“The box had not my mark upon it, sir,” respectfully spoke Abel Crew, his tone anxious.
“Don’t interrupt me,” rebuked the coroner, sharply. “As to the box not having what he calls his private mark upon it,” he added to the jury, “that in my opinion tells little. Because a man has put a mark on fifty pill-boxes, he is not obliged to have put it on the fifty-first. An unintentional omission is readily made. It appears to me——”
“Am I in time? Is it all over? Is Abel Crew found guilty?”
This unceremonious interruption to the official speech came from a woman’s voice. The door of the room was thrown open with a fling, considerably discomposing those who had their backs against it and were taken unawares, and they were pushed right and left by the struggles of some one to get to the front. The coroner looked daggers; old Jones lifted his staff; but the intruder forced her way forward with resolute equanimity. Cathy Reed: we never remembered to call her Parrifer. Cathy in her Sunday-going gown and a pink bonnet.
“How dare you?” cried the coroner. “What do you mean by this? Who are you?”
“I have come rushing over from Tewkesbury to clear Abel Crew,” returned Cathy, recovering her breath after the fight. “The pills that killed the children were my pills.”
The commotion this avowal caused in the room was beyond describing. The coroner stared, the jury all turned to look at the speaker, the crowd trod upon one another.
“And sorry to my heart I am that it should have been so,” went on Cathy. “I loved those two dear little ones as if they were my own, and I’d rather my pills had killed myself. Just look at that, please, Mr. Coroner.”
The ease with which Cathy spoke to the official gentleman, the coolness with which she put down a pill-box on the green cloth before him, took the room by surprise. As Ann Dovey remarked, later, “She must ha’ learnt that there manner in her travels with young Parrifer.”
“What is this?” questioned the coroner, curtly, picking up the box.
“Perhaps you’ll ask Mr. Crew whether he knows it, sir, before I say what it is,” returned Cathy.
The coroner had opened it. It contained seven pills; just the size of the other pills, and looking exactly like them. On the lid and on the box was the private mark spoken of by Abel Crew.
“That is my box, sir; and these—I am certain of it—are my pills,” spoke Abel, earnestly, bending over the shoulder of the first juryman to look into the box. “The box and the pills that I gave to Mrs. Reed.”
“And so they are, Abel Crew,” rejoined Cathy, emphatically. “The week before last, which I was spending at home at father’s, I changed the one pill-box for the other, inadvertent, you see”—with a nod to the coroner—“and took the wrong box away with me. And I wish both boxes had been in the sea before I’d done it.”
Cathy was ordered to give her account more clearly, and did so. She had been suffering from illness, accompanied by neuralgia, and a doctor at Tewkesbury had prescribed some pills for it, one to be taken occasionally. The chemist who made them up told her they contained arsenic. He was about to write the directions on the box, when Cathy, who was in a hurry, snatched it from him, saying she could not wait for that bother, flung down the money, and departed. This box of pills she had brought with her on her visit to her father’s, lest she should find occasion to take one; and she had put it on the shelf of the press, side by side with the other pill-box, to be out of the way of the children. Upon leaving, she took up the wrong box inadvertently: carrying away Abel Crew’s pills, leaving her own. There lay the explanation of the mystery of the fatal mistake. Mrs. Reed had not known that Cathy had any pills with her; the girl, who was just as light-headed as ever, not having chanced to mention it; and Cathy had the grace to dust the room herself whilst she was there.
“When father and his wife sent me word about the death of the two little twins, and that it was some pills of Abel Crew’s that had done it, I never once thought o’ my pills,” added Cathy. “They didn’t as much as come into my head. But late last night I got lent to me last Saturday’s Worcester Herald, and there I read the inquest, and what Crew had said about the marks he put on his pill-boxes, and mother’s evidence about never having shifted the pill-box from its place on the press. ‘Sure and I couldn’t have changed the boxes,’ thought I to myself; and upstairs I ran in a fright to look at the box I had brought away. Yes, there it was—Abel Crew’s box with the marks on it; and I knew then that I had left my own pills at home here, and that they had killed the babies. As soon as I could get away this morning—which was not as soon as I wanted to—I started to come over. And that’s the history—and the blessed truth.”
Of course it was the truth. Abel’s beautiful face had a glow upon it. “I knew I should be cleared in God’s good time,” he breathed. The Squire pounced upon him, and shook both his hands as if he would never let them go again. Duffham held out his.
So that was the end of the story. Cathy was reprimanded by the coroner for her carelessness, and burst into tears in his face.
“And thee come off home wi’ thee, and see me chuck that there powder into the fire; and don’t go making a spectacle o’ th’ self again,” cried Dovey, sharply, in his wife’s ear. “Thee just let me catch thee bringing in more o’ the dratted stuff; that’s all.”
“I shall never look at a black-beedle again, Jack, without shivering,” she answered; going in for a slight instalment of shivering there and then. “It might ha’ come to hanging. Leastways, that’s what I’ve been dreaming of.”
V.
ROBERT ASHTON’S WEDDING-DAY.
The hall-clock was striking half-past five as we went out into the sharp night-air: Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley, I, and Tod. We were spending Christmas that year at Crabb Cot. Old Coney’s dinner was fixed for six: but country people don’t observe the fashion of dashing in at the last stroke of the hour. The weather was cold, and no mistake; the snow lay on the ground; the stars shone like silver. This was Tuesday, New Year’s Day; and to-morrow, the second of January, Jane Coney would be married to Robert Ashton of Timberdale. The Ashtons were to dine to-night at the Farm, and we had been asked to meet them. If every one stood upon his own level, we should shoot up some degrees over the Coneys’ heads in the scale of the world’s ladder; for old Coney was only a plain farmer; and you’ve learnt by this time what the Squire was. But the Coneys were right-down good people, and made the best neighbours in the world.
We had only to cross the road slantwise, and old Coney had had it swept for us. It was an old-fashioned farm-house, full of nooks and angles, with one ugly, big room in it, oak-panelled. The cloth was laid there for to-night, the breakfast would be for the morrow. Old Coney and Mrs. Coney came out of the drawing-room to meet us: that was small and snug, with a running pattern of pale roses on its white-watered walls. He was jolly; she, plain, homely, and sensible.
Jane was quiet, like her mother; very well she looked, standing on the carpet in her pretty blue silk dress. Her brother Tom, a tall, strong young fellow with a red face, lifted her out of the way by the waist, that he might shake hands all round. The eldest daughter, Mary West, was staying there with her nurse and baby; she looked ill, and got up only for a minute from her chair by the fire. Her husband was a lawyer, in practice at Worcester. Another young lady was sitting near, with light frizzed hair: Mrs. James Ashton.
Before we had settled down, wheels were heard. It was Robert Ashton’s dog-cart, bringing his two brothers, Charles and James; and Mary West’s husband. Miss Jane’s cheeks turned as red as a rose for nothing: Robert Ashton had not come with them.
