Mr. Duffham the surgeon stood making up pills and powders in his surgery
at Church Dykely, the mahogany counter before him, the shelves filled
with glass bottles of coloured liquids behind him. Weighing out grains
of this and that in the small scales that rested beside the large ones,
both sets at the end of the counter, was he, and measuring out drops
with a critical eye. The day promised to be piping-hot, and his summer
house-coat, of slate-coloured twill, was thrown back on his shoulders.
Spare and wiry little man though he was, he felt the heat. He was rather
wondering that no patients had come in yet, for people knew that this
was the time to catch him, before he started on his rounds, and he
generally had an influx on Monday morning.
Visitor the first. The surgery-door, standing close to the open front
one, was tapped at, and a tall, bony woman entered, dressed in a big
straw bonnet with primrose ribbons, a blue cotton gown and cotton shawl.
Eunice Gibbon, Mrs. Stephen Radcliffe's sister.
"Good-morning, Mr. Duffham," she said, lodging her basket on the
counter. "I'm frightfully out o' sorts, sir, and think I shan't be right
till I've took a bottle or two o' physic."
"Sit down," said the doctor, coming in front of the counter, preparatory
to inquiring into the symptoms.
She sat down in one of the two chairs: and Duffham, after sundry
questions, told her that her liver was out of order. She answered that
she could have told him that, for nothing but "liver" was ever the
matter with her. He went behind the counter again to make up a bottle of
some delectable stuff good for the complaint, and Eunice sat waiting for
it, when the surgery-door was pushed open with a whirl and a bang, and
Tod and I burst in. To see Eunice Gibbon there, took us aback. It seemed
a very curious coincidence, considering what we had come about.
"Well, young gentlemen," quoth Duffham, looking rather surprised,
and detecting our slight discomfiture, "does either of you want my
services?"
"Yes," said Tod, boldly; "Johnny does: he has a headache. We'll wait,
Mr. Duffham."
Leaning on the counter, we watched the progress of the making-up in
silence, Duffham exchanging a few words with Eunice Gibbon at intervals.
Suddenly he opened upon a subject that caused Tod to give me a private
dig with his elbow.
"And how were the cries last night?" asked Duffham. "Did you hear much
of them?"
"There was no cries last night," answered Eunice--which brought me
another dig from Tod. "But wasn't the wind high! It went shrieking round
the Torr like so many mad cats. Two spoonfuls twice a-day, did you say,
sir?"
"Three times a-day. I am putting the directions on the bottle. You will
soon feel better."
"I've been subject to these bilious turns all my life," she said,
speaking to me and Tod. "But I don't know when I've had as bad a one as
this. Thank ye, sir."
Taking the bottle of physic, she put it into her basket, said
good-morning, and went away. Duffham came to the front, and Tod jumped
on the counter and sat there facing us, his long legs dangling. I had
taken one of the chairs.
"Mr. Duffham, what do you think we have come about?" began Tod, dropping
his voice to a mysterious key. "Don't you go and faint away when you
hear it."
"Faint away!" retorted old Duffham.
"I'll be shot if it would not send some people into a faint! That Gibbon
woman has just said that no cries were to be heard last night."
"Well?"
"Well, there _were_ cries; plenty of them. And awful cries they were.
I, and Johnny, and Mrs. Frank Radcliffe--yes, she was with us--stood
in that precious field listening to them till our blood ran cold.
_You_ heard them, you know, on Saturday night."
"Well?" repeated Duffham, staring at Tod.
"Look here. We have found it out--and have come over to tell you--and
to ask you what can be done," went on Tod earnestly, jumping off the
counter and putting his back against the door to make sure of no
interruption. "The cries come from Frank Radcliffe. He is not dead."
"What?" shouted Duffham, who had turned to face Tod and stood in the
middle of the oil-cloth, wondering whether Tod was demented.
"Frank is no more dead than I am. I'd lay my life upon it. Stephen
Radcliffe has got him shut up in the tower; and the piteous cries are
his--crying for release."
"Bless my heart and mind!" exclaimed Duffham, backing right against the
big scales. "Frank Radcliffe alive and shut up in the tower! But there's
no way to the tower. He could not be got into it."
"I don't care. I know he is there. That huzzy, now gone out, does well
to say no cries were abroad last night; her business is to throw people
off the scent. But I tell you, Duffham, the cries never were so loud or
so piteous, and I heard what they said as distinctly as you can hear me
speak now. 'Help! Frank Radcliffe! Help!' they said. And I swear the
voice was Frank's own."
"If ever I heard the like of this!" ejaculated Duffham. "It is really
not--not to be credited."
