SIR JASPER was always the best of masters to me and to all of us;
and he had that kind of way with him, masterful and gentle at the
same time, like as if he was kind to you for his own pleasure, and
ordering you about for your own good, that I believe any of us would
have cut our hand off at the wrist if he had told us to.
Lady Breynton had been dead this many a year. She hadn't come to her
husband with her hands empty. They say that Sir Jasper had been very
wild in his youth, and that my Lady's money had come in very handy
to pull the old place together again. She worshipped the ground Sir
Jasper walked on, as most women did that he ever said a kind word
to. But it never seemed to me that he took to her as much as you
might have expected a warm-hearted gentleman like him to do. But he
took to her baby wonderful. I was nurse to that baby from the first,
and a fine handsome little chap he was, and when my Lady died he was
wholly given over to my care. And I loved the child; indeed, I did
love him, and should have loved him to the end but for one thing,
and that comes in its own place in my story. But even those who
loved young Jasper best couldn't help seeing he hadn't his father's
winning ways. And when he grew up to man's estate, he was as wild as
his father had been before him. But his wild ways were the ways that
make young men enemies, not friends, and out of all that came to the
house, for the hunting, or the shooting, or what not, I used to
think there wasn't one would have held out a hand to my young master
if he had been in want of it. And yet I loved him because I had
brought him up, and I never had a child of my own. I never wished to
be married, but I used to wish that little Jasper had been my own
child. I could have had an authority over him then that I hadn't as
his nurse, and perhaps it might have all turned out differently.
There were many tales about Sir Jasper, but I didn't think it was my
place to listen to them.
Only, when it's your own eyes, it's different, and I couldn't help
seeing how like young Robert, the under-gamekeeper, was to the
Family. He had their black, curly hair, and merry Irish eyes, and
he, if you please, had just Sir Jasper's winning ways.
Why he was taken on as gamekeeper no one could make out, for when he
first came up to the Hall to ask the master for a job, they tell me
he knew no more of gamekeeping than I do of Latin. Young Robert was
a steady chap, and used to read and write of an evening instead of
spending a jolly hour or two at the Dove and Branch, as most young
fellows do, and as, indeed, my young master did too often. And Sir
Jasper, he gave him books without end and good advice, and would
have him so often about him he set everybody's tongue wagging to a
tune more merry than wise. And young Robert loved the master, of
course. Who didn't?
Well, there came a day when the Lord above saw fit to put out the
sunshine like as if it had been a bedroom candle; for Sir Jasper, he
was brought back from the hunting-field with his back broke.
I always take a pleasure in remembering that I was with him to the
last, and did everything that could be done for him with my own
hands. He lingered two days, and then he died.
It was the hour before the dawn, when there is always a wind, no
matter how still the night, a chilly wind that seems to find out the
marrow of your bones, and if you are nursing sick folk, you bank up
the fire high and watch them extra careful till the sun gets up.
Sir Jasper opened his eyes and looked at me--oh! so kindly. It
brings tears into my eyes when I think of it. 'Nelly,' he says, 'I
know I can trust you.'
And I said, 'Yes, sir.' And so he could, whatever it might have
been. What happened afterwards wasn't my fault, and couldn't have
been guarded against.
'Then go,' he said, 'to my old secretaire and open it.'
And I did. There was rows of pigeon-holes inside, and little drawers
with brass knobs.
'You take hold of the third knob from the right, Nelly,' said he.
'Don't pull it; give it a twist round.' I did, and lo and behold! a
little drawer jumped out at me from quite another part of the
secretaire.
'You see what's in it, Nelly?' says he.
It was a green leather case tied round with a bit of faded ribbon.
'Now, what I want you to do,' he says, 'is to lay that beside me
when it's all over. I have always had my doubts about the dead
sleeping so quiet as some folks say. But I think I shall sleep if
you lay that beside me, for I am very tired, Nelly,' he said, 'very
tired.'
Then I went back to his bed, where he lay looking quite calm and
comfortable.
'The end has come very suddenly,' says he; 'but it is best this
way.'
Then we was both quiet a bit.
