"Ah, it is a good wind that sent you here this day," said he, with a sigh of satisfaction when this ceremony had been duly gone through.
"You say well," acquiesced his master, "it has ever been a good wind that has brought Captain Jack across my path."
And then receiving directions to refresh the gig's crew and dismiss them back to their ship with instructions to return for orders on the morrow, the servant hurried forth, leaving the two friends once more alone.
"Thanks," said Captain Jack, when the door had closed upon the messenger. "That will exactly suit my purpose. I have a good many things to talk over with you, since you so kindly give me the opportunity. In the first place, let me unburden myself of a debt which is now of old standing—and let me say at the same time," added the young man, rising to deposit upon the table a letter-case which he had taken from his breast-pocket, "that though my actual debt is now met, my obligation to you remains the same and will always be so. You said just now that I looked prosperous, and so I am—owing somewhat to good luck, it is true, but owing above all to you. No luck would have availed me much withoutthatto start upon." And he pointed to the contents of the case, a thick bundle of notes which his host was now smilingly turning over with the tip of his fingers.
"I might have sent you a draft, but there is no letter-post that I know of to Scarthey, and, besides, it struck me that just as these four thousand pounds had privately passed between you and me, you might prefer them to be returned in the same manner."
"I prefer it, since it has brought you in person," said Sir Adrian, thrusting the parcel into a drawer and pulling his chair closer towards his guest. "Dealings with a man like you give one a taste of an ideal world. Would that more human transactions could be carried out in so simple and frank a manner as this little business of ours!"
Captain Jack laughed outright.
"Upon my word, you are a greater marvel to me every time I see you—which is not by any means often enough!"
The other raised his eyebrows in interrogation, and the sailor went on:
"Is it really possible that it is tomymode of dealing that you attribute the delightful simplicity of a transaction involving a little fortune from hand to hand? And where pray, in this terraqueous sublunary sphere—I heard that good phrase from a literary exquisite at Bath, and it seems to me comprehensive—where, then, on this terraqueous sublunary globe of ours, Sir Adrian Landale, could one expect to find another person ready to lend a privateersman, trading under an irresponsible name, the sum of four thousand pounds, without any other security than his volunteered promise to return it—if possible?"
Sir Adrian, ignoring the tribute to his own merits, arose and placed his friendly hand on the speaker's shoulder: "And now, my dear Jack," he said gravely, "that the war is over, you will have to turn your energies in another direction. I am glad you are out of that unworthy trade."
Captain Jack bounded up: "No, no, Sir Adrian, I value your opinion too much to allow such a statement to pass unchallenged. Unworthy trade! We have not given back those French devils one half of the harm they have done to our own merchant service; it was war, you know, and you know also, or perhaps you don't—in which case let me tell you—that myCormoranthas made her goodly name, ay, and brought her commander a fair share of his credit, by her energy in bringing to an incredible number of those d——d French sharks—beg pardon, but you know the pestilent breed. Well, we shall never agree upon the subject I fear. As for me, the smart of the salt air, the sting of the salt breeze, the fighting, the danger, they have got into my blood; and even now it sometimes comes over me that life will not be perfect life to me without the dancing boards under my feet and the free waves around me, and my jolly boys to lead to death or glory. Yet, could you but know it, this is the veriest treason, and I revoke the words a thousand times. You look amazed, and well you may: ah, I have much to tell you! But I take it you will not care to hear all I have been able to achieve on the basis of your munificent help at my—ahem, unworthy trade."
"Well, no," said Sir Adrian smiling, "I can quiteimagine it, and imagine it without enthusiasm, though, perhaps, as you say, such things have to be. But I should like to know of these present circumstances, these prospects which make you look so happy. No doubt the fruits of peace?"
"Yes, I suppose in one way they may be called so. Yet without the war and your helping hand they would even now hang as far from me as the grapes from the fox.—When I arrived in England three months after the peace had been signed, I had accumulated in the books of certain banks a tolerably respectable account, to the credit of a certain person, whose name, oddly enough, you on one or two occasions have applied, absently, to Captain Jack Smith. I was, I will own, already feeling inclined to discuss with myself the propriety of assuming the name in question, when, there came something in my way of which I shall tell you presently; which something has made me resolve to remain Captain Smith for some time longer. The oldCormorantlay at Bristol, and being too big for this new purpose, I sold her. It was like cutting off a limb. I loved every plank of her; knew every frisk of her! She served me well to the end, for she fetched her value—almost. Next, having time on my hands, I bethought myself of seeing again a little of the world; and when I tell you that I drove over to Bath, you may perhaps begin to see what I am coming to."
Sir Adrian suddenly turned in his chair to face his friend again, with a look of singular attention.
"Well, no, not exactly, and yet—unless—? Pshaw! impossible——!" upon which lucid commentary he stopped, gazing with anxious inquiry into Captain Jack's smiling eyes. "Ah, I believe you have just a glimmer of the truth with that confounded perspicacity of yours," saying which the sailor laughed and blushed not unbecomingly. "This is how it came about: I had transactions with old John Harewood, the banker, in Bristol, transactions advantageous to both sides, but perhaps most to him—sly old dog. At any rate, the old fellow took a monstrous fancy to me, over his claret, and when I mentioned Bath, recommended me to call upon his wife (a very fine dame, who prefers the fashion of the Spa to the business of Bristol, and consequently lives as much in the former place as good John Harewood will allow).Well, you wonder at my looking prosperous and happy. Listen, for here is thehic: At Lady Maria Harewood's I met one who, if I mistake not, is of your kin. Already, then, somewhere at the back of my memory dwelt the name of Savenaye——Halloa, bless me! I have surely said nothing to——!"
The young man broke off, disconcerted. Sir Adrian's face had become unwontedly clouded, but he waved the speaker on impatiently: "No, no, I am surprised, of course, only surprised; never mind me, my thoughts wandered—please go on. So you have met her?"
"Ay, that I have! Now it is no use beating about the bush. You who know her—you do know her of course—will jump at once to the only possible conclusion. Ah, Adrian!" Captain Jack pursued, pacing enthusiastically about, "I have been no saint, and no doubt I have fancied myself as a lover once or twice ere this; but to see that girl, sir, means a change in a man's life: to have met the light of those sweet eyes is to love, to love in reality. It is to feel ashamed of the idiotic make-believes of former loves. To love her, even in vague hope, is to be glorious already; and, by George, to have her troth, is to be—I cannot say what ... to be what I am now!"
