Читать книгу Bertha Shelley - Aubrey Burnage - Страница 3

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"Lo! 'tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!

An angel throng bewinged, bedight In veils, and drowned in tears

Sit in a theatre to see

A play of hopes and fears.

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres!"

—EDGAR ALLAN POE.

IT was night. No moon nor stars shed their pale beams upon the silent streets of York; and that grand old city of a thousand memories lay in placid slumber, wrapped in a mantle of thick darkness,—save here and there in some of her narrow back alleys, where taverns of questionable respectability still drove a stealthy trade in the "cup that maddens" with the abandoned wretches at their gaming tables. A cold, drizzling rain was falling; and the rude gusts of a December wind howled and moaned by turns, as they swept boisterously along through the network of streets and lanes away to the broad Atlantic. It was a night to lead the homeless poor almost to doubt the Mercy that could leave them, weary and broken-hearted, exposed to the pitiless storm with scarce a rag to cover their shivering limbs.

Along one of the narrowest and dirtiest of the back streets, a man was hurrying with rapid strides. He was so closely muffled that, had it been daylight, it would have been impossible for anyone to have recognised him. His broad-brimmed felt hat was shoved low down over his face, and a thick comforter, rolled several turns around his throat, concealed the lower part of his features. A heavy great coat enveloped him to the heels, and fitting loosely, defied recognition by his figure. It was a dangerous part of the town to be out in at such an hour; but the heavily-loaded cane, ironically called a "life-preserver," which he carried, would have warned any desperado lurking about to think twice before attacking him. Stopping before the most disreputable-looking tavern in this most disreputable street, he applied his eyes to the crevices of a shutter, through which light was streaming.

'All right,' he muttered; 'the knave and the fool are both there, waiting to be put to work. And now, my brave Sinclair, you'll rue the day, that you were mad enough to come between me and Anne Egerton.'

Shoving his hat still further down over his eyes, and burying his chin yet deeper in the folds of his woollen comforter, so as to avoid detection from any late stragglers in the bar, he knocked at the door. Being far after twelve, it was shut and locked; but giving a private watchword, he was admitted.

In the room that the traveller had taken the precaution to reconnoitre before entering the tavern, sat two men playing cards. The table was covered with a miscellaneous litter of greasy cards, brandy bottles, half-emptied glasses, and tobacco pipes; and a vacant chair at one side of the table showed that the party was not complete.

Throwing down a card, one of the players exclaimed, 'Twenty-seven and four—thirty-one, with a pair! Four holes! I'm out, Darby!'

'Yes, Bow, it's your game. But I'm hanged if I'll play another hand to-night. I wish Mr. Clayton 'ud come, It's past one now; and I want to get to roost. It's not often I crawl off to my bunk before morning; and I'd like to get to bed early to-night for a change.'

'It's deucedly wet and dark, Darby; but I 'spects he'll be here directly. I don't care about playing any more either,' he continued, throwing down the cards, 'it's slow work, playing for the honour of the thing.'

'You're about right, old man,' returned his companion, looking up. 'There's nothing like a heavy stake to give the game an interest. But it won't do 'twixt me and you, 'cause the winner 'ud only have to share it back! And if one on us got sharping, there'd likely be a row; and that's best avoided, as we've some ugly secrets to keep. Here, try these cigars—they're real Spanish. I knocked the fellow on the head as smuggled 'em; so I know they're right 'uns,' said Darby, handing Bow a cigar-case handsome and costly enough to have belonged to a peer of the realm.

'Holloa, mate! where'd you get that spicy case from?' asked Bow, helping himself to a couple.

After eyeing the cigar-cage for a few moments silently, as if weighing the propriety of answering the question, Darby suddenly burst out into a boisterous fit of laughter. Any person hearing it, and not seeing from whence it came, would have taken it for the chattering of an ape with a severe cold.

'What the devil's the matter with you, Darby! What's tickling your fancy now?' asked the other worthy, gruffly.

Disregarding the question, the facetious Darby laughed, in his peculiar way, till his whole face became as bright a crimson as his nose, and the tears fairly rolled down his unwashed cheeks in a grimy flood. After laughing till he had thoroughly exhausted himself, he gasped out, 'That cigar-case, Bow! By Jove, it was a jolly spree!' and then rolled away into another fit of merriment, by way of bringing himself round.

'What about the cigar-case, Darby?' asked the other, irritably.

