The Annam Jewel (8 page)

The Dresden figure snapped suddenly in two. Peter let the pieces fall on the hearth. Neither he nor Mrs. Mortimer looked at them.

“Thank you, Peter,” she said, and shook his rather unwilling hand.

Peter went away an hour later. He left Rose Ellen making the blue velvet dress for Augustabel.

The station was only half a mile away. He set out for it, bag in hand. He had accomplished his object; he had found a home for Rose Ellen. He must now get back to Victoria, retrieve his luggage, and join his Uncle Matthew at Ledlington, twenty-four hours later than the time he had fixed in his letter. Fortunately, he still had Miles Banham's sovereign; that would take him to Victoria, and he could then begin to use his journey money again.

Just outside the station he put down his bag in order to get the money out of his waistcoat pocket. The waistcoat pocket was empty. He felt in every pocket, but the sovereign was gone. He had twopence in coppers, and his official journey money which he could not use until he reached Victoria. Peter never thought of using it, nor did it occur to him to return and tell Mrs. Mortimer what had happened. Instead, he inquired the way to the nearest large station, and set out to walk the eight miles which lay between him and it.

As he walked he thought. He thought about the Annam Jewel. He never spoke of it, but he thought of it very often; and in his thoughts it was a living splendour. If the actual Jewel had been torn from its shrine all those years ago by covetous, blood-stained hands, the vision of the Jewel had come into a new resting-place, secret and silent. It lay in a very sacred shrine in the heart of Peter's dream. When he was twenty-five he would behold the Jewel. It would be his. It is impossible to explain what the Jewel meant to Peter. Peter never spoke of it to anyone. It was all the dreams come true; it was Romance; it was Adventure; it was Deadly Peril and Achievement.

He tramped the eight miles, and did not know the way was long, or trouble because he had a hundred miles to cover and only twopence to spend. In the land of Romance and High Adventure no road is weary.

Twenty-four hours later he reached Ledlington. He had stolen a ride on a train, only to be discovered and thrown roughly off. After a second tramp he had been more fortunate, and had reached Victoria very hungry, very dirty, and very footsore. From there all was plain sailing. His journey money now came into legitimate use, and he bought his ticket with the pride of a millionaire.

He did not ring the front door bell, but went round by the garden, and walked in at Matthew Waring's study window.

His uncle sat at the table, writing. At the sound of Peter's entry he turned, upset the ink, and uttered an odd, wordless exclamation. His eyes were hard from want of sleep.

“Good God, boy, where have you been? Where's the little girl?”

The door opened as he spoke. Emily Waring stood on the threshold. For the first time in their joint lives Matthew turned on her in a fury.

“Go away!” he said, not loudly, but with a cold anger which was more cutting.

“Go away! You've done harm enough, Emily.
Will
you go away?”

Emily went. One can be sorry for her. She did not think of herself as a hard or an unjust woman. She thought that Rose Ellen must be dead. No, she did not put it like that. She thought that something must have happened to Rose Ellen, something dreadful. Suddenly she saw herself, hard and cold, Matthew hating her, telling her to go away.

Matthew Waring turned again to Peter.

“For God's sake, boy, where's the little girl?”

“I've found a home for her,” said Peter.

“You—”

“I said I'd take her away if she wasn't happy,” said Peter doggedly.

“Oh, you did, did you?” said Mr, Waring, with the sudden anger of relief. “You took her away, and none of us knowing where you were, whether you were alive or dead! A pretty business, I must say, a pretty disgraceful business.”

He banged on the table with his fist, and glared at Peter, who had dropped his bag and stood with his hands in his pockets, wondering why grown-up people lost their tempers so easily. It bored him frightfully. He wanted something to eat and a wash, but Uncle Matthew kept on talking at the top of his voice.

“And you think it honest,
honest
to use your journey money for such a purpose?”

Peter's hand came out of his pocket with a handful of change in it. He put the little pile of silver and coppers on the edge of the table, and glared back at Matthew Waring.

“I didn't!” he said furiously.

“You didn't what? What's this? God bless my soul, what's this?”

Peter explained, shortly, gruffly, angrily.

