Читать книгу Brothers & Sisters - John & Anna Buchan Edition (Collection of Their Greatest Works) - Buchan John - Страница 77

Table of Contents

Jaikie rose next morning with the light of a stern purpose in his eye. He had thought a good deal about his troubles before he fell asleep, and had come to certain conclusions… But he must go cannily with Mr Craw. That gentleman was in an uncomfortable humour and at breakfast showed every sign of being in a bad temper. The publication of Tibbets’s interview had roused a very natural wrath, and, though he had apparently acquiesced in Jaikie’s refusal to send his telegram or transport him to Castle Gay, his aspect had been rebellious. At breakfast he refused to talk of the Labour meeting the night before, except to remark that such folly made him sick. Jaikie fore-bore to disclose his main suspicion. The news of other Evallonians in the field, Evallonians of a darker hue than those at Knockraw, would only scare him, and Jaikie preferred an indignant Craw to a panicky one.

Yet it was very necessary to smooth him down, so after breakfast Jaikie and Woolworth went out into the street. At a newsagent’s he bought a copy of that morning’s View, and to his relief observed that Mr Craw’s article was on the leader page. There it was, with half-inch headlines—The Abiding Human Instincts. That would keep him quiet for a little. He also visited a chemist and purchased two small bottles.

Mr Craw seized avidly on the paper, and a glimmer of satisfaction returned to his face. Jaikie took advantage of it.

“Mr Craw,” he said with some nervousness, “I found out some queer things yesterday, which I’ll tell you when I’m a little more certain about them. But one thing I can tell you now. Your man Allins is a crook.”

Mr Craw raised his head from toothing his own eloquence.

“Stuff and nonsense! What evidence have you?”

“A great deal. Allins has come back mysteriously when he wasn’t expected: he has not gone near Castle Gay: he is at the Hydropathic here under an assumed name, passing as a foreigner: and he is spending his time with the very foreigners who are giving you trouble. Isn’t that enough?”

Mr Craw looked perturbed. At the moment he had a healthy dislike of Jaikie, but he believed him to be honest.

“Are you sure of that?”

“Absolutely sure. I suspect a great deal more, but what I’m giving you is rock-bottom fact… Now, it’s desperately important that Allins shouldn’t recognise you. You can see for yourself how that would put the lid on it. So I don’t want you to go much about in the daytime. You can stay here and write another of your grand articles. I hope to get money and clothes for you to-day, and then you can carry out your original plan… Would you mind if, just for extra security, I touched up your face a little? You see, in these clothes even Allins wouldn’t recognise you, especially with the fine complexion the weather has given you. But when you get your proper clothes from Castle Gay it will be different, and we can’t afford to run any risks.”

It took a good deal of coaxing for Jaikie to accomplish his purpose, but the reading of his own article, and the near prospect of getting his own garments, had mollified Mr Craw, and in the end he submitted.

Jaikie, who as a member of the Cambridge A.D.C. knew something about making up, did not overdo it. He slightly deepened Mr Craw’s complexion, turning it from a weather-beaten red to something like a gipsy brown, and he took special pains with the wrists and hands and the tracts behind the ears. He darkened his greying eyebrows and the fringe of hair which enclosed his baldness. But especially he made the lines deeper from the nose to the corner of the mouth, and at the extremity of the eyes. The result was that he did away with the air of Pickwickian benevolence. Mr Craw, when he looked at himself in the mirror, saw a man not more than forty, a hard man who might have been a horse-coper or a cattle-dealer, with a good deal of cynicism in his soul and his temper very ready to his hand—which was exactly how he felt. Short of a tropical deluge to wash off the stain, it would not be easy to recognise the bland lineaments which at that moment were confronting the world from the centre of his article in the View.

This done, Jaikie proceeded to reconnoitre. He was convinced that Alison would answer his summons and come at eleven o’clock to the Green Tree. He was equally convinced that she would not ask for him, so it was his duty to be ready for her arrival. He found that from the staircase window he had a view of the stable yard and the back door of the inn, and there he set himself to watch for her.

