by Ellen Wood
“It is all strange together,” cried Lionel Verner. “What took Rachel that way at all, by night time?”
“What indeed!” echoed Mr. Bitterworth. “Unless—”
“Unless what?” asked Mr. Verner; for Mr. Bitterworth had brought his words to a sudden standstill.
“Well, I was going to say, unless she had an appointment there. But that does not appear probable for Rachel Frost.”
“It is barely possible, let alone probable,” was the retort of Mr. Verner.
“But still, in a case like this, every circumstance must be looked at, every trifle weighed,” resumed Mr. Bitterworth. “Does Rachel’s own conduct appear to you to have been perfectly open? She has been indulging, it would seem, in some secret grief latterly; has been ‘strange,’ as one or two have expressed it. Then, again, she stated to her brother that she was going to stay at Duffs for a gossip, whereas the woman says she had evidently no intention of gossiping, and barely gave herself time to order the articles spoken of. Other witnesses observed her leave Duff’s, and walk with a hasty step direct to the field road, and turn down it. All this does not sound quite clear to me.”
“There was one thing that did not sound clear to me,” broke in Lionel abruptly, “and that was Dinah Roy’s evidence. The woman’s half a fool; otherwise I should think she was purposely deceiving us.”
“A pity but she could see a real ghost!” cried John Massingbird, looking inclined to laugh, “It might cure her for fancy ones. She’s right in one thing, however; poor Luke might have got this clapped on his shoulders had he been here.”
“Scarcely,” dissented Dr. West. “Luke Roy is too inoffensive to harm any one, least of all a woman, and Rachel; and that the whole parish knows.”
“There’s no need to discuss Luke’s name in the business,” said Mr. Verner; “he is far enough away. Whoever the man may have been, it was not Luke,” he emphatically added. “Luke would have been the one to succour Rachel, not to hurt her.”
Not a soul present but felt that Mr. Verner spoke in strict accordance with the facts, known and presumptive. They must look in another quarter than Luke for Rachel’s assailant.
Mr. Verner glanced at Mr. Bitterworth and Dr. West, then at the three young men before him.
“We are amongst friends,” he observed, addressing the latter. “I would ask you, individually, whether it was one of you that the boy, Duff, spoke of as being in the lane?”
They positively disclaimed it, each one for himself. Each one mentioned that he had been elsewhere at the time, and where he had been.
“You see,” said Mr. Verner, “the lane leads only to Verner’s Pride.”
“But by leaping a fence anywhere, or a gate, or breaking through a hedge, it may lead all over the country,” observed Frederick Massingbird. “You forget that, sir.”
“No, Frederick, I do not forget it. But unless a man had business at Verner’s Pride, what should he go into the lane for? On emerging from the field on this side the Willow Pond, any one, not bound for Verner’s Pride, would take the common path to the right hand, open to all; only in case of wanting to come here would he take the lane. You cannot suppose for a moment that I suspect any one of you has had a hand in this unhappy event; but it was right that I should be assured, from your own lips, that you were not the person spoken of by young Duff.”
“It may have been a stranger to the neighbourhood, sir. In that case he would not know that the lane led only to Verner’s Pride.”
“True — so far. But what stranger would be likely to quarrel with Rachel?”
“Egad, if you come to that, sir, a stranger’s more likely to pick a quarrel with her than one of us,” rejoined John Massingbird.
“It was no stranger,” said Mr. Verner, shaking his head. “We do not quarrel with strangers. Had any stranger accosted Rachel at night, in that lonely spot, with rude words, she would naturally have called out for help; which it is certain she did not do, or young Broom and Mrs. Roy must have heard her. Rely upon it, that man in the lane is the one we must look for.”
“But where to look?” debated Frederick Massingbird.
“There it is! The inference would be that he was coming to Verner’s Pride; being on its direct way and nearly close upon it. But, the only tall men (as the boy describes) at Verner’s Pride, are you three and Bennet. Bennet was at home, therefore he is exempt; and you were scattered in different directions — Lionel at Mr. Bitterworth’s, John at the Royal Oak — I wonder you like to make yourself familiar with those tap-rooms, John! — and Frederick coming in from Poynton’s to his dinner.”
