Works of Ellen Wood, page 1185
“You should have seen St. George at the funeral,” said Tom Coney to us, as we turned aside after church one hot summer’s day to look at the new name on grave, for we were away from Crabb Cot when she died. “His face was green; yes, green — hold your tongue, Johnny! — green, not yellow; and his eyes had the queerest look. You were right, Todhetley; you used to say, you know, that St. George was wild after poor Ellin.”
“Positive of it,” affirmed Tod.
“And he can’t bear the place now she’s gone out of it,” continued Tom Coney. “Report says that he means to throw up his post and his prospects, and run away for good.”
“Not likely,” dissented Tod, tossing his head. “A strong man like St. George does not die of love nowadays, or put himself out of good things, either. You have been reading romances, Coney.”
But Tom Coney was right. When the summer was on the wane St. George bade a final adieu to Timberdale. And if it was his love for Ellin, or her death, that drove him away, he made no mention of it. He told Timberdale that he was growing tired of work and meant to travel. As he had a good income, Timberdale agreed that it was only natural he should grow tired of work and want to travel. So he said adieu, and departed: and Mr. Delorane speedily engaged another head-clerk in his place, who was to become his partner later.
St. George wrote to Sir. Delorane from Jamaica, to which place he steamed first, to take a look at his cousins. The letter contained a few words about William Brook. St. George had been instituting inquiries, and he said that, by what he could learn, it was certainly William Brook who was drowned in Kingston harbour the day before he ought to have sailed for England in the Dart. He, St. George, felt perfectly assured of this fact, and also that if any man had sailed in the Idalia under Brook’s name, it must have been an impostor who had nefariously substituted himself. St. George added that he was going “farther afield,” possibly to California: he would write again from thence if he arrived without mishap.
No other letter ever came from him. So whether the sea swallowed him up, as, according to his report, it had swallowed his rival, none could tell. But it would take better evidence than that, to convince us William Brook had not come home in the Idalia.
And that is all I have to tell. I know you will deem it most unsatisfactory. Was it William Brook in the gig, or was it not? We found no trace of him after that stormy night: we have found none to this day. And, whether that was he, or was not he, what became of him? Questions never, as I believe, to be solved in this life.
There was a peculiar absence of proof every way, as Ellin remarked; nothing but doubt on all sides. Going over the matter with Darbyshire the other evening, when, as I have already told you, he suggested that I should relate it, we could not, either of us, see daylight through it, any more than we saw it at the time of its occurrence.
There was the certainty (yes, I say so) that Brook landed at Liverpool the evening of the 18th of October; he would no doubt start for home the morning of the 19th, by rail, which would take him through Birmingham to Worcester; there was also what the shopwoman in Bold Street said, though hers might be called negative testimony, as well as the lady’s in the train. There was Mrs. James Ashton’s positive belief that she saw him arrive that afternoon at Worcester by the Birmingham train, shake hands with St. George and talk with him: and there was our recognition of him an hour or two later in St. George’s gig in Dip Lane ——
“Hold there, Johnny,” cried Darbyshire, taking his long clay pipe from his mouth to interrupt me as I went over the items. “You should say supposed recognition.”
“Yes, of course. Well, all that points to its having been Brook: you must see that, Mr. Darbyshire. But, if it was in truth he, there’s a great deal that seems inexplicable. Why did he set off to walk from Worcester to Timberdale — and on such a night! — why not have gone on by rail? It is incredible.”
“Nay, lad, we are told he — that is, the traveller — set off to walk to Evesham. St. George says he put him down in Dip Lane; and Lockett, you know, saw somebody, that seems to answer the description, turn from the lanes into the Evesham road.”
I was silent, thinking out my thoughts. Or, rather, not daring to think them out. Darbyshire put his pipe in the fender and went on.
