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Gwen Wynn: A Romance of the Wye

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty Seven
A Man Who Thinks It Murder

Had Gwendoline Wynn been a poor cottage girl, instead of a rich young lady – owner of estates – the world would soon have ceased to think of her. As it is most people have settled down to the belief that she has simply been the victim of a misadventure, her death due to accident.

Only a few have other thoughts, but none that she has committed suicide. The theory of felo de se is not entertained, because not entertainable. For, in addition to the testimony taken at the Coroner’s inquest, other facts came out in examination by the magistrates, showing there was no adequate reason why she should put an end to her life. A lover’s quarrel of a night’s, still less an hour’s duration, could not so result. And that there was nothing beyond this Miss Linton is able to say assuredly. Still more Eleanor Lees, who, by confidences exchanged, and mutually imparted, was perfectly au fait to the feelings of her relative and friend – knew her hopes, and her fears, and that among the last there was none to justify the deed of despair. Doubts now and then, for when and where is love without them; but with Gwen Wynn slight, evanescent as the clouds in a summer sky. She was satisfied that Vivian Ryecroft loved her, as that she herself lived. How could it be otherwise? and her behaviour on the night of the ball was only a transient spite which would have passed off soon as the excitement was over, and calm reflection returned. Altogether impossible she could have given way to it so far as in wilful rage to take the last leap into eternity. More likely standing on the cliff’s edge, anxiously straining her eyes after the boat which was bearing him away in anger, her foot slipped upon the rock, and she fell over into the flood.

So argues Eleanor Lees, and such is the almost universal belief at the close of the inquest, and for some time after. And if not self-destruction, no more could it be murder with a view to robbery.

The valuable effects left untouched upon her person forbade supposition of that. If murder, the motive must have been other than the possession of a few hundred pounds’ worth of jewellery. So reasons the world at large, naturally enough.

For all, there are a few who still cling to a suspicion of there having been foul play; but not now with any reference to Captain Ryecroft. Nor are they the same who had suspected him. Those yet doubting the accidental death are the intimate friends of the Wynn family, who knew of its affairs relating to the property with the conditions on which the Llangorren estates were held. Up to this time only a limited number of individuals has been aware of their descent to Lewin Murdock. And when at length this fact comes out, and still more emphatically by the gentleman himself taking possession of them, the thoughts of the people revert to the mystery of Miss Wynn’s death, so unsatisfactory cleared up at the Coroner’s inquest.

Still the suspicions thus newly aroused, and pointing in another quarter, are confined to those acquainted with the character of the new man suspected. Nor are they many. Beyond the obscure corner of Bugg’s Ferry there are few who have ever heard of, still fewer ever seen him. Outside the pale of “society,” with most part of his life passed abroad, he is a stranger, not only to the gentry of the neighbourhood, but most of the common people as well. Jack Wingate chanced to have heard of him by reason of his proximity to Bugg’s Ferry, and his own necessity for oft going there. But possibly as much on the account of the intimate relations existing between the owner of Glyngog House and Coracle Dick.

Others less interested know little of either individual, and when it is told that a Mr Lewin Murdock has succeeded to the estates of Llangorren – at the same time it becoming known that he is the cousin of her whom death has deprived of them – to the general public the succession seems natural enough; since it has been long understood that the lady had no nearer relative.

Therefore, only the few intimately familiar with the facts relating to the reversion of the property held fast to the suspicion thus excited. But as no word came out, either at the inquest or elsewhere, and nothing has since arisen to justify it, they also begin to share the universal belief, that for the death of Gwendoline Wynn nobody is to blame.

Even George Shenstone, sorely grieving, accepts it thus. Of unsuspicious nature – incapable of believing in a crime so terrible – a deed so dark, as that would infer – he cannot suppose that the gentleman now his nearest neighbour – for the lands of Llangorren adjoin those of his father – has come into possession of them by such foul means as murder.

His father may think differently, he knowing more of Lewin Murdock. Not much of his late life, but his earlier, with its surroundings and antecedents. Still Sir George is silent, whatever his thoughts. It is not a subject to be lightly spoken of, or rashly commented upon.

