In the Dog-cart to Jutpoint.
But there's something yet to tell of the evening. It was getting
towards dusk when Isaac Thornycroft went his way to Captain Copp's
intending boldly to ask Miss Chester to take a walk with him, should
there be no chance of getting a minute with her alone at home.
The state in which he was living, touching his wife's estrangement
(not their separation, that was a present necessity), was getting
unbearable; and Isaac, who had hitherto shunned an explanation, came
to the rather sudden resolution of seeking it. Although his brother
had shot Robert Hunter, it could not be said to be a just reason for
Anna's resenting it upon _him_. Not a syllable did Isaac yet know of
the discovery that had taken place, or that Cyril was the one lying in
the churchyard.
In the free and simple community of Coastdown, doors were not kept
closed, and people entered at will. Rather, then, to Isaac's surprise,
as he turned the handle of Captain Copp's, he found it was fastened,
so that he could not enter. At the same moment his eyes met his
wife's, who had come to the window to reconnoitre. There was no help
for it, and she had to go and let him in.
"At home alone, Anna! Where are they all? Where's Sarah?"
Anna explained: bare facts only, however, not motives. It appeared
that the gallant captain, considerably lowered in his own estimation
by the events of the past night, and especially that he should be so
in the sight of his "womenkind," proposed a little jaunt that day to
Jutpoint by way of diverting their thoughts, and perhaps his own, from
the ghost and its reminiscences. His mother--recovered from her
incipient cold--she was too strong-minded a woman for diseases to
seize upon heartily--agreed readily, as did his wife. Not so Anna. She
pleaded illness, and begged to be left at home. It was indeed no false
plea, for her miserable state of mind was beginning to tell upon her.
They had been expected home in time for tea, and had not come. Anna
supposed they had contrived to miss the omnibus, which was in fact the
case, and could not now return until late. How Mrs. Sam Copp would be
brought by the churchyard was a thing easier wondered at than told. As
to Sarah, she had but now stepped out on some necessary errands to the
village.
In the satisfaction of finding the field undisturbed for the
explanation he wished entered on, Isaac said nothing about his wife
being left in the house alone, which he by no means approved of. It
was not dark yet, only dusk: but Anna said something about getting
lights.
"Not yet," said Isaac. "I want to talk to you; there's plenty of light
for that."
She sat down on the sofa; trembling, frightened, sick. If her husband
was the slayer of Robert Hunter--as she believed him to be--it was not
agreeable to be in the solitary house with him; it was equally
disagreeable to have to tell him to go out of it. Ah, but for that
terrible belief, what a happy moment this snatch of intercourse might
have been to them! this sole first chance for weeks and weeks of
being alone, when they might speak together of future plans with a
half-hour's freedom.
She took her seat on the sofa, scarcely conscious what she did in her
sick perplexity. Isaac sat down by her, put his arm round her waist,
and would have kissed her. But she drew to the other end of the large
sofa with a gesture of evident avoidance, and burst into tears. So he
got up and stood before her.
"Anna, this must end, one way or the other; it is what I came here
to-night to say. The separated condition in which we first lived after
our return was bad enough, but that was pleasant compared to what it
afterwards became. It is some weeks now since you have allowed me
barely to shake you by the hand; never if you could avoid it. Things
cannot go on so."
She made no reply. Only sat there trembling and crying, her hands
before her face.
"What have I done to you? Come, Anna, I must have an answer. What have
I done to you?"
She spoke at last, looking up. In her habit of implicit obedience,
there was no help for it; there could be none when the order came from
_him_.
"Nothing----to me."
"To whom, then? What is it?"
"Nothing," was all she repeated.
"Nothing! Do you repent having married me?"
"I don't know."
The answer seemed to pain him. He bent his handsome face a little
towards her, pushing back impatiently his golden hair, as if the fair
bright brow needed coolness.
"I thought you loved me, Anna?"
"And you know I did. Oh, that is it! The misery would be greater if I
loved you less."
"Then why do you shun me?"
"Is there not a cause why I should?" she asked in a low tone, after a
long pause.
"_I_ think not. Will you tell me what the cause may be?"
She glanced up at him, she looked down, she smoothed unconsciously the
silk apron on which her nervous hands rested, but she could not
answer. Isaac saw it, and, bending nearer to her, he spoke in a
whisper.
