An Isle of Surrey: A Novel

CHAPTER XL.

CRAWFORD SLEEPS

William Crawford was in a hurry away from Welford, not in a hurry to the Counter Club. His design was more to escape a meeting with Layard, than to pick up any of his gambling associates. "A walk," he thought, "will do me good." So, instead of taking the steamboat or any wheeled conveyance, he crossed Welford Bridge at a quick pace and kept on, heading west.

He felt that this day made an epoch in his life. He had bidden good-bye to his wife for ever. He had realised the fortune for which he had schemed. He had put himself under the tutelage of Hetty's luck. He would shortly cut the past adrift. If Nellie died soon-a thing almost certain-he would marry Hetty, leave the country and settle down. Of course, whether his wife died or not, Hetty must be his. That was settled, both because he admired her more than any other woman he had ever met and because she had brought him luck, and would bring him more. He knew, he felt as sure he should win that night as he did that the sun was shining above him. If he did not win that night he should be more astonished than if the sky now grew dark and night came on before sunset. O, how delightful and fresh would life be in the new world with Hetty and good luck present, and all the dangers and troubles and annoyances of the old world left behind here, and banished from his mind for ever!

He had not felt so light and buoyant for many a long day. What an absurd creature he had been half-an-hour ago, with his fears of going mad just because he had been a little upset and deprived of sleep for twenty-four hours!

He crossed the river by London Bridge and loitered about the City for a couple of hours. He felt that sensation of drowsiness coming on him again. He knew he could sleep no more now than when at Welford. Again his mind became troubled, and, shaking himself up, he exclaimed, "I will not suffer this again. There is nothing to rouse one up like the cards. Now to test my theory of Hetty's luck." He hailed a hansom and drove to the Counter Club.

The dinner at the club was excellent, but he had little or no appetite. As a rule he drank nothing but water. This evening he felt so dull and out of sorts he had a pint of champagne. It roused and cheered him at first, and after a cup of coffee he felt much better than he had all day. Not giving himself time to fall back into his former dull and depressed condition, he went straight to the card-room, where he found more men than usual, and the play already running high.

That night remains immemorable in the annals of the Counter Club. Play had been going on from early in the afternoon. Three brothers named Staples, members of the club, had lately come into equal shares of a large fortune left by a penurious old uncle. This was the first evening they had been at the Counter since they had got their legacies, and they had agreed among themselves to make a sensation. Up to this night they had been obliged to shirk high play, as their means were very limited and no credit was given at the card-tables. They were flush now, and had made up their minds to play as long as they could find any one to sit opposite them. When they came into the card-room an hour before Crawford they told a few friends their intention. The news spread, and the room filled to see the sport. Owing to the high stakes there were fewer players and a much greater number of spectators than usual.

"Now," thought Crawford, when he had heard the news, "this will be a good test. I am in no hurry, and I will give my luck, Hetty's luck, a fair trial. I have about five hundred pounds, and I'll play as long as they play if my money holds out."

There were six tables in the room, and at each of three one of the brothers sat. Crawford took his place at the table where the eldest was playing.

At midnight Crawford was ten pounds better off than at the beginning. This was worse than to have lost fifty. It was stupefying. It was more like earning money at a small rate an hour than winning money at cards.

As the men at Crawford's table had resolved to make a night of it, they adjourned for half-an-hour at one o'clock for supper. Crawford was still further disgusted to find that now he had eight pounds more than at starting. Eight pounds after five hours! Why, verily, the game did not pay for the candle. And worse than the paltriness of his winnings was this feeling of drowsiness which had come on him again. He now blamed the champagne for it. He drank water this time.

At half-past one play was resumed. The dull heavy feeling continued, and at times Crawford hardly knew what he was doing. The night flew by. By four o'clock all the lookers-on had left, and the room contained only players. All the tables but one were now deserted. At this one six men sat, Crawford, the three Staples, and two other members of the club.

By some extraordinary combination of luck no money worth speaking of had changed hands. All the players declared they had never seen anything so level in their lives. At this time there was a pause in the play for light refreshment. Five of the men had brandies and sodas, Crawford had coffee. He looked at the counters before him, and counted them with his eye. He had been making money at something like the rate of a day labourer. He had won two or three sovereigns! This wasn't play, but slavery.

The other men had nothing sensational to say; they all declared they were pretty much as they had started. No one had gained much, and no one was much hurt.

"Never saw such a thing in my life!" said the eldest Staples in amazement.

"Nor I," said Crawford.