At two minutes before eleven a girl on a pony rode into the yard. He saw her fling her bridle to the solitary stable-boy, and be welcomed by Mrs Fairweather like a long-lost child. She talked to the hostess for a minute or two, while her eyes ran over the adjacent windows. Then she turned, and with a wave of her hand walked towards the street.

Jaikie snatched his hat and followed. He saw her moving towards the Eastgate—a trim figure, booted and spurred, wearing a loose grey coat and a grey felt hat with a kestrel’s feather. She never looked behind her, but walked with a purposeful air, crossed the Eastgate, and took a left-hand turning towards the Callowa. Then at last she turned her head, saw Jaikie, and waited for him. There was a frank welcome in her eyes. Jaikie, who for the last few days had been trying to picture them in his mind, realised that he had got them all wrong; they were not bright and stern, but of the profound blue that one finds in water which reflects a spring sky.

“I’ve brought the money,” she said. “Fifty pounds. I got it from Freddy.” And she handed over a wad of notes.

“And the clothes?”

“Mother of Moses, I forgot the clothes! They can’t really matter. What does Mr Craw want with more clothes?”

“He is wearing some pretty queer ones at present. And he wants to go to London.”

“But he mustn’t be allowed to go to London. You said yourself that he was safest under the light—here or hereabouts. London would be horribly dangerous.”

“Of course it would. I don’t want him to go to London. I’m glad you forgot the clothes.”

“Where is he?”

“Sitting in his room at the Green Tree reading an article he’s written in the View. He’s getting rather difficult to manage.”

“You must keep him there—lock him up, if necessary—for I can tell you that things at Castle Gay are in a pretty mess.”

She paused to laugh merrily.

“I don’t know where to begin. Well, first of all, Dougal—Mr Crombie—imported a friend of his on Sunday from somewhere in Carrick. His name is Dickson McCunn, and he’s the world’s darling, but what use Dougal thought he was going to be is beyond me. There was rather a mishap at Knockraw—your friend Tibbets got locked up as a poacher—and Count Casimir was in an awful stew, and sent him over to us to be pacified. Mr McCunn received him, and Tibbets took him for Mr Craw, and wrote down what he said, and published it in an interview in yesterday’s Wire. Dougal says that the things he said pretty well knock the bottom out of Mr Craw’s public form.”

“So that was it,” said Jaikie. “I very nearly guessed that it was Dickson. Mr Craw didn’t like it, but I persuaded him not to get his papers to repudiate it. You see, it rather wipes off Tibbets from our list of enemies.”

“Just what I said,” replied the girl. “Freddy wanted to wire at once about it, but I stopped him. We can disavow it later when we’re out of this mess … Now for the second snag. Count Casimir has also imported an ally, and who do you think it is? Prince John of Evallonia.”

No exclamation could have done justice to Jaikie’s emotion. In a flash he saw the explanation of what he had been fumbling after. But all he said was, “Whatever for?”

“Heaven knows! To impress Mr Craw when they find him. To impress us all. Perhaps to make me fall in love with him. They seem to think I’m rather an important person.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Yes. We all dined at Knockraw last night. The Prince is an agreeable young man, as tall as Robin Charvill, but much slimmer.”

“Handsome?” Jaikie asked with a pang at his heart.

“Extremely. Like an elegant Viking, says Freddy, who doesn’t know anything about Vikings. Like the Young Pretender, says Aunt Hatty.”

“Have you fallen in love with him?” The words had not passed his lips before Jaikie repented his audacity.

But the girl only laughed. “Not a bit of it. I’m not attracted by film stars. He’s terribly good-looking, but he’s as dull as an owl. I can see that he is going to add considerably to our troubles, for he seems quite content to settle down at Knockraw till he can bring his charms to bear on Mr Craw.”

“We must get him shifted out of that,” said Jaikie grimly. “Now you must hear my story. First of all, that man Allins is a blackguard.”

He recounted briefly the incidents of the past days, dwelling lightly on their travels in the hills, but more fully on the events since their coming to Portaway. The girl listened with widening eyes.

