THE JURA SUCCESSION
Captain Dove, sucking at his black cutty-pipe in the library of
Loquhariot, looked very contemptuously at Mr. Jobling. It was
self-evident that Mr. Jobling was afraid of Slyne and feeling very sorry
for himself.
But Captain Dove was in no such disconsolate mood. Glancing at the
despondent lawyer out of his little red-rimmed eyes, he even grinned,
still more contemptuously. _He_ was not afraid of Slyne, he told
himself, and it made no material difference to him that his recent
attempt to brow-beat that grasping scoundrel had failed, even with the
London lawyer for ally. For Captain Dove did not intend that either of
the other two should eventually get the better of him. He was playing a
waiting game, in which he meant to come out winner at any cost.
So far as Captain Dove was concerned there were only two persons really
concerned in the question of the Jura succession. One was Sallie, the
other himself--her adopted father!
He looked upon Mr. Jobling as a mere mechanical instrument, such as
could be replaced at a moment's notice if that were needful, now that
the legal details of the case had been carried so far toward final
success. Slyne was absolutely superfluous there and had outlived his
usefulness, in so far, at least, as Captain Dove was concerned. More
than that, he was in Captain Dove's way. So, to some extent, was Justin
Carthew, since it seemed that Sallie felt called upon to make a fool of
herself for his benefit; but Captain Dove did not anticipate any great
difficulty in dealing with him. And so was Herries, the factor, who had
so many inconvenient questions to ask--although he need scarcely be
taken into account at present while he was abed and likely to be there
for some time to come.
With all of these, in any case, he felt quite capable of coping--except
with Jasper Slyne, who had threatened, a few moments before and in the
hearing of an attentive witness ... Slyne was undoubtedly dangerous now;
and it must be his first care to free himself for all time from the risk
of Slyne's telling....
"I have it," said Captain Dove, his furrowed forehead suddenly cleared
and his face contorted into a smile at sight of which Mr. Jobling was
seized with a sickly, sinking sensation. "I have it. We must keep quiet
of course, until the _Olive Branch_ turns up, but she shouldn't be very
long now, and then--
"I'll send for Brasse. I warned that fool Slyne to play fair with
me--but he won't. And so--since it's beggar-my-neighbour we're at, _he_
won't be my neighbour for long."
Mr. Jobling rose, coughing irritably. The reek from Captain Dove's foul
pipe was too much for him.
"I'll go and pack now," he announced. "I'd never have come here at all
if I had thought--"
"You leave things here to me, old cock," Captain Dove encouraged him.
"And go and jag your friend Spettigrew along till he gets judgment for
us. That's the most important part of the game at present. Leave things
here to me, and you'll find, when the time comes, that Slyne will have
to take a back seat."
But the stout solicitor did not seem grateful at all for that crumb of
comfort. He merely looked at Captain Dove with equal dislike and
disbelief as he left the room.
He left the castle immediately after lunch, to catch the steamer south,
a little less depressed, perhaps, after a few further words with Captain
Dove, who thought it only politic to inspirit him in his efforts on
Sallie's behalf. And he had not been gone very long before Captain Dove
began to miss him--as a boon-companion, a part which Slyne refused to
play any longer. So that the old man soon began to find the time hang
very heavy on his hands, and his grudge against Slyne always grew.
Under any circumstances, he could not have been happy for long on land.
Nor could he feel altogether safe there, even in the distasteful
disguise he had adopted at Slyne's advice; and for discrediting which he
had been so repeatedly called to account by Slyne. He could scarcely but
repent having sacrificed his undisputed autocracy on the _Olive Branch_
in order to figure as a mere puppet in Slyne's company, as he had
undoubtedly become since he had left his ship. He grew very angry indeed
with Slyne when he thought of that, as he often did during those endless
days of waiting.
It was all Slyne's fault, he assured himself, that he was thus stranded
there; that he had not fifty cents left to bless himself with, since one
expensive evening in Paris; and that, even if he had had such a sum in
his pockets, it might have worn a hole in them before he could spend it,
in such a forsaken spot!
Of what use to him, he inquired of himself, going off at another
tangent, could a huge, ghost-haunted pile like the Castle of Loquhariot
be? Or a great empty barrack like Justicehall?--which reminded him
unpleasantly of the Law Courts in London. How could he ever hope to
spend such an excess of wealth as was soon to be Sallie's, and,
therefore, at his disposal? A perfect nausea of money possessed Captain
Dove at such moments. He would almost have preferred the prospect of
poverty again, if only for the sake of the interest in life the struggle
to live might restore to him.
