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

bed-room, in which one of the footmen slept; and nothing was more easy than for this man to shelter the nightly misdoings of his fellow-servant by letting him slip quietly through his bedroom, unknown to any member of the household.

James Harwood, the groom was a confirmed gossip; and, of course, he had not failed to inform his friend, Mr. Maunders, otherwise Black Milsom, of Matthew Brook's little delinquencies. Mr. Maunders listened to the account with interest, as he did to everything relating to affairs in the household of which Harwood was a member.

It was some little time after this conversation that Mr. Milsom was invited to sup at the castle.

Several friendly rubbers were played by Mrs. Trimmer, the cook; Matthew Brook, the coachman; James Harwood, and Thomas Milsom, known to the company as Mr. Maunders. Honest Matthew and he were partners; and it was to be observed, by any one who had taken the trouble to watch the party, that Milsom paid more attention to his partner than to his cards, whereby he lost the opportunity of distinguishing himself as a good whist-player.

The whist-party broke up while the cloth was being laid on a large table for supper, and the men adjourned to the noble old stone quadrangle, on which the servant's-hall abutted. James Harwood, Brook, Milsom, and two of the footmen strolled up and down, smoking under a cold starlit sky. The apartments occupied by the family were all on the garden front, and the smoking of tobacco in the quadrangle was not forbidden.

Milsom, who had until this time devoted his attention exclusively to the coachman, now contrived to place himself next to James Harwood, as the party paced to and fro before the servants' quarters.

"Which is the little door Brook slips in at when he's past his time?" he asked, carelessly, of Harwood, taking care, however, to drop his voice to a whisper.

"We're just coming to it," answered the groom; "that little glass door on my right hand. Steph's a good-natured fellow, and always leaves his door unfastened when old Mat is out late. The room he sleeps in was once a lobby, and opens into the passage; so it comes very convenient to Brook. Everybody likes old Mat Brook, you see; and there isn't one amongst us would peach if he got into trouble."

"And a jolly old chap he is as ever lived," answered Black Milsom, who seemed to have taken a wonderful fancy to the convivial coachman.

"You come down to my place whenever you like, Mr. Brook," he said, presently, putting his arm through that of the coachman, in a very friendly manner. "You shall be free and welcome to everything I've got in my house. And I know how to brew a decent jorum of punch when I give my mind to it, don't I, Jim?"

Mr. James Harwood protested that no one else could brew such punch as that concocted by the landlord of the "Cat and Fiddle."

The supper was a very cheery banquet; ponderous slices of underdone roast beef disappeared as if by magic, and the consumption of pickles, from a physiological or sanitary point of view, positively appalling. After the beef and pickles came a Titanic cheese and a small stack of celery; while the brown beer pitcher went so often to the barrel that it is a matter of wonder that it escaped unbroken.

At a quarter past ten Mr. Maunders bade his new acquaintance good night; but before departing he begged, as a great favour, to be permitted one peep at the grand oak hall.

"You shall see it," cried good-natured Matthew Brook. "It's a sight worth coming many a mile to see. Step this way."

He led the way along a dark passage to a door that opened into the great entrance-hall. It was indeed a noble chamber. Black Milsom stood for some moments contemplating it in silence, with a reverential stare.

"And which may be the back staircase, leading to the little lady's rooms?" he asked, presently.

"That door opens on to the foot of it," replied the coachman. "Captain Coppletone sleeps in the room you come to first, on the first floor; and the little missy's rooms are inside his'n."

Gertrude Eversleigh, the heiress of Raynham, was one of those lovely and caressing children who win the hearts of all around them, and in whose presence there is a charm as sweet as that which lurks in the beauty of a flower or the song of a bird. Her mother idolized her, as we know, even though she could resign herself to a separation from this loved child, sacrificing affection to the all-absorbing purpose of her life. Before leaving Raynham Castle, Honoria had summoned the one only friend upon whom she could rely--Captain Copplestone--the man whose testimony alone had saved her from the hideous suspicion of murder--the man who had boldly declared his belief in her innocence.

She wrote to him, telling him that she had need of his friendship for the only child of his dead friend, Sir Oswald; and he came promptly in answer to her summons, pleased at the idea of seeing the child of his old comrade.

He had read the announcement of the child's birth in the newspapers, and had rejoiced to find that Providence had sent a consolation to the widow in her hour of desolation.

"She is like her father," he said, softly, after he had taken the child in his arms, and pressed his shaggy moustache to her pure young brow." Yes, the child is like my old comrade, Oswald Eversleigh. She has your beauty, too, Lady Eversleigh, your dark eyes--those wonderful eyes, which my friend loved to praise."

