Kitabı oku: «The Light of Scarthey: A Romance», sayfa 15
PART III
"CAPTAIN JACK," THE GOLD SMUGGLER
CHAPTER XVII
THE GOLD SMUGGLER AND THE PHILOSOPHER
On the evening of the day which had seen Miss Molly's departure for the main land, René, after the usual brisk post-prandial altercation with old Margery by her kitchen fire, was cheerfully finding his way, lantern in hand, to his turret, when in the silence of the night he heard the door of the keep open and close, and presently recognised Sir Adrian's tread echoing on the flagged steps beneath him.
Astonished at this premature return and full of vague dismay, he hurried down to receive his master.
There was a cloud on Sir Adrian's face, plainly discernible in spite of the unaltered composure of his manner.
"I did not expect your honour back so soon," said René, tentatively.
"I myself did not anticipate to return. I had thought I might perhaps stay some days at Pulwick. But I find there is no home like this one for me, René."
There was a long silence. But when René had rekindled a blaze upon the hearth and set the lamp upon the table, he stood a moment before withdrawing, almost begging by his look some further crumb of information.
"My room is ready, I suppose?" inquired Sir Adrian.
"Yes, your honour," quoth the man ruefully, "Margery and I put it back exactly as – as before."
"Good-night then, good-night!" said the master after a pause, warming his hands as the flames began to leap through the network of twigs. "I shall go to bed, I am tired; I had to row myself across. You will take the boat back to-morrow morning."
René opened his mouth to speak; caught the sound of a sigh coming from the hearthside, and, shaking his head, in silence obeyed the implied dismissal. And bitterly did he meditate in his bunk, that night, upon the swift crumbling of those air-castles he had built himself so gaily erstwhile, in the rose and blue atmosphere that La Demoiselle had seemed to bring with her to Scarthey.
From the morrow the old regular mode of life began again in the keep.
Sir Adrian read a good deal, or at least appeared so to do; but René, who kept him more than ever under his glances of wistful sympathy, noted that far from being absorbed, as of old, in the pages of his book, the recluse's eyes wandered much off its edges into space; that when writing, or at least intent on writing, his pen would linger long in the bottle and hover listlessly over the paper; that he was more abstracted, even than his wont, when looking out of the eastern window; and that on the platform of the beacon it was the landward view which most drew his gaze.
There was also more music in the keep than was the custom in evener days. Seated at his organ the light-keeper seemed to find a voice for such thoughts as were not to be spoken or written, and relief for the nameless pity of them. But never a word passed between the two men on the subject that filled both their hearts.
It was Sir Adrian's pleasure that things at Scarthey should seem to be exactly the same as before, and that was enough for René.
"And yet," mused the faithful fellow, within his disturbed mind, "the ruins now look like a house the day after an interment. If we were lonely before, my faith, now we are desolate?" and, trying to find something or somebody to charge with the curse of it, he invariably fell to upon Mr. Landale's sleek head, why, he could hardly have explained.
Three new days had thus passed in the regularity, if not the serenity of the old – they seemed old already, buried far back in the past, those days that had lapsed so evenly before the brightness of youthful and beautiful life had entered the keep for one brief moment, and departing, again left it a ruin indeed – when the retirement of Scarthey was once more invaded by an unexpected visitor. It was about sundown of the shortest day. Sir Adrian was at his organ, almost unconsciously interpreting his own sadness into music. In time the yearning of his soul had had expression, the echo of the last sighing chord died away in the tranquil air, yet the musician, with head bent upon his breast, remained lost in far-away thoughts.
A slight shuffling noise disturbed him; turning round to greet René as he supposed, he was astonished to see a man's figure lolling in his own arm-chair.
As he peered inquiringly into the twilight, the intruder rose to his feet, and cried with a voice loud and clear, pleasant withal to the ear:
"Sir Adrian, I am sorry you have stopped so soon; I never heard anything more beautiful! The door was ajar, and I crept in like a cat, not to disturb you."
Still in doubt, but with his fine air of courtesy, the light-keeper advanced towards the uninvited guest.
"Am I mistaken," he said, with some hesitation, "surely this is Hubert Cochrane's voice?"
