THE DARK CHAMBER

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 166, 22 October 1880, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE DARK CHAMBER

Not very long ago there dwelt, at Brookdale, a sunny spot of Warwickshire, one of the prettiest, merriest maidens, Phoebe Morris by name, that ever danced upon a green sward, or broke the susceptible hearts of a quite pastoral and agricultural village. The neatest, smartest, handiest dairymaid in the country, she nevertheless created at times such dire confusion, heartburnings, and jealousies amongst the somewhat numerous operatives on the farm, that Farmer Gadsby would frequently threaten to discharge her if she did not leave oft playing the mischief with his young men. To all which goodhumourerl objurgation Phoebe would demurely reply, ‘That it wa3 no fault of hers : goodness knows, she gave the ‘jackanapes’ no encouragement, and should be heartily glad to get rid of the whole pack of them!’ Honest Farmer Gadsby, a man of peace, though wearing buttons, seldom pursued the colloquy much further ; consoling himself as he walked off with a quite reflection tliat had been framed and glazed in his family for several generations, to the effect —I am not able to quote the precise words— ‘ That a maiden is a riddle, the true solution of which is seldom discovered till after marriage.’ Phoebe, moreover, from being an orphan, ‘ who had seen better days’—that indefeasible claim to forbearance and consideration with all rmsoplii---;.icateil people —was a privileged person L-t li with the farmer and iris damn ; and it was therefore with n<* little satisfaction, both as regarded the peace of the farmstead, and. the comfortable settlement in the life of the light-hearted, wellmeaning though somewhat skittish maiden, tliat a worthy couple observed after a time symptoms of a serious intimacy growing up between her and William Bayfield, the steady, thriving master wheelwright of Brookdale. Young Bayfield was quite a catch, as regarded circumstances, for a dairymaid, however smart and well-featured ; and innumerable —in a village sense — were the exclamations of contempt and wonder indulged in by maids and matrons of the small-farmer and shopkeeper class at the of a prosperous tradesman with a mere milk maid. Little recked, however, it soon became manifest, the object of these ill-natured strictures of the displeasure of liis critics ; and so spirited and successful was the wooing, that the banns between William Bayfield, bachelor, and Phoebe Morris, spinster, were published within one little month of the day which witnessed the first appearnce of the enamoured wheelwright in the list of Phoebe’s miscellaneous admirers ; converting into certainty tho apprehensions suggested, by the arrival at William Bayfield’s dwelling the very day before, of an eight-day clock, a mahogany chest of drawers, a gilt pier glass, and a carpet—positively a Brussels carpet! The spinstorhood of Brookdale had no patience how could they have ? —with such airs, and indignantly wished it might last, that was all!

Alas, it soon became extremely doubtful whether the modest housekeeping so sharply criticised would ever commence ! The rustic incense so long and profusely offered to the pretty Phoebe had not, it may be easily imagined, tended to diminish the stock of vanity with which tho merry maiden was naturally endowed. She was unfortunately far too fond of exhibiting the power which she possessed, or fancied she did, over her humble admirers. The true affection which she felt towards her affianced husband did not suffice to shield him from her coquettish, irritating arts ; and just three days previous to the expected wedding, a violent quarrel between the lovers, threatening to end in a total rupture of the proposed alliance, bad taken place. The cause of the quarrel will be best understood by tho dialogues which took place between them on tho following afternoon. Bayfield, who had not slept a wink all night, nor been able to settle himself to anything during tho morning had sent a message through kind D ime Gadsby, that he wished to speak to Phoebe, ancl was waiting for her by the chestnut trees. Phoebe had herself been in trouble all day, fearing she had carried matters too far ; but this message at once re-assured her, and she determined, foolish wench, to make no concession whatever to the wounded pride and self-esteem or her lover.

