A FAMILY LEGEND
Patricia packed her few belongings that same evening, and next day
took leave of Ma and the children. Mrs. Sellars wept copiously, for
she was sorry to lose the charming girl who made the house so bright.
Also, she could not help lamenting that of all the fortunes offered to
her, Miss Carrol had chosen what seemed to the old actress to be the
meanest. Patricia could have married money and good looks and
position, for all these had been offered to her by various letters,
since her portrait had appeared in the illustrated papers. She could
have been engaged at several music-halls at a lordly salary, getting
twice over in one week what she had elected to receive a year. But the
girl, rejecting wealth and publicity, had chosen obscurity and
comparative poverty. No wonder Mrs. Sellars mourned.
"But I wish you well, my dear," she said, when the cab was waiting at
the door and Patricia was shaking hands and kissing all round. "I hope
you will be very happy, though from what I remember of Beckleigh, it
is one of the dullest places in the world."
"I like dullness," said Miss Carrol, who was weary of argument, "and
I am very thankful to get such a situation at such a good salary.
Good-bye, dear Ma, and keep up your spirits. When I come to town again
I shall see you."
"And write, my dear, write," screamed Mrs. Sellars, as the cab rolled
away.
Patricia nodded a promise and leaned back on the cushions with a sigh
of relief, as the vehicle turned the corner of the curved _cul de
sac_. Her last glimpse of The Home of Art showed her Ma surrounded by
her children standing at the front door, waving farewells and blowing
kisses. Miss Carrol sighed. They were all good and kind and simple.
All the same, she was glad to have left that dreary house, which was
connected in her mind with so woeful a tragedy. The excitement was now
at an end, since the verdict of the jury had been given, and it was
probable that in a few days the whole affair would be forgotten, for
there seemed to be no chance that interest would be re-awakened by the
capture of the assassin. That evil creature had stolen into the house
out of the mist to kill his victim, and had then departed again into
the darkness. And now Patricia herself was departing from the scene of
the crime, and it seemed to her as though this horrible chapter in her
life was closed for ever. "Thank God for that!" said the girl, putting
her thoughts into speech.
At Paddington Station she found Squire Colpster waiting for her. The
body of his late housekeeper, he informed her, had already gone on to
Devonshire by the early morning train. Patricia was glad of this, as
if the corpse had been in the train she was to travel in, she would
have felt as though she were taking a portion of the disagreeable past
with her into what she hoped would prove a very bright future. She
strove to banish all the unpleasant memories of the past week, and
presented a very smiling face to Mr. Colpster when he placed her in a
first-class compartment. With a look of approval he commented on her
cheerfulness when the train started.
"I am glad to see that your late troubles will not have a lasting
effect on you," he said, placing a pile of magazines and illustrated
papers beside her. "You look better than when I saw you last."
"It is because I am leaving all this unpleasantness behind," replied
Patricia, with a little shiver. "And I am so thankful that you have
taken me away from The Home of Art. I could not have remained there;
it would have always been haunted to my fancy by the ghost of poor
Mrs. Pentreddle. Yet if you had not offered me a home, Mr. Colpster, I
don't know where I should have gone. In self-defence I might have had
to accept the offer of that horrid music-hall manager. Beggars can't
be choosers."
"You will never be a beggar again," said the Squire, with a kindly
look on his clean-shaven face. "What would Colonel Carrol say if I
allowed his only child to want?"
Patricia bent forward with sudden vivacity. "Did you know my father?"
"Yes. I knew him many years ago, and for this reason, amongst others,
did I ask you to be my daughter's companion."
"I wondered why you made such an offer, when you knew nothing about
me," said Miss Carrol thoughtfully.
"Oh, I know a great deal about you from Mrs. Sellars, who is your
great admirer," said Mr. Colpster easily. "And then you have the very
look of your father at times. I am asking you to Beckleigh, not so
much as a companion to my daughter, as that you may become one to
myself. You must look upon me as a relative, my dear girl."
"How good you are!" cried Patricia, taking his lean hand and stroking
it softly. The two had the compartment to themselves, so she was able
to give vent to her feelings in this way. "How can I thank you?"
