Works of Ellen Wood, page 416
He stopped to take a few whiffs at his pipe, and then resumed, Lionel listening in silence.
“On the following morning by daylight I went down to the pond, the scene of the previous night. A few stragglers were already there. As we were looking about and talking, I saw on the very brink of the pond, partially hidden in the grass — in fact trodden into it, as it seemed to me — a glove. I picked it up, and was on the point of calling out that I had found a glove, when it struck me that the glove was yours. The others had seen me stoop, and one of them asked if I had found anything. I said ‘No.’ I had crushed the glove in my hand, and presently I transferred it to my pocket.”
“Your motive being good-nature to me?” interrupted Lionel.
“To be sure it was. To have shown that as Lionel Verner’s glove, would have fixed the affair on your shoulders at once. Why should I tell? I had been in scrapes myself. And I kept it, saying nothing to anybody. I examined the glove privately, saw it was really yours, and, of course, I drew my own conclusions — that it was you who had been in the quarrel, though what cause of dispute you could have with Rachel, I was at a loss to divine. Next came the inquest, and the medical men’s revelation at it: and that cleared up the mystery, ‘Ho, ho,’ I said to myself, ‘so Master Lionel can do a bit of courting on his own account, steady as he seems.’ I—”
“Did you assume I threw her into the pond?” again interposed Lionel.
“Not a bit of it. What next, Lionel? The ignoring of some of the Commandments comes natural enough to the conscience; but the sixth — one does not ignore that. I believed that you and Rachel might have come to loggerheads, and that she, in a passion, flung herself in. I held the glove still in my pocket; it seemed to be the safest place for it; and I intended, before I left, to hand it over to you, and to give you my word I’d keep counsel. On the night of the inquest, you were closeted in the study with Mr. Verner. I chafed at it, for I wished to be closeted with him myself. Unless I could get off from Verner’s Pride the next day, there would be no chance of my sailing in the projected ship — where our passages had been already secured by Luke Roy. By and by you came into the dining-room — do you remember it? — and told me Mr. Verner wanted me in the study. It was just what I wanted; and I went in. I shan’t forget my surprise to the last hour of my life. His greeting was an accusation of me — of me! that it was I who had played false with Rachel. He had proof, he said. One of the house-girls had seen one of us three young men coming from the scene that night — and he, Stephen Verner, knew it could only be me. Fred was too cautious, he said; Lionel he could depend upon; and he bitterly declared that he would not give me a penny piece of the promised money, to take me on my way. A pretty state of things, was it not, Lionel, to have one’s projects put an end to in that manner? In my dismay and anger, I blurted out the truth; that one of us might have been seen coming from the scene, but it was not myself; it was Lionel; and I took the glove out of my pocket and showed it to him.”
John Massingbird paused to take a draught of the rum-and-water, and then resumed.
“I never saw any man so agitated as Mr. Verner. Upon my word, had I foreseen the effect the news would have had upon him, I hardly think I should have told it. His face turned ghastly; he lay back in his chair, uttering groans of despair; in short, it had completely prostrated him. I never knew how deeply he was attached to you, Lionel, until that night.”
“He believed the story?” said Lionel.
“Of course he believed it,” assented John Massingbird. “I told it him as a certainty, as a thing about which there was no admission for the slightest doubt: I assumed it, myself, to be a certainty. When he was a little recovered, he took possession of the glove, and bound me to secrecy. You would never have forgotten it, Lionel, had you seen his shaking hands, his imploring eyes, heard his voice of despair; all lifted to beseech secrecy for you — for the sake of his dead brother — for the name of Verner — for his own sake. I heartily promised it; and he handed me over a more liberal sum than even I had expected, enjoined me to depart with the morrow’s dawn, and bade me Godspeed. I believe he was glad that I was going, lest I might drop some chance word during the present excitement of Deerham, and by that means direct suspicion to you. He need not have feared. I was already abusing myself mentally for having told him, although it had gained me my ends: ‘Live and let live’ had been my motto hitherto. The interview was nearly over when you came to interrupt it, asking if Mr. Verner would see Robin Frost. Mr. Verner answered that he might come in. He came; you and Fred with him. Do you recollect old Verner’s excitement? — his vehement words in answer to Robin’s request that a reward should be posted up? ‘He’ll never be found, Robin; the villain will never be found, so long as you and I and the world shall last.’ I recollect them, you see, word for word, to this hour; but none, save myself, knew what caused Mr. Verner’s excitement, or that the word ‘villain’ was applied to you. Upon my word and honour, old boy, I felt as if I had the deeper right to it! and I felt angry with old Verner for looking at the affair in so strong a light. But there was no help for it. I went away the next morning—”
“Stay!” interrupted Lionel. “A single word to me would have set the misapprehension straight. Why did you not speak it?”
