Dorrien of Cranston

Chapter Twenty Nine.

The Tragedy of a Winter Night

“Pooh! What a fool I am, and what fancies a course of starvation and mooning will put into a man’s head!” exclaimed the stranger impatiently. “A wreath of mist over the sea, and immediately one conjures up an apparition. But I never saw anything more diabolically real in my life.”

Yet he was not quite reassured as he turned to continue his walk. The cloud had completely disappeared from The Skegs, vanished as suddenly as it had gathered there, nor was there a trace of vapour round the turret-like head – and the moonlight seemed to fall clearer upon the face of the cliffs.

He felt weary. He threw himself on the springy turf, heedless of damp or wet. A great, black fissure yawned at his feet, a gaping rent in the ground seeming to straggle into unknown depths. A few boulders lay about the little hollow where he rested. The fissure in front of him was known to the neighbourhood as Smugglers’ Ladder. Bats arose from the dark cleft and circled in the night air. The tide was in, and the lapping of the waves in the chasm beneath came up with a tuneful monotony through this gigantic telephone – but all else was silent as the grave. Far above twinkled the solemn stars, and the red, pointed moon looked angrily down. Then the distant chime from Wandsborough steeple rang out the hour of nine.

Only nine! Yet it might be midnight, so still and lifeless was this out-of-the-world hush. A soothing lethargy crept over him. Stillness – silence – rest. After the warring turmoil of a great city, this was as another world. But it was winter, and soon a shiver from head to foot reminded him that the more prosaic side of life, i.e. bed, had its attractions. A few minutes more and he would be on his way to Battisford, but a low whistle, unmistakably human, recalled in a trice his wandering reflections. It was repeated, and simultaneously the figure of a man appeared on the skyline.

The stranger did not move. He felt no apprehension, whoever the other might be. He was without hope in this world and therefore absolutely without fear, and so he sat with the lower part of his face resting in his hands, perfectly motionless, while the other approached him, saying in a low whisper:

“Why didn’t you answer my signal, dear?”

Then the stranger arose, with a harsh laugh.

“Ha-ha-ha! I’m afraid you’re the victim of a trifling ‘sell’ to-night, Hubert Dorrien.”

To say that the new-comer was astonished would be to say next to nothing at all. He was thunderstruck – speechless; and his face was as white as a sheet, as he stood rooted to the earth – gazing at this unexpected apparition as one transfixed.

“G-Good God! Who are you, sir, and what do you want with me?” he stammered at last.

“Ha-ha-ha! Good boy, Hubert. Good boy! Mother’s darling and papa’s expectant and deserving heir,” went on the stranger in the same harsh, jeering tone. “And now, may I ask, who is the fair frail one with whom this most delightful moonlight tryst was to have come off?” Excess of courage was at no time one of Hubert Dorrien’s besetting faults, and now he simply shivered, and his lips trembled. All of which the stranger noted as the moonlight played upon the white, terrified face.

“I don’t know who the devil you are, sir – and I don’t care,” he found courage to bluster at last. “But anyhow, I shall wish you good-evening, for I must go,” and he made a movement.

“But you are not going, Hubert Dorrien, not yet at least. Not until you and I have had a little talk together,” said the stranger, laying a firm hand upon his shoulder.

“Well, what do you want with me?” said Hubert doggedly, but horribly uneasy in his mind, for to his ordinary “prudent” disposition was now added the incubus of a tolerably guilty conscience. The place was hideously lonely withal, and his strange questioner looked powerful enough to have eaten him.

“Good boy, Hubert – ha-ha-ha! Does papa know you’re over here to-night, I wonder? But now – who were you expecting to find here?”

“Be damned to you!” broke out the young fellow furiously. “I’m not going to stand your impudent catechising. Go to blazes and find out. Oh – by God!”

For the stranger had turned his face full to the light, and, hiding the lower half of it, had removed his glasses.

” – Roland!”

And the two stood looking into each other’s eyes in the moonlight, and both faces wore any other expression than that of mutual affection. Yet they were brothers.

“Now that you have stepped into my shoes, Hubert, I hope they fit you,” said the elder, drily.

“Oh yes, thanks. Fit – very well indeed. More comfortable, by the bye, after a little further wear,” was the reply, given with a cold, exasperating grin.

“Which wear you won’t get out of them, my friend, in all probability. So look out for speedy squalls.”

“Oh, shan’t I?” replied the younger, his former fears dispelled, now that the mysterious stranger’s identity lay disclosed. “Shan’t I? Who will, then?”

