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

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 night-fall.

"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 London this afternoon. This is the first place I have come to, and of all men on earth I least expected to meet you here."

"And from your tone, youngster, it seems as if the surprise were by no means a pleasant one," cried Joseph Duncombe. "May I ask how Rosamond Duncombe's husband comes to address his wife's father in the tone you have just used to me?"

"You are Rosamond's father," answered George; "that is sufficient reason that Valentine Jernam's brother should keep aloof from you."

"The man's mad," muttered Captain Duncombe; "undoubtedly mad."

"No," answered George Jernam, "I am not mad--I am only too acutely conscious of the misery of my position. I love your daughter, Joseph Duncombe; love her as fondly and truly as ever a man loved the wife of his choice. And yet here am I skulking in London, alone and miserable, at the hour when I should be hurrying back to the home of my darling. Dear though she is to me--truly as I love her--I dare not go back to her; for between her and me there rises the phantom of my murdered brother Valentine!"

"What on earth has my daughter Rosamond to do with the wretched fate of your brother?" asked the captain.

"In her own person, nothing; but it