The Quiet Gentleman

Chapter 21

It would have saddened Mr. Leek had he known that the only other gate lying in the path of the Earl’s curricle was opened for him by an obliging urchin, who darted out of a nearby cottage in the hope of earning a penny. Half a mile beyond this gate, the Earl was able to turn off the track on to a passable road, which led him eventually to the manor of Evesleigh.

The manor had been bought by the Earl’s father some years previously, upon his nephew’s advice. It contained two good farms, as well as some smaller holdings; and the manor-house, which, though not large, was respectable, had for some time provided one of his lordship’s indigent relations with an asylum. A couple of elderly servants, retired from service at Stanyon, waited on the old lady, and, after her death, which occurred within three months of the Earl’s own demise, remained there as caretakers. For the greater part of the year most of the rooms were shut up, their chairs swathed in holland covers, but not the least of the manor’s attractions were its excellent coverts, and, during November and December, the house was always in a state of readiness for the entertainment of shooting-parties from Stanyon. At other times, only Theo ever stayed at Evesleigh, although the Dowager had several times asserted, during the lifetime of its late tenant, that she wondered to hear Cousin Amelia complain that the house was damp, since it was in every way so agreeable a residence that she had frequently thought that she would like to live there herself.

The Earl’s arrival brought not only his two retainers on to the scene, but Theo’s groom as well, who came running from the stables, and went at once to the grays’ heads, looking very much surprised to see his lordship, and asking whether he should set out to find his master, and apprise him of this unexpected visit.

“Is Mr. Theo out?” the Earl enquired, casting off the rug from about his legs, and alighting on to the carriage-sweep.

“Yes, my lord. He rode out with the bailiff, a couple of hours ago. I don’t rightly know whether it was Dumbleton Farm he meant to visit, or Doebridge, or whether —

But I could saddle the cob, my lord, and find him, I dessay!”

“No, I’ll wait for him,” said the Earl. “If he has been gone for two hours, I imagine he will soon return.” He turned his attention to Mrs. Allenby, who beamed, and dropped her third curtsy to him. He was evidently no stranger to her, so he said, if not with truth, at least with the kindliness which endeared him to his dependants: “Surely I remember you? I am very glad to see you again!”

“Oh, my lord!” gasped Mrs. Allenby: “To think you should remember after all this time! And me only third chambermaid when you was sent off to school! Well, I declare!”

The Earl smiled, and glanced enquiringly at her husband.

“Yes, my lord, that’s Allenby, which was used to work in the garden, but you wouldn’t remember him!”said Mrs. Allenby, relegating her spouse to obscurity. “If only I’d known your lordship was coming to Evesleigh! Oh dear, Mr. Theo will be put about when he finds you here, and him not ready to receive you!”

Shaking her head over this, she ushered his lordship up the shallow steps to the front-door, and then into a parlour overlooking the carriage-sweep. She almost overwhelmed him with apologies for not having the drawing-room prepared for his reception, with promises of instant refreshment, and with solicitous enquiries after the state of his health. He got rid of her only by accepting her offer of home-brewed ale; and when he had drunk this she showed so marked a disposition to linger that he announced his intention of strolling out to look round the demesne.

It was fully an hour before Theo returned to the house. He came striding from the stables, and met his cousin on his leisurely way back from the shrubbery. At sight of that slim, elegant figure, still wearing a caped driving-coat, but with fair head uncovered, he called out: “Gervase! My dear fellow!” and hurried towards the Earl. “I had no notion you meant to come to Evesleigh!” he said. “If that fool of mine had had a grain of sense he would have fetched me an hour ago!”

“He would have done so, but I thought very likely he would miss you, and so told him not to go,” replied the Earl.

“Ay, that’s what he has just said to me. Has Mrs. Allenby looked after you? Why are you wandering about the garden? You should rather be resting in the parlour!”

“Oh, I am wandering in the garden because she looked after me only too well!”

Theo smiled. “I daresay! But come inside now! I will protect you from her, I promise you.”

The answering smile was perfunctory; Theo said, with a glance at the Earl’s face: “You are fagged to death, Gervase! And no wonder!”

“No, not as bad as that,” Gervase said, mounting the stone steps beside him. “I am really very much harder to kill than any of you can be brought to believe.”

