Day, and forever. Once again, the ancient prophecy of peace and
good-will shines on a world of wars and wrongs and woes. Its soft
ray shines into the darkness of a land wherein swarm slaves, poor
laborers, social pariahs, weeping women, homeless exiles, hunted
fugitives, despised aliens, drunkards, convicts, wicked children,
and Magdalens unredeemed. These are but the ghastliest figures
in that sad army of humanity which advances, by a dreadful road,
to the Golden Age of the poets' dream. These are your sisters and
your brothers. Love them all. Beware of wronging one of them by
word or deed. O friend! strong in wealth for so much good,--take
my last counsel. In the name of the Saviour, I charge you, be true
and tender to mankind. Come out from Babylon into manhood, and
live and labor for the fallen, the neglected, the suffering, and
the poor. Lover of arts, customs, laws, institutions, and forms of
society, love these things only as they help mankind! With stern
love, overturn them, or help to overturn them, when they become cruel
to a single--the humblest--human being. In the world's scale, social
position, influence, public power, the applause of majorities, heaps
of funded gold, services rendered to creeds, codes, sects, parties,
or federations--they weigh weight; but in God's scale--remember!--on
the day if hope, remember!--your least service to Humanity outweighs
them all._"
THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS.
BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS.
I.
The events which I am about to relate took place between nine and
ten years ago. Sebastopol had fallen in the early spring; the peace
of Paris had been concluded since March; our commercial relations with
the Russian Empire were but recently renewed; and I, returning home
after my first northward journey since the war, was well pleased with
the prospect of spending the month of December under the hospitable
and thoroughly English roof of my excellent friend Jonathan Jelf,
Esquire, of Dumbleton Manor, Clayborough, East Anglia. Travelling
in the interests of the well-known firm in which it is my lot to
be a junior partner, I had been called upon to visit not only the
capitals of Russia and Poland, but had found it also necessary
to pass some weeks among the trading-ports of the Baltic; whence
it came that the year was already far spent before I again set
foot on English soil, and that, instead of shooting pheasants with
him, as I had hoped, in October, I came to be my friend's guest
during the more genial Christmastide.
My voyage over, and a few days given up to business in Liverpool
and London, I hastened down to Clayborough with all the delight of
a school-boy whose holidays are at hand. My way lay by the Great
East Anglian line as far as Clayborough station, where I was to
be met by one of the Dumbleton carriages and conveyed across the
remaining nine miles of country. It was a foggy afternoon, singularly
warm for the 4th of December, and I had arranged to leave London by
the 4.15 express. The early darkness of winter had already closed
in; the lamps were lighted in the carriages; a clinging damp dimmed
the windows, adhered to the door-handles, and pervaded all the
atmosphere; while the gas-jets at the neighboring bookstand diffused
a luminous haze that only served to make the gloom of the terminus
more visible. Having arrived some seven minutes before the starting of
the train, and, by the connivance of the guard, taken sole possession
of an empty compartment, I lighted my travelling-lamp, made myself
particularly snug, and settled down to the undisturbed enjoyment of
a book and a cigar. Great, therefore, was my disappointment when,
at the last moment, a gentleman came hurrying along the platform,
glanced into my carriage, opened the locked door with a private
key, and stepped in.
It struck me at the first glance that I had seen him before,--a
tall, spare man, thin-lipped, light-eyed, with an ungraceful stoop
in the shoulders, and scant gray hair worn somewhat long upon the
collar. He carried a light water-proof coat, an umbrella, and a
large brown japanned deed-box, which last he placed under the seat.
This done, he felt carefully in his breast-pocket, as if to make
certain of the safety of his purse or pocket-book; laid his umbrella
in the netting overhead; spread the water-proof across his knees;
and exchanged his hat for a travelling-cap of some Scotch material.
By this time the train was moving out of the station, and into
the faint gray of the wintry twilight beyond.
