Aurora Floyd, page 56
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Mr Bulstrode, sternly; ‘and why did you come in at the window?’
‘I warn’t doin’ no wrong,’ the ‘Softy’ whined, piteously; ‘and it ain’t your business neither,’ he added, with a feeble attempt at insolence.
‘It is my business. I am Mr Mellish’s friend and relation; and I have reason to suspect that you are here for no good purpose,’ answered Talbot. ‘I insist upon knowing what you came for.’
‘I haven’t come to steal owght, anyhow,’ said Mr Hargraves; ‘there’s nothin’ here but chairs and tables, and ’taint loikely I’ve come arter them.’
‘Perhaps not; but you have come after something, and I insist upon knowing what it is. You wouldn’t come to this place unless you had a very strong reason for coming. What have you got there?’
Mr Bulstrode pointed to the bundle carried by the ‘Softy’. Stephen Hargraves’ small red-brown eyes evaded those of his questioner, and made believe to mistake the direction in which Talbot looked.
‘What have you got there?’ repeated Mr Bulstrode: ‘you know well enough what I mean. What have you got there, in that bundle under your arm?’
The ‘Softy’ clutched convulsively at the dingy bundle, and glared at his questioner with something of the savage terror of some ugly animal at bay,—except that in his brutalized manhood he was more awkward, and perhaps more repulsive, than the ugliest of the lower animals.
‘It’s nowght to you, nor to anybody else,’ he muttered, sulkily. ‘I suppose a poor chap may fetch his few bits of clothes, without being called like this?’
‘What clothes? Let me see the clothes.’
‘No, I won’t; they’re nowght to you. They—it’s only an old weskit as was give me by one o’th’lads in th’steables.’
‘A waistcoat!’ cried Mr Bulstrode; ‘let me see it this instant. A waistcoat of yours has been particularly inquired for, Mr Hargraves. It’s a chocolate waistcoat, with yellow stripes and brass buttons, unless I’m very much mistaken. Let me see it.’
Talbot Bulstrode was almost breathless with excitement. The ‘Softy’ stared aghast at the description of his waistcoat, but he was too stupid to comprehend instantaneously the reason for which this garment was wanted. He recoiled for a few paces, and then made a rush towards the window; but Talbot’s hands closed upon his collar, and held him as if in a vice.
‘You’d better not trifle with me,’ cried Mr Bulstrode; ‘I’ve been accustomed to deal with refractory Sepoys in India, and I’ve had a struggle with a tiger before now. Show me that waistcoat!’
‘I won’t!’
‘By the Heaven above us, you shall!’
‘I won’t!’
The two men closed with each other in a hand-to-hand struggle. Powerful as the soldier was, he found himself more than matched by Stephen Hargraves, whose thick-set frame, broad shoulders, and sinewy arms were almost Herculean in their build. The struggle lasted for a considerable time,—or for a time that seemed considerable to both of the combatants; but at last it drew towards its termination, and the heir of all the Bulstrodes, the commander of squadrons of horse, the man who had done battle with bloodthirsty Sikhs, and ridden against the black mouths of Russian cannon at Balaclava, felt that he could scarcely hope to hold out much longer against the half-witted hanger-on of the Mellish stables. The horny fingers of the ‘Softy’ were upon his throat, the long arms of the ‘Softy’ were writhing round him, and in another moment Talbot Bulstrode lay upon the floor of the north lodge, with the ‘Softy’s’ knee planted upon his heaving chest.
Another moment, and in the dim moonlight,—the candle had been thrown down and trampled upon in the beginning of the scuffle,—the heir of Bulstrode Castle saw Stephen Hargraves fumbling with his disengaged hand in his breast-pocket.
One moment more, and Mr Bulstrode heard that sharp metallic noise only associated with the opening of a clasp-knife.
‘E’es,’ hissed the ‘Softy’, with his hot breath close upon the fallen man’s cheek, ‘you wanted t’ see th’ weskit, did you? but you shan’t, for I’ll serve you as I served him. ’Taint loikely I’ll let you stand between me and two thousand pound.’
