MASTER CHEESE BLOWN UP.
There were other houses in Deerham that night, not quite so full of
sociability as was Lady Verner's. For one, may be instanced that of the
Misses West. They sat at the table in the general sitting-room, hard at
work, a lamp between them, for the gas-burners above were high for
sewing, and their eyes were no longer so keen as they had been. Miss
Deborah was "turning" a table-cloth; Miss Amilly was darning sundry
holes in a pillow-case. Their stock of household linen was in great need
of being replaced by new; but, not having the requisite money to spare,
they were doing their best to renovate the old.
A slight--they could not help feeling it as such--had been put upon them
that day, in not having been invited to Decima Verner's wedding. The
sisters-in-law of Lionel Verner, connected closely with Jan, they had
expected the invitation. But it had not come. Lionel had pressed his
mother to give it; Jan, in his straightforward way, when he had found it
was not forthcoming, said, "Why don't you invite them! They'd do nobody
any harm." Lady Verner, however had positively declined: the Wests had
never been acquaintances of hers, she said. They felt the slight, poor
ladies, but they felt it quite humbly and meekly; not complaining; not
venturing even to say to each other that they _might_ have been asked.
They only sat a little more silent than usual over their work that
evening, doing more, and talking less.
The servant came in with the supper-tray, and laid it on the table. "Is
the cold pork to come in?" asked she. "I have not brought it. I thought,
perhaps, you'd not care to have it in to-night, ma'am, as Mr. Jan's
out."
Miss Deborah cast her eyes on the tray. There was a handsome piece of
cheese, and a large glass of fresh celery. A rapid calculation passed
through her mind that the cold pork, if not cut for supper, would make a
dinner the following day, with an apple or a jam pudding.
"No, Martha, this will do for to-night," she answered. "Call Master
Cheese, and then draw the ale."
"It's a wonder _he_ waits to be called," was Martha's comment, as she
went out. "He is generally in afore the tray, whatever the meals may be,
he is."
She went out at the side door, and entered the surgery. Nobody was in it
except the surgery-boy. The boy was asleep, with his head and arms on
the counter, and the gas flared away over him. A hissing and fizzing
from Jan's room, similar to the sounds Lucy Tempest heard when she
invaded the surgery the night of the ball at Deerham Hall, saluted
Martha's ears. She went round the counter, tried the door, found it
fastened, and shook the handle.
"Who's there?" called out Master Cheese from the other side.
"It's me," said Martha "Supper's ready."
"Very well. I'll be in directly," responded Master Cheese.
"I say!" called out Martha wrathfully, rattling the handle again, "if
you are making a mess of that room, as you do sometimes, I won't have
it. I'll complain to Mr. Jan. There! Messing the floor and places with
your powder and stuff! It would take two servants to clear up after
you."
"You go to Bath," was the satisfactory recommendation of Master Cheese.
Martha called out another wrathful warning, and withdrew. Master Cheese
came forth, locked the door, took out the key, went indoors, and sat
down to supper.
Sat down in angry consternation. He threw his eager glances to every
point of the table, and could not see upon it what he was longing to
see--what he had been expecting all the evening to see--for the terrible
event of its not being there had never so much as crossed his
imagination. The dinner had consisted of a loin of pork with the
crackling on, and apple sauce--a dish so beloved by Master Cheese, that
he never thought of it without a watering of the mouth. It had been
nothing like half eaten at dinner, neither the pork nor the sauce. Jan
was at the wedding-breakfast, and the Misses West, in Master Cheese's
estimation, ate like two sparrows: of course he had looked to be regaled
with it at supper. Miss West cut him a large piece of cheese, and Miss
Amilly handed him the glass of celery.
Now Master Cheese had no great liking for that vulgar edible which bore
his name, and which used to form the staple of so many good,
old-fashioned suppers. To cheese, in the abstract, he could certainly
have borne no forcible objection, since he was wont to steal into the
larder, between breakfast and dinner, and help himself--as Martha would
grumblingly complain--to "pounds" of it. The state of the case was just
this: the young gentleman liked cheese well enough when he could get
nothing better. Cheese, however, as a substitute for cold loin of pork,
with "crackling" and apple sauce, was hardly to be borne, and Master
Cheese sat in dumbfounded dismay, heaving great sighs and casting his
eyes upon his plate.
"I feel quite faint," said he.
"What makes you feel faint?" asked Miss Deb.
"Well, I suppose it is for want of my supper," he returned. "Is--is
there no meat to-night, Miss Deb?"
"Not any," she answered decisively. She had the pleasure of knowing
Master Cheese well.
Master Cheese paused. "There was nearly the whole joint left at dinner,"
said he in a tone of remonstrance.