“If it was Brook and no stranger that St. George met at Worcester Station, the only possible theory I can form on that point is this, Johnny: that St. George then proposed to drive him home. He may have said to him, ‘You walk on, and I will get my gig and overtake you directly:’ it is a lame theory, you may say, lad, but it is the only one I can discern, and I have thought of the matter more than you suppose. St. George started for home earlier than he had meant to start, and this may have been the reason: though he says it was because he saw it was going to be so wild a night. Why they should not have gone in company to the Hare-and-Hounds, and started thence, in the gig together, is another question.”
“Unless Brook, being done up, wished not to show himself at Worcester that day — to get on at once to Timberdale.”
Darbyshire nodded: the thought, I am sure, was not strange to him. “The most weighty question of all remains yet, lad: If St. George took up Brook in his gig, what did he do with him? He would not want to be put down in Dip Lane to walk to Evesham.”
He caught up his churchwarden pipe, relighted it at the fire, and puffed away in silence. Presently I spoke again.
“Mr. Darbyshire, I do not like St. George. I never did. You may not believe me, perhaps, but the first time I ever saw his face — I was a little fellow — I drew back startled. There was something in its expression which frightened me.”
“One of your unreasonable dislikes, Johnny?”
“Are they unreasonable? But I have not taken many such dislikes in my life as that one was. Perhaps I might say any such.”
“St. George was liked by most people.”
“I know he was. Any way, my dislike remained with me. I never spoke of it; no, not even to Tod.”
“Liking him or disliking him has nothing to do with the main question — what became of Brook. There were the letters too, sent by the traveller in answer to St. George’s advertisements.”
“Yes, there were the letters. But — did it ever occur to you to notice that not one word was said in those letters, or one new fact given, that we had not heard before? They bore out St. George’s statement, but they afforded no proof that his statement was true.”
“That is, Mr. Johnny, you would insinuate, putting it genteelly, that St. George fabricated the answers himself.”
“No, not that he did, only that there was nothing in the letters to render it impossible that he did.”
“After having fabricated the pretty little tale that it was a stranger he picked up, and what the stranger said to him, and all the rest of it, eh, Johnny?”
“Well” — I hesitated— “as to the letters, it seemed to me to be an unaccountable thing that the traveller could not let even one person see him in private, to hear his personal testimony: say Mr. Delorane, or a member of the Brook family. The Squire went hot over it: he asked St. George whether the fellow thought men of honour carried handcuffs in their pockets. Again, the stranger said he should be at liberty to come forward later, but he never has come.”
Darbyshire smoked on. “I’d give this full of gold,” he broke the silence with, touching the big bowl of the clay pipe, “to know where Brook vanished to.”
My restless fingers had strayed to his old leaden tobacco jar, on the table by me, pressing down its heavy lid and lifting it again. When I next spoke he might have thought the words came out of the tobacco, they were so low.
“Do you think St. George had a grudge against Brook, Mr. Darbyshire? — that he wished him out of the way?”
Darbyshire gave me a look through the wreathing smoke.
“Speak out, lad. What have you on your mind?”
“St. George said, you know, that he stopped the gig in Dip Lane at the turning which would lead to Evesham, for Brook — I mean the traveller — to get out. But I thought I heard it stop before that. I was almost sure of it.”
“Stop where?”
“Just about opposite the gap in the hedge; hardly even quite as far as that. We had not reached the turning to Evesham ourselves when I heard this. The gig seemed to come to a sudden standstill. I said so to Tod at the time.”
“Well?”
“Why should he have stopped just at the gap?”
“How can I tell, lad?”
“I suppose he could not have damaged Brook? Struck him a blow to stun him — or — or anything of that?”
“And if he had? If he (let us put it so) killed him, Johnny, what did he do with — what was left of him? What could he do with it?”
Darbyshire paused in his smoking. I played unconsciously with the jar. He was looking at me, waiting to be answered.
“I suppose — if that pond had been dragged — Dip Pond — if it were to be dragged now — that — that — nothing would be found — —”
“Hush, lad,” struck in Darbyshire, all hastily. “Walls have ears, people tell us: and we must not even whisper grave charges without sufficient grounds; grounds that we could substantiate.”