“I know well you bear a charmed life, but to be taxing your strength in such a way as this — !” Theo flung open the door into the parlour. “Go in! Let me speak two words to Allenby, and I’ll be with you!”

When he returned to the parlour, some ten minutes later, he found the Earl seated in a chair on one side of the old draw-table, which was littered with papers and ledgers. He shut the door, saying: “Mrs. Allenby is so much vexed that she had no word of your coming that nothing I can say will console her. You mean to remain here for the night, I hope?”

“No, I am returning to Stanyon.” The Earl tossed back on to the table a paper he had been reading. “I never knew, until I came home, how much work you did, Theo. I have you to thank for it that I find my inheritance in such good order, haven’t I?”

“Why, yes!” Theo admitted. “But you did not drive ten miles to tell me that! My dear Gervase, what can have possessed you to behave with such imprudence? When I left Stanyon you had not quitted your room, and here you are, without even Chard to bear you company!”

“I wanted to see you, and alone.”

Theo looked at him with knit brows. “Something has happened since I left Stanyon? Is that it?”

“No, nothing has happened, except that I have regained my strength and my wits. My head still ached abominably when I saw you last, Theo. I found it difficult to think, and impossible to act. I was in doubt, too — or perhaps only trying to believe there was doubt. It is of very little consequence.”

“If you wanted me, why could you not have sent me word to come to you?” Theo said roughly. “To have driven all this way, and alone, was madness! I wish you may not have cause to regret such foolhardiness!”

“There are those who could tell you that my wounds heal quickly. Sit down, Theo!”

His cousin cast himself into the chair on the other side of the table, but said: “And what if you had met with another accident on your way here? Good God, you must know the risks you run!”

“I am not afraid of being ambushed today,” replied the Earl. “Martin went to Grantham, and Chard with him. Even if he has by now returned to Stanyon, Chard is still watching him. He won’t let him out of his sight until he sees me safe home again.” He paused, and for a moment or two there was silence, broken only by the sound of a horse’s hooves somewhere in the distance, and the measured ticking of the clock on the mantelshelf. “So, you see, Theo, I had nothing to fear in driving over to see you.”

The sound of hooves was growing momently more distinct; the Earl slightly turned his head, listening.

“Well! I am glad to know you took that precaution at least!” said Theo. “But who is watching Hickling? Did you think of that?”

“Why, no!” replied Gervase. “Hickling is certainly devoted to Martin, but I hardly think he would commit murder to oblige him!”

He rose from his chair as he spoke, and walked to the window. The hooves were pounding up the carriage-sweep. “What is it?” Theo asked. “Has Chard come to look for you?”

The Earl’s right hand had been hidden in the pocket of his driving-coat. He withdrew it, and his cousin saw that it held a silver-mounted pistol. “No,” he said, in an odd voice, “but I seem to have been out in my reckoning! I am no longer safe from the strange accidents that befall me.”

“Good God, Gervase, what do you mean? Who is it?” exclaimed Theo, starting up.

“It is Martin,” said the Earl, turning, so that he faced the room, his back against the wall.

“Martin! But, my dear Gervase, he would never — ”

Theo broke off, silenced by a lifted finger. Martin’s voice could be heard in the hall, fiercely interrogating Allenby.

“How rash! how witless of him!” sighed the Earl.

Hasty footsteps were crossing the hall; the door burst open, and Martin came impetuously into the room, and slammed the door shut again with one careless, backward thrust of his hand.

“Don’t move, Martin!” said the Earl warningly.

“St. Erth! Don’t you see? — don’t you understand?” Martin cried. “It’s not me you need beware of!”

“Yes, I do understand,” Gervase said. “Better than you, it seems! You young fool, what if a shot were to be fired in this room, and Allenby ran in to find me dead, and you struggling with Theo? Do you think anyone would believe that it was Theo and not you who had shot me?”

“Are you mad?” Theo demanded harshly.

“No, I am neither mad nor fevered. See if he carries a pistol, Martin, if you please!”

“By all means! You will find that I am quite unarmed!”

Martin moved away from the door, and went behind him, feeling his pockets. He shook his head. “No: nothing.”

