It was half-past eleven when Mr. Tracy returned; and Emily and Rose
had retired to rest. He had been called out of the room on business,
and neither of the two girls had an idea that anything painful had
occurred which might render their waiting his return either a duty or
a consolation to their father. Emily's days were days of hard labour;
of constant combat with feelings wearing and oppressive; and she first
proposed to her sister to go to bed.
"I am weary, dear Rose," she said; "weary of the world, and of myself.
Perhaps I may sleep, and that would be a blessing."
Rose hung upon her neck, and wept; but she answered not in words, for
she dared not counsel, and she could not console.
Mr. Tracy sat and wrote for some time after his return--to the
coroner, to some of the neighbouring magistrates; and then he, too,
retired to rest, excited, but not too much for sleep.
On the following morning he rose about half-past eight o'clock, and
rang his bell. It was one of the footmen who appeared, and informed
him that the valet had been summoned to attend the coroner's inquest,
which had been sitting since seven.
"It is strange they did not inform me," observed Mr. Tracy.
"Why, Sir, Taylor said he had all the papers," replied the man; "and
that it was a pity to disturb you, as you had not seemed well of
late."
"Is Sir William Winslow up?" inquired Mr. Tracy.
"No, Sir," answered the footman; "his windows are tight closed, and
his man says he often sleeps till ten."
Mr. Tracy dressed himself, and went down stairs. He found Rose alone
in the breakfast-room, making tea, after having inquired if he had
risen.
"Emily does not feel well, papa," she said; "and I advised her to
remain in bed. But what is this terrible news my maid tells me--a man
found murdered in our grounds last night?"
"Too true, my love," answered Mr. Tracy. "The coroner's inquest, it
seems, is now sitting; and I am not sure that your evidence may not be
required, Rose. I know you have a strong mind, my dear child, and a
true heart; and therefore I trust you will not let the unpleasantness
of such a circumstance pain you too much."
"My evidence!" cried Rose--"mine! What can I tell them? I saw nothing
of the matter, or you may be sure I should have told you at once."
"Of course," replied Mr. Tracy. "But it seems that Acton, the
head-gardener, must have been in the grounds, and nearly at the spot,
within a few minutes of the time when the crime was committed. He says
that he spoke with you at the basin, and then quitted the grounds at
once."
Rose now felt how dangerous a thing it is to have any concealment from
a parent. She had gone on in perfect innocence with Chandos Winslow;
she was accidentally a participator in his secret; she would have
thought it base to betray it, even if she had not loved him; yet how
much pain and embarrassment did the concealment in which she had
shared, in which she must still share, cause her at that moment. She
answered then with agitation and hesitation: "He spoke a few words to
me at the basin as I was feeding my gold-fish, and left me as if to go
from the garden. I was at the side of the pond after he quitted it. I
am sure he left the garden directly."
Mr. Tracy marked his daughter's manner, and thought it strange; but he
was not a very observant man; and his thoughts soon wandered away from
that which he concluded was some merely accidental circumstance. "I
must get some breakfast, and go down directly," he said: "so ring the
bell, my love, and pour me out some tea. Where is the inquest
sitting?" he continued, when the servant appeared.
"Down at the Cross-Keys, in the village," replied the man.
"Well, let me know when they come to view the body," rejoined Mr.
Tracy; but the footman informed him, that the part of the proceedings
which he mentioned had taken place a full hour before. Mr. Tracy then
ordered his horse in half an hour; but the first post came in earlier
that day than usual. Several letters engaged his attention first, and
then a paragraph in the newspaper; so that the horse was kept walking
up and down for fully twenty minutes. At the end of that time he
mounted and rode away; but, before he had been gone a quarter of an
hour, the butler, who had taken a cross-cut over the fields, entered
the breakfast-room, as if looking for his master.
"Papa's gone down to attend the inquest, Taylor," said Rose, who had
remained in deep thought at the table. "Tell me what has taken place?"
"Why, Ma'am, the inquest is all over," answered the butler; "and
master will find them all gone."
"But what is the verdict, then?" inquired the young lady eagerly;
"what have the jury discovered?"
"Why, I am sorry to say, Miss Rose," replied the man, who seemed to be
made very unwillingly the bearer of bad tidings, "they have given a
verdict of 'wilful murder' against Mr. Acton, our head-gardener."
"Impossible!" cried Rose, gasping for breath. "He could not be the
murderer; for he quitted the garden while I myself stood by the
basin."
"He came into it again, Miss Rose," said the butler in a sorrowful
tone; "his feet were traced straight from the haw-haw, back to the
very spot where the dead body was found. Some of his clothes were
bloody, too, and those the very clothes he had on last night. The hoe
too, with which the poor old man was killed was his; and nobody can
deny it is all very suspicious: and so they have sent him off to the
county gaol."