I had better say who the Ashtons were. Old Ashton (the father) had lived at Timberdale Court always. It was one of the best farms in all Worcestershire. Old Ashton lived in good style, educated his children, and started them well in life. Lucy, the only girl, married a Captain Bird, who turned out to be a frightful scamp. Robert remained on the farm with his father; Charles was a clergyman; James a doctor in Worcester. Everybody respected Mr. Ashton. It was about three years now since he died, and he left a good pot of money behind him. Robert succeeded to the farm, and it was he who was to marry Jane Coney to-morrow.
They went upstairs with their carpet-bags, having come direct from Worcester by train; Robert Ashton’s dog-cart had been waiting, as arranged, at Timberdale Station to bring them on. Mrs. James Ashton came over earlier in the day with Mrs. West. Robert and Charles Ashton were both fine young men, but the doctor was slight and short. Now I hope all that’s clear; because it was necessary to say it.
What with talking and looking at the presents, the time passed. They were laid out on a table against the wall, on a snow-white damask cloth of rare beauty.
“Look here,” whispered Mrs. Coney, taking up a scented blue-and-white case of satin ribbon and beads for holding pocket-handkerchiefs. “Poor Lucy Bird sent this. She must have made it herself, a thing like this, bought, would be as much as fifteen or sixteen shillings. It came almost anonymously: ‘With best love and ever kind wishes for Robert and Jane,’ written on it; but we knew Lucy’s handwriting.”
“Where are they now?” asked Mrs. Todhetley, in the same mysterious whisper.
“I fancy they are staying somewhere in Worcester. We should have liked to have Lucy over for the wedding; but—you know how it is: we could not ask him.”
Mrs. Todhetley nodded. She wore her grey silk gown that night, which always seemed to make her look taller and thinner than ever, and a white lace cap with pink ribbons. A pink bow was in her light hair, and she had put on her beautiful earrings.
There is some thorn in most families, and Lucy was the one in that of Ashton. She was educated at the best school in Worcester, and came home at eighteen brimful of romance. It lay in her nature. You’d hardly have found so pretty and sentimental a girl in the county. Because her name was Lucy Ashton, she identified herself with Scott’s Lucy Ashton, and looked out for a Master of Ravenswood. These sentimental girls sometimes come to grief, for they possess only three parts of their share of plain common-sense. The Master of Ravenswood came in the shape of Captain Bird, a tall, dark man, with a flaming coat and fierce moustache. He paid court to Lucy, and she fell in love with him before a week was over. The Ashtons turned their backs upon him: there was something in the man they did not like, in spite of the red coat and the black moustache. But he won Lucy over—he had heard of her fortune, you see—and she promised to marry him. She was a gentle, yielding, timid girl then; but her love was strong, and she ran away. She ran away and was married the same morning at St. Helen’s church in Worcester, in which parish Bird had been staying. It was the talk of the county; but when the commotion had subsided, every one began to pity Lucy, saying she would have plenty of time and cause for repentance. After all, he was not a real captain now. He had sold out of the army; and there arose a rumour that he had done something wrong and was obliged to sell out.
Mr. Ashton had loved Lucy better than all his children. He forgave the marriage for Lucy’s sake, and had them home on a visit, and presented her with a handsome sum. But he made a great mistake—I’ve heard the Squire say it often—in not settling it upon her. Bird spent it as soon as he well could; and he would have spent some more that came to Lucy when her father died, only that it was left in Robert Ashton’s hands to be paid to her quarterly. People called Bird a blackleg: said he was about the worst man that ever stepped. Robert had offered Lucy a home at Timberdale Court, but she would not leave her husband: she had married him, she said, for better or worse. If he came to be transported—and he was going on for it—the chances were that Lucy would follow him to Van Diemen’s Land.
“I say, there’s six o’clock!” exclaimed Mr. Coney, as the hour struck. “Jane, what have you done with Robert?”
“Not anything, papa. He said he should be here half-an-hour before dinner.”
“And it will soon be half-an-hour after it,” returned old Coney. “If he does not make haste, we shall sit down without him.”
The clock on the mantelpiece went ticking on, and struck half-past six. Dinner. The Squire led off the van with Mrs. Coney. Tod laid hold of Jane.
“I’ll take Robert’s place whilst I can, Jenny.”
The oak-room was a surprise. It looked beautiful. The dark walls were quite covered with holly and ivy, mixed with the blossoms of laurustinus and some bright flowers. Old Thomas (borrowed from us) and the maids stood by the sideboard, which glittered with silver. The Coneys had their stores as well as other people, and did things well when they did them at all. On the table was a large codfish, garnished with horse-radish and lemon. Our names were before our places, and we took them without bustle, Robert Ashton’s, next to Jane, being left vacant.
“For what——”
A faint shriek interrupted the Reverend Mr. Ashton, and the grace was interrupted. Lifting his head towards the quarter whence the shriek came, he saw his sister-in-law with a scared face.
“We are thirteen!” exclaimed Mrs. James Ashton. “I beg your pardon, Charles—I beg everybody’s pardon; but indeed we must not sit down thirteen to dinner on New Year’s Day. I would not for any money.”
“What nonsense, my dear!” cried her husband, rather crossly. “Robert will be here directly.”
It was of no use. The ladies took her part, saying they ought not to sit down. And there we all stood, uncertain what to do, the dinner hovering in mid-air like Mahomet’s coffin, and not to be eaten.
“There are two days in the year when it is not well to sit down thirteen: New Year’s Day and Christmas Day,” said Mrs. Todhetley, and the rest held with her.
“Are we all to go back to the drawing-room, and leave our dinner?” demanded old Coney, in wrath. “Where the plague is Robert? Look here: those that won’t sit down thirteen can go, and those that don’t mind it can stop.”
“Hear, hear!” cried the Squire.
But Jane Coney went gliding to her mother’s side. “I will wait for Robert in the drawing-room, mamma, and you can sit down twelve. Yes, please; it is best so. Indeed I could not eat anything if I stayed.”
“Shall we send you some dinner in, child?” asked Mr. Coney.
“No, thank you, papa. I should like best to take it with Robert when he comes.”
“All right,” said old Coney. “Johnny, you go over to that side, to make the table even. We’ll have the grace now, parson.”
And the parson said it.
It was a dinner that pleased the Squire’s heart. He had a mortal objection to what he called kickshaws, meaning the superfluous dishes you find at a modern entertainment. The Coneys never had kickshaws, only a plain, substantial dinner, the best of its kind.
“Coney, I never taste such oyster-sauce as yours, go where I will,” cried the Squire. “It can’t be matched.”
Old Coney winked, as much as to say he knew it. “The missis gives an eye to that, you see, Squire,” he answered, in a side whisper. “She had been in the kitchen till you came.”
The Squire took another ladleful. He went once or twice to every dish, and drank champagne with all of us. But still Robert Ashton did not come.
I slipped round to Mrs. Coney when the plum-pudding appeared, whispering that I would take a slice to Jane.
“So you shall, Johnny,” she said, giving me some on a plate, and putting a mince-pie beside it. “She will have no luck unless she eats a little of both pudding and pie on the first day of the year.”
