At the mention of her son the poor woman's excitable mood changed; instead of shouting she spoke more quietly, and her eyes filled with tears as she turned over the trifles that had been sent to her.
"Jerry! My boy Jerry!" she murmured. "I always said he'd come back. He oughtn't to have gone and left me—ought he? And he took—I never told anyone what he took! He was a bad son to me."
"Never mind that now he's dead and gone," put in the neighbour.
"Ay, he's dead and gone, and so is General Talland, so is General Talland."
"She's off again on that point," groaned the neighbour.
But Mrs. Jarvis was looking at Dr. Tremayne with a curious craftiness in her eyes.
"General Talland's gone," she repeated. "And I hear they've to go a long way to find an heir to the property. What if there was an heir close at hand—here in Chagmouth?"
"What do you mean?" asked the Doctor.
"Ay, what do I mean? I'm not so demented as some folks think me. There's something that I could tell if I liked. I wouldn't have said a word if he'd a-lived, but he's dead and gone, so it makes no difference to him now if I speak. Sit you down, Doctor, and the young ladies too! I may as well tell it to plenty of witnesses while I'm about it. Do you remember, Doctor, when I was village nurse over fourteen year ago? I was called in all of a sudden one day to attend Mrs. Hunter, the lady who'd been taken ill at the King's Arms."
"I remember," nodded Dr. Tremayne.