The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers

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Transcriber's Note: A number of typographical errors found in the
original text have been corrected in this version. A list of these
errors is found at the end (before the advertisments from the original
book).

THE DANVERS JEWELS

AND

SIR CHARLES DANVERS

by

Mary Cholmondeley

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE

1890

* * * * *

TO MY SISTER

"DI"

I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THE STORY
WHICH SHE HELPED ME
TO WRITE

* * * * *

CONTENTS.

THE DANVERS JEWELS 9

THE SEQUEL.

SIR CHARLES DANVERS 93

* * * * *

THE DANVERS JEWELS.

CHAPTER I.

I was on the point of leaving India and returning to England when he
sent for me. At least, to be accurate--and I am always accurate--I was
not quite on the point, but nearly, for I was going to start by the mail
on the following day. I had been up to Government House to take my leave
a few days before, but Sir John had been too ill to see me, or at least
he had said he was. And now he was much worse--dying, it seemed, from
all accounts; and he had sent down a native servant in the noon-day heat
with a note, written in his shaking old hand, begging me to come up as
soon as it became cooler. He said he had a commission which he was
anxious I should do for him in England.

Of course I went. It was not very convenient, because I had to borrow
one of our fellows' traps, as I had sold my own, and none of them had
the confidence in my driving which I had myself. I was also obliged to
leave the packing of my collection of Malay _krises_ and Indian
_kookeries_ to my bearer.

I wondered as I drove along why Sir John had sent for me. Worse, was he?
Dying? And without a friend. Poor old man! He had done pretty well in
this world, but I was afraid he would not be up to much once he was out
of it; and now it seemed he was going. I felt sorry for him. I felt more
sorry when I saw him--when the tall, long-faced A.D.C. took me into his
room and left us. Yes, Sir John was certainly going. There was no
mistake about it. It was written in every line of his drawn fever-worn
face, and in his wide fever-lit eyes, and in the clutch of his long
yellow hands upon his tussore silk dressing-gown. He looked a very sick
bad old man as he lay there on his low couch, placed so as to court the
air from without, cooled by its passage through damped grass screens,
and to receive the full strength of the punka, pulled by an invisible
hand outside.

"You go to England to-morrow?" he asked, sharply.

It was written even in the change of his voice, which was harsh, as of
old, but with all the strength gone out of it.

"By to-morrow's mail," I said. I should have liked to say something
more--something sympathetic about his being ill and not likely to get
better; but he had always treated me discourteously when he was well,
and I could not open out all at once now that he was ill.

"Look here, Middleton," he went on; "I am dying, and I know it. I don't
suppose you imagined I had sent for you to bid you a last farewell
before departing to my long home. I am not in such a hurry to depart as
all that, I can tell you; but there is something I want done--that I
want you to do for me. I meant to have done it myself, but I am down
now, and I must trust somebody. I know better than to trust a clever
man. An honest fool--But I am digressing from the case in point. I have
never trusted anybody all my life, so you may feel honored. I have a
small parcel which I want you to take to England for me. Here it is."

His long lean hands went searching in his dressing-gown, and presently
produced an old brown bag, held together at the neck by a string.

"See here!" he said; and he pushed the glasses and papers aside from the
table near him and undid the string. Then he craned forward to look
about him, laying a spasmodic clutch on the bag. "I'm watched! I know
I'm watched!" he said in a whisper, his pale eyes turning slowly in
their sockets. "I shall be killed for them if I keep them much longer,
and I won't be hurried into my grave. I'll take my own time."

"There is no one here," I said, "and no one in sight except Cathcart,
smoking in the veranda, and I can only see his legs, so he can't see
us."

He seemed to recover himself, and laughed. I had never liked his laugh,
especially when, as had often happened, it had been directed against
myself; but I liked it still less now.

"See here!" he repeated, chuckling; and he turned the bag inside out
upon the table.

Such jewels I had never seen. They fell like cut flame upon the marble
table--green and red and burning white. A large diamond rolled and fell
upon the floor. I picked it up and put it back among the confused blaze
of precious stones, too much astonished for a moment to speak.

