Chapter XVIIIWhether it was that my fancies pursued me to the inn, or that Vane-Cartwright’s words had unconsciously impressed me, I took and have retained a great dislike to the gentleman who was just arriving at the inn. He came, as he said, for dry-fly fishing, but his accent and his looks showed him to be native to a land where dry fly-fishing is, I believe, not practised. He was near me and about me several times in the course of that day, and though he molested me in no way, my dislike deepened. It was now near midday and I contemplated taking no further step till evening, so I had plenty of time for thought, and I needed it. It may be imagined that I was in a state of some tension. I had rested little since I left Vane-Cartwright’s hotel at Florence, and on arriving at the inn I had news which increased my agitation. My wife had telegraphed to my home saying she had gone for a day or two to the Hôtel de Brunswick, saying also, that I must pay no attention to any wire, purporting to be from her, which did not contain the word “Fidele”. Evidently there was some one in Florence whom she suspected would send false messages. I conjectured that Vane-Cartwright had an understanding with the Mafia, and had obtained through them the services of some villain. Well, here was a wire: “Regret to acquaint respected sir, Mrs. Driver suddenly unwell.—Direttore Hôtel Brunswick.”There is one advantage about being tired. It prevents the mind from wandering away on so many side tracks. But with all that advantage, whatever it may be worth, it took me a full half-hour to make up my mind how to regard this; but I came back to my first impulse, not on the first occasion to disregard what my wife herself had undoubtedly telegraphed.On the other main points I may acquit myself of having wavered, and I will not mystify the reader more than I mystified myself. I had not the faintest doubt that Vane-Cartwright’s suggestion about the Trethewy family, whatever its object might be, was a well-acted lie. However, I determined to follow the suggestion to some extent. I got hold of the landlord; he was all that Vane-Cartwright had said, and on a very slight hint he began talking of the Long Wilton murder and of the charge against Trethewy. I was disgusted to find that suspicion had followed the people here. It was not clearly to Vane-Cartwright’s interest that it should follow them, and I suppose it was accident. I found that the landlord was well posted as to Trethewy’s story and all the proceedings in regard to him. As he went on hinting suspicion of him, I said it was a curious thing about those tracks. “Ah,” said he, “little feet can wear big shoes;” and he looked wise. “About that lass now of Trethewy’s, not but what I like the lass,” he was continuing after a solemn interval, but I need not try to repeat his talk. The upshot of the suggestion was simply this, that the girl had stepped out in her father’s boots and made the tracks, knowing full well that she could ensure the detection of the false tracks hereafter, but for which of two reasons rumour was not certain. Either it was really to fasten false suspicion on her father till the guilty man, a lover of hers presumably, made good his escape; or her father had committed the crime, and she knew it, and to save him had fabricated against him evidence which he and she knew would be broken down.It was not a likely story to tell to me, and I was inclined now, not for the first time, to be thankful that however great a fool I might be, I looked a greater fool than I was. By putting me up to eliciting this story, Vane-Cartwright had merely supplied me with knowledge about the situation of the Trethewys which I might find useful in dealing with them.I felt that I had brought danger not only upon myself but also upon the Trethewys. I was in some doubt whether by going to them again that night I might not be bringing danger nearer them, but the impulse to be beside them if danger were there impelled me to go. I arrived about nightfall. I found Trethewy himself preparing to leave the house. He had been bidden to go and help in repairing a threatening breach of a mill-dam some way up the stream, and he evidently felt surprised and suspicious about the errand on which he was sent. Replying to a look of enquiry in my face, he said: “Sir, I never disobeyed my master’s orders yet”. “No,” he added, looking suddenly abashed, “I behaved badly enough by my old master, but I never disobeyed orders, and I should not like to begin doing so now.” I said that, if he went I should stay at his house till he returned. He said, “It would be a kindness that I should always remember, sir”. And so he went.Poor Mrs. Trethewy appeared ill-pleased at my presence. She seemed to guess that my coming was in some way to disturb their peace. I fancied that, in getting the mastery over his drinking and his wrathful ways, Trethewy had become very gentle and submissive to his wife. In her days of difficulty I had been used to admire her for the way in which she brought up her daughter. I now did not think her improved by finding herself more the mistress of her house than she was wont to be. Still she was civil enough, and willing, after the girl had gone to bed in a sort of cupboard off the parlour-kitchen, to entertain me with her best conversation. I interrupted by telling her frankly that I knew she wished to keep her daughter in ignorance of all concerning Peters’ murder, and the suspicion that had arisen about it, but that I feared that she would find it impossible, for I had learned that day that rumour had followed them to their new home. From my heart I pitied her, for she seemed utterly cast down as she began to realise that Ellen must come to hear all, if indeed she had not heard it already.Suddenly the girl burst