So much has been said and so much has been written on the subject of
the man who works and the woman who weeps, the man who fares forth and
the woman who waits at home, that it hardly seems necessary to begin a
chapter with another dissertation upon this theme. Lovers are
proverbially discontented in the adverse conditions of separation.
Peter Ogilvie would have given much to be at home in the winter
following his mother's death, and there is no doubt that Jane Erskine
felt that things would have been many times easier away from home. But
if these two persons had exchanged places their sentiments would
doubtless have been exchanged also, thus proving what a difficult class
of beings lovers are, and how impossible it is to satisfy or to console
them.
Coming as it did in the middle of a long dull winter the change to
Culversham was received by Jane with whole-hearted joy. Miss
Abingdon's large staff of servants, all elderly and all over-paid,
combined with their mistress to welcome Miss Erskine back. The
familiar rooms had never looked more pleasant than on this bleak
December afternoon. A big tea-table was set by the fire, and the
massive silver upon it winked delightedly at the newly arrived guest.
The fire (Miss Abingdon was famous for her good fires) roared joyfully
up the chimney; the dogs knew Jane's voice long before she was out of
the carriage, and proceeded to give an almost hysterical demonstration
of their affection. And Miss Abingdon, whom emotion always made more
than usually severe, snubbed her maid and scolded the butler, and,
sitting down by the fire while Jane poured out tea, entered into so
long and minute an account of the gardener's shortcomings that it would
seem as though her niece had come from London for no other reason than
to hear the recital of her wrongs.
'You must go to bed early,' said Miss Abingdon when she and Jane went
to dress for dinner; and she kept her up talking until long after
twelve o'clock. Mrs. Avory was established in a charming little
cottage almost at the gate of the Vicarage, and was a sort of senior
curate to Canon Wrottesley. Mrs. Avory, Miss Abingdon said, was really
able to appreciate the canon, and in going so far the lady probably
meant that Mrs. Avory wholly admired and perhaps came very near to
accepting as her Pope the good-looking vicar. Mr. Lawrence was being
most attentive and useful, as he always was, and had chosen a new
tea-service for Miss Abingdon the last time he was in town--his taste
was perfect in such matters. He had even arranged to have her baths
painted with a special sort of white enamel, and Miss Abingdon could
only hope the world would not censure her for confiding these intimate
domestic details to a gentleman. Mrs. Wrottesley was still very far
from well; her illness seemed to have brought out--so Miss Abingdon
said--all the nobility of Canon Wrottesley's character. But--in
justice, Miss Abingdon ought to say--Mrs. Wrottesley had been equally
self-forgetful, and had insisted on her husband's going into society a
little. He was coming to them--according to old-established custom--to
dinner on Christmas Day, and Miss Sherard was coming down for the week,
and whom else would Jane like to ask for Christmas?
Miss Abingdon was a staunch upholder of familiar customs. There was a
certain ritual to be observed during Christmas week, and Miss Abingdon
observed it. She gave handsome presents to her household on Christmas
morning, and she always wept in church on Christmas Day, out of respect
to the memory of an elder sister who had died many years ago, and whom
as a matter of fact Miss Abingdon had never known very intimately, for
she had married and left home when Mary Abingdon was but a child. She
gave tips to bell-ringers and carol-singers, and entertained
Sunday-school children and 'mothers' in the laundry. These
anniversaries, she was wont to remark conscientiously, mitigating the
enjoyment of placing handsome presents beside her guests' breakfast
plates--these anniversaries were full of sadness. And having suffered
fewer bereavements than commonly fall to the lot of most women of her
age, she dutifully thought of her elder sister, whom she vaguely
remembered as an occasional guest at her father's house, and she could
not have enjoyed a Christmas Day sermon in which there was not an
allusion to empty chairs.
After morning service Miss Abingdon walked to the Vicarage and bestowed
her yearly gifts upon the Wrottesley family. It was a matter of
conscience with her to give a present of exactly the same value to Mrs.
Wrottesley as to the canon, and this year she offered her little gifts
with a good deal of compunction, remembering how difficult she had
often found it to be quite fair in the distribution. For Mrs.
Wrottesley was failing in health, and in her own plain, unostentatious
way she had made up her mind that her time for quitting this world was
not very far off. She wrote her will with scrupulous exactness and
justness, and having done so she made no allusion whatever to what must
have been occupying her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else,
but continued to live the life in which care for herself had always
been conspicuously absent.
