CHAPTER XLI

TAKING SHAPE

It was evening when Kate was driven up to the Cellars, yet not so dark but that she could see the donkey in the paddock, and dark enough to make the glow of the still smoking heap visible, here and there, in red seams and yellow sparks.

“There is Neddy,” exclaimed Kate. “My father must be here.”

As she was descending from the cart, she said, “Why, he may have crossed the Teign in the boat.”

“No, Kitty,” answered Jan; “I don’t think that.”

“Why not?”

Pooke was afraid of answering lest he should involve himself; and Rose had jumped down at the mill, and so was not there to prevent him from committing an error.

Before entering the house, in her anxiety about her father, Kate ran to the mooring-place of the boats, and came back in some exultation to Jan. “I said so. He has crossed. The old boat is gone.”

“It was there yesterday. It was there all the night of the fire and next day. It has been taken since,” answered Pooke.

Kate was downcast. She held out her hand to Jan, took her little bundle, and entered the house. Her aunt had not come out to meet her. That she had not expected. No one in that house had shown her graciousness and desire for her presence, and she had ceased to expect it.

When she entered, it was with a hesitating foot. She thought that Rose, out of good nature and desire to please, had represented her aunt as more desirous to have her than she really was. Having never met with affection on the part of Zerah, hardly with recognition of her services, she did not anticipate a complete change in demeanour. She was surprised to find that her aunt had not lighted a candle.

She called to her, when Zerah replied, with a cry that thrilled Kate to her heart’s core, “Is that my Kitty? My child come back to me?”

In another moment aunt and niece were locked in each other’s arms, and sobbing out their hearts,’Kate, through joy, dashed with dread of evil; Zerah, through joy at seeing her niece again, a joy that sprang out of despair.

A singular relation now developed itself between them. After a very short while, Kitty perceived that there was something on her aunt’s mind, that Zerah was weighed down with a sense of some calamity far exceeding that of the loss of so many tons of coal and so many fleeces of wool. The woman was suddenly become timid and apprehensive. It gave her pain to speak of what had taken place, and she avoided by every kind of subterfuge expressing an opinion as to the cause of the fire, and as to the extent of the damage done. She had for some years faced the prospect of financial ruin, and if this had come upon her, Kate was sure she would have met it, not indeed with equanimity, but with sullen assurance that it was inevitable, and have prepared herself to accept the new position of poverty.

But that which occupied and disorganised the heart of Zerah was something else, something more tearful. Kate saw that she shrank not only from allusion to the fire, but from inquiries as to the fate of her brother, and whenever Jason was named or referred to, the woman caught her niece to her bosom and covered her with kisses, wept, trembled, but said nothing.

Mrs. Pepperill took Kate from her little attic-room to share her bed during the absence of Pasco, and the girl found that the trouble which weighed on her aunt during the day haunted and tortured her during the night. Zerah slept little, tossed in her bed; and if she slept, broke into moans and exclamations.

Meanwhile, Kitty did not rest from making inquiries relative to her father. She visited the rector, and ascertained from his lips that he had seen and exchanged words with Jason Quarm on the evening of the fire, in fact, only an hour or two before the fire must have broken out.

But where was her father? The old boat was gone, that was true; but it was in its place on the morning after the fire, as well as all that night. It had been taken later; and there was, perhaps, not much to marvel at in this, when the Cellars were crowded with all conditions of sightseers and mischief-doers pervading the precincts. Dishonest men might have taken advantage of the confusion to purloin the boat, or mischievous boys to have loosed the cable and let her drift with the tide where it chose to sweep her.

Inevitably Kate became aware of the opinion prevailing in the village, that her father was burned to death in the storehouse, and it was hard for her to come to any other conclusion. She went to Mrs. Redmore to inquire whether he had been to his old cottage, but the timid, not very bright woman nervously denied any knowledge of him.

Her distress was very great, but she sought to conceal it from her aunt, who wanted nothing to augment her own trouble.

Hitherto the fire had smouldered on in the ruins, but it became less, and though the charred masses still gave out gusts of heat, there was no more smoke rising from them, only a quivering of the air above the ashes.

The fire was naturally the main topic of conversation in the neighbourhood. Minds as well as tongues were exercised. Comments were made on the absence of Pasco, which were rendered hardly more favourable by the knowledge that he had gone to a funeral. He knew nothing of his uncle’s illness and death when he started. Why had he sent his wife away? Why had he carried his niece back to Dartmoor, from which she had been recently brought?

Incautious exclamations of Zerah, when first made aware of the fire and of her brother’s disappearance, together with her reticence since, were discussed.

Prowlers came round the house, peering into this part, then another. An agent from the insurance office suddenly presented himself, listened to and noted down the various rumours in circulation, and threw out a hint that his office would consider before it paid the sum for which the storehouse and its contents were inscribed.

The rector called on Mrs. Pepperill, and without appearing to intrude on her troubles, endeavoured to gain from her something which might elucidate the mystery of Quarm’s disappearance. Her mouth remained shut, and her eyes scrutinised him with suspicion.

