Kitabı oku: «Eve», sayfa 7

CHAPTER XIII.
MR. BABB AT HOME

A lovely July day in the fresh air of Dartmoor, that seems to sparkle as it enters the lungs: fresh, but given a sharpness of salt: pure, but tinged with the sweetness of heather bloom and the honey of gorse. Human spirits bound in this air. The scenery of Dartmoor, if bare of trees, is wildly picturesque with granite masses and bold mountain peaks. Barbara could not shake off the anxiety that enveloped her spirits like the haze of a valley till she rose up a long ascent of three miles from the wooded valley of the Tavy to the bald, rock-strewn expanse of Dartmoor. She rode on, attended by her little groom, till she reached Prince’s Town, the highest point attained by the road, where, in a desolate plain of bog, but little below the crests of some of the granite tors, stands a prison surrounded by a few mean houses. From Prince’s Town Barbara would have a rough moor-path, not a good road, before her; and, as the horses were exhausted with their long climb, she halted at the little inn, and ordered some dinner for herself, and required that the boy and the horses should be attended to.

Whilst ham and eggs – nothing else was procurable – were being fried, Barbara walked along the road to the prison, and looked at the gloomy, rugged gate built of untrimmed granite blocks. The unbroken desolation swept to the very walls of the prison.¹ At that height the wind moans among the rocks and rushes mournfully; the air is never still. The landlady of the inn came to her.

‘That is the jail,’ she said. ‘There was a prisoner broke out not long ago, and he has not yet been caught. How he managed it none can tell. Where he now is no one knows. He may be still wandering on the moor. Every road from it is watched. Perhaps he may give himself up, finding escape impossible. If not, he will die of hunger among the rocks.’

‘What was the crime for which he was here?’ asked Barbara; but she spoke with an effort.

‘He was a bad man; it was no ordinary wickedness he committed. He robbed his own father.’

‘His own father!’ echoed Barbara, starting.

‘Yes, he robbed him of nigh on two thousand pounds. The father acted sharp, and had him caught before he had spent all the money. The assizes were next week, so it was quick work; and here he was for a few days, and then – he got away.’

‘Robbed his own father!’ murmured Barbara, and now she thought she saw more clearly than before into a matter that looked blacker the more she saw.

‘There’s a man in yonder who set fire to his house to get the insurance. Folks say his house was but a rummagy old place. ‘Tis a pity. Now, if he had got away it would not have mattered; but, a rascal who did not respect his own father! – not that I hold with a man prosecuting his own son. That was hard. Still, if one was to escape, I don’t see why the Lord blessed the undertaking of the man who robbed his father, and turned His face away from him who only fired his house to get the insurance.’

The air ceased to sparkle as Miss Jordan rode the second stage of her journey: the sun was less bright, the fragrance of the gorse less sweet. She did not speak to her young groom the whole way, but rode silently, with compressed lips and moody brow. The case was worse than she had anticipated. Jasper had robbed his father, and all that story of his coming as a messenger from Mr. Babb with the money was false.

One evening, unattended, Barbara Jordan rode to Buckfastleigh, asked for the house of Mr. Babb, and dismounted at the door. The house was a plain, ugly, square modern erection, almost an insult to the beauty of the surroundings. The drive from the entrance gate was grass-grown. There was a stucco porch. The door was painted drab, and the paint was blistered, and had flaked off. The house also was mottled. It had been painted over plaster and cement, and the paint had curled and come off in patches. The whole place had an uncared-for look. There were no flower beds, no creepers against the walls; the rain-shoots to the roof were choked, and the overflowing water had covered the walls where it reached with slime, black and green. At the back of the house was a factory, worked by a water-wheel, for cloth, and a gravel well-trodden path led from the back door of the house to the factory.

Barbara had descended from her cob to open the gate into the drive; and she walked up to the front door, leading her horse. There she rang the bell, but had doubts whether the wire were sound. She waited a long time, and no one responded. She tried the bell again, and then rapped with the handle of her whip against the door.

Then she saw a face appear at a side window, observe her and withdraw. A moment after, a shuffling tread sounded in the hall, chains and bolts were undone, the door was cautiously opened, and in it stood an old man with white hair, and black beady eyes.

‘What do you want? Who are you?’ he asked.

‘Am I speaking to Mr. Babb?’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘May I have a few words with you in private?’

‘Oh, there is no one in the house, except my housekeeper, and she is deaf. You can say what you want here.’

