Craven woke abruptly a few hours later with a spasmodic muscular contraction that jerked him into a sitting position. Half dazed as yet with sleep he swung his heels to the floor and sat on the edge of the bed looking stupidly at his dusty boots and earth-stained fingers. Then remembrance came and he clenched his hands with a stifled groan. He drank thirstily the tea that was on a table beside him and went to the open window. As he crossed the room the reflection of his blood-stained haggard face, seen in a mirror, startled him. A bath and clean clothes were indispensable before he went back to the lonely little house on the hillside. He lingered for a few minutes by the window, glad of the cool morning breeze blowing against his face, trying to pull himself together, trying to brace himself to meet the consequences of his folly, trying to drag his disordered thoughts into something approaching coherence. He stared down over the bay and the sunlit waters mocked him with their dancing ripples sliding lightheartedly one after the other toward the shore. The view that he looked upon had been until this morning a never-failing source of pleasure, now it moved him to nothing but the recollection of the hackneyed line in the old hymn—“where only man is vile,” and he was vile—with all power of compensation taken from him. To some was given the chance of making reparation. For him there was no chance. He could do nothing to mitigate the injury he had done. She whom he had wronged must suffer for him and he was powerless to avert that suffering. His helplessness overwhelmed him. O Hara San, little O Hara San, who had given unstintingly, with eager generous hands. His face was set as he turned from the window and, starting to pull off his torn shirt, called for Yoshio. But no Yoshio was forthcoming and at his second impatient shout another Japanese servant bowed himself in, and, kowtowing, intimated that Yoshio had already gone on the honourable lord's errand and would there await him, and that in the meantime his honourable bath was prepared and his honourable breakfast would be ready in ten minutes.
Craven paused with his shirt half off.
“What errand?” he said, perplexed, unaware that he was asking the question audibly.
The man bowed again, with hands outspread, and gravely shook his head conveying his total ignorance of a matter that was beyond his province, but the pantomime was lost on Craven who was wrestling with his shirt and not even aware that he had spoken aloud. It was the first time in ten years' service that Yoshio had failed to answer a call and Craven wondered irritably what could have taken him away at that time in the morning, and concluded that it was some order given by himself the day before, now forgotten, so dismissing Yoshio and his affairs from his mind he signed to the still gently explaining servant to go.
His brain felt dull and tired, his thoughts were chaotic. He saw before him no clear course. Whichever way he looked at it the horrible tangle grew more horrible. There was a recurring sense of unreality, a visionary feeling of detachment which enabled him to view the situation from an impersonal standpoint, as one criticises a nightmare, confident in the knowledge that it is only a dream. But in this case the confidence was based on nothing tangible and the illusion faded as quickly as it rose and left him confronted with the brutal truth from which there was no escape.
In the dressing room everything that he needed had been laid out in readiness for him, and he dressed mechanically with a feverish haste that struggled ineffectually with a refractory collar stud, and caused him to execrate heartily the absent valet and his enigmatical errand. Another ten minutes was lost while he hunted for his watch and cigarette case which he suddenly remembered were in the coat that he had left at the little house. Or had he searched genuinely? Had he not rather been—perhaps unconsciously—procrastinating, shrinking from the task he had in hand, putting off the evil moment? He swung on his heel violently and passed out on to the verandah. But at the head of the steps a vigilant figure rose up, bowing obsequiously, announcing blandly that breakfast was waiting.
Craven frowned at him a moment until the meaning of the words filtered through to his tired brain, then he pushed him aside roughly.
“Oh, damn breakfast!” he cried savagely, and cramming his sun helmet on his head ran down the garden path to the waiting rickshaw. It never occurred to him to wonder how it came to be there at an unusual hour. He huddled in the back of the rickshaw, his helmet over his eyes. His nerves were raw, his mind running in uncontrollable riot. The way had never seemed so long. He looked up impatiently. The rickshaw was crawling. The slow progress and the forced inaction galled him and a dozen times he was on the point of calling to the men to stop and jumping out, but he forced himself to sit quietly, watching the play of their abnormally developed muscles showing plainly through the thin cotton garments that clung to their sweat-drenched bodies, while they toiled up the steep roads. And today the sight of the men's straining limbs and heaving chests moved him more than usual. He used a rickshaw of necessity, and had never overcome his distaste for them.
Emerging from a grove of pines they neared the little gateway and as the men flung themselves backward with a deep grunt at the physical exertion of stopping, Craven leaped out and dashed up the path, panic-driven. He took the verandah steps in two strides and then stopped abruptly, his face whitening under the deep tan.
Yoshio stood in the doorway of the outer room, his arms outstretched, barring the entrance. His face had gone the grey leaden hue of the frightened Oriental and his eyes held a curious look of pity. His attitude put the crowning touch to Craven's anxiety. He went a step forward.
“Stand aside,” he said hoarsely.
But Yoshio did not move.
“Master not going in,” he said softly.
Craven jerked his head.
“Stand aside,” he repeated monotonously.
For a moment longer the Jap stood obstinately, then his eyes fell under Craven's stare and he moved reluctantly, with a gesture of mingled acquiescence and regret. Craven passed through into the room. It was empty. He stood a moment hesitating—indefinite anxiety giving place to definite fear.
“O Hara San,” he whispered, and the whisper seemed to echo mockingly from the empty room. He listened with straining ears for her answer, for her footstep—and he heard nothing but the heavy beating of his own heart. Then a moan came from the inner room and he followed the sound swiftly. The room was darkened and for a moment he halted in the doorway, seeing nothing in the half light. The moaning grew louder and as he became accustomed to the darkness he saw the old armah crouching beside a pile of cushions.
In a second he was beside her and at his coming she scrambled to her feet with a sharp cry, staring at him wildly, then fled from the room.
He stood alone looking down on the cushions. His heart seemed to stop beating and for a moment he reeled, then he gripped himself and knelt down slowly.
“O Hara San—” he whispered again, with shaking lips, “little O Hara San—little—” the whisper died away in a terrible gasping sob.
She lay as if asleep—one arm stretched out along her side, the other lying across her breast with her small hand clenched and tucked under her chin, her head bent slightly and nestled naturally into the cushion. The attitude was habitual. A hundred times Craven had seen her so—asleep. It was impossible that she could be dead.
He spoke to her again—crying aloud in agony—but the heavily fringed eyelids did not open, no glad cry of welcome broke from the parted lips, the little rounded bosom that had always heaved tumultuously at his coming was still under the silken kimono. He bent over her with ashen face and laid his hand gently on her breast, but the icy coldness struck into his own heart and his touch seemed a profanation. He drew back with a terrible shudder.
