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

look of unmitigated perplexity.

"I can't make it out," he muttered to himself.

Presently he said aloud to Mrs. Morden--

"What a pity it is you women all write so much alike that it's uncommonly difficult to swear to your writing. I'm perplexed by this letter. I can't quite understand being summoned away from my pet. I think you know Lady Eversleigh's hand?"

"Yes," answered the lady; "I received two letters from her before coming here. I could scarcely be mistaken in her handwriting."

"You think not? Very well, then, please tell me if that is her hand," said the captain showing Mrs. Morden the address of the missive he had just received.

"I should say decidedly, yes, that is her hand."

"Humph!" muttered the captain; "she said something about wanting me when the hour of retribution drew near. Perhaps she has succeeded in her schemes more rapidly than she expected, and the time is come."

The little girl had just quitted the room with her nurse, to be dressed for her morning run in the gardens. Mrs. Morden and the captain were alone.

"Lady Eversleigh asks me to go up to London," he said, at last; "and I suppose I must do what she wishes. But, upon my word, I've watched over little Gertrude so closely, and I've grown so foolishly fond of her, that I don't like the idea of leaving her, even for twenty-four hours, though, of course, I know I leave her in the best possible care."

"What danger can approach her here?"

"Ah; what danger, indeed!" returned the captain, thoughtfully. "Within these walls she must be secure."

"The child shall not leave the castle, nor shall she quit my sight during your absence," said Mrs. Morden. "But I hope you will not stay away long."

"Rely upon it that I shall not remain away an hour longer than necessary," answered the captain.

An hour afterwards he departed from Raynham in a post-chaise.

He left without having taken any farewell of Gertrude Eversleigh. He could not trust himself to see her.

This grim, weather-beaten old soldier had surrendered his heart entirely to the child of his dead friend. He travelled Londonwards as fast as continual relays of post-horses could convey him; and on the morning after he had received the letter from Lady Eversleigh, a post- chaise covered with the dust of the roads, rattled up to the Clarendon Hotel, and the traveller sprang out, after a sleepless night of impatience and anxiety.

"Show me to Lady Eversleigh's rooms at once," he said to one of the servants in the hall.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the man; "what name did you say?"

"Lady Eversleigh--Eversleigh--a widow-lady, staying in this house."

"There must be some mistake, sir. There is no one of that name at present staying in the hotel," answered the man.

The housekeeper had emerged from a little sitting-room, and had overheard this conversation.

"No, sir," she said, "we have no one here of that name."

Captain Copplestone's dark face grew deadly pale.

"A trap!" he muttered to himself; "a snare! That letter was a forgery!"

And without a word to the people of the house, he darted back to the street, sprang into the chaise, crying to the postillions,

"Don't lose a minute in getting a change of horses. I am going back to Yorkshire."

The intimacy with the household of Raynham Castle, begun by Mr. Maunders at the supper in the servants'-hall, strengthened as time went by, and there was no member of the castle household for whom Mr. Maunders entertained so warm a friendship as that which he felt for Matthew Brook, the coachman. Matthew began to divide his custom between the rival taverns of Raynham, spending an evening occasionally at the "Cat and Fiddle," and appearing to enjoy himself very much at that Inferior hostelry.

About a fortnight had elapsed after the comfortable supper-party at the castle, when Mr. Milsom took it into his head to make a formal return for the hospitalities he had received on that occasion.

It happened that the evening chosen for this humble but comfortable entertainment was the evening after Captain Copplestone's departure from the castle.

The supper was well cooked, and neatly placed on the table. A foaming tankard of ale flanked the large dish of hissing steaks; and the gentlemen from the castle set to work with a good will to do justice to Mr. Maunders's entertainment.

When the table had been cleared of all except a bowl of punch and a tray of glasses, it is scarcely a matter for wonder if the quartette had grown rather noisy, with a tendency to become still louder in its mirth with every glass of Mr. Milsom's excellent compound.

They were enjoying themselves as much as it is in the power of human nature to enjoy itself; they had proposed all manner of toasts, and had drunk them with cheers, and the mirth was at its loudest when the clock of the village church boomed out solemnly upon the stillness of night, and tolled the hour of ten.

The three men staggered hastily to their feet.

"We must be off, Maunders, old fellow," said the coachman, with a certain thickness of utterance.

"Right you are, Mat," answered Stephen. "You've had quite enough of that 'ere liquor, and so have we all. Good night, Mr. Maunders, and thank you kindly for a jolly evening. Come, Jim. Come, Mat, old boy-- off we go!"

"No, no," cried Mr. Maunders, the hospitable; "I'm not a-going to let Matthew Brook leave my house at ten o'clock when he can stay as long as he likes. You and he beat me at whist, but I mean to be even with him at cribbage. We'll have a friendly hand and a friendly glass, and I'll see him as far as the gates afterwards. You'll let him in, Plumpton, come when he will, I know. If he can stay over his time at the other house, he can stay over his time with me. Come, Brook, you won't say no, will you, to a friend?" asked Milsom.

