CALLED TO ACCOUNT.
‘GO,’ said Mr. Jordan, ‘bring Eve to me.’
Barbara obeyed mechanically. She had betrayed Jasper. Her father would
not spare him. The granite walls of Prince’s Town prison rose before
her, in the midst of a waste as bald as any in Greenland or Siberia.
She called her sister, bade her go into her father’s room, and then,
standing in the hall, placed her elbows on the window ledge, and
rested her brow and eyes in her palms. She was consigning Jasper back
to that miserable jail. She was incensed against him. She knew that
he was unworthy of her regard, that he had forfeited all right to her
consideration, and yet—she pitied him. She could not bring herself to
believe that he was utterly bad; to send him again to prison was to
ensure his complete ruin.
‘Eve,’ said Mr. Jordan, when his youngest daughter came timidly into
the room, ‘tell me, whom did you meet on the Raven Rock?’
The girl hung her head and made no reply. She stood as a culprit before
a judge, conscious that his case is hopeless.
‘Eve,’ he said again, ‘I insist on knowing. Whom did you meet?’
She tried to speak, but something rose in her throat, and choked her.
She raised her eyes timidly to her father, who had never, hitherto,
spoken an angry word to her. Tears and entreaty were in her eyes, but
the room was dark, night had fallen, and he could not see her face.
‘Eve, tell me, was it Babb?’
She burst into a storm of sobs, and threw herself on her knees. ‘O
papa! sweetest, dearest papa! Do not ask me! I must not tell. I
promised him not to say. It is as much as his life is worth. He says he
never will be taken alive. If it were known that he was here the police
would be after him. Papa dear!’ she clasped and fondled, and kissed his
hand, she bathed it in her tears, ‘do not be angry with me. I can bear
anything but that. I do love you so, dear, precious papa!’
‘My darling,’ he replied, ‘I am not angry. I am troubled. I am on a
rock and hold you in my arms, and the black sea is rising—I can feel
it. Leave me alone, I am not myself.’
An hour later Barbara came in.
‘What, papa—without a light?’
‘Yes—it is dark everywhere, within as without. The black spots have run
one into another and filled me. It will be better soon. When Jasper
Babb shows his face again, he shall be given up.’
‘O papa, let him escape this time. All we now want is to get him away
from this place, away from Eve.’
‘All we now want!’ repeated Mr. Jordan. ‘Let the man off who has
beggared Eve!’
‘Papa, Eve will be well provided for.’
‘He has robbed her.’
‘But, dear papa, consider. He has been your guest. He has worked for
you, he has eaten at your table, partaken of your salt. When you were
hurt, he carried you to your bed. He has been a devoted servant to
you.’
‘We are quits,’ said Mr. Jordan. ‘He was nursed when he was ill. That
makes up for all the good he has done me. Then there is that other
account which can never be made up.’
‘I am sure, papa, he repents.’
‘And tries to snatch away Eve, as he has snatched away her fortune?’
‘Papa, there I think he may be excused. Consider how beautiful Eve
is. It is quite impossible for a man to see her and not love her. I
do not myself know what love is, but I have read about it, and I have
fancied to myself what it is—a kind of madness that comes on one, and
obscures the judgment. I do not believe that Mr. Jasper had any thought
of Eve at first, but little by little she won him. You know, papa,
how she has run after him, like a kitten; and so she has stolen his
heart out of his breast before he knew what she was about. Then, after
that, everything—honour, duty went. I dare say it is very hard for one
who loves to think calmly and act conscientiously! Would you like the
lights brought in, papa?’
He shook his head.
‘You must not remain up longer than you can bear,’ she said. She took a
seat on a stool, and leaned her head on her hand, her elbow resting on
her knee. ‘Papa, whilst I have been waiting in the hall, I have turned
the whole matter over and over in my mind. Papa, I suppose that Eve’s
mother was very, very beautiful?’
He sighed in the dark and put his hands together. The pale twilight
through the window shone on them; they were white and ghost-like.
