TWO PUZZLES.
"Then if I understand aright, Lady Waldron, you wish me to drop all
further efforts for the detection of those miscreants? And that too at
the very moment, when we had some reason to hope that we should at last
succeed. And all the outlay, which is no trifle, will have been simply
thrown away! This course is so extraordinary, that you will not think me
inquisitive, if I beg you to explain it."
Mr. Webber, the lawyer, was knitting his forehead, and speaking in a
tone of some annoyance, and much doubt, as to the correctness of his own
reluctant inference. Meanwhile the Spanish lady was glancing at him with
some dismay, and then at Mr. Penniloe, who was also present, for the
morning's discussion had been of business matters.
"No, I doubt very much if you quite comprehend," she answered, with Mr.
Penniloe's calm eyes fixed upon her. "I did not propose to speak
entirely like that. What I was desirous of describing to you is, that to
me it is less of eagerness to be going on with so much haste, until the
return of my dear son. He for instance will direct things, and with his
great--great command of the mind, will make the proceedings to succeed,
if it should prove possible for the human mind to do it. And there is no
one in this region, that can refuse him anything."
Mr. Penniloe saw that she spoke with some misgivings, and shifted her
gaze from himself to the lawyer and back again, with more of enquiry,
and less of dictation, than her usual tone conveyed.
"The matter is entirely one for your ladyship's own decision," replied
Mr. Webber, beginning to fold up the papers he had submitted. "Mr.
Penniloe has left that to us, as was correct, inasmuch as it does not
concern the trust. I will stop all enquiries at once, upon receiving
your instructions to that effect."
"But--but I think you do not well comprehend. Perhaps I could more
clearly place it with the use of my own tongue. It is nothing more than
this. I wish that my dear son should not give up his appointment as
Officer, and come back to this country, for altogether nothing. I wish
that he should have the delight of thinking that--that it shall be of
his own procuration, to unfold this mysterious case. Yes, that is
it--that is all that I wish--to let things wait a little, until my son
comes."
If either of her listeners had been very keen, or endowed with the
terrier nose of suspicion, he would have observed perhaps that the lady
had found some relief from an afterthought, and was now repeating it as
a happy hit. But Mr. Penniloe was too large, and Mr. Webber too rough of
mind--in spite of legal training--to pry into a lady's little turns of
thought.
"Very well, madam," said the lawyer, rising, "that finishes our business
for to-day, I think. But I beg to congratulate you on your son's return.
I cannot call to mind that I have heard of it before. Every one will be
delighted to see him. Even in his father's time, everybody was full of
him. When may we hope to see him, Lady Waldron?"
"Before very long, I have reason for good hope," the lady replied, with
a smile restoring much of the beauty of her careworn face. "I have not
heard the day yet; but I know that he will come. He has to obtain
permission from all the proper authorities, of course. And that is like
your very long and very costful processes of the Great British law, Mr.
Webber. But now I will entreat of you to excuse me any more. I have
given very long attention. Mr. Webber, will you then oblige me by being
the host to Mr. Penniloe? The refreshment is in the approximate room."
"Devilish fine woman," Mr. Webber whispered, as her ladyship sailed
away. "Wonderfully clever too! How she does her w's--I don't know much
about them, but I always understood, that there never was any one born
out of England, who could make head or tail of his w's. Why, she speaks
English quite like a native! But I see you are looking at me. Shocking
manners, I confess, to swear in the presence of a parson, sir; though
plenty of them do it--ha, ha, ha!--in their own absence, I suppose."
"It is not my presence, Mr. Webber. That makes it neither better nor
worse. But the presence of God is everywhere."
"To be sure! So it is. Come into the next room. Her ladyship said we
should find something there. I suppose we shan't see Missy though," said
the lawyer, as he led the Parson to the luncheon-table. "She fights very
shy of your humble servant now. Girls never forgive that sort of thing.
I don't often make such a mistake though, do I? And it was my son
Waldron's fault altogether. Waldron is a sharp fellow, but not like me.
Can't see very far into a milestone. Pity to stop the case, before we
cleared Fox. I don't understand this new turn though. A straw shows the
way the wind blows. Something behind the scenes, Mr. Penniloe. More
there than meets the eye. Is it true that old Fox is dropping off the
hooks?"
"If you mean to ask me, Mr. Webber, what I have heard about his state of
health, I fear that there is little hope of his recovery. Dr. Fox
returns to-morrow, as you may have heard through--through your especial
agents. You know what my opinion is of that proceeding on your part."
