Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [epub ebook reader .TXT] 📗

>things as men of the world. It is your duty to ascertain by whom this

poison has been administered, in order to protect yourself from the

attacks of your insidious destroyer. If you will follow my advice, you

will do this; if, on the other hand, you elect to shut your eyes to the

danger that assails you, I can only tell you that you will most

assuredly pay for your folly by the forfeit of your life.”

 

“What am I to do?” asked Douglas.

 

“You say that your habits of life are almost rigid in their regularity.

You always breakfast in your own chambers; you always dine and take

your after-dinner coffee in the house of one particular friend. With

the exception of a biscuit and a glass of sherry taken sometimes at

your club, these two meals are all you take during the day. It is,

therefore, an indisputable fact, that poison has bee a administered at

one or other of these two meals. Your old butler serves one—the

servants of your friend prepare the other. Either in your own chambers,

or in your friend’s house, you have a hidden foe. It is for you to find

out where that foe lurks.”

 

“Not in her house,” gasped Douglas, unconsciously betraying the depth

of his feeling and the sex of his friend; “not in hers. It must be

Jarvis whom I have to fear—and yet, no, I cannot believe it. My

father’s old servant—a man who used to carry me in his arms when I was

a boy!”

 

“You may easily set the question of his guilt or innocence at rest, Mr.

Dale,” answered Dr. Westbrook. “Contrive to separate yourself from him

for a time. If during that time you find your symptoms cease, you will

have the strongest evidence of his guilt; if they still continue, you

must look elsewhere.”

 

“I will take your advice,” replied Douglas, with a weary sigh;

“anything is better than suspense.”

 

Little more was said.

 

As Douglas walked slowly from the physician’s house to the Phoenix

Club, he meditated profoundly on the subject of his interview with Dr.

Westbrook.

 

“Who is the traitor?” he asked himself. “Who? Unhappily there can be no

doubt about it. Jarvis is the guilty wretch.”

 

It was with unspeakable pain that Douglas Dale contemplated the idea of

his old servant’s guilt: his old servant, who had seemed a model of

fidelity and devotion!

 

This very man had attended the deathbed of the rector—Douglas Dale’s

father—had been recommended by that father to the care of his two

sons, had exhibited every appearance of intense grief at the loss of

his master.

 

What could he think, except that Jarvis was guilty? There was but one

other direction in which he could look for guilt, and there surely it

could not be found.

 

Who in Hilton House had any interest in his death, except that one

person who was above the possibility of suspicion?

 

He sat by his solitary breakfast-table on the morning after his

interview with the physician, and watched Jarvis as he moved to and

fro, waiting on his master with what seemed affectionate attention.

 

Douglas ate little. A failing appetite had been one of the symptoms

that accompanied the low fever from which he had lately suffered.

 

This morning, depression of spirits rendered him still less inclined to

eat.

 

He was thinking of Jarvis and of the past—those careless, happy,

childish days, in which this man had been second only to his own

kindred in his boyish affection.

 

While he meditated gravely upon this most painful subject, deliberating

as to the manner in which he should commence a conversation that was

likely to be a very serious one, he happened to look up, and perceived

that he was watched by the man he had been lately watching. His eyes

met the gaze of his old servant, and he beheld a strange earnestness in

that gaze.

 

The old man did not flinch on meeting his master’s glance.

 

“I beg your pardon for looking at you so hard, Mr. Douglas,” he said;

“but I was thinking about you very serious, sir, when you looked up.”

 

“Indeed, Jarvis, and why?”

 

“Why you see, sir, it was about your appetite as I was thinking. It’s

fallen off dreadful within the last few weeks. The poor breakfastes as

you eats is enough to break a man’s heart. And you don’t know the pains

as I take, sir, to tempt you in the way of breakfastes. That fish, sir,

I fetched from Grove’s this morning with my own hands. They comes up in

a salt-water tank in the bottom of their own boat, sir, as lively as if

they was still in their natural eleming, Grove’s fish do. But they

might be red herrings for any notice as you take of ‘em. You’re not

yourself, Mr. Douglas, that’s what it is. You’re ill, Mr. Douglas, and

you ought to see a doctor. Excuse my presumption, sir, in making these

remarks; but if an old family servant that has nursed you on his knees

can’t speak free, who can?”

 

“True,” Douglas answered with a sigh; “I was a very small boy when you

carried me on your shoulders to many a country fair, and you were very

good to me, Jarvis.”

 

“Only my dooty, sir,” muttered the old man.

 

“You are right, Jarvis, as to my health—I am ill.”

 

“Then you’ll send for a doctor, surely, Mr. Douglas.”

 

“I have already seen a doctor.”

 

“And what do he say, sir?”

 

“He says my case is very serious.”

 

“Oh, Mr. Douglas, don’t ‘ee say that, don’t ‘ee say that,” cried the

old man, in extreme distress.

