Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 10/Lord Oakburn's daughters - Part 9
LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER XVII.DISAPPEARANCE.
Jane Chesney sat in the darkening twilight of the evening, gazing at the outsides of the two letters which had caused so much speculation. The conviction was gradually forcing itself upon her, that the view taken of the case by Mr. John Grey was the only one that offered any reasonable solution; for if the young Earl of Oakburn was lying ill of fever at Chesney Oaks, it was out of the range of probability to suppose that letters would be sent to him to Captain Cheney’s house at South Wennock.
Lucy’s voice broke the stillness of the long pause that had followed on Mr. Grey’s departure. The little girl, gifted with much sensitive feeling, had not liked to speak before, and even now her tones were timid and low.
“Do you think it can be true, Jane—that papa is Earl of Oakburn?”
“I—I think it must be, Lucy. I cannot see anything else that the coming of these letters here can mean.”
Lucy rose from her low seat by the fire, and was running to the door. “I’ll go and tell Laura,” she said; but Jane drew her book.
“Not yet, Lucy. Let us be sure that it is true first. Somehow I do not like to speculate upon it. It is so sad, it is so grievously sad for the young earl to have died like this—if he has died.”
Lucy sat down again, disappointed. She had all a child’s love of imparting marvellous news. But Laura would be coming down-stairs directly, she supposed, and then Jane would no doubt tell her.
Jane sat in silence. She was possessed of extreme right feeling, she had no selfishness, was just in her regard for others, and she did not like to dwell upon the probability of this being true—or, as she had phrased it, to speculate upon it. 1f Lord Oakhurn was dead, had been cut off thus early, none would feel more genuine regret for him than Jane. And yet, in spite of this, in spite of herself, certain thoughts intruded themselves and would not be driven back. No more privations, no more pinching, no more care; no more dread of that horrible prison for one whom she so loved, which had been ever present in her mind, a shadow and a dread. Strive as she would, she could not wholly drive these thoughts away from her brain; she could not do it; and yet she almost hated and despised herself for their being there.
By-and-by, just as Pompey brought in the lamp, the step of Captain Chesney was heard on the wet gravel, The rain ever since morning had been incessant, drenching; but it had cleared up now.
“I can’t get any news of Oakburn,” said the captain, when he came in. “The omnibus brought no passengers at all to-night. What’s that, Jane? Another letter for him? Well, it’s strange that he should not be here to meet them.”
“Papa,” said Jane, her pulses beating at what she had to any, “I fear we may have been under a mistake in expecting him at all. Mr. Grey has been here since you went out, and he says Lord Oakburn was lying at Chesney Oaks two days ago, dangerously ill of typhus fever; it was found then that he had not many hours to live. Mr. Grey thinks it certain that these two letters are for you.”
“For me!” repeated the puzzled captain, not having discerned the drift of the argument.
“Yes, papa,” replied Jane, bending her head and speaking in a very low tone. “For you, as Earl of Oakburn.”
Captain Chesney stared at Jane, and then made her repeat exactly what Mr. Grey had said. It subdued him greatly. He was as unselfish as Jane, and he thought of the young earl’s fate, not of his own advancement.
“I’ll risk it, Jane, and open one of the letters,” he said. “If—if it should be all right, why the poor fellow will forgive me; he was always good-natured. I’ll just tell him how it happened, and why I did it. Give me the one that came this morning.”
Jane selected the morning’s letter, and Captain Chesney opened it. He ran his eyes over its contents, standing by the lamp to do so, and then he sat down in a very humble fashion and in deep silence.
“It’s true, Jane,” he presently said, with something very like a sob. “The poor lad is gone, and I am Earl of Oakburn.”
The letter was from the steward at Chesney Oaks. He wrote to acquaint the new earl of his young master’s death, and to request his immediate presence at Chesney Oaks. The earl (as we must henceforth call Captain Chesney) flung it on the table in a momentary access of his customary choler.
“Why didn’t the simpleton write to me by my own name?” he exclaimed. “But that steward always was wanting in common sense. Give me the other letter, Jane.”
The other letter proved to be from the lawyers in London, solicitors for many years to the Oakburn family. They were offering their services to the new peer.
The new peer seemed to have his work cut out for him, Of course the first obvious step was to depart for Chesney Oaks. With his characteristic impulsiveness, he started up to go; then; without the loss of a minute.
“I can’t wait, Jane. What do you say?—stop for tea? Tea! What other rubbish would you like me to stop for? If I can get a gig at the Lion, I may catch the cross-train at Great Wennock. Dead! The poor fellow dead, and none of his kith and kin near him!”
