The Mysteries of London, v. 3/4

by George W. M. Reynolds

But they were disappointed—cruelly disappointed that anticipation!

The female servant and the lad were, however, still at the Cottage; and from the former they learnt tidings which enhanced, if possible, the grief that already rent the heart of Adelais, and which excited vague but terrible suspicions in the mind of Clarence.

For the servant informed them that Miss Rosamond went to stay with Mrs. Slingsby almost immediately after the wedding—that she remained there almost ten days, and came home the very night when the murder was committed, and seemed dreadfully unhappy during the short time that she did remain at the Cottage—and that she departed no one knew whither, the second day after her return, leaving a note for her father.

While Adelais sate weeping at these tidings, to her so completely inexplicable, a torrent of suspicions and terrible ideas rolled through the mind of her husband Clarence. For he knew—as the reader will remember—that Sir Henry Courtenay was not only the paramour of his aunt, but that he had likewise cast lustful looks upon Rosamond; and he was equally aware that the young girl's imagination had been excited and inflamed by the false representations his aunt had made in respect to the character of the baronet. Then that second visit of Rosamond to Old Burlington Street—her unhappiness on returning home—the assassination of Sir Henry Courtenay at Torrens Cottage—the sudden marriage of two persons who were almost entire strangers to each other—and the contemporaneous flight of Rosamond from her home,—all these incidents seemed of so suspicious and terribly mysterious a nature as to strike Clarence with dismay.

The version which Mr. Torrens had given Rosamond of the particulars of the murder—and which, as the reader is aware, was the true one so far as the actual perpetration of the deed itself was concerned—was unknown to Clarence, inasmuch as it had not been published in the newspapers;—for, when arrested by Dykes and Bingham, Mr. Torrens had immediately sent for able counsel, to whom he told his story previously to the examination before the magistrate, and by the advice of his legal assistant, the prisoner had contented himself by simply declaring his innocence, stating that he should reserve for his defence the explanations whereon that assertion was founded.

Thus Clarence Villiers could not help believing that Torrens was really guilty of the murder; and he shuddered at the idea which forced itself upon him, that his aunt was an accomplice in the crime. In fact, it naturally appeared as if that woman and that man had suddenly blended their congenial spirits for the purpose of working out deeds of the blackest dye; and he dreaded lest the honour of Rosamond had been wrecked in the frightful convulsion produced by that association.

But none of his awful misgivings did he impart to Adelais. On the contrary, he strove to console her by assurances of his hope that her father must be the victim of a terrible junction of adverse circumstances, and that his innocence would yet transpire. Such ideas he was in reality very far from entertaining;—but it cut him to the quick to behold the anguish of his young wife—and he uttered every thing of a consolatory nature which his imagination was likely in such a case to suggest as a means of imparting hope and affording comfort.

They remained at the Cottage that night; and on the ensuing morning repaired to Newgate, as we have already stated.

The governor, upon learning the degree of relationship in which Mrs. Villiers stood towards Mr. Torrens, expressed himself in terms of the kindest sympathy, and offered to proceed in the first instance to the prisoner's cell to prepare him for the meeting with his daughter and son-in-law. This proposal was thankfully accepted; and the governor, after remaining absent for about ten minutes, returned to conduct the young couple into the presence of the prisoner, with whom he left them.

Adelais threw herself into her father's arms, embraced him with a fondness that was almost wild and frantic, and sobbed bitterly upon his breast,—while Clarence Villiers stood a deeply affected spectator of the sad—the touching scene.