“Why, their rightful owner, of course. Myself, to wit.”

“Good dog, Brag,” jeered the other contemptuously, jerking a stone across the mouth of Smugglers’ Ladder. Better for him had he kept up his prudence a little longer. “And now, Roland, I don’t come blundering in on top of your little arrangements up in Town, and should be very glad if you would kindly not interfere with mine here. In other words, by remaining in this sequestered spot you are spoiling my fun – if you have not already done so, that is.”

“Ah – now we are coming to it. Just answer me one question. What the deuce made you follow me over half the town one night last week, and then pretend you didn’t recognise me?”

“By Jove! It was you, then! I wasn’t sure, you see, and I couldn’t well buttonhole another fellow on spec. Besides you were with someone,” answered Hubert readily. But the other laughed drily.

“Not bad for you, Hubert. Shouldn’t wonder if you got your ‘silk’ after all, one of these days, if you go on as you have begun. And now, isn’t it a singular thing that a certain rumour should have started here at my expense, coincidently with that merry meeting of ours just by Westminster Bridge?”

“Very odd,” was the sneering rejoinder. “But the world’s devilish small, you know, and it’s astonishing how these little things will leak out.”

He ought to have known better. One glance at his brother’s face, and he would have spoken in a very different tone. But he was talking half-turned away.

“Quite so. It is. And now, O brother of mine, may I ask what motive you had in originating such a gratuitously mischievous and infernally backbiting story?”

Hubert’s first alarm had given way to exasperation and venomous resentment. Over and above inspiring him with considerable fear, this inconvenient brother of his had quite spoiled his little programme for the evening.

“Go to blazes and find out,” he answered again with an impudent sneer. “Or better still – ask Olive Ingelow what she thinks on the subject – Ha-ha-ha!”

But his laughter died, for with a furious curse the other had seized him by the throat. They were perilously near the edge of the chasm to indulge in a wrestling bout. And like a whisper from hell there flashed through the exile’s brain a vivid picture of all he had undergone from that sad parting scene in Wandsborough street to this hour, and probably she for whose sake he had given up all and was now an outcast had allowed her mind to be poisoned against him by the lying reports emanating from the slanderous tongue of this ungrateful and heartless young villain, this serpent who was his brother.

“Whisper her name again, and I’ll choke the life out of you,” he ejaculated, almost inarticulate with fury. But Hubert, exasperated beyond measure, forgot all his prudence.

“Yes, I will,” he shrieked, wrenching himself free.

“You asked just now who I was expecting to-night. What if it was the lovely Olive herself?”

But again the speaker’s voice failed him. Again his face went livid with deadly fear. He recoiled and would fain have fled before the terrible effect of his words. Behind lay the dark, yawning mouth of the chasm. His wild scream for help was choked in his throat. There was a fall – a scuffle and a slide. A human figure rolled down the sloping rock, with fingers convulsively clutching the merciless, unyielding stone, and face upturned to the cold moon in a paroxysm of deadly terror, then disappeared into the black chasm. A metallic sound as of stones dislodged striking against the sides of the fissure, then a dull splash far below and – silence.

He who was left upon the height above stood motionless for some minutes, his chest heaving and a perfect hell of fiendlike ferocity inflaming his countenance. Then he advanced to the edge of the fissure and peered fearlessly down. All was black as ink. Here and there the moonlight from without fell upon an angle of rock far beneath with a ghostly glint, but there was no sign of life – or death; nothing to tell that a human being had just been hurled down that terrific chasm to his last account. No accusing voice in the air – to proclaim aloud over the placid sea, to thunder forth from the hard, frowning cliffs – or even to whisper into the survivor’s ear the ghastly tale of this chill winter’s night – Murder.

And they two were brothers.

The survivor roused himself and looked keenly around. Were there no traces on the smooth turf that would connect him with the disappearance of the other when he should come to be missed and a search was made; no marks of feet upon the slippery rock? No, there were none. The moon’s cold eye alone had witnessed the deed – of which there remained absolutely no trace. Having assured himself of this, he readjusted his spectacles and walked rapidly away from the spot without once looking back.

Battisford was an old-fashioned place and “The Silver Fleece” was a snug and old-fashioned hostelry, where they kept early hours. Especially on Sundays was this the case, but on this particular Sunday our friend the loquacious waiter was deputed to sit up for the new guest – the gentleman who had gone over to church at Wandsborough. The service there would be over at any time after eight – say half-past, so that he should be back at a quarter-past nine or half-past at the latest. But it was slow work sitting up alone in the deserted coffee-room, and so it speedily came to pass that the talkative one followed the example of the five foolish virgins – slumbered and slept.

