Kitabı oku: «The Haunted Room: A Tale», sayfa 14
Emmie was so absorbed in such reflections that she almost started when her brother broke silence at last.
“Emmie, what induced you to go to that house, and alone?” asked Bruce suddenly, opening his languid eyes, and fixing their gaze on his sister, who occupied the opposite seat. “Had anything occurred to make you suspect treachery in that most false of women?”
The question took Emmie by surprise, and she was about to return a frank reply, when there came the remembrance of her oath, like the galling of a hidden chain worn by penitents of old. Even all that had passed had not set the conscience of the maiden free from the burden of that dread oath.
“I cannot tell even you, Bruce, why I suspected Jael, – why I went through the wood in the storm, – but the thing which decided me to make my way into the house and search there for my brother was finding one of his slippers close to the garden-gate.”
A faint smile, the first seen on his lips during that fearful day, passed over the face of Bruce. “Then it was not for nothing,” he said, “that I contrived to detach that slipper from my foot as the villains bore me past the hedge to the gate. It was so dark that they did not notice the trace I was leaving behind me. But wherefore can you not tell me, Emmie, the cause of that suspicion of Jael which led one so timid as yourself to her dwelling in the midst of a storm so terrible, that when the bolt struck the house I thought to have been buried under its ruins?”
“Oh! Bruce, do not ask me!” murmured Emmie, shrinking from the searching gaze of her brother’s eyes.
“I understand,” said Bruce to himself, after a pause in which he had recalled Emmie’s mysterious disappearance on the night of the eclipse, and her subsequent agony of terror. “You are bound by some promise,” he continued, again addressing his sister; “there had been one moment of weakness, but how nobly redeemed! Emmie, my preserver, fear no questions from me; it is enough to know that you dared danger and death for my sake!” The look of deep grateful affection which accompanied the words repaid Emmie for all that she had suffered.
This brief conversation alone broke the silence of the Trevors ere their arrival in London. The tedious journey at length was over, the train had reached the last station. Emmie had never before travelled without being relieved of all the petty trouble which a long journey involves; now, on a night in winter, she had charge of an invalid, and had the care of all arrangements needed for his comfort. When, trembling with cold, the travellers stepped out at last on the platform, it was Emmie’s part to see about luggage and cab, and then to procure at the refreshment-room wine for her almost fainting companion. Such matters, indeed, seem to be trifles; but they formed part of the discipline which was raising a self-indulgent girl, accustomed to be the object of constant attention and care, into the thoughtful and self-forgetting Christian woman.
While the church clocks of the metropolis were striking the hour of midnight, Emmie and her silent companion were passing the comparatively deserted streets on their way to Grosvenor Square. Few persons were abroad at that hour, especially in the wider streets of the West-end, save the policeman on his beat, or the waifs and strays who have no better home than the casual ward of a workhouse. The minds of both Bruce and his sister were now full of the subject of Vibert’s arrest, and painful anxiety to know whether their younger brother were not at that moment the occupant of some prison-cell. The Trevors had left Myst Court just before the arrival of a telegram from their father which would have relieved their minds from this fear. Vibert had been taken before a magistrate, but his case had been remanded till the following day, when, as it was hoped, news might be received of the arrest of Colonel Standish. Heavy bail had been offered for the unhappy youth’s reappearance before the court, and the securities had been accepted. Vibert had therefore been permitted to accompany his father back to the house of his aunt.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE BROTHERS’ MEETING
With drowsy driver and weary horse, the cab rolled slowly on, till at length the rumble of its wheels broke the stillness of aristocratic Grosvenor Square. Bruce roused himself as the conveyance stopped at the door of Mrs. Montalban.
As the coming of the Trevors was unexpected, none of the servants were likely to be up to answer at once the summons of the bell. No light shone in the hall, all was shut up; and the driver stood clapping his arms to keep out the cold, until some sleepy lackey should rouse himself to obey the unwelcome summons.