"The sound of the cries comes out on the air through the openings in the
tower," ran on Tod, in excitement. "Oh, he is there, poor fellow, safe
enough. And to think what long months he has been kept there, Stephen's
prisoner! Twelve. Twelve, as I'm alive. Now, look you here, Duffham! you
are staring like an unbeliever."
"It's not altogether that--that I don't believe," said Duffham, whose
wide-open eyes were staring considerably. "I am thinking what is to be
done about it--how to set the question at rest."
Tod left the door unguarded and flung himself into the other chair. He
went over the whole narrative quietly: how Mrs. Frank Radcliffe--who had
been listening to the cries for a week past--had first put him into a
puzzle, how he had then heard the words and the voice, and how the true
explanation came flashing into his mind later. With every sentence,
Duffham grew more convinced, and at last he believed it as much as we
did.
"And now how is he to be got out?" concluded Tod.
Holding a council together, we decided that the first step must be
to get a magistrate's order to search the Torr. That involved the
disclosure of the facts to the magistrate--whosoever he might be. Mr.
Brandon was pitched upon: Duffham proposed the Squire at first; but, as
Tod pointed out, the Squire would be sure to go to work in some hot and
headlong manner, and perhaps ruin all. Let Stephen Radcliffe get only
half an inkling of what was up, and he might contrive to convey Frank to
the ends of the earth.
All three of us started at once, Duffham leaving his patients for that
one morning to doctor themselves, and found Mr. Brandon at breakfast. He
had been distracted with face-ache all night, he said, which caused him
to rise late. The snow-white table-cloth was set off with flowers and
plate, but the fare was not luxurious. The silver jug held plenty of new
milk, the silver tea-pot a modicum of the weakest of tea, the silver
rack the driest of dry toast. A boiled egg and the butter-dish remained
untouched. One of the windows was thrown up wide to the summer air, and
to the scent from the clustering flower-beds and the hum of the bees
dipping over them to sip their sweets.
Breaking off little bits of toast, and eating them slowly, Mr. Brandon
listened to the tale. He did not take it in. That was check the first.
And he would not grant a warrant to search the Torr. That was check the
second.
"Stephen Radcliffe is bad enough in the way of being sullen and
miserly," said he. "But as to daring such a thing as this, I don't think
he would. Pass his brother off to the world for dead, and put him into
his house and keep him there in concealment! No. No one of common sense
would believe it."
Tod set on again, giving our experience of the past night, earnestly
protesting that he had recognized Frank's voice, and heard the words it
said--"Help! Frank Radcliffe!" He added that Annet Radcliffe, Frank's
widow--or wife, whichever it might turn out to be--had been listening to
the cries for days past and knew them for her husband's: only she, poor
daft woman, took them to come from his ghost. Mr. Brandon sipped his tea
and listened. Duffham followed on: saying that when he heard the cries
on Saturday night, in passing the Torr on his way from the Court, he
could then almost have staked his existence upon their being human
cries, proceeding from some human being in distress, but for the
apparent impossibility of such a thing. And I could see that an
impression was at length made on Mr. Brandon.
"If Stephen Radcliffe has done so infamous an act, he must be more
cruel, more daring than man ever was yet," remarked he, in answer. "But
I must be more satisfied of it before I sign the warrant you ask for."
Well, there we sat, hammering at him. That is, _they_ did. Being my
guardian, I did not presume to put in a word edgeways, so far as
pressing him to act went. In all that he thought right, and in spite of
his quiet manner and his squeaky voice, old Brandon was a firm man, not
to be turned by argument.
"But won't you grant this warrant, sir?" appealed Tod for the tenth
time.
"I have told you, no," he replied. "I will not at the present stage of
the affair. In any case, I should not grant it without consulting your
father----"
"He is so hot-headed," burst in Tod. "He'd be as likely as not to go off
knocking at the Torr door without his hat, demanding Frank Radcliffe."
"Mr. Todhetley was Frank Radcliffe's trustee, and he is your father,
young man; I do not stir a step in this matter without consulting him,"
returned old Brandon, coolly persistent.
Well, there was nothing for it now but to go back home and consult
the pater. It seemed like a regular damper--and we were hot and tired
besides. Tod in his enthusiasm had pictured us storming the Torr at
mid-day, armed with the necessary authority, and getting out Frank at
once.
Mr. Brandon ordered his waggonette--a conveyance he did not like, and
scarcely ever used himself, leaving it to the servants for their
errands--and we all drove back to Dyke Manor, himself included. To
describe the astonishment of the pater when the disclosure was made to
him would take a strong pen. He rubbed his face, and blustered, and
stared around, and then told Tod he was a fool.