Talbot Raleigh Bulstrode had a faint notion that a broad Sheffield blade flashed in the silvery moonlight; but at this moment his senses grew confused under the iron grip of the ‘Softy’s’ hand, and he knew little, except that there was a sudden crashing of glass behind him, a quick trampling of feet, and a strange voice roaring some seafaring oath above his head. The suffocating pressure was suddenly removed from his throat; some one, or something, was hurled into a corner of the little room; and Mr Bulstrode sprang to his feet, a trifle dazed and bewildered, but quite ready to do battle again.
‘Who is it?’ he cried.
‘It’s me, Samuel Prodder,’ answered the voice that had uttered that dreadful seafaring oath. ‘You were pretty nigh done for, mate, when I came aboard. It ain’t the first time I’ve been up here after dark, takin’ a quiet stroll and a pipe, before turning in over yonder.’ Mr Prodder indicated Doncaster by a backward jerk of his thumb. ‘I’d been watchin’ the light from a distance, till it went out suddenly five minutes ago, and then I came up close to see what was the matter. I don’t know who you are, or what you are, or why you’ve been quarrelling; but I know you’ve been pretty near as nigh your death to-night as ever that chap was in the wood.’
‘The waistcoat!’ gasped Talbot; ‘let me see the waistcoat!’
He sprang once more upon the ‘Softy’, who had rushed towards the door, and was trying to beat out the panel with his iron-bound clog; but this time Mr Bulstrode had a stalwart ally in the merchant-captain.
‘A bit of rope comes uncommon handy in these cases,’ said Samuel Prodder; ‘for which reason I always make a point of carrying it somewhere about me.’
He plunged up to his elbow in one of the capacious pockets of his tourist peg-tops, and produced a short coil of tarry rope. As he might have lashed a seaman to a mast in the last crisis of a wreck, so he lashed Mr Stephen Hargraves now, binding him right and left, until the struggling arms and legs, and writhing trunk, were fain to be still.
‘Now, if you want to ask him any questions, I make no doubt he’ll answer ’em,’ said Mr Prodder, politely. ‘You’ll find him a deal quieter after that.’
‘I can’t thank you now,’ Talbot answered hurriedly; ‘there’ll be time enough for that by-and-by.’
‘Ay, ay, to be sure, mate,’ growled the captain; ‘no thanks is needed where no thanks is due. Is there anything else I can do for you?’
‘Yes, a good deal presently, but I must find this waistcoat first. Where did he put it, I wonder? Stay, I’d better try and get a light. Keep your eye upon that man while I look for it.’
Captain Prodder only nodded. He looked upon his scientific lashing of the ‘Softy’ as the triumph of art; but he hovered near his prisoner in compliance with Talbot’s request, ready to fall upon him if he should make any attempt to stir.
There was enough moonlight to enable Mr Bulstrode to find the lucifers and candlestick after a few minutes’ search. The candle was not improved by having been trodden upon; but Talbot contrived to light it, and then set to work to look for the waistcoat.
The bundle had rolled into a comer. It was tightly bound with a quantity of whipcord, and was harder than it could have been had it consisted solely of the waistcoat.
‘Hold the fight for me while I undo this,’ Talbot cried, thrusting the candlestick into Mr Prodder’s hand. He was so impatient that he could scarcely wait while he cut the whipcord about the bundle with the ‘Softy’s’ huge clasp-knife, which he had picked up while searching for the candle.
‘I thought so,’ he said, as he unrolled the waistcoat; ‘the money’s here.’
The money was there, in a small Russia-leather pocket-book, in which Aurora had given it to the murdered man. If there had been any confirmation needed for this fact, the savage yell of rage which broke from Stephen’s lips would have afforded that confirmation.
‘It’s the money,’ cried Talbot Bulstrode. ‘I call upon you, sir, to bear witness, whoever you may be, that I find this waistcoat and this pocket-book in the possession of this man, and that I take them from him after a struggle, in which he attempts my life.’
