Eve
‘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!’
CHAPTER L.
BY THE FIRE
Martin was weary of the woodman’s hut, as he was before weary of the mine. Watt had hard work to pacify him. His rheumatism was better. Neither Jasper nor Walter could decide how far the attack was real and how far simulated. Probably he really suffered, and exaggerated his sufferings to provoke sympathy.
Whilst the weather was summery he endured his captivity, for he could lie in the sun on a hot rock and smoke or whistle, with his hands in his pockets, and Martin loved to lounge and be idle; but when the weather changed, he became restive, ill-humoured, and dissatisfied. What aggravated his discontent was a visit from Barbara, whom he found it impossible to impress with admiration for his manly beauty and pity for his sorrows.
‘That girl is a beast,’ he said to Walter, when she was gone. ‘I really could hardly be civil to her. A perfect Caliban, devoid of taste and feeling. Upon my word some of our fellow-beings are without humanity. I could see through that person at a glance. She is made up of selfishness. If there be one quality most repulsive to me, that is it – selfishness. I do not believe the creature cast a thought upon me, my wants, my sufferings, my peril. Watt, if she shows her ugly face here again, stand against the door, and say, “Not at home.”’
‘Dear Martin, we will go as soon as you are well enough to leave.’
‘Whither are we to go? I cannot join old Barret and his wife and monkeys and babies and walking-sticks of actors, as long as he is in the county. I would go to Bristol or Bath or Cheltenham if I had money, but these miserly Jordans will not find me any. They want to drive me away without first lining my pocket. I know what was meant by those cold slabs of mutton, to-day. It meant, go away. I wait till they give me money.’
‘Dear Martin, you must not be inconsiderate.’
‘I glory in it. What harm comes of it? It is your long-headed, prudent prophets who get into scrapes and can’t get out of them again. I never calculate; I act on impulse, and that always brings me right.’
‘Not always, Martin, or you would not be here.’
‘O, yes, even here. When the impulse comes on me to go, I shall go, and you will find I go at the right time. If that Miss Jordan comes here again with her glum ugly mug, I shall be off. Or Jasper, looking as if the end of the world were come. I can’t stand that. See how cleverly I got away from Prince’s Town.’
‘I helped you, Martin.’
‘I do not pretend that I did all myself. I did escape, and a brilliantly executed manœuvre it was. I thought I was caught in a cleft stick when I dropped on the party of beaks at the “Hare and Hounds,” but see how splendidly I got away. I do believe, Watt, I’ve missed my calling, and ought to have been a general in the British army.’
‘But, dear Martin, generals have to scheme other things beside running away.’
‘None of your impudence, you jackanapes. I tell you I do not scheme. I act on the spur of the moment. If I had lain awake a week planning I could have done nothing better. The inspiration comes to me the moment I require it. Your vulgar man always does the wrong thing when an emergency arises. By heaven, Watt! this is a dog’s life I am leading, and not worth living. I am shivering. The damp worms into one’s bones. I shall go out on the Rock.’
‘O, Martin, stay here. It is warmer in this hut. A cold wind blows.’
‘It is midwinter here, and can’t be more Siberia-like out there. I am sick of the smell of dry leaves. I am tired of looking at withered sticks. The monotony of this place is unendurable. I wish I were back in prison.’
‘I will play my violin to amuse you,’ said the boy.
‘Curse your fiddle, I do not want to have that squeaking in my ears; besides, it is sure to be out of tune with the damp, and screw up as you may, before you have gone five bars it is flat again. Why has Eve not been here to tell me of what she saw in Plymouth?’
‘My dear Martin, you must consider. She dare not come here. You cannot keep open house, and send round cards of invitation, with “Mr. Martin Babb at home.”’
‘I don’t care. I shall go on the Rock, and have a fire.’
‘A fire!’ exclaimed Watt, aghast.
‘Why not? I am cold, and my rheumatism is worse. I won’t have rheumatic fever for you or all the Jordans and Jaspers in Devonshire.’
‘I entreat you, be cautious. Remember you are in hiding. You have already been twice caught.’
‘Because on both occasions I ran into the hands of the police. The first time I attempted no concealment. I did not think my father would have been such a – such a pig as to send them after me. I’ll tell you what, my boy, there is no generosity and honour anywhere. They are like the wise teeth that come, not to be used, but to go, and go painfully.’ Then he burst out of the hut, and groaning and cursing scrambled through the coppice to the Raven Rock.
Walter knew too well that when his brother had resolved on anything, however outrageous, it was in vain for him to attempt dissuasion. He therefore accompanied him up the steep slope and through the bushes, lending him a hand, and drawing the boughs back before him, till he reached the platform of rock.
