A Confession
All the next week Bevis lay desperately ill, and in the gravest danger.
Every morning Dr. Tremayne motored over to Grimbal's Farm to see him,
and arrived back with the same unsatisfactory report. Mavis and Merle,
who waited anxiously for the daily bulletin, would run in from school at
lunch-time hoping for better news. When Saturday came round again they
begged to be allowed to go to Chagmouth as usual.
"We wouldn't be a scrap of bother to Mrs. Penruddock," said Mavis. "If
Jessop may give us some lunch we could eat it on the cliffs or in the
woods."
"That's a great idea," declared Uncle David. "I'll do the same to-day.
Jessop shall make us up a lunch basket, and we'll all have a picnic meal
together somewhere before I go up to the Sanatorium. It will certainly
save them trouble at the farm. Mrs. Penruddock won't want to do any
cooking for us, I'm sure, when she's so busy nursing."
As they motored along towards Chagmouth, the girls felt strongly, what
had sometimes struck them before, that it was good to belong to a
Doctor's family, and to be taking skilled help where it was so greatly
needed. They had the utmost confidence in Uncle David, and knew that he
would give every service that human aid could render or his long
experience could suggest. He came down that morning from his patient's
room with no better report:
"He's still very ill. I can't get his temperature down. But I'm trying
different treatment, and we must see what that will do. I'm glad I shall
be about the place to-day. They know where to find me if they want me."
Dr. Tremayne went into his surgery to attend to the string of other
patients who were waiting for him, and Mavis and Merle sat in the little
front garden, on the green bench under the fuchsia tree outside the
French window. They had not the heart to go for a walk. Mrs. Penruddock,
kind as usual, but overwhelmed with trouble, had greeted them, and taken
them upstairs for one brief peep at the invalid. They had not gone
inside the room, but from the doorway they had seen Bevis lying in bed
with ice on his head, so thin and changed and hollow-eyed, that he
scarcely looked like their old friend. As they sat in the garden,
talking in undertones, the gate clicked, and Tudor Williams came up the
path to the door--such a subdued Tudor, without any of his former
jauntiness and gay flippancy of manner. When he saw the girls he crossed
the grass and shook hands with them.
"I've come to ask about the poor chap," he said quietly. "Mother sent
down a message to Dr. Tremayne to say that if there's anything we can do
we'll be very glad. We'd send Jones for ice or anything of that sort,
you know. He'd take out the car directly and get what was wanted."
"Thanks very much, we'll tell Uncle David. Oh, there's Mrs. Penruddock!
Perhaps you'd better speak to her and give her the message. There might
be something wanted at once."
Mrs. Penruddock had come into the parlour, and now walked to the French
window to meet Tudor, who inquired about Bevis, and explained his
errand. She mopped her eyes as she thanked him.
"I'm sure people have all been so kind," she gulped. "Everything that
can be done has been done. But there he lies rolling his head on his
pillow, and talking for ever about the 'curse of Cain'. He can't get it
out of his mind but what he's murdered you. It seems no use telling him.
He just listens, and goes on again how he knows you're lying dead on the
cliff. I wonder if he saw you if it would put that right? Could I ask
you to step up to his bedroom for a minute, and let him have a look at
you, and see for himself that you're alive?"
"Oh, may I?" said Tudor, passing through the French window into the
parlour, and following Mrs. Penruddock upstairs.
He came down again after perhaps five minutes, and, big manly boy though
he was, his eyes were red, and his voice was choking.
"I'd no idea the poor chap was in such a state," he burst out to Mavis
and Merle. "It's awful to see him with his hollow eyes and his white
hands. He asked me to forgive him! Forgive him! It's I who ought to ask
for forgiveness. It was all my fault! Mine entirely! I was an utter
vulgar brute and beast! I never thought--" But seeing somebody coming to
the gate, and boy-like not wanting to give an exhibition of his
feelings, Tudor bolted back into the parlour, and going out by the side
door into the stackyard, crossed the orchard, and went home over the
fields to The Warren.
Mavis and Merle were rather glad that they were not having lunch to-day
at the farm. Mrs. Penruddock was busy and upset, and though many
neighbours had come in to help her, nobody seemed to know exactly what
to do, and they sat in the kitchen talking and shaking their heads.
"Just like a set of old crows. As if that could do Bevis any good!"
exclaimed Mavis rather impatiently.
"They're telling each other all sorts of tales about early deaths and
funerals. Nice cheerful kind of conversation for a sick-house," agreed
Merle.
Of course as they were in a hurry to get away, Dr. Tremayne had more
patients than usual, and was detained a long time in the surgery. They
waited for him in the garden, where the lilac bush under Bevis's window
was already breaking into blossom, and swallows were darting past.
To-morrow would be Palm Sunday, and next week was Easter week, and
Father and Mother would be coming down to Durracombe for a brief
holiday. It was three months since they had seen them, and to-day, in
the midst of all the sadness around them, the girls felt rather
home-sick, and were longing for a peep at their "ain folk".
