TYNN PUMPED DRY.
Miss West and Tynn proceeded on their way. The side path was dirty, and
she chose the middle of the road, Tynn walking a step behind her.
Deborah was of an affable nature, Tynn a long-attached and valued
servant, and she chatted with him familiarly. Deborah, in her simple
good heart, could not have been brought to understand why she should not
chat with him. Because he was a servant and she a lady, she thought
there was only the more reason why she should, that the man might not be
unpleasantly reminded of the social distinction between them.
She pressed down, so far as she could, the heavy affliction that was
weighing upon her mind. She spoke of the weather, the harvest, of Mrs.
Bitterworth's recent dangerous attack, of other trifling topics patent
at the moment to Deerham. Tynn chatted in his turn, never losing his
respect of words and manner; a servant worth anything never does. Thus
they progressed towards the village, utterly unconscious that a pair of
eager eyes were following, and an evil tongue was casting anathemas
towards them.
The owner of the eyes and tongue was wanting to hold a few words of
private colloquy with Tynn. Could Tynn have seen right round the corner
of the pillar of the outer gate when he went out, he would have detected
the man waiting there in ambush. It was Giles Roy. Roy was aware that
Tynn sometimes attended departing visitors to the outer gate. Roy had
come up, hoping that he might so attend them on this night. Tynn did
appear, with Miss West, and Roy began to hug himself that fortune had so
far favoured him; but when he saw that Tynn departed with the lady,
instead of only standing politely to watch her off, Roy growled out
vengeance against the unconscious offenders.
"He's a-going to see her home belike," snarled Roy in soliloquy,
following them with angry eyes and slow footsteps. "I must wait till he
comes back--and be shot to both of 'em!"
Tynn left Miss West at her own door, declining the invitation to go in
and take a bit of supper with the maids, or a glass of beer. He was
trudging back again, his arms behind his back, and wishing himself at
home, for Tynn, fat and of short breath, did not like much walking,
when, in a lonely part of the road, he came upon a man sitting astride
upon a gate.
"Hollo! is that you, Mr. Tynn? Who'd ha' thought of seeing you out
to-night?"
For it was Mr. Roy's wish, from private motives of his own, that Tynn
should not know he had been looked for, but should believe the
encounter to be accidental. Tynn turned off the road, and leaned his
elbow upon the gate, rather glad of the opportunity to stand a minute
and get his breath. It was somewhat up-hill to Verner's Pride, the whole
of the way from Deerham.
"Are you sitting here for pleasure?" asked he of Roy.
"I'm sitting here for grief," returned Roy; and Tynn was not sharp
enough to detect the hollow falseness of his tone. "I had to go up the
road to-night on a matter of business, and, walking back by Verner's
Pride, it so overcame me that I was glad to bring myself to a anchor."
"How should walking by Verner's Pride overcome you?" demanded Tynn.
"Well," said Roy, "it was the thoughts of poor Mr. and Mrs. Verner did
it. He didn't behave to me over liberal in turning me from the place I'd
held so long under his uncle, but I've overgot that smart; it's past and
gone. My heart bleeds for him now, and that's the truth."
For Roy's heart to "bleed" for any fellow-creature was a marvel that
even Tynn, unsuspicious as he was, could not take in. Mrs. Tynn
repeatedly assured him that he had been born into the world with one
sole quality--credulity. Certainly Tynn was unusually inclined to put
faith in fair outsides. Not that Roy could boast much of the latter
advantage.
"What's the matter with Mr. Verner?" he asked of Roy.
Roy groaned dismally. "It's a thing that is come to my knowledge," said
he--"a awful misfortin that is a-going to drop upon him. I'd not say a
word to another soul but you, Mr. Tynn; but you be his friend if anybody
be, and I feel that I must either speak or bust."
Tynn peered at Roy's face. As much as he could see of it, for the night
was not a very clear one.
"It seems quite a providence that I happened to meet you," went on Roy,
as if any meeting with the butler had been as far from his thoughts as
an encounter with somebody at the North Pole. "Things does turn out
lucky sometimes."
"I must be getting home," interposed Tynn. "If you have anything to say
to me, Roy, you had better say it. I may be wanted."
Roy--who was standing now, his elbow leaning on the gate--brought his
face nearer to Tynn's. Tynn was also leaning on the gate.
"Have you heered of this ghost that's said to be walking about Deerham?"
he asked, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Have you heered whose they
say it is?"
Now, Tynn had heard. All the retainers, male and female, at Verner's
Pride had heard. And Tynn, though not much inclined to give credence to
ghosts in a general way, had felt somewhat uneasy at the ale. More on
his mistress's account than on any other score; for Tynn had the sense
to know that such a report could not be pleasing to Mrs. Verner, should
it reach her ears.
"I can't think why they do say it," replied Tynn, answering the man's
concluding question. "For my own part, I don't believe there's anything
in it. I don't believe in ghosts."
"Neither didn't a good many more, till now that they have got orakelar
demonstration of it," returned Roy. "Dan Duff see it, and a'most lost
his senses; that girl of Hook's see it, and you know, I suppose, what it
did for _her_; Broom see it; the parson see it; old Frost see it; and
lots more. Not one on 'em but 'ud take their Bible oath, if put to it,
that it is Fred Massingbird's ghost."