She received Miss Abingdon and Jane on Christmas Day in her pleasant
drawing-room which the wintry sunshine was flooding with warmth and
joyousness, and she tendered her thanks for the presents which had been
brought for her, assured her inquirers that she was very much better in
health, and said that she had ordered no dinner at home, so that her
husband and boys might be forced to accept Miss Abingdon's customary
hospitality. Canon Wrottesley received his wife's statement as to the
improvement of her health with ingenuous pleasure. He believed that
she was really looking better, twitted her kindly on her pale cheeks,
and with the optimism which declines to harbour fears and apprehensions
he refused to believe that she was seriously ill. The canon himself
had had a bad cold lately, and his evident wish to believe that his own
malady was as serious as Mrs. Wrottesley's had something pathetic in
it. If he could get rid of a heavy cold and feel quite himself by
Christmas Day, his wife surely would pick up in health as soon as the
warm weather should come. He believed he was doing right in making
light of her ailments, and Mrs. Wrottesley saw all this quite plainly,
and loved him none the less for it.
'How is your cold?' said Miss Abingdon, with sympathy in her voice, and
the vicar threw back his handsome head and tapped his throat, which he
said was a bit husky still, although it was no use giving way to
illness. 'Master your health,' he said in a tone of muscular
Christianity, 'and it won't master you--eh, mamma?' he added, with an
encouraging glance at his wife's pale face on the sofa.
The Vicar of Wakefield, and even Mr. Pickwick himself, had never been
more jovial at a Christmas party than were Miss Abingdon's guests. A
silver bowl in the middle of the table suggested punch; Canon
Wrottesley must brew a wassail bowl. A footman was sent for this thing
and that, for lemons and boiling water--the water must boil, remember?
And too much sugar would spoil the whole thing. The vicar stirred the
ingredients with an air, and poured from time to time a spoonful of the
punch into a wine-glass, and sampled its quality by rolling it in his
mouth and screwing up his eyes.
The wassail bowl being now mixed to his satisfaction, he filled the
glasses of the company, allotting to each lady the thimbleful which he
believed to be a woman's share of any alcoholic beverage, and
extracting compliments from every one. The wassail bowl was a triumph,
and the candle of Mr. Pickwick was put out. Even Dickens' hero could
not have given such an air of jollity to a festive occasion like this.
He toasted every one in the good old-fashioned custom, requesting 'A
glass of wine with you' on this side and on that. After dinner the
presence of Dorothy Avory furnished the pretext for inaugurating a
country dance in the hall. Canon Wrottesley pushed chairs aside and
rolled rugs up, and before many minutes were over Sir Roger de Coverley
was in full swing, and he was footing it with the indomitable energy of
the man whose feet may be heavy but whose heart is aye young.
Miss Abingdon in grey satin was the vicar's partner, and attempted to
go through the steps in the minuet style; the young Wrottesleys, on the
other hand, were at an age when to be asked to dance Sir Roger de
Coverley can only be construed as deadly insult. Fortunately for them,
the vicar by some strategical movement always found himself in the
enviable position of the dancer who ambles forward to make his bow.
The lady who was playing the piano at last stopped the music with a few
solemn chords, faintly suggestive of an Amen, and Canon Wrottesley, who
was proceeding with his fifth or sixth sally into the middle of the
figure, stopped breathless. Dorothy Avory looked over-heated when the
dance was finished, and as she had furnished the excuse for a rather
poor attempt at romping, her obvious fatigue was quite sufficient to
give the canon an opportunity of a little quiet reading until all were
rested. He put on his spectacles--which he always wore with an air of
apology--and gave out the title of the story, _The Old Vicomte--A
Christmas Episode_.
Doubtless the scene of the story was laid in France, but that fact
hardly justified Canon Wrottesley in reading the whole of it in broken
English. His knowledge of French had always been a matter of pride
with him, and he enjoyed rolling out the foreign names with a perfect
accent.
The number of listeners in the room had diminished considerably before
the reading was finished. Good-nights were said on all sides, the
Vicarage party drove away, and, the conscientious romping and jollity
being over, it may have been felt by some of Miss Abingdon's guests
that the duties of Christmas Day had not been altogether light, and
that now perhaps enforced cheerfulness might be abandoned in favour of
a more easy and natural frame of mind.
Kitty Sherard came into Jane's room in her dressing-gown, with her
hair-brush in her hand, and deliberately relaxed after the fatigues of
the evening. Most girls with such a profusion of curls as Kitty's
would have been content to allow them to wander unrestrained over her
shoulders; but Miss Sherard with her passion for decoration would have
dressed beautifully on a desert island, if her trunks had been washed
ashore with her; she had fastened a knot of rose-coloured ribbon in her
hair, and wore it on one side just over her eye with an unstudied and
perfectly successful effect.
'I suppose you know,' said Jane, 'that you are extraordinarily pretty,
Kitty?'
'I spend a fortune on dresses which look cheap,' said Kitty, 'and so
people think I am nice-looking.'
Jane thought such humility on the part of any one so pretty as Miss
Sherard was a sign in her that she must be out of spirits; so she said,
'Oh, nonsense, Kitty!' in a very affectionate way, and begged that Miss
Sherard would smoke a cigarette if she felt inclined.
'No,' said Kitty, 'I don't think I want to smoke.'
