CHAPTER XIX
THE COMMANDANT'S CONSCIENCE
"The Lord Proprietor to see you, sir!"
Archelaus, presenting himself at the door of the Commandant's office, with a slightly flushed but inscrutable face, drew aside and flattened himself against the door-jamb to let Sir Cæsar enter.
The Commandant closed the book in which he had been adding up accounts which never came right, and stood up in something of a flurry. He was dressed with more than ordinary care. The lapels and collar of his uniform-coat had been treated to a vigorous brushing. In fact, he was arrayed for action: to step down the hill in an hour's time, to call upon Mr. Fossell at the Bank and draw his pay, if any should be forthcoming.
"Good morning, Major!"
"Good morning, Sir Cæsar." The Commandant nodded towards a chair.
"I thank you." Sir Cæsar set down his hat upon the edge of the writing-table, drew off his gloves, tossed them into his hat, and seated himself. "I—er—called in the first place to speak about an unfortunate—er—incident that happened on Garrison Hill here last Sunday."
"Ah," said the Commandant, "so you have heard about it? I am sorry."
"Sorry for what, sir?"
"Sorry that anyone should have thought it worth while to carry tales to you; but also sorry for the incident itself."
"It appears to me, Major Vigoureux, that the incident demands some apology."
"I have made it."
Sir Cæsar crossed his legs and coughed to clear his throat. "I think, my dear sir," said he, in a tone at once slightly pompous and slightly nervous, "I really think it's time that you and I came to an understanding; that we—er—recognised, so to speak, the situation, and played with the cards on the table. Do you agree with me?"
"I might," answered the Commandant, guardedly; "that is to say, if I understood."
"I acquit you, of course, of any active share in the incident, and I am assured that Archelaus and Treacher were no worse than accomplices. It appears that the real culprit was a totally different person, and," he went on, after a glance at the Commandant's face, which betrayed nothing, "it may save time if I tell you that she has confessed to me."
"Excuse me, I was not proposing to make any remark."
"But who in the world is the young person?"
The Commandant's eyebrows arched themselves slightly. "She is a lady," he answered, in a dry voice. "If she omitted to tell you her name, the omission was no doubt intentional, and she has carried her confession just so far as she intended it to go."
"She called herself Cara; but the name tells me nothing. Who is she? I agree with you as to her address and appearance: she is in every respect—er—presentable. A relative, may I inquire?"
"No."
"A friend, then? You will pardon me? A delicate question to put, of course."
Again the Commandant's eyebrows went up slightly. "She was my guest for a day or two," he answered.
"Was?Then where in the world is she staying now?"
"If she did not tell you—" began the Commandant, but Sir Cæsar interrupted him impatiently.
"Tell me? Devil a bit of it, and that's partly why I'm here. Vanished like a witch, begad, while I was turning to ring the bell! And where she went or where she came from are mysteries alike to me."
"Why, then," the Commandant pursued, in a steady musing voice, "it seems to follow that, even if I knew, I have not her permission to tell."
The Lord Proprietor uncrossed and recrossed his legs irritably. "Come, come, Vigoureux, this will hardly do. Will it, now? I put it to you as a man of the world. No doubt it's all innocent enough, but folks will talk. And, after all, I'm responsible for any—er—scandal affecting the Islands. Hey?"
The Commandant rose with a sudden flush on his face.
"Scandal, Sir Cæsar? Oh, to be sure, I cannot understand you."
"Tut-tut!" The Lord Proprietor smiled. "Of course, we know there's nothing in it. A young lady—youngish, at least—and you old enough to be her father. But, all the same, tongues will wag."
"And they have been wagging?" The Commandant, after a short turn across the room and back, stood over him, his hands crossed under his coat tails. "But yours, sir, is the only one that has dared to wag in my presence."
"Sir!" The Lord Proprietor jumped to his feet.
"You have put many humiliations upon me, Sir Cæsar; and because they affected me only, I have endured them. But in this you go too far."
The Lord Proprietor, on the verge of an angry retort, checked himself, with a short laugh.
"I refuse to lose my temper with you," said he. "You are unreasonable. You misconceive me as imputing scandal when, as a matter of fact, I was trying to assure you that I rejected the imputation. For me, the disparity in age alone——"
The Commandant, with a wave of his hand to the door, turned away wearily.
"I merely thought it right to warn you," pursued Sir Cæsar, taking heart of grace as his opponent appeared to weaken, "that others may be less charitable. And they look to me. I think—I really think—you might consider the delicacy of my position; that I am—er—ultimately responsible for the good name of these Islands."
But here he paused with a start; for the Commandant had wheeled about suddenly, and stood over him, and the Commandant's eyes were dangerous.
"Sir Cæsar"—the Commandant controlled his voice with an effort, for it shook a little—"in the last few minutes some things have been made plain to me which were hitherto obscure. I have wondered sometimes, here in these forsaken barracks, at actions of yours which seemed deliberately calculated to annoy one who—Heaven knows—started with every wish to be friendly. Saving my own small personal dignity, of which from indolence I have been too careless, I have reserved nothing of my old importance in these Islands which, before you purchased them, I had governed. Men, even the least assuming, do not forfeit all power, all consideration, without a wrench; and I am but human. I relinquished them, and without the help of a single kind word from you, by which the sacrifice might at least have been mitigated. I wondered. Later, when you heaped one small humiliation upon another, I concluded that I must have had the misfortune to incur your personal dislike, and told myself, after searching for the cause and finding none, that personal dislikes are usually inexplicable. But now I see that I have been doing you an injustice; that your affronts were not considered; that you have all along, likely enough, been entirely unconscious of offence; that, in short, you are as Heaven made you, and I cannot hold a quarrel with any man's mere defects, whether congenital or of breeding. I shall not waste time by inquiring to which of the two classes your obtuseness should justly be assigned. It is enough that I recognise the mistake and apologise for it. I see now that you are obtuse—that and nothing more. But since your obtuseness wounds more than you can possibly divine; and since in this instance it injures a lady, I shall ask you to pay my poor quarters the last respect you owe them, and quit them without further discussion."