"Jack Smith's voice, my dear fellow; Jack Smith, at your service, please to remember," answered the visitor, with a genial ring of laughter in his words. "Not that it matters much here, I suppose! Had I not heard the peal of your organ I should have thought Scarthey deserted indeed. I could find no groom of the chambers to announce me in due form."
As he spoke, the two had drawn near each other and clasped hands heartily.
"Now, to think of your knowing my voice in this manner! You have a devilish knack of spotting your man, Sir Adrian. It is almost four years since I was here last, is it not?"
"Four years? – so it is; and four years that have done well by you, it would appear. What a picture of strength and lustiness! It really seems to regenerate one, and put heart of grace in one, only to take you by the hand. – Welcome, Captain Smith!"
Nothing could have more succinctly described the outer man of him who chose to be known by that most nondescript of patronymics. Sir Adrian stood for a moment, contemplating, with glances of approval such as he seldom bestowed on his fellow-man, the symmetrical, slender, yet vigorous figure of his friend, and responding with an unwonted cheerfulness to the smile that lit up the steel-blue eyes, and parted the shapely, strong, and good-humoured mouth of the privateersman.
"Dear me, and what a buck we have become!" continued the baronet, "what splendid plumage! It is good to see you so prosperous. And so this is the latest fashion? No doubt it sets forth the frame of a goodly man, though no one could guess at the 'sea dog' beneath such a set of garments. I used to consider my brother Rupert the most especial dandy I had ever seen; but that, evidently, was my limited experience: even Rupert cannot display so perfect a fit in bottle-green coats, so faultless a silken stock, buckskins of such matchless drab!"
Captain Jack laughed, blushed slightly under the friendly banter, and allowed himself to be thrust back into the seat he had just vacated.
"Welcome again, on my lonely estate. I hope this is not to be a mere flying visit? You know my misanthropy vanishes when I have your company. How did you come? Not by the causeway, I should say," smiling again, and glancing at the unblemished top-boots.
"I have two men waiting for me in the gig below; my schooner, the Peregrine, lies in the offing."
The elder man turned to the window, and through the grey curtain of crepuscule recognised the rakish topsail schooner that had excited Molly's admiration some days before. He gazed forth upon it a few meditative moments.
"Not knowing whether I would find you ready to receive me," pursued the captain, "I arranged that the Peregrine was to wait for me if I had to return to-night."
"Which, of course, is not to be heard of," said Sir Adrian. "Here is Renny; he will carry word that with me you remain to-night… Come, Renny, do you recognise an old acquaintance?"
Already well disposed towards any one who could call this note of pleasure into the loved voice, the Breton, who had just entered, turned to give a broad stare at the handsome stranger, then burst into a guffaw of pure delight. "By my faith, it is Mr. the Lieutenant!" he ejaculated; adding, as ingeniously as Tanty herself might have done, that he would never have known him again.
"It is Mr. the Captain now, Renny," said that person, and held out a strong hand to grip that of the little Frenchman, which the latter, after the preliminary rubbing upon his trousers that his code of manners enjoined, readily extended.
"Ah, it is a good wind that sent you here this day," said he, with a sigh of satisfaction when this ceremony had been duly gone through.
"You say well," acquiesced his master, "it has ever been a good wind that has brought Captain Jack across my path."
And then receiving directions to refresh the gig's crew and dismiss them back to their ship with instructions to return for orders on the morrow, the servant hurried forth, leaving the two friends once more alone.
"Thanks," said Captain Jack, when the door had closed upon the messenger. "That will exactly suit my purpose. I have a good many things to talk over with you, since you so kindly give me the opportunity. In the first place, let me unburden myself of a debt which is now of old standing – and let me say at the same time," added the young man, rising to deposit upon the table a letter-case which he had taken from his breast-pocket, "that though my actual debt is now met, my obligation to you remains the same and will always be so. You said just now that I looked prosperous, and so I am – owing somewhat to good luck, it is true, but owing above all to you. No luck would have availed me much without that to start upon." And he pointed to the contents of the case, a thick bundle of notes which his host was now smilingly turning over with the tip of his fingers.
"I might have sent you a draft, but there is no letter-post that I know of to Scarthey, and, besides, it struck me that just as these four thousand pounds had privately passed between you and me, you might prefer them to be returned in the same manner."
