CHAPTER XLIII

MUCH CRY AND A LITTLE WOOL

“Aunt!” exclaimed Kitty, blank and trembling, turning to Zerah, the moment the rector had left the house. “Oh, auntie dear, this is not true’this that Uncle Pasco says. I did not go back. I was left in the linhay with the cart. What does he mean?”

“He means to shelter himself,” answered Mrs. Pepperill. Then the woman stepped in front of her husband, and, in her harshest tones and hardest manner, said, “Pasco! A yea or nay from Kitty is, as pass’n said, worth a thousand of your protestations, though bolstered up wi’ oaths.”

“Of course Kitty is everything to you and the pass’n, and I am nothing. I know that very well. I’ve had enough of your violence o’ tongue-lash these twenty years; and let me tell you, Zerah, I’ve got hard to it and don’t care a snap for it.” And he suited the action to the word, with an insolence of expression and manner that would have made the woman blaze forth into fury at any other time. Now she passed his rudeness with disregard.

“Pasco!” she said in metallic tones, “there has been a load o’ lead crushing down my heart. I’ll shake it off and run it into bullets against you now, and every word shall be a bullet. Now, before Kitty, I will say what I have had on my mind. It is you who have lied. I have known for some time what you were thinking of. I’ve seen you hovering like a hawk, and the moment I was gone’had crossed the water’you dropped. You durstn’t do it whilst I was here. You feared me because I feared God. There’s no bigger coward on earth than the man who fears his fellow because that fellow has God before his eyes. No sooner was I out of the way than you at once seized the chance offered; and I’I had gone with all my little lay-by to get you out of your difficulties and prevent you doing what I feared was in your intent. You’d never spoke a word to me of that purpose of yourn, you durst not do it; but I saw it formin’ in you; I saw it, looking into your eyes, just as you may see the sediment settlin’ in dirty water. When I was out of the way, then you thought you could do it. You took Kitty away’who was but just home from the moor, and all for no reason save that you didn’t want any witness. Then you left her with the cart and hoss at Ash’s linhay in Furze Park, and came back here to carry out your purpose. So far I can see. Then my sight becomes thick, a mist is over my eyes, and all the rest is doubtful. What happened when you came back here’what passed between you and Jason’what became of my brother? All that I know not’but know I must and will.”

Pasco’s face grew more sullen, and his demeanour dogged to defiance. He could not look his wife in the face, he kept his eyes on the ground, and with his boot scratched the floor in fantastic figures.

“I can see all that passes in your heart,” pursued Zerah. “It’s like as if I were outside a window, and see’d shadows on the blind as this and that went by and this and that rose up or sat down. Now the folk begin to talk and to suspect you, and say how that you insured for a big sum, and when the goods weren’t paid for, burnt ’em all to secure the insurance; then you try and throw the suspicion off on to Kitty or Jason, or both together. It is like you, you black coward. But it shall not be. I will stand betwixt you and Kitty, and no harm from you shall hurt her. What I and Kitty want to know is’What has become of Jason? Where is he? If you will not answer, we will work out the answer for our own selves’she with the heable (fork), I with the phisgie (pick). We have strong arms, and we will ourselves root about in the ruins, till we learn something to satisfy our minds.”

“I don’t know how you’ve the face to talk to me like this, Zerah,” said Pasco surlily. “I’ve come into something like four thousand pounds through my uncle, and there’ll be another thousand and more from the insurance. On five thousand pounds’Lord! I’m a Christian and a gentleman.”

“Bank-notes won’t plaster sore consciences,” retorted Zerah. “You think money is everything, and no matter how it be come by. So it has ever been with you.”

“Am I like to be a villain,” queried Pasco in exasperation, “when I knew my uncle was worth a pot o’ coin that was sure to come to me?”

“You did not know he was dead.”

“I knew he was sickening and worn out. A man of means don’t do criminal acts; that’s the perquisite of beggars and labouring men.”

