"Nip inside!" he whispered. "No more noise than you can help. I have sent off the night porter. He tells me the bank is still going in the front of the house—half-a-dozen playing, perhaps."
I hoisted myself over the sill, and dropped inside. The wall of this annexe—which had no upper floor, and invited you to mistake it for a harmless studio—was merely a sheath, so to speak. Within, a corridor divided it from the true wall of the room: and this room had no window or top-light, though a handsome one in the roof—a dummy—beguiled the eyes of its neighbours.
There was but one room: an apartment of really fine proportions, never used by the tenants of the house, and known but to a few curious ones among its frequenters.
The story went that the late owner, Earl C—, had reason to believe himself persistently cheated at cards by his best friends, and in particular by a Duke of the Blood Royal, who could hardly be accused to his face. The Earl's sense of honour forbade him to accuse any meaner man while the big culprit went unrebuked. Therefore he continued to lose magnificently while he devised a new room for play: the room in which I now followed Gervase.
I had stood in it once before and admired the courtly and costly thoroughness of the Earl's rebuke. I had imagined him conducting his expectant guests to the door, ushering them in with a wave of the hand, and taking his seat tranquilly amid the dead, embarrassed silence: had imagined him facing the Royal Duke and asking, "Shall we cut?" with a voice of the politest inflection.
For the room was a sheet of mirrors. Mirrors panelled the walls, the doors, the very backs of the shutters. The tables had mirrors for tops: the whole ceiling was one vast mirror. From it depended three great candelabra of cut-glass, set with reflectors here, there, and everywhere.
I had heard that even the floor was originally of polished brass. If so, later owners must have ripped up the plates and sold them: for now a few cheap Oriental rugs carpeted the unpolished boards. The place was abominably dusty: the striped yellow curtains had lost half their rings and drooped askew from their soiled vallances. Across one of the wall-panels ran an ugly scar. A smell of rat pervaded the air. The present occupiers had no use for a room so obviously unsuitable to games of chance, as they understood chance: and I doubt if a servant entered it once a month. Gervase had ordered candles and a fire: but the chimney was out of practice, and the smoke wreathed itself slowly about us as we stood surrounded by the ghostly company of our reflected selves.
"We shall not be disturbed," said Gervase. "I told the man I was expecting a friend, that our business was private, and that until he called I wished to be alone. I did not explain by what entrance I expected him. The people in the front cannot hear us. Have a cigar?" He pushed the open case towards me. Then, as I drew back, "You've no need to be scrupulous," he added, "seeing that they were bought with your money."
"If that's so, I will," said I; and having chosen one, struck a match. Glancing round, I saw a hundred small flames spurt up, and a hundred men hold them to a hundred glowing cigar-tips.
"After you with the match." Gervase took it from me with a steady hand. He, too, glanced about him while he puffed. "Ugh!" He blew a long cloud, and shivered within his furred overcoat. "What a gang!"
"It takes all sorts to make a world," said I fatuously, for lack of anything better.
"Don't be an infernal idiot!" he answered, flicking the dust off one of the gilt chairs, and afterwards cleaning a space for his elbow on the looking-glass table. "It takes only two sorts to make the world we've lived in, and that's you and I." He gazed slowly round the walls. "You and I, and a few fellows like us—not to mention the women, who don't count."
"Well," said I, "as far as the world goes—if you must discuss it—I always found it a good enough place."
"Because you started as an unconsidering fool: and because, afterwards, when we came to grips, you were the under-dog, and I gave you no time. My word—how I have hustled you!"
I yawned. "All right: I can wait. Only if you suppose I came here to listen to your moral reflections—"
He pulled the cigar from between his teeth and looked at me along it.
"I know perfectly well why you came here," he said slowly, and paused. "Hadn't we better have it out—with the cards on the table?" He drew a small revolver from his pocket and laid it with a light clink on the table before him. I hesitated for a moment, then followed his example, and the silent men around us did the same.
A smile curled his thin lips as he observed this multiplied gesture."Yes," he said, as if to himself, "that is what it all comes to."
"And now," said I, "since you know my purpose here, perhaps you will tell me yours."
"That is just what I am trying to explain. Only you are so impatient, and it—well, it's a trifle complicated." He puffed for a moment in silence. "Roughly, it might be enough to say that I saw you standing outside my house a while ago; that I needed a talk with you alone, in some private place; that I guessed, if you saw me, you would follow with no more invitation; and that, so reasoning, I led you here, where no one is likely to interrupt us."
"Well," I admitted, "all that seems plain sailing."
"Quite so; but it's at this point the thing grows complicated." He rose, and walking to the fireplace, turned his back on me and spread his palms to the blaze. "Well," he asked, after a moment, gazing into the mirror before him, "why don't you shoot?"
I thrust my hands into my trouser-pockets and leaned back staring— I daresay sulkily enough—at the two revolvers within grasp. "I've got my code," I muttered.
"The code of—these mirrors. You won't do the thing because it's not the thing to do; because these fellows"—he waved a hand and the ghosts waved back at him—"don't do such things, and you haven't the nerve to sin off your own bat. Come"—he strolled back to his seat and leaned towards me across the table—"it's not much to boast of, but at this eleventh hour we must snatch what poor credit we can. You are, I suppose, a more decent fellow for not having fired: and I—By the way, you did feel the temptation?"
I nodded. "You may put your money on that. I never see you without wanting to kill you. What's more, I'm going to do it."
"And I," he said, "knew the temptation and risked it. No: let's be honest about it. There was no risk: because, my good Sir, I know you to a hair."
"There was," I growled.
"Pardon me, there was none. I came here having a word to say to you, and these mirrors have taught me how to say it. Take a look at them— the world we are leaving—that's it: and a cursed second-hand, second-class one at that."
He paced slowly round on it, slewing his body in the chair.
"I say a second-class one," he resumed, "because, my dear Reggie, when all's said and done, we are second-class, the pair of us, and pretty bad second-class. I met you first at Harrow. Our fathers had money: they wished us to be gentlemen without well understanding what it meant: and with unlimited pocket-money and his wits about him any boy can make himself a power in a big school. That is what we did: towards the end we even set the fashion for a certain set; and a rank bad fashion it was. But, in truth, we had no business there: on every point of breeding we were outsiders. I suspect it was a glimmering consciousness of this that made us hate each other from the first. We understood one another too well. Oh, there's no mistake about it! Whatever we've missed in life, you and I have hated."
He paused, eyeing me queerly. I kept my hands in my pockets. "Go on,"I said.
"From Harrow we went to College—the same business over again. We drifted, of course, into the same set; for already we had become necessary to each other. We set the pace of that set—were its apparent leaders. But in truth we were alone—you and I—as utterly alone as two shipwrecked men on a raft. The others were shadows to us: we followed their code because we had to be gentlemen, but we did not understand it in the least. For, after all, the roots of that code lay in the breeding and tradition of honour, with which we had no concern. To each other you and I were intelligible and real; but as concerned that code and the men who followed it by right of birth and nature, we were looking-glass men imitating—imitating—imitating."
"We set the pace," said I. "You've allowed that."