Matthew Waring looked at him for a moment in silence. Then he said:

“Well, well …” And after a pause, “You say you found the little girl a home?”

Peter nodded. His hands were in his pockets again. There was another pause. Peter was so frightfully empty that he couldn't remember what it felt like not to be empty. Then Matthew Waring said suddenly:

“When did you last have something to eat?”

“I'm not sure,” said Peter. “There was a banana this morning, but I don't know if you count a banana.”

“Oh, go away and get some food!” said Mr. Waring loudly and explosively.

CHAPTER IX

During the next five years Peter saw very little of Rose Ellen. Mrs. Mortimer adopted her formally, and she had no wish to encourage too much intimacy with a boy whose ultimate career in life was likely to be bounded by the walls of a country solicitor's office; Rose Ellen would be her heiress; also she was jealous of Peter's place in Rose Ellen's affections. Rose Ellen did not speak of Peter. She loved Mrs. Mortimer, and throve like a plant in a sunny place, but she never forgot. She had one of those rare natures which have no capacity for forgetting. Once in each holidays Peter came, stayed a day and a night, and was gone again. As the children began to grow up, Mrs. Mortimer regarded even this limited intercourse with disfavour. She made plans for taking Rose Ellen abroad: Switzerland at Christmas; the Riviera in spring; Norway in summer. She thought it would be quite possible to be out of Peter's reach during the holidays.

When Peter was seventeen he went to spend a fortnight of the summer holidays with the Coverdales. He met Sylvia Coverdale in Ledlington, where she was staying with an elderly cousin. He met her in very romantic circumstances which combined a bicycle accident, a car which was grossly exceeding the speed limit, a scream from Sylvia who thought her last hour had come, and a really good exhibition of presence of mind and dexterity on the part of Peter.

Sylvia was eighteen, distractingly pretty, and an arrant flirt. She told Peter he had saved her life. She said saving a person's life was a Link, wasn't it? Didn't Peter think it was a Link? Peter thought a good deal, but he didn't say very much. Sylvia rather threw him off his balance. He escorted her to the cousin's door, and went for a ten-mile walk, in the course of which he decided that he would become a millionaire as rapidly as possible, marry Sylvia, and give her the Annam Jewel on their wedding day.

Sylvia sat down and wrote a romantic and illegible account of the adventure to her father. The result (i) of the romance, and (ii) of the illegibility, was that Peter was invited to stay at Sunnings. This, perhaps, needs explanation.

The romance affected the matter because Sylvia had recently become engaged to a most undesirable and impecunious young poet of the name of Cyril Marling, and her parent, who detested poets in general, and Cyril in particular, entertained a hope that peter might distract his daughter's mind.

The illegibility had this bearing upon the situation, that Mr. Coverdale received the impression that Peter's surname was Wareham. A Waring would never have been invited to Sunnings. The name had associations too dark and dangerous, and Coverdale had grown cautious, as befitted a landed proprietor and a Justice of the Peace.

Miss Coverdale, who kept house for her brother, was frankly horrified at the idea of entertaining a schoolboy.

“My dear, think of his boots,” she said to Sylvia, “and his voice! You know how sensitive your father is to noise, and nobody ever knows what a boy of that age will do next.”

Sylvia kissed her aunt very prettily.

“Now, Jane Ann, don't fuss,” she said. “He'll be as good as gold, and you won't have to bother with him at all. He's my property.”

“Oh, my dear, I don't approve of your engagement, as you know—and indeed, Sylvia darling, I don't think you are really steady enough to be engaged to anyone—and, as you know, marriage is a terrible responsibility—and people who write poetry never seem to have any money or a settled home, or—or a stake in the county—and very often, my dear, their religious and moral principles are not at all what one would wish for in a husband. Where was I, Sylvia dear? I know I meant to say something, and I think that I haven't said it. No, I'm sure I haven't. Now what was it?”

Sylvia giggled.

“Darling, I don't know,” she said.

“I know what it was. I don't approve of your engagement, as you know; but when you speak of this Mr. Waring being your property—well, what will Mr. Marling say?”

“Cyril's coming for the week-end,” said Sylvia. She stuck her chin in the air and made limpid eyes at Miss Coverdale. “You can ask him when he comes.”

