Chapter XVI: In the Dog-cart to Jutpoint

But there's something yet to tell of the evening. It was getting towards dusk when Isaac Thornycroft went his way to Captain Copp's intending boldly to ask Miss Chester to take a walk with him, should there be no chance of getting a minute with her alone at home.

The state in which he was living, touching his wife's estrangement (not their separation, that was a present necessity), was getting unbearable; and Isaac, who had hitherto shunned an explanation, came to the rather sudden resolution of seeking it. Although his brother had shot Robert Hunter, it could not be said to be a just reason for Anna's resenting it upon _him_. Not a syllable did Isaac yet know of the discovery that had taken place, or that Cyril was the one lying in the churchyard.

In the free and simple community of Coastdown, doors were not kept closed, and people entered at will. Rather, then, to Isaac's surprise, as he turned the handle of Captain Copp's, he found it was fastened, so that he could not enter. At the same moment his eyes met his wife's, who had come to the window to reconnoitre. There was no help for it, and she had to go and let him in.

"At home alone, Anna! Where are they all? Where's Sarah?"

Anna explained: bare facts only, however, not motives. It appeared that the gallant captain, considerably lowered in his own estimation by the events of the past night, and especially that he should be so in the sight of his "womenkind," proposed a little jaunt that day to Jutpoint by way of diverting their thoughts, and perhaps his own, from the ghost and its reminiscences. His mother--recovered from her incipient cold--she was too strong-minded a woman for diseases to seize upon heartily--agreed readily, as did his wife. Not so Anna. She pleaded illness, and begged to be left at home. It was indeed no false plea, for her miserable state of mind was beginning to tell upon her. They had been expected home in time for tea, and had not come. Anna supposed they had contrived to miss the omnibus, which was in fact the case, and could not now return until late. How Mrs. Sam Copp would be brought by the churchyard was a thing easier wondered at than told. As to Sarah, she had but now stepped out on some necessary errands to the village.

In the satisfaction of finding the field undisturbed for the explanation he wished entered on, Isaac said nothing about his wife being left in the house alone, which he by no means approved of. It was not dark yet, only dusk: but Anna said something about getting lights.

"Not yet," said Isaac. "I want to talk to you; there's plenty of light for that."

She sat down on the sofa; trembling, frightened, sick. If her husband was the slayer of Robert Hunter--as she believed him to be--it was not agreeable to be in the solitary house with him; it was equally disagreeable to have to tell him to go out of it. Ah, but for that terrible belief, what a happy moment this snatch of intercourse might have been to them! this sole first chance for weeks and weeks of being alone, when they might speak together of future plans with a half-hour's freedom.

She took her seat on the sofa, scarcely conscious what she did in her sick perplexity. Isaac sat down by her, put his arm round her waist, and would have kissed her. But she drew to the other end of the large sofa with a gesture of evident avoidance, and burst into tears. So he got up and stood before her.

"Anna, this must end, one way or the other; it is what I came here to-night to say. The separated condition in which we first lived after our return was bad enough, but that was pleasant compared to what it afterwards became. It is some weeks now since you have allowed me barely to shake you by the hand; never if you could avoid it. Things cannot go on so."

She made no reply. Only sat there trembling and crying, her hands before her face.

"What have I done to you? Come, Anna, I must have an answer. What have I done to you?"

She spoke at last, looking up. In her habit of implicit obedience, there was no help for it; there could be none when the order came from _him_.

"Nothing----to me."

"To whom, then? What is it?"

"Nothing," was all she repeated.

"Nothing! Do you repent having married me?"

"I don't know."

The answer seemed to pain him. He bent his handsome face a little towards her, pushing back impatiently his golden hair, as if the fair bright brow needed coolness.

"I thought you loved me, Anna?"

"And you know I did. Oh, that is it! The misery would be greater if I loved you less."

"Then why do you shun me?"

"Is there not a cause why I should?" she asked in a low tone, after a long pause.

"_I_ think not. Will you tell me what the cause may be?"

She glanced up at him, she looked down, she smoothed unconsciously the silk apron on which her nervous hands rested, but she could not answer. Isaac saw it, and, bending nearer to her, he spoke in a whisper.