"Beautiful! aren't they?" the old man chuckled, passing his wasted hands
over them. "You won't match that necklace in any jeweller's in England.
I tore it off an old she-devil of a Rhanee's neck after the Mutiny, and
got a bite in the arm for my trouble. But she'll tell no tales. He! he!
he! I don't mind saying now how I got them. I am a humble Christian, now
I am so near heaven--eh, Middleton? He! he! You don't like to contradict
me. Look at those emeralds. The hasp is broken, but it makes a pretty
bracelet. I don't think I'll tell you how the hasp got broken--little
accident as the lady who wore it gave it to me. Rather brown, isn't it,
on one side? but it will come off. No, you need not be afraid of
touching it, it isn't wet. He! he! And this crescent. Look at those
diamonds. A duchess would be proud of them. I had them from a private
soldier. I gave him two rupees for them. Dear me! how the sight of them
brings back old times. But I won't leave them out any longer. We must
put them away--put them away." And the glittering mass was gathered up
and shovelled back into the old brown bag. He looked into it once with
hungry eyes, and then he pulled the string and pushed it over to me.
"Take it," he said. "Put it away now. Put it away," he repeated, as I
hesitated.

I put the bag into my pocket. He gave a long sigh as he watched it
disappear.

"Now what you have got to do with that bag," he said, a moment
afterwards, "is to take it to Ralph Danvers, the second son of Sir
George Danvers, of Stoke Moreton, in D----shire. Sir George has got two
sons. I have never seen him or his sons, but I don't mean the eldest to
have them. He is a spendthrift. They are all for Ralph, who is a steady
fellow, and going to marry a nice girl--at least, I suppose she is a
nice girl. Girls who are going to be married always _are_ nice. Those
jewels will sweeten matrimony for Mr. Ralph, and if she is like other
women it will need sweetening. There, now you have got them, and that is
what you have got to do with them. There is the address written on this
card. With my compliments, you perceive. He! he! I don't suppose they
will remember who I am."

"Have you no relations?" I asked; for I am always strongly of opinion
that property should be bequeathed to relatives, especially near
relatives, rather than to entire strangers.

"None," he replied, "not even poor relations. I have no deserving
nephew or Scotch cousin. If I had, they would be here at this moment
smoothing the pillow of the departing saint, and wondering how much they
would get. You may make your mind easy on that score."

"Then who is this Ralph whom you have never seen, and to whom you are
leaving so much?" I asked, with my usual desire for information.

He glared at me for a moment, and then he turned his face away.

"D----n it! What does it matter, now I'm dying?" he said. And then he
added, hoarsely, "I knew his mother."

I could not speak, but involuntarily I put out my hand and took his
leaden one and held it. He scowled at me, and then the words came out,
as if in spite of himself--

"She--if she had married me, who knows what might--But she married
Danvers. She called her second son Ralph. My first name is Ralph." Then,
with a sudden change of tone, pulling away his hand, "There! now you
know all about it! Edifying, isn't it? These death-bed scenes always
have an element of interest, haven't they? _Good_-evening"--ringing the
bell at his elbow--"I can't say I hope we shall meet again. It would be
impolite. No, don't let me keep you. Good-bye again."

"Good-bye, Sir John," I said, taking his impatient hand and shaking it
gently; "God bless you."

"Thankee," grinned the old man, with a sardonic chuckle; "if anything
could do me good that will, I'm sure. Good-bye."

* * * * *

As I breakfasted next morning, previously to my departure, I could not
help reflecting on the different position in which I was now returning
to England, as a colonel on long leave, to that in which I had left it
many--I do not care to think how many--years ago, the youngest ensign in
the regiment.

It was curious to remember that in my youth I had always been considered
the fool of the family; most unjustly so considered when I look back at
my quick promotion owing to casualties, and at my long and prosperous
career in India, which I cannot but regard as the result of high
principles and abilities, to say the least of it, of not the meanest
order. On the point of returning to England, the trust Sir John had with
his usual shrewdness reposed in me was an additional proof, if proof
were needed, of the confidence I had inspired in him--a confidence which
seemed to have ripened suddenly at the end of his life, after many years
of hardly concealed mockery and derision. Just as I was finishing my
reflections and my breakfast, Dickson, one of the last joined
subalterns, came in.

"This is very awful," he said, so gravely that I turned to look at him.

"What is awful?"

