is my box, sir; and these—I am certain of it—are my pills,” spoke Abel, earnestly, bending over the shoulder of the first juryman to look into the box. “The box and the pills that I gave to Mrs. Reed.”
“And so they are, Abel Crew,” rejoined Cathy, emphatically. “The week before last, which I was spending at home at father’s, I changed the one pill-box for the other, inadvertent, you see”—with a nod to the coroner—“and took the wrong box away with me. And I wish both boxes had been in the sea before I’d done it.”
Cathy was ordered to give her account more clearly, and did so. She had been suffering from illness, accompanied by neuralgia, and a doctor at Tewkesbury had prescribed some pills for it, one to be taken occasionally. The chemist who made them up told her they contained arsenic. He was about to write the directions on the box, when Cathy, who was in a hurry, snatched it from him, saying she could not wait for that bother, flung down the money, and departed. This box of pills she had brought with her on her visit to her father’s, lest she should find occasion to take one; and she had put it on the shelf of the press, side by side with the other pill-box, to be out of the way of the children. Upon leaving, she took up the wrong box inadvertently: carrying away Abel Crew’s pills, leaving her own. There lay the explanation of the mystery of the fatal mistake. Mrs. Reed had not known that Cathy had any pills with her; the girl, who was just as light-headed as ever, not having chanced to mention it; and Cathy had the grace to dust the room herself whilst she was there.
“When father and his wife sent me word about the death of the two little twins, and that it was some pills of Abel Crew’s that had done it, I never once thought o’ my pills,” added Cathy. “They didn’t as much as come into my head. But late last night I got lent to me last Saturday’s Worcester Herald, and there I read the inquest, and what Crew had said about the marks he put on his pill-boxes, and mother’s evidence about never having shifted the pill-box from its place on the press. ‘Sure and I couldn’t have changed the boxes,’ thought I to myself; and upstairs I ran in a fright to look at the box I had brought away. Yes, there it was—Abel Crew’s box with the marks on it; and I knew then that I had left my own pills at home here, and that they had killed the babies. As soon as I could get away this morning—which was not as soon as I wanted to—I started to come over. And that’s the history—and the blessed truth.”
Of course it was the truth. Abel’s beautiful face had a glow upon it. “I knew I should be cleared in God’s good time,” he breathed. The Squire pounced upon him, and shook both his hands as if he would never let them go again. Duffham held out his.
So that was the end of the story. Cathy was reprimanded by the coroner for her carelessness, and burst into tears in his face.
“And thee come off home wi’ thee, and see me chuck that there powder into the fire; and don’t go making a spectacle o’ th’ self again,” cried Dovey, sharply, in his wife’s ear. “Thee just let me catch thee bringing in more o’ the dratted stuff; that’s all.”
“I shall never look at a black-beedle again, Jack, without shivering,” she answered; going in for a slight instalment of shivering there and then. “It might ha’ come to hanging. Leastways, that’s what I’ve been dreaming of.”
V.
ROBERT ASHTON’S WEDDING-DAY
The hall-clock was striking half-past five as we went out into the sharp night-air: Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley, I, and Tod. We were spending Christmas that year at Crabb Cot. Old Coney’s dinner was fixed for six: but country people don’t observe the fashion of dashing in at the last stroke of the hour. The weather was cold, and no mistake; the snow lay on the ground; the stars shone like silver. This was Tuesday, New Year’s Day; and to-morrow, the second of January, Jane Coney would be married to Robert Ashton of Timberdale. The Ashtons were to dine to-night at the Farm, and we had been asked to meet them. If every one stood upon his own level, we should shoot up some degrees over the Coneys’ heads in the scale of the world’s ladder; for old Coney was only a plain farmer; and you’ve learnt by this time what the Squire was. But the Coneys were right-down good people, and made the best neighbours in the world.
We had only to cross the road slantwise, and old Coney had had it swept for us. It was an old-fashioned farm-house, full of nooks and angles, with one ugly, big room in it, oak-panelled. The cloth was laid there for to-night, the breakfast would be for the morrow. Old Coney and Mrs. Coney came out of the drawing-room to meet us: that was small and snug, with a running pattern of pale roses on its white-watered walls. He was jolly; she, plain, homely, and sensible.
Jane was quiet, like her mother; very well she looked, standing on the carpet in her pretty blue silk dress. Her brother Tom, a tall, strong young fellow with a red face, lifted her out of the way by the waist, that he might shake hands all round. The eldest daughter, Mary West, was staying there with her nurse and baby; she looked ill, and got up only for a minute from her chair by the fire. Her husband was a lawyer, in practice at Worcester. Another young lady was sitting near, with light frizzed hair: Mrs. James Ashton.
Before we had settled down, wheels were heard. It was Robert Ashton’s dog-cart, bringing his two brothers, Charles and James; and Mary West’s husband. Miss Jane’s cheeks turned as red as a rose for nothing: Robert Ashton had not come with them.
I had better say who the Ashtons were. Old Ashton (the father) had lived at Timberdale Court always. It was one of the best farms in all Worcestershire. Old Ashton lived in good style, educated his children, and started them well in life. Lucy, the only girl, married a Captain Bird, who turned out to be a frightful scamp. Robert remained on the farm with his father; Charles was a clergyman; James a doctor in Worcester. Everybody respected Mr. Ashton. It was about three years now since he died, and he left a good pot of money behind him. Robert succeeded to the farm, and it was he who was to marry Jane Coney to-morrow.
They went upstairs with their carpet-bags, having come direct from Worcester by train; Robert Ashton’s dog-cart had been waiting, as arranged, at Timberdale Station to bring them on. Mrs. James Ashton came over earlier in the day with Mrs. West. Robert and Charles Ashton were both fine young men, but the doctor was slight and short. Now I hope all that’s clear; because it was necessary to say it.
What with talking and looking at the presents, the time passed. They were laid out on a table against the wall, on a snow-white damask cloth of rare beauty.
“Look here,” whispered Mrs. Coney, taking up a scented blue-and-white case of satin ribbon and beads for holding pocket-handkerchiefs. “Poor Lucy Bird sent this. She must have made it herself, a thing like this, bought, would be as much as fifteen or sixteen shillings. It came almost anonymously: ‘With best love and ever kind wishes for Robert and Jane,’ written on it; but we knew Lucy’s handwriting.”
“Where are they now?” asked Mrs. Todhetley, in the same mysterious whisper.
“I fancy they are staying somewhere in Worcester. We should have liked to have Lucy over for the wedding; but—you know how it is: we could not ask him.”
Mrs. Todhetley nodded. She wore her grey silk gown that night, which always seemed to make her look taller and thinner than ever, and a white lace cap with pink ribbons. A pink bow was in her light hair, and she had put on her beautiful earrings.
There is some thorn in most families, and Lucy was the one in that of Ashton. She was educated at the best school in Worcester, and came home at eighteen brimful of romance. It lay in her nature. You’d hardly have found so pretty and sentimental a girl in the county. Because her name was Lucy Ashton, she identified herself with Scott’s Lucy Ashton, and looked out for a Master of Ravenswood. These sentimental girls sometimes come to grief, for they possess only three parts of their share of plain common-sense. The Master of Ravenswood came in the shape of Captain Bird, a tall, dark man, with a flaming coat and fierce moustache. He paid court to Lucy, and she fell in love with him before a week was over. The Ashtons turned their backs upon him: there was something in the man they did not like, in spite of the red coat and the black moustache. But he won Lucy over—he had heard of her fortune, you see—and she promised to marry him. She was a gentle, yielding, timid girl then; but her love was strong, and she ran away. She ran away