As Ruth emerged from the comparative gloom of the courthouse into the
bright September sunshine her spirits seemed to rise. A reaction had
set in from the strain of the inquiry, with its continuous suggestion
of the hideous details of the tragedy. Now with the ending of the
inquest, it seemed to her that the terrible affair was all but over.
The final episode, the funerals, would not be anything like so
harrowing. Not since the first hint of disaster had come in the shape
of Mr. Oxley’s telegram to York had she felt so lighthearted and in
love with life. She seemed to have awakened from an evil dream.
It was therefore no indication of heartlessness that she should glance
eagerly around as she and her friends advanced from the shadow of the
old building into the little square. She was young and the claims of
the living were more to her than those of the dead. And who will
reproach her for the thrill of pleasurable excitement which she
experienced as the sight she was hoping for met her eyes? There was
Pierce Whymper evidently waiting for a chance of speaking to her. With
a smile she invited him over, and he came and joined her. At the same
moment Mr. Tarkington, the thin hawk-like bank manager, whom she had
seen in the courthouse, approached and spoke to Mr. Oxley.
“Will you go on?” the latter said to his wife. “I want to go round to
the bank with Mr. Tarkington. I’ll follow in a few minutes.”
Mrs. Oxley, Ruth and Whymper moved off in one direction while Mr.
Oxley and Mr. Tarkington disappeared in the other. For a time the trio
chatted with animation, then Ruth grew gradually more silent, leaving
the burden of the conversation to the others. She was in fact puzzled
and a little hurt by a subtle change which she felt rather than
noticed in Whymper’s manner. He seemed somehow different from the last
time she had seen him—that time in another existence when she had left
Thirsby for her visit to York. Then he had been obviously eager for
her company, anxious to talk to her, even before Mrs. Oxley making no
secret of his admiration and regard. But now, though he was just as
polite as ever, his manner was less spontaneous, indeed at times she
thought it almost embarrassed. It occurred to her that possibly the
change might be in herself, and even when their ways parted at the
turn to the church she had not completely made up her mind. But
whatever the cause, a certain disappointment remained, and when she
went up to change for dinner she had lost a good deal of the
lightheartedness she had felt on emerging from the courthouse.
Mr. Oxley, when he arrived shortly after, also showed a change of
manner. He was a kindly, jovial man, fond of a joke and the sound of
his own voice, but during dinner he was strangely silent and wore an
expression of concern and disappointment. But he did not offer any
explanation until the meal was over, and then he followed the ladies
into the drawing-room and unburdened his mind.
“I am awfully sorry, Miss Ruth,” he began hesitatingly, “but I am
afraid I have brought you some more bad news. It’s about money,” he
added hurriedly as the girl turned a piteous glance towards him. “I’ll
tell you exactly what has happened. You know, or perhaps you don’t,
that in spite of the way he lived, your uncle was a rich man. As his
solicitor I have known that for many a year, but I had no idea of just
how much he had. Tarkington knows I was his solicitor and he was
talking about it just now. He tells me that Mr. Averill must have been
worth between thirty and forty thousand pounds when he died. Of course
one would naturally suppose that the money was in securities of some
kind, but here is my terrible news. Tarkington assures me that it was
not, that practically the whole sum was in Mr. Averill’s safe.”
“Oh, Arthur!” Mrs. Oxley burst out. “You can’t mean that it’s gone.”
“I’m afraid I do,” her husband answered. “It’s awful to think about,
but there were only some five hundred pounds in the bank. The rest was
in Mr. Averill’s safe in notes and gold. The nineteen hundred odd
pounds in gold are there all right, but the whole of the paper money
has been destroyed.”
“Oh, how perfectly dreadful! But surely it can be replaced? Surely
something can be done by the bank?”
Mr. Oxley shook his head.
“Nothing, I’m afraid. I talked it over with Tarkington. The money is a
total loss.”
