Works of Ellen Wood, page 1203
“You won’t tell tales of me, Johnny Ludlow?” she stopped to say, in a beseeching tone, as we reached the gate of Crabb Cot. “See, I have my music now.”
“All right, Miss Verena. You may trust me.”
“I am sure of that. I read it in your face.”
Which might be all very well; but I thought it would be more to the purpose could she have read it in Pym’s. Pym’s was a handsome face, but not one to be trusted.
She glided into the room behind Thomas and his big tea-tray, seized upon a cup at once, and stood with it as coolly as though she had never been away. Sir Dace, talking near the window with old Paul, looked across at her, but said nothing. I wondered how long they had been in the drawing-room, and whether he had noticed her absence.
It was, I think, the next afternoon but one that I went to Maythorn Bank, and found Jack Tanerton there. The Squire had offered to drive Sir Dace to Worcester, leaving him to fix the day. Sir Dace wrote a note to fix the following day, if that would suit; and the Squire sent me to say it would.
Coralie was in the little drawing-room with Sir Dace, but not Verena. Jack seemed to be quite at home with them; they were talking with animation about some of the ports over the seas, which all three of them knew so well. When I left, Jack came with me, and Sir Dace walked with us to the gate. And there we came upon Mr. Pym and Miss Verena promenading together in the lane as comfortably as you please. You should have seen Sir Dace Fontaine’s face. A dark face at all times; frightfully dark then.
Taking Verena by the shoulder, never speaking a word, he marched her in at the gate, and pushed her up the path towards the house. Then he turned round to Pym.
“Mr. Edward Pym,” said he, “as I once had occasion to warn you off my premises in the Colonies, I now warn you off these. This is my house, and I forbid you to approach it. I forbid you to attempt to hold intercourse of any kind with my daughters. Do you understand me, sir?”
“Quite so, Uncle Dace,” replied the young man: and there was the same covert defiance in his tone that he had used the other day to his captain.
“I should like to know what brings you in this neighbourhood?” continued Sir Dace. “You cannot have any legitimate business here. I recommend you to leave it.”
“I will think of it,” said Pym, as he lifted his cap to us generally, and went his way.
“What does it mean, Johnny?” spoke Tanerton, breathlessly, when we were alone. “Is Pym making-up to that sweet girl?”
“I fancy so. Wanting to make up, at least.”
“Heaven help her, then! It’s like his impudence.”
“They are first cousins, you see.”
“So much the worse. I expect, though, Pym will find his match in Sir Dace. I don’t like him, by the way, Johnny.”
“Whom? Pym?”
“Sir Dace. I don’t like his countenance: there’s too much secretiveness in it for me. And in himself too, unless I am mistaken.”
“I am sure there is in Pym.”
“I hate Pym!” flashed Jack. And at the moment he looked as if he did.
But would he have acknowledged as much, even to me, had he foreseen the cruel fate that was, all too soon, to place Edward Pym beyond the pale of this world’s hate? — and the dark trouble it would bring home to himself, John Tanerton?
II.
Striding along through South Crabb, and so on down by old Massock’s brick-fields, went Sir Dace Fontaine, dark and gloomy. His heavy stick and his heavy tread kept pace together; both might have been the better for a little lightness.
Matters were not going on too smoothly at Maythorn Bank. Seemingly obedient to her father, Verena Fontaine contrived to meet her lover, and did not take extraordinary pains to keep it secret. Sir Dace, watching stealthily, found it out, and felt just about at his wits’ end.
He had no power to banish Edward Pym from the place: he had none, one must conclude, to exact submission from Verena. She had observed to me, the first night we met, that American girls grow up to be independent of control in many ways. That is true: and, as it seems to me, they think great guns of themselves for being so.
Sir Dace was beginning to turn his anger on Colonel Letsom. As chance had it, while he strode along this morning, full of wrath, the colonel came in view, turning the corner of the strongest and most savoury brick-yard.
“Why do you harbour that fellow?” broke out Sir Dace, fiercely, without circumlocution of greeting.
