Peter and Jane; Or, The Missing Heir

'How often have I told you not to work when you are tired?' said the canon, shaking his finger reprovingly at her.

'I 'll finish the guild work,' exclaimed Jane, 'and I 'll make Peter come and help me.'

Miss Erskine, who had been sitting upon one of her feet and swinging the other, rose impulsively from the garden-seat and covered the lawn in a series of hops, until her shoe, which had become hopelessly entangled in the laces of her petticoat, released itself with a rending sound. Then she removed her hand from Peter's shoulder, upon which she had been supporting herself, and together they went into the house.

'And this,' thought Miss Abingdon ruefully, 'is courtship as it is understood in the present day!'

CHAPTER III

The following morning Miss Erskine was awakened at the unusual hour of five a.m. by having her window broken by a large pebble. 'I tried small ones first, but it was not a bit of good,' said Peter later, with compunction.

Jane stirred sleepily, and flung her heavy brown hair upon the pillow. This was probably some nonsense on the part of a young Wrottesley, and Jane was not going to be taken in by it.

Next, the point of a fishing-rod was tapped against the pane; it was, therefore, probably that particular Wrottesley boy whose passion for fishing in the early hours of the morning was well known. Jane rubbed the sleep from her drowsy eyes, and called out that she knew quite well who it was, and that Cyprian was to go away at once.

'Jane,' said Peter's voice, 'I wish you would wake up and come down. Toffy's had a horrid smash. He says he 's all right, and he won't go to the doctor, but his hand is badly cut and he has had a nasty knock on his head.'

'Oh, Toffy!' said Jane, 'you 've been in the wars again!' She had descended from her bedroom, and had now unbarred the windows of her own sitting-room and stepped out on to the dewy grass in the clothes which she had hastily put on, her heavy brown hair, tied loosely with a ribbon, falling down her back. The windows of her boudoir were protected by green wooden jalousies and were considered a safeguard against thieves.

'This is awfully kind of you, Jane,' said Toffy. 'I don't think there is really much the matter with me.'

He came inside the sitting-room and Peter made him lie down on the sofa. There was a bruise on one side of his head, and his hand was bound up with a pocket-handkerchief drenched with blood.

'Don't look at it,' said Jane. 'Just stretch out your hand like that, and I 'll bathe it.' She had the simple remedies which Miss Abingdon kept in the house—boracic lint and plaster. Nigel Christopherson lay on the sofa and looked up at the ceiling, because, as Jane had somehow divined, he hated the sight of blood; and he discoursed gravely on his misfortunes while she dressed the ugly wound and bound and slung his hand.

'Talk of sick-nurses!' muttered Peter, and wondered how it was that Jane was able to do everything better than other people could; although, indeed, the bandaging showed more tenderness than skill, and there was something almost pathetically youthful and inconsequent in the manner of both patient and nurse.

The room itself was indicative of the youthful and unlearned character of its owner. A box of chocolates occupied an important position on the writing-table, some envelopes stuffed with dress patterns lay upon a chair. There was a large collection of novels which Jane did not often read, and a much larger collection of illustrated books and papers which she and Peter thoroughly enjoyed. A favourite parrot, who never could be induced to talk, sulked in a cage and had a great deal of affection expended upon him. The remains of the guild work which Mrs. Wrottesley had not finished occupied the greater part of the sofa, and Jane meant to ask her maid to run up all the little blouses and petticoats, as she herself was too frightfully busy to undertake them. An immense number of photographs ornamented the mantelpiece and were mixed up, without attempt at classification, with curious odds and ends which Peter had sent home from South Africa during the war time. Some riding-whips hung on a rack on the wall, side by side with a few strange sketches in oil-colours of Jane's favourite hunters, painted by herself. Peter thought the sketches were among the best he had ever seen, and even Jane was rather pleased with them.

'I 'll take the guild work off the sofa,' she said, 'and that will give you more room.' She settled his head comfortably upon the pillows and turned to Peter for an explanation or an account of the accident.

'I don't know much about it,' said Peter, giving his head a shake. 'The Wrottesley boy and I were going out fishing early, and we found Toffy sitting in the middle of the road with a motor-car hung in a tree.'