Jane sat in a low elbow-chair before the fire, her head leaning on her hand, her hair a little tumbled. It was very pretty hair, dark chestnut, and her eyes were hazel. Robert Ashton was fair-haired and blue-eyed; Saxon all over, and very good-looking.
“I have brought you some pudding, Jane.”
“Oh, Johnny! why did you leave the table? I can’t eat it.”
“But Mrs. Coney says you are to; and some mince-pie also, or you’ll have no luck.”
As if in obedience she ate a little of the pudding, cut a quarter of the mince-pie with her fork, and ate that.
“There, Johnny, that’s quite enough for ‘luck.’ Go back now to your dinner; I dare say you’ve not had any pudding yourself.”
“I’ll stay with you, and finish this: as it is going begging.”
She neither said yes nor no. She was looking frightfully uneasy.
“Are you vexed that Robert Ashton’s not here, Jane?”
“I am not vexed, because I know he would have been here if he could. I think something has happened to him.”
I stared at her. “What! because he is a little late in coming? Why, Jane, you must be nervous.”
She kept looking into the fire, her eyes fixed. I sat on a stool on the other side of the hearth; the empty pudding-plate standing on the rug between us, where I had put it.
“Robert was sure to come for this dinner, Johnny, all being well, and to be in time.”
“Tell me what you fear, Jane—and why?”
“I think I will tell you,” she said, after a pause. “I should like to tell some one. I wish I had told Robert when he called this morning; but I was afraid he would laugh at me. You will laugh too.”
And Jane Coney told it. In a low, dread voice, her eyes staring into the fire as before, just as though they could see through the blaze into the future.
Early that morning she had had a dream; a disagreeable, ugly dream about Robert Ashton. She thought he was in some frightful peril, that she cried to him to avoid it, or it would stop their marriage. He seemed not to take the least notice of her, but to go right on to it, and in the alarm this brought her, she awoke. I listened in silence, saying nothing to the end; no, nor then.
“The dream was so intensely real, Johnny. It seemed to be to-day; this very day then dawning; and we both of us knew that it was; the one before our marriage. I woke up in a fever; and but that it was night and not day, should have had difficulty in persuading myself at first that we were not really enacting the scene—it was, as I say, so vividly real. And Robert went out to the peril, never heeding me.”
“What was the peril?”
“That’s what I can’t tell. A consciousness lay upon me that it was something very bad and frightful; but of its nature I saw nothing. I did not go to sleep again: it must have been about six o’clock, but the mornings are very dark, you know. I got up soon: what with this dinner-party and other things, there has been a great deal to do to-day, and I soon forgot my dream. Robert called after breakfast, and the sight of him put me in mind of it. I felt a great inclination to tell him to take especial care of himself; but he would only have laughed at me. He drove away direct to the Timberdale Station, to take the train for Worcester.”
She did not say, though, what he had gone for to Worcester. To get the ring and licence.
“I have not felt the smallest fear of the dream all along, Johnny, since I awoke. Excepting for the few minutes Robert was here, I don’t remember even to have thought of it. But when his brothers and Mr. West came in without him to-night, it flashed into my mind like a dart. I felt sure then that something had happened. I dare say we shall never be married now.”
“Jane!”
“Well, Johnny Ludlow, I think it.”
To me it seemed to be growing serious. There might be nothing at all in what she had said; most people would have said there was nothing; but, sitting there in the quiet room listening to her earnest voice, seeing her anxious face, a feeling came over me that there was. What had become of Robert Ashton? Where could he be?
“I wish you would give me that shawl of mamma’s,” she said, pointing to one on a chair. “I feel cold.”
She was shivering when I put it over her pretty white shoulders and arms. And yet the fire was roaring to the very top of the grate.
“Alone here, while you were at dinner, I went over all sorts of probabilities,” she resumed, drawing the shawl round her as if she were out in the snow. “Of course there are five hundred things that might happen to him, but I can only think of one.”
“Well?” for she had stopped. She seemed to be speaking very unwillingly.
“If he walked he would be almost sure to take the near way, across the Ravine.”
Was she ever coming to the point? I said nothing. It was better to let her go on in her own way.
“I dare say you will say the idea is far-fetched, Johnny. What I think is, that he may have fallen down the Ravine, in coming here.”
Well, I did think it far-fetched. I’d as soon have expected her to say fallen down the chimney.
“Those zigzag paths are not very safe in good weather, especially the one on the Timberdale side,” she went on. “With the snow on them, perhaps ice, they are positively dangerous. One false step at the top—and the fall might kill him.”
Put in this way, it seemed feasible enough. But yet—somehow I did not take to it.
“Robert Ashton is strong and agile, Jane. He has come down the zigzag hundreds of times.”
“I seem to see him lying there, at the bottom of the Ravine,” she said, staring as before into the fire. “I—wish—some of you would go and look for him.”
“Perhaps we had better. I’ll make one. Who’s this?”
It was Tom Coney. His mother had sent him to see after me. I thought I’d tell him—keeping counsel about the dream—that Robert Ashton might have come to grief in the Ravine.
“What kind of grief?” asked Tom.
“Turned a summersault down the zigzag, and be lying with a leg broken.”
Tom’s laugh displayed his small white teeth: the notion amused him excessively. “What else would you like to suppose, Johnny?”
“At any rate, Jane thinks so.”
She turned round then, the tears in her eyes, and went up to Tom in an outburst of grief. It took him aback.
“Tom! Tom! if no one goes to see after him, I think I must go myself. I cannot bear the suspense much longer!”
“Why, Jenny girl, what has taken you?”
That had taken her. The fear that Robert Ashton might be lying disabled, or dead, in the Ravine. Tom Coney called Tod quietly out of the dining-room, and we started. Putting on our dark great-coats in silence, we went out at the back-door, which was nearest the Ravine. Jane came with us to the gate. I never saw eyes so eager as hers were, as she gazed across the snow in the moonlight.
“Look here,” said Tom, “we had better turn our trousers up.”
The expedition was not pleasant, I can assure you, especially the going down the zigzag. Jane was right about its being slippery: we had to hold on by the trees and bushes, and tread cautiously. When pretty near the bottom, Tod made a false step, and shot down into the snow.
“Murder!” he roared out.
“Any bones broken?” asked Tom Coney, who could hardly speak for laughing. Tod growled, and shied a handful of snow at him.
But the slip brought home to us the probability of the fear about Robert Ashton. To slip from where Tod did was fun; to slip from the top of the opposite zigzag, quite another thing. The snow here at the bottom was up to our calves, and our black evening trousers got rolled up higher. The moonlight lay cold and white on the Ravine: the clustering trees, thick in summer, were leafless now. Had any fellow been gazing down from the top, we must have looked, to him, like three black-coated undertakers, gliding along to a funeral.
“I’ll tell you what,” cried Tod: “if Ashton did lose his footing, he wouldn’t come to such mortal grief. The depth of snow would save him.”