I now recognized my companion. I recognized him from the moment when
he removed his hat and uncovered the lofty, furrowed, and somewhat
narrow brow beneath. I had met him, as I distinctly remembered,
some three years before, at the very house for which, in all
probability, he was now bound, like myself. His name was Dwerrihouse;
he was a lawyer by profession; and, if I was not greatly mistaken,
was first-cousin to the wife of my host. I knew also that he was
a man eminently "well to do," both as regarded his professional
and private means. The Jelfs entertained him with that sort of
observant courtesy which falls to the lot of the rich relation;
the children made much of him; and the old butler, albeit somewhat
surly "to the general," treated him with deference. I thought,
observing him by the vague mixture of lamplight and twilight, that
Mrs. Jelf's cousin looked all the worse for the three years' wear
and tear which had gone over his head since our last meeting. He
was very pale, and had a restless light in his eye that I did not
remember to have observed before. The anxious lines, too, about
his mouth were deepened, and there was a cavernous, hollow look
about his cheeks and temples which seemed to speak of sickness or
sorrow. He had glanced at me as he came in, but without any gleam
of recognition in his face. Now he glanced again, as I fancied,
somewhat doubtfully. When he did so for the third or fourth time,
I ventured to address him.
"Mr. John Dwerrihouse, I think?"
"That is my name," he replied.
"I had the pleasure of meeting you at Dumbleton about three years
ago."
Mr. Dwerrihouse bowed.
"I thought I knew your face," he said. "But your name, I regret
to say--"
"Langford,--William Langford. I have known Jonathan Jelf since
we were boys together at Merchant Taylor's, and I generally spend
a few weeks at Dumbleton in the shooting-season. I suppose we are
bound for the same destination?"
"Not if you are on your way to the Manor," he replied. "I am travelling
upon business,--rather troublesome business, too,--whilst you,
doubtless, have only pleasure in view."
"Just so. I am in the habit of looking forward to this visit as
to the brightest three weeks in all the year."
"It is a pleasant house," said Mr. Dwerrihouse.
"The pleasantest I know."
"And Jelf is thoroughly hospitable."
"The best and kindest fellow in the world!"
"They have invited me to spend Christmas week with them," pursued
Mr. Dwerrihouse, after a moment's pause.
"And you are coming?"
"I cannot tell. It must depend on the issue of this business which I
have in hand. You have heard, perhaps, that we are about to construct
a branch line from Blackwater to Stockbridge."
I explained that I had been for some months away from England,
and had therefore heard nothing of the contemplated improvement.
Mr. Dwerrihouse smiled complacently.
"It _will_ be an improvement," he said; "a great improvement.
Stockbridge is a flourishing town, and needs but a more direct
railway communication with the metropolis to become an important
centre of commerce. This branch was my own idea. I brought the
project before the board, and have myself superintended the execution
of it up to the present time."
"You are an East Anglian director, I presume?"
"My interest in the company," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse, "is threefold.
I am a director; I am a considerable shareholder; and, as head of
the firm of Dwerrihouse, Dwerrihouse, and Craik, I am the company's
principal solicitor."
Loquacious, self-important, full of his pet project, and apparently
unable to talk on any other subject, Mr. Dwerrihouse then went on
to tell of the opposition he had encountered and the obstacles he
had overcome in the cause of the Stockbridge branch. I was entertained
with a multitude of local details and local grievances. The rapacity
of one squire; the impracticability of another; the indignation of
the rector whose glebe was threatened; the culpable indifference
of the Stockbridge townspeople, who could _not_ be brought to see
that their most vital interests hinged upon a junction with the
Great East Anglian line; the spite of the local newspaper; and the
unheard-of difficulties attending the Common question,--were each
and all laid before me with a circumstantiality that possessed
the deepest interest for my excellent fellow-traveller, but none
whatever for myself. From these, to my despair, he went on to more
intricate matters: to the approximate expenses of construction
per mile; to the estimates sent in by different contractors; to
the probable traffic returns of the new line; to the provisional
clauses of the new Act as enumerated in Schedule D of the company's
last half-yearly report; and so on, and on, and on, till my head
ached, and my attention flagged, and my eyes kept closing in spite
of every effort that I made to keep them open. At length I was
roused by these words:--
"Seventy-five thousand pounds, cash down."
"Seventy-five thousand pounds, cash down," I repeated, in the liveliest
tone I could assume. "That is a heavy sum."
"A heavy sum to carry here," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse, pointing
significantly to his breast-pocket; "but a mere fraction of what
we shall ultimately have to pay."
"You do not mean to say that you have seventy-five thousand pounds
at this moment upon your person?" I exclaimed.
"My good sir, have I not been telling you so for the last half-hour?"
said Mr. Dwerrihouse, testily.
"That money has to be paid over at half past eight o'clock this
evening, at the office of Sir Thomas's solicitors, on completion
of the deed of sale."
