Kitabı oku: «Eve», sayfa 24

CHAPTER XLVIII.
IN PART

Mr. Jordan knew more of what went on than Barbara suspected. Jane Welsh attended to him a good deal, and she took a mean delight in spying into the actions of her young mistresses, and making herself acquainted with everything that went on in the house and on the estate. In this she was encouraged by Mr. Jordan, who listened to what she told him and became excited and suspicious; and the fact of exciting his suspicions was encouragement to the maid. The vulgar mind hungers for notoriety, and the girl was flattered by finding that what she hinted stirred the crazy mind of the old man. He was a man prone to suspicion, and to suspect those nearest to him. The recent events at Morwell had made him mistrust his own children. He could not suppose that Martin Babb had escaped without their connivance. It was a triumph to the base mind of Jane to stand closer in her master’s confidence than his own children, and she used her best endeavours to thrust herself further in by aggravating his suspicions.

Barbara was not at ease in her own mind, she was particularly annoyed to hear that Martin was still in the neighbourhood, on their land; naturally frank, she was impatient of the constraint laid on her. She heartily desired that the time would come when concealments might end. She acknowledged the necessity for concealment, but resented it, and could not quite forgive Jasper for having forced it upon her. She even chilled in her manner towards him, when told that Martin was still a charge. The fact that she was obliged to think of and succour a man with whom she was not in sympathy, reacted on her relations with Jasper, and produced constraint.

That Jane watched her and Jasper, Barbara did not suspect. Honourable herself, she could not believe that another would act dishonourably. She under-valued Jane’s abilities. She knew her to be a common-minded girl, fond of talking, but she made no allowance for that natural inquisitiveness which is the seedleaf of intelligence. The savage who cannot count beyond the fingers of one hand is a master of cunning. There is this difference between men and beasts. The latter bite and destroy the weakly of their race; men attack, rend, and trample on the noblest of their species.

Mr. Jordan knew that Jasper and Eve had gone together for a long journey, and that Barbara sat up awaiting their return. He had been left unconsulted, he was uninformed by his daughters, and was very angry. He waited all next day, expecting something to be said on the subject to him, but not a word was spoken.

The weather now changed. The brilliant summer days had suffered an eclipse. The sky was overcast with grey cloud, and cold north-west winds came from the Atlantic, and made the leaves of beech and oak shiver. On the front of heaven, on the face of earth, was written Ichabod – the glory is departed. What poetry is to the mind, that the sun is to nature. The sun was withdrawn, and the hard light was colourless, prosaic. There was nowhere beauty any more. Two chilly damp days had transformed all. Mr. Jordan shivered in his room. The days seemed to have shortened by a leap.

Mr. Jordan, out of perversity, because Barbara had advised his remaining in, had walked into the garden, and after shivering there a few minutes had returned to his room, out of humour with his daughter because he felt she was in the right in the counsel she gave.

Then Jane came to him, with mischief in her eyes, breathless. ‘Please, master,’ she said in low tones, looking about her to make sure she was not overheard. ‘What do y’ think, now! Mr. Jasper have agone to the wood, carrying a blanket. What can he want that for, I’d like to know. He’s not thinking of sleeping there, I reckon.’

‘Go after him, Jane,’ said Mr. Jordan. ‘You are a good girl, more faithful than my own flesh and blood. Do not allow him to see that he is followed.’

The girl nodded knowingly, and went out.

‘Now,’ said Mr. Jordan to himself, ‘I’ll come to the bottom of this plot at last. My own children have turned against me. I will let them see that I can counter-plot. Though I be sick and feeble and old, I will show that I am master still in my own house. Who is there?’

Mr. Coyshe entered, bland and fresh, rubbing his hands. ‘Well, Jordan,’ said he – he had become familiar in his address since his engagement – ’how are you? And my fairy Eve, how is she? None the worse for her junket?’

‘Junket!’ repeated the old man. ‘What junket?’

‘Bless your soul!’ said the surgeon airily. ‘Of course you think only of curdled milk. I don’t allude to that local dish – or rather bowl – I mean Eve’s expedition to Plymouth t’other night.’

‘Eve – Plymouth!’

‘Of course. Did you not know? Have I betrayed a secret? Lord bless me, why should it be kept a secret? She enjoyed herself famously. Knows no better, and thought the performance was perfection. I have seen Kemble, and Kean, and Vestris. But for a provincial theatre it was well enough.’

‘You went with her to the theatre?’

‘Yes, I and Mr. Jasper. But don’t fancy she went only out of love of amusement. She went to see the manager, a Mr. Justice Thing-a-majig.’

‘Barret?’

‘That’s the man, because he had known her mother.’

Mr. Jordan’s face changed, and his eyes stared. He put up his hands as though waving away something that hung before him.

‘And Jasper?’