“But, papa, you must take a carpet-bag with you! You will want———”
“I shall take nothing with me,” interrupted the earl, catching up his glasses, and buttoning up his coat in a desperate bustle, “You send Pompey after me in the morning to Chesney Oaks with a shirt and my shaving tackle. There! there! I have not a moment to lose, Jane. One kiss apiece, girls, and then—where’s Laura?”
Lucy rushed out of the room, calling “Laura, Laura!” The captain rushed after her, as well as the stiffness left by the gout permitted. He caught up his hat and his cloak as he passed through the hall.
“Never mind her, Lucy, I can’t wait; she’s gone to sleep, I should think. Give her a kiss for me, and ask her how she likes being my Lady Laura.”
It all seemed to pass in a minute, before Jane had time to gather her bewildered senses. She said something to him about the danger there might be of his catching the fever, but he was deaf to it all, and walked down the garden path, fastening his cloak. Jane knew how useless it would be to repeat her words, and she stood at the open door with Lucy, and watched him out at the gate by the light of the moon, which had struggled from amidst the grey clouds.
Lucy ran back to the foot of the stairs and called to Laura with all her might. But there came no response.
“I think she must have gone to sleep, as papa said, Jane. How strange!”
“I will see, my dear. You go back to the drawing-room, Lucy, and ring the bell for tea.”
A disagreeable fear had come over Jane Chesney’s heart that Laura was not up-stairs; that she had stolen out again to the garden to meet Mr. Carlton. She looked into Laura’s room, and spoke. It was empty.
“Yes! with him again!” she murmured. “I will go after her, for it shall not be.”
She went softly out at the front door, and walked down the wet gravel in her thin home shoes. But nothing came of it. It was quite evident that her sister was not there; and an idea arose to Jane that Laura must have gone out with Mr. Carlton.
Could it be possible that she had so far forgotten herself as to go out walking with him at night, in the face and eyes of South Wennock? In the bitterness of the conviction that it was so, Jane almost hoped that they might be met by her father, for she was beginning to find that she was not herself strong enough to cope with this.
She asked for a light, and went into Laura’s room and looked for the black cloth mantle and bonnet that she ordinarily wore. They were not in their places: a proof that her suspicions were correct.
Jane stood for a moment, her elbow resting on a chest of drawers, her head pressed upon her hand. She could do nothing, except wait until Laura came in and then remonstrate with her. “This is the result of my having discovered the meetings in the garden,” thought Jane. “She feared to trust herself there again.”
Jane returned to the drawing-room. The tea-things waited on the table, and Lucy looked up with an air of expectancy.
“Where’s Laura, Jane? Is she coming?”
What was Jane to say to the child? It was very desirable that the fact of Laura’s absence from the house should be concealed from her; indeed Jane trusted it would not transpire beyond herself. She put Lucy off with an evasive answer, and told her she might get out the book of fairy tales again that she had been reading in the afternoon.
“But are you not going to make tea now, Jane?”
“Not just yet, dear. Papa’s away, and there’s no hurry. I have a bit of work that I will do first.”
Of course she so spoke hoping Laura would come in. She reached out her work and did it; very prosy work it was; the mending some wristbands of a shirt of Captain Chesney’s. And the time went on until the clock struck nine: Lucy’s bedtime, and the child had not had her tea!
Where could Laura be?
Jane began to feel angry at the suspense, the perplexity altogether. She could not longer delay the tea, and then the household and Lucy would inevitably know of Laura’s absence. Just then Judith came in.
“Why, where’s Miss Laura?” she exclaimed, in surprise. “I was in her room a minute ago, and found this on the floor, miss. I came in to bring it to her.”
It was Laura’s purse; the one she ordinarily used. Jane supposed Laura had dropped it from her pocket. It was quite empty. Jane had seen her recently making a new one with green silk and steel beads; perhaps she had taken that into use.
“Is Miss Laura out?” asked Judith.
There was no denying it; there could be no smoothing the fact down, no plausible excuse offered for it; and Jane Chesney’s heart ached with its own pain.
“She—she may have stepped out to purchase something in the town that she was in a hurry for, some trifles for her worsted work,” breathed Jane, “She is sure not to be long. I’ll make the tea, Judith.”
The tea was made and partaken of, and still Laura did not appear. But when the time went on to ten, Jane grew terribly uneasy; not that a suspicion of the dreadful truth—all too dreadful as it would in every sense be to Jane—had yet penetrated to her brain.
She threw a shawl over her head, took an umbrella, and went to the garden-gate. There she stood looking up and down the road, as well as the darkness would permit—for the night had become very dark now. Nothing could be seen; nothing heard save the rain as it poured down.