Mrs. Oxley took Ruth into her arms.
“You poor child,” she commiserated. “I just can’t tell you how sorry I
am.”
But Ruth took the news coolly.
“Dear Mrs. Oxley,” she answered. “How kind you are! But indeed I look
upon this as a comparatively little thing. I shall have far, far more
than I ever expected. I want to get some work, and I shall have plenty
to support me while I am training and perhaps even a little after
that. I am more than content.”
Mrs. Oxley kissed her and commended her spirit, though she felt the
girl’s attitude was due more to her unworldliness and ignorance of
life than to courage under disappointment. She wished to change the
subject, but Ruth asked to have her position made clear to her and
begged the others’ advice as to her future. The Oxleys, delighted by
her common sense, willingly agreed to discuss the situation, and after
a long talk a proposal of Mr. Oxley’s was provisionally agreed to.
It appeared that, assuming the old man’s money had really been lost,
Ruth’s capital would amount to about £2400. Of this Mr. Oxley was to
invest all but £100, so as to bring Ruth about £130 per annum. The
remaining £100 was to be spent in taking a secretarial course at one
of the London training colleges. With the backing of the £130 a year
and what she could earn for herself she ought, Mr. Oxley believed, to
be quite comfortably off. “But you must,” Mr. Oxley went on, “stay
here for as long as you like, until you have rested and got over the
shock of this terrible affair.”
Mrs. Oxley warmly seconded this invitation, and Ruth thankfully
accepted it. It was true that she was anxious to start work as soon as
possible, and life in London and the undergoing of the course of
training appeared to her as a glorious and thrilling adventure. But
even more anxious still was she to meet Pierce Whymper and find out if
there really was a change in his feelings towards her. At the time she
had imagined that there was, but now she thought that perhaps she had
been mistaken and that after the inquest he had simply been suffering
from a headache or some other trifling indisposition. That he loved
her she had not the slightest doubt, and she could not bring herself
to go away until she was sure that no stupid, unnecessary
misunderstanding should have been allowed to come between them.
Two days later she met him in the main street of the little town. She
stopped to chat and he turned about and walked with her, and presently
they had tea at the local confectioner’s. But the interview left her
more puzzled than ever. Her belief that Whymper loved her was
confirmed beyond any doubt by his manner, by the way he looked at her,
by the tones of his voice. But it was evident to her that something
was weighing on his mind which prevented him making the proposal
which, if the truth must be admitted, she had been expecting. He gave
her the impression that he would speak if he could, but that he was
being held back by matters outside his own control. And the same state
of mind was evident at their subsequent encounters, until Ruth’s pride
asserted itself and she grew colder and more distant and their
intimacy bade fair to come gradually to an end.
She would have made a move for the metropolis to begin her course of
training had not Mrs. Oxley, from what was probably a quite mistaken
sense of kindliness, suggested that a rest would be good for her after
the shocks she had experienced. On the excuse of desiring the girl’s
assistance in the remodelling of her garden, which, owing to the
difficulty of obtaining labour, she was doing with her own hands, the
good lady invited her to stay on for a few weeks. Ruth did not like to
refuse, and she settled down with the intention of remaining at
Thirsby for at least another month.
During the month the little town also settled down again after its
excitements and alarms, and events once more began to pursue the even
tenor of their ways. The Starvel Hollow Tragedy ceased to be a nine
days’ wonder and was gradually banished from the minds of the
townspeople, until an event happened which was to bring up the whole
matter again, and that in a peculiarly sensational and tragic manner.
One morning in mid-October, some five weeks after the fire, Mr.
Tarkington called to see his friend Oxley. The bank manager’s thin
face wore a serious and mystified expression, which at once informed
Mr. Oxley that something out of the ordinary had occurred to disturb
the other’s usual placid calm.
“Good morning, Oxley,” said Mr. Tarkington in his thin, measured
tones. “Are you busy? I should like a word with you.”
