Chapter XII: Robert Hunter's Funeral

Filing out of the room in groups, came the crowd who had filled it. The day had changed. The brightness of the morning was replaced by a wintry afternoon of grey sky; the air blew keen; snow began to fall. The eager spectators put up their umbrellas, if they happened to possess any, and stood to talk in excited whispers.

Crossing to the waste land, the roundabout road she chose to take on her way home, was Anna Chester. Sarah had gone striding up the nearest way; Captain Copp had been laid hold of by Supervisor Kyne, whose grievance on the score of the smugglers was sore; and Anna was alone. Her veil drawn over her white face, her eyes wearing a depth of trouble never yet seen in their sweetness, went she, looking neither to the right nor left, until she was overtaken by Miss Thornycroft.

"Anna!"

"Mary Anne!"

For a full minute they stood, looking into each other's faces of fear and pain. And then the latter spoke, a rising sob of emotion catching her breath.

"Thank you for what you have done this day, Anna! I was in doubt before; I did not know how much you had seen that night; whether you had not mercifully been spared all by the fainting fit. But now that you have given your evidence, I see how much I have to thank you for. Thank you truly. We have both forsworn ourselves: you less than I; but surely Heaven will forgive us in such a cause."

"Let us never speak of it again," murmured Anna. "I don't think I can bear it."

"Just a word first--to set my mind at rest," returned Miss Thornycroft, as she stood grasping Anna's hand in hers. "How much did you see? Did you see the pistol fired?"

"I saw only that. It was at the moment I looked out round the wall. The flash drove me back again. That and the cry that broke from Robert Hunter: upon which I fainted for the first time in my life."

"And you--recognised him--him who fired the pistol?" whispered Miss Thornycroft, glancing cautiously round as the words issued from her bloodless lips.

"Yes, I fear so."

It was quite enough. Qualified though the avowal was, Mary Anne saw that she could have spoken decisively. The two unhappy girls, burdened with their miserable secret, looked into each other's faces that sickness and terror had rendered white. Anna, as if in desperation to have her fears confirmed where no confirmation was needed, broke the silence.

"It--was--your--brother."

"Yes."

"Isaac."

Miss Thornycroft opened her lips to speak, and closed them again. She turned her head away.

"You will not betray him--and us, Anna? You will ever be cautious--silent?"

"I will be cautious and silent always; I will guard the secret jealously."

A sharp pressure of the hand in ratification of the bargain, and they parted, Anna going on her solitary way.

"Will I guard the secret! Heaven alone knows how much heavier lies the obligation on me to do so than on others," wailed Anna. "May God help me to bear it!"

Quick steps behind her, and she turned, for they had a ring that she knew too well. Pressing onwards through the flakes of snow came Isaac Thornycroft. Anna set off to run; it was in the lonely spot by the churchyard.

"Anna! Anna! Don't you know me?"

Not a word of answer. She only ran the faster--as if she could hope to outstep him! Isaac, with his long, fleet strides, overtook her with ease, and laid his hand upon her shoulder.

Like a stag brought to bay, she turned upon him, with her terror-stricken face, more ghastly, more trembling than it had yet been; and by a dexterous movement freed herself.

"Why, Anna, what is the matter? Why do you run from me?"

"There's my uncle," she panted. "Don't speak to me--don't come after me."

And sure enough, as Isaac turned, he distinguished Captain Copp at a distance. Anna had set off to run again like a wild hare, and was half-way across the heath. Isaac turned slowly back, passed the captain with a nod, and went on, wondering. What had come to Anna? Why did she fly from him?

He might have wondered still more had he been near her in her flight. Groans of pain were breaking from her; soft low moans of anguish; sighs, and horribly perplexing thoughts; driving her to a state of utter despair.

For, according to the testimony of her own eyes that ill-fated night, Anna, you see, believed the murderer to be her husband Miss Thornycroft had now confirmed it. And, not to keep you in more suspense than can be helped, we must return to that night for a few brief moments.

When Richard Thornycroft darted into the subterranean passage with the intention of warning his brother Isaac, before he reached its end the question naturally occurred to him, _Why_ stop the boats, now Hunter is off? and he turned back again. So much has been already said. But half-way down the passage he again vacillated--a most uncommon thing in Richard Thornycroft, but the episode with Hunter had well-nigh scared his senses away. Turning about again, he retraced his steps and called to Isaac.

A private conference ensued. Richard told all without reserve, down to the point where he had watched Hunter away, under the surveillance of Cyril. "Will it be better to stop the boats or not?" he asked.

