Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  “I think that this girl and these two men, her father, Thomas Milsom, and Dennis Wayman, the landlord of the ‘Jolly Tar’, are in the secret — are, between them, the murderers of your brother. I think that when he broke his promise to me, and came back to this end of London, before the fifth, he came lured by that girl’s beauty. It is to the girl we must look for a key to the secret of his death. I do not expect to extort anything from the fears of the men. They are both hardened villains; and if, as I believe, they are guilty of this crime, it is not likely to be the first in which they have been engaged. The police are on the watch, and I have promised a liberal reward for any discoveries they may make; but it is very slow work.”

  This, and much more, Joyce Harker wrote to George Jernam. The letter was written immediately after the inquest; and on the night succeeding that inquiry, Joyce went to the ‘Jolly Tar’, in the hope of seeing Jenny Milsom. But he was doomed to disappointment; for in the concert-room at Dennis Wayman’s tavern he found a new singer — a fat, middle-aged woman, with red hair.

  “What has become of the pretty girl who used to sing here?” he asked the landlord.

  “Milsom’s daughter?” said Wayman. “Oh, we’ve lost her She was a regular she-devil, it seems. Her father and she had a row, and the girl ran away. She can get her living anywhere with that voice of hers; and I don’t suppose Milsom treated her over well. He’s a rough fellow, but an honest one.”

  “Yes,” answered Joyce, with a sneer; “he seems uncommonly honest. There’s a good deal of that sort of honesty about this neighbourhood, I think, mate. I suppose you’ve heard about my captain?”

  “Not a syllable. Is there anything wrong with him?”

  “Ah! news seems to travel slowly down here. There was an inquest held this morning, not so many miles from this house.”

  The landlord shrugged his shoulders.

  “I’ve been busy in-doors all day, and I haven’t heard anything,” he said.

  Joyce told the story of his captain’s fate, to which Dennis Wayman listened with every appearance of sympathy.

  “And you’ve no idea what has become of the girl?” Harker asked, after having concluded his story.

  “No more than the dead. She’s cut and run, that’s all I know.”

  “Has her father gone after her?”

  “Not a bit of it. He’s not that sort of man. She has chosen to take herself off, and her father will let her go her own way.”

  “And her grandfather, the old blind man?”

  “He has gone with her.”

  There was no more to be said about the girl after this.

  “I’ll tell you what it is, Mr. Wayman,” said Joyce, “I’m likely to be a good bit down in this neighbourhood, while I’m waiting for directions about my poor captain’s ship from his brother Captain George, and as your house suits me as well as any other, I may as well take up my quarters here. I know you’ve got plenty of room, and you’ll find me a quiet lodger.”

  “So be it,” answered the landlord, promptly. “I’m agreeable.”

  Joyce deliberated profoundly as he walked away from the ‘Jolly Tar’ that night.

  “He’s too deep to be caught easily,” he thought. “He’ll let me into his house, because he knows there’s nothing I can find out, watch as I may. Such a murder as that leaves no trace behind it. If I had been able to get hold of the girl, I might have frightened her into telling me something; but it’s clear to me she has really bolted, or Wayman would never let me into his house.”

  For weeks Joyce Harker was a lodger at the ‘Jolly Tar’; always on the watch; always ready to seize upon the smallest clue to the mystery of Valentine Jernam’s death; but nothing came of his watching.

  The police did their best to discover the key to the dreadful secret; but they worked in vain. The dead man’s money had been partly in notes and gold, partly in bills of exchange. It was easy enough to dispose of such bills in the City. There were men ready to take them at a certain price, and to send them abroad; men who never ask questions of their customers.

  So there was little chance of any light being thrown on this dark and evil mystery. Joyce watched and waited with dog-like fidelity, ready to seize upon the faintest clue; but he waited and watched in vain.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER III.

  DISINHERITED.

  Nearly a year had elapsed since the murder of Valentine Jernam, and the March winds were blowing amongst the leafless branches of the trees in the Green Park.

