"Do you remember the description I gave of that man?" she continued,
in excitement. "_I_ do. I wrote it down at the time, and Mr. Todhetley
holds it, sealed up. Every word, every particular is in my memory now,
as I saw him in my dream. 'A tall, evil-looking, dark man in a long
brown coat, who walked with his eyes fixed on the ground.' I tell you,
Johnny Ludlow, _that is the man_."
Her vehemence infected me. I looked round after Sir Dace. He was
turning this way now. Certainly the description seemed like enough.
His countenance just now did look an evil one; and he was tall and he
was dark, and he wore a long brown coat this morning, nearly reaching
to his heels, and his eyes were fixed on the ground as he walked.
"But what if his looks do tally with the man you saw in your dream,
Alice? What of it?"
"What of it!" she echoed, vehemently. "_What of it!_ Why, don't you see,
Johnny Ludlow? This man must have killed Edward Pym."
"Hush, Alice! It is impossible. This is Sir Dace Fontaine."
"I do not care who he is," was her impulsive retort. "As surely as that
Heaven is above us, Edward Pym got his death at the hand of this man. My
dream revealed it to me."
I might as well have tried to stem a torrent as to argue with her; so I
drove on and held my tongue. Arrived at the office of Paul and Chandler,
I following her in, leaving a boy with the pony outside. Alice pounced
upon old Paul with the assertion: Sir Dace Fontaine was the evil and
guilty man she had seen in her dream. Considering that Paul was a sort
of cousin to Sir Dace's late wife, this was pretty well. Old Paul stared
at her as I had done. Her cheeks were hectic, her eyes wildly earnest.
She recalled to the lawyer's memory the dream she had related to him;
she asserted in the most unqualified manner that Dace Fontaine was
guilty. Tom Chandler, who was old Paul's partner and had married his
daughter Emma, came into the room in the middle of it, and took his
share of staring.
"It must be investigated," said Alice to them. "Will you undertake it?"
"My dear young lady, one cannot act upon a fancy--a dream," cried old
Paul: and there was a curious sound of compassionate pity in his voice,
which betrayed to Alice the gratifying fact that he was regarding her as
a monomaniac.
"If you will not act, others will," she concluded at last, after
exhausting her arguments in vain. And she came away with me in
resentment, having totally forgotten all about her mother's business.
To Crabb Cot then--she _would_ go--to take counsel with the Squire. He
told her to her face she was worse than a lunatic to suspect Sir Dace;
and he would hardly get out the sealed packet at all. It was opened at
last, and the dream, as written down in it by herself at the time, read.
"John Tanerton, my husband, was going to sea in command," it began.
"He came to me the morning of the day they were to sail, looking very
patient, pale and sorrowful: more so than any one, I think, could look
in life. He and I seemed to have had some estrangement the previous
night that was not remembered by either of us now, and I, for one,
repented of it. Somebody was murdered (though I could not tell how this
had been revealed to me), some man; Jack was suspected by all people,
but they could not bring it home to him. We were in some strange town;
strangers in it; though I, as it seemed to me, had been in it once,
many years before. All this while, Jack was standing before me in his
sadness and sorrow, mutely appealing to me, as it seemed, to clear him.
Everybody was talking of it and glancing at us askance, everybody
shunned us, and we were in cruel distress. Suddenly I remembered that
when I was in the town before, the man now murdered had had a bitter
quarrel with another man, a gentleman of note in the town; and a
conviction came over me, powerful as a revelation, that it was he who
had now committed the murder. I left Jack, and told this to some one
connected with the ship, its owner, I think. He laughed at the words,
saying that the gentleman I would accuse was of high authority in the
town, one of its first magnates. That he had done it, however high he
might be, I felt perfectly certain; but nobody would listen to me;
nobody would heed so improbable a tale: and, in the trouble this
brought me, I awoke. _Such_ trouble! Nothing like it could be felt in
real life.
"That was dream the first.
"I lay awake for some little time thinking of it, and then went to sleep
again: and this was dream the second.
