by Ellen Wood
Close to the roots of a small fir-tree it lay: the earring that had caused so much vexation and hunting. I picked it up: its pink topaz and diamonds shone brightly as ever in the sun, and were quite uninjured. Mrs. Todhetley remembered then, though it had slipped her memory before, that in coming indoors after the interview with the woman at the gate, she had stopped to shake this fir-tree, bowed down almost to breaking with its weight of snow. The earring must have fallen from her ear then into the snow, and been hidden by it.
Without giving himself time for a mouthful of lunch, the Squire tore away to the station through the mud, as fast as his legs would carry him, and thence to Worcester by train. What an unfortunate mistake it would be should that professional gentleman have been accused, who had bought something from the travelling pedlar!
“Well, Cripp, here’s a fine discovery!” panted the Squire, as he went bursting into the police-station and to the presence of Sergeant Cripp. “The lost earring has turned up.”
“I’m sure I am very glad to hear it,” said the sergeant, facing round from a letter he was writing. “How has it been found?”
And the Squire told him how.
“It was not stolen at all, then?”
“Not at all, Cripp. And the poor creature we suspected of taking it proves to be a very respectable old body indeed, nothing of the tramp about her. You — you have not gone any lengths yet with that professional gentleman, I hope!” added the Squire, dropping his voice to a confidential tone.
Cripp paused for a minute, as if not understanding.
“We have not employed any professional man at all in the matter,” said he; “have not thought of doing so.”
“I don’t mean that, Cripp. You know. The gentleman you suspected of having bought the earring.”
Cripp stared. “I have not suspected any one.”
“Goodness me! you need not be so cautious, Cripp,” returned the Squire, somewhat nettled. “Eccles made a confidant of me. He told me all about it — except the name.”
“What Eccles?” asked Cripp. “I really do not know what you are talking of, sir.”
“What Eccles — why, your Eccles. Him you sent over to me on Sunday afternoon: a well-dressed, gentlemanly man, with a black moustache. Detective Eccles.”
“I do not know any Detective Eccles.”
“Dear me, my good man, you must be losing your memory!” retorted the Squire, in wrath. “He came straight to me from you on Sunday; you sent him off in haste without his dinner.”
“Quite a mistake, sir,” said the sergeant. “It was not I who sent him.”
“Why, bless my heart and mind, Cripp, you’ll be for telling me next the sun never shone! Where’s your recollection gone to?”
“I hope my recollection is where it always has been, Squire. We must be at cross-purposes. I do not know any one of the name of Eccles, and I have not sent any one to you. As a proof that I could not have done it, I may tell you, sir, that I was summoned to Gloucester on business last Friday directly after I saw you, and did not get back here until this morning.”
The Squire rubbed his face, whilst he revolved probabilities, and thought Cripp must be dreaming.
“He came direct from you — from yourself, Cripp; and he disclosed to me your reasons for hoping you had found the earring, and your doubts of the honesty of the man who had bought it — the lawyer, you remember. And he brought back the other earring to you that you might compare them.”
“Eh — what?” cried Cripp, briskly. “Brought away the other earring, do you say, sir?”
“To be sure he did. What else did you send him for?”
“And he has not returned it to you?”
“Returned it! of course not. You hold it, don’t you?”
“Then, Squire Todhetley, you have been cleverly robbed of this second earring,” cried Cripp, quietly. “Dodged out of it, sir. The man who went over to you must have been a member of the swell-mob. Well-dressed, and a black moustache!”
“He was a college man, had been at Oxford,” debated the unfortunate pater, sitting on a chair in awful doubt. “He told me so.”
“You did not see him there, sir,” said the sergeant, with a suppressed laugh. “I might tell you I had a duke for a grandmother; but it would be none nearer the fact.”
“Mercy upon us all!” groaned the Squire. “What a mortification it will be if that other earring’s gone! Don’t you think some one in your station here may have sent him, if you were out yourself?”
“I will inquire, for your satisfaction, Squire Todhetley,” said the sergeant, opening the door; “but I can answer for it beforehand that it will be useless.”
