"You are my guardian, and you were my father"s friend," she said quietly. "Beyond that guardianship you have nothing to do with me, and I will not----"
"You talk like a child, and you have a child"s knowledge of the world,"
he broke in roughly. "I that am a man can teach you, as only a man can teach a woman, what life and the world hold for her. Prudishly you step aside; with false modesty you refuse to look at facts as they are. You are a child no longer, in the ordinary sense of things; and I am a man that loves you. Your father liked me----"
"To my everlasting sorrow, he did!" she exclaimed pa.s.sionately.
"And he would have approved of the arrangement. Above all things, the management of your extremely troublesome affairs are in my hands, and if you belonged to me the whole thing would be solidified. I have great power in regard to your fortune now; I should have greater powers then."
"It"s the fortune that tempts you!" she exclaimed, starting to her feet.
"G.o.d forgive me for saying it, but my father must have been mad when he made up his mind to place me in your care. I hate you--but I"m not afraid of you. I hate you!"
Bardolph Just stepped forward quickly, and took her prisoner in his arms. I had made a sudden movement, recklessly enough, to run round the summer-house and spring upon the man, as I heard her give a little gasping cry, when there came a strange interruption; and it came from outside and from inside the summer-house almost at the same moment.
I had heard the doctor say, over and over again, with a sort of savage triumph, as he held her, "You shall love me! You shall love me! You shall love me!" and I had made that movement of which I speak, when there broke in the sound of someone singing, in a high querulous voice, and that someone was moving towards the summer-house. The girl heard the sound, and she broke away from the man who held her; she seemed literally to shriek out a name--
"Capper!"
All the rest happened in a flash. Scarcely knowing what I did, I ran round and confronted them all--and that, too, at the moment that the girl, breaking from the summer-house, ran swiftly to where the little grey-headed old man was emerging from the trees. In her agitation she flung herself at his feet, and caught at his hands, and cried out her question:
"Capper, dear, good Capper!--where"s your master?"
We stood there in silence, waiting to see what would happen. For both Bardolph Just and myself could have answered the question, but what was the man Capper about to say? This was just such a crisis as I had been expecting and fearing; it seemed hours before the little grey-haired man, who had been looking down at her in a bewildered fashion, made any reply.
"I don"t--don"t know," he said, and he smiled round upon us rather foolishly, I thought.
"But, Capper--you remember me, Capper; I was your master"s friend," went on the girl despairingly. "You remember that Mr. Pennington came to this house--oh!--oh, a week ago!"
She had risen to her feet, and was staring into his eyes. He put a hand over those eyes for a moment, and seemed to ponder something; then he looked up, and slowly shook his head. "I can"t--I can"t remember," he said. "Something has gone from me--here"--he laid the hand upon his forehead--"and I can"t remember."
The doctor drew a deep breath, and took a step towards the girl; of me he seemed to take but little notice. "Don"t worry the man, Debora," he said in a gentle tone; "I can"t make him out myself, sometimes. Why he should remain here, where his master is not, I cannot understand."
Both Just and the girl spoke of the old man in hushed tones, as they might have spoken of someone who was ill. But Capper himself stood looking smilingly from one face to the other, as if his eyes would question them concerning this mystery in which he was involved.
"Has he been here ever since--since Mr. Pennington disappeared?" asked the girl.
"I don"t know what you"re talking about," retorted the doctor, with a perplexed frown. "Disappeared? How could Gregory Pennington disappear? I refused to allow him to come here; I have seen nothing of him for some time."
I knew, of course, that the doctor was keeping from her the knowledge of the unfortunate young man"s suicide--I realised that that knowledge must be kept from her, for my sake as well, unless disaster was to fall upon me. But the girl was looking at Bardolph Just keenly, and I wondered how he could meet her eyes as calmly as he did.
"The night before I went to Green Barn with Leach," she said slowly, "I was in these grounds with Gregory. And that night he went into the house to see you."
"To see me?" The doctor twisted about from one to the other of us in apparent perplexity. "To see me? I haven"t seen the young man for months."
"Then what, in the name of all that"s wonderful, is Capper doing here?"
demanded Debora, pointing to that strange, smiling creature, who seemed the least interested of any of us.
For a moment even the doctor was nonplussed, for that was a question to which there seemed to be no possible answer--or, at least, no answer that should prove satisfactory. It was, indeed, the strangest scene, to us, at least, who understood the true inwardness of it: that little grey-haired man, who might carry locked up in his numbed brain something that presently should leak out; the girl demanding to know the reason of his presence there; and the doctor and myself with the full knowledge of what had really happened, and of where Gregory Pennington lay hidden.
Bardolph Just, however, was the last man to be placed at a disadvantage for any length of time. In a moment or two he laughed easily, and shrugged his shoulders. ""Pon my word, I don"t know!" he replied, in reference to the girl"s question. "I can make neither head nor tail of him; but as his master is not here, I scarcely care to turn him out into the world in his present condition."
