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

the agony exhibited by the

poor woman when she was made aware that her brother had acknowledged

himself a criminal of the deepest dye, was intense. Calm—almost

stupor—had succeeded to her wild grief, and the clergyman had spoken

words of consolation and hope to the dying and the living. The surgeons

had seen the man for the last time; there was nothing more to be done

for him now—nothing to do but to wait for the equal foot approaching

with remorseless tread.

 

It was indeed a fearful catalogue of crime to which the Rev. Philip

Colburne had listened, and had written with his own hand at the dying

man’s dictation. Not often has such a revelation been made to mortal

ears, and the two who heard it—the Christian minister and the

trembling, horrified sister—felt that the scene could never be effaced

from their memories.

 

With only two items in that awful list this story has to do.

 

The first is, the murder of Valentine Jernam. As Mrs. Miller heard her

brother, with gasping breath and feeble utterance, tell that horrible

story, her heart died within her. She knew it well. Who at Allanbay had

not heard of the murder of Mrs. Jernam’s darling nephew, the bright,

popular, kind-hearted seaman, whose coming had been a jubilee in the

little port; whose disappearance had made so painful a sensation? She

had heard the story from his aunt, and Rosamond had told her how her

husband lived in the hope of finding out and punishing his brother’s

murderer. And now he was found, this murderer, this thief, this guilt-burdened criminal: and he was her only brother, and dying. Ah, well,

Valentine Jernam was avenged. Providence had exacted George Jernam’s

vengeance: the wrath of man was not needed here.

 

The second crime with which this story has to do was one of old date,

one of the earliest in Black Milsom’s dreadful career. The dying wretch

told Mr. Colburne how he had headed a gang of thieves, chiefly composed

of sailors who had deserted their ships, some twenty-one or two years

before this time, when retribution had come upon him, and in their

company had robbed the villa of an English lady at Florence. This crime

had been committed with the connivance and assistance of the Italian

woman who was nurse to the English lady’s child. Milsom, then a

handsome young fellow, had offered marriage to the woman, which offer

was accepted; and she had made his taking her and the child with him—

for nothing would induce her to leave the infant—a condition of her

aid. He did so; but the hardship of her new life soon killed the

Italian woman; and the child was left to the mercy of Milsom and an old

hag who acted as his drudge and accomplice. What mercy she met with at

those hands the reader knows, for that child was the future wife of Sir

Oswald Eversleigh. Mr. Colburne listened to this portion of Milsom’s

confession with intense interest.

 

“The name?” he asked; “the name of the lady who lived at Florence, the

mother of the child? Tell me the name!”

 

“Verner,” said the dying man, in a hoarse whisper, “Lady Verner; the

child’s name was Anna.”

 

He was very near his end when he finished his terrible story. While Mr.

Colburne was trying to speak peace to the poor darkened, frightened,

guilty soul, Mrs. Miller knelt by the bedside, sobbing convulsively.

Suddenly she remembered the child she had the care of. Had his account

of her been true? Was she also the victim of a crime? She waited, with

desperate impatience, but with the habitual respect of her class, until

Mr. Colburne had ceased to speak. Then she put her lips close to the

dying man’s ear, and said—

 

“Thomas, Thomas, for God’s sake tell me about the child—who is she? Is

what you told me true? If not, set it right—oh, brother, brother, set

it right—before it is too late.”

 

The imploring tone of her voice reached her brother’s dull ear; a faint

spasm, as though he strove in vain to speak, crossed his white drawn

lips. But the disfigured head in its ghastly bandages was motionless;

the shattered arm in its wrappings made no gesture. In terror, in

despair, his sister started to her feet, and looked eagerly, closely,

into his face. In vain the white lips parted, the eyelids quivered, a

shiver shook the broad, brawny chest—then all was still, and Black

Milsom was dead!

 

On the following morning Mr. Colburne took Mrs. Miller back to

Allanbay, after giving her a night’s rest in his own hospitable home.

He left her at her own cottage, and went to Mrs. Jernam’s house, as he

had promised the afflicted woman he would save her the pain of telling

the terrible story which was to clear up the mystery surrounding the

merchant captain’s fate. When the clergyman reached the house, and

lifted his hand to the bright knocker, he heard a sound of many and

gleeful voices within—a sound which died away as he knocked for

admittance.

 

Presently the door was opened by Mrs. Jernam’s trim maid, who replied,

when Mr. Colburne asked if he could see Mrs. Jernam, and if she were

alone—as a hint that he did not wish to see any one beside—

 

“Please, sir, missus is in, but she ain’t alone; Captain George and

Mrs. George’s father have just come—not half an hour ago.”

 

*

 

And so Joyce Harker’s self-imposed task was at an end, and George

Jernam’s long brooding upon his brother’s fate was over. A solemn

stillness came upon the happy party at Allanbay, and Rosamond’s tears

fell upon little Gerty, as she slept upon her bosom—slept where

George’s child was soon to slumber. Mr. Colburne asked no questions

about the child. Mrs. Miller had said nothing to him respecting her

charge, and Milsom’s death, ensuing immediately on her question, had

caused it to pass unnoticed. George Jernam, his wife, and Captain

Duncombe started for London early the next day. They had come to a

unanimous conclusion, on consultation with Mrs. Miller, that there was

a mystery about the child, and that the best thing to be done was to

communicate with the police at once. “Besides,” said George, “I must

see Mr. Larkspur, and tell him he need not trouble himself farther; now

that accident, or, as I believe Providence, has done for us what all

his skill failed to do.”

