The clatter of the tumbling objects in the hall brought out the General
and Jack Jervase’s son. The girl peered with a whiter face than ever
from the parlour doorway, and a fourth auditor came upon the scene in
the person of an elderly woman in black satin and old lace, who rushed
into the hall with frightened eyes and upraised hands, in time to hear
the question and the answer.
To make clear what the question and the answer meant to the four people
who heard them, I must go back a step.
Jack Jervase ran away from home when the nineteenth century was in its
teens. He had left behind him a harum-scarum reputation, and, save for
his father and mother, but a solitary relative of his own name. When
he came back, with coin in pouch, and the story of a life of strange
adventure behind him, the old folks had been dead a dozen years, and the
solitary cousin, whom he had always derided as a pious sneak, had so
far prospered in the world’s affairs that he had left the old-fashioned
conventicle in which he had had his spiritual upbringing, and had become
a pillar of the Established Church. The cousin had been christened Jacob
and Noakes; but he had embroidered himself into James Knock Jervoyce;
the Knocks being a family of some distinction in his neighbourhood, and
the name Jervoyce having, to his fancy, a Norman-French sort of aspect
which seemed to lift its bearer to a superior social height. James
had many irons in the fire, and seemed to be prosperously busy at the
commercial anvil all day long. Amongst the business enterprises he had
in hand, there was but one which at any time had appeared to yield him
no return for his labours. He had lent money on the strength of the
security afforded by a brine pit in the neighbourhood of Droitwich;
and his creditor having failed in the stipulated payments, James had
foreclosed upon this property and had undertaken to work it for himself.
He found this enterprise a failure, but since he could induce nobody to
take it off his hands, he worked the property for what it was worth from
time to time. There were seasons in which the pit was almost dry, and
when it was impossible to work it at a profit. There were other seasons
when the underground sources treated him more favourably. A more decided
man than Mr. Knock Jervoyce would probably have decided to abandon the
property altogether, and to let one loss stand for everything. There was
a considerable cost incurred in the upkeep of machinery which was much
oftener idle than engaged; and the occasional employment of the plant
was, of course, on the average much more expensive than its constant
use would have been. James was on the point, after two or three years
of indecision, of relinquishing the working altogether, when Cousin John
came home. There was a conference between the two, and following on that
conference a very strange thing happened. The worthless mine became a
property, and one of the best of its kind in England. Five men knew how
this result was brought about, and three of them had been for a good
many years in the enjoyment of a pension--one in Australia, one in
Canada, and one in the United States. These pensions were paid by
Cousins John and James, and paid by no means willingly. Not to boggle
at this matter, the two cousins, at John’s instigation, had contrived
a simple villainy. Very near to the unproductive salt pit was a noble
property of the same kind, and John’s device had been to tap the wealthy
neighbour’s store by running a little adit from the worthless shaft
into the rich one. It was not an unheard-of thing for the value of such
properties to fluctuate. A rich mine would pay out, and a poor one at
a distance would become suddenly enriched; and these changes were,
no doubt rightly, in the common instance attributed to the capricious
operations of Nature. If the owner of the tapped sources of the cousins’
wealth suspected anything to begin with nobody ever knew. The only fact
with which we need concern ourselves is that the fraud went on without
exposure for many years, and that James and John alike grew fat on it.
A certain hulking ruffian, with an Australian digger’s beard, had turned
up of late to disturb the tranquillity of the partners. He had been
asking what they regarded as an exorbitant price for his silence in
respect to the construction of that adit which has just been mentioned,
and had been fobbed off from time to time with five or ten pounds, as
the case might be, and with promises of more. Young Polson Jervase had
caught this person slinking about the house on the Beacon Hill in what
looked to him like a suspicious fashion, and an interview between the
two had resulted in a stand-up fight in which the blackmailer had got
very much the worst of it. But as he rose from the last round, and
spat out the fragments of one or two broken teeth, he said things which
filled the honourable and manly spirit of young Jervase with a terror to
which he hardly dared to give a name. The terror would have named
itself loudly enough if he had dared but to let it; but next to being an
honourable man himself, the young fellow wanted to believe that he came
of honest people, and the rascal’s threats and innuendoes had left him
with a dreadful doubt upon his mind.