The Earl lowered his own pistol. “Then, between us, we will settle this affair,” he said.

“Are you, in all seriousness, accusing me — me! — of having tried to murder you?” Theo said. “It is preposterous! a sick man’s fantasy!”

“I had rather have called it a nightmare, Theo.”

“What, in God’s name, have I to gain by your death?”

“Nothing, if Martin were not implicated in it. If it could be made to appear that he had murdered me, everything you most care for!”

“If this is not madness, it must be fever! Was it I who resented your existence? Was it I who openly wished you had been killed in Spain? Or was it I who took care of your interests, and warned you, when you first came home to Stanyon, to be on your guard?”

“Were they my interests, Theo, or did you see them as your own?”

Martin, who had coloured vividly at his cousin’s words, interrupted, stammering a little. “Yes, I did resent his existence! I d-daresay I may have said I wished he had been killed! I don’t know! it’s very possible! But I never meant — I would never, even then,when I scarcely knew him, have tried to murder him!”

“Indeed?” Theo said swiftly. “Have you, as well as Gervase, forgotten what I saw when the button was lost from your foil? Were you not trying to murder him then?”

“No, no! I lost my temper — I did try for one moment —

But I wouldn’t have — Gervase, you made me go on fighting! I had recollected myself long before you disarmed me! I wasn’t trying to kill you!”

“My dear Martin, I know very well you would have dropped your point at a word from me. It was mistaken of me not to have spoken that word. But I did not then guess that I was helping you to build up evidence against yourself.” He smiled faintly. “You scarcely needed help, did you? If you had had to stand your trial for murder, I wonder if the jury would have reflected that your open hostility to me made it very unlikely that you could ever have had the least intention of killing me?”

“No!” Martin muttered. “You suspected me!”

“Yes, after the first attempt, I did suspect you, for that would have seemed to have been an accident, I thought.”

“First attempt?” Martin exclaimed. “Was there more than one, then?”

“Yes, there was more than one!” Theo struck in. “There was a broken bridge, Martin, which you knew of, and never mentioned to Gervase, though you knew he would ride over it! It was I who saved him that time! I think you have forgotten that, St. Erth!”

“Nonsense, Theo! Even had you thought I should be drowned, I am sure you would have called me back. Martin could have been accused of nothing worse than carelessness. He neither broke the bridge, nor sent me to ride over it.”

“Did I also stretch a cord across your path? If there were any truth in your suspicions, that incident alone must prove my innocence! You yourself have said that it would have seemed an accident! How might that have served my ends?”

“I said that so I thought at the time,” replied the Earl gently. “But if chance had not intervened, in the person of Miss Morville, not only should I have been despatched, but I think you would have contrived to supply evidence against Martin. Did you not do so once before?”

“When?” demanded Martin sharply.

Theo uttered a bark of laughter. “You may well ask!”

“On the night of the storm,” said Gervase, “when I am very sure that you entered my room by way of the secret stair, and dropped one of Martin’s handkerchiefs beside my bed.”

“Why — why — that night?” Martin exclaimed. “The night I went to Cheringham? I remember that you gave me back a handkerchief! You said I had dropped it. I thought you meant I had done so on the gallery!”

The Earl shook his head. “I found it in my room. I think you meant only to leave it if you succeeded in accomplishing your purpose, Theo. Perhaps you were startled by the slamming of the door which must have roused me. Was that it? Or was it my awakening that alarmed you?”

“Really, Gervase, this goes beyond the line of what is amusing! What possible grounds can you have for assuming that because you fancied you heard someone in your room, and later found a handkerchief of Martin’s by your bed, it must have been I who had been there? It is nothing but a wild story imagined by you to lend colour to the rest of your absurd suspicions!”

“Not quite,” answered Gervase. “I have an excellent memory, Theo. I recall very vividly what passed between us on the following day. How was it that, although you had warned me to beware of Martin, you did not, when I told you that I believed him to have been in my room that night, warn me that there was a way into the room of which I knew nothing?”

There was a moment’s silence before Theo retorted: “Good God, how should I have guessed that you were ignorant of it? That old stair! I never even thought of it!”

“That won’t fadge!” Martin interrupted. “If Gervase told you someone had entered his room, you must have thought of it!”