"But how will you get across by night from Blackwater to Stockbridge
with seventy-five thousand pounds in your pocket?"
"To Stockbridge!" echoed the lawyer. "I find I have made myself
very imperfectly understood. I thought I had explained how this
sum only carries us as far as Mallingford,--the first stage, as
it were, of our journey,--and how our route from Blackwater to
Mallingford lies entirely through Sir Thomas Liddell's property."
"I beg your pardon," I stammered. "I fear my thoughts were wandering.
So you only go as far as Mallingford to-night?"
"Precisely. I shall get a conveyance from the 'Blackwater Arms.'
And you?"
"O, Jelf sends a trap to meet me at Clayborough! Can I be the bearer
of any message from you?"
"You may say, if you please, Mr. Langford, that I wished I could
have been your companion all the way, and that I will come over,
if possible, before Christmas."
"Nothing more?"
Mr. Dwerrihouse smiled grimly. "Well," he said, "you may tell my
cousin that she need not burn the hall down in my honor _this_
time, and that I shall be obliged if she will order the blue-room
chimney to be swept before I arrive."
"That sounds tragic. Had you a conflagration on the occasion of
your last visit to Dumbleton?"
"Something like it. There had been no fire lighted in my bedroom
since the spring, the flue was foul, and the rooks had built in
it; so when I went up to dress for dinner, I found the room full
of smoke, and the chimney on fire. Are we already at Blackwater?"
The train had gradually come to a pause while Mr. Dwerrihouse was
speaking, and, on putting my head out of the window, I could see
the station some few hundred yards ahead. There was another train
before us blocking the way, and the guard was making use of the
delay to collect the Blackwater tickets. I had scarcely ascertained
our position, when the ruddy-faced official appeared at our
carriage-door.
"Tickets, sir!" said he.
"I am for Clayborough," I replied, holding out the tiny pink card.
He took it; glanced at it by the light of his little lantern; gave it
back; looked, as I fancied, somewhat sharply at my fellow-traveller,
and disappeared.
"He did not ask for yours," I said with some surprise.
"They never do," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse. "They all know me; and,
of course, I travel free."
"Blackwater! Blackwater!" cried the porter, running along the platform
beside us, as we glided into the station.
Mr. Dwerrihouse pulled out his deed-box, put his travelling-cap in
his pocket, resumed his hat, took down his umbrella, and prepared
to be gone.
"Many thanks, Mr. Langford, for your society," he said, with
old-fashioned courtesy. "I wish you a good evening."
"Good evening," I replied, putting out my hand.
But he either did not see it, or did not choose to see it, and,
slightly lifting his hat, stepped out upon the platform. Having
done this, he moved slowly away, and mingled with the departing
crowd.
Leaning forward to watch him out of sight, I trod upon something
which proved to be a cigar-case. It had fallen, no doubt, from
the pocket of his water-proof coat, and was made of dark morocco
leather, with a silver monogram upon the side. I sprang out of
the carriage just as the guard came up to lock me in.
"Is there one minute to spare?" I asked eagerly. "The gentleman
who travelled down with me from town has dropped his cigar-case;
he is not yet out of the station!"
"Just a minute and a half, sir," replied the guard. "You must be
quick."
I dashed along the platform as fast as my feet could carry me.
It was a large station, and Mr. Dwerrihouse had by this time got
more than half-way to the farther end.
I, however, saw him distinctly, moving slowly with the stream.
Then, as I drew nearer, I saw that he had met some friend,--that
they were talking as they walked,--that they presently fell back
somewhat from the crowd, and stood aside in earnest conversation.
I made straight for the spot where they were waiting. There was a
vivid gas-jet just above their heads, and the light fell full upon
their faces. I saw both distinctly,--the face of Mr. Dwerrihouse
and the face of his companion. Running, breathless, eager as I
was, getting in the way of porters and passengers, and fearful
every instant lest I should see the train going on without me,
I yet observed that the new-comer was considerably younger and
shorter than the director, that he was sandy-haired, mustachioed,
small-featured, and dressed in a close-cut suit of Scotch tweed.
I was now within a few yards of them. I ran against a stout
gentleman,--I was nearly knocked down by a luggage-truck,--I stumbled
over a carpet-bag,--I gained the spot just as the driver's whistle
warned me to return.
