Читать книгу The Evil That Men Do - M.P. Shiel - Страница 4

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It was on the road between Cromer and Norwich—a good road, as many cyclists know, but with some steep bits, especially toward Cromer end, and there between Horsham, St. Fay's and Aylsham.

It is late autumn, and all those woods of Stratton, Strawless, and Blickling, are whirls of dead leaves. The sun is setting—bleakly setting; and the storm winds sweeping south wrinkle the puddles in the road, along which one may walk miles and not meet a soul.

Certainly, the country has a desolate aspect this evening; the ground, turned since harvest for the first wheat sowing, looks black and dead with wet. Hardly a tuft of chrysanthemum in some sheltered nook still braves the bleakness of wintry winds. The ferns, and heather of Roughton Heath look scorched by the breath of a fire. The wind seems to have a grey colour.

Go still further north along the road, and you will find all that breadth of sand, where the village girls "paddle" through the summer and catch sea anemones, swallowed up now by the sea. It is blowing great guns inland, and the flat-bottomed crab boats are perched in nooks of the cliffs beyond the range of the breakers.

Beyond Roughton and Aylsham, a motor car comes scorching at a speed of not less than thirty miles an hour; for the wind blows keen and, moreover, the driver of this particular twin cylinder is famous for his illegal pace.

His car is a specially "chic" turn-out, an elongated mass of double phaeton type, brown-painted, upholstered in green leather, with French Dunlops, and lightly pitches forward all that weight over the slushy road a purring Juggernaut—toward Norwich, toward London.

On the front seat are two men, thick as bears in a rug, gloves, and furred coats. Only their noses are cold, but even that little they resent: they do not know that within two hours they will be cold all over.

"Dimmed cold," says one.

"Hang the silly storm," says the other.

They are the financier, James Drayton, and his right-hand man, McCalmont. They have motored together from London to Sheffield to attend a conference on the pooling of some steel concern, but when the conference was over, instead of returning direct to London, Drayton has said to McCalmont's surprise, that he wished to see someone at Cromer, and at Cromer they have accordingly arrived about four that afternoon. But whom it could have been that Drayton wished to see at Cromer, McCalmont, even now, cannot guess. Drayton apparently had "seen" no one at Cromer. He did separate a few minutes from McCalmont, but only to go into the poste restante, where he got a letter, which, after reading, he tore up. Why, therefore, they have made this detour to the east of England, McCalmont is still wondering. Drayton must have had some reason.

In silence they pitch and slip ahead. Steadily hums the car, the rough wind instruments make music of dead marches about them, the sun has set and darkness gathers fast.

James Drayton is a big man, with a handsome, large face, florid and freckled, a black beard, and rather thick lips, whose pressure is visible at the parting of the moustache. He, too, would do very well for Charlemagne or a sea-king, as we said of Captain Denner, of the Africa, whose image he is. His eyes have a hard, aggressive look, and his appearance somehow tells you that he is a modern city man to the finger tips, who knows the world familiarly, uses it, and perhaps abuses it.

They are now at the elevated ground about Ingworth, whence they can see the darkling valley of the Bure on either hand, and black before them the woods of Blickling. It is a place where many a spill has taken place on account of two nasty turnings where the road crosses bridges, but Drayton proves that he knows the locality by altering his change-speed gear. The car hastens slower, and neatly negotiates the ticklish bits.

At the second turning it splashes a man on the road. He is a tramp—at least, he is tramping. A little bundle in a red handkerchief hangs from a stick over his Shoulder. He has no jacket this inclement night; his boots are ruined; misery is in his eyes, bitterness in his pressed lips. His name is Robert Hartwell.

And because of the slowing-down of the motor, and because some greyness still lingers in the dark, therefore Hartwell sees for a moment that face of Drayton, though Drayton and McCalmont do not observe Hartwell. And Hartwell thinks to himself, "Well, that man might be my brother!—ah, but you seem to be happier than I, my friend!"

The motor vanishes down the hill towards Blickling, the lessening voice of its flight still haunting Hartwell's ear drum like a wasp—till that, too, is gone. And on he tramps, muttering bitter at heart, in the same direction as they—towards Norwich, towards London, and the tortoise shall yet beat the hare.

Past the mill, past the farm among the trees, the bridge, the old gabled manor-house, hedges loaded with the storm, heron, crop and grebe by the solitary pool, with bat and white owl in the air, the strange screams of madness in the winds that now fill a darkness unrelieved by moon or star—Hartwell continually puts his feet into puddles without seeing them and sounds come from his chest!