There is one who, more than any other, reflects upon the sad fate of her whom he had so fondly loved, and differing from the rest as to how she came to her death – this one is Captain Ryecroft. He, too, might have yielded to the popular impression of its having been accidental, but for certain circumstances that have come to his knowledge, and which he has yet kept to himself. He had not forgotten what was, at an early period, communicated to him by the waterman Wingate, about the odd-looking old house up the glen; nor yet the uneasy manner of Gwendoline Wynn, when once in conversation with her he referred to the place and its occupier. This, with Jack’s original story, and other details added, besides incidents that have since transpired, are recalled to him vividly on hearing that the owner of Glyngog has also become owner of Llangorren.

It is some time before this news reaches him. For just after the inquest an important matter had arisen affecting some property of his own, which required his presence in Dublin – there for days detaining him. Having settled it, he has returned to the same town and hotel where he had been the summer sojourning. Nor came he back on errand aimless, but with a purpose. Ill-satisfied with the finding of the Coroner’s jury, he is determined to investigate the affair in his own way.

Accident he does not believe in – least of all, that the lady having made a false step, had fallen over the cliff. When he last saw her she was inside the pavilion, leaning over the baluster rail, breast high; protected by it. If gazing after him and his boat, the position gave her as good a view as she could have. Why should she have gone outside? And the cry heard so soon after? It was not like that of one falling, and so far. In descent it would have been repeated, which it was not!

Of suicide he has never entertained a thought – above all, for the reason suggested – jealousy of himself. How could he, while so keenly suffering it for her! No, it could not be that; nor suicide from any cause.

The more he ponders upon it, the surer grows he that Gwendoline Wynn has been the victim of a villainous murder. And it is for this reason he has returned to the Wye, first to satisfy himself of the fact; then, if possible, to find the perpetrator, and bring him to justice.

As no robber has done the drowning, conjecture is narrowed to a point; his suspicions finally becoming fixed on Lewin Murdock.

He may be mistaken, but will not surrender them until he find evidence of their being erroneous, or proof that they are correct. And to obtain it he will devote, if need be, all the rest of his days, with the remainder of his fortune. For what are either now to him? In life he has had but one love, real, and reaching the height of a passion. She who inspired it is now sleeping her last sleep – lying cold in her tomb – his love and memory of her alone remaining warm.

His grief has been great, but its first wild throes have passed and he can reflect calmly – more carefully consider, what he should do. From the first some thoughts about Murdock were in his mind; still only vague. Now, on returning to Herefordshire, and hearing what has happened meanwhile – for during his absence there has been a removal from Glyngog to Llangorren – the occurrence, so suggestive, restores his former train of reflection, placing things in a clearer light.

As the hunter, hitherto pursuing upon a cold trail, is excited by finding the slot fresher, so he. And so will he follow it to the end – the last trace or sign. For no game, however grand – elephant, lion, or tiger – could attract like that he believes himself to be after – a human tiger – a murderer.

End of Volume One

Volume Three – Chapter One
Once more upon the River

Nowhere in England, perhaps nowhere in Europe, is the autumnal foliage more charmingly tinted than on the banks of the Wye, where it runs through the shire of Hereford. There Vaga threads her way amid woods that appear painted, and in colours almost as vivid as those of the famed American forests. The beech, instead of, as elsewhere, dying off dull bistre, takes a tint of bright amber; the chestnut turns translucent lemon; the oak leaves show rose-colours along their edges, and the wych-hazel coral red by its umbels of thickly clustering fruit. Here and there along the high-pitched hill sides flecks of crimson proclaim the wild cherry, spots of hoar white bespeak the climbing clematis, scarlet the holly with its wax-like berries, and maroon red the hawthorn; while interspersed and contrasting are dashes of green in all its varied shades, where yews, junipers, gorse, ivy, and other indigenous evergreens display their living verdure throughout all the year, daring winter’s frosts, and defying its snows.

