The White Virgin
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“Not bad fellows, the miners, but I don’t quite take to your guardian of the mine.”
“I suppose not,” said Reed. “He is rather a rough customer, but he was recommended to my father for his knowledge of underground work. – You have plenty of trout here, I suppose?”
“Oh yes, and I take toll of them all along this stretch of river. Possession is nine points of the law, but I really have only my right on one side as far as my bit of property extends.”
“Ah! you have an estate along here?”
“Yes, and I am glad to meet my neighbours, sir. My rough piece of mountain is bounded by the river along here from the corner we just passed, and on another side by the mine land of your Company – the old ‘White Virgin’ estate. A worthless stretch of barren rock and ravine; but I bought it for the sake of this piece of river fifteen years ago. A place to retire to, my dear sir, suitable for a man weary of the world, and one of whom the world had had enough.”
His face was overcast as he spoke, and he frowned heavily, while Reed noticed the sad, careworn aspect of the man, who looked as if he had suffered from some terrible trouble – that which had so deeply lined his face. But it brightened up again directly, as Reed hung back to admire the lovely meandering stream.
“You do like it?” said the Major.
“Like it, my dear sir! If I were not a busy man, bound to go on carving my way, it is just the place where I should like to come and dream away my days.”
“Do you care for fishing?”
“Oh yes.”
“Then, as we are neighbours, if you come much to the mine, I shall at any time be glad to show you a few good places where you can throw a fly.”
“Some day I shall certainly ask you,” said Reed frankly; “not often, I have no time.”
“Whenever you like, and you will be welcome, Mr Reed; for – excuse me – I like you.”
“So soon,” said Reed, raising his eyebrows.
“The liking of one man for another comes at once, sir, I think, and seldom errs,” said the Major gravely. “You will be welcome if you can content yourself with cottage fare and our simplicity. This is my little home.”
Reed stopped short astonished, for they had turned a sharp corner of the rugged wall of rock which towered up, and came suddenly upon a sheltered nook, which ran from the river-side right up into the mountains. There was but one level space of about half an acre; the rest was knoll, crag, mound, and rift, a natural garden full of waving birch, shrubs, evergreens, and flowers all growing in wild luxuriance, with myrtle, fuchsia, hydrangea, and geranium, developing into trees more than plants, showing how sheltered the place must be, how warm and suited to their lives. There was no ugly fence, but moss and ivy covered walls of rugged stone, placed here and there as a protection from wandering sheep, while on the level patch, quaintly built of limestone, thatched, porched with rugged wood, its windows embayed, and the whole covered with wistaria, myrtle, and creeping plants, which fought for a hold upon the walls, stood a cottage, out of whose porch Dinah Gurdon, pale of face, anxious-looking, and troubled, came slowly down.
“Welcome to the wilderness, Mr Reed,” said the Major, smiling sadly, as he noted the young man’s enthusiastic look of admiration; and then frowning slightly as he saw a wondering look when the figure in white came toward them from the porch. “My daughter, sir. Dinah, my child, I bring a guest to partake of our poor hospitality this evening. Don’t look so pale and frightened, my dear. Mr Reed is, I am glad to say, a deceiver. There was no cause for alarm, and his aspect is only due to a long journey underground. He is not hurt.”
“I – I am very glad,” said Dinah, holding out her hand, which was eagerly taken, and then shrinking as she encountered Clive Reed’s eager look. “The men brought such startling news.”
“That we were prepared to turn your bedroom into a cottage hospital, Mr Reed, and send off twelve miles for a doctor,” said the Major, as he saw his child’s large dark eyes sink beneath their visitor’s gaze, and a couple of red spots begin to glow in her pale cheeks. “Now, Dinah, my child, Mr Reed must be shown to his room, and let’s have your colour back. My daughter is a little unwell, Mr Reed. She was crossing the mountain the other day, coming back from Bedale, and as she passed over one of the ragged pieces by your mine, she had an ugly fall.”
“Not serious, I hope?” said Reed, with a look of interest, and his searching eyes once more met those of the pale, intense countenance before them, eyes so full of shrinking horror and fear, that though he could not read them, Clive Reed wondered at their expression, as a flow of crimson suffused the cheeks, rising right up to the forehead, and then died out, leaving the girl deadly pale.
The Major waited, as if expecting that his child would speak, but as she remained silent, he said gravely —
“No; she assures me that it was not serious, but she came back looking horribly startled. It was quite a shock to the system, from which she has not quite recovered yet. Now, Mr Reed, Martha will show you your room.”
