CHAPTER XXIX
IN THE DARK
Had John Turner been able to see round the curve of his own vast cheekshe might have perceived the answer to his proposition lurking in a littlecontemptuous smile at the corner of Miriam's closed lips. Loo saw itthere, and turned again to the contemplation of the clock on themantelpiece which had already given a preliminary click.
Thus they waited until the minutes should elapse, and Turner, with asmile of simple pleasure at their ready acquiescence in his suggestion,probably reflected behind his vacuous face that silence rarely impliesindecision.
When at last the clock struck, Loo turned to him with a laugh and a shakeof the head as if the refusal were so self-evident that to put it intowords were a work of supererogation.
"Who makes the offer?" he asked.
Turner smiled on him with visible approbation as upon a quick and worthyfoe who fought a capable fight with weapons above the board.
"No matter--since you are disposed to refuse. The money is in my hands,as is the offer. Both are good. Both will hold good till to-morrowmorning."
Septimus Marvin gave a little exclamation of approval. He had beensitting by the table looking from one to the other over his spectacleswith the eager smile of the listener who understands very little, andwhile wishing that he understood more, is eager to put in a word ofapproval or disapprobation on safe and general lines. It was quiteobvious to John Turner, who had entered the room in ignorance on thispoint, that Marvin knew nothing of Barebone's heritage in France whileMiriam knew all.
"There is one point," he said, "which is perhaps scarcely worthmentioning. The man who makes the offer is not _only the mostunscrupulous_, but is likely to become one of the most powerful men inEur--men I know. There is a reverse side to the medal. There always is areverse side to the good things of this world. Should you refuse hisridiculously generous offer you will make an enemy for life--one who isnearing that point where men stop at nothing."
Turner glanced at Miriam again. Her clean-cut features had a stonystillness and her eyes looked obstinately at the clock. The banker movedin his chair as if suddenly conscious that it was time to go.
"Do not," he said to Barebone, "be misled or mislead yourself into afalse estimate of the strength of your own case. The offer I make youdoes not in any way indicate that you are in a strong position. It merelyshows the indolence of a man naturally open-handed, who would alwaysrather pay than fight."
"Especially if the money is not his own."
"Yes," admitted Turner, stolidly, "that is so. Especially if the money isnot his own. I dare say you know the weakness of your own case: othersknow it too. A portrait is not much to go on. Portraits are so easilycopied; so easily changed."
He rose as he spoke and shook hands with Marvin.
Then he turned to Miriam, but he did not meet her glance. Last of all heshook hands with Barebone.
"Sleep on it," he said. "Nothing like sleeping on a question. I amstaying at 'The Black Sailor.' See you tomorrow."
He had come, had transacted his business and gone, all in less than anhour, with an extraordinary leisureliness almost amounting to indolence.He had lounged into the house, and now he departed without haste orexplanation. Never hurry, never explain, was the text upon which JohnTurner seemed to base the sleepy discourse of his life. For each of us isa living sermon to his fellows, and, it is to be feared, the majority arewarnings.
Turner had dragged on his thick overcoat, not without Loo's assistance,and, with the collar turned up about his ears, he went out into thenight, leaving the three persons whom he had found in the drawing-roomstanding in the hall looking at the door which he closed decisivelybehind him. "Seize your happiness while you can," he had urged. "Ifnot--" and the decisive closing of a door on his departing heel said therest.
The clocks struck ten. It was not worth while going back to thedrawing-room. All Farlingford was abed in those days by nine o'clock.Barebone took his coat and prepared to follow Turner. Miriam was alreadylighting her bedroom candle. She bade the two men good night and wentslowly upstairs. As she reached her own room she heard the front doorclosed behind Loo and the rattle of the chain under the uncertain fingersof Septimus Marvin. The sound of it was like the clink of that otherchain by which Barebone had made fast his boat to the tottering post onthe river-wall.
