Читать книгу The Coil of Carne - John Oxenham - Страница 12

"Mrs. Jex," said Eager, to the old woman in whose cottage he had taken his predecessor's rooms, "who lives in yon big house on the shore?"

Mrs. Jex straightened her big white cap nervously. She had hardly got used yet to this new "passon," who was so very different from the last, and who had already in half a day asked her more questions than the last one did in a year.

"Will it be Carne yo' mean, sir?"

"That's it,--Carne. Who lives there, and what kind of folks are they?"

"There's Sir Denzil an' there's Mr. Kennet----"

"Who's Mr. Kennet?"

"Sir Denzil's man, sir. An' there's the boys----'

"Ah, then, it's the boys I met on the shore, running wild and free, without a shirt between them."

"Like enough, sir. They do say 'at----"

"Yes?"---as she came to a sudden stop.

"'Tain't for the likes o' me, sir, to talk about my betters," said Mrs. Jex, with a doubtful shake of the head.

"Oh, the parson hears everything, you know, and he never repeats what he hears. What do they say about the boys? Are they twins? They're as like as can be, and just of an age, as far as I could see."

"Well, sir," said Mrs. Jex, with another shake, "there's more to that than I can say, an' I'm not that sure but what it's more'n anybody can say."

"Why, what do you mean? That sounds odd."

"Ay, 'tis odd. Carne's seen some queer things, and this is one of 'em, so they do say."

"I'd like to hear. I rather took to those boys. They seem to be growing up perfect little savages, learning nothing and----"

"Like enough, sir."

"And I thought of calling on their grandfather and seeing if he'd let me take them in hand."

"Yo'd have yore hands full, from all accounts."

"That's how I like them. They've been a bit overfull for a good many years, but this offers the prospect of a change anyway."

"Well, yo'd best see Dr. Yool. If yo' con get him talking he con tell yo' more'n onybody else. He were there when they were born--one of 'em onyway."

"Worse and worse? You're a most mysterious old lady. What's it all about?"

"Yo'd better ask t' doctor. He knows. I only knows what folks say, and that's mostly lies as often as not. Yore dinner's all ready. Yo' go and see t' doctor after supper and ax him all about it."

After dinner he took a ramble round his new parish. He had arrived a couple of days sooner than expected and the head shepherd was away from home, so he had had to find his way about alone and make the acquaintance of his sheep as best he could.

Mrs. Jex, who had also acted as landlady for the departed Smythe, had already thanked God for the change. For Smythe, a lank, boneless creature, who cloaked a woeful lack of zeal for humanity under cover of an unwrinkling robe of high observance, had found the atmosphere of Wyvveloe uncongenial. It lacked the feminine palliatives to which he had been accustomed. He had grown fretful and irritable--"a perfec' whimsy!" as Mrs. Jex put it. The sturdy fisher-farmer folk laughed him and his ways to scorn, and the whole parish was beginning to run to seed when, to the relief of all concerned, he succeeded in obtaining his transfer to a sphere better suited to his peculiar requirements.

Mrs. Jex had had experience of Mr. Eager for one night and half a day, and she already breathed peacefully, and had thanked God for the change. And it was the same in every cottage into which the Rev. Charles put his lean, smiling face that day.

Those simple folk, who looked death in the face as a necessary part of their daily life, knew a man when they saw one, and there was that in Charles Eager's face which would never be in Mr. Smythe's if he lived to be a hundred--that keen hunger for the hearts and souls and lives of men which makes one man a pastor, and the lack of which leaves another but a priest.

And if the cottagers instinctively recognised the difference, how much more that bluff guardian--beyond their inclinations at times--of their outer husks, Dr. Yool!

When Jane Tod, his housekeeper, ushered the stranger into his room Dr. Yool was mixing himself a stiff glass of grog and compounding new fulminations, objurgative and expletive, tending towards the cleansing of Wynsloe streets and backyards.

Miss Tod was a woman in ten thousand, and had been specially created for the post of housekeeper to Dr. Yool. She was blessed with an imperturbable placidity which the irascible doctor had striven in vain to ruffle for over twenty years. When he came in of a night, tired and hungry and bursting with anger at the bovine stupidity of his patients, she let him rave to his heart's relief without changing a hair, and set food and drink before him, and agreed with all he said, even when he grew personal, and she never talked back. When she showed in Mr. Eager she simply opened the sitting-room door, said "New passon," and closed it behind him.

"Will you let me introduce myself, Dr. Yool, seeing that the vicar is not here to do it? I am Charles Eager, vice Smythe, translated. You aid I are partners, you see, so I thought the sooner we became acquainted the better."

"H'mph!" grunted Dr. Yool, eyeing his visitor keenly over the top of the glass as he sipped his red-hot grog.

"Charles Eager, eh? And what are you eager for, Mr. Eager?"

"Men, women, children--bodies and souls."

"You leave their bodies to me," growled Dr. Yool in his brusquest manner. "Their souls '11 be quite as much as you can tackle."

But Eager saw through his brusquerie. A very beautiful smile played over the keen, earnest face as he said:

"When you separate them it's too late for either of us to do them any good."