It is autumn now, and the woods of the Wye have donned its dress; no livery of faded green, nor sombre russet, but a robe of gaudiest sheen, its hues scarlet, crimson, green, and golden. Brown October elsewhere, is brilliant here; and though leaves have fallen, and are falling, the sight suggests no thought of decay, nor brings sadness to the heart of the beholder. Instead, the gaudy tapestry hanging from the trees, and the gay-coloured carpet spread underneath, but gladden it. Still further is it rejoiced by sounds heard. For the woods of Wyeside are not voiceless, even in winter. Within them the birds ever sing, and although their autumn concert may not equal that of spring, – lacking its leading tenor, the nightingale – still is it alike vociferous and alike splendidly attuned. Bold as ever is the flageolet note of the blackbird; not less loud and sweet the carol of his shyer cousin the thrush; as erst soft and tender the cooing of the cushat; and with mirth unabated the cackle of the green woodpecker, as with long tongue, prehensile as human hand, it penetrates the ant-hive in search of its insect prey.

October it is; and where the Wye’s silver stream, like a grand glistening snake, meanders amid these woods of golden hue and glorious song, a small row-boat is seen dropping downward. There are two men in it; one rowing, the other seated in the stern sheets, steering. The same individuals have been observed before in like relative position and similarly occupied. For he at the oars is Jack Wingate, the steerer Captain Ryecroft.

Little thought the young waterman, when that “big gift” – the ten pound bank-note – was thrust into his palm, he would so soon again have the generous donor for a fare.

He has him now, without knowing why, or inquiring. Too glad once more to sit on his boat’s thwarts, vis-à-vis with the Captain, it would ill become him to be inquisitive. Besides, there is a feeling of solemnity in their thus again being together, with sadness pervading the thoughts of both, and holding speech in restraint. All he knows is that his old fare has hired him for a row down the river, but bent on no fishing business. For it is twilight. His excursion has a different object; but what the boatman cannot tell. No inference could be drawn from the laconic order he received at embarking.

“Row me down the river, Jack!” distance and all else left undefined.

And down Jack is rowing him in regular measured stroke, no words passing between them. Both are silent, as though listening to the plash of the oar-blades, or the roundelay of late singing birds on the river’s bank.

Yet neither of these sounds has place in their thoughts; instead, only the memory of one different and less pleasant. For they are thinking of cries – shrieks heard by them not so long ago, and still too fresh in their memory.

Ryecroft is the first to break silence, saying, —

“This must be about the place where we heard it.”

Although not a word has been said of what the “it” is, and the remark seems made in soliloquy rather than as an interrogation, Wingate well knows what is meant, as shown by his rejoinder: —

“It’s the very spot, Captain.”

“Ah! you know it?”

“I do – am sure. You see that big poplar standing on the bank there?”

“Yes; well?”

“We wor just abreast o’ it when ye bid me hold way. In course we must a heard the screech just then.”

“Hold way now! Pull back a length or two. Steady her. Keep opposite the tree!”

The boatman obeys; first pulling the back stroke, then staying his craft against the current.

Once more relapsing into silence, Ryecroft sends his gaze down stream, as though noting the distance to Llangorren Court, whose chimneys are visible in the moonlight now on. Then, as if satisfied with some mental observation, he directs the other to row off. But as the kiosk-like structure comes within sight, he orders another pause, while making a minute survey of the summer-house, and the stretch of water between. Part of this is the main channel of the river, the other portion being the narrow way behind the eyot; on approaching which the pavilion is again lost to view, hidden by a tope of tall trees. But once within the bye-way it can be again sighted; and when near the entrance to this the waterman gets the word to pull into it.

He is somewhat surprised at receiving this direction. It is the way to Llangorren Court, by the boat-stair, and he knows the people now living there are not friends of his fare – not even acquaintances, so far as he has heard. Surely the Captain is not going to call on Mr Lewin Murdock – in amicable intercourse?

So queries Jack Wingate, but only of himself, and without receiving answer. One way or other he will soon get it; and thus consoling himself, he rows on into the narrower channel.

Not much farther before getting convinced that the Captain has no intention of making a call at the Court, nor is the Mary to enter that little dock, where more than once she has lain moored beside the Gwendoline. When opposite the summer-house he is once more commanded to bring to, with the intimation added:

“I’m not going any farther, Jack.”

Jack ceases stroke, and again holds the skiff so as to hinder it from drifting.

Ryecroft sits with eyes turned towards the cliff, taking in its façade from base to summit, as though engaged in a geological study, or trigonometrical calculation.