"Enough is as good as a feast!" said he to himself every now and then
while he gazed, with gloom in his soul, at the cut-crystal decanters on
a salver of solid silver which was never far from his elbow; and, with
that wise saw on his lips, he would continue to drown his contradictory
sorrows as deeply as possible.
But there was luckily room and to spare in the castle for all its
inmates. Slyne and he kept as much as possible out of each other's way,
although they had resumed a spasmodic outward semblance of amity, a
steadfast inward determination to get the better of one another, whether
by fair means or foul. He could scarcely seek Sallie's company now that
she knew his treacherous intentions toward her. The sick man, Herries,
was still in bed, in a sufficiently precarious state. So that he lived
very much alone with his various grievances, since his walks abroad, as
far as the Jura Arms,--where he soon became almost popular among the
occasional profligates of the village,--were not so frequent as they
would probably have been in better weather.
A bitter east wind, bringing always more snow, had blown almost
ceaselessly for the best part of a fortnight before any change came in
the wildest weather that had befallen Loquhariot in long years.
The mountain roads for miles in all directions were quite impassable.
The mail-cart, with its driver and horses, and also the hastily
improvised snow-plough which had attempted their rescue, lay buried deep
below the ever deepening drift into which it had plunged on its last
outward journey. The single telegraph-line that served the locality had
broken down at a dozen points which were quite unapproachable. Stress of
weather had prevented the weekly steamer from making its usual call.
Loquhariot was absolutely cut off from the outer world.
And then, with a wet westerly wind which soon grew into a gale, the snow
on the mountains began to melt and floods made matters still worse,
swelling every unconsidered stream into a destructive torrent, cutting
wide chasms across the precipitous main-road over the Pass, under-mining
its bridges and even washing some of them away bodily. In several of the
more outlying districts sheer famine began to grow imminent. The flocks
and herds of the countryside were in still worse case than the wild deer
which had escaped from their forest sanctuaries before the first of the
snow and had been huddling about the village while it endured.
No word had come through from Mr. Jobling in all that time. And Captain
Dove was almost beyond the end of his outworn patience before, scowling
blackly out of the library window one day when the westerly gale had all
but blown itself out, he caught sight of a shabby, sea-going,
cargo-tramp, flying the Norwegian flag, which seemed to be seeking an
anchorage behind the Small Isles at the mouth of the loch.
It was the _Olive Branch_. He would have known her in the dark, disguise
or no disguise.
"Uh-hum!" he exclaimed, in an ecstasy of relief. "_Now_ I can make
things move a little at last. Now we'll soon see who's who here."
He dashed off a peremptory note to his chief engineer, put that in his
pocket, clapped his smoked spectacles on his nose and his soft felt hat
on his head, and made for the village, where he hoped to find, in the
Jura Arms, a local poacher who would undertake an errand out to the
steamer.
He found his man at the inn, and his credit there enabled him to drive a
speedy bargain. It also helped him to pass the time contentedly enough
till the fishing-boat returned from its wet trip with word for the
public that the strange steamer had put into the loch on account of an
accident in her engine-room which would delay her there for a little,
although she would need no help from the village; and with a hasty
private note from the chief engineer for Captain Dove--to the effect
that Mr. Brasse refused to come ashore.
"Curse him!" snarled Captain Dove as his messenger retired to the bar
again. "I suppose he's afraid of the police--though there isn't a
policeman within thirty miles, and, even if there were, it wouldn't
matter very much." And he sat down to compose another and still more
peremptory note, bidding Brasse obey his lawful commands or take the
consequences of disobedience.
He would have put off to the steamer himself but for the obvious reasons
against that course. And, to induce his messenger to make the trip again
after dark, he had to promise the man twice as much as for the first
run, still outstanding.
When he finally emerged from the inn, in no very pleasant temper, he
caught sight, first, of the weekly steamer already half way up the loch,
inward bound, and then of Sallie at a bend of the road in the distance,
on her way back to the castle from the village. There was some one with
her. It was Carthew.
Captain Dove became still more incensed, and, his mind a good deal
inflamed by his recent potations, set off up the hill in pursuit of
them, breathing noisily, not even pausing to scowl at the children who
scurried indoors as he passed with the skirts of his long black coat
streaming out behind him.
He had heard from Slyne that Herries, the factor, had formally appointed
the young American his deputy until he should be able to undertake his
own duties again. And, in spite of all Slyne and he could say to Sallie,
she had obstinately refused to assist in getting rid of Carthew. He had
heard from Slyne that Carthew was making far too many occasions for
seeing her, and when he had cautioned Sallie on that score she had shown
no disposition at all to take his advice.
