  All the next week Bevis lay desperately ill, and in the gravest danger. Every morning Dr. Tremayne motored over to Grimbal's Farm to see him, and arrived back with the same unsatisfactory report. Mavis and Merle, who waited anxiously for the daily bulletin, would run in from school at lunch-time hoping for better news. When Saturday came round again they begged to be allowed to go to Chagmouth as usual. "We wouldn't be a scrap of bother to Mrs. Penruddock," said Mavis. "If Jessop may give us some lunch we could eat it on the cliffs or in the woods." "That's a great idea," declared Uncle David. "I'll do the same to-day. Jessop shall make us up a lunch basket, and we'll all have a picnic meal together somewhere before I go up to the Sanatorium. It will certainly save them trouble at the farm. Mrs. Penruddock won't want to do any cooking for us, I'm sure, when she's so busy nursing." As they motored along towards Chagmouth, the girls felt strongly, what had sometimes struck them before, that it was good to belong to a Doctor's family, and to be taking skilled help where it was so greatly "He's still very ill. I can't get his temperature down. But I'm trying different treatment, and we must see what that will do. I'm glad I shall be about the place to-day. They know where to find me if they want me." Dr. Tremayne went into his surgery to attend to the string of other patients who were waiting for him, and Mavis and Merle sat in the little front garden, on the green bench under the fuchsia tree outside the French window. They had not the heart to go for a walk. Mrs. Penruddock, kind as usual, but overwhelmed with trouble, had greeted them, and taken them upstairs for one brief peep at the invalid. They had not gone inside the room, but from the doorway they had seen Bevis lying in bed with ice on his head, so thin and changed and hollow-eyed, that he scarcely looked like their old friend. As they sat in the garden, talking in undertones, the gate clicked, and Tudor Williams came up the path to the door—such a subdued Tudor, without any of his former jauntiness and gay flippancy of manner. When he saw the girls he crossed the grass and shook hands with them. "I've come to ask about the poor chap," he said quietly. "Mother sent down a message to Dr. Tremayne to say that if there's anything we can do "Thanks very much, we'll tell Uncle David. Oh, there's Mrs. Penruddock! Perhaps you'd better speak to her and give her the message. There might be something wanted at once." Mrs. Penruddock had come into the parlour, and now walked to the French window to meet Tudor, who inquired about Bevis, and explained his errand. She mopped her eyes as she thanked him. "I'm sure people have all been so kind," she gulped. "Everything that can be done has been done. But there he lies rolling his head on his pillow, and talking for ever about the 'curse of Cain'. He can't get it out of his mind but what he's murdered you. It seems no use telling him. He just listens, and goes on again how he knows you're lying dead on the cliff. I wonder if he saw you if it would put that right? Could I ask you to step up to his bedroom for a minute, and let him have a look at you, and see for himself that you're alive?" "Oh, may I?" said Tudor, passing through the French window into the parlour, and following Mrs. Penruddock upstairs. He came down again after perhaps five minutes, and, big manly boy though he was, his eyes were red, and his voice was choking. "I'd no idea the poor chap was in such a state," he burst out to Mavis and Merle. "It's awful to see Mavis and Merle were rather glad that they were not having lunch to-day at the farm. Mrs. Penruddock was busy and upset, and though many neighbours had come in to help her, nobody seemed to know exactly what to do, and they sat in the kitchen talking and shaking their heads. "Just like a set of old crows. As if that could do Bevis any good!" exclaimed Mavis rather impatiently. "They're telling each other all sorts of tales about early deaths and funerals. Nice cheerful kind of conversation for a sick-house," agreed Merle. Of course as they were in a hurry to get away, Dr. Tremayne had more patients than usual, and was detained a long time in the surgery. They waited for him in the garden, where the lilac bush under Bevis's window was already breaking into blossom, and swallows were darting past. To-morrow would be Palm Sunday, and next week was Easter week, and Father and Mother would be coming down to Durracombe "Are they going to take us back with them to Whinburn?" speculated