  In the library of one of the finest houses in Arlington Street, a gentleman paced restlessly to and fro, stopping before one of the windows every now and then, to look, with a fretful glance, at the dull sky. “What weather!” he muttered: “what execrable weather!”

  The speaker was a man of some fifty years of age — a man who had been very handsome and who was handsome still — a man with a haughty patrician countenance — not easily forgotten by those who looked upon it. Sir Oswald Eversleigh, Baronet, was a descendant of one of the oldest families in Yorkshire. He was the owner of Raynham Castle, in Yorkshire; Eversleigh Manor, in Lincolnshire; and his property in those two counties constituted a rent-roll of forty thousand per annum.

  He was a bachelor, and having nearly reached his fiftieth year it was considered unlikely that he would marry.

  Such at least was the fixed idea of those who considered themselves the likely inheritors of the baronet’s wealth. The chief of these was Reginald Eversleigh, his favourite nephew, the only son of a younger brother, who had fallen gloriously on an Indian battle-field.

  There were two other nephews who had some right to look forward to a share in the baronet’s fortune. These were the two sons of Sir Oswald’s only sister, who had married a country rector, called Dale. But Lionel and Douglas Dale were not the sort of young men who care to wait for dead men’s shoes. They were sincerely attached to their uncle; but they carefully abstained from any demonstration of affection which could seem like worship of his wealth. The elder was preparing himself for the Church; the younger was established in chambers in the Temple, reading for the bar.

  It was otherwise with Reginald Eversleigh. From his early boyhood this young man had occupied the position of an adopted son rather than a nephew.

  There are some who can bear indulgence, some flowers that flourish best with tender rearing; but Reginald Eversleigh was not one of these.

  Sir Oswald was too generous a man to require much display of gratitude from the lad on whom he so freely lavished his wealth and his affection. When the boy showed himself proud and imperious, the baronet admired that high, and haughty spirit. When the boy showed himself reckless and extravagant in his expenditure of money, the baronet fancied that extravagance the proof of a generous disposition, overlooking the fact that it was only on his own pleasures that Reginald wasted his kinsman’s money. When bad accounts came from the Eton masters and the Oxford tutors, Sir Oswald deluded himself with the belief that it was only natural for a high-spirited lad to be idle, and that, indeed, youthful idleness was often a proof of genius.

  But even the moral blindness of love cannot last for ever. The day came when the baronet awoke to the knowledge that his dead brother’s only son was unworthy of his affection.

  The young man entered the army. His uncle purchased for him a commission in a crack cavalry regiment, and he began his military career under the most brilliant auspices. But from the day of his leaving his military tutor, until the present hour, Sir Oswald had been perpetually subject to the demands of his extravagance, and had of late suffered most bitterly from discoveries which had at last convinced him that his nephew was a villain.

  In ordinary matters, Sir Oswald Eversleigh was by no means a patient or long-suffering man; but he had exhibited extraordinary endurance in all his dealings with his nephew. The hour had now come when he could be patient no longer.

  He had written to his nephew, desiring him to call upon him at three o’clock on this day.

&
nbsp; The idea of this interview was most painful to him, for he had resolved that it should be the last between himself and Reginald Eversleigh. In this matter he had acted with no undue haste; for it had been unspeakably distressing to him to decide upon a step which would separate him for ever from the young man.

  As the timepiece struck three, Mr. Eversleigh was announced. He was a very handsome man; of a refined and aristocratic type, but of a type rather effeminate than powerful. And pervading his beauty, there was a winning charm of expression which few could resist. It was difficult to believe that Reginald Eversleigh could be mean or base. People liked him, and trusted him, in spite of themselves; and it was only when their confidence had been imposed upon, and their trust betrayed, that they learned to know how despicable the handsome young officer could be. Women did their best to spoil him; and his personal charms of face and manner, added to his brilliant expectations, rendered him an universal favourite in fashionable circles.

  He came to Arlington Street prepared to receive a lecture, and a severe one, for he knew that some of his late delinquencies had become known to Sir Oswald; but he trusted in the influence which he had always been able to exercise over his uncle, and he was determined to face the difficulty boldly, as he had faced it before.