“You see how it is,” he concluded. “Allins has double-crossed the people at Knockraw. He arranged for their coming here to see Mr Craw, and no doubt got paid for it. That in itself was pretty fair disloyalty to his chief. But he has arranged with the Republicans to catch the Royalists at work, and with their Prince there, too. He must have suspected that they would play the Prince as their trump card. No wonder he was excited when he saw who arrived at the station last night. It’ll be jam for the Republicans to find their enemies in the act of plotting with a magnate of the British Press. The Royalists will be blown out of the water—and Mr Craw too. I can tell you the Republicans at the Hydropathic are not innocents, such as you describe the people at Knockraw. They’re real hard citizens, and they mean business. They’ve got a man among them who is the toughest Communist in Europe.”

The girl twined her hands. “Jaikie,” she said, “things are getting deliciously exciting. What shall we do next?”

He thrilled at the Christian name.

“There’s only you and I that can do anything. The first thing is to get Casimir and his friends away from Knockraw.”

“That won’t be easy. They’re feeling too comfortable. You see, they’ve made a devout ally of Mr McCunn. Dougal brought him to Castle Gay because he thought he would talk sense to them—he said he was a typical Briton and would soon convince them that Britain wasn’t interested in their plans. Instead of that he has fallen completely under the spell of the Prince. He would talk about nothing else last night coming home—said it was a sin and a shame that such a fine lad should be kept from his rights by a wheen blue-spectacled dominies.” She gave a very good imitation of Dickson’s robust accents.

“Just what he’d do. He was always desperately romantic. I think Dougal must have taken leave of his senses. What does Dougal say about things?”

“Chiefly oaths,” said the girl. “He argues with Casimir and the Professor and makes no more impression than a toothpick on a brick wall. You might say that the situation at Castle Gay was out of hand. The question is, what are you and I going to do?”

The assumption of alliance warmed Jaikie’s heart.

“I must get somehow to Knockraw,” he said. “It had better be to-morrow morning early. There are six of the Republicans here, and this election has brought some queer characters into the town. You may be certain that they’re keeping a pretty good watch up the water. The first thing to make sure of is that the Prince does not stir out of doors. You must get Casimir on the telephone and put the fear of God into him about that. Pitch it high enough to scare him… Then you must meet me at Knockraw to-morrow morning. Say eight o’ clock. I can tell them all I know, and there’s a lot they can tell me that I don’t know. But they won’t believe me unless you’re there to back me up.”

He looked down to find a small dog standing on its hind legs with its paws on his arm.

“What’s that?” Alison asked.

“That’s Woolworth—the terrier I bought from the drover. I told you about him.”

The girl bent to fondle the dog’s head, upon which Woolworth laid muddy paws on the skirts of her coat. “He must be introduced to Tactful and Pensive,” she said. “He seems to belong to the same school of thought… I had better get back at once and alarm Knockraw… It’s all right. I usually leave my pony at the Green Tree, so there’s nothing unusual in my going there. But we’d better not arrive together.”

Jaikie, unwilling to leave her side, accompanied her as far as the Eastgate. But just before they reached it, he stopped short and whistled on Woolworth. He had seen Allins advancing towards them, and Allins had seen the girl. Apparently the latter desired to avoid a meeting, for he turned sharply and dived up a side street.

“What is it?” said Alison, who had been interrupted in the middle of a sentence.

“It’s Allins. He saw us both. That’s a pity. He and I are bound to have a meeting sooner or later, and I didn’t want him to connect me with Castle Gay.”

It was significant of Jaikie’s state of mind that, though he allowed five minutes to elapse between Alison’s entering the stable yard and his own approach to the inn, the first thing he did when he was inside the door was to rush to the staircase window, where he was rewarded by the sight of a slim figure on a black pony leaving the gate, pursued by Mrs Fairweather’s farewells.

As luck would have it the rain began after luncheon, and there was no temptation for Mr Craw to go out of doors. A fire was again lit in his bedroom, and Jaikie sought a bookseller’s and purchased him a selection of cheap reprints of the English classics, a gift which was received without gratitude.

