Caught in a Trap Part 42

"Who is she?" asked the governess, pointing to this lady, who leant on the doctor's arm, and was trembling, as Miss Kingscott could see, although she could not distinguish her face. "Who is she? No stranger has any business with him or me!"

"She has a right to be here," answered the lawyer, as he rang the bell at the door of the sponging-house; "you will soon know all."

Miss Kingscott gazed searchingly at the stranger, and gave a start of half-amazement, half-terror; but the lawyer did not give her time to say anything. He asked for Markworth on the door being opened, and the Cerberus told him that he was upstairs in the private room, where he had given orders not to be disturbed.

Mr Trump said he was his lawyer. Cerberus knew his vocation very well, for Mr Trump had paid many visits to clients in Abednego's retirement before--and he was admitted after a little parley at the door, facilitated by the application of palm oil.

"He's upstairs on the second floor, the door right fronting you,"

shouted the man, after them. "You'll be sure to find him at home," he added, with a chuckle at his own joke.

The lawyer led the way up the dirty staircase, followed by Miss Kingscott: while the Doctor and the strange lady were close behind.

Arrived at the door of the room in which Markworth was, Mr Trump knocked in vain for some time. He at length turned, the handle, and the four visitors walked in unbidden.

Markworth was in the corner of the room: they could all see him.

The lawyer called out to him, but got no answer: he went up to him.

The man was dead!

Markworth was sitting in the same place where the governess had left him in his misery. His bowed head lay between his clasped hands: the sun had gone down now, and no longer shone upon him with its golden gleams: his sun also had sunk to rest!

The Doctor went forward and examined him. He had been dead more than an hour he said: cause--heart disease, probably brought on by strong excitement, or a sudden shock.

All were startled at this unexpected appearance of pale death; even his enemy and Nemesis relented as she gazed on the lifeless mask of him whom she had so ruthlessly pursued, and drew back in horror at what she had done.

But the stranger darted forward, and threw herself with a burst of grief on the motionless form of the dead man: sorrow and sympathy, friendship or hate, could no longer affect him now!

As she did so, the stranger threw aside her veil: and the face of the mourner was the face of Susan Hartshorne, whom the dead man had been accused of having murdered.

"Poor thing! poor thing!" murmured the doctor, as he turned away his head and walked towards the window to conceal his emotion. "Bless my soul! It's a sad pity--a sad pity! But it is better as it is."

Volume 3, Chapter XIII.

RETROSPECTIVE AND PROGRESSIONAL.

In order to explain Susan's reappearance under these exceptional circ.u.mstances, it will be necessary that we should retrace our steps and return to a date some months back in our narrative.

It will be remembered that when Doctor Jolly paid his visit to Havre in the previous winter, he, after enquiring unsuccessfully for Susan at the house of the Mere Cliquelle, in the Rue Montmartre, went off for a walk (to pa.s.s the time until his ward should return) in the very same direction that Markworth and Susan, with Clara Kingscott d.o.g.g.i.ng their heels, had taken--towards the heights of Ingouville.

The Doctor picked his steps carefully, for it was dusk, and he was in a strange place, and he wished to establish certain landmarks in his mind, by which he might regain the Rue Montmartre when his stroll was over, and he should think it time to return.

Doctor Jolly had the address of his hotel on a printed card in his pocket: he was not going to make another mistake, such as he had made earlier in the day; and if any doubts arose in his mind as to his exact lat.i.tude and longitude, he had resolved to hand the card of the hotel, which he had previously secured, to the nearest policeman or cabman.

Oh! the doctor was very 'cute and business-like.

But he did not wish to return there just yet. He wanted to see Susan, and have his mind set at rest about her before the night was over. And so the doctor walked on in a desultory way, carefully studying the topography of the street as he sauntered along, and pondering over recent events in his mind.

He was wondering at the chain of circ.u.mstances which had brought him wandering about "this confounded foreign, outlandish place!" at nightfall, and "in the depth of winter too, by Gad!" he soliloquised, as he inhaled the foggy air of the dull November night, which made him puff and wheeze beneath the comforter, which in remembrance of Deb's solicitude, he still kept carefully wrapped round his neck.

When he came to one of the roads leading up to the heights above, the doctor paused a moment to recover his breath; he had never been "any great hand at walking," as he would have told you himself; and the distance he had already traversed, short though it was, had by this time affected his wind.

While he was resting a moment, and debating in his mind whether he should ascend the footpath in front of him, or yet retrace his steps to the Rue Montmartre, he heard a sound near him as of one groaning in pain. It was like the noise of the battle to the war-horse, or the salt smell of the sea to a mariner; and the doctor p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, all his senses aroused at the idea of pain and suffering being suggested to him: to minister to the ills of nature was his special vocation.

He searched about and followed the sound--it led him up higher to a ledge on the cliff above; and there in the dim twilight he made out the form of a human figure lying stretched on the _debris_ which had fallen away with it apparently from the summit above.

To see and perceive was, with the staunch old doctor, but secondary to acting.

He climbed up as hastily as his portly form would permit to the ledge, and bent over a figure, which was nearly motionless. "Bless my soul!"

he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in alarm and surprise. "G.o.d bless my soul! Why, it is poor Susan! How on earth did she come here?" As he bent to lift her up she lay like a log in his arms.