How dared he touch her? Murderer! For it was murder. His work as surely as if he had himself driven a knife into that girlish breast or squeezed the breath from that slender throat. He was under no delusion. He understood the Japanese character too well and he knew O Hara San too thoroughly to deceive himself. He knew the passionate love that she had given him, a love that had often troubled him with its intensity. He had been her god, her everything. She had worshipped him blindly. And he had left her—left her alone with the memory of his strangeness and his harshness, alone with her heart breaking, alone with her fear. And she had been so curiously alone. She had had nobody but him. She had trusted him—and he had left her. She had trusted him. Oh, God, she had trusted him!
His quick imagination visualised what must have happened. Frantic with despair and desperate at the seeming fulfilment of her fears she had not stopped to reason nor waited for calmer reflection but with the curious Oriental blending of impetuosity and stolid deliberation she had killed herself, seeking release from her misery with the aid of the subtle poison known to every Japanese woman. He flung his arm across the little still body and his head fell on the cushion beside hers as his soul went down into the depths.
An hour of unspeakable bitterness passed before he regained his lost control.
Then he forced himself to look at her again. The poison had been swift and merciful. There was no distortion of the little oval face, no discoloration on the fair skin. She was as beautiful as she had always been. And with death the likeness had become intensified until it seemed to him that he must have been blind beyond belief to have failed to detect it earlier.
He looked for the last time through a blur of tears. It seemed horrible to leave her to the ministrations of others, he longed to gather up the slender body in his arms and with his own hands lay her in the loveliest corner of the garden she had loved so much. He tried to stammer a prayer but the words stuck in his throat. No intercession from him was possible, nor did she need it. She had passed into the realm of Infinite Understanding.
He rose to his feet slowly and lingered for a moment looking his last round the little room that was so familiar. Here were a few of her most treasured possessions, some that had come to her from her mother, some that he had given her. He knew them all so well, had handled them so often. A spasm crossed his face. It had been the home of the enchanted princess, shut off from all the world—until he had come. And his coming had brought desolation. Near him a valuable vase, that she had prized, lay smashed on the floor, overturned by the old armah in the first frenzy of her grief. It was symbolical and Craven turned from it with quivering lips and went out heavily.
He winced at the strong light and shaded his eyes for a moment with his hand.
Yoshio was waiting where he had left him. Craven walked to the edge of the verandah and stood for a few moments in silence, steadying himself.
“Where were you last night, Yoshio?” he asked at length, in a flat and tired voice.
The Jap shrugged.
“In town,” he said, with American brevity learned in California.
“Why did you come here this morning?”
Yoshio raised eyes of childlike surprise.
“Master's watch. Came here to find it,” he said nonchalantly, with an air that expressed pride at his own astuteness. But it did not impress Craven. He looked at him keenly, knowing that he was lying but not understanding the motive and too tired to try and understand. He felt giddy and his head was aching violently—for a moment everything seemed to swim before his eyes and he caught blindly at the verandah rail. But the sensation passed quickly and he pulled himself together, to find Yoshio beside him thrusting his helmet into his hands.
“Better Master going back to bungalow. I make all arrangements, understanding Japanese ways,” he said calmly.
His words, matter-of-fact, almost brutal, brought Craven abruptly to actualities. There was necessity for immediate action. This was the East, where the grim finalities must unavoidably be hastened. But he resented the man's suggestion. To go back to the bungalow seemed a shirking of the responsibility that was his, the last insult he could offer her. But Yoshio argued vehemently, blunt to a degree, and Craven winced once or twice at the irrefutable reasons he put forward. It was true that he could do no real good by staying. It was true that he was of no use in the present emergency, that his absence would make things easier. But that it was the truth made it no less hard to hear. He gave in at last and agreed to all Yoshio's proposals—a curious compound of devotion to his master, shrewd commonsense and knowledge of the laws of the country. He went quickly down the winding path to the gate. The garden hurt him. The careless splashing of the tiny waterfall jarred poignantly—laughing water caring nothing that the hand that had planted much of the beauty of its banks was stilled for ever. It had always seemed a living being tumbling joyously down the hillside, it seemed alive now—callous, self-absorbed.
Craven had no clear impression of the run back into Yokohama and he looked up with surprise when the men stopped. He stood outside the gate for a moment looking over the harbour. He stared at the place in the roadstead where the American yacht had been anchored. Only last night had he laughed and chatted with the Athertons? It was a lifetime ago! In one night his youth had gone from him. In one night he had piled up a debt that was beyond payment. He gave a quick glance up at the brilliant sky and then went into the house. In the sitting-room he started slowly to pace the floor, his hands clasped behind him, an unlit cigarette clenched between his teeth. The mechanical action steadied him and enabled him to concentrate his thoughts. Monotonously he tramped up and down the long narrow room, unconscious of time, until at last he dropped on to a chair beside the writing table and laid his head down on his arms with a weary sigh. The little still body seemed present with him. O Hara San's face continually before him—piteous as he had seen it last, joyous as she had greeted him and thoughtful as when he had first seen it.
That first time—the memory of it rose vividly before him. He had been in Yokohama about a month and was settled in his bungalow. He had gone to the woods to sketch and had found her huddled at the foot of a steep rock from which she had slipped. Her ankle was twisted and she could not move. He had offered his assistance and she had gazed at him, without speaking, for a few moments, with serious grey eyes that looked oddly out of place in her little oval face. Then she had answered him in slow carefully pronounced English. He had laughingly insisted on carrying her home and had just gathered her up into his arms when the old armah arrived, voluble with excitement and alarm for her charge. But the girl had explained to her in rapid Japanese and the woman had hurried on to the house to prepare for them, leaving Craven to follow more slowly with his light burden. He had stayed only a few minutes, drinking the ceremonial tea that was offered so shyly.