"By rousing Mara from her dreamy state," said he quickly. "I want to
see her more practical and take more interest in life. As it is, she
always seems to be in the clouds."
"Has she ever had a companion of her own age?"
"No. All her young life she had been with older people. Certainly my
nephew Theodore has been with her a great deal; but, like myself, he
is inclined to study and so is much alone. Basil, who is in the Navy,
is nearly always absent with his ship. Beckleigh Hall is isolated
too," added Mr. Colpster thoughtfully; "so I daresay Mara's sadness
and dreamy ways are due to her surroundings. All the servants are more
or less old, and we live a very, very quiet life."
Patricia nodded, and quite comprehended. "I don't wonder that Mara is
sad," she said bluntly. "How old is she?"
"Eighteen!"
"And you have kept her more or less surrounded by elderly people all
these years," cried Patricia reproachfully. "No wonder she is sad, as
I said before. I am glad I am coming to cheer her up. Has she been to
school?"
"No. She has always been delicate, and I did not think it wise that
she should leave home. Until last year she had a governess."
"Also elderly?"
"Yes. Miss Tibbets was nearly fifty," replied Colpster, with a smile.
"Oh, poor Mara! But does not your nephew try to brighten her life?"
The Squire's face grew dark, and his heavy grey eyebrows drew down
over his keen eyes. "She does not like Theodore," he said at length,
and he seemed to weigh his words. "Yet he wishes to marry her."
"He loves her?"
"So far as a cold-hearted being such as Theodore is can love, I
believe he does love Mara. But he is much taken up with literary work,
and studies for hours all alone in his own room. Basil is quite
different, being gay and light-hearted."
"Does Mara love Mr. Basil?"
"In a sisterly way she does. The two boys and Mara have been brought
up together, although Theodore and Basil are much older. I don't think
Mara is earthly enough to love anyone. She always seems to live in a
land of dreams, and looks more like a shadow than a flesh-and-blood
girl."
Patricia nodded absently. She felt a strong desire in her heart to
see this strange girl with her fancies and unearthly nature.
Surrounded almost constantly by elderly people and secluded in an old
country-house hidden away in a lonely corner of Devonshire, it was
scarcely to be wondered at that the girl with the weird name should be
unlike those of her own age.
"And Mara means 'bitter,' doesn't it?" asked Miss Carrol, following
her idle thoughts.
Mr. Colpster bowed his head. "Yes. Her mother died in child-birth when
Mara was born, and so I gave her the name. As the sole child of my
house in the direct line, she also deserves it, for we have fallen on
evil days."
"What do you mean?" asked Patricia, wondering at the strange subdued
excitement of the old man, for his face was red, his eyes sparkled,
and his deep voice shook with emotion.
"What I mean will take some time to tell," he said, after a pause. "It
is because I had to tell you something and to question you that I
engaged this compartment. We are undisturbed here, and we have some
hours to ourselves before we arrive at Hendle, which is the nearest
station to Beckleigh." He fixed his fiery eyes on her startled face.
"Are you prepared to believe a strange story, Miss Carrol?"
"Yes," replied Patricia boldly. "I have experienced such strange
things myself lately that I am prepared to believe anything."
"Good. I shall tax your credulity to the uttermost. It is strange, as
you will admit, that the daughter of my old friend should be brought
into my life to help the Colpster family to regain what has been
lost."
Patricia echoed his words in a puzzled manner: "What has been lost?"
"The emerald snatched from you in the Park is lost, is it not?"
The girl started forward in her seat, almost too amazed to speak. That
the Squire should refer to the incident on the night of the murder was
the very last thing she expected. "What do you mean?" she asked again.
He replied irrelevantly, as it seemed: "Let me tell you a story, Miss
Carrol. I can trace my family back to Amyas Colpster, who lived in the
reign of Henry the Seventh. Who his father was, or where he came from,
there is nothing to show. He was what would be nowadays called an
adventurer, and in that capacity he went to the New World."
"Was the New World discovered then?" asked Patricia, wondering what
all this was to lead to.