‘Oh, Jasper was with her. They left me to eat my supper in comfort. I can’t afford to spoil my digestion, and I’m particularly fond of crab. You cannot eat crab in a scramble and do it justice.’

‘Did Jasper see the manager?’ Mr. Jordan’s voice was hollow. His hands, which he held deprecatingly before him, quivered. He had his elbows on the arms of his chair.

‘Oh, yes, of course he did. Don’t you understand? He went with Eve whilst I finished the crab. It was really a shame; they neither of them half cleaned out their claws, they were in such a hurry. “Preciosa” was not amiss, but I preferred crab. One can get plays better elsewhere, but crab nowhere of superior quality.’

Mr. Jordan began to pick at the horse-hair of his chair arm. There was a hole in the cover and his thin white nervous fingers plucked at the stuffing, and pulled it out and twisted it and threw it down, and plucked again.

‘What – what did Jasper hear?’ he asked falteringly.

‘How can I tell, Jordan? I was not with them. I tell you, I was eating my supper quietly, and chewing every mouthful. I cannot bolt my food. It is bad – unprincipled to do so.’

‘They told you nothing?’

‘I made no inquiries, and no information was volunteered.’

A slight noise behind him made Coyshe turn. Eve was in the doorway. ‘Here she is to answer for herself,’ said the surgeon. ‘Eve, my love, your father is curious about your excursion to Plymouth, and wants to know all you heard from the manager.’

‘Oh, papa! I ought to have told you!’ stammered Eve.

‘What did he say?’ asked the old man, half-impatiently, half fearfully.

‘Look here, governor,’ said the surgeon; ‘it strikes me that you are not acting straight with the girl, and as she is about to become my wife, I’ll stand up for her and say what is fitting. I cannot see the fun of forcing her to run away a day’s journey to pick up a few scraps of information about her mother, when you keep locked up in your own head all that she wants to know. I can understand and make allowance for you not liking to tell her everything, if things were not – as is reported – quite ecclesiastically square between you and the lady. But Eve is no longer a child. I intend her to become my wife, and sooner or later she must know all. Make a clean breast and tell everything.’

‘Yes,’ said Jasper entering, ‘the advice is good.’

‘You come also!’ exclaimed the old man, firing up and pointing with trembling fingers to the intruder; ‘you come —you who have led my children into disobedience? My own daughters are in league against me. As for this girl, Eve, whom I have loved, who has been to me as the apple of my eye, she is false to me.’

‘Oh, papa! dear papa!’ pleaded Eve with tears, ‘do not say this. It is not true.’

‘Not true? Why do you practise concealment from me? Why do you carry about with you a ring which Mr. Coyshe never gave you? Produce it, I have been told about it. You have left it on your table and it has been seen, a ring with a turquoise forget-me-not. Who gave you that? Answer me if you dare. What is the meaning of these runnings to and fro into the woods, to the rocks?’ The old man worked himself into wildness and want of consideration for his child, and for Coyshe to whom she was engaged. ‘Listen to me, you,’ he turned to the surgeon, holding forth his stick which he had caught up; ‘you shall judge between us. This girl, this daughter of mine, has met again and again in secret a man whom I hate, a man who robbed his own father of money that belonged to me, a man who has been a jail-bird, an escapedfelon. Is not this so? Eve, deny it if you can.’

‘Father!’ began Eve, trembling, ‘you are ill, you are excited.’

‘Answer me!’ he shouted so loud as to make all start, striking at the same time the floor with his stick, ‘have you not met him in secret?’

She hung her head and sobbed.

‘You aided that man in making his escape when he was in the hands of the police. I brought the police upon him, and you worked to deliver him. Answer me. Was it not so?’

She faintly murmured, ‘Yes.’

This had been but a conjecture of Mr. Jordan. He was emboldened to proceed, but now Jasper stood forward, grave, collected, facing the white, wild old man. ‘Mr. Jordan,’ he said, ‘that man of whom you speak is my brother. I am to blame, not Miss Eve. Actively neither I nor – most assuredly – your daughter assisted in his escape; but I will not deny that I was aware he meditated evasion, and he effected it, not through active assistance given him, but because his guards were careless, and because I did not indicate to them the means whereby he was certain to get away, and which I saw and they overlooked.’

‘Stand aside,’ shouted the angry old man. He loved Eve more than he loved anyone else, and as is so often the case when the mind is unhinged, his suspicion and wrath were chiefly directed against his best beloved. He struck at Jasper with his stick, to drive him on one side, and he shrieked with fury to Eve, who cowered and shrank from him. ‘You have met this felon, and you love him. That is why I have had such difficulty with you to get your consent to Mr. Coyshe. Is it not so? Come, answer.’

‘I like poor Martin,’ sobbed Eve. ‘I forgive him for taking my money; it was not his fault.’