The lover's face was illumined; he walked the room like one treading on air as the joy within him found its voice in words.
Sir Adrian listened with an extraordinary tightness at his heart. He had loved one woman even so; that love was still with him, as the scent clings to the phial; but the sight of this young, joyful love made him feel old in that hour—old as he had never realised before. There was no room in his being for such love again. And yet...? There was a tremulous anxiety in the question he put, after a short pause. "There aretwoDemoiselles de Savenaye, Jack; which is it?"
Captain Jack halted, turned on his heels, and exclaimed enthusiastically: "To me there is but one—one woman in the world—Madeleine!" His look met that of Sir Adrian in full, and even in the midst of his own self-centred mood he could not fail to notice the transient gleam that shot in the elder's eyes, and the sudden relaxation of his features. He pondered for a moment ortwo, scanning the while the countenance of the recluse; then a smile lighted up his own bronzed face in a very sweet and winning way. "As her kinsman, have I your approval?" he asked and proceeded earnestly: "To tell the truth at once, I was looking to even more than your approval—to your support."
Sir Adrian's mood had undergone a change: as a breeze sweeping from a new quarter clears in a moment a darkening mist from the face of the earth, Captain Jack's answer had blown away for the nonce the atmosphere of misgiving that enveloped him. He answered promptly, and with warmth: "Being your friend, I am glad to know of this; being her kinsman, I may add, my dearHubert"—there was just a tinge of hesitation, followed by a certain emphasis, on the change of name—"I promise to support you in your hopes, in so far as I have any influence; for power or right over my cousin I have none."
The sailor threw himself down once more in his arm-chair; and, tapping his shining hessians with the stem of his long clay in smiling abstraction, began, with all a lover's egotism, to expatiate on the theme that filled his heart.
"It is a singular, an admirable, a never sufficiently-to-be-praised conjunction of affairs which has ultimately brought me near you when I was pursuing the Light o' my Heart, ruthlessly snatched away by a cunning and implacable dragon, known to you as Miss O'Donoghue. I saydragonin courtesy; I called her by better names before I realised what a service she was unconsciously rendering us by this sudden removal."
"Known to me!" laughed Sir Adrian. "My own mother's sister!"
"Then I still further retract. Moreover, seeing how things have turned out, I must now regard her as an angel in disguise. Don't look so surprised! Has she not brought my love under your protection? I thought I was tolerably proof against the little god, but then he had never shot his arrows at me from between the long lashes of Madeleine de Savenaye. Oh, those eyes, Adrian! So unlike those southern eyes I have known so well, too well in other days, brilliant, hard, challenging battle from the first glance, and yet from the firstpromising that surrender which is ever so speedy. Pah! no more of such memories. Beforeherblue eyes, on my first introduction, I felt—well, I felt as the novice does under the first broadside."
The speaker looked dreamily into space, as if the delicious moment rose again panoramically before him.
"Well," he pursued, "that did me no harm, after all. Lady Maria Harewood, who, I have learned since, deals strongly in sentiment, and, being unfortunately debarred by circumstances from indulgence in the soothing luxury on her own behalf, loves to promote matches more poetical—she calls it more 'harmonious'—than her own very prosaic one, she, dear lady, was delighted with such a rarity as a bashful privateersman—her 'tame corsair,' as I heard her call your humble servant.—I was a hero, sir, a perfect hero of romance in the course of a few days! On the strength of this renown thrust upon me I found grace before the most adorable blue eyes; had words of sympathy from the sweetest lips, and smiles from the most bewitching little mouth in all the world. So you see I owe poor Lady Maria a good thought.... You laugh?"
Sir Adrian was smiling, but all in benevolence, at the artlessness of this eager youth, who in all the unconscious glory of his looks and strength, ascribed the credit of his entrance into a maiden's heart to the virtue of a few irresponsible words of recommendation.
"Ah! those were days! Everything went on smoothly, and I was debating with myself whether I would not, at once, boldly ask her to be the wife of Hubert Cochrane; though the casting of Jack Smith's skin would have necessitated the giving up of several of his free-trading engagements."
"Free trading! You do not mean to say, man alive, that you have turned smuggler now!" interrupted Sir Adrian aghast.
"Smuggler," cried Jack with his frank laugh, "peace, I beg, friend! Miscall not a gentleman thus. Smuggler—pirate? I cut a pretty figure evidently in your worship's eyes. Lucky for me you never would be sworn as a magistrate, or where should I be ... and you too, between duty and friendship?—But to proceed: I was about, as I have said, to give that up for thereasons I mentioned, when, upon a certain fine evening, I crossed the path of one of the most masterful old maids I have ever seen, or even heard of; and, would you believe it?"—this with a quizzical look at his host's grave face—"this misguided old lady took such a violent dislike to me at first sight, and expressed it so thoroughly well, that, hang me if I was not completely brought to. And all for escorting my dear one from Lady Maria's house to her own! Well, the walk was worth it—though the old crocodile was on the watch for us, ready to snap; had got wind of the secret, somehow, a secret unspoken even between us two. This first and last interview took place on the flags, in front of No. 17 Camden Place, Bath. Oh! It was a very one-sided affair from the beginning, and ended abruptly in a door being banged in my face. Then I heard about Miss O'Donoghue's peculiarities in the direction of exclusiveness. And then, also, oddly enough, for the first time, of the great fortune going with my Madeleine's hand. Of course I saw it all, and, I may say, forgave the old lady. In short, I realised that, in Miss O'Donoghue's mind, I am nothing but an unprincipled fortune-seeker and adventurer. Now you, Adrian, can vouch that, whatever my faults, I am none such."
Sir Adrian threw a quiet glance at his friend, whose eyes sparkled as they met it.
"God knows," continued the latter, "that all I care for, concerning the money, is thatshemay have it. This last venture, the biggest and most difficult of all, I then decided to undertake, that I might be the fitter mate for the heiress—bless her! Oh, Adrian, man, could you have seen her sweet tearful face that night, you would understand that I could not rest upon such a parting. In the dawn of the next morning I was in the street—not so much upon the chance of meeting, though I knew that such sweetness would have now to be all stolen—but to watch her door, her window; a lover's trick, rewarded by lover's luck! Leaning on the railings, through the cold mist (cold it was, though I never felt it, but I mind me now how the icicles broke under my hand), what should I see, before even the church-bells had set to chiming, or the yawning sluts to pull the kitchen curtains, but a bloated monster of a coach, dragging and slidingup the street to halt at her very door. Then out came the beldam herself, and two muffled-up slender things—my Madeleine one of course; but I had a regular turn at sight of them, for I swear I could not tell which was which! Off rattled the chariot at a smart pace; and there I stood, friend, feeling as if my heart was tied behind with the trunks."