"The dream seemed to recommence from where it had left off. It was
afternoon. I was in a large open carriage, going through the streets
of the town, the ship's owner (as I say I think he was) sitting beside
me. In passing over a bridge we saw two gentlemen walking towards us
arm-in-arm on the footpath, one of them an officer in a dusky old red
uniform and cocked hat, the other a tall, evil-looking dark man, who
wore a long brown coat and kept his eyes on the ground. Though I had
never seen him in my life before, I _knew_ it was the guilty man; he had
killed the other, committed the crime in secret: but ere I could speak,
he who was sitting with me said, 'There's the gentleman you would have
accused this morning. He stands before everybody else in the town. Fancy
your accusing _him_ of such a thing!' It seemed to me that I did not
answer, could not answer for the pain. That he was guilty I knew, and
not Jack, but I had no means of bringing it home to him. He and the man
in uniform walked on in their secure immunity, and I went on in the
carriage in my pain. The pain awoke me.
"And now it only remains for me to declare that I have set down this
singular dream truthfully, word for word; and I shall seal it up and
keep it. It may be of use if any trouble falls upon Jack, as the dream
seems to foretell--and of some trouble in store for him he has already
felt the shadow. So strangely vivid a dream, and the intense pain
it brought and leaves with me, can hardly have visited me for
nothing.--ALICE TANERTON."
That was all the paper said. The Squire, poring through his good old
spectacles over it, shook his head as Alice pointed out the description
of the guilty man, how exactly it tallied with the appearance of Sir
Dace Fontaine; but he only repeated Paul the lawyer's words, "One cannot
act upon a dream."
"It was Sir Dace; it was Sir Dace," reiterated Alice, clasping her hands
piteously. "I am as sure of it as that I hope to go to heaven." And I
drove her home in the belief.
There ensued a commotion. Not a commotion to be told to the parish, but
a private one amidst ourselves. I never saw a woman in such a fever of
excitement as Alice Tanerton was in from that day, or any one take up a
matter so warmly.
Captain Tanerton did not adopt her views. He shook his head, and said
Sir Dace it _could not_ have been. Sir Dace was at his house in the
Marylebone Road at the very hour the calamity happened off Tower Hill.
I followed suit, hearing out Jack's word. Was I not at the Marylebone
Road that evening myself, playing chess with Coralie?--and was not Sir
Dace shut up in his library all the time, and never came out of it?
Alice listened, and looked puzzled to death. But she held to her own
opinion. And when a fit of desperate obstinacy takes possession of a
woman without rhyme or reason, you cannot shake it. As good try to argue
with the whistling wind. She did not pretend to see how it could have
been, she said, but Sir Dace was guilty. And she haunted Paul and
Chandler's office at Islip, praying them to take the matter up.
At length, to soothe her, and perhaps to prevent her carrying it
elsewhere, they promised they would. And of course they had to make some
show of doing it.
One evening Tom Chandler came to Crabb Cot and asked to see me alone.
"I want you to tell me all the particulars you remember of that fatal
night," he began, when I went to him in the Squire's little room. "I
have taken down Captain Tanerton's testimony, and I must have yours,
Johnny."
"But, are you going to stir in it?"
"We must do something, I suppose. Paul thinks so. I am going to London
to-morrow on other matters, and shall use the opportunity to make an
inquiry or two. It is rather a strange piece of business altogether,"
added Mr. Chandler, as he took his place at the table and drew the
inkstand towards him. "John Tanerton is innocent. I feel sure of that."
"How strongly Mrs. Tanerton has taken it up!"
"Pretty well for that," answered Tom Chandler, a smile on his
good-natured face. "She told us yesterday in the office that it must be
the consciousness of guilt which has worried Sir Dace to a skeleton. Now
then, we'll begin."
He dotted down my answers to his questions, also what I voluntarily
added. Then he took a sheet of paper from his pocket, closely written
upon, and compared its statements--they were Tanerton's--with mine.
Putting his finger on the paper to mark a place, he looked at me.
"Did Sir Dace speak of Pym or of Captain Tanerton that night, when you
were playing chess with Miss Fontaine?"
"Sir Dace did not come into the drawing-room. He had left the
dinner-table in a huff to shut himself up in his library, Miss Fontaine
said; and he stayed in it."
"Then you did not see Sir Dace at all that night?"
"Oh yes, later--when Captain Tanerton and young Saxby came up to tell
him of the death. We then all went down to Ship Street together. You
have taken that down."