The next day he had convinced himself that it was only polite for him to enquire about the injured foot. Then he had gone again, hoping to relieve the tedium of her forced inactivity, until the going had become a habit. The acquaintance had ripened quickly. From the first she had trusted him, quickly losing her awe of him and accepting his coming with the simplicity of a child. She had early confided to him the story of her short life—of her solitude and friendlessness; of the mother who had died five years before, bequeathing to her the little house which had been the last gift of the Englishman who had been O Hara San's father and who had tired of her mother and left her two years after her own birth; of the poverty against which they had struggled—for the Englishman had left no provision for them; of the faithful old servant, who had been her mother's nurse; of O Hara San's discovery of her own artistic talent which had enabled her to provide for the simple wants of the little household. She had grown up alone—apart from the world, watched over by the old woman, her mind a tangle of fairy-tales and romance—living for her art, content with her solitude. And into her secluded life had come Barry Craven and swept her off her feet. Child of nature that she was she had been unable to hide from him the love that quickly overwhelmed her. And to Craven the incident of O Hara San had come merely as a relief to the monotony of lotus-eating, he had drifted into the connection from sheer ennui. And then had come interest. No woman had ever before interested him. He had never been able to define the attraction she had had for him, the odd tenderness he had felt for her. He had treated her as a plaything, a fragile toy to be teased and petted. And in his hands she had developed from an innocent child into a woman—with a woman's capacity for devotion and self-sacrifice. She had given everything, with trust and gladness. And he had taken all she gave, with colossal egoism, as his right—accepting lightly all she surrendered with no thought for the innocence he contaminated, the purity he soiled. He had stained her soul before he had killed her body. His hands clenched and unclenched convulsively with the agony of remorse. Recollection was torture. Repentance came too late.Too late! Too late!he words kept singing in his head as if a demon from hell was howling them in his ear. Nothing on earth could undo what he had done. No power could animate that little dead body. And if she had lived! He shuddered. But she had not lived, she had died—because of him. Because of him, Merciful God, because of him! And he could make no restitution. What was there left for him to do? A life of expiation was not atonement enough. There seemed only one solution—a life for a life. And that was no reparation, only justice. He put no value on his own life—he wished vaguely that the worth of it were greater—he had merely wasted it and now he had forfeited it. Remained only to end it—now. There was no reason for delay. He had no preparations to make. His affairs were all in order. His heir was his aunt, his father's only sister, who would be a better guardian of the Craven estates and interests than he had ever been. Peters was independent and Yoshio provided for. There was nothing to be done. He rose and opening a drawer in the table took out a revolver and held it a moment in his hand, looking at it dispassionately. It was not the ultimate purpose for which it had been intended. He had never imagined a time when he might end his own life. He had always vaguely connected suicide with cowardice. Was it the coward's way? Perhaps! Who can say what cowardice or courage is required to take the blind leap into the Great Unknown? That did not trouble him. It was no question of courage or cowardice but he felt convinced that his death was the only payment possible.
But as his finger pressed the trigger there was a slight sound beside him, his wrist and arm were caught in a vice-like grip and the weapon exploded harmlessly in the air as he staggered back, his arm almost broken with the jiu-jitsu hold against which even his great strength could do nothing. He struggled fruitlessly until he was released, then reeled against the table, with teeth set, clasping his wrenched wrist—the sudden frustration of his purpose leaving him, shaking. He turned stiffly. Yoshio was standing by him, phlegmatic as usual, showing no signs of exertion or emotion as he proffered a lacquer tray, with the usual formula: “Master's mail.”
Craven's eyes changed slowly from dull suffering to blazing wrath. Uncontrolled rage filled him. How dared Yoshio interfere? How dared he drag him back into the hell from which he had so nearly escaped? He caught the man's shoulder savagely.
“Damn you!” he cried chokingly. “What the devil do you mean—” But the Jap's very impassiveness checked him and with an immense effort he regained command of himself. And imperturbably Yoshio advanced the tray again.
“Master's mail,” he repeated, in precisely the same voice as before, but this time he raised his veiled glance to Craven's face. For a moment the two men stared at each other, the grey eyes tortured and drawn, the brown ones lit for an instant with deep devotion. Then Craven took the letters mechanically and dropped heavily into a chair. The Jap picked up the revolver and, quietly replacing it in the drawer from which it had been taken, left the room, noiseless as he had entered it. He seemed to know intuitively that it would be left where he put it.
Alone, Craven leaned forward with a groan, burying his face in his hands.
At last he sat up wearily and his eyes fell on the letters lying unopened on the table beside him. He fingered them listlessly and then threw them down again while he searched his pockets absently for the missing cigarette case. Remembering, he jerked himself to his feet with an exclamation of pain. Was all life henceforward to be a series of torturing recollections? He swore, and flung his head up angrily. Coward! whining already like a kicked cur!
He got a cigarette from a near table and picking up the letters carried them out on to the verandah to read. There were two, both registered. The handwriting on one envelope was familiar and his eyes widened as he looked at it. He opened it first. It was written from Florence and dated three months earlier. With no formal beginning it straggled up and down the sides of various sheets of cheap foreign paper, the inferior violet ink almost indecipherable in places.
“I wonder in what part of the globe this letter will find you? I have been trying to write to you for a long time—and always putting it off—but they tell me now that if I am to write at all there must be no moremañana. They have cried 'wolf' so often in the last few months that I had grown sceptical, but even I realise now that there must be no delay. I have delayed because I have procrastinated all my life and because I am ashamed—ashamed for the first time in all my shameless career. But there is no need to tell you what I am—you told me candidly enough yourself in the old days—it is sufficient to say that it is the same John Locke as then—drunkard and gambler, spendthrift and waster! And I don't think that my worst enemy would have much to add to this record, but then my worst enemy has always been myself. Looking back now over my life—queer what a stimulating effect the certainty of death has to the desire to find even one good action wherewith to appease one's conscience—it is a marvel to me that Providence has allowed me to cumber the earth so long. However, it's all over now—they give me a few days at the outside—so I must write at once or never. Barry, I'm in trouble, the bitterest trouble I have ever experienced—not for myself, God knows I wouldn't ask even your help, but for another who is dearer to me than all the world and for whose future I can do nothing. You never knew that I married. I committed that indiscretion in Rome with a little Spanish dancer who ought to have known better than to be attracted by mybeaux yeux—for I had nothing else to offer her. We existed in misery for a couple of years and then she left me, for a more gilded position. But I had the child, which was all I cared about. Thank God, for her sake, that I was legally married to poor little Lola, she has at least no stain on her birth with which to reproach me. The officious individual who is personally conducting me to the Valley of the Shadow warns me that I must be brief—I kept the child with me as long as I could, people were wonderfully kind, but it was no life for her. I've come down in the social scale even since you knew me, Barry, and at last I sent her away, though it broke my heart. Still even that was better than seeing her day by day lose all respect for me. My miserable pittance dies with me and she is absolutely unprovided for. My family cast off me and all my works many years ago, but I put my pride in my pocket and appealed for help for Gillian and they suggested—a damned charitable institution! I was pretty nearly desperate until I thought of you. I know no one else. For God's sake, Barry, don't fail me. I can and I do trust Gillian to you. I have made you her guardian, it is all legally arranged and my lawyer in London has the papers. He is a well-known man and emanates respectability—my last claim to decency! Gillian is at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Paris. My only consolation is that you are so rich that financially she will be no embarrassment to you. I realize what I am asking and the enormity of it, but I am a dying man and my excuse is—Gillian. Oh, man, be good to my little girl. I always hoped that something would turn up, but it didn't! Perhaps I never went to look for it,quien sabe?I shall never have the chance again....”
The signature was barely recognisable, the final letter terminating in a wandering line as if the pen had dropped from nerveless fingers.
Craven stared at the loose sheets in his hands for some time in horrified dismay, at first hardly comprehending, then as the full significance of John Locke's dying bequest dawned on him he flung them down and, walking to the edge of the verandah, looked over the harbour, tugging his moustache and scowling in utter perplexity. A child—a girl child! How could he with his soiled hands assume the guardianship of a child? He smiled bitterly at the irony of it. Providence was dealing hard with the child in the Paris convent, from dissolute father to criminal guardian. And yet Providence had already that morning intervened on her behalf—two minutes later and there would have been no guardian to take the trust. Providence clearly held the same views as John Locke on charitable institutions.