He stepped to his writing-table and struck on a small hand-bell. Promptly on the summons Sergeant Archelaus appeared in the doorway; so promptly, indeed, that he might have found it hard, under cross-examination, to rebut the charge of having stood listening outside.
The Lord Proprietor, however, was in no condition to put a searching question. He arose, gasping, his eyes rolling from the Commandant to Archelaus and back. He felt for his hat like a man groping in the dark, clutched it, and set it on his head with an experimental air, as though it would not have entirely surprised him to find his feet in the place of his head.
"I suppose," he stammered, "it has occurred to you that you may pay for this?"
"It occurred to me," answered the Commandant, coolly and amiably, "that you might threaten it."
"You shall, by God!"
The Commandant bowed.
"You shall certainly repent this, sir." The Lord Proprietor crammed his hat on his head.
"May I ask you to observe that my servant is standing in the doorway?"
Sir Cæsar turned, shot a glance at Archelaus, and for an instant appeared to be on the point of including master and man in one denunciation. But either he thought better of it or his rage choked him. With a final tap on the crown of his hat, to settle it firmly on his brows, he strode past the rigid figure by the threshold and out into the open air.
He had never been so outraged! For fifty or a hundred yards, as he descended the hill, his fury almost blinded him. His face was congested; the back of his neck swollen and purple, as though apoplexy threatened. His ears showed red as a turkey's wattles. He stumbled on the ill-paved path. What! To be lectured thus by a man whose continued residence on the Islands was a public scandal—a fellow who, past all usefulness, lived on in lazy desuetude, content to take the taxpayers' money while doing nothing in return! And the worst—the gall, the wormwood of it—was that this despised foe had silenced him—nay, had silenced him almost contemptuously. "But wait a bit, my fine fellow!" swore the Lord Proprietor, blundering down the hill. "Wait until we hear what the War Office has to say about your precious garrison; or until, failing satisfaction there, I get a question asked in Parliament about you!"
Could the Lord Proprietor have looked back at this moment into the room where sat the victorious enemy, he might have been in some measure consoled.
The Commandant, having dismissed Archelaus with a wave of the hand, waited while the door closed, and dropping into the chair before his writing-table, bowed his head upon his hands.... Oh, it is easy to talk lightly of riches, and of the power that riches give! But in this world it is not so easy for a man with just one penny in his pocket to stand up against an enemy solidly backed by a banking account. He feels that though his cause be right and his conscience clear, his position is precarious: that the world, if it knew the truth, would regard him almost as an imposter. The feeling may be unreasonable, the fear cowardly; but there it is, and it had cost the Commandant all his pluck to face the encounter out. Moreover, his conscience was not clear.
Sir Cæsar, too, had (all unwittingly) planted an arrow and left it to rankle. "Old enough to be her father!" The Commandant shut his lips hard upon the pain. He could not expel it: he knew it would awake again in the watches of the night: but for the present he must ignore it. He had a second ordeal to face.
As he sat there for a minute or two, his face resting on his hands, his spirit abandoned to weakness, he heard the steady ticking of the clock on the chimney-piece behind him. He counted the strokes, and all of a sudden they recalled him to the present. He pulled himself together, stood up, and, reaching down a clothes-brush from its hook beside the door, walked over to the chimney-piece and to a small mirror that stood behind the clock.
"Old enough to be her father." Again, as he caught sight of his face in the glass the smart revived; but again he expressed it, and fell to brushing his worn tunic with extreme care. It had always been his practice to dress punctiliously before going into action, even on dark nights in front of Sevastopol, where all niceties of dress were lost at once in the slush of the trenches. His forage-cap received almost as careful a brushing as his tunic: and from his cap he turned his attention to the knees of his trousers and to his boots, one of which was cracked, albeit not noticeably. He had half a mind to black its edges over with pen and ink, but refrained. Somehow it suggested imposture, and to-day he winced sensitively away from the first hint of imposture. He must walk down-hill delicately, like Agag. To-morrow Harvey, the Garland Town cobbler, would repair the damage with a couple of stitches, at the cost of one penny: and the Commandant reflected with a melancholy smile that he possessed precisely that sum.
His toilet complete, he took a last look in the mirror to assure himself that his face betrayed none of the anxiety eating at his heart. It was paler than ordinary, but calm. He drew a long breath, and walked out to the front door. At his feet the chimneys of the small town sent up their mid-day smoke; beyond, the Atlantic twinkled with its innumerable smile. The hour was come. As he stepped out upon the road he cast a glance to right and left along his deserted batteries, and answered the smile of Ocean whimsically, ruefully. If only, as an artilleryman, he could have summoned Mr. Fossell's Bank by a dropping shot! This business of hand-to-hand assault belonged by rights to another branch of the service.
Mr. Fossell stood behind the counter in conference with a junior clerk, and the sunshine pouring through the windows—the only plate-glass windows in Garland Town—gilded the dome of Mr. Fossell's bald head. As the Commandant entered, Mr. Fossell looked up and nodded pleasantly, in a neighbourly way, albeit with a touch of ironical interrogation. He had heard gossip from his friend Pope of the doings on Garrison Hill, and, so far as he allowed himself to be jocose, he meant his glance to be interpreted. "Well, you are a pretty fellow! And pray what account are you going to give of yourself?" But very different thoughts preoccupied the Commandant, and his fears took alarm.
"Good morning," said the Commandant, and forced a smile. "You have been expecting me, I hope?"
"Dear, dear!" Mr. Fossell affected surprise. "You don't tell me that pay-day has come round again already?" This again, was a form of pleasantry which he repeated month after month; but to-day he slightly over-acted it.
"The—the money is here?" stammered the Commandant.
