THE WHOLE.
A MOMENT later, only a moment later, and a moment too late, Mr. Jordan
reached the platform, having beaten the branches aside, regardless of
the leaves that lashed his face and the brambles that tore his hands.
Then, when he saw that he was too late, he uttered a cry of despair. He
flung his gun from him, and it went over the edge and fell where it was
never found again. Then he raised his arms over his head and clasped
them, and brought them down on his hair—he wore no hat; and at the
same time his knees gave way, and he fell fainting on his face, with
his arms extended: the wound in his side had reopened, and the blood
burst forth and ran in a red rill towards the fire.
A few minutes later Jasper came up. Watt was at the gate with the
horse. They had heard the shot, and Jasper had run on. He was followed
quickly by Walter, who had fastened up the horse, unable to endure the
suspense.
‘Mr. Jordan is shot,’ gasped Jasper, ‘Martin has shot him. Help me. I
must staunch the wound.’
‘Not I,’ answered the boy; ‘I care nothing for him. I must find Martin.
Where is he? Gone to the hut? There is no time to be lost. I must find
him—that cursed bell is ringing.’
Without another thought for the prostrate man, Walter plunged into the
coppice, and ran down the steep slope towards the woodcutter’s hovel.
It did not occur to Jasper that the shot he had heard proceeded from
the squire’s gun. He knew that Martin was armed. He supposed that he
had seen the old man emerge from the wood, and, supposing him to be one
of his pursuers, had fired at him and made his escape. He knew nothing
of Eve’s visit to the Raven Rock and interview with his brother.
He turned the insensible man over on his back and discovered, to his
relief, that he was not dead. He tore open his shirt and found that he
was unwounded by any bullet, but that the old self-inflicted wound in
his side had opened and was bleeding freely. He knew how to deal with
this. He took the old man’s shirt and tore it to form a bandage, and
passed it round him and stopped temporarily the ebbing tide. He heard
Walter calling Martin in the wood. It was clear that he had not found
his brother in the hut. Now Jasper understood why the alarm-bell was
ringing. Barbara had discovered that her father had left the house,
and, in fear for the consequences, was summoning the workmen from their
cottages to assist in finding him.
Watt reappeared in great agitation, and, without casting a look at the
insensible man, said, ‘He is not there, he may be back in the mine.
He may have unlocked the boathouse and be rowing over the Tamar, or
down—no—the tide is out, he cannot get down.’ Then away he went again
into the wood.
Mr. Jordan lay long insensible. He had lost much blood. Jasper knelt by
him. All was now still. The bell was no longer pealing. No step could
be heard. The bats flitted about the rock; the fire-embers snapped. The
wind sighed and piped among the trees. The fire had communicated itself
to some dry grass, and a tuft flamed up, then a little spluttering
flame crept along from grass haulm and twig to a tuft of heather,
which it kindled, and which flared up. Jasper, kneeling by Mr. Jordan,
watched the progress of the fire without paying it much attention. In
moments of anxiety trifles catch the eye. He dare not leave the old
man. He waited till those who had been summoned by the bell came that
way.
Presently Ignatius Jordan opened his eyes. ‘Eve!’ he said, and his dim
eyes searched the feebly-illuminated platform. Then he laid his head
back again on the moss and was unconscious or lost in dream—Jasper
could not decide which. Jasper went to the fire and threw on some wood
and collected more. The stronger the flame the more likely to attract
the notice of the searchers. He trod out the fire where it stole,
snakelike, along the withered grass that sprouted out of the cracks
in the surface of the rock. He went to the edge of the precipice, and
listened in hopes of hearing something, he hardly knew what—a sound
that might tell him Walter had found his brother. He heard nothing—no
dip of oars, no rattle of a chain, from the depths and darkness below.
He returned to Mr. Jordan, and saw that he was conscious and recognised
him. The old man signed to him to draw near.
‘The end is at hand. The blood has nearly all run out. Both are
smitten—both the guilty and the guiltless.’
Jasper supposed he was wandering in his mind.
‘I will tell you all,’ said the old man. ‘You are her brother, and
ought to know.’
‘You are speaking of my lost sister Eve!’ said Jasper eagerly. Not a
suspicion crossed his mind that anything had happened to the girl.
‘I shall soon rejoin her, and the other as well. I would not speak
before because of my child. I could not bear that she should look with
horror on her father. Now it matters not. She has followed her mother.
The need for silence is taken away. Wait! I must gather my strength, I
cannot speak for long.’
Then from the depths of darkness below the rock, came the hoot of
an owl. Jasper knew that it was Watt’s signal to Martin—that he was
searching for him still. No answering hoot came.
‘You went to Plymouth. You saw the manager who had known my Eve. What
did he say?’
‘He told me very little.’
‘Did he tell you where she was?’
‘No. He saw her for the last time on this rock. He had been sent here
by her father, who was unable to keep his appointment.’
‘Go on.’
‘That is all. She refused to desert you and her child. It is false that
she ran away with an actor.’
‘Who said she had? Not I—not I. Her own father, her own father—not I.’
‘Then what became of her? Mr. Barret told me he had been to see her
here at Morwell once or twice whilst the company was at Tavistock, and
found her happy. After that my father came and tried to induce her to
return to Buckfastleigh with him.’
Mr. Jordan put out his white thin hand and laid it on Jasper’s wrist.
‘You need say no more. The end is come, and I will tell you all. I
knew that one of the actors came out and saw her—not once only, but
twice—and then her father came, and she met him in secret, here in
the wood, on this rock. I did not know that he whom she met was her
father. I supposed she was still meeting the actor privately. I was
jealous. I loved Eve. Oh, my God! my God!’—he put his hands against his
temples—’when have I ceased to love her?’