The sailor laughed, ran his fingers through his curls and stamped in lively recollection.
"Nothing to be drawn from their landlady. But I am not the man to allow a prize to be snatched from under my very nose. So, anathematising Miss O'Donoghue's family-tree, root, stem, and branch—except that most lovely off-shoot I mean to transplant (you will forgive this heat of blood; it was clearing for action so to speak)—I ran out and overtook the ostler whom I had seen putting the finishing touch to the lashing of boxes behind!'Gloucester!'says he. The word was worth the guinea it cost me, a hundred times over.—In less than an hour I was in the saddle, ready for pursuit, cantering boot to boot with my man—a trusty fellow who knows how to hold his tongue, and can sit a horse in the bargain. Neither at Gloucester, nor the next day, up to Worcester, could we succeed in doing more than keep our fugitives in view. When they had alighted at one inn, as ascertained by my squire, we patronised the opposition hostelry, and the ensuing morning cantered steadily in pursuit, onournew post-horses half an hour after they had rumbled away withtheirrelays. But the evening of our arrival at Worcester, my fellow found out, at last, what the next stage was to be, and—clever chap, he lost nothing for his sharpness—that the Three Kings' Heads had been recommended to the old lady as the best house in Shrewsbury. This time we took the lead, and on to Shrewsbury, and were at the glorious old Kings' Heads (I in a private room, tight as wax) a good couple of hours before the chariot made its appearance. And there, man, there! my pretty one and I met again!"
"That was, no doubt," put in Sir Adrian, in his gentle, indulgent way, "what made the Kings' Heads so glorious?"
"Ay. Right! And yet it was but a few seconds, on the stair, under a smoky lamp, but her beauty filledthe landing with radiance as her kindness did my soul.—It was but for a moment, all blessed moment, too brief, alas! Ah, Adrian, friend—old hermit in your cell—youhave never known life, you who have never tasted a moment such as that! Then we started apart: there was a noise below, and she had only time to whisper that she was on her way to Pulwick to some relatives—had only heard it that very day—when steps came up the stairs, creaking. With a last promise, a last word of love, I leaped back into my own chamber, there to see (through the chink between door and post) the untimely old mischief-maker herself pass slowly, sour and solemn, towards her apartments, leaning upon her other niece's arm. How could I have thoughtthatbaggage like my princess? Handsome, if you will; but, with her saucy eye, her raven head, her brown cheek, no more to be compared to my stately lily than brass to gold!"
The host listening wonderingly, his eyes fixed with kindly gravity upon the speaker as he rattled on, here gave a slight start, all unnoticed of his friend.
"The next morning, when I had seen the coach and its precious freight move on once more northward, I began the retreat south, hugging myself upon luck and success. I had business in Salcombe—perhaps you may have heard of the Salcombe schooners—in connection with the fitting out of that sailing wonder, thePeregrine. And so," concluded Captain Jack, laughing again in exuberance of joy, "you may possibly guess one of the reasons that has brought her and me round by your island."
There ensued a long silence, filled with thoughts, equally pressing though of widely different complexion, on either side of the hearth.
During the meal, which was presently set forth and proclaimed ready by René, the talk, as was natural in that watchful attendant's presence, ran only on general topics, and was in consequence fitful and unspontaneous. But when the two men, for all their difference of age, temper, and pursuits so strongly, yet so oddly united in sympathy, were once more alone, they naturally fell back under the influence of the more engrossing strain of reflection. Again there was silence, while each mused,gazing into space and vaguely listening to the plash of high water under the window.
"It must have been a strong motive," said Sir Adrian, after his dreamy fashion, like one thinking aloud, "to induce a man like you to abandon his honourable name."
Captain Jack flushed at these words, drew his elbows from the table, and shot a keen, inquiring glance at his friend, which, however, fell promptly before the latter's unconscious gaze and was succeeded by one of reflective melancholy. Then, with a slight sigh, he raised his glass to the lamp, and while peering abstractedly through the ruby, "The story of turning my back upon my house," he said musingly, "shaking its very dust off my feet, so to speak, and starting life afresh unbeholden to my father (even for what he could not take away from me—my own name),—is a simple affair, although pitiful enough perhaps. But memories of family wrongs and family quarrels are of their nature painful; and, as I am a mirth-loving fellow, I hate to bring them upon me. But perhaps it has occurred to you that I may have brought some disgrace upon the name I have forsaken."
"I never allowed myself to think so," said Sir Adrian, surprised. "Your very presence by my fireside is proof of it."
Again the captain scrutinised his host; then with a little laugh: "Pardon me," he cried, "with another man one might accept that likely proof and be flattered. But with you? why, I believe I know you too well not to feel sure that you would have received me as kindly and unreservedly, no matter what my past if only you thought that I had repented; that you would forgive even acrimeregretted; and having forgiven, forget.... But, to resume, you will believe me when I say that there was nothing of the sort. No," he went on, with a musing air, "but I could tell you of a boy, disliked at home for his stubborn spirit, and one day thrashed, thrashed mercilessly—at a time when he had thought he had reached to the pride of man's estate, thrashed by his own father, and for no just cause.... Oh, Adrian, it is a terrible thing to have put such resentment into a lad's heart." He rose as he spoke, and placed himself before the hearth.
