Rose Ellen looked at him. At that moment her love for him was an agony of mother-love. Her heart was full of tragic tears, and yet more tragic laughter over Peter, who was too old for love at twenty-five.
“So—so—I think I’ll be getting along,” he said. “I—wanted to tell you. You always understand, and—well, I’ll write.”
For some reason Peter found himself unable to go on. He had meant to talk the whole thing out with Rose Ellen in a calm and reasonable manner; but he couldn’t do it; he could not go on talking, or stay a moment longer in the beech-wood. A wave of unbearable agitation seemed to have broken over him. He did not understand it, and he had no power to control it. He caught at Rose Ellen’s hands, gripped them very hard, tried to speak, choked, and flung away.
Rose Ellen watched him go. She heard the beech leaves rustle under his feet. She watched until the turn of the path hid him and he was gone. Peter was gone—gone to Sylvia Moreland. All her life he had been there—just Peter—and now he was gone.
Rose Ellen put out her hand and felt for something to lean against. There was one of the great beech trunks not far off. She went and leaned against it. It was very strong. Its roots were safe in the soil, and its lovely green branches stretched out to the wind and the rain and the sun. She stood there, and looked at the path by which Peter had gone. He had passed the bend where the bushes jutted out and the primroses grew on the bank. She could not hear his footsteps any longer. It was no use looking at the empty path any more.
She leaned against the tree, and was glad because it was so strong. That was the hollow where Peter had heaped the leaves for her head and covered her with his coat. Rose Ellen looked at it, and remembered all that Peter had been to her, all that Peter had meant to her, all that Peter had done for her. Quite suddenly her reserve and her self-control broke. She began to cry, and to talk out loud in little broken sentences, as people do sometimes when their trouble is very great and they think that they are quite alone.
Peter went on down the road. He walked at first with great strides, but by degrees his pace slackened. At first his one thought had been to get away, but after a minute or two he began to recover his balance, to wonder at himself, and to consider what had made him behave so strangely. Rose Ellen must have thought he had gone crazy.
He slowed down, and presently came to a standstill. He had meant to talk the whole thing out. The only part that he had thought would be difficult was breaking the ice, and that hadn’t been difficult at all. Rose Ellen’s quiet, “Are you going to marry her?” ought to have made it quite easy for them both. That was what bothered him. They had begun to talk all right in just the understanding, friendly way which he had planned—and then—what had gone wrong? It wasn’t Rose Ellen’s fault; he was quite clear about that. It was something in him, Peter—a rush of indescribable emotion and pain; it had come upon him when Rose Ellen had said, “I wonder if that’s a good reason for marrying anyone.” Yes, it had begun then, and he had said, “Don’t you think it might be?” and with Rose Ellen’s answer, the pain and the emotion had become unbearable. Yet, after all, what had she said? Only three words, only, “No, Peter de—ah.” But when she said those three words he had looked at her just for a moment. Quite definitely Peter traced his hurt back to the moment when he looked into Rose Ellen’s eyes and saw the patience in them. He hadn’t see her look like that since the day when she walked towards him down the hard asphalt at St. Gunburga’s.
Peter turned, and began to walk back along the way by which he had just come. He had ceased to care about his train, or Roden Coverdale, or the Jewel. That look in Rose Ellen’s eyes would have brought him from the ends of the earth. His only necessity was to find out what had brought it there. He couldn’t bear it. He walked back quickly.
It was when he came to where the primroses grew on the broken bank and some bushes overhung the path that he heard a sound that took his breath. It was a sob, and words. He stood still at the turn of the path and saw Rose Ellen. She was leaning against a beech tree, half turned away from him, not looking at him at all; and she was speaking, but not to him; and she was crying as he had never seen her cry. Anguish had broken through the patience in her eyes; the tears ran down, the very bitter tears.
Peter stood, and heard Rose Ellen speak.
