Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  “Free?”

  “Yes, free to marry an honest man,” cried Darrell, his face flushing crimson with agitation.

  Ringwood Markham had just intellect enough to be spiteful. He remembered the encounter in Farmer Morrison’s kitchen, and said maliciously, —

  “Millicent will never be free till she hears certain news of her husband’s death; and who knows that the news would reach her if he were dead? If George Duke is such a roving customer as you make him out to be, his carcass may rot upon some foreign shore and she be none the wiser.”

  “He has been away a year and a half,” answered Darrell; “if he does not return within seven years from the time of his first sailing, Millicent may marry again.”

  “Is that the law?”

  “As I’ve heard it, from a boy. A year and a half gone; five years and a half to wait. My little Millicent, my poor Millicent, the time will seem but a day, an hour, with such a star of hope to beckon me on to the end.”

  Darrell turned from his cousin, ashamed of his emotion. He seated himself in a chair against the open window, and buried his face in his hands.

  Ringwood Markham could not resist the pleasure of inflicting another wound.

  “I shouldn’t wonder if the Captain is back before the summer is out,” he said: “from what I know of George Duke, I think him no likely fellow to lose his life lightly either on sea or land.”

  Darrell took no notice of this speech. It is doubtful if he even heard it. His thoughts had wandered far away from the shabby lodging near Covent Garden, and the commonplace present, to lose themselves in the mystic regions of the Future.

  “Hark ye, Ringwood,” he said presently, rising and walking towards the door, “I did not come here to talk lovers’ talk. If George Duke does not return, Millicent will be a lonely and helpless woman for nearly six years to come, with nothing to live upon but the interest of the two thousand pounds the squire gave her on her marriage. I am a poor man, but I claim a cousin’s right t6 help her. Even you will easily understand that I must keep from her all knowledge of the quarter whence that help will come. You, as her brother, are bound to protect her. See that she wants for no comfort that can cheer her lonely life.”

  If Ringwood had not been afraid of his stalwart cousin, he would have whimpered out some petty excuse about his own poverty; but as it was, he said, with rather a long face, —

  “I will do all I can, Darrell.”

  Darrell shook hands with him for the first time since their quarrel, and left him to his toilette and his evening’s dissipation.

  Ringwood dressed himself in the peach-blossom and silver suit, and cocked his hat jauntily upon his flowing locks. In an age when wigs and powdered hair were all the fashion, the young squire prided himself much upon the luxuriant natural curls which clustered about his narrow forehead. This particular evening he was especially careful of his toilette, for he had appointed to meet a gay party at Ranelagh, the chief member of which was to be a certain West-country baronet, called Sir Lovel Mortimer, and better known in two or three taverns of rather doubtful reputation than in the houses of the aristocracy.

  The West-country baronet outshone Ringwood Markham both in the elegance of his costume and the languid affectation of his manners. Titled ladies glanced approvingly at Sir Lovel’s slim figure as he glided through the stately contortions of a minuet, and many a bright eye responded with a friendly scintillation to the flaming glances of the young baronet’s great restless orbs. This extreme restlessness of Sir Lovel’s black eyes, which Darrell had perceived even in the apartment at the Reading inn, was of course a great deal more marked in a crowded assembly such as that which was gathered in the brilliant dancing-room at Ranelagh.

  The West-country baronet seemed ubiquitous. His white velvet coat, upon which frosted rosebuds glittered in silk embroidery and tiny foil stones; his diamond-hilted court sword and shoebuckles; his flaxen periwig and burning black eyes, were to be seen in every direction. This incessant moving from place to place rendered it almost impossible for any but the most acute observer to discover that Sir Lovel Mortimer had very few acquaintances amongst the aristocratic throng, and that the only persons whom he addressed familiarly were the four or five young men who had accompanied him, Ringwood Markham included.