"I prefer it, since it has brought you in person," said Sir Adrian, thrusting the parcel into a drawer and pulling his chair closer towards his guest. "Dealings with a man like you give one a taste of an ideal world. Would that more human transactions could be carried out in so simple and frank a manner as this little business of ours!"
Captain Jack laughed outright.
"Upon my word, you are a greater marvel to me every time I see you – which is not by any means often enough!"
The other raised his eyebrows in interrogation, and the sailor went on:
"Is it really possible that it is to my mode of dealing that you attribute the delightful simplicity of a transaction involving a little fortune from hand to hand? And where pray, in this terraqueous sublunary sphere – I heard that good phrase from a literary exquisite at Bath, and it seems to me comprehensive – where, then, on this terraqueous sublunary globe of ours, Sir Adrian Landale, could one expect to find another person ready to lend a privateersman, trading under an irresponsible name, the sum of four thousand pounds, without any other security than his volunteered promise to return it – if possible?"
Sir Adrian, ignoring the tribute to his own merits, arose and placed his friendly hand on the speaker's shoulder: "And now, my dear Jack," he said gravely, "that the war is over, you will have to turn your energies in another direction. I am glad you are out of that unworthy trade."
Captain Jack bounded up: "No, no, Sir Adrian, I value your opinion too much to allow such a statement to pass unchallenged. Unworthy trade! We have not given back those French devils one half of the harm they have done to our own merchant service; it was war, you know, and you know also, or perhaps you don't – in which case let me tell you – that my Cormorant has made her goodly name, ay, and brought her commander a fair share of his credit, by her energy in bringing to an incredible number of those d – d French sharks – beg pardon, but you know the pestilent breed. Well, we shall never agree upon the subject I fear. As for me, the smart of the salt air, the sting of the salt breeze, the fighting, the danger, they have got into my blood; and even now it sometimes comes over me that life will not be perfect life to me without the dancing boards under my feet and the free waves around me, and my jolly boys to lead to death or glory. Yet, could you but know it, this is the veriest treason, and I revoke the words a thousand times. You look amazed, and well you may: ah, I have much to tell you! But I take it you will not care to hear all I have been able to achieve on the basis of your munificent help at my – ahem, unworthy trade."
"Well, no," said Sir Adrian smiling, "I can quite imagine it, and imagine it without enthusiasm, though, perhaps, as you say, such things have to be. But I should like to know of these present circumstances, these prospects which make you look so happy. No doubt the fruits of peace?"
"Yes, I suppose in one way they may be called so. Yet without the war and your helping hand they would even now hang as far from me as the grapes from the fox. – When I arrived in England three months after the peace had been signed, I had accumulated in the books of certain banks a tolerably respectable account, to the credit of a certain person, whose name, oddly enough, you on one or two occasions have applied, absently, to Captain Jack Smith. I was, I will own, already feeling inclined to discuss with myself the propriety of assuming the name in question, when, there came something in my way of which I shall tell you presently; which something has made me resolve to remain Captain Smith for some time longer. The old Cormorant lay at Bristol, and being too big for this new purpose, I sold her. It was like cutting off a limb. I loved every plank of her; knew every frisk of her! She served me well to the end, for she fetched her value – almost. Next, having time on my hands, I bethought myself of seeing again a little of the world; and when I tell you that I drove over to Bath, you may perhaps begin to see what I am coming to."
Sir Adrian suddenly turned in his chair to face his friend again, with a look of singular attention.
"Well, no, not exactly, and yet – unless – ? Pshaw! impossible – !" upon which lucid commentary he stopped, gazing with anxious inquiry into Captain Jack's smiling eyes. "Ah, I believe you have just a glimmer of the truth with that confounded perspicacity of yours," saying which the sailor laughed and blushed not unbecomingly. "This is how it came about: I had transactions with old John Harewood, the banker, in Bristol, transactions advantageous to both sides, but perhaps most to him – sly old dog. At any rate, the old fellow took a monstrous fancy to me, over his claret, and when I mentioned Bath, recommended me to call upon his wife (a very fine dame, who prefers the fashion of the Spa to the business of Bristol, and consequently lives as much in the former place as good John Harewood will allow). Well, you wonder at my looking prosperous and happy. Listen, for here is the hic: At Lady Maria Harewood's I met one who, if I mistake not, is of your kin. Already, then, somewhere at the back of my memory dwelt the name of Savenaye – Halloa, bless me! I have surely said nothing to – !"