“I do not ask for excuses and evasions. I ask’where is my brother?” persisted Zerah.

At that moment the door was thrown open, a hand was thrust in, waving a paper, and a voice shouted’

“There you be, Pasco Pepperill. I’ve got my warranty. I said I would, and I’m the man o’ my word. I went full gallop up to Squire Carew. None can stand agin me.”

Pepperill went to the door, saw the back of Mr. Pooke as he walked away, and the faces of a number of workmen with pick and crowbar and shovel, backed by a crowd of all descriptions of persons from the village and neighbourhood.

He hesitated for some moments. He stood irresolute, holding the door-posts and working his nails at the paint, picking it off in flakes. His heart turned sick within him. If the heaps of cinders were thrown back, then surely the remains of Jason Quarm would be discovered, and with the discovery there would ensue an inquest, and much unpleasantness if not danger to himself. With low cunning he resolved to make the best of the inevitable. He shouted to his wife’

“Zerah! bring out cider for the good fellows. They are working for us, as you know. If you have saffron cake, out with that too. I daresay I shall find a shilling apiece as well.”

He went behind Pooke, slapped him on the back, and said boisterously’

“Well done, old man! That is what I wanted. If a thing has to be executed, let all be above-board and legal. That’s my doctrine. I don’t like no hole-and-corner proceedings. Meddlin’ wi’out authority makes the end a botch. If you hadn’t begun, I would have done it myself.”

In the house Zerah restrained Kitty with one hand and closed the door with the other. The woman was labouring for breath, so great was her excitement. Her face was now flushed, then became wan as death.

“Kitty, my darling,” she said, “I reckon I’ve been hard and exactin’ in the past. The old pass’n were right, though I wouldn’t believe him, and said he was insultin’ of me to say it. ’Twas love, he told, as you wanted, and I didn’t give it you. Love, the very air of heaven, wi’out which the little maid couldn’t thrive. I wi’held it from you’so he told’and I shut my ears and hardened my heart. But in the end he were right. When I found out what had been done, then it broke me down. I cannot respect and love _him_ no longer. I tried my best when he was foolish and unfortunate. But now he’s guilty, I cannot’I cannot, and then all my love turns to you.”

Kitty threw herself into her aunt’s arms and sobbed.

“There’s no time now for tears,” said Zerah, with a gulp in her throat. “We cannot tell what is coming on us. It may be that the remains of your poor father will be found. If so, then’” Zerah shivered as if frost-smitten. “God bless us! It will be too horrible’to live under the same roof, to eat at the same table, to see the face, hear the voice of the man’” She was unable to conclude her sentence. After a long pause and a hug of Kitty, she continued: “I cannot say how it all came about. Bad as he may be, I hardly think he did it of purpose. ’Twas some accident. I don’t mean the burning the stores’but of your father. No; he was not so bad as that, please God! I hope, I trust not! Now, Kitty, you and I must make up our minds to whatever happens. And I reckon there is but one thing us can do.”

“What is that, dear auntie?”

“Hold our tongues.”

After a long pause, whilst the girl clung to her, she added, “No good can come of us speaking what we know, and what we fancy. It can but heap up a great pile of misery and shame. If it comes to an inquiry in court’that’s another matter. They won’t call on me, as I am Pasco’s wife, but they will on you, and you must up and speak the truth at any cost. But if there be no such inquiry, then hold your tongue, as I will mine. The mischief, so far, has come from what we have said. We can do no good; we may make the affair worse for ourselves if we talk. Leave him in the hands of God, to do wi’ him as He wills.”

Kate kissed her aunt and promised silence.

Then both went forth, and reached the crowd about the ruins and piles of ashes, as Pepperill was saying in a loud tone, “I don’t say you won’t find bones. I believe now I had a pile, but all mutton and beef bones.”

“Why, what were you doing wi’ bones?” asked Pooke.