into the room and threw her arms round her mother’s neck. “Oh, mother, mother!” she said, “I cannot keep on deceiving you. Dear, kind mother, who wanted to deceive me for my good. I would have given so much that you should not know this, but grandmother told me all.” “Go to bed now, dear,” said her mother; “I cannot bear more to-night.” The mother too went to bed, and I lay down under a rug upon the sofa.I had no intention of keeping awake all night. Gladly as in my excited state I would have done so, it was a necessity that I should get such rest as I could. I lay on a shake-down which Mrs. Trethewy provided for me, and I thought of Florence and of one whom I had left at Florence. Then I slept, and I dreamed, dreamed that she was ill and wanted me. I woke with a horrid start as some one in my dream pronounced the word “poison”. Thank God, it was a dream. I assured myself of that and slept again to dream more pleasantly.I dreamed I was a boy and I was swimming in a clear river. Cool, cool river!There was a fish in the river, and I was swimming after the fish. Cool, cool river!It was an ugly fish, and I was pursuing it, and the river was warm.The fish was Vane-Cartwright, and I was pursuing him. Warm, warm river!The river was gone from my dream, and I was pursuing Vane-Cartwright over a great plain. Warmer and warmer!I pursued him through thick woodlands. Sultry and stifling!I pursued him over a great mountain. Burning, burning hot!I leapt to my feet calling “Fire!”In waking fact, the thatched cottage was in a blaze.I called with all my might to Mrs. Trethewy. I told her to run out while I brought out her daughter, and she answered.I burst into the girl’s little room on the ground floor. It was full of smoke; she was suffocating before she could wake. I tore her from her bed, and bore her through the door and on to the footbridge. I turned my head back towards the house to call again to Mrs. Trethewy, when a hoarse cry of “Fire!” came from the other direction, and a man—he seemed an old grey-bearded rustic—ran on to the bridge towards the door, dashed with full force against us, and overturned me and my half-conscious burden.I do not know just how we rolled or fell, but we were in the water. I had managed still to hold Ellen Trethewy with my right arm, and with my left hand to catch the edge of the footbridge. I could not by any effort have pulled us both out or raised her on to the bridge, but it was easy to hold our heads above water, for we were against the pier of the bridge, in between the two currents that shot under the arches. Mrs. Trethewy would be there in a moment and could help us out; or—why did not that old rustic help us?They say that men in moments of extreme peril take in all manner of things with extraordinary rapidity, but I do not know whether I really saw all as I see it in memory now, or whether what I did was from accident and the instinct of fear.I glanced up, and the old rustic stood over us raising a mighty stick which I thought was not unlike that which Vane-Cartwright had carried in the morning. So much I did see and think.One good blow and I should have been stunned, if my brains were not out. Whether we got entangled in the eel grating or were carried right under the fish-house into the pool, there was little chance for either of our lives if that blow had fallen where it was aimed.I let go my hold on the bridge and threw my head back, and the stick crashed idly on the bricks of the margin. I tried to get one long breath before we went under, but I swallowed a horrible gulp of water. Good chance or my convulsive effort guided us into the arch for which I would have steered. Under one arch the old eel grating remained. I did not know its structure, and I did not know whether the trap-door over it was fastened down, but there was little hope that we should pass that way alive. Under the other arch, as I had found that morning, the grating had long been removed, and down that archway the strong stream was carrying us, safe, if it did not throttle us on the way. How long a passage I thought it, though the rush of the water seemed so headlong. I could feel the slimy growth on the brick archway above us, and my nostrils were for a moment above water though my mouth was pressed under. Then we were under the floor of the fish-house, and my head rose and I got a gulp of air, but my head struck a joist of the floor, and the stream swept me on, ducking involuntarily under another joist and another. We were out in the pool, sucked down in the bubble and swirl of the eddy. I opened my eyes and could see the glare of the fire through great green globes of water. I was on the surface; I was swimming with great gasps; I was under again; I was exhausted. My feet struck on pebbles: I was standing in the shallow water. I still held the body. Was it lifeless? Three strides and I should land her on the bank. No, my steps sank in some two feet of almost liquid mud. The dragging of my steps furnished just the little further effort needed to spend my remaining breath. I sank forward on the reeds and flags of the margin, with one last endeavour to push her body in front of me, and I lay, helpless and panting horribly, beside her, while a man came and jumped into the marshy fringe of the pool and stood over us. That dire old rustic, I felt no doubt, and I felt no care. No, it was the girl’s father.In the morning, shooting down that same dark cool avenue of sweet water, and swept without an effort far out into the swirling reed-fringed pool, I could not have imagined how hardly and how ill I was to pass that way again with a living or lifeless burden.She lived; the first shock of the water had roused her, and she had kept a shut mouth, a steady grasp where it least incommoded me and a heroic presence of mind.