"My dear Major, I hope so—I sincerely hope so," Mr. Fossell answered, with a humorous look around him. "I do most sincerely trust we may be able to meet your demand for—let me see, fifteen-eighteen-six, is it not?—without being forced to put up the shutters." Mr. Fossell chuckled quietly.
The Commandant drew a long breath.
"Always supposing," resumed Mr. Fossell, "that the draft is in order, as usual; on which point, to tell you the truth, I have been too busy to satisfy myself. But the paper arrived two days ago, and is in my office—if you will excuse me for a moment."
He stepped towards a door at the back, panelled with frosted glass, opened it, and disappeared into his office. The Commandant waited. Three minutes passed.
"Very fine weather, sir, for the time of the year," said the clerk, blotting an entry and looking up from his ledger.
"Eh? Oh, certainly ... yes, very fine indeed." The Commandant recalled himself with a painful effort.
"And the glass steady as a rock." The clerk closed a smaller book at his elbow and replaced it in a line of similar volumes on a shelf above the desk behind him. "I saw you out, sir, in your boat, the day before yesterday, to the west of Saaron—fishing for bass, or so I took the liberty of guessing."
"For bass?... Yes, oh, most decidedly."
"Knowing fish, the bass!" hazarded the young man, combing his side-locks with his pen and carefully bestowing it behind his ear. "You found the water a bit too clear, sir, I expect?"
"So far as I remember—" began the Commandant, and paused. (What on earth was delaying Fossell?)
"You will excuse me, sir, but might I ask what bait you employ as a rule?"
The Commandant answered that for preference he used sand-eels. The clerk replied that sand-eels took some getting; and that, if the remark wouldn't be taken amiss, it was all very well to talk of sand-eels when you were in a position to employ a couple of men to spend half a day in netting them for you; but that for a young chap in his position, sand-eels were out of the question.
"There's the bank-hours, to begin with," he wound up, lucidly; "and, besides, when you've caught 'em they're the most perishable bait going."
The Commandant incoherently promised to reserve a portion of his next catch, and to send Archelaus with a creelful; all this with his eyes wandering in desperation to the glass door. The young man was profuse in thanks.
"You will excuse my discussing sport with you, sir? Sport, they say, puts all men on a level—though, of course, I should not dream of claiming——"
But at this point the glass door opened, and Mr. Fossell emerged, briskly, holding what appeared to be a fair-sized stone.
"How will you take it?" he asked, depositing this upon the counter.
"I beg your pardon?" the Commandant stammered, his eyes riveted on the stone.
"Notes or gold?" Mr. Fossel picked the specimen up, and rubbed it gently with his sleeve. "Now, that's a queer thing, eh? My brother-in-law sent it to me last week, and I've been using it for a paper-weight, not being a scientific man. But just you look into it. He tells me there are hundreds lying about where he lives—Ogwell, the place is, in Devonshire, just behind Newton Abbot—and that they're called madrepores. He's a humorous fellow, too, is my brother-in-law. You see the joke, of course?"
"I can't say that I do, exactly," the Commandant confessed.
"Good gracious! Fossil—Fossell: this is a fossil, you see, and I'm called Fossell: and so he sends it to me. He has made a good deal of fun out of my name before now, in his humorous way. Not that I mind, of course."
"I dare say not. Did you say that the papers were all right?"
"The papers?... Yes, of course, the papers are all right. Will you take it in notes or gold?" "In gold, if you please." The Commandant caught at the edge of the counter, while his heart leapt, and the bank premises seemed to whirl around him.
"Fifteen-eighteen-six ... be so good as to verify it, if you please," said Mr. Fossell, counting out the coins—the blessed coins! "But I want you just to take a look into the thing. Looks like a piece of coral, eh? See the delicate lines of it? And my brother-in-law tells me it was once alive—a kind of fish—and got itself embedded in this piece of limestone because it was too lazy to move. A lesson in that"—Mr. Fossell wagged his head sagely—"if we choose to take it! To be sure, it happened thousands of years ago; but there it is—and here are we. For my part, I don't look at things humorously like my brother-in-law. I like to find a serious moral where I can."
The Commandant counted the coins and dropped them into his pocket. Their weight seemed to make a man of him again. He bent and affected to examine the madrepore.
Mr. Fossell bent also. He was on the point of asking—in a low voice, that the clerk might not overhear—for an explanation of Miss Gabriel's gossip. But at this juncture a client entered, and the Commandant escaped. He went up the hill with a new centre of gravity: so different is a load in the pocket from a load on the heart.
CHAPTER XX
THE GUITAR AND THE CASEMENT
"A parcel for you, sir!"
Sergeant Archelaus had spied the Commandant coming up the hill, and met him on the barrack doorstep with the news.
"A parcel?" The Commandant had walked straight from the bank to Mr. Tregaskis' shop, and there paid his account; but he had made no purchases. "There must be some mistake, Archelaus; I have ordered nothing in the town."
"From the mainland, sir."
"God bless my soul!"
"Yes, sir, and marked 'Fragile'; a good-sized box, but uncommon light to handle. The steamer brought it across this morning, and I've carried it into the office and placed hammer and chisel handy."
"Now what in the world can this mean?" asked the Commandant, a minute later, after studying the box and its label. He turned to Archelaus, who had followed him into the office in a state of suppressed excitement. "It is certainly addressed to me; and yet—It must be half-a-dozen years, Archelaus, since anyone sent me a parcel from the mainland."
"There's but one way to discover," said Archelaus, picking up the chisel. "Shall I open it, sir?"
"No; give it to me." The Commandant took the tools from him and easily pried open the lid, for the scantling was light, almost flimsy. Within lay an object in an oilskin case, by the shape of it, apparently a violin; and yet somewhat larger than a violin.
Yes, certainly it was a musical instrument; and the Commandant had no sooner made sure of this than with his hand on the string that tied the wrapper, he paused.
"It is evident, Archelaus"—his tone betrayed some disappointment—"that this parcel belongs to Miss Cara. Having no address of her own that could be given with safety, she has ordered it to be sent to me."
