“You knew then he was going somewhere? It’s all right, then, thank God!” said Fred; “and that dreadful thing in the papers has nothing to do with him.”
“What dreadful thing in the papers?” cried Mrs. Dalyell. It was not till Fred had thus committed himself in his haste and anxiety that he felt how foolish it was to refer to a report which as yet was not authenticated. He went to look for the papers, cursing his own rashness. But Foggo had more sense than might have been supposed. He had conveyed that Scotsman out of the way.
Alas! as if it were of any use to try to stave off the knowledge of such a calamity! An hour later Mr. Wedderburn’s sober step sounded upon the gravel, coming up from the train. Mrs. Dalyell sat still in her chair, not running to meet him as the others did. “Oh, I shall hear it soon enough—I shall hear it soon enough!” she said to herself.
His very step had tragedy in it; and she knew before she saw him that something dreadful had happened, that the failure of that telegram, which Robert had never before omitted to send her, was but too well explained. Something like a sweeping gust of fatal wind seemed to flow through the house—a chill consciousness of coming trouble, calling out everybody from above and below to hear the news. And then there was a terrible cry, and then a dread stillness fell over Yalton—like the stillness before a storm.
There was one strange thing, however, which happened that fatal afternoon, and which Fred could never forget. As he went upstairs to his own room, which was in the upper storey, a pale and miserable ghost of the cheerful youth he had been yesterday, he saw old Janet standing at the end of the passage which led to her room. She put out her long arm, out of the folds of her tartan shawl. “How is she taking it, Mr. Fred?” she asked. Janet’s eyes were deep, and shone with a strange fire. Her face was full of excitement and agitation—but not of grief, although she had been devoted to the master, who was also her nursling. “How is your mother taking it?” There was a gleam of strange curiosity in her eyes.
“Taking it?” cried Fred. “Have you no heart that you ask such a question? My mother is heartbroken—as we all are,” said the lad, his voice giving way to the half-arrested sob, which he was too young to be able to restrain.
“But no me—that’s what you’re thinking: though the Lord knows he’s more to me than everything else in this world. Laddie, you’re young—young; and so is your mother. But me, I’m a very old woman. I’ve seen many a strange thing. You’ll mind that you’re to come and ask me if you’re ever very sore troubled in your mind.”
“You!” cried Fred. There was something like scorn in his tone. The first distress of youth seems always final, insurmountable, so that it is half an insult to suggest that it will be lived through and other troubles come. But then a sudden chill of horror came over the lad. “You!” he said again, with a pang which he did not himself understand. He remembered what his father had said: “Go to old Janet.” Did she know what his father had said? Had she been aware that this great trouble, this more than trouble, this misery, calamity, was coming? Fred gave the old woman an awed and terrified look—and fled: from her and his own thoughts.
CHAPTER V.
There is no coroner’s inquest in Scotland, as has been said; nevertheless there was a careful examination into all the circumstances of Mr. Dalyell’s death. It was known that he was going to Portobello to bathe. This he had stated not only to his family, but to the clerks at the insurance office and other persons whom he had met. One gentleman appeared who had travelled that little journey with him by the train, whom he had almost persuaded to join him in his swim, and who parted with him only at the corner of the road leading down to the sands; the porter at the station had seen him arrive, had seen the two walk off together. There was no mystery or concealment about anything he had done. It was his usual place for bathing, there was nothing extraordinary about the matter, up to the moment when the clothes were found on the sands and the man was gone. Every step was traced of his ordinary career, nor could one suspicious circumstance be found. The mere fact of the heap of clothing, the money in the pockets, the watch, all the familiar careless evidences of a day which was to be as any other day, with no auguries of evil in it, was all there was to account for his disappearance. But that was pathetically distinct and unimpeachable. And when after so much delay the body was found—which, indeed, no one could tell to be Robert Dalyell’s body, but which by every law of probability might be considered so—the question dropped, and all the endless talk and speculation to which it had given rise. Of course there were doubts at first whether it might be suicide. But why, of all people in the world, should Robert Dalyell drown himself? No doubt there had been rumours of unfortunate speculations, and possible pecuniary disaster. But everybody knew now that Pat Wedderburn, a man of considerable wealth and unlimited credit, had put his means at his friend’s disposal. It is true that what Mr. Wedderburn had said was that he was about to do so; but these fine shades are too much to be preserved when a statement is sent about from mouth to mouth, and all Edinburgh was persuaded that Mr. Wedderburn’s means made Dalyell’s position secure—if, indeed, it ever was insecure, with a good estate behind him, and all his connections. But what a fatality! What a catastrophe! A man in the prime of life, with a nice wife and delightful children, a charming place, an excellent position, everything smiling upon him. That he should be carried away from all that in a moment by some confounded cramp, some momentary weakness. What a lesson it was! In the midst of life we are in death. This was what, with many regrets for Bob D’yell and sorrow for his family, and a great sensation among all who knew him, Edinburgh said. And then the event was displaced by another event, and his name was transferred from the papers and everybody’s mouth to a tablet in Yalton Church, and Robert Dalyell was as if he had never been.