He thought of Locke as he had known him years ago, in Paris, a man twenty years his senior—penniless and intemperate but with an irresistible charm, rolling stone and waster but proud as a Spaniard; a man of the world with the heart of a boy, the enemy of nobody but himself, weak but lovable; a ragged coat and the manners of a prince; idealist and failure.
Craven read the letter through again. Locke had forced his hand—he had no option but to take up the charge entrusted to him. What a legacy! Surely if John Locke had known he would have rather committed his daughter to the tender mercies even of the “institution.” But he had not known and he had trusted him. The thought was a sudden spur, urging him as nothing else could have done, bringing out all that was best and strongest in his nature. In a few hours he had crashed from the pinnacle on which he had soared in the blindness of egoism down into depths of self-realisation that seemed bottomless, and at the darkest moment when his world was lying in pieces under his feet—this had come. Another chance had been given to him. Craven's jaw set squarely as he thrust Locke's dying appeal into his pocket.
He ripped open the second letter. It was, as he guessed, from the lawyer and merely confirmed Locke's letter, with the additional information that his client had died a few hours after writing the said letter and that he had forwarded the news to the Mother Superior of the Convent School in Paris.
Craven went back into the sitting-room to write cables.
Owing to a breakdown on the line the boat-train from Marseilles crawled into the Gare du Lyon a couple of hours late. Craven had not slept. He had given his berth in the waggon-lit to an invalid fellow passenger and had sat up all night in an overcrowded, overheated carriage, choked with the stifling atmosphere, his long legs cramped for lack of space.
It was early March, and the difference between the temperature of the train and the raw air of the station struck him unpleasantly as he climbed down on to the platform.
Leaving Yoshio, equally at home in Paris as in Yokohama, to collect luggage, he signalled to a waiting taxi. He had the hood opened and, pushing back his hat, let the keen wind blow about his face. The cab jerked over the rough streets, at this early hour crowded with people—working Paris going to its daily toil—and he watched them hurrying by with the indifference of familiarity. Gradually he ceased even to look at the varied types, the jostling traffic, the bizarre posters and the busy newspaper kiosks. His thoughts were back in Yokohama. It had been six weeks before he could get away, six interminable weeks of misery and self-loathing. He had shirked nothing and evaded nothing. Much had been saved him by the discreet courtesy of the Japanese officials, but the ordeal had left him with jangling nerves. Fortunately the ship was nearly empty and the solitude he sought obtainable. He felt an outcast. To have joined as he had always previously done in the light-hearted routine of a crowded ship bent on amusements and gaiety would have been impossible.
He sought mental relief in action and hours spent tramping the lonely decks brought, if not relief, endurance.
And, always in the background, Yoshio, capable and devoted, stood between him and the petty annoyances that inevitably occur in travelling—annoyances that in his overwrought state would have been doubly annoying—with a thoughtfulness that was silently expressed in a dozen different devices for his comfort. That the Jap knew a great deal more than he himself did of the tragedy that had happened in the little house on the hill Craven felt sure, but no information had been volunteered and he had asked for none. He could not speak of it. And Yoshio, the inscrutable, would continue to be silent. The perpetual reminder of all that he could wish to forget Yoshio became, illogically, more than ever indispensable to him. At first, in his stunned condition, he had scarcely been sensible of the man's tact and care, but gradually he had come to realize how much he owed to his Japanese servant. And yet that was the least of his obligation. There was a greater—the matter of a life; whatever it might mean to Craven, to Yoshio the simple payment of a debt contracted years ago in California. That more than this had underlain the Japanese mind when it made its quick decision Craven could not determine; the code of the Oriental is not that of the Occidental, the demands of honour are interpreted and satisfied differently. Life in itself is nothing to the Japanese, the disposal of it merely the exigency of a moment and withal a personal prerogative. By all the accepted canons of his own national ideals Yoshio should have stood on one side—but he had chosen to interfere. Whatever the motive, Yoshio had paid his debt in full.
The weeks at sea braced Craven as nothing else could have done. As the ship neared France the perplexities of the charge he was preparing to undertake increased. His utter unfitness filled him with dismay. On receipt of John Locke's amazing letter he had both cabled and written to his aunt in London explaining his dilemma, giving suitable extracts from Locke's appeal, and imploring her help. And yet the thought of his aunt in connection with the upbringing of a child brought a smile to his lips. She was about as unsuited, in her own way, as he. Caro Craven was a bachelor lady of fifty—spinster was a term wholly inapplicable to the strong-minded little woman who had been an art student in Paris in the days when insular hands were lifted in horror at the mere idea, and was a designation, moreover, deprecated strongly by herself as an insult to one who stood—at least in her own sphere—on an equality with the lords of creation. She was a sculptor, whose work was known on both sides of the channel. When at home she lived in a big house in London, but she travelled much, accompanied by an elderly maid who had been with her for thirty years. And it was of the maid as much as of the mistress that Craven thought as the taxi bumped over the cobbled streets.
“If we can only interest Mary.” There was a gleam of hope in the thought. “She will be the saving of the situation. She spoiled me thoroughly when I was a nipper.” And buoyed with the recollection of grim-visaged angular Mary, who hid a very tender heart beneath a somewhat forbidding exterior, he overpaid the chauffeur cheerfully.
There was an accumulation of letters waiting for him at the hotel, but he shuffled them all into his overcoat pocket, with the exception of one from Peters which he tore open and read immediately, still standing in the lounge.
An hour later he set out on foot for the quiet hotel which had been his aunt's resort since her student days, and where she was waiting for him now, according to a telegram that he had received on his arrival at Marseilles. The hall door of her private suite was opened by the elderly maid, whose face lit up as she greeted him.
“Miss Craven is waiting in the salon, sir. She has been tramping the floor this hour or more, expecting you,” she confided as she preceded him down the corridor.
Miss Craven was standing in a characteristic attitude before an open fireplace, her feet planted firmly on the hearthrug, her short plump figure clothed in a grey coat and skirt of severe masculine cut, her hands plunged deep into her jacket pockets, her short curly grey hair considerably ruffled. She bore down on her nephew with out-stretched hands.
“My dear boy, there you are at last! I have been waitinghoursfor you. Your train must have been very late—abominable railway service! Have you had any breakfast? Yes? Good. Then take a cigarette—they are in that box at your elbow—and tell me about this amazing thunderbolt that you have hurled at me. What a preposterous proposition for two bachelors like you and me! To be sure your extraordinary friend did not include me in his wild scheme—though no doubt he would have, had he known of my existence. Was the man mad? Who was he, anyhow? John Locke of where? There are dozens of Lockes. And why did he select you of all people? What fools men are!” She subsided suddenly into an easy chair and crossed one neat pump over the other. “All of 'em!” she added emphatically, flicking cigarette ash into the fire with a vigorous sidelong jerk. Her eyes were studying his face attentively, seeking for themselves the answer to the more personal inquiries that would have seemed necessary to a less original woman meeting a much-loved nephew after a lapse of years. Craven smiled at the characteristically peculiar greeting and the well remembered formula. He settled his long limbs comfortably into an opposite chair.
