The Trail of the Serpent

by Mary Braddon

  When Jabez had spoken a few words to the sick man, and made his offer of assistance, he did not leave the place, but stood on the hearth, looking with a thoughtful face at the old woman.

  She was not quite right in her mind, according to general opinion in Blind Peter; and if a Commission of Lunacy had been called upon to give a return of her state of intellect on that day, I think that return would have agreed with the opinion openly expressed in a friendly manner by her neighbours.

  She kept muttering to herself, “And so, my deary, this is the other one. The water couldn’t have been deep enough. But it’s not my fault, Lucy dear, for I saw it safely put away.”

  “What did you see so safely put away?” asked Jabez, in so low a voice as to be heard neither by the sick man nor the girl.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know, deary?” mumbled the old hag, looking up at him with a malicious grin. “Don’t you very much want to know, my dear? But you never will; or if you ever do, you must be a rich man first; for it’s part of the secret, and the secret’s gold—as long as it is kept, my dear, and it’s been kept a many years, and kept faithful.”

  “Does he know it?” Jabez asked, pointing to the sick man.

  “No, my dear; he’d want to tell it. I mean to sell it some day, for it’s worth a mint of money! A mint of money! He doesn’t know it—nor she—not that it matters to her; but it does matter to him.”

  “Then you had best let him know before three days are over or he’ll never know it!” said the schoolmaster.

  “Why not, deary?”

  “Never you mind! I want to speak to you; and I don’t want those two to hear what I say. Can we go anywhere hereabouts where I can talk to you without the chance of being overheard?”

  The old woman nodded assent, and led the way with feeble tottering steps out of the house, and through a gap in a hedge to some broken ground at the back of Blind Peter. Here the old crone seated herself upon a little hillock, Jabez standing opposite her, looking her full in the face.

  “Now,” said he, with a determined look at the grinning face before him, “now tell me,—what was the something that was put away so safely? And what relation is that man in there to me? Tell me, and tell me the truth, or——” He only finishes the sentence with a threatening look, but the old woman finishes it for him,—

  “Or you’ll kill me—eh, deary? I’m old and feeble, and you might easily do it—eh? But you won’t—you won’t, deary! You know better than that! Kill me, and you’ll never know the secret!—the secret that may be gold to you some day, and that nobody alive but me can tell. If you’d got some very precious wine in a glass bottle, my dear, you wouldn’t smash the bottle now, would you? because, you see, you couldn’t smash the bottle without spilling the wine. And you won’t lay so much as a rough finger upon me, I know.”

  The usher looked rather as if he would have liked to lay the whole force of ten very rough fingers upon the most vital part of the grinning hag’s anatomy at that moment—but he restrained himself, as if by an effort, and thrust his hands deep into his trousers-pockets, in order the better to resist temptation.

  “Then you don’t mean to tell me what I asked you?” he said impatiently.

  “Don’t be in a hurry, my dear! I’m an old woman, and I don’t like to be hurried. What is it you want to know?”

  “What that man in there is to me.”

  “Own brother—twin brother, my dear—that’s all. And I’m your grandmother—your mother’s mother. Ain’t you pleased to find your relations, my blessed boy?”

  If he were, he had a strange way of showing pleasure; a very strange manner of welcoming newly-found relations, if his feelings were to be judged by that contracted brow and moody glance.

  “Is this true?” he asked.

  The old harridan looked at him and grinned. “That’s an ugly mark you’ve got upon your left arm, my dear,” she said, “just above the elbow; it’s very lucky, though, it’s under your coat-sleeve, where nobody can see it.”

  Jabez started. He had indeed a scar upon his arm, though very few people knew of it. He remembered it from his earliest days in the Slopperton workhouse.

  “Do you know how you came by that mark?” continued the old woman. “Shall I tell you? Why, you fell into the fire, deary, when you were only three weeks old. We’d been drinking a little bit, my dear, and we weren’t used to drinking much then, nor to eating much either, and one of us let you tumble into the fireplace, and before we could get you out, your arm was burnt; but you got over it, my dear, and three days after that you had the misfortune to fall into the water.”