"Don't you know?" he replied. "Haven't you heard about--Sir John--last
night?"

"Dead?" I asked.

He nodded; and then he said--

"Murdered in the night! Cathcart heard a noise and went in, and stumbled
over him on the floor. As he came in he saw the lamp knocked over, and a
figure rush out through the veranda. The moon was bright, and he saw a
man run across a clear space in the moonlight--a tall, slightly built
man in native dress, but not a native, Cathcart said; that he would take
his oath on, by his build. He roused the house, but the man got clean
off, of course."

"And Sir John?"

"Sir John was quite dead when Cathcart got back to him. He found him
lying on his face. His arms were spread out, and his dressing-gown was
torn, as if he had struggled hard. His pockets had been turned inside
out, his writing-table drawers forced open, the whole room had been
ransacked; yet the old man's gold watch had not been touched, and some
money in one of the drawers had not been taken. What on earth is the
meaning of it all?" said young Dickson, below his breath. "What was the
thief after?"

In a moment the truth flashed across my brain. I put two and two
together as quickly as most men, I fancy. _The jewels!_ Some one had got
wind of the jewels, which at that moment were reposing on my own person
in their old brown bag. Sir John had been only just in time.

"What was he looking for?" continued Dickson, walking up and down. "The
old man must have had some paper or other about him that he wanted to
get hold of. But what? Cathcart says that nothing whatever has been
taken, as far as he can see at present."

I was perfectly silent. It is not every man who would have been so in my
place, but I was. I know when to hold my tongue, thank Heaven!

Presently the others came in, all full of the same subject, and then
suddenly I remembered that it was getting late; and there was a bustle
and a leave-taking, and I had to post off before I could hear more. Not,
however, that there was much more to hear, for everything seemed to be
in the greatest confusion, and every species of conjecture was afloat as
to the real criminal, and the motive for the crime. I had not much time
to think of anything during the first day on board; yet, busy as I was
in arranging and rearranging my things, poor old Sir John never seemed
quite absent from my mind. His image, as I had last seen him, constantly
rose before me, and the hoarse whisper was forever sounding in my ears,
"I'm watched! I know I'm watched!" I could not get him out of my head. I
was unable to sleep the first night I was on board, and, as the long
hours wore on, I always seemed to see the pale searching eyes of the
dead man; and above the manifold noises of the steamer, and the
perpetual lapping of the calm water against my ear, came the whisper,
"I'm watched! I know I'm watched!"

CHAPTER II.

I was all right next day. I suppose I had had what women call _nerves_.
I never knew what nerves meant before, because no two women I ever met
seemed to have the same kind. If it is slamming a door that upsets one
woman's nerves, it may be coming in on tiptoe that will upset another's.
You never can tell. But I am sure it was nerves with me that first
night; I know I have never felt so queer since. Oh yes I have,
though--once. I was forgetting; but I have not come to that yet.

We had a splendid passage home. Most of the passengers were in good
spirits at the thought of seeing England again, and even the children
were not so troublesome as I have known them. I soon made friends with
some of the nicest people, for I generally make friends easily. I do not
know how I do it, but I always seem to know what people really are at
first sight. I always was rather a judge of character.

There was one man on board whom I took a great fancy to from the first.
He was a young American, travelling about, as Americans do, to see the
world. I forget where he had come from--though I believe he told me--or
why he was going to London; but a nicer young fellow I never met. He was
rather simple and unsophisticated, and with less knowledge of the world
than any man I ever knew; but he did not mind owning to it, and was as
grateful as possible for any little hints which, as an older man who had
not gone through life with his eyes shut, I was of course able to give
him. He was of a shy disposition I could see, and wanted drawing out;
but he soon took to me, and in a surprisingly short time we became
friends. He was in the next cabin to mine, and evidently wished so much
to have been with me, that I tried to get another man to exchange; but
he was grumpy about it, and I had to give it up, much to young Carr's
disappointment. Indeed, he was quite silent and morose for a whole day
about it, poor fellow. He was a tall handsome young man, slightly built,
with the kind of sallow complexion that women admire, and I wondered at
his preferring my company to that of the womankind on board, who were
certainly very civil to him. One evening when I was rallying him on the
subject, as we were leaning over the side (for though it was December it
was hot enough in the Red Sea to lounge on deck), he told me that he was
engaged to be married to a beautiful young American girl. I forget her
name, but I remember he told it me--Dulcima Something--but it is of no
consequence. I quite understood then. I always can enter into the
feelings of others so entirely. I know when I was engaged myself once,
long ago, I did not seem to care to talk to any one but her. She did not
feel the same about it, which perhaps accounted for her marrying some
one else, which was quite a blow to me at the time. But still I could
fully enter into young Carr's feelings, especially when he went on to
expatiate on her perfections. Nothing, he averred, was too good for her.
At last he dropped his voice, and, after looking about him in the dusk,
to make sure he was not overheard, he said:

"I have picked up a few stones for her on my travels; a few sapphires of
considerable value. I don't care to have it generally known that I have
jewels about me, but I don't mind telling _you_."

"My dear fellow," I replied, laying my hand on his shoulder, and sinking
my voice to a whisper, "not a soul on board this vessel suspects it, but
so have I."

It was too dark for me see his face, but I felt that he was much
impressed by what I had told him.

"Then _you_ will know where I had better keep mine," he said, a moment
later, with his impulsive boyish confidence. "How fortunate I told you
about them. Some are of considerable value, and--and I don't know where
to put them that they will be absolutely safe. I never carried about
jewels with me before, and I am nervous about _losing_ them, you
understand." And he nodded significantly at me. "Now where would you
advise me to keep them?"

"On you," I said, significantly.

"But where?"

He was simpler than even I could have believed.

"My dear boy," I said, hardly able to refrain from laughing, "do as I
do; put them in a bag with a string to it. Put the string round your
neck, and wear that bag under your clothes night and day."

"At night as well?" he asked, anxiously.

"Of course. You are just as likely to _lose_ them, as you call it, in
the night as in the day."

"I'm very much obliged to you," he replied. "I will take your advice
this very night. I say," he added, suddenly, "you would not care to see
them, would you? I would not have any one else catch sight of them for a
good deal, but I would show you them in a moment. Every one else is on
deck just now, if you would like to come down into my cabin."

I hardly know one stone from another, and never could tell a diamond
from paste; but he seemed so anxious to show me what he had, that I did
not like to refuse.

"By all means," I said. And we went below.

It was very dark in Carr's cabin, and after he had let me in he locked
the door carefully before he struck a light. He looked quite pale in the
light of the lamp after the red dusk of the warm evening on deck.

"I don't want to have other fellows coming in," he said in a whisper,
nodding at the door.

He stood looking at me for a moment as if irresolute, and then he
suddenly seemed to arrive at some decision, for he pulled a small parcel
out of his pocket and began to open it.

They really were not much to look at, though I would not have told him
so for worlds. There were a few sapphires--one of a considerable size,
but uncut--and some handsome turquoises, but not of perfect color. He
turned them over with evident admiration.

"They will look lovely, set in gold, as a bracelet on _her_ arm," he
said, softly. He was very much in love, poor fellow! And then he added,
humbly, "But I dare say they are nothing to yours."

I chuckled to myself at the thought of his astonishment when he should
actually behold them; but I only said, "Would you like to see them, and
judge for yourself?"

"Oh! if it is not giving you too much trouble," he exclaimed,
gratefully, with shining eyes. "It's very kind of you. I did not like to
ask. Have you got them with you?"

I nodded, and proceeded to unbutton my coat.

At that moment a voice was heard shouting down the companion-ladder:
"Carr! I say, Carr, you are wanted!" and in another moment some one was
hammering on the door.

Carr sprang to his feet, looking positively savage.

"Carr!" shouted the voice again. "Come out, I say; you are wanted!"

"Button up your coat," he whispered, scowling suddenly; and with an oath
he opened the door.

Poor Carr! He was quite put out, I could see, though he recovered
himself in a moment, and went off laughing with the man, who had been
sent for him to take his part in a rehearsal which had been suddenly
resolved on; for theatricals had been brewing for some time, and he had
promised to act in them. I had not been asked to join, so I saw no more
of him that night. The following morning, as I was taking an early turn
on the deck, he joined me, and said, with a smile, as he linked his arm
in mine, "I was put out last night, wasn't I?"