“I wish I had, now. But — it wasn’t done. There! The knowledge that turns up in the future we can’t call to aid in the present. If I had had a doubt that it was you, I should have spoken. We were some days out at sea on our voyage to Australia when I and Luke got comparing notes; and I found, to my everlasting astonishment, that it was not you, after all, who had been with Rachel, but Fred.”
“You should have written home, to do me justice with Mr. Verner. You ought not to have delayed one instant, when the knowledge came to you.”
“And how was I to send the letter? Chuck it into the sea in the ship’s wake, and give it orders to swim back to port?”
“You might have posted it at the first place you touched at.”
“Look here, Lionel. I never regarded it in that grave light. How was I to suppose that old Verner would disinherit you for that trumpery escapade? I never knew why he had disinherited you, until I came home and heard from yourself the story of the inclosed glove, which he left you as a legacy. It’s since then that I have been wanting to make a clean breast of it. I say, only fancy Fred’s deepness! We should never have thought it of him. The quarrel between him and Rachel that night appeared to arise from the fact of her having seen him with Sibylla; having overheard that there was more between them than was pleasant to her: at least, so far as Luke could gather it. Lionel, what should have brought your glove lying by the pond?”
“I am unable to say. I had not been there, to drop it. The most feasible solution that I can come to is that Rachel may have had it about her for the purpose of mending, and let it drop herself, when she jumped in.”
“Ay. That’s the most likely. There was a hole in it, I remember; and it was Rachel who attended to such things in the household. It must have been so.”
Lionel fell into a reverie. How — but for this mistake of John Massingbird’s, this revelation to his uncle — the whole course of his life’s events might have been changed! Verner’s Pride bequeathed to him, never bequeathed at all to the Massingbirds, it was scarcely likely that Sibylla, in returning home, would have driven to Verner’s Pride. Had she not driven to it that night, he might never have been so surprised by his old feelings as to have proposed to her. He might have married Lucy Tempest; have lived, sheltered with her in Verner’s Pride from the storms of life; he might —
“Will you forgive me, old chap?”
It was John Massingbird who spoke, interrupting his day dreams. Lionel shook them off, and took the offered hand stretched out.
“Yes,” he heartily said. “You did not do me the injury intentionally. It was the result of a mistake, brought about by circumstances.”
“No, that I did not, by Jove!” answered John Massingbird. “I don’t think I ever did a fellow an intentional injury in my life. You would have been the last I should single out for it. I have had many ups and downs, Lionel, but somehow I have hitherto always managed to alight on my legs; and I believe it’s because I let other folks get along — tit for tat, you see. A fellow who is for ever putting his hindering spoke in the wheel of others, is safe to get hindering spokes put into his. I am not a pattern model,” comically added John Massingbird; “but I have never done wilful injury to others, and my worst enemy (if I possess one) can’t charge it upon me.”
True enough. With all Mr. John Massingbird’s failings, his heart was not a bad one. In the old days his escapades had been numerous; his brother Frederick’s, none (so far as the world knew); but the one was liked a thousand times better than the other.
“We part friends, old fellow!” he said to Lionel the following morning, when all was ready, and the final moment of departure had come.
“To be sure we do,” answered Lionel. “Should England ever see you again, you will not forget Verner’s Pride.”
