Peter and Jane by Sarah Macnaughtan (large screen ebook reader .txt) 📖

who works or the lot of the woman who weeps, may be summed up in the convenient phrase, 'There is a great deal to be said on both sides.'

It is true that Kitty Sherard and Jane, left behind in comfortable and prosaic England, were spared the torment of flies and mosquitoes and other minor ills; they escaped most of the hard things of life, and enjoyed many of its pleasures and luxuries; and these mitigations seemed to them things of very little worth, and the life of action, when viewed from the safe security of their environment, appeared to be the only possible condition which might assuage pain or lessen the bitterness of separation.

Peter Ogilvie, meanwhile, and his friend, Nigel Christopherson, were in the midst of weather as hot as can be very well endured even by English people, who seem capable of resisting almost every sort of bad climate. The sun rose on the edge of the level plains every morning with horrible punctuality, and stared and blazed relentlessly until it had burned itself out in a beautiful rage and glory in the blood-red western sky.

'Dawn,' Ross said, 'is one of the things you are disposed to admire when you first come to Argentine, but when the hot weather begins you feel inclined to throw your boots at the sun when it rises.'

Now it was afternoon, and a heavy day's work in the corral was over. Peter was writing letters, while Ross and Toffy dozed in long cane chairs in the corridor. Purvis sat on the little cretonne-covered box beside the empty fireplace, and looked with lack-lustre eyes into space. He had been helping with some work on the estancia; but he had brought none of his own men with him, as some neighbours had done, and the ominous whisper grew that there was trouble down at his place. Ross treated the matter lightly, and explained it by saying that Purvis was making a fortune with his steamers, and was feeding his men on carne flacca. 'Purvis does his best, poor beast, and I believe he is worth a dozen detectives in this affair of yours, Peter.'

Peter himself, however, was inclined to draw back a little. 'He has put me on the wrong scent once or twice,' he said.

'After all, you haven't told him much,' said Ross.

And Peter agreed that this was so.

There was an undefined feeling in his mind that if he had to learn that his brother was alive he would like to hear of it through such legalized channels as Sir John Falconer was arranging. The detective spirit was not strong in Peter Ogilvie. He would have preferred to take the whole world into his confidence, and to ask them to speak out if they had anything to say. But Mr. Semple and Sir John had cautioned him against this procedure, and the inquiries he had been able to make had been conducted at one time with such surprising caution that no possible clue was given towards finding the child, while at others he had allowed more to be known than Mr. Semple, for instance, would have thought wise. He had lately become more reserved in his dealings with their neighbour at La Dorada, and began almost to try to discount the fact that he had ever consulted Purvis at all about his affairs. He lightly waved aside any information that was given him, and was always busy at the moment when Purvis wanted a few words with him. He advised Toffy to say, if he were asked, that Sir John Falconer was making inquiries, and that for the present they themselves were not going to move in the matter. Toffy and Ross both thought that they had gone too far to make such an attitude possible. 'What harm can it do to find out what he knows?' Ross said more than once.

But Peter still held back. 'I hate his confounded mysteries,' he said, 'and I don't attach much importance to things that are only known in a back-stairs sort of way.'

This afternoon in his letter to Jane he had given it as his opinion that the little man who they had thought might help them was proving to be rather a fraud. 'He is always starting ideas,' wrote Peter, 'and nothing comes of them. Why, bless me, you would think that Argentine was peopled with unclaimed babies and stiff with missing heirs.'

He felt better when he had unbosomed himself to Jane and had got rid of some of his impatience and ill-temper.

'I think I 'll ride to the post presently,' he said, getting up and stretching himself; 'it must get cooler soon.'

Purvis got up also from his little wooden seat by the fireplace. 'I 'll come with you,' he said. 'I am expecting letters which may want my immediate attention, and I can call at the telegraph office on my way. May I give you my company so far?' he asked. There was a touch of the lackey about Purvis, and his voice was humble sometimes to the verge of irritation.

'Como no?' said Peter lazily, in the formula of the country. His tone was not enthusiastic. Purvis was so prone to circumlocution that the fact that he had asked deliberately to accompany him on the ride towards the mail in the cool of the evening convinced him that the man could have nothing of importance to say.

They rode together over the short, tough turf of the camp a little way without speaking, and then Purvis began, in his smooth thin voice, riding a little nearer to his companion so as to make himself heard without undue exertion, 'I wanted to speak to you alone.'

'Say on,' said Peter.

When he was riding Purvis was perhaps at his worst. He had an ugly seat in the saddle, and his dark grey suit, made with trousers, was worn without riding-boots. He looked straight in front of him with his tired watery eyes with the perpetual tear in them, and said, 'I believe we are within measurable distance of finding the man you seek.'

