Rupert Godwin

THE EVIDENCE OF THE MINIATURE.

After his secret visit to the vaults below the northern wing, a perpetual fever of mind possessed Lionel Westford. He shrank from every chance of meeting with Julia Godwin. He brooded continually upon the circumstantial evidence of the blood-stained shred of cloth, the black pool of blood, the leather glove, which he had found in the cellar.

A man had come to Wilmingdon one evening in the June of the past year, and had never been seen to go away.

The ravings of the old gardener were not the result of a disordered mind; they were the offspring of an intellect which even in its decay retained the memory of a dreadful scene.

Lionel Westford’s mind was tortured by conflicting feelings. He knew that, having fallen upon the clue to a crime that had escaped the eye of justice, it was his sacred duty to place that clue in the hands of the police, in order that the secret of Wilmingdon Hall might be dragged to light, and that justice might overtake the criminal.

But that criminal was Julia Godwin’s father. The image of the woman he loved, pale, agonized, grief-stricken, rose before him; and he felt that he could not be the means of bringing her father to the gallows.

Then he tried to believe that no murder had been committed on that June evening. He tried to think that Rupert Godwin was not guilty of the worst crime which man can commit. It was all one great mystification, probably the result of a sequence of accidents. The blood-stained fragment of a coat, the glove, the ravings of Caleb Wildred might all be explained perhaps in quite a different manner from that in which Lionel had been inclined to read them.

“Why should Rupert Godwin murder this stranger?” thought the young man. “What motive could he have had? Pshaw! I have been a madman to suspect him of such a deed—as mad and foolish as that poor half-witted gardener, whose ravings, after all, may be utterly meaningless.”

It was thus that Lionel Westford reasoned with himself,—so anxious was he to believe in the innocence of his mother’s enemy. But, argue with himself as he would, the dark and terrible truth was perpetually thrusting its hideous image before his eyes.

It was quite in vain that he tried to think lightly of the mystery. A dreadful weight oppressed his mind. He remembered the strange feeling which had come over him on the day when he for the first time entered Wilmingdon Hall.

“It is useless to struggle against the truth!” he exclaimed one day, after a long period of mental conflict. “The shadow of crime darkens this place. The foul taint of blood poisons the very atmosphere. Murder has been done here; and, come what may, I must do my duty—yes, even at the cost of Julia Godwin’s peace.”

The long struggle had come to an end at last. Lionel Westford resolved to lose no more time, but to leave Wilmingdon Hall that very day, and seek an interview with one of the chief members of the detective police immediately he reached London.

Under these circumstances he sat down to write to Julia Godwin, his employer, his patroness.

He had only occasion to tell her that particular business obliged him to go to London, and that he was therefore compelled to relinquish his employment without a more formal notice.

He had only to tell her this, and to thank her for her goodness—to express his appreciation of the benevolent feelings that had prompted her to employ him.

But, simple though the matter of the letter was, he found it very difficult to write. He knew that the task he was about to undertake was one which might bring despair and anguish upon the woman whose generosity had rescued him from starvation—the woman whom he fondly loved.

His letter was very cold, very formal. He dared not trust himself to reveal one spark of real feeling.

He sealed and directed it. He then set in order the drawings upon which he had been employed; and next hastily gathered together his few possessions.

These he packed in his portmanteau; but he resolved on leaving the portmanteau behind him until he should be able to send for it. He wanted to quit the house unnoticed; he wished his departure to be undiscovered till he was far from Wilmingdon Hall. He wished, above all things, to escape the chance of meeting with Julia Godwin. Such a meeting would have been fatal; for the young man felt that he should have failed in the endeavour to conceal his feelings.

He descended the stairs, crossed the hall, and went out upon the lawn. The drawing-room windows were open, and he could hear Julia Godwin singing. The song was very familiar to him, for he had often sat in the summer twilight listening dreamily to the melody. The rich tones of the singer went to his heart. He was leaving her—perhaps forever. Or if they ever met again, would she not look upon him as her worst and bitterest foe?