The combat had taken place at the very gate of the grey-stone house, and
the old lady in the black satin and the costly yellow lace had flown out
at the finish of it in time to hear the threats and innuendoes which
had brought such trouble to her boy. It was a hundred to one that young
Polson Jervase would have been less disturbed if his mother, hearing
these things, had not fallen to trembling and weeping and wringing
her hands; for he argued, naturally, that she would not have been so
dreadfully upset if she had not feared at least that there was some
ground for the words which had been spoken in her hearing.
General Boswell had his concern in the matter, also. He was an admirable
soldier, but a wretched man of business; and his monetary affairs had
never prospered until he had entrusted them to the hands of the cousins
Jervase & Jervoyce. Little by little he had been drawn on until the
greater part of his investments lay at their control.
And now for the pretty girl who is staring with so alarmed and white a
visage on the tumult of the hall. This is General Boswell’s daughter,
sole child of a late marriage, and the apple of his eye. She has been
wandering quite consciously towards an engagement with young Polson;
and expects him, with excellent reason, to declare himself at almost
any hour. She knows of her father’s association with Jervase & Jervoyce,
and, indeed, it has been a familiar thing to her ever since she came to
be of an age to understand.
Thus the brief and terrible colloquy between the cousins translates
itself variously for every listener.
To John Jervase it cries out of guilt detected.
To Polson Jervase it speaks of half-a-dozen things at once; it awakes
with a crushing sense of certainty that late suspicion; it tells him of
the ruin of the one man whom he most loves and honours in this narrow
world--not his father, but the grey old father of his sweetheart; it
tells him in an instant of a life of narrow means for the girl he loves;
it hurls his own hopes in the mire, and makes the very thought of them
a dishonour; it snatches from him the bright prospect of the career
on which he has set his heart, the gate to which stood wide open but
a moment earlier. And all this in the tick of a watch, in the space of
time filled by one agonised beat of the heart.
For the girl, whatever it may mean hereafter, it means for the moment
nothing more than a confused leaping of two thoughts in one. Her mind is
conscious only of a mingled cry of ‘Polson!’ and of ‘Father!’
So Guilt stares at Guilt, and Terror and Suspicion stare at both of
them; and the roaring wind and lashing rain make exclamation dumb.
Jervase was the first to recover himself. He thrust his cousin on one
side, and butted towards the open door; but he strove in vain to close
it, until his son and the General lent their aid. The hall was sown
with broken glass and fragments of picture frames, and here and there
an engraving lay wet and crumpled, but not even the housewife regarded
these things for the time being.
John Jervase turned from the final struggle with the door, and looked
about him. His face had lost its ruddy tint. His eyes stared, his
mouth twitched, and his lips were of the colour of lead. The swaggering
jocundity of his manner had all gone. The very stature of the man seemed
changed, and the square width of his shoulders was shrunk and rounded.
He moistened his leaden lips three times with his tongue, and each time
tried to speak in vain.
‘Come in,’ he said at last, in a harsh and rasping voice. And they all
moved automatically into the parlour, he leading them.
They grouped there at the end of the centre table, and the instinct
of the trembling housewife so far awoke within her that she closed the
door, lest the servants and hangers-on about the house should hear what
she knew was coming.
James Jervoyce, a mean-statured man, of meaner feature, with his hair
plastered about his forehead by the rain, and the water dripping from
his cape, stood as the centre of all eyes. His face was of the hue of
grey paper, and he gasped for breath, and trembled.
‘Pol,’ said John Jervase, waving his right hand blindly, ‘give me--give
me the decanter and a tumbler.’
Both lay near at hand, and Jervase, having primed himself with a great
gulp of neat brandy, spoke again.
‘Now, James,’ he asked, ‘what’s the matter? What do you mean by coming
here to scare a peaceful house in this wild fashion?’
The accent was the accent of his youth, the broadest speech of the
Castle Barfield region. James seemed incapable of answer, and his
cousin, laying a hand anew upon the decanter, filled the glass almost to
the brim, and held it out to him.