“I don’t believe he did fall,” said Tom Coney, stoutly. “Bob Ashton’s as sure-footed as a hare. But for Jane’s being so miserable, I’d have said, flatly, I wouldn’t come out on any such wild-goose errand.”
On we went, wading through the snow. Some of us looked round for the ghost’s light, and did not see it. But rumour said that it never came on a bright moonlit night. Here we were at last!—at the foot of the other zigzag. But Robert Ashton wasn’t here. And, the best proof that he had not fallen, was the unbroken surface of the snow. Not so much as a rabbit had scudded across to disturb it.
“I knew it,” said Tom Coney. “He has not come to grief at all. It stands to reason that a fellow must have heaps to do the day before his wedding, if it’s only in burning his old letters from other sweethearts. Bob had a heap of them, no doubt; and couldn’t get away in time for dinner.”
“We had better go on to the Court, and see,” I said.
“Oh, that be hanged!” cried the other two in a breath.
“Well, I shall. It’s not much farther. You can go back, or not, as you like.”
This zigzag, though steeper than the one on our side, was not so slippery. Perhaps the sun had shone on it in the day and melted the snow. I went up it nearly as easily as in good weather. Tod and Coney, thinking better of the turning back, came after me.
We should have been at Timberdale Court in five minutes, taking the short-cut over hedges and ditches, but for an adventure by the way, which I have not just here space to tell about. It had nothing to do with Robert Ashton. Getting to the Court, we hammered at it till the door was opened. The servant started back in surprise.
“Goodness me!” said she, “I thought it was master.”
“Where is the master?” asked Tom.
“Not come home, sir. He has not been in since he left this morning.”
It was all out. Instead of pitchpolling into Crabb Ravine and breaking his limbs, Bob Ashton had not got back from Worcester. It was very strange, though, what could be keeping him, and the Court was nearly in a commotion over it.
When we got back to the Farm, they were laying the table for the wedding-breakfast. Plenty of kickshaws now, and some lovely flowers. The ladies, helping, had their gowns turned up. This helping had not been in the evening’s programme; but things seemed to have been turned upside down, and they were glad to seize upon it. Jane and her sister, Mrs. West, sat alone by the drawing-room fire, never saying a word to one another.
“Johnny, I don’t half like this,” whispered Mrs. Todhetley to me.
“Like what, good mother?”
“This absence of Robert Ashton.”
I don’t know that I liked it either.
Morning came. In an uncertainty such as this, people go to each other’s houses indiscriminately. The first train came in from Worcester before it was well light; but it did not bring Robert Ashton. As to the snow on the ground, it was pretty well beaten now.
“He wouldn’t travel by that slow parliamentary thing: he’ll come by the express to South Crabb Junction,” said Tom Coney, thinking he would cheer away the general disappointment. Jane we had not seen.
The express would be at the Junction between nine and ten. A whole lot of us went down there. It was not farther off than Timberdale Station, but the opposite way. I don’t think one of us was more eager than another, unless it was the Squire. The thing was getting serious, he told us; and he went puffing about like a man looking for his head.
To witness the way he seized upon the doors when the express steamed in, and put his old red nose inside all the carriages, looking for Robert Ashton, was a rare sight. The guard laid hold of his arm, saying he’d come to damage. But Robert Ashton was not in the train.
“He may come yet,” said old Coney, looking fit to cry. “There’ll be a train in again at Timberdale. Or, he may drive over.”
But every one felt that he would not come. Something told us so. It was only making believe to one another, saying he would.
“I shall go to Worcester by the next down train,” said the Squire to old Coney.
“The next does not stop here.”
“They’d better stop it for me,” said the Squire, defiantly. “You can’t come, Coney. You must remain to give Jane away.”
“But if there’s no bridegroom to give her to?” debated old Coney.
“There may be. You must remain on the strength of it.”
The down train came up, and obeyed the signal to stop made by the station-master. The Squire, Tod, and Tom Coney got in, and it steamed on again.
“Now mind, I shall conduct this search,” the Squire said to the others with a frown. “You young fellows don’t know your right hand from your left in a business of this sort. We must go about it systematically, and find out the different places that Robert Ashton went to yesterday, and the people he saw.” Tod and Tom Coney told us this later.
When they arrived at Worcester, the first man they saw at Shrubb Hill Station was Harry Coles, who had been seeing somebody off by the train, which was rather curious; for his brother, Fred Coles, was Robert Ashton’s great chum, and was to be groom’s-man at the wedding. Harry Coles said his brother had met Ashton by appointment the previous day, and went with him to the Registrar’s office for the marriage licence—which was supplied to them by Mr. Clifton himself. After that, they went to the jeweller’s, and chose the wedding-ring.
“Well, what after that?” cried the impatient Squire.
Harry Coles did not know what. His brother had come back to their office early in the afternoon—about one o’clock—saying Ashton was going, or had gone, home.
“Can’t you tell which he said—going, or gone?” demanded the Squire, getting red.
“No, I can’t,” said Harry Coles. “I was busy with some estimates, and did not pay particular attention to him.”
“Then you ought to have paid it, sir,” retorted the Squire. “Your brother?—where is he?”
“Gone over to Timberdale ages ago. He started the first thing this morning, Squire; a big coat thrown over his wedding toggery.”
The Squire growled, as a relief to his feelings, not knowing what in the world to do. He suddenly said he’d go to the Registrar’s office, and started for Edgar Street.
Mr. Clifton was not there, but a clerk was. Yes, Mr. Ashton of Timberdale had been there the previous day, he said, in answer to the Squire, and had got his licence. The governor (meaning Mr. Clifton, who knew the Ashtons and the Coneys well) had joked a bit with young Ashton, when he gave it. As to telling where Ashton of Timberdale and Mr. Coles had gone to afterwards, the clerk did not know at all.
So there was nothing to be gathered at the Registrar’s office, and the Squire turned his steps up the town again, Tod and Coney following him like two tame lambs; for he wouldn’t let them make a suggestion or put in a word edgeways. He was on his way to the jeweller’s now: but as he had omitted to ask Harry Coles which of the jewellers’ shops the ring was bought at, he took them all in succession, and hit upon the right one after some difficulty.
He learnt nothing there, either. Mr. Ashton of Timberdale had bought the ring and keeper, and paid for them, the master said. Of course every one knew the young lady was Miss Jane Coney: he had brought one of her rings as a guide for size: a chased gold ring, with small garnet stones in it.
“I am not asking for rings and stones,” interrupted the Squire, wrathfully. “I want to know if Mr. Ashton said where he was going to afterwards?”
“He said never a word about it,” returned the master. “When they went out of here—young Fred Coles was with him—they took the way towards the Hop Market.”
The Squire went to the Crown next—the inn used by the Ashtons of Timberdale. Robert Ashton had called in the previous day, about one o’clock, the waiter said, taking a little bread-and-cheese, observing that he had no time for anything else, and a glass of table-beer. Mr. Coles had come down Broad Street with him, as far as the inn door, when they shook hands and parted; Mr. Coles going back again. The waiter thought Mr. Ashton was not in the house above five minutes at the most.
