Works of Ellen Wood, page 1194
“Mercy upon us!” exclaimed the Squire, under his breath. “The voice does sound like Frank’s.”
Mr. Brandon was standing with his hand to his ear. Duffham leaned on his gold-headed cane, his face lifted upwards.
Tod stood by in dudgeon; he was angry with them for not having believed him at first.
“I think we may grant a search-warrant, Squire,” said Mr. Brandon.
“And send old Jones the constable, to execute it,” assented the Squire.
Tod flung back his head. “Old Jones! Much use he’d be! Why, father, Eunice Gibbon alone could settle old Jones with his shaky legs. She’d pitch him out at the first window.”
“Jones can take help, Joe.”
* * * * * *
It was the breakfast hour at the Torr, eight o’clock. The meal was being taken in the kitchen. Less semblance of gentility than even in the former days was kept up; all usages of comfort and refinement had departed with old Mr. Radcliffe and Selina. Stephen was swallowing his eggs and rashers of bacon quickly. Tuesday is Alcester market-day, and he was going in to attend it, expecting to sell some of his newly-gathered crop of hay. Mrs. Stephen sat opposite him, eating bacon also; and Eunice Gibbon stood at the dresser, mixing some meal for the fattening of fowls. Miserly though Stephen was by nature, he liked a good table, and took care to have it.
“Could you bring some starch home, master?” asked Eunice, turning her head round to speak.
“Why can’t you get your starch here?” retorted Stephen.
“Well, it’s a farthing less a pound at Alcester than it is at Church Dykely,” said Eunice. “They’ve rose it here.”
Farthings were farthings in Stephen’s eyes, and he supposed he might as well bring the starch. “How much is wanted of it?” he growled.
“We’d better have a pound,” interposed Becca. “Half pounds don’t get the benefit of the farthing: you can’t split a farthing in two. Shall you be home early?” she continued to her husband.
“Don’t know. Not afore afternoon.”
“Because we shall want some of the starch to-day. There’s none to go on with, is there, Eunice?”
“Yes, there’s a bit. I can make it do.”
“You’ll have to wait till you get it,” remarked Stephen as he pushed his plate away and rose from table. “And mind you don’t forget to give the pigs their dinner.”
“What’ll be wanted up there to-day?” inquired Becca, pointing towards some invisible place over-head, possibly intending to indicate the tower.
“Nothing but dinner,” said Stephen. “What should there be? I shall be back afore tea-time.”
He went out at the back-door as he spoke, gave a keen look or two around his yard and premises generally, to see that all was right, and presently trotted away on horseback. A few minutes later, Jim, the only regular man kept, was seen to cross the yard towards the lane with the horse and cart.
“Where be you off to, Jim?” demanded Becca, stalking to the door and speaking at the top of her voice.
“Master ordered me to go after that load o’ manure,” called back Jim, standing upright in the cart and arresting the horse for a moment.
“What, this morning?”
“It’s what he telled me.”
“Well, don’t go and make a day’s work of it,” commanded Mrs. Stephen. “There’s a sight o’ things a-waiting to be done.”
“I can’t be back afore two, hasten as I ‘ool,” returned Jim, giving the horse his head and clattering off.
“I wonder what the master sent him to-day for, when he’s away himself?” cried Becca to her sister, returning to the table in the kitchen.
“Well, he got a message last night to say that if he didn’t send for it away to-day it wouldn’t be kept for him,” said Eunice. “It’s a precious long way to have to go for a load o’ manure!”
“But then we get it for the fetching; there’s naught to pay,” returned Becca.
She had begun to wash up the breakfast-things, and when that was done she put the kitchen to rights. Eunice seemed to be at all sorts of jobs, indoors and out, and went stalking about in pattens. The furnace had been lighted in the brewhouse, for Eunice had a day’s washing before her. Becca went up to make the beds, and brought down sundry armfuls of clothes for the wash. About ten o’clock she appeared in the brewhouse with her bonnet and shawl on. Eunice was standing at the tub in her pattens, rubbing away at the steaming soap-suds.
“Why, where be you going?” she exclaimed in evident surprise.