‘Well, Mr. Bayfield,’ said she, approaching him after a purposely protracted delay, ‘ what have you to say to mo ? I understood you hgve resolved never to spealc to rue again !’ £ Well, Phoebe, I did say so, and meant it too at the time ; but you well know T was too much in love to be able to keep my word.’ Phoebe laughed. ‘ Come now, let us be friends again: there’s a good girl.’ ‘ Oh, I daresay ; and so give you leave to show off your jealous airs again with impunity ? No indeed !’ ‘ Nay, Phoebe, it was partly,_ at all events, your own fault. You tried me sadly : but come, let bygones be bygones. As to young Gaythorpe, of course h j thinks nothing of you ; s<> that ‘Don’t be too sure of that, Mr. Bivfield,’ interrupted Phoebe, tossing her head, and pouting her pretty lip. ‘ Edward Gaythorpe has eyes in his head, I suppose, as well as other folk.’ ‘ 1 daresay he has,’ replied Bayfield, his jealousy re-awakening ; ‘ and if you prefer him to me, even so let it be : 111 not stand in his way.’ Phoebe angrily retorted, and the result was a more vehement quarrel than before, and they at last separated, both avowing a fixed determination never to see or think of each other again. After striding nearly to the end of the long lane in which they had been standing. William Bayfield turned round, half-ropontingly, just at the moment, as ill-fortune would have it, that Edward Gaythorpe, who had been observing the pair from the covert of the chestnut-trees, joined his unstress, and officiously walked by her side as she proceeded homewards. Her soft eyes were suffused with tears, and she replied only by curt monosyllables to the soothing blandishments of the young tanner. Of this poor Bayfield was necessarily unaware : he saw only the ill-timed, suspicious rettcbiitrc, and, his heart overflowing with rage aud grief, strode fiercely away towards the village. Instead of proceeding to his own dwelling, he entered (a most unusual thing for him to do, especially

in the daytime) the principal tavern of the place, and seating himself in the parlour, called hastily for brandy and water. It unfortunately happened that Sergeant Crump, a zealous recruiting officer in tho service of the Honou able East India Company, and indefatigable trumpeter of the manifold virtues, civil and military, of that distinguished corporation, was, at the moment of Bayfield’s entrance, haranguing the two or three persons present upon the brilliant advantages proffered by his lavishly-generous employers to all heroic spirits desirous of obtaining fame and fortune, glory and prize-money, where alone those desirable articles could, in the present stagnant state of the world, be with certainly attained—namely in tho delightful dazzling East! The magniloquent oratory of the sergeant, hot and glowing as it was, altogether failed of kindling the cold clods he so pathetically addressed; and he would probably have soon ceased his funning in despair, had not his practised eye discerned in the countenance of tho new corner indications of a state of mind extremely favourable to a proper appreciation of recruiting eloquence. Ho consequently persevered, and by the time William Bayfield had poured the third tumbler of brandy and water down his throat —ho could hardly be said to drink the liquor — had tho satisfaction of perceiving that he was listened to with a sort of moody desperation and half-scornful approval. More liquor was called for ; and finally, B.tvfiio.d maddened by potations to which he w i.h unaccustomed, acting upon his previously exasperated state of mind, accepted with reckless idiocy the Company’s shilling, and was at once enrolled in the sergeant’s memorandum book as a full private in one of the Bast India Company’s cavalry regiments ! As it was quite out of the question that a man iu the position of William Bayfield would, whatever his present frenzy might prompt, think seriously of enlisting, a night’s rest, and two or three pounds by way of ‘smart money,’ would probably have terminated the affair, when, just as the orgie was at its highest, Edward Gaythorpo entered the room. It required but this to raise the excitement of the new recruit to downright madness. Furious taunts and menaces were quickly exchanged ; Bayfield sprang wildly up, seizing at the same time, and drawing, the sergeant’s sheathed sword, which lay on the table : Gaythorpo caught hold of the poker, and a desperate struggle ensued. Bayfield received a heavy blow on his left shoulder, and at the same instant thrust his sword through the body of his antagonist. The outcries of the sergeant—the company had departed some time before —quickly brought the landlord and two or three others into the room : Bayfield was first with much difficulty secured ; and then Gaythorpo was convoyed to bed, and a surgeon sent for. Will aiu Bayfield, thoroughly sobered by the tragic issue of the fray, was a few hours afterwards, escorted by the entire constabulary of the place to tho nearest borough town, about six miles distant, and there securely lodged in jail. Such a catastrophe had not occurred in quiet pastoral Brookdale within the memory of the oldest inhabitant ; and dii'e was the tumult and the tossing to and fro of the bewildered mind of that small public. Phoebe Morris was in despair ; her silly, coquettish behaviour had, she felt—though few others suspected it—occasioned all the mischief : and fervent were her vows of future amendment should tho peril pass away. After a day or two, the excitement of the good folks began to gradually calm down. Young Gaythorpe’s wound was found to be merely a flesh one, the sword having grazed his ribs, and consequently not at all dangerous. He was a good-natured young man; and though somewhat smitten with Phoebe’s pretty face, was not at all disposed, upon calm reflection, to avenge his fanciful disappointment upon his rival. His father, too, a rather wealthy yeoman, having, reasonably enough, much higher views for his son, was very anxious that nothing should occur to prevent Phoebe’s union with Bay field. No wonder, therefore, that under these circumstances a rumour soon gained ground that the Gaythorpes did not mean to prosecute ; and that, moreover, the wounded man had no distinct recollection as to who began the fight—whether he first assailed Bayfield with the poker, or Bayfield him with the sword. It seemed, therefore, more than probable that the at one time ugly-looking affair would end after all in mere smoke.

