by Ellen Wood
“Now, Dan Duff!” cried she, “what do you want?”
“Please, here’s this,” was Dan Duff’s reply, handing over the parcel. “And, please, I want to see Rachel Frost.”
“Who’s it for? What’s inside it?” sharply asked Nancy, regarding the parcel on all sides.
“It’s things as Rachel Frost have been a-buying,” he replied. “Please, I want to see her.”
“Then want must be your master,” retorted Nancy. “Rachel Frost’s not at home.”
“Ain’t she?” returned Dan Duff, with surprised emphasis. “Why, she left our shop a long sight afore I did! Mother says, please, would she mind having some o’ the dark lavender print instead o’ the light, ‘cause Susan Peckaby’s come in, and she wants the whole o’ the light lavender for a gownd, and there’s only just enough of it. And, please, I be to take word back.”
“How are you to take word back if she’s not in?” asked Nancy, whose temper never was improved by extra work. “Get along, Dan Duff! You must come along again to-morrow if you want her.”
Dan Duff turned to depart, in meek obedience, and Nancy carried the parcel into the laundry and flung it down on the ironing-board.
“It’s fine to be Rachel Frost,” she sarcastically cried. “Going shopping like any lady, and having her things sent home for her! And messages about her gownds coming up — which will she have, if you please, and which won’t she have! I’ll borror one of the horses to-morrow, and go shopping myself on a side-saddle!”
“Has Rachel gone shopping to-night?” cried one of the women, pausing in her ironing. “I did not know she was out.”
“She has been out all the evening,” was Nancy’s answer. “I met her coming down the stairs, dressed. And she could tell a story over it, too, for she said she was going to see her old father.”
But Master Dan Duff is not done with yet. If that gentleman stood in awe of one earthly thing more than another, it was of the anger of his revered mother. Mrs. Duff, in her maternal capacity, was rather free both with her hands and tongue. Being sole head of her flock, for she was a widow, she deemed it best to rule with firmness, not to say severity; and her son Dan, awed by his own timid nature, tried hard to steer his course so as to avoid shoals and quicksands. He crossed the yard, after the rebuff administered by Nancy, and passed out at the gate, where he stood still to revolve affairs. His mother had imperatively ordered him to bring back the answer touching the intricate question of the light and the dark lavender prints; and Susan Peckaby — one of the greatest idlers in all Deerham — said she would wait in the shop until he came with it. He stood softly whistling, his hands in his pockets, and balancing himself on his heels.
“I’ll get a basting, for sure,” soliloquised he. “Mother’ll lose the sale of the gownd, and then she’ll say it’s my fault, and baste me for it. What’s of her? Why couldn’t she ha’ come home, as she said?”
He set his wits to work to divine what could have “gone of her” — alluding, of course, to Rachel. And a bright thought occurred to him — really not an unnatural one — that she had probably taken the other road home. It was a longer round, through the fields, and there were stiles to climb, and gates to mount; which might account for the delay. He arrived at the conclusion, though somewhat slow of drawing conclusions in general, that if he returned home that way, he should meet Rachel; and could then ask the question.
If he turned to his left hand — standing as he did at the gate with his back to the back of the house — he would regain the high road, whence he came. Did he turn to the right, he would plunge into fields and lanes, and covered ways, and emerge at length, by a round, in the midst of the village, almost close to his own house. It was a lonely way at night, and longer than the other, but Master Dan Duff regarded those as pleasant evils, in comparison with a “basting.” He took his hands out of his pockets, brought down his feet to a level, and turned to it, whistling still.
It was a tolerably light night. The moon was up, though not very high, and a few stars might be seen here and there in the blue canopy above. Mr. Dan Duff proceeded on his way, not very quickly. Some dim idea was penetrating his brain that the slower he walked, the better chance there might be of his meeting Rachel.
“She’s just a cat, is that Susan Peckaby!” decided he, with acrimony, in the intervals of his whistling. “It was her as put mother up to the thought o’ sending me to-night: Rachel Frost said the things ‘ud do in the morning. ‘Let Dan carry ’em up now,’ says Dame Peckaby, ‘and ask her about the print, and then I’ll take it home along o’ me.’ And if I go in without the answer, she’ll be the first to help mother to baste me! Hi! ho! hur! hur-r-r-r!”
