AT SEA.
The will was gone. Eleanor tried to think how or where she could have
lost it. It might have dropped from her pocket, perhaps. That was the
only solution of the mystery that presented itself to her mind. The
open pocket of her dress might have been caught by one of the laurel
boughs as she crouched upon the ground, and when she rose the paper
had dropped out. There was no other way in which she _could_ have lost
it. She had been so absorbed in the watch she had kept on Launcelot
Darrell, as to forget the value of the document which she had thrust
carelessly into her pocket. Her father’s letter and Launcelot Darrell’s
sketch were still safe in the bosom of her dress; but the will, the
genuine will, in place of which the young man had introduced some
fabrication of his own, was gone.
“Let me see this will, Eleanor,” Gilbert Monckton said, advancing to
his wife. Although she had been the most skilful actress, the most
accomplished deceiver amongst all womankind, her conduct to-night could
not be all acting, it could not be all deception. She did not love him:
she had confessed that, very plainly. She did not love him; and she had
only married him in order to serve a purpose of her own. But then, on
the other hand, if her passionate words were to be believed in, she
did not love Launcelot Darrell. There was some comfort in that. “Let me
see the will, Eleanor,” he repeated, as his wife stared at him blankly,
in the first shock of her discovery.
“I can’t find it,” she said, hopelessly. “It’s gone; it’s lost. Oh,
for pity’s sake, go out into the garden and look for it. I must have
dropped it amongst the evergreens outside Mr. de Crespigny’s room. Pray
go and look for it.”
“I will,” the lawyer said, taking up his hat and walking towards the
door of the room.
But Miss Lavinia de Crespigny stopped him.
“No, Mr. Monckton,” she said; “pray don’t go out into the night air.
Parker is the proper person to look for this document.”
She rang the bell, which was answered by the old butler.
“Has Brooks come back from Windsor?” she asked.
“No, miss, not yet.”
“A paper has been dropped in the garden, Parker, somewhere amongst the
evergreens, outside my uncle’s rooms. Will you take a lantern, and go
and look for it?”
“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Miss Sarah, “Brooks has been a very long time
going from here to Windsor and back again. I wish Mr. Lawford’s clerk
were come. The place would be taken care of then, and we should have no
further anxiety.”
The lady looked suspiciously from her nephew to Eleanor, and from
Eleanor to Gilbert Monckton. She did not know whom to trust, or whom
most to fear. Launcelot Darrell sat before her, biting savagely at his
nails, and with his head bent upon his breast. Eleanor had sunk into
the chair nearest her, utterly dumbfounded by the loss of the will.
“You need not fear that we shall long intrude upon you, Miss de
Crespigny,” Gilbert Monckton said. “My wife has made an accusation
against a person in this room. It is only right, in your interest,
and for the justification of her truth and honour, that this business
should be investigated—and immediately.”
“The will _must_ be found,” Eleanor cried; “it _must_ have fallen from
my pocket in the shrubbery.”
Launcelot Darrell said nothing. He waited the issue of the search that
was being made. If the will was found he was prepared to repudiate it;
for there was no other course left to him. He hated this woman, who had
suddenly arisen before him as an enemy and denouncer, who had recalled
to him the bitter memory of his first great dishonour, and who had
detected him in the commission of his first crime. He hated Eleanor,
and was ready to sacrifice her to his own safety.
He lifted his head presently, and looked about him with a scornful
laugh.
“Is this a farce, or a conspiracy, Mrs. Monckton?” he asked. “Do you
expect to invalidate my great-uncle’s genuine will—wherever that will
may happen to be found—by the production of some document dropped by
you in the garden, and which has, very likely, never been inside this
house, much less in my uncle’s possession? You surely don’t expect any
one to believe your pretty, romantic story, of a suicide in Paris, and
a midnight scene at Woodlands? It would be an excellent paragraph for a
hard-up penny-a-liner, but, really, for any other purpose——”
“Take care, Mr. Darrell,” Gilbert Monckton said, quietly, “you will
gain nothing by insolence. If I do not resent your impertinence to
my wife, it is because I begin to believe that you are so despicable
a scoundrel as to be unworthy of an honest man’s anger. You had much
better hold your tongue.”