There was apparently but one obstacle to this much-desired consummation ; but that was a formidable one. The sergeant, who in the struggle to disarm Bayfield, had received a slight cut on the cheek, which, in the owner’s.opinion, somewhat marred its martial comeliness, persisted that the prisoner had committed an entirely unprovoked and intendedly deadly assault upon Edward Gaythorpe, whom he had, moreover, repeatedly menaced with the direst vengeance previous to his entering the room. This evidence, it was felt, would entirely change the complexion of the case, and have the eflect, if 1-posed before a magistrate, of consigning the unhappy wheelwright to prison, there to await his trial on something very like a capital charge at the next assizes. The hearing of the charge had been adjourned from the following Thursday, to which day Bayfield had been first remanded, till Saturday at JO o’clock, in order to compel the attendance of Edward Gaythorpe, who had declined to obey the mere summons of the magistrate. On the Friday evening, disconsolate Phoebe Morris arrived at the Falcon Inn, an old-fashioned, straggling hostelry, in which the obdurate sergeant, accompanied by a newly-entrapped recruit, had taken up quarters for that night only, in order to be present in time at the next morning’s investigation. Phoebe’s purpose was to essay what effect ‘ beauty in tears’ might have upon his iron nature. Vainly, however, did beauty, not only in tears, but pretty nearly in fits, plead to the recruiting rhinoceros : he was inexorable. ‘ He had,’ ho said, ‘ one duty to perform towards society, which had been outraged ; and another,’ glancing grimly at his plastered cheek reflected in the glass over the mantelpiece, 4 towards himself, _ who had been injured, and those two duties he was determined to fulfil.’ Phoebe was at her wits’ end ; and but for some very strong consolation whispered in her ear b, the chamber-maid of the Falcon, who had assisted at the conference, and felt greatly

