Rupert Godwin

DISCOMFITED.

For some minutes Rupert Godwin stood with the open miniature in his hand, gazing at the face of his victim.

At first a kind of stupor seemed to obscure his senses, and he could only stand motionless, staring blankly at that frank handsome countenance.

His senses were confused by the suddenness of the shock. It was some time before he could reason calmly about what had happened.

How had Harley Westford’s miniature come to be lying there? How had the sea-captain’s likeness fallen into the possession of Julia Godwin’s protégé?

For some little time he stood with the picture still in his hand, wondering at the extraordinary chance which had brought it there. Then he set to work to examine the letters and papers, in the hope that they might give him some clue to the mystery.

The first letter which he took up revealed the entire truth. It had been lying seal upwards, or Rupert Godwin could scarcely have failed to recognize the handwriting.

It was the letter addressed to Lionel at the Post-office, Hertford, under his initials only. It was the letter which Clara Westford had written to her son, telling him of her meeting with Gilbert Thornleigh, and setting him upon the track of his missing father.

Rupert Godwin sank into the nearest chair, that terrible letter clenched tightly in his hand.

“They are on my track,” he muttered in a thick voice, for the muscles of his throat seemed paralyzed by agitation; “they are on my track. How am I to avoid them?”

He looked towards the bed. Never, perhaps, had a darker or more threatening face glowered above a helpless and unconscious invalid.

“Only by wading deeper in crime,” he said, this time with slow deliberate accents; “only by wading deeper.”

He thrust the letter into his breast-pocket, and then sat brooding, with his face hidden in his hands.

When he at last uncovered it, there was a strange look of determination in that ashen face. He walked to the side of the bed, and stood for some moments looking down at the sick man.

“His son!” he muttered; “his son! That was the likeness which sent a chill through my breast. But it is all a mystery still. How did he discover the secret of the cellar? Did he come here on purpose to find out the truth? No, that can scarcely be; for his mother’s letter is dated only two days back, and when she wrote that letter her suspicions were only just aroused. No matter; I dare not bewilder my brain by trying to solve these questions. I must act; they are on my track, and action alone can save me. Shall I fly? No, not while there is one inch of safe ground to fight for, amidst an ocean of peril. Flight is the first resource of the coward; it is the last hope of the bold criminal. This young man knows my secret, somehow or other. What matters how, since he does know it? He and Caleb Wildred have discovered the truth; but as yet they have not denounced me, except in the ravings of delirium. Their tongues must be stopped.”

The housekeeper returned while Mr. Godwin was absorbed in these meditations.

“You can resume your seat by the side of your patient, Mrs. Beckson,” he said; “there has been no change. I shall remain at the Hall until this young man is out of danger; and I shall look into his room now and then, to see how he is going on. You need never be surprised by my coming. I am a light sleeper, and I daresay I shall look in once or twice in the course of the night.”

“I’m sure it’s very kind of you, sir, to take such an interest in the poor young gentleman.”

“I think it’s only natural that I should feel an interest in a sick man; common humanity demands as much,” answered the banker coolly. “By the bye, you will be watching for a very long time. I hope you are wakeful?”

“O yes, sir, pretty wakeful.”

“You take something to keep you awake, I hope?”

“Well, sir, thank you, I’ve just taken a cup of strong tea, and I may take another in the course of the evening.”

“Tea is not the thing. You should try coffee.”

“Is coffee better than tea, sir?”

“Infinitely better. I’ll send you a strong cup of coffee by-and-by. I always take coffee after dinner.”

“To be sure, sir. Well, I will take a cup, if you’ll be so very kind as to send it.”

The banker went to his room, changed his dress, which was dusty with travelling, and bathed his head and face in cold water.

Then he descended to the dining-room, where he found Julia waiting for him.

He dined with his daughter and her duenna. Julia was too entirely preoccupied by her own emotion to perceive the silence of her father; it seemed only natural to her that an air of gloom should pervade everything, while the man she loved lay suffering upstairs. But Mrs. Melville remarked the banker’s abstracted manner, and wondered at it; she thought that he had perhaps discovered the secret of his daughter’s affection for a penniless stranger.