The signs of autumn were apparent everywhere. Two days before they had not been visible. The bird-cherry was turning; the leaves of the dogwood were royal purple, and those at the extremity of the branches were carmine. Here and there umbelliferous plants had turned white; all the sap was withdrawn, they were bleached at the prospect of the coming decay of nature. The heather had donned its pale flowers; but there was no brightness in the purples and pinks, they were the purples and pinks not of sunflush, but of chill. A scent of death pervaded the air. The foxgloves had flowered up their long spires to the very top, and only at the very top did a feeble bell or two bloom whilst the seeds ripened below. No butterflies, no moths even were about. The next hot day the scarlet admirals would be out, but now they hung with folded wings downwards, exhibiting pepper and salt and no bright colour under the leaves, waiting and shivering.
‘Everything is doleful,’ said Martin, standing on the platform and looking round. ‘Only one thing lacks to make the misery abject, and that is rain. If the clouds drop, and the water leaks into my den, I’ll give myself up, and secure a dry cell somewhere – then Jasper and the Jordans may make the best of it. I’m not going to become a confirmed invalid to save Jasper’s pride, and help on his suit to that dragon of Wantley. If he thinks it against his interest that I should be in gaol, I’ll go back there. I’m not eager to have that heap of superciliousness as a sister-in-law, Walter, so collect sticks and fern that I may have a fire.’
‘Martin, do not insist on this; the light and smoke will be seen.’
‘Who is there to see? This rock is only visible from Cornwall, and there is no bridge over the Tamar for some miles up the river. Who will care to make a journey of some hours to ask why a fire has been kindled on the Raven Rock? Look behind, the trees screen this terrace, no one at Morwell will see. The hills and rocks fold on the river and hide us from all habitable land. Do not oppose me; I will have a fire.’
‘O, Martin,’ said the boy, ‘you throw on me all the responsibility of caring for your safety, and you make my task a hard one by your thoughtlessness.’
‘I am so unselfish,’ said Martin gravely. ‘I never do consider myself. I can’t help it, such is my nature.’
Walter reluctantly complied with his brother’s wish. The boy had lost his liveliness. The mischief and audacity were driven out of him by the responsibility that weighed on him.
Abundance of fuel was to be had. The summer had been hot, and little rain had fallen. Wood had been cut the previous winter, and bundles of faggots lay about, that had not been removed and stacked.
Before long the fire was blazing, and Martin crouched at it warming his hands and knees. His face relaxed whilst that of Walter became lined with anxiety. As he was thus seated, Jasper came on him carrying a blanket. He was dismayed at what his brother had done, and reproached him.
Martin shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is very well for you in a dry house, on a feather bed and between blankets, but very ill for poor me, condemned to live like a wild beast. You should have felt my hands before I had a fire to thaw them at, they were like the cold mutton I had for my dinner.’
‘Martin, you must put that fire out. You have acted with extreme indiscretion.’
‘Spare me your reproaches; I know I am indiscreet. It is my nature, as it lies in the nature of a lion to be noble, and of a dog to be true.’
‘Really,’ said Jasper, hotly, disturbed out of his usual equanimity by the folly of his brother, ‘really, Martin, you are most aggravating. You put me to great straits to help you, and strain to the utmost my relations to the Jordan family. I do all I can – more than I ought – for you, and you wantonly provoke danger. Who but you would have had the temerity to return to this neighbourhood after your escape and my accident! Then – why do you remain here? I cannot believe in your illness. Your lack of common consideration is the cause of incessant annoyance to your friends. That fire shall go out.’ He went to it resolutely, and kicked it apart, and threw some of the flaming oak sticks over the edge of the precipice.
‘I hope you are satisfied now,’ said Martin sulkily. ‘You have spoiled my pleasure, robbed me of my only comfort, and have gained only this – that I wash my hands of you, and will leave this place to-night. I will no longer remain near you – inhuman, unbrotherly as you are.’
‘I am very glad to hear that you are going,’ answered Jasper. ‘You shall have my horse. That horse is my own, and he will carry you away. Send Walter for it when you like. I will see that the stable-door is open, and the saddle and bridle handy. The horse is in a stable near the first gate, away from the house, and can be taken unobserved.’
‘You are mightily anxious to be rid of me,’ sneered Martin. ‘And this is a brother!’
‘I had brought you a blanket off my own bed, because I supposed you were cold.’
‘I will not have it,’ said Martin sharply. ‘If you shiver for want of your blanket I shall be blamed. Your heart will overflow with gall against poor me. Keep your blanket to curl up in yourself. I shall leave to-night. I have too much proper pride to stay where I am not wanted, with a brother who begrudges me a scrap of fire.’