irritated at the sergeant’s flintines3, would probably have gone offinto permanent hysterics. As it was she contented herself with one or two reproachful sobs, and in dignantly withdrew from the presence of a monster whom smiles could not soften nor the tenderness of tears subdue. * A perfect brute ! ’ said the chambermaid, as soon as she was out of the sergeant’s hearing: ‘ but never mind, Miss Phoebe, there’s more ways to kill a mad dog besides hanging the oreechur!’ With which enigmatical illustration Margaret .Davies—so was the angry lady named—dismissed the subject; and Pheobe found herself shortly afterwards jogging sorrowfully, yet hopefully, homewards in Farmer Gadsby’s taxed cart, much musing on the possible events of the morrow. Margaret Davies, I should mention, had nursed Miss Phoebe, as she persisted in calling her, in those ‘ better clays’ to which I have alluded, and thence doubtless arose her sympathy with the afflicted fair one. The sergeant had walked a long distance that day, and feeling more than ordinarily tirecl, regretted, as he undressed himself in the double-bedded room he had bespoken for himself and his recruit, that he had not desired. Boots to call him. ‘ Never mind,’ thought he. ‘ I shall be sure to wake by ten o’clock, and that will be quite early enough.’ So thinking, he tumbled into bed, and slept without rocking. The next morning William Bayfield was brought before a bench of magistrates, and Mr. Gaythorpo, junior, being in attendance, the charge against him was proceeded with ; and it was soon apparent that if no other evidence than that of the unwilling prosecutor could be obtained, nothing but a common assault, arising out of chance medley, would be substantiated. The name of IViv. Crump was bawled out with immense emphasis, both inside and outside of the justice-hall, by the bustling town-sergeant: but much to the astouishmontof those familiar with the precise habits and punctilious attention to orders of that rigid soldier, no Crump answered to the summons. The zealous functionary was directed to proceed to the Falcon iu quest of the missing witness ; and after about a quarter of an hour’s absence, he returned with the tidings that ‘ No. 2-1, Sergeant Crump and another,’ had left the Falcon at daybreak, and had not been since seen or heard of. This intelligence the townsergeant had received from the respectable landlady’s own lips. Tho attorney employed to defend Bayfield urged an immediate adjudication upon the evidence alrey heard as a matter of right ; but the magistrates finally determined upon waiting for Crump till four o’clock in the afternoon, the usual hour for closing tho office ; when, if no additional evidence appeared, tiiey would decide the case. Poor Phoebe's heart sank within her. Still her friend the chambermaid had spoken so confidently of ‘ all day,’ that after a minute or two she rallied amazingly, and bestowed such a shower of gracious and encouraging smiles upon the penitent prisoner, as would, if, as those story-telling poets tell us, imagination possessed wings, have raised him from the dock up to the seventh heaven. As it was, his mortal part—whatever flights the ethereal essence indulged in— remained in durance vile, tremblingly apprehensive of tho arrival of Crump, And where was that dexterous snapperup of youthful heroism all this anxious while? Alas! himself could scarcely have answered the question. Sergeant Crump, as I have before mentioned, feeling unusually fatigued, was soon in a state of the profoundest slumber. Not less intense was the drowsiness of the jolter-hcaded recruit, who snored in the adjoining truckle-bed, and whose natural heavy-headedriess had been considerably increased by copious draughts of malt liquor. Long and sweetly did they slumber ; till at last the sergeant, after a few preliminary twists and turns, started hastily up in his bed, impressed with a strong conviction that he had sadly overslept himself, and forthwith began rubbing his eyes. This he did partly from habit, and partly to rub out the darkness which still—fully awake as he deemed himself—seemed strangely to encase them. ‘ Very odd,’ growled Sergeant Crump: it it dark ! Well if I couldn’t have sworn I had slept twelve hours at least! ’ Sergeant Crump was quite right ; it teas dark, oue of the darkest nights, especially for summer-time of year, as it then was, either he or any other gentleman had ever experienced. Mr. Crump tried to remember if there wa3 a moon, or at what time that luminary went down, or rose up, .but could not for the life of him determine : his last and present night’s experience suggesting such totally different conclusions. ‘ I cannot have been in bed anything like the time I supposed,’ he soliloquised. ‘lt must be so; but it’s very odd.’ Digging, the recruit, was snoring away as vigorously as if he had only just begun the exercise; and the sergeant, convinced at last that contrary to his usual habit had awoke before liis tine, again addressed himself to sleep. By dint of perseverance he managed to doze off again, and had remained in a state of semi-somnolency for perhaps three or four hours, when he again bolted upright in his bed, thoroughly wide awake and thoroughly bewildered ! It was still as dark as before ; and a horrible surmise crossed Air. Crump’s mind, that possibly the mechanism of the universe had somehow got out of order, and that the sun might consequently never again rise upon a benighted world ! The fact was. No. 24, ‘ Soldiers’ Rooms, to which, wilfully misunderstanding the landlady’s directions, the sympathising chambermaid had directed tho unclerbedrnakcr to convoy the sergeant and his man, was an inner-apartment in a distant part of the rambling old inn, the windows of which, as welL as those of tho rooms surrounding it, had been closed up, to mitigate the pressure of the window-tax, and was of course nothing more than a large roomy dark closet, to which even air obtained access only through the chimney. The sole window left was at the top of a wooden partition dividing the sergeant’s room from the next, and had in its time done duty as a ‘ borrowed light ;’ but inasmuch as the adjoining rooms were almost hermetically sealed-from the glare of day, was now at best but a borrowed ‘darkness.’ These rooms were usually reserved for soldiers of marching regiments occasionally billet ted on the Falcon ; a, compelled entertainment, by the way,

