SHE REACHED DOWN INTO SOME DARK RECEPTACLE AND DREW UP A BROWN-PAPER PARCELSHE REACHED DOWN INTO SOME DARK RECEPTACLE AND DREW UP A BROWN-PAPER PARCELPage 275
SHE REACHED DOWN INTO SOME DARK RECEPTACLE AND DREW UP A BROWN-PAPER PARCEL
Page 275
"Can you bear to look at some of Jerry's things, Mrs. Jarvis?" asked the Doctor.
At the mention of her son the poor woman's excitable mood changed; instead of shouting she spoke more quietly, and her eyes filled with tears as she turned over the trifles that had been sent to her.
"Jerry! My boy Jerry!" she murmured. "I always said he'd come back. He oughtn't to have gone and left me—ought he? And he took—I never told anyone what he took! He was a bad son to me."
"Never mind that now he's dead and gone," put in the neighbour.
"Ay, he's dead and gone, and so is General Talland, so is General Talland."
"She's off again on that point," groaned the neighbour.
But Mrs. Jarvis was looking at Dr. Tremayne with a curious craftiness in her eyes.
"General Talland's gone," she repeated. "And I hear they've to go a long way to find an heir to the property. What if there was an heir close at hand—here in Chagmouth?"
"What do you mean?" asked the Doctor.
"Ay, what do I mean? I'm not so demented as some folks think me. There's something that I could tell if I liked. I wouldn't have said a word ifhe'da-lived, but he's dead and gone, so it makes no difference to him now if I speak. Sit you down, Doctor, and the young ladies too! I may as well tell it to plenty of witnesses while I'm about it. Do you remember,Doctor, when I was village nurse over fourteen year ago? I was called in all of a sudden one day to attend Mrs. Hunter, the lady who'd been taken ill at the King's Arms."
"I remember," nodded Dr. Tremayne.
"Well, I swore at the inquest that she died without saying a word, but I swore false. I was left alone with her for just one minute in the parlour while Mrs. Tingcomb fetched more brandy, and Mr. Tingcomb sent Bob hurrying on his bicycle to Durracombe with a message for you. In that minute she got her breath. She knew that she was going fast, and she gasped out that she'd come to Chagmouth to find General Talland, that she'd been married secret to his son, and that the child was the heir. 'I've all the papers', says she, but then the faintness took her again, and though Mrs. Tingcomb ran in and gave her brandy she never come round."
"But I thought at the inquest it was distinctly said there were no papers. I remember that point of the evidence particularly," said the Doctor.
"There were none in her handbag or in her portmanteau. She had them all in a hanging pocket slung round her waist under her dress skirt. I found them when I was laying her out. I put them by, and said nothing about it just then. I meant to give folks a big surprise at the inquest. I took them home and looked them over. There was forty pounds in notes amongst them. My poor boy Jerry was lying in bed asleep, as I thought, but he must have been watchingme, for he up and away as soon as it was light, and took the notes and my bits of savings too out of the old tea-pot. Why didn't I tell at the inquest? They'd have issued a warrant against Jerry! I wasn't going to put my own boy in prison! No one knew about the pocket, and the safest thing was to keep my mouth shut. I wouldn't have told now if my poor boy had been alive. Oh! he broke his mother's heart!"
"This is a most extraordinary story," said Dr. Tremayne. "If it's true have you anything to prove your words? Where are these papers you speak of?"
"Those that hide can find! May I trouble you to shift your chair, Doctor?"
Mrs. Jarvis moved away several pieces of furniture, and lifted first the hearthrug, and then part of the oilcloth that covered the floor. There was a loose board underneath; she raised it,reached down into some dark receptacle, and drew up a brown-paper parcel. She unwrapped this and revealed a small case made of linen, with tapes attached to it. Inside were a number of papers which she handed to Dr. Tremayne.
"They're all as she said, Doctor. There's her wedding certificate and the birth certificate, and letters from her husband too. You'll find them all right. She'd everything in order, poor thing. They'd have made a stir at the inquest, wouldn't they, if I could only 'a told about them?"
Dr. Tremayne was looking rapidly through the contents of the old linen case.
"These are indeed most valuable papers," heremarked. "I shall take them to the lawyers who manage the Talland estate, and they'll no doubt prepare a statement which you will be required to sign to show how they came into your possession. Oh, Mrs. Jarvis! howcouldyou keep them back for all these years, when you knew how much was involved?"
"Better late than never, Doctor. I was in two minds whether to burn them and have done with it. Oh, my poor boy Jerry! It's ill raking up matters against them that's gone. If he'd been alive, I'd have kept my mouth shut, and never have said a word."