  “You threw me in, you old she-devil!” he exclaimed fiercely.

  “Come, come,” she said, “you are of the same stock, so I wouldn’t call names if I were you. Perhaps I did throw you into the Sloshy. I don’t want to contradict you. If you say so, I dare say I did. I suppose you think me a very unnatural old woman?”

  “It wouldn’t be so strange if I did.”

  “Do you know what choice we had, your mother and me, as to what we were to do with our youngest hope—you’re younger by two hours than your brother in there? Why, there was the river on one side, and a life of misery, perhaps starvation, perhaps worse, on the other. At the very best, such a life as he in there has led—hard labour and bad food, long toilsome days and short nights, and bad words and black looks from all who ought to help him. So we thought one was enough for that, and we chose the river for the other. Yes, my precious boy, I took you down to the river-side one very dark night and dropped you in where I thought the water was deepest; but, you see, it wasn’t deep enough for you. Oh, dear,” she said, with an imbecile grin, “I suppose there’s a fate in it, and you were never born to be drowned.”1

  Her hopeful grandson looked at her with a savage frown.

  “Drop that!” he said, “I don’t want any of your cursed wit.”

  “Don’t you, deary? Lor, I was quite a wit in my young days. They used to call me Lively Betty; but that’s a long time ago.”

  There was sufficient left, however, of the liveliness of a long time ago to give an air of ghastly mirth to the old woman’s manner, which made that manner extremely repulsive. What can be more repulsive than old age, which, shorn of the beauties and graces, is yet not purified from the follies or the vices of departed youth?

  “And so, my dear, the water wasn’t deep enough, and you were saved. How did it all come about? Tell us, my precious boy?”

  “Yes; I dare say you’d like to know,” replied her “precious boy,”—“but you can keep your secret, and I can keep mine. Perhaps you’ll tell me whether my mother is alive or dead?”

  Now this was a question which would have cruelly agitated some men in the position of Jabez North; but that gentleman was a philosopher, and he might have been inquiring the fate of some cast-off garment, for all the fear, tenderness, or emotion of any kind that his tone or manner betrayed.

  “Your mother’s been dead these many years. Don’t you ask me how she died. I’m an old woman, and my head’s not so right but what some things will set it wrong. Talking of that is one of ’em. She’s dead. I couldn’t save her, nor help her, nor set her right. I hope there’s more pity where she’s gone than she ever got here; for I’m sure if trouble can need it, she needed it. Don’t ask me anything about her.”

  “Then I won’t,” said Jabez. “My relations don’t seem such an eligible lot that I should set to work to write the history of the family. I suppose I had a father of some kind or other. What’s become of him? Dead or——”

  “Hung, eh, deary?” said the old woman, relapsing into the malicious grin.

  “Take care what you’re about,” said the fascinating Mr. North, “or you’ll tempt me to shake the life out of your shrivelled old carcass.”

  “And then you’ll never know who your father was. Eh? Ha, ha! my precious boy; that’s part of the golden secret that none but me can tell.”

  “Then you won’t tell me my father
’s name?”

  “Perhaps I’ve forgotten it, deary; perhaps I never knew it—who knows?”

  “Was he of your class—poor, insignificant, and wretched, the scum of the earth, the mud in the streets, the slush in the gutters, for other people to trample upon with their dirty boots? Was he that sort of thing? Because if he was, I shan’t put myself out of the way to make any tender inquiries about him.”

  “Of course not, deary. You’d like him to have been a fine gentleman—a baronet, or an earl, or a marquis, eh, my blessed boy? A marquis is about the ticket for you, eh? What do you say to a marquis?”

  It was not very polite, certainly, what he did say; not quite the tone of conversation to be pleasing to any marquis, or to any noble or potentate whatever, except one, and him, by the laws of polite literature, I am not allowed to mention.