It was as Cripp thought. Eccles was not known at the station, and no one had been sent to us.
“It all comes of that advertisement you put in, Squire,” finished up Cripp, by way of consolation. “The swell-mob would not have known there was a valuable jewel missing but for that, or the address of those who had missed it.”
The pater came home more crestfallen than a whipped schoolboy, after leaving stringent orders with Cripp and his men to track out the swindler. It was a blow to all of us.
“I said he looked as much like a detective as I’m like a Dutchman,” quoth Tod.
“Well, it’s frightfully mortifying,” said the Squire.
“And the way he polished off that beef, and drank down the ale! I wonder he did not contrive to walk off with the silver tankard!”
“Be quiet, Joe! You are laughing, sir! Do you think it is a laughing matter?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said bold Tod. “It was cleverly done.”
Up rose the pater in a passion. Vowing vengeance against the swindlers who went about the world, got up in good clothes and a moustache; and heartily promising the absent and unconscious Cripp to be down upon him if he did not speedily run the man to earth.
And that’s how Mrs. Todhetley lost the other earring.
IX.
A TALE OF SIN.
Part the First.
If I don’t relate this quite as usual, and it is found to be different from what I generally write, it is because I know less about it than others know. The history is Duffham’s; not mine. And there are diaries in it, and all kinds of foreign things. That is, foreign to me. Duffham holds all the papers, and has lent them to me to use. It came about in this way.
“Whilst you are picking up the sea-breezes, Johnny,” he said, when I called to tell him where I was going, “you can be getting on with another paper or two for us, I hope; for we like your stories.”
“But I am going away for a rest, Mr. Duffham; not to work. I don’t want to be ransacking memory for materials during any holiday, and then weaving them into what you call a story. Much rest that would be!”
“I’ll give you the materials for one,” he said; “plenty of them: it won’t take much weaving; you’ll have it all before your eyes. It will be nothing but play-work to you; just a bit of copying.”
“But I don’t care to put fiction on paper and send it forth as though it were true. What I tell of has mostly happened, you know.”
Duffham laughed a little. “If everything told in print were as true as this, Johnny Ludlow, the world would have witnessed some strange events. Not that you’ll find anything strange in this tale: it is quite matter-of-fact. There’s no romance about it; nothing but stern reality.”
“Well, let me see the papers.”
Duffham went out of the surgery, and came back with his spectacles on, and carrying some papers tied up with pink tape.
“You’ll find a sort of narrative begun, Johnny,” he said, untying the tape, “for I tried my own hand at it. But I found I could not get on well. Writing manuscripts is not so much in my line as doctoring patients.”
“Why, here’s Lady Chavasse’s name in it!” I exclaimed, glancing over the papers. “Is it about her?”
“You’ll see who it’s about and who it’s not about, Johnny,” he answered, rolling them up aga
in. “I should like you to retain the title I have put to it.”
“What is the title?”
Duffham undid the first sheet, and held it in silence for me to read. “A Tale of Sin.” It took me aback. Sundry considerations naturally struck me.
“I say, Mr. Duffham, if it is about sin, and the people are still living, how will they like to see it talked about in print?”
“You leave the responsibility to me,” he said; “I’ll take it on my own shoulders. All you have to do is to put it into ship-shape, Johnny. That is a matter of course.”
And so I took the papers. But the tale is Duffham’s; not mine.
To begin with, and make it explainable, we have to go ever so many years back: but it won’t be for long.
Duffham’s predecessor as general practitioner at Church Dykely was a Mr. Layne. Some of the poor would spell it without the “y,” “Lane,” but the other was the proper way. This Mr. Layne was of rather good family, whilst his wife was only a small working farmer’s daughter. Mr. Layne lived in a pretty red-brick house, opposite to Duffham’s present residence. It stood a yard or two back from the path, and had woodbines and jessamine creeping up its walls; the door was in the middle, a window on each side; and there was a side-door round the little garden-path, that opened into the surgery. The house was his own.