"There is not the slightest cause for stopping them, that I see," returned Isaac, who had listened attentively. "Certainly not. Hunter is gone; and if he were not, I do not think, by what you say, that he would attempt to interfere further; he'd rather turn his back a mile the other way."

"Let them come on then," decided Richard.

"They are already, I expect, putting off from the ship."

Isaac Thornycroft remained at his work; Richard went back again up the passage. Not quickly; some latent doubt, whence arising he could not see or trace, lingered on his mind still--his better angel perhaps urging him from the road he was going. Certain it was: he remembered it afterwards even more vividly than he felt it then: that a strong inclination lay upon him to stop the work for that night. But it appeared not to hold reason, and was disregarded.

He emerged from the subterranean passage, lightly shut the trap-door--which could be opened from the inside at will, when not fastened down--and took his way to the plateau to watch against intruders. This would bring it to about the time that the two young ladies had gone there, and Sarah, her apron over her head, had taken her place on the low red stone. In her evidence the woman had said it might be a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes since she met Robert Hunter starting on his journey; it had taken Richard about that time to do since what he had done; and it might have taken Robert Hunter about the same space (or rather less) to walk quickly to the wherry, _and come back again_. And come back again! Richard Thornycroft could have staked his life, had the question occurred to him, that Hunter would not come back: he never supposed any living man, calling himself a gentleman, could be guilty of so great treachery. But the doubt never presented itself to him for a moment.

What then was his astonishment, as he ran swiftly and stealthily (escaping the sight of Sarah Ford, owing, no doubt, to her crouching posture on the stone, and the black apron on her head) up the plateau, to see Robert Hunter? He was at its edge, at the corner farthest from the village; was looking out steadily over the sea, as if watching for the boats and their prey. Richard verily thought he must be in a dream: he stood still and strained his eyes, wondering if they deceived him; and then as ugly a word broke from him as ever escaped the lips of man.

Thunderstruck with indignation, with dismay, half mad at the fellow's despicable conduct, believing that if any in the world ever merited shooting, he did; nay, believing that the fool must court death to be there after his, Richard's, warning promise; overpowered with fury, with passion, Richard Thornycroft stood in the shade of the Round Tower, his eyes glaring, his white teeth showing themselves from between the drawn lips. At that same moment Robert Hunter, after stooping to look over the precipice, turned round; the ugly fur on the breast of his coat very conspicuous. May Richard Thornycroft be forgiven! With a second hissing oath, he drew the pistol from his breast-pocket, pointed it with his unerring hand, and fired; and the ill-fated man fell over the cliff with a yelling cry. Another shriek, more shrill, arose at Richard's elbow from the shade of the Round Tower.

"So ye cursed sea-bird," he muttered. "_He_ has got his deserts. I would be served so myself, if I could thus have turned traitor!"

But what was it seized Richard's arm? Not a seabird. It was his sister Mary Anne. "_You_ here!" he cried, with increased passion. "What the fury!--have you all turned mad to-night?"

"You have murdered him!" she cried, in a dread whisper--for how could she know that Anna Chester had fallen senseless and could not hear her?--"you have murdered Robert Hunter!"

"I have," he answered. "He is dead, and more than dead. If the shot did not take effect, the fall would kill him."

"Oh, Richard, say it was an accident!" she moaned, very nearly bereft of reason in her shock of horror. "What madness came over you?"

"He earned it of his own accord; earned it deliberately. I held my pistol to his head before, this night, and I spared him. I had him on his knees to me, and he took an oath to be away from this place instantly, and to be silent. I told him if he broke it, if he lingered here but for a moment, I would put the bullet into him. I saw him off; I send Cyril with him to speed him on his road; and--see!--the fool came back again. I was right to do it."

"I will denounce you!" she fiercely uttered, anger getting the better of other feelings. "Ay, though you are my brother, Richard Thornycroft! I will raise the hue and cry upon you."

"You had better think twice of that," he answered, shaking her arm in his passion. "If you do, you must raise it against your father and your father's house!"

"What do you mean?" she asked, quailing, for there was a savage earnestness in his words which told of startling truth.

"Girl! see you no mystery? can't you fathom it? You would have aided Hunter in discovering the smugglers: see you not that _we_ are the smugglers? We are running a cargo now--now"--and his voice rose to a hoarse shriek as he pointed to the Half-moon, "and he would have turned Judas to us! He was on the watch there, on the plateau's edge, doing traitor's work for Kyne."