After dinner, the ladies retired to the drawing-room, while Rupert Godwin remained seated at the foot of the long dinner-table.

Here his coffee was brought to him, about twenty minutes after the ladies had left him. The servant placed the salver by his master’s side, and immediately quitted the room. The coffee was served in a small antique silver coffee-pot. There was only one cup and saucer, of Sèvres china, on the salver. Rupert Godwin rang the bell, and told the servant to bring a second cup and saucer.

“I want a cup of my own coffee to be taken to Mrs. Beckson,” he said. “Strong coffee is the best thing in the world to keep any one awake.”

But when the man returned with the cup and saucer, Mr. Godwin said:

“You need not wait. I will take the coffee myself to Mrs. Beckson. I am going to the sick-room.”

It seemed strange that so proud a man as Rupert Godwin should trouble himself to take a cup of coffee to his housekeeper, and the man-servant thought as much.

He might, perhaps, have thought Rupert Godwin’s conduct stranger still, had he seen him take a small vial from his waistcoat-pocket, and pour about a teaspoonful of a thick dark fluid into one of the coffee-cups.

That little vial was one which the banker had taken from his dressing-case before descending to the dining-room that evening. The dark fluid was opium.

The coffee, made as strong as a Turkish potentate might have taken it, and very much sweetened, almost entirely disguised the bitter flavour of the opium. The banker tasted half a spoonful of the mixture.

“No,” he muttered; “I don’t think Mrs. Beckson will discover anything queer in the taste of that coffee.”

He took the cup and saucer, and carried them to the sick-room.

“There, my good Beckson,” he said, “I don’t think you are very likely to fall asleep after taking this.”

He handed her the coffee. The old woman had been nodding and blinking in her easy-chair when he entered the room, but she opened her eyes and endeavoured to appear very wakeful, as she took the cup of coffee from her master’s hand. Rupert Godwin left her, and returned to the lower part of the house. His private apartment, the room specially sacred to him, was the library. It was there that he kept the keys of the northern wing in a small iron safe, the key of which he carried always in his pocket.

The keys of the doors in the northern wing could only be obtained, therefore, by the breaking open of this small iron safe, of the use of a false key.

But the locks were not of a kind to be easily opened by a false key. It was, indeed, supposed to be quite impossible for any false key to open them.

The banker examined the safe. The keys of the northern wing hung in their usual place; the dust which had accumulated during the last twelvemonth was thick upon them.

Rupert Godwin was utterly unable to understand Lionel Westford’s discovery of his crime.

“How did he find out my ghastly secret?” he thought. “By what devilry did he stumble upon the truth?”

The banker dared not dwell upon this question. His brain, even his clear and powerful intellect, seemed to grow dull and confused, as he tried to solve the dark riddle.

He went to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Melville and Julia were seated. The widow was occupied, as usual, with the embroidery-frame. Miss Godwin was sitting with an open book before her—a book whose pages might quite as well have been blank paper.

“Julia,” said the banker, “I feel tired after my journey down here, and considerably upset by this vexatious affair of your protégé’s illness. I shall go to bed at once, and I should advise you to retire early; for you too have been worried by this affair.”

“Yes, papa,” answered Julia, without looking up from her book; “I shall go to bed very early.”

“Good-night, my love.”

“Good-night, dear papa.”

Julia rose from her seat, and the banker pressed his lips to her forehead. He wished Mrs. Melville good-night, and then left the room.

In less than ten minutes afterwards Julia flung down her book with a weary sigh.

“I am very tired,” she said. “Good-night, dear Mrs. Melville.”

“Good-night, sweet child. You are pale, my love; this tiresome business has quite upset you.”

Julia was glad to escape from the widow’s sympathy. She retired to her own apartments, which were at some distance from the rooms occupied by Lionel Westford.

She dismissed her maid, and exchanged her silk dress for a loose white dressing-gown. In spite of what she had said to Mrs. Melville, she had no inclination for sleep; on the contrary, she felt more than usually wakeful. Every nerve was strung to its utmost tension—all her senses seemed intensified.