"If ever I have sons," he added after a pause, and atthe words his whole handsome face relaxed, and became suffused with a tender glow, "I would rather cut my right hand off than raise such a spirit in them. Well, I daresay you can guess the rest; I will even tell you in a few words, and then dismiss the subject.—I have always had a certain shrewdness at the bottom of my recklessness. Now there was a cousin of the family, who had taken to commerce in Liverpool, and who was therefore despised, ignored and insulted by us gentry of the Shaws. So when I packed my bundle, and walked out of the park gate, I thought of him; and two days later I presented myself at his mansion in Rodney Street, Liverpool. I told him my name, whereat he scowled; but he was promptly brought round upon hearing of my firm determination to renounce it and all relations with my father's house for ever, and of my reasons for this resolve, which he found excellent. I could not have lighted upon a better man. He hated my family as heartily as even I could wish, and readily, out of spite to them, undertook to aid me. He was a most enterprising scoundrel, had a share in half a dozen floating ventures. I expressed a desire for life on the ocean wave, and he started me merrily as his nephew, Jack Smith, to learn the business on a slaver of his. The 'ebony trade,' you know, was all the go then, Adrian. Many great gentlemen in Lancashire had shares in it. Now it is considered low. To say true, a year of it was more than enough for me—too much! It sickened me. My uncle laughed when I demurred at a second journey, but to humour me, as I had learned something of the sailing trade, he found me another berth, on board a privateer, theSt. Nicholas. My fortune was made from the moment I set foot on that lucky ship, as you know."
"And you have never seen your father since?"
"Neither father, nor brothers, nor any of my kin, save the cousin in question. All I know is that my father is dead—that he disinherited me expressly in the event of my being still in the flesh; my eldest brother reigns; many of us are scattered, God knows where. And my mother"—the sailor's voice changed slightly—"my mother lives in her own house, with some of the younger ones. So much I have ascertained quite recently. She believes me dead, of course. Oh, it will be a good day,Adrian, when I can come back to her, independent, prosperous, bringing my beautiful bride with me!... But until I can resume my name in all freedom, this cannot be."
"But why, my dear fellow, these further risks and adventures? Surely, even at your showing you have enough of this world's goods; why not come forward, now, at once, openly? I will introduce you, as soon as may be, in your real character, for the sake of your mother—of Madeleine herself."
The sailor shook his head, tempted yet determined.
"I am not free to do so. I have given my word; my honour is engaged," he said. Then abruptly asked: "Have you ever heard of guinea smuggling?"
"Guinea smuggling! No," said Sir Adrian, his amazement giving way to anxiety.
"No? You surprise me. You who are, or were, I understand, a student of philosophical matters, freedom of exchange, and international intercourse and the rest of it—things we never shall have so long as governments want money, I am thinking.—However, this guinea smuggling is a comparatively new business. Now,Idon't know anything about the theory; but I know this much of the practice that, while our preventive service won't let guineas pass the Channel (as goods) this year, somebody on the other side is devilish anxious to have them at almost any cost. And the cost, you know, is heavy, for the risk of confiscation is great. Well, your banker or your rich man will not trust his bullion to your common free trader—he is not quite such a fool."
"No," put in Sir Adrian, as the other paused on this mocking proposition. "In the old days, when I was busy in promoting the Savenaye expedition, I came across many of that gentry, and I cannot mind a case where they could have been trusted with such a freight. But perhaps," he added with a small smile, "the standard may be higher now."
Captain Jack grinned appreciatively. "That is where the 'likes of me' comes in. I will confess this not to be my first attempt. It is known that I am one of the few whose word is warranty. What is more, as I have said, it is known that I have the luck. Thus, even if I could bring my own name into such a trade, I would not; it would be the height of folly to change now."
For all his disapproval Sir Adrian could not repress a look of amusement. "I verily believe, Jack," he said, shaking his head, "that you are as superstitious yourself as the best of them!"
"I ought to make a good thing out of it," said Jack, evasively. "And even with all that is lovely to keep me on shore, I would hardly give it up, if I could. As things stand I could not if I would. Do not condemn me, Adrian,—that would be fatal to my hopes—nay, I actually want your help."
"I would you were out of it," reiterated Sir Adrian; "it takes so little to turn the current of a man's life when he seems to be making straight for happiness. As to the morals of it, I fail, I must admit, to perceive any wrong in smuggling, at least in the abstract, except that a certain kind of moral teaches that all is wrong that is against the law. And yet so many of our laws are so ferocious and inept, and as such the very cause of so much going wrong that might otherwise go well; so many of those who administer them are themselves so ferocious and inept, that the mere fact of a pursuit being unlawful is no real condemnation in my eyes. But, as you know, Jack, those who place themselves above some laws almost invariably renounce all. If you are hanged for stealing a horse, or breaking some fiscal law and hanged for killing a man, the tendency, under stress of circumstances is obvious. Aye, have we not a proverb about it: as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb?... There are gruesome stories about your free traders—and gruesome endings to them. I well remember, in my young days, the clanking gibbet on the sands near Preston and the three tarred and iron-riveted carcases hanging, each in its chains, with the perpetual guard of carrion crows.... Hanging in chains is still on the statute book, I believe. But I'll stop my croaking now. You are not one to be drawn into brutal ways; nor one, I fear, to be frightened into prudence. Nevertheless," laughing quietly, "I am curious to know in what way you expect help from me, in practice. Do you, seriously, want me to embark actually on a smuggling expedition?—I demur, my dear fellow."
Obviously relieved of some anxiety, the other burst out laughing. "Never fear! I know your dislike to bilgewater too well. I appreciate too well also your comfortable surroundings," he returned, seating himself once more complacently in his arm-chair, "much as I should love your company on board my pleasure ship—for, if you please, thePeregrineis no smuggling lugger, but professes to be a yacht. Still, you can be of help for all that, and without lifting even a finger to promote this illicit trade. You may ignore it completely, and yet you will render me incalculable service, provided you do not debar me from paying you a few more visits in your solitude, and give me the range of your caves and cellars."
"You are welcome enough," said the recluse. "I trust it may end as well as it promises." And, after a pause, "Madeleine does not know the nature of your present pursuit?"
"Oddly enough, and happily (for our moments of interview are short, as you may imagine) she is not curious on the subject. I don't know what notions the old Lady Maria may have put into her head about me. I think she believes that I am engaged on some secret political intrigue and approves of such. At least I gathered as much from her sympathetic reticence; and, between ourselves, I am beginning to believe it myself."
"How is that?" asked the listener, moved to fresh astonishment by this new departure.
"Well, I may tell you, who not only can be as silent as the tomb, but really have a right to know, since you are tacitly of the conspiracy. This time the transaction is to be with some official of the French Court. They want the metal, and yet wish to have it secretly. What their motive may be is food for reflection if you like, but it is no business of mine. And, besides the fact that one journey will suffice for a sum which at the previous rate would have required half a score, all the trouble and uncertainty of landing are disposed of; at any rate, I am, when all is ready, to be met by a government vessel, get myquid pro quoas will be settled, and there the matter is to end."