"Yes, you spoke out pretty plainly. And, by George, you were right, sir!
As fine a property as any in the county. I had no idea it was half as
much. Why, bless my heart sir, Jemmy Fox will be worth his £8000 a year,
they tell me!"
"I am glad that his worth," Mr. Penniloe said quietly, "is sufficient
_per annum_ to relieve him from your very dark suspicion."
"Got me there!" replied Webber, with a laugh. "Ah, you parsons always
beat the lawyers. Bury us, don't you? If you find no other way. But we
get the last fee after all. Probate, sir, Probate is an expensive thing.
Well, I must be off. I see my gig is ready. If you can make my peace
with Jemmy Fox, say a word for me. After all it looked uncommonly black,
you know. And young men should be forgiving."
Scarcely had his loud steps ceased to ring, when a very light pit-a-pat
succeeded, and Mr. Penniloe found himself in far more interesting
company. Nicie came softly, and put back her hair, and offered her
lovely white forehead to be kissed, and sat down with a smile that
begged pardon for a sigh.
"Oh, Uncle Penniloe, I am so glad! I thought I should never have a talk
with you again. My fortune has been so frightful lately. Everything
against me, the same as it has been with this dear little soul here."
She pointed to _Jess_, the wounded one, who trotted in cheerfully upon
three legs, with the other strapped up in a white silk pouch. The little
doggie wagged her tail, and looked up at the Clergyman, with her large
eyes full of soft gratitude and love; as by that reflex action, which a
dog's eyes have without moving, they took in--and told their intense
delight in--that vigilant nurse, and sweet comrade, Nicie.
"Oh, she is so proud;" Miss Waldron said, looking twice as proud
herself; "this is the first time that she has had the privilege of going
upon three legs, without anybody's hand; and she does think so much of
herself! _Jess_, go and show Uncle Penniloe what she can do, now her
health is coming back. _Jess_, go and cut a little caper--very steadily,
you know, for fear of going twisty; and keep her tail up, all the time!
Now _Jess_ come, and have a pretty kiss; because she has earned it
splendidly."
"She takes my breath away, because she is so good;" continued Nicie,
leaning over her. "I have studied her character for six weeks now, and
there is not a flaw to be found in it, unless it is a noble sort of
jealousy. _Pixie_"--here _Jess_ uttered a sharp small growl, and showed
a few teeth as good as ever--"I must not mention his name again, because
it won't do to excite her; but he is out in the cold altogether, because
he has never shown any heroism. No, no, he shan't come, _Jess_. He is
locked up, for want of chivalry. Oh, Uncle Penniloe, there is one
question I have long been wanting to ask you. Do you think it possible
for even God to forgive the man--the brute, I mean--who slashed this
little dear like that, for being so loving, and so true?"
"My dear child," Mr. Penniloe replied; "I have just been saying to
myself, how like your dear father you are growing--in goodness and
kindness of face, I mean. But when you look like that, the resemblance
is quite lost. I should never have thought you capable of such a
ferocious aspect."
"Ah, that is because you don't know what I can do." But as she spoke,
her arched brows were relaxing, and her flashing eyes filled with their
usual soft gleam. "You forget that I am half a Spaniard still, or at any
rate a quarter one, and therefore I can be very terrible sometimes. Ah,
you should have seen me the other day. I let somebody know who I am. He
thought perhaps that butter wouldn't melt in my mouth. Did not I
astonish him, the impertinent low wretch?"
"Why, Nicie, this is not at all like you! I always quote you as a model
of sweet temper. Who can have aroused your angry passions thus?"
"Oh, never mind. I should like to tell you, and I want to tell you very
much. But I am not permitted, though I don't know why. My mother has
begged me particularly not to speak of that man who came--gentleman, I
suppose he would call himself--but there, I am telling you all about
him! And mother is so different, and so much more humble now. If she
were still as unfair as she was, I should not be so particular. But she
seems to be so sad, and so mysterious now, without accusing any one. And
so I will not say a word against her orders. You would not wish it,
Uncle Penniloe, I am sure."
"Certainly not, my dear. I will not ask another question. I have noticed
that your mother is quite different myself. I hope she is not falling
into really bad health."
"No, I don't think that. But into frightfully low spirits. We have
enough to account for that, haven't we, Uncle Penniloe? To think of my
dear father, all this time! What can I do? I am so wretchedly helpless.