"Yes. Columbus discovered America in Henry's reign, and, indeed, the
King might have fitted out the expedition had not Ferdinand and
Isabella done so earlier. But I do not refer so much to Columbus as to
those who followed him. It was in the early part of Henry VIII.'s
reign that Cortes conquered Mexico, and it was about 1532 that Pizarro
took possession of Peru."
"But what has all this to do with the emerald stolen from me in----"
"You shall hear," interrupted Mr. Colpster, rather impatiently.
"Amyas, my ancestor, went to Mexico, but had no success there.
Afterwards he went to Peru and there accumulated a fortune, with which
he returned to England. He bought Beckleigh and a great deal of land,
and so built up our family. When in Peru he saved an Inca princess
from death, and out of gratitude she gave him a large emerald."
Patricia uttered an exclamation. "Yes, the same emerald that was
stolen from you on the night of the murder. It formerly belonged to
the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, and passed, in the way I have related,
into the possession of Amyas Colpster. Being a sacred stone, it was
reported to have some strange influence, which brought luck to its
possessor, and Amyas believed this, as while it remained in his
possession and in the possession of the son who succeeded him,
everything went well. The family increased in wealth and in favour
with the reigning monarch. It remained for Bevis Colpster, towards the
end of Elizabeth's reign, to throw away the luck which had been
bestowed on his grandfather by the Inca princess."
"Do you mean that he gave away the emerald?"
"Yes. To gain a knighthood, he presented it to the Queen. From that
time the fortunes of our family have decreased gradually, and now I
have only about fifty acres of land, the old Hall, and one thousand a
year well invested."
"That doesn't seem to be absolute pauperism," said Patricia, with a
smile.
"It is poverty compared to what our family once possessed," said the
old Squire petulantly. "Once we had wide lands and much money, and
great influence in worldly affairs. All these things Bevis Colpster
threw away for a knighthood which did him no good, for a title which
did not even descend to his children. And our fortunes have dwindled
since then, until we have only what I mention. But unless the emerald
is recovered, what we now possess will also leave us, and our family
will die out. Even as it is," he ended bitterly, "I have no son to
succeed me."
Patricia wondered at what she took to be superstition in so clever a
man, but saw that he could not be argued out of his fancies. She
therefore pretended to accept his beliefs as true, and asked a
question. "What became of the emerald?" she inquired eagerly, for the
family legend interested her.
Colpster roused himself and his sunken eyes flashed keenly. "When Will
Adams went to Japan, in 1597, as a pilot of Jacques Mahay's fleet, the
Queen gave him the emerald to present to some potentate in the East."
"To the Emperor of Japan?"
"No. Because the fleet which sailed from Amsterdam did not intend to
go to Japan. I was wrong in saying so. It was going to the Indies.
Akbar was reigning then, and the emerald was for him. But Adams was
wrecked on the coast of Japan, and when he became a favourite with the
Shogun Ieyasu, he presented him with the great jewel. Ieyasu gave it
to the Mikado Go Yojo, and he presented it--or one of his successors
did--to the Shinto Temple of Kitzuki. There it remained for hundreds
of years."
"But how did it come to be in the deal box? And what had Mrs.
Pentreddle to do with it? And why was it snatched from me in----"
Mr. Colpster threw up his slender hand. "One question at a time,
please," he said, with a faint smile. "I can't exactly say. You can
form your own conclusions from what I tell you."
He paused, as though collecting his thoughts, and Patricia did not
interrupt him again. She also was thinking and recalling that strange
jewel which was set in the centre of the regular circle of stiff
petals. Knowing that the chrysanthemum was the royal badge of Japan,
she felt certain that the whole jewel was meant to represent the same.
It was at this point of her meditations that Mr. Colpster began to
speak again.
"As I told you," he continued, "I was anxious that we should recover
the emerald, so that our family luck should return. I therefore read
many books of travel, and spoke to many Japanese about the stone. In a
strange way, which I shall tell you some day, I learned that the jewel
was at the Temple of Kitzuki, in the province of Izumo. It was
regarded as very sacred, and how to regain it again I could not tell."
