Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  “And do you not even know where this home was?”

  “I know nothing of its locality. I was too young to remember the names of persons or places. But I have often fancied it was in Italy.”

  “In Italy!”

  “Yes; for the first home which I really remember was a fisherman’s hut, in a little village within a few miles of Naples. I was the only child in that miserable hovel — lonely, desolate, miserable, in the power of two wretches, whose presence filled me with loathing.”

  “And they were — ?”

  “An old woman, called Andrinetta — I know that, though I called her ‘nurse’ when she was with me in the beautiful home I so dimly remember — and the man whom you have heard of under the name of Black Milsom.”

  “Is he an Italian?” asked Andrew, astonished.

  “I don’t know,” replied Honoria. “In England he calls himself an Englishman — in Italy he is supposed to be an Italian. What his real calling was in those days I do not know; but I feel assured that it must been dark and unlawful as all his actions have been since that time. He pretended to get his living like the other fishermen in the neighbourhood; but he was often idle for a week at a time, and still more often, absent. I have seen him count over gold and jewels with old Andrinetta on his return from some expedition. To me he was harsh and cruel. I hated him, and he knew that I hated him. He ordered me to call him father, and I was more than once savagely beaten by him because I refused to do so. Under such treatment, in such a wretched home, deprived of all natural companionship, I grew wild and strange. My will was indomitable as the will of my tyrant; and on many occasions I resisted him boldly. Sometimes I ran away, and wandered for days together among the neighbouring hills and woods; but I returned always sooner or later to my miserable shelter, for I knew not where else to go. My lonely life had made me shrink from all human creatures, except the two wretches with whom I lived; and when the few neighbours would have shown me some kindness, I ran from them in wild, unreasoning terror.”

  “Strange!” muttered the police-officer.

  “Yes; a strange history, is it not?” returned Lady Eversleigh. “And you wonder, no doubt, to hear of such a childhood from the lips of Sir Oswald Eversleigh’s widow. One day I heard a neighbour reproaching the man with his cruel treatment of me. ‘It is bad enough to have stolen the child,’ he said; ‘you shouldn’t beat her as well.’ From that hour I knew that I was a stolen child. I told him as much one night, and the next morning he took me to Naples, where, in the most obscure and yet most crowded part of the city, I lived for some years. ‘Nobody will trouble himself about you here, my young princess,’ my tyrant said to me. ‘Children swarm by hundreds in all the alleys; you will only be one more drop of water in the ocean.’”

  There was a pause, during which Honoria sat in a meditative attitude, with her eyes fixed upon vacancy. It seemed as if she was looking back into the shadowy past.

  “I cannot tell you how wretched my life was for some time. Andrinetta had accompanied us to Naples; and soon I saw she was very ill, and she had fits of violence that approached insanity. Within doors she was my sole companion. The man only slept in the house, and at times was absent for months. How he earned his livelihood I knew no more than I had known in the little sea-side village. I now rarely saw jewels or gold in his possession; but at night, after he had gone to his chamber, I often heard the chink of golden coin through the thin partition which divided my room from his. I think in these days I must have perished body and soul if Providence had not sent me a friend in the person of a good Catholic priest — a noble and saintly old man — who visited the wretched dens of poverty and crime, and who discovered my desolate state. I need not dwell on that man’s goodness to me; it is, doubtless, remembered in heaven, whither he may have gone before this time. He taught me, he comforted me, he rescued me from the abyss of wretchedness into which I had fallen. I took care to conceal his visits from my tyrant, for I knew how that wicked heart would revolt against my redemption from ignorance and misery. When I was fifteen years of age, Andrinetta died. One day, soon after her death — for me a most sorrowful day — Tomaso (as they called him there) told me that he was going to bring me to England, I came with him, and for two years I remained his companion. I will not speak of that time. I have told you now all that I can tell.”

  “But the murder of Valentine Jernam!” exclaimed Andrew. “Suspicion pointed to this man; and you — you know something of that?”

  “I will not speak of that now,” replied Honoria. “I have said enough. The day may come when I may speak more freely; but it has not yet arrived. Trust me that I will not impede the course of justice where this man is concerned. And now tell me, does my revelation afford one ray of light which may help to dispel the darkness that surrounds my Gertrude’s fate?”

  “No, I cannot say it does. I cannot find out anything to indicate that she has been taken far away. I am sure she is in England, and that one of Milsom’s pals, a man named Wayman—”

  Lady Eversleigh started, and exclaimed, “I know him! I know him! Go on! go on!”

  Larkspur directed a glance of keen and eager curiosity towards Lady

  Eversleigh. “You know Wayman?” he said.

  “Well, well,” she repeated. “I know him to be an unscrupulous ruffian. If he knows where my child is, he will sell the secret for money, and we will give him money — any sum; do you think I shall count the cost of her safety?”

  “No, no,” said Andrew Larkspur, “but you must not get so excited; keep quiet — tell me all you know of Wayman, and then we shall see our way.”

  At this point of the conversation Jane Payland knocked at the door of her mistress’s sitting-room, and the interview between Honoria and the police-officer was interrupted.

