THE NEWS BROUGHT HOME.
Seated in the dining-room at Verner's Pride, comfortably asleep in an
arm-chair, her face turned to the fire and her feet on a footstool, was
Mrs. Verner. The dessert remained on the table, but nobody was there to
partake of it. Mr. Verner had retired to his study upon the withdrawal
of the cloth, according to his usual custom. Always a man of spare
habits, shunning the pleasures of the table, he had scarcely taken
sufficient to support nature since his health failed. Mrs. Verner would
remonstrate; but his medical attendant, Dr. West, said it was better for
him that it should be so. Lionel Verner (who had come in for the tail of
the dinner) and John Massingbird had likewise left the room and the
house, but not together. Mrs. Verner sat on alone. She liked to take her
share of dessert, if the others did not, and she generally remained in
the dining-room for the evening, rarely caring to move. Truth to say,
Mrs. Verner was rather addicted to dropping asleep with her last glass
of wine and waking up with the tea-tray, and she did so this evening.
Of course work goes on downstairs (or is supposed to go on) whether the
mistress of a house be asleep or awake. It really was going on that
evening in the laundry at Verner's Pride, whatever it may have been
doing in the other various branches and departments. The laundry-maids
had had heavy labour on their hands that day, and they were hard at work
still, while Mrs. Verner slept.
"Here's Mother Duff's Dan a-coming in!" exclaimed one of the women,
glancing over her ironing-board to the yard. "What do he want, I
wonder?"
"Who?" cried Nancy, the under-housemaid, a tart sort of girl, whose
business it was to assist in the laundry on busy days.
"Dan Duff. Just see what he wants, Nancy. He's got a parcel."
The gentleman familiarly called Dan Duff was an urchin of ten years old.
He was the son of Mrs. Duff, linen-draper-in-ordinary to Deerham--a lady
popularly spoken of as "Mother Duff," both behind her back and before
her face. Nancy darted out at the laundry-door and waylaid the intruder
in the yard.
"Now, Dan Duff!" cried she, "what do you want?"
"Please, here's this," was Dan Duff's reply, handing over the parcel.
"And, please, I want to see Rachel Frost."
"Who's it for? What's inside it?" sharply asked Nancy, regarding the
parcel on all sides.
"It's things as Rachel Frost have been a-buying," he replied. "Please, I
want to see her."
"Then want must be your master," retorted Nancy. "Rachel Frost's not at
home."
"_Ain't_ she?" returned Dan Duff, with surprised emphasis. "Why, she
left our shop a long sight afore I did! Mother says, please, would she
mind having some o' the dark lavender print instead o' the light, 'cause
Susan Peckaby's come in, and she wants the whole o' the light lavender
for a gownd, and there's only just enough of it. And, please, I be to
take word back."
"How are you to take word back if she's not in?" asked Nancy, whose
temper never was improved by extra work. "Get along, Dan Duff! You must
come along again to-morrow if you want her."
Dan Duff turned to depart, in meek obedience, and Nancy carried the
parcel into the laundry and flung it down on the ironing-board.
"It's fine to be Rachel Frost," she sarcastically cried. "Going shopping
like any lady, and having her things sent home for her! And messages
about her gownds coming up--which will she have, if you please, and
which won't she have! I'll borror one of the horses to-morrow, and go
shopping myself on a side-saddle!"
"Has Rachel gone shopping to-night?" cried one of the women, pausing in
her ironing. "I did not know she was out."
"She has been out all the evening," was Nancy's answer. "I met her
coming down the stairs, dressed. And she could tell a story over it,
too, for she said she was going to see her old father."