True: and of course he did right to stop me.
But we cannot stay rebellious thought: and no end of gruesome ideas connected with that night in Dip Lane steal creepingly at times into my mind. If I am not mistaken they steal also into Darbyshire’s.
All the same they may be but phantoms of the imagination, and St. George may have been a truthful, an innocent man. You must decide for yourselves, if you can, on which side the weight of evidence seems to lie. I have told you the story as it happened, and I cannot clear up for you what has never yet been cleared for Timberdale. It remains an unsolved mystery.
SANDSTONE TORR.
I.
What I am going to tell of took place before my time. But we shall get down to that by-and-by, for I had a good deal to do with the upshot when it came.
About a mile from the Manor, on the way to the Court (which at that time belonged to my father) stood a very old house built of grey stone, and called Sandstone Torr: “Torr,” as every one knew, being a corruption of Tower. It was in a rather wild and solitary spot, much shut in by trees. A narrow lane led to it from the highway, the only road by which a carriage could get up to it: but in taking the field way between the Court and Dyke Manor, over stiles and across a running rivulet or two, you had to pass it close. Sandstone Torr was a rambling, high, and ugly old building, once belonging to the Druids, or some ancient race of that kind, and said to have been mighty and important in its day. The points chiefly remarkable about it now were its age, its lonesome grey walls, covered with lichen, and an amazingly lofty tower, that rose up from the middle of the house and went tapering off at the top like an aspiring sugar loaf.
Sandstone Torr belonged to the Radcliffes. Its occupier was Paul Radcliffe, who had inherited it from his father. He was a rather unsociable man, and seemed to find his sole occupation in farming what little land lay around the Torr and belonged to it. He might have mixed with the gentry of the county, as far as descent went, for the Radcliffes could trace themselves back for ages — up to the Druids, I think, the same as the house: but he did not appear to care about it. Who his wife had been no one knew. He brought her home one day from London, and she kept herself as close as he did, or closer. She was dead now, and old Radcliffe lived in the Torr with his only son, and a man and maid servant.
Well, in those days there came to stay at Dyke Manor a clergyman, named Elliot, with his daughter Selina. Squire Todhetley was a youngish man then, and he and his mother lived at the Manor together. Mr. Elliot was out of health. He had been overworked for the past twenty years in the poor London parish of which he was curate; and old Mrs. Todhetley asked them to come down for a bit of a change. Change indeed it brought to Mr. Elliot. He died there. His illness, whatever it was, took a sudden and rapid stride onwards, and before he had been at Dyke Manor three weeks he was dead.
Selina Elliot — we have heard the Squire say it many a time — was the sweetest-looking girl that ever the sun shone on. She was homeless now. The best prospect before her was that of going out as governess. The Elliots were of good descent, and Selina had been thoroughly well educated; but of money she had just none. Old Mrs. Todhetley bid her not be in any hurry; she was welcome to stay as long as she liked at Dyke Manor. So Selina stayed. It was summer weather then, and she was out and about in the open air all day long: a slight girl, in deep mourning, with a shrinking air that was natural to her.
One afternoon she came in, her bright face all aglow, and her shy eyes eager. Soft brown eyes they were, that had always a sadness in them. I — a little shaver — can remember that, when I knew her in later years. As she sat down on the stool at Mrs. Todhetley’s feet, she took off her black straw hat, and began to play nervously with its crape ends.
“My dear, you seem to be in a heat,” said Mrs. Todhetley; a stout old lady, who sat all day long in her easy-chair.
“Yes, I ran home fast,” said Selina.
“Home from whence? Where have you been?”
“I was — near the Torr,” replied Selina, with hesitation.
“Near the Torr, child! That’s a long way for you to go strolling alone.”
“The wild roses in the hedges there are so lovely,” pleaded Selina. “That’s why I took to go there at first.”