“Perhaps I set as little store then by Gervase’s imaginings as I do now,” Theo said, with a contemptuous smile.

“Yet it was you who set my imagination to work,” said Gervase. He moved slowly back to the chair he had vacated, and sat down, as though he were very tired. “This is all so useless, Theo! Let us make an end! I know that you have three times tried to dispose both of me and of my heir. My death can benefit no one but Martin; if he was not guilty of the attempts on my life, who but you could have been?”

“Yes!” Martin said impetuously. “I knew that, but you did not! That night I did come to your room by way of the secret stair — you didn’t believe what I told you! You would not allow me to come near you again! How could you think I would skulk in some bush to shoot you unawares? I didn’t behave well towards you — I said things I ought not to have said! — but, my God, if I meant to kill my greatest enemy it would be in fair fight!”

“Yes, Martin, I know. I did believe what you told me, but I found it impossible to believe that the one person at Stanyon whom I had thought to be my friend could have all the time been plotting my death.” He paused, and for an instant he looked at his cousin, standing rigid and silent on the other side of the table. Then he added, with a slight smile: “Even when I was in no case to think at all, it did occur to me that had it been you who shot me you would not have missed your mark! For the rest, nothing was certain, nothing proved. When I refused to permit you to come near me, I was acting only on a suspicion I would, God knows! have been glad to have seen refuted! But if it was true, both your safety and mine, while I was so helpless, lay in letting it be known that you had never, for one instant, had access to my room. I suppose I had then no doubt of the truth. I hardly know. I would have given so much to have had my suspicions refuted! No, I don’t mean that I would have preferred to have known that you were my would-be assassin! Not that! Nothing, in fact, that was possible, or that I could explain to you. I told myself I must wait for some proof that you had told me the truth — something more sure than what Theo had called my imaginings. When I knew beyond doubting that it was not you who had tried to kill me, then I waited until I had decided what was best to be done, and until I should be well enough to settle the affair alone.”

“May I know when it was that you knew — beyond doubting — that it was not Martin who tried to kill you?” enquired Theo sardonically.

“When I realized that he had introduced a Bow Street Runner into my household,” replied the Earl, with a gleam of amusement. “With instructions to dog my every step!”

“You guessed it!” Martin ejaculated. “How? What made you think it?”

“My dear boy! It was patent! I am aware that poor Lucy darkly suspects of him being a hired assassin, but I could conceive of nothing more unlikely! I am afraid you will have to forgive me: I served him a very scurvy trick today! But if I had not obliged him to accompany me, I am very sure he would have followed me on horseback, and the last thing I desire is to have an officer of the law meddling in this business. I conclude that by some means unknown to me he contrived to reach Stanyon far sooner than I had supposed he could, or you would not have galloped that bay of yours into a lather in your gallant but misguided attempt to preserve me from an untimely end!”

Martin blushed, but said in a brooding tone: “It was Hickling’s notion that I should make use of his precious uncle! He was a Runner, but he ain’t now, of course, and no wonder! Much use he has been to me! To be taken in by such a child’s trick! Good God! The only thing he did, and I suppose it doesn’t prove anything, was to find a button that was torn from my shooting-jacket not five yards from where I told you I was struck down, that day when you were shot. If I was dragged clear of the undergrowth, before being hoisted up by — ” He paused, and cast a smouldering glance at Theo — “by you,my dear cousin! — it must have been torn off then! He found signs, too, that a horse had stood for some time within the wood. But that don’t prove much either! I know it could be explained away!”

“I don’t doubt that it was Theo who hid his gig, when I had parted from him, and thought him on the road to this place; waited for you; stunned you; left your gun and your shot-belt to be found; and carried you off in the gig. Evesleigh is not so far from Wisbech, and I have discovered that he did not arrive here until evening. You will tell me, perhaps, that you visited outlying parts of my estates, Theo, which made you late. Don’t! I should not believe you, and I would so much prefer you to tell me no more lies! Had you killed me, had there been a hue and cry after Martin, and he had told that story, it must have been thought the wildest and stupidest attempt to escape justice that ever was heard! But you didn’t kill me; there was no hue and cry. The story was told only to us, and although some of us disbelieved it I did not. Its very improbability made me think it the truth. What a risk you took, Theo! If some chance wayfarer had discovered him before he had rid himself of the bonds you so carefully loosened — ! It could have happened, you know. And if I did not die, surely you must have known that it would not be long before Martin at least realized the truth!”