'I can't see nothing to laugh at in it, 'cept you bought it. It's many a day I 'spects since you bought anything.'

As soon as the mirthful Darby had subsided into a normal condition, and his flaring nasal organ had again monopolised the crimson of his features, he began to enlighten Bow upon the secret cause of his recent ebullition of merriment.

'You remember, Bow, about two years ago, before you joined pals with me, that old Sir Humphrey Grey was found dead on the London road—shot through the head? Well, he lost this identical case that night, and he aren't likely to find it again, I reckon.'

'What, did you cook him, Darby?' asked Bow, with a shudder. 'I thought Black Jim did that job. He got lagged for it any how.'

'I never tell tales, Bow! I'm mum as a mouse when it pays! But he lost this cigar-case that night, and here it is.' Here he gave way to another paroxysm of laughter, which was soon cut short by the stranger gently opening the door, and entering the room.

Hubert Clayton took off his heavy greatcoat, hat, and comforter, and sat down to the table. He was a singularly handsome man, and a striking contrast to his two companions. He appeared to possess every trait of masculine beauty. But it was a beauty that had the unaccountable effect of causing all he came in contact with an undefined sensation of repulsion. Tall, of an elegant figure, with eyes dark and full of expression, and features almost faultless in contour; yet, withal, an indescribable something that neutralized the usual consequence of good looks—it was the beauty of the serpent—the comeliness of the beast of prey! None could look upon him without at once observing the unusual handsomeness of his person; yet few could entertain for him other sentiment than aversion. Perhaps it was his eyes that, bright as the dark orbs of woman, were nestless as the eyes of a wild cat! Perhaps it was the lips that, perfect in outline as a very 'Cupid's-Bow,' had a sinister habit of drawing tightly together, in a manner painfully suggestive of a cruel and remorseless disposition! Or, it may have been his teeth, which, when he smiled, gleamed in their glittering whiteness, like the incisors of a wolf or panther! And yet this man, from whose base and treacherous nature all recoiled by instinct, was loved, as few better men are ever loved, with a patient, changeless devotion. There was one gentle girl, whose whole soul was bound up in his existence, and who loved on in spite of every obstacle that reason could urge against him. But this lady possessed the rare quality of discretion; and though she would have cheerfully given her life's blood to turn him from his evil path, she would hold no communication with him. Under the guise of a gentleman (he was one by birth and education) he had won her heart; but, when she learnt the dreadful truth (it laid her on a sick bed for months) that he had long forfeited all claim to the name of gentleman, she steadily refused to see him again. But she loved him with even an intenser devotion than before, and still held the hope, dearer than life, of his yet reforming and becoming more worthy of her. Many offers of marriage had been made to her; but she declined them all, though some of her admirers had coronets to lay at her feet. She would marry Hubert or none. Poor Anne! It was the old old tale of misplaced affection! Pity the tyrant Cupid has such illimitable, such arbitrary power! Every effort of reason is vain, when he gives forth his mandate, as pert Titania found when she fell enamoured of Nick Bottom, the weaver, with the ass's head.

Darby Gregson, the hero of the cigar-case adventure, was a short, thick-set man, about forty years of age. There was nothing particular about him to distinguish him from the rest of his villainous species, but a pair of twinkling grey eyes, small, and deep-sunk, which, together with a very prominent and warm-coloured nose, gave him a striking resemblance to a dressed pig. He was quite a lion among the criminal class at York, having achieved more daring robberies (and, it was whispered—murders) than the greatest expert among the inhabitants of the country gaol, and without ever having been caught. He was clever enough to so arrange his plans, that if the police discovered a crime, some one else was implicated by circumstantial evidence, and often condemned; while he, the real perpetrator, sat among the crowd in court, not even suspected—unless, indeed, by some of his own class, and who, only having vague suspicions, did not dare to breathe them, fearful lest they should be the next victims of his consummate cunning.

