Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 11/Lord Oakburn's daughters - Part 25
LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER XLIX.STOLEN MOMENTS.
Lucy Chesney was going on to convalescence—as indeed was South Wennock generally. In less than a week after Sir Stephen’s visit Lucy was able to leave her bed for the sofa. Mr. Frederick Grey considered himself a very ill-used man. Not once, save that single time when she lay in imminent danger and did not know him, had he been admitted to see Lucy. But upon hearing from his Uncle John that she was sitting up, he went down forthwith to Mr. Carlton’s. Admitted by Jonathan, asking leave and licence of nobody, he walked straight up-stairs and knocked at Lucy’s chamber. “Come in,” came the answer in Lucy’s voice, and he went in and found her alone, lying on the sofa, near the fire, dressed, and covered over with a silken coverlid.
The red flush flew into her white cheeks, but when the first moment of surprise was over she held out her hand in token of welcome. Not a word was spoken by either. He passed his arm underneath the pillow on which she was lying and raised it up, bringing her fair young face closer to his own.
“Lucy, my whole life will be one of thankfulness!”
“Did you think I should die?”
“Yes, my darling, I did. I may tell you so, now the danger’s over. Lucy, it must not be long before you are mine; I cannot risk another trial, such as this has been.”
“Had I been yours ever so, you could not have guarded me from it,” was her answer.
“Not from the illness; I am aware of that. But to know that you were ill—ill unto death and I not allowed to be with you—there was my trial. I do not care to tell you how badly I bore it; how I paced before the house outside, hour after hour, and night after night, watching its walls. Illness may come to you as my wife, Lucy, but it will be my right to tend you then; my right above anybody’s in the world! Sisters, nurses, friends, what are they compared to me?”
How delightful it was to lie there! In the sweet languor of growing convalescence, pressed to that manly heart, in those protecting arms! It was almost worth having been ill for. She looked up in his face with a tender smile.
“I shall always say you saved me, Frederick.”
“I saved you! How?”
“By sending for Sir Stephen. Jane declares that soon after he entered, I seemed to grow calmer. He gave me something, a powder, she says, and he changed the lotion that they were putting to my head.”
“Lucy, dear, he did nothing for you that my Uncle John was not doing. The disorder was upon the turn when he came.”
“I cannot part with my opinion; neither will Jane. It is pleasant to me to think that I owe my prolonged life to your father: or rather to you for getting him here.”
“Keep the opinion, then,” he whispered.
“And take one thing to your heart, love—that you shall owe a very great portion of your future life’s happiness to me. I will strive to make it, by God’s blessing.”
“Don’t you think you have held me up long enough?” she presently said.
“Does it tire you? or hurt you?”
“Oh no. But you will be tired.”
He raised his own face for a moment, that he might look into her eyes.
“Tired, did you say? I wish I might hold you here long enough to become tired.”
Her gaze fell beneath the saucy glance that danced in his, and he bent his face to kiss away the bright blushes on her cheek. When folks get into mischief, you know, they are nearly sure to be caught. There was a brisk knock at the door, and Mr. Carlton stood before them. A far brighter blush rose then, and she would have shrunk in maidenly timidity from the arms that encircled her. But Frederick Grey altogether declined to let her so shrink. He kept her where she was, held to him, and raised his head with calm self-possession.
“What do you do here, Mr. Carlton?”
“Do!” returned Mr. Carlton. “It is my own house.”
“Your own house, of course. But this is Lady Lucy’s room in it.”
It seemed quite impossible for those two to meet without something unpleasant taking place between them, some little interchange of compliments indicative of incipient warfare. Frederick Grey gently laid Lucy down, and stood upright by her side, his tall form drawn to its full height.
“As my sister-in-law’s medical attendant, and as her protector so long as she is underneath my roof, perhaps you will allow me to inquire what you do here,” retorted Mr. Carlton, turning the tables. “I speak in her behalf when I say that in my opinion it is scarcely seemly.”
“You will allow me to be the better judge of that,” coolly returned the young man. “As my future wife, none can have a greater interest than I to guard her from aught unseemly.”
He drew a chair near the sofa as he spoke, and sat down; an intimation that he entertained no intention of quitting the room. Lucy, her face still crimson, spoke.
