Red, or Green?
The inquest on those killed by the railway accident took place on the
Tuesday morning. Numbers were attracted to the spot, impatient to hear
the evidence. Reports had been busy as to the conflicting nature of
the testimony expected to be given, and excitement was at its height.
While one party openly asserted that Cooper, the driver, was falsely
trying to "whiten" himself, and so avoid punishment for his
carelessness; the stationmaster was less loudly accused of having
been the one in fault, and with "taking away the man's character."
Amidst the crowd, meeting at Coombe Dalton, were Mr. Lake and Oliver
Jupp: the one went from Guild, the other from Katterley. Oliver Jupp,
with his sisters, said adieu to Mrs. Chester on the Monday evening,
and returned home: Mr. Lake and his wife stayed at Guild. Curiosity or
interest in the proceedings, or opposition in their own opinions, took
them both. Mr. Lake felt certain that Cooper spoke truth in saying the
green light was exhibited, not the red; would have been ready to stake
his life upon it. Oliver Jupp, relying upon his own eyesight, upheld
the side of the stationmaster. Each one had maintained tenaciously
his own opinion when discussing the affair at Mrs. Chester's; and they
would not have missed the inquest for the world.
In the largest room that the small inn at Coombe Dalton could afford,
the coroner and jury assembled, and proceedings commenced. About the
cause of death there could be no doubt; and it needed not the
testimony of old Dr. Marlow, of Katterley, who had been the first
doctor to arrive at the spot on the Sunday night, to prove it.
However, the requirements of law must be obeyed, and he was there with
sundry of his brethren. Next came the evidence as to the cause of the
accident.
The stationmaster, one porter, and a "switchman," comprised the
officials who had been at the station on the Sunday night. They all
gave their testimony in a very positive and unequivocal manner: that
the red lights were exhibited to give warning of danger, and that the
train, in reckless defiance of the red, came dashing on, and so caused
the catastrophe.
"What was the danger?" officially inquired the coroner.
"Some trucks were on the line just beyond the station, and had to be
shunted," replied the stationmaster. "Three minutes would have done
it; and the train would not have been kept waiting longer than that,
had it only stopped."
"What brought the trucks on the line just as the train was expected to
pass?"
"They couldn't be shunted before, because the coal waggons were in the
way."
"Why were the coal waggons there just then?"
"Because an engine had gone on and left them there."
And so on; and so on--engine, and coal waggons, and shunting, and
trucks. It was like "the house that Jack built." Nobody had been in
fault, apparently, or done anything wrong, except the miserable train
that had dashed on to its destruction, and its still more miserable
driver, Matthew Cooper.
Cooper came forward and asked leave to give his evidence. The coroner
cautioned him; he thought he had better not; it might be used against
him. But Cooper persisted; and he stood there to say what he had to
say, his pale face, surrounded by its bandages, earnest and anxious.
"I'll say nothing but the truth, sir. If that is to be used against
me, why I can't help it. I'd not tell a lie even to screen myself."
He took his own course, and gave his evidence. It was to the effect
that the green lights were exhibited as usual that night, not the red.
The coroner felt a little staggered. He knew Cooper to be a steady,
reliable, truth-telling man. One of the witnesses observed, as if in
continuation of what Cooper had just said, that "Mat Cooper wouldn't
tell a lie to screen himself from nothing." The coroner had hitherto
believed the same.
"Did you look at the lights?" he asked of Cooper.
"I looked at both, sir. The lamp that was at the near end of the
station, and the lamp on the signal-post beyond it."
"And you say they were the green lights?"
"That they were, sir. The same green lights that are always up. He had
taken the light off the post, and was swaying it about, and I couldn't
conceive what he was doing it for."
"But here are three witnesses, the stationmaster and the two men, who
have sworn that the red signals were up, and not the green," persisted
the coroner. "It is very strange that you should maintain the
contrary."
"The three may be in a league together to say so, and hide their own
negligence," audibly interposed the voice of some zealous partisan
from the most crowded part of the room. Upon which the coroner
threatened to commit anybody so interrupting, for contempt of himself
and the court.
