Eve
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She noiselessly unhasped the gate, and stole along the path. The burnished brazen sky of evening shone between the tree trunks, but the foliage had lost its verdure in the gathering dusk. The honeysuckles poured forth their scent in waves. The air near the hedge and deep into the wood was honeyed with it. White and yellow speckled currant moths were flitting about the hedge. Jane stole along, stealthily, from tree to tree, fearful lest Eve should turn and catch her spying. A large Scotch pine cast a shadow under it like ink. On reaching that, Jane knew she could see the top of the Raven Rock.
As she thus advanced on tiptoe she heard a rustling, as of a bird in the tree overhead. Her heart stood still. Then, before she had time to recover herself, with a shrill laugh, a little black figure came tumbling down before her out of the tree, capered, leaped at her, threw his arms round her neck, and screamed into her face, ‘Carry me! Carry me! Carry me!’
Then his arms relaxed, he dropped off, shrieking with laughter, and Jane fled, as fast as her limbs could bear her, back to the gate, through the gate and away over the meadows to Morwell House.
Eve had gone on to the platform of rock; she stood there irresolute, hoping that the detested boy would not appear, when she heard his laugh and shout, and the scream of Jane. She would have fainted with terror, had not at that moment a tall man stepped up to her and laid his hand on her arm. ‘Do not be afraid, sweet fairy Eve! It is I – your poor slave Martin, – perfectly bewitched, drawn back by those loadstone eyes. Do not be frightened, Watt is merely giving a scare to the inquisitive servant.’
Eve was trembling violently. This was worse than meeting the ape of a boy. She had committed a gross indiscretion. What would Barbara say? – her father, if he heard of it, how vexed he would be!
‘I must go back,’ she said, with a feeble effort at dignity. ‘This is too bad; I have been deceived.’ Then she gave way to weakness, and burst into tears.
‘No,’ he said carelessly, ‘you shall not go. I will not suffer you to escape now that I have a chance of seeing you and speaking with you. To begin at the beginning – I love you. There! you are all of a tremble. Sit down and listen to what I have to say. You will not? Well, consider. I run terrible risks by being here; I may say that I place my life in your delicate hands.’
She looked up at him, still too frightened to speak, even to comprehend his words.
‘I do not know you!’ she whispered, when she was able to gather together the poor remnants of her strength.
‘You remember me. I have your ring, and you have mine. We are, in a manner, bound to each other. Be patient, dear love; listen to me. I will tell you all my story.’
He saw that she was in no condition to be pressed. If he spoke of love she would make a desperate effort to escape. Weak and giddy though she was, she would not endure that from a man of whom she knew nothing. He saw that. He knew he must give her time to recover from her alarm, so he said, ‘I wish, most beautiful fairy, you would rest a few minutes on this piece of rock. I am a poor, hunted, suffering, misinterpreted wretch, and I come to tell you my story, only to entreat your sympathy and your prayers. I will not say a rude word, I will not lay a finger on you. All I ask is: listen to me. That cannot hurt you. I am a beggar, a beggar whining at your feet, not asking for more alms than a tear of pity. Give me that, that only, and I go away relieved.’
She seemed somewhat reassured, and drew a long breath.
‘I had a sister of your name.’
She raised her head, and looked at him with surprise.
‘It is an uncommon name. My poor sister is gone. I suppose it is your name that has attracted me to you, that induces me to open my heart to you. I mean to confide to you my troubles. You say that you do not know me. I will tell you all my story, and then, sweet Eve, you will indeed know me, and, knowing me, will shower tears of precious pity, that will infinitely console me.’
She was still trembling, but flattered, and relieved that he asked for nothing save sympathy. That of course she was at liberty to bestow on a deserving object. She was wholly inexperienced, easily deceived by flattery.
‘Have I frightened you?’ asked Martin. ‘Am I so dreadful, so unsightly an object as to inspire you with aversion and terror?’ He drew himself up and paused. Eve hastily looked at him. He was a strikingly handsome man, with dark hair, wonderful dark eyes, and finely chiselled features.
‘I said that I put my life in your hands. I spoke the truth. You have but to betray me, and the police and the parish constables will come in a posse after me. I will stand here with folded arms to receive them; but mark my words, as soon as they set foot on this rock, I will fling myself over the edge and perish. If you sacrifice me, my life is not worth saving.’