To my utter stupefaction they were no longer there. I had seen
them but two seconds before,--and they were gone! I stood still. I
looked to right and left. I saw no sign of them in any direction.
It was as if the platform had gaped and swallowed them.
"There were two gentlemen standing here a moment ago," I said to
a porter at my elbow; "which way can they have gone?"
"I saw no gentlemen, sir," replied the man.
The whistle shrilled out again. The guard, far up the platform,
held up his arm, and shouted to me to "Come on!"
"If you're going on by this train, sir," said the porter, "you must
run for it."
I did run for it, just gained the carriage as the train began to
move, was shoved in by the guard, and left breathless and bewildered,
with Mr. Dwerrihouse's cigar-case still in my hand.
It was the strangest disappearance in the world. It was like a
transformation trick in a pantomime. They were there one
moment,--palpably there, talking, with the gaslight full upon their
faces; and the next moment they were gone. There was no door near,--no
window,--no staircase. It was a mere slip of barren platform, tapestried
with big advertisements. Could anything be more mysterious?
It was not worth thinking about; and yet, for my life, I could
not help pondering upon it,--pondering, wondering, conjecturing,
turning it over and over in my mind, and beating my brains for a
solution of the enigma. I thought of it all the way from Blackwater
to Clayborough. I thought of it all the way from Clayborough to
Dumbleton, as I rattled along the smooth highway in a trim dog-cart
drawn by a splendid black mare, and driven by the silentest and
dapperest of East Anglian grooms.
We did the nine miles in something less than an hour, and pulled
up before the lodge-gates just as the church-clock was striking
half past seven. A couple of minutes more, and the warm glow of
the lighted hall was flooding out upon the gravel, a hearty grasp
was on my hand, and a clear jovial voice was bidding me "Welcome
to Dumbleton."
"And now, my dear fellow," said my host, when the first greeting
was over, "you have no time to spare. We dine at eight, and there
are people coming to meet you; so you must just get the dressing
business over as quickly as may be. By the way, you will meet some
acquaintances. The Biddulphs are coming, and Prendergast (Prendergast,
of the Skirmishers) is staying in the house. Adieu! Mrs. Jelf will
be expecting you in the drawing-room."
I was ushered to my room,--not the blue room, of which Mr. Dwerrihouse
had made disagreeable experience, but a pretty little bachelor's
chamber, hung with a delicate chintz, and made cheerful by a blazing
fire. I unlocked my portmanteau. I tried to be expeditious; but
the memory of my railway adventure haunted me. I could not get
free of it. I could not shake it off. It impeded me,--it worried
me,--it tripped me up,--it caused me to mislay my studs,--to mistie
my cravat,--to wrench the buttons off my gloves. Worst of all, it
made me so late that the party had all assembled before I reached
the drawing-room. I had scarcely paid my respects to Mrs. Jelf
when dinner was announced, and we paired off, some eight or ten
couples strong, into the dining-room.
I am not going to describe either the guests or the dinner. All
provincial parties bear the strictest family resemblance, and I
am not aware that an East Anglian banquet offers any exception
to the rule. There was the usual country baronet and his wife;
there were the usual country parsons and their wives; there was
the sempiternal turkey and haunch of venison. _Vanitas vanitatum._
There is nothing new under the sun.
I was placed about midway down the table. I had taken one rector's
wife down to dinner, and I had another at my left hand. They talked
across me, and their talk was about babies. It was dreadfully dull.
At length there came a pause. The entrees had just been removed,
and the turkey had come upon the scene. The conversation had all
along been of the languidest, but at this moment it happened to
have stagnated altogether. Jelf was carving the turkey. Mrs. Jelf
looked as if she was trying to think of something to say. Everybody
else was silent. Moved by an unlucky impulse, I thought I would
relate my adventure.
"By the way, Jelf," I began, "I came down part of the way to-day
with a friend of yours."
"Indeed!" said the master of the feast, slicing scientifically into
the breast of the turkey. "With whom, pray?"
"With one who bade me tell you that he should, if possible, pay
you a visit before Christmas."
"I cannot think who that could be," said my friend, smiling.
"It must be Major Thorp," suggested Mrs. Jelf.
I shook my head.
"It was not Major Thorp," I replied. "It was a near relation of
your own, Mrs. Jelf."
"Then I am more puzzled than ever," replied my hostess. "Pray tell
me who it was."