“Even Peter?” he asked, lighting a cigarette.
Miss Craven laughed good temperedly.
“Peter,” she rejoined succinctly, “is the one brilliant exception that proves the rule. I have an immense respect for Peter.” He looked at her curiously. “And—me, Aunt Caro?” he asked with an odd note in his voice. Miss Craven glanced for a moment at the big figure sprawled in the chair near her, then looked back at the fire with pursed lips and wrinkled forehead, and rumpled her hair more thoroughly than before.
“My dear boy,” she said at last soberly, “you resemble my unhappy brother altogether too much for my peace of mind.”
He winced. Her words probed the still raw wound. But unaware of the appositeness of her remark Miss Craven continued thoughtfully, still staring into the fire:
“The Supreme Sculptor, when He made me, denied me the good looks that are proverbial in our family—but in compensation he endowed me with a solid mind to match my solid body. The Family means a great deal to me, Barry—more than anybody has ever realised—and there are times when I wonder why the solidity of mind was given to the one member of the race who could not perpetuate it in the direct line.” She sighed, and then as if ashamed of unwonted emotion, jerked her dishevelled grey head with a movement that was singularly reminiscent of her nephew. Craven flushed.
“You're the best man of the family, Aunt Caro.”
“So your mother used to say—poor child.” Her voice softened suddenly. She got up restlessly and resumed her former position before the fire, her hands back in the pockets of her mannish coat.
“What about your plans, Barry? What are you going to do?” she said briskly, with an evident desire to avoid further moralising. He joined her on the hearthrug, leaning against the mantelpiece.
“I propose to settle down—at any rate for a time, at the Towers,” he replied. “I intend to interest myself in the estates. Peter insists that I am wanted, and though that is nonsense and he is infinitely more necessary than I am, still I am willing to make the trial. I owe him more than I can even repay—we all do—and if my presence is really any help to him—he's welcome to it. I shall be about as much real use as the fifth wheel of a coach—a damned rotten wheel at that,” he added bitterly. And for some minutes he seemed to forget that there was more to say, staring silently into the fire and from time to time putting together the blazing logs with his foot.
Miss Craven was possessed of the unfeminine attribute of holding her tongue and reserving her comments. She refrained from comment now, rocking gently backward and forward on her heels—a habit associated with mental concentration.
“I shall take the child to the Towers,” he continued at length, “and there I shall want your help, Aunt Caro.” He paused stammering awkwardly—“It's an infernal impertinence asking you to—to—”
“To turn nursemaid at my time of life,” she interrupted. “It is certainly a career I never anticipated. And, candidly, I have doubts about its success,” she laughed and shrugged, with a comical grimace. Then she patted his arm affectionately—“You had much better take Peter's advice and marry a nice girl who would mother the child and give her some brothers and sisters to play with.”
He stiffened perceptibly.
“I shall never marry,” he said shortly. Her eyebrows rose the fraction of an inch but she bit back the answer that rose to her lips.
“Never—is a long day,” she said lightly. “The Cravens are an old family, Barry. One has one's obligations.”
He did not reply and she changed the conversation hastily. She had a horror of forcing a confidence.
“Remains—Mary,” she said, with the air of proposing a final expedient. Craven's tense face relaxed.
“Mary had also occurred to me,” he admitted with an eagerness that was almost pathetic.
Miss Craven grunted and clutched at her hair.
“Mary!” she repeated with a chuckle, “Mary, who has gone through life with Wesley's sermons under her arm—and a child out of a Paris convent! There are certainly elements of humour in the idea. But I must have some details. Who was this Locke person?”
When Craven had told her all he knew she stood quite still for a long while, rolling a cigarette tube between her firm hands.
“Dissolute English father—and Spanish mother of doubtful morals. My poor Barry, your hands will be full.”
“Our hands,” he corrected.
“Our hands! Good heavens, the bare idea terrifies me!” She shrugged tragically and was dumb until Mary came to announce lunch.
Across the table she studied her nephew with an attention that she was careful to conceal. She was used to his frequent coming and going. Since the death of his mother he had travelled continually and she was accustomed to his appearing more or less unexpectedly, at longer or shorter intervals. They had always been great friends, and it was to her house in London that he invariably went first on returning to England—sure of his welcome, sure of himself, gay, easy-going and debonair. She was deeply attached to him. But, with something akin to terror, she had watched the likeness to the older Barry Craven growing from year to year, fearful lest the moral downfall of the father might repeat itself in the son. The temptation to speak frankly, to warn, had been great. Natural dislike of interference, and a promise given reluctantly to her dying sister-in-law, had kept her silent. She had loved the tall beautiful woman who had been her brother's wife and a promise made to her was sacred—though she had often doubted the wisdom of a silence that might prove an incalculable danger. She respected the fine loyalty that demanded such a promise, but her own views were more comprehensive. She was strong enough to hold opinions that were contrary to accepted traditions. She admitted a loyalty due to the dead, she was also acutely conscious of a loyalty due to the living. A few minutes before when Miss Craven had, somewhat shamefacedly, owned to a love of the family to which they belonged she had but faintly expressed her passionate attachment thereto. Pride of race was hers to an unusual degree. All that was best and noblest she craved for the clan. And Barry was the last of the Cravens. Her brother had failed her and dragged her high ideals in the dust. Her courage had restored them to endeavour a second time. If Barry failed her too! Hitherto her fears had had no definite basis. There had been no real ground for anxiety, only a developing similarity of characteristics that was vaguely disquieting. But now, as she looked at him, she realised that the man from whom she had parted nearly two years before was not the man who now faced her across the table. Something had happened—something that had changed him utterly. This man was older by far more than the actual two years. This was a man whom she hardly recognised; hard, stern, with a curiously bitter ring at times in his voice, and the shadow of a tragedy lying in the dark grey eyes that had changed so incredibly for lack of their habitual ready smile. There were lines about his mouth and a glint of grey in his hair that she was quick to observe. Whatever had happened—he had suffered. That was written plainly on his face. And unless he chose to speak she was powerless to help him. She refused to intrude, unbidden, into another's private concerns. That he was an adored nephew, that the intimacy between them was great made no difference, the restriction remained the same. But she was woman enough to be fiercely jealous for him. She resented the change she saw—it was not the change she had desired but something far beyond her understanding that left her with the feeling that she was confronting a total stranger. But she was careful to hide her scrutiny, and though her mind speculated widely she continued to chatter, supplementing the home news her scanty letters had afforded and retailing art gossip of the moment. One question only she allowed herself. There had come a silence. She broke it abruptly, leaning forward in her chair, watching him keen-eyed.