"Ben't you even going to open and take a look at it?" asked Archelaus, as his master slowly replaced it in the box.
"I think not.... Miss Cara will call for it, no doubt, since no doubt she has been watching for the steamer's arrival."
Archelaus withdrew, reluctantly, not without a sense of expectation cheated. Nor, as it proved, was his grievance altogether groundless. The Commandant stood for a minute or so in a brown study, eyeing the box. Then, his curiosity overmastering him, he reached out and drew the parcel forth again; turned it over in his hands, and very slowly undid the strings, which were of green ribbon.
The wrapper fell apart, disclosing a guitar.
The instrument was clearly an old one, and, as clearly of considerable value, being inlaid with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl in delicate arabesques that must have cost its unknown maker many months, if not whole years, of patient labour. Its varnish, smooth and transparent as finest glass, belonged to the same date, and had been laid on, if not by the same hand, by one no less careful. Something more than a craftsman's pride had surely inspired the exquisite workmanship, the deft and joyous pattern that chased itself in and out as though smiling at its own intricacy. A gift for the artist's mistress, perhaps? Or a toy for some dead and gone princess?... Yet it had been played upon, and recently. One or two of its relaxed strings showed evidences of fraying; and the sender had tied a small packet of new strings around the neck.
The Commandant, after peering into its pattern for a while, held the guitar out at arm's length; and, holding it so, broke into a short laugh—at the thought that this thing had been sent to him.
Yet, here it was. Undoubtedly it belonged to Vashti, and his heart leapt at the thought that she would be coming to fetch it. For three days he had been missing her. It seemed that she had chosen to pass out of his life as suddenly, as waywardly, as she had invaded it; that, crossing the threshold of Saaron Farm, she had closed its door upon him and upon a brief episode to be remembered by him henceforth as a dream only—a too happy dream.
"Ah, had we never met—or, having met,Had I been wiser or thy heart less wild!"
"Ah, had we never met—or, having met,Had I been wiser or thy heart less wild!"
"Ah, had we never met—or, having met,
Had I been wiser or thy heart less wild!"
He had pulled home that Sunday night, to brood alone over a half-dead fire; and, brooding there, had surmised what the morrow made certain—that she had taken with her yet more than she had even brought; that even what colour, what small interest, had formerly cheered the daily round on Garrison Hill and made it tolerable, was now gone out of it forever.
Well, for good or ill, this, at all events, would need to be endured but a little while longer. His discharge was in sight. He had posted his letter.
He did not tell himself that but for Vashti it had never been written. Or, if this crossed his mind, it suggested no more than gratitude. Quite unwittingly she had helped him play the man. He had done the right thing, let follow what might.
He could not force his mind upon possible consequences, to face them or to fret over them. Between this present hour and then, one thought, like a bright angel, stood in the way. Vashti was coming!
Ah, but when? Would she come openly, by day, as she had invaded Inniscaw?... He spent the afternoon in his office, sorting out useless correspondence, clearing desks, drawers, pigeon-holes of the accumulations of years, unconsciously preparing for the day of his discharge. It kept his thoughts employed, and he worked hard—reading through the dusty papers, tearing them up, consigning some to the waste-paper basket others to the fire, which by-and-by grew sullen under its task. Twilight fell.... She would come, then, after dusk, and secretly—mooring her boat in the hiding-place under the Keg of Butter Battery, away from inquisitive eyes. At half-past five Archelaus brought him his tea. At six, having washed and refreshed himself, the Commandant fell to work again more doggedly. Only now and again he broke off for a few moments to listen. But Vashti did not come.
He worked until half-past nine. He heard the clock strike the half-hour from the chimney-piece, and looked up almost in dismay. It was certain now that she would not come. Of a sudden, as though to hide from him the full measure of his disappointment, as he had been hiding from himself the full eagerness of his hopes, a loathing took him—a savage scorn of his useless labour. He stared at his grimed hands with a shiver of disgust, and, rising impatiently, swept together the fragments of paper strewn about the floor, tossed them upon the dying fire, and went off to his room for another wash.
She would not come; and there remained yet an hour between him and his usual bed-time. Returning to his office, he met Archelaus on the stairs.
"Going to bed, eh?" asked the Commandant.
"Ay, sir," Archelaus answered, and paused for that remark on the weather which, in the Islands, always goes with "Good morning" or "Good night." "Glass don't vary very much, and wind don't vary, though seemin' to me it's risin' a little. Still in the nor'west it is; and here ends another day."
The Commandant looked at him sharply, but passed downstairs with no more than a "Good night." So Archelaus, too, was feeling life to be empty?... Archelaus had bewailed the past before now, and the vanished glories of the garrison, but never the tedium of his present lot.
The Commandant, on re-entering his office, did a very unusual thing. It has been said that he could no longer afford himself tobacco. But an old briar pipe lay on the chimney-piece among a litter of notes and memoranda that had escaped the afternoon's holocaust. He took it up wistfully, and, searching in a jar, at the end of the shelf, found a few crumbs of tobacco. Scraped together with care, they all but filled the bowl. He lit the dry stuff from a spill—the last scrap of paper to be sacrificed—and sank, puffing, into his worn arm-chair.
It was in his mind to map out his domestic expenditure for the coming month; for the settlement with Mr. Tregaskis had made a desperate inroad upon his funds in hand, and he gravely doubted that even with the severest pinching he would be able to remit the usual allowance to his sister-in-law. The question had to be faced ... he was not afraid of it ... and yet his thoughts shirked it and wandered away, despite all effort to rally them. "Old enough to be her father...." He had foreseen that these words would awake to torment him; but he was not prepared for the insistency with which the pain stirred, now when long toil should have deadened it—now when, as the clock told him that his hopes for to-day were vain, he realised how fondly all the while he had been building on them.