Miriam's room was at the front of the house, and its square Georgianwindows faced eastward across the river to the narrow spit of marsh-landand the open sea beyond it. A crescent of moon far gone on the wane,yellow and forlorn, was rising from the sea. An uncertain path of lightlay across the face of the far-off tide-way--broken by a narrow strip ofdarkness and renewed again close at hand across the wide river almost tothe sea-wall beneath the window. From this window no house could be seenby day--nothing but a vast expanse of water and land hardly less leveland unbroken. No light was visible on sea or land now, nothing but thewaning moon in a cold clear sky.
Miriam threw herself, all dressed, on her bed with the abandonment of onewho is worn out by some great effort, and buried her face in the pillow.
Barebone's way lay to the left along the river-wall by the side of thecreek. Turner had gone to the right, taking the path that led down theriver to the old quay and the village. Whereas Barebone must turn hisback on Farlingford to reach the farm which still crouches behind ashelter of twisted oaks and still bears the name of Maiden's Grave;though the name is now nothing but a word. For no one knows who themaiden was, or where her grave, or what brought her to it.
The crescent moon gave little light, but Loo knew his way beneath thestunted cedars and through the barricade of ilex drawn round the rectoryon the northern side. His eyes, trained to darkness, saw the shadowy formof a man awaiting him beneath the cedars almost as soon as the door wasclosed.
He went toward him, perceiving with a sudden misgiving that it was notJohn Turner. A momentary silhouette against the northern sky showed thatit was Colville, come at last.
"Quick--this way!" he whispered, and taking Barebone's arm he led himthrough the bushes. He halted in a little open space between the ilex andthe river-wall, which is fifteen feet high at the meeting of the creekand the larger stream. "There are three men, who are not Farlingford men,on the outer side of the sea-wall below the rectory landing. Turner musthave placed them there. I'll be even with him yet. There is a largefishing-smack lying at anchor inside the Ness--just across the marsh. Itis the 'Petite Jeanne.' I found this out while you were in there. I couldhear your voices."
"Could you hear what he said?"
"No," answered Colville, with a sudden return to his old manner, easy andsympathetic. "No--this is no time for joking, I can tell you that. Youhave had a narrow escape, I assure you, Barebone. That man, the Captainof the 'Petite Jeanne,' is well known. There are plenty of people inFrance who want to get quietly rid of some family encumbrance--a man inthe way, you understand, a son too many, a husband too much, a stepsonwho will inherit--the world is full of superfluities. Well, the Captainof the 'Petite Jeanne' will take them a voyage for their health to theIceland fisheries. They are so far and so remote--the Iceland fisheries.The climate is bad and accidents happen. And if the 'Petite Jeanne'returns short-handed, as she often does, the other boats do the same. Itis only a question of a few entries in the custom-house books at Fecamp.Do you see?"
"Yes," admitted Barebone, thoughtfully. "I see."
"I suppose it suggested itself to you when you were on board, and that iswhy you took the first chance of escape."
"Well, hardly; but I escaped, so it does not matter."
"No." acquiesced Colville. "It doesn't matter. But how are we to get outof this? They are waiting for us under the sea-wall. Is there a wayacross the marsh?"
"Yes--I know a way. But where do you want to go to-night?"
"Out of this," whispered Colville, eagerly. "Out of Farlingford andSuffolk before the morning if we can. I tell you there is a Frenchgunboat at Harwich, and another in the North Sea. It may be chance
and itmay not. But I suspect there is a warrant out against you. And, failingthat, there is the 'Petite Jeanne' hanging about waiting to kidnap you asecond time. And Turner's at the bottom of it, damn him!"
Again Dormer Colville allowed a glimpse to appear of another man quitedifferent from the easy, indolent man-of-the-world, the well-dressedadventurer of a day when adventure was mostly sought in drawing-rooms,when scented and curled dandies were made or marred by women. For amoment Colville was roused to anger and seemed capable of manly action.But in an instant the humour passed and he shrugged his shoulders andgave a short, indifferent laugh beneath his breath.
"Come," he said, "lead the way and I will follow. I have been out heresince eight o'clock and it is deucedly cold. I followed Turner fromParis, for I knew he was on your scent. Once across the marsh we can talkwithout fear as we go along."