At length the stranger returned, and the first sound that greeted his ears as he let himself in and stood within the dimly lighted passage was a prolonged and unmistakable snore. Now in the said passage there stood a clock – a large timepiece of venerable aspect – and the hands of this clock were close upon a quarter-past ten. Whether it was a kind of instinct that prompted him to do so, or that he noticed that the glass was closed, but not shut – or both – cannot be here recorded, but in a moment he had opened the clock face, put the hands back forty minutes, and, having closed the glass again, proceeded carelessly in the direction of the snore.

“Hallo! Been sitting up for me?” he cried. “Early here, I suppose. Well, see if you can scare me up an S. and B., and that’s all I shall want to-night.”

Up jumped the drowsy one with a start.

“Yes, sir. Beg pardon, sir, but I must ha’ dropped off,” he said, rubbing his eyes and making for the door. “Ah well, sir, I h’aint been long in a doze; it was after nine when last I looked at this blessed clock, and now it ain’t quite half-past yet, leastways it’s just over it.”

The other felt relieved. There was no fear of the man discovering the alteration of the hands if he had been asleep ever since nine, and it crossed his mind as just within the bounds of possibility that this circumstance might yet stand him in good stead.

“Just over half-past nine? So it is,” he said carelessly, as the waiter re-appeared with the brandy and soda. “I must have come quick, for it seemed to me a precious long way from Wandsborough.”

“You have come quick, sir. Did you come by the cliffs?”

“The cliffs! Is there a way by the cliffs, then?”

“Oh yes, sir, much shorter. But not over-safe at night, speshully to a gentleman as doesn’t know the country well.”

“H’m! I should think not. Likely to take a plunge over in the dark – eh? By the way, what’s the name of the verger at Wandsborough church? He seems a nice, civil sort of fellow. I rather liked the look of him, and he quite took me under his wing and looked after me. The bald-headed man.” This would show that he had been at Wandsborough.

“Brown, sir, it is. Oh yes, I know him well, he’s been there a matter o’ many years now. He’s a downright good honest chap, is Brown,” and then the loquacious one launched into a dissertation on the many good qualities and rare virtues of the official in question, which we shall spare the reader, even as he upon whom it was inflicted spared himself by promptly retiring to his room.

Next morning, while the grey-bearded stranger was leisurely discussing a late breakfast, the talkative waiter bustled in.

“Heard the news, sir? but of course you ’aven’t – seeing you’re only just up.”

“Quite right, my friend. And now, what’s the excitement?”

“Well, sir, they Bays as how young Mr Dorrien, he as we was talking about yesterday, he can’t be found nowhere,” said the man, hastening to discharge this last prime event with which his mind was burdened. “He went over to Cranston church by himself last night, and didn’t come home all night.”

“H’m! I don’t see anything very extraordinary in that. He may have had reasons of his own for being out all night, perhaps went somewhere by train, eh, don’t you see? – young men, you know, will be young men – and missed his train back.”

“No, sir, depend upon it there’s something wrong,” dissented the other, provoked at the stranger’s imperturbability. He had taken a great liking to him, “a pleasant-spoken, haffable gent as ever was, and yet a gent every hinch of him, as anybody might see” had been his verdict, in camera, with his colleagues below stairs. “Mistress Dorrien they say is that scared, and she’s going to have the country searched for him. He’s come to grief, ’e has. He carrier from Wandsbro’, he as brought the news – he says” – and here the man’s voice fell to what he intended to be a most impressive and mysterious whisper – “he says that one of them down at Minchkil Bay was coming home along the beach by moonlight and saw the Dorriens’ wraith on ‘The Skegs.’ The ghost always appears before the death of a Dorrien.”

The stranger looked quickly round as a violent shiver ran through him from head to foot.

“Just shut that door, will you? When the front door is open as well, the most infernal draught finds its way in here. It’s enough to give a man his death. Thanks. What were you saying? Something about a ghost?”

Only too delighted with the opportunity, our voluble friend proceeded redundantly to regale the stranger’s ears with the dour legend we heard narrated by very different lips nearly at the commencement of this narrative. But the listener proved sadly sceptical.

“Pooh!” he said, when the other had done. “That won’t wash at all, you know. It’s surprising how these humbugging old myths survive in the country, and the further away from Town you get, the more you find of them.”