But there was one person in that mansion too nervous and too much excited to have made any preparations, even at past midnight, for retiring to rest. Vibert was pacing up and down his room when the cab was drawn up at the door; to him the bell, heard at so late an hour, announced tidings which must relate to his own unhappy affair. It was Vibert who, pale with anxiety and distress, rushed down the six flights of stairs, hurried into the hall, drew back the massive bolts, unloosed the chain, and threw open the door, while Mrs. Montalban’s footman was yet rubbing his sleepy eyes and yawning, before he attempted to ensconce himself in his livery coat.
“Emmie! Bruce!” exclaimed the astonished Vibert, as by the flickering light of the bed-room candle, which he had brought from his own apartment, he recognized the travellers who now entered the hall. “For what have you come, and at such a time?”
“To stand by you,” answered Bruce, grasping the hand of his younger brother.
Those brief words – that grasp of the hand – were to the wretched Vibert like the first gleam of light bursting through clouds of darkness and storm. Of the bitter drops which had filled the cup of misery which, since his arrest, Vibert had drained, perhaps none had been more bitter than the thought of the contempt which his elder brother would feel for one who had stood in a police-court, accused as a felon. Not that Vibert supposed that Bruce would believe him capable of knowingly passing forged notes; but what a selfish prodigal – what a contemptible dupe – what a disgrace to the family, would he not appear in the eyes of his high-minded elder brother! Bruce, with his lofty sense of duty, – his own character so pure from reproach, – how he would despise the companion and tool of a profligate forger! Vibert, notwithstanding his affected disregard of the opinions of Bruce, really looked up to him with respect, though that feeling was largely mixed with that of dislike. The youth was vain of his own personal advantages; love of approbation was strong in his soul, and he had resented the stern Mentor-like superiority assumed by his elder brother. Now that all Bruce’s warnings against Vibert’s folly had been more than justified by the event, the younger brother winced at the idea of the stern judgment on his conduct which would be passed by him who had warned in vain. The brother’s withering sneer – so thought Vibert, who was selfish even in his misery – would be harder to bear than even his father’s deep mortification, or Emmie’s burst of distress. Now to find sympathy and support, where he had looked for upbraiding and scorn, touched the heart of the poor lad, and filled his eyes with tears.
Bruce’s dislike to “cause any fuss in the house” made him decide at once on accompanying Vibert back to his room, where, as the younger Trevor said, there were a sofa and a fire. Emmie was to steal up softly to the apartment of her cousin Cecilia, whose habit it was, as she knew, to sit up reading novels till midnight. There was to be no noise – no whispering on the stairs – to rouse the family from their slumbers. Vibert wondered at the earnestness with which Emmie recommended Bruce to his care; it was strange to the poor lad, absorbed as he was in his own trouble, that his sister should appear to be more anxious about Bruce than unhappy about himself. A feeling of shame had made Vibert scarcely glance at his brother when he met him in the hall, and he scarcely noticed with how feeble and slow a step Bruce now mounted the long flights of stairs. If Vibert thought at all on the subject, as, candle in hand, he led the way to his room, he deemed that his brother was giving to Emmie, who accompanied Bruce to the upper landing-place, the support which he was in reality receiving from the slender arm of his sister.
Bruce entered his brother’s room, into which he had been preceded by Vibert, with difficulty reached the sofa, and then sank upon it, his brain reeling, and every object seeming to swim around him. He threw off the travelling cap which, light as it was, had sat like a weight of lead on his brow; and then, indeed, Vibert noticed that his brother’s head was bandaged.
“What has happened to you, Bruce?” he exclaimed. “You look as if you had just walked out of your grave!”
Bruce simply replied, “I had a blow;” and Vibert’s mind went back at once to his own affairs. The youth, as he stirred the fire to a brighter blaze, kept up what could scarcely be termed a conversation, as he himself was the only speaker. Bruce did not take in the meaning of half the rapidly-uttered words which fell on his ear, – to his feverish brain they were as sounds heard in a dream; but he was a silent if not an attentive listener, and that was enough for Vibert.
