Collected works of j s f.., p.588
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 588
“Oh, yes, I shall, Ben, my boy!” she retorted, with the brutal candour of seventeen. “You haven’t got a snub nose or a heap of freckles and sandy hair for nothing! But I’m no end glad you’re better, old chap, and I’ll come and take you out — look out for me to-morrow, Ben, and we’ll have a nice walk.”
And then, with one of her ravishing smiles, Pepita was gone. The light of the day went with her — and I turned regretfully into the house, and after locking the front door, in religious observance of Keziah’s behests, lighted the lamp in the parlour. It was then, I think, that I began to realise that the house, as Pepita had been kind enough to remark, really was rambling and old, and that there was a certain amount of queerness about being left absolutely alone in it.
However, there were things to be done, and occupation of any sort is a relief in circumstances like these. I prepared my own supper, and having been brought up from infancy by Keziah (my mother had died before I left the cradle) I washed up cups, plates, and dishes after using them, and replaced each in its proper niche in the kitchen dresser — Keziah, a veritable martinet in all domestic matters, never allowed dirty things to be about, and she would never have slept if as much as a teaspoon had been left uncleaned overnight. All that done, I took my medicine, and sat down by what was left of the parlour fire to read. And the old house got quieter and quieter and quieter — you could feel the quiet. If Keziah had come home unexpectedly, I wouldn’t have minded if she’d talked for a solid hour about the family silver, and its hall-marks, and its history.
I got sick of that stillness by nine o’clock, and I went to bed. And being still weak after my illness, I soon fell asleep — dropping off suddenly. But I woke more suddenly — to hear two separate sounds. One was the sound of our old grandfather clock — it was striking midnight — twelve long, dull strokes. I didn’t mind that. But I did mind the other sound — the sound of footsteps, stealthy, but unmistakable. I sat up in bed, listening, and, I’m not ashamed to say, sweating with fear. And I sweated more than ever, and was more than ever afraid, when the footsteps stopped, at our porch.
CHAPTER II. UNCLE JOSEPH KREVIN
WHEN YOU COME to consider all the circumstances, you will not wonder that I was afraid. To begin with, I was weak, physically weak, from a long illness: there was not sufficient strength in me to grapple with a child. I was alone in a house which, despite all its bolts, bars, and window fastenings, could be broken into. It was an isolated house, too; the nearest cottage was a couple of hundred yards away. And who should come to it, at that time o’ night, but some evil-disposed person? It was not Keziah, returning unexpectedly; Keziah would have thrown pebbles at my window and raised her voice. It wasn’t Veller, the local policeman — the tramp of Veller’s feet could have been heard a mile away. Whoever this man was, he had a soft tread, not as quiet as a cat’s, to be sure, and yet velvety. And who was he, and what was he after? I had heard the footsteps distinctly on the last stretch of the path which led from the garden gate to the shelter of the porch. Now there was silence again; no doubt the man was examining the fastenings of the front door: I pictured him — having a vivid imagination in those days — bending down to the lock in the moonlight, fingering the handle, perhaps, considering what he might do to get in. But suddenly I heard him going away again. There was no doubt of it — he was retreating down the path. And at that I sprang out of my warm bed and, hurrying to the window, drew aside the blind and peered out into the night. There was a three-quarter moon in the sky, right over the creek, but owing, perhaps, to the heat of the previous afternoon and evening, there was a heavy white mist on the shore and the land, at its edge, and it circled about the trees and bushes in our garden. Still, I saw my midnight visitor; at least, I got a glimpse of him as he disappeared at the gate. He seemed to be a big man, broad of shoulder; maybe the mist made him look bigger than he was. And he went into the mist and was presently swallowed up in it, as he moved, slowly, in the direction of the spit of sand that ran down to Gallowstree Point.