“My Peter de—ah. No, not mine—no, I don’t want him to be mine—I don’t—it’s not for that—only for her to love him—to be good to him—Sylvia, if you can, if you will—I won’t mind, I’ll be glad.” Her voice dropped, shaken and despairing. “She won’t—she won’t—she hasn’t got it to give—oh, my Peter, my Peter de—ah, oh, my Peter de—ah!”
Something broke in Peter’s heart. He knew that he belonged to Rose Ellen, and that she belonged to him. They had always belonged to each other, and he had not known it. He had not seen her because she was so near. She had known, but he had not known.
Rose Ellen was not speaking any longer. Her face was hidden against the tree. Peter would have given all the world twice over to have comforted her; but something held him back, something stronger than his passion of pity and love. It was as if he had come into a holy place and seen holy things that were not meant for him to see. And then he was pledged in some sort to Sylvia. He must put that straight before he could go to Rose Ellen.
He turned, and went down the path that led to Hastney Mere.
CHAPTER XXIII
Peter picked up the bag which he had left at the junction, and travelled down to Sunnings. He found quite a lot to think about. He thought about what a fool he had been. He thought of how near he had been to losing Rose Ellen. He might have shut a door between them which he would never have been able to open again. He had, as it were, had his hand upon that door, ready to slam it, too. It really didn’t bear thinking about.
The train went on; stations came and went; porters and newsboys shouted; people got in and out. Peter sat still, and went on thinking. He didn’t want to sit still. He wanted to do something that would bring him nearer to Rose Ellen. What he really would have liked to do was to dash across the platform, burst into the telegraph office, and write with a stubby pencil on a neatly divided telegraph-form, “Rose Ellen, I love you terribly. I’m coming back at once.” This being impossible, he sat in his corner seat and appeared to slumber.
Coverdale met him at the station with a small car which he was driving himself. He nodded without offering his hand, and talked pleasantly of indifferent matters until they had reached the house.
“Dinner is in half an hour,” he said, then: “And I think, if you don’t mind, we’ll keep our real talk for afterwards.”
Peter assented, and was shown to his room.
After dinner, in the library, Coverdale plunged straight into the middle of things.
“I’d like to say that I very much appreciate your coming,” he began. “I had reasons for not wishing to come to Town just now, or I shouldn’t have troubled you. And, quite seriously, I wanted to see you very much. You are, as a matter of fact, my dear Waring, that most remarkable phenomenon, a really honest man. I won’t say I haven’t met one or two before; but I’m not certain that I would have trusted any of them with the Annam Jewel. Tell me now, why did you send it back?”
Peter didn’t answer at once. At last he said:
“Well, if it’s yours, I don’t want it; and, if it’s mine, I’d rather get it myself.”
“I see.” Coverdale’s tone betrayed a hint of amusement. “Well, well, that’s very admirable; and I’m naturally a good deal obliged to you, both on my own account and on Sylvia’s. But you say ‘if it’s yours’, ‘if it’s mine’. May I ask what you mean by that?”
Peter looked him straight in the face and said:
“I have my father’s notes, sir.”
Coverdale nodded.
“Yes, I thought so. I thought there’d be something like that. Your father’s notes on the history of the Jewel, and the circumstances which he conceived gave him some claim to it?”
“His brother left it to him by will,” said Peter.
“Yes, I knew that. The question is, Waring, how much do you know?”
“I think,” said Peter, “that you had better read my father’s notes, and then you’ll see.” He held out the shabby book as he spoke. “I expect there are gaps that you can fill, and I’d rather have the whole thing cleared right up and settled.”
Coverdale took the book with a “Thank you, Waring,” pushed his chair a little nearer to a lamp, leaned back, and began to read. The lamplight showed his fine, dark face, the hair grey at the temples. When he turned a leaf it shone on the sensitive, well-kept hand.
Peter looked and wondered. If this man were Dale, then there were many gaps to be filled.
Coverdale finished reading, and closed the book.