"Are they going to take us back with them to Whinburn?" speculated
Merle.
"I don't know! I've asked Mother in almost every letter, and she's not
answered my question."
"I'm torn in two!"
"So am I. I want Dad and Mother, and yet I don't want to leave dear
Devonshire."
"Or Uncle David?"
"No. I've got real right-down fond of Uncle David. He's a darling!
There's nobody else in the world exactly like him."
Dr. Tremayne worked through his list of waiting patients at last, and
went round to the stackyard to fetch his car. Mavis and Merle jumped
joyfully in, and they drove away up the hill. They went in the opposite
direction to the Sanatorium because the Doctor had a visit to pay at a
farm, and he wished to combine with it a call on Mrs. Jarvis, whose
cottage would be close by his destination. The manager of Trotman's
Circus had sent some few possessions which had belonged to her son
Jerry, and they had brought the parcel with them in the car.
"We'll have our lunch first," decreed Uncle David, "then we'll go and
see the poor old body afterwards. I want something to eat before I
interview any more patients."
They chose a quiet spot at the edge of a wood, and drawing up the car on
a patch of grass by the roadside, they took their basket among the trees
and spread forth their picnic. Jessop had provided handsomely for them,
and they immensely enjoyed the meal in the open air.
"If I'd only time, I'd go skirmishing all over Devonshire. It's my ideal
of a holiday, to motor just where you like, and not have to think of
your surgery," admitted Dr. Tremayne, throwing pine cones at the girls,
and behaving quite boyishly in spite of his sixty-five years.
"Can't Daddy take surgery for you while he's over and give you a rest?"
suggested Merle. "I'm sure he'd help if he could."
"It's rather a brain wave. Perhaps he might," said Dr. Tremayne
thoughtfully. "I'm growing a little tired of being perpetually in
harness. When a man gets to my age he begins to crave for some leisure.
I've been trying for the last three years to write a book on 'The
Treatment of Tuberculosis', but I can't find the time to do it. Directly
I begin somebody rings up and wants me to go and see them."
"I should smash the horrid old telephone and then they couldn't ring you
up," laughed Merle.
"That's all right, little Pussie, but they'd send a messenger to fetch
me instead, so it would come to just the same thing in the end."
"Why do doctors always go?"
"Because people can't do without us, I suppose. Of course we don't make
unnecessary journeys, but when a case is serious we turn out whatever
the weather or however late it is."
"I know; that's what Daddy always says," put in Mavis. "He comes in
tired to death, and goes out again in a snowstorm because the case is
serious. I think doctors are just the best and kindest men in all the
world."
They were quite sorry to leave the wood and go back to the car, but time
was creeping on fast. Dr. Tremayne paid his visit at Clavedon Farm, then
drove on to Mrs. Jarvis's cottage, which was close by. The girls took
the parcel between them, and they all three walked together up the
little garden to the open door. They found Mrs. Jarvis sitting in her
kitchen with a neighbour to keep her company. Since the death of her son
the postwoman had failed greatly, and for the last week she had not
undertaken her duties in connection with the pillar-box. To-day she
seemed hysterical and excited. She sprang up at the sight of Dr.
Tremayne, and began a loud complaint of pains in her head, mixed up with
lamentations on the death of General Talland.
"She's been like this all the week, Doctor," explained the neighbour.
"She's not fit to be left alone. Ever since she heard the news about
General Talland, she's been going on with this wild talk. We take no
notice of her. He's nothing to her. It's just one of those queer fancies
she gets sometimes. She'll perhaps calm down again."
[Illustration: SHE REACHED DOWN INTO SOME DARK RECEPTACLE AND DREW UP A
BROWN-PAPER PARCEL _Page 275_]
"Can you bear to look at some of Jerry's things, Mrs. Jarvis?" asked the
Doctor.
At the mention of her son the poor woman's excitable mood changed;
instead of shouting she spoke more quietly, and her eyes filled with
tears as she turned over the trifles that had been sent to her.
"Jerry! My boy Jerry!" she murmured. "I always said he'd come back. He
oughtn't to have gone and left me--ought he? And he took--I never told
anyone what he took! He was a bad son to me."
"Never mind that now he's dead and gone," put in the neighbour.
"Ay, he's dead and gone, and so is General Talland, so is General
Talland."
"She's off again on that point," groaned the neighbour.
But Mrs. Jarvis was looking at Dr. Tremayne with a curious craftiness in
her eyes.
"General Talland's gone," she repeated. "And I hear they've to go a long
way to find an heir to the property. What if there was an heir close at
hand--here in Chagmouth?"
"What do you mean?" asked the Doctor.
"Ay, what do I mean? I'm not so demented as some folks think me.
There's something that I could tell if I liked. I wouldn't have said a
word if _he'd_ a-lived, but he's dead and gone, so it makes no
difference to him now if I speak. Sit you down, Doctor, and the young
ladies too! I may as well tell it to plenty of witnesses while I'm about
it. Do you remember, Doctor, when I was village nurse over fourteen year
ago? I was called in all of a sudden one day to attend Mrs. Hunter, the
lady who'd been taken ill at the King's Arms."
