The Root of All Evil

by J. S. Fletcher

  CHAPTER XII

  _The Second Exodus_

  Those who ministered to her in her convalescence found it difficult tounderstand Jeckie Farnish's curious apathy and indifference to thethings about her. Once her sister was out of danger, Rushie had gonehome to Binks and her children; Binks was by that time a bustlingtradesman in Sicaster, and had prospered so well that Rushie wore a realsealskin coat and sported gold chains and diamond rings. It had beenBinks's idea that his wife should go to the rescue when Jeckie was takenill; blood, said Binks, with the air of a Solomon, was thicker thanwater when all's said and done, and bygones should be bygones, and in nohalf-measures. So Rushie waited on Jeckie hand and foot, and Jeckie,after she had come to herself, watched her going about the sick room andsaid nothing. At that time, indeed, she said nothing to anybody, andwhen Rushie had returned, leaving her sister in charge of Farnish and aneighbour-woman, she said less. Farnish began to wonder if her illnesshad affected her mind, and voiced his doubts to the doctor; the doctormade him leave Jeckie alone; she would speak, he said, as soon as shewanted to.

  There came a time when Farnish was obliged to speak, whether Jeckiewanted to hear or not. He approached her bedside one day in ashamefaced, diffident manner, looking doubtfully at her.

  "Jecholiah, mi lass," said Farnish, "theer's a little matter 'at I munmention to yer, though I'm sure I wouldn't trouble yer wi' it if itcould be helped. But ye see, mi lass, when ye were ta'en badly an' coulddo nowt for yersen, I hed to tak things i' hand, and of course, I hed tolay out money. I knew wheer you kep' a certain supply down theer i't'owd bewro i' t'kitchen corner, and I hed to force t'lock and lay handson it. That's three months and more since, and for all I've been varrycareful about layin' it out, it's come to an end, as all suchcommodities, as they term 'em, does. What mun I do, mi lass?"

  Jeckie made an effort of memory, and remembered how much money there hadbeen in the old bureau of which her father spoke--something betweenforty and fifty pounds, as far as she could recollect. She made a rapidcalculation and found that Farnish had spent between three and fourpounds a week during her illness. There was nothing extravagant in suchexpenditure at such a time. But she gave him a sharp, searching look.

  "You made that do? You have borrowed aught from anybody?" she demanded.

  "Surely not, mi lass!" protested Farnish. "No!"

  "Not from them Binkses?" questioned Jeckie.

  "Nowt from nobody, Jecholiah," said Farnish. "It's panned out very well,ower fourteen weeks. There's happen a pound or so left. But----"

  "Go downstairs, and come up again when I knock on t'floor," saidJeckie. "I have a bit in my box."

  Farnish went away in his usual obedient fashion, and when he had gone,Jeckie, who hitherto had been unable to get out of bed unaided, madeshift to rise, and to wrap a shawl round her shoulders. Weak as she was,her first action was characteristic--to totter to the door and lock it.That cost her trembling limbs an effort; she had to summon all her smallreserve of strength and to pause once or twice in order to cross thefloor to a heavy, iron-clamped box which stood in one corner of theroom, staying again on the way to extract a key from a certainhiding-place beneath the carpet. And when this box was unlocked shefound it difficult work to lift out and lay aside the various thingsthat lay within; it took some time before she had got down to the bottomand had there unearthed a smaller box, wherein, months before, when shehad been obliged to face possible contingencies, she had placed apersonal reserve fund. The key of that box was in an old satchel keptwithin the larger one; she found it at last and laid bare her secretstore.

  Weak and trembling as she was, Jeckie could not forbear the satisfactionof counting over this money. She had deposited there a thousand poundsin banknotes, and fifty in gold, and she slowly counted paper and coin.It was all there, all safe, and she took ten pounds in gold, put therest back, and with many tremblings and restings, locked up the twoboxes, unlocked the door, knocked loudly on the floor, and climbed backinto bed.