‘See there! she confesses all. Who gave you that ring with the blue stones of which I have been told? It did not belong to your mother. Mr. Coyshe never gave it you. Answer me at once or I will throw my stick at you. Who gave you that ring?’

The surgeon, in his sublime self-conceit, not for a moment supposing that any other man had been preferred to himself, thinking that Mr. Jordan was off his head, turned to Eve and said in a low voice, ‘Humour him. It is safest. Say what he wishes you to say.’

‘Martin gave me the ring,’ she answered, trembling.

‘How came you one time to be without your mother’s ring? How came you at another to be possessed of it? Explain that.’

Eve threw herself on her knees with a cry.

‘Oh, papa! dear papa! ask me no more questions.’

‘Listen all to me,’ said Mr. Jordan, in a loud hard voice. He rose from his chair, resting a hand on each arm, and heaving himself into an upright position. His face was livid, his eyes burned like coals, his hair bristled on his head, as though electrified. He came forward, walking with feet wide apart, and with his hands uplifted, and stood over Eve still kneeling, gazing up at him with terror.

‘Listen to me, all of you. I know more than any of you suppose. I spy where you are secret. That man who robbed me of my money has lurked in this neighbourhood to rob me of my child. Shall I tell you who he is, this felon, who stole from his father? He is her mother’s brother, Eve’s uncle.’

Eve stared with blank eyes into his face, Martin – her uncle! She uttered a cry and covered her eyes.

CHAPTER XLIX.
THE OLD GUN

Mr. Jordan was alone in his room. Evening had set in, the room was not only chilly, it was dark. He sat in his leather-backed leather-armed chair with his stick in his hands, – in both hands, held across him, and now and then he put the stick up to his mouth and gnawed at it in the middle. At others he made a sudden movement, slipping his hand down to the ferule and striking in the air with the handle at the black spots which floated in the darkness, of a blackness most intense. He was teased by them, and by his inability to strike them aside. His stick went through them, as through ink, and they closed again when cut, and drifted on through his circle of vision unhurt, undisturbed.

Mr. Coyshe was gone; he had ordered the old man to be left as much in quiet as might be, and he had taken a boy from the farm with him on a horse, to bring back a soothing draught which he promised to send. Mr. Jordan had complained of sleeplessness, his nerves were evidently in a high and perilous state of tension. Before he left, Mr. Coyshe had said to Barbara, ‘Keep an eye on your father, there is irritation somewhere. He talks in an unreasoning manner. I will send him something to compose him, and call again to-morrow. In the meantime,’ he coughed, ‘I – I – would not allow him to shave himself.’

Barbara’s blood curdled. ‘You do not think – ’ She was unable to finish her sentence.

‘Do as I say, and do not allow him to suppose himself watched.’

Now Barbara acted with unfortunate indiscretion. Knowing that her father was suspicious of her, and complained of her observing him, knowing also that his suspicions extended to Jasper whom he disliked, knowing also that he had taken a liking for Jane, she bade Jane remain about her father, and not allow him to be many minutes unwatched.

Jane immediately went to the old gentleman, and told him the instructions given her. ‘And – please your honour,’ she crept close to him, ‘I’ve seen him. He is on the Raven Rock. He has lighted a fire and is warming himself. I think it be the very man that was took here, but I can’t say for certain, as I didn’t see the face of him as was took, nor of him on the Rock, but they be both men, and much about a height.’

‘Jane! Is Joseph anywhere about?’

‘No sir, – not nigher than Tavistock.’

‘Go to him immediately. Bid him collect what men he can, and surround the fellow and secure him.’

‘But, your honour! Miss Barbara said I was to watch you as a cat watches a mouse.’

‘Who is master here, I or she? I order you to go; and if she is angry I will protect you against her. I am to be watched, am I? By my own children? By my servant? This is more than I can bear. The whole world is conspiring against me. How can I trust anyone – even Jane? How can I say that the police were not bribed before to let him go? And they may be bribed again. Trust none but thyself,’ he muttered, and stood up.

‘Please, master,’ said Jane, ‘you may be certain I will do what you want. I’m not like some folks, as is unnatural to their very parents. Why, sir! what do y’ think? As I were a coming in, who should run by me, looking the pictur’ of fear, but Miss Eve. And where do y’ think her runned? Why, sir – I watched her, and her went as fast as a leaping hare over the fields towards the Raven Rock – to where he be. Well, I’m sure I’d not do that. I don’t mind a-going to love feasts in chapel with Joseph, but I wouldn’t go seeking him in a wood. Some folks have too much self-respect for that, I reckon.’ She muttered this looking up at the old man, uncertain how he would take it.

‘Go,’ said he. ‘Leave me – go at once.’

Presently Barbara came in, and found her father alone.

‘What, no one with you, papa?’