"He did not know it was you he would have denounced," she faintly urged, gathering in the sense of his revelation to her sinking heart.

"He did know it. The knowledge came to him tonight. He was abject enough before me, the coward, and swore he would be silent, and be gone from hence there and then. But his traitor's nature prevailed, and he has got his deserts. Now go and raise the hue and cry upon us! Bring your father to a felon's bar."

Mary Anne Thornycroft, with a despairing cry, sank down on the grass at her brother's feet. He was about to raise her, rudely enough it must be confessed, rather than tenderly, when his eye caught the form of some one advancing; he darted off at right angles across the plateau, and descended recklessly the dangerous path.

The intruder was Sarah. Miss Thornycroft, passing off her own emotion as the effect of fear at the shot, though scarcely knowing how she contrived not to betray herself, remembered Anna. She lay within the walls in a fainting-fit. Only as they went in was consciousness beginning to return to her. It must be mentioned that at this stage Sarah did not know any one had been killed.

"Who was the man?" asked Sarah of Miss Thornycroft.

"Did you see him?" was the only answer.

"Not to know him, miss; only at a distance. A regular fool he must be to fire off guns at night, to frighten folks! Was it a stranger?"

"Yes." Mary Anne wiped the dew from her cold brow as she told the lie.

They took their departure, Sarah promising not to say they had been on the plateau--to hold her tongue, in short, as to the events of the night, shot and all. But a chance passer-by who had heard the report, saw them descend. It might have been through him the news got wind.

Mary Anne Thornycroft went in. Sounds of laughter and glee proceeded from the dining-room as she passed it, and she dragged her shaking limbs upstairs to her chamber, and shut herself in with her dreadful secret. Anna Chester with _her_ secret turned to the heath, even one more dreadful; for in the momentary glimpse she caught of the man who drew the pistol, as he stood partly with his back to her, she had recognised, as she fully believed, her husband Isaac. Had the impression wanted confirmation in her mind--which it did not--the tacit admission of his sister, now alluded to, supplied it. Miss Thornycroft had opened her lips to correct her, "not Isaac, but Richard;" and closed them again without saying it. Thought is quick; and a dim idea flew through her brain, that to divert suspicion from Richard might add to his safety. It was not _her_ place to denounce him; nay, her duty lay in screening him. Terribly though she detested and deplored the crime, she was still his sister.

And the poor dead body had lain unseen where it fell, in the remote corner of the plateau. The smugglers ran their cargo, passing within a few yards of the dark angle where it lay, and never saw it.

The funeral took place on the Friday, and Robert Hunter was buried within sight of the place from whence he had been shot down. Any one standing on that ill-fated spot could see the grave in the churchyard corner, close by the tomb of the late Mrs. Thornycroft.

None of his friends had arrived to claim him. It would have been remarkable, perhaps, if they had, since they had not been written to. Of male relatives he had none living, so far as was believed. His sister Susan was in a remote district of Yorkshire, and it was a positive fact that her address was unknown to both Anna Chester and Miss Thornycroft. Of course, the Miss Jupps could have supplied it on application, but nobody did apply. His half-sister, Mrs. Chester, was also uncertain in her domicile, here to-day, there to-morrow, and Anna had not heard from her for some months. The old saying that "Where there's a will there's a way," might have been exemplified, no doubt, in this case; but here there was no _will_. To all at Coastdown interested in the unfortunate matter, it had been a blessed relief could they have heard that Robert Hunter would lie in his quiet grave unclaimed for ever, his miserable end not inquired into. Richard Thornycroft had only too good personal cause to hope this, his sister also for his sake; and Mr. Thornycroft, acting on the caution Richard gave him as to the desirability of keeping other things quiet that were done on that eventful night, tacitly acquiesced in the silence. And Anna Chester--the only one besides who could be supposed to hold interest in the deceased--shuddered at the bare idea of writing to make it known; rather would she have cut off her right hand.

"They will be coming down fast enough with their inquiries from his office in London, when they find he does not return," spoke Richard gloomily the evening previous to the funeral. "No need to send them word before that time."

