"THY DAY IS COME!"
"What is it, Jane?" asked Lady Eversleigh, rather impatiently, of her
maid, when her knock at the door of her sitting-room in Percy Street
interrupted the conversation between herself and the detective officer,
a conversation intensely and painfully interesting.
"A person, ma'am, who wants to see Mr. Andrews, and will take no
denial."
"Indeed," said Mr. Larkspur; "that's very odd: I know of nothing up at
present for which they should send any one to me here. However," and he
rose as he spoke, "I suppose I had better see this person. Where is he?"
"In the hall," replied Jane.
But Lady Eversleigh interposed to prevent Mr. Larkspur's departure.
"Pray do not go," she said, "unless it concerns this business, unless
it is news of my child. This may be something to rob me of your time
and attention; and remember I alone have a right to your services."
"Lor' bless you, my lady," said Mr. Larkspur, "I haven't forgot that;
and that's just what puzzles me. There's only one man who knows the lay
I'm on, and the name I go by, and he knows I would not take anything
else till I have reckoned up this; and it would be no good sending
anybody after me, unless it were something in some way concerning this
business."
In an instant Lady Eversleigh was as anxious that Mr. Larkspur should
see the unknown man as she had been unwilling he should do so. "Pray go
to him at once," she urged; "don't lose a moment."
Mr. Larkspur left the room, and Lady Eversleigh dismissed Jane Payland,
and awaited his return in an agony of impatience. After the lapse of
half an hour, Mr. Larkspur appeared. There were actually some slight
traces of emotion in his face, and the colour had lessened considerably
in his vulture-like beak. He was followed by a tall, stalwart,
fine-looking man, with the unmistakeable gait and air of a sailor. As
Lady Eversleigh looked at him in astonishment, Mr. Larkspur said:--
"I ain't much of a believer in Fate in general, but there's surely a
Fate in this. My lady, this is Captain George Jernam!"
* * * * *
The time had passed slowly and wearily for Rosamond Jernam, and all the
efforts conscientiously made by her husband's aunt, who liked the girl
better the more she saw of her, and entirely acquitted her of blame in
the mysterious estrangement of the young couple, failed to make her
cheerful. She was wont to roam disconsolately for hours about the
secluded coast, giving free course to her sadness, and cherishing one
dear secret. Rosamond was so much changed in appearance of late that
Susan Jernam began to feel seriously uneasy about her. She had lost her
pretty fresh colour, and her face wore a haggard, weary look; it was
plain to every eye that some hidden grief was preying on her mind. Mrs.
Jernam, though a quiet person, and given to the minding of her own
affairs, was not quite without "cronies," and to one of these she
confided her anxiety about her niece. The _confidante_ was a certain
Mrs. Miller, a respectable person, but lower in the social scale than
Mrs. Jernam. She was a widow, and lived in a tiny cottage, close to the
beach at Allanbay; she kept no servant, but her trim little dwelling
was always the very pink and pattern of neatness. She was of a silent,
though not a morose temperament. It was generally understood that Mrs.
Miller's husband had been a seafaring man, and had been drowned many
years before she went to live at Allanbay. She had no relatives, and no
previous acquaintances in that quiet nook; and if she had been a little
higher in the social scale, belonging to that class which requires
introductions, she might have lived a life of unbroken solitude. As it
was, the neighbours made friends with her by degrees, and the poor
widow's life was not an unhappy or solitary one. Mrs. Jernam had early
learned the particulars of her case, and a friendship had grown up
between them, of which Mrs. Miller duly acknowledged the condescension
on Mrs. Jernam's part.
Mrs. Jernam called on her humble friend one day, to bestow some small
favour, and, to her surprise, found her, not alone as usual, but in the
act of taking leave of a man whose appearance was by no means
prepossessing, and who was apparently very much disconcerted by Mrs.
Jernam's arrival. Mrs. Jernam immediately proposed to go away and
return on another occasion, but the man, who did not hear her name
mentioned, said, gruffly:
"No call, ma'am, no call; I'm going away. Good-bye, Polly. Remember
what you've got to do, and do it." Then he turned off from the
cottage-door, and was out of sight in a few moments.