  "There's ten pound," she said when Farnish came up in response to hersummons. "Make it go as far as you can."

  She turned her face away then, as if wanting no talk on the matter, andFarnish took the hint and the money and went quietly away. It astonishedhim, as Jeckie grew stronger, that she asked no questions about hisexpenditure; once upon a time, she would have made him account for everypenny. But now she seemed indifferent; she was indifferent, indeed, toeverything, and there came a time when she showed no interest in thedoctor's visits, as if she cared nothing whether he was doing her goodor not. But all that time she was steadily improving, and at last thedoctor told her, in Farnish's presence, that there was no need for himto come again and that she could get up.

  "Ye'll be glad to take a look round, no doubt, mi lass," observedFarnish, when the doctor had gone. "It'll liven you up."

  Jeckie made no reply. The neighbour-woman got her up next day, helpedher to dress, and bustled about in the hope of making her comfortable ather first rising. When Jeckie was dressed this good Samaritan wentdownstairs and returned with an easy chair and cushions.

  "I'll put this here agen t'winda, Miss Farnish," she said with cheeryofficiousness. "Ye'll be able to look out theer ower t'pit, and see whatthey're a-doin' on theer. Nowt so lively as it wor afore t'accident, buttheer is things bein' done theer, an' happen ye'll like to get a glimpseon' em, for, of course, ye mun ha' been anxious, an'----"

  "Put that chair in that corner!" snapped Jeckie, with a sudden gleam ofher old temper. "An' hold yer wisht about t'pit! When I want to talkabout t'pit, I'll let you know."

  The woman had sufficient sense to see that her charge was irritable, andshe made no answer; she had enough wit, too, to place the easy chair ina corner of the room from which it was impossible to see out of thewindow. And in that corner Jeckie spent the first period of herconvalescence, at first doing nothing, afterwards occupying herself inmending her linen.

  Farnish came upstairs every now and then, always with some question--wasshe wanting aught? But Jeckie never wanted anything; she ate and drankwhatever was put before her without remark and with apparentindifference, and so the days went by. And during the whole of that timeshe never asked her father a question save once.

  "Where," she asked suddenly, one day, as Farnish hung about the bedroomin his usual aimless, good-intentioned fashion, "where did they buryScholes?"

  "Why, i' t'churchyard, to be sure, mi lass!" answered Farnish, glad tobreak the silence which he found so trying. "Wheer else? Ligged him i't'same grave as his missus--ye'll know t'spot; halfway down that newpiece o' ground 'at they took in fro' Stubley's ten-acre a few yearssin'. Aye, he wor buried all reight theer, wor Ben--same as anybodyelse. Why, mi lass?"

  "Naught!" answered Jeckie, and relapsed into her usual silence.

  The same silence continued when she at last went downstairs. And thereFarnish noticed that she never went near the window of the living-room;it, like that of her bedroom, overlooked the ill-fated colliery. Forawhile she accepted the help and ministrations of the neighbour-woman;then one day she gave her some money and with the curt remark that infuture she and her father could fend for themselves, dismissed her. Shebegan to go about the cottage then, and to do the household work, andFarnish, who was somewhat shrewd as regards observation, noticed thatone night, when the darkness had fallen, she fitted two muslin blinds tothe window of the living-room and the window of her chamber above; thelight could come in through them, but no one could see out.

  "It's t'same as if our Jeckie niver wanted to set her eyes on yon theerpit an' its surroundings niver no more!" observed Farnish, narratingthis curious circumstance to his principal crony. "Shutten 'em cleanout, as it weer!"

  "An' no wonder, considerin' how things has befallen," remarked thecrony. "If things hed turned out wi' onny affair o' mine as that'sturned out wi' her, d'ye think I should want to hev' it i' front o' myeyes, allus remindin' me o' what had happened? Nowt o' t'sort!"

  "Aye!" said Farnish, reflectively. "But--s
he knows nowt, as yet."