“And don’t you know where he went to next?” urged the Squire.
“No,” the waiter replied. The impression on his mind was, that Mr. Ashton’s business in Worcester was over, and that he was returning home again.
The Squire moved slowly up Broad Street, more gloomy than an owl, his hands in his pockets, his nose blue. He boasted of his systematic abilities, as applied to seekings and searchings, but he knew no more what to be at next than the man in the moon. Turning up the Cross, he came to an anchor outside the linen-draper’s shop; propping his back against the window, as if the hanging silks had offended him. There he stood staring up at St. Nicholas’s clock opposite.
“Tom,” said he, virtually giving in, “I think we had better talk to the police. Here’s one coming along now.”
When the policeman was abreast, the Squire took his hands from his pockets, and pinned the man by his button-hole.
“Mr. Ashton of Timberdale?—oh, he has got into trouble, sir,” was the man’s ready answer. “He is before the magistrates now, on a charge of——”
The railway omnibus, coming along at the moment, partially drowned the word.
“Charge of what?” roared the Squire.
The policeman repeated it. The omnibus was making a frightful rattle, and the Squire only just caught it now. With a great cry he dashed over to the fly-stand, got into one, and ordered it to gallop away with him. Tom Coney and Tod barely escaped having to hang on behind.
“Drive like mad!” stamped the Squire.
“Yes, sir,” said the man, obeying. “Where to?”
“Go on, will you, sir! To the deuce.”
“To the police-court,” corrected Tom Coney.
Arrived there, the Squire left them to pay the fare, and fought his way inside. The first thing his spectacles caught sight of distinctly was the fair Saxon face and fine form of Robert Ashton, standing, a prisoner, in the criminal dock.
At the Farm, things were in a state more easily imagined than described. The carriages came bowling up, bringing the guests. The four bridesmaids wore pale-blue silk, trimmed with white fur. Jane was dressed. In passing her door, I saw her. They had sent me up to fetch something from Tom’s room.
“Is it not a mockery, Johnny?” she said, letting me enter. And her poor pale face looked more fit for a burying than a wedding, and her eyes had dark circles round them.
“If you mean your dress, Jane, I never saw anything less like a mockery, or more like a princess’s in a fairy tale.”
It was of rich white silk; a delicate wreath of myrtle and orange-blossoms on her chestnut hair. The veil lay upon the bed.
“You know what I mean, Johnny. There will be no wedding at North Crabb Church to-day—and nothing can have been more foolish than to prepare me for it. Oh, Johnny! if I could only go to sleep till ten years hence, and never wake up between!”
Before the gate waited the carriages, their postillions in scarlet jackets; the company, in their fine plumage, jostled each other in the nooks and corners of the house; the maids, wearing a bright uniform of purple gowns and white muslin aprons, ran about wildly. Every two minutes, old Coney went up to a staircase window that faced Timberdale, looking out to see whether Robert Ashton was coming—like Sister Anne, in “Bluebeard.”
Twelve o’clock! It was like a knell booming out; and the carriages went away with the company. A fine ending to a wedding!
I was standing at the back-door, disconsolate as the moaning wind, when the Timberdale Station fly came rattling along. A gentleman put his head out of it, to tell the driver to stop. He got down, and came limping up to me. It was Mr. West’s partner, old Lawyer Cockermuth, who had declined an invitation to the wedding, because of gout.
“Look here,” said he, catching me by the shoulder, “I want to say half-a-dozen words to Mr. Coney. Can you manage to bring him out to me, or smuggle me into any little place where we can be alone? I suppose the house is chock-full of wedding-people.”
“You have brought bad news of Robert Ashton!” I said, in sudden conviction. “What is it?”
“Well, so I have,” he answered confidentially. “It will soon be known to every one, but I should like to break it to Coney first. I’ve come over to do it. Robert Ashton is in custody for murder!”
I felt my face turn as pale as a girl’s. “For murder?”
Old Cockermuth’s face grew long as he nodded. “He is in custody for nothing less than the murder of his brother-in-law, Bird. Yesterday——”
A smothered cry behind us, and I turned sharply. There stood Jane. She had seen Cockermuth’s arrival, and came down, knowing he must have brought bad news. The white robe and wreath were gone, and she wore an everyday dress of violet merino.
“Now, my dear! my dear, be calm!” cried the old lawyer, in a fright. “For goodness’ sake shut us in somewhere, Johnny Ludlow! We shall have the whole pack out upon us.”
Some of the pack did come, before he could be shut up. And there we were—hearing that Robert Ashton had been taken up for murder.
It appeared that, after quitting the Crown on the previous day, he met his sister’s husband, Captain Bird—from habit, people still accorded him his title. Captain Bird told him Lucy was dangerously ill, and asked him to go and see her. Robert went at once to their lodgings. What exactly happened there, no one as yet knew; but Robert and Bird got quarrelling. Robert did not come out again. In the morning (this morning) the neighbours heard a hue-and-cry; and on the door being opened by two policemen, Bird was found lying in the passage dead, as was supposed, and Robert Ashton was given into custody for his murder.
Jane touched me on the arm, and I followed her into the large, empty dining-room. That miserable breakfast! waiting for those who could not sit down to it. The evergreens on the walls seemed to look faded; the flowers on the table to have lost their first freshness.
“You see I was right, Johnny,” she said. “That dream was a dream of warning. And sent as one.”
It did look like it. But dreams are things you can’t lay hold of; no, nor altogether believe in. Standing by the cold grate, she began to shiver. In the confusion, the servants had let the fire go out.
“I would forget the dream, if I were you, Jane. Where’s the use of people having dreams——”
“Say warnings, Johnny.”
“——if they cannot see how to make use of them? Call them warnings, an you like the word better. They are of no good at all.”
“Oh, Johnny, if I could only die! It was hard enough to bear when he was only missing; but now——”
It was just as though she never meant to leave off shivering. I went to hunt for some sticks, and saw our cook, Molly, in the kitchen amongst the maids. Trust her for being in the thick of any gossip. Bringing the sticks back, I pushed them in, and they soon crackled up into a blaze. Jane sat down and watched them.
“I wouldn’t be afraid, Jane, if I were you. There must be some mistake.”
“I’m not afraid—in one sense. That Robert has done nothing wrong willingly, I know. But—he is rather passionate; and there’s no telling how they might provoke him. If there is much prolonged suspense; a trial, or anything of that sort—well, I suppose I shall live through it.”
How hopeless she looked! her head bent, her eyes cast down. Just then there was a cry outside for Jane. “Jane!”
“Go out, Johnny, and say I am all right. Pray to them to leave me alone. Tell mamma not to come in; I am easier by myself—and the fire’s burning up. They have gone calling upstairs; they wouldn’t think I am here.”
Was there anything incoherent in her words? I looked at her narrowly. I suppose that they sounded something like it.
“One has been coming to soothe me, and another has been coming; I haven’t known how to bear it. They mean it in kindness—great kindness; but I would so much rather be alone. You go now, Johnny.”
