Kitabı oku: «Eve», sayfa 21

CHAPTER XLII.
ENGAGED

If a comparison were made between the results of well and ill considered ventures, which would prove the most uniformly successful? Not certainly those undertakings which have been most carefully weighed and prudently determined on. Just as frequently the rash and precipitate venture is crowned with success as that which has been wisely considered; and just as often the latter proves a failure, and falsifies every expectation. Nature, Fate, whatever it be that rules our destinies, rules them crookedly, and, with mischief, upsets all our calculations. We build our card-houses, and she fillips a marble into them and brings them down. Why do we invariably stop every hole except that by which the sea rolls through our dyke? Why do we always forget to lock the stable door till the nag has been stolen?

The old myth is false which tells of Prometheus as bound and torn and devoured by the eagle; Pro-metheus is free and unrent, it is Epi-metheus who is in chains, and writhing, and looks back on the irrevocable past, and curses itself and is corroded with remorse.

What is the fate of Forethought but to be flouted by capricious Destiny, to be ever proved a fool and blind, to be shown that it were just as well had it never existed?

Eve hung back as Barbara led her to her father’s door. Mr. Coyshe was in there, and though she had said she would take him she did not mean it. She certainly did not want to have to make her decision then. Her face became a little pale, some of the bright colour had gone from it when her temper subsided and she had begun to play at making rabbits. Now more left her cheeks, and she held back as Barbara tried to draw her on. But Barbara was very determined, and though Eve was wayward, she would not take the trouble to be obstinate. ‘I can but say no,’ she said to herself, ‘if the creature does ask me.’ Then she whispered into Barbara’s ear, ‘Bab, I won’t have a scene before all the parish.’

‘All the parish, dear!’ remonstrated the elder, ‘there is no one there but papa and the doctor; and if the latter means to speak he will ask to have a word with you in private, and you can go into the drawing-room.’

‘But I don’t want to see him.’

Barbara threw open the door.

Mr. Jordan was propped up in his bed on pillows. He was much worse, and a feverish fire burned in his eyes and cheeks. He saw Eve at once and called her to him.

Then her ill-humour returned, she pouted and looked away from Mr. Coyshe so as not to see him. He bowed and smiled, and pushed forward extending his hand, but she brushed past with her eyes fixed on her father. She was angry with Barbara for having brought her down.

‘Eve,’ said Mr. Jordan, ‘I am very ill. The doctor has warned me that I have been much hurt by what has happened. It was your doing, Eve. You were foolish last night. You forgot what was proper to your station. Your want of consideration is the cause of my being so much worse, and of that scoundrel’s escape.’

‘O papa, I am very sorry I hurt you, but as for his getting off – I am glad! He had stolen my money, so I have a right to forgive him, and that I do freely.’

‘Eve!’ exclaimed her father, ‘you do not know what you say. Come nearer to me, child.’

‘If I am to be scolded, papa,’ said Eve, sullenly, ‘I’d like not to have it done in public.’ She looked round the room, everywhere but at Mr. Coyshe. Her sister watched her anxiously.

‘Eve,’ said the old man, ‘I am very ill and am not likely to be strong again. I cannot be always with you. I am not any more capable to act as your protector, and Barbara has the cares of the house, and lacks the authority to govern and lead you.’

‘I don’t want any governing and leading, papa,’ said Eve, studying the bed cover. ‘Papa,’ after a moment, ‘whilst you lie in bed, don’t you think all those little tufts on the counterpane look like poplars? I often do, and imagine gardens and walks and pleasure-grounds among them.’

‘Eve,’ said her father, ‘I am not going to be put off what I have to say by such poor artifices as this. I am going to send you back to Lanherne.’

‘Lanherne!’ echoed Eve, springing back. ‘I can’t go there, papa; indeed I can’t. It is dull enough here, but it is ten thousand times duller there. I have just said so to Barbara. I can’t go, I won’t go to Lanherne. I don’t see why I should be forced. I’m not going to be a nun. My education has been completed under Barbara. I know where Cape Guardafui is, and the Straits of Malacca, and the Coromandel Coast. I know Mangnall’s questions and answers right through – that is, I know the questions and some of the answers. I can read “Télémaque.” What more is wanted of any girl? I don’t desire any more learning. I hate Lanherne. I fell ill last time I was there. Those nuns look like hobgoblins, and not like angels. I shall run away. Besides, it was eternally semolina pudding there, and, papa, I hate semolina. Always semolina on fast days, and the puddings sometimes burnt. There now, my education is incomplete. I do not know whence semolina comes. Is it vegetable, papa? Mr. Coyshe, you are scientific, tell us the whole history of the production of this detestable article of commerce.’

