Chapter LXIX: "the Right One"

A woman from the village opened the door, and stared at Eager and Jim in vast surprise. "How is Mrs. Lee to-night, Mrs. Kenyon?" asked Eager.

"'Oo's varry low. 'Oo just lies an' nivver spakes a word."

"Well now"--very emphatically--"I want you not to go in, or speak to her, till we come down again. You understand?"

"I understand, and I dunnot want to spake to her."

They went quietly along the stone passage, past the door of the room where the sick woman lay, and tapped on the door of Sir Denzil's apartments.

Kennet opened it with a wide stare, and they went in.

Sir Denzil was lingering over his dinner.

"So you've got home, Mr. Eager----" he lifted his glass of wine to his health. Then catching sight of Jim behind--"Ah, Jim, my boy, so you've come home at last!"

"All that's left of me, sir."

"Ah--I see. Well, well! Better half a loaf than no bread." And he stood up and got out his snuff-box, tapped it into good order inside, and extracted a pinch. "I've been expecting you ever since we got news of the fall of Sebastopol. And Jack----?

"Jack is dead, sir."

"So!" And the grizzled brows went up in inquiry for more.

"He was killed by the same shell that took my arm. Why it did not take us both I do not know."

"Dear, dear! The ways of Providence are past our finding out. Let us accept her gifts without questioning. I am delighted to see you, my dear boy--delighted. Now that we have got you safe home we must make the most of you." And for the first time in his life Eager got glimpse of a Sir Denzil he had never known before, and could hardly have imagined, had it not been his custom to credit every man with more possibilities of grace than outside appearances might seem to warrant.

"And now," continued Sir Denzil, with anxious warmth, "I hope you've had enough of war, and are ready to settle down here and make the most of what is left to you."

"It has been a trying time, sir. I shall be glad of a rest."

But Sir Denzil was gazing at him with something of the fixity of Charles Eager's look before they left the Rectory. He took a thoughtful pinch of snuff, with a sudden relapse into his old manner. Then he nodded his head slowly several times, and said, "No . . . I think not . . . No need--now. . . ." And he looked across at Eager and said: "It occurred to me that if he went down and saw that old woman . . . but it is not necessary now. Nothing she could say----"

"I would like to see her, by your leave, sir," said Jim. "After all, she was good to us boys, in her own way, you know."

"Very well," said Sir Denzil, after a moment's hesitation, as though he shrunk from subjecting his new-found satisfaction to any test whatever. "Only--remember! Her whole life has been a lie, and we cannot trust a word she says." And they went downstairs, and along the stone passage, to the side-room in which Nance Lee's baby had slept his first sleep at Carne, that black night one-and-twenty years before.

"Yon other woman will have told her," said Sir Denzil, stopping short of the door as the thought struck him.

"No; I told her not to," said Eager.

"Ah!"--with a quick look at him--"then you had the same idea." And they went quietly in.

Mrs. Lee was lying motionless on her back, and her thin gray face in its frilled white nightcap looked so set and rigid that at first they thought her dead.

Sir Denzil nodded to Eager to speak to her, and stepped back out of sight.

"Mrs. Lee," said Eager, bending over her, "here is one of our boys come back from death. He wished to see you."

The dim old eyes opened and stared wildly at them all for a moment, then settled on Jim in a long, thin, piercing gaze. "Don't you know me, Mrs. Lee?" he asked.

"Ay--shore! . . . Yo're----" and she struggled up to her bony elbow to look closer, and caught a glimpse of Sir Denzil behind--"yo're Jack!" and fell back on to her pillow.

They thought she was gone; but she suddenly opened her eyes again and laughed a thin, shrill little laugh, and said:

"So t'reet un's come back, after aw!"

And then her meagre body straightened itself in the bed, and she lay still.

"I knew we'd get nothing out of her," said Sir Denzil, when they had got back to his room. "But whatever she said would have made no difference. You are Carron of Caine, my boy; and, thanks to our friend here, Carne will have a better master than it has had for many a day."