"Nonsense! nonsense!" cried Rose; "it was not, it could not be he;"
and darting out of the breakfast-room, she entered the adjoining
chamber, cast herself into a chair and burst into a violent fit of
tears. Then rising suddenly, she threw open the glass doors and walked
out into the grounds, as if she were half-crazed, without bonnet or
shawl. On she went straight towards the basin where the fatal event
had taken place, hurrying forward with a rapid pace, as if in hopes of
discovering something which might exculpate her lover. She had passed
through the first plantation, which lay within sight of the house, and
was then going round by the walk which bordered a little second lawn,
among the shrubberies, when she thought she heard a voice near, cry,
"Hist! hist!" and turning round, she saw coming out between two of the
stone-pines on the other side of the lawn, the gipsey-woman, Sally
Stanley.
"Rose! Rose Tracy!" cried the woman; "hark to me, pretty lady; I have
something to say to you."
"What is it?" cried Rose, advancing to meet her; "tell me, tell me
quickly! I think I shall go mad."
"Amongst the trees, amongst the trees," said the woman, "where nobody
can see us; though the gardener-people are all out of the way,
revelling, as men always do, over the misfortunes of their
fellow-creatures."
The day before, Rose would have been afraid to trust herself alone
with that woman among the shrubberies; but anxiety for him she loved
had extinguished all personal fear, and with a quick step she led the
way into a dark, narrow walk, seldom trodden.
"What is it?" she asked, as soon as they were beneath the boughs;
"what have you to tell me?"
"I saw him, as they were putting him into the chaise," said the old
woman, with a low voice; "and the constable let me ask him, what was
to become of my little boy. I knew what the answer would be well
enough; but I thought it would give him the means of speaking a word
with me."
"What did he say? what did he say?" cried Rose, totally forgetting in
her eagerness how she was committing herself to a stranger, of not the
most reputable class of society.
"He said," replied the woman, "that the boy would be taken care of by
the General, and then, in a quick whisper, he bade me 'tell her who
would be most interested in his fate' not to be alarmed; for he could
clear himself in a moment, whenever he chose to speak."
"Thank God!" cried Rose Tracy; and, clasping her hands together, she
burst into a flood of tears.
The woman stood and gazed at her with evident interest. "Ay," she said
at length, "love's a pretty thing; but yet it breaks many a heart and
turns many a brain. It turned mine once. But you'll marry him yet,
pretty lady; I know it, and I have told you so."
Her words recalled Rose to herself; and the thought of how clearly
she had exposed all the innermost feelings of her heart to that
gipsey-woman, made the blood rise to her cheek till it glowed with
crimson. Nevertheless, taking out her purse, she drew forth a
sovereign, to reward her for the relief she had given; but the woman
put it away with her hand, saying: "Not a penny--not a penny, from one
that he loves and who loves him. I will bring you news of him from
time to time. And don't you be afraid when you see the gipsies near
you; there is not one of them will hurt you. And he will be proved
innocent, depend upon it."
A thought--perhaps I ought to call it a suspicion--suddenly crossed
the mind of Rose Tracy. "Could the gipsies," she asked herself, "have
any share, or any knowledge, of the crime which had been committed?"
Here was one of them now in the garden, when she had every reason to
believe the gates were locked. Might not such have been the case with
some of the men of the tribe on the preceding evening? They were a
bold, reckless, lawless race; and any slight offence, any small
temptation, might have led them, she thought, to commit such an act.
Yet what was she to do? She was there alone with that strange woman;
there might be others near at hand. She had no proofs; she had no
legitimate cause even for imputing to her people so terrible a crime.
She dared not do it; and yet to save Chandos Winslow, what would she
not have done? A tremor came over her; and she continued for more than
a minute gazing fixedly upon the dark, sun-burnt countenance before
her, which, with all its beauty, had something wild and strange about
the eyes.
"What is the matter?" asked the gipsey at length; "what do you fear?"
"Nothing, nothing," replied Rose. "But I would only say one word to
you. Oh, if you know who has committed this crime! oh, if you can save
an innocent man by revealing the name of the guilty, I adjure you, by
all that is most sacred, to do so; I adjure you by the God that made
us, by the Mediator who saved us, by your feelings as a woman, by your
feelings as a mother, if you would not one day see your own child
condemned for crimes he did not commit, speak now, if you can give the
name of the real murderer."
"Poor thing!" answered the gipsey, "poor thing! you love him very
terribly. But be assured, that if I knew who had done this deed I
would tell it at once, even if there was no such person as Chandos
Winslow upon earth. The murdered man was a good man, and kind--kind to
me and my people, when there were few to be kind. But it will be found
out. Murdered men die; but the murder dies not; and it hunts the doer
of it to death. Murdered men are silent; but their blood cries out
from the dust, and makes itself heard. Murdered men are still; but
there is an arm stretched out to strike the murderer, which faileth
not, no, and shall never fail!"
She spoke like one inspired, with her dark eyes flashing, her round,
beautiful arm raised, and the extended finger trembling in the air;
then suddenly turning away, she left Rose silent and overpowered.