Your eyes have not seen the world through a microscope. Mine have, answered the unabashed surgeon. When a ray of sunlight enters your rooms, you can see the whole course of the ray.
Yes.
Very well, that is because the air is dirty. If it were clean you would be unable to see it. No, thank you. I will have my claret in the garden; perhaps you would not mind having it sent out to me. The air out of doors is pure compared to that of a house.
A little table, wine, glasses and cake were sent out. Barbara and Eve did not reappear.
Mr. Jordan had a great respect for the young doctor. His self-assurance, his pedantry, his boasting, imposed on the timid and half-cultured mind of the old man. He hoped to get information from the surgeon about tests for metals, to interest him in his pursuits without letting him into his secrets; he therefore overcame his shyness sufficiently to appear and converse when Mr. Coyshe arrived.
What a very beautiful daughter you have got! said Coyshe; one that is only to be seen in pictures. A man despairs of beholding such loveliness in actual life, and see, here, at the limit of the world, the vision flashes on one! Not much like you, Squire, not much like her sister; looks as if she belonged to another breed.
Jasper Babb looked round startled at the audacity and rudeness of the surgeon. Mr. Jordan was not offended; he seemed indeed flattered. He was very proud of Eve.
You are right. My eldest daughter has almost nothing in common with her younger sister only a half-sister.
Really, said Coyshe, it makes me shiver for the future of that fairy being. I take it for granted she will be yoked to some county booby of a squire, a Bob Acres. Good Lord! what a prospect! A jewel of gold in a swines snout, as Solomon says.
Eve shall never marry one unworthy of her, said Ignatius Jordan vehemently. She will be under no constraint. She will be able to afford to shape her future according to her fancy. She will be comfortably off.
Comfortably off fifty years ago means pinched now, and pinched now means screwed flat fifty years hence. Everything is becoming costly. Living is a luxury only for the well-to-do. The rest merely exist under sufferance.
Miss Eve will not be pinched, answered Mr. Jordan, unconscious that he was being drawn out by the surgeon. Seventeen years ago I lent fifteen hundred pounds, which is to be returned to me on Midsummer Day. To that I can add about five hundred; I have saved something since not much, for somehow the estate has not answered as it did of old.
You have two daughters.
Oh, yes, there is Barbara, said Jordan in a tone of indifference. Of course she will have something, but then she can always manage for herself with the other it is different.
Are you ill? asked Coyshe, suddenly, observing that Jasper had turned very pale, and dark under the eyes. Is the air too strong for you?
No, let me remain here. The sun does me good.
Mr. Jordan was rather glad of this opportunity of publishing the fortune he was going to give his younger daughter. He wished it to be known in the neighbourhood, that Eve might be esteemed and sought by suitable young men. He often said to himself that he could die content were Eve in a position where she would be happy and admired.
When did Miss Eves mother die? asked Coyshe abruptly. Mr. Jordan started.
Did I say she was dead? Did I mention her?
Coyshe mused, put his hand through his hair and ruffled it up; then folded his arms and threw out his legs.
Now tell me, squire, are you sure of your money?
What do you mean?
That money you say you lent seventeen years ago. What are your securities?
The best. The word of an honourable man.
The word! Mr. Coyshe whistled. Words! What are words?
He offered me a mortgage, but it never came, said Mr. Jordan. Indeed, I never applied for it. I had his word.
If you see the shine of that money again, you are lucky. Then looking at Jasper: My patient is upset again I thought the air was too strong for him. He must be carried in. He is going into a fit.
Jasper was leaning back against the wall, with distended eyes, and hands and teeth clenched as with a spasm.
No, said Jasper faintly, I am not in a fit.
You looked much as if going into an attack of lock-jaw.
At that moment Barbara came out, and at once noticed the condition of the convalescent.
Here, said she, lean on me as you did coming out. This has been too much for you. Will you help me, Doctor Coyshe?
Thank you, said Jasper. If Miss Jordan will suffer me to rest on her arm, I will return to my room.
When he was back in his armchair and the little room he had occupied, Barbara looked earnestly in his face and said, What has troubled you? I am sure something has.
I am very unhappy, he answered, but you must ask me no questions.
Miss Jordan went in quest of her sister. Eve, she said, our poor patient is exhausted. Sit in the parlour and play and sing, and give a look into his room now and then. I am busy.