Merle. "I don't know! I've asked Mother in almost every letter, and she's not answered my question." "I'm torn in two!" "So am I. I want Dad and Mother, and yet I don't want to leave dear Devonshire." "Or Uncle David?" "No. I've got real right-down fond of Uncle David. He's a darling! There's nobody else in the world exactly like him." Dr. Tremayne worked through his list of waiting patients at last, and went round to the stackyard to fetch his car. Mavis and Merle jumped joyfully in, and they drove away up the hill. They went in the opposite direction to the Sanatorium because the Doctor had a visit to pay at a farm, and he wished to combine with it a call on Mrs. Jarvis, whose cottage would be close by his destination. The manager of Trotman's Circus had sent some few possessions which had belonged to her son Jerry, and they had brought the parcel with them in the car. "We'll have our lunch first," decreed Uncle David, "then we'll go and see the poor old body afterwards. I want something to eat before I interview any more patients." "If I'd only time, I'd go skirmishing all over Devonshire. It's my ideal of a holiday, to motor just where you like, and not have to think of your surgery," admitted Dr. Tremayne, throwing pine cones at the girls, and behaving quite boyishly in spite of his sixty-five years. "Can't Daddy take surgery for you while he's over and give you a rest?" suggested Merle. "I'm sure he'd help if he could." "It's rather a brain wave. Perhaps he might," said Dr. Tremayne thoughtfully. "I'm growing a little tired of being perpetually in harness. When a man gets to my age he begins to crave for some leisure. I've been trying for the last three years to write a book on 'The Treatment of Tuberculosis', but I can't find the time to do it. Directly I begin somebody rings up and wants me to go and see them." "I should smash the horrid old telephone and then they couldn't ring you up," laughed Merle. "That's all right, little Pussie, but they'd send a messenger to fetch me instead, so it would come to just the same thing in the end." "Why do doctors always go?" "Because people can't do without us, I suppose. "I know; that's what Daddy always says," put in Mavis. "He comes in tired to death, and goes out again in a snowstorm because the case is serious. I think doctors are just the best and kindest men in all the world." They were quite sorry to leave the wood and go back to the car, but time was creeping on fast. Dr. Tremayne paid his visit at Clavedon Farm, then drove on to Mrs. Jarvis's cottage, which was close by. The girls took the parcel between them, and they all three walked together up the little garden to the open door. They found Mrs. Jarvis sitting in her kitchen with a neighbour to keep her company. Since the death of her son the postwoman had failed greatly, and for the last week she had not undertaken her duties in connection with the pillar-box. To-day she seemed hysterical and excited. She sprang up at the sight of Dr. Tremayne, and began a loud complaint of pains in her head, mixed up with lamentations on the death of General Talland. "She's been like this all the week, Doctor," explained the neighbour. "She's not fit to be left alone. Ever since she heard the news about General Talland, she's been going on with this wild talk. We take no notice of her. He's nothing to her. It's just one of those queer fancies she gets sometimes. She'll perhaps calm down again." SHE REACHED DOWN INTO SOME DARK RECEPTACLE AND DREW UP A BROWN-PAPER PARCEL At the mention of her son the poor woman's excitable mood changed; instead of shouting she spoke more quietly, and her eyes filled with tears as she turned over the trifles that had been sent to her. "Jerry! My boy Jerry!" she murmured. "I always said he'd come back. He oughtn't to have gone and left me—ought he? And he took—I never told anyone what he took! He was a bad son to me." "Never mind that now he's dead and gone," put in the neighbour. "Ay, he's dead and gone, and so is General Talland, so is General Talland." "She's off again on that point," groaned the neighbour. But Mrs. Jarvis was looking at Dr. Tremayne with a curious craftiness in her eyes. "General Talland's gone," she repeated. "And I hear they've to go a long way to find an heir to the property. What if there was an heir close at hand—here in Chagmouth?" "What do you mean?" asked the Doctor. "Ay, what do I mean? I'm not so demented as some folks think me. There's something that I could tell if I liked. I wouldn't have said a word if he'd a-lived, but he's dead and