There was no particular eloquence in these last few words, but there
was something in the lawyer’s tone that effectually silenced Launcelot
Darrell. Mr. Monckton’s cane lay upon a chair by the fireplace,
and while speaking he had set down his hat, and taken up the cane;
unconsciously, perhaps; but the movement had not escaped the guilty
man’s furtive glance. He kept silence; and with his face darkened by a
gloomy scowl, still sat biting his nails. The will would be found. The
genuine document would be compared with the fabrication he had placed
amongst his great-uncle’s papers, and perpetual shame, punishment, and
misery would be his lot. What he suffered to-night, sitting amongst
these people, not one of whom he could count as a friend, was only a
foretaste of what he would have to suffer by-and-by in a criminal dock.
For some time there was silence in the room. The two sisters, anxious
and perplexed, looked almost despairingly at each other, fearful that
at the end of all this business they would be the sufferers; cheated,
in their helplessness, either by George Vane’s daughter or by Launcelot
Darrell. Eleanor, exhausted by her own excitement, sat with her eyes
fixed upon the door, waiting for the coming of the old butler.
More than a quarter of an hour passed in this way. Then the door
opened, and Mr. Parker made his appearance.
“You have found it!” cried Eleanor, starting to her feet.
“No, ma’am. No, Miss Lavinia,” added the butler. “I have searched every
inch of the garding, and there is nothink in the shape of a paper to be
found. The ’ousemaid was with me, and she searched likewise.”
“It _must_ be in the garden,” exclaimed Eleanor, “it must be
there—unless it has been blown away.”
“There’s not wind enough for that, ma’am. The s’rubberies are ’igh, and
it would take a deal of wind to blow a paper across the tops of the
trees.”
“And you’ve searched the ground under the trees?” asked Mr. Monckton.
“Yes, sir. We’ve searched everywhere; me and the ’ousemaid.”
Launcelot Darrell burst into a loud laugh, an insolent, strident laugh.
“Why, I thought as much,” he cried; “the whole story is a farce. I beg
your pardon, Mr. Monckton, for calling it a conspiracy. It is merely
a slight hallucination of your wife’s; and I dare say she is as much
George Vane’s daughter as I am the fabricator of a forged will.”
Mr. Darrell’s triumph had made him foolhardy. In the next moment
Gilbert Monckton’s hand was on the collar of his coat, and the cane
uplifted above his shoulders.
“Oh my goodness me!” shrieked Sarah de Crespigny, with a dismal wail,
“there’ll be murder done presently. Oh, this is too dreadful; in the
dead of the night, too.”
But before any harm could happen to Launcelot Darrell, Eleanor clung
about her husband’s upraised arm.
“What you said just now was the truth, Gilbert,” she cried; “he is not
worthy of it; he is not indeed. He is beneath an honest man’s anger.
Let him alone; for my sake let him alone. Retribution must come upon
him, sooner or later. I thought it had come to-night, but there has
been witchcraft in all this business. I _can’t_ understand it.”
“Stay, Eleanor,” said Gilbert Monckton, putting down his cane, and
turning away from Launcelot Darrell as he might have turned from a
mongrel cur that he had been dissuaded from punishing: “This last
will—what was the wording of it—to whom did it leave the fortune?”
Launcelot Darrell looked up eagerly, breathlessly waiting for Eleanor’s
answer.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“What, have you forgotten?”
“No, I never knew anything about the contents of the will. I had
no opportunity of looking at it. I took it from the chair on which
Launcelot Darrell threw it, and put it in my pocket. From that moment
to this I have never seen it.”
“How do you know, then, that it was a will?” asked Gilbert Monckton.
