Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “Nonsense,” said Mr. Carlton. “I am a medical man, remember, accustomed to the smell of drugs, and not likely to be deceived.”

  “That’s just it,” said the inspector obstinately. “Those accustomed to the smell of drugs, living amongst them, as may be said, in their surgeries, are more liable to fancy they smell them when they don’t, than other folks are. There was no smell of poison in the draught when it was taken to the house,” he doggedly continued.

  “But I tell you there was,” persisted Mr. Carlton.

  “And I tell you, sir, there wasn’t. There. I feel as sure of it as that we are now talking together. That man you saw on the stairs was the one to drop the poison into the draught after you had gone.” Mr. Carlton said no more. The inspector was evidently confirmed in his opinion, and it was of no use to try to shake it. There may have come over Mr. Carlton’s memory also a recollection of the second view he had obtained of the face, on the night before his flight with Laura Chesney. That, surely, could not have been fancy; for Laura testified to seeing it — and hearing it — as well as he. How then reconcile that with his persistent denial that no one had been on the stairs? Mr. Carlton could not tell; but he was quite sincere in hoping, nay, in half believing, that that ill-looking face had existed wholly in his imagination.

  “Is that all you have to ask me?” he inquired of the inspector. “My time is not my own this morning.”

  “No, sir, not all. I want you to be so kind as just to relate the facts as they occurred under your notice. I have heard them from Mr. Stephen Grey, and from others; but I must hear them from you. It’s surprising how a word from one witness and a word from another helps us on to a correct view of a case. You saw her for the first time, I believe, on the Sunday night. It’s a pity but you had kept the note she wrote you!”

  “Who was to think the note would ever be wanted?” rejoined Mr. Carlton. “But if I had kept it, it would have told nothing.”

  “Every word, every scrap of paper is evidence to those who have learnt to use it,” was the answer. “Go on, sir.”

  Mr. Carlton complied. He related the facts, so far as they had come under his cognizance; not with the minuteness he had found himself obliged to use before the coroner, but with a clearness of detail that was quite satisfactory. The inspector listened attentively, and once or twice took something down in writing.

  “That’s all you know?” came the question when he had finished.

  “That is all I know.”

  The inspector gently rubbed his nose with the feather of his pen. He was in deep thought.

  “The case would resolve itself into a very small compass but for two opposing points in it,” he presently said. “The one, the exceeding improbability that it was Mr. Stephen Grey who made any mistake in the mixing-up; the other, that man’s face you saw on the stairs. I can’t get over those.”

  “But I have assured you there was no man’s face on the stairs,” reiterated Mr. Carlton.

  “I don’t doubt that you believe so now. But you didn’t believe so at the time, or you’d not have spoken about it to the widow Gould. Present impressions are worth everything, believe me, Mr. Carlton; and it is to that suspicious point I shall direct all my energies. I’d stake my place that somebody was there.”

  “As you please,” said Mr. Carlton. “I suppose that is all you want with me.”

  “That’s all, sir, and thank you. If we ferret out anything, you shall be one of the first to know it. Good morning.”

  Mr. Carlton, who was indeed pressed for time, and had inwardly rebelled at having to give so much of it to the police-station on that busy morning, hastened away the moment he was released. Crossing the street at railroad speed in a slanting direction past the church — for the police-station and St. Mark’s Church were pretty close to each other — he sped round the corner near the Red Lion, in the direction that led to Great Wennock, and dexterously escaped being run over by a carriage that was turning into the principal street.

  Mr. Carlton, who was an observant man, looked at the inmate of the carriage — a stout lady, dressed in deep mourning. She bent her resolute face forward — for it was a resolute face, with its steady dark eyes, and its pointed chin — to look at him. She had seen the narrowly escaped accident, and her haughty eyebrows plainly asked why one, looking so much of a gentleman, should have subjected himself to it through such ungentlemanly speed. How little did she suspect he was one whose name to her was a bitter pill — the surgeon, Lewis Carlton!