'You see,' said Toffy, in his grave, low voice, 'I have made up my mind for some time past to travel by night because it saves hotel bills.'

'But it doesn't cost you much to sleep in your own bed, Toffy,' protested Jane.

'No,' said the young man, looking at her with admiration; 'I hadn't thought of that. I have dismissed my chauffeur,' he went on, 'because he was always wanting things. I said to him, "My good man, get anything you want if you can get tick for it." He was a maniac about ready money. I got on all right for the first forty miles or so after leaving London, and I was going on splendidly when my motor, to gain some private end, went mad. How do these things happen? Thank 'e, Jane,' as Jane fastened a silk handkerchief to serve as a sling for the wounded arm.

'Providentially the thing broke down at the Carstairs's very gates,' he went on. The loss of blood was making him sick, but if he went on talking he would probably not faint. 'And it was then three o'clock in the morning, so I coaxed it up the drive and shoved it into the coach-house, and took their motor, which is rather a nice one.'

'Then it wasn't your own machine that you smashed up?' said Peter.

'No, praise be!' replied Toffy.

'When will the fraud be discovered?' asked Jane. 'Gilbert Carstairs is quite a good sort, but his wife has very little sense of humour.'

'Oh, I left a note all right in the coach-house,' answered Toffy, 'and I pointed out to Gilbert that he had no right to encourage burglaries by having inefficient locks on his coach-house doors. I added that I thought he ought to be very thankful that it was an honest man who had stolen his motor-car.'

'Also, I hope you said that he might have the loan of your disabled one till he had had it thoroughly repaired?' said Peter.

'I said something of that sort,' Toffy replied. 'And I should think Gilbert would do the right thing by the motor. I am only afraid Mrs. Carstairs may misunderstand the whole thing.'

'One is liable to be misunderstood by even the best people,' said Peter.

At breakfast-time it appeared that nothing had been done to prepare Miss Abingdon for the news that one of her best spare bedrooms was at this moment occupied by a man with a broken head, for she appeared at the door of the breakfast-room in a serene frame of mind, and was kissed by Peter, who announced that here he was, you know, and hoped she was not much surprised to see him so early.

'I am never surprised,' said Miss Abingdon, with intention.

'I have been thinking,' said the young man presently, in the peculiarly genial voice which was characteristic of him and helped to make him so likeable, 'that, suppose a policeman should come sniffing about here this morning, you had better tell him that there is no such thing as a motor-car in the place, and that there has never been one.'

'That is hardly true, Peter,' said Miss Abingdon, in the severe manner which she cultivated, 'considering how often Sir Nigel is here with his.'

'As a matter of fact,' said Peter steadily, 'Toffy is here now. He is—he is in bed, in fact.'

'Something has happened!' exclaimed Miss Abingdon apprehensively. Why was it that youth could never be contented without incidents? To be young seemed to involve action, while acquaintanceship with Jane and Peter seemed to bring one, however unwillingly, into a series of events.

'There was a little accident early this morning,' explained Peter. 'Toffy was travelling at night—to save hotel bills, you know—and there was a breakdown because he didn't quite understand the Carstairs's machine, which he had borrowed; so poor Toffy came off second best; but Jane patched him up most beautifully, and Martin said he had better have the blue room.'

'Do I understand that Sir Nigel Christopherson stole Captain Carstairs's motor-car in the middle of the night and left his own damaged one in its place?' said Miss Abingdon, 'and that he regards this matter quite lightly?'

'Toffy is a cheery soul,' said Peter.

'You are all cheery souls!' said Miss Abingdon hopelessly. She summoned the butler and sent for the village doctor, and made Peter telegraph to Captain Carstairs.

'You always seem to think of everything, Cousin Mary,' said Peter admiringly.

'Some one has to,' said Miss Abingdon, with a strong touch of superiority in her manner; and then she walked round the breakfast-table to where her niece was sitting and kissed her, because a few minutes ago she had looked at her severely, and what would happen if Jane were ever to prefer the Erskines' house to hers? What if Jane were to prolong the six months which it had been stipulated she should spend with her father's relations in London? Jane loved General Erskine too well already. Miss Abingdon felt weak as she said, 'Don't worry any more about it, Jane,' for Jane did not look worried. 'And now,' she said, 'I must go and see how Sir Nigel is.'