"All I can say is, sir, that there was no difference, that night, in
the lights from those exhibited on other nights," returned Cooper.
"They were the green lights, and not the red; and if I had to die next
minute, I'd say it."
Which was altogether unsatisfactory to the coroner and puzzling to the
jury. Most of them knew Cooper well, and would have trusted him; his
voice and face, now as he spoke, bore their own testimony to his
truth. On the other side, the three station people, who were not to be
discredited, gave him the lie direct.
"Did you see the red light swung about?" continued the coroner.
"No, sir. I saw the green; and I couldn't think what it was being
swung about for."
Cooper held to this, and nothing more could be got from him--that is,
nothing to a different effect. He would have descanted on its being
the green light until night, had the coroner allowed him. When he was
done with, a gentleman presented himself for examination. It was
Colonel West.
"Can you state anything about this matter, Colonel?" asked the
coroner, when he had exchanged bows with the voluntary witness.
"Yes, I can, if you will allow me to be sworn." And sworn he was.
"In anxiety to see justice done to the driver, I have come here to
offer my testimony," began the colonel, addressing the coroner and
jury. "I am enabled to state that the light exhibited on the
signal-post, and which the man took down and swayed about, was green.
When the driver asserts that it was not red, he speaks the truth."
Some excitement. The coroner drew in his lips, the jury put their
heads together. Colonel West stood bolt upright, waiting to be
questioned.
"Were you at the station?" inquired the coroner of the witness.
"No; I was in my garden, which is precisely opposite the signal-post
on the other side of the line. I was walking about in it, smoking a
cigar. I heard the train approaching, and I saw the man take the lamp
off the post, lean forward, and swing it about, evidently to attract
attention. A minute afterwards the accident happened."
"And you say this was not the red light?"
"It was not. It was the light that is generally up, the green."
The coroner gave an expressive look at the stationmaster, which spoke
volumes, and the latter looked red and indignant. Colonel West
reiterated his assertion, as if willing that all should be impressed
with the truth, and with the injustice attempted to be dealt to
Cooper. Then he stood down.
There ensued a commotion: at least, if numerous tongues can constitute
it. The coroner interposed to stop it and restore order. When the
noise had subsided, Oliver Jupp was standing by the table in Colonel
West's place. One of the jury inquired of him why he was put forward.
"I don't know," returned Oliver. "Somebody pushed me up. I happened to
mention that I saw the light in question exhibited and swayed about: I
suppose it is for that."
"Oh, you saw it, did you," said the coroner. "Swear this witness."
Oliver Jupp took the oath accordingly, and the coroner began.
"Which light was it, the red or the green?"
"The red."
There was a pause. Perhaps more than one present thought of the old
fable of the chameleon. The room fixed its eyes on Oliver Jupp.
"From whence did you see it?" demanded the coroner.
"I was in the train returning from Guild. As we got to Coombe Dalton
station I looked out at the window, and saw a red light being waved
about. I remarked it to my sisters, who were in the carriage with me,
and one of them observed that if it was the red light there must be
danger. The accident occurred almost as she spoke."
"Are you sure it was the red light, sir?" inquired one of the jury,
all of whom had been so particularly impressed with Colonel West's
evidence.
"Certain."
"And of course he could have no motive in saying anything but the
truth," remarked the juryman to another, who seemed in a state of
perplexity.
"I a motive!" haughtily observed Oliver, taking up the words. "I am
put here simply to state what I saw, I expect; neither more nor less.
I am sorry to give evidence that may tell against Cooper, who is
respected in Katterley, but I am bound to say that it was the red
light."
"Don't you think you might have been mistaken, sir?" came the next
query; for Oliver Jupp's word, a young and little man, bore less
weight than Colonel West's, who counted five-and-fifty years, and
stood six feet two in his stockings.
"I was not mistaken. It was the red light."
Colonel West was recalled. What else could they do in the dilemma? He
stood forward, and Oliver Jupp hid his head amid the ignoble crowd
close behind.
With an apology for the apparent doubt, the same question was put to
him. Did he think _he_ could have been mistaken in supposing the light
was the green.