"True," said Chandler. "Well, I cannot make much out of it as it
stands," he concluded, folding the papers and putting them in his
pocket-book. "What do you say is the number of the house in the
Marylebone Road?"
I told him, and he went away, wishing he could accept my offer of
staying to drink tea with us.
"Look here, Chandler," I said to him at the front-door: "why don't you
take down Sir Dace Fontaine's evidence, as well as mine and Tanerton's?"
"I have done it," he answered. "I was with Sir Dace to-day. Mrs.
Tanerton's suspicions are of course--absurd," he added, making a pause,
as if at a loss for a suitable word, "but for her peace of mind, poor
lady, we would like to pitch upon the right individual if we can. And as
yet he seems to be a myth."
* * * * *
The good ship, _Rose of Delhi_, came gaily into port, and took up her
berth in St. Katharine's Docks as before; for she had been chartered
for London. Her owners, the Freemans, wrote at once from Liverpool to
Captain Tanerton, begging him to resume command. Jack wrote back, and
declined.
* * * * *
How is it that whispers get about! Do the birds in the air carry
them?--or the winds of heaven? In some cases it seems impossible that
anything else can have done it. Paul and Chandler, John Tanerton and his
wife, the Squire and myself: we were the only people cognizant of the
new suspicion that Alice was striving to cast on Sir Dace, one and all
of us had kept silent lips: and yet, the rumour got abroad. Sir Dace
Fontaine was accused of knowing more about Pym's death than he ought to
know, and Tom Chandler was in London for the purpose of investigating
it. This might not have mattered very much for ordinary ears, but it
reached those of Sir Dace.
Coralie Fontaine heard it from Mary Ann Letsom. In Mary Ann's
indignation at the report, she spoke it out to Coralie; and Coralie,
laughing at the absurdity of the thing, repeated it to Sir Dace. How
_he_ received it, or what he said about it, did not transpire.
A stagnant kind of atmosphere seemed to hang over us just then, like the
heavy, unnatural calm that precedes the storm. Sir Dace got weaker day
by day, more of a shadow; Herbert Tanerton and his brother were still at
variance, so far as Jack's future was concerned; and Mr. Chandler seemed
to have taken up his abode in London for good.
"Does he _never_ mean to come back?" demanded Alice one day of the
Squire: and her lips and cheeks were red with fever as she asked it. The
truth was, that some cause of Paul and Chandler's then on at Westminster
was prolonging itself out--even when it did begin--unconscionably.
One morning I met Ben Rymer as he was leaving Oxlip Grange. Coralie
Fontaine had walked with him to the gate, talking earnestly, their two
heads together. Ben shook hands with her and came out, looking as grave
as a judge.
"How is Sir Dace?" I asked him. "Getting on?"
"Getting off," responded Ben. "For that's what it will be now; and not
long first, unless he mends."
"Is he worse?"
"He is nearly as bad as he can be, to be alive. And yesterday, he must
needs go careering off to Islip by himself to transact some business
with Paul the lawyer! He was no more fit for it than--than _this_ is,"
concluded Ben, giving a flick to his silk umbrella as he marched off.
Ben went in for silk umbrellas now: in the old days a cotton one would
have been too good for him.
"I am so sorry to hear Sir Dace is no better," I said to Coralie
Fontaine, who had waited at the gate to speak to me.
Coralie shook her head. Some deep feeling sat in her generally passive
face: the tears stood in her eyes.
"Thank you, Johnny Ludlow. It is very sad. I feel sure Mr. Rymer has
given up all hope, though he does not say so to me. Verena looks nearly
as ill as papa. I wish we had never come to Europe!"
"Sir Dace exerts himself too greatly, Mr. Rymer says."
"Yes; and worries himself also. As if his affairs needed as much as a
thought!--I am sure they must be just as straight and smooth as yonder
green plain. He had to see Mr. Paul yesterday about some alteration
in his will, and went to Islip, instead of sending for Paul here.
I thought he would have died when he got home. Papa has a strange
restlessness upon him. Good-bye, Johnny. I'd ask you to come in but
that things are all so miserable."
* * * * *
It was late in the evening, getting towards bedtime. Mrs. Todhetley had
gone upstairs with the face-ache, Tod was over at old Coney's, and I and
the Squire were sitting alone, when Thomas surprised us by showing in
Tom Chandler. We did not know he was back from London.