'I may be wrong,' he went on presently, his face quite straight, but
a laugh in his blue eye. 'I may be wrong, Nelly, but I think you
would like to kiss me before I die--I know well enough you'll do it
after.'
And when he said that, I was glad I had never kissed another man.
And soon after that, it being the coldest hour of all the night, he
moved his head on his pillow and said--
'I'm off now, Nelly, but you needn't wake the doctors. It's very
dark outside. Hand me out, my girl, hand me out.' So I gave him my
hand, and he died holding it. Whether I grieved much or little over
my old master is no one's business but my own. I went about the
house, and I did my duty--ever since Master Jasper had been grown up
I had been housekeeper. I did my duty, I say, and before the coffin
lid was screwed down I laid that green leather case under the shroud
by my master's side; and just as I had done it I turned round
feeling that some one was in the room, and there stood young Master
Jasper at the door looking at me.
'All's ready now,' I said to the undertaker's men, and called them
in, and young Master Jasper, he followed me along the passage. 'What
were you doing?'
'I was putting something in the master's coffin he told me to put
there.'
'What was it?' he asked, very sharp and sudden.
'How should I know?' says I. 'It's in a case. It may be some old
letter or a lock of hair as belonged to your mother.'
'Come into my room,' he said, and I followed him in. He looked very
pale and anxious, and when he'd shut the door he spoke--
'Look here, Nelly, I'm going to trust you. My father was very angry
with me about some little follies of mine, and he told me the other
night he had left a good slice of the estate away from me. Do you
think that packet you put in the coffin had anything to do with it?'
'Good Lord, bless your soul, sir, no,' I said. 'That was no will or
lawyer's letters, it was but some little token of remembrance he set
store by.'
'Thanks, Nelly, that was all I wanted to know.'
No one ever knows who tells these things, but it had leaked out
somehow that that slice of the estate was to belong to young Robert
the gamekeeper, and you may be sure the tongues went wagging above a
bit. But it seemed to me, if it was so, my master was right to make
a proper provision for Robert as well as for Jasper. However, nobody
could be sure of anything until after the funeral.
The doctor was staying in the house, and master's younger brother,
besides the lawyer and young Master Jasper; so I had many things to
see to, and ought to have been tired enough to get to sleep easy the
night before he was buried. But somehow I couldn't sleep. I couldn't
help thinking of my master as I had known him all these years. Him
being always so gentle and so kind, and so light-hearted, it didn't
seem likely he could have had young Robert on his conscience all the
time; and yet what was I to think? And then my poor Jasper--I say
'poor,' but I never loved and pitied him less than I did that night.
He had lost such a father, and he could go troubling about whether
he had got the whole estate or not. So I lay awake, and I thought of
the coffin lying between its burning tapers in the great bedroom,
and I wished they had not screwed him down, for then I could have
gone, late as it was, and had another look at my master's face. And
as I lay it seemed to me that I heard a door opened, and then a
step, and then a key turned. Now, the master never locked his door,
so the key of that room turned rusty in the lock, and before I had
time to think more than that I was out of bed and in my
dressing-gown, creeping along the passage. Sure enough, my master's
door was open, as I saw by the streak of light across the corridor.
I walked softly on my bare feet, and no one could have heard me go
along the thick carpet. When I got to the door, I saw that what I
had been trying not to think of was really true. Master Jasper was
there taking the screws out of his father's coffin to see what was
in that green leather case.
I stood there and looked. I could not have moved, not for the
Queen's crown, if it had been offered me then and there. One after
another he took the screws out and laid them on the little bedside
table, where the master used to keep his pistols of a night. When
all the screws was out he lifted the lid in both his arms and set it
on the bed, where it lay looking like another coffin. Then he began
to search for what I had put in beside his father.
Now, I may be a heartless woman, and I suppose I am, or how account
for it? But when I saw my young master go to his father's coffin
like that, and begin to serve his own interest and his own
curiosity, every spark of love I had ever had for the boy died out,
and I cared no more for him than if he had been the first comer.