  Mr. Carlton sped on, thinking no more of the carriage and its occupant. He was on his way to a sick patient who lived in one of the few houses situated at this, the near end of the Great Wennock road, — houses which had the gratification of witnessing day by day the frequent passing and repassing of the noted railway omnibus.

  The carriage meanwhile slackened its speed as soon as it was round the corner, and the post-boy, after looking up and down the street in indecision, turned on his horse and spoke to the servant on the box, a staid, respectable-looking man, wearing as deep mourning as his mistress.

  “Which way must I turn?”

  The servant did not know. He looked up and down the street — very uselessly, for that could tell him nothing — and caught sight of the swinging-board of the Red Lion.

  “There’s an inn. You had better inquire there.”

  The post-boy drew his horses up to the inn door. Mrs. Fitch, who happened to be standing at it, moved forward; but the old lady had let down the front window, and was speaking sharply to the servant.

  “What’s the matter, Thoms? What are you stopping here for?”

  Thoms turned his head back and touched his hat. “The postboy does not know the way, my lady. I thought we had better inquire at this inn.”

  But the old lady was evidently one of an active, restless temperament, who liked to do things herself better than to have them done for her. Before Thoms — deliberate and stately as his mistress was quick — could speak to Mrs. Fitch, she had put up the front window, sent down the other, had her own head out, and was addressing the landlady. —

  “Where is Cedar Lodge?”

  Mrs. Fitch dropped her habitual curtsey. “It lies a little out of the town, on the Rise—”

  “Be so good as to direct the post-boy to it,” interrupted the lady, with the air of one accustomed to command and be obeyed.

  “You must turn your horses, post-boy,” said Mrs. Fitch, moving nearer to him on the pavement. “Keep straight on through the town, and you will come to a long and gentle hill, where there’s a good deal of new building. That’s the Rise, and Cedar Lodge is about half-way up on the righthand side.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” said Thoms civilly; and the post-boy turned his horses as directed, and bore on through the town.

  He had passed quite through it, when he saw the long ascent before him. That Rise was three-quarters of a mile in length; but all of it could not be seen from its base. On the left, standing alone, after the street was passed and before the gentle hill had begun, was a nice-looking white house. The lady within the carriage bent forward and glanced at it. She had not heard Mrs. Fitch’s directions, and she thought it might be the one of which she was in quest, Cedar Lodge.

  At that moment a lady threw up one of the windows on the first floor, and looked out. It was Laura Carlton: and her eyes met those other eyes gazing from the carriage. Laura gave a suppressed scream of recognition; and the old lady, startled also, lifted her angry hand with a menacing gesture; just as the Earl of Oakburn had lifted his, in the earlier encounter in the morning at St. Mark’s Church.

  CHAPTER XXV.

  A VISIT TO CEDAR LODGE.

  THE Earl of Oakburn’s sojourn at Cedar Lodge had been a short one. He had only gone home for a day or two to discuss future plans with Jane; or, rather, to inform Jane of his future plans, for he was one who discussed them only with his own will.

  It would be necessary for him to let Chesney Oaks. He had succeeded to the peera
ge, it is true; but he had not succeeded to the broad lands, the proud rent-roll of an ordinary peer. A certain income he came into with the title as a matter of course; an income that, in comparison with the straitened means of later days, appeared a mine of wealth, and would no doubt prove so to him and Jane, with their simple and inexpensive habits. The late earl had had a large private fortune, which did not go with the title; and even with that, he had been reckoned a poor man for his rank. Yes, there would be nothing for it but to let Chesney Oaks, he observed to Jane. To keep up such a place as it ought to be kept up would absorb the whole of his income, for it could not be done under three or four thousand a year. He should therefore let Chesney Oaks, and reside in London.

  Jane’s heart acquiesced in everything. But for the blow just dealt out to them by Laura, she would have felt supremely happy. There had existed a dark spot in their domestic history for some little time past, but she had every hope that this change in their fortunes would remove it, and bring things straight again. It could not — she argued with herself — it could not be otherwise.