“Because I heard Launcelot Darrell and his companion speak of it as the
genuine will.”
The young man seemed infinitely relieved by the knowledge of Eleanor’s
ignorance.
“Come, Mr. Monckton,” he said, with an air of injured innocence, “you
have been very anxious to investigate the grounds of your wife’s
accusation, and have been very ready to believe in a most absurd
story. You have even gone so far as to wish to execute summary
vengeance upon me with a walking-stick. I think it’s my turn now to ask
a few questions.”
“You can ask as many as you please,” answered the lawyer.
His mind was bewildered by what had happened. Eleanor’s earnestness,
which had seemed so real, had all ended in nothing. How if it was all
acting; how if some darker mystery lurked beneath all this tumult of
accusation and denial? The canker of suspicion, engendered by one
woman’s treachery, had taken deep root in Gilbert Monckton’s breast.
He had lost one of the purest and highest gifts of a noble nature—the
power to trust.
“Very well, then,” said Launcelot Darrell, turning to Eleanor: “perhaps
you will tell me how I contrived to open this cabinet, out of which
you say I stole one document, and into which you declare I introduced
another?”
“You took the keys from Mr. de Crespigny’s room.”
“Indeed! But is there no one keeping watch in that room?”
“Yes,” cried Miss Sarah, “Jepcott is there. Jepcott has been there ever
since my beloved uncle expired. Nothing has been disturbed, and Jepcott
has had the care of the room. We could trust Jepcott with untold gold.”
“Yes,” said Miss Lavinia, “with untold gold.”
“But she was asleep!” cried Eleanor, “the woman was asleep when that
man went into the room.”
“Asleep!” exclaimed Miss Sarah; “oh, surely not. Surely Jepcott would
not deceive us; I can’t think that of her. The very last words I said
to her were, ‘Jepcott, do you feel at all sleepy? If you feel in the
least degree sleepy, have the housemaid to sit with you—make assurance
doubly sure, and have the housemaid!’ ‘No, Miss,’ Jepcott said, ‘I
never felt more wakeful in my life, and as to the girl, she’s a poor,
frightened silly, and I don’t think you could induce her to go into
master’s room, though you were to offer her a five-pound note for doing
it.’ And if Jepcott went to sleep after this, knowing that everything
was left about just as it was when my uncle died, it was really too bad
of her.”
“Send for Mrs. Jepcott,” said Launcelot Darrell; “let us hear what
she has to say about this very probable story of my stealing my
great-uncle’s keys.”
Miss Lavinia de Crespigny rang the bell, which was answered by Mr.
Parker, who, though usually slow to respond to any summons, was
wonderfully prompt in his attendance this evening.
“Tell Mrs. Jepcott to come here,” said Miss Lavinia; “I want to speak
to her.”
The butler departed upon this errand, and again there was a silent
pause, which seemed a very long one, but which only extended over five
minutes. At the end of that time Mrs. Jepcott appeared. She was a
respectable-looking woman, prim, and rather grim in appearance. She had
been in the dead man’s service for five-and-thirty years, and was about
fifteen years older than the Misses de Crespigny, whom she always spoke
of as “the young ladies.”
“Jepcott,” said Miss Sarah, “I want to know whether anybody whatever,
except yourself, has entered Mr. de Crespigny’s room since you have
been placed in charge of it?”
“Oh, dear no, miss,” answered the housekeeper, promptly, “certainly
not.”
“Are you sure of that, Jepcott?”
“Quite sure, miss; as sure as I am that I am standing here this moment.”
“You speak very confidently, Jepcott, but this is really a most serious
business. I am told that you have been asleep.”
“Asleep, Miss de Crespigny! Oh, dear, who _could_ say anything of the
kind? Who could be so wicked as to tell such a story?”
“You are certain that you have not been asleep?”