Meanwhile, the motor has not gone far upon the main road, for soon after crossing the Bure, it has turned aside into rather obscure country tending to bracken and heath, Drayton having said to McCalmont: "There ought to be a place just in there somewhere, which I remember from long ago. Suppose we go and get a glass of ale, and light up."

McCalmont is surprised, for there is champagne on board, if Drayton is thirsty, and it is surely not necessary to go to a tavern to "light up!" but he say, "As you like," and soon Drayton takes a lane to the left.

A mile in this direction, and they come, to a house behind the shoulder of a hill—a rather high house, black with age, with a physiognomy both picturesque and sinister. The roofs are quaint, on different levels, some quite small; there are broken external steps; some of the windows are broader than long, latticed, small or irregularly placed, and two are dormer windows. Along the front runs a gut with some water trickling among rocks, and beyond this a hillside of rocks, pines, and a couple of old huts. Some special dismalness here causes McCalmont to shiver at the cold, as they draw up.

"What place is it?" he asks.

"I think it is called 'The Anchor,'" says Drayton.

Some rain begins to be mixed with the wind as they go into a bar parlour, with a floor of earth stamped hard, and sanded. The light is dim, but a turf fire burns brightly in the grate. Only one man is there, a laborer, with his tankard on the bench beside him; and from his happy posture one may conjecture him not sober. He is the driver of a manure cart whose horse is enduring all the storm yonder at the house side. He has still a long way to fare, past Aylsham, almost on to Marsham, and the entrance of the rich men rouses him. He pulls himself together, braves the outer night, mounts and sets off, not uncomforted, for he has a can of beer with him. We shall overtake him, again be overtaken by him, and again overtake him.

Meanwhile, the landlord has drawn some cider for Drayton. Cider is not McCalmont's taste, but Drayton duly sips his cider.

"By the way, landlord," says he presently, "just take me to a room: I want to write a letter."

McCalmont is really surprised now. Why on earth—But Drayton knows what he is about: he knows that Letty, the landlord's daughter, is listening behind the inner door, hears what he says, and will act accordingly.

Barnes, the landlord, has never before seen Drayton, nor Drayton Barnes; but Letty and Drayton have met this summer on Cromer pier.

Drayton says to his friend: "Shan't be long," and Barnes says to Drayton: "This way, sir."

Barnes is a powerful man with a red beard, and a constant frown. He has a certain air of self-importance above his station, as of "one who has come down." He and Drayton mount some creaking stairs; some paper and two candles are placed on a table in a dingy old-timbered room, then Barnes retires.

Drayton, however, writes no letter, but waits, and in a minute Letty looks in. She is twenty or so, middle-sized, fair, plump, and pretty—not the prettiness of a doll—there is character in her face. She is neatly dressed in grey and has quite the air and speech of a lady, save for a countrified word here or there. Her hair is firmly built, she has some jewellery, watch and chain, and smells of lavender, as Drayton puts a kiss on her cheek.

"We mustn't talk here," she whispers, "come—"

She leads him by the hand through darkness down a back stair into the open. Nothing is said till they are beyond the kitchen garden, the stable, the fowl house, the pigs. Then there is a hedge with a gate, then a plank bridging a rill, then a fir plantation. Among the firs they stand.

Rain smites their faces, winds catch away their words. Now, too, there is a vague sound of thunder somewhere, but they heed none of these things. Each is fully occupied by the other.

"We have only a few minutes," says Letty Barnes.

"What's it all about, my girl?" answers Drayton. "I got your letter at the Cromer poste restante, but you are cool to expect a man like me to be running after you."

"Oh, you drop all pretence of love, then, I see?" says Letty.

Drayton puts his arm round her waist.

"Kiss your old man. I love you all right, girlie—honestly, I do, but you mustn't be a bore, Letty. I am prepared to do a lot for you, if you only know how to manage me—"

"But I do know how to manage you, as you are going to see! I have found out! Not by begging, but by commanding! With all your experience, you seem to know very little about women, really; and as to me, you don't know me one little bit! I look like a lamb, don't I? Aren't you really going to marry me, then, after all?"

"Don't be a goose, Letty; don't be a goose."

"You did promise though, I think, didn't you?"

"Let me see: I forget now."

"Ah, a great scoundrel!"

"Little Letty, little Letty."