"There was a good deal of it left, and that's the reason it's not coming
in," replied Miss Deb. "It will be sufficient for to-morrow's dinner
with a pudding, I'm sure it will not hurt you to sup upon cheese for
one night."
With all his propensity for _bonne chere_, Master Cheese was really of a
modest nature, and would not go the length of demanding luxuries, if
denied them by Miss Deb. He was fain to content himself with the cheese
and celery, eating so much of it that it may be a question whether the
withholding of the cold pork had been a gain in point of economy.
Laying down his knife at length, he put back his chair to return to the
surgery. Generally he was not in so much haste; he liked to wait until
the things were removed, even to the cloth, lest by a speedy departure
he might miss some nice little dainty or other, coming in at the tail of
the repast. It is true such impromptu arrivals were not common at Miss
West's table, but Master Cheese liked to be on the sure side.
"You are in a hurry," remarked Miss Amilly, surprised at the unwonted
withdrawal.
"Jan's out," returned Master Cheese. "Folks may be coming in to the
surgery."
"I wonder if Mr. Jan will be late to-night?" cried Miss Deb.
"Of course he will," confidently replied Master Cheese. "Who ever heard
of a wedding-party breaking up before morning?"
For this reason, probably, Master Cheese returned to the surgery,
prepared to "make a night of it"--not altogether in the general
acceptation of that term, but at his chemical experiments. It was most
rare that he could make sure of Jan's absence for any length of time.
When abroad in pursuance of his professional duties, Jan might be
returning at any period; in five minutes or in five hours; there was no
knowing; and Master Cheese dared not get his chemical apparatus about,
in the uncertainty, Jan having so positively forbidden his recreations
in the science. For this night, however, he thought he was safe. Master
Cheese's ideas of a wedding festival consisted of unlimited feasting.
_He_ could not have left such a board, if bidden to one, until morning
light, and he judged others by himself.
Jan's bedroom was strewed with vessels of various sorts and sizes from
one end of it to the other. In the old days, Dr. West had been a
considerable dabbler in experimental chemistry himself. Jan also
understood something of it. Master Cheese did not see why he should not.
A roaring fire burned in Jan's grate, and the young gentleman stood
before it for a few minutes, previous to resuming his researches, giving
his back a roast, and indulging bitter reminiscences touching his
deficient supper.
"She's getting downright mean, is that old Deb!" grumbled he;
"especially if Jan happens to be out. Wasn't it different in West's
time! He knew what was good, he did. Catch her daring to put bread and
cheese on the table for supper then. I shall be quite exhausted before
the night's over. Bob!"
Bob, his head still on the counter, partially woke up at the
call--sufficiently so to return a half sound by way of response.
"Bob!" roared Master Cheese again. "Can't you hear?"
Bob, his eyes blinking and winking, came in, in answer: that is, as far
as he could get in, for the litter lying about.
"Bring in the jar of tamarinds."
"The jar of tamarinds!" repeated Bob. "In here?"
"Yes, in here," said Master Cheese. "Now, you needn't stare. All you
have got to do is to obey orders."
Bob disappeared, and presently returned, lugging in a big porcelain jar.
He was ordered to "take out the bung, and leave it open." He did so,
setting it in a convenient place on the floor, near Master Cheese, and
giving his opinion gratuitously of the condition of the room. "Won't
there be a row when Mr. Jan comes in and finds it like this!"
[Illustration: "Won't there be a row!"]
"The things will be put away long before he comes," responded Master
Cheese. "Mind your own business. And, look here! if anybody comes
bothering, Mr. Jan's out, and Mr. Cheese is out, and they can't be seen
till the morning--unless it's some desperate case," added Master Cheese,
somewhat qualifying the instructions--"a fellow dying, or anything of
that."
Bob withdrew, to fall asleep in the surgery as before, his head and arms
on the counter; and Master Cheese recommenced his studies. Solacing
himself first of all with a few mouthfuls of tamarinds, as he intended
to do at intervals throughout his labours, he plunged his hands into a
mass of incongruous substances--nitre, chlorate of potass, and sulphur
being amongst them.
The Misses West, meanwhile, had resumed their work after supper, and
they sewed until the clock struck ten. Then they put it away, and drew
round the fire for a chat, their feet on the fender. A very short while,
and they were surprised by the entrance of Jan.
"My goodness!" exclaimed Miss Amilly. "It's never you yet, Mr. Jan!"
"Why shouldn't it be?" returned Jan, drawing forward a chair, and
sitting down by them. "Did you fancy I was going to sleep there?"
"Master Cheese thought you would keep it up until morning."
"Oh! did he? Is he gone to bed?"
