AN UGLY HINT
Talking loudly, laughing noisily, boisterously threatening proceedings
against all trespassers, Pasco Pepperill came in at his door.
“For heaven’s sake, what are you doing?” was his first salutation from
his wife. “How dare you behave as you do? You’you?”
He saw at once that she believed in his guilt, and designed to caution
him against overacting his part.
A great transformation had taken place in Pepperill. Now that he had
done the deed, all dread of the consequences seemed to have been swept
away; he must assume an innocent part, look people full in the face, and
resent suspicion as an insult. The fact that he had come in for a
handsome legacy assisted him to shake off the consciousness of guilt. He
was now a man worth three or four thousand pounds, and when the
assurance was paid he would be worth an additional thousand.
What could be proved against him? Nothing. Suspicion might be
entertained, but what was suspicion when it had nothing substantial as a
basis?
“Give me a jug of cider,” he commanded, and Zerah hastened to obey. She
put a tumbler on the table beside the jug.
Pasco leisurely poured out a glass, and held it up between himself and
the light, and was pleased to observe how steady his hand was.
“Zerah! come and look here. There is rope in the liquor’it is turning
sour.”
Kate looked fixedly at her uncle’s face. The child was in distress and
doubt. Was her father alive, or had he died a death of the worst
description? Was he away on his business, carrying out some risky
speculation, or did his bones lie resolved to ash in the great
cinder-heap that had smouldered on so long, and was but just extinct?
She had not met with anything in her uncle’s character which would
justify her in attributing to him so deliberate and desperate a crime as
firing his own warehouse, and sacrificing, intentionally or
accidentally, the life of his brother-in-law; and yet his wife, who
ought to know him best, had arrived at the worst conclusion, and though
she said nothing, Kate saw by her manner that she was for ever estranged
from her husband, and regarded him as guilty of the crime in its worst
form.
Zerah had retained Kitty in her room, and had more than once said to her
that after the return of Pasco she would make him occupy Kate’s old
attic; she would no longer treat Pasco other than as a stranger. Her
reception of him now showed repugnance and restraint; the shrinking of
an upright nature from one tainted with dishonesty, and exhibiting
restraint from saying all that was felt.
Kate looked on her uncle with his self-satisfied expression, holding the
glass between him and the light with a steady hand, concerning his mind
about the ropiness of the cider, and in her simple mind, ignorant of
evil, direct, with no trickiness or dissimulation in it, she felt vast
relief. She could not believe that Pasco had done wrong, nor that he had
any misgivings as to the well-being of her father.
She drew a long sigh, and passed her hand across her brow, as though to
brush away the cloud that had hung over it and darkened all her
thoughts.
In the new confidence established between herself and her aunt, Kate had
whispered to her that she was engaged to Walter Bramber, but the news
seemed to make as little impression on Zerah as it had on Pasco, and for
the same reason, that each mind was engrossed in other more immediately
interesting matters. The girl submitted with that resignation which
characterised her. She made little account of herself, and did not
suppose that what concerned her could excite lively emotions in the
hearts of her uncle and aunt. Even Mr. Puddicombe had shown more
sympathy and pleasure. But then, Kate could make allowance for the
preoccupation of her aunt’s mind consequent on the fire.
Kate now timidly approached her uncle, keeping her eyes riveted on his
face, and, standing on the other side of the little round table on which
was his jug, she asked’
“Are you quite sure my dear father is all right?”
Pasco looked sharply at her.
“Questions again?” he said hastily, and a flush came into his cheek.
“I have a right to ask this question,” said Kate firmly.
His eye fell under hers; he set down the glass unsteadily and upset the
cider.
“Hang it! why have you a right?”
“I want to know that my father is alive.”
“I say he’s gone to Portsmouth.”
“But how did he go?”
“That was his affair, not mine; the Atmospheric, I suppose.”
“He could not cross during that night’at least, not till near dawn, and
so must have been here when the warehouse was burnt.”
“I don’t see that; there are other ways of getting away. He went on to
Shaldon.”
That was certainly possible. Quarm might have pursued the right bank of
the river to where it could be crossed at any tide, but this was not
probable.
An interruption was occasioned by the entry of the rector. After the
usual salutations, he at once turned to the topic which had been
engaging thoughts and tongues before he appeared.
“I have no desire to intrude,” said he, “but I have come to prevent a
scandal, if possible, and perhaps a quarrel. Mr. Pooke is in a great
heat, and vows he will have a search-warrant to turn over the heaps, as
you have refused him to explore them. You are churchwarden, Mr.
Pepperill, and I not only desire to prevent unpleasantness on your own
account, but on that of the Church. You have, I believe, sent Mr. Pooke
off?”
“I have.”
“But why so? He may have acted irregularly, but it was with good
intentions, and you were absent.”
“He had no right to touch what was mine.”
“No doubt he erred, but you were absent, consider; and your wife, your
niece, the whole village, were in excitement and alarm. He did what
seemed fit to allay this unrest; to find out whether Mr. Quarm had been
here or not.”
“It is no good. He’ll get no warrant, unless magistrates be fools. He
has no case’not a ghost of a case. Jason went to Shaldon, and so over
the water.”
“You are sure?”
“I fancy he did. I heard he wanted to reach Portsmouth, and the tide was
out when he got here, so he could not cross in the ferry. He went on. At
Teignmouth he would get into the Atmospheric.”
“That is readily ascertained. We have but to send to Shaldon and
inquire. The boatman who took him across can be found. If he crossed the
wooden bridge, then the man who takes toll will be able to say
something.”
“He may have gone round the head of the estuary.”
“Not likely, if he left his cart and donkey here.”
Pepperill was unable to answer. He was a heavy-headed man, not quick at
invention.
