OLIVIA hurried back towards the farm with the little packet in her hand which was to release her father from his hateful indebtedness to Fred Williams. It was true it rendered her herself indebted to somebody else; but, with a woman’s perversity, she preferred the greater evil to the less. It was rather an awkward matter, however, to acquaint her father with what she had done, especially as she found him in the lowest depths of despondency.
“Don’t speak to me, my dear; don’t speak to me,” was his greeting to his daughter when she pounced upon him, with a light-hearted laugh, from behind the hedge of one of his own cornfields.
He was contemplating the ripening crop with a most rueful face.
“Why not, papa? Perhaps I may have some good news for you.”
“Good news! Oh, no,” he answered, dolefully, shaking his head. “It must be for somebody else if you have any good news. So go away, or I may be cross; and I don’t want to speak crossly to you, my darling.”
There was not much fear of such a thing, evidently; for when she persisted in coming to him, and giving him a hearty kiss, the wrinkles in his forehead began immediately to clear away.
“It’s all your fault, you minx,” said he, looking affectionately at the girl’s bonny face. “You’ve turned the heads of all the lads about here, and then it’s your poor old father that they ‘wreak their vengeance on,’ as the melodramas say.”
“Why, papa,” said the girl, blushing, “who’s been teasing you now? Produce him, and let me whither him up with a glance.”
“Well, the first thing I heard this morning is that the old brute, John Oldshaw, has been making all sorts of mischief about me to Lord Stannington’s agent—says I’m ruining the land, and all that; and it’s all because he’s angry at poor Mat’s humble admiration for you, I know. He says I’m not fit to be a farmer. Now what do you think of that?”
The enormity of this allegation made Mr. Denison quite unable to proceed. But Olivia shook her head and laughed.
“I think, papa, that if all Mr. Oldshaw’s statements were as veracious as that, he would be a much honester man than he is.”
“Why, what do you mean, child?”
“That, if the whole world had been thoroughly scoured to find the one man most unsuitable for the occupation of farming, they could not have done better than light on you.”
“Olivia, I’m surprised at you!” said her father, assuming a tone of great dignity, mingled with indignation.
“Ah, you may well be surprised to find a girl with as much common sense as a man,” retorted she, merrily. For since her return from Matherham her spirits had risen in an extraordinary manner. “Now, papa, look at John Oldshaw. He’s a perfect type of a successful farmer. And he’s mean, and he’s vulgar, and he’s industrious, and he’s economical; while you, pardon me, are none of those things. I don’t say that all good farmers are like John Oldshaw, but I’m certain none of them are a bit like you. And if he can persuade you that you’ll never do anything at farming but lose your money, and catch cold looking at oats that won’t ripen and turnips that won’t come up, he’ll do you a very great service.”
“But, my dear,” remonstrated her father, not quite certain whether to be amused or offended by her wicked plain speaking, “you don’t understand these things. Women never do, of course. It’s not their province and we don’t expect it of them.” The poor old fellow’s tone grew more confident when he got into these mild platitudes. “John Oldshaw has always shown himself jealous of me: firstly, because I’m a gentleman; and, secondly, because I conduct my farming on different principles from his.”
“Yes, papa,” said Olivia, demurely, “on very different principles. He gets large crops and you get small ones. And John Oldshaw wants to turn you out, and apply his principles to your land. And I wish you would let him.”
Mr. Denison sighed. He could not quite hide from himself that there were grains of truth and good sense in his daughter’s suggestions. But the secret admission made him impatient and irritable.
“Of course,” he said turning upon her, “I’m not likely to get on here or anywhere while my people insult the friends who would help me to tide over the bad time.”
“Do you mean that I’ve insulted Fred Williams, papa?” asked Olivia who was too straightforward to allow the talk to be carried on by innuendoes.
“Well, and what if I do?” asked Mr. Denison, taken aback. For he was one of those persons who would walk round about a fact for ever without facing it.
“Has the little reptile been worrying you about the money he lent you?”
“Reptile!” echoed Mr. Denison, trying to evade the question. “That is a strong word for a young lady to use, my dear. Not but what I have been disappointed in that young fellow. He seemed such a generous, open-hearted lad that I own he induced me to break my rule and allow him to accommodate me in a little difficulty I was in—”
“And are you out of the difficulty, papa?”
“Well, my dear, I am, in a sense out of that one. But difficulties have such a way of clinging together; where they’ve been once they come again.”
“And this wretched creature has been worrying you, then?”
“Well, he spoke to me about you in such a way that I was mad with myself for having allowed him to oblige me.”
