The Unspeakable Gentleman/Chapter 14
XIV
It was just that time in an autumn day when the light is fading out of the sky. The thick, heavy mists that the cold air encourages were roiling in chill and heavy from the river and leveling the hollow places in the land. The clouds were still a claret colored purple in the west, but in another few minutes that color would be gone. The shapes around us were fast losing their distinctiveness, and their outlines were becoming more and more a matter for the memory, and not the eye. And it seems to me that I never knew the air to seem more fresh and sweet.
We had broken into a sharp gallop down the rutted lane. The house, gaunt and spectral, and bleaker and more forbidding fen the darkening sky, was behind us, and ahead were the broad level meadows, checkered with little clamps of willow and cedars, as meadows are that lie near the salt marshes. I had feared we might be intercepted at our gate, but I was mistaken. We had swerved to the left and were thudding down the level road, when an exclamation from Mademoiselle made me turn in my saddle. My look must have been a somewhat blank interrogation, for Mademoiselle was laughing.
"To think," she cried, "I should have said you resembled your mother! Where are we going, Monsieur?"
But I think she knew without my answering, for she laughed again, and I did not entirely blame her. It was pleasant enough to leave our house behind. It was pleasant to feel the bite of the salt wind, and to see the trees and the rocks by the roadside slip past us, gaunt and spectral in the evening. I knew the road well enough, which was fortunate, even when we turned off the beaten track over a trail which was hardly as good as a foot path. I was forced to reduce our pace to a walk, but I was confident that it did not make much difference. Once on the path, the farm was not half a mile distant, just behind a ridge of rocks that was studded by a stunted undergrowth of wind beaten oak. I knew the place. I could already picture the gaping black windows, the broken, sagging ridge pole, and the crumbling chimney. For years the wind had blown sighing through its deserted rooms, while the rain rotted the planking. It was not strange that its owners had left it, for I can imagine no more mournful or desolate spot. Our own house, three miles away, was its nearest neighbor, and scarcely a congenial one. Around it was nothing but rain sogged meadows that scarcely rose above the salt marshes that ran to the dunes where the Atlantic was beating.
As I stared grimly ahead, I could picture her there behind me, the wind whipping the color to her cheeks and playing with her hair, her eyes bright and gay in the half-light. Save for the steady plodding of the horse, it was very still. I fancied that she had leaned nearer, that her shoulder was touching mine, that I could feel her breath en my cheek. Then she spoke, and her voice was almost a whisper.
"It was good of you to take me with you," she said.
"Surely, Mademoiselle," I replied, "You did not think that I would leave you?"
"I should, if I had been you," she answered, "I was rude to you, Monsieur, and unjust to you this morning. You see I did not know."
"You did not know?"
"That the son would be as brave and as resourceful as the father. You are, Monsieur, and yet you are different."
"Yes," I said.
"And I am glad, glad," said Mademoiselle.
"And I am sorry you are glad," I said.
"You are sorry?"
"Perhaps, Mademoiselle," I replied with a tinge of bitterness I could not suppress, "if I had seen more of the world, if my clothes were in better taste, and my manners less abrupt—you would feel differently, I wonder. But let us be silent, for we are almost there."
As we drew near, making our way through damp thickets, a sense of uneasiness came over me. Somehow I feared we might be too late, though I knew that this was hardly possible. I feared, and yet I knew well enough it was written somewhere that we should meet once more. With six men after him he would not have ridden straight to the place. We should meet, and it would be different from our other meetings. I wished that it was light enough to see his face.
At a turn of the path I reined up and listened. It was very still. Already the light had gone out of the sky, and little was left of the land about us, save varying tones of black. Had he gone?
I cautiously dismounted. In a minute we should see. In a minute—Then Mademoiselle interrupted me, and I was both astonished and irritated, for my nerves were more on edge than I cared to have them. She was right. She was never overwrought.
"We are there?" she inquired.
"Softly, Mademoiselle," I cautioned her. "If you will dismount, you can see the place. It is not three hundred feet beyond the thicket. So! You will admit it is not much to look at. If you will hold the horse's head, I will go forward."
