Works of Ellen Wood, page 487
“Then you had no business to let Bowler step down with it,” interrupted the lawyer sharply. “You should have kept it until I came. Didn’t I tell you I should be here the first thing, Jones? You are no more to be trusted than a child!”
“Where was the harm of sending it?” asked Jones, rather taken aback by this reprimand. “It mayn’t be quite strict practice to let letters go out unopened, but one stretches a point for Mr. Carlton.”
“The harm may be more than you think for,” returned the lawyer as hotly as he had spoken the previous day in the hall. “He will do things out of his own head, and try to conduct his case with his own hands. Look at the fight I had to keep him quiet yesterday!”
“He wrote the letter last night, and asked that it should be taken to heir ladyship the first thing this morning,” returned the man in injured tones.
“And if he did write it, and ask it, you needn’t have sent it. You might have brought the letter out here and kept it until I came round. Who’s to know what dangerous admission he may have made in it? I can see what it is: between you all, I shan’t have a loophole of escape for him.”
“Do you think he will escape?” asked Sir Stephen, interrupting the angry lawyer.
“Well, no, I don’t, to speak the truth,” was the candid admission. “But that’s no reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to do my best for him. If he does escape—”
Lawyer Billiter was interrupted. The man, sent into Mr. Carlton’s cell, made his appearance in a rather strange condition. He came bounding in, and stood with the door in his hand, mouth and eyes alike open, and struggling for words. Mr. Jones saw there was something wrong, and rushed to the strong room.
Two minutes and he was back again, his face very pale. Yes, even the hardened face (in one sense of the word) of Mr. Policeman Jones had turned pale.
“Mr. Carlton has escaped, gentlemen. In spite of us all and of the law.”
And Lawyer Billiter, in his impulse, ran to the cell to regale his eyes with its emptiness, and two or three underlings, having caught the word “escaped,” rushed forth from the lock-up, partly to give vent to their feelings, partly from a vague idea of pursuing the prisoner. Sir Stephen Grey followed Jones and the lawyer to the cell.
Yes, the prisoner had escaped. Not escaped in the ordinary acceptation of that word, as was just then agitating the crowd outside the lock-up, and raising the horrified hair of Mr. Policeman Bowler; but in a different manner. Mr. Carlton had escaped by death.
On the rude bed in the cell lay the inanimate remains of what was once Lewis Carlton, the active, moving, accountable human being. Accountable for the actions done in the body, whether they had been good or whether they had been evil.
The place was forthwith in commotion: far greater commotion than when the escape was assumed to have been of a different nature. The natural conclusion jumped to was “poison;” that he must have had poison of some subtle nature concealed upon his person, and had taken it. The runners changed their route: and instead of galloping up by-lanes and other obscure outlets from the town, in chase of the fugitive, they rushed to the house of Mr. John Grey, forgetting that Sir Stephen was already present.
No doctor, however, could avail with Mr. Carlton. He had been dead for several hours. He must have been long dead and cold when Mr. Policeman Bowler had stood in his cell and concluded that he was fast asleep; and Mr. Policeman Bowler never overcame the dreadful regret that attacked him for not having been the first to find it out, and so have secured notoriety to himself for ever.
The most cut-up of any one, to use a familiar term, was Mr. Jones. That functionary stood against the pallet looking down at what lay on it, his countenance more crest-fallen than any policeman’s that was ever yet seen. It is curious to say, that while Bowler took the blame to himself when it was thought Mr. Carlton had escaped by flight, Jones was taking it now.
“To think I should have been so green as to let him deceive me in that way!” he burst forth at length. “‘You needn’t be particular, Jones,’ he says to me with a sort of laugh when I was searching him. ‘I’ve nothing about me that you want.’ Well, I am a fool!”
“And didn’t you search him?” cried Lawyer Billiter.
“Yes, I did search him. But perhaps I wasn’t quite so particular over it as I might have been; his easy manner threw me off my guard. At any rate, I’ll vow there was no poison in his pockets; I did effectually search them.”
