This was a strange Christmastide, she pondered, as she strode across the East Moor with Hawk's Tor as her guide, and the hills rolling away from her on either side. Last year she had knelt beside her mother in church, and prayed that health and strength and courage should be given to them both. She had prayed for peace of mind, and security; she had asked that her mother might be spared to her long, and that the farm should prosper. For answer came sickness, and poverty, and death. She was alone now, caught in a mesh of brutality and crime, living beneath a roof she loathed, among people she despised; and she was walking out across a barren, friendless moor to meet a horse-thief and a murderer of men. She would offer no prayers to God this Christmas.
Mary waited on the high ground above Rushyford, and in the distance she saw the little cavalcade approach her: the pony, the jingle, and two horses tethered behind. The driver raised his whip in a signal of welcome. Mary felt the color flame into her face and drain away. This weakness was a thing of torment to her, and she longed for it to be tangible and alive so that she could tear it from her and trample it underfoot. She thrust her hands into her shawl and waited, her forehead puckered in a frown. He whistled as he approached her, and flung a small package at her feet. "A happy Christmas to you," he said. "I had a silver piece in my pocket yesterday and it burned a hole. There's a new handkerchief for your head."
She had meant to be curt and silent on meeting him, but this introduction made it difficult for her. "That's very kind of you," she said. "I'm afraid you've wasted your money all the same."
"That doesn't worry me, I'm used to it," he told her, and he looked her up and down in the cool offensive way of his, and whistled a tuneless song. "You were early here," he said. "Were you afraid I'd be going without you?"
She climbed into the cart beside him and gathered the reins in her hands. "I like to have the feel of them again," she said, ignoring his remark. "Mother and I, we would drive into Helston once a week on market-days. It all seems very long ago. I have a pain in my heart when I think of it, and how we used to laugh together, even when times were bad. You wouldn't understand that, of course. You've never cared for anything but yourself."
He folded his arms and watched her handle the reins.
"That pony would cross the moor blindfold," he told her. "Give him his head, can't you? He's never stumbled in his life. That's better. He's taking charge of you, remember, and you can leave him to it. What were you saying?"
Mary held the rein lightly in her hands, and looked at the track ahead of her. "Nothing very much," she answered. "In a way I was talking to myself. So you're going to sell two ponies at the fair, then?"
"Double profit, Mary Yellan, and you shall have a new dress if you help me. Don't smile and shrug your shoulder. I hate ingratitude. What's the matter with you, today? Your color is gone and you've no light in your eyes. Are you feeling sick, or have you a pain in your belly?"
"I've not been out of the house since I saw you last," she said. "I stayed up in my room with my thoughts. They didn't make cheerful company. I'm a deal older than I was four days ago."
"I'm sorry you've lost your looks," he went on. "I fancied jogging into Launceston with a pretty girl beside me, and fellows looking up as we passed and winking. You're drab today. Don't lie to me, Mary. I'm not as blind as you think. What's happened at Jamaica Inn?"
"Nothing's happened," she said. "My aunt patters about in the kitchen, and my uncle sits at the table with his head in his hands and a bottle of brandy in front of him. It's only myself that has changed."
"You've had no more visitors, have you?"
"None that I know of. Nobody's crossed the yard."
"Your mouth is set very firm, and there are smudges under your eyes. You're tired. I've seen a woman look like that before, but there was a reason for it. Her husband came back to her at Plymouth after four years at sea. You can't make that excuse. Have you been thinking about me by any chance?"
"Yes, I thought about you once," she said. "I wondered who would hang first, you or your brother. There's little in it, from what I can see."
"If Joss hangs, it will be his own fault," said Jem. "If ever a man puts a rope round his own neck, he does. He goes three-quarters of the way to meet trouble. When it does get him it will serve him right, and there'll be no brandy-bottle to save him then. He'll swing sober."