“I’m a-going over to Dick’s to fetch Beccy,” replied Mrs. Stephen. “It’s a long while since she was here. Ste don’t care to see children about the place. The child shall stop to dinner with us and can go home by herself in the afternoon. What’s the matter now, Eunice Gibbon? Don’t it please ye?”
“Oh, it pleases me well enough,” returned Eunice, who was looking anything but pleased, and splashing both hands desperately about in the water, over one of Stephen’s coloured cotton handkerchiefs. “The child can come, and welcome, for me. ‘Tain’t that.”
“It’s some’at else then,” remarked Becca.
“Well, I’d wanted to get a bit o’ talk with ye,” said Eunice. “That’s what it is. The master’s safe off, and it was a good opportunity for it.”
“What about?”
Eunice Gibbon took her hands out of the soap-suds and rested them on the sides of the tub, while she answered — coming to the point at once.
“I’ve been a-thinking that I can’t stop on here, Becca. I bain’t at ease. Many a night lately I have laid awake over it. If anything comes out about — you know what — we might all of us get into trouble.”
“No fear,” said Becca.
“Well, I says there is fear. Folks have talked long enough; but it strikes me they won’t be satisfied with talking much longer: they’ll be searching out. Only yesterday morning when I was waiting at Duffham’s while he mixed up the stuff, he must begin upon it. ‘Did ye hear the cries last night?’ says he — or something o’ that. ‘No,’ says I in answer; ‘there was none to hear, only the wind.’ Them two young gents from the Manor was there, cocking up their ears at the words. I see ‘em.”
Rebecca Radcliffe remained silent. Truth to tell, she and Stephen were getting afraid of the cries themselves. That is, of what the cries might result in.
“He ought to be got away,” resumed Eunice.
“But there’s no means o’ getting him away.”
“Well, I can’t feel comfortable, Becca; not safe, you know. So don’t you and the master be put out if I walks myself off one o’ these here first fine days. When I come here, I didn’t bargain for nothing o’ this sort.”
“There’s no danger of ill turning up,” flashed Becca, braving out the matter with scorn. “The cries is took to come from the birds: who is to pick up any other notion, d’ye suppose? I’ll tell ye what it is, Eunice: that jaundiced liver of yours is tormenting you. You’ll be afeared next of your own shadda.”
“Perhaps it is,” acknowledged Eunice, dropping the argument and resuming her rubbing. “I know that precious physic of old Duffham’s is upsetting me. It’s the nausiousest stuff I ever took.”
Mrs. Stephen stalked out of the kitchen and betook herself across the fields, towards her brother’s. Richard Gibbon had succeeded to his late father’s post of gamekeeper to the Chavasses. The gamekeeper’s lodge was more than a mile away; and Mrs. Stephen strode off, out of sight, unconscious of what was in store for the Torr.
Eunice went on with her washing, deep in thought. She had fully made up her mind to quit the Torr; but she meant to break the fact by degrees to its master and mistress. Drying her hands for the temporary purpose of stirring-up and putting more slack on the furnace fire, she was interrupted by a gentle ring at the front-door bell.
“Why, who on earth’s that?” she exclaimed aloud. “Oh, it must be Lizzy,” with a flash of recollection: “she sent word she should be over to-day or to-morrow. How early she have got here!”
Free of all suspicion, glancing at no ill, Eunice went through the passages and opened the front-door. Quite a small crowd of people stood there, and one or two of them pushed in immediately. Mr. Duffham, Tod, I, the Squire, old Jones, and old Jones’s man, who was young, and active on his legs. The Squire would come, and we were unable to hinder him.
“In the Queen’s name!” cried old Jones — who always used that formula on state occasions. And Eunice Gibbon screamed long and loud.
To oppose our entrance was not to be thought of. We had entered and could not be thrust back again. Eunice took to her heels up the passage, and confronted us at the parlour-door with a pair of tongs. Duffham and Tod disarmed her. She then flew to the kitchen, sat down, and went into hysterics. Old Jones read out the authority for the search, but she only screamed the louder.