The waterman, for a while wondering what it is all about, soon begins to have a glimmer of comprehension. It is clearer when he is directed to scull the boat up into the little cove where the body was found. Soon as he has her steadied inside it, close up against the cliff’s base, Ryecroft draws out a small lamp, and lights it. He then rises to his feet, and leaning forward, lays hold of a projecting point of rock. On that resting his hand, he continues for some time regarding the scratches on its surface, supposed to have been made by the feet of the drowned lady in her downward descent. Where he stands they are close to his eyes, and he can trace them from commencement to termination. And so doing, a shadow of doubt is seen to steal over his face, as though he doubted the finding of the Coroner’s jury, and the belief of every one that Gwendoline Wynn had there fallen over.

Bending lower, and examining the broken branches of the juniper, he doubts no more, but is sure – convinced of the contrary!

Jack Wingate sees him start back with a strange surprised look, at the same time exclaiming, —

“I thought as much! No accident! – no suicide – murdered!”

Still wondering, the waterman asks no questions. Whatever it may mean, he expects to be told in time, and is therefore patient.

His patience is not tried by having to stay much longer there. Only a few moments more, during which Ryecroft bends over the boat’s side, takes the juniper twigs in his hand, one after the other, raises them up as they were before being broken, then lets them gently down again!

To his companion he says nothing to explain this apparently eccentric manipulation, leaving Jack to guesses. Only when it is over, and he is apparently satisfied, or with observation exhausted, giving the order, —

“Way, Wingate! Row back – up the river!”

With alacrity the waterman obeys; but too glad to get out of that shadowy passage. For a weird feeling is upon him, as he remembers how there the screech owls mournfully cried, as if to make him sadder when thinking of his own lost love.

Moving out into the main channel and on up stream, Ryecroft is once more silent and musing. But on reaching the place from which the pavilion can be again sighted, he turns round on the thwart and looks back. It startles him to see a form under the shadow of its roof – a woman! – how different from that he last saw there! The ex-cocotte of Paris – faded flower of the Jardin Mabille – has replaced the fresh beautiful blossom of Wyeside – blighted in its bloom!

Volume Three – Chapter Two
The Crushed Juniper

Notwithstanding the caution with which Captain Ryecroft made his reconnaissance, it was nevertheless observed. And from beginning to end. Before his boat drew near the end of the eyot, above the place where for the second time it had stopped, it came under the eye of a man who chanced to be standing on the cliff by the side of the summer-house.

That he was there by accident, or at all events not looking out for a boat could be told by his behaviour on first sighting this; neither by change of attitude nor glance of eye evincing any interest in it. His reflection is —

“Some fellows after salmon, I suppose. Have been up to that famous catching place by the Ferry, and are on the way home downward – to Rock Weir, no doubt? Ha!”

The ejaculation is drawn from him by seeing the boat come to a stop, and remain stationary in the middle of the stream.

“What’s that for?” he asks himself, now more carefully examining the craft.

It is still full four hundred yards from him, but the moonlight being in his favour he makes it out to be a pair-oared skiff with two men in it.

“They don’t seem to be dropping a net,” he observes, “nor engaged about anything. That’s odd!”

Before they came to a stop he heard a murmur of voices, as of speech, a few words, exchanged between them, but too distant for him to distinguish what they had said. Now they are silent, sitting without stir; only a slight movement in the arms of the oarsman to keep the boat in its place.

All this seems strange to him observing: not less when a flood of moonlight brighter than usual falls over the boat, and he can tell by the attitude of the man in the stern, with face turned upward, that he is regarding the structure on the cliff.

He is not himself standing beside it now. Soon as becoming interested by the behaviour of the men in the boat, from its seeming eccentricity, he had glided back behind a bush, and there now crouches, an instinct prompting him to conceal himself.

Soon after he sees the boat moving on, and then for a few seconds it is out of sight, again coming under his view near the upper end of the islet, evidently setting in for the old channel. And while he watches, it enters!

As this is a sort of private way, the eyot itself being an adjunct of the ornamental grounds of Llangorren, he wonders whose boat it can be, and what its business there. By the backwash it must be making for the dock and stair; the men in it, or one of them, for the Court.