"A curious expedition," mused Sir Adrian.
"Yes," said the sailor, "my last will be the best. By the way, will you embark a few bags with me? I will take no commission."
Sir Adrian could not help laughing.
"No, thank you; I have no wish to launch any more of my patrimony on ventures—since it would be of no service to you. I had almost as lief you had made use of my old crow's nest without letting me into the ins and outs of your projects. But, be it as it may, it is yours, night and day. Your visits I shall take as being for me."
"What a man you are, upon my soul, Sir Adrian!" cried Captain Jack, enthusiastically.
Later on, when the "shaking down" hour, in Captain Jack's phraseology, had sounded, and the two friends separated to rest, the young man refused the offer, dictated by hospitality, of his host's own bedroom. Sir Adrian did not press the point, and, leaving his guest at liberty to enjoy the couch arranged by René in a corner under the bookshelves, even as when Mademoiselle de Savenaye had been the guest of the peel, himself retired to that now hallowed apartment.
"Odd fellow, that," soliloquised Captain Jack, as, slowly divesting himself, he paced about the long room and, in the midst of roseate reflections, examined his curious abode. "Withal, as good as ever stepped. It was a fine day's work our oldSt. Nicholasdid, about this time eight years ago. Rather unlike a crowded battery deck, this," looking from the solemn books to the glinting organ pipes, and conscious of the great silence. "As for me, I should go crazy by myself here. But it suits him. Queer fish!" again ruminated the young sailor. "He hates no one and yet dislikes almost everybody, except that funny little Frenchy and me. WhereasIlike every man I meet—unless I detest him!... My beautiful plumage!" this whilst carefully folding the superfine coat and thereon the endless silken stock. "Now there's a fellow who does not care a hang for any woman under the sun, and yet enters into another chap's love affairs as if he understood it all. I believe it will make him happy to win my cause with Madeleine. I wish one could do something forhishappiness. It is absurd, you know," as though apostrophising an objector, "a man can't be happy without a woman. And yet again, my good Jack, you never thought that before you met Madeleine. He has not met his Madeleine, that's what it means. Whereignorance is bliss.... Friend Adrian! Let us console ourselves and call you ignorantly happy, in your old crow's nest. You have not stocked it so badly either.—For all your ignorance in love, you have a pretty taste in liquor."
So thinking, he poured himself a last glass of his host's wine, which he held for a moment in smiling cogitation, looking, with the mind's eye, through the thick walls of the keep, across the cold mist-covered sands of Scarthey and again through the warm and scented air of a certain room (imagination pictured) where Madeleine must at that hour lie in her slumber. After a moment of silent adoration he sent a rapturous kiss landwards and tossed his glass with a last toast:
"Madeleine, my sweet! To your softly closed lids."
And again Captain Jack fell to telling over the precious tale of that morning's interview, furtively secured, by that lover's luck he so dutifully blessed, under the cluster of Scotch firs near the grey and crumbling boundary walls of Pulwick Park.
Tanty's wrath upon discovering Sir Adrian's departure was all the greater because she could extort no real explanation from Rupert, and because her attacks rebounded, as it were, from the polished surface he exposed to them on every side. Madeleine's indifference, and Molly's apparently reckless spirits, further discomposed her during supper; and upon the latter young lady's disappearance after the meal, it was as much as she could do to finish her nightly game of patience before mounting to seek her with the purpose of relieving her overcharged feelings, and procuring what enlightenment she might.
The unwonted spectacle of the saucy damsel in tears made Miss O'Donoghue halt upon the threshold, the hot wind of anger upon which she seemed to be propelled into the room falling into sudden nothingness.
There could be no mistake about it. Molly was weeping; so energetically indeed, with such a passion of tears and sobs, that the noise of Tanty's tumultuous entrance fell unheeded upon her ears.
All her sympathies stirred within her, the old lady advanced to the girl with the intention of gathering her to her bosom. But as she drew near, the black and white of the open diary attracted her eye under the circle of lamplight, and being possessed of excellent long sight, she thought it no shame to utilise the same across her grand-niece's prostrate, heaving form, before making known her presence.
"And so I sit and cry."
Miss Molly was carrying out her programme with much precision, if indeed her attitude, prone along the table, could be described as sitting.
Miss O'Donoghue's eyes and mouth grew round, as with the expression of an outraged cockatoo she read and re-read the tell-tale phrases. Here was a complication she had not calculated upon.
"Dear, dear," she cried, clacking her tongue in disconsolate fashion, so soon as she could get her breath. "What is the meaning of this, my poor girl?"
Molly leaped to her feet, and turning a blazing, disfigured countenance upon her relative, exclaimed with more energy than politeness: "Good gracious, aunt, whatdoyou want?"
Then catching sight of the open diary, she looked suspiciously from it to her visitor, and closed it with a hasty hand. But Miss O'Donoghue's next words settled the doubt.
"Well, to be sure, what a state you have put yourself into," she pursued in genuine distress. "What has happened then between you and that fellow, whom I declare I begin to believe as crazy as Rupert says, that you should be crying your eyes out over his going back to his island?—you that I thought could not shed a tear if you tried. Nothing left but to sit and cry, indeed."
"So you have been reading my diary, you mean thing," cried Miss Molly, stamping her foot. "How dare you come creeping in here, spying at my private concerns! Oh! oh! oh!" with unpremeditated artfulness, relapsing into a paroxysm of sobs just in time to avert the volley of rebuke with which the hot-tempered old lady was about to greet this disrespectful outburst. "I am the most miserable girl in all the world. I wish I were dead, I do."
Again Tanty opened her arms, and this time she did draw the stormy creature to a bosom, as warm and motherly as if all the joys of womanhood had not been withheld from it.
"Tell me all about it, my poor child." There was a distinct feeling of comfort in the grasp of the old arms, comfort in the very ring of the deep voice. Molly was not a secretive person by nature, and moreover she retained quite enough shrewdness, even in her unwonted break-down, to conjecture that with Tanty lay her sole hope of help. So rolling her dark head distractedly on the old maid's shoulder, the young maid narrated hertale of woe. Pressed by a pointed question here and there, Tanty soon collected a series of impressions of Molly's visit to Scarthey, that set her busy mind working upon a startlingly new line. It was her nature to jump at conclusions, and it was not strange that the girl's passionate display of grief should seem to be the unmistakable outcome of tenderer feelings than the wounded pride and disappointment which were in reality its sole motors.