But Master Dan Duff is not done with yet. If that gentleman stood in awe
of one earthly thing more than another, it was of the anger of his
revered mother. Mrs. Duff, in her maternal capacity, was rather free
both with her hands and tongue. Being sole head of her flock, for she
was a widow, she deemed it best to rule with firmness, not to say
severity; and her son Dan, awed by his own timid nature, tried hard to
steer his course so as to avoid shoals and quicksands. He crossed the
yard, after the rebuff administered by Nancy, and passed out at the
gate, where he stood still to revolve affairs. His mother had
imperatively ordered him to _bring back_ the answer touching the
intricate question of the light and the dark lavender prints; and Susan
Peckaby--one of the greatest idlers in all Deerham--said she would wait
in the shop until he came with it. He stood softly whistling, his hands
in his pockets, and balancing himself on his heels.
"I'll get a basting, for sure," soliloquised he. "Mother'll lose the
sale of the gownd, and then she'll say it's my fault, and baste me for
it. What's of her? Why couldn't she ha' come home, as she said?"
He set his wits to work to divine what _could_ have "gone of
her"--alluding, of course, to Rachel. And a bright thought occurred to
him--really not an unnatural one--that she had probably taken the other
road home. It was a longer round, through the fields, and there were
stiles to climb, and gates to mount; which might account for the delay.
He arrived at the conclusion, though somewhat slow of drawing
conclusions in general, that if he returned home that way, he should
meet Rachel; and could then ask the question.
If he turned to his left hand--standing as he did at the gate with his
back to the back of the house--he would regain the high road, whence he
came. Did he turn to the right, he would plunge into fields and lanes,
and covered ways, and emerge at length, by a round, in the midst of the
village, almost close to his own house. It was a lonely way at night,
and longer than the other, but Master Dan Duff regarded those as
pleasant evils, in comparison with a "basting." He took his hands out of
his pockets, brought down his feet to a level, and turned to it,
whistling still.
It was a tolerably light night. The moon was up, though not very high,
and a few stars might be seen here and there in the blue canopy above.
Mr. Dan Duff proceeded on his way, not very quickly. Some dim idea was
penetrating his brain that the slower he walked, the better chance there
might be of his meeting Rachel.
"She's just a cat, is that Susan Peckaby!" decided he, with acrimony, in
the intervals of his whistling. "It was her as put mother up to the
thought o' sending me to-night: Rachel Frost said the things 'ud do in
the morning. 'Let Dan carry 'em up now,' says Dame Peckaby, 'and ask her
about the print, and then I'll take it home along o' me.' And if I go in
without the answer, she'll be the first to help mother to baste me! Hi!
ho! hur! hur-r-r-r!"
This last exclamation was caused by his catching sight of some small
animal scudding along. He was at that moment traversing a narrow,
winding lane; and, in the field to the right, as he looked in at the
open gate, he saw the movement. It might be a cat, it might be a hare,
it might be a rabbit, it might be some other animal; it was all one to
Mr. Dan Duff; and he had not been a boy had he resisted the propensity
to pursue it. Catching up a handful of earth from the lane, he shied it
in the proper direction, and tore in at the gate after it.
Nothing came of the pursuit. The trespasser had earthed itself, and Mr.
Dan came slowly back again. He had nearly approached the gate, when
somebody passed it, walking up the lane with a very quick step, from the
direction in which he, Dan, was bound. Dan saw enough to know that it
was not Rachel, for it was the figure of a man; but Dan set off to run,
and emerged from the gate just in time to catch another glimpse of the
person, as he disappeared beyond the windings of the lane.
"'Twarn't Rachel, at all events," was his comment. And he turned and
pursued his way again.
It was somewhere about this time that Tynn made his appearance in the
dining-room at Verner's Pride, to put away the dessert, and set the tea.
The stir woke up Mrs. Verner.
"Send Rachel to me," said she, winking and blinking at the tea-cups.
"Yes, ma'am," replied Tynn.
He left the room when he had placed the cups and things to his
satisfaction. He called for Rachel high and low, up and down. All to no
purpose. The servants did not appear to know anything of her. One of
them went to the door and shouted out to the laundry to know whether
Rachel was there, and the answering shout "No" came back. The footman at
length remembered that he had seen her go out at the hall door while the
dinner was in. Tynn carried this item of information to Mrs. Verner. It
did not please her.