I had some thought, then, of lighting a lamp, and setting it near the window of an upstairs room, so that this man, whoever he was, might know that the house was tenanted. But upon reflection I decided that he would probably take that as an invitation to come back. I did not want him back; before full daylight, at any rate. So I returned to my bed, and, of course, lay there wide awake and listening for a long time. I heard nothing save the faint lap of the waves on the beach and the occasional cry of a sea-bird. And at last I slept, and slept soundly, and when I woke, and went half-way down the stair to glance at the grandfather’s clock, it was close on seven and the blessed sun was high in the heavens and smiling cheerily over shore and sea.
There was no reason why I should get up; I could have lain in bed till noon if I had liked. But my strength and my spirits were coming back to me, and there was that in the fresh Spring morning which impelled me to action. So I got into some clothes, and lighted the kitchen fire, and put on the kettle, and as it wore towards eight undid the ponderous fastenings of the front door and looked out into the garden. And at once I had a surprise which was almost a shock. For there, on the left hand side of the bench which ran round the porch, lay a bag — a queer-looking, travel-worn bag, old-fashioned in make, the leather sorely rubbed, the metal clasps battered and rusted; altogether, a bag that had seen much service. It was the sort of bag that you could carry easily in your hand, and it was roughly tied about with a bit of common cord, in a fashion which suggested that the bag itself contained nothing that was valuable, and that anything was good enough as a fastening.
That my midnight visitor had set down this odd piece of luggage in the porch I had no more doubt than that it lay there before my eyes. I made no attempt to touch it, but I went into the porch and looked more closely at its exterior. There had been some initials painted on its side, in black, at one time, but they were now almost obliterated. And it had in past times borne many labels; there were traces of them all over it, back and front. But there was no recent label; nothing to show to whom it belonged, nor whence or by what route its owner had come there. Come he had, however, and straight to our door, as I made things out, and there had set down his bit of gear and gone away.
I was speculating with various whys and whats and whos when I heard a heavy and unmistakable tread on the pebbly road outside the garden. That was Veller, passing along to his cottage; he passed every morning. Presently he stuck his big round red face over the hedge and saw me and grinned — he was one of those men who smile perpetually.
“Morning, Master Ben!” said he. “Glad to see you out and around again!”
“Much obliged to you,” I answered. “But come here, Veller.”
He opened the garden gate and came up the path, his small eyes inquisitive. I silently pointed to the thing on the bench.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “Just so! I sees it — a bag! And what might it signify, now, Master Ben?”
“Veller!” said I. “You listen to me. My sister’s away; she had to go away last night to Kingshaven, to see Mrs. Hozier — —”
He nodded understandingly, grinning more widely than ever, as if with great satisfaction.
“Ah!” he said, interrupting me. “Just so — exactly! I see Mr. Robinson last night as he come home on the last train from Kingshaven. Mrs. Hozier, now — her presented her good man with twinses yesterday. Afternoon it was, said Mr. Robinson — five o’clock. Which, when he called there, was doing well — all of ’em. Twinses! — a boy and a gel.”
“Oh!” said I. “Well, anyway, that’s where my sister went, so I was all alone in the house, all night, d’ye see, Veller? And about twelve o’clock I heard footsteps come up the path there. They paused here, in the porch. Then they went off. I jumped out of bed and saw a man leave the garden and go away towards Gallowstree Point. And this morning — just now, in fact — I found this bag here, where you see it. What d’you make of that, Veller?”
He scratched the lobe of his red right ear thoughtfully. “Well, to be sure, that’s a main queer thing, Master Ben!” he answered. “You wasn’t expecting anybody — a visitor, now?”
“No!” said I. “Nobody!”
“Seems like as if whoever this here bag belongs to knew his way about in these parts,” he remarked ruminatively. “Here he comes, straight to the spot, puts down his luggage, and goes away! Whither? — and for what purpose? Ah!”
“That’s just it!” I said “Where’s he gone? Will he come back? What would you do, now, if you were me, Veller?”
He consulted his ear again, and presently smiled as with a great inspiration.