  CHAPTER XXXVII.

  “O, ABOVE MEASURE FALSE!”

  Victor Carrington was very well content with the state of affairs at Hilton House in all but one respect. The fulfilment of his purpose was not approaching with sufficient rapidity. The rich marriage which he had talked about for Reginald was a pure figment; the virtuous ironmonger, with the richly dowered daughter, existed only in his prolific brain — the need of money was growing pressing. He had done much, but there was still much to do, and he must make haste to do it. He had also been mistaken on one point of much importance to his success; he had not calculated on the strength of Douglas Dale’s constitution. Each day that he dined with Paulina — and the days on which he did not were exceedingly few — Dale drank a small quantity of curaçoa, into which Carrington had poured poison of a slow but sure nature. As the small carafon in which the liquor was placed upon the table was emptied, the poisoner never found any difficulty in gaining access to the fresh supply.

  The antique liquor-chest, with its fittings of Venetian glass was always kept on the side-board in the dining-room, and was never locked. Paulina had a habit of losing anything that came into her hands, and the key of the liquor-chest had long been missing.

  But the time was passing, and the poison was not telling, as far as he, the poisoner, could judge from appearances, on Douglas Dale. He never complained of illness, and beyond a slight lassitude, he did not seem to have anything the matter with him. This would not do. It behoved Carrington to expedite matters. His project was to accomplish the death of Douglas Dale by poison, throwing the burthen of suspicion — should suspicion arise — upon Paulina. To advance this purpose, he had industriously circulated reports of the most injurious character respecting her; so that Douglas Dale, if he had not been blinded and engrossed by his love, must have seen that he was regarded by the men whom he was in the habit of meeting even more coldly and curiously than when he had first boldly announced his engagement to Madame Durski. He made it known that Douglas Dale had made a will, by which the whole of his disposable property was bequeathed to Paulina, and circulated a rumour that the Austrian widow was utterly averse to the intended marriage, in feeling, and was only contracting it from intere
sted motives.

  “If Dale was only out of the way, and his heir had come into the money, she would rather have Reginald,” was a spiteful saying current among those who knew the lady and her suitor, and which had its unsuspected origin with Carrington. Supposing Dale to come to his death by poison, and that fact to be ascertained, who would be suspected but the woman who had everything to gain by his death, whose acknowledged lover was his next heir, and who succeeded by his will to all the property which did not go immediately into the possession of that acknowledged lover? The plan was admirably laid, and there was no apparent hitch in it, and it only remained now for Carrington to accelerate his proceedings. He still maintained reserve with Reginald Eversleigh, who would go to his house, and lounge purposelessly about, sullen and gloomy, but afraid to question the master-mind which had so completely subjugated his weak and craven nature.

  The engagement between Paulina and Douglas had lasted nearly two months, when a cloud overshadowed the horizon which had seemed so bright.

  Madame Durski became somewhat alarmed by a change in her lover’s appearance, which struck her suddenly on one of his visits to the villa. For some weeks past she had seen him only by lamplight — that light which gives a delusive brightness to the countenance.

  To-day she saw him with the cold northern sunlight shining full upon his face; and for the first time she perceived that he had altered much of late.

  “Douglas,” she said, earnestly, “how ill you are looking!”

  “Indeed!”

  “Yes; I see it to-day for the first time, and I can only wonder that I never noticed it before. You have grown so much paler, so much thinner, within the last few weeks. I am sure you cannot be well.”

  “My dearest Paulina, pray do not look at me with such alarm,” said Douglas, gently. “Believe me, there is nothing particular the matter. I have not been quite myself for the last few weeks, I admit — a touch of low fever, I think; but there is not the slightest occasion for fear on your part.”

  “Oh, Douglas,” exclaimed Paulina, “how can you speak so carelessly of a subject so vital to me? I implore you to consult a physician immediately.”

  “I assure you, my dearest, it is not necessary. There is nothing really the matter.”

  “Douglas, I beg and entreat you to see a physician directly. I entreat it as a favour to me.”

  “My dear Paulina, I am ready to do anything you wish.”

  “You will promise me, then, to see a doctor you can trust, without an hour’s unnecessary delay?”

  “I promise, with all my heart,” replied Douglas. “Ah, Paulina, what happiness to think that my life is of some slight value to her I love so fondly!”

  No more was said upon the subject; but during dinner, and throughout the evening, Paulina’s eyes fixed themselves every now and then with an anxious, scrutinizing gaze upon her lover’s face.

  When he had left her, she mentioned her fears to her confidante and shadow, Miss Brewer.

  “Do you not see a change in Mr. Dale?” she asked.

  “A change! What kind of change?”

  “Do you not perceive an alteration in his appearance? In plainer words, do you not think him looking very ill?”

  Miss Brewer, generally so impassive, started, and looked at her patroness with a gaze in which alarm was plainly visible.

  She had hazarded so much in order to bring about a marriage between Douglas and her patroness; and what if mortality’s dread enemy, Death, should forbid the banns?