Matthew Brook looked at Mr. Milsom, and at his fellow-servants, in a stupid half-drunken manner, and rubbed his big head thoughtfully with his big hand.

"I'm blest if I know what to do," he said; "I've promised Stephen I wouldn't stay out after time again--and--"

"Not as a rule, perhaps," answered Mr. Milsom; "but once in a way can't make any difference, I'm sure, and Stephen Plumpton is the last to be ill-natured."

"That I am," replied the good-tempered footman. "Stay, if you like to stay, Mat. I'll leave my door unfastened, and welcome."

On this, the two other men took a friendly leave of their host and departed, walking through the village street with legs that were not by any means too steady.

There was a triumphant grin upon Mr. Milsom's face as he shut the door on these two departing guests.

"Good night, and a good riddance to you," he muttered; "and now for Matthew Brook. You'll sleep sound enough to-night, Stephen Plumpton, I'll warrant. So sound that if Old Nick himself went through your room you'd scarcely be much wiser."

He went back to the little parlour in which he had left his guest, the coachman. As he went, he slipped his forefinger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket, where they closed upon a tiny phial. It contained a pennyworth of laudanum, which he had purchased a week or so before from the Raynham chemist, as a remedy for the toothache.

Here he found Matthew Brook seated with his arms folded on the table, and his eyes fixed on the cribbage-board with that stolid, unseeing gaze peculiar to drunkenness.

"He's pretty far gone, as it is," Mr. Milsom thought to himself, as he looked at his guest; "it won't take much to send him further. Take another glass of punch before we begin, eh, Brook?" he asked, in that tone of jolly good-fellowship which had made him so agreeable to the castle servants.

"So I will," cried Matthew; "'nother glass--punish the punch--eh--old boy? We'll punish glass--'nother punch--hand cribbage--glorious evenin'--uproarious--happy--glorious--God save--'nother glass."

While Mr. Brook attempted to shuffle the cards, dropping them half under the table during the process, Black Milsom moved the bowl and glasses to a table behind the coachman's back.

Here he filled a glass for Mr. Brook, which the coachman emptied at a draught; but after having done so he made a wry face, and looked reproachfully at his host.

"What the deuce was that you gave me?" he asked, with some indignation.

"What should it be but rum-punch?" answered Milsom; "the same as you've been drinking all the evening."

"I'll be hanged if it is," answered Mr. Brook; "you've been playing off some of your publican's tricks upon me, Mr. Maunders, pouring the dregs of some stale porter into the bowl, or something of that kind. Don't you do it again. I'm a 'ver goo'-temper' chap, ber th' man tha' takes--hic--libert' with--hic--once don't take--hic--libert' with m' twice. So, don't y' do that 'gen!"

This was said with tipsy solemnity; and then Mr. Brook made another effort to shuffle the cards, and stooped a great many times to pick up some of those he had dropped, but seemed never to succeed in picking up all of them.

"I'll tell you what it is, Maunders," he said, at last; "I'm getting an old man; my sight isn't what it used to be. I'm bless' if--can tell a king from--queen."

Before he could complete the shuffling of the cards to his own satisfaction, Mr. Brook's eyelids began to droop over his watery eyes, and all at once his head fell forward on the table, amongst the scattered cards, his hair flopping against a fallen candlestick and smoking tallow candle.

Mr. Milsom's air of jolly good-fellowship disappeared: he sprang up suddenly, went to his friend, and shook him, rather roughly for such friendship.

Matthew snored a little louder, but slept on.

"He's fast as a rock," muttered Black Milsom; "but I must wait till it's likely Stephen Plumpton will be as sound asleep as this one."

Mr. Milsom went to his kitchen and ordered his only servant--a sturdy young native of the village--to go off to bed at once.

"I've got a friend in the parlour: but I'll see him out myself when he goes," said Mr. Milsom. "You pack off to bed as soon as you've put out the lights in the bar, and shut the back-door."

Mr. Milsom then returned to the apartment where his sleeping guest reposed.

The coachman's capacious overcoat hung on a chair near where its owner slept.

Mr. Milsom deliberately put on this coat, and the hat which Mr. Brook had worn with it. There was a thick woollen scarf of the coachman's lying on the floor near the chair, and this Black Milsom also put on, twisting it several times round his neck, so as to completely muffle the lower part of his face.

He was of about the same height as Matthew, and the thick coat gave him bulk.

Thus attired he might, in an uncertain light, have been very easily mistaken for the man whose clothes he wore.

Mr. Milsom gave one last scrutinizing look at the sleeping coachman, and then extinguished the candle.

The fire he had allowed to die out while he sat smoking: the room was, therefore, now in perfect darkness.

He paused by the door to look about him. All was