Jack Raymond

by Этель Лилиан Войнич

  Dr. Jenkins said nothing. He had keener eyes than the older man, and to him the steady, practised stoicism of this mere child was a frightful thing to see. The rope marks on the wrists had aroused his suspicions at the first, and he had been watching quietly. When no one else was looking he had seen the boy put up his left hand furtively, and bite it. The action had explained to him the savage little dints marking the brown skin in so many places; apparently the mere clenching of teeth had often not proved help enough. "You didn't learn that trick in one night," he thought; "and you know more than you care to tell. We haven't got to the bottom of this story yet."

  Jack said nothing either, but his mouth twitched. He had had enough of posing as a Spartan, and would have been glad to sob and shriek like other children. But it was too late in the day to begin that now, and besides, he was too tired; so he looked out of the window and held his tongue.

  "Do you feel better now?" asked Dr. Williams, seeing that the boy had left off trembling. "Then we'll just unfasten your things and make sure there's no more mis­chief anywhere."

  "I think I saw a cut on the right shoulder," Dr. Jenkins put in. There was something unusual in his tone, so that Jack looked up at htm again quickly and then dropped his eyes,

  "Oh, we must expect to find a few little cuts and bruises after such a tumble," said the old doctor cheerfully. "You needn't shiver so, my boy; I'm not going to hurt you any more; that's all over. Hullo!"

  He had uncovered the stained shirt.

  "Why, what the dickens have you been doing to yourself? Tumbling out of win­dow every night for a month? You never got into this state by... Jenkins, come here; look at this child's shoulders! Why, it's..."

  Then there was dead silence, while the three men watched each other's faces. At last Jack looked up suddenly at his uncle, and their eyes met.

  "Jack!" the clergyman whispered hoarsely, with lips as colourless as the boy's own. "For God's sake, why didn't you tell me the arm was broken?"

  Jack only looked at him and laughed.

  CHAPTER VI

  Angry as Dr. Jenkins was, he held his tongue. His first impulse, however, on leav­ing the house, had been to make the whole matter public; and it was only after a hot dis­cussion with his colleague that he had agreed to keep silence.

  "Professional secrecy!" He had inter­rupted the old man's arguments, as they walked together down the lane. "And if I were called to a house and saw murder being done, would you expect me to keep up profes­sional secrecy then? This is not so far off it. All this talk of the Vicar and his respect­ability — thank Heaven some of the world's not respectable at that rate! I didn't often come across things so bad as this when I was prac­tising in the slums of Liverpool. One would think the child had been clawed by a wild beast."

  "It's a ghastly business, I don't deny," Dr. Williams had answered mildly. "But what good will you do to any one by exposing it? You'll ruin his career, there will be a horrible scandal in the papers, and the boy's position will be worse than ever. And then, think of the poor wife!"

  But the reticence of the two doctors was of little avail. Probably the story leaked out first through the servants; however that may have been, by Monday evening Porthcarrick and all the neighbouring villages were ringing with the scandal of the Vicarage. Even the intolerant, gouty, bad-tempered old Tory squire came down from his chough's nest at the top of the cliff to discuss the matter solemnly with the schoolmaster and curate. Seeing that there was no longer anything to conceal, and that silence only led to the circulation of exaggerated reports, the two doctors con­sented to tell what they knew. Mr. Hewitt then gave them a detailed account of the enor­mities of which Jack had been found guilty; and the curate earnestly pointed out that the Vicar's action, "much as all of us must regret it," was, after all, only the result of too great zeal in the cause of public morality.

  "And what's all that to me, sir?" roared the squire. "You don't suppose I need to be told that Jack Raymond's a damned young scoundrel? Every cow in Porthcarrick knows that, and it's nothing to do with the matter. If the boy's too bad to live among decent folks, send him to a reformatory — what else do we keep them up out of the rates for? But while I'm lord of the manor there shall be no vivisecting and Spanish Inquisitions here, or I'll know the reason why."

