Tristram of Blent Part 13

Harry came to where the horse was, and stood there for a moment, while the groom altered the stirrups to suit him.

"It's the beginning of the end, if not the end itself," he said.

"Our earnest good wishes to her."

"My love," said Janie. Her father glanced quickly at her.

Harry jumped into the saddle, waved his hand to them, and started at a gallop for Blent. The groom, with another touch of his hat, trudged off in his master's track. Janie Iver stood looking as long as Harry was in sight.

"He won't spare the horse," said Iver.

"Well, he can't this time; and anyhow he wouldn't, if he wanted to get there." She took her father's arm and pressed it. "Father, Harry Tristram has just asked me to marry him. He said Lady Tristram wanted it settled before--before she died, or he wouldn't have spoken so soon."

"Well, Janie dear?"

"When the groom came, I had just told him that I would give him an answer in a week. But now!" She made a gesture with her free hand; it seemed to mean bewilderment. She could not tell what would happen now.

VIII

DUTY AND MR. NEELD

When Mina Zabriska brought back the news from Fairholme, and announced it with an intensity of significance which the sudden aggravation of an illness long known to be mortal hardly accounted for, Major Duplay grew very solemn. The moment for action approached, and the nearer it came, the less was the Major satisfied with his position and resources. The scene by the Pool had taught him that he would have a stiff fight. He had been hard hit by Harry's shrewd suggestion that he must ask Iver himself for the means of proving what he meant to tell Iver. The only alternative, however, was to procure money for the necessary investigations from his niece; and his niece, though comfortably off, was not rich. Nor was she any longer zealous in the cause. The Imp was sulky and sullen with him, sorry she had ever touched the affair at all, ready, he suspected, to grasp at any excuse for letting it drop. This temper of hers foreboded a refusal to open her purse. It was serious in another way. Of himself Duplay knew nothing; Mina was his only witness; her evidence, though really second-hand, was undoubtedly weighty; it would at least make inquiries necessary. But would she give it? Duplay was conscious that she was capable of turning round on him and declaring that she had made a blunder. If she did that, what would happen? Duplay was sure that Harry had formal proofs, good and valid _prima facie_; he would need Mina, money, and time to upset them. There were moments when the Major himself wished that he had relied on his own attractions, and not challenged Harry to battle on any issue save their respective power to win Janie Iver's affections. But it seemed too late to go back.

Besides, he was in a rage with Harry; his defeat by the Pool rankled.

Harry, as usual, had spared his enemy none of the bitterness of defeat; Duplay would now take pleasure in humbling him for the sake of the triumph itself, apart from its effect on the Ivers, father and daughter.

But could he do it? He abode by the conclusion that he was bound to try, but he was not happy in it.

Harry's att.i.tude would be simple. He would at the proper time produce his certificates, testifying to the death of Sir Randolph, the marriage of his parents, his own birth. The copies were in perfect order and duly authenticated; they were evidence in themselves; the originals could be had and would bear out the copies. All this had been well looked after, and Duplay did not doubt it. What had he to set against it? Only that the third certificate was false, and that somewhere--neither he nor even Mina knew where--bearing some dates--neither he nor Mina knew what--there must be two other certificates--one fatal to Harry's case as fixing his birth at an earlier date, the other throwing at least grave suspicion on it by recording a second ceremony of marriage. But where were these certificates? Conceivably they had been destroyed; that was not likely, but it was possible. At any rate, to find them would need much time and some money. On reflection, the Major could not blame Harry for defying him by the Pool.

It will be seen that the information which Mina had gleaned from her mother, and filled in from her own childish recollection, was not so minute in the matter of dates as that which Madame de Kries had given at the time of the events to Mr Cholderton, and which was now locked away in the drawer at Mr Jenkinson Neeld's chambers. The Major would have been materially a.s.sisted by a sight of that doc.u.ment; it would have narrowed the necessary area of inquiry and given a definiteness to his a.s.sertions which must have carried added weight with Mr Iver. As it was, he began to be convinced that Mina would decline to remember any dates even approximately, and this was all she had professed to do in her first disclosure. Duplay acknowledged that, as matters stood, the betting was in favor of his adversary.

