THE WILLOW POND.
Before the sun had well set, the family at Verner's Pride were
assembling for dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Verner, and John Massingbird:
neither Lionel Verner nor Frederick Massingbird was present. The usual
custom appeared somewhat reversed on this evening: while roving John
would be just as likely to absent himself from dinner as not, his
brother and Lionel Verner nearly always appeared at it. Mr. Verner
looked surprised.
"Where are they?" he cried, as he waited to say grace.
"Mr. Lionel has not come in, sir," replied the butler, Tynn, who was
husband to the housekeeper.
"And Fred has gone out to keep some engagement with Sibylla West," spoke
up Mrs. Verner. "She is going to spend the evening at the Bitterworths,
and Fred promised, I believe, to see her safely thither. He will take
his dinner when he comes in."
Mr. Verner bent his head, said the grace, and the dinner began.
Later--but not much later, for it was scarcely dark yet--Rachel Frost
was leaving the house to pay a visit in the adjoining village, Deerham.
Her position may be at once explained. It was mentioned in the last
chapter that Mr. Verner had had one daughter, who died young. The mother
of Rachel Frost had been this child's nurse, Rachel being an infant at
the same time, so that the child, Rachel Verner, and Rachel Frost--named
after her--had been what is called foster-sisters. It had caused Mr.
Verner, and his wife also while she lived, to take an interest in Rachel
Frost; it is very probable that their own child's death only made this
interest greater. They were sufficiently wise not to lift the girl
palpably out of her proper sphere; but they paid for a decent education
for her at a day-school, and were personally kind to her. Rachel--I
was going to say fortunately, but it may be as just to say
_un_fortunately--was one of those who seem to make the best of every
trifling advantage: she had grown, without much effort of her own, into
what might be termed a lady, in appearance, in manners, and in speech.
The second Mrs. Verner also took an interest in her; and nearly a year
before this period, on Rachel's eighteenth birthday, she took her to
Verner's Pride as her own attendant.
A fascinating, lovable child had Rachel Frost ever been: she was a
fascinating, lovable girl. Modest, affectionate, generous, everybody
liked Rachel; she had not an enemy, so far as was known, in all Deerham.
Her father was nothing but a labourer on the Verner estate; but in mind
and conduct he was superior to his station; an upright, conscientious,
and, in some degree, a proud man: her mother had been dead several
years. Rachel was proud too, in her way; proud and sensitive.
Rachel, dressed in her bonnet and shawl, passed out of the house by the
front entrance. She would not have presumed to do so by daylight; but it
was dusk now, the family not about, and it cut off a few yards of the
road to the village. The terrace--which you have heard of as running
along the front of the house--sloped gradually down at either end to the
level ground, so as to admit the approach of carriages.
Riding up swiftly to the door, as Rachel appeared at it, was a gentleman
of some five or six and twenty years. Horse and man both looked
thoroughbred. Tall, strong, and slender, with a keen, dark blue eye, and
regular features of a clear, healthy paleness, he--the man--would draw a
second glance to himself wherever he might be met. His face was not
inordinately handsome; nothing of the sort; but it wore an air of
candour, of noble truth. A somewhat impassive face in repose, somewhat
cold; but, in speaking, it grew expressive to animation, and the frank
smile that would light it up made its greatest charm. The smile stole
over it now, as he checked his horse and bent towards Rachel.
"Have they thought me lost? I suppose dinner is begun?"
"Dinner has been in this half-hour, sir."
"All right. I feared they might wait. What's the matter, Rachel? You've
been making your eyes red."
"The matter! There's nothing the matter with me, Mr. Lionel," was
Rachel's reply, her tone betraying a touch of annoyance. And she turned
and walked swiftly along the terrace, beyond reach of the glare of the
gas-lamp.
Up stole a man at this moment, who must have been hidden amid the
pillars of the portico, watching the transient meeting, watching for an
opportunity to speak. It was Roy, the bailiff; and he accosted the
gentleman with the same complaint, touching the ill-doings of the
Dawsons and the village in general, that had previously been carried to
Mr. Verner by Frederick Massingbird.
"I was told to wait and take my orders from you, sir," he wound up with.
"The master don't like to be troubled, and he wouldn't give none."
"Neither shall I give any," was the answer, "until I know more about
it."
"They ought to be got out to-night, Mr. Lionel!" exclaimed the man,
striking his hand fiercely against the air. "They sow all manner of
incendiarisms in the place, with their bad example."
"Roy," said Lionel Verner, in a quiet tone, "I have not, as you know,
interfered actively in the management of things. I have not opposed my
opinion against my uncle's, or much against yours; I have not come
between you and him. When I have given orders, they have been his
orders, not mine. But many things go on that I disapprove of; and I tell
you very candidly that, were I to become master to-morrow, my first act
would be to displace you, unless you could undertake to give up these
nasty acts of petty oppression."