  In the end the matter was, of course, hushed up, though not without a stormy scene at the Vicarage. At any other time Mr. Raymond would have loftily resented the in­terference of outsiders in his domestic con­cerns; but the shock of finding out on Satur-day morning how narrowly he had escaped a tragedy, had startled him out of all his mental habits. Seated at his desk, his head resting on one hand, his foot nervously tapping the floor, he listened to everything that his ac­cusers had to say; and looked up at last, with a sigh,

  "I have no doubt you are right, gentlemen. I have been to blame in this matter; but I did all for the best. A little injury to one perishable body seemed to me of small account as against the utter destruction of so many immortal souls. Perhaps, Providence having so greatly afflicted me in the character of my nephew, I did wrong ever to let him enter a school where he had an opportunity of contaminating others. I have heard," he added, turning to Dr. Jenkins, "that some doctors believe these vicious tendencies can be eradicated by a special course of hygienic treatment; but the idea seems to me to be based on a profoundly immoral conception. How can hygiene cure sin?"

  "I'm not a theologian," said the doctor bluntly; "and I have been busy saving the boy's life — and his reason, I hope; not think­ing about his morals."

  A greyer shade of pallor crept over the Vicar's face.

  "Have you any fear for his mind?" he asked.

  Dr. Jenkins pulled himself up sharply, feel­ing that he had been too brutal.

  "No," he said; "it's not so bad as that; but I have some fear of hysteria. The boy is suffering from nervous shock."

  Mrs. Raymond, coming into the study a little later, found the Vicar sitting alone with an ashen face. He rose hastily as she entered; the consciousness that he had lost the respect of his parishioners was enough to bear, without the sight of his wife's swollen eyelids.

  "Josiah!" she said with an effort, as he was leaving the room. He turned back and faced her proudly.

  "Yes, Sarah?"

  "When you go upstairs... would you mind... not speaking in the passage? It... upsets Jack so..."

  "My voice upsets him, do you mean?"

  "I... you remember calling Mary Anne last night? Jack heard you, and he went into a sort of fit. He's... he's very ill, Josiah."

  Her voice trailed off into a miserable quaver. After all her years of wifely sub­mission, she was ashamed of her husband.

  She would have died rather than tell him so; and there was no need, for he had read it in her eyes.

  ***

  Perhaps the only person in Porthcarrick who heard nothing of the subject was Jack himself. It was, of course, never mentioned in his room; nor, indeed, was he in a state to listen, had it been spoken of. For a fort­night he was more or less delirious every evening and some part, at least, of nearly every night. In the daytime he usually lay quite passively, sometimes moaning under his breath, more often in a kind of heavy stupor. If spoken to, he would raise his eyelids slowly, with a look of weary indifference or cold dislike, and drop them again, still in silence. His uncle's presence in the sick­room threw him into such paroxysms of terror that Dr. Jenkins was obliged to pro­hibit it altogether; but nothing else seemed to affect him at all. Even the daily ordeal of dressing the wounds scarcely roused him. On the first occasion Mrs. Raymond, who was helping the doctor, had burst into passionate tears of horror and shame when the bandages were removed; and the boy had merely glanced at her with a faint, petulant whisper: "I wish you'd let me alone!"

  His illness was a longer one than had been at first expected. No complications set in, but for some time he simply failed to get well. The arm was mending steadily; even the lacerations were nearly healed, and he still lay in the s
ame state of utter prostration, of continually recurring slight fever. With time and careful nursing, however, he began to rally; and at last, one day in August, a listless, pallid ghost of Jack came downstairs to lie on the drawing-room sofa.

  Little as it mattered, there was a certain consolation in getting well. People left off fidgetting about, and sitting in the room, and asking, "Does your head ache?" and, "Did I hurt you?" Indeed, when Dr. Jenkins said, "He's all right now; he only needs to get strong again," Aunt Sarah and every one else seemed to feel a sense of relief in being able to avoid him. They still treated him as an invalid; arranged the sofa-cushions carefully, and dosed him at stated intervals with tonics and beef tea; but other­wise they left him alone. Molly he saw now and then for a moment, a scared, shy creature in a pinafore, staring at him timidly from behind tangled curls; she had caught the sense of horror and of secrecy about the house, and connected it vaguely with the big brother who was ill. He, for his part, would glance at her and turn away; she no longer interested him. The worst was that, coming back into the life of the household, he must perforce meet his uncle again. Yet, for all his agony of dread beforehand, when the time came he was indifferent. They spoke of trifles, avoiding one another's eyes.