"Old enough to be her father."—For distraction from the maddening refrain he rose up, drew the guitar again from its box, unwrapped it, and took it back to his chair for another examination. He noticed the wrapper as he laid it aside. It was new; the material new, the stitching new. She had sent for the instrument with a purpose, and the oilskin case had been made with a purpose.... How went the old song?—
"Were I but young for thee, as I haz been,We should have been gallopin' down in your green.And linkin' it owre the lily-white lea;And ah, gin I were but young for thee!"
"Were I but young for thee, as I haz been,We should have been gallopin' down in your green.And linkin' it owre the lily-white lea;And ah, gin I were but young for thee!"
"Were I but young for thee, as I haz been,
We should have been gallopin' down in your green.
And linkin' it owre the lily-white lea;
And ah, gin I were but young for thee!"
Of a sudden he sat up stiffly, at the sound of a tap-tap on the window-pane behind him.
Yes, decidedly the sound came from the window. The wind—as Archelaus had said—was rising; but this was no wind. Someone stood outside there in the darkness. He sprang up, stepped to the casement and threw it open. For a moment his eyes distinguished nothing. He peered again and drew back a little as a figure stepped close to the sill, out of the night.
"You!"
"Who else?" answered Vashti, with a little laugh. "Give me your hand, please." He stretched it out obediently, and she took it and clambered in over the sill.
"It is cold outside," she announced, looking around her with something between a shiver and a deliberate shake of her cloak. It was the same furred cloak in which she had come ashore from theMilo. Spray clung to it; and there was spray, too, on her hair. It shone in the lamplight.
"The wind has been getting up ever since sundown," she announced. "I have had a pretty stiff crossing; but the boat is all right, under the Keg of Butter." Then, as he still stared at her, "You don't keep too warm a fire, my friend."
"I had given you up, and was getting ready for bed."
"Then you expected me? The guitar has come?"
Before he could answer she had caught sight of it, and picking it up from the arm-chair where the Commandant had dropped it, settled herself and laid the instrument across her lap.
"Also," she went on, throwing back her cloak, while she examined and tightened the strings, "I will confess that your guest is hungry." She looked up with a laugh. "In fact I came not only to fetch my guitar, but to sup with you and tell you of my doings."
The Commandant turned to the door. His face had suddenly grown gray and desperate.
"Ah, yes—supper, to be sure!" he said, and strode from the room.
As the latch fell behind him, Vashti glanced over her shoulder, put the guitar aside, and arose to stir the fire. The poker plunged into a heap of flaked ashes. "Paper? But the whole grate is choked with it. And, what is more, the whole room smells of burnt paper."
She turned about, and, with her back to the hearth, surveyed the room suspiciously. Her gaze fell upon the waste-paper basket, heaped high and brimming over with torn documents. This puzzled her again, and her brow contracted in a frown. But just then she caught the sound of the Commandant's footsteps returning along the flagged passage, and bent anew over the fire.
The Commandant appeared in the doorway with a plate of ship's biscuit in his hand, and on his face a flush of extreme embarrassment.
"Do you know, I really am ashamed of myself," he began with a stammer, holding out the plate. "But Archelaus has gone to bed, and—and this is all I can find."
"Capital!" she answered gaily. "Let us break into the back premises and forage. After my burglarious entry that will just suit my mood."
"I'm afraid—" he began, and hesitated. "I am very much afraid—" There was unmistakable trouble in his voice, and again he came to a halt.
Vashti straightened herself up. Her eyes were on him as he set the plate down on the table, but he avoided them, attempting a small forced laugh. The laugh was a dead failure. Silence followed it, and in the silence he felt horribly aware that she was grasping the truth—the humiliating truth; that moment by moment the scales were falling from her eyes that still persistently sought his.
The silence was broken by the noise of a poker falling against the fender. He started, met her gaze for a moment, and again averted his.
"You don't mean to say——"
Her voice trailed off, in pitiful surmise. Silence again; and in the silence he heard her sink back into the arm chair—and knew no more until, at the sound of one strangling sob, terrible to hear, he found himself standing at the arm of her chair and bending over her.
"My dear!" He used the familiar Island speech. "My dear, you must not—please!"
"And I have been living on you, ruining you!"
"My dear ... it is all paid for. It was paid for to-day. If ever a man was glad of his guest, I am he."
But she bent her head over the arm of the chair, sobbing silently. He saw the heave of her shoulders, and it afflicted him beyond words. But, though he longed, he dared not put out a hand to comfort her.
"You mistake—yes, you mistake.... It has been nothing.... I was only too glad," he kept stammering weakly.
She pulled herself together and sat upright. A moment her tear-stained eyes met his, then turned to the fire, which had begun to dance again on its small heap of coals.
"Now I see," said she, resting an elbow on the arm of the chair and so supporting her chin, while she stared resolutely into the blaze. She had resumed command of her voice. "Ah, pardon me, now I understand many things that puzzled me at first.... I—I am not a fool in money matters." She hesitated.
"I know you are not," he assured her gently. "And that, if you will understand, increased the small difficulty."
"Yes, I understand. But somehow—it was a long time since I had been acquainted with—with——"
"Want," he suggested. "Since you know the worst, do not hurt me more than you are obliged."
"God knows," she said, after an interval of musing, "I would hurt you last of all living men. Will you be kind to me, and trust me?"
"On conditions."
"Yes?" She glanced up with a strange eagerness in her eyes. "What conditions?"
"That you do not pity me at all; that you believe I have suffered nothing, or only such pain as has edged the joy of serving you."
She looked away and into the fire. "You make me very proud," she said. "Yes. I can easily grant your conditions. I could not pity a man who practised so noble a courtesy."
The Commandant shook his head with a whimsical smile. "My dear," he answered, "it's undeniably pleasant to stand well in your opinion, but I am not used to compliments, and you run some risk of making me a vain fellow. You asked me to trust you. With what?"
"With the reason why you are poor."