She went to the window and flung it open; but even the chilly night air failed to cool her burning brow. The anxiety of the day, the emotions which she had been compelled to repress, had affected her very acutely. Now that she was alone, free to give way to her agitation, she leant her head against the sash of the window, and sobbed convulsively.

“I love him so dearly,” she murmured; “and yet I cannot save him from suffering. I dare not even inquire whether he is better or worse.”

For a long time Julia stood at the open window, gazing out into the obscurity of the summer night.

Then she seated herself near a pretty little reading-table loaded with new books, and tried to read.

She sat for more than an hour with a volume in her hand. Her eyes travelled along the lines, her hand turned the leaves, but she paid little attention to the contents of the book. Her mind dwelt perpetually upon Lionel’s danger. She remembered what the doctor had said about his delirium. If he were not watched, he might do some desperate act; in fevers, such as his, men had been known to commit suicide. No words can express the horror with which this idea inspired her.

In the loneliness and silence of the night this feeling of horror increased every moment.

What if those who watched the sick man should fail in their watchfulness? Mrs. Beckson was an old woman, and so not unlikely to give way to drowsiness. Thomas Morrison might desert his post.

The clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven—half-past eleven—then twelve; and still Julia sat brooding over this one agonizing fear.

The sick man’s attendants would neglect him, to the peril of his life.

Hideous images arose before her. She saw Lionel blood-stained, dying, with a ghastly wound across his throat. Every moment she expected to hear a maniac shriek ring through the silent house.

At last the agony of this one thought became almost too intense for endurance. Julia flung aside her book, and began to pace up and down the room.

By this time it was a quarter-past twelve.

“I will not endure this suspense any longer,” Julia exclaimed at last. “At any hazard, I will know if he is safe. One peep into his room will tell me if Mrs. Beckson is awake. If I only know that he is carefully watched, I can resign myself to the knowledge of his suffering.”

She opened the door and looked out into the corridor. All was dark and silent. There could be little doubt that the whole household was sleeping, except the two servants who watched the sick man.

Julia wrapped a dark shawl about her head and shoulders, and then, with light and cautious footsteps, crept along the corridor.

She opened the door of Lionel’s apartment. The handle turned almost noiselessly in her cautious hand. She looked into the room, and one glance told her that her anxious fears had not been groundless.

Mrs. Beckson’s head lay back upon the cushions of her easy-chair, and her heavy breathing was that of a person in a profound slumber.

There was no other attendant in the room.

The invalid was asleep. He lay quite motionless, his pale face turned towards the door by which Julia had entered. The voluminous chintz curtains were drawn on the other side of the old-fashioned four-post bedstead.

Julia advanced into the room with the intention of awakening Mrs. Beckson; but just as she was approaching the housekeeper’s chair, she was startled by the sound of footsteps in the corridor.

Her first impulse was to hide. She dreaded the discovery of her visit to the sick-chamber, since that discovery must betray an unusual anxiety for Lionel’s welfare.

She obeyed that first impulse, for there was no time for reflection. She crept swiftly past the bed round to the other side where she could be most completely concealed by the curtains.

From between a very narrow opening in these curtains she was able to see everything that happened in the room.

The footsteps in the corridor drew nearer. They were those of a man. Presently the door was cautiously opened, and Rupert Godwin entered the room.

Julia was not very much surprised at this late visit of her father to the sick-chamber. What more natural than that he should be anxious about the young man who was a dweller beneath his roof?

She fancied that he would at once awaken the housekeeper and that he would be very angry with her for having fallen asleep daring the hours of her watch.

But to Julia’s surprise the banker made no attempt to arouse Mrs. Beckson. He walked past her with no further notice than one sharp scrutinizing glance, and bent with a thoughtful face over the bed.

From between the curtains Julia watched her father’s face. There was something in the expression of that familiar face which chilled her heart, and inspired her with a sudden terror—a terror whose nature she could not define.

Rupert Godwin held a candle in his hand, and the light of it shone full upon his gloomy countenance. Julia stood motionless, almost breathless, gazing at him from her hiding-place behind the curtains. Presently he passed the flame of the candle slowly backwards and forwards before the eyes of the sleeper.

Lionel Westford’s eyelids never stirred.