The slight disturbance had not altered the bent of Mr. Jordans thoughts. When Mr. Coyshe rejoined him, which he did the moment he saw Jasper safe in his room, Mr. Jordan said, I cannot believe that I ran any risk with the money. The man to whom I lent it is honourable. Besides, I have his note of hand acknowledging the debt; not that I would use it against him.
A mans word, said Coyshe, is like india-rubber that can be made into any shape he likes. A word is made up of letters, and he will hold to the letters and permute their order to suit his own convenience, not yours. A man will stick to his word only so long as his word will stick to him. It depends entirely on which side it is licked. Hark! Is that Miss Eve singing? What a voice! Why, if she were trained and on the stage
Mr. Jordan stood up, agitated and angry.
I beg your pardon, said Coyshe. Does the suggestion offend you? I merely threw it out in the event of the money lent not turning up.
Just then his eyes fell on something that lay under the seat. What is that? Have you dropped a pocket-book?
A rough large leather pocket-book that was to which he pointed. Mr. Jordan stooped and took it up. He examined it attentively and uttered an exclamation of surprise.
Well, said the surgeon mockingly, is the money come, dropped from the clouds at your feet?
No, answered Mr. Jordan, under his breath, but this is most extraordinary, most mysterious! How comes this case here? It is the very same which I handed over, filled with notes, to that man seventeen years ago! See! there are my initials on it; there on the shield is my crest. How comes it here?
The question, my dear sir, is not how comes it here? but what does it contain?
Nothing.
The surgeon put his hands in his pockets, screwed up his lips for a whistle, and said, I foretold this, I am always right.
The money is not due till Midsummer-day.
Nor will come till the Greek kalends. Poor Miss Eve!
CHAPTER X.
BARBARAS PETITION
Midsummer-day was come. Mr. Jordan was in suspense and agitation. His pale face was more livid and drawn than usual. The fears inspired by the surgeon had taken hold of him.
Before the birth of Eve he had been an energetic man, eager to get all he could out of the estate, but for seventeen years an unaccountable sadness had hung over him, damping his ardour; his thoughts had been carried away from his land, whither no one knew, though the results were obvious enough.
Before the birth of Eve he had been an energetic man, eager to get all he could out of the estate, but for seventeen years an unaccountable sadness had hung over him, damping his ardour; his thoughts had been carried away from his land, whither no one knew, though the results were obvious enough.
With Barbara he had little in common. She was eminently practical. He was always in a dream. She was never on an easy footing with her father, she tried to understand him and failed, she feared that his brain was partially disturbed. Perhaps her efforts to make him out annoyed him; at any rate he was cold towards her, without being intentionally unkind. An ever-present restraint was upon both in each others presence.
At first, after the disappearance of Eves mother, things had gone on upon the old lines. Christopher Davy had superintended the farm labours, but as he aged and failed, and Barbara grew to see the necessity for supervision, she took the management of the farm as well as of the house upon herself. She saw that the men dawdled over their work, and that the condition of the estate was going back. Tho coppices had not been shredded in winter and the oak was grown into a tangle. The rending for bark in spring was done unsystematically. The hedges became ragged, the ploughs out of order, the thistles were not cut periodically and prevented from seeding. There were not men sufficient to do the work that had to be done. She had not the time to attend to the men as well as the maids, to the farmyard as well as the house. She had made up her mind that a proper bailiff must be secured, with authority to employ as many labourers as the estate required. Barbara was convinced that her father, with his lost, dreamy head, was incapable of managing their property, even if he had the desire. Now that the trusty old Davy was ill, and breaking up, she had none to advise her.
She was roused to anger on Midsummer-day by discovering that the hayrick had never been thatched, and that it had been exposed to the rain which had fallen heavily, so that half of it had to be taken down because soaked, lest it should catch fire or blacken. This was the result of the carelessness of the men. She determined to speak to her father at once. She had good reason for doing so.
She found him in his study arranging his specimens of mundic and peacock copper.
Has anyone come, asking for me? he said, looking up with fluttering face from his work.
No one, father.
You startled me, Barbara, coming on me stealthily from behind. What do you want with me? You see I am engaged, and you know I hate to be disturbed.
I have something I wish to speak about.