“I don’t think I had been in ten minutes when the alarm came,” remarked Frederick.
“Well, it is involved in mystery at present,” cried Mr. Bitterworth, shaking hands with them. “Let us hope that to-morrow will open more light upon it. Are you on the wing too, doctor? Then we’ll go out together.”
CHAPTER VII.
THE REVELATION AT THE INQUEST.
To say that Deerham was rudely disturbed from its equanimity; that petty animosities, whether concerning Mr. Roy and the Dawsons or other contending spirits, were lost sight of, hushed to rest in the absorbing calamity which had overtaken Rachel; to say that occupations were partially suspended, that there ensued a glorious interim of idleness, for the female portion of it — of conferences in gutters and collectings in houses; to say that Rachel was sincerely mourned, old Frost sympathised with, and the supposed assailant vigorously sought after, would be sufficient to indicate that public curiosity was excited to a high pitch; but all this was as nothing compared to the excitement that was to ensue upon the evidence given at the coroner’s inquest.
In the absence of any certain data to go upon, Deerham had been content to take uncertain data, and to come to its own conclusions. Deerham assumed that Rachel, from some reasons which they could not fathom, had taken the lonely road home that night, had met with somebody or other with whom had ensued a quarrel and scuffle, and that, accidentally or by intent, she had been pushed into the pond, the coward decamping.
“Villainy enough! even if ’twas but an accident!” cried wrathful Deerham.
Villainy enough, beyond all doubt, had this been the extent. But, Deerham had to learn that the villainy had had a beginning previous to that.
The inquest had been summoned in due course. It sat two days after the accident. No evidence, tending to further elucidate the matter, was given, than had been elicited that first night before Mr. Verner; except the medical evidence. Dr. West and a surgeon from a neighbouring town, who had jointly made the post-mortem examination, testified that there was a cause for Rachel Frost’s unevenness of spirits, spoken to by her father and by Mrs. Verner. She might possibly, they now thought, have thrown herself into the pool; induced to it by self-condemnation.
It electrified Deerham. It electrified Mr. Verner. It worse than electrified Matthew Frost and Robin. In the first impulse of the news, Mr. Verner declared that it could not be. But the medical men, with their impassive faces, calmly said that it was.
But, so far as the inquiry went, the medical testimony did not carry the matter any further. For, if the evidence tended to induce a suspicion that Rachel might have found life a burden, and so wished to end it, it only rendered stronger the suspicion against another. This supplied the very motive for that other’s conduct which had been wanting, supposing he had indeed got rid of her by violence. It gave the clue to much which had before been dark. People could understand now why Rachel should hasten to keep a stealthy appointment; why quarrelling should be heard; in short, why poor Rachel should have been found in the pond. The jury returned an open verdict— “Found drowned; but how she got into the water, there is no precise evidence to show.”
Robin Frost struggled out of the room as the crowd was dispersing. His eye was blazing, his cheek burning. Could Robin have laid his hand at that moment upon the right man, there would speedily have ensued another coroner’s inquest. The earth was not w
ide enough for the two to live on it. Fortunately, Robin could not fix on any one, and say, Thou art the man! The knowledge was hidden from him. And yet, the very man may have been at the inquest, side by side with himself. Nay, he probably was.
Robin Frost cleared himself from the crowd. He gave vent to a groan of despair; he lifted his strong arms in impotency. Then he turned and sought Mr. Verner.
Mr. Verner was ill; could not be seen. Lionel came forward.
“Robin, I am truly sorry — truly grieved. We all are. But I know you will not care to-day to hear me say it.”
“Sir, I wanted to see Mr. Verner,” replied Robin. “I want to know if that inquest can be squashed.” Don’t laugh at him now, poor fellow. He meant quashed.
“The inquest quashed!” repeated Lionel. “Of course it cannot be. I don’t know what you mean, Robin. It has been held, and it cannot be unheld.”