‘I will not betray you,’ faltered Eve.
‘I know it. You are too noble, too true, too heroic to be a traitress. I knew it when I came here and placed myself at your mercy.’
‘But,’ said Eve timidly, ‘what have you done? You have taken my ring. Give it back to me, and I will not send the constables after you.’
‘You have mine.’
‘I will return it.’
‘About that hereafter,’ said Martin grandly, and he waved his hand. ‘Now I answer your question, What have I done? I will tell you everything. It is a long story and a sad one. Certain persons come out badly in it whom I would spare. But it may not be otherwise. Self-defence is the first law of nature. You have, no doubt, heard a good deal about me, and not to my advantage. I have been prejudiced in your eyes by Jasper. He is narrow, does not make allowances, has never recovered the straitlacing father gave him as a child. His conscience has not expanded since infancy.’
Eve looked at Martin with astonishment.
‘Mr. Jasper Babb has not said anything – ’
‘Oh, there!’ interrupted Martin, ‘you may spare your sweet lips the fib. I know better than that. He grumbles and mumbles about me to everyone who will open an ear to his tales. If he were not my brother – ’
Now Eve interrupted him. ‘Mr. Jasper your brother!’
‘Of course he is. Did he not tell you so?’ He saw that she had not known by the expression of her face, so, with a laugh, he said, ‘Oh dear, no! Of course Jasper was too grand and sanctimonious a man to confess to the blot in the family. I am that blot – look at me!’
He showed his handsome figure and face by a theatrical gesture and position. ‘Poor Martin is the blot, to which Jasper will not confess, and yet – Martin survives this neglect and disrespect.’
The overweening vanity, the mock humility, the assurance of the man passed unnoticed by Eve. She breathed freely when she heard that he was the brother of Jasper. There could have been no harm in an interview with Jasper, and consequently very little in one with his brother. So she argued, and so she reconciled herself to the situation. Now she traced a resemblance between the brothers which had escaped her before; they had the same large dark expressive eyes, but Jasper’s face was not so regular, his features not so purely chiselled as those of Martin. He was broader built; Martin had the perfect modelling of a Greek statue. There was also a more manly, self-confident bearing in Martin than in the elder brother, who always appeared bowed as with some burden that oppressed his spirits, and took from him self-assertion and buoyancy, that even maimed his vigour of manhood.
‘I dare say you have had a garbled version of my story, continued Martin, seating himself; and Eve, without considering, seated herself also. Martin let himself down gracefully, and assumed a position where the evening light, still lingering in the sky, could irradiate his handsome face. ‘That is why I have sought this interview. I desired to put myself right with you. No doubt you have heard that I got into trouble.’
She shook her head.
‘Well, I did. I was unlucky. In fact, I could stay with my father no longer. I had already left him for a twelvemonth, but I came back, and, in Scriptural terms, such as he could understand, asked him to give me the portion of goods that fell to me. He refused, so I took it.’
‘Took – took what?’
‘My portion of goods, not in stock but in money. For my part,’ said Martin, folding his arms, ‘it has ever struck me that the Prodigal Son was far the nobler of the brothers. The eldest was a mean fellow, the second had his faults – I admit it – but he was a man of independence of action; he would not stand being bullyragged by his father, so he went away. I got into difficulties over that matter. My father would not overlook it, made a fuss, and so on. My doctrine is: Let bygones be bygones, and accept what comes and don’t kick. That my father could not see, and so I got locked up.’
‘Locked up – where?’
‘In a pill-box. I managed, however, to escape; I am at large, and at your feet – entreating you to pity me.’
He suited the action to the word. In a moment he was gracefully kneeling before her on one knee, with his hand on his heart.
‘Oh, Miss Eve,’ he said, ‘since I saw your face in the moonlight I have never forgotten it. Wherever I went it haunted me. I saw these great beautiful eyes looking timidly into mine; by day they eclipsed the sun. Whatever I did I thought only of you. And now – what is it that I ask of you? Nothing but forgiveness. The money – the portion of goods that fell to me – was yours. My father owed it to you. It was intended for you. But now, hear me, you noble, generous-spirited girl; I have borrowed the money, it shall be returned – or its equivalent. If you desire it, I will swear.’ He stood up and assumed an attitude.
‘Oh, no!’ said Eve; ‘you had my money?’
