Inevitably Kate became aware of the opinion prevailing in the village, that her father was burned to death in the storehouse, and it was hard for her to come to any other conclusion. She went to Mrs. Redmore to inquire whether he had been to his old cottage, but the timid, not very bright woman nervously denied any knowledge of him.
Her distress was very great, but she sought to conceal it from her aunt, who wanted nothing to augment her own trouble.
Hitherto the fire had smouldered on in the ruins, but it became less, and though the charred masses still gave out gusts of heat, there was no more smoke rising from them, only a quivering of the air above the ashes.
The fire was naturally the main topic of conversation in the neighbourhood. Minds as well as tongues were exercised. Comments were made on the absence of Pasco, which were rendered hardly more favourable by the knowledge that he had gone to a funeral. He knew nothing of his uncle’s illness and death when he started. Why had he sent his wife away? Why had he carried his niece back to Dartmoor, from which she had been recently brought?
Incautious exclamations of Zerah, when first made aware of the fire and of her brother’s disappearance, together with her reticence since, were discussed.
Prowlers came round the house, peering into this part, then another. An agent from the insurance office suddenly presented himself, listened to and noted down the various rumours in circulation, and threw out a hint that his office would consider before it paid the sum for which the storehouse and its contents were inscribed.
The rector called on Mrs. Pepperill, and without appearing to intrude on her troubles, endeavoured to gain from her something which might elucidate the mystery of Quarm’s disappearance. Her mouth remained shut, and her eyes scrutinised him with suspicion.
Mr. Pooke senior was constable, and he considered it his duty to intervene. He owed a grudge, nay, two, to Pasco Pepperill, and this fire was an opportunity for paying it off. He was angry with Pepperill because he had not shown him the deference that Pooke considered his due, and had wrested from him the office of churchwarden. A triumph indeed would it prove were he to be able to make Pepperill amenable to the law. Moreover, Pepperill was uncle to the chit who had dared’positively dared!’to refuse his son. He had not desired the engagement’he had disliked the idea of it’he would have vastly preferred his son’s union with the miller’s daughter. But that Pepperill’s niece’the daughter of that donkey-driver, Jason Quarm’should have the temerity to refuse his son was a fact he could not stomach; it was a spot in his mantle of pride.
When he heard the talk about Pepperill, he considered himself justified’nay, called upon by virtue of his office’to make himself acquainted with all the facts, and, if possible, to get his rival into difficulties. A rival Pepperill was. Pooke regarded himself as a sort of king in Coombe, where his family had held lands for centuries; never, indeed, extending the patrimony; never suing for a grant of arms, but holding on to the paternal acres as yeomen’substantial, self-esteeming, defiant of new-comers.
Pasco was not exactly in this latter category, but he was a man who gave himself great airs, who showed the yeoman no deference, and took a delight in thwarting him, and heading a clique against him at vestry, and generally in the parish.