe did not

appear to see the cherry preparations for a comfortable evening. He

rose hastily from his chair, put on his hat, and went out, much to the

discomfiture of the worthy Mrs. Mugby.

 

“After what I went through with standing over that roaring furnace of a

kitchen-range, it does seem hard to see my sole just turned over and

played with, like, and my chicking not so much as touched,” said the

dame. “Oh, Miss Rosamond, Miss Rosamond, you’ve a deal to answer for!”

 

Captain Duncombe walked along the dark road between the cottage and

Ratcliff Highway at a rapid pace. He soon reached the flaring lights of

the sailors’ quarter, through which he made his way as fast as he could

to a respectable and comfortable little tavern near the Tower, much

frequented by officers of the merchant service.

 

He had promised to meet an old shipmate at this house, and was very

glad of an excuse for spending his evening away from home.

 

In the little parlour he found the friend he expected to see, and the

two sailors took their glasses of grog together in a very friendly

manner, and then parted, the captain’s friend going away first, as he

had a long distance to walk, in order to reach his suburban home.

 

The captain was sitting by the fire meditating, and sipping his last

glass of grog, when the door was opened, and some one came into the

room.

 

Joseph Duncombe looked up with a start as the new-comer entered, and,

to his intense astonishment, recognized George Jernam.

 

“Jernam!” he cried; “you in London? Well, this is the greatest surprise

of all.”

 

“Indeed, Captain Duncombe,” answered the other, coolly; “the

‘Albatross’ only entered the port of