I did not listen to an objection that she was framing, but slipped hastily through the trees. As the ugly mass of the house took a more certain shape before me, I felt my pulse beat more rapidly, and not entirely through elation. Even today when I look at a place that men have built and then abandoned, something of the same feeling comes over me, but not as strongly as it did that evening. It was another matter that made me hesitate. From the shadow of the doorway I heard a sound which was too much like the raising of a pistol hammer not to make me remember that a sword was all I carried.
"There is no need to cock that pistol," I said, in a tone which I hoped sounded more confident than my state of mind. I halted, but there was no answer and no further sound.
"I said," I repeated, raising my voice, "there is no need to cock that pistol. It is a friend of Captain Shelton who is speaking."
"So," said a voice in careful, precise English. "Walk three paces forward, if you please, and slowly, v-e-r-y slowly. Now. You are a friend of the captain?"
"In a sense," I replied. "I am his son. I have come to you with a message."
"So," said the voice again, and I saw that a man was seated before me on the stone that had served as a doorstep, a man who was balancing a pistol in the palm of his hand.
"I fear I have been rude," he said, "but I find this place—what shall I say?—annoying. Your voices are alike, and I know he has a son. You say you bring a message?"
I had thought what to say.
"It is about the paper," I began. "The captain was to bring it to you here, and now he finds he cannot."
"Cannot?" he said, with the rising inflection, of another language than ours. "Cannot!
"Rather," I corrected myself hastily, "he finds it more expedient to meet you elsewhere."
"Ah," he said, "that is better. For a moment I feared the captain was dead. So the paper—he still has it?"
"He not only has it," I said, "but he is ready to give it to you—at another place he has named. You are a stranger to the country here?"
My question was not a welcome one.
"Absolute!" he replied with conviction. "Do you take me for a native of these sink holes? Mon Dieu! Does your mud so completely cover me? But surely it must be this cursed darkness, or you would have said differently. Where is this other place?"
I was glad it was too dark for him to see my smile.
"Unfortunately I cannot guide you there," I said, "for I am to stop here in case I am followed. We have had to be careful, very careful indeed—you understand?"
Impatiently he shifted his position.
"For six months," he replied irritably, "I have been doing nothing else—careful—always careful. It becomes unbearable, but where is this place you speak of—in some other hog?"
I pointed to the left of the trees where Mademoiselle was standing.
"I quite understand," I said politely, "even a day with this paper is quite enough, but it is not a bog and you can reach it quite easily. You see where I point? Simply follow that field in that direction for half a mile, perhaps, and you will come to a road. Turn to your right, and after three miles you will see a house, the first house you will meet, in fact. It has a gambrel roof and overlooks the river. Simply knock on the door so—one knock, a pause, and three in succession. It will be understood. You have a horse?"
"What is left of him," he replied, "though the good God knows how he has carried me along this far. Yes, he is attached to a post. Well, we are off, and may the paper stay still till we get it. You wait here?"
"In case we are followed," I said.
He pointed straight before him.
"I have been hearing noises over there, breaking of branches and shouts."
"Then in the name of heaven ride on," I said, and added as an afterthought, "and turn out to the side if you see anyone coming."
The pleasure I took in seeing him leave was not entirely unalloyed. As I walked to the oak thicket where Mademoiselle was waiting, I even had some vague idea of calling him back, for I do not believe in doing anyone a turn that is worse than necessary. Yet there was only one other way I could think of to keep him silent, besides sending him where he was going. She was feeding the horse handfuls of grass.
"It is quite all right, Mademoiselle," I said. "Let us move to the house. It may be more comfortable in the doorway."
We stood silently for a while, listening to the wind and the dull monotonous roar of the surf, while the night grew blacker. I listened attentively, but there was no sound. Surely he was coming.
"Tell me, Monsieur," said Mademoiselle, "what sort of woman was your mother?"
Unbidden, a picture of her came before me, that seemed strangely out of place
"She was very beautiful," I said.
She sighed.
"And very proud," said Mademoiselle. "Yes, very proud. Why did she call him a thief, Monsieur?"
But I did not answer.
"You are certain your father is coming?" she asked finally.
"I think there is no doubt," I told her. "I have seen him ride, Mademoiselle. It would take more than a dozen men to lay hands on him. They should have known better than let him leave the house. Listen, Mademoiselle! I believe you can hear him now.
My ears were quicker in those days. For a minute we listened in silence, and then on the wind I heard more distinctly still the regular thud of a galloping horse. So he was coming, as I knew he would. I knew he would be methodical and accurate.