“Did you want anything, Mr. Carlton?”
“I came to bring these powders, Lucy,” was his reply, as he laid two small white papers on the table by her tide. “You complained of heartburn this morning: take one in a wine-glass of water now, and the second later in the day; they will relieve you.”
“Thank you,” she replied; “I will take it presently.”
Judith was in the room then, having entered it in time to hear what passed. Mr. Carlton left, not choosing probably to make further demur to the presence of the intruding guest, lest it might disturb Lucy, and Frederick Grey took up the powders and examined them.
“Have you suffered from heartburn, Lucy?”
“I think so. I had a hot, disagreeable sensation in my throat this morning, and Mr. Carlton said it was heartburn. I never had it before. "
“He wetted his finger, put it to the powder, and tasted what adhered to it. Then he folded up the papers and handed them to Judith.
“Put these away, Judith. They will do Lady Lucy no good.”
“Am I not to take them?” inquired Lucy.
“No, I will send you a better remedy.”
Judith received the powders from him very gingerly, as if she feared they might bite her, and left the room with them, meeting Lady Jane at the door, who was coming into it. Frederick laughed, and made the best excuse he could for being there without leave.
When he was leaving the house, half an hour later, Mr. Carlton came forth and met him face to face.
“A moment, Mr. Frederick Grey, if you please. It may be well that you and I should come to an understanding. You appear to assume that you may do just as you please with me: you enter my house, you interfere in my affairs: this shall not be.”
“The Ladies Chesney are temporary inmates of your house, and my visits in it are to them. I have not troubled it much.”
“I must request you to trouble it less for the future. I am not accustomed to these underhand modes of proceeding, and I don’t like them.”
“Underhand!” exclaimed Frederick Grey, in surprise.
“I don’t choose that my patients should be tampered with. When I become incapable of taking care of them, it will be time enough for others to interfere. It was a very unwarrantable liberty, that visit of Sir Stephen Grey’s to the sick boy at Tapper’s cottage.”
Frederick quite laughed. “You must ask Mrs. Smith to settle that with you. She sent for Sir Stephen, and I walked up with him. I did no more; I did not see the boy. As to interfering with you, Mr. Carlton, I am not conscious of having done it. I have desired Lady Lucy not to take those powders you brought her just now; so far, I certainly have interfered. But you should remember in what relation she stands to me.”
“And pray why have you desired her not to take the powders?”
“Because I don’t think they are the best remedy for heartburn; I told her I would send her something else.”
“You are cool and easy, sir,” returned Mr. Carlton, all his old hatred to Frederick Grey rising to boiling heat. And in point of fact there was a particularly cool, indifferent sort of tone pervading Frederick Grey’s behaviour towards the surgeon, which was easily discernible and anything but pleasant. “You and I will have a long account to settle some day.”
“It may be as well perhaps that we never come to the settlement,” was the answer. “I do not force it on: remember that always, Mr. Carlton, I do not force it on. There has been no good feeling between you and me for years, as you are aware; but that is no reason why we should quarrel every time we meet. I have had no intention of offending you in thus intruding into your house—and I acknowledge that it is an intrusion, antagonistic to each other as you and I are, and if you will so far allow me I would beg you in courtesy to excuse me under the circumstances. I will try and not enter it. again. In a day or two I expect the ladies will be leaving it for their own home.”
He made a movement to pass as he concluded; Mr. Carlton did not oppose it, and the fray ended. But no sooner had both disappeared than Judith emerged from a store-closet hard by, in which she had been an unwilling prisoner. She came out with a pot of jam in her hand, and a scared face: anything like quarrelling was sure to startle Judith.
Lady Laura Carlton was still in her room, making believe to be yet an invalid. She liked the indulgence of recovery; the being petted with attentions and fed with good things, jellies and wines and dainty messes. She would rise towards mid-day, cause herself to be attired becomingly, go into her dressing-room, and stop there for the remainder of the day. Lady Jane had to divide her time pretty equally between Laura and Lucy, now that Lucy was getting well, for Laura was jealous and exacting.