Whether it was that my fancies pursued me to the inn, or that Vane-Cartwright’s words had unconsciously impressed me, I took and have retained a great dislike to the gentleman who was just arriving at the inn. He came, as he said, for dry-fly fishing, but his accent and his looks showed him to be native to a land where dry fly-fishing is, I believe, not practised. He was near me and about me several times in the course of that day, and though he molested me in no way, my dislike deepened. It was now near midday and I contemplated taking no further step till evening, so I had plenty of time for thought, and I needed it. It may be imagined that I was in a state of some tension. I had rested little since I left Vane-Cartwright’s hotel at Florence, and on arriving at the inn I had news which increased my agitation. My wife had telegraphed to my home saying she had gone for a day or two to the Hôtel de Brunswick, saying also, that I must pay no attention to any wire, purporting to be from her, which did not contain the word “Fidele”. Evidently there was some one in Florence whom she suspected would send false messages. I conjectured that Vane-Cartwright had an understanding with the Mafia, and had obtained through them the services of some villain. Well, here was a wire: “Regret to acquaint respected sir, Mrs. Driver suddenly unwell.—Direttore Hôtel Brunswick.”
There is one advantage about being tired. It prevents the mind from wandering away on so many side tracks. But with all that advantage, whatever it may be worth, it took me a full half-hour to make up my mind how to regard this; but I came back to my first impulse, not on the first occasion to disregard what my wife herself had undoubtedly telegraphed.
On the other main points I may acquit myself of having wavered, and I will not mystify the reader more than I mystified myself. I had not the faintest doubt that Vane-Cartwright’s suggestion about the Trethewy family, whatever its object might be, was a well-acted lie. However, I determined to follow the suggestion to some extent. I got hold of the landlord; he was all that Vane-Cartwright had said, and on a very slight hint he began talking of the Long Wilton murder and of the charge against Trethewy. I was disgusted to find that suspicion had followed the people here. It was not clearly to Vane-Cartwright’s interest that it should follow them, and I suppose it was accident. I found that the landlord was well posted as to Trethewy’s story and all the proceedings in regard to him. As he went on hinting suspicion of him, I said it was a curious thing about those tracks. “Ah,” said he, “little feet can wear big shoes;” and he looked wise. “About that lass now of Trethewy’s, not but what I like the lass,” he was continuing after a solemn interval, but I need not try to repeat his talk. The upshot of the suggestion was simply this, that the girl had stepped out in her father’s boots and made the tracks, knowing full well that she could ensure the detection of the false tracks hereafter, but for which of two reasons rumour was not certain. Either it was really to fasten false suspicion on her father till the guilty man, a lover of hers presumably, made good his escape; or her father had committed the crime, and she knew it, and to save him had fabricated against him evidence which he and she knew would be broken down.
It was not a likely story to tell to me, and I was inclined now, not for the first time, to be thankful that however great a fool I might be, I looked a greater fool than I was. By putting me up to eliciting this story, Vane-Cartwright had merely supplied me with knowledge about the situation of the Trethewys which I might find useful in dealing with them.
I felt that I had brought danger not only upon myself but also upon the Trethewys. I was in some doubt whether by going to them again that night I might not be bringing danger nearer them, but the impulse to be beside them if danger were there impelled me to go. I arrived about nightfall. I found Trethewy himself preparing to leave the house. He had been bidden to go and help in repairing a threatening breach of a mill-dam some way up the stream, and he evidently felt surprised and suspicious about the errand on which he was sent. Replying to a look of enquiry in my face, he said: “Sir, I never disobeyed my master’s orders yet”. “No,” he added, looking suddenly abashed, “I behaved badly enough by my old master, but I never disobeyed orders, and I should not like to begin doing so now.” I said that, if he went I should stay at his house till he returned. He said, “It would be a kindness that I should always remember, sir”. And so he went.
Poor Mrs. Trethewy appeared ill-pleased at my presence. She seemed to guess that my coming was in some way to disturb their peace. I fancied that, in getting the mastery over his drinking and his wrathful ways, Trethewy had become very gentle and submissive to his wife. In her days of difficulty I had been used to admire her for the way in which she brought up her daughter. I now did not think her improved by finding herself more the mistress of her house than she was wont to be. Still she was civil enough, and willing, after the girl had gone to bed in a sort of cupboard off the parlour-kitchen, to entertain me with her best conversation. I interrupted by telling her frankly that I knew she wished to keep her daughter in ignorance of all concerning Peters’ murder, and the suspicion that had arisen about it, but that I feared that she would find it impossible, for I had learned that day that rumour had followed them to their new home. From my heart I pitied her, for she seemed utterly cast down as she began to realise that Ellen must come to hear all, if indeed she had not heard it already.
