Pelham, Volume 5.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Pelham, Volume 5.
As Tyrrell broke out into impatient violence at this speech, the sharper
looked up at him with an expression of countenance I by no means liked;
but in a very civil, and even respectful tone, said, "If you want, Sir
John, to reach Chester Park sooner than Mr. Pelham can possibly do,
suppose you ride on with us, I will put you in the direct road before I
quit you." (Good breeding, thought I, to propose leaving me to find my
own way through this labyrinth of ruts and stones!) However, Tyrrell, who
was in a vile humour, in no very courteous manner, refused the offer, and
added that he should continue with me as long as he could, and did not
doubt that when he left me he should be able to find his own way.
Thornton pressed the invitation still closer, and even offered, sotto
voce, to send Dawson on before, should the baronet object to his company.
"Pray, Sir," said Tyrrell, "leave me alone, and busy yourself about your
own affairs." After so tart a reply, Thornton thought it useless to say
more; he remounted, and with a silent and swaggering nod of familiarity,
soon rode away with his companion.
"I am sorry," said I, as we were slowly proceeding, "that you rejected
Thornton's offer."
"Why, to say truth," answered Tyrrell, "I have so very bad an opinion of
him, that I was almost afraid to trust myself in his company on so dreary
a road. I have nearly (and he knows it), to the amount of two thousand
pounds about me; for I was very fortunate in my betting-book today."
"I know nothing about racing regulations," said I; "but I thought one
never paid sums of that amount upon the ground?"
"Ah!" answered Tyrrell, "but I won this sum, which is L1,800., of a
country squire from Norfolk, who said he did not know when he should see
me again, and insisted on paying me on the spot: 'faith I was not nice in
the matter. Thornton was standing by at the time, and I did not half like
the turn of his eye when he saw me put it up. Do you know, too,"
continued Tyrrell, after a pause, "that I have had a d--d fellow dodging
me all day, and yesterday too; wherever I go, I am sure to see him. He
seems constantly, though distantly, to follow me; and what is worse, he
wraps himself up so well, and keeps at so cautious a distance, that I can
never catch a glimpse of his face."
I know not why, but at that moment the recollection of the muffled figure
I had seen upon the course, flashed upon me.
"Does he wear a long horseman's cloak?" said I.
"He does," answered Tyrrell, in surprise: "have you observed him?"
"I saw such a person on the race ground," replied I; "but only for an
instant!"
Farther conversation was suspended by a few heavy drops which fell upon
us; the cloud had passed over the moon, and was hastening rapidly and
loweringly over our heads. Tyrrell was neither of an age, a frame, nor a
temper, to be so indifferent to a hearty wetting as myself.
"God!" he cried, "you must put on that beast of your's--I can't get wet,
for all the horses in the world."
I was not much pleased with the dictatorial tone of this remark. "It is
impossible," said I, "especially as the horse is not my own, and seems
considerably lamer than at first; but let me not detain you."
"Well!" cried Tyrrell, in a raised and angry voice, which pleased me
still less than his former remark; "but how am I to find my way, if I
leave you?"
"Keep straight on," said I, "for a mile farther, then a sign-post will
direct you to the left; after a short time, you will have a steep hill to
descend, at the bottom of which is a large pool, and a singularly shaped
tree; then keep straight on, till you pass a house belonging to Mr.
Dawson--"
"Come, come, Pelham, make haste!" exclaimed Tyrrell, impatiently, as the
rain began now to descend fast and heavy.
"When you have passed that house," I resumed coolly, rather enjoying his
petulance, "you must bear to the right for six miles, and you will be at
Chester Park in less than an hour."
Tyrrell made no reply, but put spurs to his horse. The pattering rain and
the angry heavens soon drowned the last echoes of the receding hoofclang.
For myself, I looked in vain for a tree; not even a shrub was to be
found; the fields lay bare on either side, with no other partition but a
dead hedge, and a deep dyke. "Patientia fit melius," thought I, as Horace
said, and Vincent would say; and in order to divert my thoughts from my
situation, I turned them towards my diplomatic success with Lord Chester.