‘Who is there to take my horse?’

‘You can hold him by the bridle, and talk to me where you stand. There’s no occasion for you to come in.’

Barbara saw into the hall; it was floored with stone, the Buckfastleigh marble, but unpolished. The walls had been papered with glazed imitation panelling, but the paper had peeled off, and hung in strips. A chair with wooden seat, that had not been wiped for weeks, a set of coat and hat pegs, some broken, on one a very discoloured great coat and a battered hat. In a corner a bulging green umbrella, the silk detached from the whalebone.

‘You see,’ said the old man grimly, half turning, as he noticed that Barbara’s eyes were observing the interior; ‘you see, this is no place for ladies. It is a weaving spider’s web, not a gallant’s bower.’

‘But – ’ the girl hesitated, ‘what I have to say is very particular, and I would not be overheard on any account.’

‘Ah! ah!’ he giggled, ‘I’ll have no games played with me. I’m no longer susceptible to fascination, and I ain’t worth it; on my sacred word I’m not. I’m very poor, very poor now. You can see it for yourself. Is this house kept up, and the garden? Does the hall look like a lap of luxury? I’m too poor to be a catch, so you may go away.’

Barbara would have laughed had not the nature of her visit been so serious.

‘I am Miss Jordan,’ she said, ‘daughter of Mr. Jordan of Morwell, from whom you borrowed money seventeen years ago.’

‘Oh!’ he gave a start of surprise. ‘Ah, well, I have sent back as much as I could spare. Some was stolen. It is not convenient to me after this reverse to find all now.’

‘My father has received nothing. What you sent was lost or stolen on the way.’

The old man’s jaw fell, and he stared blankly at her.

‘It is as I say. My father has received nothing.’

‘I sent it by my son.’

‘He has lost it.’

‘It is false. He has stolen it.’

‘What is to be done?’

‘Oh, that is for your father to decide. When my son robbed me, I locked him up. Now let your father see to it. I have done my duty, my conscience is clear.’

Barbara looked steadily, with some curiosity, into his face. The face was repulsive. The strongly marked features which might have been handsome in youth, were exaggerated by age. His white hair was matted and uncombed. He had run his fingers through it whilst engaged on his accounts, and had divided it into rat’s-tails. His chin and jaws were frouzy with coarse white bristles. In his black eyes was a keen twinkle of avarice and cunning. Old age and the snows of the winter of life soften a harsh face, if there be any love in it; but in this there was none. If a fire had burnt on the hearth of the old man’s heart, not a spark remained alive, the hearth was choked with grey ashes. Barbara traced a resemblance between the old man and his son. From his father, Jasper had derived his aquiline nose, and the shape of mouth and chin. But the expression of the faces was different. That of Jasper was noble, that of his father mean. The eyes of the son were gentle, those of Mr. Babb hard as pebbles that had been polished.

As Barbara talked with and observed the old man she recalled what Jasper had said of ill-treatment and lack of love. There was no tenderness to be got out of such a man as that before her.

‘Now look you here,’ said Mr. Babb. ‘Do you see that stretch of field yonder where the cloth is strained in the sun? Very well. That cloth is mine. It is woven in my mill yonder. That field was purchased seventeen years ago for my accommodation. I can’t repay the money now without selling the factory or the field, and neither is worth a shilling without the other. No – we must all put up with losses. I have mine; the Lord sends your father his. A wise Providence orders all that. Tell him so. His heart has been hankering after mammon, and now Heaven has deprived him of it. I’ve had losses too. I’ve learned to bear them. So must he. What is your name? – I mean your Christian name?’

‘Barbara.’

‘Oh! not Eve – dear, no. You don’t look as if that were your name.’

‘Eve is my sister – my half-sister.’

‘Ah, ha! the elder daughter. And what has become of the little one?’

‘She is well, at home, and beautiful as she is good. She is not at all like me.’

‘That is a good job – for you. I mean, that you are not like her. Is she lively?’

‘Oh, like a lark, singing, dancing, merry.’

‘Of course, thoughtless, light, a feather that flies and tosses in the breath.’

‘To return to the money. It was to have been my sister’s.’

‘Well,’ said the old man with a giggle, ‘let it so remain. It was to have been. Now it cannot be. Whose fault is that? Not mine. I kept the money for your father. I am a man of my word. When I make a covenant I do not break it. But my son – my son!’

‘Your son is now with us.’