They jogged along in silence, Jem playing with the thong of the whip, and Mary aware of his hands beside her. She glanced down at them out of the tail of her eye, and she saw they were long and slim; they had the same strength, the same grace, as his brother's. These attracted her; the other repelled her. She realized for the first time that aversion and attraction ran side by side; that the boundary-line was thin between them. The thought was an unpleasant one, and she shrank from it. Supposing this had been Joss beside her, ten, twenty years ago? She shuttered the comparison at the back of her mind, fearing the picture it conjured. She knew now why she hated her uncle.
His voice broke in upon her thoughts. "What are you looking at?" he said. She lifted her eyes to the scene in front of her. "I happened to notice your hands," she said briefly; "they are like your brother's. How far do we go across the moor? Isn't that the high road winding away yonder?"
"We strike it lower down, and miss two or three miles of it. So you notice a man's hands, do you? I should never have believed it of you. You're a woman after all, then, and not a half-fledged farm-boy. Are you going to tell me why you've sat in your room for four days without speaking, or do you want me to guess? Women love to be mysterious."
"There's no mystery in it. You asked me last time we met if I knew why my aunt looked like a living ghost. Those were your words, weren't they? Well, I know now, that's all."
Jem watched her with curious eyes, and then he whistled again.
"Drink's a funny thing," he said, after a moment or two. "I got drunk once, in Amsterdam, the time I ran away to sea. I remember hearing a church clock strike half past nine in the evening, and I was sitting on the floor with my arms round a pretty red-haired girl. The next thing I knew, it was seven in the following morning, and I was lying on my back in the gutter, without any boots or breeches. I often wonder what I did during those ten hours. I've thought and thought, but I'm damned if I can remember."
"That's very fortunate for you," said Mary. "Your brother is not so lucky. When he gets drunk he finds his memory instead of losing it."
The pony slacked in his stride, and she flicked at him with the reins. "If he's alone he can talk to himself," she continued; "it wouldn't have much effect on the walls of Jamaica Inn. This time he was not alone, though. I happened to be there when he woke from his stupor. And he'd been dreaming."
"And when you heard one of his dreams, you shut yourself up in your bedroom for four days, is that it?" said Jem.
"That's as near as you'll ever get to it," she replied.
He leaned over her suddenly, and took the reins out of her hands.
"You don't look where you're going," he said. "I told you this pony never stumbled, but it doesn't mean you have to drive him into a block of granite the size of a cannonball. Give him to me." She sank back in the jingle and allowed him to drive. It was true, she had lacked concentration, and deserved his reproach. The pony picked up his feet and broke into a trot.
"What are you going to do about it?" said Jem.
Mary shrugged her shoulders. "I haven't made up my mind," she said. "I have to consider Aunt Patience. You don't expect me to tell you, do you?"
"Why not? I hold no brief for Joss."
"You're his brother, and that's enough for me. There are many gaps in the story, and you fit remarkably well into some of them."
"Do you think I'd waste my time working for my brother?"
"There'd be little waste of time, from what I've seen. There's profit enough and to spare in his business, and no payment in return for his goods. Dead men tell no tales, Jem Merlyn."
"No, but dead ships do, when they run ashor
e in a fair wind. It's lights a vessel looks for, Mary, when she's seeking harbor. Have you ever seen a moth flutter to a candle, and singe his wings? A ship will do the same to a false light. It may happen once, twice, three times perhaps; but the fourth time a dead ship stinks to heaven, and the whole country is up in arms, and wants to know the reason why. My brother has lost his own rudder by now, and he's heading for the shore himself."
"Will you keep him company?"
"I? What have I to do with him? He can run his own head into the noose. I may have helped myself to baccy now and then, and I've run cargoes, but I'll tell you one thing, Mary Yellan, and you can believe it or not, as the mood takes you: I've never killed a man--yet."
He cracked the whip savagely over his pony's head, and the animal broke into a gallop. "There's a ford ahead of us, where that hedge runs away to the east. We cross the river, and come out on the Launceston road half a mile on. Then we've seven miles or more before we reach the town. Are you getting tired?"
