evie was sitting in one of the low window seats in the hall at vail, regarding with all the gravity due to the subject her two months' old baby, that soft little atom round which revolved the world and the stars and all space. her discoveries about it were in number like the sands of the sea, but far more remarkable. this afternoon they had been, and still continued to be, epoch-making.
"his nose," she said, after a long pause, to lady oxted, who was sitting by the fire, "is at present like mine—that is to say, it is no particular nose, but it will certainly be like harry's, which is perpendicular. that's a joke, dear aunt, the sort of thing which people who write society stories think clever. it isn't, really."
lady oxted sighed.
"and his brains exactly resemble both yours and harry's, dear," she said—"that is to say, they are no particular brains."
evie took no notice whatever of this vitriolic comment.
"and its eyes are certainly harry's eyes," she went on. "oh, i went to see jim's wife to-day, you know the dairymaid whom harry was supposed[pg 440]—— well, i went to see her. jim was there too. i love jim. you know the resemblance to harry is simply ridiculous. i was in continual fear lest i should forget it was jim and say, 'come, darling, it's time to go.' and then harry might have behaved as i once did. oh, here's nurse.—what a bore you are, nurse, o my own angelic!"
evie gave up a kiss-smothered baby, and went across to where lady oxted was sitting.
"and mrs. jim's baby, i must allow, has its points," she continued. "that's why i'm sure that geoff's eyes are like harry's, because geoff's eyes are exactly like jim's baby's eyes, and jim is harry. by the way, where is the spurious geoff,—the old one, i mean?"
"the old one went out within five minutes of his arrival here," said lady oxted. "i tried to make myself agreeable to him, but apparently i failed, for he simply yawned in my face, and said, 'where's harry?'"
"yes, aunt violet," said evie, "you and i sha'n't get a look in while those men are here, and we had better resign ourselves to it, and take two nice little back seats. in fact, i felt a little neglected this morning. harry woke with a great stretch and said, 'by gad, it's tuesday!—geoff and the beloved doctor come to-day,' and he never even said good-morning to the wife of his bosom."
"he's tiring of you," remarked lady oxted.
"i know; isn't it sad, and we have been married[pg 441] less than a year? as i was saying, he got up at once, instead of going to sleep again, and i heard him singing in his bath. oh, i just love that husband of mine," she said.
"so you have told me before," said lady oxted acidly.
"what a prickly aunt!" said evie. "dear aunt violet, if geoffrey and the beloved physician and jim weren't such darlings, all of them, i should be jealous of them—i should indeed."
"what a lot of darlings you have, evie!" said the other.
"i know i have. i wish there were twice as many. for the whole point of the world is the darlings. a person with no darlings is dead—dead and buried. and the more darlings you have, by so much the more is the world alive. isn't it so? i have lots—oh, and the world is good! all those i have, and you, and harry even, and i might include my own geoff. also uncle bob, especially when he is rude to you."
the prickly aunt was tender enough, and evie knew it.
"oh, my dear!" she said. "it makes my old blood skip and sing to see you so happy. and harry—my goodness, what a happy person harry is!"
"i trust and believe he is," evie said, "and my hope and exceeding reward are that he may always be. but to-day—to-day——" she said.
lady oxted was silent.
"just think," said evie, "what was happening[pg 442] a year ago. at this hour a year ago harry was here with the doctor and his uncle and his uncle's servant. and then evening fell, as it is falling now. later came geoffrey and jim. oh, i can't yet bear to think of it!"
"i think if i were harry i should be rather fond of those three," said lady oxted. "being a woman, i am in love with them all, like you."
"of course you are," said evie. "oh, yes, jim was just going out when i was with his wife, to meet the others."
"to meet them?" asked lady oxted.
"yes; harry said it was a secret, but it's such a dear one i must tell you. they were going together—it was harry's idea—to the church. the two graves, his uncle's and that other man's, are side by side. i asked if i might come too, but he said certainly not; i was not in that piece!"
"and then?"
evie got up.
"i think they were just going to say their prayers there," she said. "oh, i love those men. they don't talk and talk, but just go and do simple little things like that."