Judith met her as she returned indoors, divining her uneasiness. “Can I go after her anywhere, Miss Jane?” She was Lady Jane now—but let that pass. Jane herself never so much as thought of it.
“You should, if I know where to send,” replied Jane. “I can only think that she has taken shelter somewhere, perhaps in a shop, waiting for the storm to abate. We do not know any one in South Wennock.”
There was nothing for it but to wait; nothing, nothing. And Jane Chesney did wait until it was hard upon eleven. An idea kept intruding itself into Jane’s mind—at first she rejected it as entirely improbable, but it gained ground, redoubling its force with every passing minute—that Laura had been so thoughtless and foolish as to take shelter in the house of Mr. Carlton.
Lucy began to cry; she got frightened: “Was Laura lost?” she asked. Judith came in with a grave face, and Pompey stood outside the kitchen door and stared in discomfort, the hall lamp lighting up the alarm in his eyes. Such a thing had never happened in all his service, and he was longing to ask whether his favourite Miss Laura could be lost—as Lucy had asked.
“Miss Jane,” said Judith, apart to her mistress, “I had better go somewhere, Perhaps—perhaps she may have been overtaken by the heaviest of the storm on her way home, and may have stepped into Mr. Carlton’s?”
Jane felt almost thankful for the words; they saved her the embarrassing pain of confessing to Judith that her own thoughts tended that way.
“I cannot think she would do so, Judith; but she is very thoughtless; and—Mr. Carlton’s house may have seemed like a welcome shelter from the rain. Perhaps—if you don’t mind going—"
Judith gave no time for the sentence to be finished. Another instant, and she reappeared in her bonnet and cloak, a large umbrella in her hand.
She went splashing down the Rise. To a quick walker, Mr. Carlton’s residence was not more than five minutes’ distance from Captain Chesney’s, for it was all down hill; but in the present sloppy and muddy state of the road, Judith could not get on so fast, and the church clocks were striking the quarter past eleven when she turned in at the gate.
She turned in and felt somewhat embarrassed, for the house appeared all dark and silent, as if its inmates had retired for the night. Even the coloured lamp was not burning. It certainly did not look as if the young lady were inside the house sheltering; and Judith felt all the awkwardness of ringing them up, with the question—was Miss Laura Chesney there?
She could only do that, however, or return home as she came; and she knocked at the house door. There was no answer; and presently she rang the night bell.
Neither was there any answer to that, and Judith rang again and again. At the third ring, a window was heard to open at the top of the house, and Judith stepped from her shelter beneath the portico and looked up.
“What’s the good of your keeping on ringing like that?” cried a woman’s remonstrating voice—which was, in fact, Hannah’s. “You might have told by seeing the perfessional lamp unlighted that Mr. Carlton was away from the town.”
“Is he away?” asked Judith.
“He went away sudden this evening. Leastways, it was sudden to us, for he didn’t tell us of it till he came down from his room with his hat on, and his portmanteau in his hand, and his carriage at the door to take him,” continued the voice, in rather an aggravated tone, as if the sudden departure had not altogether given the speaker pleasure.
“He said then he was going out, and should not be home for some days.”
“Well,” said Judith, “it’s not Mr. Carlton I want. I came to ask whether one of our young ladies had stepped in here to shelter from the rain.”
“Who is your young ladies?” came the next question.
“The Miss Chesneys. One of them went into town this evening, and, as she’s not come home, she must have taken shelter somewhere. We thought perhaps it was here.”
“No young lady has took shelter here. There’s been nobody here at all but Mrs. Newberry’s servant, saying her mistress was worse, so I had to send her on to Mr. Grey’s. She was as impudent as could be when she found Mr. Carlton had gone away for some days, wanting to know why he could not have told them of it.”
“My young lady is not here, then?”
“She’s not here, and she has not been here. I’ll make Evan paste a notice on the lamp tomorrow night, ‘Mr. Carlton’s out of town,'" pursued the voice, wrathfully. “There’s no fun in being rung up for nothing, just as you get into your first sleep.”
“Well, I’m sorry to have done it,” said Judith, “but I couldn’t help myself. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Judith halted at the gate, wondering what should be her next step. As she stood there a sudden thought like a ray of light—only not a pleasant ray—flashed upon her, and her mind was suddenly opened to a conviction of the truth. A conviction as sure and certain as though she had seen the drama of the night enacted. Mr. Carlton’s sudden journey and Laura’s disappearance only too fully proved what the drama had been.
She went home with lagging steps:—why hasten to impart the news she carried? Her mistress, whose anxious ear had caught the sound of the advancing footsteps, met her at the gate, and saw that she was alone.
“O Judith! have you not found her?”
“No, miss. I—I—"
“What?” said Jane.