The doctor however did not waste any time in vain regrets or in exclamations of wonder: he was a medical man, and his first care was to examine the motionless form of the girl, to see how far she was hurt.

She had only fainted, he shortly perceived, and he set to work at once to revive her.

Thanks to a pocket flask of brandy, which he had fortunately brought with him, he soon contrived to put a little life into the girl; and he was able after a time to raise her up, when she opened her eyes and gave a groan of pain. She apparently did not know where she was or recognise the doctor; she only moaned, "Take me home! Take me home!"

One of her arms broken, and a cut on her head; but, otherwise, she had most providentially escaped. She had probably fainted at the time she shrieked out before falling backwards over the cliff. Being thus supine, she could not struggle; so instead of receiving fatal injuries as a man might have done, who attempted to resist his fall she was unhurt, with the exception of a few trifling injuries, which time would soon repair. But she was very much shaken, and the doctor did not know what to do with her, as she could hardly walk, and he was not strong enough to carry her, as he might have done in his earlier days.

The place was quite deserted. The doctor could not see a soul, and much as he disliked Frenchmen, he would have been glad to come across then the most "miserable foreign vagabond" who might have been sent on his way; but no one came, and as it was getting darker and darker, and night coming on, the doctor had to pull his wits together.

He was a man of action: to wager with possible improbabilities his creed, so he did not hesitate long. While the girl was sobbing and moaning to herself, and crying out in half-incoherent language "Allynne!

Allynne!" he lifted her up bodily, and tried to get her home to her own place in the _Rue Montmartre_.

But the night was dark, as has been before observed, and the doctor missed the landmarks, which he had so carefully jotted down on the tablets of his memory. He was in the right direction, but when he got to the foot of the street of which he was in search, he lost altogether his _carte du pays_. Just then he saw a _fiacre_, and at the same time he arrived at a sudden determination; what it was, will be presently shown.

The doctor bethought him that he had come over to Havre especially to try and get Susan home, and separate her from Markworth. Why on earth should he take her back now to the place where she would still be with him? Here she was unconscious, and he was her proper guardian appointed by her father. He would--"Yes, I will, I'll be d.a.m.ned if I don't!" he said, to himself; "take her back to England on my own account, without asking anybody's leave or license!" And the doctor carried his determination into effect between that night and the next day.

The _fiacre_ arriving opportunely, the doctor hailed it; and lifting Susan in, gave the driver the card of his hotel, "The Queen of Savoy,"

which he had kept so carefully in his waistcoat pocket for such an emergency as losing his way: he and his charge--now more recovered--were presently set down at that famous hostelry, where the doctor had Susan at once put to bed, guarding her all the while with jealous watchfulness: he was afraid Markworth might step in at the last moment to claim her, and that his trouble would be thrown away.

In the morning--Susan being still nearly unconscious--he had her carried on board the early packet for England; and the same evening the doctor, to his intense satisfaction, had her on English ground.

At Southampton, Susan was unfortunately taken very ill; and Doctor Jolly could not carry out his intention of removing her at once to his own house as he had intended.

The shock, the fall, the mental anxieties she had suffered, brought on an attack of brain fever; and Susan was for days struggling between life and death. When she was out of danger, the doctor, leaving her in the care of a trustworthy nurse, went home to see about his practice--which he thought must be at sixes and sevens from his prolonged absence--and to make preparations for Susan's return to The Poplars.

When he got to Bigton, however, the doctor heard of the alarming illness of the old dowager, and his plans became upset.

He went off at once to Hartwood village, and found the old lady unconscious, although the respectable Dobbins, his _loc.u.m tenens_ had treated her, the doctor allowed, as well as he could have done himself under the sudden paralytic shock she had sustained.

Doctor Jolly had consequently to neglect Susan for a few days, in order to attend to her mother; and when he did go back for her, he determined that he would not bring her home to The Poplars--where everything would remind her of her former life--but would take her to his own house at Bigton.

Here, accordingly, Susan was removed as soon as she was able to travel from Southampton; and here the good old Deb, the doctor's sister, nursed the girl back to life, and to a knowledge of the past and present, with more than a mother's care, tenderly aided by the doctor himself.

It may be remembered by the reader, in our retrospect, that Mr Trump met Doctor Jolly soon after he returned from abroad; and the two had some explanation together, which resulted in the fact of the lawyer being pleased with himself at having taken no active part in the proceedings of the French police after Susan's disappearance and supposed death--although he had inserted a mortuary notice in the _Times_.

Mr Trump's gratulation is thus easily explained. The advertis.e.m.e.nt of Susan's death was not contradicted, in the first place because it was rather late in the day to do it now, and in the second, the doctor advised no steps being taken in the matter, or else Markworth might return and claim the girl.

Mr Trump, however, made one omission, which, as a lawyer, he ought to have attended to earlier. He did not communicate with the French police until some weeks had elapsed--not until in fact after Miss Kingscott had left Havre, in disgust at not hearing anything there of the hunted man, and come to prosecute her watch in London. Thus it was that she knew nothing of these revelations; and the polite Chef did not think it worth his while, or the expenditure of a _dix centimes_ stamp, to inform _cette femme diable_, as he termed her, any more about the matter.