Laura’s frame of mind did not altogether tend to advance perfect recovery; at least not if repose were essential to it. That suspicion of hers, connecting her husband with the inmates of Tupper’s cottage, had only grown the fiercer in the condemned seclusion of the last week or two. On Laura Carlton’s heart there was an ever-burning sense of deep humiliation. Lax allegiance in a man’s married life does reflect its humiliation on the wife; and Laura drank deeply of its sting. Unduly conscious of her birth and title, of the place she held amidst the nobodies of the provincial town, remembering how impassioned had been her love for Mr. Carlton, how entirely in the early days of her wedded life she had given this love up to him, it cannot be wondered that she felt the defalcation to her heart’s core. Jealousy, rage, a thirst for redress, were ever at battle within her. She longed to fling back the humiliation on Mr. Carlton: that is, to bring him to self-humiliation. She wished to find something tangible of which to accuse him; proofs that he could neither ignore nor dispute; she cherished a vision of seeing him at her feet, suing for pardon, for reconciliation, abjectly, his head in the dust: or else that she would take a high ground, and say, I leave you, I am your wife no longer.
She was dwelling on all these things now, as she lay back in an easy chair, her feet on a low velvet ottoman in front of the fire, her eyes bent in thought, the tips of her fingers pressed together as her elbows rested on the arms of the chair. Lady Jane was sitting near the window, knitting a pair of the same sort of woollen mittens that she used to knit for her father. These were for Mr. Carlton. He had complained one day in Jane’s hearing of the cold striking to his wrists when he had to go abroad at night; and Jane immediately offered to make him a pair of these soft woollen things. Perfect courtesy—it may indeed be said cordiality—had existed between Mr. Carlton and Lady Jane during this sojourn of hers in the house; but they had not met much, for the unusual sickness prevailing had caused Mr. Carlton to be a great deal from home.
Jane fully intended to ask Mr. Carlton, before she quitted the house, whether he could give her any information of the past, as relating to Clarice. She might have done so before but for this continuous occupation of the surgeon and her own anxiety during Lucy’s danger. Neither had she spoken to Laura, preferring to wait until she, Laura, was convalescent. That time had come now, and Jane took the present quiet moment when they were alone together. It was the day of Frederick Grey’s visit, but subsequent to that event. She began by telling Laura of the late interview with Mrs. West, and of the supposition that Clarice was married.
“Married!” exclaimed Laura, turning her head quickly to her sister.
“By what Mrs. West said—as I have now repeated to you—I think there can be no doubt of it. Indeed, Clarice admitted that it was so when the servant girl met her.”
“Oh, well I think all that is proof enough,” remarked Laura. “So it seems I was not the only one of the family to consult self-inclination—dreadful conduct as you and papa thought it in me! And pray, Jane, who was the gentleman?”
“About that, there is less certainty,” said Jane. “Circumstances point strongly—at least in my opinion—to its having been a brother of Mr. West’s, a young medical man. He was staying there, was very intimate with Clarice, and in the following winter embarked for India. Mrs. West does not think this: she argues that Mr. Tom West was open-hearted, was his own master, and would have married Clarice publicly, had he married her at all. She feels certain that they did not sail together, however it may have been; but it appears to me that Clarice could not have been in a condition of health to embark, and would probably follow him later.”
“Nothing more likely. But why—being safely married—should she not have told us? Had she feared interference to prevent it, she could not have feared interference to separate them when it was done.”
“True,” said Lady Jane.
“I have pondered it all over until I am tired and sick. At all events, this is a little clue, and now I must tell you who may possibly help us in it—Mr. Carlton.”
“How should he help?” asked Laura, in surprise. “I have never spoken to him of Clarice. To confess to a sister who went out to serve as a governess and got lost, is not pleasant—and you have heard me say this before. I have never opened my lips about Clarice to Mr. Carlton.”
Jane explained. That in the old days Mr. Carlton was intimate at Mrs. West’s: was a friend of Tom West’s, of a Mr. Crane, and of other young medical men who visited there. “It is just possible Mr. Carlton might have known something of the marriage, and of their subsequent movements,” she concluded. Laura did not acquiesce.
“Really, Jane, there seems very little use in bringing up this uncertainty about Clarice. As I say, it does not tell for the dignity of the Chesney family.”