"I know I am in some things," said Tod, as equably as old Brandon could
have put it; "but I'm not in this. If Frank Radcliffe is not alive in
that tower of Stephen's, and calling out nightly for his release, you
may set me down as a fool to the end of my days, Father."
"Goodness bless us all!" cried the poor bewildered Squire. "Do you
believe this, Brandon?"
Mr. Brandon did not say whether he believed it or not. Both of them
shook their heads about granting a warrant: upon which, Tod passionately
asked whether Francis Radcliffe was to be left in the tower to die. It
was finally decided that we should go in a body that night to the field
again, so as to give the two doubters the benefit of hearing anything
there might be to hear. And Mr. Brandon stayed with us for the day,
telling his coachman to come back at night with the small pony-gig to
take him home.
The moon was just as bright as on the previous night, and we started on
our expedition stealthily. Tod and I went first; Duffham came strolling
next; and the Squire and Mr. Brandon afterwards. Should Stephen
Radcliffe or any of his people catch sight of the whole of us moving
together, he might suspect there was something in the wind.
Annet did not make her appearance, which was a great relief. For we
could talk without restraint; and it would never have done to let her
know what we suspected: and so raise wild hopes within her that might
not be fulfilled. We knew later that her mother was at Pitchley's Farm
that evening, and it kept Annet at home.
Was Heaven interfering in Frank's behalf? It does interfere for the
oppressed, you know; ay, more often than we heedless and ungrateful
mortals think for. Never had the cries been so plain as they were this
night, though there was no wind to waft them downwards, for the air was
perfectly still: and the words were distinctly heard. "Help! Help! Frank
Radcliffe."
"Mercy upon us!" exclaimed the Squire, under his breath. "The voice does
sound like Frank's."
Mr. Brandon was standing with his hand to his ear. Duffham leaned on his
gold-headed cane, his face lifted upwards.
Tod stood by in dudgeon; he was angry with them for not having believed
him at first.
"I think we may grant a search-warrant, Squire," said Mr. Brandon.
"And send old Jones the constable, to execute it," assented the Squire.
Tod flung back his head. "Old Jones! Much use he'd be! Why, father,
Eunice Gibbon alone could settle old Jones with his shaky legs. She'd
pitch him out at the first window."
"Jones can take help, Joe."
* * * * *
It was the breakfast hour at the Torr, eight o'clock. The meal was being
taken in the kitchen. Less semblance of gentility than even in the
former days was kept up; all usages of comfort and refinement had
departed with old Mr. Radcliffe and Selina. Stephen was swallowing his
eggs and rashers of bacon quickly. Tuesday is Alcester market-day,
and he was going in to attend it, expecting to sell some of his
newly-gathered crop of hay. Mrs. Stephen sat opposite him, eating bacon
also; and Eunice Gibbon stood at the dresser, mixing some meal for the
fattening of fowls. Miserly though Stephen was by nature, he liked a
good table, and took care to have it.
"Could you bring some starch home, master?" asked Eunice, turning her
head round to speak.
"Why can't you get your starch here?" retorted Stephen.
"Well, it's a farthing less a pound at Alcester than it is at Church
Dykely," said Eunice. "They've rose it here."
Farthings were farthings in Stephen's eyes, and he supposed he might as
well bring the starch. "How much is wanted of it?" he growled.
"We'd better have a pound," interposed Becca. "Half pounds don't get the
benefit of the farthing: you can't split a farthing in two. Shall you be
home early?" she continued to her husband.
"Don't know. Not afore afternoon."
"Because we shall want some of the starch to-day. There's none to go on
with, is there, Eunice?"
"Yes, there's a bit. I can make it do."
"You'll have to wait till you get it," remarked Stephen as he pushed his
plate away and rose from table. "And mind you don't forget to give the
pigs their dinner."
"What'll be wanted up there to-day?" inquired Becca, pointing towards
some invisible place over-head, possibly intending to indicate the
tower.
"Nothing but dinner," said Stephen. "What should there be? I shall be
back afore tea-time."
He went out at the back-door as he spoke, gave a keen look or two
around his yard and premises generally, to see that all was right, and
presently trotted away on horseback. A few minutes later, Jim, the only
regular man kept, was seen to cross the yard towards the lane with the
horse and cart.
"Where be you off to, Jim?" demanded Becca, stalking to the door and
speaking at the top of her voice.
"Master ordered me to go after that load o' manure," called back Jim,
standing upright in the cart and arresting the horse for a moment.
"What, this morning?"
"It's what he telled me."
"Well, don't go and make a day's work of it," commanded Mrs. Stephen.
"There's a sight o' things a-waiting to be done."
"I can't be back afore two, hasten as I 'ool," returned Jim, giving the
horse his head and clattering off.