"To be sure we did. We even modified the code a bit—to its hurt; though as conscious outsiders we could dare very little. For instance, the talk of our associates about women—and no doubt their thoughts, too—grew sensibly baser. The sanctity of gambling debts, on the other hand, we did nothing to impair: because we had money. I recall your virtuous indignation at the amount of paper floated by poor W—— towards the end of the great baccarat term. Poor devil! He paid up—or his father did—and took his name off the books. He's in Ceylon now, I believe. At length you have earned a partial right to sympathise: or. would have if only you had paid up."
"Take care, Gervase."
"My good Sir, don't miss my point. Wasn't I just as indignant with W—?If I'd been warned off Newmarket Heath, if I'd been shown the door ofthe hell we're sitting in, shouldn't I feel just as you are feeling?Try to understand!"
"You forget Elaine, I think."
"No: I do not forget Elaine. We left College: I to add money to money in my father's office; you to display your accomplishments in spending what your father had earned. That was the extent of the difference. To both of us, money and the indulgence it buys meant everything in life. All I can boast of is the longer sight. The office-hours were a nuisance, I admit: but I was clever enough to keep my hold on the old set; and then, after office-hours, I met you constantly, and studied and hated you—studied you because I hated you. Elaine came between us. You fell in love with her. That I, too, should fall in love with her was no coincidence, but the severest of logic. Given such a woman and two such men, no other course of fate is conceivable. She made it necessary for me to put hate into practice. If she had not offered herself, why, then it would have been somebody else: that's all. Good Lord!" he rapped the table, and his voice rose for the first time above its level tone of exposition, "you don't suppose all my study— all my years of education—were to be wasted!"
He checked himself, eyed me again, and resumed in his old voice—
"You wanted money by this time. I was a solicitor—your old college friend—and you came to me. I knew you would come, as surely as I knew you would not fire that pistol just now. For years I had trained myself to look into your mind and anticipate its working. Don't I tell you that from the first you were the only real creature this world held for me? You were my only book, and I had to learn you: at first without fixed purpose, then deliberately. And when the time came I put into practice what I knew: just that and no more. My dear Reggie, you never had a chance."
"Elaine?" I muttered again.
"Elaine was the girl for you—or for me: just that again and no more."
"By George!" said I, letting out a laugh. "If I thought that!"
"What?"
"Why, that after ruining me, you have missed being happy!"
He sighed impatiently, and his eyes, though he kept them fastened on mine, seemed to be tiring. "I thought," he said, "I could time your intelligence over any fence. But to-night there's something wrong. Either I'm out of practice or your brain has been going to the deuce. What, man! You're shying at every bank! Is it drink, hey? Or hunger?"
"It might be a little of both," I answered. "But stay a moment and let me get things straight. I stood between you and Elaine—no, give me time—between you and your aims, whatever they were. Very well. You trod over me; or, rather, you pulled me up by the roots and pitched me into outer darkness to rot. And now it seems that, after all, you are not content. In the devil's name, why?"
"Why? Oh, cannot you see? . . . Take a look at these mirrors again— our world, I tell you. See—you and I—you and I—always you and I! Man, I pitched you into darkness as you say, and then I woke and knew the truth—that you were necessary to me."
"Hey?"
"I can't do without you!" It broke from him in a cry. "So help me God, Reggie, it is the truth!"
I stared in his face for half a minute maybe, and broke out laughing. "Jeshurun waxed fat and—turned sentimental! A nice copy-book job you make of it, too!"
"Oh, send my brother back to me— I cannot play alone!"
"Perhaps you'd like me to buy a broom and hire the crossing in Lennox Gardens? Then you'd be able to contemplate me all day long, and nourish your fine fat soul with delicate eating. Pah! You make me sick."
"It's the truth," said he quietly.
"It may be. To me it looks a sight more likefoie gras. Can't do without me, can't you? Well, I can jolly well do without you, and I'm going to."
"I warn you," he said: "I have done you an injury or two in my time, but by George if I stand up and let you shoot me—well, I hate you badly enough, but I won't let you do it without fair warning."
"I'll risk it anyway," said I.
"Very well." He stood up, and folded his arms. "Shoot, then, and be hanged!"
I put out my hand to the revolver, hesitated, and withdrew it.
"That's not the way," I said. "I've got my code, as I told you before."
"Does the code forbid suicide?" he asked.
"That's a different thing."
"Not at all. The man who commits suicide kills an unarmed man."
"But the unarmed man happens to be himself."
"Suppose that in this instance your distinction won't work? Look here," he went on, as I pushed back my chair impatiently, "I have one truth more for you. I swear I believe that what we have hated, we two, is not each other, but ourselves or our own likeness. I swear I believe we two have so shared natures in hate that no power can untwist and separate them to render each his own. But I swear also I believe that if you lift that revolver to kill, you will take aim, not at me, but by instinct at a worse enemy—yourself, vital in my heart."
"You have some pretty theories to-night," I sneered. "Perhaps you'll go on to tell me which of us two has been Elaine's husband, feeding daintily in Lennox Gardens, clothed in purple and fine linen, while the other—"
He interrupted me by picking up his revolver and striding to the fireplace again.
"So be it, since you will have it so. Kill me," he added, with a queer look, "and perhaps you may go back to Lennox Gardens and enjoy all these things in my place."
I took my station. Both revolvers were levelled now. I took sight along mine at his detested face. It was white but curiously eager— hopeful even. I lowered my arm, scanning his face still; and still scanning it, set my weapon down on the table.
"I believe you are mad," said I slowly. "But one thing I see—that, mad or not, you're in earnest. For some reason you want me to kill you; therefore that shall wait. For some reason it is torture to you to live and do without me: well, I'll try you with that. It will do me good to hurt you a bit." I slipped the revolver into my pocket and tapped it. "Though I don't understand them, I won't quarrel with your sentiments so long as you suffer from them. When that fails, I'll find another opportunity for this. Good night." I stepped to the door. "Reggie!"
I shut the door on his cry: crossed the corridor, and climbing out through the window, let myself drop into the lane.
As my feet touched the snow a revolver-shot rang out in the room behind me.
I caught at the frozen sill to steady myself: and crouching there, listened. Surely the report must have alarmed the house! I waited for the sound of footsteps: waited for three minutes—perhaps longer. None came. To be sure, the room stood well apart from the house: but it was incredible that the report should have awakened no one! My own ears still rang with it.
Still no footsteps came. The horse in the stable close by was still shuffling his hoof on the cobbles. No other sound . . .
Very stealthily I hoisted myself up on the sill again, listened, dropped inside, and tip-toed my way to the door. The candles were still burning in the Room of Mirrors. And by the light of them, as I entered, Gervase stepped to meet me.
"Ah, it's you," I stammered. "I heard—that is, I thought—"
And with that I saw—recognised with a catch of the breath—that the figure I spoke to was not Gervase, but my own reflected image, stepping forward with pale face and ghastly from a mirror. Yet a moment before I could have sworn it was Gervase.
Gervase lay stretched on the hearthrug with his hand towards the fire. I caught up a candle, and bent over him. His features were not to be recognised.