Jane drew her chair nearer the big chair on the hearth-rug, and,
blowing out the candles, the two girls sat by the firelight.
Tenderness, as every one knows, is an ineradicable instinct of
womanhood. Kitty Sherard might smoke cigarettes and drive in a very
high dogcart, but just then her heart felt very nearly breaking, and
she was so grateful to Jane for blowing out the lights and sitting near
her that in defiance of her mood she began to laugh.
'What a moist party we were in church this morning!' she said, smiling
broadly, and ignoring the fact that her eyes had tears in them. 'Miss
Abingdon looked conscientiously tearful, and Mrs. Avory applied herself
to her pocket-handkerchief as soon as the canon began his usual joyful
Christmas message about empty chairs and absent friends.'
'Poor Mrs. Avory!' said Jane, 'weeping has become a sort of habit with
her, and tears come very easily. If we had trimmed parasols and eaten
tinned food for supper for a year or two, Kitty, I imagine we should
become very tearful too.'
Miss Sherard unloosed the rose-coloured ribbon which bound her hair,
and beginning to brush out her curls she said 'Yes,' slowly, and turned
to other topics.
'Do you ever feel quite old, Jane?' she said at last. 'I do,
especially during a long frost. I feel as if I had tried every single
bit of pleasure that there is in the world and had come through it and
out on the other side, and found that none of it was the least little
bit of good.'
'Heaven send us a thaw soon!' exclaimed Jane.
'I quite adore my father,' said Kitty with emphasis, 'and I think he
helps to keep me young; but it is rather pathetic, isn't it, that any
one should think one so perfect as he thinks me?'
Jane rose ostentatiously from her place and opened the window and
consulted a thermometer that hung outside.
'Still freezing hard,' she said, and returned to her seat again.
'You are rather a brick, Jane,' said Kitty.
'To-morrow,' said Jane, 'I shall certainly write to your father urging
his immediate return before you begin to grow grey-haired.'
'You 've had a fairly odious Christmas Day,' said Kitty, not noticing
the interruption. 'You 've had to dry Miss Abingdon's tears, and
listen to Canon Wrottesley reading aloud, and you have had to be hearty
to carol-singers and to waft holly-berries in the faces of mothers.
Why don't you throw something at me when I come to your room in the
middle of the night as cross as a bear with a sore head, and begin to
grumble at you?'
This remark Jane considered serious. 'The end of it will be, that you
'll get engaged to be married, Kitty,' she said, 'and then I shall jeer
at you and recall to you every one of your past flirtations, and all
your good resolutions about remaining single, and being happy ever
after.'
'Is it really still Christmas Day?' said Kitty. 'I thought it began
quite a week ago, and that we had had nights and nights of wassail
bowls and old memories and Christmas-card cheerfulness.' She gathered
up her hair-pins and brushes and gave a yawn. 'If it is nearly twelve
o'clock I suppose I ought to go,' she said.
'I am not a bit sleepy,' quoth Jane.
'Apart from the fact of my winter being dull,' said Kitty, 'with my
beloved parent in Rome, my temper is never proof against giving way
when any one reads aloud to me. The story of the French vicomte is
really answerable for my present horrible state of mind.'
'One always connects reading aloud with sick-beds and work-parties,'
said Jane. 'When you are ill, Kitty, I intend to come and read good
books to you.'
'Mrs. Avory encouraged the canon,' said Kitty. 'I found out afterwards
that she had read the story before, and yet she gave a sort of
surprised giggle at everything.'
'The Wrottesleys are being awfully good to her,' said Jane excusingly.
Kitty was still gazing into the fire; her tone when she spoke was that
of a sensible person considering some subject only remotely interesting
to her. 'I suppose,' she said steadily, but with a touch of curiosity,
'that Mrs. Avory will always continue to think that to be true for ever
and ever to Toffy is the most noble and virtuous action in the world.'
'They have been very faithful to each other,' said Jane.
A most unexpected thing then happened, for Kitty kneeled down suddenly
on the hearth-rug, while the firelight shone in her eyes and gave a
fierce red look to them. 'Oh, what is the use of it all?' she cried,
'and what is to be the end of it? Mr. Avory is not going to die--he 's
the strongest man I know, and he can't be much more than forty years
old! How does she think it is all going to end? Don't you see how
absurd the whole thing is? She's seven years older than Toffy, so that
even if she could marry him it would not be the best thing for him.
Oh, I know she has behaved well, and worked hard! I know she has eaten
horrid food and trimmed parasols, and been faithful and good, but will
she ever let him care for any one else?'
'Kitty!' said Jane; she took another step forward, and taking Kitty's
face between her hands she turned it towards her. 'Kitty!'
'Isn't it ridiculous!' said Kitty. She swallowed down a sob in her
throat and made a pretence of laughing while her hands played with her
hair-brush, and her eyes, which endeavoured to blaze defiance, only
succeeded in looking large and full of tears.