"Is it connected with that unhappy night--with what took place on the
plateau?"
"I think you must have known all along that it is."
"And you consider it a sufficient reason for shunning me?"
"Yes, do not _you?_"
"Certainly not."
Great though her misery was, passionately though she loved him still,
the cool assertion angered her. It gave her a courage to speak that
nothing else could have given.
"It was a dark crime; the worst crime that the world can know. Does it
not lie on your conscience?"
"No; I could not hinder it."
"Oh, Isaac! Had it been anything else; anything but _murder_, I could
have borne it. How you can bear it, and live, I cannot understand."
"Why should I make another's sin mine? No one can deplore it as I do;
but it is not my place to answer for it. I do not understand you,
Anna."
_She_ did not understand. What did his words mean?
"Did you not kill Robert Hunter?"
"_I_ kill him! You are dreaming, Anna! I was not near the spot."
"Isaac! ISAAC?"
"Child! have you been fearing _that?_"
"For nothing else, for nothing else could I have shunned you. Oh,
Isaac! my dear husband, how could the mistake arise?"
"I know not. A mistake it was; I affirm it to you before God. I was
not on the plateau at all that night."
He opened his arms, gravely smiling, and she passed into them with a
great cry. Trembling, moaning, sobbing; Isaac thought she would have
fainted. Placing her by his side on the sofa, he kept still, listening
to what she had to say.
"As I looked out of the Round Tower in the starlight, I caught a
momentary glimpse of--as I thought--you, and I saw the hand that held
the pistol take aim and fire. I thought it _was_ you, and I fainted. I
have thought it ever since. Mary Anne, in a word or two that we spoke
together, seemed to confirm it."
"Mary Anne knew it was not I. It is not in my nature to draw a pistol
on any man. Surely, Anna, you might have trusted me better!"
"Oh, what a relief!" she murmured, "what a relief!" then, as a sudden
thought seemed to strike her, she turned her face to his and spoke,
her voice hushed.
"It must have been Richard. You are alike in figure."
"Upon that point we had better be silent," he answered, in quite a
solemn tone. "It is a thing that we are not called upon to inquire
into; let us avoid it. I am innocent: will not that suffice?"
"It will more than suffice for me," she answered. "Since that night I
have been most wretched."
"You need not have feared me in any way, Anna," was the reply of Isaac
Thornycroft. "Were it possible that my hand could become stained with
the blood of a fellow-creature, I should hasten to separate from you
quicker than you could from me. Whatever else such an unhappy man may
covet, let him keep clear of wife and children."
"Forgive me, Isaac! Forgive me!"
"I have not been exempt from the follies of young men, and I related
to you the greater portion of my share of them, after we married," he
whispered. "But of dark crime I am innocent--as innocent as you are."
"Oh, Isaac! my husband, Isaac!"
He bent his face on hers, and she lay there quietly, her head nestling
in his bosom. It seemed to her like a dream of heaven after the past;
a very paradise.
"You will forgive me, won't you?" she softly breathed.
"My darling!"
But paradise cannot last for ever, as you all know; and one of them at
any rate found himself very far on this side it ere the night was much
older. As Sarah let herself into the house with her back-door key,
Isaac quitted it by the front, and bent his steps across the heath.
In passing the churchyard, he stood and looked well into it. But there
was no sign of the ghost, and Isaac went on again. How little did he
suspect that at that very selfsame moment the ghost was seated round
in the church porch, in deep conversation with his sister! Having an
errand in the village, he struck across to it; and on his final return
home a little later, he was astonished to overtake his sister at the
entrance gates of the Red Court Farm, her forehead pressed upon the
ironwork, and she sobbing as if her heart would break.
"Mary Anne! what is the matter? What brings you here?"
"Come with me," she briefly said. "If I do not tell some one, I shall
die."
Walking swiftly to one of the benches on the lawn, she sat down on it,
utterly indifferent to the rain that was beginning to fall. Isaac
followed her wonderingly. Poor thing! the whole of the previous day
and night she had really almost felt as if she should die--die from
the weight of the fearful secret, and the want of some one to confide
in. Richard was the only one who shared it, and she was debarred by
pity from talking to him.