  The young squire was delighted with his good fortune in having made so distinguished an acquaintance. It was difficult for the village-bred Cumbrian to detect the difference between the foil stones upon Sir Lovel’s embroidered coat and the diamonds in his shoebuckles; how impossible, then, for him to discover the nice shades and delicate distinctions wherein the “West-country baronet’s manners differed from those of the aristocratic fops and loungers who lifted their eyeglasses to look at him with the last fashionable stare of supercilious wonder. Ringwood followed Sir Lovel with a wide open-eyed gaze of respect and admiration; and when the place began to grow less crowded, and the baronet proposed adjourning to his lodgings in Cheyne Walk, where he could give the party a broiled bone and a few throws of the dice, the squire was the first to assent to the proposition.

  The young man walked to the house where the baronet lodged. It was not in Cheyne Walk, though Sir Lovel had been pleased to say as much, but in an obscure street leading away from the river — a street in which the houses were small and gloomy.

  Sir Lovel Mortimer stopped before a house the windows of which were all dark, and knocked softly with his cane upon the panel of the door.

  Ringwood, who had been already drinking a great deal, caught hold of the brazen knocker and sounded a tremendous peal.

  “You have no need to arouse the neighbours, Mr. Markham,” said the baronet, with some vexation; “I make no doubt my servant is on the watch for us.”

  But it seemed as if Sir Lovel was mistaken, for the young men waited some time before the door was opened; and when at last the bolts were undone, and the party admitted into the house, they found themselves in darkness.

  “Why, how’s this, you lazy hound?” cried Sir Lovel; “have you been asleep?”

  “Yesh,” answered a thick unsteady voice; “sh’pose — I’ve been—’slileep.”

  “Why, you’re drunk, you rascal!” exclaimed the baronet: “here, fetch a light, will you?”

  “I’m feshin’ a light,” the voice answered; “I’m feelin’ for tind’ box.”

  A scrambling of hands upon a shelf, the dropping of a flint and steel, and the rattling of candlesticks, succeeded this assertion; and in a few moments a light was struck, a wax candle lighted, and the speaker’s face illuminated by a feeble flicker.

  Sir Lovel Mortimer’s servant was drunk; his face was dirty; his wig pushed over his eyebrows, and singed by the candle in his hand: his cravat was twisted awry, and hung about his neck like a halter; his eyes were dim and watery from the effect of strong liquors; and it was with difficulty he kept himself erect by swaying slowly to and fro as he stood staring vacantly at his master and his master’s guests.

  But it was not the mere drunkenness of the man’s aspect which startled Ringwood Markham.

  Sir Lovel Mortimer’s servant was Captain George Duke!

  About four o’clock the next afternoon, when Ringwood awoke from his prolonged drunken sleep, the first thing he did was to find a sheet of paper, scrawl half-a-dozen words upon it, fold it, and direct it thus:

  “Darrell Markham, Esq.,

  “At the Earl of C —

  “St. James’s Square.”

  The few words Ringwood scrawled were these:

  “Dear Darrell, — George Duke is not ded. I saw him last nite at a hous in Chelsey. — Yours to comand,

  “R. MARKHAM.”

  CHAPTER X. THE HOUSE AT CHELSEA.

  DARRELL MARKHAM had left London on some business for his patron when Ringwood’s messenger delivered the brief lines telling of the young man’s encounter with Captain George Duke.

  It was a week before Darrell returned to St. James’s Square, where he found the young squire’s let
ter waiting for him. One rapid glance at the contents of Ringwood’s ill-spelled epistle was enough. He crumpled the letter into his pocket, snatched up his hat, and without a moment’s delay ran straight to the squire’s lodging by Bedford Street.

  He found Ringwood lying in bed, spelling out the grease-stained pages of one of Mr. Fielding’s novels. Tavern tankards and broken glasses were scattered on the table, empty bottles lay upon the ground, and the bones of a fowl and the remnants of a loaf of bread adorned the soiled tablecloth. Master Ring wood had entertained a couple of friends to supper on the previous evening.

  “Ringwood Markham,” said his cousin, holding out the young man’s missive, “what is the meaning of this?”

  “Of which?” asked the squire, with a stupid stare. The fumes of last night’s wine and punch had not quite cleared away from his intellect, somewhat obscure at the best of times.