“Have you been ill—out there?”—her hand fluttered vaguely in an easterly direction. Craven looked up in surprise.
“No,” he said shortly, “I never am ill.”
Miss Craven's nod as she rose from the table might have been taken for assent. It was in reality satisfaction at her own perspicacity. She had not supposed for one moment that he had been ill but in no other way could she express what she wanted to know. It was in itself an innocuous and natural remark, but the sudden gloom that fell on him warned her that her ingenuity was, perhaps, not so great as she imagined.
“Triple idiot!” she reflected wrathfully, as she poured out coffee, “you had better have held your tongue,” and she set herself to charm away the shadow from his face and dispel any suspicion he might have formed of her desire to probe into his affairs. She had an uncommon personality and could talk cleverly and well when she chose. And today she did choose, exerting all her wit to combat the taciturn fit that emphasized so forcibly the change in him. But though he listened with apparent attention his mind was very obviously elsewhere, and he sat staring into the fire, mechanically flicking ash from his cigarette. Conversation languished and at length Miss Craven gave it up, with a wry face, and sat also silent, drumming with her fingers on the arm of the chair. Her thoughts, in quest of his, wandered far away until the sudden ringing of the telephone beside her made her jump violently.
She answered the call, then handed the receiver to Craven.
“Your heathen,” she remarked dryly.
Though the least insular of women she had never grown accustomed to the Japanese valet. He turned from the telephone with a look of mingled embarrassment and relief.
“I sent a message to the convent this morning. Yoshio has just given me the answer. The Mother Superior will see me this afternoon.” He endeavoured to make his voice indifferent, pulling down his waistcoat and picking a minute thread from off his coat sleeve. Miss Craven's mouth twitched at the evident signs of nervousness while she glanced at him narrowly. Prompt action in the matter of an uncongenial duty had not hitherto been a conspicuous trait in his character.
“You are certainly not letting the grass grow under your feet.”
He jerked his head impatiently.
“Waiting will not make the job more pleasant,” he shrugged. “I will see the child at once and arrange for her removal as soon as possible.”
Miss Craven eyed him from head to foot with a grim smile that changed to a whole-hearted laugh of amusement.
“It's a pity you have so much money, Barry, you would make your fortune as a model. You are too criminally good looking to go fluttering into convents.”
A ghost of the old smile flickered in his eyes.
“Come and chaperon me, Aunt Caro.”
She shook her head laughingly.
“Thank you—no. There are limits. I draw the line at convents. Go and get it over, and if the child is presentable you can bring her back to tea. I gather that Mary is anticipating a complete failure on our part to sustain the situation and is prepared to deputise. She has already ransackedAu Paradis Des Enfantsfor suitable bribes wherewith to beguile her infantile affection. I understand that there was a lively scene over the purchase of a doll, the cost of which—clad only in its birthday dress—was reported to me as 'a fair affront.' Even after all these years Mary jibs at Continental prices. It is her way of keeping up the prestige of the British Empire, bless her. An overcharge, in her opinion, is a deliberate twist of the lion's tail.”
In the taxi he looked through the correspondence he had received that morning for the lawyer's letter that would establish his claim to John Locke's child. Then he leaned back and lit a cigarette. He had an absurd feeling of nervousness and cursed Locke a dozen times before he reached the convent. He was embarrassed with the awkward situation in which he found himself—just how awkward he seemed only now fully to appreciate. The more he thought of it, the less he liked it. The coming interview with the Mother Superior was not the least of his troubles. The promise of the morning had not been maintained, overhead the sky was leaden, and a high wind drove rain in sharp splashes against the glass of the cab. The pavements were running with water and the leafless trees in the avenues swayed and creaked dismally. The appearance of the streets was chill and depressing. Craven shivered. He thought of the warmth and sunshine that he had left in Japan. The dreariness of the present outlook contrasted sufficiently with the gay smiling landscape, the riotous wealth of colour, and the scent-laden air of the land of his recollections. A feeling almost of nostalgia came to him. But with the thought came also a vision—a little still body lying on silken cushions; a small pale face with fast shut eyes, the long lashes a dusky fringe against the ice-cold cheek. The vision was terribly distinct, horribly real—not a recollection only, as on the morning that he had found her dead—and he waited, with the sweat pouring down his face, for the closed eyes to open and reveal the agony he had read in them that night, when he had torn her clinging hands away and left her. The faint aroma of the perfume she had used was in his nostrils, choking him. The slender limbs seemed to pulsate into life, the little breasts to stir perceptibly, the parted lips to tremble. He could not define the actual moment of the change but, as he bent forward, with hands close gripped, all at once he found himself looking straight into the tortured grey eyes—for a second only. Then the vision faded, and he was leaning back in the cab wiping the moisture from his forehead. God, would it never leave him! It haunted him. In the big bungalow on the Bluff; rising from the sea as he leaned on the steamer rail; during the long nights on the ship as he lay sleepless in the narrow brass cot; last night in the crowded railway carriage—then it had been so vivid that he had held his breath and glanced around stealthily with hunted eyes at his fellow passengers looking for the horrified faces that would tell him that they also saw what he could see. He never knew how long it lasted, minutes or seconds, holding him rigid until it passed to leave him bathed in perspiration. Environment seemed to make no difference. It came as readily in a crowd as when he was alone. He lived in perpetual dread of betraying his obsession. Once only it had happened—in the bungalow, the night before he left Japan, and his involuntary cry had brought the watchful valet. And as he crossed the room Craven had distinctly seen him pass through the little recumbent figure and, with blazing eyes, had dragged him roughly to one side, pointing and muttering incoherently. And Yoshio had seemed to understand. Sceptical as he was about the supernatural, at first Craven's doubt had been rudely shaken; but with the steadying of his nerves had come the conviction that the vision was inward, though at the moment so real that often his confidence momentarily wavered, as last night in the train. It came with no kind of regularity, no warning that might prepare him. And recurrence brought no mitigation, no familiarising that could temper the acute horror it inspired. To what pitch of actuality might it attain? To what lengths might it drive him? He dragged his thoughts up sharply. To dwell on it was fatal, that way lay insanity. He set his teeth and forced himself to think of other things. There was ample material. There was primarily the salvage of a wasted life. During the last few weeks he had been forced to a self-examination that had been drastically thorough. The verdict had been an adverse one. Personal criticism, once aroused, went far. The purposeless life that he had led seemed now an insult to his manhood. It had been in his power to do so much—he had actually done disastrously little. He had loafed through life without a thought beyond the passing interest of the moment. And even in the greater interests of his life, travel and big game, he had failed to exert himself beyond a mediocre level. He had travelled far and shot a rare beast or two, but so had many another—and with greater difficulties to contend with than he who had never wrestled with the disadvantages of inferior equipment and inadequate attendance. Muscularly and constitutionally stronger than the average, physically he could have done anything. And he had done nothing—nothing that others had not done as well or even better. It was sufficiently humiliating. And the outcome of his reflections had been a keen desire for work, hard absorbing work, with the hope that bodily fatigue might in some measure afford mental alleviation. It did not even need finding. With a certain shame he admitted the fact. It had waited for him any time these last ten years in his own home. The responsibility of great possessions was his. And he had shirked. He had evaded the duty he owed to a trust he had inherited. It was a new view of his position that recent thought had awakened. It was still not too late. He would go back like the prodigal—not to eat the fatted calf, but to sit at the feet of Peters and learn from him the secret of successful estate management.
