Читать книгу The Coil of Carne - John Oxenham - Страница 9

The days passed and brought no word from Sir Denzil in reply to Dr. Yool's post letter. And, having waited as long as they could, they buried Lady Susan in the little green churchyard at Wyvveloe, where half a dozen Carrons, who happened to have died at Carne, already rested. Dr. Yool and Braddle had had to arrange everything between them, and, as might have been expected under the circumstances, the funeral was as simple as funeral well could be, and as regards attendance--well, the doctor was the only mourner, and he still boiled over when he thought of the useless way in which this poor life had been sacrificed.

Braddle was there with his men, of course, but the doctor only just managed it between two visits, and his manner showed that he grudged the time given to the dead which was all too short for the requirements of the living. Yet it went against the grain to think of that poor lady going to her last resting-place unattended, and he made a point of being there. But his gig stood waiting outside the churchyard gate, and he was whirling down the lane while the first spadefuls were drumming on the coffin.

He thought momentarily of the child as he drove along. But, since no call for his services had come from Mrs. Lee, he supposed it was going on all right, and he had enough sick people on his hands to leave him little time for any who could get along without him.

The days ran into weeks, and still no word from Sir Denzil. It looked as though the little stranger at Carne might remain a stranger for the rest of his days. And yet it was past thinking that those specially interested should make no inquiry concerning the welfare of so important a member of the family.

"Summat's happened," was old Mrs. Lee's terse summing-up, with a gloomy shake of the head whenever she and Nance discussed the matter, which was many times a day.

Other matters too they discussed, and to more purpose, since the forwarding of them was entirely in their own hands. And when they spoke of these other matters, sitting over the fire in the long evenings, each with a child on her knee, hushing it or feeding it, their talk was broken, interjectional even at times, and so low that the very walls could have made little of it.

It was fierce-eyed Nance who started that strain of talk, and at first her mother received it open-mouthed. But by degrees, and as time played for them, she came round to it, and ended by being the more determined of the two. So they were of one mind on the matter, and the matter was of moment, and all that happened afterwards grew out of it.

Both the children throve exceedingly. No care was lacking them, and no distinction was made between them. What one had the other had, and Nance, with recovered strength, played foster-mother to them both.

Just two months after Lady Susan's death the two women were sitting talking over the fire one night, the children being asleep side by side in the cot in the adjacent bedroom, when the sound of hoofs and wheels outside brought them to their feet together.

"It's him," said Mrs. Lee; and they looked for a moment into one another's faces as though each sought sign of flinching in the other. Then both their faces tightened, and they seemed to brace themselves for the event.

An impatient knock on the kitchen door, the old woman hastened to answer it, and Sir Denzil limped in. He was thinner and whiter than the last time he came. He leaned heavily on a stick and looked frail and worn.

"Well, Mrs. Lee," he said, as he came over to the fire and bent over it and chafed his hands, "you'd given up all fears of ever seeing me again, I suppose?"

"Ay, a'most we had," said the old woman, as she lifted the kettle off the bob and set it in the blaze.

"Well, it wasn't far off it. I had a bad smash returning to London that last time. That fool of a post-boy drove into a tree that had fallen across the road, and killed himself and did his best to kill me. Now light the biggest fire you can make in the oak room, and another in my bedroom, and get me something to eat. Kennet"--as his man came in dragging a travelling-trunk--"get out a bottle of brandy, and, as soon as you've got the things in, brew me the stiffest glass of grog you ever made. My bones are frozen."

He dragged up a chair and sat down before the fire, thumping the coals with his stick to quicken the blaze. The rest sped to his bidding.

Kennet, when he had got in the trunks, brewed the grog in a big jug, with the air of one who knew what he was about.

"Shall I give the boy some, sir?" he asked, when Sir Denzil had swallowed a glass and was wiping his eyes from the effects of it.

"Yes, yes. Give him a glass, but tone it down, or he'll be breaking his neck like the last one."