"I've warned her often enough," he muttered with steadily rising wrath,
"to quit monkeying with that fellow. And she'll get right out of hand
now, unless I let her see, once and for all, who's going to be master
here. Where would I come in if _he_ managed to get married to her! He's
got to go. That's all there is to it. I can't afford to have him hanging
about here any longer."
The couple in front seemed to be in no hurry, however. He had almost
overtaken them before he paused at a hazel-clump to cut himself a stout
cudgel. By the time he had got that trimmed to his taste, they had
almost reached the castle.
"I'll wait till she's gone in," said Captain Dove to himself. He had
noticed that Carthew was carrying what looked like a woodman's axe. But
that did not daunt him at all in his purpose. He lingered along the edge
of an alder-thicket until at length Sallie shook hands in very friendly
fashion with the young American and went her own way, while Carthew took
to a trail through the woods and made off at a round pace,
notwithstanding his limp, axe on shoulder, whistling blithely.
The path he was following wound in and out among plantations of pine and
great groves of grey, leafless birches, until, at a distance of half a
mile, it found the clear edge of the cliffs overlooking the circular
inlet which forms the head of the loch, and finally faded away at the
marge of a smooth plateau of bare rock enclosed on three sides by a
thick tangle of woodland and rank undergrowth.
Captain Dove stalked him with all precaution, stepping from stone to
stone among the wet snow which was rapidly melting, so that he might
leave no traceable footprints on the soft, spongy soil or damp, dead
leaves. And once, when Carthew halted to light a pipe, the old man, with
murder in his mind, dropped into cover behind a moss-grown boulder at
one side of the path--because that would have been a most unadvisable
spot at which to attack a man armed with an axe. Then, as Carthew moved
on, he once more took up the pursuit, through the clumps of bramble and
bracken between the dark trunks of the firs about him.
Carthew stepped unconcernedly out of the dusk of the woods into the open
space at the end of the path, and stopped there, axe on shoulder, to
look about him. But Captain Dove did not immediately spring upon him as
he had been minded to do, for he had just observed, at a corner of the
convenient plateau, a round hut, stone-built and roofed with heather,
which might or might not be inhabited. Captain Dove wormed his way round
toward it, within the thicket.
The windows of the hut were shuttered and its door pad-locked on the
outside. Captain Dove was delighted. He turned to squint across at
Carthew from behind a bush and judge his distance, but still delayed his
attack.
Carthew seemed to have seen something of interest in the dark wood
behind Captain Dove, and Captain Dove looked round in instant alarm. It
would have been most unpleasant to find that he himself was being spied
upon. There was some one or some thing, a tall white shadow, very dimly
discernible, moving among the gloom.
A sudden and most unusual sensation of panic seized Captain Dove. The
inexplicable shape was flitting soundlessly toward him. He felt thankful
that Carthew was there behind him, alive and well, for company. But when
he rose upright and glanced swiftly over one shoulder the plateau was
empty. Carthew had gone.
The evening was drawing in, and even the pathway by which they had come
there was growing dim as the light slowly failed. Captain Dove made a
blind dash for it across the open space, and so fled headlong, in fear.
He only once looked back, and then he saw the shadow again. It was
following him. And he did not stop running till he reached the
drawbridge of the castle. But there he halted, panting, to swear at
himself for a superstitious old fool, and stare back into the woods with
eyes in which terror was mingled with rage.
"Some stray cow--or maybe a stag!" he declared to himself. "If I had
had a shot-gun handy--or even my revolver--"
But, stare as he would, he could see nothing more of the creature. And
he went in through the postern, still swearing under his breath.
He had never felt quite at his ease in the great main hall of the
castle, which, with its empty suits of mail in all sorts of unexpected
corners, the flags overhead flapping soundlessly in every draught, the
pale faces peering down from their dark frames in the gallery, possessed
an uncanny atmosphere of its own, especially in the dusk.
However, the two big fires blazing on their cavernous hearths at either
side of its wide expanse made it a good deal more homelike, less eerie
than it had seemed when he had first seen it. And he crossed it almost
without concern on his way toward his own quarters in the North Keep.
But by the way some obscure movement among the shadows beyond the nearer
fire brought his heart to his mouth again in an instant, and a hand
slipped mechanically toward the empty hip-pocket beneath the skirt of
his coat. He had halted. He moved on, into the dim recess whence some
one was watching him, and presently emerged again, dragging after him
into the firelight a shock-headed, pasty-faced lad, whose long neck was
writhing in anguish as Captain Dove gave the long ear between his finger
and thumb another fierce tweak.
