‘I know it is. If I ask her to be sure and recollect something, she is certain with the best intentions to forget; she is a dear beautiful butterfly, not fit to be harnessed. Her brains are thistledown, her bones cherry stalks.’
‘Yes, do not crush her spirits with uncongenial work.’
‘I do not want to. I know as well as yourself that I must rely on her for nothing. But the result is that I am overtasked. Now—will you credit it? The beautiful hay that was like green tea is spoiled. Those stupid men did not thatch it. They said they had no reed, and waited to comb some till the rain set in. When it did pour, they were all in the barn talking and making reed, but at the same time the water was drenching and spoiling the hay. Oh, papa, I feel disposed to cry!’
‘I will speak to them about it,’ said Mr. Jordan, with a sigh, not occasioned by the injury to his hay, but because he was disturbed over his specimens.
‘My dear papa,’ said the energetic Barbara, ‘I do not wish you to be troubled about these tiresome matters. You are growing old, daily older, and your strength is not gaining. You have other pursuits. You are not heartily interested in the farm. I see your hand tremble when you hold your fork at dinner; you are becoming thinner every day. I would spare you trouble. It is really necessary, I must have it—you must engage a bailiff. I shall break down, and that will be the end, or we shall all go to ruin. The woods are running to waste. There are trees lying about literally rotting. They ought to be sent away to the Devonport dockyard where they could be sold. Last spring, when you let the rending, the barbers shaved a whole copse wood, as if shaving a man’s chin, instead of leaving the better sticks standing.’
‘We have enough to live on.’
‘We must do our duty to the land on which we live. I cannot endure to see waste anywhere. I have only one head, one pair of eyes, and one pair of hands. I cannot think of, see to, and do everything. I lie awake night after night considering what has to be done, and the day is too short for me to do all I have determined on in the night. Whilst that poor gentleman has been ill, I have had to think of him in addition to everything else; so some duties have been neglected. That is how, I suppose, the doctor came to guess there was a stocking half-darned under the sofa cushion. Eve was mending it, she tired and put it away, and of course forgot it. I generally look about for Eve’s leavings, and tidy her scraps when she has gone to bed, but I have been too busy. I am vexed about that stocking. How those protruding eyes of the doctor managed to see it I cannot think. He was, however, wrong about the saucer of sour milk.’
Mr. Jordan continued nervously sorting his minerals into little white card boxes.
‘Well, papa, are you going to do anything?’
‘Do—do—what?’
‘Engage a bailiff. I am sure we shall gain money by working the estate better. The bailiff will pay his cost, and something over.’
‘You are very eager for money,’ said Mr. Jordan sulkily; ‘are you thinking of getting married, and anxious to have a dower?’
Barbara coloured deeply, hurt and offended.
‘This is unkind of you, papa; I am thinking of Eve. I think only of her. You ought to know that’—the tears came into her eyes. ‘Of course Eve will marry some day;’ then she laughed, ‘no one will ever come for me.’
‘To be sure,’ said Mr. Jordan.
‘I have been thinking, papa, that Eve ought to be sent to some very nice lady, or to some very select school, where she might have proper finishing. All she has learnt has been from me, and I have had so much to do, and I have been so unable to be severe with Eve—that—that—I don’t think she has learned much except music, to which she takes instinctively as a South Sea islander to water.’
‘I cannot be parted from Eve. It would rob my sky of its sun. What would this house be with only you—I mean without Eve to brighten it?’
‘If you will think the matter over, father, you will see that it ought to be. We must consider Eve, and not ourselves. I would not have her, dear heart, anywhere but in the very best school—hardly a school, a place where only three or four young ladies are taken, and they of the best families. That will cost money, so we must put our shoulders to the wheel, and push the old coach on.’ She laid her hands on the back of her father’s chair and leaned over his shoulder. She had been standing behind him. Did she hope he would kiss her? If so, her hope was vain.
‘Do, dear papa, engage an honest, superior sort of man to look after the farm. I will promise to make a great deal of money with my dairy, if he will see to the cows in the fields. Try the experiment, and, trust me, it will answer.’
‘All in good time.’
‘No, papa, do not put this off. There is another reason why I speak. Christopher Davy is bedridden. You are sometimes absent, then we girls are left alone in this great house, all day, and occasionally nights as well. You know there was no one here on that night when the accident happened. There were two men in this house, one, indeed, insensible. We know nothing of them, who they were, and what they were about. How can you tell that bad characters may not come here? It is thought that you have saved money, and it is known that Morwell is unprotected. You, papa, are so frail, and with your shaking hand a gun would not be dangerous.’
He started from his chair and upset his specimens.
‘Do not speak like that,’ he said, trembling.
‘There, I have disturbed you even by alluding to it. If you were to level a gun, and had your finger——’
He put his hand, a cold, quivering hand, on her lips: ‘For God’s sake—silence!’ he said.
She obeyed. She knew how odd her father was, yet his agitation now was so great that it surprised her. It made her more resolute to carry her point.
‘Papa, you are expecting to have about two thousand pounds in the house. Will it be safe? You have told the doctor, and that man, our patient, heard you. Excuse my saying it, but I think it was not well to mention it before a perfect stranger. You may have told others. Mr. Coyshe is a chatterbox, he may have talked about it throughout the neighbourhood—the fact may be known to everyone, that to-day you are expecting to have a large sum of money brought you. Well—who is to guard it? Are there no needy and unscrupulous men in the county who would rob the house, and maybe silence an old man and two girls who stood in their way to a couple of thousand pounds?’
‘The sum is large. It must be hidden away,’ said Mr. Jordan, uneasily. ‘I had not considered the danger’—he paused—‘if it be paid——’
‘If, papa? I thought you were sure of it.’
‘Yes, quite sure; only Mr. Coyshe disturbed me by suggesting doubts.’
‘Oh, the doctor!’ exclaimed Barbara, shrugging her shoulders.
‘Well, the doctor,’ repeated Mr. Jordan, captiously. ‘He is a very able man. Why do you turn up your nose at him? He can see through a stone wall, and under a cushion to where a stocking is hidden, and under a cupboard to where a saucer of sour milk is thrust away; and he can see into the human body through the flesh and behind the bones, and can tell you where every nerve and vein is, and what is wrong with each. When things are wrong, then it is like stockings and saucers where they ought not to be in a house.’
‘He was wrong about the saucer of sour milk, utterly wrong,’ persisted Barbara.
‘I hope and trust the surgeon was wrong in his forecast about the money—but my heart fails me——’
‘He was wrong about the saucer,’ said the girl encouragingly.
‘But he was right about the stocking,’ said her father dispiritedly.
CHAPTER XI.