So Kennet watered a glass to what he considered reasonable encouragement for a frozen post-boy, and presently the jingling of harness died away in the distance, and Kennet came in and fastened the door.

Sir Denzil had filled and emptied his glass twice more before Mrs. Lee came to tell him the room was ready. Then he went slowly off down the passage, steadying himself with his stick, for a superfluity of hot grog on an empty stomach on a cold night is not unapt to mount to the head of even a seasoned toper.

Kennet, when he came back to the room, after seeing his master comfortably installed before the fire, brewed a fresh supply of grog, placed on one side what he considered would satisfy his own requirements, and carried the rest to the oak room.

It was when the girl Nance carried in the hastily prepared meal that Sir Denzil, after peering heavily at her from under his bushy brows, asked suddenly, "And the child? It's alive?"

"Alive and well, sir."

"Bring it to me in the morning."

The girl looked at him once or twice as if she wanted to ask him a question.

He caught her at it, and asked abruptly, "What the devil are you staring at, and what the deuce keeps you hanging round here?" Upon which she quitted the room.

There was much talk, intense and murmurous, between the two women that night, when they had made up a bed for Kennet and induced him at last to go to it. From Kennet and the grog, after Sir Denzil had retired for the night, Nance learned all Kennet could tell her about Mr. Denzil.

According to that veracious historian it was only through Mr. Kennet's supreme discretion and steadfastness of purpose that the young man got safely across to Brussels, and, when he tired of Brussels, which he very soon did, to Paris.

"Ah!" said Mr. Kennet. "Now, that is a place. Gay?--I believe you! Lively?--I believe you! Heels in the air kind of place?--I believe you! And Mr. Denzil he took to it like a duck to the water. London ain't in it with Paris, I tell you." And so on and so on, until, through close attention to the grog, his words began to tumble over one another. Then he bade them good night, with solemn and insistent emphasis, as though it was doubtful if they would ever meet again, and cautiously followed Nance and his candle to his room.

The flats were gleaming like silver under a frosty sun next morning, and there was a crackling sharpness in the air, when Sir Denzil, having breakfasted, stood at the window of the oak room awaiting his grandson.

"Tell Mrs. Lee to bring in the child," he had said to Kennet, and now a tap on the door told him that the child was there.

"Come in," he said sharply, and turned and stood amazed at sight of the two women each with a child on her arm. "The deuce!" he said, and fumbled for his snuff-box.

He found it at last, a very elegant little gold box, bearing a miniature set with diamonds--a present from his friend George, in the days before the slice of orange, and most probably never paid for. He slowly extracted a pinch without removing his eyes from the women and children. He snuffed, still staring at them, and then said quietly, "What the deuce is the meaning of this?"

"Yo' asked to see t' child, sir," said Mrs. Lee.

"Well?"

"Here 'tis, sir."

"Which?"

"Both!"

"Ah!"--with a pregnant nod. Then, with a wave of the hand. "Take them away." And the women withdrew.

Sir Denzil remained standing exactly as he was for many minutes. Then he began to pace the room slowly with his stick, to and fro, to and fro, with his eyes on the polished floor, and his thoughts hard at work.

He saw the game, and recognized at a glance that no cards had been dealt him. The two women held the whole pack, and he was out of it.

He thought keenly and savagely, but saw no way out. The more he thought, the tighter seemed the cleft of the stick in which the women held him.

The law? The law was powerless in the matter. Not all the law in the land could make a woman speak when all her interests bade her keep silence, any more than it could make her keep silence if she wanted to speak.

Besides, even if these women swore till they were blue in the face as to the identity of either child, he would never believe one word of their swearing. Their own interests would guide them, and no other earthly consideration.

He could turn them out. To what purpose? One of those two children was Denzil Carron of Carne. Which?

