Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [classic literature books txt] 📗

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. For the first time since he had known her, the voice of the woman he loved, seemed to him to have a false sound in its clear, ringing tones.

An icy terror suddenly took possession of his mind.

What if this woman--this woman, whom he loved with such intense affection--what if she were something other than she seemed! What if her heart had never been his--her love never withdrawn from the reprobate upon whom she had once bestowed it! What if her tender glances, her affectionate words, her graceful, caressing manner, were all a comedy, of which he was the dupe! What if--

"I am the victim of treachery," he thought to himself; "but the traitor cannot be here. Oh, no, no! let me find the traitor anywhere rather than here."

Paulina watched her lover as he sat with his eyes fixed on the ground, absorbed in gloomy meditation.

Presently he looked up suddenly, and addressed her.