He did not speak for some moments. Again from the depths, but more
distant, came the to-whoo of the owl. Mr. Jordan removed his hands from
his brow and laid them flat at his side on the rock.
‘I was but a country gentleman, with humble pursuits—a silent man, who
did not care for society—and I knew that I could not compare with the
witty attractive men of the world. I knew that Morwell was a solitary
place, and that there were few neighbours. I believed that Eve was
unhappy here: I thought she was pining to go back to the merry life
she had led with the players. I thought she was weary of me, and I was
jealous—jealous and suspicious. I watched her, and when I found that
she was meeting someone in secret here on this rock, and that she tried
to hide from me especially that she was doing this, then I went mad—mad
with disappointed love, mad with jealousy. I knew she intended to run
away from me.’ He made a sign with his hand that he could say no more.
Jasper was greatly moved. At length the mystery was being revealed.
The signs of insanity in the old man had disappeared. He spoke with
emotion, as was natural, but not irrationally. The fact of being
able to tell what had long been consuming his mind relieved it, and
perhaps the blood he had lost reduced the fever which had produced
hallucination.
Jasper said in as quiet a voice as he could command, ‘My sister loved
you and her child, and had no mind to leave you. She was grateful to
you for your kindness to her. Unfortunately her early life was not a
happy one. My father treated her with harshness and lack of sympathy.
He drove her, by his treatment, from home. Now, Mr. Jordan, I can well
believe that in a fit of jealousy and unreasoning passion you drove my
poor sister away from Morwell—you were not legally married, and could
do so. God forgive you! She did not desert you: you expelled her. Now I
desire to know what became of her. Whither did she go? If she be still
alive, I must find her.’
‘She is not alive,’ said Mr. Jordan.
Then a great horror came over Jasper, and he shrank away. ‘You did not
drive her in a fit of desperation to—to self-destruction?’
Mr. Jordan’s earnest eyes were fixed on the dark night sky. He
muttered—the words were hardly audible—_Si iniquitates observaveris,
Domine: Domine, quis sustinebit?_
Jasper did not catch what he said, and thinking it was something
addressed to him, he stooped over Mr. Jordan and said, ‘What became of
her? How did she die? Where is she buried?’
The old man raised himself on one arm and tried to sit up, and looked
at Jasper with quivering lips; then held his arm over the rock as,
pointing to the abyss, ‘Here!’ he whispered, and fell back on the moss.
Jasper saw that he had again become unconscious. He feared lest life—or
reason—should desert him before he had told the whole story.
It was some time before the squire was able to speak. When
consciousness returned he bent his face to Jasper, and there was not
that flicker and wildness in his eyes which Jasper had observed at
other times, and which had made him uneasy. Mr. Jordan looked intently
and steadily at Jasper.
‘She did not run away from me. I did not drive her from my house as
you think. It can avail nothing to conceal the truth longer. I did not
wish that Eve, my child, should know it; but now—it matters no more.
My fears are over. I have nothing more to disturb me. I care for no
one else. I saw my wife on this rock meet the actor, I watched them.
They did not know that I was spying. I could not hear much of what they
said; I caught only snatches of sentences and stray words. I thought he
was urging her to go with him.’
‘No,’ interrupted Jasper, ‘it was not so. He advised her not to return
with her father, but to remain with you.’
‘Was it so? I was fevered with love and jealousy. I heard his last
words—she was to be there on the morrow, Midsummer Day, and then to
give the final decision. If I had had my gun I would have shot him
there, but I was unarmed. All that night I was restless. I could not
sleep; I was as one in a death agony. I thought that Eve was going to
desert me for another. And when on the morrow, Midsummer Day, she went
at the appointed hour to the Raven Rock, I followed her. She had taken
her child—she had made up her mind—she was going. Then I took down my
gun and loaded it.’
Jasper’s heart stood still. Now for the first time he began to see and
fear what was coming. This was worse than he had anticipated.
‘I crept along behind a hedge, till I reached the wood. Then I stole
through the gate under the trees. I came beneath the great Scotch
pine’—he pointed in the direction. ‘She had her child with her. She
had made up her mind—so I thought—to leave me, and take with her the
babe. That she could not leave. Now I see she took it only that she
might show the little thing to her father. I watched her on the rock.
She kissed the babe and soothed it, and fondled it, and sang to it. She
had a sweet voice. I was watching—there—and I had my gun in my hands.
The man was not come. I saw rise up before me the life my Eve would
lead; I saw how she would sink, how the man would desert her, and she
would fall lower; and my child, what would become of my child? Then she
turned and looked in my direction. She was listening for the step of
her lover. She stooped, and laid the child on the moss, where I lie
now. I suppose it opened its eyes, and she began to sing and dance to
it, snapping her fingers as though playing castanets. My heart flared
within me, my hand shook, and God knows how it was—I do not. I cannot
say how it came about, but in one moment the gun was discharged and she
fell. I did not mean to kill her when I loaded it, but I did mean to
kill the man, the seducer. But whether I did it purposely then, or my
finger acted without my will, I cannot say. All is dark to me when I
look back—dark as is the darkness over the edge of this rock.’
Jasper could not speak. He stood and looked with horror on the wounded,
wretched man.
‘I buried her,’ said Mr. Jordan, ‘in the old copper-mine—long deserted,
and only known to me—and there she lies. That is the whole.’
Then he covered his eyes and said no more.