'I never knew--I never guessed----' began Jane helplessly.
'You were never meant to know,' said Kitty, and she turned away her
face suddenly from Jane's encircling hands and buried it in the cushion
of the chair. Her voice dropped ominously; she was still kneeling on
the hearth-rug with the paraphernalia of her toilet about her--ribbons
and gold-backed brushes, and a little enamel box for hair-pins. 'No
one was ever meant to know!' she cried, 'and now I shall never be able
to look you in the face again as long as we both do live! It's been
going on so long, Jane, and you 've all been so sorry for Mrs. Avory,
and so sorry for Toffy.'
'Does he know?' asked Jane, in a low voice.
Kitty raised her head and pretended to laugh again. 'I 've not
proposed to him yet,' she said.
'But he cares,' said Jane, with conviction. 'He does care, Kitty!'
'Oh,' said Kitty, bursting into tears, 'isn't it all a frightful
muddle!'
* * * * *
The conclusion, therefore, which may be arrived at on the vexed
question as to which is preferable--the lot of the man who works or the
lot of the woman who weeps, may be summed up in the convenient phrase,
'There is a great deal to be said on both sides.'
It is true that Kitty Sherard and Jane, left behind in comfortable and
prosaic England, were spared the torment of flies and mosquitoes and
other minor ills; they escaped most of the hard things of life, and
enjoyed many of its pleasures and luxuries; and these mitigations
seemed to them things of very little worth, and the life of action,
when viewed from the safe security of their environment, appeared to be
the only possible condition which might assuage pain or lessen the
bitterness of separation.
Peter Ogilvie, meanwhile, and his friend, Nigel Christopherson, were in
the midst of weather as hot as can be very well endured even by English
people, who seem capable of resisting almost every sort of bad climate.
The sun rose on the edge of the level plains every morning with
horrible punctuality, and stared and blazed relentlessly until it had
burned itself out in a beautiful rage and glory in the blood-red
western sky.
'Dawn,' Ross said, 'is one of the things you are disposed to admire
when you first come to Argentine, but when the hot weather begins you
feel inclined to throw your boots at the sun when it rises.'
Now it was afternoon, and a heavy day's work in the corral was over.
Peter was writing letters, while Ross and Toffy dozed in long cane
chairs in the corridor. Purvis sat on the little cretonne-covered box
beside the empty fireplace, and looked with lack-lustre eyes into
space. He had been helping with some work on the estancia; but he had
brought none of his own men with him, as some neighbours had done, and
the ominous whisper grew that there was trouble down at his place.
Ross treated the matter lightly, and explained it by saying that Purvis
was making a fortune with his steamers, and was feeding his men on
_carne flacca_. 'Purvis does his best, poor beast, and I believe he is
worth a dozen detectives in this affair of yours, Peter.'
Peter himself, however, was inclined to draw back a little. 'He has
put me on the wrong scent once or twice,' he said.
'After all, you haven't told him much,' said Ross.
And Peter agreed that this was so.
There was an undefined feeling in his mind that if he had to learn that
his brother was alive he would like to hear of it through such
legalized channels as Sir John Falconer was arranging. The detective
spirit was not strong in Peter Ogilvie. He would have preferred to
take the whole world into his confidence, and to ask them to speak out
if they had anything to say. But Mr. Semple and Sir John had cautioned
him against this procedure, and the inquiries he had been able to make
had been conducted at one time with such surprising caution that no
possible clue was given towards finding the child, while at others he
had allowed more to be known than Mr. Semple, for instance, would have
thought wise. He had lately become more reserved in his dealings with
their neighbour at La Dorada, and began almost to try to discount the
fact that he had ever consulted Purvis at all about his affairs. He
lightly waved aside any information that was given him, and was always
busy at the moment when Purvis wanted a few words with him. He advised
Toffy to say, if he were asked, that Sir John Falconer was making
inquiries, and that for the present they themselves were not going to
move in the matter. Toffy and Ross both thought that they had gone too
far to make such an attitude possible. 'What harm can it do to find
out what he knows?' Ross said more than once.
But Peter still held back. 'I hate his confounded mysteries,' he said,
'and I don't attach much importance to things that are only known in a
back-stairs sort of way.'
This afternoon in his letter to Jane he had given it as his opinion
that the little man who they had thought might help them was proving to
be rather a fraud. 'He is always starting ideas,' wrote Peter, 'and
nothing comes of them. Why, bless me, you would think that Argentine
was peopled with unclaimed babies and stiff with missing heirs.'
He felt better when he had unbosomed himself to Jane and had got rid of
some of his impatience and ill-temper.
'I think I 'll ride to the post presently,' he said, getting up and
stretching himself; 'it must get cooler soon.'
Purvis got up also from his little wooden seat by the fireplace. 'I
'll come with you,' he said. 'I am expecting letters which may want my
immediate attention, and I can call at the telegraph office on my way.