"I am convinced it is Rupert that is at the bottom of it," cried Molly at last, springing into uprightness again, and clenching her hands. "His one idea is to drive his brother permanently from his own home—and hehates me."
Tanty sat rigid with thought.
So Molly was in love with Sir Adrian Landale, and he—who knows—was in love with her too; or if not with her, with her likeness to her mother, and that was much the same thing when all was said and done. Could anything be more suitable, more fortunate? Could ever two birds be killed with one stone with more complete felicity than in this settling of the two people she most loved upon earth? Poor pretty Molly! The old lady's heart grew very tender over the girl who now stood half sullenly, half bashfully averting her swollen face; five days ago she had not known her handsome cousin, and now she was breaking her heart for him.
It might be, indeed, as she said, that they had to thank Rupert for this—and off flew Tanty's mind upon another tangent. Rupert was very deep, there could be no doubt of that; he was anxious enough to keep Adrian away from them all; what would it be then when it came to a question of his marriage?
Tanty, with the delightful optimism that seventy years' experience had failed to damp, here became confident of the approach of her younger nephew's complete discomfiture, and in the cheering contemplation of that event chuckled so unctuously that Molly looked at her amazed.
"It is well for you, my dear," said the old lady, rising and wagging her head with an air of enigmatic resolution, "that you have got an aunt."
Some two days later, René, sitting upon a ledge of theold Scarthey wall, in the spare sunshine which this still, winter's noon shone pearl-like through a universal mist, busy mending a net, to the tune of a melancholy, inward whistle, heard up above the licking of the waves all around him and the whimper of the seagulls overhead, the beat of steady oars approaching from land side.
Starting to his feet, the little man, in vague expectation, ran to a point of vantage from which to scan the tideway; after a few seconds' investigation he turned tail, dashed into the ruins, up the steps, and burst open the door of the sitting-room, calling upon his master with a scared expression of astonishment.
Captain Jack, poring over a map, his pipe sticking rakishly out of one side of his mouth, looked up amused at the Frenchman's evident excitement, while Adrian, who had been busy with the uppermost row of books upon his west wall, looked down from his ladder perch, with the pessimist's constitutional expectation of evil growing upon his face.
"One comes in a boat," ejaculated René, "and I thought I ought to warn his honour, if his honour will give himself the trouble to look out."
"It must be the devil to frighten Renny in this fashion," muttered Captain Jack as distinctly as the clench of his teeth upon the pipe would allow him. Sir Adrian paled a little, he began to descend his ladder, mechanically flicking the dust from his cuffs.
"Your honour," said René, drawing to the window and looking out cautiously, "I have not yet seen her, but I believe it is old miss—the aunt of your honour and these ladies."
Captain Jack's pipe fell from his dropping jaw and was broken into many fragments as he leaped to his feet with an elasticity of limb and a richness of expletive which of themselves would have betrayed his calling.
Flinging his arm across one of Adrian's shoulders he peeped across the other out of the window, with an alarm half mocking, half genuine.
"The devil it is, friend Renny," he cried, drawing back and running his hands with an exaggerated gesture of despair through his brown curls; "Adrian, all is lost unless you hide me."
"My aunt here, and alone," exclaimed Adrian, retreating from the window perturbed enough himself, "I must go down to meet her. Pray God it is no ill news! Hurry, Renny, clear these glasses away."
"In the name of all that's sacred, clear me away first!" interposed Captain Jack, this time with a real urgency; through the open lattice came the sound of the grating of the boat's keel upon the sand and a vigorous hail from a masculine throat—"Ahoy, Renny Potter, ahoy!" "Adrian, this is a matter of life and death to my hopes, hide me in your lowest dungeon for goodness' sake; I do not know my way about your ruins, and I am convinced the old lady will nose me out like a badger."
There was no time for explanation; Sir Adrian made a sign to René, who highly enjoying the situation and grinning from ear to ear, was already volunteering to "well hide Mr. the Captain," and the pair disappeared with much celerity into the inner room, while Adrian, unable to afford himself further preparation, hurried down the great stairs to meet this unexpected guest.
He emerged bareheaded into the curious mist which hung pall-like upon the outer world, and seemed to combine the opposite elements of glare and dulness, just as Tanty, aided by the stalwart arm of the boatman, who had rowed her across, succeeded in dragging her rheumatic limbs up the last bit of ascent to the door of the keep.
She halted, disengaged herself, and puffing and blowing surveyed her nephew with a stony gaze.
"My dear aunt," cried Adrian, "nothing has happened, I trust?"
"Sufficient has already happened, nephew, I shouldhope," retorted the old lady with extreme dignity, "sufficient to make me desire to confer with you most seriously. I thank you, young man," turning to William Shearman who stood on one side, his eager gaze upon "the master," ready to pull his forelock so soon as he could catch his eye, "be here again in an hour, if you please."
"But you will allow me to escort you myself," exclaimed Adrian, rising to the situation, "and I hope there need be no hurry so long as daylight lasts—Good-morning, Will, I am glad the new craft is a success—you need not wait. Tanty, take my arm, I beg, the steps are steep and rough."
Gripping her nephew's arm with her bony old woman's hand, Miss O'Donoghue began a laborious ascent, pausing every five steps to breathe stertorously and reproachfully, and look round upon the sandstone walls with supreme disdain; but this was nothing to the air with which, when at last installed upon a high hard chair, in the sitting-room (having sternly refused the easy one Sir Adrian humbly proffered), she deliberately proceeded to survey the scene. In truth, the neatness that usually characterised Adrian's surroundings was conspicuously absent from them, just then.
Two or three maps lay overlapping each other upon the table beside the tray with its flagon of amber ale, which had formed the captain's morning draught; and the soiled glass, the fragments of his pipe, and its half-burnt contents lay strewn about the prostrate chair which that lively individual had upset in his agitation. Adrian's ladder, the books he had been handling and had not replaced, the white ash of the dying fire, all contributed to the unwonted aspect of somewhat melancholy disorder; worse than all, the fumes of the strong tobacco which the sailor liked to smoke in his secluded moments hung rank, despite the open window, upon the absolute motionlessness of the atmosphere.