"He is in the surgery," replied Miss Amilly. "Mr. Jan, you have told us
nothing yet about the wedding in the morning."
"It went off," answered Jan.
"But the details? How did the ladies look?"
"They looked as usual, for all I saw," replied Jan.
"What did they wear?"
"Wear? Gowns, I suppose."
"Oh, Mr. Jan! Surely you saw better than that! Can't you tell what sort
of gowns?"
Jan really could not. It may be questioned whether he could have told a
petticoat from a gown. Miss Amilly was waiting with breathless interest,
her lips apart.
"Some were in white, and some were in colours, I think," hazarded Jan,
trying to be correct in his good nature. "Decima was in a veil."
"_Of course_ she was," acquiesced Miss Amilly with emphasis. "Did the
bridemaids--"
What pertinent question relating to the bridemaids Miss Amilly was about
to put, never was known. A fearful sound interrupted it. A sound nearly
impossible to describe. Was it a crash of thunder? Had an engine from
the distant railway taken up its station outside their house, and gone
off with a bang? Or had the surgery blown up? The room they were in
shook, the windows rattled, the Misses West screamed with real terror,
and Jan started from his seat.
"It can't be an explosion of gas!" he muttered.
Bursting out of the room, he nearly knocked down Martha, who was
bursting into it. Instinct, or perhaps sound, took Jan to the surgery,
and they all followed in his wake. Bob, the image of terrified
consternation, stood in the midst of a _debris_ of glass, his mouth
open, and his hair standing-upright. The glass bottles and jars of the
establishment had flown from their shelves, causing the unhappy Bob to
believe that the world had come to an end.
But what was the _debris_ there, compared to the _debris_ in the next
room, Jan's! The window was out, the furniture was split, the various
chemical apparatus had been shivered into a hundred pieces, the tamarind
jar was in two, and Master Cheese was extended on the floor on his back,
his hands scorched, his eyebrows singed off, his face black, and the end
of his nose burning.
"Oh! that's it, is it?" said Jan, when his eyes took in the state of
things. "I knew it would come to it."
"He have been and blowed hisself up," remarked Bob, who had stolen in
after them.
"Is it the gas?" sobbed Miss Amilly, hardly able to speak for terror.
"No, it's not the gas," returned Jan, examining the _debris_ more
closely. "It's one of that gentleman's chemical experiments."
Deborah West was bending over the prostrate form in alarm. "He surely
can't be dead!" she shivered.
"Not he," said Jan. "Come, get up," he added, taking Master Cheese by
the arm to assist him.
He was placed in a chair, and there he sat, coming to, and emitting
dismal groans.
"I told you what you'd bring it to, if you persisted in attempting
experiments that you know nothing about," was Jan's reprimand, delivered
in a sharp tone. "A pretty state of things this is!"
Master Cheese groaned again.
"Are you much hurt?" asked Miss Deb in a sympathising accent.
"Oh-o-o-o-o-o-h!" moaned Master Cheese.
"Is there anything we can get for you?" resumed Miss Deb.
"Oh-o-o-o-o-o-h!" repeated Master Cheese. "A glass of wine might revive
me."
"Get up," said Jan, "and let's see if you can walk. He's not hurt, Miss
Deb."
Master Cheese, yielding to the peremptory movement of Jan's arm, had no
resource but to show them that he could walk. He had taken a step or two
as dolefully as it was possible for him to take it, keeping his eyes
shut, and stretching out his hands before him, after the manner of the
blind, when an interruption came from Miss Amilly.
"What can this be, lying here?"
She was bending her head near the old bureau, which had been rent in the
explosion, her eyes fixed upon some large letter or paper on the floor.
They crowded round at the words. Jan picked it up, and found it to be a
folded parchment bearing a great seal.
"Hollo!" exclaimed Jan.
On the outside was written "Codicil to the will of Stephen Verner."
"What is it?" exclaimed Miss Deborah, and even Master Cheese contrived
to get his eyes open to look.
"It is the lost codicil," replied Jan. "It must have been in that
bureau. How did it get there?"
How indeed? There ensued a pause.
"It must have been placed there"--Jan was beginning, and then he stopped
himself. He would not, before those ladies, say--"by Dr. West."
But to Jan it was now perfectly clear. That old hunting for the
"prescription," which had puzzled him at the time, was explained now.
_There_ was the "prescription"--the codicil! Dr. West had had it in his
hand when disturbed in that room by a stranger: he had flung it back in
the bureau in his hurry; pushed it back: and by some unexplainable
means, he must have pushed it too far out of sight. And there it had
lain until now, intact and undiscovered.