They left her to get out of the screaming at her leisure, and went up, seeking the entrance to the tower. It was found without much difficulty: Tod was the one to see it first. A small door (only discovered by Stephen Radcliffe since his father’s death, as we heard later) led from a dark and unused lumber-room to the narrow stairs of the tower. In its uppermost compartment, a little, round den, sat Frank Radcliffe, chained to the wall.
Not at once could we take in the features of the scene; for, all the light came in through the one long narrow opening, a framed loophole without glass, that was set in the deep round wall of the tower. A mattress was spread on the floor, with a pillow and blankets; one chair stood close to a box that served for a table, on which he no doubt eat his meals, for there were plates and food on it; another box, its lid open, was in a corner, and on the other chair sat Frank. That was every earthly article the place contained. It was through that opening — you could not call it a window — that Frank’s cries for help had gone forth to the air. There he sat, the chain round his waist, turning his amazed eyes upon us.
And raving mad, you ask? No. He was all skin and bone, and his fair hair hung down like that of a wild man of the woods, but he was as sane as you or I. He rose up, the chain clanking, and then we saw that it was long enough to admit of his moving about to any part of the den.
“Oh, God bless you, Frank! — we have come to release you,” burst forth the Squire, impetuously seizing both his hands. “God help you, my poor lad!” And Frank, what with surprise and the not being over stout, burst into joyous tears.
The ingenious scheme of taking possession of Frank, and representing him as dead, that he might enjoy all the money, had occurred to Stephen Radcliffe when he found Frank was recovering under Dr. Dale’s treatment. During the visits Stephen paid to London at that time, he and Pitt, Dr. Dale’s head man, became very intimate: and when Pitt was discharged from Dr. Dale’s they grew more so. Stephen Radcliffe would not perhaps have done any harm to Frank in the shape of poison or a dagger, being no more of a killer and slayer of men than were his neighbours; but to keep him concealed in the Torr, so as to reap the benefit himself of all the money, he looked upon as a very venial crime indeed — quite justifiable, so to say. Especially, if he could escape being found out. And this fine scheme he perfected and put in practice, and successfully carried through.
How much of it he confided to Pitt, or how much he did not, will never be known. Certain it was, that Pitt wrote the letter announcing Frank’s death; though we could not find out that he had helped it in any other way. But a very curious coincidence attended the affair; one that aided Stephen’s plans materially; and but for its happening I do not see that they could have succeeded when inquiries were made. In the London house where Stephen lodged (Gibraltar Terrace, that I and the Squire had a two days’ hunt to find) there came to live a young man, who was taken ill close upon his entrance with a malady arising from his habits of drinking. Pitt, coming often to Gibraltar Terrace then with Stephen Radcliffe, took to attend on the young man out of good nature, doing for him all that could be done. It was this young man who died, and was buried in Finchley Cemetery; and of whose death the landlady with the faded face and black silk apron spoke to the Squire, thereby establishing in our minds the misapprehension that it was Francis Radcliffe. Stephen did not take Frank to the lodgings at all; he brought him straight down to the Torr when he was released from Dr. Dale’s, taking care to get out at a remote country station in the dusk of evening, where his own gig, conveyed thither by Becca, was in waiting. He laid his plans well, that crafty Stephen! And, once he had got Frank securely into that upper den, he might just have kept him there for life, but for that blessed outlet in the wall, and no one been any the wiser.