“I should ha’ said the verdict,” explained Robin. “I’m beside myself to-day, Mr. Lionel. Can’t Mr. Verner get it squashed? He knows the crowner.”
“Neither Mr. Verner nor anybody else could do it, Robin. Why should you wish it done?”
“Because it as good as sets forth a lie,” vehemently answered Robin Frost. “She never put herself into the water. Bad as things had turned out with her, poor dear, she never did that. Mr. Lionel, I ask you, sir, was she likely to do it?”
“I should have deemed it very unlikely,” replied Lionel. “Until to-day,” he added to his own thoughts.
“No, she never did! Was it the work of one to go and buy herself aprons, and tape, and cotton for sewing, who was on her way to fling herself into a pond, I’d ask the crowner?” he continued, his voice rising almost to a shriek in his emotion. “Them aprons be a proof that she didn’t take her own life. Why didn’t they bring it in Wilful Murder, and have the place scoured out to find him?”
“The verdict will make no difference to the finding him, Robin,” returned Lionel Verner.
“I dun know that, sir. When a charge of wilful murder’s out in a place, again’ some one of the folks in it, the rest be all on the edge to find him; but ‘Found drownded’ is another thing. Have you any suspicion again’ anybody, sir?”
He put the question sharply and abruptly, and Lionel Verner looked full in his face as he answered, “No, Robin.”
“Well, good-afternoon, sir.”
He turned away without another word. Lionel gazed after him with true sympathy. “He will never recover this blow,” was Lionel Verner’s mental comment.
But for this unfortunate occurrence, John Massingbird would have already departed from Verner’s Pride. The great bane of the two Massingbirds was, that they had been brought up to be idle men. A sum of money had become theirs when Frederick came of age — which sum you will call large or small, as it may please you. It would be as a drop of water to the millionaire; it would be as a countless fortune to one in the depths of poverty: we estimate things by comparison. The sum was five thousand pounds each — Mrs. Massingbird, by her second marriage with Mr. Verner, having forfeited all right in it. With this sum the young Massingbirds appeared to think that they could live as gentlemen, and need not seek to add to it.
Thrown into the luxurious home of Verner’s Pride — again we must speak by comparison: Verner’s Pride was luxurious compared to the moderate home they had been reared in — John and Frederick Massingbird suffered that worst complaint of all complaints, indolence, to overtake them and become their master. John, careless, free, unsteady in many ways, set on to spend his portion as fast as he could; Frederick, more cold, more cautious, did not squander as his brother did, but he had managed to get rid of a considerable amount of his own share in unfortunate speculations. While losses do not affect our personal convenience they are scarcely felt. And so it was with the Massingbirds. Mr. Verner was an easy man in regard to money matters; he was also a man who was particularly sensitive to the feelings of other people, and he had never breathed a word to his wife about the inexpediency of her keeping her sons at home in idleness. He feared his motives might be misconstrued — that it might be thought he grudged the expense. He had spoken once or twice of the desirability of his step-sons pursuing some calling in life, and intimated that he should be ready to further their views by pecuniary help; but the advice was not taken. He offered to purchase a commission for one or both of them; he hinted that the bar afforded a stepping-stone to fame. No; John and Frederick Massingbird were conveniently deaf; they had grown addicted to field-sports, to a life of leisure, and they did not feel inclined to quit it for one of obligation or of labour. So they had stayed on at Verner’s Pride in the enjoyment of their comfortable quarters, of the well-spread table, of their horses, their dogs. All these sources of expense were provided without any cost or concern of theirs, their own private expenditure alone coming out of their private purses. How it was with their clothes, they and Mrs. Verner best knew; Mr. Verner did not. Whether these were furnished at their own cost, or whether their mother allowed them to draw for such on her, or, indeed, whether they were scoring up long bills on account, Mr. Verner made it no concern of his to inquire.