Presently, for I think scarcely five minutes had elapsed since Tyrrell's
departure, a horseman passed me at a sharp pace; the moon was hid by the
dense cloud, and the night, though not wholly dark, was dim and obscured,
so that I could only catch the outline of the flitting figure. A thrill
of fear crept over me, when I saw that it was enveloped in a horseman's
cloak. I soon rallied--"There are more cloaks in the world than one,"
said I to myself; "besides, even if it be Tyrrell's dodger, as he calls
him, the baronet is better mounted than any highwayman since the days of
Du Val; and is, moreover, strong enough and cunning enough to take
admirable care of himself." With this reflection I dismissed the
occurrence from my thoughts, and once more returned to self-
congratulations upon my own incomparable genius. "I shall now," I
thought, "have well earned my seat in parliament; Dawton will
indisputably be, if not the prime, the principal minister in rank and
influence. He cannot fail to promote me for his own sake, as well as
mine; and when I have once fairly got my legs in St. Stephen's, I shall
soon have my hands in office: 'power,' says some one, 'is a snake that
when it once finds a hole into which it can introduce its head, soon
manages to wriggle in the rest of its body.'" With such meditations I
endeavoured to beguile the time and cheat myself into forgetfulness of
the lameness of my horse, and the dripping wetness of his rider. At last
the storm began sullenly to subside: one impetuous torrent, ten-fold more
violent than those that had preceded it, was followed by a momentary
stillness, which was again broken by a short relapse of a less formidable
severity, and the moment it ceased, the beautiful moon broke out, the
cloud rolled heavily away, and the sky shone forth, as fair and smiling
as Lady--at a ball, after she has been beating her husband at home.
But at that instant, or perhaps a second before the storm ceased, I
thought I heard the sound of a human cry. I paused, and my heart stood
still--I could have heard a gnat hum: the sound was not repeated; my ear
caught nothing but the plashing of the rain drops from the dead hedges,
and the murmur of the swollen dykes, as the waters pent within them
rolled hurriedly on. By and by, an owl came suddenly from behind me, and
screamed as it flapped across my path; that, too, went rapidly away: and
with a smile, at what I deemed my own fancy, I renewed my journey. I soon
came to the precipitous descent I have before mentioned; I dismounted,
for safety, from my drooping and jaded horse, and led him down the hill.
At a distance beyond I saw something dark moving on the grass which
bordered the road; as I advanced, it started forth from the shadow, and
fled rapidly before me, in the moonshine--it was a riderless horse. A
chilling foreboding seized me: I looked round for some weapon, such as
the hedge might afford; and finding a strong stick of tolerable weight
and thickness, I proceeded more cautiously, but more fearlessly than
before. As I wound down the hill, the moonlight fell full upon the
remarkable and lonely tree I had observed in the morning. Bare, wan, and
giant-like, as it rose amidst the surrounding waste, it borrowed even a
more startling and ghostly appearance from the cold and lifeless
moonbeams which fell around and upon it like a shroud. The retreating
animal I had driven before me, paused by this tree. I hastened my steps,
as if by an involuntary impulse, as well as the enfeebled animal I was
leading would allow me, and discovered a horseman galloping across the
waste at full speed. The ground over which he passed was steeped in the
moonshine, and I saw the long and disguising cloak, in which he was
developed, as clearly as by the light of day. I paused: and as I was
following him with my looks, my eye fell upon some obscure object by the
left side of the pool. I threw my horse's rein over the hedge, and firmly
grasping my stick, hastened to the spot. As I approached the object, I
perceived that it was a human figure; it was lying still and motionless;
the limbs were half immersed in the water--the face was turned upwards--
the side and throat were wet with a deep red stain--it was of blood; the
thin, dark hairs of the head, were clotted together over a frightful and
disfiguring contusion. I bent over the face in a shuddering and freezing
silence. It was the countenance of Sir John Tyrrell!
CHAPTER LXV.
Marry, he was dead--
And the right valiant Barlquo walked too late,
Whom, you may say, if it please you, Fleance killed,
For Fleance fled!
--Macbeth.
It is a fearful thing, even to the hardiest nerves, to find ourselves
suddenly alone with the dead. How much more so, if we have, but a
breathing interval before, moved and conversed with the warm and living
likeness of the motionless clay before us!
And this was the man from whom I had parted in coldness--almost in anger
--at a word--a breath! I took up the heavy hand--it fell from my grasp,
and as it did so, I thought a change passed over the livid countenance. I
was deceived; it was but a light cloud flitting over the moon;--it rolled
away, and the placid and guiltless light shone over that scene of dread
and blood, making more wild and chilling the eternal contrast of earth
and heaven--man and his Maker--passion and immutability--dust and
immortality.
But that was not a moment for reflection--a thousand thoughts hurried
upon me, and departed as swift and confusedly as they came. My mind
seemed a jarring and benighted chaos of the faculties which were its
elements; and I had stood several minutes over the corpse before, by a
vigorous effort, I shook off the stupor that possessed me, and began to
think of the course that it now behoved me to pursue.