"A bitter devil, James Drayton!"

"Let not your angry passions rise, my Letty! I'm a sixty-horse-power for angry passions myself, you know."

"And I! and I! and my father!—when he finds out. Do you think, then, that you will be getting off scot free this time? How silly! We are not common people! Compared to a clown like you, we are respectable folk, though poor. You dare, James Drayton! Pity yourself, if you won't—pity—me—"

She suddenly covered her face, and the winds bore away one sob.

"My good girl," says Drayton, "don't cry, because crying depresses me; and don't threaten me, because I don't like it, so don't do it."

"Selfish brute! I never knew what it was to hate—"

"Look here; be quick. What; is it you want with me?"

"Keep your promise!"

"That all you got to say for yourself?

"What happens to you, if you fail to honor a signed promise to pay at three months' sight for value received, James? You become a dead man commercially, don't you? Well, your promise to me is more binding in my sight than a thousand pieces of paper, and your failure to keep it shall have the same penalty, my friend—death—social death—"

"Pooh! I am going—"

"No, don't go. I didn't make you come here to quarrel, and waste words, but to tell you that you are quite in my power. I have discovered about your engagement to Lady Methwold; you are to be married in three months, aren't you? But listen to this other fact: I have taken a trip to your place, Corton Chantry—"

"You!" whispers Drayton; and now his face is suddenly pallid.

"Ah, that touches you near, James," says Letty. "Yes, I have been to Corton. It is only nine miles from here, you know. You must be a scoundrel, really. I will marry you, but within seven months from now I shall be divorced from you. I shouldn't live with you for all the crowns—"

"You been to Corton, girl! What ever for?"

"I don't quite know why: some instinct took me. I had heard that you kept the place running wild, with only one daft man, named Steve Anderson, to look after it. That stirred my curiosity, for lately I have believed you capable of any villainy. So I went, and I heard screams—"

"By gad!"

"Yes, screams—a woman's—in that north tower—"

"You little beggar!"

"Take care! you touch me! you dare! Look here—can you see?—this is a letter which I have ready to send to Lady Methwold—"

Drayton is a man of action, and the instant that white object appears through the murk, he makes a catch at it. His hand meets Letty Barnes' wrist and seizes it. But he has not to do with a weakling. Letty is strong, and they proceed to fight like two men, though there is no reason why they should, really, for if this letter be got from Letty, she can surely write another, but they are speedily in that state of mind in which men no longer reason.

Passion possesses them, pants in their breath, stares in their eyes.

"Let it—go you—shall!" pants Drayton, stooped to her hand; but Letty's fingers are a vice. Though if it were less dark, one would see her failing, as with bitten lip and many a jerk and stumble she endures that rough usage to which Drayton is subjecting her.

And every moment, as they fight, up and up climbs the temperature of their rage. The striving for that letter becomes a mania. Where will it end?

This way frenzy lies. But neither will yield and their breaths grow louder than the winds.

"Give it—up you—shall—"

"No, you—devil—"

But Letty is white; her hands are sore and burning; she feels herself going, going; and now she sends out one shriek upon the night.

McCalmont, who is pacing in the tavern-bar, awaiting Drayton, says:

"What's that?"

"Where?" asks Barnes, the landlord.

"Didn't I hear something like a cry somewhere?"

"Ey, it's the wind," says Barnes; "rough night, rough night. I'd not care to be out on the road, sir."

But by that cry of Letty's, Drayton has been startled, and in a moment she has wrenched her hand free, and is gone flying. He catches her, but misses her, and panting to himself, "No, you don't," is after her.

She has run back toward the rill and the board-bridge, but she never reaches it. He has caught her, his hand in the collar of her dress behind.

"Going to—drop it?" he pants at her ear.

But she cannot answer. He is choking her. She tries to say that she yields, then to say "pity," but no whisper comes. Now a thousand words throng in her throat—only to speak would be Heaven—but no more comes than from dry suction-pumps that caw and gurgle. Her poor eyes stare in a horror of panic, seeing Eternity upon her, and the sudden grave yawn to receive her youth.

"Quick! going to drop it?" he repeats. But how can she answer? She cannot answer! and her silence adds fuel to his flame.

But the end is not yet; there is a rent of cloth. Something gives way at her neck. She dives and is running free.

Away from the rill this time—and he runs after her: but neither runs fast—they cannot—there is a certain impotence in their run, as when in dreams one would hasten, but cannot, the limbs are so hampered and heavy.