‘You say he has stolen the money. Let your father not spare him. There is no good in being lenient. Be just. When my son robbed me, I did not spare him. I will not lift a little finger to save Jasper, who now, as you say, has robbed your father. Wait where you are; I will run in, and write something, which will perhaps satisfy Mr. Jordan; wait here, you cannot enter, or your horse would run away. What did you give for that cob? not much. Do you want to sell him? I don’t mind ten pounds. He’s not worth more. See how he hangs his off hind leg. That’s a blemish that would stand in your way of selling. Would you like to go over the factory? No charge, you can tip the foreman a shilling. No cloth weaving your way, only wool growing; and – judging from what I saw of your father – wool-gathering.’ With a cackle the old man slipped in and shut the door in Barbara’s face.

Miss Jordan stood patting the neck of her disparaged horse. ‘You are not to be parted with, are you, Jock, to an old skinflint who would starve you?’

The cob put his nose on her shoulder, and rubbed it. She looked round. Everything spoke of sordidness, only the factory seemed cared for, where money was made. None was wasted on the adornment, even on the decencies, of life.

The door opened. Mr. Babb had locked it after him as he went in. He came out with a folded letter in his hand.

‘Here,’ he said, ‘give that to your father.’

‘I must tell you, Mr. Babb, that your son Jasper is with us. He professes to have lost the money. He met with an accident and was nearly killed. He remains with us, as a sort of steward to my father, for a while, only for a while.’

‘Let him stay. I don’t want him back, I won’t have him back. I dare say, now, it would do him good to have his Bible. I’ll give you that to take to him. He may read and come to repentance.’

‘It is possible that there may be other things of his he will want. If you can make them up into a bundle, I will send for them. No,’ she said after a pause, ‘I will not send for them. I will take them myself.’

‘You will not mind staying there whilst I fetch them?’ said Mr. Babb. ‘Of course you won’t. You have the horse to hold. If you like to take a look round the garden you may, but there is nothing to see. Visit the mill if you like. You can give twopence to a boy to hold the horse.’ Then he slipped in again and relocked the door.

Barbara was only detained ten minutes. Mr. Babb came back with a jumble of clothes, a Bible, and a violin, not tied together, but in his arms anyhow. He threw everything on the doorstep.

‘There,’ he said, ‘I will hold the bridle, whilst you make this into a bundle. I’m not natty with my fingers.’ He took the horse from her. Barbara knelt under the portico and folded Jasper’s clothes, and tied all together in an old table cover the father gave for the purpose. ‘Take the fiddle,’ he said, ‘or I’ll smash it.’

She looked up at him gravely, whilst knotting the ends.

‘Have you a message for your son – of love and forgiveness?’

‘Forgiveness! it is your father he has robbed. Love – There is no love lost between us.’

‘He is lonely and sad,’ said Barbara, not now looking up, but busy with her hands, tightening the knots and intent on the bundle. ‘I can see that his heart is aching; night and day there is a gnawing pain in his breast. No one loves him, and he seems to me to be a man who craves for love, who might be reclaimed by love.’

‘Don’t forget the letter for your father,’ said Mr. Babb.

‘What about your son? Have you no message for him?’

‘None. Mind that envelope. What it contains is precious.’

‘Is it a cheque for fifteen hundred pounds?’

‘Oh, dear me, no! It is a text of scripture.’

Then, hastily, Mr. Babb stepped back, shut the door, and bolted and chained it.

CHAPTER XIV.
A SINE QUÂ NON

Barbara was on her way home from Ashburton. She had attended her aunt’s funeral, and knew that a little sum of about fifty pounds per annum was hers, left her by her aunt. She was occupied with her thoughts. Was there any justification for Jasper? The father was hateful. She could excuse his leaving home; that was nothing; such a home must be intolerable to a young man of spirit – but to rob his father was another matter. Barbara could not quite riddle the puzzle out in her mind. It was clear that Mr. Babb had confided the fifteen hundred pounds to Jasper, and that Jasper had made away with them. He had been taken and sent to prison at Prince’s Town. Thence he had escaped, and whilst escaping had met with the accident which had brought him to become an inmate of Morwell House. Jasper’s story that he had lost the money was false. He had himself taken it. Barbara could not quite make it out; she tried to put it from her. What mattered it how the robbery had been committed? – sufficient that the man who took the money was with her father. What had he done with the money? That no one but himself could tell, and that she would not ask him.