"What the devil are _you_ doing here!" the old man demanded, peering
into the features of Mr. Jobling's managing clerk.
"Nothing," answered Mullins with legal exactitude. But he quickly became
more discursive under Captain Dove's threatening glance. "Mr. Jobling
brought me here with him," he explained. "We arrived by the steamer an
hour ago, after a most terrible passage. I never saw such--"
Captain Dove silenced him with a scowl. "Where's your master?" he
demanded.
"In there," replied Mullins promptly, pointing to the door of the
gun-room, which opened off the main hall; and Captain Dove, casting him
loose without more words, marched in upon Mr. Jobling and Slyne in
excited conference.
They looked round as the door opened, and the lawyer, seeing who the
unceremonious intruder was, waved a fat hand in gleeful welcome. "We're
safe now," he vociferated. "The Jura succession is settled at last.
Where's Lady Josceline? She'll be Countess of Jura in her own right as
soon as--"
"Not so much of your noise," Captain Dove commanded, and, suddenly,
reopening the door, all but overset himself in accomplishing a hasty
kick, which elicited a loud yelp from without.
"Was that Mullins!" Mr. Jobling exclaimed. "I don't know _what_ I'm to
do with him. He's really becoming a dangerous nuisance. I had to bring
him away from London with me to prevent him--"
"He'll keep clear of keyholes for a while," Captain Dove put in
confidently. "Now let's hear your news."
Mr. Jobling's clouded face cleared again. "You've heard it already," he
said. "I've won our case. The Chancery Court has admitted my proofs. We
are to attend again, all of us, the day after to-morrow if possible,
when Mr. Justice Gaunt will give us decree. And Lady Josceline will be
the Countess of Jura as soon as--"
"When will she get any money?" asked Captain Dove bluntly, and Mr.
Jobling looked pained.
"By Friday, I should think," he stated, "I'll have everything in such
shape that she can draw a cheque for a mill--"
"She'll draw no cheques," Slyne interrupted decisively. "You know very
well that I have her formal authority to attend to all such matters for
her. Whatever small sums she may require _I'll_ procure for her, and any
payments to be made on her behalf _I'll_ make."
He met with perfect tranquillity the glances of his associates. "I'll go
and tell her the news now," he remarked, and left the room.
As soon as the door had closed behind him, the lawyer turned toward
Captain Dove, and, "Well?" he asked eagerly. "Was that your ship I saw
at the mouth of the loch? How are you going to get rid of that
domineering upstart? There isn't much time left to--"
Captain Dove held up a protesting hand, but Mr. Jobling would not be put
down in that manner. He was evidently determined now to stand up for
himself and those hard-earned rights out of which Slyne had undoubtedly
jockeyed him in the most bare-faced, contemptuous manner.
"I really must insist on knowing what you mean to do," he declared
irascibly. "I have far too much at stake to leave anything to chance at
this late moment. Once Mr. Slyne reaches London, it will be too late
to--"
"Hold your row!" ordered Captain Dove, so fiercely that Mr. Jobling
jumped. "And--don't interfere in what doesn't concern you. All you need
to know is that--Slyne will never see London again. Does that satisfy
you?"
"It would--if I could believe it," observed Mr. Jobling, valiantly.
"But--"
"And neither will you, if you worry me," added Captain Dove in a voice
which seemed to affect his neighbour's nerve very adversely. "So help
yourself to another peg and pass the bottle. I can scarcely hear myself
think for your chatter, and I've got a good deal to think about."
Mr. Jobling did his very best to meet the old man's irate glance
resolutely, but his own irresolute, blinking eyes soon fell before the
cold menace in Captain Dove's. He replenished his glass, and having
sulkily shoved the decanter across the table, lay back in his chair.
"You said that she could draw her money on Friday, didn't you?" asked
Captain Dove, and he nodded, with very ill grace.
"And Slyne has her power of attorney to sign any cheques he likes to
write," the old man went on musingly. "But--that doesn't matter. Brasse
will be ashore to-night. And we'll be off to London to-morrow, me an'
you, Jobling, d'ye hear?"
Mr. Jobling could not deny that he heard, and did not seem inclined to
ask any more questions. But Captain Dove had a great many more to ask
him, and when Slyne looked into the room, some time later, he found the
two of them chatting quite amicably. They both fell silent, however, at
sight of him.