It was a snowy day. Mary Anne Thornycroft stood at the corridor window, from which a view of the path crossing from the village to the churchyard, could be obtained. Only for a few yards of it; but she watched carefully, and saw the funeral go winding past. The sky was clear at the moment; the snow had ceased; but the whole landscape, far and near, presented a sheet of white, contrasting strangely with the sombre black of the procession. Such a thing as a hearse was not known in Coastdown, and the body was carried by eight bearers. The clergyman, Mr. Southall, walked first, in his surplice--it was the custom of the place--having gone down to the Mermaid with the rest. Following it were Justice Thornycroft and his son Isaac, Captain Copp and Mr. Kyne, who acted as mourners; and a number of spectators brought up the rear. Richard had gone out to a distance that day; he had business, he said. Cyril had not been heard of. Mr. Thornycroft bore the expenses of the funeral. Some money had been found in the pockets of the deceased, a sovereign in gold and some silver; nothing else except a white handkerchief.

Mary Anne strained her eyes, blinded by their tears, upon the short line, as its features came into view one by one, more distinctly than could have happened at any time but this of snow. All she had cared for in life was being carried past there; henceforth the world would be a miserable blank. Dead! Killed! Murdered!--murdered by her brother, Richard Thornycroft! Had it been done by anybody not connected with her by blood, some satisfaction might have been derived by bringing the crime home to its perpetrator. Had it been brought home to Richard--and of course she could not move to bring it--he would have battled it out, persisting he was justified. He called it justifiable homicide; she called it murder.

The distant line of black has passed now, and colours follow: men and women, boys and girls; displaying, if not all the tints of the rainbow, the shades and hues, dirt included, that prevail in the every-day attire of the great unwashed. Mary Anne glided into her room, and sank down on her knees in the darkest corner.

Some time after, when she thought they might be coming home, for the mourners would return to the Red Court, not the Mermaid, she came out again, her eyes swollen, and entered her step-mother's room. My lady, looking worse and worse, every day bringing her _palpably_ nearer the grave, sat with her prayer-book in her hand She had been reading the burial service. Ah, how changed she was; how changed in spirit!

"I suppose it is over," she said, in a subdued tone, as she laid the book down.

"Yes; by this time."

"May God rest his soul!" she breathed, to herself rather than to her companion.

Mary Anne covered her face with her hand, and for some moments there was perfect silence.

"I shall be going hence to-morrow, as you know," resumed Lady Ellis, "never to return, never perhaps to hold further communication with the Red Court Farm. I would ask you one thing first, Mary Anne, or the doubt and trouble will follow me: perhaps mix itself up with my thoughts in dying. What of Cyril?"

"Of Cyril?" returned Miss Thornycroft, lifting her face, rather in surprise. "We have not heard from him."

"Of course I know that. What I wish to ask is--what are the apprehensions?"

"There are none. Papa and my brothers seem perfectly at their ease in regard to him."

"Then whence arises this great weight of care, of tribulation, that lies on you?--that I can see lies on you, Mary Anne?"

"It is not on Cyril's account. The events of the last few days have frightened me," she hastened to add. "They have startled others as well as me."

"Ah, yes; true. And it seems to me so sad that you did not know the man who fired the pistol," continued Lady Ellis, who had no suspicion that Miss Thornycroft had not told the whole truth. "But to return to Cyril. If it be as you say, that they are easy about him, why, they must know something that I and others do not. I have asked your papa, but he only puts me off. Mary Anne, you might tell _me_."

Mary Anne made no immediate reply. She was considering what to do.

"The thought of Cyril is troubling me," resumed Lady Ellis. "As I lay awake last night, I thought _how much_ I owed him. Were he my own son, his welfare could not be dearer to me than it is. Surely, Mary Anne, whatever you may know of him, I may share it. The secret--if it be a secret--will be sacred with me."

"Yes, I am sure it will," spoke Mary Anne impulsively. "Not that it is any particular secret," she added, with hesitation, framing the communication cautiously; "but still, papa has reasons for not wishing it to be known. He thinks Cyril has gone to Holland."

"To Holland?"

"Yes; we have friends there. And a ship was off lying o here on Sunday night with other friends on board. Some of them, subsequent to the--the accident--came on shore in a little boat, and papa and Richard feel quite certain that Cyril went on board with them when they returned. But there are reasons why this must not be told to the public."

"What a relief!" cried the invalid. "My dear, it is safe with me. Dear Cyril! he will live to fulfil God's mission yet in the world. I shall not see him for a last farewell here, but we shall say it in heaven. Not a _farewell_ there--a happy greeting."

A sort of muffled sound downstairs, and Mary Anne quitted the room to look. Yes, they were coming in in their black cloaks and hatbands, having left Robert Hunter in the grave in St. Peter's churchyard.

For all that could be seen at present he seemed likely to lie there at rest, undisturbed, uninquired after. And the name of his slayer with him.