Nearly a mile beyond the village, along the straight highway, stood the gates and lodge of a fine place called Chavasse Grange, belonging to Sir Peter Chavasse. He remained an old bachelor up to nearly the end of his life. And then, when it seemed to be getting time for him to prepare for the grave, he suddenly got married. The young lady was a Miss Gertrude Cust: as might have been read in the newspapers of the day, announcing the wedding.
But, when Sir Peter brought her home, the wonder to the neighbourhood was, what could have induced the young lady to have him; for she turned out to be a mere child in years, and very beautiful. It was whispered that her family, high, poor, and haughty, had wished her to make a different match; to a broken-down old nobleman, ten times richer than Sir Peter; but that she hated the man. Sir Peter had five thousand a-year, and his baronetcy was not of ancient creation. The new lady was found to be very pleasant: she went into the village often, and made acquaintance with everybody.
It was just about eight months after the marriage that Sir Peter died. The death was sudden. Mr. Layne was sent for in haste to the Grange, and found he was too late. Too late for Sir Peter: but Lady Chavasse, overcome with grief and terror, was in great need of his services.
There was a baby expected at the Grange. Not yet: in three or four months to come. And, until this child should be born, the baronetcy had to lie in abeyance. If it proved to be a boy, he would take his father’s title and fortune; if a girl, both title and fortune would lapse to some distant cousin; a young man, compared with Sir Peter; who was in the navy, and was called Parker Chavasse.
And now we must give a line or two from one of the diaries I spoke of. It is Mr. Layne’s: and it appears to have been partly kept as a professional note-book, partly as a private journal. At this time Mr. Layne was a middle-aged man, with three young children, girls; he had married later than some men do.
[From an Old Note-book of Mr. Layne’s.]
May 18th. — Have had a fatiguing day. Upon getting home from my visit to Lady Chavasse, there were five different messages waiting for me. It never rains but it pours. Ten o’clock P.M., and I am dead tired; but I must write my notes before going to bed.
I wish I could get some strength and spirit into Lady Chavasse. This listlessness tells sadly against her. Over and over again it has been on the tip of my tongue to say it may go hard with her unless she uses more exertion; but I don’t like to frighten her. Nearly four months now since Sir Peter died, and she has never been out but to church — and to that she goes in the pony-carriage. “My lady, you ought to walk; my lady, you must walk,” say I. And it is just as though I spoke to the post at the lodge-gates.
I was much surprised by what she told me to-day — that there was no settlement made on her at her marriage. “Do you think my baby will be a boy, Mr. Layne?” she asked — as if it were possible for me to tell! “If it is not,” she went on, “I shall have to turn out of my home here, and I have not another to go to in the wide world.” And then it was, seeing my surprise, that she said there had been no settlement. “It was not my husband’s intentional fault,” she continued, “and I will never have him blamed, come what will. Things were unpleasant at my home, and we hurried on the marriage, he and I, so that he might take me out of it, and there was no time to get a settlement drawn up, even had we, either of us, thought of it, which we did not.” Listening to this, the notion struck me that it must have been something like a runaway marriage; but I said nothing, only bade her take heart and hope for a boy. “I cannot imagine any lot in life now so delightful as this would be — that I and my baby-boy should live on in this charming place together — I training him always for good,” she continued — and a faint pink came into her delicate cheek as she said it, a yearning look into her hazel eyes. “You would help me to keep him in health and make him strong, would you not, Mr. Layne?” I answered that I would do my best. Poor thing! she was only eighteen yesterday, she told me. I hope she’ll be able to keep the place; I hope it won’t go over her head to rough Parker Chavasse. And a rough-mannered man he is: I saw him once.