May I give you my company so far?' he asked. There was a touch of the
lackey about Purvis, and his voice was humble sometimes to the verge of
irritation.
'_Como no?_' said Peter lazily, in the formula of the country. His
tone was not enthusiastic. Purvis was so prone to circumlocution that
the fact that he had asked deliberately to accompany him on the ride
towards the mail in the cool of the evening convinced him that the man
could have nothing of importance to say.
They rode together over the short, tough turf of the camp a little way
without speaking, and then Purvis began, in his smooth thin voice,
riding a little nearer to his companion so as to make himself heard
without undue exertion, 'I wanted to speak to you alone.'
'Say on,' said Peter.
When he was riding Purvis was perhaps at his worst. He had an ugly
seat in the saddle, and his dark grey suit, made with trousers, was
worn without riding-boots. He looked straight in front of him with his
tired watery eyes with the perpetual tear in them, and said, 'I believe
we are within measurable distance of finding the man you seek.'
Peter looked full at him, but the other did not turn his head; his
horse cantered along lazily in the evening light as he sat loosely in
the saddle, his pale, expressionless face turned towards the path by
which they were travelling.
'The name of the man,' he said, 'is Edward Ogilvie.'
'Yes,' said Peter; 'my brother.' The thing was out now, and he could
thank Heaven that he did not wear his heart on his sleeve.
'It is a very strange story!' said Purvis.
'May we have it?' asked Peter briefly. He might employ Purvis, but it
galled him to think that his future lay in his hands.
'No,' said Purvis, in his hesitating, thin voice. 'You can't have it
for the present. To begin with,' he continued, turning towards Peter
for the first time, and raising pathetically large eyes towards him, 'I
am not going to speak about it until I am sure, nor am I going to speak
about it until I have asked you for some necessary details which will
make a mischance or a case of mistaken identity impossible. I don't
want to make a fool of myself, as you have trusted me so far.'
'Ask me anything you like,' said Peter laconically. His mind was
pretty full just then, and there was a note of confidence in Purvis's
voice which gave him the idea that their search was nearly over. He
began to wonder how much money he had, and whether there was any chance
of the Scottish place being his. Bowshott, of course, would pass away
from him, and the beautiful house with its galleries and its gardens
would be the property of some unknown man. Possibly the man had a
wife, and where Jane was to have reigned as mistress there would be
some woman, unused to great houses, and with manners perhaps not suited
to her position. He wondered what his mother would have thought about
it all, and whether she could in the least realize what the result of
her unfinished letter to him might be. Whatever her faults she had
been a great lady to her finger-tips. He remembered her, as he had
been wont to see her, showing her pictures and gardens to the foreign
royalties who came to see her, or receiving Her Majesty when she drove
over from Windsor and called upon her. Only Jane could ever fill her
place adequately; Jane with her short skirts and graceful, swinging
walk, and her queer plain hats that so perfectly became her, and made
country neighbours look overdressed. He loved to remember her in a
hundred different ways--in white satin, with a string of pearls about
her neck; at meets, on one of her sixteen-hand hunters; playing golf;
painting the rabbit-hutch in the garden; binding up Toffy's hand that
morning, ages ago, when he had had a spill out of his motor-car;
playing with the school-children on the lawn; or, best of all, perhaps,
dancing in the great ballroom at Bowshott, and sitting with him
afterwards in the dimness of his mother's tapestried chamber, her great
white feather fan laid upon her knees.
'Is the man married?' asked Peter, with a drawl.
'He is married,' Purvis said, as the two horses swung together in their
easy stride.
'Wife alive?' Peter slowed down and lighted a cigarette with
deliberation.
'That is a part of the story which I cannot at present divulge,' said
Purvis.
'It sounds mysterious!' said Peter, sending his horse into a canter
again.
'If it were written in a romance it would hardly be believed,' said the
other.
'You were going to ask me some questions,' said Peter, as though to put
an end to any dissertation on the romantic side of the story. 'It is a
business matter,' he said, 'and we had better be businesslike about it.
We can unfold the romance of it later.'
'That is my wish,' said Purvis gravely.
Peter began to tell himself that he was treating the man badly. He had
nothing to gain beyond a little money for his services, and so far he
had behaved well and with tact. He was obviously disinterested,
although perhaps the bill for pursuing his investigations might be
fairly high.
'I have reason to believe that the identity of the man can be proved,'
said Purvis; 'but I am not going to risk finding a mare's nest, as I
have told you.'
'I am not much help to you,' said Peter. 'I have never set eyes oh my
brother since I was two years old.'
'This is his photograph,' said Purvis, producing a coloured photograph
from his pocket.
Peter took it into his hands and looked long at it. It represented a
little boy with fair curls seated in a photographer's arm-chair.
'Can you tell me if it resembles any of your family?' said Purvis.
