As soon as she had spoken she was sorry, and, like many a one before her who has spoken too hastily and too soon, she yearned for the words to be unsaid. It was too late, though, now. The damage had been done.
A strange expression crept upon the woman's face, and her great hollow eyes stared across the table in terror. Her mouth trembled, and her hand wandered to her throat. She looked fearful, haunted.
Mary pushed back her chair and knelt by her side. She put her arms round Aunt Patience, and held her close, and kissed her hair.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Don't be angry with me; I'm rude and impertinent. It's none of my business, and I've no right to question you, and I'm ashamed of myself. Please, please forget what I said."
Her aunt buried her face in her hands. She sat motionless, and paid no attention to her niece. For some minutes they sat there in silence, while Mary stroked her shoulder and kissed her hands.
Then Aunt Patience uncovered her face and looked down at her.
The fear had gone from her eyes, and she was calm. She took Mary's hands in hers and gazed into her face.
"Mary," she said, and her voice was hushed and low, scarcely above a whisper, "Mary, I can't answer your questions, for there's many I don't know the answer of myself. But because you are my niece, my own sister's child, I must give you a word of warning."
She glanced over her shoulder, as though she were afraid that Joss himself stood in the shadows behind the door.
"There's things that happen at Jamaica, Mary, that I've never dared to breathe. Bad things. Evil things. I can't never tell you; I can't even admit them to myself. Some of it in time you'll come to know. You can't avoid it, living here. Your Uncle Joss mixes with strange men, who follow a strange trade. Sometimes they come by night, and from your window above the porch you will hear footsteps, and voices, and knocking at the door. Your uncle lets them in, and he takes them along that passage to the room with the locked door. They go inside, and from my bedroom above I can hear the mutter of their voices through the long hours. Before dawn they are away, and no sign left that they have ever been. When they come, Mary, you will say nothing to me or to your Uncle Joss. You must lie in bed, and put your fingers to your ears. You must never question me, nor him, nor anyone, for if you came to guess but half of what I know, your hair would go gray, Mary, as mine has done, and you would tremble in your speech and weep by night, and all that lovely careless youth of yours would die, Mary, as mine has died."
Then she rose from the table and pushed aside her chair, and Mary heard her climb the staircase with heavy, faltering feet, and so along the landing to her room, and close the door.
Mary sat on the floor beside the empty chair, and she saw through the kitchen window that the sun had already disappeared behind the furthest hill, and that before many hours had passed the gray malevolence of a November dusk would have fallen upon Jamaica once again.
4
Joss Merlyn was away from home for nearly a week, and during that time Mary came to know something of the country.
Her presence was not required in the bar, for no one came to it when the landlord was from home, and, after giving her aunt a hand with the housework and in the kitchen, she was free to wander where she pleased. Patience Merlyn was no walker; she had no wish to stir beyond the chicken-run at the back of the inn, and she had no sense of direction. She had a vague idea of the names of the tors, for she had heard them mentioned by her husband, but where they were, and how anyone found them, she did not know. So Mary would strike off on her own at midday, with nothing but the sun to guide her and a certain deep-grained common sense which was her natural inheritance as a countrywoman.
The moors were even wilder than she had at first supposed. Like an immense desert they rolled from east to west, with tracks here and there across the surface and great hills breaking the skyline.
Where was their final boundary she could not tell, except that once, away to the westward, after climbing the highest tor behind Jamaica, she caught the silver shimmer of the sea. It was a silent, desolate country though, vast and untouched by human hand; on the high tors the slabs of stone leaned against one another in strange shapes and forms, massive sentinels who had stood there since the hands of God first fashioned them.
Some were shaped like giant furniture, with monstrous chairs and twisted tables; and sometimes the smaller crumbling stones lay on the summit of the hill like a giant himself, his huge, recumbent form darkening the heather and the coarse tufted grass. There were long stones that stood on end, balancing themselves in a queer miraculous way, as though they leaned against the wind; and there were flat altar-stones whose smooth and polished faces stared up towards the sky, awaiting a sacrifice that never came. Wild sheep dwelt on the high tors, and there were ravens too, and buzzards; the hills were homing places for all solitary things.