"Yes, Mademoiselle," I continued, "my father has many accomplishments, but this time even he may be surprised. Who knows, Mademoiselle? Pray step back inside the doorway until I call you."
But she did not move.
"No," said Mademoiselle, "I prefer to stay where I am. I have seen too much of you and your father to leave you alone together."
"But surely, Mademoiselle," I protested, "you forget why we have come."
"Yes," she answered quickly, "yes, you are right. I do forget. I have seen too much of this, too much of utter useless folly—too many men dying, too many suffering for a hopeless cause. I have seen three men lying dead in our hall, and as many more wounded. I have seen a strong man turned into a blackguard. I have seen a son turned against his father, and all for a bit of paper which should never have been written. I hate it—do you hear me?—and if I forget it, it is because I choose. I forget it because—" She seemed about to tell me more, and then to think better of it. "Surely you see, surely you see you cannot. He is your father, Monsieur, the man who is coming here."
"Mademoiselle," I replied, "you are far too kind. I hardly think he or I have much reason to hold our lives of any particular value, but as you have said, my father was a gentleman once, and gentlemen very seldom kill their sons, nor gentlemen's sons their fathers. Pray rest assured, Mademoiselle, it will be a quiet interview. I beg you, be silent, for he is almost here."
I was not mistaken. A horse was on the path we followed, running hard, and crashing recklessly through the bushes. Before I had sight of him I heard my father's voice.
"Ives!" he called sharply. "Where the devil are you?"
And in an instant he was at the door, his horse breathing in hard, sobbing breaths, and he had swung from the saddle as I went forward to meet him.
"Here," he said, "take it, and be off. Those fools have run me over half the state. In fact," he continued in the calm tones I remember best, "in fact, I have seldom had a more interesting evening. I was fired on before I had passed the gate, and chased as though I carried the treasures of the Raj. I have your word never to tell where you got it. Never mind my reasons, or the thanks either. Take it Ives. It has saved me so many a dull day that it has quite repaid my trouble."
There he was, half a pace away, and yet he did not know me. I think it was that, more than anything else, which robbed me of my elation. To him the whole thing seemed an ordinary piece of business. I saw him test his girth, preparatory to mounting again, saw him slowly readjust his cloak, and then I took the paper he handed me and buttoned it carefully in my inside pocket. He turned to his horse again and laid a hand on his withers, but still he did not mount. I think he was staring into the night before him and listening, as I had been. Then he turned again slowly, and half faced me. On the wind, far off still, but nevertheless distinct, was the sound of voices.
"It is time we were going," said my father. "I only gave them the slip five minutes back. It was closer work than I had expected."
And then he started, and looked at me more intently through the darkness.
"Name of the devil!" said my father. "How did you get here?"
But that was all. He never even started. His hand still rested tranquilly on the reins and he still half faced me. Had it been so on that other night long ago, when his world crumbled to ruins about him? Did he always win and lose with the same passive acquiescence? Did nothing ever astonish him? There was a moment's silence, and I felt his eyes on me, and suddenly became very cautious. I knew well enough he would not let it finish in such a manner, but what could he do? The game was in my hands.
"Quite simply," I told him. "My horse was in the stable."
When he spoke again his voice was still pleasantly conversational.
"And Brutus?" he asked. "Where the devil was Brutus? Surely the age of miracles is past. Or do I see before me—" he bowed with all his old courtesy—"another David?"
"Brutus," I replied, "jumped through a second story window."
"Indeed?" he said. "He always was most agile."
"He was," I replied. "Not five minutes after you left, Uncle Jason arrived."
My father removed his hand from the reins and looped them through his arm.
"Indeed?" he said. "He came in heels first, I trust?"
"No," I said, "he is alive and well."
"The devil!" said my father, and sighed. "I am growing old, my son. I know my horse spoiled my aim, and yet he fell, and I rode over him. I had hoped to be finished with your Uncle Jason. You say he entered the house?"
"And told me to stop," I said.
"And you did not?"
"No," I replied. "I succeeded in getting out of a window also."
And then, although I could not see him, I knew he had undergone a change, and I knew that I was facing a different man.
His hand fell on my shoulder, and to my surprise, it was trembling.
"God!" he cried, in a voice that was suddenly harsh and forbidding. "Do you mean to tell me you left Mademoiselle, and never struck a blow? You left her there?"
