“Religion is a great consolation at a time like this.”
“Do you think we ought to send for Mr. Williams to come and see Father?”
choked Doris.
“No—of course not. What good could he do? Poor Sir John’s quite
unconscious.”
“But he may be able to hear. How _do_ you know he can’t? Perhaps he
would like to hear Mr. Williams say a prayer or a hymn.”
“My dear Doris, I tell you he doesn’t know a thing, so what’s the good
of dragging poor Mr. Williams out of his bed at three o’clock in the
morning? I had no patience with the people who did that sort of thing to
George. Sir John couldn’t understand anything, and if he did he’d be
furious, so it doesn’t seem much good either way. When I said religion
was a consolation I was thinking of Mary.”
“And why of me?” asked Mary.
“Well, I often think you’d be happier if you had some sort of religion.
You seem to me to lead such an aimless life.”
“Of course I’d be happier. Most people are happier when they believe in
something. Unfortunately I never was taught anything I could or cared to
believe.”
“Mary! How can you say that, when poor George....”
She broke off as the door opened and Jenny suddenly appeared.
“Hullo, Jenny!” cried Doris—“have you come back?—Have they found Peter?”
Jenny did not speak. She shut the door behind her, and stood with her
back against it. Her face was white and damp. It was evidently raining,
and wet strands of hair were plastered on her cheeks.
“Is Dr. Mount in there?” she asked.
“Yes—but Jenny ... Peter!...”
“I must see Dr. Mount first.”
“Who’s that asking for me?”
The doctor came in from the next room; at the sight of Jenny he shut the
communicating door.
“I want to speak to you, Dr. Mount. Will you come with me?”
“Jenny, you really can’t treat us like this,” cried Mary, “you must tell
us what’s happened. Is Peter hurt?”
“Yes—he’s downstairs.”
“Is he dead?” cried Doris, springing to her feet.
Again Jenny did not speak. She bowed her head into her hands and wept
silently.
A dreadful silence filled the little room. Even Doris was perfectly
quiet.
“I’ll come down,” said Dr. Mount.
“So’ll I,” said Doris.
“No,” said Jenny, “you mustn’t see him.”
“Why not?”
“He’s—he’s been dreadfully injured—part of his head....”
She stopped and shuddered. Dr. Mount pushed quietly past her to the
door.
“I think I’d better go down alone. Your husband and the men are down
there—I can get all the information I want from them.”
Jenny came forward to the fire and flopped into the chair Doris had
left. Her clothes were wet and her boots muddy—it must be raining hard.
“I’d better tell you what happened,” she said brokenly—“The men—some
from here and some from Starvecrow—found Peter lying on the Tillingham
marshes about half a mile below the Mocksteeple. His dog was watching
beside him, and he’d been shot through the head.”
“Murdered,” gasped Doris.
“No—I don’t think so for a moment.”
“It was an accident, of course,” said Mary.
“I wish I could think that. But the men seemed to think—my husband
too—that it was his own doing.”
“His own doing! Suicide!” cried Doris—“How could they imagine such a
thing?”
“From the way he was lying, and the position of the gun, and the nature
of the injuries. That’s why I was so anxious for Dr. Mount to see him
and give an expert opinion.”
“Is there any chance of his being still alive?”
“Not the slightest. His head is nearly entirely blown away.”
“Oh, Jenny, don’t!—it’s dreadful!”
“Yes it’s dreadful, but I’m afraid it’s true.”
“But whatever could have made him kill himself?” moaned Doris—“He’d
nothing on his mind—he was perfectly happy ... it couldn’t have been
because the baby was a girl.”
“Peter may have had troubles that we don’t know of,” said Rose.
“He must have,” said Jenny, “though I don’t think for a minute they were
of the kind you’ve been suspecting.”
“I don’t see what other kind they could be.”
“It may have been something to do with the estate.”
“He’d never have killed himself for that. If anything had gone wrong
there, it was more than ever his duty to keep alive.”
“Well, there’s no good us arguing here about what he did it for—if he
really did do it. The question is—who is going to tell Mother?”
“Oh, Jenny....”
They looked at each other in consternation.