"Separate them! Takes me all my time to keep 'em together."

"Exactly! So we'll make better headway if we work together and overlap."

"Right! We'll work together, Mr. Eager." And the doctor's big brown hand met the other's in a friendly grip. "You've got more bone in you than the late invertebrate. He was a sickener. Hand like a fish. Have some grog?

"I don't permit myself grog. It wouldn't do, you know. But I'll have a pipe. I see you don't object to smoke."

"Smoke and grog are the only things a man can look forward to with certainty after a stiff day's work. The sooner you can get your flock to cleanse out the sheepfolds the better, Mr. Shepherd. We had typhus here ten years ago, and it gave them such a scare that for one year the place was fairly sweet. Now it stinks as bad as ever, and I'll be hanged if I can stir them."

"I'll stir them, or I'll know the reason why!"

Dr. Yool studied the deep-set eyes and firm mouth before him for a good minute, and then said:

"Gad! I believe you will if any man can."

"Do you know East London?"

"Not intimately. I've seen enough of it to strengthen my preference for clean sand."

"This is heaven compared with it. I'm going to open these people's eyes to their advantages."

"You'll be a godsend if you can."

"I want you to tell me all you think fit about two naked boys I came across on the shore this morning. Carr'ns, they called themselves. Fine little lads, and next door to savages, as far as I could judge. I tried to pump Mrs. Jex, and she referred me to you."

Dr. Yool puffed contemplatively, and looked at him through the smoke.

"That's the problem of Carne," he said slowly at last--"the insoluble problem."

"What's the problem? And why insoluble?"

"One of them is heir to Caine; the other is baseborn. No man on earth knows which is which."

"Any woman?"

"Ah--there you have it! Can you make a woman speak against her will--and her interest?" he added, as a hopeful look shot through Eager's eyes.

"It's a strong combination against one. All the same, there is no reason why those boys should grow up naked of mind as well as of body. They are surely close in age? They're as like as two peas--splendid little savages, both."

"There may be a week between them, not more." He puffed thoughtfully for several minutes again, and then said slowly: "If you can clothe them, body and mind, it will be a good work and a tough one. It's virgin soil and a big handful, and one of them's got a place in the world. I'll tell you the story for your guidance. I can trust it in your keeping. The old man would curse me, no doubt, but his time is past and the boys' is only coming. They are of more consequence."

And bit by bit he told him what he knew of the strange happenings which had led to the problem of Carne.

Eager followed him with keen interest.

"And was that first marriage genuine?" he asked.

"Very doubtful. I worried the old man till he went off to look into it, but when he came back he would say nothing. It makes no difference, however, for we don't know one boy from the other."

"And the mother--the one who lived?" asked Eager, following out his own line of thought.

"She stayed on at Carne with her mother for about a year. Then she disappeared, and, as far as I know, nothing has been heard of her since. She could solve the problem doubtless, but if she swore to it no one would believe her."

"She believed in her own marriage, of course?"

"Doubtless. And the time may come when she will put in her claim, if she is alive."

"That's what I was thinking. And the father of the boys?"

"The man he killed--unintentionally, no doubt, still after threats--had powerful friends. They would have exacted every penalty the law permitted. Denzil no doubt considered he could enjoy life better in other ways. If he is alive he is abroad. He has never shown face here since."

"A complicated matter," said Eager thoughtfully, "and likely to become more so. Where would the old man's death land things?"

"God knows. I've puzzled over it many a day and night."

"And meanwhile Sir Denzil allows the youngsters to run to seed?"

"Exactly. He takes absolutely no interest in them. If one of them died it would be all right for the other. He would be Carron of Carne in due course and no questions asked. But the complication of the two has made him look askance at both."

"And the old woman--Mrs. Lee?"

"She lives on at Carne, biding her time. I have no doubt she knows which is her grandson, but she won't speak till the time comes."

"And how does Sir Denzil treat her?"

"They say he has never spoken to her for the last ten years--never a word since that day she and her daughter brought the two children in to him and started the game. She tends the house and does the cooking, and so on. Sir Denzil lives in his own rooms, and his man Kennet looks after him. It's a very long time since I saw him. We never got on well together. He killed that poor girl, dragging her here as he did, and I told him so. And he chose to say that I ought to have been able to recognise t'other baby from which. Much he knows about it," snorted the doctor.

"And what does he do with himself? Is he a student?"

"Drinks, I imagine. I meet his man about now and again, and if it's like master like man there's not much doubt about it."

"Poor little fellows! I must get hold of them, doctor. I must have them. Now, how shall I set about it?"

"Better call on the old man and see what he says. His soul's in your charge, you know. I have my own opinion as to its probable ultimate destination, in spite of you. It'll be an experience, anyway."

"For me or for him?"

"Well, I was thinking of you at the moment."

"And not an over-pleasant one, you suggest?

"Oh, he's a gentleman, is the old man, if he is an old heathen. Gad! I'd like to go along with you, only it would upset your apple-cart and set you in the ditch."

"I'll see him in the morning," said Eager.