The Revellers Part 43

UNDERCURRENTS

Undoubtedly the Coroner's expedient had prevented a riot in the village.

The police deferred execution of the warrant, and Mr. Stockwell, recognizing the hopelessness of the situation, co-operated with them in making arrangements which would serve to allay public excitement.

The dead man was removed un.o.btrusively to his Nottonby residence on Sunday evening. Accompanying the hea.r.s.e was a closed carriage in which rode Mrs. Pickering and Kitty. At the door of Wetherby Lodge, Mr.

Stockwell met the cortge, and when the coffin was installed in the s.p.a.cious library the solicitor introduced the weeping servants to their temporary mistress, since he and Mr. Herbert had decided that she ought to reside in the house for a time. Such a fact, when it became known, would help to mold public opinion.

An elderly housekeeper was minded to greet Betsy with bitter words. Her young master had been dear to her, and she had not scrupled earlier to denounce in scathing terms the woman who had encompa.s.sed his death.

But the sight of the wan, white face, the sorrow-laden eyes, the graceful, shrinking figure of the girl-widow, restrained an imminent outburst, and the inevitable reaction carried the housekeeper to the other extreme.

"How d'ye do, ma'am," she said brokenly. "'Tis a weary homecomin' ye've had. Mebbe ye'll be likin' a cup o' tea."

Betsy murmured that she had no wants, but Yorks.h.i.+re regards food as a panacea for most evils, and the housekeeper bade one of the maids "put a kettle on."

So the ice was broken, and Mr. Stockwell breathed freely again, for he had feared difficulty in this quarter.

On Monday Pickering was buried, and the whole countryside attended the funeral, which was made impressive by the drumming and marching of the dead man's company of Territorials. On Tuesday morning a special sitting of the county magistrates was held in the local police court. Betsy attended with her solicitor, the Coroner's warrant was enforced, she was charged by the police with the murder of George Pickering, and remanded for a week in custody.

The whole affair was carried out so unostentatiously that Betsy was in jail before the public knew that she had appeared at the police court.

In one short week the unhappy dairymaid had experienced sharp transitions. She had become a wife, a widow. She was raised from the condition of a wage-earner to the status of an independent lady, and taken from a mansion to a prison. Bereft of her husband by her own act and separated from friends and relatives by the inexorable decree of the law, she was faced by the uncertain issue of a trial by an impartial judge and a strange jury. Surely, the Furies were exhausting their spite on one frail creature.

On Sunday evening Mrs. Saumarez drove in her car through the rain to tea at the White House. She was alone. Her manner was more reserved than usual, though she shook hands with Mrs. Bolland with a quiet friendliness that more than atoned for the perceptible change in her demeanor. Her wonted air of affable condescension had gone. Her face held a new seriousness which the other woman was quick to perceive.

"I have come to have a little chat with you," she said. "I am going away soon."

The farmer's wife thought she understood.

"I'm rale sorry te hear that, yer leddys.h.i.+p."

"Indeed, I regret the necessity myself. But recent events have opened my eyes to the danger of allowing my child to grow up in the untrammeled freedom which I have permitted--encouraged, I may say. It breaks my heart to be stern toward her. I must send her to the South, where there are good schools, where others will fulfil obligations in which I have failed."

And, behold! Mrs. Saumarez choked back a sob.

"Eh, ma'am," cried the perturbed Martha, "there's nowt to greet aboot.

T' la.s.s is young eneuf yet, an' she's a bonny bairn, bless her heart. We all hae te part wi' 'em. It'll trouble me sore when Martin goes away, but 'twill be for t' lad's good."

"You dear woman, you have nothing to reproach yourself with. I have.

Your fine boy would never dream of rending your soul as Angle has rent mine to-day--all because I wished her to read an instructive book instead of a French novel."

"Mebbe you were a bit hard wi' her," said the older woman. "To be sure, ye wouldn't be suited by this nasty inquest; but is it wise to change all at once? Slow an' sure, ma'am, is better'n fast an' f.e.c.kless. Where is t' little 'un now?"

"At home, crying her eyes out because I insisted that she should remain there."

"Ay, I reckon she'd be wantin' te see Martin."

"Do you think I may have been too severe with her?"

"It's not for t' likes o' me to advise a leddy like you, but yon bairn needs to be treated gently, for all t' wulld like a bit o' delicate chiney. Noo, when Martin was younger, I'd gie him a slap ower t' head, an' he'd grin t' minnit me back was turned. Your little gell is different."

"In my place, would you go back for her now?"

"No, ma'am, I wouldn't. That'd show weak. But I'd mek up for't te-morrow. Then she'll think all t' more o' yer kindness."

So the regeneration of Angle commenced. Was it too late? She was only a child in years. Surely there was yet time to mold her character in better shape. Mrs. Saumarez hoped so. She dried her tears, and, with Bolland's appearance, the conversation turned on the lamentable weather.

She was surprised to hear that August was often an unsettled month, though this storm was not only belated but almost unprecedented in its severity.

Mr. Herbert went to Nottonby early next day. He attended the funeral, heard the will read at Wetherby Grange in the presence of some disappointed cousins of the dead man, visited Betsy to say a few consoling words, and drove back to the vicarage through the unceasing rain.

Tea awaited him in the drawing-room, but his first glance at Elsie alarmed him. Her face was flushed, her eyes red. She was a most woebegone little maid.

"My dear child," he cried, "what is the matter?"

"I want you--to forgive me--first," she stammered brokenly.

"Forgive you, my darling! Forgive you for what?"

"I've been--reading the paper."

He drew her to his knee.

"What crime is there in reading the paper, sweet one?"

"I mean that horrid inquest, father dear."

"Oh!"

The smiling wonder left his face. Elsie looked up timidly.

"I ought to have asked your permission," she said, "but you were away, and auntie has a headache, and Miss Holland (her governess) has gone on her holidays, and I was so curious to know what all the bother was about."

Yet he did not answer. Hitherto his daughter, his one cherished possession, had been kept sedulously from knowledge of the external world. But she was shooting up, slender and straight, the image of her dead mother. Soon she would be a woman, and it was no part of his theory of life that a girl should be plunged into the jungle of adult existence without a reasonable consciousness of its snares and pitfalls. So ideal were the relations of father and daughter that the vicar had deferred the day of enlightenment. It had come sooner than he counted on.

Elsie was frightened now. Her tears ceased and the flush left her cheeks.

"Are you very angry?" she whispered. He kissed her.

"No, darling, not angry, but just a little pained. It was an unpleasing record for your eyes. There, now. Give me some tea, and we'll talk about it. You may have formed some mistaken notions. Tell me what you thought of it all. In any case, Elsie, why were you crying?"

"I was so sorry for that poor woman. And why did the Coroner believe she killed her husband, when Mr. Pickering said she had not touched him?"

The vicar saw instantly that the girl had missed the more unpleasing phases of the tragedy. He smiled again.

"Bring me the paper," he said. "I was present at the inquest. Perhaps the story is somewhat garbled."

She obeyed. He cast a critical glance over the leaded columns, for the weekly newspaper had given practically a verbatim report of the evidence, and there was a vivid description of the scene in the schoolroom, with its dramatic close.

"It is by no means certain, from the evidence tendered, that the Coroner is right," said Mr. Herbert slowly. "In these matters, however, the police are compelled to sift all statements thoroughly, and the only legal way is to frame a charge. Although Mrs. Pickering may be tried for murder, it does not follow that she will be convicted."