Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “You’ll take luncheon with me to-day, Lewis?”

  “It must be very little,” said he, sitting down. “I always make “a good breakfast. What’s this? Stewed oysters. I’ll try one or two of these. Shall I give you some?”

  Laura chose to take some. He had just helped her, and was about to put some on to his own plate, when the door opened and Jonathan’s head came in. It was rather an unusual way for a footman to enter a room, and they both gazed at him, The man looked pale; as one scared.

  “What is it, Jonathan?” asked his master, “You are wanted, if you please, sir.”

  “In the surgery? I’ll come in a minute.”

  “No, sir; now, please,” stammered Jonathan, looking more frightened with every passing moment.

  Mr. Carlton, struck by the servant’s manner, rose hastily. The thought that crossed him was, that some accident had been brought to the house. In the hall stood two policemen. Jonathan closed the dining-room door after his master.

  Another minute and it was opened again. Lady Laura, curious to know what the wonder was, had come to see. The matter-of-fact officers with their impassive faces had closed round Mr. Carlton, one of them showing what looked like a piece of paper, as he spoke in an undertone; and the servant Jonathan stood apart, with open mouth and staring eyes. The moment Mr. Carlton perceived Lady Laura, he drew the policemen into the opposite room, and closed the door.

  “Jonathan, what’s all that?”

  “Goodness knows, my lady,” replied Jonathan, who still looked white and frightened.

  “What do those policemen want? You are looking frightened. What did they say? What did you hear?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t ask me, please,” hesitated the man, in his simple good-nature. “It would not do you good to hear it, my lady.”

  “How dare you refuse, Jonathan?” she imperiously returned. “Tell me instantly.”

  “Oh, my lady — I heard something about murder, and taking my master before the magistrates for examination.”

  She did not believe it; she quite laughed at Jonathan. But at that moment they came out again, and Mr. Carlton advanced to her. There was that in his aspect which caused his wife to cower against the door-post. Or was it that her own vague fears were frightening her?

  “Laura, I am going out on business to the town-hall. I shan’t be longer than I can help.”

  Her faint cry resounded through the hall. It seemed such a confirmation of the words spoken by the servant.

  “Oh, Lewis, what is it? Jonathan says it is something about murder!”

  “Nonsense, nonsense!” he peevishly exclaimed, “It is some absurd mistake, which I shall soon set right. Don’t be foolish; I shall be home to dinner.”

  There was no time for more. It seemed but the work of a moment. Mr. Carlton went out and walked up the street, one of the policemen by his side, the other marching behind.

  Utterly bewildered, as much with the suddenness of the affair as anything, Lady Laura gazed around her for some explanation. But all she met was the startled face of Jonathan, not a whit less astounded than that of his mistress. Passionate and impetuous, she dashed out to the front gate, looking after them, as if that would afford her some clue to the mystery. It was just what the sailor-earl would have done.

  And there Lady Laura became aware of the fact that a small mob were attending on the steps of Mr. Carlton and his escorters. The fact was, some version of the affair had got wind in the town, and people were up in arms. More and more astonished, Lady Laura perhaps would have gone after them, but she caught sight of Mrs. Pepperfly, who had come into contact with the mob at the gate, and was not improved in temper thereby. Lady Laura knew the nurse by sight, had occasionally spoken to her, and she stopped her.

  “Tell me what the matter is!” she panted. “You know.”

  Mrs. Pepperfly’s first movement was to go as quickly as she could into the house and pull Lady Laura with her. The old woman shut the dining-room door upon them, leaving poor Jonathan alone in the hall.

  “If you don’t tell me at once, I shall die,” came the passionate appeal. “What is it?”

  “It’s one of them there ways of Providence we hears on when we has time to go to church,” was Mrs. Pepperfly’s lucid answer. “To think that we should have lived all these years and never suspected Mr. Carlton! — and him attending of the child every day at Tupper’s cottage! But murder will out. Yours is hard lines, my poor lady?”

  Lady Laura, in her terrible suspense, her vehement impatience, almost shook her. Thought is very quick — and it was only that morning she had heard of the child’s death.

  “Has he been murdered? — that child at Tupper’s cottage?”