Mrs. Jarvis was rocking herself to and fro in a state of great excitement. She was sane enough where a recollection of the events at the King's Arms was concerned, but her clouded brain revolved round the pivot of her son's death. She moaned, and twitched her mouth with nervous jerks.
"I'll make her up a bottle of bromide mixture when I get back to the surgery," said Dr. Tremayne to the neighbour. "Can you send one of your boys down for it about six o'clock? She oughtn't to be left alone."
"No, Doctor. I'll do what I can. She's in a bad way, poor soul. There's a lot of trouble in the world, isn't there?"
"There is indeed! Now I must hurry off, for I'm due at the Sanatorium, and I'm very late. Give her the mixture, and I'll call and see her again next week."
Dr. Tremayne put the linen case inside his safest inner pocket, and took his departure. As they drove down the hill towards the ravine all the little town andits neighbouring cliffs and woods lay stretched out before them.
"Uncle David," asked Mavis, "if those papers are proved does it mean that The Warren and the whole of Chagmouth will belong to Bevis? Is he the grandson of General Talland?"
"There seems very little doubt about it. It was evidence that ought to have been given at the inquest fourteen years ago. Poor lad! Poor lad! If we'd only known sooner."
"But why did his mother call herself Mrs. Hunter?"
"Probably she wouldn't care to give her true name at the hotel until she had been to see General Talland. The marriage had been kept secret, and nobody in Chagmouth knew about it. No doubt she had intended to go to The Warren and show her child to its grandfather. But General Talland had started for the West Indies. It was perhaps the news of his absence, and the consequent failure of her errand, that brought on the heart attack that caused her sudden collapse."
"So Chagmouth belongs to Bevis," repeated Merle wonderingly. "The house, and the grounds, and the woods, and the shooting, and the farms, and the town are Bevis's. It's like a fairy tale!"
But the heir to all the Talland Estate lay between life and death.
Bevis pulled round after all. As Dr. Tremayne had said, he had youth and a strong constitution on his side. The new method of treatment seemed a miracle, and perhaps also the interview with Tudor, by settling the disturbance in his mind, allowed the medicines to have a fair chance. Nature reasserted herself, drove out baneful microbes, and set that wonderful instrument of hers, the human body, once more in working order. As soon as the fever left him Bevis picked up very fast. There was so much to get well for. The papers, hidden away so long in Mrs. Jarvis's cottage, established without a doubt his claim to the Talland property, and when the necessary formalities could be gone through he would become its legal owner. Naturally the affair was the talk of Chagmouth, and Bevis would have been overwhelmed with visitors and congratulations had not Mrs. Penruddock acted dragon, and kept away all callers except those who had a special permit from the Doctor. Under her excellent nursing he gained strength rapidly, and by the time St. Gervan's Day came round he looked almost his old self again. The floral festival held every year in honour of thepatron saint of Chagmouth was an extremely ancient custom dating back probably to dim ages before the dawn of history. The antiquarians of the neighbourhood said it was either a survival from the Romans, or more likely still a relic of Druidism and sun worship. Christianity, finding pagan rites had always heralded the beginning of the summer, had adopted the feast and dedicated it to St. Gervan, an obscure Cornish missionary whose very legend was forgotten. Nothing is so persistent, however, as the survival of an old village fête, and for hundreds of years Chagmouth people, when the anniversary occurred, had decked their boats with flowers, and rowed across the harbour, and round the point to the little old church on the rock. Ages ago Druids had no doubt invoked the heavens to send favourable harvests, in mediæval times the parish priest had probably blessed the fishing boats according to the custom which still obtains at a few places in Brittany, but these points in the old ceremony were now lost, and it had simply become a village holiday. It is likely enough that in these modern times, when few are given to sentiment, the whole thing would have fallen into disuse, had not the Vicar had the happy idea of combining with it a memorial service for those who had "passed on" in the Great War. Chagmouth people might smile at saints' days, and ask who St. Gervan had been, but they remembered their own boys, and would take wreaths to lay round the Celtic cross that had been erected in the little churchyard.
Mavis and Merle were very anxious to see the floral festival, and though the Easter vacation was over, and school had begun again at The Moorings, they were allowed a special holiday for the purpose. That was Mother's doing. She had come to Durracombe with Father for Easter, and had stayed on for some weeks because Aunt Nellie was not very well, and needed extra care. On St. Gervan's day she hired a car from the hotel, and drove over to Chagmouth with the girls in order that they might all see the interesting ceremony. It was years since Mrs. Ramsay had been in the little town, and she was delighted to renew her acquaintance with it. To-day it was entirelyen fête. Everybody was down by the quay side, where rowing boats of every description were ready in the harbour. The veriest old cockleshells had been patched up for the occasion, and there were also some motor-launches, and a small pleasure steamer which had made the trip from Port Sennen. All local boats were beautifully decorated with flags and with boughs of lilac or branches of pink hawthorn, and garlands of all kinds of gay cottage blossoms, May tulips, wallflowers, pansies, forget-me-nots, double daisies, pinks, or campanulas. There was great competition in the decorations. The school children had special boats to themselves, and proudly held up banners and little staves upon which were tied round bunches of flowers and flying ribbons. The Provident Societies also had their boats and their banners, and their members wore nosegays in their button-holes.