Peter looked full at him, but the other did not turn his head; his horse cantered along lazily in the evening light as he sat loosely in the saddle, his pale, expressionless face turned towards the path by which they were travelling.

'The name of the man,' he said, 'is Edward Ogilvie.'

'Yes,' said Peter; 'my brother.' The thing was out now, and he could thank Heaven that he did not wear his heart on his sleeve.

'It is a very strange story!' said Purvis.

'May we have it?' asked Peter briefly. He might employ Purvis, but it galled him to think that his future lay in his hands.

'No,' said Purvis, in his hesitating, thin voice. 'You can't have it for the present. To begin with,' he continued, turning towards Peter for the first time, and raising pathetically large eyes towards him, 'I am not going to speak about it until I am sure, nor am I going to speak about it until I have asked you for some necessary details which will make a mischance or a case of mistaken identity impossible. I don't want to make a fool of myself, as you have trusted me so far.'

'Ask me anything you like,' said Peter laconically. His mind was pretty full just then, and there was a note of confidence in Purvis's voice which gave him the idea that their search was nearly over. He began to wonder how much money he had, and whether there was any chance of the Scottish place being his. Bowshott, of course, would pass away from him, and the beautiful house with its galleries and its gardens would be the property of some unknown man. Possibly the man had a wife, and where Jane was to have reigned as mistress there would be some woman, unused to great houses, and with manners perhaps not suited to her position. He wondered what his mother would have thought about it all, and whether she could in the least realize what the result of her unfinished letter to him might be. Whatever her faults she had been a great lady to her finger-tips. He remembered her, as he had been wont to see her, showing her pictures and gardens to the foreign royalties who came to see her, or receiving Her Majesty when she drove over from Windsor and called upon her. Only Jane could ever fill her place adequately; Jane with her short skirts and graceful, swinging walk, and her queer plain hats that so perfectly became her, and made country neighbours look overdressed. He loved to remember her in a hundred different ways—in white satin, with a string of pearls about her neck; at meets, on one of her sixteen-hand hunters; playing golf; painting the rabbit-hutch in the garden; binding up Toffy's hand that morning, ages ago, when he had had a spill out of his motor-car; playing with the school-children on the lawn; or, best of all, perhaps, dancing in the great ballroom at Bowshott, and sitting with him afterwards in the dimness of his mother's tapestried chamber, her great white feather fan laid upon her knees.

'Is the man married?' asked Peter, with a drawl.

'He is married,' Purvis said, as the two horses swung together in their easy stride.

'Wife alive?' Peter slowed down and lighted a cigarette with deliberation.

'That is a part of the story which I cannot at present divulge,' said Purvis.

'It sounds mysterious!' said Peter, sending his horse into a canter again.

'If it were written in a romance it would hardly be believed,' said the other.

'You were going to ask me some questions,' said Peter, as though to put an end to any dissertation on the romantic side of the story. 'It is a business matter,' he said, 'and we had better be businesslike about it. We can unfold the romance of it later.'

'That is my wish,' said Purvis gravely.

Peter began to tell himself that he was treating the man badly. He had nothing to gain beyond a little money for his services, and so far he had behaved well and with tact. He was obviously disinterested, although perhaps the bill for pursuing his investigations might be fairly high.

'I have reason to believe that the identity of the man can be proved,' said Purvis; 'but I am not going to risk finding a mare's nest, as I have told you.'

'I am not much help to you,' said Peter. 'I have never set eyes oh my brother since I was two years old.'

'This is his photograph,' said Purvis, producing a coloured photograph from his pocket.

Peter took it into his hands and looked long at it. It represented a little boy with fair curls seated in a photographer's arm-chair.

'Can you tell me if it resembles any of your family?' said Purvis.

'Well, 'pon my word I don't know,' said Peter. 'The photograph is a small one, you see, and evidently not a very good one, and to my mind all children of that age look exactly alike. He looks a good little chap,' he finished, with a touch of kindness in his voice. If his brother turned out to be a good fellow reparation would be made easier; and, heavens! how badly the man had been treated.

'The chief danger,' said Purvis, 'lies in the fact that even a strong chain of evidence is not likely to be accepted by those who would benefit by Edward Ogilvie's death.'

'I suppose one would play a fair game,' said Peter shortly. 'I should like to know where you have heard of the man?'

'I may tell you that much,' said Purvis. 'I heard of him at Rosario.'

'Any reason why he should not have communicated with his friends all these years?'

'Within the next few weeks,' said Purvis, 'I hope to be able to bring you face to face with your brother, and then you can put what inquiries you like to him. You must surely see that it is necessary to act