  “He!” responded Mrs. Pepperfly. “Bless your ladyship’s dear heart, he went off natural, like a lamb, with his bad knee. It’s his unfortunate mother.”

  “Is she dead?” gasped Lady Laura, still more apprehensive ideas arising to her. “She, the woman?”

  “Not her,” cried Mrs. Pepperfly, jerking her head in indication of Tupper’s cottage. “She wasn’t his mother at all, as it turns out. It were that—”

  “Not his mother!” interrupted Lady Laura; and all the absurdity of her past jealousy seemed to rise up before her in a moment, as it had done just before.

  “No more nor me,” said Mrs. Pepperfly. “It were that other unfortunate, what I nursed my own self, my lady; she as was cut off by the prussic acid in Palace Street, and they do say if were Mr. Carlton that dropped it in. And her name was —— Oh, dear, but it’s hard lines for all your ladyships!”

  “Her name was what?” asked Laura, with blanched lips.

  “Not Mrs. Crane at all, my lady, but Clarice Chesney. That is, Mrs. Carlton; for they say she was his wife.”

  Lady Laura sank into a chair, terror-stricken, powerless. Mrs. Pepperfly, who was troubled with no superfluous sensitiveness on her own score, and did not suspect that other people were so, continued:

  “Folks tells of the finger of Fate, and such like incomprehension, but if Fate’s finger haven’t been in this here pie, it never were in one yet. It have all come to light through a letter, my lady. A letter of Mr. Carlton’s, which they say your ladyship found and got out of a place where it had laid for years, and gave it to my Lady Jane Chesney. And that letter have brought it home to him, and the justices had it right afore their noses when they give the warrant to take him up.”

  She sat back in her chair, her eyes dilating, her countenance one living horror. She! That letter! Had her underhand work, her dishonourable treachery towards her husband, brought this to pass? Oh, miserable Laura Carlton! Surely the remembrance would henceforth haunt her for ever!

  “Now, poor dear lady, don’t take on so! We all have to bear; some in our minds, and some in our bodies; and some in our husbands, and some in having none. There ain’t nothing more soothing than a glass of gin-and-water,” added the sympathizing Mrs. Pepperfly, “which can be had in a moment, where the kitchen biler’s always on the bile.”

  She turned about her rotund person to see if she could discover any signs of the chief ingredient for compounding the cordial. The interrupted luncheon on the table, cold though it was now, looked tempting, as did the long green bottle, which Mrs. Pepperfly supposed contained some foreign sort of wine, and there was a sideboard with suggestive-looking cupboards in it. The old woman talked on, but Laura seemed dead to hearing, lying back with the same glassy stare, and the look of horror on her white face.

  “If your ladyship wouldn’t object to my ringing of the bell, and asking for a spoonful of biling water from the servants, I’d soon bring the colour back to your cheeks. What a world this might be, my dear lady, if our minds never met with no upsets. I have been upset too with the news this morning, and ain’t recovered yet. And there was that pest of a crowd I got into outside, a-poking in of my ribs and a-breaking of my shins! A quarter of a tumbler—”

  “Come home with me, Laura,” interrupted a soft voice, subdue
d in its grief, “come home with me. Oh, child, this is hard for us all; cruelly hard for you. Let me take you, Laura; my home shall henceforth be yours. Our father seemed to foresee storms for you when he was dying, and left you to me, he said, should they ever come.”

  Laura rose up, her eyes flashing, her face hot with anger, and stood defiantly before Lady Jane.

  “Did you denounce him? Did you treacherously show the letter you took away with you? It was well done, Lady Jane!”

  Jane bent her sorrowful face, so calm and good in its pity, upon the passionate one. “It is not I who have done it, Laura. Denounce your husband? No, I would have carried the secret with me to the grave, for your sake.”

  Laura sank down again in a revulsion of feeling, and burst into a flood of tears most distressing to witness. She laid her head on her sister’s bosom, and openly avowed the part she had enacted, regarding the safe and the skeleton key. Remorse was taking possession of her. And Mrs. Pepperfly, subdued to meekness in her astonishment, dropped a silent curtsey and retired, grieving over the hot gin-and-water which might have been so near.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  THE EXAMINATION.