Mr. Pooke senior was constable, and he considered it his duty to intervene. He owed a grudge, nay, two, to Pasco Pepperill, and this fire was an opportunity for paying it off. He was angry with Pepperill because he had not shown him the deference that Pooke considered his due, and had wrested from him the office of churchwarden. A triumph indeed would it prove were he to be able to make Pepperill amenable to the law. Moreover, Pepperill was uncle to the chit who had dared’positively dared!’to refuse his son. He had not desired the engagement’he had disliked the idea of it’he would have vastly preferred his son’s union with the miller’s daughter. But that Pepperill’s niece’the daughter of that donkey-driver, Jason Quarm’should have the temerity to refuse his son was a fact he could not stomach; it was a spot in his mantle of pride.

When he heard the talk about Pepperill, he considered himself justified’nay, called upon by virtue of his office’to make himself acquainted with all the facts, and, if possible, to get his rival into difficulties. A rival Pepperill was. Pooke regarded himself as a sort of king in Coombe, where his family had held lands for centuries; never, indeed, extending the patrimony; never suing for a grant of arms, but holding on to the paternal acres as yeomen’substantial, self-esteeming, defiant of new-comers.

Pasco was not exactly in this latter category, but he was a man who gave himself great airs, who showed the yeoman no deference, and took a delight in thwarting him, and heading a clique against him at vestry, and generally in the parish.

Pooke listened attentively to all that was said relative to the fire, and prejudice against the man induced him to believe that Pasco had fired his own stores in order to obtain the insurance money; by what means Quarm was made the victim he could not tell. If he could prove Pepperill to be a rascal, it would be great satisfaction, but if he proved him to be a villain guilty of murder, that would be ecstasy.

Without warning given to Mrs. Pepperill, Mr. Pooke made a descent on the Cellars, attended by four of his men armed with shovels and picks. He did not even ask her leave to overturn the ruins and search among the heaps of ash for the remains of the man who, it was surmised, had perished in the fire. With an imperious voice and a consequential air he gave his orders; and when the men were engaged in testing the cinders to find whether they were cool, and might safely be turned over, and in hacking and removing the beams charred and menacing a fall, he betook himself to the outhouse, where was the cart, so as to examine that.

He returned speedily, carrying a bundle fastened in a handkerchief, and this he proceeded to open. It contained a clean shirt, stockings, a razor, and other articles such as a man would be likely to take with him when about to stay abroad a night or two.

“There!” exclaimed Pooke. “I have found at once what no one else saw’indubitable evidence not only that Jason Quarm came here, but that he never left this place. If he is not under these cinders, I ask, where else can he be?”

Kate and her aunt looked out at the door timidly. They knew that Mr. Pooke was constable, and they had no idea of any limit to his authority. He came towards them.

“I must know all about it’the ins and outs; the ups and downs. No blinking with me’no rolling of the matter up in blather. What do you know of Jason Quarm?” He turned to Mrs. Pepperill.

“Nothing at all,” she answered. “I do not even know that he came here.”

“Come here he did,” said Pooke. “Here is the donkey’here the cart’here his bundle of clothes. Now, did he go away?”

“I was not here; I was at Teignmouth. I know nothing,” said Zerah in nervous terror.

“The girl’the girl who had the impudence’to’to refuse my son’she knows something about this! She was with her uncle. Why did he ask Mr. Ash, the miller, to not only date his receipt of a trifle by the day of month, but by the hour of the evening? That is not ordinarily done. And why did he sneak back to the Cellars, after he had got a little way along the road, putting his trap up, and leaving it with the girl? I want to know all that!”

“Here is my uncle; he will answer you himself,” gasped Kitty, perplexed and alarmed at the string of questions, and then relieved to see Pasco arrive.

“What is the meaning of this?” shouted Pepperill, jumping out of a hired conveyance. He was in profound mourning, very new and glossy. “What is this you are doing, Pooke? Where is your authority?”

“I am constable.”

“A constable without a warrant! Off!’leave my ground at once! I’ll communicate with my solicitor, and have a summons taken out against you. My solicitor is not a man to understand jokes’nor am I.”

“You may be in the right for the moment,” said Pooke, becoming purple with vexation at being caught going beyond his powers, and with anger at being sent off, when he had come to the spot with such blare and blaze of authority. “But I’ll tell you what it is, Master Pepperill, there are queer tales abroad about you and this fire, and we want to know, where is Jason Quarm?”

“Quarm?’gone to Portsmouth.”

“To Portsmouth?”

“Of course; we are in treaty with the dockyard for our timber at Brimpts.”

“I don’t believe it! He is burnt!’here!”

“Burnt? Fudge! He said he was going to Portsmouth.”

“He said that? When did you see him?”

“I mean I heard from him to that effect. Now be off! I’ll have no overhauling of my premises! I’ll have no cross-questioning here! I have a solicitor of my own now, and he shall know the reason of everything. Get you gone!’and be blowed!”