How It All Came Round

by L. T. Meade

HAD HE SEEN A GHOST?

At this time Jasper Harman was a very perplexed man. Unlike his brother John, he was untroubled by remorse. Though so outwardly good-tempered and good-natured, his old heart was very hard; and though the arrows of past sins and past injustices might fly around him, they could not visit the inner shrine of that adamantine thing which he carried about instead of a heart of flesh within him.

What the painful process must be which would restore to Jasper Harman the warm living heart of a little child, one must shudder even to contemplate. At present that process had not begun. But though he felt no remorse whatever, and stigmatized his brother as an old fool, he had considerable anxiety.

There was an ugly secret in the back parts of these two brothers' lives; a secret which had seemed all these years safe and buried in the grave, but over which now little lights were beginning to pour. How could Jasper plaster up the crevices and restore the thing to its silent grave? Upon this problem he pondered from morning to night.

He did not like that growing anxiety of his brother's; he could not tell to what mad act it would lead him; he did not like a new look of fear which, since her father's fainting fit, he had seen on Charlotte's smooth brow; he did not like Mrs. Home coming and boldly declaring that an injustice had been done; he felt that between them these foolish and miserable people would pull a disgraceful old secret out of its grave, unless he, Jasper Harman, could outwit them. What a blessing that that other trustee was dead and buried, and that he, Jasper Harman, had really stood over his grave. Yes, the secret which he and his brother had guarded so faithfully for over twenty years might remain for ever undiscovered if only common sense, the tiniest bit of common sense, was exercised. Jasper paced his room as he thought of this. Yes, there could be no fear, unless—here he stood still, and a cold dew of sudden terror stole over him—suppose that young woman, that wronged young woman, Charlotte Home, should take it into her head to go and read her father's will. The will could not be put away. For the small sum of one shilling she might go and master the contents, and then the whole fraud would be laid bare. Was it likely that Mrs. Home would do this? Jasper had only seen her for a moment, but during that brief glance he read determination and fixity of purpose in her eyes and mouth. He must trust that this thought would not occur to her; but what a miserable uncertainty this was to live in! He did not know that the graver danger lay still nearer home, and that his own niece Charlotte was already putting the match to this mine full of gunpowder. No, clever as he thought himself, he was looking for the danger at the front door, when it was approaching him by the back.

After many days of most anxious thought he resolved to go and see the Homes, for something must be done, and he could feel his way better if he knew something of his opponents.

Getting Mr. Home's address in the Post Office Directory, for he would not betray himself by questioning Charlotte, he started off one evening to walk to Kentish Town. He arrived in the dusk, and by good fortune or otherwise, as he liked best to term it, the curate was at home, and so far disengaged as to be able to give him a little leisure time.

Jasper sent in his card, and the little maid, Anne, showed him into the small parlor. There was a musty, unused smell in the dingy little room, for Mrs. Home was still at Torquay, and the curate during her absence mostly occupied his study. The maid, however, turned on the gas, and as she did so a small girl of four slipped in behind her. She was a very pretty child, with gray eyes and black eyelashes, and she stared in the full, frank manner of infancy at old Jasper. She was not a shy child, and felt so little fear of this good-natured, cherry-cheeked old man, that when Anne withdrew she still remained in the room.

Jasper had a surface love for children; he would not take any trouble about them, but they amused him, and he found pleasure in watching their unsophisticated ways. His good-natured, smiling face appealed to a certain part of Daisy Home, not a very high part certainly, but with the charming frankness of babyhood, the part appealed to gave utterance to its desire.

"Have 'ou brought me a present?" she demanded, running up to old Jasper and laying her hand on his knee.