  He entered the room with a smile, and advanced towards his uncle, with his hand outstretched.

  But Sir Oswald drew back, refusing that proffered hand.

  “I shake hands only with gentlemen and honest men,” he said, haughtily.

  “You are neither, Mr. Eversleigh.”

  Reginald had been used to hear his uncle address him in anger; but never before had Sir Oswald spoken to him in that tone of cool contempt. The colour faded from the young man’s face, and he looked at his uncle with an expression of alarm.

  “My dear uncle!” he exclaimed.

  “Be pleased to forget that you have ever addressed me by that name, or that any relationship exists between us, Mr. Eversleigh,” answered Sir Oswald, with unaltered sternness. “Sit down, if you please. Our interview is likely to be a long one.”

  The young man seated himself in silence.

  “I have sent for you, Mr. Eversleigh,” said the baronet, “because I wished to tell you, without passion, that the tie which has hitherto bound us has been completely broken. Heaven knows I have been patient; I have endured your misdoings, hoping that they were the thoughtless errors of youth, and not the deliberate sins of a hardened and wicked nature. I have trusted till I can trust no longer; I have hoped till I can hope no more. Within the past week I have learned to know you. An old friend, whose word I cannot doubt, whose honour is beyond all question, has considered it a duty to acquaint me with certain facts that have reached his knowledge, and has opened my eyes to your real character. I have given much time to reflection before determining on the course I shall pursue with one who has been so dear to me. You know me well enough to be aware that when once I do arrive at a decision, that decision is irrevocable. I wish to act with justice, even towards a scoundrel. I have brought you up with the habits of a rich man, and it is my duty to save you from absolute poverty. I have, therefore, ordered my solicitors to prepare a deed by which an income of two hundred a year will be secured to you for life, unconditionally. After the execution of that deed I shall have no further interest in your fate. You will go your own way, Mr. Eversleigh, and choose your own companions, without remonstrance or interference from the foolish kinsman who has loved you too well.”

  “But, my dear uncle — Sir Oswald — what have I done that you should treat me so severely?”

  The young man was deadly pale. His uncle’s manner had taken him by surprise; but even in this desperate moment, when he felt that all was lost, he attempted to assume the aspect of injured innocence.

  “What have you done!” cried the baronet, passionately.

  “Shall I show you two letters, Reginald Eversleigh — two letters which, by a strange combination of circumstances, have reached my hands; and in each of which there is the clue to a shameful story — a cruel and disgraceful story, of which you are the hero?”

  “What letters?”

  “You shall read them,” replied Sir Oswald. “They are addressed to you, and have been in your possession; but to so fine a gentleman such letters were of little importance. Another person, however, thought them worth preserving, and sent them to me.”

  The baronet took up two envelopes from the table, and handed them to his nephew.

  At the sight of the address of the uppermost envelope, Reginald Eversleigh’s face grew livid. He looked at the lower, and then returned both documents to his uncle, with a hand that trembled in spite of himself.

  “I know nothing of the letters,” he faltered, huskily.

  “You do not!” said his uncle; “then it will be necessary for me to enlighten you.”

  Sir Oswald took a letter from one of the envelopes, but before reading it he looked at his nephew with a grave and mournful countenance, from which all traces of scorn had vanished.

  “Before I heard the history of this letter, I fully believed that, in spite of all your follies and extravagances, you were at least honourable and generous-hearted. After hearing the story of this letter, I knew you to be base and heartless. You say you know nothing of the letter? Perhaps you will tell me that you have forgotten the name of the writer. And yet you can scarcely have so soon forgotten Mary Goodwin.”

  The young man bent his head. A terrible rage possessed him, for he knew that one of the darkest secrets of his life had been revealed to his uncle.