“Can you imagine a more horrid affair than this has been?” exclaimed the younger Trevor. “I had no more doubt that those notes had been issued from the Bank of England than I had of my own existence. But I need not tell you that. No one who knows me could for a moment suspect me of a dishonourable action, though, as I am ready enough to own, I have acted with consummate folly. How could I have let myself be so deceived by a worthless adventurer? I cannot even now understand how Standish gained such an influence over my mind!”
Bruce might have replied – “By working on your vanity and self-love;” but the young man had neither the strength nor the inclination to make such a remark. Vibert went rambling on with his painful story; he had been longing for some one to whom he could pour out his heart, and was agreeably surprised at not being interrupted by any caustic remark from his brother.
“The blow fell upon me in so horridly public a way!” cried Vibert. “Just imagine the scene. There was the large drawing-room full of people, – my aunt was giving an afternoon party. We had the Montagues, Carpenters, stately Sir Richard, – the countess and all! The music had struck up; the couples were placed; I had asked Alice for the first dance; she and I stood at the top. We were laughing, chatting, and just beginning to dance. Suddenly the music stopped, – musicians, dancers, every one looking in one direction. A policeman – astounding apparition! – was making his way up the room! Even then I was not in the least alarmed. I remember that I turned to Alice, and jestingly asked her whether she was to be taken up for stealing hearts! It was no jesting matter for me! When the fellow in blue laid his grasp on my arm, – when he said that his business was with me, – I should have liked to have struck him to the earth; and then – I should have liked the floor to have opened beneath me!” Vibert, as he spoke, plunged the poker fiercely into the heart of the fire. “Only conceive,” he continued, “what it was to have to walk down that long room, with a policeman’s hand on my collar, and to feel (I dared not look about me to see) that every eye was watching my movements! I did indeed catch a glimpse of my aunt in her purple velvet, with her face as full of horror as if she had seen the Gorgon’s head! I did hear Alice’s exclamation of pity, – that was almost the worst of all; for such pity is akin to contempt! Then my poor uncle, stammering and confused at the dishonour done to his family and house, would fain have got me out of the clutch of the grim policeman; but he could not effect anything then, though his bail and my father’s were accepted on the following day when I had been before the magistrate. I was led off from that grand house – from that gay throng – to – to – O Bruce! can you imagine your brother in the lock-up for a night! I wonder that I did not go crazy! And then to have to appear on the next day in a police-court, on a charge of felony! Horrible! horrible! – most horrible! I should wish, when this affair is over, to shut myself up in a hermitage, where no one should ever see or hear of me again. I shall never be able to endure meeting one of those who beheld me carried off to jail in charge of the police!”
Vibert turned suddenly from the fire as he concluded the sentence, and saw his brother stretched on the sofa, quite unconscious of his presence, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHARGED WITH FELONY
The remarkable circumstances attending the arrest of Vibert Trevor, his high connections, and the official position which his father had for many years held, made the affair in which he was implicated cause a very great sensation in the upper ranks of London society. Never before had the police-court in which Vibert was for the second time to appear been so crowded by the wearers of fashionable bonnets, sable muffs, and ermine tippets. Never before had so many carriages (some of them bearing coronets) blocked up the narrow avenues to the magistrate’s court. The police had some difficulty in clearing a way for aristocratic ladies through crowds of roughs assembled to see “a gent in the hands of the bobbies!” Expectation was on the tiptoe. To many of Vibert’s gay companions – the young men with whom he had played at billiards, the pretty girls with whom he had danced – the sight of him standing at the bar to answer a charge of passing forged notes, gave a thrill of excitement more delightful than could have been afforded by the most sensational novel, or the most charmingly tragical play.
Information was circulated amidst the mixed throng, where news was eagerly passed from mouth to mouth, that the police at Liverpool had been unsuccessful in their attempts to discover and arrest the person who had called himself Colonel Standish. No person of that name, no one answering to the description given of his person, had inquired after the box of jewels at the place to which Vibert was to have sent it. No individual called Standish had taken his passage in any vessel about to sail for America. The police were eagerly on the alert, but had, it was said, discovered no clue that could lead to the arrest of the principal criminal.