  Puzzled by her mysterious mumblings, grinnings, and gesticulations, our friend Jabez stared hard in the old crone’s face for about three minutes—looking very much as if he would have liked to throttle her; but he refrained from that temptation, turned on his heel, and walked off in the direction of Slopperton.

  The old woman apostrophized his receding figure.

  “Oh, yes, deary, you’re a nice young man, and a clever, civil-spoken young man, and a credit to them that reared you; but you’ll never have the golden secret out of me till you’ve got the money to pay for it.”

  CHAPTER IV

  JIM LOOKS OVER THE BRINK OF THE TERRIBLE GULF

  The light had gone down on the last of the days through which, according to the doctor’s prophecy, Jim Lomax was to live to see that light.

  Poor Jim’s last sun sank to his rest upon such cloud-pillows of purple and red, and drew a curtain of such gorgeous colours round him in the western sky, as it would have very much puzzled any earthly monarch to have matched, though Ruskin himself had chosen the colours, and Turner had been the man to lay them on. Of course some of this red sunset flickered and faded upon the chimney-pots and window-panes—rare luxuries, by the bye, those window-panes—of Blind Peter; but there it came in a modified degree only—this blessed sign-manual of an Almighty Power—as all earthly and heavenly blessings should come to the poor.

  One ray of the crimson light fell full upon the face of the sick man, and slanted from him upon the dark hair of the girl, who sat on the ground in her old position by the bed-side. This light, which fell on them and on no other object in the dusky room, seemed to unite them, as though it were a messenger from the sky that said, “They stand alone in the world, and never have been meant to stand asunder.”

  “It’s a beautiful light, lass,” said the sick man, “and I wonder I never cared more to notice or to watch it than I have. Lord, I’ve seen it many a time sinking behind the sharp edge of ploughed land, as if it had dug its own grave, and was glad to go down to it, and I’ve thought no more of it than a bit of candle; but now it seems such a beautiful light, and I feel as if I should like to see it again, lass.”

  “And you will—you will see it again, Jim.” She drew his head upon her bosom, and stroked the rough hair away from his damp forehead. She was half dead herself, with want, anxiety, and fatigue; but she spoke in a cheerful voice. She had not shed a tear throughout his illness. “Lord help you, Jim dear, you’ll live to see many and many a bright sunset—live to see it go down upon our wedding-day, perhaps.”

  “No, no, lass; that’s a day no sun will ever shine upon. You must get another sweetheart, and a better one, maybe. I’m sure you deserve a better one, for you’re true, lass, true as steel.”

  The girl drew his head closer to her breast, and bending over him, kissed his dry lips. She never thought, or cared to know, what fever or what poison she might inhale in that caress. If she had thought about it, perhaps she would have prayed that the same fever which had struck him down might lay her low beside him. He spoke again, as the light, with a lingering glow, brightened, and flickered, and then faded out.

  “It’s gone; it’s gone for ever; it’s behind me now, lass, and I must look straight before——”

  “At what, Jim?—at what?”

  “At a terrible gulf, my lass. I’m a-standing on the edge of it, and I’m a-looking down to the bottom of it—a cold dark lonesome place. But perhaps there’s another light beyond it, lass; who knows?”

  “Some say they do know, Jim,” said the girl; “some say they do know, and that there is another light beyond, better than the one we see here, and always shining. Some people do know all about it, Jim.”

  “Then why didn’t they tell us about it?” asked the man, with an angry expression in his hollow eyes. “I suppose those as taught them meant them to teach us; but I suppose they didn’t think us worth the teaching. How many will be sorry for me, lass, when I am gone? Not grandmother; her brain’s crazed with that fancy of hers of a golden secret—as if she wouldn’t have sold it long before this if she’d had a secret—sold it for bread, or more likely for gin. Not anybody in Blind Peter—they’ve enough to do to think of the bit of food to put inside them, or of the shelter to cover their unfortunate heads. Nobody but you, lass, nobody but you, will be sorry for me; and I think you will.”

  He thinks she will be sorry. What has been the story of her life but one long thought and care for him, in which her every sorrow and her every joy have taken their colour from joys and sorrows of his?