"Of course!" she grumbled. "Let me want any one of you particularly, and
you are sure to be away! If she did go out, she ought not to stay as
long as this. Who's this coming in?"
It was Frederick Massingbird. He entered, singing a scrap of a song;
which was cut suddenly short when his eye fell on the servant.
"Tynn," said he, "you must bring me something to eat. I have had no
dinner."
"You cannot be very hungry, or you'd have come in before," remarked Mrs.
Verner to him. "It is tea-time now."
"I'll take tea and dinner together," was his answer.
"But you ought to have been in before," she persisted; for, though an
easy mistress and mother, Mrs. Verner did not like the order of meals to
be displaced. "Where have you stayed, Fred? You have not been all this
while taking Sibylla West to Bitterworth's."
"You must talk to Sibylla West about that," answered Fred. "When young
ladies keep you a good hour waiting, while they make themselves ready to
start, you can't get back precisely to your own time."
"What did she keep you waiting for?" questioned Mrs. Verner.
"Some mystery of the toilette, I conclude. When I got there, Amilly said
Sibylla was dressing; and a pretty prolonged dressing it appeared to be!
Since I left her at Bitterworth's, I have been to Poynton's about my
mare. She was as lame as ever to-day."
"And there's Rachel out now, just as I am wanting her!" went on Mrs.
Verner, who, when she did lapse into a grumbling mood, was fond of
calling up a catalogue of grievances.
"At any rate, that's not my fault, mother," observed Frederick. "I dare
say she will soon be in. Rachel is not given to stay out, I fancy, if
there's a chance of her being wanted."
Tynn came in with his tray, and Frederick Massingbird sat down to it.
Tynn then waited for Mr. Verner's tea, which he carried into the study.
He carried a cup in every evening, but Mr. Verner scarcely ever touched
it. Then Tynn returned to the room where the upper servants took their
meals and otherwise congregated, and sat down to read a newspaper. He
was a little man, very stout, his plain clothes always scrupulously
neat.
A few minutes, and Nancy came in, the parcel left by Dan Duff in her
hand. The housekeeper asked her what it was. She explained in her crusty
way, and said something to the same effect that she had said in the
laundry--that it was fine to be Rachel Frost. "She's long enough making
her way up here!" Nancy wound up with.
"Dan Duff says she left their shop to come home before he did. If Luke
Roy was in Deerham one would know what to think!"
"Bah!" cried the housekeeper. "Rachel Frost has nothing to say to Luke
Roy."
Tynn laid down his paper, and rose. "I'll just tell the mistress that
Rachel's on her way home," said he. "She's put up like anything at her
being out--wants her for something particular, she says."
Barely had he departed on his errand, when a loud commotion was heard in
the passage. Mr. Dan Duff had burst in at the back door, uttering sounds
of distress--of fright--his eyes starting, his hair standing on end, his
words nearly unintelligible.
"Rachel Frost is in the Willow Pond--drownded!"
The women shrieked when they gathered in the sense. It was enough to
make them shriek. Dan Duff howled in concert. The passages took up the
sounds and echoed them; and Mrs. Verner, Frederick Massingbird, and Tynn
came hastening forth. Mr. Verner followed, feeble, and leaning on his
stick. Frederick Massingbird seized upon the boy, questioning sharply.
"Rachel Frost's a-drowned in the Willow Pond," he reiterated. "I see'd
her."
A moment of pause, of startled suspense, and then they flew off, men and
women, as with one accord, Frederick Massingbird leading the van. Social
obligations were forgotten in the overwhelming excitement, and Mr. and
Mrs. Verner were left to keep house for themselves. Tynn, indeed,
recollected himself, and turned back.
"No," said Mr. Verner. "Go with the rest, Tynn, and see what it is, and
whether anything can be done."
He might have crept thither himself in his feeble strength, but he had
not stirred out of the house for two years.