Two Years Ago Volume I Part 16

"Where you are now?"

"Yes: where I ought to be. I am where I ought to be now. I suppose if I had found myself anywhere else this morning, I should have taken it as a sign that I was wanted there, and not here."

Grace heaved a sigh at words which were certainly startling. The Stoic optimism of the world-hardened doctor was new and frightful to her.

"My good madam," said he, "the part of Scripture which I appreciate best, just now, is the case of poor Job, where Satan has leave to rob and torment him to the utmost of his wicked will, provided only he does not touch his life, I wish," he went on, lowering his voice, "to tell you something which I do not wish publicly talked of; but in which you may help me. I had nearly fifteen hundred pounds about me when I came ash.o.r.e last night, sewed in a belt round my waist. It is gone. That is all."

Tom looked steadily at her as he spoke. She turned pale, red, pale again, her lips quivered: but she spoke no word.

"She has it, as I live!" thought Tom to himself. "'Frailty, thy name is woman!' The canting, little, methodistical humbug! She must have slipped it off my waist as I lay senseless. I suppose she means to keep it in p.a.w.n, till I redeem it by marrying her. Well I might take an uglier mate certainly; but when I do enter into the bitter bonds of matrimony, I should like to be sure, beforehand, that my wife was not a thief!"

Why, then, did not Tom, if he were so very sure of Grace's having the belt, charge her with the theft? because he had found out already how popular she was, and was afraid of merely making himself unpopular; because, too, he took for granted that whosoever had his belt, had hidden it already beyond the reach of a search warrant; and, because, after all, an honourable shame restrained him. It would be a poor return to the woman who had saved his life to charge her with theft the next morning; and more, there was something about that girl's face which had made him feel that, if he had seen her put the belt into her pocket before his eyes, he could not have found the heart to have sent her to gaol. "No!" thought he; "I'll get it out of her, or whoever has it, and stay here till I do get it. One place is as good as another to me."

But what was Grace saying?

She had turned, after two or three minutes' astonished silence, to her mother and Captain Willis--

"Belt! Mother! Uncle! What is this? The gentleman has lost a belt?"

"Dear me!--a belt! Well, child, that's not much to grieve over, when the Lord has spared his life and soul from the pit!" said her mother, somewhat testily.

"You don't understand. A belt, I say, full of money--fifteen hundred pounds; he lost it last night. Uncle! Speak, quick! Did you see a belt?"

Willis shook his head meditatively. "I don't, and yet I do, and yet I don't again. My brains were, well-nigh washed out of me, I know.

However, sir, I'll think, and talk it over with you too; for if it be in the village, found it ought to be, and will be, with G.o.d's help."

"Found?" cried Grace, in so high a key, that Tom entreated her to calm herself, and not make the matter public.--"Found? yes; and shall be found, if there be justice in heaven. Shame that west-country folk should turn robbers and wreckers! Mariners, too, and manners' wives, who should be praying for those who are wandering far away, each man with his life in his hand! Ah, what a world! When will it end? soon, too soon, when west-country folk rob shipwrecked men! But you will find your belt; yes, sir, you will find it. Wait till you have learnt to do without it. Man does not live by bread alone. Do you think he lives by gold? Only be patient; and when you are worthy of it, you shall find it again, in the Lord's good time."

To the doctor this seemed a mere burst of jargon, invented for the purpose of hiding guilt; and his faith in womankind was not heightened when he heard Grace's mother say, _sotto voce_ to Willis, that--"In wrecks, and fires, and such like, a many people complained of having lost more than ever they had."

"Oh ho! my old lady, is that the way the fox is gone?" quoth Tom to that trusty counsellor, himself; and began carefully scrutinising Mrs.

Harvey's face. It had been very handsome: it was still very clever: but the eyebrows, crushed together downwards above her nose, and rising high at the outer corners, indicated, as surely as the restless down-dropt eye, a character self-conscious, furtive, capable of great inconsistencies, possibly of great deceits.