‘Get a heart into you,’ he said gruffly, ‘and speak out!’
The timider of the guilty pair drank unwarily, not knowing what was
offered to him, and fell into a fit of coughing. The rest awaited him in
a tense expectation. At last he controlled himself, and spoke, sipping
from time to time to moisten his dry lips.
‘You know,’ he said, glancing at the floor and at the faces round him
alternately, ‘you know that when old General Airey died, that young cub
De Blacquaire came into the Droitwich property.’
‘Well,’ said John Jervase, ‘we know that. Go on. What about it?’
‘You know,’ said James, ‘that his property and ours neighboured each
other. The young skunk has trumped up a charge against us of having
tapped his brine, and having lived on the property of his estate for
twenty years past.’
‘Well,’ said--John Jervase, ‘that’s a pretty cool piece of impudence, to
be sure! But what is there to make a howl about?’
‘He has got some suborned evidence from somewhere,’ James answered,
‘some scoundrels who pretend that they were employed by you and me to do
the work.’
‘Well,’ said John once more, ‘what is there in that to make a howl
about? Is there no law in England--is there no way of making a fool and
a knave smart for it, if they see fit to assail the reputation of two
honest men like you and me, James? ‘His voice began to take something of
its old ring. ‘I wonder at you--tearin’ up like a madman at this time o’
night, and in this weather, with a yam like that. Why, man, what’s come
to you? Missus,’ he turned towards his wife, ‘tell one of the wenches to
get James a change, and when he’s done that well sit down in quiet, and
talk this matter over.’
‘De Blacquaire!’ he went on, as his wife left the room to obey his
order. ‘De Blacquaire, indeed! Who’s De Blacquaire?
It’ll go pretty hard with you and me, James, if we can’t put down a
pound between us where he can put down twenty shillings. And libel’s
libel in this country, James, and them as chooses to talk it can be made
to pay for it And any man as assaults the honest fame of Jack Jervase
has got Jack Jervase to tackle, my lad. I’ve fowt the Queen’s enemies,
and I’ve fowt my own, and I’ll stand fightin’ till I die.’
‘My dear Jervase,’ said the General. ‘My dear Mr. James! I need not tell
you, I am sure, how entirely certain I am that a very grievous error
has been made in this matter. But I can’t understand--I really
cannot understand--why an absurd charge of that sort should be at
all disturbing to you.’ He turned upon Mr. James with an air of mild
remonstrance, and laid a friendly hand upon his shoulder. ‘Really,
really, really,’ he said, ‘I thought you had more courage.’
Mr. James was for the moment entirely deprived of that most useful
quality. What with the chill which was coming upon him after a hasty and
dangerous ride in that pelting rain and bitter wind through which he
had travelled, and what with the perturbation of his spirit, he trembled
like a shaken jelly, and his eyes were full of terror. John Jervase,
obviously with the intent to make a diversion, turned upon him with a
question.
‘Didn’t you come on horseback? ‘he asked. His cousin stared at him with
an idiotic want of apprehension of the question’s meaning. ‘Didn’t you
come on horseback?’ Jervase asked more loudly than before.
‘I--I suppose so,’ stammered James.
‘Suppose so! ‘his cousin snarled at him, laying an unfriendly hand upon
him and jolting him roughly to and fro. ‘You came on a horse, didn’t
you? And if you didn’t, how the devil did you get here?’
‘Yes, yes, John,’ the trembling rascal answered. ‘I came on horseback,
to be sure--of course I came on horseback. How else,’ he asked feebly,
‘could I have got here on a night like this?’
‘Then where’s the horse? ‘Jervase demanded.
‘I don’t know,’ said James. ‘He has been here before, he knows his way
to the stables. I--I heard him clattering off in that direction, I
am almost sure.’ He made a pitiable attempt to collect himself, and
prattled on. ‘Oh, yes, I am quite sure now--he clattered off towards the
stables--I remember--he has been here before, and he would know his way.
He’s in the grounds in any case, for I know that the gate closed behind
him.’
‘Why didn’t you stop for half a minute, anyhow? ‘asked Jervase, who was
glad of a chance to recover a seeming of composure for himself under the
shelter of a pretended anger. ‘Why didn’t you give somebody the word
in place of leaving a valuable beast like that wandering about in a
tempest?