There, with the fatal plateau in front of him, and the rain
coming down on their devoted heads, Isaac Thornycroft learnt the
whole--learnt to his dismay, his grief, his horror, that the victim
had been his much-loved brother Cyril; and that Robert Hunter was
still in life.
He took his hat off, and wiped his brow; and then held his hat before
his face, after the fashion of men going into church--held it for some
minutes. Mary Anne in her own deep emotion did not notice his.
"Isaac, don't you pity me?"
"I pity us all."
"And there will be the making it known to papa. He must be told."
"Richard will leave Coastdown for ever. He could not remain in it, he
says. I am not competent to advise him, Isaac. You must."
"Richard has never yet taken any advice but his own."
"Ah! but he is changed to-day. He has been changed a little since that
dreadful night. I suppose you have known all along that it was Richard
who--who did it?"
"Not from information: I saw that you knew; that you were in his
confidence. Of course I could not help being sure in my own mind that
it must have been Richard. I fancy"--he turned and looked full at his
sister--"that Miss Chester thought it was I."
"Yes, I know she did," was the assured answer. "It was better to let
her think so. Safer for Richard, better for you."
"Why better for me?"
"Because--it is not a moment to be reticent, Isaac--Anna Chester once
appeared too much inclined to like you. That would never do, you
know."
He turned his head away; a soft remembrance parting his lips, a look
of passionate love, meant for his absent wife, lighting his eyes.
"You will get wet sitting here, Mary Anne."
She arose, and they went indoors. Isaac was passing straight through
to the less-used rooms when his sister stopped him.
Rooms that would never have been closed to the rest of the house, but
for the smuggling practices so long carried on by the Thornycroft
family. In the rooms themselves there was absolutely nothing that
could have led to betrayal, or any reason why they might not have been
open to all the household: but it was necessary to keep that part of
the house closed always, except to Mr. Thornycroft and his sons, lest
it should have been penetrated to at the few exceptional times when
the cargo was being run, or the dog-cart laden subsequently with the
spoil. When once the cargo was safely lodged in the cavern within the
rocks, it might remain there in security to some convenient time for
removing it. This was always done at night. Richard and Isaac
Thornycroft, Tomlett and Hyde, brought up sufficient of the parcels to
fill the dog-cart, which one of the sons, sometimes both, would then
drive away with and deposit with Hopley, their agent at Dartfield,
whose business it was to convey the booty to its final destination.
The next night more would be taken away, and so on. Sometimes so large
was the trade done, so swift were the operations, that one cargo would
not be all sent away before another was landed. At another period
perhaps three months elapsed and no boat came in. With this frequent
going out by night with the dog-cart, no wonder the young Thornycrofts
got the credit of being loose in their habits, and that the justice
encouraged the notion.
The sumptuous dinners at the Red Court Farm (or suppers, according to
the convenience and time of year) were kept up as a sort of covering
to the illicit doings. When the gentlemen of the neighbourhood,
including the superintendent of the coastguard, had their legs under
the hospitable board, or the servants subsequently under theirs in the
kitchen, they could not be wandering about out of doors, seeing
inexpedient things. It was not often of late years Mr. Thornycroft
aided in the run; he left it to Richard and Isaac, and stayed with his
guests. On the night Lady Ellis saw him he had gone out, found there
was a sea fog, and came in again; denying it afterwards to her (as
faithful Hyde had done) lest she should next question why he changed
his coat and put on leggings.
The late superintendent, Mr. Dangerfield, had allowed rule to get lax
altogether, but he had, of course, a certain amount of watching kept
up. On the occasion of a dinner or supper at the Red Court (always
given when a cargo was waiting to be run), Mr. Dangerfield would
contrive to let his men know that he was going to it; as a matter of
fact, not a man troubled himself to go near the plateau that night;
the Mermaid had them instead; and all too often it happened that one
of the young Mr. Thornycrofts would go in and stand treat. No fear of
the men's stirring any more than their master. But from the fact of
the Half-moon beach being visible only from the plateau, and for the
supernatural tales connected with the latter, they had never escaped
being seen so long as they did.