  “Of this letter, in which, as I think, you tell me the biggest lie that ever one man told another. George Duke in England — George Duke at Chelsea — what does it mean, man? speak!”

  “Don’t you be in a hurry,” said Ringwood, throwing his book into a corner of the room. The young man rubbed his eyes, propped himself up on his pillow, took a pinch of snuff from a box under the bolster, and looked at Darrell with a species of half-tipsy gravity most ludicrous to behold. “Split me, if you give a fellow time to collect his ideas,” he cried. “As to big lies, you’d better be careful how you use such expressions to a man of my reputation. Ask ’em round in Covent Garden whether I didn’t offer to throw a spittoon at the sea captain who insulted me; and would have done it, too, if the bully hadn’t knocked me down first. As to my letter, I’m prepared to stand to what I said in it. And now what did I say in it?”

  “Look at it in your own hand,” answered Darrell, giving him the letter.

  Ringwood spelt out his own epistle as carefully as if it had been some peculiar and mystic communication written in Greek or Hebrew; and then returning it to his cousin, he said, with a toss of his pale golden Jocks that flung his silk nightcap rakishly askew on his forehead, —

  “As to that letter, cousin Darrell Markham, the letter’s nothing. What do you say to my finding George Duke, of the Vulture, acting as servant to my distinguished friend from Devonshire, Sir Lovel Mortimer, Baronet? What do you say to his taking Sir Lovel’s orders like any low knave that ever was? What do you say to his being in so drunken a state as to be sent away to bed, with a sharp reprimand from his master, before I had the chance to speak a word to him?”

  “What do I say to this?” cried Darrell, walking up and down the room in his agitation; “why, that it can’t be true. It’s some stupid mistake of yours.”

  “It can’t be true, can’t it? It’s some stupid mistake of mine, is it? Upon my word, Mr. Darrell Markham, you’re a very mannerly person to come into a gentleman’s room and take advantage of his not having his sword at his side to tell him he’s a fool and a liar. I tell you I saw George Duke drunk, and acting as servant to my friend Sir Lovel Mortimer.”

  “Did George Duke recognize you?” asked Darrell.

  “Don’t I tell you that he was blind drunk!” cried the young squire, very much exasperated: “how should he recognize me when he could scarcely see out of his eyes for drunkenness? I might have spoken to him; but before I could think whether ’twas best to speak or not, Sir Lovel had given him a kick and sent him about his business; and on second thoughts I reflected that it would be no great gain to expose family matters to the baronet by letting him know that my brother-in-law was serving him as a lacquey.”

  “But did you make no inquiries about this scoundrel?”

  “I did. I told Sir Lovel I had a fancy that I knew the man’s face, and asked who he was. But it seems the baronet knows nothing of him, except that he has served him for a twelvemonth, and is as faithful a fellow as ever breathed, Sir Lovel says, though over-fond of drink,”

  Darrell did not make any reply to his cousin’s speech for some little time, during which pause he walked up and down the room absorbed in thought.

  “Ringwood Markham,” he said at last, stopping short by the side of the bed, “there’s some mystery in all this that neither you nor I can penetrate. I know this Lovel Mortimer, this West-country baronet.”

  “Then you know my very good friend,” answered Ringwood with a consequential smirk.

  “I know one of the most audacious highwaymen who ever contrived to escape the Old Bailey.”

  “A highwayman! The Baronet — the mould of fashion and the glass of form, as Lawless the attorney called him; the most elegant beau that ever danced at Ranelagh; the owner of one of the finest estates in Devonshire! Have a care, Darrell, how you speak of my friends.”

  “It would be better if you had more care in choosing them,” answered Darrell quietly. “My poor foolish Ringwood, I hope you have not been letting this man clean out your pockets at hazard.”

  “I have lost a few guineas to him at odd times,” muttered Ringwood, with a very long face.

  The young squire had paid dearly enough for his love of fashionable company, and he had borne his losses without a murmur; but to find that he had been made a fool of all the time was a bitter blow to his self-conceit: still more bitter, since Darrell, of all others, was the person to undeceive him.