“1 will not rest, now, until I have found out Clarice—if she is to be found,” replied Jane, in some agitation. “This information of Mrs. West’s has given me an impetus; and my father left her to me. She may yet be living; may be in poverty, for all we know, and unwilling to apply to us; or,” she added, dropping her voice, “or if dead herself, she may have left a child or children. I must inquire of Mr. Carlton, Laura, in spite of your prejudices and your pride.”
“Inquire if you like,” returned Laura, ungraciously. “You always seem to speak as if there were some dark mystery attaching to this business, apart from the bare loss of Clarice,” she continued, in a fretful sort of way.
“It invariably presents itself as a mystery to my own mind,” said Jane, and her tone certainly did sound dark enough as she spoke; “a mystery which I seem to shrink from. You know that little lame boy at Tupper'a cottage?”
“Well?” returned Laura, after a pause and a stare.
“I cannot divest myself of the idea that that child is Clarice’s.”
Up started Lady Laura, flinging from her knees a warm covering which had been laid on them; she stamped up and down the room in excitement, forgetting her character of invalid.
“That child Clarice’s! For shame, Jane! That child is—is—yes, I will speak out! That child is Mr. Carlton’s.”
Jane sat unable to speak, aghast at her vehemence; at her words.
“Mr. Carlton’s! Nay, Laura, I think it is you who should cry shame. What wild notion can have taken possession of you?”
Laura, ten times more vehement, more excited than before, reiterated her assertion. She was in the midst of her tirade—directed against Mr. Carlton and mankind in general—when Judith came in. Laura, uncontrollable as ever her father was when over-mastered by passion, seized the girl by the arm.
“You know that child at Tupper’s cottage, Judith? I have heard of Lady Jane’s sending you there. Who is he like?”
Judith stood in dismay. She tried to parry the question. Lady Laura shook her by the arm.
“My lady, it’s well known there’s no accounting for likenesses: two people that never were within miles of each other in their lives may be alike.”
“Of course they may be,” sarcastically retorted Lady Laura. "Will you speak, Judith?”
“And sometimes are,” added Jane, with calm composure. “A likeness alone proves nothing. But you had better speak at once, Judith.”
“My ladies, the likeness I saw could be nothing but an accidental one,” said Judith, still avoiding a direct answer. “It may exist in my fancy only.”
Laura stamped her foot. “You must speak, Judith,” said Lady Jane. “Like whom do you think the child?”
“Like Mr. Carlton,” was the low reply.
Lady Jane stood dumb. It was anything but the answer she expected, for she had believed Laura’s notion to be pure fancy. A triumphant glance shot from Laura’s eyes, and certain ill-advised words dropped from her lips. The avowal seemed so complete a confirmation of her suspicions, that she looked upon the case as proved against Mr. Carlton.
She sat down in her chair again, battling with the jealous anger that was causing her bosom to heave and throb tumultuously. Jane repudiated the idea, repudiated it utterly, whatever accidental resemblance might exist to Mr. Carlton, She turned to Judith. As so much had been spoken before the girl, it was well that more should be said.
“We had a sister who was lost, Judith—you once heard me allude to her before. She has never been heard of; but latterly I have gathered facts which induce me to conclude that she married. In that little child at Tupper’s cottage I trace a very great likeness to her, and I cannot divest myself of the idea that it must be her child. Laura, don’t you see how feasible it is? Clarice may have gone abroad with her husband, leaving her child behind at nurse.”
For once a tinge of colour came into the white face of Judith. "What name did you say, my lady? Clarice?"
“Clarice,” repeated Jane, in surprise, for the emphasis was involuntary. “Lady Clarice. Why?”
Judith turned away. “Oh, nothing, my lady; nothing. I thought the name very uncommon.”
“It is rather uncommon. We have some reason to think she married a Mr. West: a gentleman who afterwards went abroad and died. What are you looking at, Judith?”
The girl had turned round again; in open, genuine surprise this time. “I once knew a Mr. West, my lady; a gentleman who was visiting old Mrs. Jenkinson in Palace Street, where my sister lives. He was Mrs. Jenkinson’s nephew.”