"Is it connected with that unhappy night--with what took place on the plateau?"

"I think you must have known all along that it is."

"And you consider it a sufficient reason for shunning me?"

"Yes, do not _you?_"

"Certainly not."

Great though her misery was, passionately though she loved him still, the cool assertion angered her. It gave her a courage to speak that nothing else could have given.

"It was a dark crime; the worst crime that the world can know. Does it not lie on your conscience?"

"No; I could not hinder it."

"Oh, Isaac! Had it been anything else; anything but _murder_, I could have borne it. How you can bear it, and live, I cannot understand."

"Why should I make another's sin mine? No one can deplore it as I do; but it is not my place to answer for it. I do not understand you, Anna."

_She_ did not understand. What did his words mean?

"Did you not kill Robert Hunter?"

"_I_ kill him! You are dreaming, Anna! I was not near the spot."

"Isaac! ISAAC?"

"Child! have you been fearing _that?_"

"For nothing else, for nothing else could I have shunned you. Oh, Isaac! my dear husband, how could the mistake arise?"

"I know not. A mistake it was; I affirm it to you before God. I was not on the plateau at all that night."

He opened his arms, gravely smiling, and she passed into them with a great cry. Trembling, moaning, sobbing; Isaac thought she would have fainted. Placing her by his side on the sofa, he kept still, listening to what she had to say.

"As I looked out of the Round Tower in the starlight, I caught a momentary glimpse of--as I thought--you, and I saw the hand that held the pistol take aim and fire. I thought it _was_ you, and I fainted. I have thought it ever since. Mary Anne, in a word or two that we spoke together, seemed to confirm it."

"Mary Anne knew it was not I. It is not in my nature to draw a pistol on any man. Surely, Anna, you might have trusted me better!"

"Oh, what a relief!" she murmured, "what a relief!" then, as a sudden thought seemed to strike her, she turned her face to his and spoke, her voice hushed.

"It must have been Richard. You are alike in figure."

"Upon that point we had better be silent," he answered, in quite a solemn tone. "It is a thing that we are not called upon to inquire into; let us avoid it. I am innocent: will not that suffice?"

"It will more than suffice for me," she answered. "Since that night I have been most wretched."

"You need not have feared me in any way, Anna," was the reply of Isaac Thornycroft. "Were it possible that my hand could become stained with the blood of a fellow-creature, I should hasten to separate from you quicker than you could from me. Whatever else such an unhappy man may covet, let him keep clear of wife and children."

"Forgive me, Isaac! Forgive me!"

"I have not been exempt from the follies of young men, and I related to you the greater portion of my share of them, after we married," he whispered. "But of dark crime I am innocent--as innocent as you are."

"Oh, Isaac! my husband, Isaac!"

He bent his face on hers, and she lay there quietly, her head nestling in his bosom. It seemed to her like a dream of heaven after the past; a very paradise.

"You will forgive me, won't you?" she softly breathed.

"My darling!"

But paradise cannot last for ever, as you all know; and one of them at any rate found himself very far on this side it ere the night was much older. As Sarah let herself into the house with her back-door key, Isaac quitted it by the front, and bent his steps across the heath.

In passing the churchyard, he stood and looked well into it. But there was no sign of the ghost, and Isaac went on again. How little did he suspect that at that very selfsame moment the ghost was seated round in the church porch, in deep conversation with his sister! Having an errand in the village, he struck across to it; and on his final return home a little later, he was astonished to overtake his sister at the entrance gates of the Red Court Farm, her forehead pressed upon the ironwork, and she sobbing as if her heart would break.

"Mary Anne! what is the matter? What brings you here?"

"Come with me," she briefly said. "If I do not tell some one, I shall die."

Walking swiftly to one of the benches on the lawn, she sat down on it, utterly indifferent to the rain that was beginning to fall. Isaac followed her wonderingly. Poor thing! the whole of the previous day and night she had really almost felt as if she should die--die from the weight of the fearful secret, and the want of some one to confide in. Richard was the only one who shared it, and she was debarred by pity from talking to him.