“I think I can free you from that obligation, papa,” said she, gently. “Only you mustn’t ask where the money came from.”
“What?” cried he in astonishment. “My dear child, you are dreaming. I owe him thirty pounds.”
“Look here.”
She opened her little packet, and unfolded before him six five pound notes.
“But, Olivia, I can’t take these from you without knowing how you got them,” said her father, trying to assume a rather severe paternal air.
“It’s very simple; I went into Matherham, followed a rich-looking old gentleman into a quiet street, knocked him down, and robbed him,” she answered, laughing. “But you needn’t have any qualms of conscience about the proceeds of the deed, for I’m going to hand them over to Fred Williams myself, with a message from you—which I shall make up.”
“But, Olivia, I really cannot permit—”
“It’s too late now; the power of permission is denied you. But, remember, when you next meet that miserable little goose, you can hold up your head and snap your fingers at him, for there will be no obligation between you any longer.”
She nodded good-bye to him very brightly, checked his expostulations with a kiss, and ran off over the fields in the direction of the Towers.
For Olivia was feverishly anxious to pay off the debt, and she had little doubt that she would find Fred lounging on his father’s lawn, softening what brains he had by the help of some fluid or other, and a strong cigar. She met him, however, before she reached the gate of the Towers. He had just come from Matherham in a hansom, and was quarrelling with the cabman about his fare; but when he caught sight of Olivia he changed his tone, and threw the man a handful of silver with an ostentatious air. Then he came up to her with a manner full of exaggerated respect, and an expression of face in which the girl instantly detected a good deal of malice.
“Delighted to see you, Miss Denison; it isn’t often you do us the honor of a visit up here. You wish to see my sister, I suppose.”
“No, I came to see you, and I won’t detain you long. I am commissioned by my father to bring you the money you so kindly lent him, and to say how deeply obliged he is for the graceful generosity you have shown him in this matter.”
Fred Williams was annoyed, but he did not seem surprised.
“Oh, all right,” he said, gruffly. “You needn’t sneer. Your guv’nor was precious glad to take it at the time: that’s all I know. And you haven’t got me on toast as you think, for I saw you pass here this morning, and I followed you into Matherham, and I know what you did there,” he added, triumphantly.
“Nothing that I am ashamed of,” said the girl, quietly.
“Oh, no, you’ve too much cheek to be ashamed of anything. You’ve paid me back to-day, and I’ll pay you back to-morrow. For to-morrow the workmen begin to dig in St. Cuthbert’s churchyard, and if they should come across anything that’ll upset your friend’s apple-cart, remember you had the chance to stop it. And perhaps you won’t feel so proud then of having got clear of debt to me by running into debt with a murderer. Yes, a murderer, Miss High-and-Mighty,” he continued, with a little dance of delight on the garden path. “And if you don’t feel jolly well ashamed of yourself and your friend by about this time next week, why, I’m a polished gentleman, that I am!”
“You couldn’t say anything stronger than that, Mr. Williams,” said Olivia, ingenuously. “I suppose I shall have the pleasure of meeting you to-morrow at St. Cuthbert’s. Good-morning.”
And, quite unaffected by his threats, she bowed to him with great ceremony, and tripped away down the road as if greatly pleased with her interview.
But Olivia was not at ease: she only appeared so because she was excited to the pitch of recklessness. As the day drew on, and the time for the commencement of the excavations at St. Cuthbert’s grew nearer, she became restless, depressed, and so irritable that she had to pass the time either out of doors or in her own rooms, to avoid the domestic friction which she felt that to-day she could not bear. Next morning she awoke with a deadening sense of being on the brink of some great danger. At the breakfast table, at which she duly appeared to avoid giving unnecessary alarm to her father, her looks again provoked much comment, which she bore as patiently as she could, being particularly anxious not to encourage a discussion which might lead to interference with a project she had in view. She was so impatient to leave the house that every trifling delay seemed to her to be part of a conspiracy to keep her indoors. When her usual household duties were disposed of, when Mrs. Denison’s request that she would make up a parcel for the dyer’s had been complied with, she crept upstairs with a heart full of anxiety, dressed, slipped out of the house, and sped away in the direction of St. Cuthbert’s.
