Works of Ellen Wood, page 1181
The men were never found. A labourer, hastening through the lane earlier in the evening, with some medicine from the doctor’s for his sick wife, had noticed two foot-pads, as he described them, standing under a tree. That these were the murderers, then waiting for prey, possibly for this very gentleman they attacked, no one had any doubt; but they were never traced. Whoever they were, they got clear off with their booty, and — the Squire would always add when telling the story to a stranger — with their wicked consciences, which he sincerely hoped tormented them ever afterwards.
But the most singular fact in the affair remains to be told. From that night nothing would grow on the spot in the hedge over which the murdered man was dragged, and on which his blood had fallen. The blood-stains were easily got rid of, but the hedge, though replanted more than once, never grew again; and the gap remained in it still. Report went that the farmer’s ghost haunted it — that, I am sure, you will not be surprised to hear, ghosts being so popular — and might be seen hovering around it on a moonlit night.
And amidst the many small coincidences attending the story (my story) which I am trying to place clearly before you, was this one: that the history of the murder was gone over that day at Mr. Beele’s. Some remark led to the subject as we sat round the dessert-table, and Mrs. Frank Beele, who had never heard of it, inquired what it was. Upon that, the Squire and old Beele recounted it to her, each ransacking his memory to help the other with fullest particulars.
To go on with our homeward journey. Battling along, we at length plunged into Dip Lane — which, to its other recommendations, added that of being inconveniently narrow — and Tod, peering outwards in the gloomy dusk, fancied he saw some vehicle before us. Bringing his keen sight to bear upon it, he stood up to reconnoitre, and made it out to be a gig, going the same way that we were. The wind was not quite so bad in this low spot, and the snow and sleet had ceased for a bit.
“Take care, father,” said Tod: “there’s a gig on ahead.”
“A gig, Joe?”
“Yes, it’s a gig: and going at a strapping pace.”
But the Squire was going at a strapping pace also, and driving two fresh horses, whereas the gig had but one horse. We caught it up in no time. It slackened speed slightly as it drew close to the hedge on that side, to give us room to pass. In a moment we saw it was St. George’s gig, St. George driving.
“Halloa!” called Tod, as we shot by, and his shout was loud enough to frighten the ghost at the gap, which lively spot we were fast approaching, “there’s William Brook! Father, pull up: there’s William Brook!”
Brook was sitting with St. George. His coat was well buttoned up, a white woollen comforter folded round his neck and chin, and a low-crowned, wide-brimmed hat pulled down over his brows. I confess that but for Tom’s shout I should not have recognized him — muffled up in that way.
Anxious to get home, out of the storm, the Squire paid no heed to Tod’s injunction of pulling up. He just turned his head for a moment towards the gig, but drove on at the same speed as before. All we could do was to call out every welcome we could think of to William Brook as we looked back, and to pull off our hats and wave them frantically.
William Brook pulled off his, and waved it to us in return. I saw him do it. He called out something also, no doubt a greeting. At least, I thought he did; but the wind swept by with a gust at the moment, and it might have been St. George’s voice and not his.
“Johnny, lad, it’s better than nuts,” cried Tod to me, all excitement for once, as he fixed his hat on his head again. “How glad I am! — for Nelly’s sake. But what on earth brings the pair of them — he and St. George — in Dip Lane?”
Another minute or so, and we reached the gap in the hedge. I turned my eyes to it and to the pond beyond it in a sort of fascination; I was sure to do so whenever I went by, but that was seldom; and the conversation at the dessert-table had opened the wretched details afresh. Almost immediately afterwards, the gig wheels behind us, which I could hear above the noise of the wind, seemed to me to come to a sudden standstill. “St. George has stopped,” I exclaimed to Tod. “Not a bit of it,” answered he; “we can no longer hear him.” Almost close upon that, we passed the turning which led out of the lane towards Evesham. Not heeding anything of all this, as indeed why should he, the Squire dashed straight onwards, and in time we gained our homestead, Crabb Cot.