This last exclamation was caused by his catching sight of some small animal scudding along. He was at that moment traversing a narrow, winding lane; and, in the field to the right, as he looked in at the open gate, he saw the movement. It might be a cat, it might be a hare, it might be a rabbit, it might be some other animal; it was all one to Mr. Dan Duff; and he had not been a boy had he resisted the propensity to pursue it. Catching up a handful of earth from the lane, he shied it in the proper direction, and tore in at the gate after it.
Nothing came of the pursuit. The trespasser had earthed itself, and Mr. Dan came slowly back again. He had nearly approached the gate, when somebody passed it, walking up the lane with a very quick step, from the direction in which he, Dan, was bound. Dan saw enough to know that it was not Rachel, for it was the figure of a man; but Dan set off to run, and emerged from the gate just in time to catch another glimpse of the person, as he disappeared beyond the windings of the lane.
“‘Twarn’t Rachel, at all events,” was his comment. And he turned and pursued his way again.
It was somewhere about this time that Tynn made his appearance in the dining-room at Verner’s Pride, to put away the dessert, and set the tea. The stir woke up Mrs. Verner.
“Send Rachel to me,” said she, winking and blinking at the tea-cups.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Tynn.
He left the room when he had placed the cups and things to his satisfaction. He called for Rachel high and low, up and down. All to no purpose. The servants did not appear to know anything of her. One of them went to the door and shouted out to the laundry to know whether Rachel was there, and the answering shout “No” came back. The footman at length remembered that he had seen her go out at the hall door while the dinner was in. Tynn carried this item of information to Mrs. Verner. It did not please her.
“Of course!” she grumbled. “Let me want any one of you particularly, and you are sure to be away! If she did go out, she ought not to stay as long as this. Who’s this coming in?”
It was Frederick Massingbird. He entered, singing a scrap of a song; which was cut suddenly short when his eye fell on the servant.
“Tynn,” said he, “you must bring me something to eat. I have had no dinner.”
“You cannot be very hungry, or you’d have come in before,” remarked Mrs. Verner to him. “It is tea-time now.”
“I’ll take tea and dinner together,” was his answer.
“But you ought to have been in before,” she persisted; for, though an easy mistress and mother, Mrs. Verner did not like the order of meals to be displaced. “Where have you stayed, Fred? You have not been all this while taking Sibylla West to Bitterworth’s.”
“You must talk to Sibylla West about that,” answered Fred. “When young ladies keep you a good hour waiting, while they make themselves ready to start, you can’t get back precisely to your own time.”
“What did she keep you waiting for?” questioned Mrs. Verner.
“Some mystery of the toilette, I conclude. When I got there, Amilly said Sibylla was dressing; and a pretty prolonged dressing it appeared to be! Since I left her at Bitterworth’s, I have been to Poynton’s about my mare. She was as lame as ever to-day.”
“And there’s Rachel out now, just as I am wanting her!” went on Mrs. Verner, who, whe
n she did lapse into a grumbling mood, was fond of calling up a catalogue of grievances.
“At any rate, that’s not my fault, mother,” observed Frederick. “I dare say she will soon be in. Rachel is not given to stay out, I fancy, if there’s a chance of her being wanted.”
Tynn came in with his tray, and Frederick Massingbird sat down to it. Tynn then waited for Mr. Verner’s tea, which he carried into the study. He carried a cup in every evening, but Mr. Verner scarcely ever touched it. Then Tynn returned to the room where the upper servants took their meals and otherwise congregated, and sat down to read a newspaper. He was a little man, very stout, his plain clothes always scrupulously neat.
A few minutes, and Nancy came in, the parcel left by Dan Duff in her hand. The housekeeper asked her what it was. She explained in her crusty way, and said something to the same effect that she had said in the laundry — that it was fine to be Rachel Frost. “She’s long enough making her way up here!” Nancy wound up with. “Dan Duff says she left their shop to come home before he did. If Luke Roy was in Deerham one would know what to think!”