Mister Bow, the winner at cribbage, was a young man about twenty years old, though, to judge from appearance, no one would have taken him for less than double that age. He was a tall, lank, awkward built youth, of a most comical figure. His little, spherical head was set low down between his shoulders, in a way that would be sure to occasion considerable difficulty to any but an adept in the art of adjusting the noose, should it ever be the pleasure of fate to promote himself to the top of the tree in his profession. His lower limbs, too, were decidedly excentric, and so wide apart at the knees, that, had he joined a troup of acrobats, he might have won immortal fame by leaping through them, after the manner of jumping through a hoop. What name was bestowed upon him at the baptismal font, neither he nor his friends had ever heard. Indeed, it was a question he had not yet decided whether he ever had been inside a real church. He had once, in the park, listened to a "ranter," as he irreverently called the preacher; but that was so long ago, that he could recollect nothing but having picked a little girl's pocket of her handkerchief, and sold it for a penny to buy a bit of bread. He had always gone by the name of Bow, ever since he could remember. Where he got the name, or what it was given to him for, he knew not. Some of his companions held the opinion that he was called so from the shape of his legs, while others, as positively, declared that it was from Bow-street in London, whose levees he had been in the habit of visiting almost from infancy. He had no recollection of father or mother; and was not fully satisfied that he had ever had either. Anyway, the first that he remembered of himself was being taken to Bow-street on his tenth birthday, for stealing a sausage from a cook-shop for breakfast. From that day, poor Bow had been almost a constant pensioner at the old gaol. There are many like poor Bow—men with natural good qualities enough to become useful members of society, if society had only given them a fair chance at the start. On the particular occasion in which poor Bow first tried his hand at stealing, he did so at the bidding of a hard master. He had not eaten anything for two long days, and he stole this same sausage to appease the craving of hunger. Poor child; his little heart ached almost as much at the sin he felt he was committing, as it did at his empty stomach. From that day, driven by the same hard master (what honest employment could a homeless, friendless urchin, of ten years old, hope to find in busy London?) he had sunk from one stage of crime to another, till he was here the pal and accomplice of Darby Gregson, the most desperate villain in York.

Hubert Clayton sat for a few minutes gazing into the glowing embers in deep thought. There were depths of crime, which even Bow was incapable of; and it was this fact that held Mr. Clayton in reverie. Suddenly, looking up, he said, with his soft, insinuating voice, 'Bow, will you kindly oblige me by asking the landlady for a look at the morning's Guardian—that's a good fellow?'

Bow hurried away to the bar for the paper, and as soon as he was out of hearing, Clayton leaned across the table, and asked in a whisper, 'Do you think Bow is safe, Darby? I am afraid he is too chicken-hearted for the job.'

'Safe!' returned the other villain, under his breath; 'Yes, safe as a Newgate-street-bird always is—that's unless you're going in heavy. I wouldn't trust him with the knife; but if its only swearing a bit thick, he's right. Before I've finished his edecation, he'll use the knife like a butcher; or he'll not larn as smart as my last pal did.'

Hearing the returning steps of Mr. Bow, they turned the conversation to the weather.

'Yes; its an awful wet night, Mr. Clayton—bad enough to drown all the paupers in York,' said Darby Gregson.

'Sit down, Bow, and let us settle the business we arranged for to-night,' said Clayton, to Bow, as he received the Guardian. 'Just say before I open my plans whether you will go in for it,' he continued; 'It's not too late to back out yet, but remember, six inches of cold steel under the left shoulder-blade, if either of you try to back out after I let you into my secret.'

'I'm your man,' said Darby Gregson, with energy. 'You can't have too ugly a game for me; and you, Bow—,' he continued, turning to his companion in many an "ugly game," 'You're not going to turn Methodist at this time o' day?'

'Me? I'd like to know what I'm to do fust!' replied Bow, with hesitation. Whatever little moral courage he had ever possessed, poor fellow, had been knocked out of him years and years ago, when, as a child, he had the bitter alternative of stealing or starving.

'Recollect two things, Bow. Fifty pounds hard cash, and that we're not going to use the knife; so make up your mind at once,' said Clayton, impatiently.

'All right, Mr. Clayton, I'll go in for it,' answered Bow, after a pause. His dearest wish was to get money enough to buy a donkey and cart and a small stock of the articles peddlers deal in, so that he might turn hawker, and 'live respectable-like.' He often had a twinge of conscience at his nefarious mode of existence, and had several times peeped through the door of a Methodist meeting-house—he had never dared to approach a church; it seemed far too grand for penniless sinners. But his vile companions had jeered and laughed him out of it. Pity that the "Servants of 'the King" do not go more out into the highways and hedges to bring in guests for the feast. And ye, Pharisees, who gather up your garments around you, as if fearful of touching even the hem of the contaminating garments of such as poor Bow, and exclaim, in your egotistical sell-righteousness, 'I thank thee, O Lord, that I am not as this man!' what have ye to show that, with his training, ye would even approached the door of a house of prayer? That ye would not have sank to the knees in moral pollution, where he is but over his boots? Or that, had he had your opportunities, he would not have far outstripped you in all but your hard-heartedness and hypocrisy? When the day of judgment comes, ye may find to your cost, that many such, judged by the law of their own hearts, fallen and corrupt though they be, shall stand in better plight than ye, who had the law and kept it not but in empty and and outward show.'