“The monkey who used the cat’s paw to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, has got clear off to the jungle,” observed a fashionable-looking young man, who had been one of Vibert’s most particular friends. “Poor Grimalkin is caught with the nuts in his claws, and will have something to bear in addition to the pain of the burning!” The speaker, as he ended the remark, raised his gold eye-glass to his eyes, to enable him to see more distinctly every nervous twitch on the face of poor Vibert, who, attended by his father, uncle, and brother, at that moment approached the bar.
“Ah! how changed the poor boy looks – how shamefaced!” whispered Alice to a companion; for Alice was there in her fashionable hat with its scarlet feather. “To think that I should have danced and talked nonsense with one who is standing where all the low thieves and pickpockets stand!” The little lady rose on tiptoe to have a better view over the shoulders of those in front of her; but had the grace to hope that the poor prisoner would not turn his eyes in her direction. There was no danger of his so doing, the wretched youth could not raise his eyes from their fixed stare on the floor.
“Vibert’s brother looks more ill than the prisoner does,” observed the companion of Alice; “he has a bandage on his head. One would think that Bruce had been brought to the bar for prize-fighting, or for leading the roughs in a row!”
“Hush! hush! he is going to be sworn as a witness, – some one is giving him a glass of cold water; I wish that I could hand him my scent-bottle,” whispered Alice, who was touched by Bruce’s evident struggle to overcome physical suffering and mental exhaustion by the force of strong will.
Bruce was sworn as a witness. Very simply and concisely he gave evidence as to what the reader knows already. He told of his hearing a noise, entering the chamber next to his own, seeing the forgers, and receiving, while struggling with Standish, a stunning blow from some heavy instrument wielded by Harper.
Harper’s name had not even been mentioned in the evidence given on the preceding day, Vibert not being in the slightest degree aware of the strange old man’s complicity in the crime of forging bank-notes. Bruce’s narrative, given in a low but clear and steady voice, commanded breathless attention. The silence observed in the crowded court was scarcely broken even by the rustle of a lady’s silk dress.
“You say that you were stunned by the blow given by this man Harper,” observed the magistrate. “Did you long continue in an unconscious state?”
“I know not how long I remained senseless,” was the answer of Bruce; “probably the cold night air revived me, for I found, when I came to life, that the two forgers were bearing me into the wood. I lay perfectly still, and they doubtless considered me dead, for the men uttered words to each other which I was certainly not intended to hear.”
“Can you recall to memory any of those words?” the magistrate inquired.
Bruce had a tenacious memory, and what had passed on that eventful night had been as it were branded on it, never to be erased. He at once replied to the magistrate’s question.
“The first words which I remember hearing were some spoken by Harper – ‘How could you trust Vibert Trevor to pass my notes?’ said he.
“‘I trusted him no more than in angling I trust the fly on my hook,’ answered Standish. ‘I use him to make the gudgeons bite; but the fool knows no more of the nature of the work to which I have put him than does the senseless fly that covers the barb.’”
A thrill of satisfaction went through the court. Mr. Trevor could not restrain a faint exclamation of thankfulness at this clear testimony to the innocence of his unfortunate son drawn from Standish himself.
“Proceed, sir, with your evidence,” said the magistrate to Bruce Trevor. The witness went on with his story.
“‘How then is the lad to forward the jewels?’ asked Harper.
“‘He is to direct them to me under my assumed name,’ replied Standish; ‘but I shall be too wary to claim the box myself. Aunt Jael, whom no one suspects, will call at the office for the jewels, and bring them to us at the White Raven, where we shall keep close till the Penguin sails.’”
“Did you hear anything more regarding the plans of these men?” the magistrate asked.
“No; but I had heard enough to put the police on the right scent on my return to Myst Court,” answered Bruce.