“Bah!” cried the housekeeper. “Rachel Frost has nothing to say to Luke Roy.”
Tynn laid down his paper, and rose. “I’ll just tell the mistress that Rachel’s on her way home,” said he. “She’s put up like anything at her being out — wants her for something particular, she says.”
Barely had he departed on his errand, when a loud commotion was heard in the passage. Mr. Dan Duff had burst in at the back door, uttering sounds of distress — of fright — his eyes starting, his hair standing on end, his words nearly unintelligible.
“Rachel Frost is in the Willow Pond — drownded!”
The women shrieked when they gathered in the sense. It was enough to make them shriek. Dan Duff howled in concert. The passages took up the sounds and echoed them; and Mrs. Verner, Frederick Massingbird, and Tynn came hastening forth. Mr. Verner followed, feeble, and leaning on his stick. Frederick Massingbird seized upon the boy, questioning sharply.
“Rachel Frost’s a-drowned in the Willow Pond,” he reiterated. “I see’d her.”
A moment of pause, of startled suspense, and then they flew off, men and women, as with one accord, Frederick Massingbird leading the van. Social obligations were forgotten in the overwhelming excitement, and Mr. and Mrs. Verner were left to keep house for themselves. Tynn, indeed, recollected himself, and turned back.
“No,” said Mr. Verner. “Go with the rest, Tynn, and see what it is, and whether anything can be done.”
He might have crept thither himself in his feeble strength, but he had not stirred out of the house for two years.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CROWD IN THE MOONLIGHT.
The Willow Pond, so called from its being surrounded with weeping willows, was situated at the corner of a field, in a retired part of the road, about midway between Verner’s Pride and Deerham. There was a great deal of timber about that part; it was altogether as lonely as could be desired. When the runners from Verner’s Pride reached it, assistance had already arrived, and Rachel, rescued from the pond, was being laid upon the grass. All signs of life were gone.
Who had done it? — what had caused it? — was it an accident? — was it a self-committed act? — or was it a deed of violence? What brought her there at all? No young girl would be likely to take that way home (with all due deference to the opinion of Master Dan Duff) alone at night.
What was to be done? The crowd propounded these various questions in so many marvels of wonder, and hustled each other, and talked incessantly; but to be of use, to direct, nobody appeared capable. Frederick Massingbird stepped forward with authority.
“Carry her at once to Verner’s Pride — with all speed. And some of you” — turning to the servants of the house— “hasten on, and get water heated and blankets hot. Get hot bricks — get anything and everything likely to be required. How did she get in?”
He appeared to speak the words more in the light of a wailing regret, than as a question. It was a question that none present appeared able to answer. The crowd was increasing rapidly. One of them suggested that Broom the gamekeeper’s cottage was nearer than Verner’s Pride.
“But there will be neither hot water nor blankets there,” returned Frederick Massingbird.
“The house is the best. Make haste! don’t let grass grow under your feet.”
“A moment,” interposed a gentleman who now came hastily up, as they were raising the body. “Lay her down again.”
They obeyed him eagerly, and fell a little back that he might have space to bend over her. It was the doctor of the neighbourhood, resident at Deerham. He was a fine man in figure, dark and florid in face, but a more impassive countenance could not well be seen, and he had the peculiarity of rarely looking a person in the face. If a patient’s eyes were mixed on Dr. West’s, Dr. West’s were invariably fixed upon something else. A clever man in his profession, holding an Edinburgh degree, and practising as a general practitioner. He was brother to the present Mrs. Verner; consequently, uncle to the two young Massingbirds.
“Has anybody got a match?” he asked.
One of the Verner’s Pride servants had a whole boxful, and two or three were lighted at a time, and held so that the doctor could see the drowned face better than he could in the uncertain moonlight. It was a strange scene. The lonely, weird character of the place; the dark trees scattered about; the dull pond with its bending willows; the swaying, murmuring crowd collected round the doctor and what he was bending over; the bright flickering flame of the match-light; with the pale moon overhead, getting higher and higher as the night went on, and struggling her way through passing clouds.