'I'll go in for it,' Bow reiterated, 'if there's no murder in it!'

'Its settled upon then,' said Clayton, taking some papers out of his breast pocket, 'and now to business. You, Darby, are a clever pensman, just copy this signature upon this cheque.'

'Yes, I'm pretty smart with the goose quill; and I need be, as its about all I ever learned at school!' said Gregson, taking the papers. 'John Greville?' he asked, looking at the signature. 'Who's he?'

'Sir John Greville, of Farleigh Hall, near Cambridge,' returned Clayton.

With the dexterity of an adept, Darby Gregson copied the name, and so perfect a copy was it, that Sir John himself would have hesitated before swearing that he did not write them both.

'Now, I want this forgery fastened upon Mr. Sinclair. You know, Percy Sinclair, of Elmsdale?'

'Yes,' answered Darby, nibbling his pen.

'This is my plan. He will be home from college in a few days, and I have learnt that he wants to buy a horse. Now, I will give you my brown cob—it will just suit him—and you must manage to sell it to him. Don't stick at a price, but let him have it at any reasonable figure. This cheque has not the amount filled in, so you must put down in it whatever you get for the horse, and then take it to the bank. Express a doubt as to the genuineness of the signature, and refuse to take the change unless they guarantee it to be no forgery. They will find out the forgery quick enough; and then you must swear that you received the cheque from Sinclair, in payment for the horse.'

'Capital!' cried Gregson, with enthusiasm, delighted at the depth of the villainous scheme. 'Really, Mr. Clayton, you lick me holler; I can't hold a candle to you after this!'

'The amount of the cheque tallying exactly with the price of the horse, and Sinclair's just coming from Cambridge, where Sir John Greville lives, will be evidence enough to transport a parson,' continued Clayton. 'You share whatever you get for the horse between you two.'

'I don't half like the job, Mr. Clayton,' said Bow, 'but——'

'There's no buts in it!' roared Darby. 'You're a chicken-hearted sneak if you want to back out now.'

'Its too late now to think of consequences,' said Clayton, with one of the repulsive smiles that most exhibited his glittering, pointed teeth; and drawing a cruel-looking glass dagger, he continued, 'This for anyone who breaks faith with me.'

'You must have a queer grudge against Mr. Sinclair,' said Darby, 'What's it for?'

'I hate him! that's enough for you,' answered Clayton, savagely.

'No, but it isn't enough,' replied Darby, decisively. 'We've agreed to do the job, and we'll do it; but we must know why. Mustn't we Bow?'

'Yes,' said Bow, in a more determined tone than he usually spoke in.

'I'm a bit curious, Mr. Clayton, but you needn't be afraid of me or Bow blabbing; we're as mum as moles when it pays.'

'Well, then, if you must know,' Clayton answered, in no very pleasant tone, 'he prevented me from marrying his cousin, Anne Egerton, by his cursed interference. He didn't want her himself, and he wouldn't let me have her.'

'How?' asked Darby, eagerly.

'I have told you all I will!' returned Clayton, with ill suppressed anger. 'I don't like talking about such matters.'

'If you wan't Bow and me to go in for the job, you must tell us all about it!' declared Darby.

'Curse you for a pair of inquisitive magpies!' he exclaimed, with an expletive or two it is best to leave out. 'He heard something about that affair at Ascott, and told her about it!'

'Didn't want a card-sharper, etc., etc., in the family. Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Darby.

'Come, a truce to this fooling, or we may quarrel; and that's hardly worth while under the circumstance!' said Clayton, rising. 'I made a good haul at Epsom last week; and I will give you another hundred between you, the day he is lagged!'

The plot laid to his satisfaction, the arch villain left the tavern, and returned through the drizzling rain to his lodgings; and Bow and Darby, after drinking success to the scheme in another glass of brandy, laid down upon the floor and were soon asleep.