Run to Earth - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (ebook reader .txt) 📗

ditch, that flowed down to the river.

 

“I can’t compliment you on the situation of your cottage, mate,” he

said; “it might be livelier.”

 

“I dare say it might,” answered Black Milsom, rather sulkily. “I took

to this place because everybody else was afraid to take to it, and it

was to be had for nothing. There was an old miser as cut his throat

here seven or eight year ago, and the place has been left to go to

decay ever since. The miser’s ghost walks about here sometimes, after

twelve o’clock at night, folks say. ‘Let him walk till he tires himself

out,’ says I. ‘He don’t come my way; and if he did he wouldn’t scare

me.’ Come, captain.”

 

Mr. Milsom opened the door, and ushered his visitor into the lively

abode, which the prejudice of weak-minded people permitted him to

occupy rent-free.

 

The girl whom Jernam had seen at the Wapping public-house was sitting

by the hearth, where a scrap of fire burnt in a rusty grate. She had

been sitting in a listless attitude, with her hands lying idle on her

lap, and her eyes fixed on the fire; but she looked up as the two men

entered.

 

She did not welcome her father’s return with any demonstration of

affection; she looked at him with a strange, wondering gaze; and she

looked with an anxious expression from him to his companion.

 

Dennis Wayman came in presently, and as the girl recognized him, a

transient look, almost like horror, flitted across her face, unseen by

the sailor.

 

“Come, Jenny,” said Milsom; “I’ve brought Wayman and a friend of his

down to supper. What can you give us to eat? There’s a bit of cold beef

in the house, I know, and bread and cheese; the captain here has

brought the wine; so we shall do well enough. Look sharp, lass. You’re

in one of your tempers to-night, I suppose; but you ought to know that

don’t answer with me. I say, captain,” added the man, with a laugh, “if

ever you’re going to marry a pretty woman, make sure she isn’t troubled

with an ugly temper; for you’ll find, as a rule, that the handsomer a

woman is the more of the devil there is in her. Now, Jenny, the supper,

and no nonsense about it.”

 

The girl went into another room, and returned presently with such fare

as Mr. Milsom’s establishment could afford. The sailor’s eyes followed

her wherever she went, full of compassion and love. He was sure this

brutal wretch, Milsom, used her badly, and he rejoiced to think that he

had disregarded all Joyce Harker’s warnings, and penetrated into the

scoundrel’s home. He rejoiced, for he meant to rescue this lovely,

helpless creature. He knew nothing of her, except that she was

beautiful, friendless, lonely, and ill-used; and he determined to take

her away and marry her.

 

He did not perplex himself with any consideration as to whether she

would return his love, or be grateful for his devotion. He thought only

of her unhappy position, and that he was predestined to save her.

 

The supper was laid upon the rickety deal table, and the three men sat

down. Valentine would have waited till his host’s daughter had seated

herself; but she had laid no plate or knife for herself, and it was

evident that she was not expected to share the social repast.

 

“You can go to bed now,” said Milsom. “We’re in for a jolly night of

it, and you’ll only be in the way. Where’s the old man?”

 

“Gone to bed.”

 

“So much the better: and the sooner you follow him will be so much the

better again. Good night.”

 

The girl did not answer him. She looked at him for a few moments with

an earnest, inquiring gaze, which seemed to compel him to return her

look, as if he had been fascinated by the profound earnestness of those

large dark eyes; and then she went slowly and silently from the room.

 

“Sulky!” muttered Mr. Milsom. “There never was such a girl to sulk.”

 

He took up a candle, and followed his daughter from the room.

 

A rickety old staircase led to the upper floor, where there were three

or four bedchambers. The house had been originally something more than

a cottage, and the rooms and passages were tolerably large.

 

Thomas Milsom found the girl standing at the top of the stairs, as if

waiting for some one.

 

“What are you standing mooning there for?” asked the man. “Why don’t

you go to bed?”

 

“Why have you brought that sailor here?” inquired the girl, without

noticing Milsom’s question.

 

“What’s that to you? You’d like to know my business, wouldn’t you? I’ve

brought him here because he wanted to come. Is that a good answer? I’ve

brought him here because he has money to lose, and is in the humour to

lose it. Is that a better answer?”

 

“Yes,” returned the girl, fixing her eyes upon him with a look of

horror; “you will win his money, and, if he is angry, there will be a

quarrel, as there was on that hideous night three years ago, when you

brought home the foreign sailor, and what happened to that man will

happen to this one. Father,” cried the girl, suddenly and passionately,

“let this man leave the house in safety. I sometimes think my heart is

almost as hard as yours; but this man trusts us. Don’t let any harm

come to him.”

 

“Why, what harm should come to him?”

 

For some time the girl called Jenny stood before her father in silence,

with her head bent, and her face in shadow; then she lifted her head

suddenly, and looked at him piteously.