"But it is not," said Tynn. "It can't be. Leastways I'll never believe
it till I see it with my own eyes. There'd be no reason in its coming
now. If it wanted to come at all, why didn't it come when it was first
buried, and not wait till over two years had gone by?"
"That's the point that I stuck at," was Roy's answer. "When my wife came
home with the tales, day after day, that Fred Massingbird's spirit was
walking--that this person had seen it, and that person had seen
it--'Yah! Rubbish!' I says to her. 'If his ghost had been a-coming, it
'ud have come afore now.' And so it would."
"Of course," answered Tynn. "_If_ it had been coming. But I have not
lived to these years to believe in ghosts at last."
"Then, what do you think of the parson, Mr. Tynn?" continued Roy, in a
strangely significant tone. "And Broom--he have got his senses about
him? How d'ye account for their believing it?"
"I have not heard them say that they do believe it," responded Tynn,
with a knowing nod. "Folks may go about and say that I believe it,
perhaps; but that wouldn't make it any nearer the fact. And what has
all this to do with Mr. Verner?"
"I am coming to it," said Roy. He took a step backward, looked carefully
up and down the road, lest listeners might be in ambush; stretched his
neck forward, and in like manner surveyed the field On either side the
hedge. Apparently it satisfied him, and he resumed his close proximity
to Tynn and his meaning whisper. "Can't you guess the riddle, Mr. Tynn?"
"I can't in the least guess what you mean, or what you are driving at,"
was Tynn's response. "I think you must have been having a drop of drink,
Roy. I ask what this is to my master, Mr. Verner?"
"Drink be bothered! I've not had a sup inside my mouth since midday,"
was Roy's retort. "This secret has been enough drink for me, and meat,
too. You'll keep counsel, if I tell it you, Mr. Tynn? Not but what it
must soon come out."
"Well?" returned Tynn, in some surprise.
"It's Fred Massingbird fast enough. But it's not his ghost."
"What on earth do you mean?" asked Tynn, never for a moment glancing at
the fact of what Roy tried to imply.
"_He_ is come back: Frederick Massingbird. He didn't die, over there."
A pause, devoted by Tynn to staring and thinking. When the full sense of
the words broke upon him, he staggered a step or two away from the
ex-bailiff.
"Heaven help us, if it's true!" he uttered. "Roy! it _can't_ be!"
"It _is_," said Roy.
They stood looking at each other by starlight. Tynn's face had grown hot
and wet, and he wiped it. "It can't be," he mechanically repeated.
"I tell you it _is_, Mr. Tynn. Now never you mind asking me how I came
to the bottom of it," went on Roy in a sort of defiant tone. "I did come
to the bottom of it, and I do know it; and Mr. Fred, he knows that I
know it. It's as sure that he is back, and in the neighbourhood, as that
you and me is here at this gate. He is alive and he is among us--as
certain as that you are Mr. Tynn, and I be Giles Roy."
There came flashing over Tynn's thoughts the scene of that very evening.
His mistress's shrieks and agitation when she broke from Miss West; the
cries and sobs which had penetrated to their ears when she was shut
afterwards in the study with her husband. The unusual scene had been
productive of gossiping comment among the servants and Tynn had believed
something distressing must have occurred. Not this; he had never glanced
a suspicion at this. He remembered the lines of pain which shone out at
the moment from his master's pale face, in spite of its impassiveness;
and somehow that very face brought conviction to Tynn now, that Roy's
news was true. Tynn let his arms fall on the gate again with a groan.
"Whatever will become of my poor mistress?" he uttered.
"She!" slightingly returned Roy. "She'll be better off than him."
"Better off than who?"
"Than Mr. Verner. She needn't leave Verner's Pride. He must."
To expect any ideas but coarse ones from Roy, Tynn could not. But his
attention was caught by the last suggestion.
"Leave Verner's Pride?" slowly repeated Tynn. "Must he?--good heavens!
must my master be turned from Verner's Pride?"
"Where'll be the help for it?" asked Roy, in a confidential tone. "I
tell you, Mr. Tynn, my heart's been a-bleeding for him ever since I
heard it. _I_ don't see no help for his turning out. I have been
a-weighing it over and over in my mind, and I don't see none. Do you?"
Tynn looked very blank. He was feeling so. He made no answer, and Roy
continued, blandly confidential still.
"If that there codicil, that was so much talked on, hadn't been lost,
he'd have been all right, would Mr. Verner. No come-to-life-again Fred
Massingbird needn't have tried at turning him out. Couldn't it be hunted
for again, Mr. Tynn?"
Roy turned the tail of his eye on Tynn. Would his pumping take effect?
Mrs. Tynn would have told him that her husband might be pumped dry, and
never know it. She was not far wrong. Unsuspicious Tynn went headlong
into the snare.
"Where would be the good of hunting for it again--when every conceivable
place was hunted for it before?" he asked.
"Well, it was a curious thing, that codicil," remarked Roy. "Has it
_never_ been heered on?"