"I wonder what the master sent him to-day for, when he's away himself?"
cried Becca to her sister, returning to the table in the kitchen.
"Well, he got a message last night to say that if he didn't send for it
away to-day it wouldn't be kept for him," said Eunice. "It's a precious
long way to have to go for a load o' manure!"
"But then we get it for the fetching; there's naught to pay," returned
Becca.
She had begun to wash up the breakfast-things, and when that was done
she put the kitchen to rights. Eunice seemed to be at all sorts of jobs,
indoors and out, and went stalking about in pattens. The furnace had
been lighted in the brewhouse, for Eunice had a day's washing before
her. Becca went up to make the beds, and brought down sundry armfuls of
clothes for the wash. About ten o'clock she appeared in the brewhouse
with her bonnet and shawl on. Eunice was standing at the tub in her
pattens, rubbing away at the steaming soap-suds.
"Why, where be you going?" she exclaimed in evident surprise.
"I'm a-going over to Dick's to fetch Beccy," replied Mrs. Stephen. "It's
a long while since she was here. Ste don't care to see children about
the place. The child shall stop to dinner with us and can go home by
herself in the afternoon. What's the matter now, Eunice Gibbon? Don't it
please ye?"
"Oh, it pleases me well enough," returned Eunice, who was looking
anything _but_ pleased, and splashing both hands desperately about in
the water, over one of Stephen's coloured cotton handkerchiefs. "The
child can come, and welcome, for me. 'Tain't that."
"It's some'at else then," remarked Becca.
"Well, I'd wanted to get a bit o' talk with ye," said Eunice. "That's
what it is. The master's safe off, and it was a good opportunity for
it."
"What about?"
Eunice Gibbon took her hands out of the soap-suds and rested them on the
sides of the tub, while she answered--coming to the point at once.
"I've been a-thinking that I can't stop on here, Becca. I bain't at
ease. Many a night lately I have laid awake over it. If anything comes
out about--you know what--we might all of us get into trouble."
"No fear," said Becca.
"Well, I says there is fear. Folks have talked long enough; but it
strikes me they won't be satisfied with talking much longer: they'll be
searching out. Only yesterday morning when I was waiting at Duffham's
while he mixed up the stuff, he must begin upon it. 'Did ye hear the
cries last night?' says he--or something o' that. 'No,' says I in
answer; 'there was none to hear, only the wind.' Them two young gents
from the Manor was there, cocking up their ears at the words. _I_ see
'em."
Rebecca Radcliffe remained silent. Truth to tell, she and Stephen were
getting afraid of the cries themselves. That is, of what the cries might
result in.
"He ought to be got away," resumed Eunice.
"But there's no means o' getting him away."
"Well, I can't feel comfortable, Becca; not safe, you know. So don't you
and the master be put out if I walks myself off one o' these here first
fine days. When I come here, I didn't bargain for nothing o' this sort."
"There's no danger of ill turning up," flashed Becca, braving out the
matter with scorn. "The cries is took to come from the birds: who is to
pick up any other notion, d'ye suppose? I'll tell ye what it is, Eunice:
that jaundiced liver of yours is tormenting you. You'll be afeared next
of your own shadda."
"Perhaps it is," acknowledged Eunice, dropping the argument and resuming
her rubbing. "I know that precious physic of old Duffham's is upsetting
me. It's the nausiousest stuff I ever took."
Mrs. Stephen stalked out of the kitchen and betook herself across the
fields, towards her brother's. Richard Gibbon had succeeded to his late
father's post of gamekeeper to the Chavasses. The gamekeeper's lodge
was more than a mile away; and Mrs. Stephen strode off, out of sight,
unconscious of what was in store for the Torr.
Eunice went on with her washing, deep in thought. She had fully made up
her mind to quit the Torr; but she meant to break the fact by degrees
to its master and mistress. Drying her hands for the temporary purpose
of stirring-up and putting more slack on the furnace fire, she was
interrupted by a gentle ring at the front-door bell.
"Why, who on earth's that?" she exclaimed aloud. "Oh, it must be Lizzy,"
with a flash of recollection: "she sent word she should be over to-day
or to-morrow. How early she have got here!"
Free of all suspicion, glancing at no ill, Eunice went through the
passages and opened the front-door. Quite a small crowd of people stood
there, and one or two of them pushed in immediately. Mr. Duffham, Tod,
I, the Squire, old Jones, and old Jones's man, who was young, and active
on his legs. The Squire _would_ come, and we were unable to hinder him.
"In the Queen's name!" cried old Jones--who always used that formula on
state occasions. And Eunice Gibbon screamed long and loud.