‘As surely as I had your ring.’
‘Much in the same way,’ she said, with a little sharpness.
‘But I shall return one with the other. Trust me. Stand up; look me in the face. Do I bear tho appearance of a cheat, a thief, a robber? Am I base, villanous! No, I am nothing but a poor, foolish, prodigal lad, who has got into a scrape, but will get out of it again. You forgive me. Hark! I hear someone calling.’
‘It is Barbara. She is looking for me.’
‘Then I disappear.’ He put his hand to his lips, wafted her a kiss, whispered ‘When you look at the ring, remember poor – poor Martin,’ and he slipped away among the bushes.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
FATHER AND SON
Barbara was mistaken. Jasper had gone to Buckfastleigh, gone openly to his father’s house, in the belief that his father was dying. He knocked at the blotched and scaled door under the dilapidated portico, but received no answer. He tried the door. It was locked and barred. Then he went round to the back, noting how untidy the garden was, how out of repair was the house; and in the yard of the kitchen he found the deaf housekeeper. His first question, shouted into her ear, naturally was an inquiry after his father. He learned to his surprise that the old man was not ill, but was then in the factory. Thinking that his question had been misunderstood, he entered the house, went into his father’s study, then up to his bedroom, and through the dirty window-panes saw the old man leaving the mill on his way back to the house.
What, then, had Watt meant by sending him to the old home on false tidings? The boy was indeed mischievous, but this was more than common mischief. He must have sent him on a fool’s errand for some purpose of his own. That the boy wanted to hear news of his father was possible, but not probable. The only other alternative Jasper could suggest to explain Watt’s conduct was the disquieting one that he wanted to be rid of Jasper from Morwell for some purpose of his own. What could that purpose be?
Jasper’s blood coursed hot through his veins. He was angry. He was a forbearing man, ready always to find an excuse for a transgressor, but this was a transgression too malicious to be easily forgiven. Jasper determined, now that he was at home, to see his father, and then to return to the Jordans as quickly as he could. He had ridden his own horse, that horse must have a night’s rest, but to-morrow he would return.
He was thus musing when Mr. Babb came in.
‘You here!’ said the old man. ‘What has brought you to Buckfastleigh again? Want money, of course.’ Then snappishly, ‘You shan’t get it.’
‘I am come,’ said his son, ‘because I had received information that you were ill. Have you been unwell, father?’
‘I – no! I’m never ill. No such luck for you. If I were ill and helpless, you might take the management, you think. If I were dead, that would be nuts to you.’
‘My father, you wrong me. I left you because I would no longer live this wretched life, and because I hate your unforgiving temper.’
‘Unforgiving!’ sneered the old manufacturer. ‘Martin was a thief, and he deserved his fate. Is not Brutus applauded because he condemned his own son? Is not David held to be weak because he bade Joab spare Absalom?’
‘We will not squeeze old crushed apples. No juice will run from them,’ replied Jasper. ‘The thing was done, and might have been forgiven. I would not have returned now had I not been told that you were dying.’
‘Who told you that lie?’
‘Walter.’
‘He! He was ever a liar, a mocker, a blasphemer! How was he to know? I thank heaven he has not shown his jackanapes visage here since he left. I dying! I never was sounder. I am better in health and spirits since I am quit of my sons. They vexed my righteous soul every day with their ungodly deeds. So you supposed I was dying, and came here to see what meat could be picked off your father’s bones?’
Jasper remembered Watt’s sneer. It was clear whence the boy had gathered his mean views of men’s motives.
‘I’ll trouble you to return whence you came,’ said Ezekiel Babb. ‘No blessing has rested on me since I brought the strange blood into the house. Now that all of you are gone – you, Eve number one, and Eve number two, Martin and Walter – I am well. The Son of Peace has returned to this house; I can read my Bible and do my accounts in quiet, without fears of what new bit of mischief or devilry my children have been up to, without any more squeaking of fiddles and singing of profane songs all over the house. Come now!’ – the old man raised his bushy brows and flashed a cunning, menacing glance at his son – ’come now! if you had found me dead – in Abraham’s bosom – what would you have done? I know what Walter would have done: he would have capered up and down all over the house, fiddling like a devil, like a devil as he is.’ He looked at Jasper again, inquisitively. ‘Well, what would you have done? – fiddled too?’