As I straightened myself up, with the candle in my hand, for an instant those features, obliterated in the flesh, gazed at me in a ring, a hundred times repeated behind a hundred candles. And again, at a second glance, I saw that the face was not Gervase's but my own.
I set down the candle and made off, closing the door behind me. The horror of it held me by the hair, but I flung it off and pelted down the lane and through the mews. Once in the street I breathed again, pulled myself together, and set off at a rapid walk, southwards, but not clearly knowing whither.
As a matter of fact, I took the line by which I had come: with the single difference that I made straight into Berkeley Square through Bruton Street. I had, I say, no clear purpose in following this line rather than another. I had none for taking Lennox Gardens on the way to my squalid lodgings in Chelsea. I had a purpose, no doubt; but will swear it only grew definite as I came in sight of the lamp still burning beneath Gervase's portico.
There was a figure, too, under the lamp—the butler—bending there and rolling up the strip of red carpet. As he pulled its edges from the frozen snow I came on him suddenly.
"Oh, it's you, Sir!" He stood erect, and with the air of a man infinitely relieved.
"Gervase!"
The door opened wide and there stood Elaine in her ball-gown, a-glitter with diamonds.
"Gervase, dear, where have you been? We have been terribly anxious—"
She said it, looking straight down on me—on me—who stood in my tattered clothes in the full glare of the lamp. And then I heard the butler catch his breath, and suddenly her voice trailed off in wonder and pitiful disappointment.
"It's not Gervase! It's Reg—Mr. Travers. I beg your pardon.I thought—"
But I passed up the steps and stood before her: and said, as she drew back—
"There has been an accident. Gervase has shot himself." I turned to the butler. "You had better run to the police station. Stay: take this revolver. It won't count anything as evidence: but I ask you to examine it and make sure all the chambers are loaded."
A thud in the hall interrupted me. I ran in and knelt beside Elaine, and as I stooped to lift her—as my hand touched her hair—this was the jealous question on my lips—
"What hassheto do with it. It isIwho cannot do without him—who must miss him always!"
"Yes," said Miss Le Petyt, gazing into the deep fireplace and letting her hands and her knitting lie for the moment idle in her lap. "Oh, yes, I have seen a ghost. In fact I have lived in a house with one for quite a long time."
"How youcould—" began one of my host's daughters; and "You, AuntEmily?" cried the other at the same moment.
Miss Le Petyt, gentle soul, withdrew her eyes from the fireplace and protested with a gay little smile. "Well, my dears, I am not quite the coward you take me for. And, as it happens, mine was the most harmless ghost in the world. In fact"—and here she looked at the fire again— "I was quite sorry to lose her."
"It was a woman, then? NowIthink," said Miss Blanche, "that female ghosts are the horridest of all. They wear little shoes with high red heels, and go abouttap, tap, wringing their hands."
"This one wrung her hands, certainly. But I don't know about the high red heels, for I never saw her feet. Perhaps she was like the Queen of Spain, and hadn't any. And as for the hands, it all dependshowyou wring them. There's an elderly shop-walker at Knightsbridge, for instance—"
"Don't be prosy, dear, when you know that we're just dying to hear the story."
Miss Le Petyt turned to me with a small deprecating laugh. "It's such a little one."
"The story, or the ghost?"
"Both."
And this was Miss Le Petyt's story:—
"It happened when I lived down in Cornwall, at Tresillack on the south coast. Tresillack was the name of the house, which stood quite alone at the head of a coombe, within sound of the sea but without sight of it; for though the coombe led down to a wide open beach, it wound and twisted half a dozen times on its way, and its overlapping sides closed the view from the house, which was advertised as 'secluded.' I was very poor in those days. Your father and all of us were poor then, as I trust, my dears, you will never be; but I was young enough to be romantic and wise enough to like independence, and this word 'secluded' took my fancy.
"The misfortune was that it had taken the fancy, or just suited the requirements, of several previous tenants. You know, I dare say, the kind of person who rents a secluded house in the country? Well, yes, there are several kinds; but they seem to agree in being odious. No one knows where they come from, though they soon remove all doubt about where they're 'going to,' as the children say. 'Shady' is the word, is it not? Well, the previous tenants of Tresillack (from first to last a bewildering series) had been shady with a vengeance.
"I knew nothing of this when I first made application to the landlord, a solid yeoman inhabiting a farm at the foot of the coombe, on a cliff overlooking the beach. To him I presented myself fearlessly as a spinster of decent family and small but assured income, intending a rural life of combined seemliness and economy. He met my advances politely enough, but with an air of suspicion which offended me. I began by disliking him for it: afterwards I set it down as an unpleasant feature in the local character. I was doubly mistaken. Farmer Hosking was slow-witted, but as honest a man as ever stood up against hard times; and a more open and hospitable race than the people on that coast I never wish to meet. It was the caution of a child who had burnt his fingers, not once but many times. Had I known what I afterwards learned of Farmer Hosking's tribulations as landlord of a 'secluded country residence,' I should have approached him with the bashfulness proper to my suit and faltered as I undertook to prove the bright exception in a long line of painful experiences. He had bought the Tresillack estate twenty years before—on mortgage, I fancy—because the land adjoined his own and would pay him for tillage. But the house was a nuisance, an incubus; and had been so from the beginning.
"'Well, miss,' he said, 'you're welcome to look over it; a pretty enough place, inside and out. There's no trouble about keys, because I've put in a housekeeper, a widow-woman, and she'll show you round. With your leave I'll step up the coombe so far with you, and put you in your way.' As I thanked him he paused and rubbed his chin. 'There's one thing I must tell you, though. Whoever takes the house must take Mrs. Carkeek along with it.'
"'Mrs. Carkeek?' I echoed dolefully. 'Is that the housekeeper?'
"'Yes: she was wife to my late hind. I'm sorry, miss,' he added, my face telling him no doubt what sort of woman I expected Mrs. Carkeek to be; 'but I had to make it a rule after—after some things that happened. And I dare say you won't find her so bad. Mary Carkeek's a sensible comfortable woman, and knows the place. She was in service there to Squire Kendall when he sold up and went: her first place it was.'
"'I may as well see the house, anyhow,' said I dejectedly. So we started to walk up the coombe. The path, which ran beside a little chattering stream, was narrow for the most part, and Farmer Hosking, with an apology, strode on ahead to beat aside the brambles. But whenever its width allowed us to walk side by side I caught him from time to time stealing a shy inquisitive glance under his rough eyebrows. Courteously though he bore himself, it was clear that he could not sum me up to his satisfaction or bring me square with his notion of a tenant for his 'secluded country residence.'
"I don't know what foolish fancy prompted it, but about halfway up the coombe I stopped short and asked:
"'There are no ghosts, I suppose?'
"It struck me, a moment after I had uttered it, as a supremely silly question; but he took it quite seriously. 'No; I never heard tell of anyghosts.' He laid a queer sort of stress on the word. 'There's always been trouble with servants, and maids' tongues will be runnin'. But Mary Carkeek lives up there alone, and she seems comfortable enough.'
"We walked on. By-and-by he pointed with his stick. 'It don't look like a place for ghosts, now, do it?'