"Yes, I got back this evening," said he, as he sat down near the lamp,
and spread some papers out on the table. "I am in a bit of a dilemma,
Mr. Todhetley; and I am come here at this late hour to put it before
you."
Chandler's voice had dropped to a mysterious whisper; his eyes were
glancing at the door to make sure it was shut. The Squire pushed up
his spectacles and drew his chair nearer. I sat on the opposite side,
wondering what was coming.
"That suspicion of Alice Tanerton's--that Sir Dace killed Pym," went on
Chandler, his left hand resting on the papers, his eyes on the Squire's.
"I think it was a true one."
"A what?" cried the pater.
"A true one. That Sir Dace did kill him."
"Goodness bless me!" gasped the Squire, his good old face taking a
lighter tint. "What on earth do you mean, man?"
"Well, I mean just that," answered Chandler. "And I feel myself to be,
in consequence, in an uncommonly awkward position. One can't well accuse
Sir Dace, a man close upon the grave; and Paul's relative in addition.
And yet, Captain Tanerton must be cleared."
"I can't make top or tail of what you mean, Tom Chandler!" cried the
Squire, blinking like a bewildered owl. "Don't you think you are
dreaming?"
"Wish I was," said Tom, "so far as this business goes. Look here. I'll
begin at the beginning and go through the story. You'll understand it
then."
"It's more than I do now. Or Johnny, either. Look at him!"
"When Mrs. John Tanerton brought to us that accusation of Sir Dace, on
the strength of her dream," began Chandler, after glancing at me, "I
thought she must have turned a little crazy. It was a singular dream;
there's no denying that; and the exact resemblance to Sir Dace Fontaine
of the man she saw in it, was still more singular: so much so, that
I could not help being impressed by it. Another thing that strongly
impressed me, was Captain Tanerton's testimony: from the moment I heard
it and weighed his manner in giving it, I felt sure of his innocence.
Revolving these matters in my own mind, I resolved to go to Sir Dace and
get him to give me his version of the affair; not in the least endorsing
in my own mind her suspicion of him, or hinting at it to him, you
understand; simply to get more evidence. I went to Sir Dace, heard what
he had to say, and brought away with me a most unpleasant doubt."
"That he was guilty?"
"That he might be. His manner was so confused, himself so agitated when
I first spoke. His hands trembled, his lips grew white, He strove to
turn it off, saying I had startled him, but I felt a very queer doubt
arising in my mind. His narrative had to be drawn from him; it was
anything but clear, and full of contradictions. 'Why do you come to me
about this?' he asked: 'have you heard anything?' 'I only come to ask
you for information,' was my answer: 'Mrs. John Tanerton wants the
matter looked into. If her husband is not guilty, he ought to be cleared
in the face of the world.' 'Nobody thinks he was guilty,' retorted Sir
Dace in a shrill tone of annoyance. 'Nobody was guilty: Pym must have
fallen and injured himself.' I came away from the interview, as I tell
you, with my doubts very unpleasantly stirred," resumed Chandler; "and
it caused me to be more earnest in looking after odds and ends of
evidence in London than I otherwise might have been."
"Did you pick up any?"
"Ay, I did. I turned the people at the Marylebone lodgings inside out,
so to say; I found out a Mrs. Ball, where Verena Fontaine had hidden
herself; and I quite haunted Dame Richenough's in Ship Street, Tower
Hill. There I met with Mark Ferrar. A piece of good fortune, for he told
me something that----"
"What was it?" gasped the Squire, eagerly.
"Why this--and a most important piece of evidence it is. That night, not
many minutes before the fatal accident must have occurred, Ferrar saw
Sir Dace Fontaine in Ship Street, watching Pym's room. He was standing
in an entry on the opposite side of the street, gazing across at Pym's.
This, you perceive, disproves one fact testified to--that Sir Dace spent
that evening shut up in his library at home. Instead of that he was
absolutely down on the spot."
The Squire rubbed his face like a helpless man. "Why could not Ferrar
have said so at the time?" he asked.
"Ferrar attached no importance to it; he thought Sir Dace was but
looking over to see whether his daughter was at Pym's. But Ferrar had no
opportunity of giving testimony: he sailed away the next morning in the
ship. Nothing could exceed his astonishment when I told him in London
that Captain Tanerton lay under the suspicion. He has taken Crabb on his
way to Worcester to support this testimony if needful, and to impart it
privately to Tanerton."