The other--ah yes! The other was equally of his blood. He did not doubt that for one moment. He had known of Denzil's entanglement with Nance Lee, and it had not troubled him for a moment. But who, in the name of Heaven, could have foreseen so perplexing a result?

When he glanced out of the window, the crystalline morning, the white sunshine, the clear blue sky, the hard yellow flats, the distant blue sea with its crisp white fringe, all seemed to mock him with the brightness of their beauty.

How to solve the puzzle? Already, in his own mind, he doubted if it ever would be solved. And he cursed the brightness of the morning, and the women--which was more to the point, but equally futile,--and Denzil, and poor Lady Susan, who lay past curses in Wyvveloe churchyard. And his face, while that fit was on him, was not pleasant to look upon.

Presently, with a twitching of the corners of the mouth, like a dog about to bare his fangs, he rang the bell very gently, and Kennet came in.

"Kennet," he said, as quietly as if he were ordering his boots, "put on your hat and go for Dr. Yool. Bring him with you without fail. If he is out, go after him. If he says he'll see me further first, say I apologise, and I want him here at once. Tell him I've burst a blood-vessel."

He had had words with the doctor the night before. He had stopped his post-chaise at his house and gone in for a minute to explain his long absence, and the doctor, who feared no man, had rated him soundly for the thoughtlessness which had caused Lady Susan's death.

He did not for a moment believe that the doctor or any one else could help him in this blind alley. But discuss the matter with some one he must, or burst, and he did not care to discuss it with Kennet. Kennet knew very much better than to disagree with his master on any subject whatever, and discussion with him never advanced matters one iota. Discussion of the matter with Dr. Yool would probably have the same result, but it could do no harm, and it offered possibilities of a disputation for which he felt a distinct craving.

Whether doctors could reasonably be expected to identify infants at whose births they had officiated, after a lapse of two months, he did not know. But he was quite prepared to uphold that view of the case with all the venom that was in him, and he awaited the doctor's arrival with impatience.

Dr. Yool drove up at last with Kennet beside him, and presently stood in the room with Sir Denzil.

"Hello!" cried the doctor, with disappointment in his face. "Where's that blood-vessel?"

"Listen to me, Yool. You were present at the birth of Lady Susan's children----"

"Eh? What? Lady Susan's child? Yes!"

"Children!"

"What the deuce! Children? A boy, sir--one!"

"You'd know him again, I suppose?"

"Well, in a general kind of way possibly. What's amiss with him?"

"According to these women here, there are two of him now."

"Good Lord, Sir Denzil! What do you mean? Two? How can there be two?"

"Ah, now you have me. I thought that you, as a doctor--as the doctor, in fact--could probably explain the matter." The doctor's red face reddened still more.

"Send for the women here--and the children," he said angrily.

Sir Denzil rang the bell, gave his instructions to the impassive Kennet, who had not yet fathomed the full intention of the matter, and in a few minutes Mrs. Lee and Nance, each with a child on her arm, stood before them.

"Now then, what's the meaning of all this?" asked Dr. Yool. "Which of these babies is Lady Susan's child?"

"We don't know, sir," said Mrs. Lee, with a curtsey.

"Don't know! Don't know! What the deuce do you mean by that, Mrs. Lee? Whose is the other child?"

"My daughter's, sir. It were born a day or two before the other, and we got 'em mixed and don't know which is which."

"Nonsense! Bring them both to me."

He flung down some cushions in front of the fire, rapidly undressed the children, and laid them wriggling and squirming in the blaze among their wraps. He bent and examined them with minutest care. He turned them over and over, noticed all their points with a keenly critical eye, but could make nothing of it. They were as like as two peas. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, plump, clear-skinned, healthy youngsters both. The seven days between them, which in the very beginning might have been apparent, was now, after the lapse of two months, absolutely undiscoverable.

Sir Denzil came across and looked down on the jerking little arms and legs and twisting faces, and snuffed again as though he thought they might be infectious. For all the expression that showed in his face, they might have been a litter of pups.