“How did it happen?” asked Dr. West.
Before any answer could be given, a man came tearing up at the top of his speed; several men, indeed, it may be said. The first was Roy, the bailiff. Upon Roy’s leaving Verner’s Pride, after the rebuke bestowed upon him by its heir, he had gone straight down to the George and Dragon, a roadside inn, situated on the outskirts of the village, on the road from Verner’s Pride. Here he had remained, consorting with droppers-in from Deerham, and soothing his mortification with a pipe and sundry cans of ale. When the news was brought in that Rachel Frost was drowned in the Willow-pond, Roy, the landlord, and the company collectively, started off to see.
“Why, it is her!” uttered Roy, taking a hasty view of poor Rachel. “I said it wasn’t possible. I saw her and talked to her up at the house but two or three hours ago. How did she get in?”
The same question always; from all alike: how did she get in? Dr. West rose.
“You can move her,” he said.
“Is she dead, sir?”
“Yes.”
Frederick Massingbird — who had been the one to hold the matches — caught the doctor’s arm.
“Not dead!” he uttered. “Not dead beyond hope of restoration?”
“She will never be restored in this world,” was the reply of Dr. West. “She is quite dead.”
“Measures should be tried, at any rate,” said Frederick Massingbird warmly.
“By all means,” acquiesced Dr. West. “It will afford satisfaction, though it should do nothing else.”
They raised her once more, her clothes dripping, and turned with quiet, measured steps towards Verner’s Pride. Of course the whole assemblage attended. They were eagerly curious, boiling over with excitement; but, to give them their due, they were earnestly anxious to afford any aid in their power, and contended who should take turn at bearing that wet burden. Not one but felt sorely grieved for Rachel. Even Nancy was subdued to meekness, as she sped on to be one of the busiest in preparing remedies; and old Roy, though somewhat inclined to regard it in the light of a judgment upon proud Rachel for slighting his son, felt some twinges of pitying regret.
“I have knowed cases where people, dead from drownding, have been restored to life,” said Roy, as they walked along.
“That you
never have,” replied Dr. West. “The apparently dead have been restored; the dead, never.”
Panting, breathless, there came up one as they reached Verner’s Pride. He parted the crowd, and threw himself almost upon Rachel with a wild cry. He caught up her cold, wet face, and passing his hands over it, bent down his warm cheek upon it.
“Who has done it?” he sobbed. “What has done it? She couldn’t have fell in alone.”
It was Robin Frost. Frederick Massingbird drew him away by the arm. “Don’t hinder, Robin. Every minute may be worth a life.”
And Robin, struck with the argument, obeyed docilely like a little child.
Mr. Verner, leaning on his stick, trembling with weakness and emotion, stood just without the door of the laundry, which had been hastily prepared, as the bearers tramped in.
“It is an awful tragedy!” he murmured. “Is it true” — addressing Dr. West— “that you think there is no hope?”
“I am sure there is none,” was the answer. “But every means shall be tried.”
The laundry was cleared of the crowd, and their work began. One of the next to come up was old Matthew Frost. Mr. Verner took his hand.
“Come in to my own room, Matthew,” he said. “I feel for you deeply.”
“Nay, sir; I must look upon her.”
Mr. Verner pointed with his stick in the direction of the laundry.
“They are shut in there — the doctor and those whom he requires round him,” he said. “Let them be undisturbed; it is the only chance.”
All things likely to be wanted had been conveyed to the laundry; and they were shut in there, as Mr. Verner expressed it, with their fires and their heat. On dragged the time. Anxious watchers were in the house, in the yard, gathered round the back gate. The news had spread, and gentlepeople, friends of the Verners, came hasting from their homes, and pressed into Verner’s Pride, and asked question upon question of Mr. and Mrs. Verner, of everybody likely to afford an answer. Old Matthew Frost stood outwardly calm and collected, full of inward trust, as a good man should be. He had learned where to look for support in the darkest trial. Mr. Verner in that night of sorrow seemed to treat him as a brother.