“Come along in, Tarkington,” the solicitor rejoined heartily. “I’m not
doing anything that can’t wait. Sit you down, and have a spot.”
“Thanks, no, I’ll not drink, but I’ll take one of these cigarettes if
I may.” He drew the client’s big leather covered chair nearer to Mr.
Oxley and went on: “A really extraordinary thing has just happened,
Oxley, and I thought I’d like to consult you about it before taking
any action—if I do take action.”
Mr. Oxley took a cigarette from the box from which the other had
helped himself.
“What’s up?” he asked, as he struck a match.
“It’s about that terrible Starvel affair, the fire, you know. I begin
to doubt if the matter is really over, after all.”
“Not over? What on earth do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you, and it is really a most disturbing thought. But before
you can appreciate my news I must explain to you how Averill carried
on his bank business. The poor fellow was a miser, as you know, a
miser of the most primitive kind. He loved money for itself—just to
handle and to look at and to count. His safe was just packed full of
money, but of course you know all this, and that it was through this
dreadful weakness of his that poor girl lost what should have come to
her.”
“I know,” Mr. Oxley admitted.
“Averill’s income passed through the bank, and that’s how I come to be
aware of the figures. He had between sixteen and seventeen hundred a
year and it came from three sources. First he had a pension; he had
held a good job with some company in London. That amounted to about
three hundred pounds. Next he had an annuity which brought him in
£150. But the major portion came from land—land on the outskirts of
Leeds which had been built over and which had become a very valuable
property. In this he had only a life interest—not that that affects my
story, though it explains why that poor girl didn’t get it.”
“I know about that property,” Mr. Oxley interjected. “I’ve had a deal
to do with it one way and another. The old man got it through his wife
and it went back to her family at his death.”
“I imagined it must be something of the kind. Well, to continue.
Averill’s income, as I said, was passed through the bank. He received
it all in cheques or drafts and these he would endorse and send to me
for payment. He had a current account, and my instructions were that
when any cheque came I was to pay in to this account until it stood at
something between £40 and £60—whatever would leave an even £20
over—and I was to send the surplus cash in £20 notes out to Starvel.
Averill evidently looked upon this as a sort of revenue account and
paid all his current expenses out of it. It never of course rose above
the £60 and seldom fell below £20. To carry on my simile, any monies
that were over after raising the current account to £60 he considered
capital, and they went out to swell the hoard in the safe at Starvel.
In addition he kept a sum of £500 on deposit receipt. I don’t know
exactly why he did so, but I presume it was as a sort of nestegg in
the event of his safe being burgled. You follow me?”
“I follow you all right, but, by Jove! it was a queer arrangement.”
“Everything the poor old man did was queer, but, as you know, he
was——” Mr. Tarkington shook his head significantly. “However, to go on
with my story. These monies that were to be sent out to Starvel I used
to keep until they reached at least a hundred, and then I used to send
a clerk out with the cash. The mission usually fell to Bloxham—you
know Bloxham, of course? Averill liked him and asked me to send him
when I could. Bloxham has seen into the safe on two or three
occasions, and it is from him I know that it was packed with notes as
well as the gold.”
“I never can get over all that money being burnt,” Mr. Oxley
interjected. “It makes me sick to think of even now. Such stupid,
needless, wicked waste!” Mr. Tarkington took no notice of this
outburst.
“It happened that about a week before the tragedy,” he went on in his
precise manner, “a cheque for £346 came in from the Leeds property.
The current account was then standing at £27, so I paid £26 into it,
raising it to £53, and sent Bloxham with the balance, £320, out to
Starvel. The money was in sixteen twenties, the numbers of which were
kept. As I said, it was one of the old man’s peculiarities that he
liked his money in £20 notes. I suppose it made it easier to hoard and
count. Bloxham saw Averill lock these notes away in his safe and
brought me the old man’s receipt.”