So I shut her in. And whispered to Mrs. Coney that she was praying to be left.
I don’t know how the day went on, except that it was miserably uncomfortable. We had some cold beef in the everyday dining-room, and old Coney, after saying he’d have given a thousand pounds out of his pocket for it not to have happened, went and smoked a pipe with Cockermuth in the best kitchen. Dusk began to come on.
Why! who was that—driving up in Robert Ashton’s dog-cart? Robert! Robert himself? Yes, it was; and the Squire, and Tod, and Tom Coney with him. The dog-cart had gone to the station to wait for the Squire and the other two: they came, bringing Robert Ashton.
“Is it all right, Mr. Ashton?”
“Quite right, Johnny. You did not think it could be wrong, did you?”
“You are out on bail?”
“Out for good. There has been no real damage done. I wonder where Jane is?”
“I’ll take you to her. She has been wishing she was dead.”
No one in the house scented his presence. I opened the door of the large oak-room. Jane was kneeling on the hearthrug, her face buried in the cushion of the arm-chair. She started up at the noise, and stood like one turned to stone.
“Robert?”
I do believe she thought it was not real—his ghost, or something. He went up in silence, slightly smiling—he was always a quiet-mannered man—and holding out his hand.
“It is I, myself, Jane. You look as though you doubted it.”
With a great cry she fell forward. Robert caught her to his breast. I was going away when he hastily called to me. For the first time in her life she had fainted away. The thing had been too much for her.
“Get some water, Johnny. Don’t call any one. She’ll soon come to.”
There was water on the table; wine too. He gave Jane some of both. And then she listened to his story, leaning on his arm, and crying as softly and peacefully as a little child.
Those outside were listening to the wonderful tale. When I went out, they had gathered in the best kitchen, round the Squire, who had gone there in search of old Coney. The Squire’s glowing face was a sight to be seen. Mrs. Coney had sat down on the mahogany bench; her hands lifted. Coney stood with his pipe held at arm’s-length. As to Mrs. Todhetley, the tears were running down her cheeks in a stream.
It was quite true that Lucy Bird was very ill. Robert saw her in bed. As he was leaving, Bird began upon the old grievance—that he should have some of Lucy’s money advanced in a lump. He wanted it for his cards and dice, you see. Robert told him, No: as he had told him all along. An associate of Bird’s was there; a very bad man, named Dawler. They got Robert to take a friendly glass of wine—which purported to be sherry: and from that moment he lost all power, and partly consciousness. The wine was drugged. Their object, no doubt, had been to partly stupefy him, and so induce him to sign an undertaking to hand over the money to Bird. But they had made the potion a trifle too strong, not calculating the effect it would take on a young and habitually sober man. Robert fell into a deep sleep, from which it was impossible to arouse him all night: as to writing, his hands were as if dead. Late in the morning he awoke; and, bit by bit, realized where he was and what had passed. He was a little stupid even then, but sensible enough to remember that it was his wedding-day, and to foresee that he might have some trouble to get away from the house. On attempting to leave, Bird and Dawler placed themselves in the passage to prevent him. There was a hot contest. Robert Ashton, a stronger man than either of the others, but aware that all his strength was not then at his own command, seized a knotted stick, or club, that was lying in a corner, and lifted it to fight his way through. Dawler struck at it, to get it out of his hand, and struck it against Bird’s head with frightful force. The fellow dropped as one dead, and the door was burst open by the neighbours and policemen. The excitement, perhaps the exertion, acting on Robert Ashton’s only partly recovered state, turned him stupid again: the people took him to be drunk, and Dawler gave him in charge for murder.
That was the history. When the Squire had got into the police-court, Robert Ashton (who was nearly himself again through the remedies the doctor had given him in the police-station) was telling his tale. Dawler was contradicting him, and swearing hard and fast that it was a case of deliberate murder. The magistrates invited the Squire to a seat beside them: and the first thing he did was to break into a hot tantrum, vowing Robert Ashton couldn’t be guilty. How it would have terminated no one knew, but Lucy saved him.
Lucy saved him. A wan, haggard young woman wrapped in an old shawl, staggered into the justice-room, to the front of the room. It was Lucy Bird. She had come crawling through the streets to tell the truth.
“My brother Robert did not attempt to strike any one,” she said in low, weak, earnest tones. “He only held the club in his hand. I saw it all, for I stood by. It was Dawler who threw his weight upon the club, and struck down my husband. Robert fell too; pushed down by Dawler. This is the sole truth, before Heaven!”
They believed her. The best was, that Bird was not dead at all, only stunned; and the next to appear in court was himself, with a big white plaister on his forehead. Discovering his wife’s flight to the magistrates, he thought it well to go after her: there was no knowing what plots might be in the wind. He had the grace to acknowledge that the blow was an accident. The whole bench shook hands with Robert Ashton, telling Bird and the other man significantly that they had better take care what they were about for the future: and the Squire brought him home in triumph.
“But where is Robert?” asked old Coney and the rest. Why, in there with Jane: where else should he be? They burst into the oak-room in a body, and found him trying on the ring.
“Why shouldn’t we have a dinner to-night?” asked old Coney. “Last night’s was only half a dinner, through one bother or another.”
“Hear, hear!” cried the Squire. “Why not?”
The only thing against it was—as Mrs. Coney said—that no dinner was prepared. Unless they could put up with a cold one.
“And glad to do so,” spoke up everybody. So the cold meats were brought from the larder, and the fowls from the breakfast-table, and laid in the everyday dining-parlour. The ladies were in their ordinary gowns, and there was no room for elbows, but we made up with laughter. Sixteen this evening; Fred Coles being there, and old Cockermuth, who sat down in spite of the gout. Afterwards we went off by the light of the stars to summon the company to the morrow’s wedding; it was good to go knocking at the doors with the news. Whilst the servants at the Farm, with Molly to help them, began cooking fresh fowls for the breakfast-table.
And that’s about all. There was never a better wedding seen, and the scarlet jackets of the post-boys dazzled one’s eyes in the morning sun. Robert Ashton was calm and quiet in church; Jane too, and not a bit nervous. The chief speech at the breakfast was undertaken by the Squire, so you may give a guess what it was like; but it didn’t spoil the wedding-cake.
Jane was shut up with her mother when the time came for starting, and came out in a flood of tears. She was leaving her childhood’s home, you see. Robert would have hurried her straight to the carriage, but the company wouldn’t be done out of their leave-taking. I was the last.
“Thank you for all, Johnny,” she cried, wringing my hand as she went down the path. “They were all very kind to me yesterday, but it seemed that you were kindest.”
In the next minute, both of them, with the door shut, and the carriage away towards South Crabb Junction. The people cheered, the cocks crew, and the old shoes flew after them in a shower.
VI.
HARDLY WORTH TELLING.
You remember what I, Johnny Ludlow, said in the last paper—that on our way to Timberdale Court we met with an adventure, which I had not then time to tell of. It was this.