Tanty snorted and sniffed, while Adrian, after picking up the chair, began to almost unconsciously refold the maps, his eyes fixed wonderingly upon his visitor's face.
This latter delivered herself at length of some of the indignation that was choking her, in abrupt disjointed sentences, as if she were uncorking so many bottles.
"Well I'm sure, nephew, I am not surprised at yourextraordinarybehaviour, and if this is the style you prefer to live in—style, did I say?—sty would be more appropriate. Of course it is only what I have been led to expect, but I must say I was ill prepared to be treated by you with actual disrespect. My sister's child and I your guest, not to speak of your aunt, and you your mother's son, and her host besides! It is a slap in the face, Adrian, a slap in the face which has been a very bitter pill to have to swallow, I assure you—I may say without exaggeration, in fact, that it has cut me to the quick."
"But surely," cried the nephew, laughing with gentle indulgence at this complicated indictment, "surely youcannot suppose I would have been willingly guilty of the smallest disrespect to you. I am a most unfortunate man, most unfortunately situated, and if I have offended, it is, you must believe, unwittingly and unavoidably. But you got my letter—I made my motives clear to you."
"Oh yes, I got your letter yesterday," responded Tanty, not at all softened, "and a more idiotic production from a man of your attainments, allow me to remark, I never read. Adrian, you are making a perfect fool of yourself, andyou cannot afford it!"
"I fear you will never really understand my position," murmured Adrian hopelessly.
Tanty rattled her large green umbrella upon the floor with a violence that made her nephew start, then turned upon him a countenance inflamed with righteous anger.
"It is only three days ago since I gave you fully my view of the situation," she remarked, "you were good enough at the time to admit that it was a remarkably well-balanced one. I should be glad if you will explain in what manner your position could have changed in the space of just three hours after, to lead you to rush back to your island, really as if you were a mole or a wild Indian, or some other strange animal that could not bear civilised society, without even so much as a good-bye to me, or to your cousins either? What is that?—you say you wrote—oh, ay—you wrote—to Molly as well as to me; rigmaroles, my dear nephew, mere absurd statements that have not a grain of truth in them, that do not hold water for an instant. You are not made for the world forsooth, nor the world for you! and if that is not flying in the face of your Creator, and wanting to know better than Providence!—And then you say, 'you cast a gloom by your mere presence.' Fiddle-de-dee! It was not much in the way of gloom that Molly brought back with her from her three days' visit to you—or if that is gloom—well, the more your presence casts of it the better—that is all I can say. Ah, but you should have seen her, poor child, after you went away in that heartless manner and you had removed yourself and your shadow, and your precious gloom—if you could have seen how unhappy she has been!"
"Good God!" exclaimed the man with a paling face, "what are you saying?"
"Only the truth, sir—Molly is breaking her heart because of your base desertion of her."
"Good God," muttered Adrian again, rose up stiffly in a sort of horrified astonishment and then sat down again and passed his hand over his forehead like a man striving to awaken from a painful dream.
"Oh, Adrian, don't be more of a fool than you can possibly help!" cried his relative, exasperated beyond all expression by his inarticulate distress. "You are so busy contemplating all sorts of absurdities miles away that I verily believe you cannot see an inch beyond your nose. My gracious! what is there to be so astonished at? How did you behave to the poor innocent from the very instant she crossed your threshold? Fact is, you have been a regular gay Lothario. Did you not"—cried Tanty, starting again upon her fine vein of metaphor—"did you not deliberately hold the cup of love to those young lips only to nip it in the bud? The girl is not a stock or a stone. You are a handsome man, Adrian, and the long and the short of it is, those who play with fire must reap as they have sown."
Tanty, who had been holding forth with the rapidity of a loose windmill in a hurricane, here found herself forced to pause and take breath; which she did, fanning herself with much energy, a triumphant consciousness of the unimpeachability of her logic written upon her heated countenance. But Adrian still stared at her with the same incredulous dismay; looking indeed as little like a gay Lothario as it was possible, even for him.
"Do you mean," he said at last, in slow broken sentences, as his mind wrestled with the strange tidings; "am I to understand that Molly, that bright beautiful creature, has been made unhappy through me? Oh, my dear Tanty," striving with a laugh, "the idea is too absurd, I am old enough to be her father, you know—what evidence can you have for a statement so distressing, so extraordinary."
"I am not quite in my dotage yet," quoth Tanty, drily; "neither am I in the habit of making unfounded assertions, nephew. I have heard what the girl has said with her own lips, I have read what she has written in her diary; she has sobbed and cried over your cruelty in these very arms—I don't know what further evidence——"
But Sir Adrian had started up again—"Molly crying, Molly crying for me—God help us all—Cécile's child, whom I would give my life to keep from trouble! Tanty, if this is true—it must be true since you say so, I hardly know myself what I am saying—then I am to blame, deeply to blame—and yet—I have not said one word to the child—did nothing...." here he paused and a deep flush overspread his face to the roots of his hair; "except indeed in the first moment of her arrival—when she came in upon me as I was lost in memories of the past—like the spirit of Cécile."
"Humph," said Tanty, pointedly, "but then you see what you took for Cécile's spirit happened to be Molly in the flesh." She fixed her sharp eyes upon her nephew, who, struck into confusion by her words, seemed for the moment unable to answer. Then, as if satisfied with the impression produced, she folded her hands over the umbrella handle and observed in more placid tones than she had yet used:
"And now we must see what is to be done."
Adrian began to pace the room in greater perturbation.
"What is to be done?" he repeated, "alas! what can be done? Tanty, you will believe me when I tell you that I should have cut off my right hand rather than brought this thing upon the child—but she is very young—the impression, thank heaven, cannot in the nature of things endure. She will meet some one worthy of her—with you, Tanty, kindest of hearts, I can safely trust her future. But that she should suffer now, and through me, that bright creature who flitted in upon my dark life, like some heaven-sent messenger—these are evil tidings. Tanty, you must take her away, you must distract her mind, you must tell her what a poor broken-down being I am, how little worthy of her sweet thoughts, and she will learn, soon learn, to forget me, to laugh at herself."
Although addressing the old lady, he spoke like a man reasoning with himself, and the words dropped from his lips as if drawn from a very well of bitterness. Tanty listened to him in silence, but the tension of her whole frame betrayed that she was only gathering her forces for another explosion.