The young man broke off, disconcerted. Sir Adrian's face had become unwontedly clouded, but he waved the speaker on impatiently: "No, no, I am surprised, of course, only surprised; never mind me, my thoughts wandered – please go on. So you have met her?"
"Ay, that I have! Now it is no use beating about the bush. You who know her – you do know her of course – will jump at once to the only possible conclusion. Ah, Adrian!" Captain Jack pursued, pacing enthusiastically about, "I have been no saint, and no doubt I have fancied myself as a lover once or twice ere this; but to see that girl, sir, means a change in a man's life: to have met the light of those sweet eyes is to love, to love in reality. It is to feel ashamed of the idiotic make-believes of former loves. To love her, even in vague hope, is to be glorious already; and, by George, to have her troth, is to be – I cannot say what … to be what I am now!"
The lover's face was illumined; he walked the room like one treading on air as the joy within him found its voice in words.
Sir Adrian listened with an extraordinary tightness at his heart. He had loved one woman even so; that love was still with him, as the scent clings to the phial; but the sight of this young, joyful love made him feel old in that hour – old as he had never realised before. There was no room in his being for such love again. And yet…? There was a tremulous anxiety in the question he put, after a short pause. "There are two Demoiselles de Savenaye, Jack; which is it?"
Captain Jack halted, turned on his heels, and exclaimed enthusiastically: "To me there is but one – one woman in the world – Madeleine!" His look met that of Sir Adrian in full, and even in the midst of his own self-centred mood he could not fail to notice the transient gleam that shot in the elder's eyes, and the sudden relaxation of his features. He pondered for a moment or two, scanning the while the countenance of the recluse; then a smile lighted up his own bronzed face in a very sweet and winning way. "As her kinsman, have I your approval?" he asked and proceeded earnestly: "To tell the truth at once, I was looking to even more than your approval – to your support."
Sir Adrian's mood had undergone a change: as a breeze sweeping from a new quarter clears in a moment a darkening mist from the face of the earth, Captain Jack's answer had blown away for the nonce the atmosphere of misgiving that enveloped him. He answered promptly, and with warmth: "Being your friend, I am glad to know of this; being her kinsman, I may add, my dear Hubert" – there was just a tinge of hesitation, followed by a certain emphasis, on the change of name – "I promise to support you in your hopes, in so far as I have any influence; for power or right over my cousin I have none."
The sailor threw himself down once more in his arm-chair; and, tapping his shining hessians with the stem of his long clay in smiling abstraction, began, with all a lover's egotism, to expatiate on the theme that filled his heart.
"It is a singular, an admirable, a never sufficiently-to-be-praised conjunction of affairs which has ultimately brought me near you when I was pursuing the Light o' my Heart, ruthlessly snatched away by a cunning and implacable dragon, known to you as Miss O'Donoghue. I say dragon in courtesy; I called her by better names before I realised what a service she was unconsciously rendering us by this sudden removal."
"Known to me!" laughed Sir Adrian. "My own mother's sister!"
"Then I still further retract. Moreover, seeing how things have turned out, I must now regard her as an angel in disguise. Don't look so surprised! Has she not brought my love under your protection? I thought I was tolerably proof against the little god, but then he had never shot his arrows at me from between the long lashes of Madeleine de Savenaye. Oh, those eyes, Adrian! So unlike those southern eyes I have known so well, too well in other days, brilliant, hard, challenging battle from the first glance, and yet from the first promising that surrender which is ever so speedy. Pah! no more of such memories. Before her blue eyes, on my first introduction, I felt – well, I felt as the novice does under the first broadside."
The speaker looked dreamily into space, as if the delicious moment rose again panoramically before him.
"Well," he pursued, "that did me no harm, after all. Lady Maria Harewood, who, I have learned since, deals strongly in sentiment, and, being unfortunately debarred by circumstances from indulgence in the soothing luxury on her own behalf, loves to promote matches more poetical – she calls it more 'harmonious' – than her own very prosaic one, she, dear lady, was delighted with such a rarity as a bashful privateersman – her 'tame corsair,' as I heard her call your humble servant. – I was a hero, sir, a perfect hero of romance in the course of a few days! On the strength of this renown thrust upon me I found grace before the most adorable blue eyes; had words of sympathy from the sweetest lips, and smiles from the most bewitching little mouth in all the world. So you see I owe poor Lady Maria a good thought… You laugh?"