‘My father, as you desire to know, I will tell you. I would at once have realised what I could, and have cleared off the debt to Mr. Jordan.’
‘Well, you may do that when the day comes,’ said the old manufacturer, shrugging his shoulders. ‘It is nothing to me what you do with the mill and the house and the land after I am’ – he turned up his eyes to the dirty ceiling – ’where the wicked cease from fiddling and no thieves break in and steal. I am not going to pay the money twice over. My obligation ended when the money went out of this house. I did more than I was required. I chastised my own son for taking it. What was seven years on Dartmoor? A flea-bite. Under the old law the rebellious son was stoned till he died. I suppose, now, you are hungry. Call the old crab; kick her, pinch her, till she understands, and let her give you something to eat. There are some scraps, I know, of veal-pie and cold potatoes. I think, by the way, the veal-pie is done. Don’t forget to ask a blessing before you fall-to on the cold potatoes.’ Then he rubbed his forehead and said, ‘Stay, I’ll go and rouse the old toad myself; you stay here. You are the best of my children. All the rest were a bad lot – too much of the strange blood in them.’
Whilst Mr. Babb is rousing his old housekeeper to produce some food, we will say a few words of the past history of the Babb family.
Eve the first, Mr. Babb’s wife, had led a miserable life. She did not run away from him: she remained and poured forth the fiery love of her heart upon her children, especially on her eldest, a daughter, Eve, to whom she talked of her old life – its freedom, its happiness, its attractions. She died of a broken spirit on the birth of her third son, Walter. Then Eve, the eldest, a beautiful girl, unable to endure the bad temper of her father, the depressing atmosphere of the house, and the cares of housekeeping imposed on her, ran away after a travelling band of actors.
Jasper, the eldest son, grew up to be grave and resigned. He was of use in the house, managing it as far as he was allowed, and helping his father in many ways. But the old man, who had grumbled at and insulted his wife whilst she was alive, could not keep his tongue from the subject that still rankled in his heart. This occasioned quarrels; the boy took his mother’s side, and refused to bear his father’s gibes at her memory. He was passionately attached to his next brother Martin. The mother had brought a warm, loving spirit into the family, and Jasper had inherited much of it. He stood as a screen between his brother and father, warding off from the former many a blow and angry reprimand. He did Martin’s school tasks for him; he excused his faults; he admired him for his beauty, his spirit, his bearing, his lively talk. There was no lad, in his opinion, who could equal Martin; Watt was right when he said that Jasper had contributed to his ruin by humouring him, but Jasper humoured him because he loved him, and pitied him for the uncongeniality of his home. Martin displayed a talent for music, and there was an old musician at Ashburton, the organist of the parish church, who developed and cultivated his talent, and taught him both to play and sing. Jasper had also an instinctive love of music, and he also learned the violin and surpassed his brother, who had not the patience to master the first difficulties, and who preferred to sing.
The father, perhaps, saw in Martin a recrudescence of the old proclivities of his mother; he tried hard to interfere with his visits to the musician, and only made Martin more set on his studies with him. But the most implacable, incessant state of war was that which raged between the old father and his youngest son, Walter, or Watt as his brothers called him. This boy had no reverence in him. He scouted the authority of his father and of Jasper. He scoffed at everything the old man held sacred. He absolutely refused to go to the Baptist Chapel frequented by his father, he stopped his ears and made grimaces at his brothers and the servants during family worship, and the devotions were not unfrequently concluded with a rush of the old man at his youngest son and the administration of resounding clouts on the ears.
At last a quarrel broke out between them of so fierce a nature that Watt was expelled the house. Then Martin left to follow Watt, who had joined a travelling dramatic company. After a year, however, Martin returned, very thin and woe-begone, and tried to accommodate himself to home-life once more. But it was not possible; he had tasted of the sort of life that suited him – one rambling, desultory, artistic. He robbed his father’s bureau and ran away.
Then it was that he was taken, and in the same week sent to the assizes, and condemned to seven years’ penal labour in the convict establishment at Prince’s Town. Thence he had escaped, assisted by Jasper and Watt, whilst the former was on his way to Morwell with the remnant of the money recovered from Martin.
The rest is known to the reader.
Whilst Jasper ate the mean meal provided for him, his father watched him.