"Well, it all seems a hopeless puzzle to me," returned the pater. "Why
on earth did not Jack speak out more freely, and say he was not guilty?"
"I don't know. The fact, that Sir Dace did go out that night," continued
Chandler, "was confirmed by one of the maids in the Marylebone
Road--Maria; a smart girl with curled hair. She says Sir Dace had not
been many minutes in the library that night, to which he went straight
from the dinner-table in a passion, when she saw him leave it again,
catch up his hat with a jerk as he passed through the hall, and go out
at the front-door. It was just after Ozias had been to ask him whether
he would take some coffee, and got sent away with a flea in his ear.
Whether or not Sir Dace came in during the evening, Maria does not know;
he may, or may not, have done so, but she did see him come home in a cab
at ten o'clock, or soon after it. She was gossipping with the maids at a
house some few doors off, when a cab stopped near to them, Sir Dace got
out of it, paid the man, and walked on to his own door. Maria supposed
the driver had made a mistake in the number. So you see there can be no
doubt that Sir Dace was out that night."
"He was certainly in soon after ten," I remarked. "Verena came home
about that time, and she saw him downstairs."
"Don't you bring _her_ name up, Johnny," corrected the Squire. "That
young woman led to all the mischief. Running away, as she did--and
sending us off to that wax-work show in search of her! Fine figures they
cut, some of those dumb things!"
"I found also," resumed Chandler, turning over his papers, on which he
had looked from time to time, "that Sir Dace met with one or two slight
personal mishaps that night. He sprained his wrist, accounting for it
the next morning by saying he had slipped in getting into bed; and he
lost a little piece out of his shirt-front."
"Out of his shirt front!"
"Just here," and Chandler touched the middle button of his shirt. "The
button-hole and a portion of the linen round it had been torn away.
Nothing would have been known of that but for the laundress. She brought
the shirt back before putting it into water, lest it should be said
she had done it in the washing. Maria remembered this, and told me. A
remarkably intelligent girl, that."
"Did Maria--I remember the girl--suspect anything?" asked the Squire.
"Nothing whatever. She does not now; I accounted otherwise for my
inquiries. Altogether, what with these facts I have told you, and a few
minor items, and Ferrar's evidence, I can draw but one conclusion--that
Sir Dace Fontaine killed Pym."
"I never heard such a strange thing!" cried the pater. "And what's to be
done?"
"That's the question," said Chandler. "What _is_ to be done?" And he
left us with the doubt.
* * * * *
Well, it turned out to be quite true; but I have not space here to go
more into detail. Sir Dace Fontaine was guilty, and the dream was a true
dream.
"Did you suspect him?" the Squire asked privately of Jack, who was taken
into counsel the next day.
"No, I never suspected Sir Dace," Jack answered. "I suspected some one
else--Verena."
"No!"
"I did. About half-past eight o'clock that night, Ferrar had seen a
young lady--or somebody dressed as one--watching Pym's house from the
opposite entry: just where, it now appears, he later saw Sir Dace.
Ferrar thought it was Verena Fontaine. A little later, in fact just
after the calamity must have occurred, Alfred Saxby also saw a young
lady running from the direction of the house, whom he also took to be
Verena. Ferrar and I came to the same conclusion--I don't know about
Saxby--that Verena must have been present when it happened. _I_ thought
that, angry at the state Pym was in, she might have given him a push in
her vexation, perhaps inadvertently, and that he fell. Who knew?"
"But Verena was elsewhere that evening, you know; at a concert."
"I knew she said so; but I did not believe it. Of course I know now that
both Ferrar and Saxby were mistaken; that it was somebody else they saw,
who bore, one must imagine, some general resemblance to her."
"Well, I think you might have known better," cried the Squire.
"Yes, I suppose I ought to. But, before the inquest had terminated, I
chanced to be alone with Verena; and her manner--nay, her words, two or
three she said--seemed to imply her guilt, and also a consciousness that
I must be aware of it. I had no doubt at all from that hour."
"And is it for that reason, consideration for her, that you have
partially allowed suspicion to rest upon yourself?" pursued the Squire,
hotly.