"That," said he, "can be very simply told," and, briefly, in the simplest possible style, he told her of his brother's death, and how his sister-in-law and her family had been left in destitution. "You see," he wound up, "it's just an ordinary sad little tale. Cases of that kind happen daily, all the world over. One must be thankful when they happen within reach of help."
"Is your sister-in-law thankful?" asked Vashti, sharply. "But there!" she added, as he stared at her obviously at a loss to find the question relevant. "You are quite right. It really does not matter two pins whether she is thankful or not." She turned her eyes to the fire again and sat musing. "But I am glad to have heard the story," she went on after a while. "It explains—oh, many things! I have been blind, inconsiderate; but I am seeing light at last. Do you know, my friend, that at first I found a great change in you?"
"Why—bless me!—you had only seen me once before in your life, and then for two minutes!"
"Listen, please, and don't interrupt. I found a great change in you, and the reason of it seemed to lie all on the surface. You had brought ambitions to the Islands, but you had forgotten them. You kept your kindness, your good nature, but you had forgotten all purpose in life. In all, except a few personal habits, you were neglecting yourself; and this neglect came of your being content to live purposeless in this forgotten hole, and draw your pay without asking questions. Forgive me, but I seemed to see all this, and it drove me half wild."
He bowed his head. "I know it did," he answered very slowly, "and that is how you came to save me."
"Is—is this another story?" she asked, after eyeing him a moment or two in bewilderment.
"If you will listen to it." He drew his writing chair over to the fireside, and then, facing her across the hearth he told her the second story as simply as he had told the first, but more nervously, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, now and again spreading out his hands to the fire on which he kept his eyes bent during most of the recital. Vashti, too, leaned forward, intent on his face. One hand gripped the arm of her chair—so tightly that its pressure drove the blood from the finger tips, while the wonder in her eyes changed to something like awe. "And so," the commandant concluded, "the letter has gone. I posted it to-day."
"What will happen?"
"I really cannot tell." Without lifting his gaze from the fire he shook his head dubiously. "But at the worst, the girls are grown into women now. They have been excellently well educated—their mother saw to that and made a great point of it from the first—and by this time they should be able to help, if not support her entirely."
"Man! Man! Will you drive me mad?"
Vashti sprang from the chair.
"I have been unjust. I have been worse than a fool!" She flung back her cloak, and, clasping her hands behind her, man-fashion, fell to pacing the room to and fro. The Commandant stood and stared. Something in her voice puzzled him completely. In its tone, though she accused herself, there vibrated a low note of triumph. She was genuinely remorseful—why, he could not guess. Yet, when she halted before him, he saw that her eyes were glad as well as dim. She held out a hand.
"Forgive me, my friend!"
"Do you know," stammered the Commandant, as he took it, "I should esteem it a favour to be told whether I am standing on my head or my heels!"
How long he held her hand he was never afterwards able to tell; for at its electric touch the room began to swim around him. But this could not have lasted for long; because, as he looked into her eyes, still seeking an explanation, she broke off the half-hysterical laugh that answered him, and pulled her hand away sharply at a sound behind them.
Someone was throwing gravel against the window.
"Commandant!" a voice hailed from the darkness without.
For an instant the two stood as if petrified. Then with a second glance at the window, to make sure that the curtain was drawn, Vashti tip-toed swiftly to the door, catching up the guitar on her way.
"Hi! Commandant! Are you waking or sleeping in there?"
The Commandant stepped to the curtain. Vashti opened the door and slipped out into the passage. The door closed upon her as he pulled the curtain aside for a second time that night and opened the casement.
"Who's there?"
"So youareawake?" answered the voice of Mr. Rogers. "May I come in?" And, silence being apparently taken for consent, a foot and leg followed the voice across the window-sill.
CHAPTER XXI
SUSPICIONS
The foot and leg were followed by Mr. Rogers' entire person, and Mr. Rogers, having thus made good his entrance, stood blinking, with an apologetic laugh. "You'll excuse me—but I took it for granted the door was barred, and seeing a glimmer of light in the window here——"
"Anything wrong?" asked the Commandant.
"Nothing's wrong, I hope"—Mr. Rogers stepped over to the warm fire. "But something's queer." He fished out a pipe from the pocket of his thick pilot coat, filled it, lit up, and sank puffing into the arm-chair from which, a minute ago, Vashti had snatched up her guitar. "Hullo!" he exclaimed, as his eyes fell upon the empty packing-case. "You don't mean to tell me that you've been smuggling?"
The Commandant shook his head and laughed, albeit with some confusion. "The steamer brought it this morning. I assure you it held nothing contraband.... But I hope that little game is not starting afresh in the Islands? It gave us a deal of trouble in the old days; and there was quite an outbreak of it, as I remember, some three or four years before you came to us. Old Penkivel"—this was Mr. Rogers' predecessor—"used to declare that it turned his hair gray."
"He told me something beside, on the morning he sailed for the mainland; which was that but for the help you gave him as Governor he could never have grappled with it. Maybe this was sticking in my head just now when I started to walk up here and consult you."
"Well, and what is the matter?"
"Oh, a trifle.... Do you happen to know Tregarthen, the fellow that farms Saaron Island?"
The Commandant started.
"Eli Tregarthen? Yes, certainly ... that is to say, as I know pretty well everybody in the Islands."
"What sort of a fellow?"
"Quiet; steady; works on his farm like a horse, week in and week out; never speaks out of his turn, and says little enough when his turn comes."
"That sort is often the deepest," observed Mr. Rogers sententiously, and puffed. "And Saaron Island there, close by the Roads, lies very handy for a little illicit work."
"You are right, so far," the Commandant admitted; "and history bears you out. In the old kelp-making days, when half-a-dozen families lived on it, Saaron gave more trouble than any two islands of its size."
"It's none the less handy for being deserted." Mr. Rogers drew out a penknife and meditatively loosened the tobacco in his pipe.
"Handier. But you are wrong in suspecting Tregarthen; that is, unless you have good tangible evidence."
