Part 85

The dairyman, who had hitherto been talking loudly on some absorbing subject to the maids and men milking around him, turned his face towards the head of the cow when Owen passed, and ceased speaking.

Owen approached him and said--

‘A singular thing has happened, I hear. The man is not insane, I suppose?’

‘Not he--he’s sensible enough,’ said the dairyman, and paused. He was a man noisy with his associates--stolid and taciturn with strangers.

‘Is it true that he is Chinney, the railway-porter?’

‘That’s the man, sir.’ The maids and men sitting under the cows were all attentively listening to this discourse, milking irregularly, and softly directing the jets against the sides of the pail.

Owen could contain himself no longer, much as his mind dreaded anything of the nature of ridicule. ‘The people all seem to look at me, as if something seriously concerned me; is it this stupid matter, or what is it?’

‘Surely, sir, you know better than anybody else if such a strange thing concerns you.’

‘What strange thing?’

‘Don’t you know! His confessing to Parson Raunham.’

‘What did he confess? Tell me.’

‘If you really ha’n’t heard, ‘tis this. He was as usual on duty at the station on the night of the fire last year, otherwise he wouldn’t ha’ known it.’

‘Known what? For God’s sake tell, man!’

But at this instant the two opposite gates of the dairy-yard, one on the east, the other on the west side, slammed almost simultaneously.

The rector from one, Springrove from the other, came striding across the barton.

Edward was nearest, and spoke first. He said in a low voice: ‘Your sister is not legally married! His first wife is still living! How it comes out I don’t know!’

‘O, here you are at last, Mr. Graye, thank Heaven!’ said the rector breathlessly. ‘I have been to the Old House, and then to Miss Aldclyffe’s looking for you--something very extraordinary.’ He beckoned to Owen, afterwards included Springrove in his glance, and the three stepped aside together.

‘A porter at the station. He was a curious nervous man. He had been in a strange state all day, but he wouldn’t go home. Your sister was kind to him, it seems, this afternoon. When she and her husband had gone, he went on with his work, shifting luggage-vans. Well, he got in the way, as if he were quite lost to what was going on, and they sent him home at last. Then he wished to see me. I went directly. There was something on his mind, he said, and told it. About the time when the fire of last November twelvemonth was got under, whilst he was by himself in the porter’s room, almost asleep, somebody came to the station and tried to open the door. He went out and found the person to be the lady he had accompanied to Carriford earlier in the evening, Mrs. Manston. She asked, when would be another train to London? The first the next morning, he told her, was at a quarter-past six o’clock from Budmouth, but that it was express, and didn’t stop at Carriford Road--it didn’t stop till it got to Anglebury. “How far is it to Anglebury?” she said. He told her, and she thanked him, and went away up the line. In a short time she ran back and took out her purse. “Don’t on any account say a word in the village or anywhere that I have been here, or a single breath about me--I’m ashamed ever to have come.” He promised; she took out two sovereigns. “Swear it on the Testament in the waiting-room,” she said, “and I’ll pay you these.” He got the book, took an oath upon it, received the money, and she left him. He was off duty at half-past five. He has kept silence all through the intervening time till now, but lately the knowledge he possessed weighed heavily upon his conscience and weak mind. Yet the nearer came the wedding-day, the more he feared to tell. The actual marriage filled him with remorse. He says your sister’s kindness afterwards was like a knife going through his heart. He thought he had ruined her.’

‘But whatever can be done? Why didn’t he speak sooner?’ cried Owen.

‘He actually called at my house twice yesterday,’ the rector continued, ‘resolved, it seems, to unburden his mind. I was out both times--he left no message, and, they say, he looked relieved that his object was defeated. Then he says he resolved to come to you at the Old House last night--started, reached the door, and dreaded to knock--and then went home again.’

‘Here will be a tale for the newsmongers of the county,’ said Owen bitterly. ‘The idea of his not opening his mouth sooner--the criminality of the thing!’

‘Ah, that’s the inconsistency of a weak nature. But now that it is put to us in this way, how much more probable it seems that she should have escaped than have been burnt--’

‘You will, of course, go straight to Mr. Manston, and ask him what it all means?’ Edward interrupted.

‘Of course I shall! Manston has no right to carry off my sister unless he’s her husband,’ said Owen. ‘I shall go and separate them.’

‘Certainly you will,’ said the rector.

‘Where’s the man?’

‘In his cottage.’

‘’Tis no use going to him, either. I must go off at once and overtake them--lay the case before Manston, and ask him for additional and certain proofs of his first wife’s death. An up-train passes soon, I think.’