"Shall we say seven for breakfast, and then, if there is no change, we'll chuck it?"

"All right," chorussed the others.

At seven, however, there was a very marked change: Crawford had won a hundred and fifty pounds.

"That's better," said the eldest Staples. "I vote we go on."

He was two hundred and fifty to the bad.

"Agreed," said the others.

"Is any one sleepy?"

"I'm not, at all events," said Crawford.

He could hardly keep his eyes open, and his head and limbs felt like lead.

At eight o'clock play was resumed, and Crawford's good luck continued. But he went on like a man in a dream. Now and then he lost all consciousness of his surroundings for a moment, and even when aroused he seemed only half awake; but though he was playing automatically, his good fortune kept steadily increasing the heap of counters at his left elbow.

At noon a few of the men who had been spectators the evening before came in to learn how the sitting had ended. They were overwhelmed with astonishment and envy when they heard that play had been continued all through the night and was still going on. They dropped into the card-room to see how the company bore the wear and tear of the night, and to gather how matters stood.

At one o'clock another halt was called for luncheon. The position of the players was then ascertained approximately. Two of the Staples and one of the other men had lost heavily, the youngest Staples had won a trifle, the other man was fifty pounds to the good, and William Crawford found himself in possession of sixteen hundred pounds, or eleven hundred more than when he sat down.

"Have we not had enough of it?" he asked of the eldest Staples; "I feel very tired."

"O," cried Staples, "let us go on till one of us gives in. If luck keeps on as it has been running I shall be dished soon. Then we can stop."

"All right," said Crawford. To himself he said, "If the play leaves off before midnight I know I shall increase my winnings, for Hetty's luck will be with me till then."

At seven o'clock young Staples said, "What about dinner?"

"O, hang dinner!" cried his brother. "Let us play until I'm cleaned out. I mean to stop at another hundred."

Crawford felt himself nod more than once between that and nine o'clock. He could no longer readily distinguish hearts from diamonds or spades from clubs. He heard noises in his ears, and every now and then he had to shake himself up sharply to make himself realise where he was.

"Crawford, you're falling asleep," said the eldest of the brothers, "and I've got beyond that hundred. Shall we stop? We've been at it twenty-four hours."

"I've been at it nearly thirty-six," said Crawford, rising. "I have had no sleep for forty-eight hours. I cannot see the cards."

"Shall we all dine together?" asked Staples. "This is an occasion which we ought to mark in some way or other."

"For my part," said Crawford, "I could eat nothing. I could not swallow a morsel until I sleep. I shall take a hansom and drive home."

As he stumbled stupidly into the cab that evening he carried away from the Counter Club two hundred pounds in gold, four hundred in notes, and sixteen hundred in cheques, making in all twenty-two hundred pounds, or seventeen hundred pounds more than he had brought into it the evening before. He directed the man to drive to Welford Bridge, and then settled himself comfortably in a corner to sleep on the way.

Before falling asleep he put his hand into his back pocket to ascertain if the revolver was there. "It's all right," he muttered. "After all, it's a great comfort to have it and to know I can defend myself and protect my money. But in reality, it isn't my money, but Hetty's. She brought me the luck. That's as plain as-" He started and stopped for a moment. A vivid flash of lightning had roused and stopped him for a second. "That's as plain as the lightning I have just seen." Before the long roll of the distant thunder died in the east he was asleep.

In little over an hour the cab reached the South London Canal. The driver raised the trap in the roof, and shouted down:

"Welford Bridge, sir."

"O, ay," said Crawford, half awake. "What is it?"

"This is Welford Bridge, sir."

"Very good; I'll walk the rest of the way."

He got out and paid the man. Rain was now falling in perpendicular torrents. Every minute the sky was filled with dazzling pulses of swift blue flame. The crash and tear and roar of thunder was almost continuous.

Crawford was conscious of flashes and clash and crash overhead, and rain descending like a confluence of waterspouts, but he did not feel quite certain whether all was the work of his imagination in dreams or of the material elements.

Dazed for want of sleep, and half-stunned by the clamour of the sky, and rendered slow and torpid by the clinging warm wetness of his clothes, he staggered along Welford Road and down Crawford Street.

"I shall sleep well to-night," he thought, grinning grimly at his present uncomfortable plight.

Arrived at the door, he opened it with his latch-key. He stumbled along into the back hall with the intention of shaking the rain off his clothes before going up to his room.

The door on the quay from the back hall was wide open. He stood at it and looked out. The light from the kitchen pierced the gloom, and the rain streamed across the wet and glittering floating-stage.