To oppose our entrance was not to be thought of. We had entered and
could not be thrust back again. Eunice took to her heels up the passage,
and confronted us at the parlour-door with a pair of tongs. Duffham and
Tod disarmed her. She then flew to the kitchen, sat down, and went into
hysterics. Old Jones read out the authority for the search, but she only
screamed the louder.
They left her to get out of the screaming at her leisure, and went up,
seeking the entrance to the tower. It was found without much difficulty:
Tod was the one to see it first. A small door (only discovered by
Stephen Radcliffe since his father's death, as we heard later) led from
a dark and unused lumber-room to the narrow stairs of the tower. In its
uppermost compartment, a little, round den, sat Frank Radcliffe, chained
to the wall.
Not at once could we take in the features of the scene; for, all the
light came in through the one long narrow opening, a framed loophole
without glass, that was set in the deep round wall of the tower. A
mattress was spread on the floor, with a pillow and blankets; one chair
stood close to a box that served for a table, on which he no doubt eat
his meals, for there were plates and food on it; another box, its lid
open, was in a corner, and on the other chair sat Frank. That was every
earthly article the place contained. It was through that opening--you
could not call it a window--that Frank's cries for help had gone forth
to the air. There he sat, the chain round his waist, turning his amazed
eyes upon us.
And raving mad, you ask? No. He was all skin and bone, and his fair hair
hung down like that of a wild man of the woods, but he was as sane as
you or I. He rose up, the chain clanking, and then we saw that it was
long enough to admit of his moving about to any part of the den.
"Oh, God bless you, Frank!--we have come to release you," burst forth
the Squire, impetuously seizing both his hands. "God help you, my poor
lad!" And Frank, what with surprise and the not being over stout, burst
into joyous tears.
* * * * *
The ingenious scheme of taking possession of Frank, and representing
him as dead, that he might enjoy all the money, had occurred to Stephen
Radcliffe when he found Frank was recovering under Dr. Dale's treatment.
During the visits Stephen paid to London at that time, he and Pitt, Dr.
Dale's head man, became very intimate: and when Pitt was discharged from
Dr. Dale's they grew more so. Stephen Radcliffe would not perhaps have
done any harm to Frank in the shape of poison or a dagger, being no more
of a killer and slayer of men than were his neighbours; but to keep him
concealed in the Torr, so as to reap the benefit himself of all the
money, he looked upon as a very venial crime indeed--quite justifiable,
so to say. Especially, if he could escape being found out. And this
fine scheme he perfected and put in practice, and successfully carried
through.
How much of it he confided to Pitt, or how much he did not, will never
be known. Certain it was, that Pitt wrote the letter announcing Frank's
death; though we could not find out that he had helped it in any other
way. But a very curious coincidence attended the affair; one that aided
Stephen's plans materially; and but for its happening I do not see that
they could have succeeded when inquiries were made. In the London house
where Stephen lodged (Gibraltar Terrace, that I and the Squire had a
two days' hunt to find) there came to live a young man, who was taken
ill close upon his entrance with a malady arising from his habits of
drinking. Pitt, coming often to Gibraltar Terrace then with Stephen
Radcliffe, took to attend on the young man out of good nature, doing
for him all that could be done. It was this young man who died, and
was buried in Finchley Cemetery; and of whose death the landlady with
the faded face and black silk apron spoke to the Squire, thereby
establishing in our minds the misapprehension that it was Francis
Radcliffe. Stephen did not take Frank to the lodgings at all; he brought
him straight down to the Torr when he was released from Dr. Dale's,
taking care to get out at a remote country station in the dusk of
evening, where his own gig, conveyed thither by Becca, was in waiting.
He laid his plans well, that crafty Stephen! And, once he had got Frank
securely into that upper den, he might just have kept him there for
life, but for that blessed outlet in the wall, and no one been any the
wiser.
Stephen Radcliffe did not bargain for that. It nearly always happens
that in doing an ill deed we overreach ourselves in some fatal way.
Knowing that no sound, though it were loud enough to awaken the seven
sleepers, could penetrate from that upper room through the massive walls
of the house, and be heard below, Stephen thought his secret was safe,
and that Frank might call out, if he would, until Doomsday. It never
occurred to him that the cries could get out through that unglazed
window in the tower wall, and set the neighbourhood agog with curiosity.