"Certainly it did not. Above an untrimmed orchard rose a terrace of turf scattered with thorn-bushes, and above this a terrace of stone, upon which stood the prettiest cottage I had ever seen. It was long and low and thatched; a deep verandah ran from end to end. Clematis, Banksia roses and honeysuckle climbed the posts of this verandah, and big blooms of the Marechal Niel were clustered along its roof, beneath the lattices of the bedroom windows. The house was small enough to be called a cottage, and rare enough in features and in situation to confer distinction on any tenant. It suggested what in those days we should have called 'elegant' living. And I could have clapped my hands for joy.
"My spirits mounted still higher when Mrs. Carkeek opened the door to us. I had looked for a Mrs. Gummidge, and I found a healthy middle-aged woman with a thoughtful but contented face, and a smile which, without a trace of obsequiousness, quite bore out the farmer's description of her. She was a comfortable woman; and while we walked through the rooms together (for Mr. Hosking waited outside) I 'took to' Mrs. Carkeek. Her speech was direct and practical; the rooms, in spite of their faded furniture, were bright and exquisitely clean; and somehow the very atmosphere of the house gave me a sense of well-being, of feeling at home and cared for; yes,of being loved. Don't laugh, my dears; for when I've done you may not think this fancy altogether foolish.
"I stepped out into the verandah, and Farmer Hosking pocketed the pruning-knife which he had been using on a bush of jasmine.
"'This is better than anything I had dreamed of,' said I.
"'Well, miss, that's not a wise way of beginning a bargain, if you'll excuse me.'
"He took no advantage, however, of my admission; and we struck the bargain as we returned down the coombe to his farm, where the hired chaise waited to convey me back to the market town. I had meant to engage a maid of my own, but now it occurred to me that I might do very well with Mrs. Carkeek. This, too, was settled in the course of the next day or two, and within the week I had moved into my new home.
"I can hardly describe to you the happiness of my first month at Tresillack; because (as I now believe) if I take the reasons which I had for being happy, one by one, there remains over something which I cannot account for. I was moderately young, entirely healthy; I felt myself independent and adventurous; the season was high summer, the weather glorious, the garden in all the pomp of June, yet sufficiently unkempt to keep me busy, give me a sharp appetite for meals, and send me to bed in that drowsy stupor which comes of the odours of earth. I spent the most of my time out of doors, winding up the day's work as a rule with a walk down the cool valley, along the beach and back.
"I soon found that all housework could be safely left to Mrs. Carkeek. She did not talk much; indeed her only fault (a rare one in house-keepers) was that she talked too little, and even when I addressed her seemed at times unable to give me her attention. It was as though her mind strayed off to some small job she had forgotten, and her eyes wore a listening look, as though she waited for the neglected task to speak and remind her. But as a matter of fact she forgot nothing. Indeed, my dears, I was never so well attended to in my life.
"Well, that is what I'm coming to. That, so to say, is justit. The woman not only had the rooms swept and dusted, and my meals prepared to the moment. In a hundred odd little ways this orderliness, these preparations, seemed to read my desires. Did I wish the roses renewed in a bowl upon the dining-table, sure enough at the next meal they would be replaced by fresh ones. Mrs. Carkeek (I told myself) must have surprised and interpreted a glance of mine. And yet I could not remember having glanced at the bowl in her presence. And how on earth had she guessed the very roses, the very shapes and colours I had lightly wished for? This is only an instance, you understand. Every day, and from morning to night, I happened on others, each slight enough, but all together bearing witness to a ministering intelligence as subtle as it was untiring.
"I am a light sleeper, as you know, with an uncomfortable knack of waking with the sun and roaming early. No matter how early I rose at Tresillack, Mrs. Carkeek seemed to have prevented me. Finally I had to conclude that she arose and dusted and tidied as soon as she judged me safely a-bed. For once, finding the drawing-room (where I had been sitting late) 'redded up' at four in the morning, and no trace of a plate of raspberries which I had carried thither after dinner and left overnight, I determined to test her, and walked through to the kitchen, calling her by name. I found the kitchen as clean as a pin, and the fire laid, but no trace of Mrs. Carkeek. I walked upstairs and knocked at her door. At the second knock a sleepy voice cried out, and presently the good woman stood before me in her nightgown, looking (I thought) very badly scared.
"'No,' I said, 'it's not a burglar. But I've found out what I wanted, that you do your morning's work over night. But you mustn't wait for me when I choose to sit up. And now go back to your bed like a good soul, whilst I take a run down to the beach.'
"She stood blinking in the dawn. Her face was still white.
"'Oh, miss,' she gasped, 'I made sure you must have seen something!'
"'And so I have,' I answered, 'but it was neither burglars nor ghosts.'
"'Thank God!' I heard her say as she turned her back to me in her grey bedroom—which faced the north. And I took this for a carelessly pious expression and ran downstairs, thinking no more of it.
"A few days later I began to understand.
"The plan of Tresillack house (I must explain) was simplicity itself. To the left of the hall as you entered was the dining-room; to the right the drawing-room, with a boudoir beyond. The foot of the stairs faced the front door, and beside it, passing a glazed inner door, you found two others right and left, the left opening on the kitchen, the right on a passage which ran by a store-cupboard under the bend of the stairs to a neat pantry with the usual shelves and linen-press, and under the window (which faced north) a porcelain basin and brass tap. On the first morning of my tenancy I had visited this pantry and turned the tap; but no water ran. I supposed this to be accidental. Mrs. Carkeek had to wash up glass ware and crockery, and no doubt Mrs. Carkeek would complain of any failure in the water supply.
"But the day after my surprise visit (as I called it) I had picked a basketful of roses, and carried them into the pantry as a handy place to arrange them in. I chose a china bowl and went to fill it at the tap. Again the water would not run.
"I called Mrs. Carkeek. 'What is wrong with this tap?' I asked.'The rest of the house is well enough supplied.'
"'I don't know, miss. I never use it.'
"'But there must be a reason; and you must find it a great nuisance washing up the plate and glasses in the kitchen. Come around to the back with me, and we'll have a look at the cisterns.'
"'The cisterns'll be all right, miss. I assure you I don't find it a trouble.'
"But I was not to be put off. The back of the house stood but ten feet from a wall which was really but a stone face built against the cliff cut away by the architect. Above the cliff rose the kitchen garden, and from its lower path we looked over the wall's parapet upon the cisterns. There were two—a very large one, supplying the kitchen and the bathroom above the kitchen; and a small one, obviously fed by the other, and as obviously leading, by a pipe which I could trace, to the pantry. Now the big cistern stood almost full, and yet the small one, though on a lower level, was empty.
"'It's as plain as daylight,' said I. 'The pipe between the two is choked.' And I clambered on to the parapet.
"'I wouldn't, miss. The pantry tap is only cold water, and no use to me. From the kitchen boiler I gets it hot, you see.'
"'But I want the pantry water for my flowers.' I bent over and groped. 'I thought as much!' said I, as I wrenched out a thick plug of cork and immediately the water began to flow. I turned triumphantly on Mrs. Carkeek, who had grown suddenly red in the face. Her eyes were fixed on the cork in my hand. To keep it more firmly wedged in its place somebody had wrapped it round with a rag of calico print; and, discoloured though the rag was, I seemed to recall the pattern (a lilac sprig). Then, as our eyes met, it occurred to me that only two mornings before Mrs. Carkeek had worn a print gown of that same sprigged pattern.
