CHAPTER XI. I LIVE AGAIN
Squire Rattray, as I say, was seated at the head of his table, wherethe broken meats still lay as he and I had left them; his fingers, Iremember, were playing with a crust, and his eyes fixed upon a distantdoor, as he leant back in his chair. Behind him hovered the nigger ofthe Lady Jermyn, whom I had been the slower to recognize, had not herskipper sat facing me on the squire's right. Yes, there was CaptainHarris in the flesh, eating heartily between great gulps of wine,instead of feeding the fishes as all the world supposed. And nearerstill, nearer me than any, with his back to my window but his chairslued round a little, so that he also could see that door, and I hisprofile, sat Joaquin Santos with his cigarette!
None spoke; all seemed waiting; and all were silent but the captain,whose vulgar champing reached me through the crazy lattice, as I stoodspellbound and petrified without.
They say that a drowning man lives his life again before the last; butmy own fight with the sea provided me with no such moments of vivid andrapid retrospect as those during which I stood breathless outside thelighted windows of Kirby Hall. I landed again. I was dogged day andnight. I set it down to nerves and notoriety; but took refuge in aprivate hotel. One followed me, engaged the next room, set a watch onall my movements; another came in by the window to murder me in mybed; no party to that, the first one nevertheless turned the outrage toaccount, wormed himself into my friendship on the strength of it, andlured me hither, an easy prey. And here was the gang of them, to meetme! No wonder Rattray had not let me see him off at the station; nowonder I had not been followed that night. Every link I saw in itsright light instantly. Only the motive remained obscure. Suspiciouscircumstances swarmed upon my slow perception: how innocent I had been!Less innocent, however, than wilfully and wholly reckless: what had itmattered with whom I made friends? What had anything mattered to me?What did anything matter--
I thought my heart had snapped!
Why were they watching that door, Joaquin Santos and the young squire?Whom did they await? I knew! Oh, I knew! My heart leaped, my blooddanced, my eyes lay in wait with theirs. Everything began to matteronce more. It was as though the machinery of my soul, long stopped, hadsuddenly been set in motion; it was as though I was born again.
How long we seemed to wait I need not say. It cannot have been manymoments in reality, for Santos was blowing his rings of smoke in thedirection of the door, and the first that I noticed were but dissolvingwhen it opened--and the best was true! One instant I saw her veryclearly, in the light of a candle which she carried in its silver stick;then a mist blinded me, and I fell on my knees in the rank bed intowhich I had stepped, to give such thanks to the Almighty as this hearthas never felt before or since. And I remained kneeling; for now my facewas on a level with the sill; and when my eyes could see again, therestood my darling before them in the room.
Like a queen she stood, in the very travelling cloak in which I had seenher last; it was tattered now, but she held it close about her as thougha shrewd wind bit her to the core. Her sweet face was all peeked andpale in the candle-light: she who had been a child was come to womanhoodin a few weeks. But a new spirit flashed in her dear eyes, a newstrength hardened her young lips. She stood as an angel brought to bookby devils; and so noble was her calm defiance, so serene her scorn,that, as I watched and listened; all present fear for her passed out ofmy heart.
The first sound was the hasty rising of young Rattray; he was at Eva'sside next instant, essaying to lead her to his chair, with a flush whichdeepened as she repulsed him coldly.
"You have sent for me, and I have come," said she. "But I prefer not tosit down in your presence; and what you have to say, you will be goodenough to say as quickly as possible, that I may go again before Iam--stifled!"
It was her one hot word; aimed at them all, it seemed to me to fall likea lash on Rattray's cheek, bringing the blood to it like lightning. Butit was Santos who snatched the cigarette from his mouth, and opened uponthe defenceless girl in a torrent of Portuguese, yellow with rage, and avery windmill of lean arms and brown hands in the terrifying rapidity ofhis gesticulations. They did not terrify Eva Denison. When Rattray tooka step towards the speaker, with flashing eyes, it was some word fromEva that checked him; when Santos was done, it was to Rattray that sheturned with her answer.