“Was his name Thomas?” asked Jane, eagerly.
“I don’t know, my lady. I can’t remember. Margaret could tell.”
“And what was he? In any profession?”
Judith shook her head. Margaret knew, no doubt, she said: she would inquire of her if her lady pleased.
Her lady did please, and told her to do so. But Lady Jane did not think much of this: West was rather a common name.
On this same afternoon at dusk, Mr. Carlton was in his surgery alone, preparing some mixture for Lucy—for the medicines necessary for her had been supplied by him, not by Mr. Grey. It grew too dark to see the proportions with any exactness, and he lighted one of the gas burners. The flame went flaring up, and Mr. Carlton turned to the narrow counter again, which was close under the window, and took a bottle in his hand.
Reader, when your room has been lighted up, and the window left exposed, have you ever felt a dread, a horror of what you might witness there?—Of seeing something unearthly, or what you may fear as such, standing outside the glass, and peering in? I believe that it is a sensation which has been experienced by many, causing them to drag down the blind, or to order the shutters closed with all speed. Was it this feeling which induced Mr. Carlton to look up from his employment, full at the window before him? or was his mind guided by subtle instinct, whispering that somebody was there?
The face, but imperfectly seen, was pressed against the glass, in the pane immediately faceing him: that dread face, with its white skin and its black whiskers, and the dark handkerchief round its chin, dreadful to the reminiscence of Mr. Carlton. It appeared to be eagerly watching, not him, but his movements, as he made up the medicine.
Mr. Carlton, impassive Mr. Carlton, found that he had nerves for once in his life. He cried aloud, in the moment’s impulse; a wild sort of cry not unlike that of a sea-gull, and the glass jar dropped from his hand on the floor and was shivered into fragments. Mr. Jefferson rushed in to see his principal staring at the surgery window, and all the good syrup of Taraxacum spilled.
CHAPTER L.MISS STIFFING’S EXPEDITION.
December came in. On a cold bitter evening, a night or two subsequent to the above, a young woman might have been seen scudding through the streets of South Wennock. She wore a warm cloak, and kept her black Shetland veil tight over her face to protect it, for the wind was howling and the sleet was beating. It was Miss Stiffing, the maid of Lady Laura Carlton.
“Such a freak of my lady’s!” she grumbled discontentedly, as she went along. “Sending one abroad in this pelting weather! But that’s just like her; She takes a thing into her head, and then it must be done off-hand, convenient or unconvenient. Bother take the big cupboard! What did she go and lose the key for, if she wants it undone?”
She reached a locksmith’s shop and turned short into it. It was only lighted by a solitary candle, and that was placed so as to afford little light beyond the counter. Consequently the maid stumbled over some fire-irons that stood out slanting from the wall; they came down on the run, and she nearly with them.
“Now then! what the plague, White, can’t you keep the shop free for folks to enter?” she testily exclaimed, whilst the unoffending locksmith hastened round, and meekly picked up his property.
“Is it you, Miss Stiffing? And how are you, ma'am?”
“Why, I’m as cranky as them there bell rests of yours, that’s what I am,” returned Miss Stiffing. “She have no more consideration than an owl, haven’t my lady. Fancy her sending me slopping in my thin shoes through the beastly streets to-night!”
“Couldn’t you have put on boots?” asked the blacksmith, sensibly.
“No, I couldn’t. There! When one’s dressed for the evening one doesn’t want to be bothered changing shoes and boots. And you, White! why don’t you have gas in your shop, like other Christians?”
“I can’t afford it, Miss Stifling. And I mostly work in the back room by candle light; the shop’s so precious cold in winter. What can I do for you, miss?”
“I want a skeleton key.”
“A skeleton key!” repeated the tradesman.
“Yes, a skeleton key. Is there anything so odd in that? If I had said a skeleton, you might have stared.”
“What is it for?” he asked, scratching his head, and trying to remember whether the law allowed skeleton keys to be handed over indiscriminately to servants.
“Well, it’s for my lady, if you must come to the bottom of everything. She goes and loses the key of the big cupboard, that stands in the recess by her bedroom door. ‘Where’s the key of that cupboard?’ says she to me, this afternoon. ‘My lady, it’s in the keyhole,’ says I. ‘It’s not,’ says she; ‘you just go and find it’ Well, upon that I call to mind that I had put the key into her key-drawer only yesterday morning; and I told her so. Of course she has gone herself and lost it.”