 

“I can only tell you the truth, Jarvis,” answered Douglas: “but there

is no occasion for despair. The physician tells me that my case is a

grave one, but he does not say that it is hopeless.”

 

“Why don’t ‘ee consult another doctor, Mr. Douglas,” said Jarvis;

“perhaps that one ain’t up to his work. If it’s such a difficult case,

you ought to go to all the best doctors in London, till you find the

one that can cure you. A fine, well-grown young gentleman like you

oughtn’t to have much the matter with him. I don’t see as it can be

very serious.”

 

“I don’t know about that, Jarvis; but in any case I have resolved upon

doing something for you.”

 

“For me, sir! Lor’ bless your generous heart, I don’t want nothing in

this mortal world.”

 

“But you may, Jarvis,” replied Douglas. “You have already been told

that I have provided for you in case of my death.”

 

“Yes, sir, you was so good as to say you had left me an annuity, and it

was very kind of you to think of such a thing, and I’m duly thankful.

But still you see, sir, I can’t help looking at it in the light of a

kind of joke, sir; for it ain’t in human nature that an old chap like

me is going to outlive a young gentleman like you; and Lord forbid that

it should be in human nature for such a thing to happen.”

 

“We never know what may happen, Jarvis. At any rate, I have provided

against the worst. But as you are getting old, and have worked hard all

your life, I think you must want rest; so, instead of putting you off

till my death, I shall give you your annuity at once, and you may

retire into a comfortable little house of your own, and live the life

of an elderly gentleman, with a decent little income, as soon as you

please.”

 

To the surprise of Douglas Dale, the old man’s countenance expressed

only grief and mortification on hearing an announcement which his

master had supposed would have been delightful to him.

 

“Begging your pardon, sir,” he faltered; “but have you seen a younger

servant as you like better and as could serve you better, than poor

old Jarvis?”

 

“No, indeed,” answered Douglas, “I have seen no such person. Nor do I

believe that any one in the world could serve me as well as you.”

 

“Then why do you want to change, sir?”

 

“I don’t want to change. I only want to make you happy, Jarvis.”

 

“Then make me happy by letting me stay with you,” pleaded the old

servant. “Let me stay, sir. Don’t talk about annuities. I want nothing

from you but the pleasure of waiting on my dear old master’s son. It’s

as much delight to me to wait upon you now as it was to me twenty years

ago to carry you to the country fairs on my shoulder. Ah, we did have

rare times of it then, didn’t we, sir? Let me stay, and when I die give

me a grave somewhere hard by where you live; and if, once in a way,

when you pass the churchyard where I lay, you should give a sigh, and

say, ‘Poor old Jarvis!’ that will be a full reward to me for having

loved you so dear ever since you was a baby.”

 

Was this acting? Was this the perfect simulation of an accomplished

hypocrite? No, no, no; Douglas Dale could not believe it.

 

The tears came into his eyes; he extended his hand, and grasped that of

his old servant.

 

“You shall stay with me, Jarvis,” he said; “and I will trust you with

all my heart.”

 

Douglas Dale left his chambers soon after that conversation, and went

straight to Dr. Westbrook, to whom he gave a fall account of the

interview.

 

“I have tested the old man thoroughly,” he said, in conclusion; “and I

believe him to be fidelity itself.”

 

“You have tested him, Mr. Dale! stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed the

practical physician. “You surely don’t call that sentimental

conversation a test? If the man is capable of being a slow poisoner, he

is, of course, capable of acting a part, and shedding crocodile’s tears

in evidence of his devoted affection for the master whose biliary

organs he is deranging by the administration of antimony, or aconite.

If you want to test the man thoroughly, test him in my way. Contrive to

eat your breakfast elsewhere for a week or two; touch nothing, not so

much as a glass of water, in your own chambers; and if at the end of

that time the symptoms have ceased, you will know what to think of that

pattern of fidelity—Mr. Jarvis.”

 

Douglas promised to take the doctor’s advice. He was convinced of his

servant’s innocence; but he wanted to put that question beyond doubt.

 

But if Jarvis was indeed innocent, where was the guilty wretch to be

found?

 

Douglas Dale dined at Hilton House upon the evening after his interview

with Dr. Westbrook, as he had done without intermission for several

weeks. He found Paulina tender and affectionate, as she had ever been

of late, since respect and esteem for her lover’s goodness had

developed into a warmer feeling.

 

“Douglas,” she said, on this particular evening, when they were alone

together for a few minutes after dinner, “your health has not improved

as much as I had hoped it would under the treatment of your doctor. I

wish you would consult some one else.”

 

She spoke lightly, for she feared to alarm the patient by any

appearance of fear on her part. She knew how physical disease may be

augmented by mental agitation. Her tone, therefore, was one of assumed

carelessness.

 

To-night Douglas Dale’s mind was peculiarly sensitive to every

impression. Something in that assumed tone struck strangely upon his

ear.