  “Ill!” she exclaimed; “do you think Mr. Dale is ill?”

  “I do, indeed; and he confesses as much himself, though he makes light of the matter. He talks of low fever. I cannot tell you how much he has alarmed me.”

  “There may be nothing serious in it,” answered Miss Brewer, with some hesitation. “One is so apt to take alarm about trifles which a doctor would laugh at. I dare say Mr. Dale only requires change of air. A London life is not calculated to improve any one’s health.”

  “Perhaps that is the cause of his altered appearance,” replied Paulina, only too glad to be reassured as to her lover’s safety. “I will beg him to take change of air. But he has promised to see a doctor to-morrow: when he comes to me in the afternoon I shall hear what the doctor has said.”

  Douglas Dale was very much inclined to make light of the slight symptoms of ill-health which had oppressed him for some time — a languor, a sense of thirst and fever, which were very wearing in their effect, but which he attributed to the alternations of excitement and agitation that he had undergone of late.

  He was, however, too much a man of honour to break the promise made to

  Paulina.

  He went early on the following morning to Savile Row, where he called upon Dr. Harley Westbrook, a physician of some eminence, to whom he carefully described the symptoms of which he had complained to Paulina.

  “I do not consider myself really ill,” he said, in conclusion; “but I have come to you in obedience to the wish of a friend.”

  “I am very glad that you have come to me,” answered Dr. Westbrook, gravely.

  “Indeed! do you, then, consider the symptoms alarming?”

  “Well, no, not at present; but I may go so far as to say that you have done very wisely in placing yourself under medical treatment. It is a most interesting case,” added the doctor with an air of satisfaction that was almost enjoyment.

  He then asked his patient a great many questions, some of which Douglas Dale considered frivolous, or, indeed, absurd; questions about his diet, his habits: questions even about the people with whom he associated, the servants who waited upon him.

  These latter inquiries might have seemed almost impertinent, if Dr.

  Westbrook’s elevated position had not precluded such an idea.

  “You dine at your club, or in your chambers, eh, Mr. Dale?” he asked.

  “Neither at my club, nor my chambers; I dine every day with a friend.”

  “Indeed; always with the same friend?”

  “Always the same.”

  “And you breakfast?”

  “At my chambers.”

  Here followed several questions as to the nature of the breakfast.

  “These sort of ailments depend so much on diet,” said the physician, as if to justify the closeness of his questioning. “Your servant prepares your breakfast, of course — is he a person whom you can trust?”

  “Yes; he is an old servant of my father’s. I could trust him implicitly in far more important matters than the preparation of my breakfast.”

  “Indeed! Will you pardon me if I ask rather a strange question?”

  “Certainly, if it is a necessary one.”

  “Answered like a lawyer, Mr. Dale,” replied Dr. Westbrook, with a smile. “I want to know whether this old and trusted servant of yours has any beneficial interest in your death?”

  “Interest in my death—”

  “In plainer words, has he reason to think that you have put him down in your will — supposing that you have made a will; which is far from probable?”

  “Well, yes,” replied Douglas, thoughtfully; “I have made a will within the last few months, and Jarvis, my old servant knows that he is provided for, in the event of surviving me — not a very likely event, according to the ordinary hazards; but a man is bound to prepare for every contingency.”

  “You told your servant that you had provided for him?”

  “I did. He has been such an excellent creature, that it was only natural I should leave him comfortably situated in the event of my death.”

  “No; to be sure,” answered the physician, with rather an absent manner.

  “And now I need trouble you with no further questions this morning.

  Come to me in a few days, and in the meantime take the medicine I

  prescribe for you.”

  Dr. Westbrook wrote a prescription, and Mr. Dale departed, very much perplexed by his interview with the celebrated physician.

&
nbsp; Douglas went to Fulham that evening as usual, and the first question

  Paulina asked related to his interview with the doctor.

  “You have seen a medical man?” she asked.

  “I have; and you may set your mind at rest, dearest. He assures me that there is nothing serious the matter.”

  Paulina was entirely reassured, and throughout that evening she was brighter and happier than usual in the society of her lover — more lovely, more bewitching than ever, as it seemed to Douglas.

  He waited a week before calling again on the physician; and he might, perhaps, have delayed his visit even longer, had he not felt that the fever and languor from which he suffered increased rather than abated.

  This time Dr. Westbrook’s manner seemed graver and more perplexed than on the former visit. He asked even more questions, and at last, after a thoughtful examination of the patient, he said, very seriously —

  “Mr. Dale, I must tell you frankly that I do not like your symptoms.”

  “You consider them alarming?”

  “I consider them perplexing, rather than alarming. And as you are not a nervous subject I think I may venture to trust you fully.”

  “You may trust in the strength of my nerve, if that is what you mean.”

  “I believe I may, and I shall have to test your moral courage and general force of character.”

  “Pray be brief, then,” said Douglas with a faint smile. “I can almost guess what you have to say. You are going to tell me that I carry the seeds of a mortal disease; that the shadowy hand of death already holds me in its fatal grip.”