Sir Stephen Grey rose up from examining the prisoner, over whom he had been bent. “I don’t think you need torment yourself, Jones,” he said. “I see no trace of poison here. My belief is, that the death has been a natural one.”
“No?” exclaimed Mr. Jones with reviving hope. “You don’t say so, sir, do you?”
“It is impossible to speak with any certainty as yet,” replied Sir Stephen, “but I can detect no appearance whatever of poison. One thing appears certain; that he must have died in his sleep. Look at his calm countenance.”
A calmer countenance in death it was not well possible to see. The wonder was, that a man lying under the accusation of such a crime could wear a face so outwardly placid. The eyes were closed, the brow was smooth, there was a faint smile upon the lips. No sign of struggle, whether physical or mental, was there, no trace of any parting battle between the body and the spirit. Lewis Carlton looked altogether at rest.
“I fancy it must have been the heart,” remarked Sir Stephen. “I remember years ago, just before I left South Wennock, I met Carlton at a post-mortem examination. It was over that poor fellow, that milkman who dropped down dead in the road; you must remember it, Jones. And in talking, Carlton casually remarked that he had some doubts about his own heart being sound. How strange that it should occur to me now; I had quite forgotten it; and how more than strange that I should be the one, of all others, first to examine him!”
“Poor fellow!” exclaimed Lawyer Billiter, gazing on the still countenance. “There’s something very awful in these sudden deaths, Sir Stephen, whether they proceed from — from one cause or another.”
Sir Stephen bowed his head. They quitted the cell, locking the door. Mr. Jones proceeded to deal with the intruders that were filling the outer room, and Sir Stephen went forth to carry the news to Cedar Lodge. Bowler had said that Lady Laura was there.
The first to come to Sir Stephen was Lucy. Weak from her recent illness, the shock of this dreadful business had been unnaturally great. Since the night of Judith’s narrative she had remained in a sad state of nervous excitement; and she fell sobbing into Sir Stephen’s arms.
“Hush, child, hush! This is hard for you. Brighter days may be in store, Lucy.”
“But think what it is for Laura! And for Mr. Carlton himself. Laura has had a letter from him, and he says he was mad when he did it. He must have been mad, you know; and we can’t help pitying him!”
How like Laura Carlton! how like the impulsive ‘sailor-earl! Who else would have made any of the contents of that letter public? Laura had relieved her feelings by a storm of passionate sobs after reading it, and had then lifted her head from her pillow to utter its information aloud.
Jane came in. “I heard you were at South Wennock,” she faltered, as she shook hands with Sir Stephen. “What a dreadful blow this is to us! And — the consequences have to come,” she added, lowering her voice. “If the worst supervenes, Laura will surely never live through the disgrace.”
He knew to what she alluded. Sir Stephen leaned towards her. “There will be no further disgrace, Lady Jane,” he whispered. “I have come up to tell you so.”
She paused a moment, supposing Sir Stephen did not understand. “He will be committed — as we hear — to-day for trial, Sir Stephen. And the result of that trial — we, of course, know only too well what it may be. Nothing can save him from standing his trial.”
“One thing can, my dear lady. Nay — no, I was not meaning his escape by flight, as was first assumed down there” — nodding his head in the supposed direction of the lock-up; “in these days escape is next to impossible. There is another sort of escape over which human laws have no control.”
Jane sat breathless; silent; half divining what he had to tell.
“I am a bad one at preparing people for evil tidings,” cried Sir Stephen. “My brother John and Frederick are worth ten of me. But — always setting his poor, unhappy self aside — my news must be good for you and Lady Laura, cruel as it may seem to say so. Mr. Carlton is dead, Lady Jane.”
“Dead!” she repeated, as the dread fear of what its cause might be arose to her, and every vestige of colour forsook her trembling lips.
“No, I don’t think there’s any fear of that; I don’t, indeed; I can find no trace whatever of any cause, and therefore I fancy it must have been heart disease. Violent mental emotion will bring that on, you know, Lady Jane, where there’s a predisposition to it.”
“Yes,” she answered, mechanically, hearing nothing, seeing nothing still, but the one great fear. Had Mr. Carlton been her husband, Jane would have passed her future life in praying for him.
