The Coward Behind the Curtain
Copyright© 2024 by Richard Marsh
Chapter 16: The Spreading of the News
There are still young women who do not read newspapers; and of these Frances Vernon was one. Her father and mother belonged to that lessening section of society to whom the crudities of the modern press do not appeal. Mr Vernon held that even to the pure some things are impure; and that it was not necessary that everyone should become acquainted with all the vice and sin that is in the world. He admitted that this point of view was perhaps old-fashioned; but he was an old-fashioned man and--it was his. He did not like to read the records of the police and the divorce courts; he hoped those who were near and dear to him would not like them either. So not only did he not encourage his children, and especially his daughter, to read the daily papers; but, also, he took care that such journals as he admitted to his house were not those which made a feature of topics of the kind. So it came about that the only journal of that day’s issue which Miss Vernon could discover was The Times.
The Times is an excellent paper; it does not make a feature of “dreadful tragedies”; but, unless one is acquainted with its methods, it is not a paper in which one can put one’s finger on any particular item of news after an instant’s search--even with the aid of the index. So far as Miss Vernon was concerned, it never occurred to her to glance at the “Contents of this Day’s Paper”; and, possibly, she would have been little benefited if she had. She turned over page after page, advertisements and all, and went up and down column after column, without seeing anything about Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster; as a result, she jumped at some very hasty, and very unfair, conclusions on the subject of the value of The Times.
“Silly old paper! I’ve heard lots of people say there never is anything in it--and there isn’t!”
However, so anxious was she to find what she sought, that she travelled up and down the columns a second time; and, before she had got to the end, was forced to admit that there did seem to be something in The Times; even though there might be nothing which would throw light on the subject she had at heart.
“I wonder what paper he saw it in?” The reference was to the youth, Denman. “He said ‘papers’; and as Mrs Purchas saw it too, whatever it was, I suppose it was in more than one; but there doesn’t seem to be anything about it here. Silly old paper! I wonder what Mrs Purchas meant by talking about Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster--and why Dorothy looked as if she were going to have a fit when she did.” Thus wondering, holding the paper in front of her, her eye was caught by something which she had not observed before--”Racing at Newcaster.” “Why, of course, that’s where the races are. I thought I’d heard the name before;--how stupid I am! But what can Dorothy have had to do----”
She stopped, her eye caught by something else--a name in a sentence.
“Few men were better known on Newcaster Heath than George Emmett. His tragic fate, on the eve of the meeting at which he had been such a prominent figure for so many years, was the theme of general conversation.” Then the writer proceeded to give some facts about George Emmett. Miss Vernon took them in with her eye without at all appreciating their meaning. One fact she did grasp--that the man seemed dead.
“George Emmett?--I am sure her guardian’s name was Emmett; but Strathmoira told mother that he’d brought her here because her guardian wasn’t very well; but this Emmett’s dead, according to the paper--it talks about his ‘tragic fate’--I wonder in what way his fate was tragic. It can’t be the same man; why did Mrs Purchas associate Dorothy with Newcaster?”
Miss Vernon’s glance passed down the racing columns, to be arrested by a paragraph at the foot.
“The historic inn, ‘The Bolton Arms,’ at Newcaster,” it began, “was on Monday night the scene of an occurrence which will probably hold a prominent place in the future annals of the house.” Then it proceeded to give, in brief outline, and in the baldest possible language, the story with which we already are familiar. It said that suspicion pointed at the lady by whom Mr Emmett had been accompanied; that her mysterious disappearance was certainly difficult to reconcile with entire innocence; concluding with the pregnant sentence--”The police are offering a reward for Dorothy Gilbert’s apprehension.” It was on those words that Frances Vernon’s eyes fastened. She read the paragraph again and again, reading into it a deeper meaning with each perusal; each time, the part of it which held her, whether she would or would not, was the sentence at the end.
When at last she lowered the paper, such understanding as had come to her had brought bewilderment; although she had the printed words nearly by heart, they were beyond her comprehension. Mr Emmett had been murdered, and Dorothy--her Dorothy!--was suspected of having killed him; was that what it meant? It was impossible--out of the question--absurd. Yet--there were those last words--”The police are offering a reward for Dorothy Gilbert’s apprehension.” Was that what Mrs Purchas had meant by her reference to Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster? Was it why Dorothy had behaved so strangely?
As she put to herself these questions, which she dared not answer, it seemed to Frances Vernon that the world had changed all at once; as if, as a child would have put it, something had gone wrong with the works, so that it had suddenly got jarred, and was no longer just as it was a few moments ago. For the first time in her short life she was brought into contact with the tragedy of crime; so that, as it seemed, she had to inhale its atmosphere into her lungs. It is a result of such a training as she had received that, when crime did come to have a personal application, the revelation of the existence of the thing, from the knowledge of which she had been carefully screened, stunned as it never would have done had she been brought up with her eyes wide open. Murder? All she knew of murder she had learnt from the commandments. Her guardian? Dorothy? She could have screamed aloud because of the agony which came to her with the thought that there could be any association between Dorothy’s guardian, and Dorothy, and murder.
She stayed there, in a sort of stupor, longer than she knew; and was only roused from it by her mother’s coming into the room through the open French window.
“Frances! Where have you been? Do you know that all the people have gone? If Dorothy has been keeping you, you ought not to have let her; you ought to have been there to say good-bye.” She perceived that there was something unusual in her daughter’s attitude. “Frances! What is the matter with you? Why are you staring at me like that? What is that you have in your hand? The Times! Do you mean to say that you have been reading the newspaper and forgetting what you owe to your friends? What will your father say? Frances, speak to me! What is the matter with the girl?”
Frances did speak; or, rather, she tried to speak; seeming to find as much difficulty in producing articulate sounds as Dorothy Gilbert had done a little time before.
“Mother, look--look at the paper!”
She held it out stiffly, as some lay figure might have done. Not unnaturally her mother observed her with surprise.
“Frances, I insist upon your telling me what is the matter with you; why should I look at the paper? You know very well that your father doesn’t like you to read newspapers.”
Frances said her four words over again:
“Look at the paper!”
“Why do you wish me to do so? What am I to look at?” She took the paper from her daughter’s outstretched hand. Frances pointed to a part of it. Mrs Vernon began to read aloud: “‘The historic inn, “The Bolton Arms,” at Newcaster, was on Monday night----’ What stuff is this?”
“Go on!”
Mrs Vernon did read on; but to herself. Presently there broke from her what seemed to be an involuntary exclamation; then another; then she lowered the paper, with a face which was almost as white as her daughter’s.
“Frances! It’s--it’s not true!” The girl said nothing; she went on: “Emmett? Wasn’t that the name of Dorothy’s guardian? Frances! You--you don’t think that--that this--means Dorothy?”
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