Reed took a step forward, to find Martha, the hardest-looking, harshest-faced woman of forty he had ever seen, waiting to lead the way.
“A fall,” he said, as he stood alone in the prettily furnished bedroom: “alone in the mountains, and no one by to help. I wish I had been there – with Janet, too, of course.”
Dinah Gurdon was at that moment indulging in similar thoughts – naturally omitting Janet – and as she stood nearly opposite a glass, she became aware of her face reflected there, when she turned away with a shiver.
Chapter Eight.
Undermining
“Hallo, Jess, you here?” cried Clive, as he suddenly encountered his brother at Dr Praed’s door in Russell Square.
Jessop Reed started, and in spite of his man-about-town confidence, he looked for the moment confused, but recovered himself directly.
“Might say the same to you,” he retorted. “I thought you were down some hole in the Midlands.”
“But I’ve come up again. Just got here from St. Pancras now. I say, though, what is it? Out of sorts – been to see the Doctor?”
“Eh? Oh no. I’m all right. But I’m in a hurry. See you at dinner.”
“Why, what’s the matter with him?” thought Clive, as his brother hurried away. “Fast life, I suppose. I’ll run in and ask the Doctor before I go up.”
He rang; the Doctor’s confidential man opened the door, and stood back for him to enter.
“Patient with the Doctor, Morgan?”
“No, sir; past his time. Gone on to the hospital. Back soon.”
Clive stared.
“Miss Praed’s in the drawing-room, sir.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll go up,” said Clive; and he began to ascend two steps at a time. “I hope Jess isn’t ill. Disappointed, I suppose, at finding the old man out.” – “Ah, Janet, darling,” he cried, as he entered the drawing-room, to find his fiancée standing with a bouquet in her hand, looking dreamy and thoughtful.
She flushed up as he caught her in his arms and kissed her tenderly, and then frowned slightly, and put on the pouting look of a spoiled child.
“Why, what a bonnie bunch of roses!” he cried. “Let’s have one for a button-hole.”
“No, no,” she said hastily, and a pained look of perplexity crossed Clive’s countenance as she held the bouquet from him. Then with forced playfulness, “Mustn’t be touched.”
“All right,” he cried merrily. “I came round this way so as to see you first, pet. Raced up by the early train this morning.”
“Indeed!” said Janet, raising her eyebrows; “been in Derbyshire, have you not?”
“My darling!”
“Well, one knows so little of your movements now.”
“Oh, I say, Janet dear, don’t be hard upon a poor busy fellow. You know why I am away so much. All for your sake, pet,” he whispered earnestly; “to make ourselves thoroughly independent, and you a home of which you may be proud.”
There was a slight catching in Janet Praed’s breath, as she said jerkily, and with a show of flippancy, to hide the emotion from which she suffered, for self-accusation was busy with her just then, and a pang or two shot through her as she contrasted the frank, honest manner of her betrothed, and his words, so full of simple honest affection, with others to which she had in a foolish, half-jealous spirit listened again and again —
“Oh yes, I know,” she said, curling up her pretty lip, and speaking hastily to hide her feelings; “but you might have called.”
“Now, Janet, love, don’t tease me. How could I, dear?”
“Well, then, you might have written. A whole week away and not a line.”
“Gently, my own darling, judge, guide, and counsellor in one,” he cried warmly. “I might have written, and ought to have written, but I have been, oh so busy all day, and when I got back to quarters, there was the Major to talk to me, and I could not slight Miss Gurdon.”
“The Major – Miss Gurdon? May I ask who these people are?”
“Oh, a very jolly old sort of fellow, who lives close to the mine, with an only daughter. He insisted upon my staying there while I was down, and I wasn’t sorry; for – O Janet! let me whisper it in your lovely little shell of an ear,” he continued playfully – “the miner’s cottage I slept at one night was not comfortable; it was grubby, and oh, those fleas! If it had not been for my stout walking-stick – ”
“What sort of a person is Miss Gurdon?” said Janet, interrupting him quickly.
“Oh, very nice and ladylike.”
“Pretty?”
“Pretty! Well, you would hardly call it pretty. A sad, pensive face, very sweet and delicate, and with the look of one who had known trouble. There seemed to be some secret about father and daughter.”
“Oh!” said Janet softly, and the colour came into her cheeks very warmly. “And you were very comfortable there?”