The ghostly stories--not of Robert Hunter--had done more than all to
prevent discovery. It could not be said that the Thornycrofts raised
them in the first place; they did not; but when they perceived how
valuable an adjunct they were likely to prove, they took care to keep
them up. Report went that the late Mrs. Thornycroft had died from the
fears induced by superstition. It was as well to keep up that belief
also; but she had died from nothing of the sort. What she had really
died of--so to say--was the smuggling. When the discovery came to her
at first, through an accident, of the practices carried on by her
husband and sons--as they had been by her husband's brother and his
father before him--it brought a great shock. A timid, right-minded,
refined woman, the dread of discovery was perpetually upon her
afterwards; she lived in a state of inward fear night and day; and
this most probably induced the disorder of which she died--a weakness
that got gradually worse and worse, and ended in death. When she was
dying, not before, she told them it had killed her. Had Mr.
Thornycroft known of it earlier, he might have given it up for her
sake, for he was a fond husband. But he had not known of it; and her
death and its unhappy cause left upon them a great sorrow: one that
could not be put away. The same grief at the practices, and dread of
what a persistence in them might bring forth, had likewise lain on
Cyril, and been the secret of his declining to take Orders so long as
they should be carried on. Mr. Thornycroft himself was getting
somewhat tired of it, as he told Cyril; he had made plenty of money,
but Richard would not hear of their being given up.
Perhaps from habit more than anything else, Isaac was passing on to
the back rooms, but Mary Anne arrested him. "Stay with me a little
while, Isaac; you do not know how lonely it is for me now."
He acquiesced at once. He was ever good-natured and kind, and they
turned into the sitting-room, she calling a servant to take her shawl
and bonnet. Not empty, as she had anticipated, was the parlour, for
Richard was there.
"I have told Isaac all," said Mary Anne, briefly. And Isaac, in his
great compassion, went up to his brother and laid his hand on him
kindly.
Poor Richard Thornycroft! His eyes hollow, his brow fevered, his hands
burning, he paced there still in his terrible remorse. A consuming
fire had set in, to prey upon him for all time. He spoke a few
disjointed words to Isaac, as if in extenuation.
"I felt half maddened at Hunter's duplicity of conduct that night. I
had warned him that I would shoot him if he went again on the plateau,
and I thought I was justified in doing so. _Why_ did Cyril put the
coat on?"
"Let this be a consolation to you, Richard--that you did not intend,
to harm your brother," was all the comfort Isaac could give.
"Had it been any one but my brother! had it been any but my brother!"
was the wailing answer. "The curse of Cain rests upon me."
Walking about still in his restlessness as he said it! He had never
sat, or lain, or rested since leaving the churchyard the previous
night, but paced about as one in the very depths of despair. Mary Anne
slipped the bolt of the door, and they began to consult as to the
future. At this dread consultation, every word of which will linger in
the remembrance of the three during life, Richard decided upon his
plans. To remain in the neighbourhood of the fatal scene, ever again
to look upon the Half-moon beach where the dead had lain, he felt
would drive him mad. In Australia he might in time find something like
rest.
"I shall leave to-night," said he.
"To-night!" echoed Isaac, in great surprise. Richard nodded. "You will
drive me to Jutpoint, won't you, Isaac?"
"If you must really go."
"And when shall we see you again?" inquired Mary Anne.
"Never again."
"Never again! never again!" she repeated, with a moan. "Oh Richard,
never again!"
It was a shock to Mr. Thornycroft, when he drove home an hour later
from Jutpoint, to find his eldest and (as people had looked upon it)
his favourite son waiting to bid him farewell for ever. They did not
disclose to him the fearful secret--either that it was Cyril who had
died, or that it was Richard who had shot him--leaving that to be
revealed later. They said Richard had fallen into a serious scrape,
which could only be kept quiet by his quitting the place for a few
years, and begged him not to inquire particulars; that the less said
about it the better. Justice Thornycroft obeyed in his surprise, for
the communication had half stunned him.
And so they parted. Once more in the middle of the night--in the
little hours intervening between dark and dawn--the dog-cart was
driven out from the Red Court Farm: not bearing this time a quantity
of valuable lace or other booty, but simply a portmanteau of
Richard's, with a few articles of clothing flung hastily into it. He
sat low down in the seat, his hat over his brows, his arms folded, his
silence stern. And thus Isaac, on the high cushion by his side, drove
him to Jutpoint to catch the early morning train.