Delaware; or, The Ruined Family. Vol. 2

by G. P. R. James

His resolution being now taken, the means of putting it into execution became the next question. He looked round the room, and examined carefully every closet and drawer, in the hopes of finding some implement wherewith to extract the nail that fastened the trapdoor to which the letter referred, and which he well remembered having passed through as a boy a thousand times ere he went to sea. But his room had been thoroughly searched before he had been confined in it, and neither knife, nor gun-screw, nor tool of any kind, was to be found. "Perhaps I can get it out with my hands," he thought; and, kneeling by his bed, he soon discovered the three boards in the dark oak flooring, that were contrived to play upon a hinge, and thus formed a trapdoor. It was close by the bedside, and, opening back against the edge of the bedstead, would have given him exit at once if he could have found any thing with which to extract the nail, or rather nails; for, notwithstanding Mrs. Williams's assertion, there was apparently one in each of the boards. He gazed upon them for a moment in silence, thinking over every article of furniture that the room contained, in the hope of turning some one to the use he desired; but it was in vain, and at length, taking a dollar from his purse, he slipped it partly between the boards, merely to see whether they were or were not strongly fastened down.

To his great surprise, they moved up easily by the effort he made, as far as the crown-piece could be brought to act as a lever. He immediately applied his hand to keep them in that position, and then slipping the silver a little farther down, raised them still higher. Another effort enabled him to interpose his fingers between the trapdoor and the flooring; and it became evident at once, on a closer examination, that the single nail which had in reality fastened it down, had been lately pushed out--in all probability from below. The hole, which it had left in the beam, was still fresh; and Captain Delaware now perceived that what he had taken for two other nails, were in fact merely nail-heads, driven in to make the several boards resemble each other. Gently replacing the trapdoor, he returned to the table, and sat down to indite a clear statement of the reasons which induced him to effect his escape without awaiting the event of his trial. Into this he wove the notes he had before written concerning the previous conduct of his accuser, and he boldly declared that he looked upon Lord Ashborough as the instigator, and the lawyer as the agent, in a premeditated scheme to destroy his family. To bear upon this point, he brought all the circumstances within his knowledge, and all the arguments he could make use of; and, after avowing his conviction that nothing but time would establish his innocence, he folded the paper, and addressed it to Dr. Wilton and Mr. Egerton. Before this was concluded, it was near eleven o'clock, and the only light that was allowed him was beginning to burn low. In order, therefore, to take advantage of it while it lasted, he approached the trap, and was about to raise it, when it suddenly occurred to him that, in the letter he had just written, it might seem that he had shifted his ground of defence, since he had avowed in the morning that he believed Henry Beauchamp to have placed the money in his chamber; and, turning back to the table, he sat down to explain that circumstance, and to desire that Beauchamp might be called upon to state whether he had done so or not. Luckily, as it happened, he did so; for the moment after, with scarcely any noise, the door of his room opened, and the head of the other constable, who was a stranger in the town, appeared, looking in as if from some excited suspicion.

"Oh, good-night Captain!" he said, "I did not know whether you were asleep."

"Not yet," replied Captain Delaware calmly; "but, as you are not asleep either, I wish you would get me another light, and some sealing-wax, as I want this letter to go early to-morrow to the magistrates."

"It's no use, Captain, I am afraid," replied the constable. "Howsomdever, it shall go--but the boy as takes it, must be paid, you know."

"There is half a sovereign to pay him with," replied the prisoner; "keep the rest for your own trouble--and get me another light and some sealing-wax."

"Why, every one is a-bed but me, and I was just agoing," replied the man. "But I will see." So saying, he departed, but returned in a few minutes with another light, and a stick of sealing-wax; and, finding the prisoner still writing, he left him, telling him that he was just going to bed, but if he would push the letter under the door, it should be sent the first thing next morning.

Captain Delaware gladly saw him depart, and ere he had concluded, and sealed his letter, heard unequivocal signs of one at least of his jailers having fallen into a sound sleep. He listened anxiously, again and again, but all was silent in the house, except the dull, hard breathing of the constables, in the anteroom. It was now half-past eleven, and the hour at which the horse was to be at the back park gate was so near, that it became necessary to execute his design with promptitude; yet there was something painful in it altogether, which made him linger a moment or two in his father's house, calling up its host of memories, and evoking from the dim night of time, the sweet and mournful spirit of the past.

He felt, however, that it was all in vain--that such thoughts but served to weaken him; and, taking up the light, he approached his bedside, and once more raised the trapdoor. The little ladder stood ready, just as it used to stand in the days of his childhood, and descending slowly, step by step, holding the light in one hand, and supporting the trapdoor in the other, he reached the last step but two or three, and then suffered the door to close over his head. The narrow cavity in which he now was, filled the centre of one of those internal buttresses, if I may use the term, into the masonry of which one of the back staircases of the old mansion was joisted. It was about six feet square in the inside, and at the first floor beneath his own, afforded a sort of landing-place, on which the ladder rested. Thence, again, a more solid stair of stone wound down to a sort of vault under the terrace, in which was placed the great draw-well that supplied the house with the water principally used by the family.

When the trapdoor was closed, William Delaware, who was descending backwards, turned to look how many steps intervened between his feet and the ground, when, to his surprise, he found that the last step but one of the ladder, old and rotted by the damp, was broken through the middle, and offered, in the fresh yellow surface of the fracture, incontestable proofs that the way had been trod very lately by some other foot than his own. Over the floor of the landing-place, too, which that thriftless housewife Neglect had left covered with a thick coat of dust, might be traced three distinct steps from the mouth of the staircase; and the young fugitive at once saw that the way which had served to introduce the money into his chamber was now before him. That being the case, he felt that if his suspicions in regard to Mr. Tims were true, the outlet might and would probably be watched; and, consequently, he determined to examine the whole ground cautiously before he attempted to go out into the park.