I try to trust in God, and to say to myself--'What does the earthly part
matter, after all? When the soul is with the Lord, or only waiting for
His time, and perhaps rewarded all the better--because--because of
wicked treatment here.' But oh, it won't do, Uncle Penniloe, it won't,
when I think how noble and how good he was, and to be treated in that
way! And then I fall away, and cry, and sob, and there comes such a
pain--such a pain in my heart, that I have no breath left, and can only
lie down, and pray that God would take me to my father. Is it wicked? I
suppose it is. But how am I to help it?"
"No, my dear, it is not wicked to give way sometimes." The Parson's
voice was tremulous, at sight of her distress, and remembrance of his
own, not so very long ago. "Sorrow is sent to all of us, and doubtless
for our good; and if we did not feel it, how could we be at all improved
by it? But you have borne it well, my child; and so has your good
mother, considering how the first sad blow has been doubled and
prolonged so strangely. But now it will be better for you, ever so much
better, Nicie, with your dear brother home again."
"But when will that be? Perhaps not for years. We do not even know where
he is. They were not likely to stay long in Malta. He may be at the Cape
of Good Hope by this time, if the ship has had long enough to get there.
Everything seems to be so much against us."
"Are you sure that you are right, my dear?" Mr. Penniloe asked with no
little surprise. "From what your mother said just now, I hoped that I
should see my old pupil very soon."
"I am afraid not, Uncle Penniloe. My dear mother seems to confuse things
a little, or not quite understand them. Through her late illness, no
doubt it is. We have not had a word from Tom, since that letter, which
had such a wonderful effect, as I told you, when you were gone to
London. And then, if you remember, he had no idea how long they were to
be at Valetta. And he said nothing about their future movements very
clearly. So full of his duties, no doubt, that he had no time to write
long particulars. Even now he may never have heard of--of what has
happened, and our sad condition. They may have been at sea, ever since
he wrote. Soldiers can never tell where they may have to be."
"That has always been so, and is a part of discipline;" the Parson was
thinking of the Centurion and his men. "But even if your letter should
have gone astray, they must have seen some English newspapers, I should
think."
"Tom is very clever, as you know, Uncle Penniloe; but he never reads a
word, when he can help it. And besides that, it is only fair to
remember that he is under Government. And the Government never neglects
an opportunity of turning right into left, and the rest upside down. If
all the baggage intended for their draft, was sent to the West Indies,
because they were ordered to the East, it ought to follow that their
letters would go too. But the worst of it is that one cannot be sure
they will stick to a mistake, after making it."
"It is most probable that they would; especially if it were pointed out
to them. Your dear father told me that they never forgive anybody for
correcting them. But how then could your mother feel so sure about Tom's
coming home almost immediately?"
"It puzzles me, until I have time to think;" answered Nicie, looking
down. "She has never said a word to me about it, beyond praying and
hoping for Tom to come home. Oh, I know, or at least I can guess, how!
She may have had a dream--she believes firmly in her dreams, and she has
not had time to tell me yet."
Mr. Penniloe had no right to seek further, and no inclination so to do.
The meanest, mangiest, and most sneaking understrapper of that recent
addition to our liberal institutions--the "Private Enquiry Firm"--could
never have suspected Nicie Waldron, after looking at her, of any of
those subterfuges, which he (like a slack-skin'd worm) wriggles into.
But on the other hand who could suppose that Lady Waldron would
endeavour to mislead her own man of business by a trumpery deceit? And
yet who was that strange visitor, of whom her daughter was not allowed
to speak?
Unable to understand these things, the curate shortly took his leave,
being resolved, like a wise man, to think as little as he could about
them, until Time--that mighty locksmith, at whom even Love rarely wins
the latest laugh--should bring his skeleton key to bear on the wards of
this enigma.
What else can a busy man do, when puzzled even by his own affairs? And
how much more must it be so, in the business of other persons, which he
doubts his right to meddle with? Perhaps it would have been difficult to
find any male member of our race more deeply moved by the haps and
mishaps of his fellow-creatures than this Parson of Perlycross; and yet
he could take a rosier view for most of them than they took for
themselves. So when he left the grounds of Walderscourt, he buttoned up
his Spencer, and stepped out bravely, swinging his stick vigorously, and
trusting in the Lord.
"What did 'e hat me vor, like that?" cried a voice of complaint from a
brambled ditch, outside a thick copse known as Puddicombe Wood. Mr.