The first thing the Squire did, when we were all gathered round the welcome fire, blazing and crackling with wood and coal, and the stormy blasts beat on the window-panes, but no longer upon us, was to attack us for making that noise in Dip Lane, and for shouting out that it was Brook.
“It was Brook, father,” said Tod. “St. George was driving him.”
“Nonsense, Joe,” reprimanded the Squire. “William Brook has not landed from the high seas yet. And, if he had landed, what should bring him in Dip Lane — or St. George either?”
“It was St. George,” persisted Tod.
“Well, that might have been. It looked like his grey horse. Where was he coming from, I wonder?”
“Mr. St. George went to Worcester this morning, sir,” interposed Thomas, who had come in with some glasses, the Squire having asked for some hot brandy-and-water. “Giles saw his man Japhet this afternoon, and he said his master had gone off in his gig to Worcester for the day.”
“Then he must have picked up Brook at Worcester,” said Tod, in his decisive way.
“May be so,” conceded the Squire, coming round to reason. “But I don’t see what they could be doing in Dip Lane.”
The storm had disappeared the following morning, but the ground was white with a thin coating of snow; and in the afternoon, when we started for Timberdale to call on William Brook, the sky was blue and the sun shining. Climbing up from the Ravine and crossing the field beyond it to the high-road, we met Darbyshire, the surgeon, striding along as fast as his legs would carry him.
“You seem to be in a hurry,” remarked the Squire.
“Just sent for to a sick patient over yonder,” replied Darbyshire, nodding to some cottages in the distance. “Dying, the report is; supposed to have swallowed poison. Dare say it will turn out to be a case of cucumber.”
He was speeding on when Tod asked whether he had seen William Brook yet. Darbyshire turned to face him, looking surprised.
“Seen Brook yet! No; how should I see him? Brook’s not come, is he?”
“He got home last night. St. George drove him from Worcester in his gig,” said Tod, and went on to explain that we had passed them in Dip Lane. Darbyshire was uncommonly pleased. Brook was a favourite of his.
“I am surprised that I have not seen him,” he cried; “I have been about all the morning. St. George was in Worcester yesterday, I know. Wonder, though, what induced them to make a pilgrimage through Dip Lane!”
Just, you see, as the rest of us had wondered.
We went on towards Mrs. Brook’s. But in passing Mr. Delorane’s, Aunt Hester’s head appeared above the Venetian blind of the dining-room. She began nodding cordially.
“How lively she looks,” exclaimed the Squire. “Pleased that he is back, I take it. Suppose we go in?”
The front-door was standing open, and we went in unannounced. Aunt Hester, sitting then at the little work-table, making herself a cap with lace and pink ribbons, got up and tried to shake hands with all three of us at once.
“We are on our way to call on William Brook,” cried the Squire, as we sat down, and Aunt Hester was taking up her work again.
“On William Brook! — why, what do you mean?” she exclaimed. “Has he come?”
“You don’t mean to say you did not know it — that he has not been to see you?” cried the Squire.
“I don’t know a thing about it; I did not know he had come; no one has told me,” rejoined Aunt Hester. “As to his coming to see me — well, I suppose he would not feel himself at liberty to do that until Mr. Delorane gave permission. When did he arrive? I am so glad.”
“And he is not much behind his time, either,” observed Tod.
“Not at all behind it, to speak of, only we were impatient. The truth is, I caught somewhat of Ellin’s fears,” added Aunt Hester, looking at us over her spectacles, which she rarely wore higher than the end of her nose. “Ellin has had gloomy ideas about his never coming back at all; and one can’t see a person perpetually sighing away in silence, without sighing a bit also for company. Did he get here this morning? What a pity Ellin is in Worcester!”
We told Aunt Hester all about it, just as we had told Darbyshire, but not quite so curtly, for she was not in a hurry to be off to a poisoned patient. She dropped her work to listen, and took off her spectacles, looking, however, uncommonly puzzled.
“What a singular thing — that you should chance to have been in Dip Lane just at the time they were! — and why should they have chosen that dreary route! But — but — —”
“But what, ma’am?” cried the Squire.