“Took to go there!” repeated the old lady, thinking it an odd phrase. “Do you see anything of the Torr people? I hope you’ve not been making intimate with young Stephen Radcliffe,” she added, a thought darting into her mind.
“Stephen? that’s the son. No, I never saw him. I think he is away from home.”
“That’s well. He is by all accounts but a churlish lout of a fellow.”
Selina Elliot bent her timid face over the hat, smoothing its ribbons with her restless fingers. She was evidently ill at ease. Glancing up presently, she saw the old lady was shutting her eyes for a doze: and that hastened her communication.
“I — I want to tell you something, please, ma’am. But — I don’t like to begin.” And, with that, Selina burst into unexpected tears, and the alarmed old lady looked up.
“Why, what ails you, child? Are you hurt? Has a wasp been at you?”
“Oh no,” said Selina, brushing the tears away with fingers that trembled all over. “I — if you please — I think I am going to live at the Torr.”
The old lady wondered whether Selina was dreaming. “At the Torr!” said she. “There are no children at the Torr. They don’t want a governess at the Torr.”
“I am going there to be with Mr. Radcliffe,” spoke Selina, in her throat, as if she meant to choke.
“To be with old Radcliffe! Why, the child’s gone cranky! Paul Radcliffe don’t need a governess.”
“He wants to marry me.”
“Mercy upon us!” cried the old lady, lifting both hands in her amazement. And Selina burst into tears again.
Yes, it was true. Paul Radcliffe, who was fifty years of age, if a day, and had a son over twenty, had been proposing marriage to that bright young girl! They had met in the fields often, it turned out, and Mr. Radcliffe had been making his hay while the sun shone. Every one went on at her.
“It would be better to go into a prison than into that gloomy Sandstone Torr — a young girl like you, Selina,” said Mrs. Todhetley. “It would be sheer madness.”
“Why, you’d never go and sacrifice yourself to that old man!” cried the Squire, who was just as outspoken and impulsive and good-hearted then as in these latter years. “He ought to be ashamed of himself. It would be like June and December.”
But all they said was of no use in the end. It was not that Selina, poor girl, was in love with Mr. Radcliffe — one could as well have fancied her in love with the grizzly old bear, just then exhibiting himself at Church Dykely in a travelling caravan. But it was her position. Without money, without a home, without a resource of any kind for the future, save that of teaching for her bread, the prospect of becoming mistress of Sandstone Torr was something fascinating.
“I do so dislike the thought of spending my whole life in teaching!” she pleaded in apology, the bitter tears streaming down her face. “You cannot tell what it is to feel dependent.”
“I’d rather sweep chimneys than marry Paul Radcliffe if I were a pretty young girl like you,” stormed the old lady.
“Since papa died you don’t know what the feeling has been,” sobbed Selina. “Many a night have I lain awake with the misery of knowing that I had no claim to a place in the wide world.”
“I am sure you are welcome to stay here,” said the Squire.
“Yes; as long as I am here myself,” added his mother. “After that — well, I suppose it wouldn’t be proper for you to stay.”
“You are all kindness; I shall never meet with such friends again; and I know that I am welcome to stay as long as I like,” she answered in the saddest of tones. “But the time of my departure must come sometime; and though the world lies before me, there is no refuge for me in it. It is very good of Mr. Radcliffe to offer to make me his wife and to give me a home at the Torr.”
“Oh, is it, though!” retorted the Squire. “Trust him for knowing on which side his bread’s buttered.”
“He is of good descent; he has a large income — —”
“Six hundred a-year,” interrupted the Squire, slightingly.
“Yes, I am aware that it cannot appear much to you,” she meekly said; “but to me it seems unbounded. And that is apart from the house and land.”
“The house and land must both go to Stephen.”
“Mr. Radcliffe told me that.”
“As to the land, it’s only a few acres; nothing to speak of,” went on the Squire. “I’d as soon boast of my gooseberry bushes. And he can leave all his money to Stephen if he likes. In my opinion, the chances are that he will.”