  “You mean to tell me, then,” he said ruefully, “that this Sir Lovel—”

  “Is no more Sir Lovel than you are,” answered Darrell: “all the fashionable breeding he can pretend to is what he has picked up on the king’s highway; and the only estate he will ever be master of in Devonshire or elsewhere will be enough stout timber to build him a gallows when his course comes to an abrupt termination. He is known to the knights of the road and the constables by the nickname of Captain Fanny, and there is little doubt the house in Chelsea to which he took you was a nest of highwaymen.”

  Ringwood had not a word to say; he sat with his nightcap in his hand and one foot out of bed, staring helplessly at his cousin, and scratching his head dubiously.

  “But that is not all,” continued Darrell: “there is some mystery in the connection between this man and George Duke. They might prove a dozen alibis, and they might swear me out of countenance, but prove what they may, and swear all they may, I can still declare that George Duke was the man who robbed me between Compton-on-the -Moor and Marley Water — George Duke was the man who stole my horse; and only seven months back I found that very horse, stolen from me by that very George Duke, in the custody of this man, your friend the baronet, alias Captain Fanny. The upshot of it is, that while we have thought George Duke was away upon the high seas, he has been hiding in London and going about the country robbing honest men. The ship Vulture is a fiction; and instead of being a merchant, a privateer, a pirate, or a slaver, George Duke is neither more nor less than a highwayman and a thief.”

  “I only know that I saw him one night last week at a house in Chelsea,” muttered Ringwood feebly. His weak intellect could scarcely keep pace with Darrell’s excitement.

  “Get up and dress yourself, Ringwood, while I run to the nearest magistrate. This fellow, Captain Fanny, stole my horse and emptied my pockets on the Bath road. We’ll get a warrant out, take a couple of constables with us, and you shall lead the way to the house in which you saw George Duke. Don’t waste time staring at me, man, but get yourself ready against I come back to fetch you. We’ll unearth the scoundrels and find a clue to this mystery before night.”

  “Two constables is not much,” murmured Ringwood doubtfully. “Sir Lovel always had his friends about him, and there may be a small regiment in that house.”

  Darrell looked at his cousin with undisguised contempt.

  “We don’t want you to face the gang,” he said; “we shall only ask you to show us the way and point out the house: you can run away and hide round the corner when you’ve done that, while I go in with the constables.”

  “As to pointing out the house,” answered the crestf
allen squire, “I’ll give you my help and welcome; but a man may be as brave as a lion, and yet not have any great fancy for being shot from behind a door.”

  “I’ll take the risks of any stray bullets, man,” cried Darrell, laughing; “only get up and dress yourself without loss of time, while I go and fetch the constables.”

  The getting of a warrant was rather a long business, and sorely tried Darrell’s patience. It was dusk when the matter was accomplished, and the young man returned to Ringwood’s lodging with the two constables and the official document which was to secure the elegant person of Captain Fanny.

  Darrell found his cousin specially equipped for the expedition, and armed to the teeth with a complicated collection of pistols, of the power to manage which he was as innocent as a baby. A formidable naval sword swung at his side, and got between his legs at every turn, while the muzzles of a tremendous pair of horse-pistols peeped out of his coat-pockets in such a manner that had they by any chance exploded, their charge must inevitably have been lodged in the elbows of the squire.

  Darrell set his cousin’s warlike toilette a little in order, Ringwood reluctantly consenting to content himself with one pair of pistols, and to substitute a small rapier for the tremendous cutlass he had placed so much faith in.

  “It isn’t the size of your weapon, but whether you’re able to use it, that makes the difference, Ringwood,” said Darrell. “Come along, my lad. We won’t leave you in the thick of the fight, depend upon it.”

  Ringwood looked anxiously into the faces of the two constables, as if to see whether there were any symptoms of a disposition to run away in either of their stolid countenances; and being apparently satisfied with the inspection, consented to step into the hackney coach with his three companions.