“What, young Pym?” cried the little colonel in his mild way, jumping to the other’s meaning. “I don’t suppose he will stay with us long. He is expecting a summons to join his ship.”
“But why do you have him at your house at all?” reiterated Sir Dace, with a thump of his stick. “Why did you take him in?”
“Well, you see, he came down, a stranger, and presented himself to us, calling my wife aunt, though she is not really so, and said he would like to stay a few days with us. We could not turn him away, Sir Dace. In fact we had no objection to his staying; he behaves himself very well. He’ll not be here long.”
“He has been here a great deal too long,” growled Sir Dace; and went on his way muttering.
Nothing came of this complaint of Sir Dace Fontaine’s. Edward Pym continued to stay at Crabb, Colonel Letsom not seeing his way clear to send him adrift; perhaps not wanting to. The love-making went on. In the green meadows, where the grass and the sweet wild flowers were springing up, in the Ravine, between its sheltering banks, redolent of romance; or in the triangle, treading underfoot the late primroses and violets — in one or other of these retreats might Mr. Pym and his ladye-love be seen together, listening to the tender vows whispered between them, and to the birds’ songs.
Sir Dace, conscious of all this, grew furious, and matters came to a climax. Verena was bold enough to steal out one night to meet Pym for a promenade with him in the moonlight, and Sir Dace came upon them sitting on the stile at the end of the cross lane. He gave it to Pym hot and strong, marched Verena home, and the next day carried both his daughters away from Crabb.
But I ought to mention that I had gone away from Crabb myself before this, and was in London in with Miss Deveen. So that what had been happening lately I only knew by hearsay.
To what part of the world Sir Dace went, was not known. Naturally Crabb was curious upon the point. Just as naturally it was supposed that Pym, having nothing to stay for, would now take his departure. Pym, however, stayed on.
One morning Mr. Pym called at Maythorn Bank. An elderly woman, one Betty Huntsman, who had been employed by the Fontaines as cook, opened the door to him. The coloured man, Ozias, and a maid, Esther, had gone away with the family. It was the second time Mr. Pym had presented himself upon the same errand: to get the address of Sir Dace Fontaine. Betty, obeying her master’s orders, had refused it; this time he had come to bribe her. Old Betty, however, an honest, kindly old woman, refused to be bribed.
“I can’t do it, sir,” she said to Pym. “When the master wrote to give me the address, on account of sending him his foreign letters, he forbade me to disclose it to anybody down here. It is only myself that knows it, sir.”
“It is in London; I know that much,” affirmed Pym, making a shot at the place, and so far taking in old Betty.
“That much may possibly be known, sir. I cannot tell more.”
Back went Pym to Colonel Letsom’s. He sat down and wrote a letter in a young lady’s hand — for he had all kinds of writing at his fingers’ ends — and addressed it to Mrs. Betty Huntsman at Maythorn Bank, Worcestershire. This he enclosed in a bigger envelope, with a few lines from himself, and posted it to London, to one Alfred Saxby, a sailor friend of his. He next, in a careless, off-hand manner, asked Colonel Letsom if he’d mind calling at Maythorn Bank, and asking the old cook there if she could give him her master’s address. Oh, Pym was as cunning as a fox, and could lay out his plans artfully. And Colonel Letsom, unsuspicious as the day, and willing to oblige everybody, did call that afternoon to put the question to Betty; but she told him she was not at liberty to give the address.
The following morning, Pym got the summons he had been expecting, to join his ship. The Rose of Delhi was now ready to take in cargo. After swearing a little, down sat Mr. Pym to his desk, and in a shaky hand, to imitate a sick man’s, wrote back word that he was ill in bed, but would endeavour to be up in London on the morrow.
And, the morning following this, Mrs. Betty Huntsman got a letter from London.
“London, Thursday.
“Dear old Betty,
“I am writing to you for papa, who is very poorly indeed. Should Colonel Letsom apply to you for our address here, you are to give it him: papa wishes him to have it. We hope your wrist is better.
“Coralie Fontaine.”
Betty Huntsman, honest herself, never supposed but the letter was written by Miss Fontaine. By-and-by, there came a ring at the bell.
