by Ellen Wood
Strangely tumultuous thoughts were at work within her, flashing through her brain in quick confusion. “Janson! who had sat by her side that afternoon! He murdered! Who had done it?”
“Who is Janson?” inquired Miss Hardisty. “Did you know him?”
Mrs. Yorke seemed incapable of replying. Her husband spoke up volubly: —
“Janson was the village surgeon. You heard Leo say he was here to-night. He has been attending Leopold; but I thought had ceased his visits. A fine young fellow. Unmarried.”
“Who can have been so wicked as to murder him?” wondered Miss Hardisty.
“Ah! Who indeed!”
“How did you come to know it?” interrupted Mrs. Yorke, lifting her white face to her husband.
“Ill news travels fast. As I reached home tonight, some people were passing the gate, apparently in excitement; I inquired what their trouble was, and they told me. It was the gardener and his wife, up above, returning home from the village.”
“Finch said he was shot,” observed Miss Hardisty. “He was not shot. Beaten to death.”
“Finch’s account may be the correct one, instead of the gardener and his wife’s,” said Mrs. Yorke, in a low tone. “She said he was robbed. Shot and robbed.”
“He was not robbed, I tell you, Maria,” said Mr. Yorke. “Have it so, if you like, however; shot and robbed; what matters it?”
Mr. Yorke went to sleep in his chair again, or appeared to go to sleep, and the ladies conversed in an under tone, Maria shivering visibly.
About half-past ten, they were startled by a sudden and violent knocking, which came to the house door. Startled! Olivia Hardisty, her mind and tongue full of robbers and murderers, gave vent to a faint scream, and Mr. Yorke sprung up from his chair with a start, as if he would leave the room, halted in indecision, and then sat down again. A deep silence succeeded, and again the knocking came, louder than before. They heard a servant hurry to answer it, they heard an entrance and the sound of voices, and then the footman threw open their room door.
“Master Henry Yorke.”
A tall, fine lad, between fifteen and sixteen, leaped into the room, seized Mrs. Yorke, and gave her some kisses, and then turned, to shake hands with her husband. He had not changed, save in growth: he was random and generous as when we last saw him.
“If I don’t believe that’s Olivia Hardisty!” cried he, holding out his hand to the lady. “What brings you here?”
“I think I may ask what brings you here!” returned Miss Hardisty.
“Ah! Are you not taken by surprise, Maria!” said he to Mrs. Yorke. “Didn’t I knock! I thought you should hear it was somebody. Did you think it was the fire-engines!”
“Why did you not let us know you were coming?”
“How could I? My old tutor had news this morning of his father’s death, and went off; so I told mamma I might as well spend the few days’ holiday looking you up. And away I came, without waiting for her to say yes or no.”
“Where’s your portmanteau, Henry!”
“Didn’t bring any. She’ll send some shirts and things after me; sure to. What a precious slow railway station you have got here! Not a carriage or an omnibus waiting, or any conveyance to be had, for love or money. Mind, Maria, if I have not brought enough tin for myself, you must let me have some, and write to mamma to pay you back. I didn’t stop to ask for any, for fear she’d put in a protest against my journey.”
“How did you find our house?” asked Mr. Yorke.
“Oh, I got into the village, which seemed all in a hubbub, and tipped a boy with a torch, to shew me. This is not such a nice place as Saxonbury,” added the lad, casting his eyes round the room.
“It is very well for a change,” said Mr. Yorke. “I wanted some shooting and fishing.”
“There’s no accounting for taste,” said the boy, shrugging his shoulders. “Maria, you don’t look well.”
“I should wonder if any of us could look well tonight,” interposed Olivia Hardisty. “Your knocking nearly frightened us to death, too. We had just heard of such a dreadful murder.”
“A murder! Where?”
“In the village. He lived quite in the middle of it, did he not, Mr. Yorke?”
“Then that accounts for the row,” said Henry, before Mr. Yorke could reply. “The natives were standing about in groups, trying who could talk the fastest I thought they were taking observations of the fog. In one place, at the corner of a street or lane, they had mustered so densely I had to administer some shoves to get through. Who has been murdered, Mr. Yorke? A poacher?”