Judith entered upon her task in the best manner that she could, hinting at first very remotely at her fears. Not immediately did the appalling meaning, the truth, become clear to the unhappy listener—that Laura Chesney had abandoned her father’s home.
CHAPTER XVIII.A DELIGHTFUL JAUNT.
South Wennock, as you may readily imagine, was up in arms the following morning. Such a dish of news had not been served out to it since the death of the ill-fated lady in Palace Street. There were two dishes now: the accession of Captain Chesney to the earldom of Oakburn, and the elopement of one of his daughters with Mr. Carlton.
Very cleverly had the getting away been accomplished; and if some mishaps overtook the bride and bridegroom elect before the close of the night’s journey, why, they did not materially retard the flight.
Mr. Carlton had laid his plans well. He was a clever plotter. The scheme arranged with Laura was, that he should be in a lane leading from the Rise, in his open carriage at dusk, and that Laura should join him there. This lane, called Blister Lane, and other lanes and by-roads, little frequented, led to a small place named Lichford, where some of the railway trains stopped for passengers. It was seven miles distant from South Wennock, and Mr. Carlton knew that his open carriage would skim over the ground as quickly as any other conveyance; and it would have this advantage, that nobody but himself would then be cognisant of the departure. He did not dare to appear with Laura at the more frequented station of Great Wennock; a hundred eyes would have recognised them.
Cleverly did he keep the secret. He went about his business that day as usual, seeing his patients; he visited them on foot, that his horse might be fresh for the night journey. He said not a word to any one of his invalids of his proposed absence; it would not have been expedient; he said not a word at home. He dined as usual; afterwards he went upstairs to his room; and when it grew so dusk that candles had to be lighted, he rang the bell and ordered the carriage round. Not a minute did he keep it waiting at the door, but came down with a portmanteau in his hand. The woman servant was in the hall as he crossed it, and looked at the portmanteau.
“I am going out for a few days,” he said.
She was too much surprised to make any reply or ask any question; it seemed so strange that he should be departing in that sudden manner. Mr. Carlton passed out to the gate, where his carriage waited. Evan was at the horse’s head, dressed as usual to accompany his master. It was the same horse which had come to grief that Sunday night; Mr. Carlton had had him in use again about a week; Evan had been well much longer.
“I shall not want you with me to-night, Evan,” said his master, when he had taken the reins to ascend.
Evan, as Hannah had done, wondered where his master was going; but it was no concern of his, and he was rather pleased to hear he was spared driving on that rainy night. He placed the portmanteau under the seat, and Mr. Carlton settled himself comfortably on it, under the protecting head of the carriage.
“You need not wait up for me,” said the surgeon.
“And the horse, sir?” returned Evan, opening his eyes.
“The horse will not be back to-night.”
He drove away, leaving Evan standing there and looking after him. Mr. Carlton was not a communicative master at any time, but Evan did marvel that he had given no further explanation now. Was he to be up earlier than usual in the morning to receive the horse and Mr. Carlton? All that Evan supposed was, that he was going to some patient where he was likely to be detained for hours. But then, what of the portmanteau?
“Where’s the master gone?” was Hannah’s rather sharp question to him as he turned into the house.
“Who’s to know?” retorted Evan. “He told me I was not to sit up for the horse. I suppose they’ll neither of ’em be home tonight.”
“To-night!” somewhat sarcastically repeated Hannah, “He’s not coming home for some daya, so he told ma It’s always the way! I wanted to have asked him for three parts of a day’s holiday to-morrow, and now I can’t take it.”
Mr. Carlton drove quickly up the gentle ascent that led to the Rise, and was about to turn into the lane fixed upon as his place of waiting, when advancing footsteps met his ear.
“Good evening,” said Mr. John Grey. “A nasty night.”
“Very,” emphatically pronounced Mr. Carlton. “Have you been far?”
“Only to Captain Chesney’s.”
“To Captain Chesney’s! Why! who is ill there? Not the captain, for I saw him go by my house not half an hour ago.”
“I have been to the little girl. She met with an accident this morning; fell against the window and cut her hands badly. You don’t happen to have heard mention in the town whether the Earl of Oakburn is dead, do you” continued Mr. Grey.
Mr. Carlton had heard nothing at all of the Earl of Oakburn; but the name occurred to him as being the same as that mentioned by Captain Chesney the night of the coroner’s inquest. “Why do you ask?” he said.
“Well, I have not heard of his death; but it strikes me that he is dead,” replied Mr. Grey. “Two days ago I know that he was lying almost without hope, ill of typhus fever; and as letters have come to Captain Chesney’s addressed to the Earl of Oakburn, I think there’s no doubt that the worst has occurred. In fact, I feel sure of it. I thought perhaps you might have heard it named in the town.”