The Ramsays had been offered places in Mr. Penruddock's boat, and they walked along the quay side to where she was moored. It was really a beautiful and very quaint scene, the harbour with its green, lapping water looking for once like a field of flowers, and the flocks of seagulls wheeling overhead and screaming at the unwonted sight.The Dinah, an old tub that belonged to Grimbal's Farm, had been made unwontedly smart for the occasion with a coat of fresh paint. Boughs of white lilac, wreaths of early roses, forget-me-nots, globe flowers, and starry clematis had fashioned it into quite a bower, the Union Jack fluttered in the stern, and rugs were spread over the seats.
The bell in the little church of St. Gervan's was clanging loudly, and people were beginning to get into their various craft, and push away across the harbour. Merle was carrying her camera, and was busy taking snap-shots of the interesting scene. Mavis, who had leanings towards art, had brought her sketch-book and jotted down impressions in black-lead pencil. For the sake of everybody it was a mercy that the weather, which had been behaving badly of late, held up and gave bursts of brilliant sunshine. It was only a short row from the quay to the old church. The congregation disembarked at a jetty, moored their boats, and climbed the eighty-seven stone steps that led steeply upward. To-day the usually neglected place had been made to look wonderfully spick and span. The grass had been mown between the graves and roundthe soldiers' monument, where people were already piling up wreaths, floral crosses, and bunches of blossoms. The tower still lacked its coping, and the doorway had sunk yet more, but the windows had been cleaned, and all cobwebs were swept away. Inside the church was decked with beautiful flowers, arum lilies, and roses, and pale-pink peonies and bush lupins, and many lovely half-exotic plants from the gardens of The Warren and the Vicarage. People were taking their places on the old oak benches. The Ramsays went into a seat half-way down the nave, exactly behind the Glyn Williamses, who had arrived in a body, governess and all. Bevis was about to follow when the Vicar came up to him, and after a short whispered conversation motioned him into the Talland family pew. It was Bevis's first visit to church since his illness, and to the whole congregation the Vicar's act seemed a public acknowledgment of the boy's new position in Chagmouth. He flushed scarlet, hesitated a moment, then stepped forward and took his place with a quiet dignity which became both himself and the occasion.
The short service was very simple, partly a thanksgiving, and partly a memorial to those who had given their lives for their country.
Through the open door came the sound of the lap of waves and the screaming of gulls.
"They that go down to the sea in ships," ran the Vicar's text, "that do business in great waters: these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep."
To Mavis the sunlight and the scent of the flowers and the prayers all seemed blended together into one beautiful picturesque whole, that joined ancient and modern and the living and the dead, and united those who worshipped with their rough forefathers who had carved those quaint bench ends, or those figures of the saints with the colourings of red, and blue, and gold.
As Bevis left the cool, flower-decked church, and stepped through the doorway into the sunshine, the very first person to greet him was Tudor Williams. The two boys gripped hands heartily, and without a trace of any former resentment.
"I believe they'll be friends now," said Mavis, as she talked the matter over with Merle afterwards. "I was afraid the Glyn Williamses would be bitterly disappointed at the prospect of having to give up The Warren some day to Bevis, but Tudor never cared much for Chagmouth, and what do you think Gwen told me just as we were starting back in our boat? Why, that her father had the offer of Godoran Hall, and all the property and shooting, and he means to buy it, and go and live there. It will be more convenient for them close to Port Sennen, and it's a lovely place."
"Oh, hooray! Perhaps they'll ask us to go and see them there sometimes. I hated them at one time, but I'd be sorry now if I never saw them again. Funny how one turns round, isn't it?"
"I never believe much in your violent hatreds,"laughed Mavis. "You generally like people in the end."
"Well, I liked Bevis in the beginning."
"So did I. I've always felt what Jessop said about him was true, he's a 'gentleman-born'! I don't mean that he's better than other people just because he's a Talland and owns the estate, but always, when he was quite poor and people jeered at him and called him a nobody, he behaved like a true gentleman. He stuck to Mr. and Mrs. Penruddock and helped them, though he hated the work on the farm, and he never spoke roughly and rudely like some of the boys about Chagmouth. He loves books and natural history and all those nice kinds of things, and he wanted to go on studying, and yet he didn't shirk a scrap at ploughing, and cutting hedges, and feeding the poultry. I'm sure if any one in this world deserves his good luck it's Bevis."
