Verner's Pride. Henry Wood
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. Verner 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