Mr. Carlton was a little at sea. He did not understand the allusion to the letters addressed to the Earl of Oakburn which had come to Captain Chesney’s.
“Why, if he is dead, Captain Chesney is Earl of Oakburn, and the letters must be meant for him. I have just suggested that view of the thing to Miss Chesney.”
Mr. Carlton was of too impassive a temperament to betray surprise. Other men might have dropped the reins in their astonishment, might have given vent to it in fifty ways; him, it only rendered silent. Captain Chesney the Earl of Oakburn? Why, then his daughters were the Ladies Chesney!
“You think it is so?” be asked.
“I don’t think,” said Mr. Grey; “I feel certain of it. Good evening.”
“Good evening, repeated the younger surgeon, and touching his horse with the whip, he turned into the lane and waited.
Not for long. A very few minutes, and Laura Chesney came up, panting with agitation and fright. The storm was then pelting cats and dogs, as the children say. Mr. Carlton left his restive horse—for the horse did seem untowardly restive that night—and sprang forward to meet and welcome her. She burst into a flood of tears as he hurried her into the carriage and under cover of its shelter.
“O Lewis! I could not go through it again!” she sobbed. “I was all but stopped by Mr. Grey.”
It was a somewhat singular thing, noted afterwards, that John Grey should have encountered both of them on that eventful night, in the very act of escaping. Laura Chesney, watching her time to steal away unobserved, took the opportunity of doing so when she knew Mr. Grey was in the drawing-room with Jane and Lucy. But she was not to get away without a fright or two.
She stole down-stairs, along the kitchen passage, and out at the back door. There she saw Judith coming from the brewhouse with a lighted candle in her hand, and Miss Laura had to whisk round an angle of the house and wait. When the coast was, as she hoped, clear, she hastened on down the side path, all the more hastily perhaps that she heard the drawing-room bell give a loud peal, and was turning into the broader walk near the gate, where this path and the one conducting from the front entrance merged into one and the same, when she came in contact with Mr. Grey. The drawing-room bell had rung for him to be shown out, but he had forestalled it in his quickness. Laura Chesney’s heart gave a great bound, and she felt frightened enough to faint.
“Good evening, Miss Laura Chesney. Are you going abroad such a night as this?”
“Oh no. I—I—I was going to look at the weather,” stammered Laura, feeling that the Fates were certainly putting themselves in opposition to her expedition.
“The weather is nearly as bad as it can be,” observed Mr. Grey. “It may clear up in a few minutes, but only to come on again. We shall have an inclement night. Don’t come farther, my dear young lady; it’s enough to drown you.”
She turned back, apparently all obedience. But she only slipped in amidst the wet trees until Mr. Grey should be at a safe distance. Her heart was beating wildly: her conscience, even then, suggested to her to abandon the project. Of course, people who are bent upon these romantic expeditions cannot be supposed to remember common sense in the flitting; and Miss Laura Chesney had come out in thin kid shoes and without an umbrella. Neither was she wrapped up for travelling; she had not dared to put on any but her ordinary attire, lest it should attract attention, were she met. Mr. Grey gone, she came forth from her hiding-place, and sped on in the mud and rain to the spot in Blister Lane—it was not five minutes’ distance—where Mr. Carlton was awaiting her.
They started. Mr. Carlton drove along at the utmost speed that the lane and circumstances allowed; and Laura gradually regained tolerable composure. But she felt sick with apprehension; her heart was fluttering, her ears were strained to catch any noise behind, so apprehensive was she of enemies in pursuit. Mr. Carlton asked her what it was that had arisen in connection with letters and the Earl of Oakburn, and Laura mechanically answered. In a moment of less agitation, she would have enquired how he came to know anything about it; but the question never occurred to her in this.
“We have been expecting Lord Oakburn all day,” she said. “He is related to us; his father and papa were first cousins.”
“You have been expecting him?”
“Yes, but he had not arrived when I came away. Two letters have come addressed to him; and therefore we know ho must be coming. When Jane was worrying about a room for him this morning, I could have told her, had I dared, that mine would be at liberty.”
It was evident that Laura knew nothing of the earl’s illness, or the view of affairs suggested by Mr. Grey. Mr. Carlton suffered her to remain in ignorance. Did the idea occur to him that the Lady Laura Chesney, daughter of the Earl of Oakburn, might not be so ready to take flight with a country surgeon struggling into practice, as Miss Laura Chesney, daughter of the poor and embarrassed half-pay post captain, was proving herself to be? It cannot be told. South Wennoek had its opinion upon the point afterwards, and gave vent to it freely.