Barebone obeyed mechanically, leading the way through the bushes to thekitchen-garden and over an iron fencing on to the open marsh. Thisstretched inland for two miles without a hedge or other fence but thesunken dykes which intersected it across and across. Any knowing his waycould save two miles on the longer way by the only road connectingFarlingford with the mainland and tapping the great road that runs northand south a few miles inland.
There was no path, for few ever passed this way. By day, a solitaryshepherd watched his flocks here. By night the marsh was deserted. Acrosssome of the dykes a plank is thrown, the whereabouts of which isindicated by a post, waist-high, driven into the ground, easily enoughseen by day, but hard to find after dark. Not all the dykes have a plank,and for the most part the marsh is divided into squares, each onlyconnected at one point with its neighbour.
Barebone knew the way as well as any in Farlingford, and he struck outacross the thick grass which crunched briskly under the foot, for it wascoated with rime, and the icy wind blew in from the sea a freezing mist.Once or twice Barebone, having made a bee-line across from dyke to dyke,failed to strike the exact spot where the low post indicated a plank, andhad to pause and stoop down so as to find its silhouette against the sky.When they reached a plank he tried its strength with one foot and thenled the way across it, turning and waiting at the far end for Colville tofollow. It was unnecessary to warn him against a slip, for the plank wasno more than nine inches wide and shone white with rime. Each foot mustbe secure before its fellow was lifted.
Colville, always ready to fall in with a companion's humour, ever quickto understand the thoughts of others, respected his silence. Perhaps hewas not far from guessing the cause of it.
Loo was surprised to find that Dormer Colville was less antipathetic thanhe had anticipated. For the last month, night and day, he had dreadedColville's arrival, and now that he was here he was almost glad to seehim; almost glad to quit Farlingford. And his heart was hot with angeragainst Miriam.
Turner's offer had at all events been worth considering. Had he beenalone when it was made he would certainly have considered it; he wouldhave turned it this way and that. He would have liked to play with it asa cat plays with a mouse, knowing all the while that he must refuse inthe end. Perhaps Turner had made the offer in Miriam's presence,expecting to find in her a powerful ally. It was only natural for him tothink this. Ever since the beginning, men have assigned to women the roleof the dissuader, the drag, the hinderer. It is always the woman,tradition tells us, who persuades the man to be a coward, to stay athome, to shirk a difficult or a dangerous duty.
As a matter of fact, Turner had made this mistake. He had always wonderedwhy Miriam Liston elected to live at Farlingford when with her wealth andconnections, both in England and France, she might live a gayer lifeelsewhere. There must, he reflected, be some reason for it.
When whosoever does anything slightly unconventional or leaves undonewhat custom and gossip make almost obligatory, a relation or a mereinterfering neighbour is always at hand to wag her head and say theremust be some reason for it. Which means, of course, one specific reason.And the worst of it is that she is nearly always right.
John Turner, laboriously putting two small numerals together, after hismanner, had concluded that Loo Barebone was the reason. Even banking may,it seems, be carried on without the loss of all human weakness,especially if the banker be of middle age, unmarried, and deprived by anunromantic superfluity of adipose tissue of the possibility of livingthrough a romance of his own. Turner had consented to countenance, if notactually to take part in, a nefarious scheme, to rid France and thepresent government of one who might easily bring about its downfall, oncertain conditions. Knowing quite well that Loo Barebone could take careof himself at sea, and was quite capable of effecting an escape if hedesired it, he had put no obstacle in the way of the usual voyage to theIceland fisheries. Since those days many governments in France haveinvented many new methods of disposing of a political foe. DormerColville was only anticipating events when he took away the character ofthe Captain of the "Petite Jeanne."
Turner had himself proposed this alternative method of securingBarebone's silence. He had even named the sum. He had seized theexcellent opportunity of laying it before Barebone in the quiet intimacyof the rectory drawing-room with Miriam in the soft lamp-light besidehim, with the scent of the violets at her breast mingling with the warmsmell of the wood fire.
And Barebone had laughed at the offer.