‘Semolina – ’ began Mr. Coyshe.

‘Never mind about semolina,’ interrupted Barbara, who saw through her sister’s tricks. ‘We will turn up the word in the encyclopædia afterwards. We are considering Lanherne now.’

‘I don’t mind the large-grained semolina so much, said Eve, with a face of childlike simplicity; ‘that is almost as good as tapioca.’

Her father caught her wrist and drew her hand upon the bed. He clutched it so tightly that she exclaimed that he hurt her.

‘Eve,’ he said, ‘it is necessary for you to go.’

Her face became dull and stubborn again.

‘Is Mr. Coyshe here to examine my chest, and see if I am strong enough to endure confinement? Because I was the means, according to you, papa, of poor – of the prisoner escaping last night, therefore I am to be sent to prison myself to-morrow.’

‘I am not sending you to prison,’ said her father, ‘I am placing you under wise and pious guardians. You are not to be trusted alone any more. Barbara has been – ’

‘There! there!’ exclaimed Eve, flashing an angry glance at her sister, and bursting into tears; ‘was there ever a poor girl so badly treated? I am scolded, and threatened with jail. My sister, who should love me and take my part, is my chief tormentor, and instigates you, papa, against me. She is rightly called Barbara – she is a savage. I know so much Latin as to understand that.’

Barbara touched Mr. Coyshe, and signed to him to leave the room with her.

Eve watched them out of the room with satisfaction. She could manage her father, she thought, if left alone with him. But her father was thoroughly alarmed. He had been told that she had met Martin on the rock. Barbara had told him this to exculpate Jasper. Her conduct on the preceding night had, moreover, filled him with uneasiness.

‘Papa,’ said Eve, looking at her little foot and shoe, ‘don’t you think Mr. Coyshe’s ears stick out very much? I suppose his mother was not particular with him to put them under the rim of his cap.’

‘I have not noticed.’

‘And, papa, what eager, staring eyes he has got! I think he straps his cravat too tight.’

‘Possibly.’

‘Do you know, dear papa, there is a little hole just over the mantelshelf in my room, and the other day I saw something hanging down from it. I thought it was a bit of string, and I went up to it and pulled it. Then there came a little squeak, and I screamed. What do you suppose I had laid hold of? It was a mouse’s tail. Was that not an odd thing, papa, for the wee mouse to sit in its run and let its tail hang down outside?’

‘Yes, very odd.’

‘Papa, how did all those beautiful things come into the house which I found in the chest upstairs? And why were you so cross with me for putting them on?’

The old man’s face changed at once, the wild look came back into his eye, and his hand which clasped her wrist clutched it so convulsively, that she felt his nails cut her tender skin.

‘Eve!’ he said, and his voice quivered, ‘never touch them again. Never speak of them again. My God!’ he put his hand to his brow and wiped the drops which suddenly started over it, ‘my God! I fear, I fear for her.’

Then he turned his agitated face eagerly to her, and said —

‘Eve! you must take him. I wish it. I shall have no peace till I know you are in his hands. He is so wise and so assured. I cannot die and leave you alone. I wake up in the night bathed in a sweat of fear, thinking of you, fearing for you. I imagine all sorts of things. Do you not wish to go to Lanherne? Then take Mr. Coyshe. He will make you a good husband. I shall be at ease when you are provided for. I cannot die – and I believe I am nearer death than you or Barbara, or even the doctor, supposes – I cannot die, and leave you here alone, unprotected. O Eve! if you love me do as I ask. You must either go to Lanherne or take Mr. Coyshe. It must be one or the other. What is that?’ he asked suddenly, drawing back in the bed, and staring wildly at her, and pointing at her forehead with a white quivering finger. ‘What is there? A stain – a spot. One of my black spots, very big. No, it is red. It is blood! It came there when I was wounded by the scythe, and every now and then it breaks out again. I see it now.’

‘Papa!’ said Eve, shuddering, ‘don’t point at me in that way, and look so strange; you frighten me. There is nothing there. Barbie washed it off long ago.’

Then he wavered in his bed, passing one hand over the other, as washing – ’It cannot wash off,’ he said, despairingly. ‘It eats its way in, farther, farther, till it reaches the very core of the heart, and then – ’ he cast himself back and moaned.