Well, well, say it and go. His shaking hands resumed their work.
It is the old story, dear papa. I want you to engage a steward. It is impossible for us to go on longer in the way we have. You know how I am kept on the run from morning to night. I have to look after all your helpless men, as well as my own helpless maids. When I am in the field, there is mischief done in the kitchen; when I am in the house, the men are smoking and idling on the farm. Eve cannot help me in seeing to domestic matters, she has not the experience. Everything devolves on me. I do not grudge doing my utmost, but I have not the time for everything, and I am not ubiquitous.
No, said Mr. Jordan, Eve cannot undertake any sort of work. That is an understood thing.
I know it is. If I ask her to be sure and recollect something, she is certain with the best intentions to forget; she is a dear beautiful butterfly, not fit to be harnessed. Her brains are thistledown, her bones cherry stalks.
Yes, do not crush her spirits with uncongenial work.
I do not want to. I know as well as yourself that I must rely on her for nothing. But the result is that I am overtasked. Now will you credit it? The beautiful hay that was like green tea is spoiled. Those stupid men did not thatch it. They said they had no reed, and waited to comb some till the rain set in. When it did pour, they were all in the barn talking and making reed, but at the same time the water was drenching and spoiling the hay. Oh, papa, I feel disposed to cry!
I will speak to them about it, said Mr. Jordan, with a sigh, not occasioned by the injury to his hay, but because he was disturbed over his specimens.
My dear papa, said the energetic Barbara, I do not wish you to be troubled about these tiresome matters. You are growing old, daily older, and your strength is not gaining. You have other pursuits. You are not heartily interested in the farm. I see your hand tremble when you hold your fork at dinner; you are becoming thinner every day. I would spare you trouble. It is really necessary, I must have it you must engage a bailiff. I shall break down, and that will be the end, or we shall all go to ruin. The woods are running to waste. There are trees lying about literally rotting. They ought to be sent away to the Devonport dockyard where they could be sold. Last spring, when you let the rending, the barbers shaved a whole copse wood, as if shaving a mans chin, instead of leaving the better sticks standing.
We have enough to live on.
We must do our duty to the land on which we live. I cannot endure to see waste anywhere. I have only one head, one pair of eyes, and one pair of hands. I cannot think of, see to, and do everything. I lie awake night after night considering what has to be done, and the day is too short for me to do all I have determined on in the night. Whilst that poor gentleman has been ill, I have had to think of him in addition to everything else; so some duties have been neglected. That is how, I suppose, the doctor came to guess there was a stocking half-darned under the sofa cushion. Eve was mending it, she tired and put it away, and of course forgot it. I generally look about for Eves leavings, and tidy her scraps when she has gone to bed, but I have been too busy. I am vexed about that stocking. How those protruding eyes of the doctor managed to see it I cannot think. He was, however, wrong about the saucer of sour milk.
Mr. Jordan continued nervously sorting his minerals into little white card boxes.
Well, papa, are you going to do anything?
Do do what?
Engage a bailiff. I am sure we shall gain money by working the estate better. The bailiff will pay his cost, and something over.
You are very eager for money, said Mr. Jordan sulkily; are you thinking of getting married, and anxious to have a dower?
Barbara coloured deeply, hurt and offended.
This is unkind of you, papa; I am thinking of Eve. I think only of her. You ought to know that the tears came into her eyes. Of course Eve will marry some day; then she laughed, no one will ever come for me.
To be sure, said Mr. Jordan.
I have been thinking, papa, that Eve ought to be sent to some very nice lady, or to some very select school, where she might have proper finishing. All she has learnt has been from me, and I have had so much to do, and I have been so unable to be severe with Eve that that I dont think she has learned much except music, to which she takes instinctively as a South Sea islander to water.
I cannot be parted from Eve. It would rob my sky of its sun. What would this house be with only you I mean without Eve to brighten it?
If you will think the matter over, father, you will see that it ought to be. We must consider Eve, and not ourselves. I would not have her, dear heart, anywhere but in the very best school, hardly a school, a place where only three or four young ladies are taken, and they of the best families. That will cost money, so we must put our shoulders to the wheel, and push the old coach on. She laid her hands on the back of her fathers chair and leaned over his shoulder. She had been standing behind him. Did she hope he would kiss her? If so, her hope was vain.