She shook her head. "There's bread and cheese in the basket under the seat," he said, "and an apple or two, and some pears. You'll be hungry directly. So you think I wreck ships, do you, and stand on the shore and watch men drown? And then put my hands into their pockets afterwards, when they're swollen with water? It makes a pretty picture."
Whether his anger was pretended or sincere she could not say, but his mouth was set firm, and there was a flaming spot of color high on his cheekbone.
"You haven't denied it yet, have you?" she said.
He looked down at her with insolence, half contemptuous, half amused, and he laughed as though she were a child without knowledge. She hated him for it, and with a sudden intuition she knew the question that was forming itself, and her hands grew hot.
"If you believe it of me, why do you drive with me today to Launceston?" he said.
He was ready to mock her; an evasion or a stammered reply would be a triumph for him, and she steeled herself to gaiety.
"For the sake of your bright eyes, Jem Merlyn," she said. "I ride with you for no other reason," and she met his glance without a tremor.
He laughed at that, and shook his head, and fell to whistling again; and all at once there was ease between them, and a certain boyish familiarity. The very boldness of her words had disarmed him; he suspected nothing of the weakness that lay behind them, and for the moment they were companions without the strain of being man and woman.
They came now to the high road, and the jingle rattled along behind the trotting pony, with the two stolen horses clattering in tow. The rain-clouds swept across the sky, threatening and low, but as yet no drizzle fell from them and the hills that rose in the distance from the moors were clear of mist. Mary thought of Francis Davey in Altarnun away to the left of her, and she wondered what he would say to her when she told him her story. He would not advise a waiting game again. Perhaps he would not thank her if she broke in upon his Christmas; and she pictured the silent vicarage, peaceful and still among the cluster of cottages that formed the village, and the tall church tower standing like a guardian above the roofs and chimneys.
There was a haven of rest for her in Altarnun--the very name spelled like a whisper--and the voice of Francis Davey would mean security and a forgetting of trouble. There was a strangeness about him that was disturbing and pleasant. That picture he had painted; and the way he had driven his horse; and how he had waited upon her with deft silence; and strange above all was the gray and somber stillness of his room that bore no trace of his personality. He was a shadow of a man, and now she was not with him he lacked substance. He had not the male aggression of Jem beside her, he was without flesh and blood. He was no more than two white eyes and a voice in the darkness.
The pony shied suddenly at a gap in the hedge, and Jem's loud curse woke her with a jar from the privacy of her thoughts.
She threw a shot at a venture. "Are there churches hereabouts?" she asked him. "I've lived like a heathen these last months, and I hate the feeling."
"Get out of it, you blasted fool, you!" shouted Jem, stabbing at the pony's mouth. "Do you want to land us all in the ditch? Churches, do you say? How in the hell should I know about churches? I've only been inside one once, and then I was carried in my mother's arms and I came out Jeremiah. I can't tell you anything about them. They keep the gold plate locked up, I believe."
"There's a church at Altarnun, isn't there?" she said. "That's within walking distance of Jamaica Inn. I might go there tomorrow."
"Far better eat your Christmas dinner with me. I can't give you turkey, but I can always help myself to a goose from old Farmer Tuckett at North Hill. He's getting so blind he'd never know that she was missing."
"Do you know who has the living at Altarnun, Jem Merlyn?"
"No, I do not, Mary Yellan. I've never had any truck with parsons, and I'm never likely to. They're a funny breed of man altogether. There was a parson at North Hill when I was a boy; he was very short-sighted, and they say one Sunday he mislaid the sacramental wine and gave the parish brandy instead. The village heard in a body what was happening, and, do you know, that church was so packed, there was scarcely room to kneel; there were people standing up against the walls, waiting for their turn. The parson couldn't make it out at all; there'd never been so many in his church before, and he got up in the pulpit with his eyes shining behind his spectacles, and he preached a sermon about the flock returning to the fold. Brother Matthew it was told me the story; he went up twice to the altar-rails and the parson never noticed. It was a great day in North Hill. Get out the bread and the cheese, Mary; my belly is sinking away to nothing."