“Just so! — exactly!” he answered “Ah! — if it was me, Master Ben, I should get my braikfast! Let things bide till that was done with, so to speak. Leaving that there article where it is. ‘Cause you never know what may be inside luggage of that complexion. Maybe this chap is a seafaring man. And — I’ve knowed seafaring men as carried queer goods in their gear! Snakes! I wouldn’t open that there bag not for nothing — might be a rattle-sarpent in it! You get your braikfast, Master Ben, and if so be as this here mysterious mortal do turn up, and there’s cause for what they call invoking the presence of the law — well, you knows where to find me!”
He became portentously solemn and dignified in pronouncing the last word, and we parted without spoiling its effect; he to his cottage, and I into the kitchen, to cook my breakfast. As was our custom, I left the front door wide open, and I had just got the bacon nicely sizzling in one pan, and the water for a couple of eggs near boiling point in another, when I heard steps advancing along the garden path. I popped my head out of the kitchen and looked down the hall . . . There was a man in the porch. He did not see me, for he was looking at the bag. So I took a good look at him. He was, I felt sure, the man I had seen from my window, at midnight: the set of his shoulders seemed familiar. He was a big man, some five feet ten inches, I should say, in height, and broadly built, and his girth was accentuated by his loosely made suit of blue cloth. He wore a big slouch hat, and carried a queer-looking, un-English stick in his hand; there was a heavy gold cable chain across his waistcoat, and a gold pin in his neck-cloth; somehow, he gave the impression of being a solid, substantial man, financially. As for his face, which he presently turned in my direction, it was as big as his body, clean-shaven, pale-complexioned, flabby. There was a small nose in the middle of it, and two small, sly grey eyes, and a small, pursed-up mouth, but a big chin, and big jowl — my budding-lawyer instincts warned me that this was a man in dealing with whom it would be well to have all your wits about you.
I went towards him, and at sight of me he started. It was either a well-affected gesture, intended to deceive, or it was a genuine start of surprise; I found it difficult to decide which. And in making it he let out a little, indefinite sound — a sort of almost affectionate murmur. But I was short and sharp enough.
“Well?” I demanded. “What do you want?”
His answer was as remarkable as it was unpleasant. He suddenly shot out a big, flabby hand and grasped my chin and jaw, turning my face this way and that. It was all done in a second, and he spoke just as quickly.
“Aye!” he said, in a fat, unctuous voice. “To be sure! It will be. Unmistakably a Heckitt! Known him anywheres!”
“I am a Heckitt!” I declared, edging away from him. “Who are you?”
He nodded at me solemnly, three times, and, when he answered my question, his voice was fatter than ever.
“Your uncle, Joseph Krevin, my lad, that’s who I am!” he replied. “Your poor mother’s only brother Joe, what she was so fond of. You’ll have heard of me, no doubt? — from your sister Keziah.”
“Never!” protested I. “Never heard Keziah speak of you at any time!”
He looked highly pained at that. But a certain holy meekness spread itself as a cloak across the look of pain.
“Well, well!” he said. “Rellytives is — not always what they should be. But look you here, my lad — and this’ll show you that I know what I’m talking about. Inside the parlour there, on the left hand side as you go in, there’s an ancient bureau, and on top of that bureau there’s two family Bibles — one’s bound in black morocco, and t’other in red calf. And the black one is the Heckitt family Bible, and the red one is the Krevin. And in the Krevin you’ll find me — Joseph Krevin, and in both you’ll find your mother, Hannah Krevin as was, what married a Heckitt. Your father, Charles Heckitt. Uncle Joseph Krevin, I am — you can call me Uncle Joe for short, if you like — and well Keziah knows me, whether she mentions me or not. And where is Keziah? — my Niece Keziah. What I ain’t set eyes on for more years nor I can remember — a fine young woman, Keziah, and the handsomest in these parts when I was last hereabouts!”
He raised his voice considerably in the last sentence, as if hoping that Keziah would overhear this tribute to her charms, and his small eyes looked beyond me into the shadows of the hall. But I damped his ardour — or affectation of it.
“Keziah is not in at present,” I said, still keeping in the doorway. “I’m not quite sure when she will be in, either.”