He could not quit the Hall without stealing one last glance at the face which had bewitched him.

The long French windows were open to their utmost extent. Lionel stole softly across the pathway, and stood for some moments gazing silently at the face of the singer.

Julia Godwin was very pensive. There was a look of profound thought, or it might be of profound sadness, in her large dark eyes. The tones of her voice were tremulous, and her hands moved slowly over the keys of the piano.

For but a few moments Lionel Westford lingered. He dared not trust himself to stay longer, lest Julia should glance upward, and see him standing by the open window. There was nothing he more dreaded than an interview with Rupert Godwin’s daughter, and yet it was very difficult to turn away from that window.

He did turn, however, and stole off unnoticed. He made his way across the park, and walked to Hertford—no public vehicle plying on the country road.

He was going straight to the railway station, when he suddenly remembered that there might possibly be a letter from his mother or sister waiting for him at the post-office.

He accordingly turned back, and went to the office. There was a letter—a letter addressed to him in his mother’s handwriting; but the writing seemed strangely tremulous.

“O Heaven!” he thought; “I hope my mother is not ill.”

He tore open the envelope hastily, and read the letter as he walked towards the railway station. It was the letter which Clara Westford had written after her interview with Gilbert Thornleigh.

No words can tell the horror of the young man as he read that communication.

His father, his beloved father, had been known to start for Wilmingdon Hall on a night in the June of the previous year, and had never been seen since. Twenty thousand pounds had been paid into the hands of Rupert Godwin—of that very Rupert Godwin who had represented Harley Westford as deeply indebted to him, and who had driven the Captain’s wife and children away from the home that had so long been their own.

The people walking that day in the High-street of Hertford must have been startled by the white face of Lionel Westford as he sauntered along, brooding on the contents of his mother’s letter. Could it be that his father had fallen a victim to the murderous hand of Rupert Godwin? Could it have been the blood of his own father which he had traced down the cellar-steps below the northern wing?

By what means was he to fathom the truth?

Should he go on to London, and place the whole case in the hands of the police? Or should he return to Wilmingdon Hall, and endeavour himself to discover whether the visitor whom Rupert Godwin had taken into the northern wing was indeed Harley Westford?

He decided on returning to the Hall. He fancied that he had hit upon a plan by which he might at least settle the question of his father’s identity with the stranger who had been seen by the housekeeper to enter the northern wing in company with Rupert Godwin.

The sun was setting behind the noble elms and beeches of Wilmingdon Park when Lionel Westford once more walked along the avenue leading to the Hall.

Half-way between the lodge-gates and the house he turned aside into the winding path which he had been directed to take on his first coming to Wilmingdon.

As he proceeded slowly along this shadowy pathway he took a small object from his waistcoat-pocket and looked at it intently. It was a gold locket, attached to a chain of soft golden-brown hair. That soft brown hair had been cut from Clara Westford’s head. The chain had been a birthday gift from the mother to her son. The locket contained a carefully painted and faithful likeness of Harley Westford, taken shortly before that luckless midsummer which had been the commencement of so many sorrows.

Lionel had a purpose in choosing this shadowy path through the thick shrubbery. He was going to the fernery, the spot where he had first seen Caleb Wildred.

He knew that the fernery was a favourite retreat with old Caleb, and that the half-witted gardener would often spend whole days there, brooding over his dark fancies, mumbling and muttering to himself.

Lionel was not disappointed. Caleb was there this evening, sitting on a fragment of the rockwork, his elbows on his knees, his chin in the palms of his hands, in the attitude of a person who is thinking very deeply.

He started as Lionel’s footfall sounded on some newly-fallen leaves, the first of the fading summer. A moment afterwards he looked up with a half-imbecile smile.