"I remember," nodded Dr. Tremayne.
"Well, I swore at the inquest that she died without saying a word, but I
swore false. I was left alone with her for just one minute in the
parlour while Mrs. Tingcomb fetched more brandy, and Mr. Tingcomb sent
Bob hurrying on his bicycle to Durracombe with a message for you. In
that minute she got her breath. She knew that she was going fast, and
she gasped out that she'd come to Chagmouth to find General Talland,
that she'd been married secret to his son, and that the child was the
heir. 'I've all the papers', says she, but then the faintness took her
again, and though Mrs. Tingcomb ran in and gave her brandy she never
come round."
"But I thought at the inquest it was distinctly said there were no
papers. I remember that point of the evidence particularly," said the
Doctor.
"There were none in her handbag or in her portmanteau. She had them all
in a hanging pocket slung round her waist under her dress skirt. I found
them when I was laying her out. I put them by, and said nothing about it
just then. I meant to give folks a big surprise at the inquest. I took
them home and looked them over. There was forty pounds in notes amongst
them. My poor boy Jerry was lying in bed asleep, as I thought, but he
must have been watching me, for he up and away as soon as it was light,
and took the notes and my bits of savings too out of the old tea-pot.
Why didn't I tell at the inquest? They'd have issued a warrant against
Jerry! I wasn't going to put my own boy in prison! No one knew about the
pocket, and the safest thing was to keep my mouth shut. I wouldn't have
told now if my poor boy had been alive. Oh! he broke his mother's
heart!"
"This is a most extraordinary story," said Dr. Tremayne. "If it's true
have you anything to prove your words? Where are these papers you speak
of?"
"Those that hide can find! May I trouble you to shift your chair,
Doctor?"
Mrs. Jarvis moved away several pieces of furniture, and lifted first the
hearthrug, and then part of the oilcloth that covered the floor. There
was a loose board underneath; she raised it, reached down into some dark
receptacle, and drew up a brown-paper parcel. She unwrapped this and
revealed a small case made of linen, with tapes attached to it. Inside
were a number of papers which she handed to Dr. Tremayne.
"They're all as she said, Doctor. There's her wedding certificate and
the birth certificate, and letters from her husband too. You'll find
them all right. She'd everything in order, poor thing. They'd have made
a stir at the inquest, wouldn't they, if I could only 'a told about
them?"
Dr. Tremayne was looking rapidly through the contents of the old linen
case.
"These are indeed most valuable papers," he remarked. "I shall take
them to the lawyers who manage the Talland estate, and they'll no doubt
prepare a statement which you will be required to sign to show how they
came into your possession. Oh, Mrs. Jarvis! how _could_ you keep them
back for all these years, when you knew how much was involved?"
"Better late than never, Doctor. I was in two minds whether to burn them
and have done with it. Oh, my poor boy Jerry! It's ill raking up matters
against them that's gone. If he'd been alive, I'd have kept my mouth
shut, and never have said a word."
Mrs. Jarvis was rocking herself to and fro in a state of great
excitement. She was sane enough where a recollection of the events at
the King's Arms was concerned, but her clouded brain revolved round the
pivot of her son's death. She moaned, and twitched her mouth with
nervous jerks.
"I'll make her up a bottle of bromide mixture when I get back to the
surgery," said Dr. Tremayne to the neighbour. "Can you send one of your
boys down for it about six o'clock? She oughtn't to be left alone."
"No, Doctor. I'll do what I can. She's in a bad way, poor soul. There's
a lot of trouble in the world, isn't there?"
"There is indeed! Now I must hurry off, for I'm due at the Sanatorium,
and I'm very late. Give her the mixture, and I'll call and see her again
next week."
Dr. Tremayne put the linen case inside his safest inner pocket, and
took his departure. As they drove down the hill towards the ravine all
the little town and its neighbouring cliffs and woods lay stretched out
before them.
"Uncle David," asked Mavis, "if those papers are proved does it mean
that The Warren and the whole of Chagmouth will belong to Bevis? Is he
the grandson of General Talland?"
"There seems very little doubt about it. It was evidence that ought to
have been given at the inquest fourteen years ago. Poor lad! Poor lad!
If we'd only known sooner."
"But why did his mother call herself Mrs. Hunter?"
"Probably she wouldn't care to give her true name at the hotel until she
had been to see General Talland. The marriage had been kept secret, and
nobody in Chagmouth knew about it. No doubt she had intended to go to
The Warren and show her child to its grandfather. But General Talland
had started for the West Indies. It was perhaps the news of his absence,
and the consequent failure of her errand, that brought on the heart
attack that caused her sudden collapse."
"So Chagmouth belongs to Bevis," repeated Merle wonderingly. "The house,
and the grounds, and the woods, and the shooting, and the farms, and the
town are Bevis's. It's like a fairy tale!"
But the heir to all the Talland Estate lay between life and death.