“Well, I did, of course, though not quite at once,” admitted Martin. “It seemed so impossible that Theo could have done such a thing to you! Only, I knew I had not, so there was no one else! And when I had had leisure to think about my having been kidnapped in such a way, naturally I began to see how it must have been! I knew it had been done so that I should be blamed for your death, but I never guessed the whole! Nor that he would not harm you if I could not be blamed! It is the most infamous thing! It was bad enough when I only thought he had kidnapped me to save himself from being suspected! All I thought was that he would kill you, if he could, and very likely me too, but not like that! Later — when all the scandal had been forgotten! That’s why I hired Leek — at least, it is in part! I thought he might be able to discover some proof that it was Theo, and not me! For what was the use of telling you what I suspected, when you were hand-in-glove with Theo, and seemed not to believe a word I said? I’m not such a gudgeon, either, as not to have known that Chard was spying on me! In fact, I made sure you had ordered him to!”

“I had,” said the Earl. “Not, however, for any other reason than to safeguard you in case of accident. From the moment of your return to Stanyon until today, when you seem, very unwisely, to have given Chard the slip, I provided you with a witness who must have testified on your behalf had anything happened to me.”

“I never thought of that!” Martin said, much struck. “I must say, St. Erth, it was devilish handsome of you! When that fool, Leek, told me you had come here, and alone, I did wonder if I should not tell Chard the whole, and bring him with me. But then I thought he would very likely not believe a word of it, and prevent my coming after you into the bargain, so I gave him the bag. I suppose, if I had had time to consider, I need not have come at all, for Theo would never dare to harm you here! The thing was, it gave me the devil of a shock, when Leek told me! I thought you had been hoaxed, like everyone else, and anything might happen to you! Coming here quite alone like this! St. Erth, why did you?”

The Earl regarded his signet-ring for a moment. When he raised his eyes, it was at his cousin that he looked, not at Martin. He replied in a low voice: “To tell him that I knew. To put an end to it all, if I could, without divulging the truth to anyone. Here I could say what had to be said without fearing that your Runner’s ear might be glued to the keyhole. If I had sent for Theo to come to Stanyon, what a damnable situation must have been created! He could not have remained there, nor I have wished him to. You were already suspicious; so, I fancy, was one other. Lucy, the servants — they would all have thought it an odd circumstance if I were to have sent for Theo only to dismiss him within the hour! Well! You have frustrated a part of my design, but we can still prevent this affair from becoming generally known.”

“I don’t see that!” Martin objected scowling.

“I was afraid you would not,” said the Earl, dryly.

“It’s very well for you!” Martin said. “No one thinks you have been trying to murder anyone! Pray what about me?”

“Since the only certain information anyone outside Stanyon has is that I was shot by a man in homespuns, I fancy the accident will soon be forgotten. If it is seen that you and I stand upon very good terms, it will be concluded that whatever rumours were rife had no foundation in fact. I collect, from Dr. Malpas, that some of the rumours are so wild that already people are beginning to shrug up their shoulders, and to disbelieve the whole. Certain persons must be told, of course: Lucy, Chard, Miss Morville (though I think she knows already), but as for the world at large — let it think what it chooses! it will not long think you had anything to do with my accident.”

“But do you mean to do nothing?”Martin said indignantly. “He ought to be brought to justice!”

Theo, who had walked away to the fireplace, said over his shoulder: “You have imagined an ingenious story. Does it occur to you that not one word of it can you prove?”

“We’ll try that!” Martin flung at him.

“Not if I have my way,” interposed the Earl. “What, brandish this abominable affair in a criminal court? Set ourselves up to provide the vulgar with a nine-days wonder to gape at and exclaim over? I thank you, Martin, no!”

Martin was silenced. Theo said, in his usual, level tone: “You feel, then, that it would be possible to have me arrested, do you, Gervase? Does your fancy even lead you to suppose that I could be convicted on this evidence?”