They did, however: and Stephen, whatever amount of dread it might have
brought his heart, was unable to stop them. Not until Frank had been for
some months chained in his den, did it occur to himself to make those
cries, so hopeless was he of their being heard below to any good
purpose. But one winter night when the wind was howling outside, and the
sound of it came booming into his ears through the window, it struck him
that he might be heard through that very opening; and from that time his
voice was raised in supplication evening after evening. Stephen could do
nothing. He dared not brick the opening up lest some suspicion or other
should be excited outside; he could not remove Frank, for there was no
other secret room to remove him to, or where his cries would not have
been heard below. He ordered Frank to be still: he threatened him; he
once took a horsewhip to him and laid it about his shoulders. All in
vain. When Frank was alone, his cries for release never ceased. Stephen
and his household put it upon the birds and the wind, and what not; but
they grew to dread it: and Stephen, even at this time, of discovery, was
perpetually ransacking his brains for some safe means of departing for
Canada and carrying Frank with him. The difficulty lay in conveying
Frank out of the Torr and away. They might drug him for the bare exit,
but they could not keep him perpetually drugged; they could not hinder
him coming in contact with his fellow-men on the journey and transit,
and Frank had a tongue in his head. No: Stephen saw no hope, no safety,
but in keeping him where he was.
"But how could you allow yourself to be brought up here?--and fastened
to a stake in this shameful fashion?" was nearly the first question of
the Squire when he could collect his senses: and he asked it with just a
touch of temper, for he was beginning to think that Frank, in permitting
it, must have been as simple as the fool in a travelling circus.
"He got me up by stratagem," answered Frank, tossing his long hair back
from his face. "While we were sitting at supper the night we arrived
here, he began talking about the wonderful discovery he had made of the
staircase and opening to the tower. Naturally I was interested; and when
Stephen proposed to show it me at once, I assented gladly. Becca came
with us, saying she'd carry the candle. We got up here, and were all
three standing in the middle of the floor, just where we are standing
now, when I suddenly had a chain--this chain--slipped round my waist,
and found myself fastened to the wall, a prisoner."
"But why did you come to the Torr at all?" stamped the Squire, while old
Jones stretched out his hands, as if putting imaginary handcuffs on
Stephen's. "Why did you not go at once to your own home--or come to us?
When you knew you were going to leave Dale's, why didn't you write to
say so?"
"When events are past and gone we perceive the mistakes we have made,
though we do not see them at the time," answered Frank, turning his blue
eyes from one to the other of us. "Dr. Dale did not wish me to quit his
house quite so soon; though I was perfectly well, he said another month
there would be best for me. I, however, was anxious to get away, more
eager for it than I can tell you--which was only natural. Stephen
whispered to me that he would accomplish it, but that I must put myself
entirely in his hands, and not write to any one down here about it. He
got me out, sooner than I had thought for: sooner, as he declared, than
he had thought for himself; and he said we must break the news to Annet
very cautiously, for she was anything but strong. He proposed to take me
to the Torr for the first night of my return, and give me a bed there;
and the following day the communication could be made to Annet at
Pitchley's Farm, and then I might follow it as soon as I pleased. It all
seemed to me feasible; quite the right way of going to work; in fact,
the only way: I thanked Stephen, and came down here with him in all
confidence."
"Good patience!" cried the Squire. "And you had no suspicions, Frank
Radcliffe!--knowing what Stephen was!"
"I never knew he would do such a dastardly deed as this. How could I
know it?"
"Oh, come along!" returned the Squire, beginning to stumble down the
narrow, dark stairs. "We'll have the law of him."
The key of the chain had been found hanging on a nail outside the door,
out of poor Frank's reach. He was soon free; but staggered a little when
he began to descend the stairs. Duffham laid hold of him behind, and Tod
went before.
"Thank God! thank God!" he broke out with reverent emotion, when the
bright sun burst upon him through the windows, after passing the dark
lumber-room. "I feared I might never see full daylight again."
"Have you any clothes?" asked Duffham. "This coat's in rags."
"I'm sure I don't know whether I have or not," replied Frank. "The coat
is all I have had upon me since coming here."
"Becca's a beast," put in Tod. "And I hope Stephen will have his neck
stretched."
Eunice Gibbon was nowhere to be seen below. The premises were deserted.
She had made a rush to her brother's, the gamekeeper's lodge, to warn
Becca of what was taking place. We started for Dyke Manor, Frank in our
midst, leaving the Torr, and its household gods, including the cackling
fowls and the dinnerless pigs, to their fate. Mr. Brandon met us at the
second field, and he took Frank's hand in silence.
"God bless you, lad! So you have been shut up there!"
"And chained to a stake in the wall," cried the Squire.
"Well, it seems perfectly incredible that such a thing should take place
in these later days. It reads like an episode of the dark ages."
"Won't we pay out Master Radcliffe for 't!" put in old Jones, at work
with his imaginary handcuffs again. "I should say, for my part, it 'ud
be a'most a case o' transportation to Botany Bay."