‘I don’t know,’ James answered, as feebly as ever. ‘I was in a hurry to
get in.’
At this his cousin’s temper broke altogether, or he was willing to
relieve the tension of his own mind by allowing it to seem as if it did
so.
‘Of all the funking, skunking, silly cowardly devils----’
The General took him by the arm with a commanding grip.
‘You forget, my good Jervase, you forget--my daughter is present,
and she is not accustomed to have her ears assailed by that sort of
language.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Jervase, suddenly cooling down. ‘I beg ten
thousand pardons--I beg Miss Irene’s pardon most of all. I forgot
myself, and I apologise.’
He bowed to the girl and fell to pacing up and down the room, casting
glances of wrath at the messenger of ill news.
The General, fearing a new outburst, turned to the old lady with his
courtliest air.
‘We are all a little agitated for the moment by the strange tidings Mr.
Jervoyce has brought us, and they involve some matters of business about
which it will be better for us to hold a consultation between ourselves.
Will you be so very kind as to take Irene elsewhere for a little while?
‘His voice and manner were perfectly composed, and his face lit up with
one of his rare sweet smiles as he added: ‘I do not believe, my dear
Mrs. Jervase, that I have ever, in the whole course of my three-score
years, so far transgressed as to drive a lady from her own parlour,
until now.’
‘We will go,’ said Mrs. Jervase, and the General stepping to the door
threw it open, and stood for his hostess and his daughter to go by.
Irene looked first at young Polson Jervase with a glance of fear and
inquiry, and the young fellow responded to it only by a curt nod of the
head, as much as to say ‘Go! ‘She looked into her father’s face as
she passed through the doorway, and the old man smiled down on her
reassuringly.
‘This will all be over in a few minutes, dear,’ he said, ‘and then I
will send for you.’ He closed the door gently, and tinned to face the
trio in the room.
‘I have apologised to the ladies,’ said Jervase, ‘already; but I owe an
apology to you, General. I’m very sorry that my temper carried me back
to my old seafaring manners; but,’ with a savage look at his cousin, ‘a
coward’s my loathing. I hate the sight of a coward worse than I hate the
smell of a rotten egg.’
‘Let us try to understand things,’ said the General. ‘Mr. James has
brought his tidings in such a manner that they are evidently very
serious to his mind. Had he brought them coolly I should have smiled at
them. As it is, I think we must come to an explanation.’
‘Certainly, General,’ Jervase answered. ‘Let us come to an explanation.
Get on, James. Who’s this suborned rascal you have been telling us
about?’
James began to pull off his dripping overcoat, which by this time had
left a little pond of water on the carpet round about him, and to
fumble in the inner breast pocket of it. ‘There are three of them,’ he
answered, and for a while he said no more. The General looked from him
to John Jervase, and back again, and if his face were at all an index
to his mind, he saw something which did not please him. His stooping
shoulders straightened, and one hand went up to stroke the grey
moustache. His brows straightened, his mild grey-blue eye grew stern,
and his mouth was ruled into a straight line. The fact was that the
General had had an almost lifelong experience in the great art of
reading men, and though he had preserved a child-like simplicity in his
dealings with the world, the fact was due a thousand times more to the
charity of his heart than to any want of penetration. He was one of
those who suspect nothing until suspicion is actually shaken awake, and
who then see with a piercing clearness signs which would escape many who
pride themselves upon their shrewdness. And when James Jervoyce faltered
out the words, ‘There are three of them! ‘John Jervase gave a start and
a look which indicated an instant understanding.
‘He knows those three,’ said General Boswell to himself.
‘De Blacquaire’s lawyer gave me their names to-day,’ said Jervoyce, who
had by this time found what he had been fumbling for in the pocket of
his overcoat. ‘Here they are.’
He reached out a crumpled piece of paper to his cousin, who took it from
him, and, after a single glance at it, started again, and, pale as he
was already, grew still paler.
‘He knows those three,’ said the General, voicelessly, and without a
spoken word reached forward and took the crumpled page from Jervase’s
unresisting hand.