For all her haste, she could not reach the churchyard much before twelve o’clock, when the workingmen, their morning’s labor almost over, were slackening their efforts in anticipation of the dinner hour. Already their invasion had entirely changed the aspect of the churchyard. Piles of scaffolding poles, ladders, and boards lay just inside the walls. Planks placed across the broken gravestones, formed bridges for the passage of wheelbarrows to and from the scene of operations. This, Olivia saw, was the ground at the foot of the tower, extending to the crypt, the entrance to which had been freed from the stones and bricks which had blocked it up for so long. The men seemed to be at work in all directions: some were erecting a scaffolding against the old tower, the upper part of which was to be taken down; some carting away stones and rubbish from the east end; some removing that corner of the roof of the south aisle which, in a crumbling and dangerous condition, still remained. But it was upon the corner where the old crypt was that Olivia’s attention at once fixed. For here, listening perfunctorily with one ear to old Mr. Williams, who had a self-made man’s veneration for his own utterances, and keeping a sharp lookout upon two workmen whose labors within the crypt he was superintending, was Ned Mitchell.
Nothing had happened so far, Olivia easily guessed; no discoveries had been made; no alarm had been given. But to her fancy, there hung over the whole place the hush of expectancy: the workmen scarcely spoke to each other, the onlookers seemed to hold their breath. Another feature of the scene was that these onlookers each seemed to have come by stealth, and to wish to remain unnoticed by the rest. Olivia herself, for instance, remained outside the churchyard wall, seeing only so much of the operations as could be observed from the highest part of the rough and broken ground. Then, lurking behind the hedge on the opposite side of the lane, was the lame tramp, Abel Squires, who from this post could see very little more than the scaffolding poles, but who had remained there, nevertheless, since the moment, early that morning, when the workmen from Sheffield first made their appearance. Vernon was inside the church, keeping out of the way of everyone but the foreman, to whom he was giving certain structural explanations, while Mrs. Brander watched the proceedings from her pony carriage in the lane, and Fred Williams from the church roof. A small crowd of the country people, chiefly children and old pit women, filled up the spaces, and made the isolation of the others less noticeable. Roaming about the churchyard, in a somewhat impatient manner, was also a gentleman whom Olivia did not immediately recognize as the doctor who had attended Ned Mitchell in his illness.
It was a sultry day; sunless and heavy. The smoke of the Sheffield chimneys hung over the hills in a thick black cloud, and appeared, Olivia thought, to be coming nearer and nearer. The air seemed to choke instead of invigorate; the leaves of the trees hung parched and still. The girl’s excitement had all evaporated; she waited there without hope, without fear, in a dull state of expectancy, her clearest thought being a faint wish that she might be able to get quietly home again without having to speak to any one. Still she stood there, and watched the workmen slowly putting on their coats, the doctor as he flitted about the churchyard, without quite knowing whether she was asleep or awake, whether the figures, moving silently about, were flesh-and-blood creatures, or images seen in a dream.
Suddenly a breath of air seemed to pass over every one, and the stirring of a more active life was felt. It was a voice at the gate of the churchyard which broke the hushed silence, and made every eye look up, while the women and children curtseyed, and the workmen touched their caps. The Vicar of Rishton, cheerful and smiling and bland, had worked the change by his appearance alone. A certain listlessness, which had begun to creep over watchers and workers at the end of an eventless morning under a sullen sky, disappeared. There arose a hum of talk; the workmen who had left off work hurried to their dinner cans; the few who were still digging felt a spurt of fresh energy. It was felt that the portly presence of the much-respected vicar gave eclat to the proceedings, and new interest to a monotonous occupation. Only Ned Mitchell remained entirely unmoved. He gave the clergyman a glance and a nod, and then turned again to the two men at work in the crypt.
“Get on, you lazy devils!” he said, kicking a stone impatiently. “You might be millionaires, both of you, not to think it worth while to work harder for the chance of a ten-pound note.”
“Why, we’ve turned the whole place out, master, and blest if there’s a bloomin’ thing to be found there except earth and stones,” said one, in a rather grumbling tone.
“Hey, what?” asked Mr. Williams, in a surprised tone, “What’s that they’re looking for, eh, Mitchell? Something lost? Something buried, eh?”
“Both lost and buried,” said Ned, briefly. “What do you think, parson?”
And he turned quickly to the Reverend Meredith Brander, who had by this time, after a triumphal progress between two lines of admiring villagers, reached the group.
“Well, the churchyard is the place for the lost and buried, certainly,” replied the vicar, whose bright complexion and serene smile were a charming thing to see after the anxious and gloomy faces the rest of the assembly had been wearing. “But, as we know, a time will come when we shall recover our lost ones,” he added, with gentle solemnity.
“Some of us will recover ’em sooner than we bargain for, perhaps,” said Ned, drily.