“No. A doctor.”
“That’s worse.”
“It is awful,” shivered Miss Hardisty. “He had been attending Leo, Henry, and was here only this afternoon.”
“What, the man who is murdered?”
“He was; this very afternoon; and but just before the deed was committed. It was five o’clock, I think you said, Mrs. Yorke, when Mr. Janson left you.”
“Janson! a doctor!” interrupted the boy. “It was no relation to our Mr. Janson, was it, Maria?”
“Your Mr. Janson! What do you mean by your Mr. Janson?” demanded Miss Hardisty.
“Oh, Maria knows. A Mr. Janson we used to be intimate with abroad, when I was a youngster. Is it any relation?”
“It is the same man,” said Mr. Yorke, in a curious tone.
Henry Yorke sprung up from his chair, and looked from his sister to Mr. Yorke in dismay and incredulity.
“The same man! The same Mr. Janson who took such care of me on that long voyage, when I went away in the Rushing Water?”
Mrs. Yorke inclined her head. “Yes, he had settled here,” she said, in a low tone.
Sorrow rendered Henry’s ideas confused. “Oh, I wish I had seen him! Why did you not write me word, Maria, that I might have come before he was murdered?”
“You stupid boy!” cried Olivia Hardisty. “Could your sister tell he was going to be murdered?”
“Well, I do wish I had seen him. I would have gone all over the country to meet Janson. He was the nicest fellow going.”
“Was he?” asked Miss Hardisty, appealing to Mr. Yorke, who did not seem in a hurry to answer her.
“You had better ask Maria,” retorted Henry, speaking with the random thoughtlessness of his age. “She’ll tell you he was. Why, it was a near touch, I know, whether she became Mrs. Janson or Mrs. Yorke. Didn’t she flirt away with him, sir, before she promised herself to you? She thought I was only a youngster and couldn’t see; but I was as wide awake as she was. Don’t be cross, Elizabeth.”
“You always were wide awake, Harry,” drily responded Mr. Yorke.
Olivia Hardisty, somewhat stunned and bewildered with the vista into past things opening to her, unclosed her lips to speak; but she thought better of it, and closed them again. So! this was the Mr. Janson she had heard of in past times, who had loved, it was said, Maria Saxonbury, and she him; whom Maria had rejected because he was poor.
Henry talked on, until they grew tired of answering him. Talked incessantly until his supper came in.
When they retired for the night, Finch was waiting in Miss Hardisty’s room to assist her to undress. The two were old friends, so to speak, for Finch had lived at Saxonbury many years, maid to the first Lady Saxonbury.
“I’m glad you are come soon, ma’am,” began Finch. “I can do nothing but think of that awful murder. And that sleepy Charlotte would go to bed and leave me. She cares for nobody but herself.”
“I am pleased you did stop for me,” returned Miss Hardisty, “for I feel nervous to-night. A common murder, though very distressing, does not affect the nerves like such a one as this. It must have happened, Finch, immediately after he left here.”
“After who left here?” asked Finch, wondering what Miss Hardisty was talking of.
“The doctor. Mr. Janson. Oh, I forgot; you did not hear; you thought it was a farmer’s son who was murdered. But it was not: it was Mr. Janson.”
/> “Mr. Janson!” echoed Finch; “Mr. Janson who was murdered! Who says sol”
“Mr. Yorke. He heard of the murder as he came home to dinner.”
Finch collected her ideas. “I wonder where master picked up that news,” she said presently. “It’s nothing of the sort, ma’am. It was a farmer’s son going home from market, on horseback, in leather breeches and top-boots. Mr. Janson does not wear breeches and top-boots.”
“Mr. Yorke said decidedly it was Mr. Janson, and that he was murdered in his own garden. He was very positive.”
“He always is positive,” retorted Finch. “But it was no more Mr. Janson than it was me. As if the village would have said it was a farmer’s son, if it had been Mr. Janson! Why, ma’am, the man in the shop, where I was, had been to see the body, and he spoke particularly about the breeches and boots. I daresay Mr. Janson was fetched to the dead corpse, and that’s how his name got mixed up in it. Mr. Janson, indeed! that would be a misfortune.”