  One word from Lord Oakburn would remove the cloud; would bring the wanderer home from an exile, voluntary at first, enforced now. And yet, Jane hesitated to beg that that word should be spoken. The subject had been a very bitter one. It had thrown a shadow of constraint between Jane and her father, where until then all had been so open; and he had long ago interdicted all mention of the subject on Jane’s part. But this change in their fortunes rendered it necessary, as her good sense told her, that the interdict should no longer exist — that the matter should be opened up again.

  Not in that hour’s visit to Chesney Oaks would Jane allude to it. When she went to impart to him the ill-doings of one daughter, it was scarcely the time to beg grace for another. But when Lord Oakburn came home on the Tuesday, the day following the funeral of the late peer, then Jane resolved to speak to him. How she shrank from it, none but herself could tell. His bitterness against Laura was so demonstrative, that Jane was willing to let a day or two pass ere she entered upon the other bitter subject. “I will leave it until to-morrow,” she thought; but when the morrow came (Wednesday), it brought Laura’s letter about her apparel, and the earl went into so great an access of wrath, that Jane did not dare to speak. Still she could not let him go away again without doing so; and on the Thursday morning she took courage, as they were alone after breakfast, and the earl was giving her hurried orders about this and that — for the fly was already at the door to carry him away — she took courage and spoke quietly and pleadingly, though her heart was beating.

  “Papa, forgive my speaking upon a forbidden subject. You will let me see after Clarice now?”

  “What?” thundered the earl.

  The tone was so stern, the countenance bent on Jane so dark in its anger, that all Jane’s forced courage left her. Her manner grew hesitating; timid; imparting a notion of which she was painfully conscious — that she was asking something it was not right to ask.

  “Clarice,” she faltered. “May we not send to her?”

  “No,” emphatically spoke the earl. “Hold your tongue, Jane. Send to her! Let Clarice come to her senses.”

  And that was all it brought forth. Lord Oakburn stepped into the fly, attended by Pompey, to be driven to Great Wennock station; and on his way to it enjoyed the pleasure of that encounter with his rebellious daughter and her husband as they quitted St. Mark’s Church after their second marriage.

  To make things clear to you, my reader, it may be necessary to revert for an instant to the past.

  Captain Chesney — we will speak of him by his old name, as it relates to the time he bore it — had four daughters, although you have only heard of three. He never had a son. Jane, Laura, Clarice, and Lucy were their names, Clarice being next to Laura. They were the two who seemed to stand together. Jane was considerably older, Lucy considerably younger, but Laura and Clarice were nearly of an age, for there was only a year between them. When they were growing up, promising both of them to be of unusual beauty, though they were not much alike, the dowager Countess of Oakburn, who, in her patronizing, domineering way, took a good deal of interest in her nephew Captain Chesney’s family, came forward with an offer to place them in France at her own cost for the completion of their education. Captain Chesney and Jane were too sensible of the advantages of such an offer to decline it, and Laura and Clarice were sent to France. When Lady Oakburn chose to do a thing, she did it well and liberally, and the small select Protestant school chosen, in the vicinity of Neuilly, was one in all respects eligible. The young ladies were well treated, well instructed, well cared for; and Laura and Clarice remained there for three years — Laura being nineteen, Clarice eighteen when they came back to England.

  They returned to a less comfortable home than the one they had quitted in France; for the embarrassments of Captain Chesney’s house — then situated, as you may remember, in the neighbourhood of Plymouth — were at that time reaching their climax. The petty debts perpetually being pressed for, the straitened comforts of the menage, the almost entire deprivation, through poverty, of the society and amusement so longed for at their age, tried their patience and tried their tempers to the utmost. Jane bore all meekly for the sake of her father; Lucy was too young to feel it; but on Laura and Clarice it fell heavily.