“Yes, very,” said Clive emphatically.
“Too comfortable to remember me and write, of course.”
“O Janet, my darling!” he said tenderly, as he passed his arm about her waist, “how can you be such a jealous little thing! As if I could think of any one but you. You were with me night and day. It was always what is Janet doing? how does she look? and is she thinking of me? Whether I was scrambling about down in the mine like a mud-lark, or more decent and talking to Miss Gurdon of an evening in their tiny drawing-room.”
“About me, of course,” said Janet coldly.
“No, dear,” said Clive innocently, “I never mentioned your name. I dared not, pet, for fear they should laugh at me, and think what a great goose I was. For I am, pet. Once I begin talking to any one about you, I can’t leave off.”
“Indeed!” she said sarcastically.
“Why, Janet, dear,” he said earnestly, and he tried to take her hand, “what have I said or done? Surely you don’t think – Oh, my love, my dear love!” he cried, with his voice growing deep and earnest, “how can you be so ready to take pique over such trifles! Janet, I love you with all my heart, dear. I have not a thought that is not for my own darling.”
“No, no; don’t touch me,” she panted, as he drew her towards him.
“I will – I will, darling wifie to be; but you must master these little bits of uncalled-for jealousy, dear. They are not fair to me, and next time I am away I will at any cost write to you, even if the business fails, and – ”
“Scoundrel! ruffian! how dare you put your arm around my daughter, sir? She is not your wife yet.”
The words came so fiercely and suddenly that Clive started away, and Janet hurriedly escaped to the other side of the chair. For the Doctor had bustled in just as Clive was trying to take the kiss withheld from him, and now stood there with a terrific frown upon his heavy grey brow.
The next moment he had burst into a hearty roar of laughter.
“Nice guilty pair you look,” he cried. “Ah! you may well turn red, you unblushing puss! Eh? No, that won’t do, it’s a bull. And you, sir, how dare – Well, how are you, Clive, my boy? Came round here first, eh? I called at Guildford Street as I went to the hospital, and they hadn’t heard of you.”
“Yes, I was obliged to come here first,” said Clive.
“Of course. That’s right. Janet has been looking pale since you went. Come and dine to-night, and don’t let me come in here and catch you behaving in that rude way again.”
“Papa, for shame!” cried Janet, and she hurried out of the room.
The Doctor laughed.
“Well,” he cried eagerly, “what about the mine? – is it good?”
“For your ears only, Doctor,” said Clive, “in confidence?”
“On my honour, my dear boy,” said Dr Praed gravely.
“Then you may invest as much as you like, sir.”
“Not a company dodge?”
“The mine teems with ore, sir. I have thoroughly examined it, and found out a new, enormously rich lode.”
“Then it’s quite safe?”
“Safe as the Bank of England, sir, and the dad will be a millionaire.”
“Ah! I wish he would be a healthy man, instead of a wealthy,” said the Doctor.
“Oh, you don’t think – you have not found him worse?”
“I don’t like his looks, Clive, my boy,” said the Doctor; “and I beg that you will try to save him from all emotion. This great accession of wealth will do him no good, and – yes; what? – I didn’t ring.”
“Messenger, sir,” said the Doctor’s man, with grave earnestness and a sharp glance at Clive. “From Mr Reed’s, sir – sudden attack, and will you come at once.” Then in a hurried whisper, “Dying!”
But it sounded in trumpet-tones in Clive Reed’s ear, as with a sharp cry he sprang to his feet.
“Good heavens!” he said, “and I came on here!”
“Hush!” said the Doctor sternly. “Here, Morgan, the carriage?”
“At the door, sir.”
The Doctor nodded as he drew Clive’s arm through his own.
“Do not fear the worst,” he whispered; “I may save him yet.”
Chapter Nine.
Two Days Earlier
“Well, what news?” said Wrigley, as Jessop Reed entered his gloomy office. “Bah! what a dandy you are! Why, you spend enough on barbers and buttonholes to keep you from borrowing money.”
“And you spend enough on ballet-girls to keep you from making profits by lending,” retorted Jessop. “All right, my Jonathan,” said Wrigley.
“All right, my David,” replied Jessop. “Let me see: David was a Jew.”
“Whilst I am not,” said Wrigley sharply.
“Oh, of course not. No one would suppose Wrigley to be an Israelitish name. There, don’t set up all your feathers, man, and look so indignant because I suggested that you belonged to the chosen race. There are good Jews.”