‘Papa dear, I suppose that you saw her when she was ill every day, and
got to love her. I dare say you struggled against the feeling, but your
heart was too strong for your head and carried your resolutions away,
just as I have seen a flood on the Tamar against the dam at Abbotswear;
it has burst through all obstructions, and in a moment every trace of
the dam has disappeared. You were under the same roof with her. Then
there came a great ache here’—she touched her heart—’allowing you no
rest. Well, dear papa, I think it must have been so with Mr. Babb, he
saw our dear sweet Eve daily, and love for her swelled in his heart; he
formed the strongest resolutions, and platted them with the toughest
considerations, and stamped and wedged them in with vigorous effort,
but all was of no avail—the flood rose and burst over it and carried
all away.’
Mr. Jordan was touched by the allusion to his dead or lost wife, but
not in the manner Barbara intended.
‘I have heard,’ continued Barbara, ‘that Eve’s mother was brought to
this house very ill, and that you cared for her till she was recovered.
Was it in this room? Was it in this bed?’
She heard a low moan, and saw the white hands raised in deprecation, or
in prayer.
‘Then you sat here and watched her; and when she was in fever you
suffered; when her breath came so faint that you thought she was dying,
your very soul stood on tiptoe, agonised. When her eyes opened with
reason in them, your heart leaped. When she slept, you sat here with
your eyes on her face and could not withdraw them. Perhaps you took her
hand in the night, when she was vexed with horrible dreams, and the
pulse of your heart sent its waves against her hot, tossing, troubled
heart, and little by little cooled that fire, and brought peace to that
unrest. Papa, I dare say that somehow thus it came about that Eve got
interested in Mr. Jasper and grew to love him. I often let her take my
place when he was ill. You must excuse dearest Eve. It was my fault.
I should have been more cautious. But I thought nothing of it then. I
knew nothing of how love is sown, and throws up its leaves, and spreads
and fills the whole heart with a tangle of roots.’
In this last half hour Barbara had drawn nearer to her father than in
all her previous life. For once she had entered into his thoughts,
roused old recollections, both sweet and bitter—inexpressibly sweet,
unutterably bitter—and his heart was full of tears.
‘Was Eve’s mother as beautiful as our darling?’
‘O yes, Barbara!’ His voice shook, and he raised his white hands to
cover his eyes. ‘Even more beautiful.’
‘And you loved her with all your heart?’
‘I have never ceased to love her. It is that, Barbara, which’—he put
his hands to his head, and she understood him—which disturbed his brain.
‘But,’ he said, suddenly as waking from a dream, ‘Barbara, how do you
know all this? Who told you?’
She did not answer him, but she rose, knelt on the stool, put her arms
round his neck, and kissed him. Her cheeks were wet.
‘You are crying, Barbara.’
‘I am thinking of your sorrows, dear papa.’
She was still kneeling on one knee, with her arms round her father.
‘Poor papa! I want to know really what became of Eve’s mother.’
The door was thrown open.
‘Yes; that is what I have come to ask,’ said Jasper, entering the room,
holding a wax candle in each hand. He had intercepted the maid, Jane,
with the candles, taken them from her, and as she opened the door
entered, to hear Barbara’s question. The girl turned, dropped one arm,
but clung with the other to her father, who had just placed one of his
hands on her head. Her eyes, from having been so long in the dark, were
very large. She was pale, and her cheeks glistened with tears.
She was too astonished to recover herself at once, dazzled by the
strong light; she could not see Jasper but she knew his voice.
He put the candlesticks—they were of silver—on the table, shut the door
behind him, and standing before Mr. Jordan with bowed head, his earnest
eyes fixed on the old man’s face, he said again, ‘Yes, that is what I
have come to ask. Where is Eve’s mother?’
No one spoke. Barbara recovered herself first; she rose from the stool,
and stepped between her father and the steward.
‘It is not you,’ she said, ‘who have a right to ask questions. It is we
who have to call you to account.’
‘For what, Miss Jordan?’ He spoke to her with deference—a certain tone
of reverence which never left him when addressing her.
‘You must give an account of yourself,’ she said.