"Of course. How could I be the means of throwing it upon a defenceless
girl?"
"Well, John Tanerton, you are a chivalrous goose!"
"Verena must have known the truth all along."
"_That's_ not probable," contended the Squire. "And Chandler wants to
know what is to be done."
"Nothing all all, that I can see," answered Jack. "Sir Dace is not in a
condition to have trouble thrown upon him."
Good Jack! generous Jack! There are not many such self-denying spirits
in the world.
And what would have been done is beyond guessing, had Sir Dace not
solved the difficulty himself. Solved it by dying.
But I must first tell of a little matter that happened. Although we had
heard what we had, one could not treat the man cavalierly, and the
Squire--just as good at heart as Jack--went up to make inquiries at
Oxlip Grange, as usual. One day he and Colonel Letsom strolled up
together, and were asked to walk in. Sir Dace wished to see them.
"If ever you saw a living skeleton, it's what he is," cried the Squire
to us when he came home. "It is in the nature of the disease, I believe,
that he should be. Dress him up in his shroud, and you'd take him for
nothing but bones."
Sir Dace was in the easy-chair by his bedroom fire, Coralie sitting
with him. By his side stood a round table with papers and letters upon
it.
"I am glad you have chanced to call," he said to them, as he sent
Coralie away. "I wanted my signature witnessed by some one in
influential authority. You are both county magistrates."
"The signature to your will," cried the Squire, falling to that
conclusion.
"Not my will," answered Sir Dace. "That is settled."
He turned to the table, his long, emaciated, trembling fingers singling
out a document that lay upon it. "This is a declaration," he said,
"which I have written out myself, being of sound mind, you perceive, and
which I wish to sign in your presence. I testify that every word written
in it is truth; I, a dying man, swear that it is so, before God."
His shaky hands scrawled his signature, Dace Fontaine; and the Squire
and Colonel Letsom added theirs to it. Sir Dace then sealed up the
paper, and made them each affix his seal also. He then tottered to a
cabinet standing by the bed's head, and locked it up in it.
"You will know where to find it when I am gone," he said. "I wish some
one of you to read it aloud, after the funeral, to those assembled here.
When my will shall have been read, then read this."
On the third day after this, at evening, Sir Dace Fontaine died. We
heard no more about anything until the day of the funeral, which took
place on the following Monday. Sir Dace left a list of those he wished
invited to it, and they went. Sir Robert Tenby, Mr. Brandon, Colonel
Letsom and his eldest son; the parsons of Timberdale, Crabb, and Islip;
the three doctors who had attended him; old Paul and Tom Chandler;
Captain Tanerton, and ourselves.
He was buried at Islip, by his own directions. And when we got back to
the Grange, after leaving him in the cold churchyard, Mr. Paul read out
the will. Coralie and Verena sat in the room in their deep mourning.
Coralie's eyes were dry, but Verena sobbed incessantly.
Apart from a few legacies, one of which was to his servant Ozias, his
property was left to his two daughters, in equal shares. The chief
legacy, a large one, was left to John Tanerton--three thousand pounds.
You should have seen Jack's face of astonishment as he heard it. Herbert
looked as if he could not believe his ears. And Verena glanced across
at Jack with a happy flush.
"Papa charged me, just before he died, to say that a sealed paper of his
would be found in his private cabinet, which was to be read out now,"
spoke Coralie, in the pause which ensued, as old Paul's voice ceased.
"He said Colonel Letsom and Mr. Todhetley would know where to find it,"
she added; breaking down with a sob.
The paper was fetched, and old Paul was requested to read it. So he
broke the seals.
You may have guessed what it was: a declaration of his guilt--if
guilt it could be called. In a straightforward manner he stated the
particulars of that past night: and the following is a summary of them.
Sir Dace went out again that night after dinner, not in secret, or
with any idea of secrecy; it simply chanced, he supposed, that no one
saw him go. He was too uneasy about Verena to rest; he fully believed
her to be with Pym; and he went down to Ship Street. Before entering
the street he dismissed the cab, and proceeded cautiously to
reconnoitre, believing that if he were seen, Pym would be capable of
concealing Verena. After looking about till he was tired, he took up
his station opposite Pym's lodgings--which seemed to be empty--and
stayed, watching, until close upon nine o'clock, when he saw Pym enter
them. Before he had time to go across, the landlady began to close the
shutters; while she was doing it, Captain Tanerton came up, and went
in. Captain Tanerton came out in a minute or two, and walked quickly
back up the street: he, Sir Dace, would have gone after him to ask him
whether Verena was indoors with Pym, or not, but the captain's steps
were too fleet for him. Sir Dace then crossed over, opened the
street-door, and entered Pym's parlour. A short, sharp quarrel ensued.