Mrs. Miller stood looking at her guest, rather awkwardly, but said at
length:
"Pray sit down, ma'am. That's my brother; the only creature I have
belonging to me in the world." And here Mrs. Miller sighed, and looked
as if the possession were not an unqualified advantage.
"Has he been here long?" asked Mrs. Jernam.
"No, ma'am; he only came last night, and is gone again. He came to
bring me a child to take care of, and a great tax it is."
"A child!" said Mrs. Jernam, "whose child?"
"That's more than I can tell you, ma'am," replied Mrs. Miller; "and
more than he told me. She's an orphan, he says, and her father was a
seafaring man, like your nephew, as I've heard you speak of. And I'm to
have the charge of her for a year, and thirty pounds--it's handsome, I
don't deny, but he knows that I'd take good care of any child--and
she's a pretty dear, to tell the truth, as sweet a little creature as
ever walked. She don't talk very plain yet, and she says, as well as I
can make it out, as her name is Gerty."
And then Mrs. Miller asked Mrs. Jernam to walk into her little bedroom,
and showed her, lying on a neat humble bed, carefully covered with a
white coverlet, and in the deep sleep of childhood, the infant heiress
of Raynham! If either of the women had only known at whom she was
looking, as they scrutinized the child's fair face and talked of her
beauty and her innocence in tearful whispers, looking away from the
sleeping form, pitifully, at a little heap of black clothes on a chair
by the bed!
"I suppose she's the child of one of my brother's old shipmates, as
rose to be better off," said Mrs. Miller, "for she's fretted about a
captain, and cried bitter to go to him when I put her to bed." Then the
two returned to the little parlour, and talked long and earnestly about
the child, about the necessity for Mrs. Miller's now employing the
services of "a girl," and about Rosamond Jernam.
Rosamond was greatly delighted with the child left in Mrs. Miller's
care. The little girl interested her deeply, and every day she passed
many hours with her, either at Mrs. Miller's house or her own. The
grace and beauty of the child were remarkable; and as, with the happy
facility of childhood, she began to recover from the first feeling of
strangeness and fear, the little creature was soon happy in her new,
humble home. She was too young to appreciate and lament the change in
her lot; and, as she was well fed, well cared for, and treated with the
most caressing affection, she was perfectly happy. Rosamond began to
feel hopeful under the influence of the child's smiles and playful
talk. The time must pass, she told herself, her husband must return to
her, and soon there would be for them a household angel like this one,
to bring peace and happiness permanently to their home.
Susan Jernam and Rosamond were much puzzled about this lovely child,
Gerty Smith, as she was called. Not only her looks, but certain little
ways she had, contradicted Mrs. Miller's theory of her birth, and
though they fully credited the good woman's statement, and believed her
as ignorant of the truth as themselves, they became convinced that
there was some mystery about this child. Mrs. Miller had never spoken
of her brother until he made his sudden and brief appearance at
Allanbay; and unsuspicious and unlearned in the ways of the world as
Mrs. Jernam was, she had perceived that he belonged to the doubtful
classes. The truth was, that Mrs. Miller could have told them nothing
about her brother beyond the general fact of his being "a bad lot." She
had heard of him only at rare intervals since he had left his father's
honest home, in his scampish, incorrigible boyhood, and ran away to
sea. She had heard little good of him, and years had sometimes passed
over during which she knew nothing of his fate. But even in Black
Milsom--thief, murderer, villain, though he was--there was one little
trace of good left. He did care a little for his sister; he did "look
her up" at intervals in his career of crime; he did send her small sums
of money--whence derived she had, happily, no suspicion--when he was
"flush;" and he did hope "Old Polly" would never find out how bad a
fellow he had been. Mrs. Miller's nature was a very simple and
confiding one, and she never speculated much upon her brother's doings.
She was pleased to have the charge of the child, and she fulfilled it
to the best of her ability; but those signs and tokens of a higher
station, which Susan Jernam and Rosamond recognized, were quite beyond
her ken.