After our race through Crabb Ravine by moonlight, looking for Robert Ashton, we went on to Timberdale Court as fast as the snowy ground would admit of, Joseph Todhetley and Tom Coney rushing on in front, I after them—they were older and stronger than I was. Not by the ordinary highway, but over fields and hedges and ditches, straight as the crow flies, wishing to save time. Instead of saving time, we lost it, for though the road, had we taken it, was longer, the snow was beaten there; whereas it was lying deep across the country and had to be waded through. But you can’t always bring common-sense to bear at the moment it’s wanted. And if we had looked like three undertakers at a funeral, stalking after one another in the Ravine, with our dark coats showing out against the white snow, I’m sure we must have looked still more like it in the open ground.
At the far corner of the square meadow was a cow-shed, unused since the autumn, when Ashton of Timberdale had caused the fields about here to be ploughed. Beyond the shed, touching its walls, ran a brook; and it brought us up. We had meant to take it at a flying leap; but the snow had melted there, and the brook was swollen. It was not agreeable to run the chance of pitching in, and it seemed that we should have to make for the gate, lower down. Standing for a moment to reconnoitre, there broke on our ears a low moan; and then another.
“I say,” cried Tod, “is that the ghost?” I said in that last paper, as any one may see, that we had looked out for the ghost in the Ravine. The moaning came again.
“If I don’t believe it is in the cow-shed!” exclaimed Tom Coney. And he went round to the door and shook it open.
Pitch dark inside and the same moaning, soft and low. Tom Coney had some lights in his pocket, and struck one. Well! we were astonished. On the ground lay a woman—or girl—and a very little child. She had a young face, with anxious eyes and feverish cheeks. She said she was dying, and so answered our questions; but we had to kneel down to hear her. She had walked across the country from somewhere in Gloucestershire, carrying her baby of a fortnight old, but the weakness and fever overtook her. Two nights ago she had crept into the shed, and lain there, unsuspected, ever since.
“But why did you leave your home?” inquired Tod.
“I couldn’t stay for the shame,” was the nearly inaudible answer: and but that our ears were good ones, we should not have caught it. If we would but fetch her a drop of water for the love of Christ, she said, as we got up.
It was impossible to help wondering whether God had not allowed Robert Ashton to be lost on purpose to bring us round there. But for our passing, both she and the baby must very soon have died, for the shed was quite out of the reach of any road likely to be traversed. We must have seemed to her like angels of mercy. Perhaps we were made use of as such that night.
“Have you lain here all that time—two nights and days—without food?” asked Tod, in his softest voice.
“Without food, sir, and without drink. Oh, for a drop of water! If you could only bring it me, I should die easier.”
We got some clean snow and moistened her lips with it. She gave a sobbing cry as it trickled down her throat: Tom Coney said it was choking, but I thought it was joy. To a poor creature in a burning fever, lying without any sort of drink for days and nights, the fresh cold snow must have tasted like dew from heaven. She motioned that the baby should have some, but we were afraid: it looked to be dying.
What could be done with her? To carry her away was not practicable—and she seemed too ill besides. Tom Coney offered to cover up the baby under his coat and take it to the Court for food and shelter; but she clutched it closer to her side as it lay on her arm, and faintly said it couldn’t do without her. Shutting the shed door again, we got quickly to Timberdale Court, found Robert Ashton was not at home, as you heard, and asked for the housekeeper, Mrs. Broom.
She was sitting in her little carpeted room, off the big kitchen, with one of the maids. They were sewing white bows on a lot of caps, and wondering what had become of the master. To be burst in upon by us, all three telling the story at once of the woman and child, pretty nearly scared good old Mother Broom’s senses away.
“You are just playing a trick upon me, young gentlemen.”
“It is as true as that we are here, Mrs. Broom; it is true as gospel. They’ll both be dead if something’s not done for them.”
“Well, I never heard of such a thing,” she exclaimed, beginning to stir about. “Lying in that cow-shed for two days without help! You ought to have brought the poor baby away with you, sirs.”
“She wouldn’t let it come.”
“I wouldn’t have minded her saying that. A fortnight-old baby lying in the shed in this cold!”
“I don’t think it will make much difference in the long-run, whether the baby stays in the shed or comes out of it,” said Tom Coney. “If it sees to-morrow’s dawn, I shall wonder.”
“Well, this is a fine start!” cried Mother Broom. “And the master never to have come home—that’s another,” she went on. For, what to do, she didn’t know the least in the world, and was like a woman with a lost head.
We left the matter to her, carrying some things to the shed as we passed it on our way home—blankets and a pillow, fresh water, milk-and-water for the baby, and a candle and matches. One of the women-servants was to come after us, with hot broth and wine.
When we reached Crabb Cot, the dismay there at hearing Robert Ashton had not turned up, was diversified by this news, which we told of. Not that they thought very much of it: the woman was only a poor tramp, they said; and such things—fevers, and that—happen to poor tramps every day.
“Do you think the baby’s dying?” asked Charles Ashton, the parson.
“I’m nearly sure it is,” said Tom Coney.
“That’s a kind of woman, you know, that ought to be committed for fourteen-days’ hard labour,” observed the Squire, fiercely, who was in a frightfully cross mood with the various mishaps and uncertainties of the evening. “Seems to be very sickly and humble, you say, Mr. Johnny! Hold your tongue, sir; what should you know about it? These women tramps bring death on their infants through exposure.”
“And that’s true,” said old Coney. “I’d punish ’em, Squire, if I were a magistrate like you.”
But what do you think Parson Ashton did? When the dog-cart had taken him and Mr. and Mrs. James Ashton to the Court—where they were to stay all night—he started off for the shed, and did not come away from it until he had baptized the baby.
We heard nothing more about it until the next day—and I don’t suppose any one has forgotten what sort of a miserable day that was, at old Coney’s Farm. How the wedding never took place, and Robert Ashton was still missing, and Jane Coney was dressed in her bridal robes for nothing, and the breakfast could not be eaten, and we guests staring in each other’s faces like so many helpless dummies. What news we had of it then, came from Charles Ashton: he had been to the shed again that morning. Whilst the carriages stood waiting at the gate, the post-boys’ scarlet jackets flaming in the sun, and the company indoors sat looking hopelessly for the bridegroom, Parson Ashton talked about it in a corner to Mrs. Coney and the Squire’s wife: both of them in their grand silk plumage then, one plum-coloured, the other sea-green, with feathers for top-knots.
The little baby was dead, Charles Ashton said. The mother had been removed to a shelter in Timberdale village, and was being cared for. The doctor, called in to her, Darbyshire, thought she might get over it.
“You baptized the child, I hear, Charles?” said Mrs. Coney, to the parson.
“Oh yes.”
“What did you name it?”
“Lucy. Something in the mother’s face put me in mind of my sister, and it was the name I first thought of. I asked the mother what she would have it called. Anything, she answered; it did not matter. Neither did it, for the little thing was dying then. Hot-water bottles and other remedies were tried last night as soon as they could be had, to get warmth into the child—to renew its life, in fact; but nothing availed.”