Penniloe had not got his glasses on, and was grieved to feel rather than
to see, although he was at the right end of his stick, that he had
brought it down (with strong emphasis of a passage in his coming sermon)
on the head of a croucher in that tangled ditch.
"Oh I beg your pardon! I am so sorry. I had not the least idea there was
anybody there. I was thinking of the Sower, and the cares that choke the
seed. But get up, and let me see what I have done. What made you hide
yourself down there? I am not the gamekeeper. Why, it is Sam Speccotty!
Poaching again, I am afraid, Sam. But I hope I have not hurt you--so
very much."
"Bruk' my head in two. That's what you have done, Passon. Oh you can't
goo to tell on me, after hatting me on the brains with clubstick! Ooh,
ooh, ooh! I be gooing to die, I be."
"Speccotty, no lies, and no shamming!" Mr. Penniloe put on his
spectacles, for he knew his customer well enough,--a notorious poacher,
but very seldom punished, because he was considered "a natural." "This
is no clubstick, but a light walking-stick; and between it and your head
there was a thick briar, as well as this vast mop of hair. Let me see
what you have got under that tree-root."
Sam had been vainly endeavouring to lead his Minister away from his own
little buried napkin, or rather sack of hidden treasure. "Turn it out;"
commanded the Parson, surprised at his own austerity.
"A brace of cock-pheasants, a couple of woodcocks, two couple of
rabbits, and a leash of hares! Oh, Sam, Sam! What have you done?
Speccotty, I am ashamed of you."
"Bain't no oother chap within ten maile," said Speccotty, regarding the
subject from a different point of view; "as could a' dooed that, since
dree o'clock this marnin'; now Passon do 'e know of wan?"
"I am happy to say that I do not; neither do I wish for his
acquaintance. Give up your gun, Sam. Even if I let you off, I insist
upon your tools; as well as all your plunder."
"Han't a got no goon," replied the poacher, looking slyly at the Parson,
through the rough shock of his hair. "Never vired a goon, for none on
'un. Knows how to vang 'un, wi'out thiccy."
"I can well believe that." Mr. Penniloe knew not a little of poachers,
from his boyish days, and was not without that secret vein of sympathy
for them, which every sportsman has, so long as they elude and do not
defy the law. "But I must consider what I shall do. Send all this to my
house to-night, that I may return it to the proper owners. Unless you do
that, you will be locked up to-morrow."
"Oh Passon, you might let me have the Roberts. To make a few broth for
my old moother."
"Not a hair, nor a feather shall you keep. Your mother shall have some
honest broth--but none of your stolen rabbits, Speccotty. You take it so
lightly, that I fear you must be punished."
"Oh don't 'e give me up, sir. Oh, my poor head do go round so! Don't 'e
give me up, for God's sake, Passon. Two or dree things I can tell 'e, as
'e 'd give the buttons off thy coat to know on. Do 'e mind when the
Devil wor seen on Hagdon Hill, the day avore the good lady varled all
down the Harseshoe?"
"I do remember hearing some foolish story, Sam, and silly people being
frightened by some strange appearances, very easily explained, no
doubt."
"You volk, as don't zee things, can make 'un any colour to your own
liking. But I tell 'e old Nick gooed into the body of a girt wild cat up
there; and to this zide of valley, her be toorned to a black dog. Zayeth
so in the Baible, don't 'un?"
"I cannot recall any passage, Sam, to that effect; though I am often
surprised by the knowledge of those who use Holy Scripture for argument,
much more freely than for guidance. And I fear that is the case with
you."
"Whuther a' dooed it, or whuther a' did not, I be the ekal of 'un, that
I be. When her coom to me, a'gapin' and a yawnin', I up wi' bill-hook,
and I gie'd 'un zummat. If 'tis gone back to hell a' harth, a' wun't
coom out again, I reckon, wi'out Sam Speccotty's mark on 'un. 'Twill
zave 'e a lot of sarmons, Passon. Her 'ont want no more knockin' on the
head, this zide of Yester, to my reckoning. Hor! Passon be gone a'ready;
a' don't want to hear of that. Taketh of his trade away. Ah, I could
tell 'un zomethin', if a' wadn't such a softie."
Mr. Penniloe had hastened on, and no longer swung his holly-stick; not
through fear of knocking any more skulking poachers on the head, but
from the sadness which always fell upon him, at thought of the dark and
deadly blow the Lord had been pleased to inflict on him.