Frank Radcliffe was ensconced within Dyke Manor (sending Mrs. Todhetley
into hysterics, for she had known nothing), and Duffham undertook the
task of breaking it to Frank's wife. Frank, when his hair should have
been trimmed up a little, was to put himself into a borrowed coat and
to follow on presently.
Pitchley's Farm and Pitchley's roses lay hot and bright under the
summer sunshine. Mr. Duffham went straight in, and looked about for its
mistress. In the sitting-rooms, in the kitchen, in the dairy: he and his
cane, and could not see her.
"Missis have stepped out, sir," said Sally, who was scrubbing the
kitchen table. "A fearful headache she have got to-day."
"A headache, has she!" responded Duffham.
"I don't think she's never without one," remarked Sally, dipping her
brush into the saucer of white sand.
"Where's Mr. Skate?"
"Him? Oh, he be gone over to Alcester market, sir."
"You go and find your mistress, Sally, and say I particularly wish to
speak with her. Tell her that I have some very good news for her."
Sally left her brush and her sand, and went out with the message. The
doctor strolled into the best parlour, and cribbed one of the many roses
intruding their blooming beauty into the open window. Mr. Duffham had to
exercise his patience. It seemed to him that he waited half-an-hour.
Annet came in at last, saying how sorry she was to have kept him: she
had stepped over to see their carter's wife, who was ill, and Sally had
only just found her. She wore her morning gown of black and white print,
with the small net widow's cap on her bright hair. But for the worn look
in her face, the sad eyes, she was just as pretty as ever; and Duffham
thought so.
"Sally says you have some good news for me," she observed with a poor,
faint smile. "It must be a joke of yours, Mr. Duffham. There's no news
that could be good for me."
"Wait till you hear it," said he. "You have had a fortune left you! It
is _so good_, Mrs. Frank Radcliffe, that I'm afraid to tell you. You may
go into a fit; or do some other foolish thing."
"Indeed no. Nothing can ever have much effect on me again."
"Don't you make too sure of that," said Duffham. "You've never felt
quite sure about that death of your husband, up at Dales, have you?
Thought there was something queer about it--eh?"
"Yes," she said. "I have thought it."
"Well, some of us have been looking into it a little. And we find--in
short, we are not at all sure that--that Frank did die."
"Oh!"--her hands lifting themselves in agitation--"what is it, sir? You
have come to disclose to me that my husband was murdered."
"The contrariness of woman!" exclaimed Duffham, giving the floor a thump
with his cane. "Why, Mrs. Frank Radcliffe, I told you as plainly as I
could speak, that it was _good_ news I brought. So good, that I hardly
thought you could bear it with equanimity. Your husband was _not_
murdered."
Poor Annet never answered a word to this. She only gazed at him.
"And our opinion is that Frank did not die at all; at Dale's, or
elsewhere. Some of us think he is alive still, and--now don't you drop
down in a heap."
"Please go on," she breathed, turning whiter than her own cap. "I--shall
not drop down."
"We have _reason_ to think it, Mrs. Frank. To think that he is alive,
and well, and as sane in mind as you'd wish him to be. We believe it,
ma'am; we all but know it."
She let her head fall back in the chair. "You, I feel sure, would not
tell me this unless you had good grounds for it, Mr. Duffham. Oh, if it
may but be so! But--then--what of those cries that we heard?" she added,
recollecting them. "I am sure they were his."
"Very likely. Stephen may have had him shut up in the tower, and Frank
cried out to let the world know he was there. Oh, I dare say that was
it. I should not wonder, Mrs. Frank, but your husband may be here
to-day."
She rose from her seat, face lightening, hands trembling. She had caught
sight through the window of a small knot of people approaching the
house-door, and she recognized the cut of Frank's fair Saxon face
amongst them, and the gleam of his golden hair. Duffham knew no more
till she was in Frank's arms, sobbing and crying.
* * * * *
Ring! knock! shake! Shake! knock! ring! It was at the front-door of the
Torr, and old Jones was doing it. He had gone there to apprehend Stephen
Radcliffe, a whole posse of us at his tail--where we had no business to
be--and the handcuffs in his side-pocket.
By the afternoon of the day just told of, the parish was up in arms.
Had Frank Radcliffe really risen from the dead, it could scarcely have
caused more commotion. David Skate, for one, was frightened nearly out
of his senses. Getting in from Alcester market, Sally accosted him, as
he was crossing the yard, turning round from the pump to do it, where
she was washing the summer cabbage for dinner.
"The master be in there, sir."
"What master?" asked David, halting on the way.
"Why, the master hisself, Mr. Frank. He be come back again."
To hear that a dead man has "come back" again and is then in the house
you are about to enter, would astonish most of us. David Skate stared at
Sally, as if he thought she had been making free with the cider barrel.