Tynn shook his head. "Never at all. What an awful thing this is, if it's
true!"
"It is true, I tell ye," said Roy. "You needn't doubt it. There was a
report a short while agone that the codicil had been found, and Matiss
had got it in safe keeping. As I sat here, afore you come up, I was
thinking how well it 'ud have served Mr. Verner's turn just now, if it
_was_ true."
"It is not true," said Tynn. "All sorts of reports get about. The
codicil has never been found, and never been heard of."
"What a pity!" groaned Roy, with a deep sigh. "I'm glad I've told it
you, Mr. Tynn! It's a heavy secret for a man to carry about inside of
him. I must be going."
"So must I," said Tynn. "Roy, are you sure there's no mistake?" he
added. "It seems a tale next to impossible."
"Well, now," said Roy, "I see you don't half believe me. You must wait a
few days, and see what them days 'll bring forth. That Mr. Massingbird's
back from Australia, I'll take my oath to. _I_ didn't believe it at
first; and when young Duff was a-going on about the porkypine, I shook
him, I did, for a little lying rascal. I know better now."
"But how do you know it?" debated Tynn.
"Now, never you mind. It's my business, I say, and nobody else's. You
just wait a day or two, that's all, Mr. Tynn. I declare I am as glad to
have met with you to-night, and exchanged this intercourse of opinions,
as if anybody had counted me out a bag o' gold."
"Well, good-night, Roy," concluded Tynn, turning his steps towards
Verner's Pride. "I wish I had been a hundred miles off, I know, before I
had heard it."
Roy slipped over the gate; and there, out of sight, he executed a kind
of triumphant dance.
"Then there is no codicil!" cried he. "I thought I could wile it out of
him! That Tynn's as easy to be run out as is glass when it's hot."
And, putting his best leg forward, he made his way as fast as he could
make it towards his home.
Tynn made _his_ way towards Verner's Pride. But not fast. The
information he had received filled his mind with the saddest trouble,
and reduced his steps to slowness. When any great calamity falls
suddenly upon us, or the dread of any great calamity, our first natural
thought is, how it may be mitigated or averted. It was the thought that
occurred to Tynn. The first shock over, digested, as may be said, Tynn
began to deliberate whether he could do anything to help his master in
the strait; and he went along, turning all sorts of suggestions over in
his mind. Much as Sibylla was disliked by the old servant--and she had
contrived to make herself very much disliked by them all--Tynn could not
help feeling warmly the blow that was about to burst upon her head. Was
there anything earthly he could do to avert it?--to help her or his
master?
He did not doubt the information. Roy was not a particularly reliable
person; but Tynn could not doubt that this was true. It was the most
feasible solution of the ghost story agitating Deerham; the only
solution of it, Tynn grew to think. If Frederick Massingbird----
Tynn's reflections came to a halt. Vaulting over a gate on the other
side the road--the very gate through which poor Rachel Frost had glided
the night of her death, to avoid meeting Frederick Massingbird and
Sibylla West--was a tall man. He came, straight across the road, in
front of Tynn, and passed through a gap of the hedge, on to the grounds
of Verner's Pride.
But what made Tynn stand transfixed, as if he had been changed into a
statue? What brought a cold chill to his heart, a heat to his brow? Why,
as the man passed him, he turned his face full on Tynn; disclosing the
features, the white, whiskerless cheek, with the black mark upon it, of
Frederick Massingbird. Recovering himself as best he could, Tynn walked
on, and gained the house.
Mrs. Verner had gone to her room. Mr. Verner was mixing with his guests.
Some of the gentlemen were on the terrace smoking, and Tynn made his way
on to it, hoping he might get a minute's interview with his master. The
impression upon Tynn's mind was that Frederick Massingbird was coming
there and then, to invade Verner's Pride: it appeared to Tynn to be his
duty to impart what he had heard and seen at once to Mr. Verner.
Circumstances favoured him. Lionel had been talking with Mr. Gordon at
the far end of the terrace, but the latter was called to from the
drawing-room windows and departed in answer to it. Tynn seized the
opportunity; his master was alone.
Quite alone. He was leaning over the outer balustrade of the terrace,
apparently looking forth in the night obscurity on his own lands,
stretched out before him. "Master!" whispered Tynn, forgetting ceremony
in the moment's absorbing agitation, in the terrible calamity that was
about to fall, "I have had an awful secret made known to me to-night. I
must tell it you, sir."
"I know it already, Tynn," was the quiet response of Lionel.
Then Tynn told--told all he had heard, and how he had heard it; told how
he had just _seen_ Frederick Massingbird. Lionel started from the
balustrade.
"Tynn! You saw him! Now?"
"Not five minutes ago, sir. He came right on to these grounds through
the gap in the hedge. Oh, master! what will be done?" and the man's
voice rose to a wail in its anguish. "He may be coming on now to put in
his claim to Verner's Pride; to--to--to--all that's in it!"
But that Lionel was nerved to self-control, he might have answered with
another wail of anguish. His mind filled up the gap of words, that the
delicacy of Tynn would not speak. "He may be coming to claim Sibylla."