Sir Adrian was smiling, but all in benevolence, at the artlessness of this eager youth, who in all the unconscious glory of his looks and strength, ascribed the credit of his entrance into a maiden's heart to the virtue of a few irresponsible words of recommendation.
"Ah! those were days! Everything went on smoothly, and I was debating with myself whether I would not, at once, boldly ask her to be the wife of Hubert Cochrane; though the casting of Jack Smith's skin would have necessitated the giving up of several of his free-trading engagements."
"Free trading! You do not mean to say, man alive, that you have turned smuggler now!" interrupted Sir Adrian aghast.
"Smuggler," cried Jack with his frank laugh, "peace, I beg, friend! Miscall not a gentleman thus. Smuggler – pirate? I cut a pretty figure evidently in your worship's eyes. Lucky for me you never would be sworn as a magistrate, or where should I be … and you too, between duty and friendship? – But to proceed: I was about, as I have said, to give that up for the reasons I mentioned, when, upon a certain fine evening, I crossed the path of one of the most masterful old maids I have ever seen, or even heard of; and, would you believe it?" – this with a quizzical look at his host's grave face – "this misguided old lady took such a violent dislike to me at first sight, and expressed it so thoroughly well, that, hang me if I was not completely brought to. And all for escorting my dear one from Lady Maria's house to her own! Well, the walk was worth it – though the old crocodile was on the watch for us, ready to snap; had got wind of the secret, somehow, a secret unspoken even between us two. This first and last interview took place on the flags, in front of No. 17 Camden Place, Bath. Oh! It was a very one-sided affair from the beginning, and ended abruptly in a door being banged in my face. Then I heard about Miss O'Donoghue's peculiarities in the direction of exclusiveness. And then, also, oddly enough, for the first time, of the great fortune going with my Madeleine's hand. Of course I saw it all, and, I may say, forgave the old lady. In short, I realised that, in Miss O'Donoghue's mind, I am nothing but an unprincipled fortune-seeker and adventurer. Now you, Adrian, can vouch that, whatever my faults, I am none such."
Sir Adrian threw a quiet glance at his friend, whose eyes sparkled as they met it.
"God knows," continued the latter, "that all I care for, concerning the money, is that she may have it. This last venture, the biggest and most difficult of all, I then decided to undertake, that I might be the fitter mate for the heiress – bless her! Oh, Adrian, man, could you have seen her sweet tearful face that night, you would understand that I could not rest upon such a parting. In the dawn of the next morning I was in the street – not so much upon the chance of meeting, though I knew that such sweetness would have now to be all stolen – but to watch her door, her window; a lover's trick, rewarded by lover's luck! Leaning on the railings, through the cold mist (cold it was, though I never felt it, but I mind me now how the icicles broke under my hand), what should I see, before even the church-bells had set to chiming, or the yawning sluts to pull the kitchen curtains, but a bloated monster of a coach, dragging and sliding up the street to halt at her very door. Then out came the beldam herself, and two muffled-up slender things – my Madeleine one of course; but I had a regular turn at sight of them, for I swear I could not tell which was which! Off rattled the chariot at a smart pace; and there I stood, friend, feeling as if my heart was tied behind with the trunks."
The sailor laughed, ran his fingers through his curls and stamped in lively recollection.
"Nothing to be drawn from their landlady. But I am not the man to allow a prize to be snatched from under my very nose. So, anathematising Miss O'Donoghue's family-tree, root, stem, and branch – except that most lovely off-shoot I mean to transplant (you will forgive this heat of blood; it was clearing for action so to speak) – I ran out and overtook the ostler whom I had seen putting the finishing touch to the lashing of boxes behind! 'Gloucester!' says he. The word was worth the guinea it cost me, a hundred times over. – In less than an hour I was in the saddle, ready for pursuit, cantering boot to boot with my man – a trusty fellow who knows how to hold his tongue, and can sit a horse in the bargain. Neither at Gloucester, nor the next day, up to Worcester, could we succeed in doing more than keep our fugitives in view. When they had alighted at one inn, as ascertained by my squire, we patronised the opposition hostelry, and the ensuing morning cantered steadily in pursuit, on our new post-horses half an hour after they had rumbled away with their relays. But the evening of our arrival at Worcester, my fellow found out, at last, what the next stage was to be, and – clever chap, he lost nothing for his sharpness – that the Three Kings' Heads had been recommended to the old lady as the best house in Shrewsbury. This time we took the lead, and on to Shrewsbury, and were at the glorious old Kings' Heads (I in a private room, tight as wax) a good couple of hours before the chariot made its appearance. And there, man, there! my pretty one and I met again!"