  Clarice was the first to break through the yoke. For two years she made the best of it; was in fact obliged to make the best of it, for what else could she do? — but shortly after her twentieth birthday had passed, she suddenly announced her intention of going out as a governess. Had she announced her intention of going round the country in a caravan to dance at fairs, it could not have been received with more indignant displeasure by her family.

  Not by one of them only, but by all. Captain Chesney did not condescend to reason with her; he raved at her and forbade her. Jane reasoned; Laura ridiculed; but Clarice held to her purpose. That she had a strong will of her own, the contention proved; a will as strong and obstinate as Captain Chesney’s. It was in complete opposition to the high notions, the long-cherished pride of the wellborn family, that one of its daughters should lower herself to the position of a dependent — a governess — a servant, it might be said, to the caprices of strangers less well-born than was she. Clarice declared that she would be doing, as she believed, a right thing; her only motive was to help her family; first, by relieving them of her cost and maintenance; secondly, by applying part of her salary, if she should prove fortunate in getting a good one, to assist in the financial department at home.

  That Clarice was sufficiently sincere in avowing this to be her motive, there was no reason to doubt, for she believed it to be the chief one. But had she been capable of strictly analyzing her own mind and feelings, it would perhaps have been found that she was also swayed at least in an equal degree by the desire of getting into a home where there would be less of discomfort. Be this as it might, Clarice quitted her home in quite as much disobedience and defiance as Laura was destined subsequently to quit it. There had been a few weeks spent in disputes and useless opposition; Clarice on one side, the whole family on the other; it ended in one violent and bitter quarrel, and then Clarice left.

  It might have been better had Lady Oakburn not interfered in it. She only added fuel to the flame. Kindness might have availed with Clarice; anger did not. And Lady Oakburn did not spare her anger, or her reproaches. It is true, that when she found these reproaches useless — that they only rendered Clarice more bent upon her plan — she changed her tactics and offered the young lady a home with her, rather than she should persist in what, according to their notions, reflected so much disgrace on the family. But it was then too late. Perhaps at no time would any one of the girls have been willing to accept a home with their domineering old aunt; and Clarice, in her high spirit, resented her present anger and interference too greatly to do aught except send back the offer, with something that, to the indignant countess, looked like scorn. In the last angry sce
ne, the one that occurred just before Clarice left, she affirmed, that no disgrace, through her, should ever be cast upon the Chesneys; for she would change her name at once, and never betray her family to strangers. In her mad imprudence she took a vow so to act. In this mood she quitted her home; and Lady Oakburn immediately turned her anger upon Captain Chesney. He ought to have kept her in by force, had it been necessary, she said, and not have suffered her to leave home. It was next to impossible for Lady Oakburn not to vent her anger upon some one; but in this case the captain did not deserve it, for Clarice left the house in secret, and none knew of her departure until she had gone away.

  Opposition was over then. Lady Oakburn, retreating into her pride, took no further heed of the matter or of Clarice; Captain Chesney virtually did the same, and forbade the name of his offending daughter ever to be mentioned. In vain Jane pleaded that Clarice might be sought out; might at least be seen after, and one more effort made to induce her to hear reason, and return home. Captain Chesney would not listen, and quarrelled with Jane for her persistency. It was the first coolness, the first unpleasantness, that had ever occurred between Jane and her father.

  But, if they could only have put away the useless old family pride, there appeared to be no great cause for uneasiness on the score of Clarice and the step she had taken. A very short time after Clarice left home, Jane received a letter from her, telling her of her movements. She had obtained, she wrote, through an agency, a situation as governess, and had entered upon it. It was in a good family residing at the west end of London, where she should certainly be safe, and, she hoped, comfortable. She had changed her name, she added, though she should decline to say for what other; and if Jane wanted to write to her, she might send a letter directed to Miss Chesney, care of a certain library in the neighbourhood of Hyde Park. “Tell papa, with my love,” ran the conclusion of the letter, “that he may thoroughly trust me in all ways; I will not disgrace myself or his name. What I have done, I have done from good and loving motives, and I hope that the time may come when he will think of me less harshly than he does now.”