But of the two it is she who runs the more feebly, and his legs are long. He gets near again and makes a blow, but a feeble wild blow, made too soon, which only touches her. She dodges, and is gone in a changed direction.

And again he is after her, with that same feeble obstinacy, so deplorable to see. If she can only escape his sight one instant, how lucky, for she will be lost to him in the dark. But the wood is fatally sparse, and he never quite loses her. Anon they stumble for the ground is rough with game-holes, thistle, fern, and furze, and once Drayton is staggering backward with arms a-struggle in the air. But he saves himself, and is soon impending again while she, feeling him near again, with a panic now boundless and lunatic, throws her soul into the scream:

"Help! he is going—!"

They are a longish distance from the tavern, but such a scream as that, that Barnes, her father, behind the bar, cocks an ear and says to McCalmont, who is pacing with his hands in his coat-pockets:

"Well, I thought I heard—Heard anything, sir?"

"No," says McCalmont, "no. Thought I did a while since, though."

"Ey, it's the blessed wind. It cries out behind the hill at times, like a woman in trouble."

But Drayton has made another blow at the poor victim, again without effect. She is nimble, though failing, and during his momentary stoppage she evades and is off in yet a new direction. But her end is not far; she is tumbling too frequently—and all at once, with a mortal little last cry, she is down. Instantly he is on his knees over her.

His right forearm presses on her windpipe—he does not look at her at all, nor admit to himself that he is killing her. He looks away sidewards, as if interested in something yonder among the trees—

Presently he picks himself up, leans his back against a fir-bole, peers this way and that and recovers wind a little.

At the bottom of the plantation runs a bend of that same gut which passes before the tavern—a square-cut opening in the ground about ten feet wide and fifteen feet deep. Their run has brought them so near it that Drayton, leaning against a tree, can see its edge. He thinks that it is a river, but a mere thread of water trickles through it.

He goes to the body again, takes the letter to Lady Methwold from her hand, tears it up, and is about to throw the pieces upon the wind when he considers himself and puts them into a pocket. He then draws her ten yards to the gut, over the edge. He listens for a splash, but hears neither splash nor thud. The winds are in his ears and it is as though he had thrown her into an abyss of darkness. She is gone from him.

Now he runs—thievish, but quick—back toward the rill, the bridge, the hedge-gate, past the pigs, the kitchen garden, up the dark back-stairs. He re-enters the room which he had left with her. There burn the two candles as before, quietly, as if nothing had happened meanwhile. He looks at his hands, at his clothes—no blood. He takes off his coat and shakes off the water. But his face! that looks a bit wild; he sees it in a spotted piece of mirror that hangs from a timber of this old room. He can't show such a face to McCalmont; there's a scratch, too, under his left eye. The little beggar must have scratched him somehow.

She is dead, then! He has killed her dead—unexpected thing. But it has happened, it is so. He cannot at all recognise himself, paces the room, misery in his face. Pity he ever met her that night on Cromer pier; pity he came to her this night; pity she was ever born—and he.

"Well, that's as it may—" He pulls himself together, glances again at the glass. He will wait a little longer.

Now he has the thought that the number of the sheets given him may be known to the landlord. He will therefore take one—will even write a letter, since he came for that and has time. His mind is in a state in which thought is fairly active, but not with perfect rationality. Standing, he covers half a sheet with writing; but the words are nonsense words, to fill up space. He blots them on a Life Assurance almanac, in which leaves of blotting paper alternate with memorandum leaves.

Now he descends and, as he enters the bar, McCalmont says:

"By Jove! you must have written ten letters, old man."

"Only one, boy," answers Drayton, "but that wanted some thinking, you see. All ready to be off?"

McCalmont has lighted up; all is ready. Drayton slips a couple of shillings into the landlord's hand and, stepping outside, they hear Barnes call "Letty!"

Off goes the motor round the hill, down the lane, out upon the road; and now the darkness is lit by an occasional lightning flash.

Within four minutes, near Blickling, they come upon Robert Hartwell, who has tramped thus far with his bundle and stick. He is aware of the gathering hum of the two dragon-eyes staring nearer upon him and, stepping aside, he mutters as they dash past.

Five minutes later, they overtake the manure-cart of the laborer who had left "The Anchor" on their entrance. He sends a drowsy shout to warn them as they grow near, for he carries no light. And past him, too, they dash. But he shall overtake them, and again be overtaken by them.