I say she was dead? Did I mention her?’
Coyshe mused, put his hand through his hair and ruffled it up; then folded his arms and threw out his legs.
‘Now tell me, squire, are you sure of your money?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That money you say you lent seventeen years ago. What are your securities?’
‘The best. The word of an honourable man.’
‘The word!’ Mr. Coyshe whistled. ‘Words! What are words?’
‘He offered me a mortgage, but it never came,’ said Mr. Jordan. ‘Indeed, I never applied for it. I had his word.’
‘If you see the shine of that money again, you are lucky.’ Then looking at Jasper: ‘My patient is upset again – I thought the air was too strong for him. He must be carried in. He is going into a fit.’
Jasper was leaning back against the wall, with distended eyes, and hands and teeth clenched as with a spasm.
‘No,’ said Jasper faintly, ‘I am not in a fit.’
‘You looked much as if going into an attack of lock-jaw.’
At that moment Barbara came out, and at once noticed the condition of the convalescent.
‘Here,’ said she, ‘lean on me as you did coming out. This has been too much for you. Will you help me, Doctor Coyshe?’
‘Thank you,’ said Jasper. ‘If Miss Jordan will suffer me to rest on her arm, I will return to my room.’
When he was back in his armchair and the little room he had occupied, Barbara looked earnestly in his face and said, ‘What has troubled you? I am sure something has.’
‘I am very unhappy,’ he answered, ‘but you must ask me no questions.’
Miss Jordan went in quest of her sister. ‘Eve,’ she said, ‘our poor patient is exhausted. Sit in the parlour and play and sing, and give a look into his room now and then. I am busy.’
The slight disturbance had not altered the bent of Mr. Jordan’s thoughts. When Mr. Coyshe rejoined him, which he did the moment he saw Jasper safe in his room, Mr. Jordan said, ‘I cannot believe that I ran any risk with the money. The man to whom I lent it is honourable. Besides, I have his note of hand acknowledging the debt; not that I would use it against him.’
‘A man’s word,’ said Coyshe, ‘is like india-rubber that can be made into any shape he likes. A word is made up of letters, and he will hold to the letters and permute their order to suit his own convenience, not yours. A man will stick to his word only so long as his word will stick to him. It depends entirely on which side it is licked. Hark! Is that Miss Eve singing? What a voice! Why, if she were trained and on the stage – ’
Mr. Jordan stood up, agitated and angry.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Coyshe. ‘Does the suggestion offend you? I merely threw it out in the event of the money lent not turning up.’
Just then his eyes fell on something that lay under the seat. ‘What is that? Have you dropped a pocket-book?’
A rough large leather pocket-book that was to which he pointed. Mr. Jordan stooped and took it up. He examined it attentively and uttered an exclamation of surprise.
‘Well,’ said the surgeon mockingly, ‘is the money come, dropped from the clouds at your feet?’
‘No,’ answered Mr. Jordan, under his breath, ‘but this is most extraordinary, most mysterious! How comes this case here? It is the very same which I handed over, filled with notes, to that man seventeen years ago! See! there are my initials on it; there on the shield is my crest. How comes it here?’
‘The question, my dear sir, is not how comes it here? but what does it contain?’
‘Nothing.’
The surgeon put his hands in his pockets, screwed up his lips for a whistle, and said, ‘I foretold this, I am always right.’
‘The money is not due till Midsummer-day.’
‘Nor will come till the Greek kalends. Poor Miss Eve!’
CHAPTER X.
BARBARA’S PETITION
Midsummer-day was come. Mr. Jordan was in suspense and agitation. His pale face was more livid and drawn than usual. The fears inspired by the surgeon had taken hold of him.
Before the birth of Eve he had been an energetic man, eager to get all he could out of the estate, but for seventeen years an unaccountable sadness had hung over him, damping his ardour; his thoughts had been carried away from his land, whither no one knew, though the results were obvious enough.
With Barbara he had little in common. She was eminently practical. He was always in a dream. She was never on an easy footing with her father, she tried to understand him and failed, she feared that his brain was partially disturbed. Perhaps her efforts to make him out annoyed him; at any rate he was cold towards her, without being intentionally unkind. An ever-present restraint was upon both in each other’s presence.
At first, after the disappearance of Eve’s mother, things had gone on upon the old lines. Christopher Davy had superintended the farm labours, but as he aged and failed, and Barbara grew to see the necessity for supervision, she took the management of the farm as well as of the house upon herself. She saw that the men dawdled over their work, and that the condition of the estate was going back. Tho coppices had not been shredded in winter and the oak was grown into a tangle. The rending for bark in spring was done unsystematically. The hedges became ragged, the ploughs out of order, the thistles were not cut periodically and prevented from seeding. There were not men sufficient to do the work that had to be done. She had not the time to attend to the men as well as the maids, to the farmyard as well as the house. She had made up her mind that a proper bailiff must be secured, with authority to employ as many labourers as the estate required. Barbara was convinced that her father, with his lost, dreamy head, was incapable of managing their property, even if he had the desire. Now that the trusty old Davy was ill, and breaking up, she had none to advise her.
She was roused to anger on Midsummer-day by discovering that the hayrick had never been thatched, and that it had been exposed to the rain which had fallen heavily, so that half of it had to be taken down because soaked, lest it should catch fire or blacken. This was the result of the carelessness of the men. She determined to speak to her father at once. She had good reason for doing so.
She found him in his study arranging his specimens of mundic and peacock copper.
‘Has anyone come, asking for me?’ he said, looking up with fluttering face from his work.
‘No one, father.’
‘You startled me, Barbara, coming on me stealthily from behind. What do you want with me? You see I am engaged, and you know I hate to be disturbed.’
‘I have something I wish to speak about.’
‘Well, well, say it and go.’ His shaking hands resumed their work.
‘It is the old story, dear papa. I want