  SOMEWHERE about the hour that Mr. Carlton’s arrest took place, or possibly a little later, Lady Grey was sitting at work in her house in Savile Row, when a telegraphic despatch was brought in from Great Wennock. She did not open it; it was addressed to Sir Stephen; but she believed she knew what the contents must be, and smiled to herself over her sewing.

  “Another excuse for a day or two more with Lucy,” she said to her husband when he came in, as she handed him the message.

  “Then I shall send Mr. Fred a peremptory mandate,” returned Sir Stephen, not feeling pleased. “He ought to have been up a week ago. Halloa! what’s this?”

  “Great Wennock Station, one o’clock, P.M. Frederick Grey to Sir Stephen Grey, M.D.

  “The mystery of the prussic acid is on the point of discovery. Come off at once, if possible. I have heard you say you should like to be present at the clearing-up. Tell my mother I was right.”

  Sir Stephen read it twice over to himself and then aloud to his wife. “What a strange thing!” he exclaimed, in the surprise of the moment. “And ‘tell my mother I was right!’ What on earth does he mean, Mary?”

  Lady Grey gave no very clear answer. She had never spoken of her son’s rash, and, as she deemed, unjustifiable suspicion of Mr. Carlton, and she would not speak of it now.

  “Shall you go down, Stephen?”

  “This very moment. There happens to be nothing to prevent me to-day, and I would go to the end of the world to be proved blameless in the eyes of South Wennock. I hope I shall just catch a train!”

  In point of fact, Frederick Grey had been made aware a little earlier than the general public, of what was going on before the magistrates, and he had mounted a fleet horse and sent off the telegram to his father. He would not have helped to bring the guilt home to Mr. Carlton; nay, he would have suppressed it had it lain in his power; but if it was to be done, it was well that his father should be present at his own vindication.

  He rode more leisurely back again; but not very leisurely either, for South Wennock was in excitement to-day. He found the examination of Mr. Carlton already begun, and every one connected with it deep in the proceedings.

  He might have walked on the people’s heads in the vicinity of the court. Not a tenth part could get into the small place designated by the grand name of town-hall. Never had South Wennock been in similar commotion. All that had occurred at those past proceedings, connected with the death of Mrs. Crane, was as nothing to this.

  But the crowd recognized his right to a place, as the son of the once-accused Stephen Grey; the justices did the same; and Frederick was politely offered about an inch and a half of room on the bench. His uncle John occupied a seat on it. People made much of the Greys that day.

  Frederick found the examination tolerably advanced. Mrs. Smith had given her evidence in public, declaring all she knew and all she suspected. For, allow me to tell you, you who are not aware of the fact, that a bench of country justices consults its own curiosity as to what it shall and shall not hear, and sometimes has a very indefinite notion indeed as to whether such and such evidence can be legally tendered. The justices’ own opinion stands for law in many places. Judith Ford was under examination when Frederick entered, and the prisoner, as we are compelled to call Mr. Carlton, constantly interrupted it, and fell into hot squabbles with his counsel in consequence. This gentleman was a Mr. Billiter, universally called Lawyer Billiter by South Wennock. He had been sent for in great haste to watch the case for Mr. Carlton, and was exerting himself to the utmost: they had been intimate acquaintances. Mr. Carlton stood his ground with calm equanimity. He was very pale, but no one in South Wennock had ever seen him otherwise; and at moments he stirred as if restless. Calm, good-looking, gentlemanly, he appeared little suited to his position in that court.

  “I protest against this going on,” he was saying for about the fiftieth time, as Frederick Grey edged himself on to the bench. “I protest against this woman’s evidence. I say — as I said at the time — that the person who lay ill was a stranger to me; what interest, then, could I”

  “Now, Carlton, I won’t have it,” interrupted Lawyer Billiter, wiping his hot face. “I declare, if you ruin your cause in this manner, I’ll leave you to it. Be quiet, and trust to me.”

