Chapter 19
The sad slow week was gone by at last. At the coroner's inquest a verdict
of sudden death had been pronounced. Dr Hart, acquainted with Captain
Wybrow's previous state of health, had given his opinion that death had
been imminent from long-established disease of the heart, though it had
probably been accelerated by some unusual emotion. Miss Assher was the
only person who positively knew the motive that had led Captain Wybrow to
the Rookery; but she had not mentioned Caterina's name, and all painful
details or inquiries were studiously kept from her. Mr. Gilfil and Sir
Christopher, however, knew enough to conjecture that the fatal agitation
was due to an appointed meeting with Caterina.
All search and inquiry after her had been fruitless, and were the more
likely to be so because they were carried on under the prepossession that
she had committed suicide. No one noticed the absence of the trifles she
had taken from her desk; no one knew of the likeness, or that she had
hoarded her seven-shilling pieces, and it was not remarkable that she
should have happened to be wearing the pearl earrings. She had left the
house, they thought, taking nothing with her; it seemed impossible she
could have gone far; and she must have been in a state of mental
excitement, that made it too probable she had only gone to seek relief in
death. The same places within three or four miles of the Manor were
searched again and again—every pond, every ditch in the neighbourhood
was examined.
Sometimes Maynard thought that death might have come on unsought, from
cold and exhaustion; and not a day passed but he wandered through the
neighbouring woods, turning up the heaps of dead leaves, as if it were
possible her dear body could be hidden there. Then another horrible
thought recurred, and before each night came he had been again through
all the uninhabited rooms of the house, to satisfy himself once more that
she was not hidden behind some cabinet, or door, or curtain—that he
should not find her there with madness in her eyes, looking and looking, and yet not seeing him.
But at last those five long days and nights were at an end, the funeral
was over, and the carriages were returning through the park. When they
had set out, a heavy rain was falling; but now the clouds were breaking
up, and a gleam of sunshine was sparkling among the dripping boughs under
which they were passing. This gleam fell upon a man on horseback who was
jogging slowly along, and whom Mr. Gilfil recognized, in spite of
diminished rotundity, as Daniel Knott, the coachman who had married the
rosy-cheeked Dorcas ten years before.
Every new incident suggested the same thought to Mr. Gilfil; and his eye
no sooner fell on Knott than he said to himself 'Can he be come to tell
us anything about Caterina?' Then he remembered that Caterina had been
very fond of Dorcas, and that she always had some present ready to send
her when Knott paid an occasional visit to the Manor. Could Tina have
gone to Dorcas? But his heart sank again as he thought, very likely Knott
had only come because he had heard of Captain Wybrow's death, and wanted
to know how his old master had borne the blow.