The vicar did not answer; indeed he looked as if he did not understand. He nodded pleasantly, and looked round, smiling on such members of his family and of his congregation as were in sight. For a curious thing had happened since his coming; all those before-mentioned spectators, who had been watching as it were by stealth, now with one accord drew near to the entrance of the crypt, and cast at the vicar sidelong glances of deep interest. Thus Olivia, Mrs. Brander, Vernon, the doctor, and Abel Squires found themselves, as if by preconcerted arrangement, within a few feet of each other, and yet seemed to be unaware of this fact. The vicar also seemed not to notice this, but Ned Mitchell took in the curious situation with a keen glance, and read the varied expressions of curiosity, anxiety, and despondency on the several faces with cynical swiftness.
The men in the crypt did not leave off work with the rest; on the contrary, urged on by Ned Mitchell, whose tone grew sharper with every order he gave, they used pickaxe and spade with renewed energy.
“I don’t quite understand the necessity for all this delving in the crypt,” said old Mr. Williams, at last, rather pompously.
He was a man by habit too much occupied with himself to have troubled his head about the stories and scandals of the neighborhood, and no suggestion of any mystery connected with St. Cuthbert’s had ever reached his ears.
“You’ll see presently, perhaps,” answered Ned, who betrayed his ever-increasing excitement only by the growing curtness of his tone.
For he perceived, peering down into the gloom where the men were working, that the digging and delving had suddenly ceased, and that, in the remotest corner of the little crypt, both were kneeling down examining the lower part of the wall. Then one of the men struck a match, and a moment later his fellow workman came to the opening.
“We’ve found something, sir!” said he, in a low voice.
“Eh? What?” asked old Mr. Williams, who began to have an idea that he was being made a fool of.
There was a sort of a rustle and flutter among the bystanders; for though all had not heard the workman’s words all knew that something had happened. Ned Mitchell, who was now so much excited that he dared not trust himself to speak, beckoned to the doctor. The latter, who was on the alert, came up immediately. He was an active, brisk little man, sparing of words.
“I think we shall want you now, doctor, please,” said Ned, in a voice which was getting hoarse and rasping. “What is it you have found, mate?” he went on, turning to the workman.
“It’s a body, we think, your honor—the body of a woman.”
The vicar, on entering the churchyard, had locked the gate, to keep out the swarm of unruly boys who always ooze out of the pores of the earth when anything of an unusual nature is going on. So that few people but those most interested in this discovery were present to hear the announcement of it. These all pressed forward until they stood—a silent, excited group—close to the crypt entrance. Mrs. Brander, although she remained perfectly quiet, laid her hand, either from sympathy or for support, on the arm of her brother-in-law. Vernon himself looked if possible more pale and haggard than ever, but his face wore its habitual expression when in repose, a look of grave and somewhat cynical good humor. The only noticeable thing about his demeanor was his careful avoidance of Olivia Denison; he would not even meet her eyes. The girl herself was white to the lips and cold from head to foot. Fred Williams, in a cheerful voice offered her the support of his arm.
“These are nasty scenes for a lady to be present at,” said he, with a little compunction in his voice. “Won’t you let me take you away?”
She shook her head, and signed for him to leave her, which he did reluctantly and with some shame. In the meantime the gentlemen had descended into the crypt, with the exception of Vernon, who was detained by Mrs. Brander. By the light of a lantern and a torch, a ghastly sight was soon disclosed to view.
In the lower part of the wall of the crypt, in the corner nearest the entrance, to which no daylight could ever pierce its way, was unearthed between the bases of two of the pillars supporting the roof, the almost fleshless skeleton of a woman, the damp rags of whose dress, still recognizable, hung around the bones in shrunken folds. The flaring and flickering of the lights on what had once been a beautiful face, on the remains of the finery which every other girl in the village had once envied, made an ever-changing, hideous picture, upon which the men all gazed with feelings of pity, horror, and disgust.
A savage exclamation burst from Ned’s lips. Old Mr. Williams was struck dumb with horror; for to him the discovery was quite unforeseen. The doctor bent over the skeleton, and taking a lantern into his own hand, looked carefully at the horrible thing, touched it, removed part of the ragged clothing, and muttered something the rest could not hear. The Vicar of Rishton, accustomed to death in many forms, maintained a demeanor of reverend gravity, tempered by amazement. As the doctor stopped, however, he interposed with some haste, and, coming close beside him, tried gently but firmly to thrust him aside.
“There must be an inquiry into this, I suppose,” he said; “though, for the sake of the unhappy man who committed this deed, and whom we know to have repented long ago, I trust it may be made as quietly as possible. In the meantime the remains must be laid decently in some suitable place. I would suggest the church itself.”