For thirty years Peter Peters had ruled the Craven properties, and they were all his life. For the last ten years he had never ceased urging his employer to assume the reins of government himself. His entreaties, protestations and threats of resignation had been unheeded. Craven felt sure that he would never relinquish his post, he had grown into the soil and was as firmly fixed as the Towers itself. He was an institution in the county, a personality on the bench. He ruled his own domains with a kindly but absolute autocracy which succeeded perfectly on the Craven estates and was the envy of other agents, who had not his ability to do likewise. Well born, original and fearless he was popular in castle and in cottage, and his advice was respected by all. He neither sought nor abused a confidence, and in consequence was the depository of most of the secrets of the countryside. To his sympathetic ears came both grave offences and minor indiscretions, as to a kindly safety-valve who advised and helped—and was subsequently silent. His exoneration was considered final. “I confessed to Peter” became a recognised formula, instituted by a giddy young Marchioness at the north end of the county, whose cousin he was. And there, invariably, the matter ended. And for Craven it was the one bright spot in the darkness before him. Life was going to be hell—but there would always be Peter.
At the Convent gates the taxi skidded badly at the suddenly applied brakes, and then backed jerkily into position. Craven felt an overwhelming inclination to take to his heels. The portress who admitted him had evidently received orders, for she silently conducted him to a waiting room and left him alone. It was sparsely furnished but had on the walls some fine old rosewood panelling. The narrow heavily leaded windows overlooked a paved quadrangle, glistening with moisture. For a few moments the rain had ceased but drops still pattered sharply on to the flagstones from the branches of two large chestnut trees. The outlook was melancholy and he turned from the window, shivering. But the chill austere room was hardly more inspiring. The atmosphere was strange to him. It was a world apart from anything that had ever touched him. He marvelled suddenly at the countless lives living out their allotted span in the confined area of these and similar walls. Surely all could not submit willingly to such a crushing captivity? Some must agonize and spend their strength unavailingly, like birds beating their wings against the bars of a cage for freedom. To the man who had roamed through all the continents of the world this forced inactivity seemed appalling—stultifying. The hampering of personal freedom, the forcing of independent minds into one narrow prescribed channel that admitted of no individual expansion, the waste of material and the fettering of intellects, that were heaven-sent gifts to be put out to usury and not shrouded away in a napkin, revolted him. The conventual system was to him a survival of medievalism, a relic of the dark ages; the last refuge of the shirkers of the world. The communities themselves, if he had thought of them at all, had been regarded as a whole. He had never troubled to consider them as composed of single individuals. Today he thought of them as separate human beings and his intolerance increased. An indefinite distaste never seriously considered seemed, during the few moments in the bare waiting room, to have grown suddenly into active dislike. He was wholly out of sympathy with his surroundings, impatient of the necessity that brought him into contact with what he would have chosen to avoid. He looked about with eyes grown hard and contemptuous. The very building seemed to be the embodiment of retrogression and blind superstition. He was filled with antagonism. His face was grim and his figure drawn up stiffly to its full height when the door opened to admit the Mother Superior. For a moment she hesitated, a faint look of surprise coming into her face. And no antagonism, however intolerant, could have braved her gentle dignity. “It is—MonsieurCraven?” she asked, a perceptible interrogation in her soft voice.
She took the letters he gave her and read them carefully—pausing once or twice as if searching for the correct translation of a word—then handed them back to him in silence. She looked at him again, frankly, with no attempt to disguise her scrutiny, and the perplexity in her eyes grew greater. One small white hand slid to the crucifix hanging on her breast, as if seeking aid from the familiar symbol, and Craven saw that her fingers were trembling. A faint flush rose in her face.
“Monsieuris perhaps married, or—happily—he has a mother?” she asked at last, and the flush deepened as she looked up at the big man standing before her. She made a little gesture of embarrassment but her eyes did not waver. They would not, he thought with sudden intuition. For he realised that it was one of his own order who confronted him. It was not what he had anticipated. The Mother Superior's low voice continuing in gentle explanation broke into his thoughts.
“Monsieurwill forgive that I catechise him thus but I had expected one—much older.” Her distress was obvious. And Craven divined that as a prospective guardian he fell short of expectation. And yet, his lack of years was apparently to her the only drawback. His lack of years—Good God, and he felt so old! His youth was a disadvantage that counted for nothing in the present instance. If she could know the truth, if the anxious gaze that was fixed so intently on him could look into his heart with understanding, he knew that she would shrink from him as from a vile contamination.
He conceived the horror dawning in her eyes, the loathing in her attitude, and seemed to hear her passionate protest against his claim to the child who had been sheltered in the safety of the community that he had despised. The safety of the community—that had not before occurred to him. For the first time he considered it a refuge to those who there sought sanctuary and who were safeguarded from such as—he. He winced, but did not spare himself. The sin had been only his. The child who had died for love of him had been as innocent of sin as the birds who loved and mated among the pine trees in her Garden of Enchantment. She had had no will but his. Arrogantly he had taken her and she had submitted—was he not her lord? Before his shadow fell across her path no blameless soul within these old convent walls had been more pure and stainless than the soul of O Hara San. It was the sins of such as he that drove women to this shelter that offered refuge and consolation, to escape from such as he they voluntarily immured themselves; surrendering the purpose of their being, seeking in bodily denial the salvation of their souls.
The room had grown very dark. A sudden glare of light made Craven realise that a question asked was still unanswered. He had not, in his abstraction, been aware of any movement. Now he saw the Mother Superior walking leisurely back from the electric switch by the door, and guessed from her placid face that the interval had been momentary and had passed unnoticed. Some answer was required now. He pulled himself together.
“I am not married,” his voice was strained, “and I have no mother. But my aunt—Miss Craven—the sculptor—” he paused enquiringly and she smiled reassurance.
“Miss Craven's beautiful work is known to me,” she said with ready tact that put him more at ease.
“My aunt has, most kindly, promised to—to co-operate,” he finished lamely.