‘No – I want to be alone. Do you grudge me quiet? Must I live under a microscope? Must I have everything I do marked, every word noted? Why do you peer in here? Am I an escaped felon to be guarded? Am I likely to break out? Will you leave me? I tell you I do not want you here. I desire solitude. I have had you and Coyshe and Eve jabbering here till my head spins and my temples are bursting. Leave me alone.’ Then, with the craftiness of incipient derangement, he said, ‘I have had two – three bad nights, and want sleep. I was dozing in my chair when Jane came in to light a fire. I sent her out. Then, when I was nodding off again, I heard cook or Jasper tramping through the hall. That roused me, and now when I hoped to compose myself again, you thrust yourself upon me; are you all in a league to drive me mad, by forbidding me sleep? That is how Hopkins, the witch-finder, got the poor wretches to confess. He would not suffer them to sleep, and at last, in sheer madness and hunger for rest, they confessed whatever was desired of them. You want to force something out of me. That is why you will not let me sleep.’

‘Papa dear, I shall be so glad if you can sleep. I promise you shall be left quite alone for an hour.’

‘O – an hour! limited to sixty minutes.’

‘Dear papa, till you rap on the wall, to intimate that you are awake.’

‘You will not pry and peer?’

‘No one shall come near you. I will forbid everyone the hall, lest a step on the pavement should disturb you.’

‘What are you doing there?’

‘Taking away your razor, papa.’

Then he burst into a shrill, bitter laugh – a laugh that shivered through her heart. He said nothing, but remained chuckling in his chair.

‘I dare say Jasper will sharpen them for you, papa, he is very kind,’ said Barbara, ashamed of her dissimulation. So it came about that the old half-crazy squire was left in the gathering gloom entirely alone and unguarded. Nothing could do him more good than a refreshing sleep, Barbara argued, and went away to her own room, where she lit a candle, drew down her blind, and set herself to needlework.

She had done what she could. The pantry adjoined the room of her father. Jane would hear if he knocked or called. She did not know that Jane was gone.

Ignatius Jordan sat in the armchair, biting at his stick, or beating in the air with it at the blots which troubled his vision. These black spots took various shapes; sometimes they were bats, sometimes falling leaves. Then it appeared to him as if a fluid that was black but with a crimson glow in it as of a subdued hidden fire was running and dripped from ledge to ledge – invisible ledges they were – in the air before him. He put his stick out to touch the stream, and then it ran along the stick and flowed on his hand and he uttered a cry, because it burned him. He held his hand up open before him, and thought the palm was black, but with glowing red veins intersecting the blackness, and he touched the lines with the finger of his left hand.

‘The line of Venus,’ he said, ‘strong at the source, fiery and broken by that cross cut – the line of life – long, thin, twisted, tortured, nowhere smooth, and here – What is this? – the end.’

Then he looked at the index finger of his left hand, the finger that had traced the lines, and it seemed to be alight or smouldering with red fire.

He heard a strange sound at the window, a sound shrill and unearthly, close as in his ear, and yet certainly not in the room. He held his breath and looked round. He could see nothing through the glass but the grey evening sky, no face looking in and crying at the window. What was it? As he looked it was repeated. In his excited condition of mind he did not seek for a natural explanation. It was a spirit call urging him on. It was silent. Then again repeated. Had he lighted the candle and examined the glass he would have seen a large snail crawling up the pane, creating the sound by the vibration of the glass as it drew itself along.

Then Mr. Jordan rose out of his chair, and looking cautiously from side to side and timorously at the window whence the shrill sound continued, he unlocked a cupboard in the panelling and drew from it powder and shot.

Barbara had taken away his razors. She feared lest he should do himself an injury; but though he was weary of his life, he had no thought of hastening his departure from it. His mind was set with deadly resolution of hate on Martin – Martin, that man who had robbed him, who escaped from him as often as he was taken. Everyone was in league to favour Martin. No one was to be trusted to punish him. He must make sure that the man did not escape this time. This time he would rely on no one but himself. He crossed the room with soft step, opened the door, and entered the hall. There he stood looking about him. He could hear a distant noise of servants talking in the kitchen, but no one was near, no eye observed him. Barbara, true to her promise, was upstairs, believing him asleep. The hall was dark, but not so dark that he could not distinguish what he sought. Some one passed with a light outside, a maid going to the washhouse. The light struck through the transomed window of the hall, painting a black cross against the wall opposite, a black cross that travelled quickly and fell on the old man, creeping along to the fireplace, holding the wall. He remembered the Midsummer Day seventeen years ago when he had stood there against that wall with arms extended in the blaze of the setting sun as a crucified figure against the black shadow of the cross. His life had been one long crucifixion ever since, and his cross a shadow. Then he stood on a hall chair and took down from its crooks an old gun.

‘Seventeen years ago,’ he muttered. ‘My God! it failed not then, may it not fail me now!’