They were within a mile and a half of Lichford, and Mr. Carlton was urging his horse madly along, like a second Phaëton, afraid of missing the train, when there occurred a preventative. The horse fell down. Suddenly, with as little warning or cause as there had been on that memorable Sunday night, the animal came suddenly down, and the carriage turned over on its side, one of the wheels flying off.
Mr. Carlton and Laura were not thrown out. The hood over their heads, the tight apron over their knees, they were too well wedged in to be spilled. Mr. Carlton extricated himself, he hardly knew how, and got out Laura.
The horse was plunging violently. Planting the terrified girl on the bank as much out of harm’s way as it was possible to place her, Mr. Carlton had to turn his best attention to the horse. There was nothing for it but to cut the traces. Fortunately he had a sharp knife in his pocket, and succeeded in severing them; and the horse started off into space, it was impossible to tell where.
Here was pretty situation! Did Mr. Carlton remember the ridiculous words of the woman who had come to his help on that Sunday night? Had he been of the same belief that she was, he might surely have taken this upset to be a warning against persisting in the present journey. Mr. Carlton was not half so metaphysical. He simply threw an ugly word after the offending horse, and blamed his own folly for trusting to the surefootedness of an animal that had once fallen.
Mr. Carlton looked around him in the dark night. The rain, which bad ceased for half an hour or so, was coming down again violently. Laura shivered against the bank, where he had placed her, too sick and terrified for tears. It was of the utmost importance that they should gain the station for the next train that passed, and be away, if they would escape the pursuit that might follow on detection at South Wennock. But Mr. Carlton did not see how they were to get on to it.
He could not leave the disabled carriage in the narrow road; he could not—at least Laura could not—get to the station without procuring another. He did not know this locality at all personally; he had never traversed it; it was a by-road that led to Lichford, and that was all he know about it. Whether any assistance was to be obtained or not, he was in complete ignorance.
As he peered about, wondering if anything more human than trees and hedges was between the spot and Lichford, a faint glimmer of light on one side the lane gradually disclosed itself to view through the misty darkness of the night. At the same moment the voice of his companion was heard, its accents full of lamentation and affright.
“What is to become of us? What shall we do? Oh Lewis! I wish we had never come!”
He felt for her situation more keenly than she could. He implored her to be tranquil, not to give way to fear or despondency; he promised to extricate her from the embarrassment with the best exertion of his best efforts, and moved forward in the direction of the light.
He found that it proceeded from a candle placed in a cottage window. Mr. Carlton shouted, but it elicited no response, so he went close up, through what seemed a complete slough of despond, if mud can constitute that agreeable situation, and opened the door.
The room was empty. A poor room bare of fire, with a clock in one corner and the candle in the window. Mr. Carlton shouted again, and it brought forth an old man from some back premises, in a blue frock and a cotton nightcap.
A thoroughly stupid old man, who was deaf, and looked aghast at the sight of the gentleman. He began saying something about “th’ old ‘ooman, who had gone to some neighbouring village and ought to have been home two hour afore and hadn’t come yet, so he had stuck a candle in the winder to light her across the opposite field.” Mr. Carlton explained his accident, and asked whether he could get a conveyance near that would take him on.
“Not nearer nor Lichford,” answered the old man, when he had mastered the question by dint of putting his hand to his ear and bending it forward until it nearly touched Mr. Carlton’s lips.
“Not nearer than Lichford!” repeated Mr. Carlton “Are there no houses, no farms about?”
“No, there’s nothing o’ the sort,” the old man rejoined. “There’s a sprinkling o’ cottages, a dozen maybe in all, atween this and Lichford, but they be all poor folks’s, without as much as a cart among ’em.”
“Halloa! what’s to do here?” came forth on Mr. Carlton’s ear in hearty tones from the outside. Glad enough to hear them, he hastened out. A couple of labouring men, young and strong, had come upon the overturned carriage in going along the lane to their homes after their day’s work. They almost seemed like two angels at the moment to Mr. Carlton, in his helpless position.
By their exertions—and Mr. Carlton gave his aid—the carriage and wheel were dragged under a shed belonging to the old man’s cottage. They confirmed the information that no horse or vehicle was to be had nearer than Lichford, and Mr. Carlton was asking one of the men to go there and procure one, when he was interrupted by Laura.
Oh, let her walk! let her walk! she said. She should not dare to trust herself again behind a strange horse that night; and, besides, if they waited they should inevitably lose the train.
“You cannot walk, Laura. Think of the rain—the mud. You can have shelter inside this old man’s cottage until the conveyance comes.”