"Unless some of 'em was oppressed and kept under, they'd be for riding
roughshod over the whole of us," retorted Roy.
"Nonsense!" said Lionel. "Nothing breeds rebellion like oppression. You
are too fond of oppression, Roy, and Mr. Verner knows it."
"They be a idle, poaching, good-for-nothing lot, them Dawsons," pursued
Roy. "And now that they be behind-hand with their rent, it is a glorious
opportunity to get rid of 'em. I'd turn 'em into the road, without a bed
to lie on, this very night!"
"How would you like to be turned into the road, without a bed to lie
on?" demanded Lionel.
"Me!" returned Roy, in deep dudgeon. "Do you compare me to that Dawson
lot? When I give cause to be turned out, then I hope I may be turned
out, sir, that's all. Mr. Lionel," he added, in a more conciliating
tone, "I know better about out-door things than you, and I say it's
necessary to be shut of the Dawsons. Give me power to act in this."
"I will not," said Lionel. "I forbid you to act in it at all, until the
circumstances shall have been inquired into."
He sprung from his horse, flung the bridle to the groom, who was at that
moment coming forward, and strode into the house with the air of a young
chieftain. Certainly Lionel Verner appeared fitted by nature to be the
heir of Verner's Pride.
Rachel Frost, meanwhile, gained the road and took the path to the left
hand; which would lead her to the village. Her thoughts were bent on
many sources, not altogether pleasant, one of which was the annoyance
she had experienced at finding her name coupled with that of the
bailiff's son, Luke Roy. There was no foundation for it. She had
disliked Luke, rather than liked him, her repugnance to him no doubt
arising from the very favour he felt disposed to show to her; and her
account of past matters to the bailiff was in accordance with the facts.
As she walked along, pondering, she became aware that two people were
advancing towards her in the dark twilight. She knew them instantly,
almost by intuition, but they were too much occupied with each other yet
to have noticed her. One was Frederick Massingbird, and the young lady
on his arm was his cousin, Sibylla West, a girl young and fascinating as
was Rachel. Mr. Frederick Massingbird had been suspected of a liking,
more than ordinary, for this young lady; but he had protested in
Rachel's hearing, as in that of others, that his was only cousin's love.
Some impulse prompted Rachel to glide in at a field-gate which she was
then passing, and stand behind the hedge until they should have gone
by. Possibly she did not care to be seen.
It was a still night, and their voices were borne distinctly to Rachel
as they slowly advanced. The first words to reach her came from the
young lady.
"You will be going out after him, Frederick. That will be the next thing
I expect."
"Sibylla," was the answer, and his accents bore that earnest, tender,
confidential tone which of itself alone betrays love, "be you very sure
of one thing: that I go neither there nor elsewhere without taking you."
"Oh, Frederick, is not John enough to go?"
"If I saw a better prospect there than here, I should follow him. After
he has arrived and is settled, he will write and report. My darling, I
am ever thinking of the future for your sake."
"But is it not a dreadful country? There are wolves and bears in it that
eat people up."
Frederick Massingbird slightly laughed at the remark. "Do you think I
would take my wife into the claws of wolves and bears?" he asked, in a
tone of the deepest tenderness. "She will be too precious to me for
that, Sibylla."
The voices and the footsteps died away in the distance, and Rachel came
out of her hiding-place, and went quickly on towards the village. Her
father's cottage was soon gained. He did not live alone. His only son,
Robert--who had a wife and family--lived with him. Robert was the son of
his youth; Rachel the daughter of his age; the children of two wives.
Matthew Frost's wife had died in giving birth to Robert, and twenty
years elapsed ere he married a second. He was seventy years of age now,
but still upright as a dart, with a fine fresh complexion, a clear
bright eye, and snow-white hair that fell in curls behind, on the collar
of his white smock-frock.
He was sitting at a small table apart when Rachel entered, a candle and
a large open Bible on it. A flock of grandchildren crowded round him,
two of them on his knees. He was showing them the pictures. To gaze
wonderingly on those pictures, and never tire of asking explanations of
their mysteries, was the chief business of the little Frosts' lives.
Robert's wife--but he was hardly ever called anything but Robin--was
preparing something over the fire for the evening meal. Rachel went up
and kissed her father. He scattered the children from him to make room
for her. He loved her dearly. Robin loved her dearly. When Robin was a
grown-up young man the pretty baby had come to be his plaything. Robin
seemed to love her still better than he loved his own children.
"Thee'st been crying, child!" cried old Matthew Frost. "What has ailed
thee?"
Had Rachel known that the signs of her past tears were so palpable as to
call forth remark from everybody she met, as it appeared they were
doing, she might have remained at home. Putting on a gay face, she
laughed off the matter. Matthew pressed it.
"Something went wrong at home, and I got a scolding," said Rachel at
length. "It was not worth crying over, though."
