The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Mary Elizabeth Braddon
very radiant by this time, thinks not.
“My plan is, that you start off to-morrow morning before your mother is up, with a letter of introduction which I will give you to an old friend of mine, a merchant in the town of Gardenford, forty miles from here. At my request, he will give you a berth in his office, and will treat you as if you were his own son. You can come over here to see your mother as often as you like; and if you choose to work hard as a merchant’s clerk, so as to make your own fortune, I know an old fellow just returned from the East Indies, with not enough liver to keep him alive many years, who will leave you another fortune to add to it. What do you say, Richard? Is it a bargain?”
“My dear generous uncle!” Richard cries, shaking the old man by the hand.
Was it a bargain? Of course it was. A merchant’s office—the very thing for Richard. He would work hard, work night and day to repair the past, and to show the world there was stuff in him to make a man, and a good man yet.
Poor Richard, half an hour ago wishing to be hung and put out of the way, now full of radiance and hope, while the good angel has the best of it!
“You must not begin your new life without money, Richard: I shall, therefore, give you all I have in the house. I think I cannot better show my confidence in you, and my certainty that you will not return to your old habits, than by giving you this money.” Richard looks—he cannot speak his gratitude.
The old man conducts his nephew up stairs to his bedroom, an old-fashioned apartment, in one window of which is a handsome cabinet, half desk, half bureau. He unlocks this, and takes from it a pocket-book containing one hundred and thirty-odd pounds in small notes and gold, and two bills for one hundred pounds each on an Anglo-Indian bank in the city.
“Take this, Richard. Use the broken cash as you require it for present purposes—in purchasing such an outfit as becomes my nephew; and on your arrival in Gardenford, place the bills in the bank for future exigencies. And as I wish your mother to know nothing of our little plan until you are gone, the best thing you can do is to start before any one is up—to-morrow morning.”
“I will start at day-break. I can leave a note for my mother.”
“No, no,” said the uncle, “I will tell her all. You can write directly you reach your destination. Now, you will think it cruel of me to ask you to leave your home on the very night of your return to it; but it is quite as well, my dear boy, to strike while the iron’s hot. If you remain here your good resolutions may be vanquished by old influences; for the best resolution, Richard, is but a seed, and if it doesn’t bear the fruit of a good action, it is less than worthless, for it is a lie, and promises what it doesn’t perform. I’ve a higher opinion of you than to think that you brought no better fruit of your penitence home to your loving mother than empty resolutions. I believe you have a steady determination to reform.”
“You only do me justice in that belief, sir. I ask nothing better than the opportunity of showing that I am in earnest.”
Mr. Harding is quite satisfied, and once more suggests that Richard should depart very early the next day.
“I will leave this house at five in the morning,” said the nephew; “a train starts for Gardenford about six. I shall creep out quietly, and not disturb any one. I know the way out of the dear old house—I can get out of the drawing-room window, and need not unlock the hall-door; for I know that good stupid old woman Martha sleeps with the key under her pillow.
“Ah, by the bye, where does Martha mean to put you to-night?”
“In the little back parlour, I think she said; the room under this.”
The uncle and nephew went down to this little parlour, where they found old Martha making up a bed on the sofa.
“You will sleep very comfortably here for to-night, Master Richard,” said the old woman; “but if my mistress doesn’t have this ceiling mended before long there’ll be an accident some day.”
They all looked up at the ceiling. The plaster had fallen in several places, and there were one or two cracks of considerable size.
“If it was daylight,” grumbled the old woman, “you could see through into Mister Harding’s bedroom, for his worship won’t have a carpet.”
His worship said he had not been used to carpets in India, and liked the sight of Mrs. Martha’s snow-white boards.
“And it’s hard to keep them white, sir, I can tell you; for when I scour the floor of that room the water runs through and spoils the furniture down here.”
But Daredevil Dick didn’t seem to care much for the dilapidated ceiling. The madeira, his brightened prospects, and the excitement he had gone through, all combined to make him thoroughly wearied out. He shook his uncle’s hand with a brief but energetic expression of gratitude, and then flung himself half dressed upon the bed.
“There is an alarum clock in my room,” said the old man, “which I will set for five o’clock. I always sleep with my door open; so you will be sure to hear it go down. It won’t disturb your mother, for she sleeps at the other end of the house. And now good night, and God bless you, my boy!”
He is gone, and the returned prodigal is asleep. His handsome face has lost half its look of dissipation and care, in the renewed light of hope; his black hair is tossed off his broad forehead, and it is a fine candid countenance, with a sweet smile playing round the mouth. Oh, there is stuff in him to make a man yet, though he says they should hang such fellows as he!
His uncle has retired to his room, where his half-caste servant assists at his toilette for the night. This servant, who is a Lascar, and cannot speak one word of English (his master converses with him in Hindostanee), and is thought to be as faithful as a dog, sleeps in a little bed in the dressing-room adjoining his master’s apartment.
So, on this bad November night, with the wind howling round the walls as if it were an angry unadmitted guest that clamoured to come in; with the rain beating on the roof, as if it had a special purpose and was bent on flooding the old house; there is peace and happiness, and a returned and penitent wanderer at the desolate old Black Mill.
The wind this night seems to howl with a peculiar significance, but nobody has the key to its strange language; and if, in every shrill dissonant shriek, it tries to tell a ghastly secret or to give a timely warning, it tries in vain, for no one heeds or understands.
Chapter III
The Usher Washes His Hands
Mr. Jabez North had not his little room quite to himself at Dr. Tappenden’s. There are some penalties attendant even on being a good young man, and our friend Jabez sometimes found his very virtues rather inconvenient. It happened that Allecompain Junior was ill of a fever—sometimes delirious; and as the usher was such an excellent young person, beloved by the pupils and trusted implicitly by the master, the sick little boy was put under his especial care, and a bed was made up for him in Jabez’s room.
This very November night, when the usher comes up stairs, his great desk under one arm (he is very strong, this usher), and a little feeble tallow candle in his left hand, he finds the boy very ill indeed. He does not know Jabez, for he is talking of a boat-race—a race that took place in the bright summer gone by. He is sitting up on the pillow, waving his little thin hand, and crying out at the top of his feeble voice, “Bravo, red! Red wins! Three cheers for red! Go it—go it, red! Blue’s beat—I say blue’s beat! George Harris has won the day. I’ve backed George Harris. I’ve bet six-pennorth of toffey on George Harris! Go it, red!”
“We’re worse to-night, then,” said the usher; “so much the better. We’re off our head, and we’re not likely to take much notice; so much the better;” and this benevolent young man began to undress. To undress, but not to go to bed; for from a