Miss Abingdon still used a key-basket and hoped, please God, she would never be called upon to give up this womanly appendage, whatever the world might come to. The jingling of the keys was a harmonious accompaniment to her whenever she walked about. She bent her steps now down the cool wide passages of her charming house to visit her disabled guest, who, she heard, was awake. It was part of her creed that sick persons should be visited, whether they themselves desired it or not. In her young days nurses were unknown, and one proved one's Christianity by the length of time one remained in overheated sick-rooms. Still, Miss Abingdon was not accustomed to the presence of a sick man in her house, and she paused on the door-mat before entering the room, and said to herself, 'I feel very awkward.' Then she timidly tapped at the door and went in.

Sir Nigel Christopherson was lying in bed reading the Bible. When he was not getting into debt, or riding races, or playing polo, or loving Mrs. Avory, Toffy generally employed his spare moments in reading the Bible. He was a preternaturally grave young man, with large eyes and long eyelashes of which he was properly ashamed, being inclined to class them in his own mind with such physical disadvantages as red lips or curling hair. Miss Abingdon thought that he was generally misunderstood. It impressed her very favourably to find him employed in reading Holy Scripture, and she turned away her eyes from the book, which Toffy laid frankly on the outside of the counterpane, feeling that the subject was too sacred to comment upon.

'How do you feel?' she said gently. 'You look very white.'

'Oh, I 'm as fit as a fiddle, thanks, Miss Abingdon,' said Toffy.

'You don't look it,' said Miss Abingdon, with a return to her severe manner.

'I 'm really a very strong chap,' said Toffy. He had been delicate ever since he was a little boy. School games had often been an agony to him. He had ridden races and had lain awake all night afterwards, unable, through sheer exhaustion, to sleep; he had played polo under burning suns, and had concealed the fact (as though it had been a crime) that he had fainted in the pavilion afterwards. He very seldom had a good night's sleep, and habitual bad luck or the effort to conceal his constitutional delicacy had given him a curious gravity of manner, combined with a certain gentleness, which contrasted oddly with his whimsically absurd utterances. No one ever looked more wise than this young man, no one ever acted with more conspicuous foolishness, and no one ever received a larger measure of ill-luck than he. If Toffy hunted, his horse fell or went lame. If he rode in a steeplechase, some accident, the condition of the ground, or the position of the jumps, made the course unusually difficult for the particular horse he was riding. Did he play polo, his most brilliant hits just failed to make the goal. His gravity and his gentleness increased in proportion with his ill-luck. No one ever backed Toffy, and no one believed in his best efforts. But they borrowed his horses and his money, and lived for months as his guests at the huge ugly house which was his home; and Toffy accepted it all, and philosophized about it in his grave way, and read his Bible, and loved Mrs. Avory. No one but Toffy would have loved her; she was quite plain and she was separated from her husband—a truculent gentleman who employed his leisure moments in making his wife miserable. And she had a daughter of ten years old towards whose maintenance Mrs. Avory made blouses and trimmed parasols for which her friends hardly ever paid her.

The world, with its ever-ready explanation of conduct and its facility in finding motives, ascribed Sir Nigel's chronic impecuniosity to the fact that he contributed to the support of Mrs. Avory and her little girl. Mrs. Avory, who knew quite well what was said of her, ate her cold mutton for supper, and economized in coals in the winter, and paid her little weekly bills, and wondered sometimes what was the use of trying to be good when so few people believed in goodness.

Toffy came to see her every Sunday when he was in London; or, if he did not do so, Mrs. Avory wrote him long letters in very indistinct handwriting, and told him that it was all right, and that she really hoped he would marry and be as happy as he deserved to be. And the letters were generally blotted and blistered with tears.

Miss Abingdon put her key-basket upon the dressing-table and sat down in an armchair on the farther side of the room. It upset her very much to see Sir Nigel looking so ill, and she believed that to read the Bible at odd hours was a sign of approaching death.

'You must have some beef-tea at eleven,' Miss Abingdon said, and felt glad that she was able to do something in a crisis.