Martha was an admirer and partisan of Mr. Downing, from the humble and discreet distance which divides a housemaid from a butler, and she did not like to hear his discretion aspersed.
"It looks as if he was right this time, however," she replied; "though it wasn't Tim the tinker as stole Sir Thomas's spoons, which Mr. Downing never had a good opinion of him; but when there ain't nothing clearer than the person who was seen at the eating-house with the victim" (Martha "took in" the Hatchet of Horror every week, and framed her language on that delightful model) "had on a coat as Evans made, it looks as if he wasn't altogether in the wrong, now don't it, Mrs. Brookes?"
Mrs. Brookes could not deny that it looked very like that complimentary conclusion, and her brave old heart almost died within her. But she kept down her fear and horror, and dismissed Martha, telling her to bring her the paper as soon as she could. The woman returned in a few moments, laid the newspaper beside Mrs. Brookes, and then went off to enjoy a continuation of the gossip of the servants' hall. Very exciting and delightful that gossip was, for though the servants had no inkling of the terribly strong interest, the awfully near connection, which existed for Poynings in the matter, it was still a great privilege to be "in" so important an affair by even the slender link formed by the probable purchase of a coat at Amherst by the murderer. They enjoyed it mightily; they discussed it over and over again, assigning to the murdered man every grade of rank short of royalty, and all the virtues possible to human nature. The women were particularly eloquent and sympathizing, and Martha "quite cried," as she speculated on the great probability of there being a broken-hearted sweetheart in the case.
In the housekeeper's room, Mrs. Brookes sat poring over the terrible story, to which she had listened carelessly on the previous day, as the servants talked it vaguely over. From the first words Martha had spoken, her fears had arisen, and now they were growing every instant to the terrible certainty of conviction. What if the wretched young man, who had already been the cause of so much misery, had added this fearful crime to the long catalogue of his follies and sins?
All the household sleeps, and the silence of the night is in every room but one. There Mrs. Brookes still sits by the table with the newspaper spread before her, lost in a labyrinth of fear and anguish; and from time to time her grief finds words, such as:
"How shall I tell her? How shall I warn her? O George, George! O my boy! my boy!"
[CHAPTER XIII.]
THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
Mr. Carruthers was an early man; no danger of any skulking among the numerous hands which found employment on the Poynings estate. If the eye of the master be indeed the spur of the servant, Mr. Carruthers's dependents had quite enough of that stimulant. He made his rounds every morning at an hour which the in-door servants, who were obliged to have breakfast ready on his return, considered heathenish, and the out-door servants declared savoured of slave-driving. Mrs. Brookes knew that she should have no difficulty in procuring a private interview with her mistress on the morning following Mr. Dalrymple's visit, as an hour and a half always elapsed between Mr. Carruthers's leaving the house and his wife's ringing for her maid. The old woman looked worn and weary and very old, as she peered from behind a red-cloth door, which shut off the corridor on which Mr. Carruthers's dressing-room opened from the grand gallery, and watched her master take his creaking way down the staircase, looking as he went more full of self-importance than usual, and treading more heavily, as if the weight of the Home Office communication had got into his boots.
When he had disappeared, and she had heard the click of the lock as he opened the great door and went out into the pure fresh morning air, Mrs. Brookes emerged from behind the partition-door, and softly took the way to Mrs. Carruthers's bedroom. The outer door was slightly open, the heavy silken curtain within hung closely over the aperture. The old woman pushed it gently aside, and, noiselessly crossing the room, drew the window curtain, and let in sufficient light to allow her to see that Mrs. Carruthers was still sleeping. Her face, pale, and even in repose bearing a troubled expression, was turned towards the old woman, who seated herself in an arm-chair beside the bed, and looked silently and sadly on the features, whose richest bloom and earliest sign of fading she had so faithfully watched.