“Where was the woman taken to?”
“To Jael Batty’s. Jael consented to take her in.”
“I suppose it is but another case of the old, sad story?” groaned Mrs. Todhetley.
“Nothing else. And she, poor thing, is not much more than a girl.”
“Now, Charles, I tell you what. It may be all very consistent for you clergymen—men of forgiveness, and that—to waste your compassion over these poor stray creatures, but I think it might do more good sometimes if you gave them blame,” spoke Mrs. Coney, severely.
“There are times and seasons when you cannot express blame, however much it may be deserved,” he answered. “The worst of it in these cases is, that we rarely know there exists cause for censure before it is too late for any censure to avail, or avert the evil.”
What with the astounding events of the day, connected with the interrupted wedding, nothing more was said or thought of the affair. Except by Jane. When she and I were in the big dining-room together—I trying to blow up the fire, and she in full dread that Robert Ashton would have to be tried for his life at the Worcester Spring Assizes, and lie in prison until then—she suddenly spoke of it, interrupting the noise made by the crackling of the wood.
“So that poor baby’s dead, Johnny! What a happy fate—not to grow up to trouble. Charles named it Lucy, I hear. I should like to see the poor mother.”
“See her for what, Jane?”
“She is in distress, and so am I. I don’t suppose she has a corner to turn to for comfort in the wide world. I have not.”
It was not so very long after this that her distress was over. Robert Ashton arrived in triumph, and so put an end to it. One might suppose Jane would no longer have remembered that other one’s distress; what with the impromptu dinner, where we had no room for our elbows, and the laughter, and the preparations for the next day’s wedding.
But the matter had taken hold of Jane Coney’s mind, and she reverted to it on the morrow before going away. When the wedding-breakfast was over, and she—nevermore Jane Coney, but Jane Ashton—had changed her dress and was saying good-bye to her mother upstairs, she suddenly spoke of it.
“Mamma, I want to ask you to do something for me.”
“Well, my dear?”
“Will you see after that poor young woman who was found in the shed?”
Naturally Mrs. Coney was taken by surprise. She didn’t much like it.
“After that young woman, Jane?”
“Yes; for me.”
“Mrs. Broom has seen to her,” returned Mrs. Coney, in a voice that sounded very frozen.
“Mother, dear,” said Jane, “I was comparing myself with her yesterday; wondering which of us was the worst off, the more miserable. I thought I was. I almost felt that I could have changed places with her.”
“Jane!” angrily interjected Mrs. Coney.
“I did. She knew the extent of her trouble, she could see all that it involved; I did not see the extent of mine. I suppose it is always thus—that other people’s sorrows seem light when compared with our own. The reason must no doubt be that we cannot realize theirs, whilst we realize ours only too keenly.”
“My dear, I don’t care to talk of this.”
“Nor I much—but hear me for a minute, mother. God has been so merciful to me, and she is still as she was, that I—I should like to do what I can for her when we come back again, and comfort and keep her.”
“Keep her!”
“Keep her from want, I mean.”
“But, child, she has been—you don’t know what she has been,” gravely rebuked Mrs. Coney.
“I think I do, mother.”
“She is a poor outcast, Jane; with neither home to go to, nor friends to look upon her.”
Jane burst into tears: they had been hardly kept down since she had begun to speak.
“Just so, mother. But what was I yesterday? If Robert had been tried for his life, and condemned, I should have felt like an outcast; perhaps been looked upon as no better than one by the world.”
“Goodness, Jane, I wish you’d exercise your common sense,” cried Mrs. Coney, losing patience. “I tell you she is an outcast, and has forfeited home and friends. She has been a great sinner.”
“Mother, if she had a home and friends, there would be no need to succour her. As to sin—perhaps we can save her from that for the future. My gratitude for the mercy shown to me is such that I feel as if I could take her to my bosom; it seems to my mind that I ought to do something for her, that she has been thrown in my way that I should do it. Mother, it is my last petition to you: see after her a little for me until we come back again.”
“Very well, dear; as you make this point of it,” concluded Mrs. Coney, relenting just a little. And then Jane began to cry hysterically; and Tom Coney knocked at the door, saying time was up.
Mrs. Coney was not a hard-hearted woman, just the opposite: but only those who live in rural parts of the country can imagine the tricks and turns of regular tramps, and what a bad lot some of them are. They deceive you with no end of a plausible tale, and stare pitifully in your face whilst they tell it. Not long before this, a case had happened where both our house and the Coneys’ had been taken in. A woman in jagged widows’ garments presented herself at the door of Crabb Cot and asked to see the Squire. Her shoes wanted mending, and one side of her face was bandaged up. Mrs. Todhetley went to her. Of all pitiable tales that poor woman told the most: it would have melted a heart of stone. She came from near Droitwich, she said: her husband had worked under Sir John Pakington; that is, had been a labourer on part of his estate, Westwood Park. She lost her husband and grown-up son the past autumn with fever; she caught it herself, and was reduced to a skeleton, lost her cottage home through the things being seized for rent, and went to live with a married daughter in Oxfordshire. Cancer had appeared in her cheek, the daughter could not keep her, for she and all her children were down with sickness, and the husband had no work—and she, the widow, was making her way by easy walking-stages to Worcester, there to try and get into the infirmary. What she wanted at Crabb Cot was—not to beg, either money or food: money she could do without, food she could not eat—but to implore the gentleman (meaning the Squire) to give her a letter to the infirmary doctors, so that they might take her in.
I can tell you that she took us in—every one of us. The Squire, coming up during the conference, surrendered without fight. Questions were put to her about Droitwich and Ombersley, which she answered at once. There could be no mistaking that she knew all the neighbourhood about there well, and Sir John and Lady Pakington into the bargain. I think it was that that threw us off our guard. Mrs. Todhetley, brimming over with compassion, offered her some light refreshment, broth or milk. She said she could not swallow either, “it went against her,” but she’d be thankful for a drink of water. Molly, the greatest termagant to tramps and beggars in general, brought out a half-pint bottle of store cordial, made by her own hands, of sweetened blackberry juice and spice, for the woman to put in her pocket and sip, on her journey to Worcester. Mrs. Todhetley gave her a pair of good shoes and some shillings, and two old linen handkerchiefs for the face; and the Squire, putting on his writing spectacles, wrote a letter to Mr. Carden, begging him to see if anything, in the shape of medical aid, could be done for the bearer. The woman burst into tears of thankfulness, and went away with her presents, including the letter, Molly the cross-grained actually going out to open the back-gate for her.
And now would anybody believe that this woman had only then come out of the Coneys’ house—where she had been with the same tale and request, and had received nearly the same relief? We never saw or heard of her again. The note did not reach Mr. Carden; no such patient applied to the infirmary. She was a clever impostor; and we got to think that the cheek had only been rubbed up with a little blistering-salve. Many another similar thing I could tell of—and every one of them true. So you must not wonder at Mrs. Coney’s unwillingness to interfere with this latest edition in the tramp line.