  There came a time when Jeckie had to know. One morning, when she wasfully restored to health, though now a gaunt and haggard woman,grey-haired and spiritless, Farnish, who had been out in the village,came in as she was washing up the breakfast things in the scullery andapproached her with evident concern.

  "Jecholiah, mi lass," he said, in a low voice, "theer's Mestur Revisoutside, i' his trap. He's called at t'doctor's as he came throughSicaster, and t'doctor says you're now fit to hev a bit o' businesstalk. And Mestur Revis is varry anxious to come in and hev it, now. Howwill it be, mi lass?"

  Jeckie finished polishing her china before she answered, and Farnishstood by, silent, anxiously waiting.

  "Happen I know as much as Revis or anybody else can tell," she said atlast in a queer voice. "And happen I got to know it in a way 'at neitherRevis nor you, nor anybody, 'ud understand. But--tell him to come in."

  Farnish went out to the colliery proprietor, who sat in his smartdog-cart, meditatively surveying the scene on the other side of theroad. There were no signs of activity now about the pit on which Jeckiehad set such hopes; the surface buildings stood as ruinous as theexplosions had left them; on the hillside the cottages intended for theminers were just as they were when all work had come to an end on them;over the whole surface of the Leys there was ruin and desolation. AndRevis had just shaken his head and heaved a deep sigh when Farnishemerged from the cottage.

  "She'll see you now, if you'll please go in, Mestur Revis," saidFarnish. Then he looked half entreatingly, half wistfully at the bigman. "Ye'll break it gentle to her, sir?" he added. "She's in a queerstate of mind, to my thinking."

  "Leave it to me, my lad," said Revis, as he got out of his dog-cart."I'll make it as easy as I can for her."

  He went up the path to the cottage door, tapped, and walked in. Jeckiesat in her accustomed corner, in the shadows, but Revis saw how she hadchanged, and it was with a curious mixture of pity and wonder andinterest that he went up and held out his hand to her.

  "Well, my lass!" he said, with a sympathetic effort to put somecheeriness into his voice. "You've had a bad time of it, to be sure,poor thing! But--you're better?"

  "Well enough to hear aught you've to say, Mr. Revis," answered Jeckie."And--sit down and tell me straight out, if you please. You know me!"

  Revis gave her a searching look and pulled a chair in front of her.

  "Aye!" he said. "I think I know! Well, it's not cheering news, but you'dbetter know it. You know already that I've done what I could to lookafter things for you while you've been ill?"

  "Yes, and I'm obliged to you," answered Jeckie. "You were always a goodfriend."

  "It was this way," continued Revis. "When you were taken ill thatbrother-in-law of yours, Binks, came to me and asked me if I couldn't dosomething to help. I came over and consulted with him and your partnerand her husband. We went right into things. Of course you know that whenyour illness came you were just at the end of your capital?"

  "Who should know better!" exclaimed Jeckie, bitterly.

  "Well, that was so," asserted Revis. "So--everything stopped, with thoseshafts still half-full of water, and----"

  "I know how they were, and how all else was," interrupted Jeckie. "Youcan't tell me anything about that!"

  "To be sure!" said Revis, humouring her. "Well, the question was--was itworth while putting more capital--it would have had to be a lot morecapital!--to clear the mine, get all going again, and go on? Now, I hadsome talk with two or three influential men in the district, and wedecided to come to your help if we could see that all the money you andMrs. Albert Grice had put in, and all that we should have to put inwould be got back--that, in short, the results would justify theexpenditure. In other words, what amount of coal is under this propertyand close to it? You understand?"

  For the first time for many long months a faint flush of colour came toJeckie Farnish's haggard cheeks, and she spoke with some show ofinterest.

  "You mean to say that there's a doubt?" she asked.