"I had the presence of mind to hide this very small discovery, sliding over it some quite trivial remark; and presently Mrs. Carkeek regained her composure. But I own I felt disappointed in her. It seemed such a paltry thing to be disingenuous over. She had deliberately acted a fib before me; and why? Merely because she preferred the kitchen to the pantry tap. It was childish. 'But servants are all the same,' I told myself. 'I must take Mrs. Carkeek as she is; and, after all, she is a treasure.'
"On the second night after this, and between eleven and twelve o'clock, I was lying in bed and reading myself sleepy over a novel of Lord Lytton's, when a small sound disturbed me. I listened. The sound was clearly that of water trickling; and I set it down to rain. A shower (I told myself) had filled the water-pipes which drained the roof. Somehow I could not fix the sound. There was a water pipe against the wall just outside my window. I rose and drew up the blind.
"To my astonishment no rain was falling; no rain had fallen. I felt the slate window-sill; some dew had gathered there—no more. There was no wind, no cloud: only a still moon high over the eastern slope of the coombe, the distant plash of waves, and the fragrance of many roses. I went back to bed and listened again. Yes, the trickling sound continued, quite distinct in the silence of the house, not to be confused for a moment with the dull murmur of the beach. After a while it began to grate on my nerves. I caught up my candle, flung my dressing-gown about me, and stole softly downstairs.
"Then it was simple. I traced the sound to the pantry. 'Mrs. Carkeek has left the tap running,' said I: and, sure enough, I found it so—a thin trickle steadily running to waste in the porcelain basin. I turned off the tap, went contentedly back to my bed, and slept.
"—for some hours. I opened my eyes in darkness, and at once knew what had awakened me. The tap was running again. Now it had shut easily in my hand, but not so easily that I could believe it had slipped open again of its own accord. 'This is Mrs. Carkeek's doing,' said I; and am afraid I added 'Bother Mrs. Carkeek!'
"Well, there was no help for it: so I struck a light, looked at my watch, saw that the hour was just three o'clock, and descended the stairs again. At the pantry door I paused. I was not afraid—not one little bit. In fact the notion that anything might be wrong had never crossed my mind. But I remember thinking, with my hand on the door, that if Mrs. Carkeek were in the pantry I might happen to give her a severe fright.
"I pushed the door open briskly. Mrs. Carkeek was not there. But somethingwasthere, by the porcelain basin—something which might have sent me scurrying upstairs two steps at a time, but which as a matter of fact held me to the spot. My heart seemed to stand still—so still! And in the stillness I remember setting down the brass candlestick on a tall nest of drawers beside me.
"Over the porcelain basin and beneath the water trickling from the tap I saw two hands.
"That was all—two small hands, a child's hands. I cannot tell you how they ended.
"No: they were not cut off. I saw them quite distinctly: just a pair of small hands and the wrists, and after that—nothing. They were moving briskly—washing themselves clean. I saw the water trickle and splash over them—notthroughthem—but just as it would on real hands. They were the hands of a little girl, too. Oh, yes, I was sure of that at once. Boys and girls wash their hands differently. I can't just tell you what the difference is, but it's unmistakable.
"I saw all this before my candle slipped and fell with a crash. I had set it down without looking—for my eyes were fixed on the basin—and had balanced it on the edge of the nest of drawers. After the crash, in the darkness there, with the water running, I suffered some bad moments. Oddly enough, the thought uppermost with me was that Imustshut off that tap before escaping. Ihadto. And after a while I picked up all my courage, so to say, between my teeth, and with a little sob thrust out my hand and did it. Then I fled.
"The dawn was close upon me: and as soon as the sky reddened I took my bath, dressed and went downstairs. And there at the pantry door I found Mrs. Carkeek, also dressed, with my candlestick in her hand.
"'Ah!' said I, 'you picked it up.'
"Our eyes met. Clearly Mrs. Carkeek wished me to begin, and I determined at once to have it out with her.
"'And you knew all about it. That's what accounts for your plugging up the cistern.'
"'You saw? . . .' she began.
"'Yes, yes. And you must tell me all about it—never mind how bad.Is—is it—murder?'
"'Law bless you, miss, whatever put such horrors in your head?'
"'She was washing her hands.'
"'Ah, so she does, poor dear! But—murder! And dear little MissMargaret, that wouldn't go to hurt a fly!'
"'Miss Margaret?'
"'Eh, she died at seven year. Squire Kendall's only daughter; and that's over twenty year ago. I was her nurse, miss, and I know— diphtheria it was; she took it down in the village.'
"'But how do you know it is Margaret?'
"'Those hands—why, how could I mistake, that used to be her nurse?'
"'But why does she wash them?'
"'Well, miss, being always a dainty child—and the house-work, you see—'
"I took a long breath. 'Do you mean to tell me that all this tidying and dusting—' I broke off. 'Is itshewho has been taking this care of me?'
"Mrs. Carkeek met my look steadily.
"'Who else, miss?'
"'Poor little soul!'
"'Well now'—Mrs. Carkeek rubbed my candlestick with the edge of her apron—'I'm so glad you take it like this. For there isn't really nothing to be afraid of—is there?' She eyed me wistfully. 'It's my belief she loves you, miss. But only to think what a time she must have had with the others!'
"'The others?' I echoed.
"'The other tenants, miss: the ones afore you.'
"'Were they bad?'
"'They was awful. Didn't Farmer Hosking tell you? They carried on fearful—one after another, and each one worse than the last."
"'What was the matter with them? Drink?'
"'Drink, miss, with some of 'em. There was the Major—he used to go mad with it, and run about the coombe in his nightshirt. Oh, scandalous! And his wife drank too—that is, if she everwashis wife. Just think of that tender child washing Up after their nasty doings!'
"I shivered.
"'But that wasn't the worst, miss—not by a long way. There was a pair here—from the colonies, or so they gave out—with two children, a boy and gel, the eldest scarce six. Poor mites!'
"'Why, what happened?'
"'They beat those children, miss—your blood would boil!—andstarved,andtortured 'em, it's my belief. You could hear their screams, I've been told, away back in the high-road, and that's the best part of half a mile. Sometimes they was locked up without food for days together. But it's my belief that little Miss Margaret managed to feed them somehow. Oh, I can see her, creeping to the door and comforting!'
"'But perhaps she never showed herself when these awful people were here, but took to flight until they left.'
"'You didn't never know her, miss. The brave she was! She'd have stood up to lions. She've been here all the while: and only to think what her innocent eyes and ears must have took in! There was another couple—' Mrs. Carkeek sunk her voice.
"'Oh, hush!' said I, 'if I'm to have any peace of mind in this house!'
"'But you won't go, miss? She loves you, I know she do. And think what you might be leaving her to—what sort of tenant might come next. For she can't go. She've been here ever since her father sold the place. He died soon after. You musn't go!'
"Now I had resolved to go, but all of a sudden I felt how mean this resolution was.
"'After all,' said I, 'there's nothing to be afraid of.'