"Well, I am ----!" said Dr. Yool, at last, straightening up from the inspection with his hands on his hips. "Now"--fixing the two women with a blazing eye--"what's the meaning of it all? Who is the father of this other child?"

"Denzil Carron," said Nance boldly, speaking for the first time. "He married me before he married her, and here are my lines," and she plucked them out of her bosom.

Dr. Yool's eyebrows went up half an inch. Sir Denzil took snuff very deliberately.

The doctor held out his hand for the paper, and after a moment's hesitation Nance handed it to him.

He read it carefully, and his good-humoured mouth twisted doubtfully. The matter looked serious.

"Dress the children and take them away," he said at last. When they were dressed, however, Nance stood waiting for her lines.

Dr. Yool understood. "I will be answerable for them," he said; and she turned and went.

"A troublesome business, Sir Denzil," he said, when they were alone. "A troublesome business, whichever way you look at it. This"--and he flicked Nance's cherished lines--"may, of course, be make-believe, though it looks genuine enough on the face of it. That must be carefully looked into. But as to the children--you are in these women's hands absolutely and completely, and they know it."

"It looks deucedly like it."

"They know which is which well enough; but nothing on earth will make them speak--except their own interests, and that," he said thoughtfully, "won't be for another twenty years."

"It's too late to make away with them both, I suppose," said Sir Denzil cynically.

"Tchutt! It's bad enough as it is, but there's no noose in it at present. Besides, they are both undoubtedly your grandsons----"

"And which succeeds?" asked the baronet grimly.

"There's the rub. Deucedly awkward, if they both live--most deucedly awkward! There's always the chance, of course, that one may die."

"Not a chance," said Sir Denzil. "They'll both live to be a hundred. They can toss for the title when the time comes. I'd sooner trust a coin than those women's oaths."

The doctor nodded. He felt the same.

"What about this?" he asked, reading Nance's lines again. "Will you look into it?" He pulled out a pencil and noted places and dates in his pocket-book.

"What good? It alters nothing."

"As regards your son?"

Sir Denzil shrugged lightly.

"He has shown himself a fool, but he is hardly such a fool as that. If he comes to the title, and she claims on him, he must fight his own battle. As to the whelps----" Another shrug shelved them for future consideration.

Nevertheless, when Dr. Yool had driven away in the gig with the yellow wheels, Sir Denzil paced his room by the hour in deep thought, and none of it pleasant, if his face was anything to go by.

He travelled along every possible avenue, and found each a blind alley.

He could send the girl about her business, and the old woman too. But to what purpose? If they took one of the children with them, which would it be? Most likely Lady Susan's. But he would never be certain of it. That would be so obviously the thing to do that they would probably do the opposite. If they left both children, he would have to get some one else to attend to them, and no one in the world had the interest in their welfare that these two had.

If both children died, then Denzil might marry again, and have an heir about whom there was no possible doubt. That is, if this other alleged marriage of his was, as he suspected, only a sham one. He would have to look into that matter, after all.

If, by any mischance, the marriage, however intended, proved legal, then that hope was barred, and it would be better to have the children, or at all events one of them, live. Otherwise the succession would vest in the Solway Carrons, whom he detested. Better even Nance Lee's boy than a Solway Carron.

The conclusion of the matter was, that he could not better matters at the moment by lifting a finger. Not lightly nor readily did he bring his mind to this. He spent bitter days and nights brooding over it all, and at the end he found himself where he was at the beginning. Time might possibly develop, in one or other of the boys, characteristics which might tell their own tale. But that chance, he recognised, was a small one. Both boys took after their father, and were as like Denzil, when he was a baby, as they possibly could be.

In the spring he would look into that marriage matter. Till then, things must go on as they were.

Not a word did he say to the women. Not the slightest interest did he show in the children. He rarely saw them, and then only by chance. And in the women's care the children throve and prospered, since it was entirely to their interest that they should do so.