  "We'll leave doubts out," answered Revis. "That was the real problem. Iput aside all the investigations that you made before you started, andmade some of my own, at my own expense. You know what a thorough man Iam about such things. Well, I made, at once, more borings, in differentparts, not only of your property, but in the land round about. I'veknown the truth now for a week or two; it's an unpleasant one. There'swithout doubt a good bed beneath your land, but a small one. What you'dhave got out of it would possibly have given you back your capital and abit over. But there's none elsewhere! And your pit's been so ruined bythat explosion, and there's such a body of water that----"

  "I understand," said Jeckie, interrupting him with a significant look."It's useless!"

  "If you want plain words, my lass--yes!" answered Revis. "To get thatpit cleared and to go on again would cost far more than you'd ever getback. I reckoned everything up, with your partner's assistance--you knowshe'd power to act for you if you couldn't--and things were justhere--what with paying everything up to the time of stoppage and so on,you've just come to the end of your capital, and--there you are! It's avery sad thing, but it's one of these things that have to be faced."

  "The workmen and all the rest of them?" asked Jeckie.

  "All paid off--gone, weeks since," replied Revis, laconically.

  "And the stuffs about those shafts--material--the building material atthose cottages, and all that?" she inquired.

  "Sold--to settle things up," said Revis. "Your partner had power to doall that, you know, as you couldn't. We all made the biggest effort wecould for you and for her. To put things in a nutshell--you owe nothingto the bank or to anybody, and the whole concern is just a ruin whichanybody can take up and remake if they like. I would have liked, but itisn't worth it."

  Jeckie looked steadily at her visitor for a long time.

  "Then," she said at last, in a low voice that was curiously firm,"then--I've nothing?"

  Revis shook his head.

  "Nothing," he answered. "Nothing! except the forty acres that you boughtin the beginning."

  He was surprised to hear Jeckie laugh. He was something of a student ofhuman nature, this big, bluff man, but he could not gauge the precisemeaning of that laugh, and he looked at the woman before him, in someslight alarm, which she was quick to recognise.

  "I'm not going mad, Revis," she said. "I was only thinking that at theend of all that I've got--forty acres! Those forty acres!"

  "How much did you give for them?" he asked, inquisitively. "A lot? I'dan idea it was for next to naught that you got them."

  Jeckie suddenly got up from her chair, and turned towards the hearth.She stood looking into the fire for some time, and when, at last, sheglanced at her visitor there was a look in her eyes which Revis neverforgot.

  "What did I give for them?" she said in a low, concentrated voice."Man!--I don't know--yet!--what I gave for them!"

  Revis stood staring at her for a moment of wonder. Her answer was beyondhim. And as he had no reply to it he turned to go. But Jeckie stoppedhim.

  "Wait a minute," she said. "A question--Lucilla Grice and her husband?"

  "They've left the neighbourhood," replied Revis. "They sold their houseand furniture and went away. I don't know where they've gone."

  Jeckie said no more, and Revis went out, said a few words to Farnish,and drove off. And Farnish went indoors, and found Jeckie alreadysetting about the preparations for their early dinner. He was astonishedto find that she began to be talkative that day; still more astonishedthat, when evening came, she cooked a hot supper, encouraged him to eat,ate heartily herself, and before they went to bed mixed a goodly tumblerof grog for each of them. It was, thought Farnish, like old times, andhe went to his chamber in high content.

  But as the grey dawn broke a few hours later, Farnish woke to findJeckie, fully dressed, standing at his bedside. He stared at her inastonishment.

  "Get up; get dressed; come down; we're going away," said Jeckie.
"Don'ttalk, but do as I tell you. There'll be some breakfast ready by the timeyou're down."

  Farnish obeyed; he was still as clay in his elder daughter's hands. Andan hour later, still obedient though wondering, he followed her out ofthe cottage, and up the empty street of Savilestowe, past what had oncebeen Grice's, past what had once been the Golden Teapot, past the lasthouse, past the last tree. At the top of the hill, and as the morningbroke, he turned and looked back, having some strange intuition that hewas being taken away from a place which he had known long and wouldnever see again. He stood looking for some minutes; when he turned,Jeckie, who had never once looked back, was marching stolidly ahead.