Then the banker turned towards Mrs. Beckson, and watched her intently for some moments.

No words could express Julia’s astonishment at her father’s conduct; she was paralyzed by that shapeless fear which had taken possession of her mind as she saw him bending over the sick man.

Presently he approached the table, upon which the patient’s medicine-bottles had been placed. There were two bottles, one large and half empty, the other smaller and nearly full.

The banker lifted the small bottle and looked at it. Then he removed the cork and smelt the mixture. It was a saline draught to be taken the first thing in the morning, and it was colourless as water. Rupert Godwin took a tiny vial from his waistcoat-pocket—so tiny, that Julia could only just distinguish what it was, as the banker held it between his finger and thumb. He withdrew the cork with his teeth, for his left hand was occupied with the medicine-bottle.

Then, slowly and deliberately, he poured several drops of some colourless fluid from the tiny vial into the larger bottle containing the draught. He replaced the medicine-bottle in the precise spot from which he had taken it, looked once more at each of the sleepers, and then crept stealthily from the room.

Whatever purpose had brought him thither had been achieved. Could Julia doubt that it was a dark and dreadful one?

She shivered as if stricken by an ague fit, and there was a sickness worse than death at her heart. She loved her father so dearly; could she believe him to be——

What? A midnight poisoner?

His actions pointed to this hideous conclusion. What motive but the deadliest of all motives could have brought him to that room, in the stillness of the night, to tamper with the sick man’s medicine?

“It cannot be!” thought the horror-stricken girl. “I must be mad, or dreaming. That which I have seen cannot be real. It cannot be!”

She clasped her hands tightly upon her forehead. She was trying to collect her scattered senses.

“O God, it is too real,” she murmured, “too real!”

Her father’s face had revealed more than even his actions. There was no evidence that the liquid he had dropped into the sick man’s medicine was poisonous in its nature; but his face had been the face of an assassin.

“O Heaven!” thought Julia; “I have heard of people becoming suddenly mad, and being tempted by some diabolical suggestion to the commission of a deadly crime. Surely it must be thus with my father.”

The wretched girl clung to this belief as to one faint ray of hope. It was better to think that her father was a madman, a hapless distraught creature, possessed by the devil, than that he was a deliberate and cold-blooded assassin.

Slowly and stealthily Julia crept from her hiding-place and advanced to the little table upon which the medicine-bottles stood. She looked at the housekeeper, fearing every moment that she might awake; but the old woman slept on in a heavy slumber, induced by the drugged coffee.

Julia took the medicine-bottle in her hand, and looked anxiously round the room.

She was looking for an empty bottle.

Presently she perceived one standing on a corner of the mantelpiece. Into this she poured the contents of the vial which her father had tampered with.

She then filled the vial with pure water from the water-bottle on the wash-hand stand.

The poisoned medicine she carried away with her, departing as noiselessly as she had come, after one last anxious glance at the two sleepers.

Throughout the remainder of that wretched night Julia Godwin sat at her window, staring vacantly out at the starlit heavens.

She saw those stars fade slowly in the chill morning light; but still she sat motionless, like a creature whom some great horror had changed into stone. Yet in all this long agony her senses did not fail her.

At seven o’clock she went to her dressing-room, after disarranging the coverings of her bed, so that her maid might not discover that she had been up all night. She locked the bottle containing the medicine in a desk in her dressing-room, and then commenced a careful toilette.

At half-past seven her maid came to her, and found her very nearly dressed.

“I was a little earlier than usual this morning, Mitford, but you are just in time to do my hair,” Julia said very calmly; “have you heard how Mr. Wilton is going on this morning?”

“Yes, miss. He is pretty much the same, I hear; still delirious, but a good deal quieter. Poor Mrs. Beckson’s quite upset, I hear, this morning. She fell asleep, poor old soul, and slept all night, and woke this morning with a dreadful headache, and quite put out to find that she had been asleep so long. However, luckily her patient seemed to have been very quiet, so there was no harm done.”

Julia Godwin shuddered as she thought of the harm that might have been done during the watcher’s slumber, if Providence had not interposed to shield the banker’s intended victim.