If he had kissed his father, or so much as looked kindly at the dead
face in the coffin, it would have been different. But he hadn't a
look or a thought to spare for him as gave him life, and had
humoured and spoiled and petted and made much of him all his twenty
years. Not a thought for his father; all his thoughts was to find
out what his father hadn't wished him to know.
Now I was feeling set that Master Jasper should never know what was
in that green leather case, and I cared no more for what he thought
or what he felt than I should have done if he had been a common
thief as, God forgive me, he was in my eyes at that hour. So I crept
behind him softly, softly, an inch at a time, till I got to where I
could see the coffin; and if you'll believe a foolish old woman, I
kept looking at that dead face till I nigh forgot what I was there
for. And while I was standing mazed like and stupid, young Master
Jasper had got out the green case, and was turning over what was in
it in his hands.
I got him by the two elbows behind, and he started like a horse that
has never felt even the whip will do at the spur's touch. Almost at
the same time my heart came leaping into my mouth, and if ever a
woman nearly died of fright, I was that woman, for some one behind
me put a hand on my shoulder and said, 'What's all this?'
Young Sir Jasper and I both turned sharp. It was the doctor. His
ears were as quick as mine, and he had heard the key too, I suppose.
Anyhow, there he was, and he picked up the papers young Sir Jasper
had let fall, and says he, 'I will deal with these, young gentleman.
Go you to your room.' And Sir Jasper, like a kicked hound, went.
Then I began to tell my share in that night's work. But the doctor
stopped me, for he had seen me and watched me all along. Then he
stood by the coffin, and went through what was in the little leather
case.
'I must keep these now,' he said, 'but you shall keep your promise
and put them beside him before he is buried.'
And the next day, before the funeral, I went alone and saw my master
again, and gave him his little case back, and I thought I should
have liked him to know that I had done my best for him, but he could
not have known that without knowing of what young Sir Jasper had
done, and that would have broken his heart; so when all's said and
done, perhaps it's as well the dead know nothing.
And after the funeral we was all in the library to hear the will
read, and the lawyer he read out that the personal property went to
Robert the gamekeeper, and the entailed property would of course be
young Sir Jasper's.
And young Sir Jasper, oh that ever I should have called him my
boy!--he rose up in his place and said that his father was a doting
old fool and out of his mind, and he would have the law of them,
anyhow, and my late dear master not yet turned of fifty! And then
the doctor got up and he said--
'Stop a bit, young man; I have a word or two to say here.'
And he up and told before all the folks there straight out what had
passed last night, and how young Sir Jasper had willed to rob his
father's coffin.
'Now, you'll want to know what was in the little green leather
case,' he says at the end. 'And it was this,--a lock of hair and a
wedding ring, and a marriage certificate, and a baptism certificate;
and you, Jasper, are but the son by a second marriage; and Sir
Robert, I congratulate you, for you are come to your own.'
'Do I get nothing, then?' shrieked young Sir Jasper, trembling like
a woman, and with the devil looking out of his eyes.
'Your father intended you to have the entailed estates, right or
wrong; that was his choice. But you chose to know what he wished to
hide from you, and now you know that the entailed estates belong to
your brother.'
'But the personalty?'
'You forget,' said the doctor, rubbing his hands, with a sour smile,
'that your father provided for that in the will to which you so much
objected.'
'Then, curse his memory and curse you,' cried Jasper, and flung out
of the house; nor have I ever seen him again, though he did set
lawyer folk to work in London to drive Sir Robert out of his own
place. But to no purpose.
And Sir Robert, he lives in the old house, and is loved as his
father was before him by all he says a kind word to, and his kind
words are many.
And to me he is all that I used to wish the boy Jasper might be, and
he has a reason for loving me which Jasper never had.
For he said to me when he first spoke to me after his father's
funeral--
'My mother was a farmer's girl,' he said, 'and your father was a
farmer, so I feel we come, as it were, of one blood; and besides
that, I know who my father's friends were. I never forget those
things.'
I still live on as a housekeeper at the Hall. My master left me no
money, but he bade his heir keep me on in my old place. I am glad to
think that he did not choose to leave me money, but instead the
great picture of himself that hung in the Hall. It hangs in my room
now, and looks down on me as I write.