At that moment three pulses of fierce blue light beat from sky to earth, illumining vividly everything which distance or the rain did not hide.

William Crawford saw by the swift blue light from heaven the form of a woman advancing towards him across the stage. He saw that she held and umbrella open above her head. He saw that she had red spots on her thin and worn face. He knew that this woman was Kate Mellor of three years back, the woman who had rescued him from death a few days ago.

It was plain she did not recognise him, he standing between her and the light in the hall. She said, shaking the umbrella:

"I brought this for you, Philip."

Philip! Her brother! Philip Ray, her brother, who had sworn to kill him, must therefore be absolutely in the house under whose roof he now stood. Monstrous!

He turned swiftly round with a view to gaining the foot of the stairs and dashing up before he could be recognised.

Under the light of the hall-lamp, and advancing towards him, was Philip Ray, Kate's brother. For a moment Philip stood stock still, regarding the other fixedly. Then with a yell the brother sprang forward, crying:

"By – , 'tis he at last! 'Tis Ainsworth!"

With a shriek of terror and despair Crawford bounded through the open door out on the narrow quay, and turned sharply to the left. In a second Ray sprang out on the quay in pursuit. The darkness was so intense he could not see which way Crawford had taken. For a moment he stood in the light coming through the doorway.

It was at this instant Kate Bramwell stepped ashore off the stage. As she did so two flashes in quick succession burst from the heavens. By this light she perceived Crawford standing half-a-dozen paces to the left of the back-door. She recognised him instantly. She saw that he had his right arm raised and extended on a line with his shoulder in the direction of her brother. She saw in his hand something metallic gleam in the lightning. With one bound she clasped her brother and strove with all her power to drag him down to the ground out of the line of the weapon. There was a snap, a loud report, and with a pang of burning pain in her shoulder, she fell insensible to the ground.

The thunder burst forth in a deafening roar.

The man who had fired the shot turned and fled headlong, he knew not, cared not, whither.

Suddenly he tripped over something and shot forward. He thrust out his hands to break his fall. They touched nothing. His whole body seemed to hang suspended in air for an instant. Then his hands and arms shot into water. His face was dashed against the smooth cold surface, and a boisterous tumult of water was in his ears, and his breathing ceased.

"The ice-house! No gates! Why do I not rise? If I do he will kill me. I cannot get out of this without help, and he is the only one near who could help, and he would kill me, would with pleasure see me drown a thousand times. When I rise I shall shout, come what may. I wonder is he dead? Why do I not rise? Yes, now I know why I do not rise. The gold, the two hundred pounds in gold; and my clothes are already soaked through. I shall never rise. I need struggle no more. I am going, going red-handed before the face of God."

That night William Crawford slept under ten feet of water, on the bed of ooze and slime, at the bottom of the flooded ice-house on Crawford's Bay.

The wounded woman never spoke again, never recovered consciousness. She passed peacefully away in the fresh clear light of early day.

It was not until the evening after the fatal night that, at the suggestion of Bayliss, the water of the flooded ice-house was dragged, and the body of William Crawford discovered. In the case of Kate Bramwell, a verdict of wilful murder was brought in by the coroner's jury against William Crawford. In his own case the jury said that he was found drowned in the flooded ice-house, but how he happened, to get into the water there was no evidence to show.

Mrs. Farraday, who came at once to Richmond on receiving Crawford's letter, was careful to let no newspaper containing any account of the Welford tragedy near Mrs. Crawford. The patient and gentle invalid was gradually sinking. She never complained to any one of his desertion. She never told a soul of the money she had given him. Whatever she thought of his letter to her she kept to herself. Her evidence, no doubt, would have been required at the inquest if her health had been ordinary. But Dr. Loftus certified that the mere mention of his death would in all likelihood prove fatal to her.

About a month after his death she said one evening to Mrs. Farraday:

"I should like to get one letter from my husband, announcing his safe arrival, before I go on my long journey. But it is not to be. I shall not be here when the letter comes. Let no one open it. Let it be burnt unopened. The letters between a husband and wife ought to be sacred."

She was afraid something in it might militate against the good opinion in which those who had met Crawford in Richmond had held him.

One morning, about six weeks after the inquest, Mrs. Farraday thought the stricken woman was sleeping longer than usual as she had not rung her bell by half-past nine o'clock. Mrs. Farraday went to the bed and found the poor sufferer had glided from the troubled sleep of life into the peaceful sleep of eternity.

"It is a mercy," said the good and kind-hearted woman, "that she never knew the truth."