Mina, being sulky, would not talk to her uncle; she could not talk to Janie Iver; she did not see Harry, and would not have dared to talk to him if she had. But it need hardly be said that she was dying to talk to somebody. With such matters on hand, she struggled against silence like soda-water against the cork. Merely to stare down at Blent and wonder what was happening there whetted a curiosity it could not satisfy. She felt out of the game, and the feeling was intolerable. As a last resort, in a last effort to keep in touch with it, although she had been warned that she would find nothing of interest to her in the volume, she telegraphed to a bookseller in London to send her Mr. Cholderton's Journal. It came the day after it was published, four days after she had made Mr Neeld's acquaintance, and while Lady Tristram, contrary to expectation, still held death at arm's length and lay looking at her own picture. The next morning Neeld received a pressing invitation to go to tea at Merrion Lodge. Without a moment's hesitation he went; with him too all resolutions to know and to care nothing further about the matter vanished before the first chance of seeing more of it. And Mina had been Mina de Kries.

She received him in the library; the Journal lay on the table. Something had restored animation to her manner and malice to her eyes; those who knew her well would have conjectured that she saw her way to making somebody uncomfortable. But there was also an underlying nervousness which seemed to hint at something beyond. She began by flattering her visitor outrageously and indulging in a number of false statements regarding her delight with the Journal and the amus.e.m.e.nt and instruction she had gained from it; she even professed to have mastered the Hygroxeric Method, observing that a note by the Editor put the whole thing in a nutsh.e.l.l. Much pleased, yet vaguely disappointed, Mr Neeld concluded that she had no more to say about the visit to Heidelberg.

The Imp turned over the pages leisurely while Neeld sipped his tea.

"I see you put little asterisk things where you leave out anything," she observed. "That's convenient, isn't it?"

"I think it's usual," said he.

"And another thing you do--Oh, you really are a splendid editor!--you put the date at the top of every page--even where Mr Cholderton's entry runs over ever so many pages. He is rather long sometimes, isn't he?"

"I've always found the date at the top of the page a convenience in reading myself," said Mr Neeld.

"Yes, it tells you just where you are--and where Mr Cholderton was." She laughed a little. "Yes, look here, page 365, May 1875, he's at Berlin!

Then there are some asterisks"--Mr Neeld looked up from his tea--"and you turn over the page" (the Imp turned over with the air of a discoverer), "and you find him at Interlaken in--why, in August, Mr Neeld!" An amiable surprise appeared on her face. "Where was he in between?" she asked.

"I--I suppose he stayed at Berlin."

"Oh, perhaps. No--look here. He says, 'I had not previously met Sir Silas Minting, as I left Berlin before he arrived in the beginning of June.'"

The Imp laid down the Journal, leant back in her chair, and regarded Neeld steadily.

"You told me right," she added; "I don't find any mention of my mother--nor of Heidelberg. It's rather funny that he doesn't mention Heidelberg."

She poured out a second cup of tea and--waited. The first part of her work was done. She had made Neeld very uncomfortable. "Because," she added, after she had given her previous remarks time to soak in, "between May and August 1875 is just about the time I remember him at Heidelberg--the time when he met Mrs Fitzhubert, you know."

She nodded her head slightly toward the window, the window that looked down to the valley and gave a view of the house where Lady Tristram lay.

Mina was keenly excited now. Had the Journal told Neeld anything? Was that the meaning of his asterisks?

"There was something about his visit to Heidelberg, but it contained nothing of public interest, Madame Zabriska, and in my discretion I omitted it."

"Why didn't you tell me that the other day? You gave me to understand that he only mentioned Heidelberg casually."

"I may have expressed myself----"

"And did he mention us?"

Neeld rose to his feet and took a turn up and down the room.

"In my discretion I left the pa.s.sage out. I can answer no questions about it. Please don't press me, Madame Zabriska."

"I will know," she said excitedly, almost angrily.

Neeld came to a stand opposite her, deep perplexity expressing itself in his look and manner.

"Did he talk about us? Did he talk about Lady Tristram?"

"I am speaking to you, and to you only, Madame Zabriska?"

"Yes, yes--to me only."

"He did mention you, and he did speak of Lady Tristram."

"That's why you weren't surprised when I told you he called me the Imp!"

She smiled a moment, and Neeld smiled too. But in an instant she was eager again. "And about Lady Tristram?"

"It was no use reprinting poor Lady Tristram's story." He sat down again, trying to look as though the subject were done with; but he rubbed his hands together nervously and would not meet Mina's eyes.

There was a long pause; Mina rose, took the Journal, put it in the cupboard and turned the key on it. She came back and stood over him.

"You know?" she said. "It was in the Journal? I'm sure you know."

"Know what?" Mr Neeld was fighting in the last ditch.