“Entirely one-sided, of course, but very interesting,” he said. “By the way, there’s one point I’d like to rectify. Your father says that I fired at him point-blank when he sprang out of bed. As he himself admits that he was light-headed at the time, perhaps you’ll take my word for it that I did no such thing. I had no intention whatever of firing at an unarmed and wounded man. Your father jumped at me, knocking my arm up, and my revolver went off into the blue. I may say that if I had fired at him, I should have hit him. It was, of course, a most unfortunate occurrence, as it led Henders to fire and hit. He had sworn not to use his revolver—that’s the truth, though you may not believe it. And as to the rest of it—well, I can tell you a good deal if you’d care to hear.”
Peter had picked up a paper-knife from the table near. It was a mere sliver of ivory, carved at one end into a tracery like fine lace. He sat forward hi his chair, balancing the paper-knife, twisting it.
“Of course I’d like to hear,” he said almost roughly.
Coverdale nodded, got up, and began to pace the room. He walked to the window and back, then halted, stood awhile with his back to the fireless hearth, and spoke.
“Yes, I expect you’d like to hear. I know I’d like to speak. Queer, how you carry a thing for years, hardly thinking about it, and then feel the need to talk it out!” He paused. Peter looked at the ivory knife, but it did not occur to him to speak. After a moment Coverdale went on:
“I’m afraid I must be personal. If you’re bored, say so—but the whole thing really hangs together. It really begins with my father. He went to China in the Diplomatic Service. When I was six there was a blazing row. He married a Chinese lady, and took up a semi-Oriental way of life. He was a man of brilliant talents and odd theories. I had a Chinese tutor until I was twelve. My father himself taught me the English school subjects. When I was twelve he sent me home. I was at Eton for six years. Then he sent for me to come out East again. Four years later he died, and I discovered that he had been living on capital—there wasn’t much left, and what there was had to go to my sisters, both older than myself. They had been living in England since my mother’s death. I’m really making this as short as possible, but I want you to understand the position. There I was at twenty-two, with a passion for Chinese manuscripts and Chinese antiquities of all sorts, no money and a widening breach between myself and my father’s people.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I set out to turn my knowledge into money. Some years were good and some were bad. I made enough to keep me, and I made a certain name for myself. I had a flair. I called myself Dale chiefly because it was shorter than Coverdale—I had no motive for concealment then. When I was nearly thirty I married Sylvia’s mother—a missionary’s daughter—Sylvia is very like her. That’s really where the thing begins. She hated the East; she simply hated it; she wanted to get out of it and go home; it got worse after Sylvia was born.”
He stopped speaking, and walked again twice up and down the long room, then took up his tale, speaking in a dry, cool voice which showed no trace of emotion.
“I had come across a reference to the Annam Jewel years before—just the merest hint. Afterwards in two other very ancient manuscripts I found passages which gave a further clue. Finally, just when the pressure of my personal affairs was becoming unendurable, I met Henders. He described the Jewel to me, and asked me whether I believed that it existed. I was very cautious, but I saw that he knew something. He told me he got his information from James Waring. Well, he brought Waring to see me; and the upshot was that we agreed to go into the job together. Now, what I want to lay stress on is this—Waring and Henders knew next to nothing; Henders only knew what Waring told him; and Waring knew no more than that the Jewel existed somewhere—he knew that it was unique—he described it. He’d been in Annam for some time—had, in point of fact, practically gone native—and he’d picked up the sort of vague stories which are associated with any famous object, especially if it is very much venerated, as the Jewel was. The point is that he didn’t know where it was, and of course Henders didn’t either. Neither of them had anything more than vague stories, whereas I had the exact knowledge. The second manuscript gave an account of how the Jewel came to be taken to Annam. And the third, a much later one, gave a description of the Jewel in its shrine—it was written by a Chinese monk for the edification of his abbot.
“You see, I knew where the Jewel was. They didn’t. You know, of course, that Annam means ‘The Hidden Way’. Well, the way to the Jewel was hidden—I knew that from the manuscript. The whole thing fired me. There was the value of the Jewel, and the pressure of my affairs; and there was the fascination, the appeal to the other side of me—the side that cared for the Jewel because it was beautiful, and unique, and very, very old—that was the strongest really. Henders was mad keen too. He was an expert in precious stones—you know that—and he was also one of the most ambitious men I’ve ever met. He always had his mind set to get where he is now—at the top, where he could move men and pull strings. He saw his chance in the Jewel. Waring just wanted the money. Well, I went in with them—I didn’t like either of them but I went in with them. I knew that the Jewel had been taken to Annam and had become the centre of a cult there. Well, we went there. Henders made a fake Jewel from the description. It was very rough, but he thought it might be useful.”
