sailant vigorously sought after, would be sufficient to indicate that public curiosity was excited to a high pitch: but all this was as nothing, compared to the excitement which was to ensue, upon the evidence given at the coroner’s inquest.
In the absence of any certain data to go upon, Deerham had been content to take uncertain data, and to come to its own conclusions. Deerham assumed that Rachel, from some reasons which they could not fathom, had taken the lonely road home that night, had met with somebody or other with whom had ensued a quarrel and scuffle, and that, accidentally or by intent, she had been pushed into the pond, the coward decamping.
“Villany enough! even if ’twas but an accident!” cried wrathful Deerham.
Villany enough, beyond all doubt, had this been the extent. But, Deerham had to learn that the villany had had a beginning previous to that.
The inquest had been summoned in due course. It sat two days after the accident. No evidence tending to further elucidate the matter was given, than had been elicited that first night before Mr. Verner; except the medical evidence. Dr. West and a surgeon from a neighbouring town, who had jointly made the post mortem examination, testified that there was a cause for Rachel Frost’s unevenness of spirits, spoken to by her father and by Mrs. Verner. She might possibly, they now thought, have thrown herself into the pool; induced to it by self-condemnation.
It electrified Deerham. It electrified Mr. Verner. It worse than electrified Matthew Frost and Robin. In the first impulse of the news, Mrs. Verner declared that it could not be. But the medical men, with their impassive faces, calmly said that it was.
But, so far as the inquiry went, it only left the point where it found it. For, if it tended to induce a suspicion that Rachel might have found life a burthen, and so wished to end it, it only rendered stronger the suspicion against another. This supplied the very motive for that other’s conduct, which had been wanting, supposing that he had indeed got rid of her by violence. It gave the clue to much which had before been dark. People could understand now why Rachel should hasten to keep a stealthy appointment; why quarrelling should be heard at it; in short, why poor Rachel should have been found in the pond. The jury returned an open verdict—“Found drowned; but how she got into the water, there is no precise evidence to show.”
Robin Frost struggled out of the room as the crowd was dispersing. His eye was blazing, his cheek burning. Could Robin have laid his hand at that moment upon the right man, there would speedily have ensued another coroner’s inquest. The earth was not wide enough for the two to live on it. Fortunately, Robin could not fix on any one, and say, thou art the man! The knowledge was hidden from him: and yet, the very man may have been at the inquest, side by side with himself. Nay, he probably was.
Robin Frost cleared himself from the crowd. He gave vent to a groan of despair; he lifted his strong arms in impotency. Then he turned and sought Mr. Verner.
Mr. Verner was ill; could not be seen. Lionel came forward.
“Robin, I am truly sorry;—truly grieved. We all are. But I know you will not care to-day to hear me say it.”
“Sir, I wanted to see Mr. Verner,” replied Robin. “I want to know if that inquest can be squashed.” Don’t laugh at him now, poor fellow. He meant quashed.
“The inquest quashed!” repeated Lionel. “Of course it cannot be. I don’t know what you mean, Robin. It has been held, and it cannot be unheld.”
“I should ha’ said the verdict,” explained Robin. “I’m beside myself to-day, Mr. Lionel. Can’t Mr. Verner get it squashed? He knows the crowner.”
“Neither Mr. Verner nor anybody else could do it, Robin. Why should you wish it done?”
“Because it as good as sets forth a lie,” vehemently answered Robin Frost. “She never put herself into the water. Bad as things had turned out with her, poor dear, she never did that. Mr. Lionel, I ask you, sir, was she likely to do it?”
“I should have deemed it very unlikely,” replied Lionel. “Until to-day,” he added to his own thoughts.
“No, she never did! Was it the work of one to go and buy herself aprons, and tape, and cotton for sewing, who was on her way to fling herself into a pond, I’d ask the crowner?” he continued, his voice rising almost to a shriek in his emotion. “Them aprons be a proof that she didn’t take her own life. Why didn’t they bring it in Wilful Murder, and have the place scoured out to find him?”
“The verdict will make no difference to the finding him, Robin,” returned Lionel Verner.
“I dun know that, sir. When a charge of wilful murder’s out in a place, again some one of the folks in it, the rest be all on the edge to find him: but ‘Found drownded’ is another thing. Have you any suspicion again anybody, sir?”
He put the question sharply and abruptly, and Lionel Verner looked full in his face as he answered—“No, Robin.”
“Well, good afternoon, sir.”
He turned away without another word. Lionel gazed after him with true sympathy. “He will never recover this blow,” was Lionel Verner’s mental comment.
But for this unfortunate occurrence, John Massingbird would have already departed from Verner’s Pride. The great bane of the two Massingbirds was, that they had been brought up to be idle men. A sum of money had become theirs when Frederick came of age—which sum you will call large or small, as it may please you. It would be as a drop of water to the millionaire; it would be as a countless fortune to one in the depths of poverty: we estimate things by comparison. The sum was five thousand pounds each—Mrs. Massingbird, by her second marriage with Mr. Verner, having forfeited all right in it. With this fine sum the young Massingbirds appeared to think that they could live like gentlemen, and need not seek to add to it.