  “I will tell you the history of Mary Goodwin,” said the baronet, “since you have so poor a memory. She was the favourite and foster-sister of Jane Stukely, a noble and beautiful woman, to whom you were engaged. You met Jane Stukely in London, fell in love with her as it seemed, and preferred your suit. You were accepted by her — approved by her father. No alliance could have been more advantageous. I was never better pleased than when you announced to me your engagement. The influence of a good wife will cure him of all his follies, I thought, and I shall yet have reason to be proud of my nephew.”

  “Spare me, sir, for pity’s sake,” murmured Reginald, hoarsely.

  “When did you spare others, Mr. Reginald Eversleigh? When did you consider others, if they stood in the way of your base pleasures, your selfish gratifications? Never! Nor will I spare you. As Jane’s engaged lover, you were invited to Stukely Park. There you saw Mary Goodwin. Accident threw you across this girl’s pathway very often in the course of your visit; but the time came when you ceased to meet by accident. There were secret meetings in the park. The poor, weak, deluded girl could not resist the fascinations of the fine gentleman — who lured her to destruction by means of lying promises. In due time you left Stukely Park, unsuspected. Within a few days of your departure, the girl, Mary Goodwin, disappeared.

  “For six months nothing was heard of the missing Mary Goodwin; but at the end of that time a gentleman, who remembered her in the days of her beauty and innocence at Stukely Park, recognized the features of Miss Stukely’s protégée in the face of a suicide, whose body was exhibited in the Morgue at Paris. The girl had been found drowned. The Englishman paid the charges of a decent funeral, and took back to the Stukelys the intelligence of their protégée’s fate; but no one knew the secret of her destruction. That secret was, however, suspected by Jane Stukely, who broke her engagement with you on the strength of the dark suspicion.

  “It was to you she fled when she left Stukely Park — in your companionship she went abroad, where she passed as your wife, you assuming a false name — under which you were recognized, nevertheless. The day came when you grew weary of your victim. When your funds were exhausted, when the girl’s tears and penitence grew troublesome — in the hour when she was most helpless and miserable, and had most need of your pity and protection, you abandoned her, leaving her alone in Paris, with a few pounds to pay for her journey home, if she should have courage to
go back to the friends who had sheltered her. In this hour of abandonment and shame, she chose death rather than such an ordeal, and drowned herself.”

  “I give you my honour, Sir Oswald, I meant to act liberally. I meant,” — the young man interrupted; but his uncle did not notice the interruption.

  “I will read you this wretched girl’s letter,” continued the baronet; “it is her last, and was left at the hotel where you deserted her, and whence it was forwarded to you. It is a very simple letter; but it bears in every line the testimony of a broken heart: —

  “‘You have left me, Reginald, and in so doing have proved to me most fully that the love you once felt for me has indeed perished. For the sake of that love I have sacrificed every principle and broken every tie. I have disgraced the name of an honest family, and have betrayed the dearest and kindest friend who ever protected a poor girl. And now you leave me, and tell me to return to my old friends, who will no doubt forgive me, you say, and shelter me in this bitter time of my disgrace. Oh, Reginald, do you know me so little that you think I could go back, could lift my eyes once more to the dear faces that used to smile upon me, but which now would turn from me with loathing and aversion? You know that I cannot go back. You leave me in this great city, so strange and unknown to me, and you do not care to ask yourself any questions as to my probable fate. Shall I tell you what I am going to do, Reginald? You, who were once so fond and passionate a lover — you, whom I have seen kneeling at my feet, humbly born and penniless though I was — it is only right that you should know the fate of your abandoned mistress. When I have finished this letter it will be dark — the shadows are closing in already, and I can scarcely see to write. I shall creep quietly from the house, and shall make my way over to that river which I have crossed so often, seated by your side in a carriage. Once on the bridge, under cover of the blessed darkness, all my troubles will be ended; you will be burdened with me no longer, and I shall not cost you even the ten-pound note which you so generously left for me, and which I shall enclose in this letter. Forgive me if there is some bitterness in my heart. I try to forgive you — I do forgive you! May a merciful heaven pardon my sins, as I pardon your desertion of me! M.G.’”