“Beg pardon, sir, but shall you be leaving to-day?” asked the waiter, as the stranger rose from the table.

“No.”

“All right, sir. Glad to ’ear it, sir. Custom’s slack just now, sir.”

Chapter Thirty.

Search

Great was the consternation which prevailed at Cranston Hall as the day wore on and Hubert did not return.

When first it was reported that his room was undisturbed and his bed had not been slept in, Mrs Dorrien’s chief care was to keep the knowledge from her husband, but soon her fears got the better of her prudence on her son’s behalf, and it became necessary to acquaint the General with the fact, with a view to a search being instituted.

Very sternly and concisely the latter at once proceeded to enquire into the circumstances of the case, but, beyond the fact that the missing one had left home with the expressed intention of attending evening service at Cranston Church, no one at the Hall could throw any light on the matter.

“I don’t know what could possibly have happened to Hubert between this and the village,” he said to his wife. “Why, it’s barely twenty minutes’ walk. I really don’t know what to think about it, Eleanor. It is extremely painful to be obliged to say so, but it looks strangely as if Hubert had started on an unlawful errand, inventing a pretext for covering it. I have not found him invariably truthful, you know.”

She burst into a storm of tears, her hard nature stirred to its very depths; her cold heart sorely wounded in its one vulnerable point.

“Oh, my boy, my boy?” she sobbed. “I shall never see you again, something tells me I shall not. And you” – turning fiercely upon her husband – “you were always so stern, so severe with him. He may have left his home, left it for good. Couldn’t you remember that he was young, and make allowances – and in delicate health? Yes, it is you who have driven him away, even as you drove away the other. Oh, my boy, my darling boy! I shall never see him again!”

A deep frown came over the General’s brow at this reproach.

“Pray calm yourself, Eleanor,” he said sternly. “The reproaches you allow yourself to make are most ill-chosen, and, in fact, inexcusable. However, to confine ourselves strictly to the matter in hand, I shall ride down at once to the village and make enquiries, and, if necessary, shall institute a search without delay.”

In less than an hour afterwards the General, aided by Mr Curtis, the vicar of Cranston, had elicited the following information. His son had been present at the village church the preceding evening, and had left with the congregation. Here testimony began to wax uncertain, some being ready to assert that they noticed Mr Hubert nearly at the park gates, while others were equally certain they had seen him going in the direction of Wandsborough. From this chaos of testimony it seemed impossible to evolve anything like order, and the General and his willing ally were nearly giving up all attempts at unravelling it, and starting in search of a fresh clue, when light came in upon the subject from an unexpected quarter.

A rustic couple was found who had been “sweet-hearting” in the lanes outside Cranston, according to the manner of rustic couples, after evening church. These were ready to swear that Mr Hubert had passed them, walking swiftly, and going in the direction of the cliffs. In fact, they had had the curiosity to turn and watch him. It was a cold, damp evening for any gentleman to be taking a walk on the cliffs all by himself, but why Mr Hubert should do so rather than return home was a speculation which aroused curiosity even in their thick, rustic pates. The pair, a stolid, bovine brace of bumpkins, were in great awe during the severe cross-questioning they underwent at the hands of the Squire and the Vicar, both magistrates to boot, but stuck tenaciously to the main point of their narrative. They were not mistaken, for not only had they seen Mr Hubert’s face distinctly in the moonlight, but they had wished him “good-night,” to which he had replied. As to time, well, about that they couldn’t be quite certain, they supposed it must have been about nine – or, if anything, rather earlier; but anyhow, not long after church.

It was clear that these people were the last who had seen Hubert, and convinced that now they were on the right track, though with a direful sinking of heart, the two gentlemen agreed that their next move must be to betake themselves to Minchkil Bay, and enlist the services of the hardy seafarers there in a regular search. If the missing man had found his way to the cliffs, as both feared he had, he might have fallen over. Possibly he might yet be alive, but in a situation of peril or difficulty, from which he could not extricate himself, and in this case the aid of these bold fishers, experienced cragsmen all, would be indispensable.

As they rode up to the little fishing colony they descried a group of three seated against a boat, and a tall young man leaning over them. All had their backs towards them, and were talking with animation, unaware of the approach of strangers, for the sound of the horses’ hoofs was deadened by the soft turf.

“But I say, Jem Pollock,” the young man was saying. “What did this affair really look like? It may have been a cloud, you know.”