One morning the little household at Susan Jernam's cottage, consisting
only of the mistress and her maid, was roused by a violent knocking at
the door. Mrs. Jernam was the first to open it, and to her surprise and
alarm, she found Mrs. Miller standing at the door, her face expressing
alarm and grief, and little Gerty, wrapped in a large woollen shawl, in
her arms. Her explanation of what had occurred thus to upset her was at
first incoherent enough, but by degrees Mrs. Jernam learned that Mrs.
Miller had come to entreat her to take care of the child for a day or
two as she was obliged to go to Plymouth at once.
"To Plymouth!" said Mrs. Jernam--"how's that?--but come in, come
in"--and they went into Mrs. Jernam's spotlessly neat parlour, that
parlour in which Valentine Jernam had been permitted to smoke, and had
told his aunt all his adventures, little recking of the final one then
so close upon him. In the parlour, Mrs. Miller set little Gerty down,
and the child, giddy and confused with her sudden waking, and being
thus carried through the chill morning air, climbed up on the trim
little sofa, and curling herself into a corner of it, sat quite
motionless. Then, her agitation finding vent in tears, Mrs. Miller told
Susan Jernam what had befallen. It was this:--
Just as day was dawning, a dog-cart, driven by a gentleman's servant,
had come to her door--the dog-cart was now standing at a little
distance from Mrs. Jernam's house--and she had been called out by the
servant, and told that he had been sent to bring her over to Plymouth,
with as little delay as possible. It appeared that her brother, who had
gone to Plymouth after depositing the child with her, had been run over
in the street by a heavy coal-waggon, and severely injured. He had been
carried to a hospital, and was for some time insensible. When he
recovered his speech he was delirious, and the surgeons pronounced his
case hopeless. He was now in a dying state, but conscious; and had been
visited by a clergyman named Colburne, the man's master, who had
induced him to express contrition for his past life, and to make such
reparation as now lay in his power. The first step towards this, as he
informed Mr. Colburne, was seeing his sister. There was no time to be
lost; the man's life was fast ebbing; it was only a matter of hours;
and the good clergyman, who had been with the dying man far into the
night before he had succeeded in inducing him to consent to this step,
hurried home, and sent his servant off to Allanbay before daybreak.
There was little delay. A few words of earnest sympathy from Mrs.
Jernam, an assurance that the child should be well cared for, and Mrs.
Miller left the house, ran down the road to the dog-cart, climbed into
it, and was driven away.
Rosamond came in from her own little dwelling to her aunt's, at an
early hour that day, and when the first surprise and pleasure of
finding the child there had passed away, the two women fell to
speculating on what kind of revelation it might be which awaited Mrs.
Miller.
"Depend upon it, aunt," said Susan, "we shall hear the truth about
little Gerty now."
* * * * *
The hours wore solemnly away in the great building, consecrated to
suffering and its relief, in which Black Milsom lay dying, with his
sister kneeling by his bed, while the good clergyman, who had had pity
on the soul of the sinner, sat on the other side, gravely and
compassionately looking at them both. The meeting between the brother
and sister had been very distressing, and the agony exhibited by the
poor woman when she was made aware that her brother had acknowledged
himself a criminal of the deepest dye, was intense. Calm--almost
stupor--had succeeded to her wild grief, and the clergyman had spoken
words of consolation and hope to the dying and the living. The surgeons
had seen the man for the last time; there was nothing more to be done
for him now--nothing to do but to wait for the equal foot approaching
with remorseless tread.
It was indeed a fearful catalogue of crime to which the Rev. Philip
Colburne had listened, and had written with his own hand at the dying
man's dictation. Not often has such a revelation been made to mortal
ears, and the two who heard it--the Christian minister and the
trembling, horrified sister--felt that the scene could never be effaced
from their memories.
With only two items in that awful list this story has to do.
The first is, the murder of Valentine Jernam. As Mrs. Miller heard her
brother, with gasping breath and feeble utterance, tell that horrible
story, her heart died within her. She knew it well. Who at Allanbay had
not heard of the murder of Mrs. Jernam's darling nephew, the bright,
popular, kind-hearted seaman, whose coming had been a jubilee in the
little port; whose disappearance had made so painful a sensation? She
had heard the story from his aunt, and Rosamond had told her how her
husband lived in the hope of finding out and punishing his brother's
murderer. And now he was found, this murderer, this thief, this
guilt-burdened criminal: and he was her only brother, and dying. Ah,
well, Valentine Jernam was avenged. Providence had exacted George
Jernam's vengeance: the wrath of man was not needed here.
