MUCH CRY AND A LITTLE WOOL
“Aunt!” exclaimed Kitty, blank and trembling, turning to Zerah, the
moment the rector had left the house. “Oh, auntie dear, this is not
true’this that Uncle Pasco says. I did not go back. I was left in the
linhay with the cart. What does he mean?”
“He means to shelter himself,” answered Mrs. Pepperill. Then the woman
stepped in front of her husband, and, in her harshest tones and hardest
manner, said, “Pasco! A yea or nay from Kitty is, as pass’n said, worth
a thousand of your protestations, though bolstered up wi’ oaths.”
“Of course Kitty is everything to you and the pass’n, and I am nothing.
I know that very well. I’ve had enough of your violence o’ tongue-lash
these twenty years; and let me tell you, Zerah, I’ve got hard to it and
don’t care a snap for it.” And he suited the action to the word, with an
insolence of expression and manner that would have made the woman blaze
forth into fury at any other time. Now she passed his rudeness with
disregard.
“Pasco!” she said in metallic tones, “there has been a load o’ lead
crushing down my heart. I’ll shake it off and run it into bullets
against you now, and every word shall be a bullet. Now, before Kitty, I
will say what I have had on my mind. It is you who have lied. I have
known for some time what you were thinking of. I’ve seen you hovering
like a hawk, and the moment I was gone’had crossed the water’you
dropped. You durstn’t do it whilst I was here. You feared me because I
feared God. There’s no bigger coward on earth than the man who fears his
fellow because that fellow has God before his eyes. No sooner was I out
of the way than you at once seized the chance offered; and I’I had gone
with all my little lay-by to get you out of your difficulties and
prevent you doing what I feared was in your intent. You’d never spoke a
word to me of that purpose of yourn, you durst not do it; but I saw it
formin’ in you; I saw it, looking into your eyes, just as you may see
the sediment settlin’ in dirty water. When I was out of the way, then
you thought you could do it. You took Kitty away’who was but just home
from the moor, and all for no reason save that you didn’t want any
witness. Then you left her with the cart and hoss at Ash’s linhay in
Furze Park, and came back here to carry out your purpose. So far I can
see. Then my sight becomes thick, a mist is over my eyes, and all the
rest is doubtful. What happened when you came back here’what passed
between you and Jason’what became of my brother? All that I know not’but
know I must and will.”
Pasco’s face grew more sullen, and his demeanour dogged to defiance. He
could not look his wife in the face, he kept his eyes on the ground, and
with his boot scratched the floor in fantastic figures.
“I can see all that passes in your heart,” pursued Zerah. “It’s like as
if I were outside a window, and see’d shadows on the blind as this and
that went by and this and that rose up or sat down. Now the folk begin
to talk and to suspect you, and say how that you insured for a big sum,
and when the goods weren’t paid for, burnt ’em all to secure the
insurance; then you try and throw the suspicion off on to Kitty or
Jason, or both together. It is like you, you black coward. But it shall
not be. I will stand betwixt you and Kitty, and no harm from you shall
hurt her. What I and Kitty want to know is’What has become of Jason?
Where is he? If you will not answer, we will work out the answer for our
own selves’she with the heable (fork), I with the phisgie (pick). We
have strong arms, and we will ourselves root about in the ruins, till we
learn something to satisfy our minds.”
“I don’t know how you’ve the face to talk to me like this, Zerah,” said
Pasco surlily. “I’ve come into something like four thousand pounds
through my uncle, and there’ll be another thousand and more from the
insurance. On five thousand pounds’Lord! I’m a Christian and a
gentleman.”
“Bank-notes won’t plaster sore consciences,” retorted Zerah. “You think
money is everything, and no matter how it be come by. So it has ever
been with you.”
“Am I like to be a villain,” queried Pasco in exasperation, “when I knew
my uncle was worth a pot o’ coin that was sure to come to me?”
“You did not know he was dead.”
“I knew he was sickening and worn out. A man of means don’t do criminal
acts; that’s the perquisite of beggars and labouring men.”