When Adrian's voice ceased there was a moment's silence and then the storm burst; whisking herself out of her chair,the umbrella came into play once more. But though it was only to thump the table, it was evident Miss O'Donoghue would more willingly have laid it about the delinquent's shoulders.
"Adrian, are you a man at all?" she ejaculated fiercely. Then with sudden deadly composure: "Sothisis the reparation you propose to make for the mischief you have wrought?"
"In God's name!" cried he, goaded at length into some sort of despairing anger himself, "what would you have me do?"
The answer came with the promptitude of a return shot:
"Do? why marry her, of course!"
"Marry her!"
There was a breathless pause. Tanty, leaning forward across the table, crimson, agitated, yet triumphant; Adrian's white face blasted with astonishment. "Marry her," he echoed at length once more, in a whisper this time. Then with a groan: "This is madness!"
Miss O'Donoghue caught him up briskly. "Madness? My good fellow, not a bit of it; on the contrary, sanity, happiness, prosperity.—Adrian, don't stand staring at me like a stuck pig! Why, in the name of conscience, should not you marry? You are a young man still—pooh, pooh, what is forty!—you are a very fine-looking man, clever, romantic—hear me out, sir, please—and you have made the child love you. There you are again, as if you had a pain in your stomach; you would try the patience of Job! Why, I don't believe there is another man on earth that would not be wild with joy at the mere thought of having gained such a prize. A beautiful creature, with a heart of gold and a purse of gold to boot."
"Oh, heavens, aunt!" interrupted the man, passionately, "leave that question out of the reckoning. The one thing, the only thing, to consider isherhappiness. You cannot make me believe it can be for her happiness that she should marry such as me."
"And why shouldn't it be for her happiness?" answered the dauntless old lady. "Was not she happy enough with you here in this God-forsaken hole, with nothing but the tempest besides for company? Why should not she be happy, then, when you come back to your own goodplace? Would not you bekindto her?—would not you cherish her if she were your wife?"
"Would I not be kind to her?—would I not cherish her?—would I not——? My God!"
"Why, Adrian," cried Tanty, charmed at this unexpected disclosure of feeling and the accent with which it was delivered, "I declare you are as much in love with the girl as she is with you. Why, now you shall just come back with me to Pulwick this moment, and she shall tell you herself if she can find happiness with you or not. Oh—I will hear no more—your own heart, your feelings as a gentleman, as a man of honour, all point, my dear nephew, in the same direction. And if you neglect this warning voice you will be blind indeed to the call of duty. Come now, come back to your home, where the sweetest wife ever a man had awaits you. And when I shall see the children spring up around you, Adrian, then God will have granted my last wish, and I shall die in peace.... There, there, I am an old fool, but when the heart is over full, then the tears fall. Come, Adrian, come, I'll say no more; but the sight of the poor child who loves you shall plead for her happiness and yours. And hark, a word in your ear: let Rupert bark and snarl as he will! And what sort of a devil is it your generosity has made ofhim? You have done a bad day's work there all these years, but, please God, there are better times dawning for us all.—What are you doing, Adrian? Oh! writing a few orders to your servant to explain your departure with me—quite right, quite right, I won't speak a word then to interrupt you. Dear me! I really feel quite in spirits. Once dear Molly and you settled, there will be a happy home for Madeleine: with you, we can look out a suitable husband for her. Well, well, I must not go too fast yet, I suppose: but I have not told you in what deep anxiety I have been onheraccount by reason of a most deplorable affair—a foolish girl's fancy only, of course, with a most undesirable and objectionable creature calledSmith.... Oh! you are ready, are you?—My dear Adrian, give me your arm then, and let us proceed."
Silence had reigned for but a few seconds in the great room of the keep when Captain Jack re-entered, bearing on his face an expression at once boyishly jubilant andmockingly astonished. He planted himself in front of the landward window, and gazed forth a while.
"There goes my old Adrian, as dutifully escorting that walking sack of bones, that tar-barrel ornament—never mind, old lady, from this moment I shall love you for your brave deeds of this morning—escorting his worthy aunt as dutifully as though he were a penniless nephew.... Gently over the gunnel, madam! That's done! So you are going to take my gig? Right, Adrian. Dear me, how she holds forth! I fancy I hear her from here.—Give way, my lads! That's all right. Gad! Old Adrian's carried off on a regular journey to Cythera, under a proper escort!"
With this odd reminiscence of early mythological reading, the sailor burst into a loud laugh and walked about slapping his leg.
"Would ever any one have guessed anything approaching this? Star-gazing, book-grubbing Sir Adrian ... in love! Adrian the solitary, the pessimist, the I-don't-know-what superior man, in love! Neither more nor less! In love, like an every-day inhabitant of these realms, and with that black-eyed sister of mine that is to be! My word, it's too perfect! Adrian my brother-in-law—for if I gauge that fine creature properly—splendid old lady—she won't let him slide back this time. No, my dear Adrian, you are hooked for matrimony and a return to the living world. That black-eyed jade too, that Molly sister of my Madeleine, will wake up and lead you a life, by George!... Row on, my lads," once more looking at the diminishing black spot upon the grey waters. "Row on—you have never done a better day's work!"
René, entering a few moments later, with an open note in his hand, found his master's friend still chuckling, and looked at him inquisitively.
"His honour has returned to Pulwick," said he, in puzzled tones, handing the missive.
"Ay, lad," answered the sailor, cheerily. "The fact is, my good Renny, that in that room of Sir Adrian's where you ensconced me for safety from that most wonderful specimen of her sex (I refer to your master's worthy aunt), it was impossible to avoid overhearing many of her remarks—magnificent voice for a storm at sea, eh? Never mind what it was all about, my good man; whatI heard was good news. Ah!" directing his attention to the note; "his honour does not say when he will return, but will send back the gig immediately; and you, M. Potter, are to look after me for as long as I choose to stop here."
René required no reflection to realise that anything in the shape of good news which took his master back to his estate must be good news indeed; and his broad face promptly mirrored, in the broadest of grins, the captain's own satisfaction.
"For sure, we will try to take care of M. the captain, as well as if his honour himself was present. He told me you were to be master here."
"Make it so. I should like some dinner as soon as possible, and one of my bro——of Sir Adrian's best bottles. It's a poor heart that never rejoices. Meanwhile, I want to inspect your ruins and your caves in detail, if you will pilot me, Renny. This is a handy sort of an old Robinson Crusoe place for hiding and storing, is it not?"