The house I had noted in the morning was, I knew, within a few minutes'
walk of the spot; but it belonged to Dawson, upon whom the first weight
of my suspicions rested. I called to mind the disreputable character of
that man, and the still more daring and hardened one of his companion
Thornton. I remembered the reluctance of the deceased to accompany them,
and the well-grounded reason he assigned; and my suspicions amounting to
certainty, I resolved rather to proceed to Chester Park, and there give
the alarm, than to run the unnecessary risk of interrupting the murderers
in the very lair of their retreat. And yet, thought I, as I turned slowly
away, how, if they were the villains, is the appearance and flight of the
disguised horseman to be accounted for?
Then flashed upon my recollection all that Tyrrell had said of the dogged
pursuit of that mysterious person, and the circumstance of his having
passed me upon the road so immediately after Tyrrell had quitted me.
These reflections (associated with a name I did not dare breathe even to
myself, although I could not suppress a suspicion which accounted at once
for the pursuit, and even for the deed,) made me waver in, and almost
renounce my former condemnation of Thornton and his friend: and by the
time I reached the white gate and dwarfish avenue which led to Dawson's
house, I resolved, at all events, to halt at the solitary mansion, and
mark the effect my information would cause.
A momentary fear for my own safety came across me, but was as instantly
dismissed;--for even supposing the friends were guilty, still it would be
no object to them to extend their remorseless villany to me; and I knew
that I could sufficiently command my own thoughts to prevent any
suspicion I might form, from mounting to my countenance, or discovering
itself in my manner.
There was a light in the upper story; it burned still and motionless. How
holy seemed the tranquillity of life, to the forced and fearful silence
of the death scene I had just witnessed! I rung twice at the door--no one
came to answer my summons, but the light in the upper window moved
hurriedly to and fro.
"They are coming," said I to myself. No such thing--the casement above
was opened--I looked up, and discovered, to my infinite comfort and
delight, a blunderbuss protruded eight inches out of the window in a
direct line with my head; I receded close to the wall with no common
precipitation.
"Get away, you rascal," said a gruff, but trembling voice, "or I'll blow
your brains out."
"My good Sir," I replied, still keeping my situation, "I come on urgent
business, either to Mr. Thornton or Mr. Dawson; and you had better,
therefore, if the delay is not very inconvenient, defer the honour you
offer me, till I have delivered my message."
"Master, and 'Squire Thornton are not returned from Newmarket, and we
cannot let any one in till they come home," replied the voice, in a tone
somewhat mollified by my rational remonstrance; and while I was
deliberating what rejoinder to make, a rough, red head, like Liston's, in
a farce, poked itself cautiously out under cover of the blunderbuss, and
seemed to reconnoitre my horse and myself. Presently another head, but
attired in the more civilized gear of a cap and flowers, peeped over the
first person's left shoulder; the view appeared to reassure them.
"Sir," said the female, "my husband and Mr. Thornton are not returned;
and we have been so much alarmed of late, by an attack on the house, that
I cannot admit any one till their return."
"Madam," I replied, reverently doffing my hat, "I do not like to alarm
you by mentioning the information I should have given to Mr. Dawson; only
oblige me by telling them, on their return, to look beside the pool on
the common; they will then do as best pleases them."
Upon this speech, which certainly was of no agreeable tendency, the
blunderbuss palpitated so violently, that I thought it highly imprudent
to tarry any longer in so immediate a vicinity; accordingly, I made the
best of my way out of the avenue, and once more resumed my road to
Chester Park.
I arrived there at length; the gentlemen were still in the dining-room. I
sent out for Lord Chester, and communicated the scene I had witnessed,
and the cause of my delay.
"What, Brown Bob lamed?" said he, "and Tyrrell--poor--poor fellow, how
shocking! we must send instantly. Here, John! Tom! Wilson!" and his
lordship shouted and rung the bell in an indescribable agitation.
The under butler appeared, and Lord Chester began--"My head groom--Sir
John Tyrrell is murdered--violent sprain in off leg--send lights with Mr.
Pelham--poor gentleman--an express instantly to Dr. Physicon--Mr. Pelham
will tell you all--Brown Bob--his throat cut from ear to ear--what shall
be done?" and with this coherent and explanatory harangue, the marquis
sunk down in his chair in a sort of hysteria.
The under butler looked at him in suspicious bewilderment. "Come," said
I, "I will explain what his lordship means:" and, taking the man out of
the room, I gave him, in brief, the necessary particulars. I ordered a
fresh horse for myself, and four horsemen to accompany me. While these
were preparing, the news was rapidly spreading, and I was soon surrounded
by the whole house. Many of the men wished to accompany me; and Lord
Chester, who had at last recovered from his stupor, insisted upon heading
the search. We set off, to the number of fourteen, and soon arrived at
Dawson's house: the light in the upper room was still burning. We rang,
and after a brief pause, Thornton himself opened the door to us. He
looked pale and agitated.