‘So,’ said the old man, and the twinkle was in his cunning eyes, ‘so you have hired yourself to Mr. Ignatius Jordan at Morwell as his steward?’
‘Yes, father. I remain there as pledge to him that he shall be repaid, and I am doing there all I can to put the estate into good order. It has been shockingly neglected.’
‘Who for?’ asked Mr. Babb.
‘I do not understand.’
‘For whom are you thus working?’
‘For Mr. Jordan, as you said!’
The manufacturer chuckled.
‘Jasper,’ said he, ‘some men look on a pool and see nothing but water. I put my head in, open my eyes, and see what is at the bottom. That girl did not come here for nothing. I put my head under water and opened my eyes.’
‘Well?’ said Jasper, with an effort controlling his irritation.
‘Well! I saw it all under the surface. I saw you. She came here because she was curious to see the factory and the house, and to know if all was as good as you had bragged about. I gave her a curt dismissal; I do not want a daughter-in-law thrusting her feet into my shoes till I cast them off for ever.’
Jasper started to his feet and upset his chair. He was very angry. ‘You utterly wrong her,’ he said. ‘You open your eyes in mud, and see only dirt. Miss Jordan came here out of kindness towards me, whom she dislikes and despises in her heart.’
Mr. Babb chuckled.
‘Well, I won’t say that you have not acted wisely. Morwell will go to that girl, and it is a pretty property.’
‘I beg your pardon, you are wrong. It is left to the second – Eve.’
‘So, so! It goes to Eve! That is why the elder girl came here, to see if she could fit herself into Owlacombe.’
Jasper’s face burnt, and the muscles of his head and neck quivered, but he said nothing. He dared not trust himself to speak. He had all his life practised self-control, but he never needed it more than at this moment.
‘I see it all,’ pursued the old man, his crafty face contracting with a grin; ‘Mr. Jordan thought to provide for both his daughters. Buckfast mill and Owlacombe for the elder, Morwell for the younger – ha, ha! The elder to take you so as to get this pretty place. And she came to look at it and see if it suited her. Well! It is a pretty place – only,’ he giggled, ‘it ain’t vacant and to be had just yet.’
Jasper took his hat; his face was red as blood, and his dark eyes flashed.
‘Don’t go,’ said the old manufacturer; ‘you did not see their little trap and walked into it, eh? One word of warning I must give you. Don’t run after the younger; Eve is your niece.’
‘Father!’
‘Ah! that surprises you, does it? It is true. Eve’s mother was your sister. Did Mr. Jordan never tell you that?’
‘Never!’
‘It is true. Sit down again to the cold potatoes. You shall know all, but first ask a blessing.’
CHAPTER XXIX.
HUSH-MONEY
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Babb, settling himself on a chair; then finding he had sat on the tails of his coat, he rose, held a tail in each hand, and reseated himself between them; ‘yes.’
‘Do you mean seriously to tell me that Mr. Jordan’s second wife was my sister?’
‘Well – in a way. That is, I don’t mean your sister in a way, but his wife in a way.’
‘I have heard nothing of this; what do you mean?’
‘I mean that he did not marry her.’
Jasper Babb’s face darkened. ‘I have been in his house and spoken to him, and not known that. What became of my sister?’
The old man fidgeted on his chair. It was not comfortable. ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ he said.
‘Did she die?’
‘No,’ said Mr. Babb, ‘she ran off with a play-actor.’
‘Well – and after that?’
‘After what? After the play-actor? I do not know, I have not heard of her since. I don’t want to. Was not that enough?’
‘And Mr. Jordan – does he know nothing?’
‘I cannot tell. If you are curious to know you can ask.’
‘This is very extraordinary. Why did not Mr. Jordan tell me the relationship? He knew who I was.’
The old man laughed, and Jasper shuddered at his laugh, there was something so base and brutal in it.
‘He was not so proud of how he behaved to Eve as to care to boast of the connection. You might not have liked it, might have fizzed and gone pop.’
Jasper’s brow was on fire, his eyebrows met, and a sombre sparkle was in his eye.
‘You have made no effort to trace her?’
Mr. Babb shrugged his shoulders.
‘Tell me,’ said Jasper, leaning his elbow on the table, and putting his hand over his eyes to screen them from the light, and allow him to watch his father’s face – ’tell me everything, as you undertook. Tell me how my poor sister came to Morwell, and how she left it.’