‘I am just returned from Buckfastleigh,’ he answered.
‘And, pray, how is your father who was dying?’ she asked, with a curl
of her lip and a quiver of contempt in her voice.
‘He is well,’ replied Jasper. ‘I was deceived about his sickness. He
has not been ill. I was sent on a fool’s errand.’
‘Then,’ said Mr. Jordan, who had recovered himself, ‘what about the
money?’
‘The recovery of that is as distant as ever, but also as certain.’
‘Mr. Jasper Babb,’ exclaimed Ignatius Jordan, ‘you have not been to
Buckfastleigh at all. You have not seen your father; you have deceived
me with——’
Barbara hastily interrupted him, saying with beating heart, and with
colour rising to her pale checks, ‘I pray you, I pray you, say no more.
We know very well that you have not left this neighbourhood.’
‘I do not understand you, Miss Jordan. I am but just returned. My horse
is not yet unsaddled.’
‘Not another word,’ exclaimed the girl, with pain in her voice. ‘Not
another word if you wish us to retain a particle of regard for you. I
have pitied you, I have excused you but if you _lie_—I have said the
word, I cannot withdraw it—I give you up.’ Fire was in her heart, tears
in her throat.
‘I will speak,’ said Jasper. ‘I value your regard, Miss Jordan, above
everything that the world contains. I cannot tamely lose that. There
has been a misapprehension. How it has arisen I do not know, but arisen
it has, and dissipated it shall be. It is true, as I said, that I was
deceived about my father’s condition, wilfully, maliciously deceived.
I rode yesterday to Buckfastleigh, and have but just returned. If my
father had been dying you would not have seen me here so soon.’
‘We cannot listen to this. We cannot endure this,’ cried Barbara. ‘Will
you madden me, after all that has been done for you? It is cruel,
cruel!’ Then, unable to control the flood of tears that rose to her
eyes, she left the room and the glare of candles.
Jasper approached Mr. Jordan. He had not lost his self-restraint. ‘I do
not comprehend this charge of falsehood brought against me. I can bring
you a token that I have seen my father, a token you will not dispute.
He has told me who your second wife was. She was my sister. Will you do
me the justice to say that you believe me?’
‘Yes,’ answered the old man, faintly.
‘May I recall Miss Jordan? I cannot endure that she should suppose me
false.’
‘If you will.’
‘One word more. Do you wish our kinship to be known to her, or is it to
be kept a secret, at least for a while?’
‘Do not tell her.’
Then Jasper went out into the hall. Barbara was there, in the window,
looking out into the dusk through the dull old glass of the lattice.
‘Miss Jordan,’ said he, ‘I have ventured to ask you to return to your
father, and receive his assurance that I spoke the truth.’
‘But,’ exclaimed Barbara, turning roughly upon him, ‘you were on the
Raven Rock with my sister at sunset, and had your brother planted at
the gate to watch against intruders.’
‘My brother?’
‘Yes, a boy.’
‘I do not understand you.’
‘It is true. I saw him, I saw you. Eve confessed it. What do you say to
that?’
Jasper bit his thumb.
Barbara laughed bitterly.
‘I know why you pretended to go away—because a policeman was here on
Sunday, and you were afraid. Take care! I have betrayed you. Your
secret is known. You are not safe here.’
‘Miss Jordan,’ said the young man quietly, ‘you are mistaken. I did not
meet your sister. I would not deceive you for all the world contains. I
warn you that Miss Eve is menaced, and I was sent out of the way lest I
should be here to protect her.’
Barbara gave a little contemptuous gasp.
‘I cannot listen to you any longer,’ she said angrily. ‘Take my
warning. Leave this place. It is no longer safe. I tell you—I, yes, I
have betrayed you.’
‘I will not go,’ said Jasper, ‘I dare not. I have the interest of your
family too near my heart to leave.’
‘You will not go!’ exclaimed Barbara, trembling with anger and scorn.
‘I neither believe you, nor trust you. I’—she set her teeth and said
through them, with her heart in her mouth—’Jasper, I _hate_ you!’