“I do not ask for excuses and evasions. I ask’where is my brother?”
persisted Zerah.
At that moment the door was thrown open, a hand was thrust in, waving a
paper, and a voice shouted’
“There you be, Pasco Pepperill. I’ve got my warranty. I said I would,
and I’m the man o’ my word. I went full gallop up to Squire Carew. None
can stand agin me.”
Pepperill went to the door, saw the back of Mr. Pooke as he walked away,
and the faces of a number of workmen with pick and crowbar and shovel,
backed by a crowd of all descriptions of persons from the village and
neighbourhood.
He hesitated for some moments. He stood irresolute, holding the
door-posts and working his nails at the paint, picking it off in flakes.
His heart turned sick within him. If the heaps of cinders were thrown
back, then surely the remains of Jason Quarm would be discovered, and
with the discovery there would ensue an inquest, and much unpleasantness
if not danger to himself. With low cunning he resolved to make the best
of the inevitable. He shouted to his wife’
“Zerah! bring out cider for the good fellows. They are working for us,
as you know. If you have saffron cake, out with that too. I daresay I
shall find a shilling apiece as well.”
He went behind Pooke, slapped him on the back, and said boisterously’
“Well done, old man! That is what I wanted. If a thing has to be
executed, let all be above-board and legal. That’s my doctrine. I don’t
like no hole-and-corner proceedings. Meddlin’ wi’out authority makes the
end a botch. If you hadn’t begun, I would have done it myself.”
In the house Zerah restrained Kitty with one hand and closed the door
with the other. The woman was labouring for breath, so great was her
excitement. Her face was now flushed, then became wan as death.
“Kitty, my darling,” she said, “I reckon I’ve been hard and exactin’ in
the past. The old pass’n were right, though I wouldn’t believe him, and
said he was insultin’ of me to say it. ’Twas love, he told, as you
wanted, and I didn’t give it you. Love, the very air of heaven, wi’out
which the little maid couldn’t thrive. I wi’held it from you’so he
told’and I shut my ears and hardened my heart. But in the end he were
right. When I found out what had been done, then it broke me down. I
cannot respect and love _him_ no longer. I tried my best when he was
foolish and unfortunate. But now he’s guilty, I cannot’I cannot, and
then all my love turns to you.”
Kitty threw herself into her aunt’s arms and sobbed.
“There’s no time now for tears,” said Zerah, with a gulp in her throat.
“We cannot tell what is coming on us. It may be that the remains of your
poor father will be found. If so, then’” Zerah shivered as if
frost-smitten. “God bless us! It will be too horrible’to live under the
same roof, to eat at the same table, to see the face, hear the voice of
the man’” She was unable to conclude her sentence. After a long pause
and a hug of Kitty, she continued: “I cannot say how it all came about.
Bad as he may be, I hardly think he did it of purpose. ’Twas some
accident. I don’t mean the burning the stores’but of your father. No; he
was not so bad as that, please God! I hope, I trust not! Now, Kitty, you
and I must make up our minds to whatever happens. And I reckon there is
but one thing us can do.”
“What is that, dear auntie?”
“Hold our tongues.”
After a long pause, whilst the girl clung to her, she added, “No good
can come of us speaking what we know, and what we fancy. It can but heap
up a great pile of misery and shame. If it comes to an inquiry in
court’that’s another matter. They won’t call on me, as I am Pasco’s
wife, but they will on you, and you must up and speak the truth at any
cost. But if there be no such inquiry, then hold your tongue, as I will
mine. The mischief, so far, has come from what we have said. We can do
no good; we may make the affair worse for ourselves if we talk. Leave
him in the hands of God, to do wi’ him as He wills.”
Kate kissed her aunt and promised silence.
Then both went forth, and reached the crowd about the ruins and piles of
ashes, as Pepperill was saying in a loud tone, “I don’t say you won’t
find bones. I believe now I had a pile, but all mutton and beef bones.”
“Why, what were you doing wi’ bones?” asked Pooke.
