The Queen's Scarlet Part 10

No. He felt that he was a prisoner, and he could not lay a hand upon the lock. He would wait until the man came.

But it was half-past one before the door was opened and Jerry stole in on tiptoe.

"Think I wasn't a-coming, sir?" he said, sadly.

"The news!--the news!" gasped Richard.

Jerry was silent, as he stood gazing wistfully at the inquirer.

"Can't you see that I am dying to hear?" cried the lad imploringly.

"Yes, sir," came in a broken voice; "but I've got that to tell you that'll break your 'art as well, sir."

"Then it is the worst?" groaned Richard.

"Yes, sir: master told me. He rang for me to tell me as soon as the doctor had gone to the hotel. I let him out, sir. Yes, sir, master rung for me to tell me; and, of course, he meant it so that I might come up and tell you. 'Brigley,' he says, 'the doctor gives us no hope at all. There was a piece of bone pressing on the brain, he says, and this the doctors removed; but the shock was too much for the poor fellow, and he won't last the night.'"

Richard sat back in his chair, rigid, as if cut in stone, and Jerry went on--

"Don't look like that, sir; don't, please! You wanted me to tell you.

It was my dooty, sir; and now, sir, you know the worst, do take a bit of advice, sir. Even if you don't undress, go and lie down, and have a good sleep till morning. There, sir, I must, too. I'll bring you a cup of tea about six, sir. Good-night, sir."

"Good-night," said Richard, quietly.

"Ah, that's better," said Jerry to himself. "Now he knows the worst, he's easier like. What's o'clock?"

He drew a big-faced watch from his pocket by its steel chain.

"Harpus one; not much time for my snooze. I'll just go and make up cook's fire, put the kettle over, and have a nap there. It's no use to go to bed now."

Jerry did as he had promised to himself, and finally sank back in a kind of Windsor chair, dropping off to sleep the next instant, and, by force of habit, waking just at the time he had arranged in his mind.

"Ten minutes to six," he muttered, smiling. "I've got a head like a 'larum. Just upon the boil, too," he added, addressing the kettle, as he changed it from the trivet on to the glowing coals.

The clocks were striking six as he went softly upstairs with a little tray, and, turning the handle, entered Richard Frayne's room, where one of the windows was open; and all looked bright and cheery in the early morning suns.h.i.+ne as he set the tray down upon the table beside the larger one, which showed that some bread had been broken off, but the rest of the contents were untouched.

"It's a shame to wake him," thought Jerry; "cup o' tea's a fine thing when you're tired out, but a good long sleep's a deal better. Poor chap, I won't disturb him, but I'll take the tea in and put it on a chair by his bedside. He shall see as I didn't forget him in trouble.

On'y to think him a real gent with a handle to his name and lots of money to come in for when he's one-and-twenty. Right as a trivet yes'day morning and now in such a hobble as this, just like any common chap as goes and kills his mate. They can't hang him, but I s'pose they'll give it to him pretty hot, poor chap! Juries is such beasts, they'd take 'n give it to him hard because he's a real gent, and make as though keeping up the glorious const.i.tootion and freedom and liberty of the subject to everybody alike. Well, I s'pose it's right, but I'd let him off in a minute if I was the judge.--Come on!"

This was to the tea, whose fragrance he sniffed as he neared the waiter, and went softly to the archway where the curtain shut off the bedroom.

"Poor boy!--for he is nothing but a boy--I am sorry for him, and no mistake. Well, ups and downs in life we see, and you can't escape troubles, even if you're a Prince o' Wales."

Jerry softly drew the curtain aside and peered through without a sound; and as he let the heavy drapery fall, he uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, put the tray on the washstand, and swung the heavy curtains right along the bra.s.s pole, making the rings give quite a clash, as the morning sun shone through, showing that the bed had not been disturbed.

In an instant the man's eyes were searching about the room, and he saw that a suit of clothes lay where they had been tossed upon a chair, while a wardrobe door was open.

He darted to that, made a hasty examination, and muttered--

"Brown velveteens! No, it ain't. Here they are. It's his dark tweeds, and--no--yes: dark stockings."

He continued his examination in the bedroom, but could make out nothing else.

"Only gone for a walk before anyone's up, poor chap! Hadn't the heart to go to bed. More hadn't I at the time. He ain't taken nothing. He can't have--he wouldn't have--I don't know though--I--oh, he couldn't have--Let's see--"

He hurried downstairs and went to the front door, then to the dining-room, drawing-room, and study, as well as the room set apart for the pupils; but the windows were closed, and he went slowly upstairs again to pause by the staircase window.

"A man might step out here on to the balcony and shut it down again, and easily drop. But no: he can't have done that."

With his mind bent upon getting some clue as to the young man's actions, Jerry turned back to his room and once more looked round.

"No," he said thoughtfully, "he couldn't do that; it would be cowardly, and he's got too much pluck. He'd have taken some things, too and he hasn't done that."

As Jerry spoke his eyes were turning everywhere in search of a clue; but he saw nothing till they fell upon the tray, toward which he sprang with a cry, for he had now caught sight of a piece of paper folded like a note and bearing his name.

He tore it open, and read only these words:--

"Good-bye, Jerry. You were the only one to stand by me to the last.

Take my gold fox-head pin for yourself. I cannot face it all. I feel half-mad."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

JERRY SEES THE WORST.

"Off his nut!" gasped Jerry, excitedly. "Who wants his fox-pin? I wants him. Couldn't stand it!--half-dotty!"

He looked wildly round, and then his eyes lit upon the glittering waters of the swollen river spreading far and near, and he once more uttered a cry.

"The river!" he exclaimed. "It's that!" and, rus.h.i.+ng out of the room, he leaped headlong down the stairs, making for the pantry, where he caught up his hat.

The next minute he was running along the main road, instinctively feeling that this was the way anyone would take who wished to reach the river.

He did not meet a soul for the first few hundred yards, and then came suddenly, at a turn, upon a farmer's man, in long smock-frock, driving a flock of sheep, and looking as if he had come far along the dusty road, perhaps travelling since daylight.

"Meet a young gent in dark-grey soot and brown billyc.o.c.k hat?" panted Jerry.

"Ay! Two mile along the road."

"Which way was he going?"

"Simmed to be making for lower lane; but it's all under water, and he'll have to go round."

"All under water!" muttered Jerry, as he ran on rapidly. "Two miles-- and me sitting sleeping there like a pig. That's it--that's what he meant! What did he say?--'Couldn't face it?' If I could only get there in time! He must have been cracked! He must have been mad! He's gone to drown hisself and get out of his misery, just like the high-sperretted gent he is. I know: gents don't think like we do. It's the Latin and Greek makes 'em cla.s.sic and honourable, and they'd sooner die than get a bad name. It's all right, I suppose; but it seems stoopid to me, when you know you ain't done nothing wrong."

"Now, let me see," thought Jerry. "I say he's come this road, because he wouldn't go and chuck hisself in the river up by the ruins, because he'd have had enough o' them; so he's come down here this way, and he's found it ain't so easy as he thought; for you can't get to the water for far enough, if you want a good deep place. Chap can't go and drown hisself in fields where it's only six inches deep, without he goes and lies down in a ditch. Gent couldn't do that. Be like dying dog-fas.h.i.+on! I know what he's gone to do: he's made for Brailey Bridge, where he could go over into a deep hole at once. Only wish I was alongside of him; I'd say something as would bring him to his senses."