“Well, I am thinking what could have been St. George’s motive for concealing the news from me when he came round here last night to tell me he had left Ellin safely at Philip West’s,” replied she.
“Did he say nothing to you about William Brook?”
“Not a word. He said what a nasty drive home it had been in the teeth of the storm and wind, but he did not mention William Brook. He seemed tired, and did not stay above a minute or two. John was out. Oh, here is John.”
Mr. Delorane, hearing our voices, I suppose, came in from the office. Aunt Hester told him the news at once — that William Brook was come home.
“I am downright glad,” interrupted the lawyer emphatically. “What with one delay and another, one might have begun to think him lost: it was September, you know, that he originally announced himself for. What do you say?” — his own words having partly drowned Aunt Hester’s— “St. George drove him home last night from Worcester? Drove Brook? Nonsense! Had St. George brought Brook he would have told me of it.”
“But he did bring him, sir,” affirmed Tod: and he went over the history once more. Mr. Delorane did not take it in.
“Are these lads playing a joke upon me, Squire?” asked he.
“Look here, Delorane. That we passed St. George in Dip Lane is a fact; I knew the cut of his gig and horse. Some one was with him; I saw that much. The boys called out that it was William Brook, and began shouting to him. Whether it was he, or not, I can’t say; I had enough to do with my horses, I can tell you; they did not like the wind, Blister especially.”
“It was William Brook, safe enough, sir,” interposed Tod. “Do you think I don’t know him? We spoke to him, and he spoke to us. Why should you doubt it?”
“Well, I suppose I can’t doubt it, as you speak so positively,” said Mr. Delorane. “The news took me by surprise, you see. Why on earth did St. George not tell me of it? I shall take him to task when he comes in. Any way, I am glad Brook’s come. We will drink his health.”
He opened what was in those days called the cellaret — and a very convenient article it was for those who drank wine as a rule — and put on the table some of the glasses that were standing on the sideboard. Then we drank health and happiness to William Brook.
“And to some one else also,” cried bold Tod, winking at Aunt Hester.
“You two boys can go on to Mrs. Brook’s,” cried the Squire; “I shall stop here a bit. Tell William I am glad he has surmounted the perils of the treacherous seas.”
“And tell him he may come to see me if he likes,” added the lawyer. “I expect he did not get a note I wrote to him a few months back, or he’d have been here this morning.”
Away we went to Mrs. Brook’s. And the first thing that flabbergasted us (the expression was Tod’s, not mine) was to be met by a denial of the servant’s. Upon Tod asking to see Mr. William, she stared at us and said he was not back from his travels.
“Come in,” called out Minty from the parlour; “I know your voices.” She sat at the table, her paint-box before her. Minty painted very nice pieces in water-colours: the one in process was a lovely bit of scenery taken from Little Malvern. Mrs. Brook was out.
“What did I hear you saying to Ann about William — that he had come home?” she began to us, without getting up from her work — for we were too intimate to be upon any ceremony with one another. “He is not come yet. I only wish he was.”
“But he is come,” said Tod. “He came last night. We saw him and spoke to him.”
Minty put down her camel-hair pencil then, and turned round. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Mr. St. George drove William home from Worcester. We passed them in the gig in Dip Lane.”
Minty retorted by asking whether we were not dreaming; and for a minute or two we kept at cross-purposes. She held to it that they had seen nothing of her brother; that he was not at Timberdale.
“Mamma never had a wink of sleep last night, for thinking of the dreadful gale William must be in at sea. Your fancy misled you,” went on Minty, calmly touching-up the cottage in her painting — and Tod looked as if he would like to beat her.
But it did really seem that William had not come, and we took our departure. I don’t think I had ever seen Tod look so puzzled.
“I wish I may be shot if I can understand this!” said he.
“Could we have been mistaken in thinking it was Brook?” I was beginning; and Tod turned upon me savagely.
“I swear it was Brook. There! And you know it as well as I, Mr. Johnny. Where can he be hiding himself? What is the meaning of it?”