'Well, 'pon my word I don't know,' said Peter. 'The photograph is a
small one, you see, and evidently not a very good one, and to my mind
all children of that age look exactly alike. He looks a good little
chap,' he finished, with a touch of kindness in his voice. If his
brother turned out to be a good fellow reparation would be made easier;
and, heavens! how badly the man had been treated.
'The chief danger,' said Purvis, 'lies in the fact that even a strong
chain of evidence is not likely to be accepted by those who would
benefit by Edward Ogilvie's death.'
'I suppose one would play a fair game,' said Peter shortly. 'I should
like to know where you have heard of the man?'
'I may tell you that much,' said Purvis. 'I heard of him at Rosario.'
'Any reason why he should not have communicated with his friends all
these years?'
'Within the next few weeks,' said Purvis, 'I hope to be able to bring
you face to face with your brother, and then you can put what inquiries
you like to him. You must surely see that it is necessary to act with
caution until the thing is decided. Even now I can't be quite sure if
this man's claim is valid; but once the story is out a dozen claimants
may arise, and it would cost you a fortune to sift all the evidence
which they might bring.'
'Yes, I see that,' said Peter.
'I am disappointed that the photograph conveys nothing to you,' said
Purvis. 'I looked upon it as an important link in the chain of
evidence, thinking there might be another like it amongst the old
servants, perhaps, at your home.'
Peter looked at it again. 'The trouble is,' he said, 'that there are
no old servants who knew us as children. He was handing the photograph
back to Purvis when an idea struck him. 'I tell you what, though,' he
exclaimed, 'I believe the sash round the child's waist is made of
Ogilvie tartan.'
* * * * *
A bare-legged boy on a lean pony was seen approaching them in a cloud
of dust. The pony's short canter made his pace as easy as a
rocking-chair; and Lara's son, who rode him, was half asleep in the
heat. The post-bag dangled from his saddle, and the reins lay on the
pony's neck.
'Any letters?' said Peter in Spanish, and the boy handed the bag to
him. The mail-boat from England, which was run on purpose to carry
Jane's weekly letter to him, had brought the big square envelope with
its usual commendable punctuality. Peter chose it out from the rest of
the letters, and, handing Purvis a packet which belonged to him, he
gave the bag back to the boy, who cantered along with his bare legs
swinging until he disappeared into the level glare of the setting sun.
Peter let his horse amble on slowly, and read his letter while he rode.
'I must push on, I think,' said the quiet voice of Purvis beside him.
'There are one or two things which, I gather from my letters, I must
put straight at the estancia. I hope to have definite news to
communicate to you before long.'
'Thanks!' said Peter, giving him a nod. 'You will let me hear from you
as soon as you know anything?' He turned his horse homewards, and
Purvis rode on alone.
'If he has found my brother,' quoth Peter, 'Purvis has done his job,
and I can't complain; but he has got to settle the thing up without all
this confounded mystery, or else he can leave it alone. There is one
thing perfectly clear. Edward himself knows nothing about his parents
or his prospects, or he would have claimed the property long ago. Now,
how has Purvis found out about the man what he doesn't know himself?
Where has he got his clue? One thing is pretty certain--that he
doesn't want me to meet my brother yet, which looks very much as if our
friend Purvis was going to make some sort of bargain with the heir,
whoever he is, before he allows him to know the truth about himself.
Well, the affair will be judged by English lawyers when we get home,
and if it is a case of blackmail, for instance, English people are not
very fond of that sort of thing, so Purvis may not be able to make such
a good bargain as he thinks.
'Of course the chain of evidence may be perfectly simple. Purvis has
probably got hold of the name of whoever it was that brought Edward
here, and has traced him somewhere, and has got the whole story from
him. My mother had always an unlimited supply of money; she could have
settled a large sum on the people who looked after him, and of course
it is evident that some money must have been paid, though the lawyers
could find no trace of it amongst her papers. The only other
hypothesis is that it is a case of some extraordinary aberration of
memory, and that, the child she disliked having been removed, she
forgot about him altogether. All my life I never remember hearing him
mentioned; and as my mother did not return to Bowshott until I was
nearly eight years old, very little may have been said to her that
would recall the fact of the boy's death.
'It is the beastly uncertainty of it,' he continued, as he rode slowly
home on the dusty track which was the apology for a road across the
camp. 'If the estate pays me sufficient to live upon I needn't
grumble; but Purvis must give me an account of what he has been doing,
and put me in possession of the facts of the case. One always
distrusts the middleman, and wonders if he is making a good bargain on
both sides. A small man like Purvis always tries to be important, and
to make every one believe that he alone holds the key to mysteries, and
that no one can get on without him. I don't at present see how he can
defraud either me or my brother, even if he wants to; but I am not
going to be content with hints or suggestions, as if I were living in a
penny novelette.'