The girls had been uncertain whether they were to go home with Father and Mother to Whinburn after Easter or stay in Devon, but Dr. Ramsay had declared that the improvement in Mavis's health was so marvellous that the experiment was worth continuing.
"You look a different child," he said. "We'll leave you at Durracombe for another term at any rate."
"And what about the next term after that?" asked Mavis. "It will be autumn then, and very cold at Whinburn."
"That's a problem that needs carefully thinking out," answered Dr. Ramsay diplomatically.
He would say nothing further at the time, but later on, before she returned north, Mrs. Ramsay had a secret to tell to Mavis and Merle.
"How would you like to live always at Durracombe?" she asked them.
"Always? Oh, Mummie! I'd adore it, if only it weren't for you and Daddy."
"We've missed you loads, Muvvie darling!"
"But suppose we were here, too?"
"Here! All the time?"
Then Mother, very proudly, revealed her great piece of news.
"Father is going to help with the practice. Uncle David has too much work, and wants somebody to take part of it off his hands. He and Father will go into partnership as soon as we can sell the practice at Whinburn. We shall all live here at Bridge House. It's a splendid arrangement, because then I can take care of Aunt Nellie. She's such an invalid now that she needs constant nursing. Jessop wants to leave and keep house for a brother, who is a widower, and Aunt Nellie would be lost without Jessop, unless she had me to look after her instead. Don't you think it's a lovely plan?"
"Lovely! It's absolutely splendiferous!"
"And if Daddy brings the Ford car down here I can drive it for him," sparkled Merle.
"We'll see about that; you wouldn't have had that wild motoring expedition if I had been on the spot, you young madcap!"
"But I fetched Mrs. Jarvis, and if I hadn't she might never have known it was her own son at the hospital, and then she wouldn't have told about the papers, and Bevis would never have got the Talland property. It's like the story of the old woman and her pig: the fire began to burn the stick, and the stick began to beat the dog, and the dog began to bite the pig, and the pig jumped over the stile, and she got home at last. We did Bevis a good turn when we tore over to Chagmouth that evening, didn't we, Mavis?"
"Rather! Though we didn't guess it at the time."
"So 'Whinburn High' will know us no more. Well, we've settled down quite comfortably at The Moorings. It's rather a decent school now Opal has gone."
"I hope it will improve very much," said Mrs. Ramsay. "Miss Pollard tells me that in September she's going to have a first-class English teacher, a B.A. with plenty of experience, who will run the school on new lines. Funnily enough, it happens to be Eve Mitchell, who was educated at St. Cyprian's College, Cousin Sheila's old school. I've often heard her talk about Eve.She'll soon reorganize The Moorings. They have such a splendid record at St. Cyprian's for games and musical societies, and literary clubs, and nature-study unions, and all the rest of it. It was a school in a thousand, according to Sheila. Miss Pollard has the promise of ever so many fresh boarders, elder girls, not little ones. The climate of Durracombe is getting quite a reputation, I hear, and specially suitsanyone who has been born in India. If the numbers increase so much, particularly in the upper forms, it will give the school a far better opportunity in every way, especially in games."
"Hooray," exulted Merle joyfully. "That's the one thing where The Moorings has been really slack. We could do nothing with only that crowd of kids. But with girls of our own age, and a mistress from St. Cyprian's, we ought to forge ahead now, and have topping times. I'm looking forward to the September term."
"And yet I loved the last one," said Mavis. "I feel nothing will ever quite come up to my first peep at Devonshire, and those Saturdays at Chagmouth. It was like seeing a new world. It's been a first impression, a fresh experience, a gorgeous spring, an idyllic few months—what else can I call it?"
"Call it a very fortunate term," finished Merle.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAINBy Blackie & Son, Limited, Glasgow
Transcriber's Note:Punctuation has been made consistent.The use of "The Glyn Williams" and "The Glyn Williamses", and spelling and hyphenation have been retained as they appear in the original publication except as follows:Page 168to take you a walkchanged toto take youfora walkPage 199had brought a thermos flashchanged tohad brought a thermosflaskPage numbers in the list of illustrations have been retained as they appear in the original publication although they don't match the page numbers in the body of the book.
Transcriber's Note:
Punctuation has been made consistent.
The use of "The Glyn Williams" and "The Glyn Williamses", and spelling and hyphenation have been retained as they appear in the original publication except as follows:
Page 168to take you a walkchanged toto take youfora walk
Page 199had brought a thermos flashchanged tohad brought a thermosflask
Page numbers in the list of illustrations have been retained as they appear in the original publication although they don't match the page numbers in the body of the book.