  Out of apathy and blankness he passed into dull curiosity. His mind, that had stopped as a clock stops in an earthquake, stirred again reluctantly, but only to move round and round in one small circle, a lethargic bondslave stumbling through care­less repetitions of a task without a meaning.

  Always and always it was the same riddle: the underlying connection between ugly things externally so different. That such a connection existed he had no doubt at all; what it might be he cared little, yet came back to the problem day after day, brooding indifferently, piecing out, bit by bit, a dim and shapeless theory of monstrous things that madhouse doctors know.

  Fragments overheard, in far-off days before the mavis flew away, of whispered conversa­tions between schoolmates who had seemed to him boys like himself; phrases from the Bible, read so often that the sequence of their words had grown familiar, while yet they had no meaning; chance things seen on neigh­bouring dairy farms; scraps of old stories from the Latin Reader; the photographs which had shown him what all these things were, came back and ranged themselves be­fore his understanding. Also he remembered the look on his uncle's face that last night in the gable room, and the faint foreshadowing of that same look when their eyes had met above the helpless dog in the stable yard.

  Such a face, surely, Tarquin had worn by the bedside of Lucrece.

  On the last Sunday in the month Dr. Jenkins called at the Vicarage. Afternoon service was over, but the family had not yet returned from church. He found Jack alone, lying on the couch beside the window, staring out across the rain swept moorland with wide, hopeless eyes.

  Like every one else, the doctor had taken the truth of the accusations for granted, and until now he had felt toward the boy only a cold and impersonal pity; but at this mo­ment he forgot everything except the desire to comfort

  "Don't you think," he said presently, "that you would get on better away from home?"

  Something stiffened in the tragic face.

  "Yes; that's why uncle won't let me go."

  It was said without any hysterical bitter­ness, simply as a statement of a fact.

  "Have you spoken to him about it?"

  "I asked him whether I might go to school in some other part of the country."

  "And he objects?"

  "Of course."

  "Jack," said the doctor after a pause, "do you understand why your uncle does not let you go?"

  "I never supposed he would," Jack an­swered quietly, "when he can have the fun of keeping me here. Did you ever watch him train a puppy? Uncle likes to see anything kick."

  His tone made the doctor shudder; it was so still and murderous. A little silence followed, while the man frowned thoughtfully and the boy returned to his hopeless scrutiny of the wet landscape.

  "I believe," Dr. Jenkins said at last, "I could persuade him."

  "Of course you could; you know too much."

  "Look here, my boy, I don't like cynics, even grown-up ones. Suppose I were to speak for you?"

  Jack's mouth set itself in a harder line.

  "Why should you? What is it to you?"

  "Nothing; except that I see you are un­happy, and am sorry for you."

  Jack turned suddenly, sitting bolt upright; and some hidden thing leaped up in his eyes.

  "D'you mean you want to help me?"

  "If I can," the doctor answered, perplexed and very grave.

  Jack was crushing his hands together fiercely; his voice sounded hoarse and broken. "Then get me out of this! Get me away somewhere, so I shan't see uncle any more. I... can't go on here... you don't understand, of course; I'll keep on as long as I can, but I shan't be able to stand it much longer..."

  His speech faded out suddenly, like a gusty wind dying down. The doctor looked at him, wondering.

  "Let us be open with each other, boy," he said at last. "I know all this has been hard on you — brutally hard; and I'm more sorry for you than I can say. I believe if your uncle had begun by trusting you instead of... well, never mind that. Anyway, suppose we try trusting you now. Most likely the real reason he won't let you go to school is that he's afraid you... won't be a good com­panion for the boys you'll meet there. Isn't that..?"

  Looking round to put the question, he stopped short; the boy was watching him silently, with a look that caught his breath to see; a cold, secret, steady look from under lowered eyelids.

  "You think that's why?" There had been a little pause; but at the sound of Jack's voice the doctor recovered himself and asked gravely:

  "Don't you?"