"'That's it, miss; nothing at all. I don't even believe it's so very uncommon. Why, I've heard my mother tell of farmhouses where the rooms were swept every night as regular as clockwork, and the floors sanded, and the pots and pans scoured, and all while the maids slept. They put it down to the piskies; but we know better, miss, and now we've got the secret between us we can lie easy in our beds, and if we hear anything, say "God bless the child!" and go to sleep.'
"'Mrs. Carkeek,' said I, 'there's only one condition I have to make.'
"'What's that?'
"'Why, that you let me kiss you.'
"'Oh, you dear!' said Mrs. Carkeek as we embraced: and this was as close to familiarity as she allowed herself to go in the whole course of my acquaintance with her.
"I spent three years at Tresillack, and all that while Mrs. Carkeek lived with me and shared the secret. Few women, I dare to say, were ever so completely wrapped around with love as we were during those three years. It ran through my waking life like a song: it smoothed my pillow, touched and made my table comely, in summer lifted the heads of the flowers as I passed, and in winter watched the fire with me and kept it bright.
"'Why did I ever leave Tresillack?' Because one day, at the end of five years, Farmer Hosking brought me word that he had sold the house—or was about to sell it; I forget which. There was no avoiding it, at any rate; the purchaser being a Colonel Kendall, a brother of the old Squire.'
"'A married man?' I asked.
"'Yes, miss; with a family of eight. As pretty children as ever you see, and the mother a good lady. It's the old home to Colonel Kendall.'
"'I see. And that is why you feel bound to sell.'
"'It's a good price, too, that he offers. You mustn't think but I'm sorry enough—'
"'To turn me out? I thank you, Mr. Hosking; but you are doing the right thing.'
"Since Mrs. Carkeek was to stay, the arrangement lacked nothing of absolute perfection—except, perhaps, that it found no room for me.
"'She—Margaret-will be happy,' I said; 'with her cousins, you know.'
"'Oh yes, miss, she will be happy, sure enough,' Mrs. Carkeek agreed.
"So when the time came I packed up my boxes, and tried to be cheerful.But on the last morning, when they stood corded in the hall, I sent Mrs.Carkeek upstairs upon some poor excuse, and stepped alone into thepantry.
"'Margaret!' I whispered.
"There was no answer at all. I had scarcely dared to hope for one. Yet I tried again, and, shutting my eyes this time, stretched out both hands and whispered:
"'Margaret!'
"And I will swear to my dying day that two little hands stole and rested—for a moment only—in mine."
[Or so much as is told of her by Paschal Tonkin, steward and major-domo to the lamented John Milliton, of Pengersick Castle, in Cornwall: of her coming in the Portugal Ship, anno 1526; her marriage with the said Milliton and alleged sorceries; with particulars of the Barbary men wrecked in Mount's Bay and their entertainment in the town of Market Jew.]
My purpose is to clear the memory of my late and dear Master; and to this end I shall tell the truth and the truth only, so far as I know it, admitting his faults, which, since he has taken them before God, no man should now aggravate by guess-work. That he had traffic with secret arts is certain; but I believe with no purpose but to fight the Devil with his own armoury. He never was a robber as Mr. Thomas St. Aubyn and Mr. William Godolphin accused him; nor, as the vulgar pretended, a lustful and bloody man. What he did was done in effort to save a woman's soul; as Jude tells us, "Of some have compassion, that are in doubt; and others save, having mercy with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh"—though this, alas! my dear Master could not. And so with Jude I would end, praying for all of us and ascribing praiseto the only wise God, our Saviour, who is able to guard us from stumbling and set us faultless before His presence with exceeding joy.
It was in January, 1526, after a tempest lasting three days, that the ship called theSaint Andrew, belonging to the King of Portugal, drove ashore in Gunwallo Cove, a little to the southward of Pengersick. She was bound from Flanders to Lisbon with a freight extraordinary rich—as I know after a fashion by my own eyesight, as well as from the inventory drawn up by Master Francis Porson, an Englishman, travelling on board of her as the King of Portugal's factor. I have a copy of it by me as I write, and here are some of Master Porson's items:—
8,000 cakes of copper, valued by him at 3,224 pounds.18 blocks of silver, ' ' ' 2,250 '.Silver vessels, plate, patens, ewers andpots, beside pearls, precious stones,and jewels of gold.Also a chest of coined money, in amount 6,240 '.
There was also cloth of arras, tapestry, rich hangings, satins, velvets, silks, camlets, says, satins or Bruges, with great number of bales of Flemish and English cloth; 2,100 barber's basins; 3,200 laten candlesticks; a great chest of shalmers and other instruments of music; four sets of armour for the King of Portugal, much harness for his horses, and much beside—the whole amounting at the least computation to 16,000 pounds in value. [1] And this I can believe on confirmation of what I myself saw upon the beach.
But let me have done with Master Porson and his tale, which runs that theSaint Andrew, having struck at the mouth of the cove, there utterly perished; yet, by the grace and mercy of Almighty God, the greater part of the crew got safely to land, and by help of many poor folk dwelling in the neighbourhood saved all that was most valuable of the cargo. But shortly after (says he) there came on the scene three gentlemen, Thomas Saint Aubyn, William Godolphin, and John Milliton, with about sixty men armed in manner of war with bows and swords, and made an assault on the shipwrecked sailors and put them in great fear and jeopardy; and in the end took from them all they had saved from the wreck, amounting to 10,000 pounds worth of treasure—"which," says he, "they will not yield up, nor make restitution, though they have been called upon to do so."
So much then for the factor's account, which I doubt not he believed to be true enough; albeit on his own confession he had lain hurt and unconscious upon the beach at the time, and his tale rested therefore on what he could learn by hearsay after his recovery; when—the matter being so important—he was at trouble to journey all the way to London and lay his complaint before the Portuguese ambassador. Moreover he made so fair a case of it that the ambassador obtained of the English Court a Commissioner, Sir Nicholas Fleming, to travel down and push enquiries on the spot—where Master Porson did not scruple to repeat his accusation, and to our faces (having indeed followed the Commissioner down for that purpose). I must say I thought him a very honest man—not to say a brave one, seeing what words he dared to use to Mr. Saint Aubyn in his own house at Clowance, calling him a mere robber. I was there when he said it and made me go hot and cold, knowing (if he did not) that for two pins Mr. Saint Aubyn might have had him drowned like a puppy. However, he chose to make nothing of an insult from a factor. "Mercator tantum," replied he, snapping his fingers, and to my great joy; for any violence might have spoiled the story agreed on between us—that is, between Mr. Saint Aubyn, Mr. Godolphin, and me who acted as deputy for my Master.
This story of ours, albeit less honest, had more colour of the truth than Master Porson's hearsay. It ran that Mr. Saint Aubyn, happening near Gunwallo, heard of the wreck and rode to it, where presently Mr. Godolphin and my Master joined him and helped to save the men; that, in attempting to save the cargo also, a man of Mr. Saint Aubyn's—one Will Carnarthur—was drowned; that, in fact, very little was rescued; and, seeing the men destitute and without money to buy meat and drink, we bought the goods in lawful bargain with the master. As for the assault, we denied it, or that we took goods to the value of ten thousand pounds from the sailors. All that was certainly known to be saved amounted to about 20 pounds worth; and, in spite of many trials to recover more, which failed to pay the charges of labour, the bulk of the cargo remained in the ship and was broken up by the seas.