“Collecting of ’em for dressing,” answered Pepperill promptly. “I’ve
been in the hide line some while, and lately I took a fancy to bones
also; but I didn’t do much, just begun on it, so to speak’all ox and
sheep bones’nothing else. Pound bones up wi’ a hammer, they’re fine for
turnips. Jason put me up to speculating in bones.”
The mass of crumbling wall, charred beam, and cinder was speedily
attacked by the workmen under the direction of the constable, who had
much difficulty in keeping the curious at a distance; men, women, and
children were eager to assist with their hands, or advise with their
tongues. They ran into danger by approaching tottering walls. They
trampled down the ashes; they got in the way of the workmen; and
occasionally a scream and an objurgation was the result of a labourer
casting his shovelful of cinders in the face of an inquisitive spectator
who got in his way. Mr. Pooke protested and stormed, but with little
avail; all were too interested to attend to his orders, and he was
without assistants to enforce them.
Pepperill bustled about, vociferating, driving spectators back,
encouraging workmen, running after cakes and cider, and making the
confusion greater. Kate sat on a fallen beam, chin in hand, watching
intently every spade as it turned the ashes, wincing at every pick
driven into the cinder heaps. The tears were trickling down her cheeks.
Then Walter Bramber, who had just arrived, went up to Farmer Pooke and
asked leave to run a cord across from one rail to another, and
volunteered with the assistance of Noah Flood and John Pooke to keep the
people from interference.
“Why should they be kept back? Don’t they want to find what has become
of Mr. Quarm every whit as much as me? Let ’em come on,” shouted
Pepperill.
But the constable saw the advantage of the proposal, and gave the order.
In ten minutes the scene of the conflagration was freed from sightseers,
who were confined at a distance.
Then Bramber went to Kitty and said in a low tone, “You do not think it
is hopeless, I trust?”
“I do not know what to think,” she answered.
“Is it true what I have heard, that your uncle returned here after dark
and left you at the top of the hill?”
Kate did not answer.
“That is what is said. Jan Pooke told me he had heard it from your own
lips.”
She continued silent.
“I should like to know, Kitty, the truth in this matter.”
“I can say nothing,” she answered, and hung her head lower.
Bramber was surprised, but he had not time to expend in conversation: he
had undertaken to keep off the crowd, and some were diving under the
rope, others attempting to stride over it.
An hour was expended in turning about the refuse. All the coal had been
consumed, but, singularly and inexplicably, not all the fleeces. Bundles
of wool were found’not many, indeed, but some, singed, not consumed,
which, when exposed, exhaled a sickening odour. The dangerous portions
of tottering walls had been thrown down, the slate flooring exposed. Not
a trace of Jason Quarm could be found.
Pasco, who had been nervous, watching all the operations of the
excavators in deadly fear of a revelation of the charred remains of his
brother-in-law, breathed freely, recovered all his audacity and
boisterousness.
“I said as much, but none believed me. Jason is gone; he was not the man
to sit quiet in a fire. How the fire came about is a question we won’t
go into too close.”
“The bones you spoke of,” said Pooke, “we ha’n’t come on them. They’ve
been consumed’perhaps poor Quarm as well. The fire must have been deadly
hot.”
“It didn’t burn those fleeces,” answered Pasco triumphantly. “I’ll tell
you what; Jason made off for reasons well known to himself. If we don’t
hear of him again, I sha’n’t wonder; but burned here he certainly was
not, as any fool can see. He was not the man to let himself burn.
Cripple though he was, he could hop out of danger.”
Pasco turned to Bramber. “What is that you have been saying to the
parson about hearing Mr. Quarm and his daughter argyfying at my door the
night of the fire?”
Walter Bramber was taken aback.
“Yes, you said you had heard them in hot dispute.”
“I said,” answered Bramber in surprise and indignation, “something very
different from that. I said”’
His hand was caught by Kate, who looked pleadingly into his face.
“A word alone.”
“What is it, Kitty?”
“Say nothing to anyone of what you saw and heard that night.”