When the bell rang for breakfast she went down to the dining-room. Surely her father would not be there; or, if he were there, his manner would reveal the frenzy of a distraught brain. But, to her utter bewilderment, she saw him, calm and self-possessed, seated at the head of the breakfast-table, with an open Bible under his hands.

Yes; it was unspeakably horrible. This man, this midnight poisoner, was about to read the Gospel to his assembled household!

It was a rule with Rupert Godwin to read morning prayers to his family and servants whenever he slept at his country-house. Whatever his life might be in London, in Hertfordshire his habits were those of extreme respectability.

Julia watched him with dilated eyes as he read. Presently he began prayers. The servants knelt; the master also sank upon his knees.

The proud girl’s noble spirit revolted against this hideous hypocrisy. She rose from her seat and walked to one of the windows, where she remained looking out at the garden, while her father read the morning prayer, in which he besought the grace of Heaven for that kneeling household, and implored the Divine guidance for all the actions of his life. Even as he read Rupert Godwin perceived the figure of his daughter standing by the open window, and was not a little disturbed by her unusual conduct.

Presently, when the servants had risen from their knees and left the room, Mr. Godwin went to the window where Julia stood.

“Why did you not join in our prayers just now?” he asked, looking at her with concealed terror.

She turned her face towards him. It was deadly pale, and the dark eyes fixed themselves upon the banker’s countenance with a strange earnestness.

“I could not kneel and pray this morning,” she said in tremulous accents. “I could not ask for Heaven’s blessing on this household, or on—you.”

She looked at him intently as she pronounced that last word. His face grew livid; but he was able to conquer all other evidences of his agitation.

“Why not, Julia?” he asked coldly.

“O, my unhappy father, cannot you guess the reason?” cried the wretched girl in an outburst of passionate grief.

The banker looked at her with a scowl upon his face.

“Are you mad, Julia?” he exclaimed. “What, in the name of all that is ridiculous, has inspired you with this folly? I have a peculiar aversion to anything in the way of heroics. What is the meaning of these tragic airs?”

“O, father, father!” she cried, suddenly bursting into tears. “Heaven grant that I have wronged you!”

She rushed from the room before Rupert Godwin could question her further. A hundred conflicting feelings tortured her breast, but amidst them all there still lingered one ray of hope.

Her father might be guiltless of the poisoner’s dark intent. She could not believe that the parent she loved so dearly was the worst and vilest of earth’s creatures.

“It is too horrible—too horrible!” she murmured, when she had reached the shelter of her own apartment and flung herself upon the bed, hiding her pale face in her clasped hands. “It is too bitter a blow, too cruel, to be forced to hate the father I have loved so dearly. To hate him! The father I have been so proud of—from whom I have never known anything but love and indulgence. And yet, can I do otherwise than hate him, if he is what he seemed to be last night? A murderer—and the vilest of murderers—the secret assassin, who carries death to the unconscious sleeper!”

She brooded on the scene of last night until her brain grew dizzy with the violent strain that was made upon it. Why should her father attempt the life of Lewis Wilton—the penniless obscure artist? What motive could have induced him to injure this stranger, whom accident only had thrown across his path? No—an attempt so purposeless could only be the murderous freak of a madman. Or was it not possible that Julia had been mistaken in the import of the scene she had witnessed, and that the liquid added to the medicine was harmless—some experimental remedy which Mr. Godwin chose to administer in secret, rather than encounter the opposition of a medical practitioner, or the prejudices of an ignorant nurse?

No words can depict the agony of this unhappy girl. Noble and pure of heart, she could but detest guilt and treachery. Yet she was devoted to her father; and her breast was tortured by the thought of his peril, should his guilty attempt become known to the world.

“I will ascertain the truth,” she thought; “come what may I will discover the nature of the liquid which he mingled with the sleeper’s medicine. If it should be something harmless after all, O, what happiness!—what a blessed relief from this unendurable agony of mind! And yet, can I hope it?—can I forget my father’s face as he looked at me to-day—so dark, so livid, so like the countenance of a murderer?”

