On this same morning, Wednesday, Alice received a letter from her husband. He spoke of the mishap to the ship, said that she had put back, and had again gone out; he himself being detained in London on business, but he expected to be off in a day or two and join her at some place down channel. But not a word did he say of the cause of his detention, or of the death of Edward Pym. She heard it from others.
With this confirmation, as it seemed, of her dream, Alice took it up more warmly. She went over to the old lawyer at Islip, John Paul, recounted the dream to him, and asked what she was to do. Naturally, old Paul told her “nothing:” and he must have laughed in his sleeve as he said it.
The good ship, Rose of Delhi, finally went away with all her sails set for the East; but John Tanerton went not with her.
The inquest on the unfortunate young man, Pym, was put off from time to time, and prolonged and procrastinated. Captain Tanerton had to wait its pleasure; the ship could not.
The case presented difficulties, and the jury could not see their way to come to a verdict. Matters looked rather black against Captain Tanerton; that was not denied; but not sufficiently black, it would seem, for the law to lay hold of him. At any rate, the law did not. Perhaps the persistent advocacy of Sir Dace Fontaine went some way with the jury. Sir Dace gave it as his strong opinion that his misguided nephew, being the worse for drink, had fallen of himself, probably with his head on the iron fender, and that Captain Tanerton’s denial was a strictly true one. The end finally arrived at was—that there was not sufficient evidence to show how the death was caused.
At the close of the investigation Jack went down to Timberdale. Not the open-hearted, ready-handed Jack of the old days, but a subdued, saddened man who seemed to have a care upon him. The foolish speech he had thoughtlessly made to Mr. Freeman preceded him: and Herbert Tanerton—always looking on the darkest side of everything and everybody, considered it a proof that Jack had done the deed.
Timberdale (including Crabb) held opposite opinions; half of it taking Captain Tanerton’s side, half the contrary one. As to the Squire, he was more helpless than an old sheep. He had always liked Jack, had believed in him as in one of us: but, you see, when one gets into trouble, faith is apt to waver. A blow, argued the pater in private, is so easily given in the heat of passion.
“A pretty kettle of fish this is,” croaked Herbert to Jack, on his brother’s arrival.
“Yes, it is,” sighed Jack.