"That was, no doubt," put in Sir Adrian, in his gentle, indulgent way, "what made the Kings' Heads so glorious?"
"Ay. Right! And yet it was but a few seconds, on the stair, under a smoky lamp, but her beauty filled the landing with radiance as her kindness did my soul. – It was but for a moment, all blessed moment, too brief, alas! Ah, Adrian, friend – old hermit in your cell —you have never known life, you who have never tasted a moment such as that! Then we started apart: there was a noise below, and she had only time to whisper that she was on her way to Pulwick to some relatives – had only heard it that very day – when steps came up the stairs, creaking. With a last promise, a last word of love, I leaped back into my own chamber, there to see (through the chink between door and post) the untimely old mischief-maker herself pass slowly, sour and solemn, towards her apartments, leaning upon her other niece's arm. How could I have thought that baggage like my princess? Handsome, if you will; but, with her saucy eye, her raven head, her brown cheek, no more to be compared to my stately lily than brass to gold!"
The host listening wonderingly, his eyes fixed with kindly gravity upon the speaker as he rattled on, here gave a slight start, all unnoticed of his friend.
"The next morning, when I had seen the coach and its precious freight move on once more northward, I began the retreat south, hugging myself upon luck and success. I had business in Salcombe – perhaps you may have heard of the Salcombe schooners – in connection with the fitting out of that sailing wonder, the Peregrine. And so," concluded Captain Jack, laughing again in exuberance of joy, "you may possibly guess one of the reasons that has brought her and me round by your island."
There ensued a long silence, filled with thoughts, equally pressing though of widely different complexion, on either side of the hearth.
During the meal, which was presently set forth and proclaimed ready by René, the talk, as was natural in that watchful attendant's presence, ran only on general topics, and was in consequence fitful and unspontaneous. But when the two men, for all their difference of age, temper, and pursuits so strongly, yet so oddly united in sympathy, were once more alone, they naturally fell back under the influence of the more engrossing strain of reflection. Again there was silence, while each mused, gazing into space and vaguely listening to the plash of high water under the window.
"It must have been a strong motive," said Sir Adrian, after his dreamy fashion, like one thinking aloud, "to induce a man like you to abandon his honourable name."
Captain Jack flushed at these words, drew his elbows from the table, and shot a keen, inquiring glance at his friend, which, however, fell promptly before the latter's unconscious gaze and was succeeded by one of reflective melancholy. Then, with a slight sigh, he raised his glass to the lamp, and while peering abstractedly through the ruby, "The story of turning my back upon my house," he said musingly, "shaking its very dust off my feet, so to speak, and starting life afresh unbeholden to my father (even for what he could not take away from me – my own name), – is a simple affair, although pitiful enough perhaps. But memories of family wrongs and family quarrels are of their nature painful; and, as I am a mirth-loving fellow, I hate to bring them upon me. But perhaps it has occurred to you that I may have brought some disgrace upon the name I have forsaken."
"I never allowed myself to think so," said Sir Adrian, surprised. "Your very presence by my fireside is proof of it."
Again the captain scrutinised his host; then with a little laugh: "Pardon me," he cried, "with another man one might accept that likely proof and be flattered. But with you? why, I believe I know you too well not to feel sure that you would have received me as kindly and unreservedly, no matter what my past if only you thought that I had repented; that you would forgive even a crime regretted; and having forgiven, forget… But, to resume, you will believe me when I say that there was nothing of the sort. No," he went on, with a musing air, "but I could tell you of a boy, disliked at home for his stubborn spirit, and one day thrashed, thrashed mercilessly – at a time when he had thought he had reached to the pride of man's estate, thrashed by his own father, and for no just cause… Oh, Adrian, it is a terrible thing to have put such resentment into a lad's heart." He rose as he spoke, and placed himself before the hearth.