Black cattle grazed on the moors beneath, their careful feet treading the firm ground, and with inborn knowledge they avoided the tufted, tempting grass that was not grass at all, but soggy marsh that sighed and whispered. When the wind blew on the hills it whistled mournfully in the crevices of granite, and sometimes it shuddered like a man in pain.
Strange winds blew from nowhere; they crept along the surface of the grass, and the grass shivered; they breathed upon the little pools of rain in the hollowed stones, and the pools rippled. Sometimes the wind shouted and cried, and the cry echoed in the crevices, and moaned, and was lost again. There was a silence on the tors that belonged to another age; an age that is past and vanished as though it had never been, an age when man did not exist, but pagan footsteps trod upon the hills. And there was a stillness in the air, and a stranger, older peace, that was not the peace of God.
As Mary Yellan walked the moors, climbed the tors, and rested in the low dips beside the springs and streams, she thought about Joss Merlyn and what his boyhood must have been, and how he grew athwart like the stunted broom, with the bloom blown out of him by the north wind.
One day she crossed the East Moor, in the direction he had given her that first evening; and when she had gone some way and stood alone upon a ridge of down, surrounded on all sides by bleak moorland, she saw that the land descended to a deep and treacherous marsh, through which a brook burbled and sang. And rising beyond the marsh, away on the other side, pointing his great fingers to the sky, was a crag like a split hand coming sheer out of the moor, his surface molded in granite as though sculptured, his slope a venomous gray.
So this was Kilmar Tor; and somewhere among that solid mass of stone, where the ridges hid the sun, Joss Merlyn had been born, and his brother lived today. Below her in the marsh, Matthew Merlyn had been drowned. In her fancy she saw him stride across the high ground, whistling a song, the murmur of the brook in his ears, and somehow evening came upon him before he was aware, and his footsteps faltered as he turned in his tracks. In her fancy she watched him pause, and think a moment, and curse softly, and then with a shrug of his shoulders he plunged down into the mist, his confidence returning; but before he had taken five steps he felt the ground sag under his feet, and he stumbled, and fell, and suddenly he was up above his knees in weed and slime. He reached out for a tuft of grass, and it sank beneath his weight. He kicked with his feet and they would not answer him. He kicked once more, and one foot sucked itself free, but, as he plunged forward, reckless and panic-stricken, he trod deeper water still, and now he floundered helplessly, beating the weed with his hands. She heard him scream in terror, and a curlew rose from the marsh in front of him, flapping his wings and whistling his mournful cry. When the curlew had flown from sight, disappearing behind a ridge of land, the marsh was still again; only a few grass stems shivered in the wind, and there was silence.
Mary turned her back upon Kilmar, and began to run across the moor, stumbling among the heather and the stones, nor did she stop until the marsh had sunk beneath the level of the hill, and the crag itself was hidden. She had come further than she intended, and the way home was long.
It seemed an eternity before the last hill was conquered and behind her, and the tall chimneys of Jamaica Inn stood out before her above the winding road. As she crossed the yard she noticed with sinking heart that the stable door was open, and the pony was inside. Joss Merlyn had returned.
She opened the door as silently as possible, but it rubbed against the stone flags, and grated in protest. The sound rang in the quiet passage, and in a minute the landlord appeared from the back, bending his head under the beam. His shirtsleeves were rolled above his elbow, and he had a glass in his hand, and a cloth. He was, it seemed, in high good humor, for he shouted boisterously at Mary, and waved the glass.
"Well," he roared, "don't drop your face a mile at the sight of me. Aren't you pleased to see me? Did you miss me much?"
Mary made an effort to smile, and asked him if he had had a pleasant journey. "Pleasant be damned," he answered. "There was money in it, and that's all I care. I've not been staying in the palace with the King, if that's what you mean." He shouted with laughter at his joke, and his wife appeared behind his shoulder, simpering in harmony.