This was our tale, false in parts, yet a truer one than either of us, who uttered it, believed. The only person in the plot (so to say) who knew it to be true in substance was my Master. I, his deputy, took this version from him to Clowance with a mind glad enough to be relieved by my duty from having any opinion on the matter. On the one hand, I had the evidence of my senses that the booty had been saved, and too much wit to doubt that any other man would conclude it to be in my Master's possession. On the other, I had never known him lie or deceive, or engage me to further any deceit; his word was his bond, and by practice my word was his bond also. Further, of this affair I had already begun to wonder if a man's plain senses could be trusted, as you will hear reason by-and-by. As for Mr. Saint Aubyn and Mr. Godolphin, they had no doubt at all that my Master was lying, and that I had come wittingly to further his lie. They would have drawn on him (I make no doubt) had he brought the tale in person. From me, his intermediate, they took it as the best to suit with the known truth and present to the Commissioner. All Cornishmen are cousins, you may say. It comes to this, rather: these gentlemen chose to accept my master's lie, and settle with him afterwards, rather than make a clean breast and be forced to wring their small shares out of the Exchequer. A neighbour can be persuaded, terrified, forced; but London is always a long way off, and London lawyers are the devil. I say freely that (knowing no more than they did, or I) these two gentlemen followed a reasonable policy.
But, after we had fitted Sir Nicholas with our common story, and as I was mounting my horse in Clowance courtyard, Mr. Saint Aubyn came close to my stirrup and said this by way of parting:
"You will understand, Mr. Tonkin, that to-day's tale is for to-day. But by God I will come and take my share—you may tell your master—and a trifle over! And the next time I overtake you I promise to put a bullet in the back of your scrag neck."
For answer to this—seeing that Master Porson stood at an easy distance with his eye on us—I saluted him gravely and rode out of the courtyard.
Now the manner of the wreck was this, and our concern with it. So nearly as I can learn, theSaint Andrewcame ashore at two hours after noon: the date, the 20th of January, 1526, and the weather at the time coarse and foggy with a gale yet blowing from the south-west or a good west of south, but sensibly abating, and the tide wanting an hour before low water.
It happened that Mr. Saint Aubyn was riding, with twenty men at his back, homeward from Gweek, where he had spent three days on some private business, when he heard news of the wreck at a farmhouse on the road to Helleston: and so turning aside, he, whose dwelling lay farthest from it, came first to the cove. The news reached us at Pengersick a little after three o'clock; as I remember because my Master was just then settled to dinner. But he rose at once and gave word to saddle in haste, at the same time bidding me make ready to ride with him, and fifteen others.
So we set forth and rode—the wind lulling, but the rain coming down steadily—and reached Gunwallo Cove with a little daylight to spare. On the beach there we found most of the foreigners landed, but seven of them laid out starkly, who had been drowned or brought ashore dead (for the yard had fallen on board, the day before, and no time left in the ship's extremity to bury them): and three as good as dead—among whom was Master Porson, with a great wound of the scalp; also everywhere great piles of freight, chests, bales, and casks—a few staved and taking damage from salt water and rain, but the most in apparent good condition. The crew had worked very busily at the salving, and to the great credit of men who had come through suffering and peril of death. Mr. Saint Aubyn's band, too, had lent help, though by this time the flowing of the tide forced them to give over. But the master (as one might say) of their endeavours was neither the Portuguese captain nor Mr. Saint Aubyn, but a young damsel whom I must describe more particularly.
She was standing, as we rode down the beach, nigh to the water's edge; with a group of men about her, and Mr. Saint Aubyn himself listening to her orders. I can see her now as she turned at our approaching and she and my Master looked for the first time into each other's eyes, which afterwards were to look so often and fondly. In age she appeared eighteen or twenty; her shape a mere girl's, but her face somewhat older, being pinched and peaked by the cold, yet the loveliest I have ever seen or shall see. Her hair, which seemed of a copper red, darkened by rain, was blown about her shoulders, and her drenched blue gown, hitched at the waist with a snakeskin girdle, flapped about her as she turned to one or the other, using more play of hands than our home-bred ladies do. Her feet were bare and rosy; ruddied doubtless, by the wind and brine, but I think partly also by the angry light of the sunsetting which broke the weather to seaward and turned the pools and the wetted sand to the colour of blood. A hound kept beside her, shivering and now and then lowering his muzzle to sniff the oreweed, as if the brine of it puzzled him: a beast in shape somewhat like our grey-hounds, but longer and taller, and coated like a wolf.
As I have tried to describe her she stood amid the men and the tangle of the beach; a shape majestical and yet (as we drew closer) slight and forlorn. The present cause of her gestures we made out to be a dark-skinned fellow whom two of Saint Aubyn's men held prisoner with his arms trussed behind him. On her other hand were gathered the rest of the Portuguese, very sullen and with dark looks whenever she turned from them to Saint Aubyn and from their language to the English. He, I could see, was perplexed, and stood fingering his beard: but his face brightened as he came a step to meet my Master.
"Ha!" said he, "you can help us, Milliton. You speak the Portuguese, I believe?" (For my master was known to speak most of the languages of Europe, having caught them up in his youth when his father's madness forced him abroad. And I myself, who had accompanied him so far as Venice, could pick my way in thelingua Franca.) "This fellow"— pointing at the prisoner—"has just drawn a knife on the lady here; and indeed would have killed her, but for this hound of hers. My fellows have him tight and safe, as you see: but I was thinking by your leave to lodge him with you, yours being the nearest house for the safe keeping of such. But the plague is," says he, "there seems to be more in the business than I can fathom: for one half of these drenched villains take the man's part, while scarce one of them seems too well disposed towards the lady: although to my knowledge she has worked more than any ten of them in salving the cargo. And heaven help me if I can understand a word of their chatter!"
My Master lifted his cap to her; and she lifted her eyes to him, but never a word did she utter, though but a moment since she had been using excellent English. Only she stood, slight and helpless and (I swear) most pitiful, as one saying, "Here is my judge. I am content."
My Master turned to the prisoner and questioned him in the Portuguese. But the fellow (a man taller than the rest and passably straight-looking) would confess nothing but that his name was Gil Perez of Lagos, the boatswain of the wrecked ship. Questioned of the assault, he shook his head merely and shrugged his shoulders. His face was white: it seemed to me unaccountably, until glancing down I took note of a torn wound above his right knee on the inside, where the hound's teeth had fastened.
"But who is the captain of the ship?" my Master demanded in Portuguese; and they thrust forward a small man who seemed not over-willing. Indeed his face had nothing to commend him, being sharp and yellow, with small eyes set too near against the nose.
"Your name?" my Master demanded of him too.