‘It was very odd of the mouse,’ said Eve, ‘to sit with her little back to the room, looking into the dark, and her tail hanging out into the chamber.’ She thought to divert her father’s thoughts from his fancies.

‘Eve!’ he said in a hoarse voice, and turned sharply round on her, ‘let me see your mother’s ring again. To-day you shall put it on. Hitherto you have worn it hung round your neck. To-day you shall bear it on your finger, in token that you are engaged.’

‘Oh, papa, dear! I don’t – ’

‘Which is it to be, Lanherne or Mr. Coyshe?’

‘I won’t indeed go to Lanherne.’

‘Very well; then you will take Mr. Coyshe. He will make you happy. He will not always live here; he talks of a practice in London. He tells me that he has found favour with the Duke. If he goes to London – ’

‘Oh, papa! Is he really going to London?’

‘Yes, child!’

‘Where all the theatres are! Oh, papa! I should like to live in a town, I do not like being mewed up in the country. Will he have a carriage?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Oh, papa! and a tiger in buttons and a gold band?’

‘I do not know.’

‘I am sure he will, papa! I’d rather have that than go to Lanherne.’

Mr. Jordan knocked with his stick against the wall. Eve was frightened.

‘Papa, don’t be too hasty. I only meant that I hate Lanherne!’

In fact, she was alarmed by his mention of the ring, and following her usual simple tactics had diverted the current of his thoughts into another direction.

Barbara and Mr. Coyshe came in.

‘She consents,’ said Mr. Jordan. ‘Eve, give him your hand. Where is the ring?’

She drew back.

‘I want the ring,’ he said again, impatiently.

‘Papa, I have not got it – that is – I have mislaid it.’

‘What!’ he exclaimed, trying to sit up, and becoming excited. ‘The ring – not lost! Mislaid! It must be found. I will have it. Your mother’s ring! I will never, never forgive if that is lost. Produce it at once.’

‘I cannot, papa. I don’t know – O – Mr. Coyshe, quick, give me your hand. There! I consent. Do not be excited, dear papa. I’ll find the ring to-morrow.’

CHAPTER XLIII.
IN A MINE

Eve had no sooner consented to take Mr. Coyshe, just to save herself the inconvenience of being questioned about the lost ring, than she ran out of the room, and to escape further importunity ran over the fields towards the wood. She had scarcely gone three steps from the house before she regretted what she had done. She did not care for Mr. Coyshe. She laughed at his peculiarities. She did not believe, like her father and sister, in his cleverness. But she saw that his ears and eyes were unduly prominent, and she was alive to the ridiculous. Mr. Coyshe was more to her fancy than most of the young men of the neighbourhood, who talked of nothing but sport, and who would grow with advancing age to talk of sport and rates, and beyond rates would not grow. Eve was not fond of hunting. Barbara rarely went after the hounds, Eve never. She did not love horse exercise; she preferred sauntering in the woods and lanes, gathering autumn-tinted blackberry leaves, to a run over the downs after a fox. Perhaps hunting required too much exertion for her: Eve did not care for exertion. She made dolls’ clothes still, at the age of seventeen; she played on the piano and sang; she collected leaves and flowers for posies. That was all Eve cared to do. Whatever she did she did it listlessly, because nothing thoroughly interested her. Yet she felt that there might be things which were not to be encountered at Morwell that would stir her heart and make her pulses bound. In a word, she had an artistic nature, and the world in which she moved was a narrow and inartistic world. Her proper faculties were unevoked. Her true nature slept.

The hoot of an owl, followed by a queer little face peeping at her from behind a pine. She did not at once recognise Watt, as her mind was occupied with her engagement to Mr. Coyshe.

Now at the very moment Watt showed himself her freakish mind had swerved from a position of disgust at her engagement, into one of semi-content with it. Mr. Coyshe was going to London, and there she would be free to enjoy herself after her own fashion, in seeing plays, hearing operas, going to all the sights of the great town, in a life of restless pleasure-seeking, and that was exactly what Eve desired.

Watt looked woe-begone. He crept from behind the tree. His impudence and merriment had deserted him. Tears came into his eyes as he spoke.

‘Are they all gone?’ he asked, looking cautiously about.

‘Whom do you mean?’

‘The police.’

‘Yes, they have left Morwell. I do not know whither. Whether they are searching for your brother or have given up the search I cannot say. What keeps you here?’