“But you’re in, my lad!” he retorted sharply. “And I smells bacon — and coffee! Ain’t you going to welcome your Uncle Joe, what was your poor mother’s fav’rite? The Heckitts, as I remember them, was always given to hospitality, and — —”
“Keziah doesn’t allow me to ask anybody in when she’s out,” I said. “But since you’re a relation — —”
“Aye, there’s no doubt of that!” he interrupted quickly. “And, my lad,” he added, with a significant grimace, “not a poor one, neither! — as you may find, to your profit, some of these days. And what may your name be, now, for ’tis so long since I was this way that there are matters I’ve forgotten.”
I told him my name, asked him in, and put more bacon in the pan and added more eggs to those I was boiling for myself. He sat down near the kitchen fire and watched me, making remarks about his surroundings from time to time which showed me that he was familiar enough with them.
“There’s little changed in this old house, Nephew Ben,” he said, as he drew his chair to the table. “I says to myself as soon as ever I cast eyes on it that it was just the same as ever was!”
“That would be when you came to the porch last night?” I remarked, already curious about his movements. “I heard you! — and saw you, too!”
But the words were no sooner out of my lips than I realised that I was a bit too cocksure in my assertions. He put down his knife and fork with a gesture of surprise.
“Me?” he exclaimed. “No, my lad! You didn’t see me, nor hear me, neither, last night, at your porch! ‘Cause why? I wasn’t there!”
“Isn’t that your bag outside in the porch?” I asked. “Surely!”
“My bag it is, and no other’s,” he asserted, gravely. “But not brought there by me, my lad. You see, I’d a bit of business with a man hereabouts. And when I come along from London and got out at the station, I gives that there bit of a bag to a man what had come along of me in the train for the last few miles and said he knew this part, to leave for me at Heckitt’s. That ‘ud be the man you see.”
“Queer time for a man to come!” I said. “It was midnight!”
“Aye, well, it ‘ud be past ten o’clock when I give him the bag,” he replied. “Late train, you see. No! — I wasn’t nowheres about here last night, Ben, my boy! — miles off! In the country. Seeing — ah! — an old friend o’ mine. And what may you be thinking of doing with yourself, my lad? — finished your schooling, no doubt, and ekally, no doubt, you’ll be a fine scholard?”
I gave him as much family news as I considered good for him, and then tried to extract some personal information about himself. But beyond ascertaining that he had knocked about the world a good deal and was for the present living somewhere in London, I learned very little of Uncle Joseph Krevin and his doings. He made a very good breakfast, and seemed to enjoy it, and when he had finally pushed aside his plate, drained his cup, and lighted his pipe, he went back to the chimney corner and became reminiscent. But all his reminiscences were of the family sort; he seemed to have the pedigrees of Krevins and Heckitts at his finger-ends, and if I tried to switch him off and to turn him into tracks more intimately concerned with his personal affairs he adroitly eluded me and went back. About himself and his adventures during the many years which had elapsed since his last visit to Middlebourne I squeezed nothing out of him.
Keziah came back from Kingshaven before dinner-time. She walked in on us unexpectedly, and she knew Uncle Joe Krevin at once, and at sight of him she looked as if somebody had just given her something very sour to bite at.
“So it’s you, is it?” she said. “After all these years?”
“Better late than never, Keziah,” he answered, almost humbly. “You see, I’d a bit of business in these parts, and I thought I’d look in. And no doubt you’ll give me a bed to-night, Keziah? — and you’ll be glad to hear I’ve made my fortune since them other days?”
Keziah did not say whether she would be glad to hear that or not — she said nothing, except to reply drily that she’d no doubt there would be a bed for our visitor, and a bite, too. And I noticed that she held very little converse with Uncle Joe: what talk they had was of the nature of his talk to me after breakfast. He was out, by himself, that afternoon, and again, for a couple of hours, late in the evening: when he came in after that second excursion he went straight to bed. And when he had gone, and his chamber door was shut, Keziah came close to my chair, and with a look of caution whispered.
“Ben!” she said. “Flesh and blood of ours he be! — but that’s the deepest and wickedest old scamp you ever saw!”
CHAPTER III. FIEND’S WORK