"Not a bit of it," the colonel answered, with good-humoured
equanimity. The lights exhibited that night were the same that always
were exhibited--green. The light he saw swayed about was the green.
"Well," exclaimed the coroner, "there's hard swearing somewhere."
And hard swearing there certainly appeared to be. As a spectator
audibly remarked, "one could not find an end out of it." The coroner
got impatient.
"It is impossible at the present stage to come to any satisfactory
conclusion, gentlemen of the jury," he observed; "and I think we had
better adjourn the inquiry, when other witnesses may be forthcoming."
Adjourned it was accordingly for a fortnight.
"But for Colonel West they'd have had it all against me," remarked
Cooper, who was feeling himself wronged.
"But for Colonel West there'd have been no further bother," cried the
aggrieved stationmaster, who thought Cooper ought to have been
committed for trial on the spot.
It was certainly singular that the only two witnesses, apart from
those interested, should testify so positively in exact opposition to
each other. As the spectators poured out of the inquest-room, they
formed into knots to discuss it. Neither the one nor the other had any
interest to favour the station people or to screen Cooper; and,
indeed, both were above suspicion of anything of the sort. Colonel
West had never before heard of Cooper; Oliver Jupp knew him, and was
evidently sorry to give evidence against him. On the other hand,
Oliver Jupp did not know the stationmaster, while Colonel West was
friendly with him.
"Will you go back with me to Guild, and stay the rest of the day?"
asked Mr. Lake, putting his arm within Oliver Jupp's.
"Can't," returned Oliver. "Promised them at home to get back with the
verdict as soon as it was over."
"But there is no verdict."
"All the same; they'll want to know the why and the wherefore."
"As if you could not keep the girls waiting for once!"
"It's not the girls, it's the old folks; and Guild has no charms for
me today. Lydia Clapperton's gone."
Mr. Lake laughed. "I say, Jupp, how could you swear so hard about the
lights?"
"They swore me. I didn't ask for it."
"I mean against Cooper."
"You would not have me say the light was green when it was red?"
"Colonel West says it was green; he was close to it."
"Moonshine," quietly repeated Oliver. "What on earth causes him to say
it I can't make out. Look there"--holding out the end of the cigar he
had lighted, and was smoking--"what colour do you call that?"
"Red. All the world could tell that."
"Why don't you say it's green?"
"Because it is not green."
"Just so. Neither was the red lamp."
"Cooper is a reliable man; I don't believe the poor fellow would tell
a lie to save himself from hanging; and Colonel West is of known
honour; both of them assert that the lights were green."
"I swear that the light exhibited and swung about was _red_," retorted
Oliver Jupp. "There; let it drop. Are you and Mrs. Lake coming home
to-night?"
"No. It was uncertain what time I might reach Guild after the inquest,
and Mrs. Chester seized upon it as a plea for urging us to remain
another night. She wants us to stay for the week, but I don't think we
shall. Clara seems rather averse to it."
They parted at the station. Oliver Jupp taking the train for
Katterley: and with him we have nothing more to do at present. Mr.
Lake got into the train for Guild.
Upon arriving at Mrs. Chester's he found the house empty. Going from
room to room in search of them, he at length came upon Anna Chester,
mending socks and pinafores.
"Where are they all?"
"I think they have gone to see the late rose show," she said; "there's
one in the town today."
He stood by while she folded some pinafores she had finished. Her
hands were quick; her sweet face was full of patient gentleness.
"It is not the right thing for you, Anna."
"It is pleasant work. I have been obliged to be useful all my life,
you know."
"I don't mean that. Why should you be left at home, while they all go
to a flower-show?"
A bloom, bright as any rose in the famous show, shone in the girl's
cheeks. She loved flowers, and looked up with a happy expression.
"Perhaps time will be found for me to go tomorrow; mamma said so. It
will be only sixpence then."
"And today it's a shilling, I suppose?"
"Yes."
Mr. Lake nodded his head once or twice in a rather marked manner, but
did not give utterance to his thoughts, whatever they might be. Anna
resumed.