  “But I did not know her, and I shall say it,” persisted the prisoner. “I ask what motive—”

  “We cannot hear this, Mr. Carlton,” at length interposed the bench, tolerant hitherto, for Mr. Carlton was not an ordinary prisoner. “You can make your defence at the proper moment; this is only wasting the time of the bench, and can do you no possible good. You must let the witness give her evidence.”

  The witness looked rather uncertain what to do, what with the gaze of the crowded court, and Mr. Carlton’s interruptions. It was evident that Judith Ford was not a very willing witness.

  “Go on, witness,” said the magistrate. “You looked into the room, you say, and saw Mr. Carlton. What was he doing?”

  “He had a small bottle in his hand, sir,” replied Judith; “a very tiny bottle. But that he held it up, right in the light, I should not have been able to distinguish what it was. He was putting the cork into it, and then he dropped it into his waistcoat pocket.

  After that he took up the other bottle—”

  “What bottle?” interrupted Lawyer Billiter, snapping up Judith. “The other bottle that stood on the cheffonier, close to his hand. It was a bottle the size of those sent in by Mr. Stephen Grey with the night draughts. The cork lay by it, and he took up the cork very quickly and put it into the bottle—”

  “You can’t swear that it was the bottle and draught just sent in by Mr. Stephen Grey.” —

  “No,” said Judith, “but I think it was. I could see that it had a label on it, and it was full of medicine. No other bottle in the house, except that, was full that night, as was testified to by the nurse at the inquest.”

  “But—”

  “Go on, witness,” interposed the bench, drowning Mr. Carlton’s “but.” —

  “When Mr. Carlton had corked it up,” resumed the witness, “he placed it in a corner of the shelf of the cheffonier, and came out of the room very quickly; so quickly, that I had no time to get away. I went to the side of the landing, and stood against the wall, but —— —”

  “Where he would pass you as he went downstairs?”

  “Oh no, sir, he would not pass me; I was further up, nearer to the bedroom door. He saw me standing there; at least, he saw my face, and spoke, asking what I was; but I did not answer, and he looked alarmed. While he went back for the light, I slipped into the broom-closet near the bedroom.”

  “But you were not the dark man with whiskers, to whom allusion has been so often made?” exclaimed one of the astonished magistrates.

  “Yes, I was, sir; at least I was what Mr. Ca
rlton took to be a man. I had my cheeks tied up with black plush, on account of faceache, and the plush and the frilled black border of my cap looked just like whiskers in the uncertain light.”

  “But why did you disguise yourself like that?” was the inquiry of the magistrate, when the surprise had in some degree subsided. “What was your motive?”

  “I beg your pardon, sir, but I had not meant it for any disguise,” replied Judith. “I had no thought of such a thing. My face was in great pain and much swollen, and Mr. Stephen Grey had told me I ought to tie it up. I had no other motive in doing it. Had I waited for Mr. Carlton to see me when he brought out the light, he would have known who it was.” —

  “This is a most extraordinary avowal, witness!” struck in Lawyer Billiter, who indeed spoke only in accordance with his own opinion and the general feeling. “Pray, had you any knowledge of Mr. Carlton previous to this?” —

  “Not any,” was the reply. “I had seen him passing in the street in his carriage, and knew him by sight from that circumstance; but he had never seen me in his life.”

  “And now, witness, what was your motive for watching Mr. Carlton from the landing on this night, as you tell us you did?”

  “I had no motive,” was the earnest reply of the witness; “I did not purposely watch him. When I heard a movement in the room as I got to the top of the stairs, I feared it was Mrs. Crane — as I have stated to you — and I looked in quietly, thinking how very imprudent it was of her. I did not know that any one except Mrs. Crane was upstairs. I had no idea Mr. Carlton was there. But when I looked in I saw it was Mr. Carlton, and I saw him doing what I have told you. It all happened in an instant, as it were, and he came out before I could well get away from the door.”

  “And why did you not avow who you were when he asked, instead of getting away?”

  “Again I must say that I had no ill motive in doing it,” replied the witness. “I felt like an eavesdropper, as if I had looked in upon what did not concern me, and I did not like Mr. Carlton to know I had been there. I declare that I had no other motive. I have wished many a time since, when people have been talking and suspecting the ‘man on the stairs,’ that I had allowed myself to be seen.”