At that moment, Frank appeared at the door, greeting David with a smile
of welcome. The sun shone on his face, making it look pale, and David
verily and truly believed he saw Frank's ghost. With a shout and a cry,
and cheeks all turned to a sickly tremor, he backed behind the pump and
behind Sally. Sally, all on the broad grin, enjoyed it.
"Why, sir, it be the master hisself. There ain't nothing to be skeered
at."
"David, don't you know me?" called out Frank heartily; and came forth
with outstretched hands.
But David did not get his cheeks right again for a good
quarter-of-an-hour. And he was in a maze of wonder all day.
A warrant had been issued for the apprehension of Stephen Radcliffe of
the Torr, and old Jones started off to the Torr to execute it. As if
Stephen was likely to be found there! Ringing the bell, knocking at the
door, shaking the handle, stood old Jones; the whole string of us behind
burning to help him. It was not answered, and old Jones went at it
again. You might have heard the noise over at Church Dykely.
Presently the door was drawn slowly back by Stephen Radcliffe's
daughter--the curate's wife. She was trembling all over and looking fit
to drop. Lizzy had come over from Birmingham and learned what had taken
place. Naturally it scared her. She had always been the best of the
bunch; and she had, of course, not known the true secret of the cries.
"I want to see Mr. Radcliffe, if you please, ma'am," began old Jones,
putting his foot inside, so that the door should not be closed again.
"My father is not here," she answered, shaking and shivering.
"Not here!" repeated old Jones, surreptitiously stealing one hand round
to feel the handcuffs.
"There's no one in the house but myself," she said. "When I got here, an
hour or two ago, I found the place deserted."
"I should like to see that for myself, ma'am," returned incredulous old
Jones.
"You can," she answered, drawing back a little. For she saw how futile
it would be to attempt to keep him out.
Old Jones and some more went in to the search. Not a living creature was
there but herself and the dog. Stephen Radcliffe had never been back
since he started for Alcester in the morning.
In fact, Stephen was not to be found anywhere, near or distant. Mrs.
Stephen was not to be found. Eunice Gibbon was not to be found. They had
all made themselves scarce. The women had no doubt contrived to convey
the news to Stephen while he was at Alcester, and he must have lost no
time in turning his back on Warwickshire.
In a day or two, a rumour arose that Stephen Radcliffe and his wife had
sailed for Canada. It proved to be true. "So much the better," said
old Jones, regaling himself, just then, with cold beef in the Squire's
kitchen. "Let him go! Good shut of bad rubbish!"
Just the sentiments that prevailed generally! Canada was the best place
for Stephen the crafty. It spared us further sight of his surly face and
saved the bother of a prosecution. He took only his own three hundred
a-year with him; the Squire, for Frank, had resumed the receipt of the
other three. And Lizzy, the daughter, with a heap of little ones at her
skirts, remained in possession of the Torr until it should be taken. She
had charge to let it as soon as might be.
Pitchley's Farm resumed its bustle and its sounds of everyday, happy
life. The crowds that flocked to it to shake hands with Frank and
welcome his wonderful resuscitation were beyond telling. Frank had sworn
a solemn oath never to drink again: he never would, God helping him.
He _knew_ that he never should, he whispered one day to Mr. Brandon, a
joyous light in his face as he spoke. His mother praying for him in
dying, had told him that he would overcome; she had _seen_ that he would
in that last solemn hour, for the prayer had been heard, bringing her
peace. He had overcome now, he said, and he would and should overcome to
the end.
And Mr. Brandon, reading the faith and the earnestness, felt as sure of
it as Frank did.
* * * * *
Frank kept his word. And, two years later, there he was, back at the
Torr again. For Stephen had died of a severely cold winter in Canada,
and his son Tom had died, but not of cold, and the Torr was Frank's.
Mrs. Stephen came back again, and took up her abode at her brother's.
She would enjoy the three hundred a-year for life, by Stephen's will; it
would then go to her daughter Lizzy--who would want it badly enough with
her flock of youngsters. Becca and Eunice turned their attention to
poultry, and sent rare fowls to shows, and gained prizes for them.
Eunice returned long before Mrs. Stephen. She had never been out of
England at all; and, finding it safe for her, put in an appearance, one
winter day, at the gamekeeper's lodge.
Frank began to make alterations at the Torr as soon as he entered it,
cutting down trees, and trying to render it a little less gloomy. Annet,
with a calm face of sweet content, was much occupied at that time with a
young man who was just getting on his legs, propelling him before her
by the help of some safety reins that she called "backstrings," a fair
child, who had the frank face and the golden curls of his father. And in
all the country round about, there was not a gentleman more liked and
respected than Francis Radcliffe of Sandstone Torr.