‘Ay, ay! I know him well enough,’ muttered the sailor; ‘he’s a bad ’un; and him and me have had a stand-further before this.’
‘And I call upon you to bear witness that this man is the murderer of James Conyers.’
‘What?’ roared Samuel Prodder; ‘him! Why, the double-dyed villain: it was him that put it into my head that it was my sister Eliza’s chi—that it was Mrs Mellish——’
‘Yes, yes, I know. But we’ve got him now. Will you run to the house, and send some of the men to fetch a constable, while I stop here?’
Mr Prodder assented willingly. He had assisted Talbot in the first instance without any idea of what the business was to lead to. Now he was quite as much excited as Mr Bulstrode. He scrambled through the lattice, and ran off to the stables, guided by the lighted windows of the grooms’ dormitories.
Talbot waited very quietly while he was gone. He stood at a few paces from the ‘Softy’, watching Mr Hargraves as he gnawed savagely at his bonds, in the hope perhaps of setting himself free.
‘I shall be ready for you,’ the young Cornishman said quietly, ‘whenever you’re ready for me.’
A crowd of grooms and hangers-on came with lanterns before the constables could arrive: and foremost amongst them came Mr John Mellish, very noisy and very unintelligible. The door of the lodge was opened, and they all burst into the little chamber, where, heedless of grooms, gardeners, stable-boys, hangers-on, and rabble, John Mellish fell on his friend’s breast and wept aloud.
L’envoi
What more have I to tell of this simple drama of domestic life? The end has come. The element of tragedy which has been so intermingled in the history of a homely Yorkshire squire and his wife is henceforth to be banished from the record of their lives. The dark story which began with Aurora Floyd’s folly, and culminated with the crime of a half-witted serving-man, has been told from the beginning to the end. It would be worse than useless to linger upon the description of a trial which took place at York at the Michaelmas Assizes. The evidence against Stephen Hargraves was conclusive; and the gallows outside York Castle ended the life of a man who had never been either help or comfort to any one of his fellow-creatures. There was an attempt made to set up a plea of irresponsibility upon the part of the ‘Softy’, and the sobriquet which had been given him was urged in his defence; but a set of matter-of-fact jurymen, looking at the circumstances of the murder, saw nothing in it but a most cold-blooded assassination, perpetrated by a wretch whose sole motive was gain; and the verdict which found Stephen Hargraves guilty was tempered by no recommendation to mercy. The condemned murderer protested his innocence up to the night before his execution, and upon that night made a full confession of his crime, as is generally the custom of his kind. He related how he had followed James Conyers into the wood upon the night of his assignation with Aurora, and how he had watched and listened during the interview. He had shot the trainer in the back while Mr Conyers sat by the water’s edge looking over the notes in the pocket-book, and he had used a button off his waistcoat instead of wadding, not finding anything else suitable for the purpose. He had hidden the waistcoat and pocket-book in a rat-hole in the wainscot of the murdered man’s chamber, and, being dismissed from the lodge suddenly, had been compelled to leave his booty behind him, rather than excite suspicion. It was thus that he had returned upon the night on which Talbot found him, meaning to secure his prize and start for Liverpool at six o’clock the following morning.
Aurora and her husband left Mellish Park immediately after the committal of the ‘Softy’ to York Prison. They went to the south of France, accompanied by Archibald Floyd, and once more travelled together through scenes which were overshadowed by no sorrowful association. They lingered long at Nice, and here Talbot and Lucy joined them, with an impedimental train of luggage and servants, and a Normandy nurse with a blue-eyed girl-baby. It was at Nice that another baby was born, a black-eyed child—a boy—but wonderfully like that solemn-faced infant which Mrs Alexander Floyd carried to the widowed banker two-and-twenty years before at Felden Woods.