As soon as his laughter died away the smile faded from Aunt Patience's face, and the strained, haunted expression returned again, the fixed, almost idiot stare that she wore habitually in the presence of her husband.
Mary saw at once that the little freedom from care which her aunt had enjoyed during the past week was now no more, and she had again become the nervy, shattered creature of before.
Mary turned to go up the stairs to her room, when Joss called her. "Here," he said, "no skulking up there this evening. There'll be work for you in the bar, alongside of your uncle. Don't you know what day of the week it is?"
Mary paused to think. She was losing count of time. Was it Monday's coach she had taken? That made today Saturday. Saturday night. At once she realized what Joss Merlyn meant. Tonight there would be company at Jamaica Inn.
They came singly, the people of the moors, crossing the yard swiftly and silently, as though they had no wish to be seen. They lacked substance, in the dim light, and seemed no more than shadows as they skirted the wall and passed under the shelter of the porch to knock upon the door of the bar and gain admittance. Some carried lanterns, the fitful glare of which appeared to worry the bearers, for they attempted to screen the glow by covering it with their coats. One or two rode into the yard on ponies, whose hoofs rang sharply on the stones, and the clatter sounded strangely in the still night, followed as it was by the creaking of the stable door yawning on its hinges, and the low mutter of voices as the men led their ponies to the stalls. Others were yet more furtive, bearing neither flare nor lantern, but flitting across the yard with hats pulled low and coats muffled to the chin, betraying by the very secrecy of their movements their desire to remain unseen. The reason for stealth was not apparent, for any passing traveler upon the road could see that tonight Jamaica Inn gave hospitality. The light streamed from the windows, usually so shuttered and barred, and, as the evening darkened and the hours went by, the sound of voices rose upon the air. There was singing at times, and shouting, and the rumble of laughter, showing that those visitors to the inn who came so furtively, as if in shame, had lost their fear when under cover of the house, and once packed close to their companions in the bar, with pipes alight and glasses filled, had thrown all caution aside.
They were a strange assortment gathered there, grouped around Joss Merlyn in the bar. Securely separated by the counter itself, and half screened by a barrier of bottles and glasses, Mary could look down upon the company and remain unobserved. They straddled the stools and sprawled upon the benches; they leaned against the wall; they slouched beside the tables; and one or two, whose heads or stomachs were weaker than the rest, already lay full length upon the floor. They were dirty for the most part, ragged, ill-kept, with matted hair and broken nails; tramps, vagrants, poachers, thieves, cattle-stealers, and gypsies. There was a farmer who had lost his farm through bad management and dishonesty; a shepherd who had fired his master's rick; a horse-dealer who had been hounded out of Devon. One fellow was a cobbler in Launceston, and under cover of his trade passed stolen goods; he who lay in a drunken stupor on the floor was once mate of a Padstow schooner, and had run his ship ashore. The little man who sat in the far corner, biting his nails, was a Port Isaac fisherman, and rumor had it that he kept a store of gold rolled up in a stocking and hidden in the chimney of his cottage--but where the gold came from no one would say. There were men who lived nearby, under the very shadow of the tors, who had known no other country but moorland, marsh and granite; one had come walking without a lantern from the Crowdy Marsh beyond Roughtor, taking Brown Willy in his stride; another came from Cheesewring, and sat now with his face in a mug of ale, his boots on a table, side by side with the poor half-witted fellow who had stumbled up the lane from Dozmary. This last had a birthmark that ran the whole length of his face, blazing it purple, and he kept plucking at it with his hands, and pulling out his cheek, so that Mary, who stood in line with him, for all the bottles that divided them, turned sick and nearly faint at the sight of him; and what with the stale drink smell, and the reek of tobacco, and the foul atmosphere of crowded unwashed bodies, she felt a physical disgust rise up in her, and she knew she would give way to it if she stayed there long. Luckily she did not have to move among them; her duty was to stand behind the bar, hidden as much as possible, and then do what washing and cleaning of glasses was required, refilling them from tap or bottle, while Joss Merlyn himself handed them to his customers, or lifted the flap of the bar and strode out into the room, laughing at one, flinging a coarse word at another, patting someone on the shoulder, jerking his head at another. After the first hilarious outburst, the first curious stare, the shrug of the shoulder and the chuckle, the company gathered in the inn ignored Mary. They accepted her as niece of the landlord, a sort of serving-maid of Merlyn's wife, as she was introduced, and, though one or two of the younger men would have spoken to her and plagued her, they were wary of the eye of the landlord himself, fearing that any familiarity on their part might anger him, as he had probably brought her to Jamaica for his own amusement. So Mary was left undisturbed, greatly to her relief, though had she known the reason for their reticence she would have walked out of the bar that night in shame and loathing.