“I could have you arrested. I think you would be acquitted. But it would ruin you, Theo.”

“I must suppose that it is your intention to ruin me.”

“No, it isn’t my intention, or my desire. I would prefer to send you to Jamaica.”

“Eh?” said Martin, startled.

Gervase turned his head. “Why not? Let him go out to manage the West Indian property! He himself has frequently said that he believed it to be ill-run; neither of us can doubt his ability to manage an estate.”

“But the West Indian property is mine!”

“Yes, and yours must therefore be the deciding voice.”

“Well, but — Of course, he can’t remain at Stanyon!”

“No.”

“I must say, that to be putting him in charge of anything,after what he has tried to do to us, seems to me the craziest notion I ever heard! However, if he can’t remain at Stanyon — and that he certainly cannot! — I daresay it may be best to send him to Jamaica. It would be bound to create a deal of talk and conjecture if he left us, and was still in England. Everyone would know there must have been something devilish bad to account for it, and I’m at one with you in wanting to hush the business up. Dash it, Gervase, it makes me as sick as a horse to think of a thing like this happening amongst us Frants! You had better do as you choose about it, I suppose!”

“Then will you, if you please, go and tell them to put my horses to, Martin?”

Martin glanced undecidedly at his cousin. “Well — ”

He caught the Earl’s eye, said, rather crossly: “Oh, as you please!” and walked out of the room.

There was a long silence. The Earl was absently studying the mountings of his pistol, a frown between his brows; and Theo continued for a full minute to stare down into the fire. He moved at last, and came back to the chair behind the table. He began mechanically to tidy the papers before him into heaps, saying in an expressionless voice: “I hope my successor will do as well by you as I have done.”

The Earl raised his eyes. “It is unlikely. I know that Stanyon has never had one who served it better, or loved it more. Alas, Theo! My father did you an ill turn, did he not?”

Their eyes met. After a moment Theo’s dropped to the pistol in his cousin’s hand. “Oh, put that thing away!” he said.

The Earl slid it into his pocket. “Go to Jamaica!” he said. “If my father, instead of bringing you up to think only of Stanyon, had given you this place, or some other, to have called your own! — if you would have let me repair his omissions — ! But it is all too late!”

“I never wanted anything either he or you would have given me!” Theo said.

“No. I suppose it became an obsession with you, a madness! And lately — forgive me! — there was an added reason, was there not?”

He saw Theo fling up a hand, and was silent. After a pause, Theo said heavily: “And if I go to Jamaica — what then?”

“Oh!” Gervase said, smiling, “you will turn the property into a flourishing concern, and then, I have no doubt, you will yourself become a landowner there, and a prosperous one, for you were born to succeed, Theo!”

Theo gave one of his short laughs. “You are a strange creature, Gervase!”

“No, why? I remember only a cousin who took care of my interests, of whom I was fond. The rest will be forgotten.” He got up, as he heard the sound of horses on the carriage-sweep. “I think I had better go, or we shall have Martin coming to fetch me. The West Indian business shall be settled as speedily as I can contrive. Good-bye — and God speed!”

He left the room before Theo could reply. Martin was waiting for him below the steps, seated in his curricle. “I’ve told Theo’s man I’ll send over to fetch the bay tomorrow. I am going to drive you home!” Martin announced belligerently. “I don’t want you laid up again, and you’re looking as queer as Dick’s hatband, let me tell you!”

“Thank you,” said Gervase meekly, climbing into the curricle.

“What did he say to you? Did he admit it?” Martin asked, setting the grays in motion.

“To tell the truth,” said Gervase, “we did not speak of it.”

“Good God! Well, does he mean to go to Jamaica?”

“Oh, yes!”

“He may count himself fortunate! And who is to fill his place? What a pickle it all is! He was devilish good at looking after our affairs, you know!”

“I fancy you might become as good.”

“I?” Martin exclaimed. “Are you asking me to become your agent?”

“No, that would be unsuitable. I shall employ an agent, but Theo was more than that. You could do much that he did — if you chose to!”

“If I chose to! Why, there’s nothing I’d liefer do!” Martin said. He added, in a burst of unwonted humility: “Mind, I may make mistakes! But if I do — I mean, when I do! — you will just have to tell me!”