“Collecting of ’em for dressing,” answered Pepperill promptly. “I’ve been in the hide line some while, and lately I took a fancy to bones also; but I didn’t do much, just begun on it, so to speak’all ox and sheep bones’nothing else. Pound bones up wi’ a hammer, they’re fine for turnips. Jason put me up to speculating in bones.”

The mass of crumbling wall, charred beam, and cinder was speedily attacked by the workmen under the direction of the constable, who had much difficulty in keeping the curious at a distance; men, women, and children were eager to assist with their hands, or advise with their tongues. They ran into danger by approaching tottering walls. They trampled down the ashes; they got in the way of the workmen; and occasionally a scream and an objurgation was the result of a labourer casting his shovelful of cinders in the face of an inquisitive spectator who got in his way. Mr. Pooke protested and stormed, but with little avail; all were too interested to attend to his orders, and he was without assistants to enforce them.

Pepperill bustled about, vociferating, driving spectators back, encouraging workmen, running after cakes and cider, and making the confusion greater. Kate sat on a fallen beam, chin in hand, watching intently every spade as it turned the ashes, wincing at every pick driven into the cinder heaps. The tears were trickling down her cheeks.

Then Walter Bramber, who had just arrived, went up to Farmer Pooke and asked leave to run a cord across from one rail to another, and volunteered with the assistance of Noah Flood and John Pooke to keep the people from interference.

“Why should they be kept back? Don’t they want to find what has become of Mr. Quarm every whit as much as me? Let ’em come on,” shouted Pepperill.

But the constable saw the advantage of the proposal, and gave the order. In ten minutes the scene of the conflagration was freed from sightseers, who were confined at a distance.

Then Bramber went to Kitty and said in a low tone, “You do not think it is hopeless, I trust?”

“I do not know what to think,” she answered.

“Is it true what I have heard, that your uncle returned here after dark and left you at the top of the hill?”

Kate did not answer.

“That is what is said. Jan Pooke told me he had heard it from your own lips.”

She continued silent.

“I should like to know, Kitty, the truth in this matter.”

“I can say nothing,” she answered, and hung her head lower.

Bramber was surprised, but he had not time to expend in conversation: he had undertaken to keep off the crowd, and some were diving under the rope, others attempting to stride over it.

An hour was expended in turning about the refuse. All the coal had been consumed, but, singularly and inexplicably, not all the fleeces. Bundles of wool were found’not many, indeed, but some, singed, not consumed, which, when exposed, exhaled a sickening odour. The dangerous portions of tottering walls had been thrown down, the slate flooring exposed. Not a trace of Jason Quarm could be found.

Pasco, who had been nervous, watching all the operations of the excavators in deadly fear of a revelation of the charred remains of his brother-in-law, breathed freely, recovered all his audacity and boisterousness.

“I said as much, but none believed me. Jason is gone; he was not the man to sit quiet in a fire. How the fire came about is a question we won’t go into too close.”

“The bones you spoke of,” said Pooke, “we ha’n’t come on them. They’ve been consumed’perhaps poor Quarm as well. The fire must have been deadly hot.”

“It didn’t burn those fleeces,” answered Pasco triumphantly. “I’ll tell you what; Jason made off for reasons well known to himself. If we don’t hear of him again, I sha’n’t wonder; but burned here he certainly was not, as any fool can see. He was not the man to let himself burn. Cripple though he was, he could hop out of danger.”

Pasco turned to Bramber. “What is that you have been saying to the parson about hearing Mr. Quarm and his daughter argyfying at my door the night of the fire?”

Walter Bramber was taken aback.

“Yes, you said you had heard them in hot dispute.”

“I said,” answered Bramber in surprise and indignation, “something very different from that. I said”’

His hand was caught by Kate, who looked pleadingly into his face.

“A word alone.”

“What is it, Kitty?”

“Say nothing to anyone of what you saw and heard that night.”