FURTHER FORWARD
The search outside the house proved as barren of results as had been
that within. The undercliff was so broken as to offer many places in
which with ingenuity and some labour recesses might be formed in which
much could be concealed. But to a hiding-place of this description
there must be a track; and the fallen elder-twigs, and scattered
leaves, the straggling binds of bramble armed with terrible hooks, the
thickets of thorn undisturbed, showed that no runs had been made from
the house to any particular spot.
Discouraged, Olver leaned his elbows on a mass of chalk, laid one huge
red hand over the other, palm downward, looked across the block at
Jack, who was beyond, and said, 'I'm darned, if this is not one of the
worst jobs I have ever been in. I wish your father had wrote down on
the slate where it was he had stowed the money.'
'That is, if he had anything to stow.'
'He must have had. He did have――else why should he have been in such a
fear lest you should squander it?'
'If something had been saved and put away, we must have found it.'
Dench remained looking steadily at Jack, but his thoughts were
elsewhere.
'You don't think,' mused he, and he spoke to himself rather than to
Jack, 'you don't think as how Jane Marley may have scented it, and
have secured it, and got it now in that chest of hers. We have looked
everywhere else. She is away now at Bindon. Let us prize open the lock
and search it from end to end. I warrant it is there. It can be nowhere
else that I can think of.'
'No,' answered Jack emphatically. 'To that I will not consent. If she
chooses voluntarily to open, that will be another matter, but in her
absence, without her knowledge――never.'
'Why not?'
'Because it is not right, and she a poor woman. I would rather let her
have it than commit such an outrage.'
'You would, would you?'
'Certainly,' with some heat. 'Besides, I owe Winefred a debt of
gratitude, and I will not repay it by an insult offered to her mother.'
'Well! men are made in different fashions and out of various clays.
What, then, is to be done?'
'There is but one thing can be done――accept the situation. I must make
up my mind to knock about till I can find work that will suit me. I
have not expected much. If there had been a trifle I should have been
well pleased; had there been much, my father would have given me to
understand that it was so.'
'He has done this. He has told me and you plainly that he was resolved
to make a gentleman of you.'
'He has given me education, and it is that which makes the gentleman.'
'Fine! Education is a rare advantage if you have money to back it up;
money without education is a halting horse; but education without money
is one foundered in all four legs. What will you be? Not a fisherman.
Your education is thrown away for that.'
'I intend to sell the house.'
'Sell the house!' echoed Dench, and lifted his hands in astonishment.
'I must do so. If I had a little income I might live here in it, and
idle. I should not relish that. As I have no income I cannot occupy it.
I must look out for a situation, and not being a snail I cannot travel
with my house on my back.'
'You have the cutter.'
'That cutter is of no use to me unless I know how to employ her.'
'Oh! there is employment easy found.'
'Yes, but not such as I care to undertake. I know what you mean.
Besides, my education is so much capital invested. I must see if I
cannot make it render interest.'
'But the house――――'
'It holds me here, and just here no work suitable for me is to be
found.'
'Darn me!' said Olver, looking musingly at his hands, 'I'd not sell the
house till I had torn down every stone, and had sifted every peck of
dust.'
'And found nothing, and thrown away what little value the cottage
possessed when standing.'
'I do not see,' said the ferryman, 'that this is a house that will
fetch a price. There is no field or paddock attached to it. There are
just four walls and nothing further. If you were to take to the sea and
carry on your father's business, then the place is well enough. And
yet, after this late affair, it is a little blown upon. And then Jane
Marley's cottage has gone to pieces. These cliffs are not sure; you
cannot say what may happen next. Purchasers might argue that it was an
unsafe tenure, not worth much because so insecure in its foundations.
It might last a hundred years, or it might go to-morrow. I am shot if I
would sell.'
'I have thought it well over,' said Jack; 'no other course is open to
me.'
'You may let the cottage.'
'Who would take it? It is fit only for a labourer in Bindon, and their
hands are all provided for in Axminster. Besides, I am in want of
money.'
'You will sell furniture and all.'
'Yes, everything.'
'Then, take my advice, and dispose of the house first. You are
separated by the mouth of the Axe from Seaton, and Seaton folk will
not come here to get furniture; but if the house be sold, then the
purchaser may bid well for what is in it, that he may have the whole
bag of tricks together, and not be put to the extra trouble and cost in
new rigging.'
'There is something in what you say. The sooner it is done the better.
I shall speak to the auctioneer, and have the crier sent about.'
'Well, if it must be, I say so as well.'
The young man walked away to go to Beer, where he had been in lodgings
up to his father's death. He had matters to arrange there.
Dench remained in deep thought for some time. He was completely
puzzled, and could not resolve what he should do. In the event of the
cottage being sold, would it be advisable for him to buy it? But it
could be of no use to him, and his ambition pointed to a public-house.