Peter arrived next day. Miss Coverdale looked at him helplessly. He was very large, and very awkward, and he stooped. He was extraordinarily untidy even for a schoolboy. He had the largest, reddest hands, the largest, worst-shod feet, and the boniest wrists and ankles which she had ever beheld. He had the kind of thick, fair hair which stands on end and looks dusty. At first he appeared to have no conversation. When addressed he would blush crimson and mutter unintelligibly. When not addressed he would sit sprawling in a chair and fiddle with something—a book, a box, a trinket, or a bit of string.

When Sylvia kissed her aunt good night, she remarked cheerfully:

“You see, Jane Ann, he's
perfectly
quiet,” to which Miss Coverdale's only response was a very deep sigh.

Peter arrived on the Saturday afternoon. On Sunday he was quiescent. On Monday he sent the cat and the cook into convulsions by the very simple expedient of tying the cat up in alternate festoons of red and white crinkled paper. The cat's name was Penelope, and she was of a highly nervous and excitable disposition. When Peter had finished with her, he roared with laughter and held her up in front of a looking-glass. Penelope uttered one piercing shriek of outraged vanity, tore a hole in Peter's cheek, and rushed like a streak of red-and-white lightning down the stairs, through the hall, and into the kitchen. There was a large piece of raw turbot lying on the kitchen table. Penelope sprang upon the turbot and began to dance up and down, clawing pieces out of the fish and emitting satanic screams. The cook was bending over the fire. When she turned round to see what was happening, Penelope sprang right at her face.

“Such a valuable cook,” said Miss Coverdale tearfully. “Such a quiet cat, and a most excellent mouser. And, Sylvia darling, if your father hadn't gone away this morning, where on earth should we have got any fish for dinner?”

“As a matter of fact, I don't know where we shall get it now,” said Sylvia.

“We shan't,” said Miss Coverdale simply. “But of course it doesn't matter about us. Do you know, darling, that I feel it is quite a providence that your dear father should be called away on business at this juncture.”

They talked to Peter next day after the cook had given notice. Sylvia talked to him, and Miss Coverdale talked to him. Peter stood with his back to the fireplace and blushed. He also shuffled continuously from one foot to another and fiddled with a bit of string.

About half-way through the proceedings Sylvia stamped her foot and snatched the string. Peter made not the slightest attempt to retain it, but immediately produced another piece from his waistcoat pocket and began to fiddle with that. Sylvia got up and ran out of the room, banging the door behind her.

Romance, it will be seen, was rather under a cloud.

On Tuesday Peter took the hall clock to pieces. He said he had noticed that it gained three minutes every day, so he concluded that it required regulating. He said he had often taken clocks to pieces. The trouble was that, owing to some peculiarity of this particular clock, it remained in pieces. Peter's efforts to put it together again being quite unsuccessful. Miss Coverdale became terribly agitated, but Sylvia, still on the cold side of Romance, contented herself with observing that the nearest reliable watchmaker lived five miles away. Peter immediately swept the fragments of the clock into a very dirty cotton bandanna, and vanished from the scene. He was away about four hours, returning very late for dinner. The clock was going. He explained that he had put it together himself. Wilkins, it appeared, was a jolly good sort. Wilkins had given him some jolly good tips, but he had put the clock together himself.

On Wednesday Peter was discovered taking pot shots at Sylvia's pet robin with an air-gun. The robin sat on the topmost branch of a tree, and regarded Peter with a good deal of interest. Sylvia behaved rather like Penelope. She rushed at Peter, snatched away the gun, and boxed his ears.

On Thursday Cyril Marling arrived. He was a slim young man with a long nose and a high brow. His other features were negligible. He wore his hair about twelve inches long and brushed smoothly back from the brow to the nape of the neck.

“I thought he was coming for the week-end,” said Miss Coverdale fretfully.

“Well, darling, so he is,” said Sylvia.

“Your father won't like it.”

“My father isn't here, Jane Ann. Do stop fussing.”

Peter did not like it either. He loathed Cyril Marling at sight, and after Cyril and Sylvia had spent nearly the whole of Friday together on the river, he loathed Cyril a good deal more.