  While they are talking, Jabez comes in, and, seating himself on a low stool by the bed, talks to the sick man.

  “And so,” says Jim, looking him full in the face with a curious glance—“so you’re my brother—the old woman’s told me all about it—my twin brother; so like me, that it’s quite a treat to look at you. It’s like looking in a glass, and that’s a luxury I’ve never been accustomed to. Light a candle, lass; I want to see my brother’s face.”

  His brother was against the lighting of the candle—it might hurt the eyes of the sufferer, he suggested; but Jim repeated his request, and the girl obeyed.

  “Now come here and hold the candle, lass, and hold it close to my brother’s face, for I want to have a good look at him.”

  Mr. Jabez North seemed scarcely to relish the unflinching gaze of his newly-found relation; and again those fine blue eyes, for which he was distinguished, winked and shifted, and hid themselves, under the scrutiny of the sick man.

  “It’s a handsome face,” said Jim; “and it looks like the face of one of your fine high-born gentlemen too, which is rather queer, considering who it belongs to; but for all that, I can’t say it’s a face I much care about. There’s something under—something behind the curtain. I say, brother, you’re hatching of some plot to-night, and a very deep-laid plot it is too, or my name isn’t Jim Lomax.”

  “Poor fellow,” murmured the compassionate Jabez, “his mind wanders sadly.”

  “Does it?” asked the sick man; “does my mind wander, lad? I hope it does; I hope I can’t see very clear to-night, for I didn’t want to think my own brother a villain. I don’t want to think bad of thee, lad, if it’s only for my dead mother’s sake.”

  “You hear!” said Jabez, with a glance of appeal to the girl, “you hear how delirious he is?”

  “Stop a bit, lad,” cried Jim, with sudden energy, laying his wasted hand upon his brother’s wrist; “stop a bit. I’m dying fast; and before it’s too late I’ve one prayer to make. I haven’t made so many either to God or man that I need forget this one. You see this lass; we’ve been sweethearts, I don’t know how long, now—ever since she was a little toddling thing that I could carry on my shoulder; and, one of these days, when wages got to be better, and bread cheaper, and hopes brighter, somehow, for poor folks like us, we was to have been married; but that’s over now. Keep a good heart, lass, and don’t look so white; perhaps it’s better as it is. Well, as I was saying, we’ve been sweethearts for a many year, and often when I haven’t been able to get work, maybe sometimes when I haven’t been willing, when I’ve been lazy, or on the drink, or among bad compa
nions, this lass has kept a shelter over me, and given me bread to eat with the labour of her own hands. She’s been true to me. I could tell you how true, but there’s something about the corners of your mouth that makes me think you wouldn’t care to hear it. But if you want me to die in peace, promise me this—that as long as you’ve got a shilling she shall never be without a sixpence; that as long as you’ve got a roof to cover your head she shall never be without a shelter. Promise!”

  He tightened his grasp convulsively upon his brother’s wrist. That gentleman made an effort to look him full in the face; but not seeming to relish the searching gaze of the dying man’s eyes, Mr. Jabez North was compelled to drop his own.

  “Come,” said Jim; “promise—swear to me, by all you hold sacred, that you’ll do this.”

  “I swear!” said Jabez, solemnly.

  “And if you break your oath,” added his brother, “never come anigh the place where I’m buried, for I’ll rise out of my grave and haunt you.”

  The dying man fell back exhausted on his pillow. The girl poured out some medicine and gave it to him, while Jabez walked to the door, and looked up at the sky.

  A very dark sky for a night in June. A wide black canopy hung over the earth, and as yet there was not one feeble star to break the inky darkness. A threatening night—the low murmuring of whose sultry wind moaned and whispered prophecies of a coming storm. Never had the blindness of Blind Peter been darker than to-night. You could scarcely see your hand before you. A wretched woman who had just fetched half-a-quartern of gin from the nearest public-house, though a denizen of the place, and familiar with every broken flag-stone and crumbling brick, stumbled over her own threshold, and spilt a portion of the precious liquid.