Coming home I met Thompson. The lawyer stopped, ever ready for a chat. I spoke about this expected child, and the changes its arrival might make. “It’s quite true that Lady Chavasse would have to turn out,” said he. “Every individual shilling is entailed. Books, plate, carriages — it all goes with the title. I’m not sure but Sir Peter’s old clothes have to be thrown in too, so strict is the entail. No settlement on her, you say, Layne? My good fellow, old Peter had nothing to settle. He had spent his income regularly, and there lay nothing beyond it. I’ve heard that that was one of the reasons why the Custs objected to the match.” Well, it seemed a curious position: I thought so as Thompson went off; but I don’t understand law, and can take his word for it. And now to bed. If ——
What’s that? A carriage drawing up to the house, and the night-bell! I am wanted somewhere as sure as a gun, and my night’s rest is stopped, I suppose. Who’d be a doctor? Listen! There’s my wife opening the street-door. What does she call out to me? Lady Chavasse not well? A carriage waiting to take me to the Grange? Thank fortune at least that I have not to walk there.
May 22nd. — Four days, and nothing noted down. But I have been very busy, what with Lady Chavasse and other patients. The doubt is over, and over well. The little child is a boy, and a nice little fellow, too; healthy, and likely to live. He was born on the 20th. Lady Chavasse, in her gladness, says she shall get well all one way. I think she will: the mind strangely influences the body. But my lady is a little hard — what some might call unforgiving. Her mother came very many miles, posting across country, to see her and be reconciled, and Lady Chavasse refused to receive her. Mrs. Cust had to go back again as she came. I should not like to see my wife treat her mother so.
May 30th. — The child is to be named Geoffry Arthur. Sir Peter had a dislike to his own name, and had said he hoped never to call a boy of his by the same. Lady Chavasse, mindful of his every wish, has fixed on the other two. I asked her if they were the names of relatives: she laughed and said, No; she chose them because she thought them both nice-sounding and noble names.
The above is all that need be copied from Mr. Layne: one has to be chary of space. Little Sir Geoffry grew and thrived: and it was a pleasure, people say, to see how happy his mother and he were, and how she devoted herself to him. He had come to her in the midst of her desolation, when she had nothing else to care for in life. It was already seen that he would be much like his father, who had been a very good-looking man in his day. Little Geoffry had Sir Peter’s fair complexion and his dark-blue eyes. He was a sweet, tractable child; and Lady Chavasse thought h
im just an angel come down from heaven.
Time went on. When Geoffry was about seven years old — and a very pretty boy, with fair curls — he went out surreptitiously on a fishing expedition, fell into the pond, and was nearly drowned. It left a severe cold upon him, which his nurse, Wilkins, said served him right. However, from that time he seemed to be less strong; and at length Lady Chavasse took him to London to show him to the doctors. The doctors told her he ought to be, for a time, in a warmer climate: and she went with him into Devonshire. But he still kept delicate. And the upshot was that Lady Chavasse let the Grange for a long term to the Goldingham family, and went away.
And so, many years passed. The Goldinghams lived on at the Grange: and Lady Chavasse nearly slipped out of remembrance. Mr. Layne fell into ill health as he grew older, and advertised for a partner. It was Duffham who answered it (a youngish man then) and they went into arrangements.
It is necessary to say something of Mr. Layne’s children. There were four of them, girls. The eldest, Susan, married a Lieutenant Layne (some distant relative, who came from the West Indies), and went with him to India, where his regiment was serving, taking also her next sister, Eleanor. The third, Elizabeth, was at home; the young one, Mary, born several years after the others, was in a school as governess-pupil, or under-teacher. It is not often that village practitioners can save money, let alone make a fortune.
The next thing was, that Mr. Layne died. His death made all the difference to his family. Mr. Duffham succeeded to the practice; by arrangement he was to pay something yearly for five years to Mrs. Layne; and she had a small income of her own. She would not quit the house; it was hers now her husband was gone. Mr. Duffham took one opposite: a tall house, with a bow-window to the parlour: before that, he had been in apartments. Mary Layne came home about this time, and stayed there for some weeks. She had been much overworked in the school, and Mrs. Layne thought she required rest. She was a pleasing girl, with soft brown eyes and a nice face, and was very good and gentle; thinking always of others, never of self. Old Duffham may choose to deny it now he’s grown older, but he thought her superior then to the whole world.