While Julia abandoned herself to her sorrow, the banker paced the breakfast-room, tormented by horrible fears—fears which until lately had been almost strangers in his breast. His daughter’s conduct had affected him more acutely than anything that had happened to him for a long time.

Could she suspect? No, it was impossible. Elsewhere suspicion might arise, but not here—not in her mind. She is as innocent and confiding as a child.

He thought over the events of the previous night, and he could perceive no flaw, no blemish, in his deadly work; all had been planned so carefully, all had been executed so successfully, and at an hour when Julia must naturally have been asleep in her own room.

It was impossible that she could know anything.

“I understand it all,” thought the banker. “She is in love with this Lionel, and he has revealed his real name to her, and has told her the story of his mother’s wrongs.”

Reassured a little by this thought, Rupert Godwin paced his room with a quick nervous step, listening for the opening of the door. He was waiting for the coming of the person who should announce to him the death of Lionel Westford.

But the door was not opened; no one came. Breakfast remained untouched upon the table, where the richly painted Worcester china, the antique silver dishes, the mellow brown of a ponderous ham, the golden tints of a raised pie decorated in alto relievo by some Benvenuto Cellini of pastrycooks, would have made a study for a painter of still life.

The poor envy the rich sometimes, and it is only natural that the penniless should murmur complainingly against the waste and luxury of a millionaire’s household, and be rather slow to recognize the harmony of a universe in which one man has half-a-dozen country seats, a shooting-box in the Highlands, and a house in Park-lane, while another man’s children look at him with wan haggard faces as he sits moaning with his gaunt elbows on his bony knees—out of work! Yet if the veriest pauper in all England could have looked into that splendid room and watched the dark face of Rupert Godwin, he would have hugged himself in his rags as he contemplated the misery of a bad man surrounded by the luxury of a prince.

No one came to speak the slow solemn words that tell of death; and yet the time had long passed at which Lionel Westford should have taken his medicine.

Again and again Rupert Godwin had looked at his watch. At last he could endure the suspense no longer. He left the breakfast-room, and went straight to Lionel’s apartment.

He expected to behold the face of the dead, still and shadowy in a shrouded chamber. But the chamber was not darkened; the windows had been opened, and the balmy morning air blew into the room. Lionel was lying with his eyes fixed upon the door. He raised himself in the bed as Rupert Godwin entered, and fixed those wild bloodshot eyes upon the banker.

“My father’s murderer!” he cried, pointing to the advancing figure. “Don’t you see him? Will no one seize him? Will no one hold him for me? My father’s murderer, Rupert Godwin!”

Mrs. Beckson was seated by the bedside. She had taken a cup of strong tea, and had recovered in some measure from the effects of the opiate given her by the banker, though her head ached, and she felt a sensation of drowsiness that was very difficult to shake off.

Nothing could exceed Rupert Godwin’s bewilderment when he found his intended victim still living, still vigorous, still able to proclaim his guilt.

He looked at the bottles on the table near the bed.

The bottle which he had tampered with was empty.

“Who gave the invalid his medicine?” he asked.

“I did, sir,” answered Mrs. Beckson.

“He took it quietly?”

“O yes, sir. Though he does rave and go on so at times, he always takes his medicine quietly enough.”

“There was none spilt, then?”

“Not a drop, sir.”

The banker looked at his housekeeper very intently. It was evident that she was speaking the truth.

No suspicion had as yet entered her mind. Here, at least, there was safety.

But how was it, then, that the poison had failed in its effect? It was not a poison likely to fail. Rupert Godwin had laid his plans deliberately, and was not a man to make any mistake in a deadly business like this.

He left the room. He dared not remain longer in that apartment, to be denounced as a murderer.

At present that denunciation was only regarded as the senseless raving of delirium. What if those who watched the invalid should come by-and-by to believe in it—to search, to investigate? It was all one dark labyrinth of horror. Rupert Godwin felt as if a network had been closing round him, slowly but surely—a fatal web, from which escape would ere long be impossible.

“I must remove this man somehow,” he thought, as he went back to his own room. “The poison has failed, and I must try some other means, less deadly, less dangerous, but as certain. I think I know of a plan by which Lionel Westford’s lips may be as surely closed as if he slept the cold slumber of the dead.”