"What"s the matter with him?" asked Debora. "I never saw him like this before."
"Can"t say," retorted the doctor quickly. "But I should judge him to have had a stroke of some kind. At all events, Debora, I don"t want you to think that I"m a brute; and as Gregory Pennington was a friend of yours--I should say, is a friend of yours--the old man shall stay here until--until his master returns."
I noticed that Capper kept close beside the girl as she moved away towards the house; he looked up at her trustingly, as a child might have done who wanted a guide. As they walked away together, Bardolph Just stepped forward and laid a hand on the girl"s arm. I heard what he said distinctly.
"I have not said my last word, by any means," he said in his smooth voice; "nor is this the end."
"It is the end so far as I am concerned," she retorted, without slackening her pace. "You shall be my guardian no longer; I"ll arrange something, so that I can get out into the world and live for myself and in my own fashion."
"We"ll see about that," he retorted, between his teeth. "Go to your room, and remain there."
She gave him a glance of contempt, that had yet in it some spice of fear, as she turned away and made for the house, with old Capper trotting dog-like beside her. Then the doctor turned to me, and although I saw that there were certain white spots coming and going at the edges of his nostrils and on his cheek bones, he yet spoke calmly enough--indeed, a little amusedly.
"What do you think of that for pretty defiance?" he asked; then, sinking his voice to a lower tone, and taking a step nearer to me, he went on--"She"s getting suspicious about that boy; and the madman who"s gone off with her now is likely to cause trouble. I don"t know what to do with him, but I shall have to devise something. Don"t forget, my friend, that if the worst comes to the worst you"re in the same boat with me--or in a worse boat. I"ve only cheated the authorities for your sake; I can plead human sympathy and kindliness, and all sorts of things--which you can"t."
"Is that a threat?" I demanded, for now my grat.i.tude was being fast swallowed up in a growing dislike of the man.
"Yes, and no," he replied, with a faint smile. "I"m only suggesting that you will find it wise, whatever happens, to fight on my side, and on mine only. I think you understand?"
I answered nothing; I followed him, sullenly enough, to the house. By that time I had quite forgotten the errand on which I had been sent, and which I had made no effort to accomplish; only when we were near to the house he turned quickly, and startled me by referring to it.
"By the way, you had your journey for nothing," he said. "The book arrived while you were gone. Did you meet with any adventures?"
"None at all," I answered curtly.
I was destined for another adventure, and a more alarming one, that night. There was no ceremony used in the doctor"s house, and he made no attempt to dress for dinner. For that matter, I had not as yet seen any guests, and the doctor, on one or two occasions at least, had had his meals carried up to his study. So far as dinner was concerned, it usually happened that in the recesses of the house someone clanged a dismal bell at the time the food was actually put upon the table, and I would go down, either to sit alone, or to find the doctor awaiting me.
You will remember that the girl Debora had been away for the whole of that eventful week.
The dining-room was dimly lighted by a big, shaded lamp, standing on the centre of the table; so that when I went in on this night, and looked about me, I could see figures seated, but could not clearly distinguish faces. The doctor I saw in his usual place, stooping forward into the light of the lamp to sup at his soup; I saw the bent head of the girl at one side of the table. I moved round the table to reach my place, and as I did so saw that another man was seated opposite the girl, so making a fourth. I could not see his face, as it was in shadow. I wondered who he might be.
The doctor bent forward, so as to look round the lamp at me, called me (G.o.d be praised for it!) by that new name he had given me--
"John New, let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. Harvey Scoffold."
I sat frozen in my chair, keeping my face in shadow, and wondering what I should do. For I knew the man--had known him intimately on those occasions when I had broken out of my uncle"s house at night, and had gone on wild excursions. I saw him glance towards me; I knew that he knew my history, and what had become of me; and I wondered how soon he was to start up in his place, and cry out who I was, and demand to know who lay buried in my place. I left my soup untasted, and sat upright, keeping my face above the light cast by the lamp.
"Mr. Harvey Scoffold is an old friend of mine," said Bardolph Just, "although we have not met for some time. A worthy fellow--though he does not take quite so deep an interest in the serious things of life as I do."
"Not I," exclaimed the other man, squaring his shoulders, and giving vent to a hearty laugh that rang through the room. "I"m a very b.u.t.terfly, if a large one; and life"s the biggest joke that ever I tasted. I hope our new friend is of the same order?"
I mumbled something unintelligible, and, after looking at me intently for a moment, he turned and began to speak to his host. I think I had just decided that I had better feign illness, and get up and make a run for dear life, when he staggered us all by a question, put in his hearty, careless fashion.
"By the way," he said, looking from the doctor to the girl, and back again, "what"s become of that youngster I used to see here--Gregory Pennington? I took quite a fancy to the boy. Does anyone know where he is?"