The hearts of the Misses West were turning to sickness, their
countenances to pallor. That it could be no other than their father who
had stolen the codicil from Stephen Verner's dying chamber, was present
to their conviction. His motive could only have been to prevent Verner's
Pride passing to Lionel, over his daughter and her husband. What did he
think of his work when the news came of Frederick's death? What did he
think of it when John Massingbird returned in person? What did he think
of it when he read Sibylla's dying message, written to him by
Amilly--"Tell papa it is the leaving Verner's Pride that has killed me?"
"I shall take possession of this," said Jan Verner. Master Cheese was
conveyed to the house and consigned to bed, where his burnings were
dressed by Jan, and restoratives administered to him, including the
glass of wine.
The first thing on the following morning the codicil was handed over to
Mr. Matiss. He immediately recognised it by its appearance. But it would
be opened officially later, in the presence of John Massingbird. Jan
betook himself to Verner's Pride to carry the news, and found Mr.
Massingbird astride on a pillar of the terrace steps, smoking away with
gusto. The day was warm and sunshiny as the previous one had been.
"What, is it you?" cried he, when Jan came in sight. "You are up here
betimes. Anybody dying, this way?"
"Not this morning," replied Jan. "I say, Massingbird, there's ill news
in the wind for you."
"What's that?" composedly asked John, tilting some ashes out of his
pipe.
"That codicil has come to light."
John puffed on vigorously, staring at Jan, but never speaking.
"The thief must have been old West," went on Jan. "Only think! it has
been hidden all this while in that bureau of his, in my bedroom."
"What has unhidden it?" demanded Mr. Massingbird in a half-satirical
tone, as if he doubted the truth of the information.
"An explosion did that. Cheese got meddling with dangerous substances,
and there was a blow-up. The bureau was thrown down and broken, and the
codicil was dislodged. To talk of it, it sounds like an old stage
trick."
"Did Cheese blow himself up?" asked John Massingbird.
"Yes. But he came down again. He is in bed with burned hands and a
scorched face. If I had told him once to let that dangerous play
alone--dangerous in his hands--I had told him ten times."
"Where's the codicil?" inquired Mr. Massingbird, smoking away.
"In Matiss's charge. You'd like to be present, I suppose, at the time of
its being opened?"
"I can take your word," returned John Massingbird. "This does not
surprise me. I have always had an impression that the codicil would turn
up."
"It is more than I have had," dissented Jan.
As if by common consent, they spoke no further on the subject of the
abstraction and its guilty instrument. It was a pleasant theme to
neither. John Massingbird, little refinement of feeling that he
possessed, could not forget that Dr. West was his mother's brother; or
Jan, that he was his late master, his present partner--that he was
connected with him in the eyes of Deerham. Before they had spoken much
longer, they were joined by Lionel.
"I shall give you no trouble, old fellow," was John Massingbird's
salutation. "You gave me none."
"Thank you," answered Lionel. Though what precise trouble it lay in John
Massingbird's power to give him, he did not see, considering that things
were now so plain.
"You'll accord me house-room for a bit longer, though, won't you?"
"I will accord it you as long as you like," replied Lionel, in the
warmth of his heart.
"You know I would have had you stop on here all along," remarked Mr.
Massingbird; "but the bar to it was Sibylla. I am not sorry the thing's
found. I am growing tired of my life here. It has come into my mind at
times lately to think whether I should not give up to you, Lionel, and
be off over the seas again. It's tame work, this, to one who has roughed
it at the diggings."
"You'd not have done it," observed Jan, alluding to the giving up.
"Perhaps not," said John Massingbird; "but I have owed a debt to Lionel
for a long while. I say, old chap, didn't you think I clapped on a good
sum for your trouble when I offered you the management of Verner's
Pride?"
"I did," answered Lionel.
"Ay! I was in your debt; am in it still. Careless as I am, I thought of
it now and then."
"I do not understand you," said Lionel. "In what way are you in my
debt?"
"Let it go for now," returned John. "I may tell you some time, perhaps.
When shall you take up your abode here?"
Lionel smiled. "I will not invade you without warning. You and I will
take counsel together, John, and discuss plans and expediencies."
"I suppose you'll be for setting about your improvements now?"
"Yes," answered Lionel, his tone changing to one of deep seriousness,
not to say reverence. "Without loss of time."
"I told you they could wait until you came into the estate. It has not
been long first, you see."
"No; but I never looked for it," said Lionel.
"Ah! Things turn up that we don't look for," concluded John Massingbird,
smoking on as serenely as though he had come into an estate, instead of
having lost one. "There'll be bonfires all over the place to-night,
Lionel--left-handed compliment to me. Here comes Luke Roy. I told him to
be here this morning. What nuts this will be for old Roy to crack! He
has been fit to stick me, ever since I refused him the management of
Verner's Pride."