There, with the fatal plateau in front of him, and the rain coming down on their devoted heads, Isaac Thornycroft learnt the whole--learnt to his dismay, his grief, his horror, that the victim had been his much-loved brother Cyril; and that Robert Hunter was still in life.

He took his hat off, and wiped his brow; and then held his hat before his face, after the fashion of men going into church--held it for some minutes. Mary Anne in her own deep emotion did not notice his.

"Isaac, don't you pity me?"

"I pity us all."

"And there will be the making it known to papa. He must be told."

"Richard will leave Coastdown for ever. He could not remain in it, he says. I am not competent to advise him, Isaac. You must."

"Richard has never yet taken any advice but his own."

"Ah! but he is changed to-day. He has been changed a little since that dreadful night. I suppose you have known all along that it was Richard who--who did it?"

"Not from information: I saw that you knew; that you were in his confidence. Of course I could not help being sure in my own mind that it must have been Richard. I fancy"--he turned and looked full at his sister--"that Miss Chester thought it was I."

"Yes, I know she did," was the assured answer. "It was better to let her think so. Safer for Richard, better for you."

"Why better for me?"

"Because--it is not a moment to be reticent, Isaac--Anna Chester once appeared too much inclined to like you. That would never do, you know."

He turned his head away; a soft remembrance parting his lips, a look of passionate love, meant for his absent wife, lighting his eyes.

"You will get wet sitting here, Mary Anne."

She arose, and they went indoors. Isaac was passing straight through to the less-used rooms when his sister stopped him.

Rooms that would never have been closed to the rest of the house, but for the smuggling practices so long carried on by the Thornycroft family. In the rooms themselves there was absolutely nothing that could have led to betrayal, or any reason why they might not have been open to all the household: but it was necessary to keep that part of the house closed always, except to Mr. Thornycroft and his sons, lest it should have been penetrated to at the few exceptional times when the cargo was being run, or the dog-cart laden subsequently with the spoil. When once the cargo was safely lodged in the cavern within the rocks, it might remain there in security to some convenient time for removing it. This was always done at night. Richard and Isaac Thornycroft, Tomlett and Hyde, brought up sufficient of the parcels to fill the dog-cart, which one of the sons, sometimes both, would then drive away with and deposit with Hopley, their agent at Dartfield, whose business it was to convey the booty to its final destination. The next night more would be taken away, and so on. Sometimes so large was the trade done, so swift were the operations, that one cargo would not be all sent away before another was landed. At another period perhaps three months elapsed and no boat came in. With this frequent going out by night with the dog-cart, no wonder the young Thornycrofts got the credit of being loose in their habits, and that the justice encouraged the notion.

The sumptuous dinners at the Red Court Farm (or suppers, according to the convenience and time of year) were kept up as a sort of covering to the illicit doings. When the gentlemen of the neighbourhood, including the superintendent of the coastguard, had their legs under the hospitable board, or the servants subsequently under theirs in the kitchen, they could not be wandering about out of doors, seeing inexpedient things. It was not often of late years Mr. Thornycroft aided in the run; he left it to Richard and Isaac, and stayed with his guests. On the night Lady Ellis saw him he had gone out, found there was a sea fog, and came in again; denying it afterwards to her (as faithful Hyde had done) lest she should next question why he changed his coat and put on leggings.

The late superintendent, Mr. Dangerfield, had allowed rule to get lax altogether, but he had, of course, a certain amount of watching kept up. On the occasion of a dinner or supper at the Red Court (always given when a cargo was waiting to be run), Mr. Dangerfield would contrive to let his men know that he was going to it; as a matter of fact, not a man troubled himself to go near the plateau that night; the Mermaid had them instead; and all too often it happened that one of the young Mr. Thornycrofts would go in and stand treat. No fear of the men's stirring any more than their master. But from the fact of the Half-moon beach being visible only from the plateau, and for the supernatural tales connected with the latter, they had never escaped being seen so long as they did.