He rode slowly home through the heat that rose like a palpable gas from
the scorched ground, until the little estancia house hove in sight
again. He found that Toffy and Ross were still enjoying their
afternoon siesta. There was not a bit of shade anywhere, and the heat
seemed to burn through the roof until the very floor was hot to walk
upon. His thoughts went back to Purvis in his tweed clothes and the
bowler bat with the pugaree on it, and he wondered how he fared in the
scorching heat. Probably the anaemic little man hardly knew what it
was to be too hot. He used to ride over the camp when even the peons
did not show their heads out of doors, and his hands were always cold
and damp to the touch. Peter drank some tea and sat down at little
Mrs. Chance's writing-table in the drawing-room, and wrote to Jane.
There was a feeling of storm in the air, and he envied the two men
sleeping luxuriously in the corridor.
'When you have been out here a year or two,' said the sleepy voice of
Ross from the depths of a long cane chair, 'you will find that letters
are not only impossible but unnecessary. No one expects to hear from
one after the first month or two, and if one did write there would be
nothing to say.'
'When my creditors get too troublesome,' said Toffy, also waking up, 'I
shall emigrate here and lose my own address. With strict economy one
might live very cheaply in Argentine.'
Lara's boy, who had come with the letters, had waited to ride back with
the bag to the far distant post office; and the Englishmen at the
estancia stood and watched him--a tiny figure on his tireless little
Argentine pony--riding away eastward until once more a cloud of dust
swallowed him up. The humble postman seemed to form a link with home,
and in three weeks' time the letters which they had confided to him
would be safely in the hands of those to whom they were written in
England. The pony's unshod hoofs had made hardly any sound on the turf
as he cantered off, and Lara's boy, in his loose shirt and shabby
clothes, and his bare feet hanging stirrupless on each side of the
pony, disappeared like a wraith. There was a week to wait before he
would come with any more letters.
'I wish the storm would burst or blow over,' said Ross; 'the heat is
worse than ever to-day, and it doesn't seem as though we were going to
have a cool night.'
'Even the peons look curled up,' said Toffy, glancing at a group of
men, picturesquely untidy, with loose shirts and scarlet boinas on
their heads, who lounged against the _palo á pique_ of the corral.
'What idle brutes they are, really!' said Ross; 'and they 're always
ten times worse when Chance is away. Look at those bits of paper
littering the place,' he went on fussily. 'Now I know that those men
have been told thousands of times not to let things fly about like
that. But it saves them trouble when they clean a room to sweep
everything out of doors and then leave it lying about.'
Probably most men who own property have an inherent dislike to seeing
scraps of paper lying about; the sight suggests trippers and visitors'
days, and Peter stepped down from the raised corridor, and with his
stick began poking the bits of paper into the powdery mud which was all
that at present formed the estancia garden.
'I believe we might paper the whole house with Purvis's telegrams,' he
said, laughing, as he shoved a bit of coloured paper under the ground.
'Salter,' he said to himself--'Salter. It sounds like the agony column
at home. Well, Ross and I had better stop acting as scavengers for the
household, or we may learn too much of Purvis's domestic affairs.'
He stopped poking with his stick; and, although he laughed, he was as
much annoyed at having seen the name on the telegram as he would have
been had he inadvertently overlooked another man's hand at cards.
The storm blew away in the night, and after the dawn the sky was a
heavenly blue, so brilliant that it could not be overlooked. In the
early morning the mimosa trees threw cool shadows to westward, and
little parakeets, making their flights from bough to bough, screamed
overhead. On the estancia work began early; some one had to lasso a
novillo for the pot, and the rodeo looked like a seething, bubbling
cauldron, with its moving mass of cattle. The easy paces of the horses
on which all the work of the place was done made riding a matter not of
exercise at all; and the only thing necessary was to duck heads to
avoid the mimosa boughs, and to guide the horses round the holes and
stumps in the ground at a gentle canter. The novillo was lassoed, and
the sun began to be sultry when the three men rode back to breakfast,
congratulating themselves that, as the day seemed likely to be as hot
as usual, there was not a great deal of work to be done, at least until
the cool of the evening.
'Is that Purvis?' asked Toffy, as they approached the house and
tethered their horses by the simple expedient of throwing their reins
over their heads and letting them trail upon the ground. 'When, in the
name of the Prophet, does that fellow sleep?' It was barely ten
o'clock when they rode back to breakfast, and Purvis must have started
on his ride almost at dawn.
'Hallo!' said Ross, greeting him with a certain kindliness which a very
big man will show to one who is small and weak, even if he has growled
at his appearance a moment before. 'Hallo, Purvis, where have you come
from, and when do you get any sleep?'
'I don't think that sleep is very necessary to me,' said Purvis; 'and I
generally find that I work just as well when I have only two or three
hours' rest.'
'That's very odd,' said Toffy amicably.
'I came back about my little boy,' said Purvis; 'I have to go down to
Buenos Ayres, and I want to know if I may leave him here with you.'