“Do you know whether he suspected, of late years, that he might be subject to it?”
“To what?” she asked, striving to collect herself.
“Any affection of the heart.”
“I never heard of it; never. If it was so, I should think Laura would know of it.”
Poor Laura! How were they to break the tidings to her? She was the most uncertain woman in existence. One moment her mood was one of intense bitterness towards Mr. Carlton; the next it had changed, and she was weeping for him, bewailing him with loving words, reproaching herself as the cause of all the present misery. Jane went in, wishing any one else had to undertake the task. Laura’s frantic attacks — and she was sure to have one now — were so painful to her. She found Laura in bed still; her head buried in her pillow, her sobs choking her, and Mr. Carlton’s dying letter — it might surely be called such — clutched in her hand. Jane sat down by her side in silence, until calmness should supervene; it would be better to break the news when Laura was physically exhausted; and Jane waited, — her own heart aching. Sir Stephen would not leave the house until the news was broken to her.
Jane Chesney had always been of a thoughtful nature, striving to do her duty in whatsoever line it lay before her; and, though she had not been without her trials — sore trials — she had learned that great boon, a peaceful conscience: she had learned that far greater boon, better than any other that can be found on earth — perfect trust in God.
Later in the day the official medical examination was made of the remains of Mr. Carlton; and, strange to say, the cause of death continued to be unknown. No sign of poison of any nature whatever could be traced; no symptom of anything amiss with the heart.
If he had really taken poison, it was of too subtle a nature to be discovered; if he had died from natural causes, nothing remained of them to show. It might be possible that mental excitement had suddenly snapped the chord of life. If so, it was a singular fact; but the problem was one that would never be set at rest.
When the first startling shock of the death had subsided, South Wennock awoke to the fact that it was particularly ill-used in being cut off from all further revelation as to the past affairs of Mrs. Crane — as we may as well call her to the end. The second day’s examination, and the subsequent trial, had been looked forward to by South Wennock as a very boon in life’s dull romance; and for Mr. Carlton to go off in the sudden manner he had done, cheated their curiosity almost beyond endurance. There were so many points in the past history that would never now be cleared up.
They could not be cleared up for others, who owned a nearer interest in them than South Wennock. There was one particular that would remain a puzzle to Jane Chesney for ever — why Clarice had not married in her full name. She could understand her keeping the marriage a secret from her family, knowing their prejudices on the score of birth, and that Mr. Carlton was then not even well established in practice, and was scarcely justified in marrying at all; but she could not understand why Clarice should have concealed her true name and family from her husband. It was impossible, of course, that the slightest doubt could have occurred to her of its affecting the legality of the marriage; but what reason was there for suppressing her name at all? Jane could only come to one conclusion, and that a very poor one: that Clarice had thought it best to suppress it in all ways until Mr. Carlton should be doing well. Then she would say to him: I was not Miss Beauchamp. I was Miss Chesney, grandniece to the Earl of Oakburn, and we will go and declare our marriage to them. It might have been so, for Clarice had a world of romance within her. Again, there was that oath she had taken in a wild moment, not to tell her name: was it possible that she deemed it binding upon her for ever? Mr. Carlton’s motive for concealing his marriage will have been gathered from certain passages at the commencement of this history: he stood in awe of his father. Mr. Carlton the elder had entirely set his face against his son’s marrying, and Lewis was dependent upon him. Men do not in general — at least, educated men, like Mr. Carlton — plunge into crime all at once. When Mr. Carlton grew to think of a marriage with Miss Beauchamp, he sounded his father on the subject, stating at the same time that the lady, though every inch a lady, was only a governess. Had Mr. Carlton the elder lent a favourable ear to the petition, all the dark future might have been avoided; for the marriage would have taken place publicly. But he did not do so. Whether the word governess offended him, certain it was, that he was unnecessarily austere and bitter, quietly assuring his son that he should disinherit him; and Mr. Carlton knew only too well that his father was one to keep his word. Once married, of course there was every necessity for keeping the fact a secret; and in this Clarice Carlton seconded her husband. How little did either of them foresee what it would lead to! Forge the first link in a chain in deceit, and no living being can tell to what length it will go, or how it will end.