Suddenly the girl burst into the room and threw her arms round her mother’s neck. “Oh, mother, mother!” she said, “I cannot keep on deceiving you. Dear, kind mother, who wanted to deceive me for my good. I would have given so much that you should not know this, but grandmother told me all.” “Go to bed now, dear,” said her mother; “I cannot bear more to-night.” The mother too went to bed, and I lay down under a rug upon the sofa.
I had no intention of keeping awake all night. Gladly as in my excited state I would have done so, it was a necessity that I should get such rest as I could. I lay on a shake-down which Mrs. Trethewy provided for me, and I thought of Florence and of one whom I had left at Florence. Then I slept, and I dreamed, dreamed that she was ill and wanted me. I woke with a horrid start as some one in my dream pronounced the word “poison”. Thank God, it was a dream. I assured myself of that and slept again to dream more pleasantly.
I dreamed I was a boy and I was swimming in a clear river. Cool, cool river!
There was a fish in the river, and I was swimming after the fish. Cool, cool river!
It was an ugly fish, and I was pursuing it, and the river was warm.
The fish was Vane-Cartwright, and I was pursuing him. Warm, warm river!
The river was gone from my dream, and I was pursuing Vane-Cartwright over a great plain. Warmer and warmer!
I pursued him through thick woodlands. Sultry and stifling!
I pursued him over a great mountain. Burning, burning hot!
I leapt to my feet calling “Fire!”
In waking fact, the thatched cottage was in a blaze.
I called with all my might to Mrs. Trethewy. I told her to run out while I brought out her daughter, and she answered.
I burst into the girl’s little room on the ground floor. It was full of smoke; she was suffocating before she could wake. I tore her from her bed, and bore her through the door and on to the footbridge. I turned my head back towards the house to call again to Mrs. Trethewy, when a hoarse cry of “Fire!” came from the other direction, and a man—he seemed an old grey-bearded rustic—ran on to the bridge towards the door, dashed with full force against us, and overturned me and my half-conscious burden.
I do not know just how we rolled or fell, but we were in the water. I had managed still to hold Ellen Trethewy with my right arm, and with my left hand to catch the edge of the footbridge. I could not by any effort have pulled us both out or raised her on to the bridge, but it was easy to hold our heads above water, for we were against the pier of the bridge, in between the two currents that shot under the arches. Mrs. Trethewy would be there in a moment and could help us out; or—why did not that old rustic help us?
They say that men in moments of extreme peril take in all manner of things with extraordinary rapidity, but I do not know whether I really saw all as I see it in memory now, or whether what I did was from accident and the instinct of fear.
I glanced up, and the old rustic stood over us raising a mighty stick which I thought was not unlike that which Vane-Cartwright had carried in the morning. So much I did see and think.
One good blow and I should have been stunned, if my brains were not out. Whether we got entangled in the eel grating or were carried right under the fish-house into the pool, there was little chance for either of our lives if that blow had fallen where it was aimed.
I let go my hold on the bridge and threw my head back, and the stick crashed idly on the bricks of the margin. I tried to get one long breath before we went under, but I swallowed a horrible gulp of water. Good chance or my convulsive effort guided us into the arch for which I would have steered. Under one arch the old eel grating remained. I did not know its structure, and I did not know whether the trap-door over it was fastened down, but there was little hope that we should pass that way alive. Under the other arch, as I had found that morning, the grating had long been removed, and down that archway the strong stream was carrying us, safe, if it did not throttle us on the way. How long a passage I thought it, though the rush of the water seemed so headlong. I could feel the slimy growth on the brick archway above us, and my nostrils were for a moment above water though my mouth was pressed under. Then we were under the floor of the fish-house, and my head rose and I got a gulp of air, but my head struck a joist of the floor, and the stream swept me on, ducking involuntarily under another joist and another. We were out in the pool, sucked down in the bubble and swirl of the eddy. I opened my eyes and could see the glare of the fire through great green globes of water. I was on the surface; I was swimming with great gasps; I was under again; I was exhausted. My feet struck on pebbles: I was standing in the shallow water. I still held the body. Was it lifeless? Three strides and I should land her on the bank. No, my steps sank in some two feet of almost liquid mud. The dragging of my steps furnished just the little further effort needed to spend my remaining breath. I sank forward on the reeds and flags of the margin, with one last endeavour to push her body in front of me, and I lay, helpless and panting horribly, beside her, while a man came and jumped into the marshy fringe of the pool and stood over us. That dire old rustic, I felt no doubt, and I felt no care. No, it was the girl’s father.
In the morning, shooting down that same dark cool avenue of sweet water, and swept without an effort far out into the swirling reed-fringed pool, I could not have imagined how hardly and how ill I was to pass that way again with a living or lifeless burden.
She lived; the first shock of the water had roused her, and she had kept a shut mouth, a steady grasp where it least incommoded me and a heroic presence of mind.