"I do all the work I can--of sewing and other kinds. It has cost mamma
so much to get into this house, with the new things she has been
obliged to buy, that she says she is nearly ruined. With Lady Ellis
here, and only two servants, we could not get along at all but for my
looking to everything."
Mr. Lake went off muttering something about Penelope's selfishness.
That Anna was put upon quite like another Cinderella he had long
known, and his sense of fairness rose up against it.
"If the girl was a tyrant she'd not have stood it for a day," he
cried, as he flung himself down on a bench and raked the gravel with
his cane. "A meek temper is a misfortune."
A short while, and he heard the keys of the piano touched in the
drawing-room; a soft, sweet, musical voice broke out gently in song.
He knew it for Anna's. She had finished her work, and was snatching a
moment for music, having come in to get the table ready for tea. The
open piano tempted her. Mr. Lake listened through the song--an old
one; and put his head in at the window as she was rising.
"Sing another for me, Anna."
She started round with a blush. To believe you are singing for
yourself, and then to find you have an audience, is not agreeable.
"Oh, Mr. Lake! I did not know you were there."
"Just another, Anna."
"I cannot sing for you. I know only old songs."
"They are better than the new ones. The one you have just sung, 'Ye
banks and braes,' is worth any ten that have been issued of late
years."
"I feel quite ashamed to sing them before people; I am laughed at when
I do. Lady Ellis stopped her ears this morning. Papa loved the old
songs, and he did not care that I should sing new ones; so I never
learnt any."
He took up a book of music much worn, "Old songs," as Anna called
them. Her mother used to sing them in her youth, and the Reverend
James Chester had learnt to love them. "Robin Adair," "The Banks of
Allan Water," "Pray Goody," "The Baron of Mowbray," "She never blamed
him," "The Minstrel-boy," and many others.
It was in his hand, and Anna stood looking over his shoulder, laughing
at what Mrs. Chester sometimes called the "ancient bygones." On the
table lay a drawing that Anna had done, betraying talent; the more
especially when it was remembered that she could never sit to that, or
anything else, for five minutes at a time. Up and down continually:
called by Mrs. Chester, called by the children, called by the
servants. She had never had a lesson in drawing in her life, she had
never learnt to sing; what she did do was the result of native
aptitude for it.
Mr. Lake had the drawing in his hand when the party entered, trooping
in unceremoniously through the window, the children first. Lady
Ellis's black-lace shawl was draped around her in its usual artistic
fashion, and she wore a bonnet that could not by any stretch of
imaginative politeness be construed into a widow's. Clara was with
her, her refined face bright and radiant. The two were evidently on
good terms with each other.
Mrs. Chester did not enter with them. Her household cares worried her,
now that things must wear a good appearance for the new inmate, Lady
Ellis. She came in presently from the hall, a cross look on her face,
and spoke sharply to Anna. Selfish naturally, made intensely so by her
struggle to get along, Mrs. Chester appeared to think that for her
step-daughter to be in the drawing-room and not in the kitchen, though
it were but for a few minutes in the day, was a heinous crime.
"Robert," she said, addressing her brother, "I wish you'd come up to
my room while I take my bonnet off. I have a letter to show you."
He followed her dutifully, just as he used when he was a little boy
and she a woman grown. Mrs. Chester's room, which she shared with
Fanny, was small and inconvenient. Sweeping a host of things off a
chair to the floor in her untidy way, she graciously told him he might
sit there, but he preferred to perch himself on a corner of the
dressing-table.
"I'm torn to pieces with indecision and uncertainty," she began,
taking a letter from a drawer. "I begin to think now it might have
been better had I adhered to my first thought--that of taking pupils.
Only look at the thing I have missed!"
He held out his hand for the letter, which she struck as she spoke. In
her dictatorial manner she preferred to read it to him, and waved his
hand away.
"The Red Court Farm, Coastdown.
"MADAM,
"I have been advised to write to you by my friends here, Captain
and Mrs. Copp. They think you are making arrangements to receive
half-a-dozen first-class pupils to educate with your own daughter. I am
in search of something of the sort for my daughter, Miss Thornycroft,
and it is possible that your house may be found suitable. She will
require the best advantages, for which I shall expect to pay
accordingly.