"But you got over it in a moment," I replied. "I quite admired you; and,
after all, you know--some other time."

"No," he said, smiling still, "not some other time. I don't think I will
see them--thanks all the same. They might put me out of conceit with
what I have picked up for my little girl, which are the best I can
afford."

He seemed to have lost all interest in the subject, for he began to talk
of England, and of London, about which he appeared to have that kind of
vague half-and-half knowledge which so often proves misleading to young
men newly launched into town life. When he found out, as he soon did,
that I was, to a certain extent, familiar with the metropolis, he began
to question me minutely, and ended by making me promise to dine with him
at the Criterion, of which he had actually never heard, and go with him
afterwards to the best of the theatres the day after we arrived in
London.

He wanted me to go with him the very evening we arrived, but on that
point I was firm. My sister Jane, who was living with a hen canary
(called Bob, after me, before its sex was known) in a small house in
Kensington, would naturally be hurt if I did not spend my first evening
in England with her, after an absence of so many years.

Carr was much interested to hear that I had a sister, and asked
innumerable questions about her. Was she young and lovely, or was she
getting on? Did she live all by herself, and was I going to stay with
her for long? Was not Kensington--was that the name of the
street?--rather out of the world? etc.

I was pleased with the interest he took in any particulars about myself
and my relations. People so seldom care to hear about the concerns of
others. Indeed, I have noticed, as I advance in life, such a general
want of interest on the part of my acquaintance in the minutiae of my
personal affairs that of late I have almost ceased to speak of them at
any length. Carr, however, who was of what I should call a truly
domestic turn of character, showed such genuine pleasure in hearing
about myself and my relations, that I asked him to call in London in
order to make Jane's acquaintance, and accordingly gave him her address,
which he took down at once in his note-book with evident satisfaction.

Our passage was long, but it proved most uneventful; and except for an
occasional dance, and the theatricals before-mentioned, it would have
been dull in the extreme. The theatricals certainly were a great
success, mainly owing to the splendid acting of young Carr, who became
afterwards a more special object of favor even than he was before. It
was bitterly cold when we landed early in January at Southampton, and my
native land seemed to have retired from view behind a thick veil of fog.
We had a wretched journey up to London, packed as tight as sardines in a
tin, much to the disgust of Carr, who accompanied me to town, and who,
with his usual thoughtfulness, had in vain endeavored to keep the
carriage to ourselves, by liberal tips to guards and porters. When we at
last arrived in London he insisted on getting me a cab and seeing my
luggage onto it, before he looked after his own at all. It was only when
I had given the cabman my sister's address that he finally took his
leave, and disappeared among the throng of people who were jostling each
other near the luggage-vans.

Curiously enough, when I arrived at my destination an odd thing
happened. I got out at the green door of 23, Suburban Residences, and
when the maid opened it, walked straight past her into the drawing-room.

"Well, Jane!" I cried.

A pale middle-aged woman rose as I came in, and I stood aghast. It was
not my sister. It was soon explained. She was a little pettish about it,
poor woman! It seemed my sister had quite recently changed her house,
and the present occupant had been put to some slight inconvenience
before by people calling and leaving parcels after her departure. She
gave me Jane's new address, which was only in the next street, and I
apologized and made my bow at once. My going to the wrong house was such
a slight occurrence that I almost forgot it at the time, until I was
reminded of it by a very sad event which happened afterwards.

Jane was delighted to see me. It seemed she had written to inform me of
her change of address, but the letter did not reach me before I started
for England with the Danvers jewels, about which I have been asked to
write this account. Considering this _is_ an account of the jewels, it
is wonderful how seldom I have had occasion to mention them so far; but
you may rest assured that all this time they were safe in their bag
under my waiscoat; and knowing I had them there all right, I did not
trouble my head much about them. I never was a person to worry about
things.

Still I had no wish to be inconvenienced by a hard packet of little
knobs against my chest any longer than was necessary, and I wrote the
same evening to Sir George Danvers, stating the bare facts of the case,
and asking what steps he or his second son wished me to take to put the
legacy in the possession of its owner. I had no notion of trusting a
packet of such immense value to the newly organized Parcels Post. With
jewels I consider you cannot be too cautious. Indeed, I told Jane so at
the time, and she quite agreed with me.

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