§ 23
But Lady Alard, for all her frailty, belonged to a tougher generation
than her children. In times of prosperity she might languish, but in
times of adversity her spirit seemed to stiffen in proportion to the
attacks upon it. If her cook had given notice she would have taken to
her bed, but now when catastrophe trod on catastrophe and the fatal
illness of her husband was followed by the death of her first-born son
she armed herself with a courage in which her children, careless of
kitchen tragedies, seemed to fail when they met the bigger assaults of
life. She was less shattered by the news of Peter’s death than was the
daughter who broke it to her, and rising up out of her chair,
independent of arm or stick, she insisted on going downstairs into the
dark, whispering house.
The others followed her, except Doris, who stayed huddled and motionless
in her chair in her father’s dressing-room, like a stricken dog at its
master’s door. The dining-room was lighted up and seemed full of men.
They were gathered round the table on which, with a sense of futility
and pathos Jenny caught sight of a pair of stiff legs in muddy boots.
At the sound of footsteps Dr. Mount came out of the room.
“What! Lady Alard!” he exclaimed, quite unprepared for such a visit.
“Yes, I want to see him.”
“You can’t—yet!”
“Are you quite sure he’s dead?”
“Quite sure.”
Dr. Mount looked shaken—his face was grey. But all faces were grey in
the light of the hall, where the first livid rays of morning were mixing
with the electric lamps that had burned all night.
“How did it happen, Doctor? Does anyone know?”
“Nobody knows. He was found on the Tillingham marshes. His gun may have
gone off accidentally.”
“May have....” repeated Jenny.
“Will there have to be an inquest?”
“I’m afraid so. There always is in these cases.”
“Well, Sir John has been spared something.”
Her voice broke for the first time, and she turned back to the stairs.
Rose and Mary went with her but Jenny lingered in the hall, where she
had the comfort of seeing her husband through the dining-room door. Dr.
Mount stopped as he was going back into the room.
“Has anyone told his wife?”
“Yes—one of the men came to Starvecrow at once.... I told her.... They
thought it best not to take him there.”
“Of course—quite right. How did she bear it?—Perhaps I ought to go and
see her.”
“Her mother’s with her, but I’m sure they’d be glad if you went there.”
“I’ve got the car—I could run round in a few minutes. I must go home
too ... one or two things to see to ... I don’t think I’m wanted here
just now.”
The doctor seemed terribly shaken by Peter’s death, but that was very
natural, considering he had known him from a child. Also, Jenny
reflected, being a religious man, the idea of suicide would particularly
appall him.
“Doctor—do you—do you think he did it himself?”
“I’m sorely afraid he did.”
“But what can have made him? ... I mean, why should he? I always thought
he was so happy—too happy, even. I sometimes thought him self-satisfied
and over-fed.”
“We all have our secrets, Jenny, and your brother must have had a
heavier one than most of us.”
“But why should you be so sure he did it? Couldn’t his gun have gone off
by accident?”
“Of course it could. But the wounds would hardly have been of such a
nature if it had. However, the matter will probably be cleared up in the
Coroner’s court.”
Jenny shuddered.
“I wonder if he’s had any trouble—anything worse than usual about the
land....” Then she remembered Rose’s suspicions of Stella Mount. Her
colour deepened as she stood before Stella’s father. Could that possibly
be the reason, after all? She had never imagined such a thing, but Peter
certainly had been fond of Stella once, and Rose’s gossip was seldom
quite baseless. She did not believe for a moment in any intrigue, but
Peter might have turned back too late to his early love ... and of
course Stella was going away ... it might have been that. Since
undoubtedly Peter had had a secret buried under the outward fatness of
his life, that secret may just as well have been Stella....
“Your husband tells me he came to see you this afternoon,” the doctor
was saying, “what was he like then?”
“He seemed rather queer and silent, but afterwards I put it down to its
being his first visit since my marriage. He wouldn’t forgive me for a
long time, as you know, so it was only to be expected that he should
feel a little awkward. But he said some rather queer things about
Starvecrow—said he wished it was more like Fourhouses, said he’d spoilt
it with his improvements, and seemed much more upset about it than you’d
think natural.”
“Um.”