“I daresay it’s only mislaid,” remarked the man.
“Nothing else in the world; dropped down, perhaps, behind the furniture, or something of that, and will be found in the morning. I said so to my lady; but no, not a minute’s waiting will do for her. She must have the door open to-night, and off she sends me here for a skeleton key. ‘I won’t have the lock picked or damaged, in case the key does turn up,’ says she. ‘Tell White to send me a skeleton key, one that’ll pick any lock of about that size, and he shall have it returned in a day or two.’ And so off I came. And now, just look sharp, for I’d like to get back home to the fire.”
“I’d have sent one of the men-servants.”
“1 dare say you would; but you don’t live under Lady Laura Carlton. If I told another servant to go when she had sent me, I might pack up my boxes. Is this the article? It looks simple enough.”
“It’s simple enough, Miss,” said the man, as he proceeded to explain its use. “And it’s good night, and wishing you a pleasanter walk back again, Miss Stifling.”
“Which you must be an idiot to wish,” irascibly returned Miss Stifling. “Is the sleet and rain not falling incessant to make it beastlier instead of pleasanter!”
The young woman made her way home as speedily as circumstances and her shoes permitted. Lady Laura Carlton was waiting for her in her dressing-room, waiting impatiently, as might be seen. What project was in her mind that night, flushing her cheeks to emotion, and rendering her eyes restless? Could it be that these external signs of agitation were caused by the simple mislaying of a key?—and the key of a place that was not in particular request?
“What a time you have been, Stifling!” uttered she, as the maid entered.
“Time, my lady!” returned Stifling, whose manner and voice, be it remarked, were subdued to meekness in Lady Laura’s presence, whatever they might be out of it. “I went as quick as the sleet and the slush allowed me; and this is what White has sent. Shall I open the place now, my lady?”
“No,” sharply answered Lady Laura. “It is time for my port-wine jelly.”
Stifling went down-stairs, muttering something about caprice, and brought up a small mould of dark jelly on a handsome glass dish, a glass plate and a tea-spoon. As she was putting the things on the sofa table before her mistress, Lady Laura looked at her.
“I cannot think how you could have been so carelessly stupid as to lose the key.”
“All I can say is this, my lady, that I put it into that there key-drawer yesterday morning. I am as positive of it———"
“There, that will do, Stiffing,” interrupted Lady Laura; “it is of no use going over the old assertion again. You can go down and get warm after your walk. I shall not want you for at least an hour. When I do, I’ll ring. And, Stiffing, you will not forget the injunction I gave you—to hold your tongue. I won’t have the servants know that I admit skeleton keys into my house: it might teach some of them tricks.”
Stiffing departed, saying she would remember: and she meant to keep her word. With all Lady Laura’s exactions and caprice, she was a generous mistress, and the servants liked her. Stiffing made herself comfortable in the servants’ sitting-room before a blazing fire. They seemed curious to know what had taken her out; “O, only a little errand for my lady,” was the indifferent answer. They were all shut up snugly enough there, and Judith was among them. Lady Jane was with Lucy, and Mr. Carlton had gone out.
The stairs were creaking—as stairs will creak when a stealthy footstep is upon them, and the house in silence. They were the back stairs, not the front; and, cautiously descending them, a thick black silk scarf tied over her head, and a shawl muffled round her, to guard against cold, was Lady Laura Carlton, bearing the skeleton key. The stairs were dark, for those back stairs were never lighted, and she felt her way by the balustrades. They brought her in time to the cellar; she groped her way through it, entered the room beyond, and struck a light. She struck the wax match and lighted the taper she had brought down from her writing table. Laura! Laura Carlton! what are you about to do? To pry into your husband’s private affairs, into things which he deems it fit and right to keep from you? Take you care; secrets, sought out dishonourably, rarely benefit the seeker.