It is my habit always to try to account for things that seem unaccountable; to search out reasons and fathom them; and you would be surprised at the light that will sometimes crop up. An idea flashed across me now.
“Can Brook be ill, Tod, think you? — done up with his voyage, or something — and St. George is nursing him at his house for a day or two before he shows himself to Timberdale?” And Tod thought it might be so.
Getting back to Mr. Delorane’s, we found him and the Squire sitting at the table still. St. George, just come in, was standing by, hat in hand, and they were both tackling him at once.
“What do you say?” asked St. George of his master, when he found room for a word. “That I brought William Brook home here last night from Worcester! Why, what can have put such a thing into your head, sir?”
“Didn’t you bring him?” cried the Squire. “Didn’t you drive him home in your gig?”
“That I did not. I have not seen William Brook.”
He spoke in a ready, though surprised tone, not at all like one who is shuffling with the truth, or telling a fable, and looked from one to another of his two questioners, as if not yet understanding them. The Squire pushed his spectacles to the top of his brow and stared at St. George. He did not understand, either.
“Look here, St. George: do you deny that it was you we passed in Dip Lane last night — and your grey horse — and your gig?”
“Why should I deny it?” quietly returned St. George. “I drew as close as I could to the hedge as a matter of precaution to let you go by, Squire, you were driving so quickly. And a fine shouting you greeted me with,” he added, turning to Tod, with a slight laugh.
“The greeting was not intended for you; it was for William Brook,” answered Tod, his voice bearing a spice of antagonism; for he thought he was being played with.
St. George was evidently at a loss yet, and stood in silence. All in a moment, his face lighted up.
“Surely,” he cried impulsively, “you did not take that man in the gig for William Brook!”
“It was William Brook. Who else was it?”
“A stranger. A stranger to me and to the neighbourhood. A man to whom I gave a lift.”
Tod’s face presented a picture. Believing, as he did still, that it was Brook in the gig, the idea suggested by me — that St. George was concealing Brook at his house out of good-fellowship — grew stronger and stronger. But he considered that, as it had come to this, St. George ought to say so.
“Where’s the use of your continuing to deny it, St. George?” he asked. “You had Brook there, and you know you had.”
“But I tell you that it was not Brook,” returned St. George. “Should I deny it, if it had been he? You talk like a child.”
“Has Brook been away so long that we shouldn’t know him, do you suppose?” retorted quick-tempered Tod. “Why! as a proof that it was Brook, he shouted back his greeting to us, taking off his hat to wave it in answer to ours. Would a strange man have done that?”
“The man did nothing of the kind,” said St. George.
“Yes, he did,” I said, thinking it was time I spoke. “He called back a greeting to us, and he waved his hat round and round. I should not have felt so sure it was Brook but for seeing him without his hat.”
“Well, I did not see him do it,” conceded St. George. “When you began to shout in passing the man seemed surprised. ‘What do those people want?’ he said to me; and I told him you were acquaintances of mine. It never occurred to my mind, or to his either, I should imagine, but that the shouts were meant for me. If he did take off his hat in response, as you say, he must have done it, I reckon, because I did not take off mine.”
“Couldn’t you hear our welcome to him? Couldn’t you hear us call him ‘Brook’?” persisted Tod.
“I did not distinguish a single word. The wind was too high for that.”
“Then we are to understand that Brook has not come back: that you did not bring him?” interposed the Squire. “Be quiet, Joe; can’t you see you were mistaken? I told you you were, you know, at the time. You and Johnny are for ever taking up odd notions, Johnny especially.”
“The man was a stranger to me,” spoke St. George. “I overtook him trudging along the road, soon after leaving Worcester; it was between Red Hill and the turning to Whittington. He accosted me, asking which of the two roads before us would take him to Evesham. I told him which, and was about to drive on when it occurred to me that I might as well offer to give the man a lift: it was an awful evening, and that’s the truth: one that nobody would, as the saying runs, turn a dog out in. He thanked me, and got up; and I drove him as far as — —”