gone, so it makes no difference to him now if I speak. Sit you down, Doctor, and the young ladies too! I may as well tell it to plenty of witnesses while I'm about it. Do you remember, "I remember," nodded Dr. Tremayne. "Well, I swore at the inquest that she died without saying a word, but I swore false. I was left alone with her for just one minute in the parlour while Mrs. Tingcomb fetched more brandy, and Mr. Tingcomb sent Bob hurrying on his bicycle to Durracombe with a message for you. In that minute she got her breath. She knew that she was going fast, and she gasped out that she'd come to Chagmouth to find General Talland, that she'd been married secret to his son, and that the child was the heir. 'I've all the papers', says she, but then the faintness took her again, and though Mrs. Tingcomb ran in and gave her brandy she never come round." "But I thought at the inquest it was distinctly said there were no papers. I remember that point of the evidence particularly," said the Doctor. "There were none in her handbag or in her portmanteau. She had them all in a hanging pocket slung round her waist under her dress skirt. I found them when I was laying her out. I put them by, and said nothing about it just then. I meant to give folks a big surprise at the inquest. I took them home and looked them over. There was forty pounds in notes amongst them. My poor boy Jerry was lying in bed asleep, as I thought, but he must have been watching "This is a most extraordinary story," said Dr. Tremayne. "If it's true have you anything to prove your words? Where are these papers you speak of?" "Those that hide can find! May I trouble you to shift your chair, Doctor?" Mrs. Jarvis moved away several pieces of furniture, and lifted first the hearthrug, and then part of the oilcloth that covered the floor. There was a loose board underneath; she raised it, "They're all as she said, Doctor. There's her wedding certificate and the birth certificate, and letters from her husband too. You'll find them all right. She'd everything in order, poor thing. They'd have made a stir at the inquest, wouldn't they, if I could only 'a told about them?" Dr. Tremayne was looking rapidly through the contents of the old linen case. "These are indeed most valuable papers," he "Better late than never, Doctor. I was in two minds whether to burn them and have done with it. Oh, my poor boy Jerry! It's ill raking up matters against them that's gone. If he'd been alive, I'd have kept my mouth shut, and never have said a word." Mrs. Jarvis was rocking herself to and fro in a state of great excitement. She was sane enough where a recollection of the events at the King's Arms was concerned, but her clouded brain revolved round the pivot of her son's death. She moaned, and twitched her mouth with nervous jerks. "I'll make her up a bottle of bromide mixture when I get back to the surgery," said Dr. Tremayne to the neighbour. "Can you send one of your boys down for it about six o'clock? She oughtn't to be left alone." "No, Doctor. I'll do what I can. She's in a bad way, poor soul. There's a lot of trouble in the world, isn't there?" "There is indeed! Now I must hurry off, for I'm due at the Sanatorium, and I'm very late. Give her the mixture, and I'll call and see her again next week." Dr. Tremayne put the linen case inside his safest inner pocket, and took his departure. As they drove down the hill towards the ravine all the little town and "Uncle David," asked Mavis, "if those papers are proved does it mean that The Warren and the whole of Chagmouth will belong to Bevis? Is he the grandson of General Talland?" "There seems very little doubt about it. It was evidence that ought to have been given at the inquest fourteen years ago. Poor lad! Poor lad! If we'd only known sooner." "But why did his mother call herself Mrs. Hunter?" "Probably she wouldn't care to give her true name at the hotel until she had been to see General Talland. The marriage had been kept secret, and nobody in Chagmouth knew about it. No doubt she had intended to go to The Warren and show her child to its grandfather. But General Talland had started for the West Indies. It was perhaps the news of his absence, and the consequent failure of her errand, that brought on the heart attack that caused her sudden collapse." "So Chagmouth belongs to Bevis," repeated Merle wonderingly. "The house, and the grounds, and the woods, and the shooting, and the farms, and the town are Bevis's. It's like a fairy tale!" But the heir to all the Talland Estate lay between life and death. |
|