"Affonzo Cabral," he answered, and plunged into a long tale of the loss of his ship and how it happened. Cut short in this and asked concerning the lady, he shrugged his shoulders and replied with an oath he knew nothing about her beyond this, that she had taken passage with him at Dunquerque for Lisbon, paying him beforehand and bearing him a letter from the Bishop of Cambrai, which conveyed to him that she was bound on some secret mission of politics to the Court of Lisbon.
As I thought, two or three of the men would have murmured something here, but for a look from her, who, turning to my Master, said quietly in good English:
"That man is a villain. My name is Alicia of Bohemia, and my mission not to be told here in public. But he best knows why he took me for passenger, and how he has behaved towards me. Yourselves may see how I have saved his freight. And for the rest, sir"—here she bent her eyes on my Master very frankly—"I have proved these men, and claim to be delivered from them."
At this my Master knit his brows: and albeit he was a young man (scarce past thirty) and a handsome, the deep wedge-mark showed between them as I had often seen it show over the nose of the old man his father.
"I think," said he to Mr. Saint Aubyn, "this should be inquired into at greater leisure. With your leave my men shall take the prisoner to Pengersick and have him there in safe keeping. And if"—with a bow—" the Lady Alicia will accept my poor shelter it will be the handier for our examining of him. For the rest, cannot we be of service in rescuing yet more of the cargo?"
But this for the while was out of question: theSaint Andrewlying well out upon the strand, with never fewer than four or five ugly breakers between her and shore; and so balanced that every sea worked her to and fro. Moreover, her mizzen mast yet stood, as by a miracle, and the weight of it so strained at her seams that (thought I) there could be very little left of her by the next ebb.
By now, too, the night was closing down, and we must determine what to do with the cargo saved. Mr. Godolphin, who had arrived with his men during my Master's colloquy, was ready with an offer of wains and pack-horses to convey the bulk of it to the outhouses at Godolphin. But this, when I interpreted it, the Portuguese captain would not hear. Nor was he more tractable to Mr. Saint Aubyn's offer to set a mixed guard of our three companies upon the stuff until daybreak. He plainly had his doubts of such protection: and I could not avoid some respect for his wisdom while showing it by argument to be mere perversity. To my Master's persuasions and mine he shook his head: asking for the present to be allowed a little fuel and refreshment for his men, who would camp on the beach among their goods. And to this, in the end, we had to consent. Several times before agreeing—and perhaps more often than need was—my Master consulted with the Lady Alicia. But she seemed indifferent what happened to the ship. Indeed, she might well have been overwearied.
At length, the Portugals having it their own way, we parted: Mr. Saint Aubyn riding off to lodge for the night with Mr. Godolphin, who took charge of the three wounded men; while we carried the Lady Alicia off to Pengersick (whither the prisoner Gil Perez had been marched on ahead), she riding pillion behind my Master, and the rest of us at a seemly distance.
On reaching home I had first to busy myself with orders for the victuals to be sent down to the foreigners at the Cove, and afterwards in snatching my supper in the great hall, where already I saw my Master and the strange lady making good cheer together at the high table. He had bidden the housekeeper fetch out some robes that had been his mother's, and in these antique fittings the lady looked not awkwardly (as you might suppose), but rather like some player in a masque. I know not how 'twas: but whereas (saving my respect) I had always been to my dear Master as a brother, close to his heart and thoughts, her coming did at once remove him to a distance from me, so that I looked on the pair as if the dais were part of some other world than this, and they, pledging each other up there and murmuring in foreign tongues and playing with glances, as two creatures moving through a play or pisky tale without care or burden of living, and yet in the end to be pitied.
My fast broken, I bethought me of our prisoner; and catching up some meats and a flask of wine, hurried to the strong room where he lay. But I found him stretched on his pallet, and turning in a kind of fever: so returned and fetched a cooling draught in place of the victuals, and without questioning made him drink it. He thanked me amid some rambling, light-headed talk—the most of it too quickly poured out for me to catch; but by-and-by grew easier and drowsy. I left him to sleep, putting off questions for the morning.
But early on the morrow—between five and six o'clock—came Will Hendra, a cowkeeper, into our courtyard with a strange tale; one that disquieted if it did not altogether astonish me. The tale—as told before my Master, whom I aroused to hear it—ran thus: that between midnight and one in the morning the Portugals in the Cove had been set upon and beaten from the spoils by a number of men with pikes (no doubt belonging to Saint Aubyn or Godolphin, or both), and forced to flee to the cliffs. But (here came in the wonder) the assailants, having mastered the field, fell on the casks, chests, and packages, only to find them utterly empty or filled with weed and gravel! Of freight—so Will Hendra had it from one of Godolphin's own men, who were now searching the cliffs and caverns—not twelve-pennyworth remained on the beach. The Portugals must have hidden or made away with it all. He added that their captain had been found at the foot of the cliffs with his head battered in; but whether by a fall or a blow taken in the affray, there was no telling.
My Master let saddle at once and rode away for the Cove without breaking his fast. And I went about my customary duties until full daybreak, when I paid a visit to the strong room, to see how the prisoner had slept.
I found him sitting up in bed and nursing his leg, the wound of which appeared red and angry at the edges. I sent, therefore, for a fomentation, and while applying it thought no harm to tell him the report from the Cove. To my astonishment it threw him into a transport, though whether of rage or horror I could not at first tell. But he jerked his leg from my grasp, and beating the straw with both fists he cried out—
"I knew it! I knew it would be so! She is a witch—a daughter of Satan, or his leman! It is her doing, I tell you. It is she who has killed that fool Affonzo. She is a witch!" He fell back on the straw, his strength spent, but still beat weakly with his fists, gasping "Witch—witch!"
"Hush!" said I. "You are light-headed with your hurt. Lie quiet and let me tend it."
"As for my hurt," he answered, "your tending it will do no good. The poison of that hound of hell is in me, and nothing for me but to say my prayers. But listen you"—here he sat up again and plucked me by the shoulder as I bent over his leg. "The freight is not gone, and good reason for why: it was never landed!"
"Hey?" said I, incredulous.
"It was never landed. The men toiled as she ordered—Lord, how they toiled! Without witch-craft they had never done the half of it. I tell you they handled moonshine—wove sand. The riches they brought ashore were emptiness; vain shows that already have turned to chips and straw and rubbish. Nay, sir"—for I drew back before these ravings—"listen for the love of God, before the poison gets hold of me! Soon it will be too late. . . . The evening before we sailed from Dunquerque, we were anchored out in the tide. It was my watch. I was leaning on the rail of the poop when I caught sight of her first. She was running for her life across the dunes—running for the waterside—she and her hound beside her. Away behind her, like ants dotted over the rises of the sand, were little figures running and pursuing. Down by the waterside one boat was waiting, with a man in it—or the Devil belike—leaning on his oars. She whistled; he pulled close in shore. She leapt into the boat with the dog at her heels, and was half-way across towards our ship before the first of those after her reached the water's edge. When she hailed us I ran and fetched Affonzo the master. The rest I charge to his folly. It was he who handed her up the ship's side. How the dog came on board I know not: only that I leaned over the bulwarks to have a look at him, but heard a pattering noise, and there he was on deck behind me and close beside his mistress. The boat and rower had vanished—under the ship's stern, as I supposed, but now I have my doubts. I saw no more of them, anyhow.