He paused once more, and then went on quietly: "As you know, I have no
son of my name to carry on the line. But my only sister, whose husband
was already dead, died also and left me her two sons to look after. I
brought them up with my daughter. Basil went into the Navy and
Theodore remained at home to look after the estate."
"Then is Mr. Theodore your heir?" asked Patricia swiftly.
"At one time I intended him to be, as I desired to marry him to Mara.
He could then, as I decided, take the name of Colpster, and when I was
gone, carry on the family in the female line. But while the emerald
was lost I thought that the luck would not return to the Colpsters. I
therefore told what I have told you to my nephews, and said that the
one who brought back the Mikado Jewel--as I called it--should be my
heir."
"What did they say?"
"Theodore scoffed at the idea, and said that he did not want my money.
He declined to go to Japan and run any risk of getting the jewel,
either by stealing or purchase."
"But surely you did not wish him to steal it?"
"Oh, no," said Mr. Colpster, so hurriedly that Patricia felt sure he
had once intended to get the jewel fraudulently, if not honestly; "but
I thought that the emerald might be brought back. Will Adams had no
right to give it to the Shogun, as it was intended by Queen Elizabeth
to cement her friendship with Akbar. We--the family, I mean--would be
quite justified in taking it by force. But that was not to be thought
of. I therefore gave Basil a sum of money, which I obtained by
mortgaging all my property, and told him, when his ship touched at
Nagasaki, to try and buy it. I am expecting his ship, H.M.S. _Walrus_,
back in a fortnight."
"But the emerald is in London."
"Exactly, and it was brought to be given to Martha Pentreddle. That is
what puzzles me. What do you think, Miss Carrol?"
"I hardly know what to think," said the girl, in a puzzled voice; then
added, after a few moments of thought: "Perhaps it isn't the Colpster
emerald after all."
"Yes, it is," asserted the Squire positively. "When I read your
description of the jewel I was certain that it was the same stone. It
was made into a sacred jewel by the Shinto priests of the Temple. They
surrounded it with the petals of a chrysanthemum flower carved out of
green jade."
"Jade!" Patricia recollected the stiff petals. "Oh, is that the kind
of stone?"
"Ah!" said Colpster eagerly and with an air of triumph. "You see, you
remember the Mikado Jewel. Yes, the emerald in the centre is the same
which Amyas Colpster got from the Inca princess and which Bevis parted
with to Elizabeth for a knighthood."
"But can you be certain?" persisted Patricia, bewildered by the
strangeness of what she took to be a coincidence. "The emerald and the
jade chrysanthemum may be still at Kitzuki, in the province of Izumo."
The Squire shook his head sadly. "No. Basil wrote me some time ago,
saying that he had gone to Kitzuki to make an offer to buy back the
emerald, but he learned that it had been stolen."
"Stolen! Who could have stolen it?"
"That is what I wish to find out. But it has been stolen, and now it
appears in London, and was placed in your hands only to be taken away
again by----" He paused and looked at the girl.
"I don't know who gave it into my hands, or who snatched it," she
said, in a regretful tone. "You know all that I know."
"Didn't Martha tell you anything?" he asked eagerly.
"Not a word. She said that when I came back with the deal box she
would explain. You know what happened before I reached home."
Colpster nodded. "She was murdered. Who could have murdered her?
Unless----"
"Unless what?" asked Patricia, quickly.
"Have you read Wilkie Collins' story of _The Moonstone?_"
"Yes, many years ago."
"Well, as you know, it is about a sacred diamond taken from the eye of
an idol, and is recovered after various adventures by the priests of
the god."
"But what has that to do with----?"
"One moment, Miss Carrol. This emerald also has become a sacred stone;
it also has been stolen. What is more likely but that some Shinto
priest murdered Martha and another priest should snatch it from your
hands?"
"But why should the emerald come to Mrs. Pentreddle at all?"
"That is what I wish to know," said the Squire, feverishly and
clenching his hands. "And that," he added, bending forward, "is what
you and I must find out. We must learn who murdered Martha and recover
our family luck."
"I don't see how it is to be done," sighed Patricia.
"It must be done; it has to be done," and Colpster smote his knee
hard.
"I'll try," said the girl and extended her hand. The Squire shook it
warmly.