The anxiety faded from the Mother Superior's face and she sat down with an air of relief, motioning Craven to a chair. But with a curt bow he remained standing. He had no wish to prolong the interview beyond what courtesy and business demanded. He listened with a variety of feelings while the Nun spoke. Her earnestness he could not fail to perceive, but it required a decided effort to concentrate, and follow her soft well modulated voice.
She spoke slowly, with feeling that broke at times the tone she strove to make dispassionate.
“I am glad for Gillian's sake that at last, after all these years, there has come one who will be concerned with her future. She has no vocation for the conventual life and—I was beginning to become anxious. For ourselves, we shall miss her more than it is possible to say. She had been with us so long, she has become very dear to us. I have dreaded that her father would one day claim her. She has been spared that contamination—God forgive me that I should speak so.” For a moment she was silent, her eyes bent on her hands lying loosely clasped in her lap.
“Gillian is not altogether friendless,” she resumed, “she will go to you with a little more knowledge of the world than can be gained within these old walls.” She glanced round the panelled room with half-sad affection. “She is popular and has spent vacations in the homes of some of her fellow pupils. She has a very decided personality, and a facility for attracting affection. She is sensitive and proud—passionate even at times. She can be led but not driven. I tell you all this,Monsieur, not censoriously but that it may help you in dealing with a character that is extraordinarily complex, with a nature that both demands and repels affection, that longs for and yet scorns sympathy.” She looked at Craven anxiously. His complete attention was claimed at last. A new conception of his unknown ward was forcing itself upon him, so that any humour there might have been in the situation died suddenly and the difficulties of the undertaking soared. The Mother Superior smothered a sigh. His attitude was baffling, his expression inscrutable. Had her words touched him, had she said what was best for the welfare of the girl who was so dear to her, and whose departure she felt so keenly? How would she fare at this man's hands? What lay behind his stern face and sombre tragic eyes? Her lips moved in silent prayer, but when she spoke her voice was serene as before.
“There is yet another thing that I must speak of. Gillian has an unusual gift.” A sentence in Locke's letter flashed into Craven's mind.
“She doesn'tdance?” he asked, in some dismay.
“Dance,Monsieur—in a convent?” Then she pitied his hot confusion and smiled faintly.
“Is dancing so unusual—in the world? No, Gillian sketches—portraits. Her talent is real. She does not merely draw a faithful likeness, her studies are revelations of soul. I do not think she knows herself how her effects are obtained, they grow almost unconsciously, but they result always in the same strange delineation of character. It was so impossible to ignore this exceptional gift that we procured for her the best teacher in Paris, and continued her lessons even after—” She stopped abruptly and Craven finished the broken sentence.
“Even after the fees ceased,” he said dryly. “For how many years has my ward lived on your charity, Reverend Mother?”
She raised a protesting hand.
“Ah—charity. It is hardly the word—” she fenced.
He took out a cheque book.
“How much is owing, for everything?” he said bluntly.
She sought for a book in a bureau standing against the rosewood panelling and, scanning it, gave a sum with evident reluctance.
“Gillian has never been told, but it is ten years sinceMonsieurLocke paid anything.” There was diffidence in her voice. “In an institution of this kind we are compelled to be businesslike. It is rare that we can afford to make an exception, though the temptation is often great. The head and the heart—voyez, vous, Monsieur—they pull in contrary directions.” And she slipped the book back into a pigeon-hole as if the touch of it was distasteful. She glanced perfunctorily at the cheque he handed to her, then closer, and the colour rose again to her sensitive face.
“ButMonsieurhas written treble the amount,” she murmured.
“Will you accept the balance,” he said hurriedly, “in the name of my ward, for any purpose that you may think fit? There is one stipulation only—I do not wish her to know that there has been any monetary transaction between us.” His voice was almost curt, and the Nun found herself unable to question a condition which, though manifestly generous, she deemed quixotic. She could only bend to his decision with mingled thankfulness and apprehension. Despite the problem of the girl's future she had it in her heart to wish that this singular claimant had never presented himself. His liberality was obvious but—. She locked the slip of paper away in the bureau with a feeling of vague uneasiness. But for good or ill the matter was out of her hands. She had said all that she could say. The rest lay with God.
“I do accept it,” she said, “with all gratitude. It will enable us to carry out a scheme that has long been our hope. Your generosity will more than pave the way. I will send Gillian to you now.”
She left him, more embarrassed than he had been at first, more than ever dreading the task before him. He waited with a nervous impatience that irritated himself.
Turning to the window he looked out into the dusk. The old trees in the courtyard were almost indistinguishable. The rain dripped again steadily, splashing the creeper that framed the casement. A few lights showing dimly in the windows on the opposite side of the quadrangle served only to intensify the gloom. The time dragged. Fretfully he drummed with his fingers on the leaded panes, his ears alert for any sound beyond the closed door. The echo of a distant organ stole into the room and the soft solemn notes harmonised with the melancholy pattering of the raindrops and the gusts of wind that moaned fitfully around the house.
In a sudden revulsion of feeling the life he had mapped out for himself seemed horrible beyond thought. He could not bear it. It would be tying his hands and burdening himself with a responsibility that would curtail his freedom and hamper him beyond endurance. A great restlessness, a longing to escape from the irksome tie, came to him. Solitude and open spaces; unpeopled nature; wild desert wastes—he craved for them. The want was like a physical ache. The desert—he drew his breath in sharply—the hot shifting sand whispering under foot, the fierce noontide sun blazing out of a brilliant sky, the charm of it! The fascination of its false smiling surface, its treacherous beauty luring to hidden perils called to him imperatively. The curse of Ishmael that was his heritage was driving him as it had driven him many times before. He was in the grip of one of the revolts against restraint and civilisation that periodically attacked him. The wander-hunger was in his blood—for generations it had sent numberless ancestors into the lonely places of the world, and against it ties of home were powerless. In early days to the romantic glamour of the newly discovered Americas, later to the silence of the frozen seas and to the mysterious depth of unexplored lands the Cravens had paid a heavy toll. A Craven had penetrated into the tangled gloom of the Amazon forests, and had never returned. In the previous century two Cravens had succumbed to the fascination of the North West Passage, another had vanished in Central Asia. Barry's grandfather had perished in a dust storm in the Sahara. And it was to the North African desert that his own thoughts turned most longingly. Japan had satisfied him for a time—but only for a time. Western civilisation had there obtruded too glaringly, and he had admitted frankly to himself that it was not Japan but O Hara San that kept him in Yokohama. The dark courtyard and the faintly lighted windows faded. He saw instead a tiny well-remembered oasis in Southern Algeria, heard the ceaseless chatter of Arabs, the shrill squeal of a stallion, the peevish grunt of a camel, and, rising above all other sounds, the whine of the tackling above the well. And the smell—the cloying smell that goes with camel caravans, it was pungent! He flung up his head inhaling deeply, then realised that the scent that filled the room was not the acrid smell of the desert but the penetrating odour of incense filtering in through the opened door. It shut and he turned reluctantly.