"You don't look me in the face, old lady!" quoth Tom to himself. "Very well! between you two it lies; unless that old gentleman implicates himself also, in his approaching confession."

He took his part at once. "Well, well, you will oblige me by saying nothing more about it. After all, as this good lady says, the loss of a little money is not worth complaining over, when one has escaped with life. Good morning; and many thanks for all your kindness!"

And Tom made another grand bow, and went off to the Lieutenant.

Grace looked after him awhile, as one stunned; and then turned to her mother.

"Let us go home."

"Go home? Why there, dear?"

"Let me go home; you need not come. I am sick of this world. Is it not enough to have misery and death (and she pointed to the row of corpses), but we must have sin, too, wherever we turn! Meanness and theft:--and ingrat.i.tude too!" she added, in a lower tone.

She went homeward; her mother, in spite of her entreaties, accompanied her; and, for some reason or other, did not lose sight of her all that day, or for several days after.

Meanwhile, Willis had beckoned the Doctor aside. His face was serious and sad, and his lips were trembling.

"This is a very shocking business, sir. Of course, you've told the Lieutenant."

"Not yet, my good sir."

"But--excuse my boldness; what plainer way of getting it back from the rascal, whoever he is?"

"Wait awhile," said Tom; "I have my reasons."

"But, sir--for the honour of the place, the matter should be cleared up; and till the thief's found, suspicion will lie on a dozen innocent men; myself among the rest, for that matter."

"You?" said Tom, smiling. "I don't know who I have the honour to speak to; but you don't look much like a gentleman who wishes for a trip to Botany Bay."

The old man chuckled, and then his face dropped again.

"I'm glad you take the thing so like a man, sir; but it is really no laughing matter. It's a scoundrelly job, only fit for a Maltee off the Nix Mangeery. If it had been a lot of those carter fellows that had carried you up, I could have understood it; wrecking's born in the bone of them: but for those four sailors that carried you up, 'gad sir! they'd have been shot sooner. I've known 'em from boys!" and the old man spoke quite fiercely, and looked up; his lip trembling, and his eye moist.

"There's no doubt that you are honest--whoever is not," thought Tom; so he ventured a further question.

"Then you were by all the while?"

"All the while? Who more? And that's just what puzzles me."

"Pray don't speak loud," said Tom. "I have my reasons for keeping things quiet."

"I tell you, sir. I held the maid, and big John Beer (Gentleman Jan they call him) held me; and the maid had both her hands tight in your belt. I saw it as plain as I see you, just before the wave covered us, though little I thought what was in it; and should never have remembered you had a belt at all, if I hadn't thought over things in the last five minutes."

"Well, sir, I am lucky in having come straight to the fountain head; and must thank you for telling me so frankly what you know."

"Tell you, sir? What else should one do but tell you? I only wish I knew more; and more I'll know, please the Lord. And you'll excuse an old sailor (though not of your rank, sir) saying that he wonders a little that you don't take the plain means of knowing more yourself."

"May I take the liberty of asking your name?" said Tom; who saw by this time that the old man was worthy of his confidence.

"Willis, at your service, sir. Captain they call me, though I'm none.

Sailing-master I was, on board of His Majesty's ship Niobe, 84;" and Willis raised his hat with such an air, that Tom raised his in return.

"Then, Captain Willis, let me have five words with you apart; first thanking you for having helped to save my life."

"I'm very glad I did, sir; and thanked G.o.d for it on my knees this morning: but you'll excuse me, sir, I was thinking--and no blame to me--more of saving my poor maid's life than yours, and no offence to you, for I hadn't the honour of knowing you; but for her, I'd have been drowned a dozen times over."

"No offence, indeed," said Tom; and hardly knew what to say next. "May I ask, is she your niece? I heard her call you uncle."

"Oh, no--no relation; only I look on her as my own, poor thing, having no father; and she always calls me uncle, as most do us old men in the West."

"Well, then, sir," said Tom, "you will answer for none of the four sailors having robbed me?"

"I've said it, sir."