Verner's Pride. Henry Wood
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, when 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