John — who was naturally of a roving nature, and who, but for the desirable home he was allowed to call his, would probably have been all over the world before he was his present age, working in his shirt sleeves for bread one day, exalted to some transient luck the next — had latterly taken a fancy in his head to emigrate to Australia. Certain friends of his had gone out there a year or two previously, and were sending home flaming accounts of their success at the gold-fields. It excited in John Massingbird a strong wish to join them. Possibly other circumstances urged him to the step; for it was certain that his finances were not in so desirable a state as they might be. With John Massingbird to wish a thing was to do it; and almost before the plan was spoken of, even in his own family, he was ready to start. Frederick was in his confidence, Lionel partly so, and a hint to his mother was sufficient to induce her to preserve reticence on the subject. John Massingbird had his reasons for this. It was announced in the household that Mr. Massingbird was departing on a visit to town, the only one who was told the truth being Rachel Frost. Rachel was looked upon almost as one of themselves. Frederick Massingbird had also confided it to Sibylla West — but Frederick and Sibylla were on more confidential terms than was suspected by the world. John had made a confident on his own part, and that was of Luke Roy. Luke, despised by Rachel, whom he truly loved, clearly seeing there was no hope whatever that she would ever favour him, was eager to get away from Deerham — anywhere, so that he might forget her. John Massingbird knew this; he liked Luke, and he thought Luke might prove useful to him in the land to which he was emigrating, so he proposed to him to join in the scheme. Luke warmly embraced it. Old Roy, whom they were obliged to take into confidence, was won over to it. He furnished Luke with the needful funds, believing he should be repaid four-fold; for John Massingbird had contrived to imbue him with the firm conviction that gold was to be picked up for the stooping.
Only three days before the tragic event occurred to Rachel, Luke had been despatched to London by John Massingbird to put things in a train of preparation for the voyage. Luke said nothing abroad of his going, and the village only knew he was away by missing him.
“What’s gone of Luke?” many asked of his father.
“Oh, he’s off to London on some spree; he can tell ye about it when he gets back,” was Roy’s answer.
When he got back! John’s departure was intended for the day following that one when you saw him packing his clothes, but the untimely end of Rachel had induced him to postpone it. Or, rather, the command of Mr. Verner — a command which John could not conveniently disobey had he wished. He had won over Mr. Verner to promise him a substantial sum, to “set him up,” as he phrased it, in Australia; and that sum was not yet handed to him.
CHAPTER VIII.
ROBIN’S VOW.
The revelation at the inquest had affected Mr. Verne
r in no measured degree, greatly increasing, for the time, his bodily ailments. He gave orders to be denied to all callers; he could not bear the comments that would be made. An angry, feverish desire to find out who had played the traitor grew strong within him. Innocent, pretty, child-like Rachel! who was it that had set himself, in his wickedness, deliberately to destroy her? Mr. Verner now deemed it more than likely that she had been the author of her own death. It was of course impossible to tell: but he dwelt on that part of the tragedy less than on the other. The one injury was uncertain; the other was a fact.
What rendered it all the more obscure was the absence of any previous grounds of suspicion. Rachel had never been observed to be on terms of intimacy with any one. Luke Roy had been anxious to court her, as Verner’s Pride knew; but Rachel had utterly repudiated the wish. Luke it was not. And who else was there?
The suspicions of Mr. Verner veered, almost against his will, towards those of his own household. Not to Lionel; he honestly believed Lionel to be too high-principled: but towards his step-sons. He had no particular cause to suspect either of them, unless the testimony of Mrs. Duff’s son about the tall gentleman could furnish it; and it may be said that his suspicion strayed to them only from the total absence of any other quarter to fix it upon. Of the two, he could rather fix upon John, than Frederick. No scandal, touching Frederick, had ever reached his ears: plenty of it touching John. In fact, Mr. Verner was rather glad to help in shipping John off to some faraway place, for he considered him no credit to Verner’s Pride, or benefit to the neighbourhood. Venial sins sat lightly on the conscience of John Massingbird.
But this was no venial sin, no case of passing scandal; and Mr. Verner declared to that gentleman that if he found him guilty, he would discard him from Verner’s Pride without a shilling of help. John Massingbird protested, in the strongest terms, that he was innocent as Mr. Verner himself.