She was not in a mood to take care. Had a very angel from heaven appeared to warn her against what she was doing, she had scarcely heeded it. In her present state of exasperation she cared not what the result might be. What precise secrets, or mementos of secrets, Mr. Carlton kept in that iron safe before her, she knew not; her suspicions were entirely vague; but the idea had taken possession of her that something or other might be ferreted out of it, and it was only her illness which had caused her to delay the search so long. Not that she supposed the contents of the iron safe would help her in the particular suspicion she had taken up latterly: not at all. Though there was little doubt that the unwilling avowal regarding the likeness, drawn from Judith on the previous day, had contributed its quota to work her mind up to its present excited state of rebellion.
Is it not remarkable to trace the chain of events, so trivial in themselves, by which the detection of crime is sometimes worked out?— Twelve months before, an accidental circumstance had made Laura Carlton familiar with the use of a skeleton key: she attached no importance to the knowledge: how should she? and yet, but for that, she might never have opened, or thought to open, that safe in her husband’s cellar.
She did open it now: readily; and she put the taper, in its elegant glass holder, to stand inside, while her eyes ranged over its contents. There were two shelves: the upper one appeared to be entirely filled with chemical apparatus, and the lower one partially.
Near to her hand there was a cash-box, locked; and there was a small note-case, not locked, for a very good reason—there was no lock on it.
Lady Laura took up the cash-box, rather a large one, and shook it: if it contained money, it must have been bank notes, for neither gold nor silver rattled. She put it down again, and opened the note-case. To describe her disappointment when she found it contained what she emphatically termed “rubbish,” would be difficult. There were scraps of writing, Latin and Greek; there were some receipted bills of a by-gone date; there were various private memoranda, not of a nature to bear upon her jealous fears; there were two or three prescriptions bearing the names of celebrated physicians; there was a receipt for the compounding of “sherbet,” and another for walnut catsup. In short, by the cursory glance afforded to Lady Laura in her haste, it appeared to contain neither more nor less than worthless scraps of paper.
She was closing it with a petulant gesture, when her eye fell upon an opening in the leather, and she found there was a pocket. Pulling it apart with both her hands, a note lay disclosed, nothing else, and she took it out.
“Lewis Carlton, Esq.,” was the address, and Lady Laura thrust it into her pocket for private perusal at her leisure: but a sudden recollection flashed upon her, and she took it out again, to devour the address with her eyes. If ever she had seen the hand-writing of her sister Clarice, she thought she saw it then. But there was not time to satisfy herself, for she stood upon thorns, metaphorically speaking, and she returned it to her pocket.
She placed the note-case in its former position; she took the taper in her hand and held it so that its rays fell on the top shelf, but nothing was really there, save what concerned his profession; nothing else was on the lower shelf, save the cash-box, and some bundles of receipted bills. Lady Laura was thinking how much she should like to see the inside of the cash-box, when Mr. Carlton’s voice on the stairs startled her.
Startled her pretty nearly into fits. What she did, in her terror, she scarcely knew. He was evidently coming down; had but halted momentarily to call out some order to one of the servants in the distance, or to the surgery boy. Instinct caused Lady Laura to gaze round for a hiding-place, and she espied a barrel in a corner. She blew out the light, grasped the crystal candlestick and the skeleton key, pushed-to the safe door firmly, and crouched down between the barrel and the wall, her heart beating as it had never yet beat in all her life.
She would almost rather die than that he should discover her; for although she had not shrunk from committing the act, to be detected during its actual perpetration would be more than her pride could well endure. Laura was honourable by nature; yes, she was, however you may feel inclined to demur to the assertion, seeing what you do see. She hated meanness as much as ever did the late earl; and to be detected at this, to be caught in its actual perpetration, would be a blow to her self-esteem for ever. In that moment there flashed a faint view on her mind of the wrong she was committing, and how utterly unjustifiable was its nature.
Mr. Carlton came in, a candle in his hand. Drawing from his pocket a bunch of keys, he inserted one in the lock. But he found the lock was not fastened.
“Why—what the deuce!” he uttered, half aloud and in a careless tone, “did I leave it so?”
And then, as if a suspicion occurred to him, he turned and peered round the room. His wife could see it, and she felt sick nearly unto death, lest he should discern her.