 

When George Jernam presented himself at Mr. Larkspur’s office he

underwent a rigid inspection by that gentleman’s “deputy,” and having,

by a few hints as to the nature of his business, led that astute person

to think that it bore on his principal’s present quest, he was

entrusted with the address of Mr. Andrews, in Percy Street.

 

*

 

“So, you see, I don’t get my five hundred, because I didn’t find out

Captain Jernam’s murderer,” said Mr. Larkspur, after a long and

agitating explanation had put Lady Eversleigh in possession of all the

foregoing circumstances. “And here’s Captain Jernam’s brother comes and

takes the job of finding little missy out of my hands—does my work for

me as clean as a whistle.”

 

“But I did not know I was doing it, Mr. Larkspur,” said George. “I did

not know the little Gerty that my Rosamond is so sorry to part with,

was Miss Eversleigh; you found it out, from what I told you.”

 

“As if any fool could fail to find out that,” said Mr. Larkspur good-humouredly. He had a strong conviction that neither the relinquishment

of Lady Eversleigh’s designs of punishing her enemies, nor the finding

of the heiress by other than his agency, would inflict any injury upon

him—a conviction which was amply justified by his future experience.

 

“My good friend,” said Lady Eversleigh, “if I do not need your aid to

restore my child to me, I need it to restore me to my mother. I cannot

realize the truth that I have a mother, I can only feel it. I can only

feel how she must have suffered by remembering my own anguish. And

hers, how much more cruel, how prolonged, how hopeless! You will see to

this at once, Mr. Larkspur, while I go to my child.”

 

“Lord bless you, my lady,” said Mr. Larkspur, cheerily, “there’s no

occasion to look very far. You have not forgotten the lady, she that

lives so quiet, yet so stylish, near Richmond, and that Sir Reginald

Eversleigh pays such attention to? You remember all I told you about

her, and how I found out that she was Mr. Dale’s aunt, and he know

nothing about her?”

 

“Yes, yes,” said Lady Eversleigh, breathlessly, “I remember.”

 

“Well, my lady, that party near Richmond is Lady Verner, your

ladyship’s mother.”

 

Lady Eversleigh was well nigh overwhelmed by the throng of feelings

which pressed upon her. She, the despised outcast, the first-cousin of

the man who had scorned her, a connection of the great family into

which she had married, her husband’s equal in rank, and in fortune!

She, the woman whose beauty had been used to lure Valentine Jernam to

his death, she who had almost witnessed his murder; she owed to

Valentine’s brother the discovery of her parentage, the defeat of her

calumniators, her restoration to a high place in society, and to family

ties, the destruction of Reginald Eversleigh’s designs on Lady Verner’s

property, and—greatest, best boon of all—the recovery of her child.

Her own devices, her own wilfulness had but led her into deeper danger,

into more bitter sorrow; but Providence had done great things for her

by the hands of this stranger, between whom and herself there existed

so sinister a link.

 

“Can you ever forgive me, Captain Jernam,” she said, “for my share in

your brother’s fate? Must I always be hateful in your sight? Will Mrs.

Jernam ever permit me to thank her for her goodness to my child?”

 

For the answer, George Jernam stooped and kissed her hand, with all the

natural grace inspired by natural good-feeling, and Lady Eversleigh

felt that she had gained a friend where she had feared to meet a

relentless foe. The little party remained long in consultation, and it

was decided that nothing was to be done about Lady Verner until Lady

Eversleigh had reclaimed her child. George Jernam entreated her to

permit him to go to Allanbay and bring the little girl to her mother,

but she would not consent. She insisted upon George’s bringing his wife

to see her immediately, as the preparations for departure did not admit

of her calling upon Mrs. Jernam. The gentle, happy Rosamond complied

willingly, and so thoroughly had the beautiful lady won the girl’s

heart before they were long together, that Rosamond herself proposed

that George should accompany Lady Eversleigh to Allanbay. With pretty

imperiousness she bore down Lady Eversleigh’s grateful scruples, and

the result was, that the two started that same evening, travelled as

fast as post-horses could carry them, and arrived at Allanbay before

even Lady Eversleigh’s impatience could find the journey long. Susan

Jernam had kept the child with her, and she it was who put little Gerty

into her mother’s arms. Rarely in her life had Lady Eversleigh lain

down to rest with do tranquil a heart as that with which she slept

under the humble roof of Captain Jernam’s aunt.

 

CHAPTER XXXIX.

 

“CONFUSION WORSE THAN DEATH.”

 

Sir Reginald Eversleigh had paid Victor Carrington a long visit, at the

cottage at Maida Hill, on the day which had witnessed the distressing

interview and angry parting between Douglas Dale and Madame Durski.

They had talked a great deal, and Reginald had been struck