“I don’t think it will ever see me again. Thanks, old chap, all the same. If I should be done up some unlucky day for the want of a twenty-pound note, you won’t refuse to let me have it, for old times’ sake?”
“Very well,” laughed Lionel.
And so they parted. And Verner’s Pride was quit of Mr. John Massingbird, and Deerham of its long-looked-upon bête noir, old Grip Roy. Luke had gone forward to make arrangements for the sailing, as he had done once before; and Mrs. Roy took her seat with her husband in a third-class carriage, crying enough tears to float the train.
CHAPTER XCI.
MEDICAL ATTENDANCE GRATIS, INCLUDING PHYSIC.
As a matter of course, the discovery of the codicil, and the grave charge it served to establish against Dr. West, could not be hid under a bushel. Deerham was remarkably free in its comments, and was pleased to rake up various unpleasant reports, which, from time to time, in the former days had arisen, touching that gentleman. Deerham might say what it liked, and nobody be much the worse; but a more serious question arose with Jan. Easy as Jan was, little given to think ill, even he could not look over this. Jan, if he would maintain his respectability as a medical man and a gentleman, if he would retain his higher class of patients, he must give up his association with Dr. West.
The finding of the codicil had been communicated to Dr. West by Matiss, the lawyer, who officially demanded at the same time an explanation of its having been placed where it was found. The doctor replied to the communication, but conveniently ignored the question. He was “charmed” to hear that the long-missing deed was found, which restored Verner’s Pride to the rightful owner, Lionel Verner; but he appeared not to have read, or else not to have understood the very broad hint implicating himself, for not a word was returned to that part, in answer. The silence was not less a conclusive proof than the admission of guilt would have been; and it was so regarded by those concerned.
Jan was the next to write. A characteristic letter. He said not a word of reproach to the doctor; he appeared, indeed, to ignore the facts as completely as the doctor himself had done in answer to Matiss; he simply said that he would prefer to “get along” now alone. The practice had much increased, and there was room for them both. He would remove to another residence — a lodging would do, he said — and run his chance of patients coming to him. It was not his intention to take one from Dr. West by solicitation. The doctor could either come back and resume practice in person, or take a partner in place of him, Jan.
To this a bland answer was received. Dr. West was agreeable to the dissolution of partnership; but he had no intention of resuming practice in Deerham. He and his noble charge (who was decidedly benefiting by his care, skill, and companionship, he elaborately wrote), were upon the best of terms; his engagement with him was likely to be a long one (for the poor youth would require a personal guide up to his fortieth year, nay, to his eightieth, if he lived so long); and therefore (not to be fettered) he, Dr. West, was anxious to sever his ties with Deerham. He should never return to it. If Mr. Jan would undertake to pay him a trifling sum, say five hundred pounds, or so he could have the entire business; and the purchase-money, if more convenient, might be paid by instalments. Mr. Jan, of course, would become sole proprietor of the house (the rent of which had hitherto been paid out of the joint concern), but perhaps he would not object to allow those “two poor old things, Deborah and Amilly, a corner in it.” He should, of course, undertake to provide for them, remitting them a liberal annual sum.
In writing this — fair, nay liberal, as the offered terms appeared to the sight of single-hearted Jan — Dr. West had probably possessed as great an eye as ever to his own interest. He had a shrewd suspicion that, the house divided, his, Dr. West’s, would stand but a poor chance against Jan Verner’s. That Jan would be entirely true and honourable in not soliciting the old patients to come to him, he knew; but he equally knew that the patients would flock to Jan unsolicited. Dr. West had not lived in ignorance of what was going on in Deerham; he had one or two private correspondents there; besides the open ones, his daughters and Jan; and he had learned how popular Jan had grown with all classes. Yes, it was decidedly politic on Dr. West’s part to offer Jan terms of purchase. And Jan closed with them.
“I couldn’t have done it six months ago, you know, Lionel,” he said to his brother. “But now that you have come in again to Verner’s Pride, you won’t care to have my earnings any longer.”
“What I shall care for now, Jan, will be to repay you so far as I can. The money can be repaid: the kindness never.”