“And precious bad Christians,” said Wrigley sourly.
“Awfully! But I say, don’t be so ruffled, man. Lucky I didn’t come for some hard coin this morning.”
“It is; and hang me if I ever lend you money again if I’ve to have blood thrown in my face.”
“Bah! you shouldn’t be so sensitive about it. I don’t mind about your descent.”
“Enough to make any man sensitive. Gad, sir, any one would think we were lepers, seeing the treatment we receive.”
“Yes, it’s too bad,” said Jessop soothingly; “but you do have your recompense, old man. Nice refined revenge your people have had for the insult and contempt they have met with. There, let’s talk business.”
“Yes, let’s talk business. Now, then, what about the hole in the earth down which people throw their money?”
“Well, it’s a big hole.”
“Yes, I know that, but is it a big do after all?”
“No. As I told you, the old man wouldn’t have gone in for it if it hadn’t been right.”
“Then he really does hold a great deal in it?”
“More than half, that I know of.”
“You’ve carefully made sure of that.”
“Yes, carefully. It’s all right, I tell you.”
“Good! And what about the dear brother?”
“He’s still down there.”
“Surveying the mine?”
“Surveying? He has been down it every day for nearly a week, examining every crack and corner – adit, winze, shaft, driving, all the whole lot of it.”
“Well?”
“He sends reports to the old man every night.”
“And what does he say? Do you know?”
“Yes; the old man reads them to me.”
“Fudge! Flams to rig the market. Chatter for you to spread on the Stock Exchange and make the shares go up.”
“No,” said Jessop quietly, as he sat on a corner of the lawyer’s table, and swung his cane and one leg to and fro. “The dad and I don’t hit it, and we’ve had more quarrels than I can count about money and – other little matters; but he’s always straightforward with me over business, and I’d trust his word sooner than any man’s in London.”
“Good son.”
“Ah! you needn’t sneer; you’d only be too glad to get his name to a bit of paper.”
“True, O king! He is a model that way. But then he is pretty warm, and can afford to lose.”
“Yes; but it would be the same if he were hard up. The old man’s dead square.”
“Then you believe your brother’s reports are all that are read to you?”
“Implicitly.”
“No garbling, you think?”
“I’m sure there isn’t. No, old fellow, I hate my fortunate brother most bitterly, and I don’t love my father; but I’d sooner take their word than that of any one I know.”
“Humph!” ejaculated the lawyer. “Well, then, the mine is not quite played out!”
“Played out! Pish! It has never been worked properly. Only scratched and scraped. There’s plenty of ore to pay by following on the old workings with modern tackle, and a little fortune in re-smelting the old refuse that has been accumulating for fifteen hundred or two thousand years.”
“Yes, it is very old,” said Wrigley thoughtfully.
“Old! Why, no one knows how old it is. The Romans worked it, and I daresay the Phoenicians had a finger in it before them.”
“Go on, old fellow,” said Wrigley, laughing. “Can you prove that pigs of lead were got from it to ballast the ark?”
“Well, you needn’t believe it without you like.”
“But I do believe a great deal of it. There’ll be quite enough for us, if you mean business.”
“If I mean business! Why, of course I do. Do you suppose I am going to sit still and let my brother have all the cream of life? He’ll get all the old man’s money. Plenty without that. I’m not blind. Precious little for me there.”
“Then what is going to be done?”
“They are going to set to work directly. My brother has laid his reports before the board. I did not tell you that he has discovered a new untouched lode that promises to yield wonderfully.”
“Indeed!” said Wrigley – “a new lode?” and he looked searchingly at his companion.
“Yes; an important vein of ore that promises to be of immense value.”
“Hah! that sounds well,” said Wrigley.
“For the shareholders?”
“No; for us. Have you forgotten?”
“No,” said Jessop gloomily, “but will it work?”
“Work? You, an old hand, and ask that. My dear Jessop, if we cannot work that between us it is strange.”
“Yes, but the money necessary. It will be enormous.”
“Pretty well, my dear boy,” said Wrigley, with quiet confidence; “but don’t you fidget about that. Millions are to be had for a safe thing, so we need not be scared about thousands. Yes; that new vein will do. Jessop, my lad, you and I must work that vein. The idea of the great lode is glorious and makes our task easy in that direction; but there is a stumbling-block elsewhere – a difficulty in the way.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Jessop testily. “Hang it, man! Don’t be so mysterious. Now then, please, what do you mean?”