The second crime with which this story has to do was one of old date,
one of the earliest in Black Milsom's dreadful career. The dying wretch
told Mr. Colburne how he had headed a gang of thieves, chiefly composed
of sailors who had deserted their ships, some twenty-one or two years
before this time, when retribution had come upon him, and in their
company had robbed the villa of an English lady at Florence. This crime
had been committed with the connivance and assistance of the Italian
woman who was nurse to the English lady's child. Milsom, then a
handsome young fellow, had offered marriage to the woman, which offer
was accepted; and she had made his taking her and the child with
him--for nothing would induce her to leave the infant--a condition of
her aid. He did so; but the hardship of her new life soon killed the
Italian woman; and the child was left to the mercy of Milsom and an old
hag who acted as his drudge and accomplice. What mercy she met with at
those hands the reader knows, for that child was the future wife of Sir
Oswald Eversleigh. Mr. Colburne listened to this portion of Milsom's
confession with intense interest.
"The name?" he asked; "the name of the lady who lived at Florence, the
mother of the child? Tell me the name!"
"Verner," said the dying man, in a hoarse whisper, "Lady Verner; the
child's name was Anna."
He was very near his end when he finished his terrible story. While Mr.
Colburne was trying to speak peace to the poor darkened, frightened,
guilty soul, Mrs. Miller knelt by the bedside, sobbing convulsively.
Suddenly she remembered the child she had the care of. Had his account
of her been true? Was she also the victim of a crime? She waited, with
desperate impatience, but with the habitual respect of her class, until
Mr. Colburne had ceased to speak. Then she put her lips close to the
dying man's ear, and said--
"Thomas, Thomas, for God's sake tell me about the child--who is she? Is
what you told me true? If not, set it right--oh, brother, brother, set
it right--before it is too late."
The imploring tone of her voice reached her brother's dull ear; a faint
spasm, as though he strove in vain to speak, crossed his white drawn
lips. But the disfigured head in its ghastly bandages was motionless;
the shattered arm in its wrappings made no gesture. In terror, in
despair, his sister started to her feet, and looked eagerly, closely,
into his face. In vain the white lips parted, the eyelids quivered, a
shiver shook the broad, brawny chest--then all was still, and Black
Milsom was dead!
On the following morning Mr. Colburne took Mrs. Miller back to
Allanbay, after giving her a night's rest in his own hospitable home.
He left her at her own cottage, and went to Mrs. Jernam's house, as he
had promised the afflicted woman he would save her the pain of telling
the terrible story which was to clear up the mystery surrounding the
merchant captain's fate. When the clergyman reached the house, and
lifted his hand to the bright knocker, he heard a sound of many and
gleeful voices within--a sound which died away as he knocked for
admittance.
Presently the door was opened by Mrs. Jernam's trim maid, who replied,
when Mr. Colburne asked if he could see Mrs. Jernam, and if she were
alone--as a hint that he did not wish to see any one beside--
"Please, sir, missus is in, but she ain't alone; Captain George and
Mrs. George's father have just come--not half an hour ago."
* * * * *
And so Joyce Harker's self-imposed task was at an end, and George
Jernam's long brooding upon his brother's fate was over. A solemn
stillness came upon the happy party at Allanbay, and Rosamond's tears
fell upon little Gerty, as she slept upon her bosom--slept where
George's child was soon to slumber. Mr. Colburne asked no questions
about the child. Mrs. Miller had said nothing to him respecting her
charge, and Milsom's death, ensuing immediately on her question, had
caused it to pass unnoticed. George Jernam, his wife, and Captain
Duncombe started for London early the next day. They had come to a
unanimous conclusion, on consultation with Mrs. Miller, that there was
a mystery about the child, and that the best thing to be done was to
communicate with the police at once. "Besides," said George, "I must
see Mr. Larkspur, and tell him he need not trouble himself farther; now
that accident, or, as I believe Providence, has done for us what all
his skill failed to do."