"Not entirely," I replied.
My father became very gentle.
"Will you be done with this?" he said. "The lady, where is she now?"
And then, half to himself he added.
"How was I to know they would break in the house after I had gone?"
"Mademoiselle," I replied, "is not fifteen feet away."
His hand went up to the clasp of his cloak, and again his voice became pleasantly conversational.
"Ah, that is better," said my father. "And so you got the paper after all. Yes, I am growing old, my son. I appear to have bungled badly. Do you hope to keep the paper?"
In the distance I heard a voice again raised in a shout. Surely he understood.
"They are coming," I said. "Yes, I intend to keep the paper."
"Indeed?" said my father. "Perhaps you will explain how, my son. I have had an active evening, but you—I confess you go quite ahead of me."
"Because," I said, "you are not anxious to go back to France, father, and you are almost on your way there."
"No, not to France," he answered, and I knew he saw my meaning.
"And yet they are coming to take you. If you so much as offer to touch me again, I shall call them, father, and we shall go back together. Your horse is tired. He cannot go much further."
He was silent for a moment, and I prudently stepped back.
"You might shoot me, of course," I added, "but a pistol shot would be equally good. Listen! I can hear them on the road."
But oddly enough, he was not disturbed.
"On the road, to be sure," said my father. "You are right, Henry, you may keep the paper. But tell me one thing more. Was there no one here when you arrived?"
"There was," I said, "but I sent him away—to our house, father."
He sighed and smoothed his cloak thoughtfully.
"I fear that I have become quite hopeless. As you say, if I fire a pistol, they will come, and now I can hardly see any reason to keep them away. So you sent him to the house, my son? And Jason is still alive? And you have got the paper? Can it be that I have failed in everything? Strange how the cards fall even if we stack the deck. Ah, well, then it is the pistols after all."
There was a blinding flash and the roar of a weapon close beside me, and I heard Mademoiselle scream. My father turned to quiet his horse.
"Do not be alarmed, Mademoiselle," he said gently, "we are not killing each other. I am merely using a somewhat rigorous method of bringing my son to his senses."
He paused, reached under his cloak, drew a second pistol and fired again. From the road there came a sound that seemed to ring pleasantly to my father's ears.
"Nearer than I thought," he said brightly. "They should be here in three minutes at the outside. Shall we sit a while and talk, my son? It is gloomy here, I admit, but still, it has its advantages. They thought my rendezvous was ten miles to the north. Lord, what fools they were! Lawton bit at the letter I let him seize as though it were pork. Ah, if it had not been for Jason! Well, everything must have an ending."
He threw his bridle over his arm, and was walking toward the doorstep, lightly buoyant, as though some weight were lifted from his mind. Hastily I seized his arm.
"Stop!" I cried. "What is to become of Mademoiselle? We cannot leave her here like this. Have you forgotten she is with us?"
Seemingly still unhurried, he paused, and glanced toward the road, and then back at me, and then for the first time he laughed, and his laughter, genuine and care-free, gave me a start which the sound of his pistol had not. The incongruity of it set my nerves on edge. Was there nothing that would give him genuine concern?
"Good God, sir!" I shouted furiously. "There's nothing to laugh about! Don't you hear them coming?"
"Ah," said my father, "I thought that would fetch you. So you have come to your senses then, and we can go on together? Untie your horse, Henry, while I charge the pistols."
My hand was on the bridle rein, when a shout close by us made me loosen the knot more quickly than I intended. I could make out the black form of a horseman moving towards us at full gallop.
"It must be Lawton," observed my father evenly. "He is well mounted, and quite reckless. I suppose we had better be going. I shall help Mademoiselle, if she will permit. No, it is not Lawton. I am sorry."
He raised his arm and fired. My horse started at the sound of his shot, and as I tried to quiet him, I saw my father lift Mademoiselle to the saddle.
"Yes," he said again, "I think it is time to be going. These men seem to have a most commendable determination. Ha! There are two more of them. Put your horse to the gallop, my son. The tide is out, and we can manage the marsh."
"The marsh!" I exclaimed.
"Quite," he replied tranquilly. "If Brutus is alive, he will have a boat near the dunes opposite. It seems as though we might be obliged to take an ocean voyage."