"How shocking!" he said directly--"we are only just returned from the
spot."
"Accompany us, Mr. Thornton," said I, sternly; and fixing my eye upon
him--
"Certainly," was his immediate answer, without testifying any confusion--
"I will fetch my hat." He went into the house for a moment.
"Do you suspect these people?" whispered Lord Chester.
"Not suspect," said I, "but doubt."
We proceeded down the avenue: "Where is Mr. Dawson?" said I to Thornton.
"Oh, within!" answered Thornton.
"Shall I fetch him?"
"Do," was my brief reply.
Thornton was absent some minutes; when he re-appeared, Dawson was
following him. "Poor fellow," said he to me in a low tone--"he was so
shocked by the sight, that he is still all in a panic; besides, as you
will see, he is half drunk still."
I made no answer, but looked narrowly at Dawson; he was evidently, as
Thornton said, greatly intoxicated: his eyes swam, and his feet staggered
as he approached us; yet, through all the natural effects of drunkenness,
he seemed nervous and frightened. This, however, might be the natural,
and consequently innocent effect, of the mere sight of an object so full
of horror; and, accordingly, I laid little stress upon it.
We reached the fatal spot: the body seemed perfectly unmoved. "Why," said
I, apart to Thornton, while all the rest were crowding fearfully round
the corpse--"why did you not take the body within?"
"I was going to return here with our servant for that purpose," answered
the gambler; "for poor Dawson was both too drunk and too nervous to give
me any assistance."
"And how came it," I rejoined, eyeing him searchingly, "that you and your
friend had not returned home when I called there, although you had both
long since passed me on the road, and I had never overtaken you?"
Thornton, without any hesitation, replied--"because, during the violence
of the shower, we cut across the fields to an old shed, which we
recollected, and we remained there till the rain had ceased."
"They are probably innocent," thought I--and I turned to look once more
at the body which our companions had now raised. There was upon the head
a strong contusion, as if inflicted by some blunt and heavy instrument.
The fingers of the right hand were deeply gashed, and one of them almost
dissevered: the unfortunate man had, in all probability, grasped the
sharp weapon from which his other wounds proceeded; these were one wide
cut along the throat, and another in the side; either of them would have
occasioned his death.
In loosening the clothes another wound was discovered, but apparently of
a less fatal nature; and in lifting the body, the broken blade of a long
sharp instrument, like a case-knife, was discovered. It was the opinion
of the surgeon, who afterwards examined the body, that the blade had been
broken by coming in contact with one of the rib bones; and it was by this
that he accounted for the slightness of the last mentioned wound. I
looked carefully among the fern and long grass, to see if I could
discover any other token of the murderer: Thornton assisted me. At the
distance of some feet from the body, I thought I perceived something
glitter. I hastened to the place, and picked up a miniature. I was just
going to cry out, when Thornton whispered--"Hush! I know the picture; it
is as I suspected."
An icy thrill ran through my very heart. With a desperate but trembling
hand, I cleansed from the picture the blood, in which, notwithstanding
its distance from the corpse, the grater part of it was bathed. I looked
upon the features; they were those of a young and singularly beautiful
female. I recognized them not: I turned to the other side of the
miniature; upon it were braided two locks of hair--one was the long, dark
ringlet of a woman, the other was of a light auburn. Beneath were four
letters. I looked eagerly at them. "My eyes are dim," said I, in a low
tone to Thornton, "I cannot trace the initials."
"But I can," replied he, in the same whispered key, but with a savage
exultation, which made my heart stand still--"they are G. D., R. G.; they
are the initials of Gertrude Douglas and Reginald Glanville."
I looked up at the speaker--our eyes met--I grasped his hand vehemently.
He understood me. "Put it up," said he; "we will keep the secret." All
this, so long in the recital, passed in the rapidity of a moment.
"Have you found any thing there, Pelham?" shouted one of our companions.
"No!" cried I, thrusting the miniature in my bosom, and turning
unconcernedly away.
We carried the corpse to Dawson's house. The poor wife was in fits. We
heard her scream as we laid the body upon a table in the parlour.
"What more can be done?" said Lord Chester.
"Nothing," was the general answer. No excitation makes the English people
insensible to the chance of catching cold!
"Let us go home, then, and send to the nearest magistrate," exclaimed our
host: and this proposal required no repetition.
On our way, Chester said to me, "That fellow Dawson looked devilish
uneasy--don't you still suspect him and his friend?"
"I do not!" answered I, emphatically.