“Is this it?” said Peter.
He dropped the paper-knife, dived into a pocket, and held out the sham stone which had come to him from his father. Coverdale picked it up, held it to the light, and tossed it back.
“Yes, that’s it. Your father mentions it too. I suppose he kept it. Well, as it turned out it wasn’t used. Waring gave us the slip. He found out where the Jewel was—there was a girl mixed up in it—and as soon as he found out where it was he gave us the slip—went right back on us. And I’ll say this, Waring, that if ever a man deserved what he got, it was that uncle of yours. He played a pretty mean trick on the girl he got his information from, and she came to her death through it; and he went right back on his partners.”
Peter slid the false Jewel back into his pocket, and retrieved the ivory knife. He had no observations to make upon the character of his Uncle James.
“Well, he got the Jewel,” said Coverdale. “I don’t know how, but he got it; and Henders killed him for it. I wasn’t there—you needn’t believe that if you don’t want to, but I just give it to you as part of my statement—I wasn’t there because I’d had bad news. I got a message to say my wife had gone—an American tourist with lots of money. She’d left Sylvia with her native nurse and gone. Well, the rest is more or less as your father has it. I got back to find Henders raging; and I was pretty mad too. I didn’t see what right Henry Waring had in the matter at all, and I agreed to go with Henders and get the Jewel back from him, only stipulating that there should be no more violence. Well, you know what happened.”
Peter nodded half absently. The scene described by his father rose before him. Henders with his light, cold eyes and his oath to use no violence, and the revolver in his hand—the hand with the scar upon it. The ivory paper-knife snapped in two; the sharp end fell to the ground.
“We got off that night,” said Coverd
ale. “We got clear away to the States. I took Sylvia with me. We went to the States because Henders said he knew he could get a job there through a cousin of his, and, once he was in with the trade, we should be able to sell the Jewel. Now, I want you to take this in—I had the Jewel in my care, and Henders made two attempts to steal it before we landed. He didn’t succeed, because I had taken his measure. I always knew I couldn’t trust him an inch—that’s where I was an out-and-out fool, to go into a deal like that with two men that I couldn’t trust.”
He threw out his hand with a sharp gesture, then crossed to his old place, and sat down.
“I’m nearly done,” he said. “Henders got his job. I kept the Jewel. He used to come and ask me to let him look at it; he said it fascinated him. I know now that he was trying to make a copy. He used to sit and stare at it whilst I kept him covered—we’d got through with pretences by then, and he knew I didn’t trust him. Well, in the end he tried to cheat me. He changed the false Jewel for the real one under my very nose, and almost took me in. He had chosen his time well, a dark day and the evening drawing in. But”—Coverdale laughed—“I told you I had a flair; my eye was deceived, but not my hand. I knew the thing for a fake as soon as I touched it. We had a scrap. I was off my guard, and he got my revolver. It was the narrowest escape I’ve ever had, for he certainly meant murder. That’s his mark.”
He touched the faint line of a scar that ran back from the left cheek-bone.
“Well, after that I didn’t think I was under any obligation to him. I didn’t think he’d give up the game, but the next thing I heard was that he’d been arrested—Michel’s old game of picking out a valuable stone here and there and substituting a copy. His past record came out, and he got a heavy sentence. Before the trial was over I got news that a cousin of my father’s had left me Sunnings and a goodish bit of money, so I cleared out. I’d my own reasons for never wanting to see the States again. Well, that’s the story—all but one thing. Henders has a hold over me—I needn’t go into it; it’s to do with my private affairs—but, in the last resort, he could get me extradited to the States if he thought it worth while, and that’s why I’m off.”
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