Ross assented, and Toffy remarked that he believed with training he
himself might make a very fair nursery-maid.
'Things are a little bit disturbed at my place,' said Purvis. 'I have
so many mixed nationalities down there, and they don't get on well
together, and are difficult to manage. I would rather not leave Dick,
if you could have him--Dick will be a good boy--no?' he said, speaking
in the questioning negative so common in Argentine, and addressing the
pale-faced little boy in a manner far too babyish for his years.
Dick made no promise; but feeling, boy-like, that he never quite knew
what being good involved, he wriggled uneasily in his chair. His
father laid one of his hands on the boy's dark hair and the other
beneath the delicately pointed chin, and, turning up the little face
towards him, he kissed it with womanish affection.
'When will you get the train?' said Ross presently, as they sat at
breakfast in the hall. 'You can't catch the one to-night, and there's
not another for two days. Your best plan would have been to send us a
wire about the boy, and to have taken your own steamer down to Taco; it
would have saved a long bit of riding.'
'I wanted to say good-bye to my little one,' said Purvis.
'Well,' said Ross hospitably, 'you are welcome here till your train
starts.'
'I must be off to-night,' said Purvis. 'If I start at eight this
evening I shall catch the train at one a.m. at Taco.'
'You will be dead, Purvis!' said Peter.
Chance had once asserted that Purvis was the only man he knew who had
no sense of fatigue and no sense of fear. 'It's quite true,' he said,
when there was a murmur of astonishment from his listeners; 'and, much
as I dislike the man, I have never known him to be afraid of anything.
It may, of course, be due to a lack of imagination on his part; but I
myself believe that it is the result of having been so frequently in
tight places. I don't believe he can even handle a gun; and yet if he
were surrounded and mobbed he would probably only blink with his watery
eyes or help himself to another tabloid.'
Purvis left his horse in the cool of the paraiso trees during the day,
and a peon brought it to the door after he had eaten a frugal dinner,
during which meal he attended far more to the wants of his child than
to his own.
After dinner Peter cut some sandwiches for him, and gave him a flask of
whisky, a piece of hospitality which in all probability he would have
offered a man who was about to hang him. He had been nurse and
guardian in one to Toffy at Eton, and his long care of the delicate boy
had given him an odd sort of thoughtfulness which showed itself in
small and homely acts like this.
'When I return from Buenos Ayres,' said Purvis, 'I hope to be able to
put before you the facts which will identify Edward Ogilvie.'
'You are quite sure you have got them?' said Peter briefly.
'I am almost certain,' said Purvis.
'Of course,' went on Peter, 'you understand that all the evidence that
you bring before me will have to be thoroughly investigated by
lawyers?' He was half sorry that he had spoken sharply when Purvis
replied with his usual quietness, 'That goes without saying.'
'I dislike anything sensational,' Peter said; 'and this is a case in
which I much prefer that all information which you get shall be brought
direct to me. To be suddenly confronted with my brother might be very
interesting from the point of view of an Adelphi audience; but then,
you see, we are not in a theatre at present.'
'The facts in this case,' replied Purvis, 'are quite exceptional; you
will allow this, I think, when you know them, and you will then
appreciate the fact that it was necessary to get the whole of the
evidence quite clearly established before making the final results
known to you.'
'We have hardly time to argue the subject,' said Peter, 'seeing that
your pony is at the door. The solicitor in Buenos Ayres, whom Sir John
Falconer recommended to me, will meet you here any day you like to
name, and we can go into the matter thoroughly with you together.'
'That would be the most satisfactory plan,' said Purvis, raising his
weak eyes to Peter. 'Meanwhile,' he said, 'my expenses in this matter
have been considerable; perhaps you would kindly look at my account
before starting?'
'No,' said Peter shortly, 'I could not. I am not in the habit of
looking over my accounts by moonlight in the garden.'
'A hundred pounds on account,' said Purvis, 'would enable me to bring
this important matter to a conclusion. Without that, I fear, I am
powerless.'
It ended in Toffy and Peter putting their available cash together and
giving Purvis seventy pounds, and the clerkly man of ink produced a
stamp and a stylographic pen from his pocket, and made out the receipt
on the little dining-room table and handed it to Peter.
'Thank you,' said Peter, relenting a little. He was annoyed with
himself for the irritation which Purvis produced in him. After all, he
had asked him for his assistance, and he was giving it to the best of
his ability. He went as far as the door with him, and said, 'If the
claim is established, remember I should like to see Edward Ogilvie as
soon as possible. Wire to me all particulars, and be so good as to
convey to him that we are anxious to do the right thing by him. I
should not like him to feel, for instance, that the fact of his
existence was any cause of resentment with any of us.'
'It is he, perhaps, who will feel resentment,' said Purvis.
'Perhaps,' said Peter, resisting an inclination to speed Purvis's
departure.