"and the women sit at home and do the talking," said lady oxted.
"yes, you and me, that is. oh, i daresay we are more subtle and complicated—and who knows or cares what else?—but we are not quite so simple. one must weigh the one with the other.[pg 443] and who cares which is the best? to each is a part given."
"you had a big part given you, evie," said the other.
"i know i had, and feebly was it performed. ah, that morning! just one word from dr. armytage, 'come!'"
evie returned to the fire again and sat down.
"if geoffrey had not been here the night before," she said, "the night when it took place, i don't know what would have happened to harry. there would have been a raving lunatic, i think. as it was, he just howled and wept, so he told me, and geoff sat by him and said: 'cheer up, old chap!' and 'damn it all, harry!—yes, i don't care,' and gave him a whisky and soda, and slapped him on the back, and did all the things that men do. they didn't kiss each other and scream, and say that nobody loved them, as we should have done. and as like as not they played a game of billiards afterward, and felt immensely better. i suppose david and jonathan were like that. oh, i want harry always to have a lot of men friends," she cried. "how i should hate it if he only went dangling along after his wife! but he loves me best of all. so don't deny it."
"oh, i don't anticipate his eloping with the doctor," said lady oxted.
outside the evening was fast falling. it was now a little after sunset, and, as a year ago, a young moon, silver and slim, was climbing the[pg 444] sky, where still lingered the reflected fire from the west in ribbons and feathers of rosy cloud. but to-night no mist, low hanging and opaque, fit cover for crouching danger, hung over lake and lawn; the air was crisp with autumnal frost, the hoarse tumult from the sluice subdued and low after a long st. martin's summer. the four men—jim, servantlike and respectful, little distance from the rest—had left the churchyard and strolled slowly in the direction of the stable and the house. opposite the stable gate jim would have turned in, but harry detained him.
"no, jim," he said, "come with us a little farther," and like man and man, not master and groom, he put his arm through that of the other. then, by an instinctive movement, the doctor and geoffrey closed up also, and thus linked they walked by the edge of the lake, and paused together at the sluice.
"and it was here," said harry, "that one day the sluice broke, and down i went. eh, a bad half hour!"
"yes, my lord," sad jim, grown suddenly bold, "and here it was that mr. geoffrey jumped in of a black night after a black villain."
"and somewhere here it is," said geoffrey, "that the luck lies. how low the lake is! i have never seen it so low."
they had approached to the very margin of the water, where little ripples, children of the breeze at sunset, broke and laughed on the steep sides of ooze discovered by the drought. their[pg 445] sharp edges were caught by the fires overhead, and turned to scrolls of liquid flame.
"and that was the end of the luck," said the doctor.
"the luck!" cried harry. "it was the curse that drove us all mad. i would sooner keep a cobra in the house than that thing. madness and crime and death were its gifts. ah, if i had guessed—if i had only guessed!"
even as he spoke, his eye caught a steadfast gleam that shone from the edge of the sunken water. for a moment he thought that it was but one of the runes of flame that played over the reflecting surface of the lake, but this was steady, not suddenly kindled and consumed. then in a flash the truth of the matter was his: the leather case had rotted and fallen away in the water. here, within a foot of the edge of the lake, lay his luck.
he disjoined himself from the others, took one step forward and bent down. with a reluctant cluck the mud gave up the jewel, and he held it high, growing each moment more resplendent as the ooze dripped sullenly from it. the great diamonds awoke, they winked and blazed, sunset and moon and evening star were reflected there, and who knows what authentic fires of hell? there was a glow of sapphire, a glimmer of pearl, a gleam of gold. but two steps more took harry on to the stone slab that covered the sluice, and there on the scene of one of its crimes he laid the priceless thing. then, as a man with his heel[pg 446] crushes the life out of some poisonous creeping horror, he stamped and stamped on it, and stamped yet again. this way and that flew the jewels; diamond and sapphire were dust; the pearls, unbroken, leaped like flicked peas, some into the lake, others into the outflowing thunder of the sluice. then, taking the crumbled and shapeless remnant, he flung it far into mid water.
"and the curse is gone from the house!" he cried.
the end