"He calls me a liar for telling you that Mr. Cole knew all," said she,thrilling me with my own name. "Don't you say anything," she added, asthe young man turned on Santos with a scowl; "you are one as wicked asthe other, but there was a time when I thought differently of you: hischaracter I have always known. Of the two evils, I prefer to speak toyou."
Rattray bowed, humbly enough, I thought; but my darling's nostrils onlycurled the more.
"He calls me a liar," she continued; "so may you all. Since you havefound it out, I admit it freely and without shame; one must be false inthe hands of false fiends like all of you. Weakness is nothing to you;helplessness is nothing; you must be met with your own weapons, and so Ilied in my sore extremity to gain the one miserable advantage within myreach. He says you found me out by making friends with Mr. Cole. Hesays that Mr. Cole has been dining with you in this very room, thisvery night. You still tell the truth sometimes; has that man--thatdemon--told it for once?"
"It is perfectly true," said Rattray in a low voice.
"And poor Mr. Cole told you that he knew nothing of your villany?"
"I found out that he knew absolutely nothing--after first thinkingotherwise."
"Suppose he had known? What would you have done?"
Rattray said nothing. Santos shrugged as he lit a fresh cigarette. Thecaptain went on with his supper.
"Ashamed to say!" cried Eva Denison. "So you have some shame left still!Well, I will tell you. You would have murdered him, as you murdered allthe rest; you would have killed him in cold blood, as I wish and praythat you would kill me!"
The young fellow faced her, white to the lips. "You have no right tosay that, Miss Denison!" he cried. "I may be bad, but, as I am ready toanswer for my sins, the crime of murder is not among them."
Well, it is still some satisfaction to remember that my love neverpunished me with such a look as was the young squire's reward for thisprotestation. The curl of the pink nostrils, the parting of the proudlips, the gleam of the sound white teeth, before a word was spoken,were more than I, for one, could have borne. For I did not see the griefunderlying the scorn, but actually found it in my heart to pity thispoor devil of a Rattray: so humbly fell those fine eyes of his, so likea dog did he stand, waiting to be whipped.
"Yes; you are very innocent!" she began at last, so softly that I couldscarcely hear. "You have not committed murder, so you say; let it standto your credit by all means. You have no blood upon your hands; you sayso; that is enough. No! you are comparatively innocent, I admit. Allyou have done is to make murder easy for others; to get others to do thedirty work, and then shelter them and share the gain; all you need haveon your conscience is every life that was lost with the Lady Jermyn, andevery soul that lost itself in losing them. You call that innocence?Then give me honest guilt! Give me the man who set fire to the ship, andwho sits there eating his supper; he is more of a man than you. Give methe wretch who has beaten men to death before my eyes; there's somethinggreat about a monster like that, there's something to loathe. Hisassistant is only little--mean--despicable!" Loud and hurried in itswrath, low and deliberate in its contempt, all this was uttered with afurious and abnormal eloquence, which would have struck me, loving her,to the ground. On Rattray it had a different effect. His head lifted asshe heaped abuse upon it, until he met her flashing eye with that of aman very thankful to take his deserts and something more; and to mine hewas least despicable when that last word left her lips. When he saw thatit was her last, he took her candle (she had put it down on the ancientsettle against the door), and presented it to her with another bow. Andso without a word he led her to the door, opened it, and bowed yet loweras she swept out, but still without a
tinge of mockery in the obeisance.
He was closing the door after her when Joaquin Santos reached it.
"Diablo!" cried he. "Why let her go? We have not done with her."
"That doesn't matter; she is done with us," was the stern reply.
"It does matter," retorted Santos; "what is more, she is mystep-daughter, and back she shall come!"
"She is also my visitor, and I'm damned if you're going to make her!"
An instant Santos stood, his back to me, his fingers working, his neckbrown with blood; then his coat went into creases across the shoulders,and he was shrugging still as he turned away.