‘O Miss Eve! poor Martin is not far off. It would not do for him to run far. He is in hiding at no great distance, and – he has nothing to eat.’

‘Where is he? What can I do?’ asked Eve, frightened.

‘He is in an old mine. He will not be discovered there. Even if the constables found the entrance, which is improbable, they would not take him, for he would retreat into one of the side passages and escape by an airhole in another part of the wood.’

‘I will try what I can do. I dare say I might smuggle some food away from the house and put it behind the hedge, whence you could fetch it.’

‘That is not enough. He must get away.’

‘There is Jasper’s horse still with us. I will ask Jasper, and you can have that.’

‘No,’ answered the boy, ‘that will not do. We must not take the road this time. We must try the water.’

‘We have a boat,’ said Eve, ‘but papa would never allow it to be used.’

‘Your papa will know nothing about it, nor the prudent Barbara, nor the solemn Jasper. You can get the key and let us have the boat.’

‘I will do what I can, but’ – as a sudden thought struck her – ’Martin must let me have my ring again. I want it so much. My father has been asking for it.’

‘How selfish you are!’ exclaimed the boy reproachfully. ‘Thinking of your own little troubles when a vast danger menaces our dear Martin. Come with me. You must see Martin and ask him yourself for that ring. I dare not speak of it; he values that ring above everything. You must plead for it yourself with that pretty mouth and those speaking eyes.’

‘I must not; indeed I must not!’

‘Why not? You will not be missed. No one will harm you. You should see the poor fellow, to what he is reduced by love for you. Yes, come and see him. He would never have been here, he would have been far away in safety, but he had the desire to see you again.’

‘Indeed, I cannot accompany you.’

‘Then you must do without the ring.’

‘I want my ring again vastly. My father is cross because I have not got it, and I have promised to show it him. How can I keep my promise unless it be restored to me?’

‘Come, come!’ said the boy impatiently. ‘Whilst you are talking you might have got half-way to his den.’

‘I will only just speak to him,’ said Eve, ‘two words, and then run home.’

‘To be sure. That will be ample – two words,’ sneered the boy, and led the way.

The old mine adit was below the rocks near the river, and at no great distance from the old landing-place, where Jasper had recently constructed a boathouse. The ground about the entrance was thickly strewn with dead leaves, mixed with greenish shale thrown out of the copper mine, and so poisonous that no grass had been able to grow over it, though the mine had probably not been worked for a century or even more. But the mouth of the adit was now completely overgrown with brambles and fringed with ferns. The dogwood, now in flower, had thickly clambered near the entrance wherever the earth was not impregnated with copper and arsenic.

Eve shrank from the black entrance and hung back, but the boy caught her by the arm and insisted on her coming with him. She surmounted some broken masses of rock that had fallen before the entrance, and brushed aside the dogwood and briars. The air struck chill and damp against her brow as she passed out of the sun under the stony arch.

The rock was lichened. White-green fungoid growths hung down in streamers; the floor was dry, though water dripped from the sides and nourished beds of velvet moss as far in as the light penetrated. So much rubble covered the bottom of the adit, that the water filtered through it and passed by a subterranean channel to the river.

After taking a few steps forward, Eve saw Martin half sitting, half lying on a bed of fern and heather; the grey light from the entrance fell on his face. It was pale and drawn; but he brightened up when he saw Eve, and he started to his knee to salute her.

‘I cannot stand upright in this cursed hole,’ he said, ‘but at this moment it matters not. On my knee I do homage to my queen.’ He seized her hand and pressed his lips to it.

‘Here you see me,’ he said, ‘doomed to shiver in this pit, catching my death of rheumatism.’

‘You will surely soon get away,’ said Eve. ‘I am very sorry for you. I must go home, I may not stay.’

‘What! leave me now that you have appeared as a sunbeam, shining into this abyss to glorify it! Oh, no – stay a few minutes, and then I shall remain and dream of the time you were here. Look at my companions.’ He pointed to the roof, where curious lumps like compacted cobwebs hung down. ‘These are bats, asleep during the day. When night falls they will begin to stir and shake their wings, and scream, and fly out. Shall I have to sleep in this den, with the hideous creatures crying and flapping about my head?’

‘Oh, that will be dreadful! But surely you will leave this when night comes on?’

‘Yes, if you will help me to get away.’