“My uncle, Colonel Letsom, requested me to call here this morning, as I was passing on my way to Timberdale Rectory,” began Mr. Pym; for it was he who rang, and by his authoritative voice and lordly manner, one might have thought he was on board a royal frigate, commanding a cargo of refractory soldiers.
“Yes, sir!” answered Betty, dropping a curtsy.
“Colonel Letsom wants your master’s address in London — if you can give it him. He has to write to Sir Dace to-day.”
Betty produced a card from her innermost pocket, and showed it to Mr. Pym: who carefully copied down the address.
That he was on his way to Timberdale Rectory, was not a ruse. He went on there through the Ravine at the top of his speed, and asked for Captain Tanerton.
“Have got orders to join ship, sir, and am going up this morning. Any commands?”
“To join what ship?” questioned Jack.
“The Rose of Delhi. She is beginning to load.”
Jack paused. “Of course you must go up, as you are sent for. But I don’t think you will go out in the Rose of Delhi, Mr. Pym. I should recommend you to look out for another ship.”
“Time enough for that, Captain Tanerton, when I get my discharge from the Rose of Delhi: I have not got it yet,” returned Pym, who seemed to take a private delight in thwarting his captain.
“Well, I shall be in London myself shortly, and will see about things,” spoke Jack.
“Any commands, sir?”
“Not at present.”
Taking his leave of Colonel and Mrs. Letsom, and thanking them for their hospitality, Edward Pym departed for London by an afternoon train. He left his promises and vows to the young Letsoms, boys and girls, to come down again at the close of the next voyage, little dreaming, poor ill-fated young man, that he would never go upon another. Captain Tanerton wrote at once to head-quarters in Liverpool, saying he did not wish to retain Pym as chief mate, and would like another one to be appointed. Strolling back to Timberdale Rectory from posting the letter at Salmon’s, John Tanerton fell into a brown study.
A curious feeling, against taking Pym out again, lay within him; like an instinct, it seemed; a prevision of warning. Jack was fully conscious of it, though he knew not why it should be there. It was a great deal stronger than could have been prompted by his disapprobation of the man’s carelessness in his duties on board.
“I’ll go up to London to-morrow,” he decided. “Best to do so. Pym means to sail in the Rose of Delhi if he can; just, I expect, because he sees I don’t wish him to: the man’s nature is as contrary as two sticks. I’ll not have him again at any price. Yes, I must go up to-morrow.”
“L’homme propose” — we know the proverb. Very much to Jack’s surprise, his wife arrived that evening at the Rectory from Liverpool, with her eldest child, Polly. Therefore, Jack did not start for London on the morrow; it would not have been at all polite.
He went up the following week. His first visit was to Eastcheap, in which bustling quarter stood the office of Mr. James Freeman, the ship’s broker. After talking a bit about the ship and her cargo, Jack spoke of Pym.
“Has a first officer been appointed in Pym’s place?”
“No,” said Mr. Freeman. “Pym goes out with you again.”
“I told you I did not wish to take Pym again,” cried Jack.
“You said something about it, I know, and we thought of putting in the mate from the Star of Lahore; but he wants to keep to his own vessel.”
“I won’t take Pym.”
“But why, Captain Tanerton?”
“We don’t get on together. I never had an officer who gave me so much provocation — the Americans would say, who riled me so. I believe the man dislikes me, and for that reason was insubordinate. He may do better in another ship. I am a strict disciplinarian on board.”
“Well,” carelessly observed the broker, “you will have to make the best of him this voyage, Captain Tanerton. It is decided that he sails with you again.”
“Then, don’t be surprised if there’s murder committed,” was Jack’s impetuous answer.
And Mr. Freeman stared: and noted the words.
The mid-day sun was shining hotly upon the London pavement, and especially upon the glittering gold band adorning the cap of a lithe, handsome young sailor, who had just got out of a cab, and was striding along as though he wanted to run a race with the clocks. It was Edward Pym: and the reader will please take notice that we have gone back a few days, for this was the day following Pym’s arrival in London.