“So Henry Yorke seemed to think. He was talking of their former acquaintance with him abroad. The nicest fellow going, he said.”
“Yes, everybody liked Mr. Janson. Except” —
“Except what?” asked Miss Hardisty, for Finch had stopped.
“Except master, I was going to say. He had used to be jealous of him in those old times, and I think — at least,” added the woman, more hesitatingly, “I have once or twice thought lately whether he is not jealous again. Master’s temper, since we have been here, has been quite strange, and I don’t know what should make it so, unless it’s that.”
“Dear me!” uttered Miss Hardisty; “Mrs. Yorke would not give cause” —— —
“No,” indignantly interrupted Finch, “she would not give cause for that, or for any other wrong thing. I don’t say that she was right to encourage both Mr. Janson and Mr. Yorke in the old days, as I believe she did, and let each think she might marry him; but, ma’am, young ladies will act so, just to shew their power; and her head was turned upside down with her beauty. However, all that nonsense was put away when she married, and a better wife nobody has ever had than Mr. Yorke. And if master has got a jealous crotchet in his head, he deserves to have it shook out of him. Mr. Janson has come here to attend Master Leo, but for nothing else.”
“Did they ever meet after Mrs. Yorke’s marriage until now, when they met here?” inquired Olivia Hardisty.
“No, never. I asked my mistress once — I think she had been married about two years then — if she knew where Mr. Janson was, and she had no idea. I don’t much like this place, ma’am,” added Finch, musingly. “I shall be glad when we get back home.”
“It seems scarcely worth while my telling you now the news that Mr. Janson imparted to me,” observed Maria to her husband, when they were left alone. “Dead! instead of — It is so very dreadful!”
“It is dreadful enough,” returned Mr. Yorke.
“He was going to be married,” she continued. “But, of course, it will not do for us to speak of it abroad, after this shocking ending. He thought of marrying Miss Maskell.”
“And giving up you?”
The taunt sounded most unseasonable. Maria, subdued by the events of the evening, turned meekly to her husband. “Arthur, let this unpleasantness end; it is time it did,” she said, speaking firmly in her honest truth. “We may both have something to forgive each other. I was foolish, vain, careless in the old days; but I solemnly declare in the presence of Heaven, in the presence, it may be said, of that poor dead man, that never a thought has strayed from you since you became my husband. You have been bitter and angry with me lately, but it has been without cause; for not a wrong word, not a look that you could not approve, has passed between me and Mr. Janson. So help me Heaven!”
Mr. Yorke was silent. He had sat down, and seemed to be looking at his wife.
“When he called here this evening to ask after Leopold, he told me he thought of marrying Lucy Maskell. I wished the union God speed from my very heart.”
Still Mr. Yorke did not speak. Maria passed into her dressing-room. She had said her say.
CHAPTER XIII.
The Gardener’s Word against the Gentleman’s.
MR. YORKE and Henry went out for an early walk the following morning. As Mrs. Yorke and Miss Hardisty were waiting breakfast for them, they were surprised by a visit from Squire Hipgrave.
“What a horrible thing this is!” he exclaimed to Mrs. Yorke, when the introduction to Miss Hardisty was over. “You have heard about poor Janson?”
“Yes,” she faintly said. “Is he dead?”
“Dead! the wretches who murdered him took care of that They left no life in him.”
“Then it is Mr. Janson!” interposed Miss Hardisty. “Mr. Yorke said so, but one of the servants here insisted that it was a farmer.”
“It’s both,” answered Squire Hipgrave. “A double murder. Never has this quiet neighbourhood been so stained. Young Louth was passing through the village on his way home from market, and, about a mile beyond it, he was shot from his horse and robbed. He had been selling stock, and had got a good round sum about him, which, as is supposed, was known. Janson’s affair is different.”
“He was going into his house by the back entrance, and was set upon just inside the garden door, and beaten to death, Mr. Yorke told us,” said Miss Hardisty.
“That is correct Poor young fellow!”