“Ah!” he muttered, “a stranger—a stranger! a young man who talks to old Caleb sometimes. I’m not afraid or you. No, no. You are kind to me, and I’m not afraid of you. But you won’t try to find out the secret, will you? You won’t ask me to betray my master? I’ve lived in this place so long, so long—man and boy, man and boy; and you can’t surely ask me to bring a Godwin to the gallows—not to the gallows!—no, no. They used to hang ’em in chains when I was a boy; and I’ve heard the dry bones rattle and the rusty irons creak on the old coach-road between Hertford and London. You wouldn’t ask me to hang one of the Godwin’s—one of the old stock!”

Lionel Westford seated himself upon the rockwork beside the old man. He laid his hand gently on Caleb’s wrist, and tried to soothe him.

“Come, Mr. Wildred,” he said, “let us talk seriously. You have allowed your mind to dwell too much upon this business. I want you to help me; I want you to give me your aid in a very serious matter. Look at this picture, and tell me if you ever saw the face before?”

Lionel Westford opened the locket which contained his father’s miniature, and held the picture before the old man.

For a few moments Caleb Wildred stared at it with the blank gaze of imbecility. Then a sudden change came over his face; his eyes dilated, his lips trembled convulsively.

“Great God of Heaven!” he cried, “the secret—the secret! Where did you get that picture?”

“Never mind that,” answered Lionel, who could scarcely control his agitation; “look at the face, and tell me if you ever saw it before?”

“If I ever saw it before!” cried the old gardener, in a voice that rose almost to a shriek of agony; “he asks me if I ever saw that face before! Why, it haunts me by day and by night—it follows me wherever I go! If I look into the deep dark water, I see it looking at me from the bottom, calm and smiling, as it looked that night; if I shut myself up in the darkness, I can see it still, with a light of its own about it. Wherever I go, it follows me, and tortures me, because I keep that wicked secret—that horrid secret of my master’s guilt. Take the picture away, young man, unless you want to drive me raving mad. It is the face of the man who was murdered in the northern wing!”

Lionel Westford uttered one long cry of despair, and fell to the ground, with his father’s miniature still clasped in his hand.

When consciousness slowly returned, the young man found himself alone, lying face downwards on the grass.

The sky was dark, save for the faint and silvery glimmer of distant stars high in the vault of heaven. It was late, and the dew had fallen. Lionel Westford felt a deadly chill creeping through his bones.

There was a heavy feeling in his brain—a dull drowsiness which was almost stupor; and yet the memory of what had happened still held its place in his mind.

The image of his father, slain by Rupert Godwin’s murderous hand, was vividly impressed upon his imagination; he saw it before him, almost as palpable as the giant trunks of oaks and elms looming darkly through the night.

He tried to rise, but found that his limbs were stiff and aching. It was only with a powerful effort that at length he staggered to his feet.

When he looked about him, the scene around seemed to swim before his eyes, the ground to reel beneath his feet.

“O God!” he exclaimed, “am I going to be ill? Is my hand to be rendered powerless at this moment, when I have such need to use it as the avenger of my father’s death?”

Slowly, and with tottering footsteps, Lionel Westford made his way across the lawn, and approached the Hall. He knew that the principal doors leading into the great entrance-hall were never locked until late at night. He would be able to open them, and enter the house unnoticed.

He had changed his mind with regard to his plan of action. He wanted to make the most of the strange chance which had placed him beneath the banker’s roof—he wanted to obtain still further proof of Rupert Godwin’s guilt.

An alarming sense of helplessness was upon him as he approached the mansion—a feeling of stupor and dizziness, which increased with every moment.

He opened the door, and entered the hall. None of the servants happened to be about, and he was able to ascend the staircase and reach his own apartments entirely unnoticed. There were no candles burning on the table of the sitting-room, but in the semi-darkness of the August night he could see that the letter he addressed to Julia had been removed. There was no white spot upon the dark ground of the table-cover.

With weary, heavy steps he tottered into the adjoining room, and flung himself upon the bed. It seemed as if he could not have gone a step farther, even though his life had been at stake. Many-coloured lights flashed before his dazzled eyes, a singing noise sounded in his ears, and little by little the image of his murdered father faded and melted away as Lionel Westford lapsed into a state of unconsciousness.