When George Jernam presented himself at Mr. Larkspur's office he
underwent a rigid inspection by that gentleman's "deputy," and having,
by a few hints as to the nature of his business, led that astute person
to think that it bore on his principal's present quest, he was
entrusted with the address of Mr. Andrews, in Percy Street.
* * * * *
"So, you see, I don't get my five hundred, because I didn't find out
Captain Jernam's murderer," said Mr. Larkspur, after a long and
agitating explanation had put Lady Eversleigh in possession of all the
foregoing circumstances. "And here's Captain Jernam's brother comes and
takes the job of finding little missy out of my hands--does my work for
me as clean as a whistle."
"But I did not know I was doing it, Mr. Larkspur," said George. "I did
not know the little Gerty that my Rosamond is so sorry to part with,
was Miss Eversleigh; you found it out, from what I told you."
"As if any fool could fail to find out that," said Mr. Larkspur
good-humouredly. He had a strong conviction that neither the
relinquishment of Lady Eversleigh's designs of punishing her enemies,
nor the finding of the heiress by other than his agency, would inflict
any injury upon him--a conviction which was amply justified by his
future experience.
"My good friend," said Lady Eversleigh, "if I do not need your aid to
restore my child to me, I need it to restore me to my mother. I cannot
realize the truth that I have a mother, I can only feel it. I can only
feel how she must have suffered by remembering my own anguish. And
hers, how much more cruel, how prolonged, how hopeless! You will see to
this at once, Mr. Larkspur, while I go to my child."
"Lord bless you, my lady," said Mr. Larkspur, cheerily, "there's no
occasion to look very far. You have not forgotten the lady, she that
lives so quiet, yet so stylish, near Richmond, and that Sir Reginald
Eversleigh pays such attention to? You remember all I told you about
her, and how I found out that she was Mr. Dale's aunt, and he know
nothing about her?"
"Yes, yes," said Lady Eversleigh, breathlessly, "I remember."
"Well, my lady, that party near Richmond is Lady Verner, your
ladyship's mother."
Lady Eversleigh was well nigh overwhelmed by the throng of feelings
which pressed upon her. She, the despised outcast, the first-cousin of
the man who had scorned her, a connection of the great family into
which she had married, her husband's equal in rank, and in fortune!
She, the woman whose beauty had been used to lure Valentine Jernam to
his death, she who had almost witnessed his murder; she owed to
Valentine's brother the discovery of her parentage, the defeat of her
calumniators, her restoration to a high place in society, and to family
ties, the destruction of Reginald Eversleigh's designs on Lady Verner's
property, and--greatest, best boon of all--the recovery of her child.
Her own devices, her own wilfulness had but led her into deeper danger,
into more bitter sorrow; but Providence had done great things for her
by the hands of this stranger, between whom and herself there existed
so sinister a link.
"Can you ever forgive me, Captain Jernam," she said, "for my share in
your brother's fate? Must I always be hateful in your sight? Will Mrs.
Jernam ever permit me to thank her for her goodness to my child?"
For the answer, George Jernam stooped and kissed her hand, with all the
natural grace inspired by natural good-feeling, and Lady Eversleigh
felt that she had gained a friend where she had feared to meet a
relentless foe. The little party remained long in consultation, and it
was decided that nothing was to be done about Lady Verner until Lady
Eversleigh had reclaimed her child. George Jernam entreated her to
permit him to go to Allanbay and bring the little girl to her mother,
but she would not consent. She insisted upon George's bringing his wife
to see her immediately, as the preparations for departure did not admit
of her calling upon Mrs. Jernam. The gentle, happy Rosamond complied
willingly, and so thoroughly had the beautiful lady won the girl's
heart before they were long together, that Rosamond herself proposed
that George should accompany Lady Eversleigh to Allanbay. With pretty
imperiousness she bore down Lady Eversleigh's grateful scruples, and
the result was, that the two started that same evening, travelled as
fast as post-horses could carry them, and arrived at Allanbay before
even Lady Eversleigh's impatience could find the journey long. Susan
Jernam had kept the child with her, and she it was who put little Gerty
into her mother's arms. Rarely in her life had Lady Eversleigh lain
down to rest with do tranquil a heart as that with which she slept
under the humble roof of Captain Jernam's aunt.