"I don't say that it amounts to much, but it's tangible. In fact, his boat is lying here, just now, close under the Keg of Butter."
The Commandant turned on his heel and took a pace or two towards the window, to hide his perturbation and give himself time to consider.... Vashti's boat! And Vashti on the premises at this moment! What was to be done? How on earth could he get her away?
"You discovered this yourself?" he found himself asking.
"No; I happened to be in the Watch House with the chief boatman checking the store-sheets, when Beesley, whose watch it is, came in and reported. I see what you're driving at. Your own boat is lying under the Keg of Butter, as everybody knows, and you suggest that I am duffer enough to mistake her in the darkness for a boat at least two-foot longer."
Mr. Rogers laughed good-naturedly.
"But the answer is," he went on, "that Beesley found two boats lying there; and Beesley, who knows every craft in the Islands, swears that the one belongs to you no more certainly than the other to Farmer Tregarthen. Moreover, she was moored on a shore line, and we pulled her in and examined her. Sure enough we found name and owner's name cut on her transom—'Two Sisters: E. Tregarthen.' Now, what d'you make of it?"
"Very little," answered the Commandant, recovering himself; "and that little in all likelihood quite innocent. Someone, we'll say, wishes to cross over from Saaron to St. Lide's this evening—on any simple errand, say to fetch a parcel from the steamer. Why shouldn't that someone, knowing the Keg of Butter to be good shelter with plenty of water at all tides, have landed and left the boat there?"
Mr. Rogers shook his head. "Why there, and not at the pier? The pier lies almost a mile nearer, and there's a fair wind—or almost a fair one—for returning; while from the Keg of Butter no one can fetch Saaron under a couple of tacks. That's my first point. Secondly, if Eli Tregarthen has honest business here, whether with the steamer to fetch a parcel (parcels must be running in your head to-night), or in the town to fetch a doctor, the pier is obviously his landing-place. Why, there isn't a house in the Island, barring these Barracks, that doesn't stand half-a-mile nearer the pier; not to mention that landing at the Keg of Butter involves a perfectly unnecessary climb up one side of Garrison Hill and down the other. Lastly, my dear sir, look at the time! Close on eleven o'clock, and all Garland Town in their beds. Again, I ask what honest business can Eli Tregarthen have here at such an hour?"
The Commandant felt himself cornered. An insane hope crossed his mind that, while the Lieutenant sat talking, Vashti had contrived to slip out of the house and down to the shore. It was followed by a saner one, that she had done nothing of the sort; for, to a certainty, the boat would be guarded.
"You have taken precautions?" he asked, and felt himself flushing at the dishonesty of the question.
"I have posted Beesley in charge, and sent the chief boatman off to the pier-head to keep a close watch on the steamer. She sails at seven-thirty to-morrow, and though I never heard a hint against her skipper, it's only right to be careful. I've amused myself before now, planning imaginary frauds on the revenue; and if anyone cares to risk opening up that game afresh, the Islands still give him a-plenty of openings."
"Yes, yes," agreed the Commandant, and checked a groan. He had thought of warning Vashti to slip down to the quay and borrow a boat there without asking leave. Some explanation might be trumped up on the morrow—as that the wind was foul for returning from the Keg of Butter. No one would accuse Eli Tregarthen of borrowing a boat with intent to steal: his taking it would be no more than a neighbourly liberty.
But, with the chief boatman watching the pier-head, she would be discovered to a certainty.
The Commandant's last hope was gone.
Just as he realised this, to his utter astonishment, he heard the voice of Archelaus grumbling outside in the passage. And Archelaus had gone to rest an hour ago!
"Pretty time of night this, to come breaking a man's rest!" growled the voice of Archelaus, audibly, and not without viciousness, as though he meant it to be heard.
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Mr. Rogers. "You don't tell me we've roused the old fellow out of bed? And I reckoned I was making no more noise than a mouse!"
"He may have heard you throw that gravel against the pane." The Commandant took a step towards the door, but halted irresolutely.
"Then he's a light sleeper," commented Mr. Rogers, "and an even more dilatory dresser. Why, good heavens!"—the Lieutenant started up from his chair—"he's undoing the bolts! Somebody's at the front door: one of my men to report, I'll bet a fiver!"
He would have rushed out into the passage, but the Commandant caught him by the arm.
"No need to hurry, my friend! Whoever it is, Archelaus will bring word."
Many hasty surmises whirled together in the Commandant's brain—the first, and hastiest, that Vashti, unable to make her escape, had aroused Archelaus, and that Archelaus was unbarring the door for her on the pretence of hearing a knock. Even so, she would be caught as soon as she reached the shore. Still, occasion might be snatched to send Archelaus after her to warn her; she might hide for the night at the Castle under Mrs. Treacher's friendly wing. The instant need was to hold back the Lieutenant from discovering her in the passage, and to the Lieutenant's arm our Commandant clung.
"My good sir," expostulated Mr. Rogers, "itmustbe one of my men. Who else, at this hour?"
He fell back a step as the door opened.
"A person to see you, sir; from Saaron!" announced Archelaus. "Shall I show her in?"
Before either could answer, Vashti herself stood on the threshold.
Of the two men, the Lieutenant excusably showed the blankest astonishment. But the Commandant had to catch at the rail of a chair. Vashti had discarded her cloak of furs, and faced him now in such garb as is worn by the poorest in the Islands: a short gown of hodden gray, coarse-knitted stockings, and stout shoes. Across her shoulder, for a "turn-over," she wore a faded shawl of Tartan pattern. (The Commandant recognised it for a surplus one which Mrs. Treacher kept in the Barracks kitchen, to wear "against the draughts" on occasions when she helped Archelaus with the cooking.) But most wonderful of all was her hair. By some swift art the heavy coil had been drawn into two flat bands, brought low over the forehead, and carried back over the ears in a fashion almost slatternly. By no art could Vashti conceal that she was beautiful. She was also too wise to attempt it. But, for the rest, she had transformed herself.