‘I will furnish you with the key to the boathouse. I will hide it somewhere, and then your brother can find it.’

‘That will not satisfy me. You must bring the key here.’

‘Why? I cannot do that.’

‘Indeed you must; I cannot live without another glimpse of your sweet face. Peter was released by an angel. It shall be the same with Martin.’

‘I will bring you the key,’ said Eve nervously, ‘if you will give me back my ring.’

‘Your ring!’ exclaimed Martin; ‘never! Go – call the myrmidons of justice and deliver me into their hands.’

‘I would not do that for the world,’ said Eve with tears in her eyes; ‘I will do everything that I can to help you. Indeed, last night, I got into dreadful trouble by dressing up and playing my tambourine and dancing to attract the attention of the men, whilst you were escaping from the corn-chamber. Papa was very angry and excited, and Barbara was simply – dreadful. I have been scolded and made most unhappy. Do, in pity, give me up the ring. My papa has asked for it. You have already got me into another trouble, because I had not the ring. I was obliged to promise to marry Doctor Coyshe just to pacify papa, he was so excited about the ring.’

‘What! engaged yourself to another?’

‘I was forced into it, to-day, I tell you – because I had not got the ring. Give it me. I want to get out of my engagement, and I cannot without that.’

‘And I – it is not enough that I should be hunted as a hare – my heart must be broken! Walter! where are you? Come here and listen to me. Never trust a woman. Curse the whole sex for its falseness and its selfishness. There is no constancy in this world.’ And he sighed and looked reproachfully at Eve. ‘After all I have endured and suffered – for you.’

Eve’s tears flowed. Martin’s attitude, tone of voice, were pathetic and moved her. ‘I am very sorry,’ she said, ‘but – I never gave you the ring. You snatched it from me. You are unknown to me, I am nothing to you, and you are – you are – ’

‘Yes, speak out the bitter truth. I am a thief, a runaway convict, a murderer. Use every offensive epithet that occurs in your vocabulary. Give a dog a bad name and hang him. I ought to have known the sex better than to have trusted you. But I loved, I was blinded by passion. I saw an angel face, and blue eyes that promised a heaven of tenderness and truth. I saw, I loved, I trusted – and here I am, a poor castaway ship, lying ready to be broken up and plundered by wreckers. O the cruel, faithless sex! We men, with our royal trust, our splendid self-sacrifice, become a ready prey; and when we are down, the laughing heartless tyrants dance over us. When the lion was sick the ass came and kicked him. It was the last indignity the royal beast could endure, he laid his head between his paws and his heart brake. Leave me – leave me to die.’

‘O Martin!’ said Eve, quite overcome by his greatness, and the vastness of his devotion, ‘I have never hurt you, never offended you. You are like my papa, and have fancies.’

‘I have fancies. Yes, you are right, terribly right. I have had my fancies. I have lived in a delusion. I believed in the honesty of those eyes. I trusted your word – ’

‘I never gave you a word.’

‘Do not interrupt me. I did suppose that your heart had surrendered to me. The delusion is over. The heart belongs to a vulgar village apothecary. That heart which I so treasured – ’ his voice shook and broke, and Eve sobbed. ‘Who brought the police upon me?’ he went on. ‘It was you, whom I loved and trusted, you who possess an innocent face and a heart full of guile. And here I lie, your victim, in a living grave your cruel hands have scooped out for me in the rock.’

‘O – indeed, this mine was dug hundreds of years ago.’

He turned a reproachful look at her. ‘Why do you interrupt me? I speak metaphorically. You brought me to this, and if you have a spark of good feeling in your breast you will get me away from here.’

‘I will bring you the key as soon as the sun sets.’

‘That is right. I accept the token of penitence with gladness, and hope for day in the heart where the light dawns.’

‘I must go – I really must go,’ she said.

He bowed grandly to her, with his hand on his heart.

‘Come,’ said Watt. ‘I will help you over these rubbish heaps. You have had your two words.’

‘O stay!’ exclaimed Eve, ‘my ring! I came for that and I have not got it. I must indeed, indeed have it.’

‘Eve,’ said Martin, ‘I have been disappointed, and have spoken sharply of the sex. But I am not the man to harbour mistrust. Deceived I have been, and perhaps am now laying myself open to fresh disappointment. I cannot say. I cannot go against my nature, which is frank and trustful. There – take your ring. Come back to me this evening with it and the key, and prove to me that all women are not false, that all confidence placed in them is not misplaced.’