But Laura, when she chose, could be as persistent as anybody, and she was determined to bear on at once to Lichford, braving all inconveniences and discomforts. Poor thing! the chance of pursuit, of discovery, appeared to her a vista of terror and disgrace; she had embarked on this mad scheme, and there was nothing for it but to go on now.
So they started: one of the men carrying Mr. Carlton’s portmanteau and a small parcel brought by Laura, and a lantern; the other, bribed well, entering on a search with another lantern after Mr. Carlton’s fugitive horse. But it was a comfortless journey, that mile and a half of lane; a wretched journey. Umbrellas appeared to be as scarce an article in the locality as were carriages; the old man confessed to possessing one—“a old green un, wi’ ne’er a whalebone i’ th’ half o’ him”—but his missing wife had got it with her. How they gained the station, Laura never knew, Mr. Carlton almost as little. He had taken off his overcoat and wrapped it about her; but the rain was drenching them, and both were wet through when they reached the station at Lichford.
When within a few yards of it, the whistle and the noise of an advancing train sounded in their ears. Laura shrieked, and flew onward.
“We shall be too late! Lewis, we shall be too late!”
Instinct, more than the lights, guided her through a waiting-room to the platform. Mr. Carlton, in little less commotion than herself, looked about for the place where tickets were issued, and found it closed. The rattle he gave at the board was enough to frighten the ticket clerk inside, had one been there; which did not appear to be the case: the place maintained an obstinate silence, and the board continued down in the aperture; Mr. Carlton was in a frenzy, and knocked and called, for the train was dashing into the station. Not a soul was about that he could see; not a soul. The labourer with the portmanteau and parcel stood behind him, staring helplessly, and Laura had gone through.
Yes, Laura Chesney had gone through, and she stood on the platform hardly knowing what she did, her upraised hands imploring by their gesture that the train should stop. But the train did not stop, it did not even slacken speed. The train went whirling recklessly on with the velocity of an express, and by the light of a lamp that hung in a first-class carriage Laura saw, quietly seated in it, the form of Captain Chesney.
With a faint cry, with a shiver of dismay, she fell back against the wall. We know how different was the object of Captain Chesney’s sudden journey, but Laura naturally concluded that he had come in pursuit of her. He had not seen her; there was some comfort in that; he had his face bent rather from her, as he conversed with a passenger on the opposite side of the compartment, and never looked towards her at all. Laura stood there in helpless fear, gazing after the train, in expectation that it would stop and backen.
Mr. Carlton came forth from the room in an accession of rage not easily described, at the neglect (as he supposed it) of the officials of the station. He looked after the train also, now nearly whirled beyond view, and could not understand why it had not stopped. A man with a band round his hat, who appeared to belong to the station, was advancing leisurely, a huge lantern in his hand, from some remote part of the platform. Mr. Carlton attacked him vigorously.
What was the meaning of this? Passengers waiting to go by the train, and nobody in attendance to issue tickets! He’d complain to the company; he’d write to the Times; he’d—he’d—in Mr. Carlton’s explosive anger it was impossible to say what he would not do.
The man received it all with stolid equanimity, simply saying in reply that the gentleman was mistaking the trains if he had thought to get tickets for the one just gone by. It didn’t stop there.
“Not stop here?” repeated Mr. Carlton, a little taken aback. “But there is a train stops here at this time?”
The man shook his head. “One stopped here twenty minutes ago,” he said. “The one just gone on never stopped at Lichford yet, since I have been on the service.”
And Mr. Carlton, hastily taking out his watch, which he might have consulted before, found that they had lost their intended train by more than twenty minutes, thanks to the accident.
“When does the next train pass that stops here?” he inquired.
“At midnight. Take tickets ten minutes afore it.”
Mr. Carlton drew Laura’s hand within his, and asked for the waiting-room. There was no waiting-room, he had the pleasure of hearing, save the small, cold, bare place where he had stood thumping for the ticket clerk. The fire was nearly out; Mr. Carlton stirred it into a blaze and demanded more coal.
Placing her in a chair before him, he paid the man who had brought the portmanteau and dismissed him. Then he asked the porter, who had gone into the little place where the tickets were kept, whether refreshments could be obtained from anywhere for the lady, and was answered by the same stolid stare. Such a question had never been put in that station before, and refreshments were no more procurable than tickets. It appeared that Mr. Carlton could only resign himself to his situation.
Laura was shivering inwardly and outwardly. Mr. Carlton took off some of her things and shook them and hung them on a chair. Indeed it was not a pleasant plight to be placed in: arrested midway in this most provoking manner, in all this discomfort.
“I am so sorry!” he murmured. “If you don’t mind waiting here alone, I’ll go on to the village and bring you back something in the shape of refreshment. There’s sure to be an inn in it. You are trembling with the cold and rain.”