It was vain crying over spilt milk. Fifteen hundred pounds were gone, and the loss of that money might affect Eve’s prospects. Eve was already attracting admiration, but who would take her for her beauty alone? Eve, Barbara said to herself, was a jewel that must be kept in a velvet and morocco case, and must not be put to rough usage. She must have money. She must marry where nothing would be required of her but to look and be – charming.

It was clear to Barbara that Mr. Coyshe was struck with her sister, and Mr. Coyshe was a promising, pushing man, sure to make his way. If a man has a high opinion of himself he impresses others with belief in him. Mr. Jordan was loud in his praises; Barbara had sufficient sense to dislike his boasting, but she was influenced by it. Though his manner was not to her taste, she was convinced that Mr. Coyshe was a genius, and a man whose name would be known through England.

What was to be done? The only thing she could think of was to insist on her father making over Morwell to Eve on his death; as for herself – she had her fifty pounds, and she could go as housekeeper to some lady; the Duchess of Bedford would recommend her. She was was not likely to be thought of by any man with only fifty pounds, and with a plain face.

When Barbara reached this point she laughed, and then she sighed. She laughed because the idea of her being married was so absurd. She sighed because she was tired. Just then, quite uncalled for and unexpected, the form of Jasper Babb rose up before her mind’s eye, as she had last seen him, pale, looking after her, waving his hat.

She was returning to him without a word from his father, of forgiveness, of encouragement, of love. She was scheming a future for herself and for Eve; Jasper had no future, only a horrible past, which cast its shadow forward, and took all hope out of the present, and blighted the future. If she could but have brought him a kind message it would have inspired him to redeem his great fault, to persevere in well-doing. She knew that she would find him watching for her return with a wistful look in his dark full eyes, asking her if she brought him consolation.

Then she reproached herself because she had left his parting farewell unacknowledged. She had been ungracious; no doubt she had hurt his feelings.

She had passed through Tavistock, with her groom riding some way behind her, when she heard the sound of a trotting horse, and almost immediately a well-known voice called, ‘Glad to see your face turned homewards, Miss Jordan.’

‘Good evening, Mr. Coyshe.’

‘Our roads run together, to my advantage. What is that you are carrying? Can I relieve you?’

‘A violin. The boy is careless, he might let it fall. Besides he is burdened with my valise and a bundle.’

‘What? has your aunt bequeathed a violin to you?’

A little colour came into Barbara’s cheeks, and she answered, ‘I am bringing it home from over the moor.’ She blushed to have to equivocate.

‘I hope you have had something more substantial left you than an old fiddle,’ said the surgeon.

‘Thank you, my poor aunt has been good enough to leave me something comfortable, which will enable my dear father to make up to Eve for the sum that has been lost.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Mr. Coyshe. ‘Charmed!’

‘By the way,’ Barbara began, ‘I wanted to say something to you, but I have not had the opportunity. You were quite in the wrong about the saucer of sour milk, though I admit there was a stocking – but how you saw that, passes my comprehension.’

‘I did not see it, I divined it,’ said the young man, with his protruding light eyes staring at her with an odd mischievous expression in them. ‘It is part of the mysteries of medicine – a faculty akin to inspiration in some doctors, that they see with their inner eyes what is invisible to the outer eye. For instance, I can see right into your heart, and I see there something that looks to me very much like the wound I patched up in Mr. Jasper’s pate. Whilst his has been healing, yours has been growing worse.’

Barbara turned cold and shivered. ‘For heaven’s sake, Mr. Coyshe, do not say such things; you frighten me.’

He laughed.

She remained silent, uneasy and vexed. Presently she said, ‘It is not true; there is nothing the matter with me.’

‘But the stocking was under the sofa-cushion, and you said, Not true, at first. Wait and look.’

‘Doctor, it is not true at all. That is, I have a sort of trouble or pain, but it is all about Eve. I have been very unhappy about the loss of her money, and that has fretted me greatly.’

‘I foresaw it would be lost.’

‘Yes, it is lost, but Eve shall be no loser.’

‘Look here, Miss Jordan, a beautiful face is like a beautiful song, charming in itself, but infinitely better with an accompaniment.’

‘What do you mean, Mr. Coyshe?’

‘A sweet girl may have beauty and amiability, but though these may be excellent legs for the matrimonial stool, a third must be added to prevent an upset, and that – metallic.’

Barbara made no reply. The audacity and impudence of the young surgeon took the power to reply from her.

‘You have not given me that fiddle,’ said Coyshe.