Her aunt did not appear before the company, though Mary was aware of her shadow behind the door at times, and a footstep in the passage, and once she caught sight of her frightened eyes peering through the crack in the door. The evening seemed interminable, and Mary longed for release. The air was so thick with smoke and breath that it was hard to see across the room, and to her weary, half-closed eyes, the faces of the men loomed shapeless and distorted, all hair and teeth, their mouths much too large for their bodies, while those who had drunk their fill and could take no more lay on the benches or the floor like dead men, their faces in their hands.
Those who remained sufficiently sober to stand had crowded round a dirty little blackguard from Redruth, who had established himself wit of the assembly. The mine where he had worked was now in ruins, and he had taken to the road as tinker, pedlar, bagman, and had stored up in consequence a string of loathsome songs, gleaned perhaps from the bowels of the black earth where he had once entombed himself, and with these jewels he now provided entertainment to the company at Jamaica Inn.
The laughter that greeted his sallies nearly shook the roof, topped, of course, by the bellow of the landlord himself, and to Mary there was something appalling in this ugly, screaming laughter, which in some strange way, held not a note of mirth, but echoed down the dark stone passages and into the empty rooms above like a tortured thing. The pedlar was making bait of the wretched idiot from Dozmary, who, crazy from drink, had no control of himself, and could not rise from the floor, where he squatted like an animal. They lifted him onto a table, and the pedlar made him repeat the words of his songs, complete with actions, amid the frenzy of laughter from the crowd; and the poor beas
t, excited by the applause that greeted him, jigged up and down on the table, whinnying delight, plucking at his spotted purple birthmark with a broken fingernail. Mary could bear it no longer. She touched her uncle on the shoulder, and he turned to her, his face blotched with the heat of the room and streaming with perspiration.
"I can't stand this," she said. "You'll have to attend to your friends yourself. I'm going upstairs to my room."
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve and stared down at her. She was surprised to see that, although he had been drinking during the evening, he was himself sober, and even if he was the ringleader of this riotous, crazy company, he knew what he was doing. "Had enough of it, have you?" he said. "Think yourself a little bit too good for such as we? I'll tell you this, Mary. You've had an easy time behind the bar, and you ought to go down on your knees and thank me for it. Because you're my niece they've let you alone, my dear, but if you hadn't had that honor--by God, there wouldn't be much left of you now!" He shouted with laughter, and pinched her cheek between his finger and thumb, hurting her. "Get out, then," he said; "it's close on midnight anyway, and I don't want you. You'll lock your door tonight, Mary, and pull down your blind. Your aunt's been in bed an hour with the blanket drawn over her head."
He lowered his voice; bending down to her ear and seizing her wrist, he doubled it behind her back, until she cried out in pain.
"All right," he said; "that's like a foretaste of punishment, and you know what to expect. Keep your mouth shut and I'll treat you like a lamb. It doesn't do to be curious at Jamaica Inn, and I'll have you remember that." He was not laughing now, but stared down at her, frowning, as though he would read her thoughts. "You're not a fool like your aunt," he said slowly; "that's the curse of it. You've got a clever little monkey face, and a ferreting monkey mind, and you're not easily scared. But I tell you this, Mary Yellan; I'll break that mind of yours if you let it go astray, and I'll break your body too. Now go upstairs to bed, and let's hear no more of you tonight."