It is almost supererogatory to say that Samuel Prodder, the sea-captain, was cordially received by hearty John Mellish and his wife. He is to be a welcome visitor at the Park whenever he pleases to come; indeed, he is homeward bound from Barbadoes at this very time, his cabin-presses filled to overflowing with presents which he is carrying to Aurora, in the way of chillis preserved in vinegar, guava-jelly, the strongest Jamaica rum, and other trifles suitable for a lady’s acceptance. It may be some comfort to the gentlemen in Scotland Yard to know that John Mellish acted liberally to the detective, and gave him the full reward, although Talbot Bulstrode had been the captor of the ‘Softy’.
So we leave Aurora, a little changed, a shade less defiantly bright, perhaps, but unspeakably beautiful and tender, bending over the cradle of her first-born; and though there are alterations being made at Mellish, and loose-boxes for brood mares building upon the site of the north lodge, and a subscription tan-gallop being laid across Harper’s Common, I doubt if my heroine will ever again care so much for horseflesh, or take quite so keen an interest in weight-for-age races as compared to handicaps, as she has done in days that are gone.
Explanatory Notes
P. D. Edwards
9
Alnaschar-like : Alnaschar is a beggar in the Arabian Nights who fantasizes about wealth and neglects the work on which he depends for sustenance.
in a madhouse : the relatives of the eponymous heroine of Braddon’s earlier best-seller, Lady Audley’s Secret, resort to this expedient, but only after she has committed murder and arson. Laura Fairlie, the heroine of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, had been got out of the way in similar fashion, though guiltless of any crime.
11
rarely set before us: the mid-Victorian stage was dominated by translations and adaptations of French plays. In going back to the early eighteenth century for examples of the British drama no longer favoured by the public, George Lillo’s The London Merchant, or The History of George Barnwell and Nicholas Rowe’s Jane Shore, Braddon is facetiously exaggerating the subsequent impoverishment of the native tradition and perhaps the conservatism of its champions. Millwood is the courtesan who seduces the young apprentice, Barnwell, in Lillo’s tragedy.
poor weak-witted Ophelia : the term ‘sensation dramas’ followed hot on the heels of ‘sensation novels’. (Later, on p. 66, there is a reference to ‘sensation comedy’.) See Introduction. The sensationalized Hamlet which Braddon mentions was probably a burlesque.
12
born to set right : the state of the British stage is being compared with the ‘rotten’ state of Denmark, which Hamlet was ‘born’ to set right (Hamlet i. v. 188–9). It had not worried Eliza, nor, it may be assumed, Braddon herself in her acting days.
close of the performance . William Charles Macready was the most famous British actor of the 1830s and 1840s, and Richelieu, in Bulwer-Lytton’s tragedy of that name (1839), one of his most acclaimed roles.
13
O’Neil in that very character . Eliza O’Neill (sic), later Lady Eliza Becher, was a famous Juliet in the Regency period.
Miss Fotheringay all over again: the hero of Thackeray’s Pendennis (1850) fell in love when just out of school with the mature provincial actress Emily Costigan, whose stage-name was Miss Fotheringay.
15
at Burleigh House : the story, a true one, was told in Tennyson’s poem ‘The Lord of Burleigh’.
16
Bill Sykeses of their choice : the contrast, extreme to the point of absurdity, is between Eliza Floyd’s respectable and respectful affection for her husband and the prostitute Nancy’s degrading passion for the brutal psychopath, Bill Sikes, in Dickens’s Oliver Twist
18
was christened Aurora: on the heroine’s ‘romantic-sounding name’, see Introduction.
26
Gibbon, Niebuhr, and Arnold: Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Karsten Niebuhr, the celebrated German traveller of the second half of the eighteenth century, and pioneering European authority on the archaeology and anthropology of the Arab world; and Thomas Arnold, father of Matthew and headmaster of Rugby School, also a noted historian.
27
of the dead art Robert Gunter established his fashionable confectionery shop in Berkeley Square in 1819. After his retirement it was run by his son Richard. The firm later caters for Aurora’s wedding (see p. 129). Macaulay’s prophetic vision (in his article on ‘Ranke’s History of the Popes’, 1840) of a New Zealand Maori contemplating the ruins of St Paul’s from the remains of London Bridge quickly became part of Victorian folklore.