 

“The other!” she murmured; “the other! I remember what happened to

him.”

 

“Come, drop that!” cried Milsom, savagely; “do you think I’m going to

stand your mad talk? Get to bed, and go to sleep. And the sounder you

sleep the better, unless you want to sleep uncommonly sound for the

future, my lady.”

 

The ruffian seized his daughter by the arm, and half pushed, half flung

her into a room, the door of which stood open. It was the dreary room

which she called her own. Milsom shut the door upon her, and locked it

with a key which he took from his pocket—a key which locked every door

in the house. “And now, I flatter myself, you’re safe, my pretty

singing-bird,” he muttered.

 

He went down stairs, and returned to his guest, who had been pressed to

eat and drink by Dennis Wayman, and who had yielded good-naturedly to

that gentleman’s hospitable attentions.

 

*

 

Alone in her room, Jenny Milsom opened the window, and sat looking out

into the inky darkness of the night, and listening to the voices of the

three men in the room below.

 

The voices sounded very distinctly in that dilapidated old house. Every

now and then a hearty shout of laughter seemed to shake the crazy

rafters; but presently the revellers grew silent. Jenny knew they were

busy with the cards.

 

“Yes, yes,” she murmured; “it all happens as it happened that night—

first the loud voices and laughter; then the silence; then—Great

Heaven! will the end be like the end of that night?”

 

She clasped her hands in silent agony, and sank in a crouching position

by the open window, with her head lying on the sill.

 

For hours this wretched girl sat upon the floor in the same attitude,

with the cold wind blowing in upon her. All seemed tranquil in the room

below. The voices sounded now and then, subdued and cautious, and there

were no more outbursts of jovial laughter.

 

A dim, gray streak glimmered faint and low in the east—the first pale

flicker of dawn. The girl raised her weary eyes towards that chill gray

light.

 

“Oh! if this night were only ended!” she murmured: “if it were only

ended without harm!”

 

The words were still upon her lips, when the voices sounded loud and

harsh from the room below. The girl started to her feet, white and

trembling. Louder with every moment grew those angry voices. Then came

a struggle; some article of furniture fell with a crash; there was the

sound of shivered glass, and then a dull heavy noise, which echoed

through the house, and shook the weather-beaten wooden walls to their

foundations.

 

After the fall there came the sound of one loud groan, and then subdued

murmurs, cautious whispers.

 

The window of Jenny Milsom’s room looked towards the road. From that

window she could see nothing of the sluggish ditch or the river.

 

She tried the door of her room. It was securely locked, as she had

expected to find it.

 

“They would kill me, if I tried to come between them and their victim,”

she said; “and I am afraid to die.”

 

She crept to her wretched bed, and flung herself down, dressed as she

was. She drew the thin patchwork coverlet round her.

 

Ten minutes after she had thrown herself upon the bed, a key turned in

the lock, and the door was opened by a stealthy hand. Black Milsom

looked into the room.

 

The cold glimmer of day fell full upon the girl’s pale face. Her eyes

were closed, and her breathing was loud and regular.

 

“Asleep,” he whispered to some one outside; “as safe as a rock.”

 

He drew back and closed the door softly.

 

*

 

Joyce Harker worked his hardest on board the ‘Pizarro’, and the repairs

were duly completed by the 4th of April. On the morning of the 5th the

vessel was a picture, and Joyce surveyed her with the pride of a man

who feels that he has not worked in vain.

 

He had set his heart upon the brothers celebrating the first day of

their reunion on board the trim little craft: and he had made

arrangements for the preparation of a dinner which was to be a triumph

in its way.

 

Joyce presented himself at the bar of the ‘Jolly Tar’ at half-past

eleven on the appointed morning. He expected that the brothers would be

punctual; but he did not expect either of them to appear before the

stroke of noon.

 

All was very quiet at the ‘Jolly Tar’ at this hour of the day. The

landlord was alone in the bar, reading a paper. He looked up as Joyce

entered; but did not appear to recognize him.

 

“Can I step through into your private room?” asked Joyce; “I expect

Captain Jernam and his brother to meet me here in half an hour.”

 

“To be sure you can, mate. There’s no one in the private room at this

time of day. Jernam—Jernam, did you say? What Jernam is that? I don’t

recollect the name.”

 

“You’ve a short memory,” answered Joyce; “you might remember Captain

Jernam of the ‘Pizarro’; for it isn’t above a week since he was here

with me. He dined here, and slept here, and left early in the morning,

though you were uncommonly pressing for him to stay.”

 

“We’ve so many captains and sailors in and out from year’s end to

year’s end, that I don’t remember them by name,” said Dennis Wayman;

“but I do remember your friend, mate, now you remind me of him; and I

remember you, too.”

 

“Yes,” said Joyce, with a grin; “there ain’t so many of my pattern.

I’ll take a glass of rum for the good of the house; and if you