"Your veesitor!" said he. "Your veesitor! Your veesitor!"
Harris laughed outright as he raised his glass; the hot young squirehad him by the collar, and the wine was spilling on the cloth, as I rosevery cautiously and crept back to the path.
"When rogues fall out!" I was thinking to myself. "I shall save heryet--I shall save my darling!"
Already I was accustomed to the thought that she still lived, and to thebig heart she had set beating in my feeble frame; already the continuedexistence of these villains, with the first dim inkling of theirvillainy, was ceasing to be a novelty in a brain now quickened andprehensile beyond belief. And yet--but a few minutes had I knelt at thewindow--but a few more was it since Rattray and I had shaken hands!
Not his visitor; his prisoner, without a doubt; but alive! alive! and,neither guest nor prisoner for many hours more. O my love! O my heart'sdelight! Now I knew why I was spared; to save her; to snatch her fromthese rascals; to cherish and protect her evermore!
All the past shone clear behind me; the dark was lightness and thecrooked straight. All the future lay clear ahead it presented nodifficulties yet; a mad, ecstatic confidence was mine for the wildest,happiest moments of my life.
I stood upright in the darkness. I saw her light!
It was ascending the tower at the building's end; now in this window itglimmered, now in the one above. At last it was steady, high up near thestars, and I stole below.
"Eva! Eva!"
There was no answer. Low as it was, my voice was alarming; it cooledand cautioned me. I sought little stones. I crept back to throw them.Ah God! her form eclipsed that lighted slit in the gray stone tower. Iheard her weeping high above me at her window.
"Eva! Eva!"
There was a pause, and then a little cry of gladness.
"Is it Mr. Cole?" came in an eager whisper through her tears.
"Yes! yes! I was outside the window. I heard everything."
"They will hear you!" she cried softly, in a steadier voice.
"No-listen!" They were quarrelling. Rattray's voice was loud and angry."They cannot hear," I continued, in more cautious tones; "they thinkI'm in bed and asleep half-a-mile away. Oh, thank God! I'll get you awayfrom them; trust me, my love, my darling!"
In my madness I knew not what I said; it was my wild heart speaking.Some moments passed before she replied.
"Will you promise to do nothing I ask you not to do?"
"Of course."
"My life might answer for it--"
"I promise--I promise."
"Then wait--hide--watch my light. When you see it back in the window,watch with all your eyes! I am going to write and then throw it out. Notanother syllable!"
She was gone; there was a long yellow slit in the masonry once more; herlight burnt faint and far within.
I retreated among some bushes and kept watch.
The moon was skimming beneath the surface of a sea of clouds: now theblack billows had silver crests: now an incandescent buoy bobbed amongthem. O for enough light, and no more!
In the hall the high voices were more subdued. I heard the captain'stipsy laugh. My eyes fastened themselves upon that faint and loftylight, and on my heels I crouched among the bushes.
The flame moved, flickered, and shone small but brilliant on the verysill. I ran forward on tip-toe. A white flake fluttered to my feet. Isecured it and waited for one word; none came; but the window was softlyshut.
I stood in doubt, the treacherous moonlight all over me now, and oncemore the window opened.
"Go quickly!"
And again it was shut; next moment I was stealing close by the spotwhere I had knelt. I saw within once more.
Harris nodded in his chair. The nigger had disappeared. Rattray waslighting a candle, and the Portuguese holding out his hand for thematch.
"Did you lock the gate, senhor?" asked Santos.
"No; but I will now."
As I opened it I heard a door open within. I could hardly let the latchdown again for the sudden trembling of my fingers. The key turned behindme ere I had twenty yards' start.
Thank God there was light enough now! I followed the beck. I foundmy way. I stood in the open valley, between the oak-plantation and mydesolate cottage, and I kissed my tiny, twisted note again and again ina paroxysm of passion and of insensate joy. Then I unfolded it and heldit to my eyes in the keen October moonshine.