“Halt a step,” cried he to himself, his eye catching the name written up at a street corner. “I must be out of my bearings.”
Taking from his pocket a piece of paper, he read some words written there. It was no other than the address he had got from Bessy Huntsman the previous day.
“Woburn Place, Russell Square,” repeated he. “This is not it. I’ll be shot if I know where I am! Can you tell me my way to Woburn Place?” asked he, of a gentleman who was passing.
“Turn to the left; you will soon come to it.”
“Thank you,” said Pym.
The right house sighted at last, Mr. Pym took his standing in a friendly door-way on the other side of the road, and put himself on the watch. Very much after the fashion of a bailiff’s man, who wants to serve a writ.
He glanced up at the windows; he looked down at the doors; he listened to the sound of a church clock striking; he scraped his feet in impatience, now one foot, now the other. Nothing came of it. The rooms behind the curtained windows might be untenanted for all the sign given out to the eager eyes of Mr. Pym.
“Hang it all!” he cried, in an explosion of impatience: and he could have sent the silent dwelling to Jericho.
No man of business likes his time to be wasted: and Mr. Pym could very especially not afford to waste his to-day. For he was supposed to be at St. Katherine’s Docks, checking cargo on board the Rose of Delhi. When twelve o’clock struck, the dinner hour, he had made a rush from the ship, telling the foreman of the shed not to ship any more cargo till he came back in half-an-hour, and had come dashing up here in a fleet cab. The half-hour had expired, and another half-hour to it, and it was a great deal more than time to dash back again. If anybody from the office chanced to go down to the ship, what a row there’d be! — and he would probably get his discharge.
He had not been lucky in his journey from Worcestershire the previous day. The train was detained so on the line, through some heavy waggons having come to grief, that he did not reach London till late at night; too late to go down to his lodgings near the docks; so he slept at an hotel. This morning he had reported himself at the broker’s office; and Mr. Freeman, after blowing him up for his delay, ordered him on board at once: since they began to load, two days ago now, a clerk from the office had been down on the ship, making up the cargo-books in Pym’s place.
“I’ll be hanged if I don’t believe they must all be dead!” cried Pym, gazing at the house. “Why does not somebody show himself? I can’t post the letter — for I know my letters to her are being suppressed. And I dare not leave it at the door myself, lest that cantankerous Ozias should answer me, and hand it to old Dace, instead of to Vera.”
Luck at last! The door opened, and a maid-servant came out with a jug, her bonnet thrown on perpendicularly. Mr. Pym kept her in view, and caught her up as she was nearing a public-house.
“You come from Mrs. Ball’s, Woburn Place?” said he.
“Yes, sir,” answered the girl, doubtfully, rather taken aback at the summary address, but capitulating to the gold-lace band.
“I want you to give this letter privately to Miss Verena Fontaine. When she is quite alone, you understand. And here’s half-a-crown, my pretty lass, for your trouble.”
The girl touched neither letter nor money. She surreptitiously put her bonnet straight, in her gratified vanity.
“But I can’t give it, sir,” she said. “Though I’m sure I’d be happy to oblige you if I could. The Miss Fontaines and their papa is not with us now; they’ve gone away.”
“What?” cried Pym, setting his teeth angrily, an expression crossing his face that marred all its good looks. “When did they leave? Where are they gone to?”
“They left yesterday, sir, and they didn’t say where. That black servant of theirs and our cook couldn’t agree; there was squabbles perpetual. None of us liked him; it don’t seem Christian-like to have a black man sitting down to table with you. Mrs. Ball, our missis, she took our part; and the young ladies and their papa they naturally took his part: and so, they left.”
“Can I see Mrs. Ball?” asked Pym, after mentally anathematizing servants in general, black and white. “Is she at home?”
“Yes, sir, and she’ll see you, I’m sure. She is vexed at their having left.”
He dropped the half-crown into the girl’s hand, returned the note to his pocket, and went to the house. Mrs. Ball, a talkative, good-humoured woman in a rusty black silk gown, with red cheeks and quick brown eyes, opened the door to him herself.