The ghostly stories--not of Robert Hunter--had done more than all to prevent discovery. It could not be said that the Thornycrofts raised them in the first place; they did not; but when they perceived how valuable an adjunct they were likely to prove, they took care to keep them up. Report went that the late Mrs. Thornycroft had died from the fears induced by superstition. It was as well to keep up that belief also; but she had died from nothing of the sort. What she had really died of--so to say--was the smuggling. When the discovery came to her at first, through an accident, of the practices carried on by her husband and sons--as they had been by her husband's brother and his father before him--it brought a great shock. A timid, right-minded, refined woman, the dread of discovery was perpetually upon her afterwards; she lived in a state of inward fear night and day; and this most probably induced the disorder of which she died--a weakness that got gradually worse and worse, and ended in death. When she was dying, not before, she told them it had killed her. Had Mr. Thornycroft known of it earlier, he might have given it up for her sake, for he was a fond husband. But he had not known of it; and her death and its unhappy cause left upon them a great sorrow: one that could not be put away. The same grief at the practices, and dread of what a persistence in them might bring forth, had likewise lain on Cyril, and been the secret of his declining to take Orders so long as they should be carried on. Mr. Thornycroft himself was getting somewhat tired of it, as he told Cyril; he had made plenty of money, but Richard would not hear of their being given up.

Perhaps from habit more than anything else, Isaac was passing on to the back rooms, but Mary Anne arrested him. "Stay with me a little while, Isaac; you do not know how lonely it is for me now."

He acquiesced at once. He was ever good-natured and kind, and they turned into the sitting-room, she calling a servant to take her shawl and bonnet. Not empty, as she had anticipated, was the parlour, for Richard was there.

"I have told Isaac all," said Mary Anne, briefly. And Isaac, in his great compassion, went up to his brother and laid his hand on him kindly.

Poor Richard Thornycroft! His eyes hollow, his brow fevered, his hands burning, he paced there still in his terrible remorse. A consuming fire had set in, to prey upon him for all time. He spoke a few disjointed words to Isaac, as if in extenuation.

"I felt half maddened at Hunter's duplicity of conduct that night. I had warned him that I would shoot him if he went again on the plateau, and I thought I was justified in doing so. _Why_ did Cyril put the coat on?"

"Let this be a consolation to you, Richard--that you did not intend, to harm your brother," was all the comfort Isaac could give.

"Had it been any one but my brother! had it been any but my brother!" was the wailing answer. "The curse of Cain rests upon me."

Walking about still in his restlessness as he said it! He had never sat, or lain, or rested since leaving the churchyard the previous night, but paced about as one in the very depths of despair. Mary Anne slipped the bolt of the door, and they began to consult as to the future. At this dread consultation, every word of which will linger in the remembrance of the three during life, Richard decided upon his plans. To remain in the neighbourhood of the fatal scene, ever again to look upon the Half-moon beach where the dead had lain, he felt would drive him mad. In Australia he might in time find something like rest.

"I shall leave to-night," said he.

"To-night!" echoed Isaac, in great surprise. Richard nodded. "You will drive me to Jutpoint, won't you, Isaac?"

"If you must really go."

"And when shall we see you again?" inquired Mary Anne.

"Never again."

"Never again! never again!" she repeated, with a moan. "Oh Richard, never again!"

It was a shock to Mr. Thornycroft, when he drove home an hour later from Jutpoint, to find his eldest and (as people had looked upon it) his favourite son waiting to bid him farewell for ever. They did not disclose to him the fearful secret--either that it was Cyril who had died, or that it was Richard who had shot him--leaving that to be revealed later. They said Richard had fallen into a serious scrape, which could only be kept quiet by his quitting the place for a few years, and begged him not to inquire particulars; that the less said about it the better. Justice Thornycroft obeyed in his surprise, for the communication had half stunned him.

And so they parted. Once more in the middle of the night--in the little hours intervening between dark and dawn--the dog-cart was driven out from the Red Court Farm: not bearing this time a quantity of valuable lace or other booty, but simply a portmanteau of Richard's, with a few articles of clothing flung hastily into it. He sat low down in the seat, his hat over his brows, his arms folded, his silence stern. And thus Isaac, on the high cushion by his side, drove him to Jutpoint to catch the early morning train.