"With your permission I will drive over one of these first days and
see you.
"And I am, madam,
"Your obedient servant,
"HARRY THORNYCROFT.
"Mrs. Chester."
"Who is Harry Thornycroft?" were Mr. Lake's first words when her voice
ceased.
"I should have been as much at fault to know as you, but for a note
Anna has had from Mr. Copp, giving a little explanation. Mr.
Thornycroft is the great man of Coastdown, it seems; a county
magistrate, very influential, and very rich. Mrs. Copp thinks he would
pay quite two hundred a year with his daughter."
"And Mrs. Copp--who is she?" repeated Mr. Lake. "And where in the name
of geography is Coastdown?"
"We shall never get on if you bother like this," returned Mrs.
Chester, irascibly. "Mrs. Copp and Anna's mother were related, and
Coastdown is a little place on the sea, about two-and-twenty miles
from here. Only fancy--only _think_--two hundred a year with the first
pupil! If I only got three others at the same terms there'd be eight
hundred a year at once--a thousand with my own income. It would be
quite delightful."
"But that's reckoning your chickens before they are hatched."
"I might have known that you'd throw some mocking slight upon it," was
the angry retort.
"No mocking slight at all, Penelope. I do not mean it as such. Of
course, if you could get four or six pupils at two hundred a year
each, it would be a jolly good thing. Only--I fancy pupils on those
terms are not so readily picked up."
"_One_, at any rate, seems ready to drop into my hands. Should Miss
Thornycroft not be placed with me after this, I shall look upon life
as very hard."
"Can't you take her, should they offer her to you, and trust to good
luck for finding others?"
"Then what am I to do about Lady Ellis?"
"Keep her also, if she will stay."
"But she would not. I sounded her this morning. Not as if I had a
personal interest in the question. Anything like a school was her
especial abhorrence, she said. She'd not enter a house where teaching
was carried on for the world."
"So that you have to choose between the young lady with her two
hundred a year and Lady Ellis?"
"In a sense, yes. But I have a difficult game to play. It strikes me
that at the very first mention of a _probable_ pupil Lady Ellis would
take fright and leave. Now, you know, Robert, I have not got Miss
Thornycroft yet, or even the promise of her; and it might happen that
the negotiation would drop through. Where should I be in that case,
with Lady Ellis gone?"
"On the ground, fallen between two stools," was Mr. Robert Lake's
irreverent answer.
It angered Mrs. Chester; but she had an end to serve, and let it pass.
"I want you and your wife to do me a favour, Robert. Stay here for a
week or two with us, paying me, of course; you know what my
circumstances are. My heart would be good to keep you, but my pocket
is not. I am so afraid of Lady Ellis finding the place dull. She has
come for a month to see how she likes it. I forget whether I told you
this yesterday. On Monday, when we were talking together after her
arrival, she said to me, 'You will allow me to stay a month to see if
the place will suit me: if it does, we will then make our agreement.'
What could I say?"
"And you fear it may not suit her?"
"I fear she will find it dull. She said this morning she thought the
house would be triste but for the presence in it of Mr. and Mrs. Lake.
Now, you do me a good turn, and stay a week or two."
"I'd stay fast enough, Penelope--there's the fishing; but I don't know
about Clara. You must talk to her."
"You must talk to her," returned Mrs. Chester. "Nobody else has a
tenth of the influence over her that you have."
"I'll see," said Mr. Lake, alighting from the dressing-table. "We'll
stay a day or two longer, at any rate: I know I can promise that."
Mr. Lake went straight to his wife, and recounted to her, word for
word as nearly as he could recollect, what Mrs. Chester had said.
There was nothing covert in his disposition: his fault, if it was a
fault, was undisguised openness. But he did not urge the matter one
way or the other. Clara looked grave at the proposition, and he left
it to her.
"I said we would remain a day or two longer, Clara. I thought you
would not object to that, as it is to do her, as she fancies, good."
"I don't mind staying to the end of the week, Robert, now we are here.
We will go home on Saturday, if you like."
"All right." And Mr. Lake strolled away in his careless lightness.