The doctor interrupted him brusquely. He, with the rest, had been listening in dead silence to the clergyman’s words.
“Where you like, vicar: but I must make an examination first. If I’m not mistaken, I’ve seen something just now which will be a positive means of identifying the murderer.” Still the vicar insisted, gently, but with becoming determination.
“I really think, in a matter touching the sanctity of the dead, that I, as vicar, ought to have a voice.”
“But you’re not the vicar of this church,” said the doctor, standing his ground. “The Vicar of St. Cuthbert’s is your brother Vernon, and if, as you seem to say, he has had anything to do with this business——”
There was a stir among the hearers, and old Mr. Williams burst out, “What! What! Vernon Brander! Bless me! You don’t mean to say——”
The vicar was protesting; Ned Mitchell was swearing and muttering; Fred Williams, who had crept in during the last few minutes, was whistling softly to himself, to keep off the horrors.
Suddenly the doctor, who had again stooped over the skeleton, silenced them all in imperious tones.
“Stand back, gentlemen! In two moments I can satisfy your curiosity as to who murdered this woman.”
The vicar only attempted to resist this command; but the doctor, with a skilful and most unceremonious thrust, forced him back into the rest of the group; and the next moment the reverend arms were pinioned by Ned Mitchell’s strong hands.
“Keep back, can’t you?” hissed Ned, roughly into his ear; “murder will out, you know! And people might say such ugly things if they thought you wanted to hide the truth.”
After this there was a sickening, death-like pause, while the doctor’s hands moved rapidly about the horrible heap of human bones and tattered finery. Then he sprang up, and made quickly for the light. The rest followed, huddled together, panting, bewildered, like a flock of frightened sheep. For the doctor’s face, old practitioner though he was, was livid and tremulous with a great horror. Standing in the open daylight they found him, looking at something he held half concealed in his hand. Mrs. Brander, Vernon, and Olivia Denison stood a little way off, watching him, but not daring to come near. He closed his hand as the men gathered round him.
“Gentlemen,” he began, gravely, in a very low voice, “there are circumstances in this case so revolting that I think that no good can come of making them public. But you shall judge. I have found, inside the remains of that poor girl, a ring which, there can be no doubt, was the property of the murderer. In spite of the decayed state of the body, I can undertake to say that this ring was swallowed by the girl just before her death. Here,” and he held up his closed hand, “is the ring. Shall I show it you?”
“No!” said the Vicar of Rishton, sharply. They all turned to look at him.
“Why not?” asked the doctor, quietly.
Meredith Brander had recovered the composure which, indeed, he could scarcely be said for a moment to have lost.
“What good would it do?” he asked, gazing blandly in the doctor’s face.
Doctor Harper returned his look with astonishment which became almost admiration.
“Well,” he answered, “it would show up the most remarkably perfect specimen of a consummate humbug that I have ever had the honor of meeting.”
A curious thing had happened before this short colloquy was ended. The rest of the group had gradually dispersed, and left the two men alone together. As he uttered the last words, the doctor also turned abruptly away, so that the vicar was left by himself. He did not seem disconcerted, but walked, with a half smile on his face, in the direction of the churchyard gate. His wife, whose handsome face was as pale as that of a corpse, and whose limbs tottered under her, moved, with faltering step, in the same direction. At the gate stood Abel Squires, who stood back to allow the vicar to pass out first. But Meredith Brander would not allow this. He turned to him with a kindly nod.
“Well, Abel,” said he, “I’m afraid this is a sad business for somebody.”
“I’m afeard so too, sir,” replied Abel, with an immovable face.
“We must hush it up. I’m sure you would not like any harm to come to my brother.”
“No fear o’ that, sir,” said Abel. “I could prevent that.”
“Why, how so?”
“Ah wur wi’ him all that evenin’. An’ if he hadn’t kept my tongue quiet all these years hissen, truth would ha’ been aht long ago.”
The vicar went through the gate without another word. But before he had taken many steps in the lane outside, he felt an arm thrust through his. It was his brother Vernon, who pressed his arm warmly two or three times before he spoke.
“Cheer up, old chap!” he whispered, huskily. “For Evelyn’s sake and the children’s we can get it kept quiet still.”
Then, for the first time, Meredith threatened to break down. He wrung his brother’s hand with a force which made Vernon turn white, and when he answered, it was with sobs in his voice.
“I’m a scoundrel, Vernie,” he almost gasped. “But if you save me again, on my soul I’ll be better to them than many an honest man.”