This was all the evidence which young Trevor could give which bore directly on the charge against his brother; but so much of interest remained to be learned, that the examination went on.
“What do you suppose that this man Harper and his accomplice intended to do with you, when they carried you through the wood?” asked the magistrate.
“They intended to throw my corpse into the pond on the heath,” answered Bruce in the same calm tone. “I knew as much from what they muttered, though I cannot recall the words; and I reserved myself for one last desperate struggle for life. As we left the wood, Harper found out, perhaps by some involuntary movement that I made, that I was alive. I was set down under a hedge, and there followed some conversation between the two men regarding my fate, of the nature of which I could guess more than I heard. There was something said about ‘gallows’ and ‘hanging for it,’ so I concluded that the ruffians thought it a more serious matter to be tried for murder than for the forgery of bank-notes. The men lifted me up again, and carried me into the house of the woman hitherto called Jael Jessel, whom I now found to be the wife of the one and the aunt of the other. In that house I was blindfolded, gagged, and bound to a table. Half swooning as I was, I knew little of what was passing around me, save that I judged from the sounds that I heard that the forgers were moving their goods and leaving the place. How many hours I passed alone after their departure I cannot tell. A great storm came on, and at last a fire-bolt struck the dwelling, shattering the door, and setting the place on fire. Then followed the entrance of my sister, who, alarmed at my absence, was searching for me, and who found me in the helpless condition in which the forgers had doubtless hoped that I would have remained for days undiscovered. I was scarcely likely to have survived till the evening, had not timely succour arrived.”
Before Bruce had quite finished giving his evidence, tidings were brought to the magistrate from Liverpool, which excited such interest amongst the crowd thronging the court that an irrepressible murmur of satisfaction arose. The police, following the clue given by Bruce Trevor, had arrested at a low public-house, called the White Raven, three persons answering to the description given of Harper and his associates. The woman, it appeared, had inquired at the coach-office for a box directed to Colonel Standish, which, it could not be doubted, was that which was to contain the jewels. Other suspicious circumstances seemed to place it beyond question that the individuals now in custody were Harper, Standish, and Jael. The first named had been recognized by a policeman as an engraver, who had been taken up before on a charge of forgery, but who had been dismissed for want of sufficient evidence to convict him. Jael, it appeared, was his wife; and Harper had found in her nephew, Horace Standish, alias John Stobb, an unscrupulous accomplice in carrying out his guilty designs. It afterwards appeared that the Harpers and their confederate had taken their passages in the Penguin under three different assumed names.
Vibert still stood as a prisoner at the bar, but he was not long to remain in so humiliating a position. The magistrate, who had from the first doubted the young man’s guilt, was now convinced, by Bruce’s testimony, that the prisoner had never been an accomplice in the crime of the forgers, but in pure ignorance had passed false notes so skilfully engraved as almost to defy detection. The magistrate therefore dismissed the charge against the prisoner, and Vibert once more was free.
A louder hum of approbation, accompanied by some clapping of hands, followed the order for Vibert’s release. But to Vibert that release brought no joyful sense of freedom, and the favourable verdict no feeling of exultation. The youth was humiliated – even to the dust. He had only escaped condemnation as a felon, by being convicted of acting as a fool. He had been the easy dupe, the senseless tool of a designing villain. His emblem was the gaudy fly hiding the hook of the angler! Under such circumstances the congratulations of the so-called friends who now pressed around him were to Vibert but as a stinging insult. His one wish was to escape all notice, to fly from his fellow-creatures, and to hide his head where no one should know of his folly and the disgrace to which it had brought him. Many hands were held out to the late prisoner, words were spoken which were meant to be kind; but Vibert would not notice the hands, nor listen to the words. He bent down his head till his long hair almost hid his cheeks, which were glowing with shame. Vibert pushed his way through the crowd, scarcely able to draw a full breath till he had reached the street, rushed into his uncle’s carriage, in which Emmie was anxiously waiting, and pulled down the blinds to shut himself out from the sight of mankind.