“It must have occurred soon after he left here,” said Mrs. Yorke, speaking with an effort “Was he here last night?” asked Squire Hipgrave, eagerly.
“In the afternoon,” replied Mrs. Yorke. “He called in as he was returning from his visit to Lady Rich, and saw Leopold. It was five o’clock when he left, but quite dark, the fog was so thick.”
“Oh, that was hours before the murder. The precise time of its committal has not been ascertained. He was found about ten o’clock.”
“That must be a mistake,” said Miss Hardisty. “Mr. Yorke was home before seven.”
“But he did not know of it then.”
“Yes, he did.”
“Impossible,” said Squire Hipgrave. “Janson was not found until ten o’clock; not a soul knew of it previous to that He was being hunted for all over the village, to go and examine young Louth, and nothing could be seen or heard of him, and it was only by the servant’s going out to lock the back gate, which she always did at ten at night, that he was found. Did you ever see such a fog as it was.”
“But indeed Mr. Yorke did tell us,” persisted Miss Hardisty. “Certainly not immediately after he came in — I daresay he was willing to spare us so horrible a recital as long as was possible — but when Finch got home afterwards from the village, with the news that a farmer’s son was killed, Mr. Yorke said it was not a farmer’s son, but Janson. You see he had heard of the one murder, and the servant of the other.”
“But Yorke could not have heard that Janson was murdered before he was murdered,” obstinately protested Squire Hipgrave.
“And he could not have dreamt it beforehand,” as obstinately returned the lady. “The fact must be, that he did know of the murder, though all might not.”
“But it was not known at all to any one,” reiterated the squire; “neither is it believed to have occurred at that time.”
“You must perceive that Mr. Yorke must have known of it,” coolly continued Miss Hardisty, suppressing the contempt she was acquiring for the squire’s understanding. “It was not a mere vague rumour he had got hold of, but he described the facts, which you have just said were correct; that the unfortunate gentleman was killed in his own garden, close to the gate, and found beaten to death.”
“It is very strange,” debated Squire Hipgrave, struck at length with the points placed before him by his antagonist “I wonder where Yorke heard it?”
“From a man and woman who were running by this house as he came in,” readily responded Miss Hardisty. “They told him Mr. Janson was murdered. And that was before seven o’clock.”
“It was the gardener and his wife at the cottage higher up, near to Lady Rich’s,” interposed Mrs. Yorke.
“Oh — they,” said the magistrate, considerably disappointed when he found the presumed murderers subside into a quiet, inoffensive couple, long known. “I’ll go up and ascertain where they heard it. I’d give twenty pounds out of my own pocket to pounce upon the guilty men, for Janson was a favourite of mine. Not to speak of the unpleasantness of having such crimes happen in the neighbourhood.”
Away went Squire Hipgrave, and was back again directly. Mr. Yorke and Henry were then returning from their walk.
“Good morning, Yorke. How did you hear the report last night that Janson was murdered?”
“From the gardener, up there — what’s his name? — Crane,” replied Mr. Yorke. “From Crane and his wife.”
“Well — it’s your word against theirs,” hesitatingly remarked Squire Hipgrave, in a puzzle. “They say they never told you anything about Janson; and, in fact, did not know themselves till this morning that anything had happened to him.”
“If they choose to eat their words, that is no business of mine,” said Mr. Yorke. “As I was turning in at this gate last night — it was late, for I lost my way in the fog after I left you, and did not get in till near seven — Crane and his wife were running by from the village in great excitement. They had a torch with them. I asked what was amiss, and they told me Janson was murdered. Nobody else could have told me,” proceeded Mr. Yorke. “I saw nobody else, and spoke to nobody else.”
“Then what do they mean by denying it?” asked Squire Hipgrave, sharply. “Upon my word, if they were not so well known, I should suspect they knew something about the murder. I wish you would let me confront Crane with you.”
“You are quite welcome to do that,” said Mr. Yorke.
Away went the squire again, and Mr. Yorke and Henry leaned over the gate, watched, and waited for him. Crane’s cottage was within view, and he came back with the man. Maria and Miss Hardisty came out of the breakfast room.