It seemed to me he had gone quite mad. The marsh, he knew as well as I, was as full of holes as a piece of cheese. Even in the daytime one could hardly ride across it. And then I knew that what he said was true, that he would stop at nothing; and suddenly a fear came over me. For the first time I feared the quiet, pleasant man who rode beside my bridle rein, as though we were traversing the main street of our town.
"Ah," said my father, "it is pleasant to have a little exercise. Give him the spurs Henry. We shall either get across or we shall not. There is no use being cautious."
I put my horse over a ditch, and straight ahead, I may have ridden four hundred yards with the even beating of his horse behind me, before what I feared happened. My horse stumbled, and the pull of my bridle barely got him up again. I gave him the spur, but he was failing. In a quarter of a minute he had fallen again, and this time the bridle did not raise him. I sprang free of him before he had entirely slipped down in the soft sea mud. He was lashing about desperately, nor could I get him to answer when I pulled at the bridle. My father reined up beside me and dismounted.
"His leg is broken," he said. "It is inopportune. Ah, they are still after us." And he turned to look behind him.
"Why are you waiting?" I cried. "Ride on, sir!"
"And leave you here with the paper in your pocket?" said my father. "The fall has quite got the better of you. The other pistol, Mademoiselle, if you have finished loading it. Here they come, to be sure. Would you not think the fools would realize I can hit them?"
He fired into the darkness and a riderless horse ran almost on top of us. With a snort of fright, he reared and wheeled, and a second shot answered my father's.
"Ah," said my father, "they always will shoot before they can see. The pistol from the holster, if you please, Mademoiselle."
They had not realized we had halted, for the last rider charged past us before he could check himself. I had a glimpse of his face, white against the night, and I saw him tug furiously at his bit—an unfortunate matter, so it happened, for the footing beneath the marsh grass was bad, and his horse slewed and fell on top of him.
"Pah!" exclaimed my father. "It is almost sad to watch them. Let us go, Henry. He is knocked even more senseless than he was before. Keep the saddle, Mademoiselle, and we will lead you across. I fancy that is the last of them for a moment."
So we tumbled through the mud at a walk, slipping noisily at every step, but my father was correct in his prophecy. Only the noise of our progress interrupted us. The sand dunes were becoming something more than a shadow. My father walked in tranquil silence at the bridle, while I trudged beside him.
"Are you hurt, Captain?" Mademoiselle demanded.
"Indeed not," he replied. "What was there to hurt me? I was thinking. That is all; but why do you ask, my lady?"
"Only," said Mademoiselle, "because you have been silent for the past five minutes, and you never are more gay than when you embark on an adventure. I never heard you say two words, Captain, until that night on the Loire."
"Let us forget the Loire," replied my father. "Shall I be quite frank with you, Mademoiselle?"
"It would be amusing," she admitted, leaning from the saddle towards him, "if it were only possible," she added.
"Then listen, Mademoiselle," he continued, "and I shall be very frank indeed. It must be the sea air which makes me so. I seldom talk unless I feel that my days for talking are nearly over, and at present they seem to stretch before me most interminably. In a moment we shall see the boat, and in a moment the Sea Tern. I fear I have been very foolish."
"Father," I inquired, "will you answer me a question?"
"Perhaps," said my father.
"What has my uncle to do with the paper?"
"My son," said my father, "may I ask you a question!"
"Perhaps," I replied.
"How much money did your mother leave you at her death?"
"She had none to leave," I replied quickly.
"Ah," said my father, "have you ever wondered why?"
"You should be able to tell me," I answered coldly.
"Indeed," said my father. "But here we are at the dunes. The boat, my son, do you see it?"
I scrambled up ahead through the sand and beach grass, and the white line of the beach, which even the darkest night can never hide, lay clear before me. A high surf was running, and beyond it I could see three lights, blinking fitfully in the black and nearer on the white sand was the shadow of a fishing boat, pulled just above the tide mark. A minute later Brutus came running toward us.
My father was evidently used to such small matters. Indeed, the whole affair seemed such a part of his daily life as to demand nothing unusual. He glanced casually at the waves and the boat, tossed off his cloak on the sand, carefully wrapped his pistols inside it, and placed the bundle carefully beneath a thwart.
"The rocket, Brutus," said my father. "if you will get in, Mademoiselle, we will contrive to push you through the breakers. Best take your coat off, my son, and place it over the pistols."