To risk his money on the chance of finding the captain's hoard was
altogether too precarious. Three times had the cottage been ransacked,
and each time fruitlessly. Yet Olver was not satisfied. Rattenbury had
boasted to him over his grog of his intentions with regard to Jack, and
Rattenbury was not a man to lie, though he might exaggerate. He had not
obscurely intimated that he was possessed of the means whereby he could
carry out his intentions.
Dench returned to the cottage, and as he entered he took with him the
chopper which had been driven into a bench that stood by the door. It
was used for cutting up the fuel.
By this time Mrs. Marley had returned.
'Jane,' said he, 'don't look sour and turn crabbed. It must be done.
Young Jack laid it on me, but I don't like doing his dirty work. He
might have come and taken the job in hand himself, but he is a sneak, a
miserable sneak, and he has gone to Beer and bound me to do it.'
'What is it?'
'He bade me break open your chest. He says that the captain's money
has not been found, and that you have laid your hands on it. Says he,
make the old cat give up the key, or break the lock off the chest. Turn
everything out.'
Her face flushed with anger.
'You take me for a thief!'
'Not I. I don't think you clever enough. But Jack――it is Jack's demand.'
'There is the key.'
She threw it at his feet.
Dench picked it up. She looked at him frowning and with scorn.
He went to her chest and searched, to be once more disappointed.
He returned to the kitchen, gave her the key and seated himself. He
said nothing, but leaned his head in his hand. Think as he might, he
could hit on no other place in which to search.
'Jane,' said he at length, despairing of finding what he sought, and
changing the current of his thoughts, 'what are you going to do? Jack
has made up his mind to sell the old place and every stick in it.'
'Sell the house!'
Mrs. Marley considered. She put her knuckles to her lips.
'What will you do? Where will you go? I reckon you will have to make up
your mind as to that.'
'Where I go, and what my plans are――these are no concerns of yours,'
she answered. 'I shall find a home somewhere.'
'May not an old acquaintance――a friend you will not allow me to call
myself――ask a civil question without meeting with a rude answer! Why,
Jane, I have known you since you were a little girl. I knew you when
you met with _him_. I know all about that bad business, and I have
known you ever since, and have admired how you have kept yourself
respectable. I should be a bad sort of a chap, and altogether without
heart, were I to let you go and not ask about you.'
Jane answered, somewhat mollified, 'I shall take a house suitable for
Winefred and me in our altered condition.'
'Well now,' said Dench, 'I don't understand that. Altered is for the
worse, I suppose.'
'I should have said in our bettered condition. Winefred's father has
acknowledged her, and will provide that she be brought up as a lady.'
The colour faded instantly from Dench's face, and his jaw fell. He
looked at her with blank, fishy eyes.
'He has acknowledged her! It is not possible. You lie.'
'It is true. Look at this. See the gold watch with his initials on
it. He gave it to her as a token that he would provide handsomely,
liberally for her. We shall take a house in which she can live as a
gentleman's daughter ought to live. For myself I care not. I am not, I
never have been, a lady. That is why he deserted me. But with her it is
different.' She raised her head, and there was triumph in her eyes and
a flush in her cheeks.
'It is false,' gasped Dench.
If what Jane said was true, then Mr. Holwood was reconciled to his
wife. He had recognised his daughter. If so, his own knavery would be
discovered. Not only would the quarterly supplies cease, which for
eighteen years he had appropriated to himself, but he would be called
to task for what he had done, and would have to answer for it in court.
'Have you squared up with him?' he inquired, with his attitude and
tone of voice expressive of uneasiness. Jane was too full of pride to
consider him. She answered, 'I have not met him. I am in no hurry to do
so. There is too much calling out against him in my heart, that is like
a kennel of barking dogs, for me to forgive. But Winefred has seen him,
has talked with him, and he has promised her that he will deal by her,
I will not say generously, but as he ought.'
'I do not believe it. He is in Tierra del Fuego.'
'He is returned. What say you to the watch? I knew it immediately. He
had offered it to me once.'
'I see no proof in the watch. It may have belonged to the captain, and
you――――'
She cut him short――'It has his initials on the back.'
'J. H. are common initials. John Hall, the cheesemonger, has the same.'
'Whether you believe or not matters nothing to me,' said Jane, still
swelling with pride. 'All Seaton, all Axmouth, every one shall perceive
that we are not as we were; that my Winnie has no more occasion to go
along the beach picking up chalcedonies, nor I to trudge the lanes,
hawking pins and needles; but that Winefred is a lady, a real lady,
with money to spend, dressing like a lady, doing nothing――like a lady.
When I hear from Jack Rattenbury, I shall know when to leave this
cottage, but do not think that I will take orders or advice from you.'