Some slight compensation to South Wennock was afforded by the funeral of the little boy. For the excitement attendant on that ceremony was so great as to operate as a sort of balm to the disappointed feelings of the people. Every one turned out to witness it. All who had had anything to do in the remotest degree with the past tragedy deemed themselves possessed of a right to follow the coffin at a short or long distance. Mrs. Pepperfly, Mrs. Gould, even Dick, Mr. Grey’s surgery boy of yore, now converted into a rising market-gardener nearly six feet high, were amidst the uninvited attendants. It was a fine morning, the air clear and cold. Mrs. Smith walked next the coffin; for she would resign that place to none. Lady Jane Chesney had intimated a wish to bury the child — that is, to defray its expenses; and had that lady intimated a wish to bury herself Mrs. Smith could not have shown herself more aggrieved. The child had been as her own all its life, she resentfully said, and, at least, she thought she had earned the right of buying him his grave. Jane acquiesced, with an apology, and felt sorry she had spoken. The funeral moved down the Rise from Blister Lane, passing Mr. Carlton’s residence, where all that remained of him now lay, having been removed there, until he should be interred. The Law had not cared to keep possession of his body when the spirit had flown. Yes; they carried the little coffin past the house where the dead lay: carried it to St. Mark’s churchyard, to the side of the ill-fated mother, who had lain there so long in its quiet corner: and they buried the child by his right name, Lewis George Carlton.
Sir Stephen Grey and his son returned to London together. Lady Grey knew nothing of the events recently enacted, and they imparted them to her. She could not get over her shock of astonishment.
“What do you say to my boyish fancy, now, mother?” asked Frederick. “Did I wrong Carlton?”
“Hush!” she said. “It seems to me to savour of that faculty said to exist in Scotland — second-sight. Oh, Frederick, how could Mr. Carlton live, knowing what he had done?”
“Poor fellow!” spoke Frederick, as impulsively as Sir Stephen himself could have said it. “Rely upon it, he must have paid the penalty of the crime, over and over again. He could only have existed in the constant dread of discovery; he was not without a conscience. And what must that have been to him?”
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE TURBULENT WAVES LAID TO REST.
THE time rolled on. Another year was in, and its months glided away to the autumn. It had been no eventful year, this; rather too many events had been crowded into the preceding one, and this had been calm — so calm, as to be almost monotonous. The storm had spent itself, the turbulent waves had laid themselves to rest.
Lady Oakburn had returned from the Continent as soon as she heard of the trouble connected with Mr. Carlton, travelling in the dead of winter; and Lucy Chesney quitted South Wennock for her own home. Her marriage with Frederick Grey had been postponed. It was to have taken place in the spring, but all united in agreeing that it would be more seemly to delay it until the autumn.
Laura had remained with Jane. Lady Oakburn had asked her to come to her, and make her house her home. Many friends had stepped forward, and pressed her to come and pay them along visit; but Laura had chosen to stay with Jane, very much, it must be confessed, to Jane’s own surprise. For a few short weeks Laura’s grief had been excessive; grief intermixed, as before, with moments of anger against Mr. Carlton for the disgrace he had brought upon himself. But all that wore away, and Laura gradually grew very much her old self again, and worried Judith almost to death with her caprice, for the most part concerning the ornaments and trimmings of her black dresses.
They sat together, Jane and her sister, on a bright morning in September. Laura was in a petulant mood. Her pretty foot, peeping from beneath her crape dress, tapping the carpet impatiently; her widow’s cap, a marvel of tasty arrangement, just lodged on the back of her head. The recent bugbear of Lady Laura’s life had been this very article of attire — the widow’s cap; it was the cause of the present moment’s rebellion. Laura had grown to hate the cap beyond anything: not from any association with the past it might be supposed to call up, but simply as a matter of personal adornment; and she believed Jane to be her greatest enemy, because she held to it that Laura could not, and must not, throw off the caps until a twelvemonth had elapsed from the death of Mr. Carlton.