Mary shook her head at him and sighed. "Have you ever been serious about anything in your life?" she said. "Do you respect nothing and nobody?"
"I respect my inside," he told her, "and it's calling out for food. There's the box, under my feet. You can eat the apple, if you're feeling religious. There's an apple comes in the Bible, I know that much."
It was a hilarious and rather heated cavalcade that clattered into Launceston at half past two in the afternoon. Mary had thrown trouble and responsibility to the winds, and, in spite of her firm resolution of the early morning, she had melted to Jem's mood and given herself to gaiety.
Away from the shadow of Jamaica Inn her natural youth and her spirits returned, and her companion noticed this in a flash and played upon them.
She laughed because she must, and because he made her; and there was an infection in the air caught from the sound and bustle of the town, a sense of excitement and well-being; a sense of Christmas. The streets were thronged with people, and the little shops were gay. Carriages, and carts, and coaches too, were huddled together in the cobbled square. There was color, and life, and movement; the cheerful crowd jostled one another before the market stalls, turkeys and geese scratched at the wooden barrier that penned them, and a woman in a green cloak held apples above her head and smiled, the apples shining and red like her cheeks. The scene was familiar and dear; Helston had been like this, year after year at Christmas-time; but there was a brighter, more abandoned spirit about Launceston; the crowd was greater and the voices mixed. There was space here, and a certain sophistication; Devonshire and England were across the river. Farmers from the next county rubbed shoulders with countrywomen from East Cornwall; and there were shopkeepers, and pastrycooks, and little apprentice-boys who pushed in and out among the crowd with hot pasties and sausagemeat on trays. A lady in a feathered hat and a blue velvet cape stepped down from her coach and went into the warmth and light of the hospitable White Hart, followed by a gentleman in a padded greatcoat of powder-gray. He lifted his eyeglass to his eyes and strutted after her for all the world like a turkey-cock himself.
This was a gay and happy world to Mary. The town was set on the bosom of a hill, with a castle framed in the center, like a tale from old history. There were trees clustered here, and sloping fields, and water gleamed in the valley below. The moors were remote; they stretched away
out of sight behind the town, and were forgotten. Launceston had reality; these people were alive. Christmas came into its own again in the town and had a place among the cobbled streets, the laughing jostling crowd, and the watery sun struggled from his hiding-place behind the gray banked clouds to join festivity. Mary wore the handkerchief Jem had given her. She even unbent so far as to permit him to tie the ends under her chin. They had stabled the pony and jingle at the top of the town, and now Jem pushed his way through the crowd, leading his two stolen horses, Mary following at his heels. He led the way with confidence, making straight for the main square, where the whole of Launceston gathered, and the booths and tents of the Christmas fair stood end to end. There was a place roped off from the fair for the buying and selling of livestock, and the ring was surrounded by farmers and countrymen, gentlemen too, and dealers from Devon and beyond. Mary's heart beat faster as they approached the ring; supposing there was someone from North Hill here, or a farmer from a neighboring village, surely they would recognize the horses? Jem wore his hat at the back of his head, and he whistled. He looked back at her once, and winked his eye. The crowd parted and made way for him. Mary stood on the outskirts, behind a fat market-woman with a basket, and she saw Jem take his place among a group of men with ponies, and he nodded to one or two of them, and ran his eye over their ponies, bending as he did so to a flare to light his pipe. He looked cool and unperturbed. Presently a flashy-looking fellow with a square hat and cream breeches thrust his way through the crowd and crossed over to the horses. His voice was loud and important, and he kept hitting his boot with a crop, and then pointing to the ponies. From his tone, and his air of authority, Mary judged him to be a dealer. Soon he was joined by a little lynx-eyed man in a black coat, who now and again jogged his elbow and whispered in his ear.