"If you please, sir," she began timidly, with an Island curtsey, and paused as if uncertain, at sight of Mr. Rogers, whether to hold her ground or to flee: "If you please, sir, I be that frightened!"
Accent, intonation—both were perfect, of the true Island speech, that delicate incommunicable sing-song. The Commandant's eyes grew rounder yet with amazement, and Vashti—afraid, perhaps, of meeting them—flung a glance of mock terror behind her, as though she had caught the footfall of a pursuer.
"But—but who in the world—" stammered Mr. Rogers.
"If you please, gentlemen"—she turned, with another quick curtsey—"my name is Vazzy Cara, and I come from Saaron. I live there with my sister, Ruth, that is wife to Eli Tregarthen——"
Mr. Rogers gave a low whistle.
"It's true, sir—true as I stand here! The Governor knows me, and will bear me out—won't you, sir?... A terrible way from Saaron it is, and at this hour of night.... But ask the Governor, sir, and he'll tell you I am a respectable woman; sister to Mrs. Tregarthen, and lives with her to look after the children."
"Yes, yes," interrupted the Lieutenant, losing patience. "But the question is, how you came here, and why?"
Vashti stood panting. By the heave of her bosom it was plain to see that either her fears still possessed her or that she had been running for dear life, and must catch breath. Her hand went up to her bodice.
"I came, sir, to see the Governor—all the way across from Saaron. Eli—that's my sister's husband—is in terrible trouble over there, because the Lord Proprietor means to turn him off his farm. Yes, say!"—she drew a letter from her bodice, and went on with rising voice. "Turn us out he will, though the Tregarthens have lived on the Island ever since Saaron was Saaron. The Governor, here, in his time would never have done such wickedness, nor suffered it, being a just gentleman and merciful, as all the folk can bear witness. And so, thinks I, he may be able to help us yet; and if able he will be willing."
She held out the letter towards the Commandant, who took it and turned it over vaguely between his fingers, not opening it, nor daring to meet her eyes.
"And so," continued Mr. Rogers, "you took your brother-in-law's boat—without his knowledge——"
Vashti nodded. "Yes, sir; I took it unbeknowns. He's a very quiet man, is my sister's husband, and don't like it that other folks, 'specially women, should mix themselves up in his affairs."
"Then he's a sensible fellow as well as a quiet one."
"Yes, sir." Vashti took the correction meekly, with downcast look.
"And still less, I'll bet," Mr. Rogers continued, "would he be pleased to know that one of his woman-kind was straying across to St. Lide's at this hour of the night."
"Oh, sir," she caught him up, "but that's where I've been hindered! For, wishing to have word with the Governor, and no one the wiser, I brought the boat to shore down yonder, under the Keg of Butter, and there the coastguards have found it, and are waiting by it to catch me, and what answer to give them I can't think, nor how to account for myself. Seemin' to me they're everywhere, and all around me in the darkness!"
Mr. Rogers broke into a laugh. "It appears, Commandant, that I have found a mare's nest; always supposing that this tale is a true one. You'll excuse me, ma'am, but service is service."
The Commandant had turned to his writing-table, and was holding the letter under the lamplight.
"I can go bail for Miss Cara," he answered, but without looking up. "Undoubtedly she comes from Saaron, and is Mrs. Tregarthen's sister. Also this letter, though we cannot deal with it to-night, is addressed to Eli Tregarthen in the Lord Proprietor's handwriting. It gives him formal notice to quit and deliver up his farm. I can give no hope of help—no hope at all." Here his voice trembled slightly. "The most I can promise is to consider it."
"And the best we can do for the moment is to escort Miss Cara down to her boat and get one of my men to sail her back to her island."
"I incline to think," said the Commandant, after a pause, "that Miss Cara—from what I have seen of her skill—is competent to sail back alone. If not, I would suggest that you or I escort her, towing my boat across for the return journey. In any case, if we can get your men out of the way, it would be wiser, perhaps, for her sake."
"And for mine, begad!" agreed the Lieutenant! "Else I shall have every man of them grinning behind my back for a month of Sundays. 'Rogers' smuggling-chase'—I can hear the villains chuckling over it.... But I say, though"—he turned on Vashti admiringly—"you'll want an escort across, eh? You don't tell me you're man enough to handle that boat alone?"
"If you please, sir."
"The Channel's none too easy on a dark night."
Vashti smiled. "My father taught it to me, sir, before I was ten years old. I could sail it blindfold."
"And you have the nerve?... And yet just now, the dark frightened you, and you ran for your life!"
"No," said Vashti, demurely, "I just stood still."
"Well, come along! And when you get to the Battery, you'll have to stand still again, and wait until I report the coast clear. Commandant, will you give Miss Cara your arm, while I run ahead."
They stepped out together into the night. Vashti neither took the Commandant's arm nor spoke to him, even after Mr. Rogers had passed ahead out of earshot. Only when the pair had reached the dark battery, and were waiting there on the dark platform above the sea, she turned to him and asked—
"Shall you be busy to-morrow?"
"I am never busy."
"I have left my cloak and the guitar with Archelaus."
"I will bring them to Saaron to-morrow."
She turned away and leaned over the low parapet to the left. Some way below a footfall sounded, on the track leading to the watch-house—-the footfall of Beesley. A stone, dislodged by his tread, trickled and fell over the cliff into night.
"Curious!" remarked Mr. Rogers, confidentially, to the Commandant, twenty minutes later, as they stood and peered into the darkness after Vashti's boat. "Here I am, stuck on these Islands (so to speak) with a telescope held to my eye. Of the folk upon 'em I see next to nothing. Now, I don't know if you took note of it, but that's a remarkable looking woman; a remarkably handsome woman; and I've spent these years here without guessing that such a woman existed hereabouts. Eh?" Mr. Rogers relapsed into mild facetiousness. "If you were a younger man, Commandant, I could hatch up a pretty story out of to-night's doings—and if I didn't mind a laugh against myself."