"It was no less a person than your cousin, Mr. John Dwerrihouse."
Jonathan Jelf laid down his knife and fork. Mrs. Jelf looked at
me in a strange, startled way, and said never a word.
"And he desired me to tell you, my dear madam, that you need not
take the trouble to burn the hall down in his honor this time; but
only to have the chimney of the blue room swept before his arrival."
Before I had reached the end of my sentence, I became aware of
something ominous in the faces of the guests. I felt I had said
something which I had better have left unsaid, and that for some
unexplained reason my words had evoked a general consternation. I
sat confounded, not daring to utter another syllable, and for at
least two whole minutes there was dead silence round the table.
Then Captain Prendergast came to the rescue.
"You have been abroad for some months, have you not, Mr. Langford?"
he said, with the desperation of one who flings himself into the
breach. "I heard you had been to Russia. Surely you have something
to tell us of the state and temper of the country after the war?"
I was heartily grateful to the gallant Skirmisher for this diversion
in my favor. I answered him, I fear, somewhat lamely; but he kept
the conversation up, and presently one or two others joined in,
and so the difficulty, whatever it might have been, was bridged
over. Bridged over, but not repaired. A something, an awkwardness,
a visible constraint, remained. The guests hitherto had been simply
dull; but now they were evidently uncomfortable and embarrassed.
The dessert had scarcely been placed upon the table when the ladies
left the room. I seized the opportunity to select a vacant chair
next Captain Prendergast.
"In Heaven's name," I whispered, "what was the matter just now?
What had I said?"
"You mentioned the name of John Dwerrihouse."
"What of that? I had seen him not two hours before."
"It is a most astounding circumstance that you should have seen
him," said Captain Prendergast. "Are you sure it was he?"
"As sure as of my own identity. We were talking all the way between
London and Blackwater. But why does that surprise you?"
"_Because_," replied Captain Prendergast, dropping his voice to
the lowest whisper,--"_because John Dwerrihouse absconded three
months ago, with seventy-five thousand pounds of the company's
money, and has never been heard of since._"
II.
John Dwerrihouse had absconded three months ago,--and I had seen him
only a few hours back. John Dwerrihouse had embezzled seventy-five
thousand pounds of the company's money, yet told me that he carried
that sum upon his person. Were ever facts so strangely incongruous,
so difficult to reconcile? How should he have ventured again into
the light of day? How dared he show himself along the line? Above
all, what had he been doing throughout those mysterious three months
of disappearance?
Perplexing questions these. Questions which at once suggested themselves
to the minds of all concerned, but which admitted of no easy solution.
I could find no reply to them. Captain Prendergast had not even a
suggestion to offer. Jonathan Jelf, who seized the first opportunity
of drawing me aside and learning all that I had to tell, was more
amazed and bewildered than either of us. He came to my room that
night, when all the guests were gone, and we talked the thing over
from every point of view; without, it must be confessed, arriving
at any kind of conclusion.
"I do not ask you," he said, "whether you can have mistaken your
man. That is impossible."
"As impossible as that I should mistake some stranger for yourself."
"It is not a question of looks or voice, but of facts. That he
should have alluded to the fire in the blue room is proof enough
of John Dwerrihouse's identity. How did he look?"
"Older, I thought. Considerably older, paler, and more anxious."
"He has had enough to make him look anxious, anyhow," said my friend,
gloomily; "be he innocent or guilty."
"I am inclined to believe that he is innocent," I replied. "He
showed no embarrassment when I addressed him, and no uneasiness
when the guard came round. His conversation was open to a fault.
I might almost say that he talked too freely of the business which
he had in hand."
"That again is strange; for I know no one more reticent on such
subjects. He actually told you that he had the seventy-five thousand
pounds in his pocket?"
"He did."
"Humph! My wife has an idea about it, and she may be right--"
"What idea?"
"Well, she fancies,--women are so clever, you know, at putting
themselves inside people's motives,--she fancies that he was tempted;
that he did actually take the money; and that he has been concealing
himself these three months in some wild part of the country,--struggling
possibly with his conscience all the time, and daring neither to
abscond with his booty nor to come back and restore it."
"But now that he has come back?"
"That is the point. She conceives that he has probably thrown himself
upon the company's mercy; made restitution of the money; and, being
forgiven, is permitted to carry the business through as if nothing
whatever had happened."