“It is not that; it is not that; and for refreshment, I could not touch it. Did you see him?” she continued in a shivering whisper.
“See whom?” asked Mr. Carlton.
“Papa.”
He looked at her in surprise. “See him? Where?”
“In that train just gone by. He was in one of the carriages.”
Mr. Carlton truly thought she must be wandering; that the disasters of their unpropitious journey had momentarily obscured her intellects.
“Lewis, I tell you he was there—papa. He was in one of the carriages, sitting forward on the seat and talking to somebody opposite. The light from the lamp fell full upon his face. It was papa, if I ever saw him.”
That she was clear and rational, that she evidently believed what she asserted, Mr. Carlton saw. And though he could not give credence to so improbable a thing, nevertheless a feeling of uneasiness, lest Captain Chesney should be in pursuit, stole over him. He went to look for the stolid porter, who had disappeared, and found him at length in an outer shed, doing something to an array of tin lanterns. There he inquired about the fast train just gone by, and learnt to his satisfaction that it went whirling on, without stopping, on quite a different line of rail from that on which he and Laura were bound. He went back and told her this, observing that she must have been mistaken.
“Lewis, it is of no use your trying to persuade me out of my own eyesight. I wish I was as sure of forgiveness as I am that it was my father.”
He busied himself in many little cares for her, quite neglecting his own wet condition. Happening to look down, he perceived that of the two muddy feet she was holding to the fire, one was shoeless.
“Where’s your shoe, Laura?”
“It’s gone.”
“Gone!”
“It came off somewhere in the road as we walked along. Oh, it is all unfortunate together!”
“Came off in the road!” repeated Mr. Carlton, “But, my dear, why did you not speak? We could have found it; the man had the lantern.”
“I was afraid to stop; afraid that we should miss the train. And I don’t think I knew when I first lost it: the mud was up to my ankles.”
Not a very comfortable state of affairs, in truth; and poor Laura shivered and sighed, shivered and sighed, as they waited on for the midnight train. Don’t you ever attempt a similar escapade, my young lady reader, or the same perplexing griefs may fall to you.
PARALLEL PASSAGES.
De Quincey, commenting upon some charges of apparent plagiarism brought against Coleridge, takes occasion to observe, “Continually he fancied other men’s thoughts his own; but such were the confusions of his memory, that continually, and with even greater liberality, he ascribed his own thoughts to others.” And in another place, “An author can hardly have written much or rapidly who does not sometimes detect himself, and perhaps therefore sometimes fail to detect himself, in appropriating the thoughts, images, or striking expressions of others. It is enough for his conscientious self-justification that he is anxiously vigilant to guard himself from such unacknowledged obligations, and forward to acknowledge them as soon as ever they are pointed out.”
The above is such a very fair explanation of many cases of supposed literary dishonesty, that it may properly be quoted here before proceeding to cite one or two curious instances of “parallel passages,” in the assembling of which it must by no means be supposed that any direct charges of plagiarism are for a moment contemplated. It is true that Mr. Puff, detected in pilfering from “Othello,” has given rather a ludicrous character to the explanation, that two people happened to hit on the same thought, and that” (in his case) “Shakespeare made the first use of it.” But notwithstanding, the plea has much good sense at the bottom of it; resemblance may be primâ facie suspicious; but it is nothing more. Certainly it is very far from being conclusive evidence of plagiarism. And two authors, acting independently, may light upon the same fancy, even to a similar form of expression and choice of words, just as honestly as inventions have been made, or planets discovered, coincidentally, by experimentalists or astronomers acting in entire ignorance of each other’s operations. Prejudice, however, will naturally be always on the side of the author who has the advantage in point of priority of production.
There is the less harm in adducing a suspicious passage from Sheridan, by reason of his having been the subject of the most wholesale charges of literary liabilities to others; and one more unit of accusation cannot matter much in his case. He was charged with having derived the plan of the “School for Scandal” from a MS. play sent into Drury-Lane Theatre by a young lady. Details were forthcoming; and the authoress was stated to be the daughter of a merchant in Thames Street, Bristol, and to have been carried off at an early age by a rapid consumption. Mr. Boaden and other patient investigators, however, could learn nothing of this youthful genius, in spite of repeated inquiries. That there is some indebtedness to Fielding’s “Tom Jones” is a more reasonable charge; while the resemblance of certain scenes both in the “Rivals” and the “School for Scandal” to passages in a forgotten book by Mrs. Sheridan, the mother of Richard Brinsley, called the “Memoirs of Sidney Biddulph,” is a fair matter for comment. It is even stated as a probable thing, that Mrs. Sheridan left among her papers two