  The boy let his eyes fall slowly; he had realised that Dr. Jenkins understood nothing.

  "Did he tell you any reason?" the doctor persisted. Again there was a perceptible pause.

  "He said he must keep the curse to himself and not let it loose on others,"' Jack answered in his apathetic, passive way, as if speaking of strangers.

  "I thought so. Now, a friend of mine is headmaster of a good school in Yorkshire; and I think, if I talk the thing over with your uncle, he'll let me recommend you to him on my own responsibility. It will be a heavy responsibility, Jack, after what has happened; but I should just make up my mind to trust you. You wouldn't make me regret that, would you?"

  A sullen fire was beginning to glow in Jack's eyes. After waiting a little for him to speak, the doctor added softly:

  "You see, my boy, I must think of the others too. If any little fellow came to ruin through you, and it was my fault, I should never forgive myself."

  "Then why should I go to a good school, if I'm so bad?" Jack broke in. "I've had enough of good people. Surely there's some one in the world that's bad enough already not to be harmed by coming near me? Why should I go to school at all? I'd rather begin and earn my own bread. I'm strong enough, and I..." He broke off, and then added with a little laugh: "I shan't be too partic­ular. I'll go as cabin-boy on a slaver if you like, so uncle isn't there."

  "Come, my lad, that's nonsense," the doctor gently remonstrated. "Think it over, and just give me your promise that you'll turn over a new leaf and give up all those habits, and I'll ------"

  Jack wrenched his hand savagely away.

  "I'll promise nothing. I'll find a way out myself."

  "I'm sorry, Jack," said Dr. Jenkins gravely. "You'd have done better to let me help you."

  He had no chance to say any more, for the family returned from church, and Molly at once absorbed him. She was his best friend in Porthcarrick; he had conceived for her the peculiar kind of serious, fraternal affec­tion which lonely bachelors sometimes feel for a very innocent and babyish little girl.

  Jack had relapsed into his usual sullen silence. Till tea was finished he scarcely spoke.

  "Uncle," he said suddenly.

  He so seldom spoke to the Vicar now, u
n­less obliged to, that every one looked up.

  "Is it quite settled that I mayn't go to school?"

  Mr. Raymond's face grew hard,

  "Quite; and you know why. You have had your answer; now that is enough about the matter."

  "Very well; I only wanted to be sure."

  "You'd better lie down now, Jack," said Mrs. Raymond timidly. This conversation in the doctor's presence made her uncom­fortable. "I'll come and read to you after Molly goes to bed."

  Jack lay down. He had become very docile in trifles since his illness.

  "Dr. Jenkins has promised to read now," he said carelessly.

  The doctor looked round in surprise; he had made no such promise. Jack was look­ing at him steadily, and he thought again, how unnatural that suppressed intensity was in a boy's face.

  "You mustn't worry Dr. Jenkins," said Aunt Sarah. "I'll read to you."

  "Dr. Jenkins promised," Jack repeated. His face had set in the immovable lines that made it look like a mask; there was a violent domination in the black eyes. Dr. Jenkins came up to the sofa. He was attracted, in spite of himself, by this masterful personality.

  "I'll read if you like, my boy. What is it to be — a story?"

  "A chapter, please; we read nothing but the Bible on Sundays."

  "Are you sure it's not troubling you too much, Dr. Jenkins?" Mrs. Raymond asked. As the doctor turned to answer her, he felt the sudden grip of Jack's fingers on his wrist. "Not a bit," he said. "I shall be de­lighted, if you and Mr. Raymond will put up with my reading; I'm not much of an elocu­tionist. Allow me."

  He placed a chair for her, adding softly: "You'd better humour him as much as pos­sible just now; he still gets a bit feverish towards evening."

  She sat down and took Molly on her lap.

  "I've found the place, sir," said Jack, holding out the brown Bible. "May I have the sofa turned round a bit more? The light hurts my eyes. Yes, that's right, thanks."

  He was now facing his uncle's arm-chair. Dr. Jenkins sat down beside him, and took the Bible. It was open at the chapter with the marked verse.