"I wish to heaven that he had never seen them!" exclaimed Honoria; "they brought him only evil fortune--anguish--untimely death."

"Come, come!" cried the captain, cheerily; "this won't do. If the workings of two villains brought about a breach between you and my poor friend, and resulted in his untimely end, the sin rests on their guilty heads, not on yours."

"And the sin shall not go unpunished even upon this earth!" exclaimed Honoria, with intensity of feeling. "I only live for one purpose, Captain Copplestone, and that is to strip the masks from the faces of the two hypocrites and traitors, who, between them, compassed my disgrace and my husband's death; and I implore you to aid me in the carrying out of my purpose."

"How can I do that?" cried the captain. "When I begged you to let me challenge that scoundrel, Carrington, and fight him--in spite of our cowardly modern fashion, which has exploded duelling--you implored me not to hazard my life. I was your only friend, you told me, and if my life were sacrificed you would be helpless and friendless. I gave way in order to satisfy you, though I should have liked to send a bullet through that French scoundrel's plotting brains."

"And I thank you for your goodness," answered Lady Eversleigh. "It is not by the bullet of a brave soldier that Victor Carrington should die. I will pursue the two villains silently, stealthily, as they pursued me; and when the hour of my triumph comes, it shall be a real triumph, not a defeat like that which ended their scheming. But if I stoop to wear a mask, I ask no such service from you, Captain Copplestone. I ask you only to take up your abode in this house, and to protect my child while I am away from home."

"You are really going to leave home?"

"For a considerable time."

"And you will tell me nothing about the nature of your schemes?"

"Nothing. I shall do no wrong; though I am about to deal with men so base that the common laws of honour can scarcely apply to any dealings with them."

"And your mind is set upon this strange scheme?"

"My mind is fixed. Nothing on earth can alter my resolution--not even my love for this child."

Captain Copplestone saw that her determination was not to be reasoned away, and he made no further attempt to shake her resolve. He promised that, during her absence from the castle, he would guard Sir Oswald's daughter, and cherish her as tenderly as if she had been his own child.

It was by the captain's advice that Mrs. Morden was engaged to act as governess to the young heiress during her mother's absence. She was the widow of one of his brother-officers--a highly accomplished woman, and a woman of conscientious feelings and high principle.

"Never had any creature more need of your protection than my child has," said Honoria. "This young life and mine are the sole obstacles that stand between Sir Reginald Eversleigh and fortune. You know what baseness and treachery he and his ally are capable of committing. You cannot, therefore, wonder if I imagine all kinds of dangers for my darling."

"No," replied the captain; "I can only wonder that you consent to leave her."

"Ah, you do not understand. Can you not see that, so long as those two men exist, their crimes undiscovered, their real nature unsuspected in the world in which they live, there is perpetual danger for my child? The task which I have set myself is the task of watching these two men; and I will do it without flinching. When the hour of retribution approaches, I may need your aid; but till then let me do my work alone, and in secret."

This was the utmost that Lady Eversleigh told Captain Copplestone respecting the motive of her absence from the castle. She placed her child in his care, trusting in him, under Providence, for the guardianship of that innocent life; and then she tore herself away.

Nothing could exceed the care which the veteran soldier bestowed upon his youthful charge.

It may be imagined, therefore, that nothing short of absolute necessity would have induced him to leave the neighbourhood of Raynham during the absence of Lady Eversleigh.

Unhappily this necessity arose. Within a fortnight after the night on which Black Milsom had been invited to supper in the servants'-hall, Captain Copplestone quitted Raynham Castle for an indefinite period, for the first time since Lady Eversleigh's departure.

He was seated at breakfast in the pretty sitting-room in the south wing, which he occupied in common with the heiress and her governess, when a letter was brought to him by one of the castle servants.

"Ben Simmons has just brought this up from the 'Hen and Chickens,' sir," said the man. "It came by the mail-coach that passes through Raynham at six o'clock in the morning."

Captain Copplestone gazed at the superscription of the letter with considerable surprise. The handwriting was that of Lady Eversleigh, and the letter was marked _Immediate and important_.

In those days there was no electric telegraph; and a letter conveyed thus had pretty much the same effect upon the captain's mind that a telegram would now-a-days exercise. It was something special--out of the common rule. He tore open the missive hastily. It contained only a few lines in Honoria's hand; but the hand was uncertain, and the letter scrawled and blotted, as if written in extreme haste and agitation of mind.

"_Come to me at once, I entreat. I have immediate need of your help. Pray come, my dear friend. I shall not detain you long. Let the child remain in the castle during your absence. She will be safe with Mrs. Morden_.

"_Clarendon Hotel, London_."

This, and the date, was all.

Captain Copplestone sat for some moments staring at this document with a