Helen had risen with an anxious face.
"Where has he gone?"
"Into the house. You'd better let him alone a bit, mummy; he gets sulky fits at school now and then. He'll be all right soon."
"Take Uncle Conrad to see the rabbits," was all Helen said.
She went into the house and up to the door of Jack's room. There she paused a moment, listening. From within came a stifled sound which she had sometimes heard at night. She opened the door softly and went in.
Jack was lying face downwards on his bed, with both hands clenched into the pillow, sobbing under his breath in a horrible, suppressed, unchildlike way. She came up to him and laid a hand on his.
"Jack, what is it?"
He neither started nor cried out; only shrank a little away and held his breath, trembling. Presently he lifted himself up, and she saw that his eyes were quite tearless and dry.
"Oh, it's nothing."
She sat down on the bed and put her arms round him.
"Won't you tell me? I know you often lie awake half the night; I can hear every sound from my room, you know."
Jack bit his lip.
"It's nothing partic'lar, thanks! I've been a bit upset; and Theo's such a blasted little donkey, he can't let a fellow alone."
"Is there nothing I can do? It's horrible to have a secret trouble at your age. If you can't trust me, is there no one you can trust?"
"There's nothing to tell. It's only something that happened... before I went to school."
"Last year? And don't your people know of it?"
Jack began to laugh.
"All Porthcarrick knows; that's why they let me go to school."
She drew him closer into her arms. "Won't you tell me?"
He looked away from her, breathing quickly. "Ask old Jenkins," he said at last, huskily; "he'll tell you all about it."
"Who is Jenkins?"
"The new doctor, down to Porthcarrick. He and Dr. Williams both came when I smashed my arm, and he tried to come the soft dodge over me, just like you. I told him he'd better get me away from there instead of talking all that tommy-rot about being sorry for me; he wasn't sorry enough to help me."
Helen thought for a moment, silently.
"Would you let me write to Dr. Jenkins and ask him to tell me about it? You see, I can't help caring, when you've been so good to my Theo."
Jack pulled himself away with a jerk and walked over to the window. He turned round after a minute, his eyebrows dragged down in the ugliest scowl she had ever seen him wear. He was rather white about the lips.
"All right," he said. "You can write to him: Dr. Jenkins, Cliff Cottage, Porthcarrick. Tell him I said he can tell you what he knows about me. P'raps you won't be in such a hurry to have me good to Theo then. I don't care."
He stuck his hands into his pockets again and stumped down the stairs, whistling, out of tune as usuaclass="underline" "Said the young Obadiah..."
Neither he nor Helen referred to the subject any more. She wrote to Dr. Jenkins, explaining how matters stood, and begging him to tell her what he could. On the last day of the holidays a fat letter came from Porthcarrick in reply. She slipped it into her pocket, that Jack might not see the postmark, and after breakfast carried it to her room. Dr. Jenkins wrote, in detail, all that he knew of Jack's history; as much, that is, as his own eyes had shown him, together with what he had heard from the Vicar, the schoolmaster, and Mrs. Raymond.
The letter ended with a grave warning as to the dangers to which an intimacy with Jack was presumably exposing Theo. "In my capacity as the boy's medical attendant," the doctor added, "I made every effort to win his confidence; but entirely without success. His disposition appeared to me peculiarly sullen, stubborn, vindictive, and secret; indeed, before this unhappy business came to light, he had already, though barely fourteen, gained an exceedingly bad name in the whole country round. Far from regarding this fact, however, as in any way excusing Mr. Raymond's conduct, I believe the mischief to have been from the beginning largely caused by his systematic brutality; and am inclined to lay the guilt of the boy's moral ruin at his door. I may be doing him wrong, but I have always doubted whether he was really innocent about the broken arm."
Helen read the letter over and over again; she had sent the boys out for a long ramble in the fields, and was free to think undisturbed. Late in the afternoon, when tea was finished and Theo was practising violin exercises in the breakfast room, she went to look for Jack, but he was not in the house. She returned to the tiny parlour, and stepped out on to the verandah. A sound of hammering came from the garden; and, looking down, she saw Jack mending the roof of the summer house. She watched him for a little while, noticing his absorption in the work and the masterly handling of his tools. Certainly he had a natural turn for carpentering.
"Jack!" she called at last.
He looked round.
"What?"
"Will you come in here a minute?"
"S'pose I must," he muttered crossly, jumping to the ground with a splendid spring. His manners might be defective, but his muscular development was admirable.
He ran up the verandah steps and into the room, an uncouth barbarian cub, slamming the glass door noisily, stamping marks of muddy boot-heels into the carpet.
"What's up?"
"Sit down a minute; I want to speak to you."
"Oh!" said Jack, sitting down ungraciously on the edge of a chair. " I thought you wanted something done."
Helen looked into the fire for a moment before she spoke; and Jack, hunched up sulkily, with an ugly scowl on his face, drummed with his boot-heels the eternal refrain of: "Said the young Obadiah to the old Obadiah..."
"You remember," she began with her eyes on the red coals, "telling me I might write to Dr. Jenkins?"
Jack stiffened all over and sat up straight. The drumming of his heels had stopped.
"Well, I wrote; and I had an answer this morning."
He drew in his breath so sharply that the sound was like a cry. She kept her head turned away.
"He has told me all he knows."
A little pause followed, punctuated by the sound of quick breathing.
"Where's the letter?"
"It's here; but I would rather you didn't read it."
He rose and came up to her.
"Give me the letter."
She looked round. His eyes were black and gleaming, as his uncle had seen them in the wood-shed.
"Give me the letter."
"My child, I will give it to you if you insist; but I would very much rather not. And besides, there is no need; you know everything in it already."
"Give me the letter."
She handed it to him silently. He took it away to the window, sat down and read it through. Helen watched his face; it was pinched and grey, and lines came about the mouth which made her think of the changelings in the fairy tales, old haggard children who can never be made young again.
He brought the letter back at last and laid it on the table.
"Well," he said, "what's the next move?"
She made no answer. He came a step nearer, quivering.
"Have you got all you wanted? I don't go poking about asking people your private affairs. Jenkins is a dirty little sneak to tell you."
His eyes were like hot coals.
"I told you you wouldn't want me hanging round your precious little molly-coddle, spoiling his innocence... You know all about it now; you know I was caught gambling, and lying, and trading in all sorts of beastliness, and teaching the little chaps everything that's filthy, and was pretty near killed for it; and a good job if I'd died altogether! Anything else you want to know?"
She rose and put her hand on his shoulder.
"Only one thing more, my child: Has any one ever treated you as a human creature, and believed your word — ever in all your life?"