Mrs. Frost turned round from her saucepan.
"A scolding from the missis, Rachel?"
"There's nobody else at Verner's Pride should scold me," responded
Rachel, with a charming little air of self-consequence. "Mrs. Verner
said a cross word or two, and I was so stupid as to burst out crying. I
have had a headache all day, and that's sure to put me out of sorts."
"There's always things to worry one in service, let it be ever so good
on the whole," philosophically observed Mrs. Frost, bestowing her
attention again upon the saucepan. "Better be one's own missus on a
crust, say I, than at the beck and call of others."
"Rachel," interrupted old Matthew, "when I let you go to Verner's Pride,
I thought it was for your good. But I'd not keep you there a day, child,
if you be unhappy."
"Dear father, don't take up that notion," she quickly rejoined. "I am
happier at Verner's Pride than I should be anywhere else. I would not
leave it. Where is Robin this evening?"
"Robin--"
The answer was interrupted by the entrance of Robin himself. A short man
with a red face, somewhat obstinate-looking. His eye lighted up when he
saw Rachel; Mrs. Frost poured out the contents of her saucepan, which
appeared to be a compound of Scotch oatmeal and treacle. Rachel was
invited to take some, but declined. She lifted one of the children on
her knee--a pretty little girl named after herself. The child did not
seem well, and Rachel hushed it to her, bringing down her own sweet
face caressingly upon the little one's.
"So I hear as Mr. John Massingbird's a-going to London on a visit?"
cried Robin to his sister, holding out his basin for a second supply of
the porridge.
The question had to be repeated three times, and then Rachel seemed to
awake to it with a start. She had been gazing at vacancy, as if buried
in a dream.
"Mr. John? A visit to London? Oh, yes, yes; he is going to London."
"Do he make much of a stay?"
"I can't tell," said Rachel slightingly. A certain confidence had been
reposed in her at Verner's Pride; but it was not her business to make it
known, even in her father's home. Rachel was not a good hand at
deception, and she changed the subject. "Has there not been some
disturbance with the Dawsons to-day? Old Roy was at Verner's Pride this
afternoon, and the servants have been saying he came up about the
Dawsons."
"He wanted to turn 'em out," replied Robin.
"He's Grip Roy all over," said Mrs. Frost.
Old Matthew Frost shook his head. "There has been ill-feeling
smouldering between Roy and old Dawson this long while," said he. "Now
that it's come to open war, I misdoubt me but there'll be violence."
"There's ill-feeling between Roy and a many more, father, besides the
Dawsons," observed Robin.
"Ay! Rachel, child"--turning his head to the hearth, where his daughter
sat apart--"folks have said that young Luke wants to make up to you. But
I'd not like it. Luke's a good-meaning, kind-hearted lad himself, but
I'd not like you to be daughter-in-law to old Roy."
"Be easy, father dear. I'd not have Luke Roy if he were made of gold. I
never yet had anything to say to him, and I never will have. We can't
help our likes and dislikes."
"Pshaw!" said Robin, with pardonable pride. "Pretty Rachel is not for a
daft chap like Luke Roy, that's a head and ears shorter nor other men.
Be you, my dear one?"
Rachel laughed. Her conscience told her that she enjoyed a joke at
Luke's undersize. She took a shower of kisses from the little girl, put
her down, and rose.
"I must go," she said. "Mrs. Verner may be calling for me."
"Don't she know you be come out?" asked old Matthew.
"No. But do not fear that I came clandestinely--or, as our servants
would say, on the sly," added Rachel, with a smile. "Mrs. Verner has
told me to run down to see you whenever I like, after she has gone in to
dinner. Good-night, dear father."
The old man pressed her to his heart: "Don't thee get fretting again my
blessing. I don't care to see thee with red eyes."
For answer, Rachel burst into tears then--a sudden, violent burst. She
dashed them away again with a defiant, reckless sort of air, broke, into
a laugh, and laid the blame on her headache. Robin said he would walk
home with her.
"No, Robin, I would rather you did not to-night," she replied. "I have
two or three things to get at Mother Duff's, and I shall stop there a
bit, gossiping. After that, I shall be home in a trice. It's not dark;
and, if it were, who'd harm me?"
They laughed. To imagine harm of any sort occurring, through walking a
mile or so alone at night, would never enter the head of honest country
people. Rachel departed; and Robin, who was a domesticated man upon the
whole, helped his wife to put the children to bed.
Scarcely an hour later, a strange commotion arose in the village. People
ran about wildly, whispering dread words to one another. A woman had
just been drowned in the Willow Pond.
The whole place flocked down to the Willow Pond. On its banks, the
centre of an awe-struck crowd, which had been quickly gathering, lay a
body, recently taken out of the water. It was all that remained of poor
Rachel Frost--cold, and white, and DEAD!