“Let me take my own pace, my dear Jessop, as the inventor of our fortune.”
“Anyhow you like, but let me see how we are going.”
“Well, then, you shall. Now, then, we want an enemy. Clive Reed’s or your father’s enemy. Has your brother any?”
“Yes; here he is, confound him!”
“And you will not do, my dear boy! Besides, it would not be your work. I meant some man who dislikes him so consumedly that he would not stick at trifles for the sake of revenge – and hard cash. What is more,” continued Wrigley, as Jessop shook his head, “it must be some one connected with the mine.”
“Bah! How can it be, when the mine is not started?”
“Then it must be as soon as possible after the mine has been started. Some workman under him in a position of trust, whom he has injured: struck him, taken his wife or sweetheart, mortally injured in some way.”
Jessop burst into a coarse laugh, and Wrigley looked at him inquiringly.
“My dear boy,” said the stockbroker, “I thought this was to be a matter of finessing and making a few thousands.”
“It is, and of making a good many thousands.”
“And you talk as if it were a plot for an Adelphi drama. My dear fellow, my brother Clive is a sort of nineteenth-century saint – not the cad in a play. Clive doesn’t drink, bet, nor gamble in any way. He is a good boy, who is engaged, and goes to church regularly with the lady.”
“Oh, yes; that’s as far as you know now.”
“I do know,” cried Jessop. “Clive has never run away with any one’s wife, nor bullied men, nor gone to the – your friends for coin. If you can’t hit out a better way than that, we may pitch the thing up.”
“At the first difficulty?” said Wrigley, smiling. “No, my boy. We want such a man as I have described – a man whose opinion about the mine will be worth taking. He must, as I say, hate your brother sufficiently to give that opinion when we want it, so as to say check to your brother and be believed.”
“Well, then, there isn’t such a man,” said Jessop sourly.
“Indeed! When do you expect your brother back?”
“At any time now. To-morrow or next day, to meet the directors at the board and report again upon his inspection.”
“Again?”
“Yes; he has been down twice before.”
“Who is down there?”
“Only the man in charge of the mine.”
“Who is he?”
“Some fellow my father got hold of in connection with other mine speculations.”
“Well, wouldn’t he do?”
“Pooh! He is, I should say, out of the question.”
“At a price?”
“At a price!” Jessop started and looked keenly at the solicitor.
“Every man they say has his price, my dear Jessop. We want the kind of man I describe. You say there is no such man. I say there are in the market, and I should say this is the very chap.”
“But surely you would not bribe him to – ”
“Don’t use ugly terms. If I saw my way to make a hundred thousand pounds I should not shrink from giving a man five hundred to help me make it.”
“No, nor a thousand,” said Jessop.
“My dear boy, I would get him for five hundred if I could, but if I could not, I would go higher than you say; in fact, I would go up to ninety-five thousand sooner than lose five. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand. Anything to turn an honest penny.”
“Exactly! So now then, as soon as possible, we must begin to feel our way, so as to secure our man.”
“But if there is not such a man to be had?”
“Then we must make one.”
“Wrigley, I thought I was sharp,” said Jessop, with a peculiar smile.
“But you find there is always a sharper.”
“Was that a lapsus linguae, Wrigley?”
“If you like to call it so,” said the lawyer coldly. “But to business. Let me know the moment your brother gets back.”
“Yes, but why?”
“I am going down to see what I think of the mine.”
Chapter Ten.
The Grim Visitor
“The game’s up, then, Doctor, eh? There, man, don’t shuffle. This isn’t whist, but the game of life, and nature wins.”
The Doctor stood holding his old friend’s hand, and gazing sadly down in the fine manly face, which looked wonderfully calm and peaceful as he lay back on the white pillow.
“That’s right; don’t say medical things to me – clap-trap: you never did. We always understand each other, and I shouldn’t like it now I’m dying. For that’s it, Praed; the game’s up. I haven’t read so plainly how many trumps you held in your hand for all these years, old man, without being able to judge your face now.”
“Reed, old fellow,” said the Doctor, in a voice full of emotion, “God knows I have done my best. Let me send for – ”
“Tchah! What for?” said the old man. “You know more than he does. It’s of no use fighting against it. Nature says the works must stop soon. Very well; I shall meet it as I have met other losses in my time. Do you hear, Clive – Jessop?”
A murmur came from the other side of the bed, where the two young men were standing, and then all was still again, save the rumble of a vehicle in the street.