“Law!” cried Jan, “that’s nothing. Wouldn’t you have done as much for me? To go back to old West: I shall be able to complete the purchase in little more than a year, taking it out of the profits. The expenses will be something considerable. There’ll be the house, and the horses, for I must have two, and I shall take a qualified assistant as soon as Cheese leaves, which will be in autumn; but there’ll be a margin of six or seven hundred a year profit left me then. And the business is increasing. Yes, I shall be able to pay him out in a year, or thereabouts. In offering me these easy terms, I think he is behaving liberally. Don’t you, Lionel?”
“That may be a matter of opinion, Jan,” was Lionel’s answer. “He has stood to me in the relation of father-in-law, and I don’t care to express mine too definitely. He is wise enough to know that when you leave him, his chance of practice is gone. But I don’t advise you to cavil with the terms. I should say, accept them.”
“I have done it,” answered Jan. “I wrote this morning. I must get a new brass plate for the door. ‘Jan Verner, Surgeon, etc.,’ in place of the present one, ‘West and Verner.’”
“I think I should put Janus Verner, instead of Jan,” suggested Lionel, with a half smile.
“Law!” repeated Jan. “Nobody would know it was meant for me if I put Janus. Shall I have ‘Mr.’ tacked on to it, Lionel?— ‘Mr. Jan Verner.’”
“Of course you will,” answered Lionel. “What is going to be done about Deborah and Amilly West?”
“In what way?”
“As to their residence.”
“You saw what Dr. West says in his letter. They can stop.”
“It is not a desirable arrangement, Jan, their remaining in the house.”
“They won’t hurt me,” responded Jan. “They are welcome.”
“I think, Jan, your connection with the West family should be entirely closed. The opportunity offers now: and, if not embraced, you don’t know when another may arise. Suppose, a short while hence, you were to marry? It might be painful to your feelings, then, to have to say to Deborah and Amilly— ‘You must leave my house: there’s no further place for you in it.’ Now, in this dissolution of partnership, the change can take place as in the natural course of events.”
Jan had opened his great eyes wonderingly at the words. “I marry!” uttered he. “What should bring me marrying?”
“You may be marrying some time, Jan.”
“Not I,” answered Jan. “Nobody would have me. They can stop on in the house, Lionel. What does it matter? I don’t see how I and Cheese should get on without them. Who’d make the pies? Cheese would die of chagrin, if he didn’t get one every day.”
“I see a great deal of inconvenience in the way,” persisted Lionel. “The house will be yours then. Upon what terms would they remain? As visitors, as lodgers — as what?”
Jan opened his eyes wider. “Visitors! lodgers!” cried he. “I don’t know what you mean, Lionel. They’d stop on as they always have done — as though the house were theirs. They’d be welcome, for me.”
“You must do as you like, Jan; but I do not think the arrangement a desirable one. It would be establishing a claim which Dr. West may be presuming upon later. With his daughters in the house, as of right, he may be for coming back some time and taking up his abode in it. It would be better for you and the Misses West to separate; to have your establishments apart.”
“I shall never turn them out,” said Jan. “They’d break their hearts. Look at the buttons, too! Who’d sew them on? Cheese bursts off two a day, good.”
“As you please, Jan. My motive in speaking was not ill-nature towards the Misses West; but regard for you. As the sisters of my late wife, I shall take care that they do not want — should their resources from Dr. West fail. He speaks of allowing them a liberal sum annually; but I fear they must not make sure that the promise will be carried out. Should it not be, they will have no one to look to, I expect, but myself.”
“They won’t want much,” said Jan; “just a trifle for their bonnets and shoes, and suchlike. I shall pay the house-bills, you know. In fact, I’d as soon give them enough for their clothes, as not. I dare say I should have it, even the first year, after paying expenses and old West’s five hundred.”
It was hopeless to contend with Jan upon the subject of money, especially when it was his money. Lionel said no more. But he had not the slightest doubt it would end in Jan’s house being saddled with the Misses West; and that help for them from Dr. West would never come.