Stephen Radcliffe did not bargain for that. It nearly always happens that in doing an ill deed we overreach ourselves in some fatal way. Knowing that no sound, though it were loud enough to awaken the seven sleepers, could penetrate from that upper room through the massive walls of the house, and be heard below, Stephen thought his secret was safe, and that Frank might call out, if he would, until Doomsday. It never occurred to him that the cries could get out through that unglazed window in the tower wall, and set the neighbourhood agog with curiosity. They did, however: and Stephen, whatever amount of dread it might have brought his heart, was unable to stop them. Not until Frank had been for some months chained in his den, did it occur to himself to make those cries, so hopeless was he of their being heard below to any good purpose. But one winter night when the wind was howling outside, and the sound of it came booming into his ears through the window, it struck him that he might be heard through that very opening; and from that time his voice was raised in supplication evening after evening. Stephen could do nothing. He dared not brick the opening up lest some suspicion or other should be excited outside; he could not remove Frank, for there was no other secret room to remove him to, or where his cries would not have been heard below. He ordered Frank to be still: he threatened him; he once took a horsewhip to him and laid it about his shoulders. All in vain. When Frank was alone, his cries for release never ceased. Stephen and his household put it upon the birds and the wind, and what not; but they grew to dread it: and Stephen, even at this time, of discovery, was perpetually ransacking his brains for some safe means of departing for Canada and carrying Frank with him. The difficulty lay in conveying Frank out of the Torr and away. They might drug him for the bare exit, but they could not keep him perpetually drugged; they could not hinder him coming in contact with his fellow-men on the journey and transit, and Frank had a tongue in his head. No: Stephen saw no hope, no safety, but in keeping him where he was.
“But how could you allow yourself to be brought up here? — and fastened to a stake in this shameful fashion?” was nearly the first question of the Squire when he could collect his senses: and he asked it with just a touch of temper, for he was beginning to think that Frank, in permitting it, must have been as simple as the fool in a travelling circus.
“He got me up by stratagem,” answered Frank, tossing his long hair back from his face. “While we were sitting at supper the night we arrived here, he began talking about the wonderful discovery he had made of the staircase and opening to the tower. Naturally I was interested; and when Stephen proposed to show it me at once, I assented gladly. Becca came with us, saying she’d carry the candle. We got up here, and were all three standing in the middle of the floor, just where we are standing now, when I suddenly had a chain — this chain — slipped round my waist, and found myself fastened to the wall, a prisoner.”
“But why did you come to the Torr at all?” stamped the Squire, while old Jones stretched out his hands, as if putting imaginary handcuffs on Stephen’s. “Why did you not go at once to your own home — or come to us? When you knew you were going to leave Dale’s, why didn’t you write to say so?”
“When events are past and gone we perceive the mistakes we have made, though we do not see them at the time,” answered Frank, turning his blue eyes from one to the other of us. “Dr. Dale did not wish me to quit his house quite so soon; though I was perfectly well, he said another month there would be best for me. I, however, was anxious to get away, more eager for it than I can tell you — which was only natural. Stephen whispered to me that he would accomplish it, but that I must put myself entirely in his hands, and not write to any one down here about it. He got me out, sooner than I had thought for: sooner, as he declared, than he had thought for himself; and he said we must break the news to Annet very cautiously, for she was anything but strong. He proposed to take me to the Torr for the first night of my return, and give me a bed there; and the following day the communication could be made to Annet at Pitchley’s Farm, and then I might follow it as soon as I pleased. It all seemed to me feasible; quite the right way of going to work; in fact, the only way: I thanked Stephen, and came down here with him in all confidence.”
“Good patience!” cried the Squire. “And you had no suspicions, Frank Radcliffe! — knowing what Stephen was!”
“I never knew he would do such a dastardly deed as this. How could I know it?”
“Oh, come along!” returned the Squire, beginning to stumble down the narrow, dark stairs. “We’ll have the law of him.”
The key of the chain had been found hanging on a nail outside the door, out of poor Frank’s reach. He was soon free; but staggered a little when he began to descend the stairs. Duffham laid hold of him behind, and Tod went before.
“Thank God! thank God!” he broke out with reverent emotion, when the bright sun burst upon him through the windows, after passing the dark lumber-room. “I feared I might never see full daylight again.”
“Have you any clothes?” asked Duffham. “This coat’s in rags.”
“I’m sure I don’t know whether I have or not,” replied Frank. “The coat is all I have had upon me since coming here.”
“Becca’s a beast,” put in Tod. “And I hope Stephen will have his neck stretched.”
Eunice Gibbon was nowhere to be seen below. The premises were deserted. She had made a rush to her brother’s, the gamekeeper’s lodge, to warn Becca of what was taking place. We started for Dyke Manor, Frank in our midst, leaving the Torr, and its household gods, including the cackling fowls and the dinnerless pigs, to their fate. Mr. Brandon met us at the second field, and he took Frank’s hand in silence.
