Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/54

46 “Measures should be tried, at any rate,” said Frederick Massingbird warmly.

“By all means,” acquiesced Dr. West. “It will afford satisfaction, though it does nothing else.”

They raised her once more, her clothes dripping, and turned with quiet, measured steps towards Verner’s Pride. Of course the whole assemblage attended. They were eagerly curious, boiling over with excitement; but, to allow them their due, they were earnestly anxious to give any aid in their power, and contended who should take turn at bearing that wet burthen. Not one but felt sorely grieved for Rachel. Even Nancy was subdued to meekness, as she sped on to be one of the busiest in preparing remedies; and old Roy, though somewhat inclined to regard it in the light of a judgment upon proud Rachel for slighting his son, felt some twinges of pitying regret.

“I have knowed cases where people, dead from drownding, have been restored to life,” said Roy, as they walked along.

“That you never have,” replied Dr. West. “The apparently dead have been restored: the dead, never.”

Panting, breathless, there came up one as they reached Verner’s Pride. He parted the crowd, and threw himself almost upon Rachel with a wild cry. He caught up her cold, wet face, and passing his hands over it, bent down his warm cheek upon it.

“Who has done it?” he sobbed. “What has done it? She couldn’t have fell in alone.”

It was Robin Frost. Frederick Massingbird drew him away by the arm.

“Don’t hinder, Robin. Every minute may be worth a life.”

And Robin, struck with the argument, obeyed docilely like a little child.

Mr. Verner, leaning on his stick, trembling with weakness and emotion, stood just without the door of the laundry, which had been hastily prepared, as the bearers tramped in.

“It is an awful tragedy!” he murmured. “Is it true”—addressing Dr. West—“that you think there is no hope?”

“I am sure there is none,” was the answer. “But every means shall be tried.”

The laundry was cleared of the crowd and their work began. One of the next to come up was old Matthew Frost. Mr. Verner took his hand.

“Come into my own room, Matthew,” he said. “I feel for you as deeply as I could for myself.”

“Nay, sir; I must look upon her.”

Mr. Verner pointed with his stick in the direction of the laundry.

“They are shut in there; the doctor and as many as he wants round him,” he said. “Let them be undisturbed: it is the only chance.”

All things likely to be wanted had been conveyed to the laundry: and they were shut in there, as Mr. Verner expressed it, with their fires and their heat. On dragged the time. Anxious watchers were in the house, in the yard, gathered round the back gate. The news had spread, and gentlepeople, friends of the Verners, came hasting from their homes, and pressed into Verner’s Pride, and asked question upon question of Mr. and Mrs. Verner, of everybody likely to afford an answer. Old Matthew Frost stood outwardly calm and collected, full of inward trust, as a good man should be. He had learnt where to look for support in the darkest trial. Mr. Verner, in that night of sorrow, seemed to treat him like a brother.

One hour! Two hours! and still they plied their remedies, under the able direction of Dr. West. All was of no avail, as the experienced physician had told them. Life was extinct. Poor Rachel Frost was really dead.

from the horror of the affair, it was altogether attended with so much mystery that that of itself would have kept the excitement alive. What could have taken Rachel Frost near the pool at all? Allowing that she had chosen that lonely road for her way home—which appeared unlikely in the extreme—she must still have gone out of it to approach the pool, must have walked partly across a field to gain it. Had her path led close by it, it would have been a different matter: it might have been supposed (unlikely still, though) that she had missed her footing and fallen in. But unpleasant rumours were beginning to circulate in the crowd. It was whispered that sounds of a contest, the voices being those of a man and a woman, had been heard in that direction at the time of the accident, or about the time: and these rumours reached the ear of Mr. Verner.

For the family to think of bed, in the present state of affairs, or the crowd to think of dispersing, would have been in the highest degree improbable. Mr. Verner set himself to endeavour to get some sort of solution first. One told one tale; one, another: one asserted something else; another, the precise opposite. Mr. Verner—and in saying Mr. Verner, we must include all—was fairly puzzled. A notion had sprung up that Dinah Roy, the bailiff’s wife, could tell something about it if she would. Certain it was, that she had stood amid the crowd, cowering and trembling, shrinking from observation as much as possible, and recoiling visibly if addressed.

A word of this suspicion got whispered in her husband’s ear. It angered him. He was accustomed to hold his wife in due submission. She was a little body, with a pinched face and a sharp red nose, rather given to weeping upon every possible occasion, and as indulgently fond of her son Luke as she was afraid of her husband. Since Luke’s departure she had passed the better part of her time in tears.

“Now,” said Roy, going up to her with authority, and drawing her apart, “what’s this as is up with you?”

She looked round her, and shuddered.

“Oh, law!” cried she, with a moan. “Don’t you begin to ask, Giles, or I shall be fit to die.”

“Do you know anything about this matter, or don’t you?” cried he, savagely. “Did you see anything?”

“What should I be likely to see of it?” quaked Mrs. Roy.