While still surprisedly conjecturing, his ears admonish him that the oars are at rest, and another stoppage has taken place. He cannot see the skiff now, as the high bank hinders. Besides, the narrow passage is arcaded over by trees still in thick foliage; and, though the moon is shining brightly above, scarce a ray reaches the surface of the water. But an occasional creak of an oar in its rowlock, and some words spoken in low tone – so low he cannot make them out – tell him that the stoppage is directly opposite the spot where he is crouching – as predatory animal in wait for its prey.

What was at first mere curiosity, and then matter of but slight surprise, is now an object of keen solicitude. For of all places in the world, to him there is none invested with greater interest than that where the boat has been brought to. Why has it stopped there? Why is it staying? For he can tell it is by the silence continuing. Above all, who are the men in it?

He asks these questions of himself, but does not stay to reason out the answers. He will best get them by his eyes; and to obtain sight of the skiff and its occupants, he glides a little way along the cliff, looking out for a convenient spot. Finding one, he drops first to his knees, then upon all fours, and crawls out to its edge. Craning his head over, but cautiously, and with a care it shall be under cover of some fern leaves, he has a view of the water below, with the boat on it – only indistinct on account of the obscurity. He can make out the figures of the two men, though not their faces, nor anything by which he may identify them – if already known. But he sees that which helps to a conjecture, at the same sharpening his apprehensions. The boat once more in motion, not moving off, but up into the little cove, where a dead body late lay! Then, as one of the men strikes a match and sets light to a lamp, lighting up his own face with that of the other opposite, he on the bank above at length recognises both.

But it is no longer a surprise to him. The presence of the skiff there, the movements of the men in it – like his own, evidently under restraint and stealthy – have prepared him for seeing whom he now sees – Captain Ryecroft and the waterman Wingate.

Still he cannot think of what they are after, though he has his suspicions; the place, with something only known to himself, suggesting them – conjecture at first soon becoming certainty, as he sees the ex-officer of Hussars rise to his feet, hold his lamp close to the cliff’s face, and inspect the abrasions on the rock!

He is not more certain, but only more apprehensive, when the crushed juniper twigs are taken in hand, examined, and let go again. For he has by this divined the object of it all.

If any doubt lingered, it is set at rest by the exclamatory words following, which, though but muttered, reach him on the cliff above, heard clear enough —

“No accident – no suicide – murdered!” They carry tremor to his heart, making him feel as a fox that hears the tongue of hound on its track. Still distant, but for all causing it fear, and driving it to think of subterfuge.

And of this thinks he, as he lies with his face among the ferns; ponders upon it till the boat has passed back up the dark passage out into the river, and he hears the last light dipping of its oars in the far distance.

He even forgets a woman, for whom he was waiting at the summer-house, and who there without finding him has flitted off again.

At length rising to his feet, and going a little way, he too gets into a boat – one he finds, with oars aboard, down in the dock. It is not the Gwendoline– she is gone.

Seating himself on the mid thwart, he takes up the oars, and pulls towards the place lately occupied by the skiff of the waterman. When inside the cove he lights a match, and holds it close to the face of the rock where Ryecroft held his lamp. It burns out and he draws a second across the sand paper; this to show him the broken branches of the juniper, which he also takes in hand and examines. Soon also dropping them, with a look of surprise, followed by the exclamatory phrases —

“Prodigiously strange! I see his drift now. Cunning fellow! On the track he has discovered the trick, and ’twill need another trick to throw him off it. This bush must be uprooted – destroyed.”

He is in the act of grasping the juniper to pluck it out by the roots. A dwarf thing, this could be easily done. But a thought stays him – another precautionary forecast, as evinced by his words —

“That won’t do.”

After repeating them, he drops back on the boat’s thwart, and sits for a while considering, with eyes turned toward the cliff, ranging it up and down.

“Ah!” he exclaims at length, “the very thing; as if the devil himself had fixed it for me! That will do; smash the bush to atoms – blot out everything, as if an earthquake had gone over Llangorren.”

While thus oddly soliloquising, his eyes are still turned upward, apparently regarding a ledge which, almost loose as a boulder, projects from the bank above. It is directly over the juniper, and if detached from its bed, as it easily might be, would go crashing down, carrying the bush with it.

And that same night it does go down. When the morning sun lights up the cliff, there is seen a breakage upon its face just underneath the summer-house. Of course, a landslip, caused by the late rains acting on the decomposed sandstone. But the juniper bush is no longer there; it is gone, root and branch!