But she cowered in the shade of the dark corner; moreover the clothes she wore were dark, and his eye passed her over. He next turned his attention to the lock, but could find nothing the matter with it. He then applied himself to the object which he had come for, which appeared to be his chemical apparatus, for he began moving the different things about on the top shelf, in order to get at a glass cylinder.
He held it in his hand, when the voice of his assistant was heard, speaking down the stairs.
“Are you there, Mr. Carlton?”
“Yes,” responded the surgeon. “Anything wanted?”
“That child at Tupper’s cottage is taken worse; dying, they think.”
“And the sooner it dies the better,” was Mr. Carlton’s rejoinder to himself, in a voice of pity. “I can’t do it any good, poor little fellow, or ease its pain.—Who has come?” he called aloud.
“Only a neighbour,” replied Mr. Jefferson. “Perhaps you would like to hear what she says.”
“Coming,” said Mr. Carlton. He put down the cylinder, left the safe door open, and went up-stairs, intending, no doubt, to be back in a twinkling. As his footsteps died away, Lady Laura sprang from her hiding-place, and winged her flight up the stairs. She succeeded in gaining the top, the top of the cellar stairs, and she noiselessly stole round a corner which would take her to the others. A few paces from her was the surgery door, and she heard voices inside. At a time of less terror she might have stopped to listen, hearing where the messenger came from; but her own safety was above every consideration now, even above her jealous surmises. Arrived in her room, she sat there panting, not knowing whether she should faint or not.
She took some of the port-wine jelly, which still remained on the table, and leaned back in her easy chair to rest. After a while, when her heart had ceased to beat so violently, she rose from her chair, felt in her pocket, and drew something out of it.
It was the missing key, the key of the cupboard: had it been snugly reposing there all the time? What would Miss Stiffing have said? Lady Laura calmly unlocked the cupboard, leaving the door open, and then carried the key into her bedroom, and dropped it in a quiet nook on the floor, close to the key-drawer, where Miss Stiffing’s eyes would be charmed with its sight the first thing in the morning.
She sat down to the fire again, and opened the note, the note whose superscription was in the handwriting of her sister Clarice. But ere she had well glanced at its contents she was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Lady Jane.
“Lucy has got nicely to sleep,” said Jane, after sitting some time, “and I think I shall go to bed. You do not want me this evening, Laura?”
“I don’t want you,” returned Laura, impatiently, wishing Jane had not disturbed her before her curiosity was satisfied. “What do you want to go to bed at ten o’clock for?”
“I am feeling so very tired. My head aches, too. I am beginning, now that I am at ease as to Lucy, to feel the fatigue and anxiety of the past week or two. Good night, Laura.”
“Good night,” carelessly returned Laura, in a fever of impatience to get to her letter. “I shall be going to bed myself.” But Jane had scarcely gone out when Mr. Carlton came in, and Laura had to crush the stolen goods into her pocket again.
He sat down wearily, opposite Laura. He had been very busy all day, and had now come from a hasty run to Tupper’s cottage.
“How do you feel to-night, Laura?”
“Oh, pretty well,” was Laura’s answer; and the consciousness of the fraud she had been committing on him made her rather more civil than she had been of late. “You seem tired, Lewis.”
“Tired to weariness,” responded Mr. Carlton. “People are all getting better; but I’m sure it hardly looks like it, for they are more exacting than when they were in danger.”
“You were not home to dinner, were you?”
“No; I am going to take something now. Should you not be in bed, Laura?”
“I don’t know; I think I am tired of bed,” she answered, fretfully. “I shall go presently.”
He laughed pleasantly. “You are tired with having too little to do, I with having too much. Laura, I think we both want a change. It shall not be long now before we leave South Wennock.”
He sat a few minutes longer and then went down-stairs. Laura once more brought forth her letter, and took the precaution to slip the bolt of the door.
“Perhaps I shall be at peace now!” she cried, in a resentful tone.
In peace to read it, so far; but certainly not in peace afterwards; for the contents puzzled her to torment. She turned it about, she read it twice, she studied the superscription, she compared it with the lines themselves.
And finally she came to the conclusion that the letter was not written to Mr. Carlton, although addressed to him, but to Mr. Tom West. And that Mr. Tom West had married Clarice.