“Then,” continued the rector, “the warehouse did not catch fire of
itself; someone must have fired it.”
“Of course,” said Pepperill.
“I may as well tell you,” continued Mr. Fielding, “that Mr. Bramber, the
schoolmaster, came to the Cellars the evening of the fire”’
“The deuce he did!”
“Just after dusk.”
“And what brought him here, the puppy?”
“He came,” answered Mr. Fielding, “because he wished to see Kitty and
you.”
“Pray what did he want with Kitty?”
“Surely, Mr. Pepperill, you know that the two young people have come to
an understanding.”
Pasco shrugged his shoulders. “I may have heard something of the sort,
but I have other things more important to interest and occupy my mind. I
gave it no heed.”
“Well, he desired to speak with you, as her father was away, and you
stood in a semi-parental relation to her, living as she did in your
house.”
“Well, he found no one here,” observed Pasco, with some uneasiness of
manner.
“As he approached the Cellars he heard an altercation, and then the
house door violently slammed. Then, thinking the occasion unpropitious,
he turned back.”
“It was fancy. No one was here. My wife was over the water, and I on my
way to Brimpts. If you doubt my word, ask Mr. Ash, he receipted my bill,
and I had a talk as well with the landlord.”
“That is true, Mr. Pepperill, but Jason Quarm was here. I saw him drive
past my gate, and I cast a good-even to him. If an altercation took
place here, he was probably one of those engaged in it. I took it for
granted that you were the other.”
“I’I’I?” stuttered Pasco.
“Yes, because you returned to the Cellars after you had got to the head
of the hill.”
“Who said that? It is a lie!”
“Kitty, I understand, said as much to John Pooke.”
“Kitty said it?”
“Kitty told Jan and Rose as she was being driven home from the moor’so I
have been informed.”
“It’s a lie!” roared Pasco, glaring round at the girl with a curl up of
his thick lips, showing his teeth like a dog about to bite. “It’s a ’––
lie!”
“Mr. Pepperill!” said the rector, rising in dignified anger from the
seat that had been accorded him, “I will not suffer you to use such an
expression in my presence, even in your own house. You do not add one
jot to the force of your repudiation’to your charge against Kate’by
burdening it with an oath.”
“It’s like that beggarly schoolmaster’s impudence to come poking his
snout here, where he’s not wanted, where”’with some energy’“I won’t have
him! I’ll have the law of him for trespass!”
“He did not trespass. It is free to anyone to approach a house door.”
“I don’t care; I’ll shoot him if he shows his face here again.”
“You are branching away from the matter in immediate consideration.
There seems to be a conflict of testimony. Kitty, whom I have always
found true and direct as a needle, has made one statement,’not indeed to
me, but to others,’and this you contradict.”
“I’m churchwarden’I’m a man of means and in a good business. I should
think my word was worth more than that of a sly, chattering, idle minx.”
“Sly, chattering, that my little Kitty is not; I have ever found her
straightforward and reserved. As to her work in the house, her aunt is
better qualified to express an opinion than you, Mr. Pepperill.”
“I don’t see that you’ve any call to come here, poking into matters and
axin’ questions like another Kitty, if I may make so bold as to say so,”
said Pasco, defiant and then qualifying his defiance.
“As I told you at the outset, Mr. Pepperill, I have come here not to
make an official inquiry, but to prevent one. There is a mistake
somewhere. My wish was to clear it up before matters grew to a head. You
and Mr. Pooke are both stubborn men, and may knock heads and crack
skulls over nothing. A word will probably lighten what is now dark, and
dissipate a growing mistrust. I cannot, and I will not, believe half of
what is being said relative to you. I have come to your house as a
peacemaker, to entreat you to so account for little matters which puzzle
the good people here, before what is now whispered may be brayed, what
is now a conjecture may be crystallised into a conviction. As far as is
known, the matter stands thus: Mr. Quarm came here, and here have been
found his donkey and cart and his little bundle of clothes. If he had
crossed the water, he would have taken the latter with him. Two persons
were heard in altercation here shortly after his having passed through
Coombe, and the door was shut violently. Next morning the door was
locked, and Mrs. Pepperill when she came found the key in a hiding-place
known, as she then said, only to herself and you.”
“Don’t you suppose Kitty knew it also?”
“I daresay she did. Your wife’s words, when she arrived, found the
stores burnt, and the house locked, and the key in a certain place’her
words were, ‘Pasco has put the key where I have found it.’ It was of
course surmised that before you left you had locked the door, but Kitty
told young Pooke that when you reached the top of the hill you returned
to the Cellars, saying that you had forgotten to lock the house. It,
therefore, seemed to me probable that on your return, you and Quarm came
to high words about something.”
“Nothing of the sort I never came back.”
“Oh, uncle!” escaped Kate’s lips.
He turned his menacing eyes on her, with the same snarl on his mouth.
“I’ll tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,”
said he. “That is, if you will insist on having it, and you can make of
it what you like, pass’n. When I got to the top o’ the hill, where is
Ash’s linhay, it is true that I remembered I’d not locked up the
dwelling-house. Then I sent Kitty back and told her to lock and put the
key where her aunt would find it, and I’d stay and mind the hoss.”
“Uncle!” Kitty turned white and rigid.
“And, dash it! if someone must ha’ set fire to the old place,’and I
reckon there was someone, them things don’t do themselves,’it must ha’
been either she or Jason, or both together. And I reckon he’s run away
to escape the consequences.”
The rector stood up. He had reseated himself after his protest. His face
was very grave.
“I see,” said he, taking his hat, and moving to the door. “This affair
wears a different colour from what I supposed. It must be elucidated
irrespective of me. My part is done. It must be taken up and
investigated by the proper authorities.”