‘I am not sure you will carry it carefully,’ answered Barbara; nevertheless she resigned it to him. ‘When you part from me let the boy have it. I will not ride into Morwell cumbered with it.’

‘A doctor,’ said Coyshe, ‘if he is to succeed in his profession, must be endowed with instinct as well as science. A cat does not know what ails it, but it knows when it is out of sorts; instinct teaches it to swallow a blade of grass. Instinct with us discovers the disorder, science points out the remedy. I may say without boasting that I am brimming with instinct – you have had a specimen or two – and I have passed splendid examinations, so that testifies to my science. Beer Alston cannot retain me long, my proper sphere is London. I understand the Duke has heard of me, and said to someone whom I will not name, that if I come to town he will introduce me. If once started on the rails I must run to success. Now I want a word with you in confidence, Miss Jordan. That boy is sufficiently in the rear not to hear. You will be mum, I trust?’

Barbara slightly nodded her assent.

‘I confess to you that I have been struck with your sister, Miss Eve. Who could fail to see her and not become a worshipper? She is a radiant star; I have never seen anyone so beautiful, and she is as good as she is beautiful.’

‘Indeed, indeed she is,’ said Barbara, earnestly.

‘Montecuculli said,’ continued the surgeon, ‘that in war three things are necessary: money; secondly, money; thirdly, money. In love it is the same. We may regret it, but it is undeniable.’

Barbara did not know what to say. The assurance of the young man imposed on her; she did not like him particularly, but he was superior in culture to most of the young men she knew, who had no ideas beyond hunting and shooting.

After a little while of consideration, she said, ‘Do you think you would make Eve happy?’

‘I am sure of it. I have all the instincts of the family-man in me. A man may marry a score of times and be father of fifty children, without instinct developing the special features of domesticity. They are born in a man, not acquired. Pater-familias nascitur, non fit.’

‘Have you spoken to my father?’

‘No, not yet; I am only feeling my way. I don’t mind telling you what brought me into notice with the Duke. He was ill last autumn when down at Endsleigh for the shooting, and his physician was sent for. I met the doctor at the Bedford Inn at Tavistock; some of us of the faculty had an evening together, and his Grace’s condition was discussed, casually of course. I said nothing. We were smoking and drinking rum and water. There was something in his Grace’s condition which puzzled his physician, and he clearly did not understand how to treat the case. I knew. I have instinct. Some rum had been spilled on the table; I dipped the end of my pipe in it, and scribbled a prescription on the mahogany. I saw the eye of the doctor on it. I have reason to believe he used my remedy. It answered. He is not ungrateful. I say no more. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Beer Alston is a bushel covering a light. Wait.’

Barbara said nothing. She rode on, deep in thought. The surgeon jogged at her side, his protruding water-blue eyes peering in all directions.

‘You think your sister will not be penniless?’ he said.

‘I am certain she will not. Now that my aunt has provided for me, Eve will have Morwell after my father’s death, and I am sure she is welcome to what comes to me from my aunt till then.’

‘Halt!’ exclaimed the surgeon.

Barbara drew rein simultaneously with Mr. Coyshe.

‘Who are you there, watching, following us, skulking behind bushes and hedges?’ shouted Coyshe.

‘What is it?’ asked Miss Jordan, surprised and alarmed.

The surgeon did not answer, but raised to his shoulder a stick he carried.

‘Answer! Who are you? Show yourself, or I fire!’

‘Doctor Coyshe,’ exclaimed Barbara, ‘forbear in pity!’

‘My dear Miss Jordan,’ he said in a low tone, ‘set your mind at rest. I have only an umbrella stick, of which all the apparatus is blown away except the catch. Who is there?’ he cried, again presenting his stick.

‘Once, twice!’ – click went the catch. ‘If I call three and fire, your blood be on your own head!’

There issued in response a scream, piercing in its shrillness, inhuman in its tone.

Barbara shuddered, and her horse plunged.

A mocking burst of laughter ensued, and then forth from the bushes into the road leaped an impish boy, who drew a bow over the catgut of a fiddle under his chin, and ran along before them, laughing, leaping, and evoking uncouth and shrill screams from his instrument.

‘A pixy,’ said the surgeon. ‘I knew by instinct one was dodging us. Fortunately I could not lay my hand on a riding whip this morning, and so took my old umbrella stick. Now, farewell. So you think Miss Eve will have Morwell, and the matrimonial stool its golden leg? That is right.’