which is seldom of a very superior character. The reader will now be able to comprehend the cause both <4 Riioebe Morris’s nervous anxiety ancl of the sergeant’s perplexity. He wa.3 indeed perplexed in the extreme. At last, jumping angrily out of bed, he groped his way, after several mishaps in which both feet and shins suffered abominably, to the door, the key of wlueu he remembered to have left in the k.

In his haste to find and grasp it, he struck it unawares, and out it Hew from its shallow, ill-fitting receptacle to the lloor ; and all Mr. Crump’s efforts to find it were unavailing. Had he been able to open the door, he would not have been much the better of it, as it merely led in to another dark room, the outer key of which, for fear of accidents, provident Margaret Davies had taken care to secure. The sergeant next bethought him of the window : there must be, he argued, a window ; and by means of a tentative process round the walls with his cane, he at last managed to discover its whereabouts. The outside shutter was, he conjectured, closed ; but how to reach it ■- Housing iho recruit, who by this time had pretty v. ell slept off the effect of bis previous evening’s potations, he proposed to mount upon that worthy’s shoulders. This was agreed to, and with some difficulty accomplished ; but the sergeant, even on that ticklish eminence, coukl scarcely reach above the bottom of the narrow easement ; and the fastenings were, he concluded, considerably higher up. Iu order to obtain the necessary altitude, Biggins drew Ivs truckle-bedstead—a narrow fold-up affair, steady enough when a person was lying on it, but miserably unfit as a base for a man to stand upon, especially with another mounted on his shoulders —close to the avail ; and after several unsuccessful efforts, tho sergeant at last stood once more upon Higgins's shoulders, and was enabled to grope gingerly over the surface of the casement in search of shutter bolts, of course without success. In l.is wrathful energy, Crump, for a moment oblivious of the precarious nature of the base upon which lie was operating, pushed angrily at the window-frame, and at once overset the equilibrium which Higgins had till that moment with so much difficulty maintained. The folding bed-stead heeled suddenly over; Higgins caught instinctively at the sergeant’s legs ; and the sergeant, in his turn, made a desperate snatch at the casement, sending m the effort his hand clean through one of the

squares, clearly but painfully demonstrating, to himself at least, tho absence of shutters ; and then down came Crump and Diggins with stunning violence,

and mutual execrations and discomfiture. Bruised, bleeding, and incveditably savage, the sergeant, having first helped to replace the bedstead of las equally savage companion, once more resigned himself to his pillow, persuaded, in his own despite, tliat it could not yet be day. Hour after hour they lay watching for the dawn, tiie faintest streak of which would have been unspeakably welcome. At last, his patience utterly exhausted, Crump sprang up, and kicked and bawled for help with all the power of his feet and lungs, in which exercise lie was zealously aided by Diggins, whose appetite had by this time become ravenously sharp. Lung and fruitlessly had they raved and thumped, and were just on the point of abandoning their efforts in despair, when a step was heard evidently approaching their domitory. Presently a light shone through the crevices of the door, and the voice of -ho chambermaid, Airs. Margaret Davies, was heard generously demanding who it was mailing that disturbance at nearly ten o'clock at night, when quiet folk were just going to bed ? ‘Going to bed!’ Crump huddled on his clothes; and having, by the aid of tho light, espied the key, opened the door wiah a bounce. ‘ Going to bed !’ lie shouted distractedly as lie glared upon the chambermaid—‘going to bed!’ No sooner did that anriabL damsel catch sight of the haggard features and bloodstained hands and linen of the sergeant, then she plumped down in a chair, and set up a succession of the dismallest shrieks that ever disturbed and dismayed a Christian household. ‘ Murder—firethieves—robbers !’ resounded through the house with an effect so startling, that in a trice hostlers, porters, waiters, with a plentiful sprinkling of female helps, came rushing hurriedly to the rescue. Nobody either could or would recognise the culprits, spite of their energetic asseverations, till the arrival of the pursy, slowmoving landlady. The screams which had gradually diminished in intensity, then altogether ceased ; and in echo, as it were, of the ejaculation of her mistress, ‘ Sergeant Crump and tho recruit, as I’m alive !’ Airs. Margaret Davies naively exclaimed ; ‘ Afercv upon us ! Sergeant Crump ! Why, so it is ! Then you did not go away this morning without paying your last night’s score V The sergeant, who dimly suspected the jade’s trick which had been put upon him, only glared frightfully at her, and hastened his toilet.