Pym was in liquor, and--consequently--insolent. In the heat of passion
Sir Dace--he was a strong man then--seized Pym's arm, and shook him.
Pym flew at him in return like a tiger, twisted his wrist round, and
tore his shirt. Sir Dace was furious then; he struck him a powerful
blow on the head--behind the ear no doubt, as the surgeons testified
afterwards--and Pym fell. Leaving him there, Sir Dace quitted the house
quietly, never glancing at the thought that the blow could be fatal.
But, when seated in a cab on the way home, the idea suddenly occurred
to him--what if he had killed Pym? The conviction, though he knew
not why, or wherefore, that he had killed him, took hold of him, and
he went into his house, a terrified man. The rest was known, the
manuscript went on to say. He allowed people to remain in the belief
that he had not been out-of-doors that night: though how bitterly he
repented not having declared the truth at the time, none could know,
save God. He now, a dying man, about to appear before that God, who had
been full of mercy to him, declared that this was the whole truth, and
he further declared that he had no intention whatever of injuring Pym;
all he thought was, to knock him down for his insolence. He hoped the
world would forgive him, though he had never forgiven himself; and
he prayed his daughters to forgive him, especially Verena. He would
counsel her to return to the West Indies, and marry George Bazalgette.
That ended the declaration: and an astounding surprise it must have been
to most of the eager listeners. But not one ventured to make any comment
on it, good or bad. The legacy to John Tanerton was understood now.
Verena crossed the room as we were filing out, and put her two hands
into his.
"I have had a dreadful fear upon me that it was papa," she whispered
to him, the tears running down her cheeks. "Nay, worse than a fear: a
conviction. I think you have had the same, Captain Tanerton, and that
you have generously done your best to screen him; and I thank you with
my whole heart."
"But, indeed," began Jack--and pulled himself up, short.
"Let me tell you all," said Verena. "I saw papa come in that night: I
mean to our lodgings in the Marylebone Road, so I knew he had been out.
It was just past ten o'clock: Ozias saw him too--but he is silent and
faithful. I did not want papa to see me; fate, I suppose, made me
back into that little room, papa's library, until he should have gone
upstairs. He did not go up; he came into the room: and I hid myself
behind the window curtain. I cannot describe to you how strange papa
looked; _dreadful_; and he groaned and flung up his arms as one does in
despair. It frightened me so much that I said nothing to anybody. Still
I had not the key to it: I thought it must be about me: and the torn
shirt--for I saw that, and saw him button his coat over it--I supposed
he had, himself, done accidentally. I drew one of the glass doors softly
open, got out that way, and up to the drawing-room. Then you came in
with the news of Edward's death. At first, for a day or so, I thought
as others did--that suspicion lay on you. But, gradually, all these
facts impressed themselves on my mind in their startling reality; and I
felt, I saw, it could have been no other than he--my poor father. Oh,
Captain Tanerton, forgive him! Forgive me!"
"There's nothing to forgive; I am sorry it has come out now," whispered
Jack, deeming it wise to leave it at that, and he stooped and gave her
the kiss of peace.
So this was the end of it. Of the affair which had so unpleasantly
puzzled the world, and tried Jack.
Jack, loyal, honest-hearted Jack, shook hands with everybody, giving a
double shake to Herbert's, and went forthwith down to Liverpool.
"I will take the _Rose of Delhi_ again, now," he said to the Freemans.
"For this next voyage, at any rate."
"And for many a one after it, we hope, Captain Tanerton," was their warm
answer. And Jack and his bright face went direct from the office to New
Brighton, to tell Aunt Dean.
* * * * *
And what became of the Miss Fontaines, you would like to ask? Well, I
have not time at present to tell you about Coralie; I don't know when I
shall have. But, if you'll believe me, Verena took her father's advice,
sailed back over the seas, and married George Bazalgette.