“Yes, miss, quite certain. I closed my eyes sometimes, for my sight is
weak, as you know, miss, and the light dazzled me, and made my eyes
ache. I close my eyes generally when I sit down of an evening, for my
sight doesn’t allow me to do needlework by candlelight, neither to read
a newspaper; and I may have closed my eyes to-night, but I didn’t go
to _sleep_, miss, oh dear no; I was too nervous and anxious for that,
a great deal; besides, I am not a good sleeper at any time, and so I
should have heard if a mouse had stirred in the room.”
“You didn’t hear me come into the room, did you, Mrs. Jepcott?” asked
Launcelot Darrell.
“_You_, Mr. Darrell? Oh, dear, no; neither you nor anybody else, sir.”
“And you don’t think that I could have come into the room without your
knowing it? You don’t think I could have come in while you were asleep?”
“But I _wasn’t_ asleep, Mr. Darrell; and as for you or anybody comin’
in without my hearin’ ’em—why I heard every leaf that stirred outside
the windows.”
“I fear that at least this part of your charge must drop to the ground,
Mrs. Monckton,” Launcelot Darrell said, scornfully.
“Jepcott,” said Miss Lavinia de Crespigny, “go back and see if my
uncle’s keys are safe.”
“Yes, do, Mrs. Jepcott,” exclaimed Launcelot Darrell; “and be sure you
take notice whether they have been disturbed since your master died.”
The housekeeper left the room, and returned after about three minutes’
absence.
“The keys are quite safe, Miss Lavinia,” she said.
“And they have not been disturbed?” asked Launcelot.
“No, Mr. Darrell, they haven’t been moved a quarter of an inch. They’re
lyin’ just where they lay when my poor master died, half hid under a
pocket-handkerchief.”
Launcelot Darrell drew a long breath. How wonderfully these foolish
women had played into his hands, and helped him to escape.
“That will do, Jepcott,” said Miss Sarah; “you may go now. Remember
that you are responsible for everything in my uncle’s room until the
arrival of Mr. Lawford’s clerk. It would have been a very bad business
for you if Mr. de Crespigny’s keys had been tampered with.”
Mrs. Jepcott looked rather alarmed at this remark, and retired without
delay. Suppose she had been asleep, after all, for five minutes or so,
and some mischief had arisen out of it, what might not her punishment
be. She had a very vague idea of the power of the law, and did not know
what penalties she might have incurred by five minutes’ unconscious
doze. This honest woman had been in the habit of spending the evening
in a series of intermittent naps for the last ten years, and had no
idea that while closing her eyes to shade them from the glare of the
light, she often slumbered soundly for an hour at a stretch.
“Well, Mrs. Monckton,” Launcelot Darrell said, when the housekeeper had
left the room, “I suppose now you are convinced that all this midwinter
night’s dream is a mere hallucination of your own?”
Eleanor looked at him with a contemptuous smile, whose open scorn was
not the least painful torture he had been obliged to bear that night.
“Do not speak to me,” she said; “remember who I am; and let that memory
keep you silent.”
The door-bell rang loudly as Eleanor finished speaking.
“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed Miss de Crespigny, “Mr. Lawford’s clerk has
come at last. He will take charge of everything, and _if_ anybody has
tampered with my uncle’s papers,” she added, looking first at Launcelot
and then at Eleanor, “I have no doubt that he will find out all about
it. We are poor unprotected women, but I dare say we shall find those
who will be able to defend our rights.”
“I don’t think we have any occasion to stop here,” said Mr. Monckton;
“are you ready to come home, Eleanor?”
“Quite ready,” his wife answered.
“You have nothing more to say?”
“Nothing.”
“Put on your cloak, then, and come. Good night, Miss de Crespigny. Good
night, Miss Lavinia.”
Mr. Lawford’s clerk came in while Gilbert Monckton and his wife
were leaving the room. He was the same old man whom Richard Thornton
had seen at Windsor. Eleanor perceived that this man was surprised
to see Launcelot Darrell. He started, and looked at the artist with
a half-frightened, half-inquiring glance; but the young man did not
return the look.