‘ Alargaret, I thought 1 told you to put Air. Crump into No. 24 ?’ ‘ Certainly, ma’am, you did ; and i told Susy the same ; but it appears she must have understood it to be No. 24 ‘ Soidiers’ Rooms.’ Dear me, whoever would have thought it ! And, bless me, what a dreadful situation for two gentlemen in her gracious Aiajesty’s service to have been in so long ! It’s quite shocking to think of really'!’

The suppressed tittering of the other servants —all of them, I suspect, more or less in the secret—here burst; iixjio uproarious merriment : the sergeant, almost choking with fury, looked round for some safe object to vent it upon, but finding none, wisely kept it corked for future use.

‘ And to Brink, ma’am,’ continued Phoebe’s friend ‘ that in consequence of this nncoinmimonc.'l officer’s long nap, that scapegrace of a Bayfield should have got off this afternoon with only a trumpery fine of five pounds ; not more than half the amount of the recollections which the sergeant has forfeited for not being at the hall to give evidence.’ ‘ What is that you say, u;<nmni ? exclaimed Crump, using the most vituperative epithet he could at the moment think of. ‘ Why, I say,’ meekly replied Alargaret, • that your ten-pound recollections, which you gave the magistrates to appear, is declared forfeited ; and that the townsergeant is below with a warrent for the

amount in case you should ret urn to the Falcon this evening.’ The exasperation of the sergeant was unbounded. The landlady, thinking probably that mischief might come of it, drove oil’his tormentors ; and he was left to finish his ablutions in peace. ‘ Oh, Sergeant Crump !’ exclaimed Mrs. Margaret Davies, returning at the end of two or three minutes, and holding the door ajar in her hand, l if you please, missus wishes to know if you mean to bespeak a bed for to-night V Crump darted towards the door ; but the playful damsel was too nimble for him, and the long corridors and staircases echoed again with her joyous merriment as she skipped away. The account giveu by the chambermaid of the result of the inquiry before the magistrates was quite correct. William Bayfield was lined live pounds, or, in default, to sutler two months’ imprisonment for a common assault, without intent, etcetera. The line was at once paid, and the certificate of adjudication of course barred any further proceedings. On the next bench-day, Crump having related, amidst shouts of laughter, the trick he had been played, asked to bo excused payment of his forfeited recognisance. This, under the circumstance, was, after some demur, agreed to ; but he was unable to obtain even *'smart money’from Bayfield, lie having been, upon the sergeant’s own admission, inebriated when he accepted the Company’s retainer. The imminent peril in which her criminal coquetry had involved her affianced husband proved a salutary lesson to Phoebe, who was settled down into one of the discroetest, as well as prettiest and choevfuUest, wives in Warwickshire. Bayfield is now a prosperous nun ; and has recently purchased, at his wife's suggestion, the Falcon lan, winch the sudden death of the fat landlady had thrown into the marker, chieily for the purpose of assuring the succession of the business to Margaret Davies, to whose good offices he was on a very critical occasion so largely indebted. Sergeant Crump, disgusted with England, which in his indiscriminate wrath ho rashly confounded with its chambermaids, betook himself with all convenient despatch to the gorgeous clime whose glories he had so frequently described ; and if report speaks truth, has discovered a still darker chamber than that of the Falcon beneath the towers of fallen Monltan.