"Lady Josceline is entertaining visitors," he announced: "the Duchess of
Dawn--and that unlicked cub Ingoldsby."
"Lord Ingoldsby's her grace's nephew, of course," Mr. Jobling mentioned
reverentially. "And one of the wealthiest peers in England--or anywhere
else. But--how did they get here? Dawn's on the other side of the
mountains, and--"
"They rode across," said Slyne, "to find out who was here. If Dove
hadn't ordered the beacon to be lighted the night we arrived, they'd
never have heard--But maybe, after all, it will help--
"They're going to dine and stay the night, anyhow. It's come on to snow
again.
"There's a great hullabaloo below-stairs," he said in a somewhat
querulous tone as he crossed toward the fireplace and helped himself to
a cigarette from the silver box on the mantel. "One of the gamekeepers
sent in word that he had seen the 'white lady' about in the woods this
afternoon. And now an hysterical housemaid is having fits in the
servants' hall, on the insufficient ground that she had met the same
mysterious personage in one of the passages a little ago. The whole
outfit, in fact, are in the very devil of a fluster."
"How unfortunate!" exclaimed Mr. Jobling, while Captain Dove was still
regarding Slyne with an expression of mingled doubt and dismay. "Nothing
could have been more ill-timed, too--since her grace is going to honour
us with her company. Every one about the place believes implicitly in
that old superstition--and they say, you know, that the head of the
family _has_ died whenever the so-called 'white lady' has made her
appearance."
Slyne laughed, and blew a cloud of smoke from his nostrils.
"Lady Josceline will outlast most of us," he declared with the utmost
nonchalance. "And, in any case, I've dared anyone to breathe a word
about it to her. We don't want our dinner spoiled with any nonsense of
that sort."
Mr. Jobling got up to go, alleging that he was tired after his long
journey and wanted a rest before dinner.
"Of course, it's all nonsense," he agreed, if with no great conviction.
"But it won't be before to-morrow that you'll get the Highlanders here
to believe that."
Slyne laughed again, contemptuously, as the lawyer left the room, and
then turned toward Captain Dove.
"You don't believe in ghosts, do you, Dove?" he demanded, quite well
aware of the old man's weakness in that respect.
"I've seen one or two in my time," answered that superstitious seaman in
a low growl.
"You're luckier than I've ever been, then," said Slyne mockingly. "And I
only believe in what I can see for myself. But, all the same, I'm not
going to take any losing chances. And, you must admit, it would be most
damnably awkward for us if Sallie should, by any chance, fall under the
fatal spell of the family spectre."
Captain Dove gave voice to another growl, unintelligible, and moved
restlessly in his chair. It had not, as a matter of fact, occurred to
him that any immediate mischance to Sallie must mean ruin to himself.
And Slyne's sneering insensibility was difficult to endure when he
recalled what he himself had also seen in the woods.
"I think it would be as well in any case to make sure that we won't be
left lamenting her and absolutely penniless," Slyne went on, his
features suddenly set and serious. "And I'm going to make things safe
for us all to-night," he affirmed. "Are you listening, Dove?
"It might be dangerous now to delay even until to-morrow. You and I have
too much at stake to run any avoidable risk. And remember that, if you
fail me again, it isn't only a matter of the money you'll lose by your
folly. I know very well that Jobling and you have been plotting together
against me, but--I don't believe you've forgotten what I told you both
the day before he left for London. It would scarcely be worth your while
to go back on me now and spend the rest of your life in prison, or, much
more probably,--hang."
Captain Dove nodded perfectly civil assent to that self-evident
proposition. He was inwardly wondering at what hour Brasse would be
ashore.
"Very well," Slyne concluded. "You've got to stand by me, for your own
sake. I'm going to clinch matters with Sallie now. I'll announce our
engagement at dinner. And immediately after dinner, she and I will go
through the simple formality of a Scotch marriage--the worthy Mrs.
M'Kissock has told me exactly how that can be done. The duchess will
serve as one witness and I'll find another trust-worthy one. So that,
all going well, the future Countess of Jura will be my lawful wife
before any harm can come to her even from the 'white lady.' How does
that strike you, eh?"
Captain Dove once more nodded polite agreement, and then looked very
slowly round over one shoulder behind him. Slyne darted an involuntary
glance in the same direction, and the fag-end of his cigarette fell from
between nerveless fingers. A sudden pallor had overspread his tanned
features, and something very like fear looked out of his eyes at the dim
white form standing motionless just beyond the range of the lamplight.
[Illustration: Something very like fear looked out of his eyes.]