“I have got fifty pounds for you,” he told him. “I saw Miss Westwater this morning.”

Mr Craw showed little interest. The mild satisfaction due to reading and re-reading his own article had ebbed, and he was clearly in a difficult temper.

“But she forgot to bring the clothes. I’m so sorry, Mr Craw, but I’m afraid you can’t go to London to-night.”

“I have no intention of going to London tonight,” was the cold answer.

Jaikie regarded him curiously. He thought he realised the reason for this change of purpose. The interview had awakened some long-dormant spirit in Mr Craw. He felt that he was being taken advantage of, that his household gods and his inner personality were being outraged, and he was determined to fight for them. That would have been all to the good four days ago, but now it was the very deuce. Jaikie did not dare to tell him the true story of the interview: the thought of Dickson, innocently masquerading as his august self, would only infuriate him. What he wanted was to get back to Castle Gay, and that at all costs must be prevented. So Jaikie imparted a little judicious information.

“I heard from Miss Westwater that Prince John of Evallonia arrived at Knockraw last night. They all went to dinner there to meet him.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Mr Craw. He was startled at last out of his dumps. “That is a terrible blunder—a terrible calamity. They won’t be able to keep his visit secret. I shall be credited—” His eyes told the kind of unpleasant thing with which he would be credited.

“Cheer up, sir,” said Jaikie. “We’ll find a way out. But you see how impossible it is for you to go to Castle Gay… And how important it is that nobody should recognise you here… If all goes well, you can disavow the interview, and the world will think you have been all the time out of the country.”

Mr Craw said nothing. He had started morosely upon the Essays of Addison, and the big glasses adorning his weather-beaten face gave him the air of a pious bookmaker.

Jaikie went out into the rain and made a few calls. He visited the lounge of the Station Hotel in the hope of finding a thirsty Evallonian comforting himself after the drought of the Hydropathic. But he found nobody there except a stray bagman and one or two rainbound golfers. Then he proceeded to the Hydropathic, where he had a few words with the head-porter. The foreigners were all abroad; they had departed after breakfast in two cars; whither the deponent did not know. Their habits? Well, there was always one or two of them on the road. The young man seemed to spend a lot of time in the town, and Wilkie had reported that he had seen him with some queer-looking folk. “He’s maybe a poalitician,” he added. “There’s a heap o’ that trash in Portaway the noo.”

Jaikie penetrated to the back parts of the establishment, and found Wilkie in the boiler house, too much occupied to talk.

“Yon was a dreich show last night, Mr Galt,” was all he found time to say. “I’ve tried a’ three pairties and there’s no ane to mend the ither. My faither used to say that in the auld days an election in Portaway was one lang, bluidy battalation. This time I don’t believe there’ll be a single broken heid. Folks nowadays hae lost a’ spunk and pith. There’s twa-three Communists in the town, and there’s plenty of them among the lads at the Quarries. Maybe they’ll brichten up things afore the polling-day.”

“When is that?” Jaikie asked, and was told “Friday.” “It’ll be a big day in Portaway,” Wilkie added, “for, forby being the nicht o’ the poll, it’s the Callowa Club Ball. Fancy dress, nae less. It used to be in the auld Assembly Rooms, but that’s a furniture depository noo, so they haud it in the big room at the Station Hotel. I’ve seen fifty cairriages and pairs in Portaway that nicht, but noo it’s a’ motors.”

Jaikie returned about tea-time, to find that Mr Craw had fallen asleep over Addison. Mercifully he slept for several hours, and awoke in a better temper, and, having had no tea, with a considerable appetite for dinner. He must be given air and exercise, so, after that meal, the rain having ceased, Jaikie proposed a saunter in the town. Mr Craw consented. “But I will go to no more political meetings,” he said. “I am not interested in this local dog-fight.”

It was a fresh night, with a south-west wind drifting cloud galleons up from the Solway. They walked down the Callowa side, along the miniature quays, till they were almost outside the town limits, and could see dimly, beyond the last houses, the wide machars which stretched to the salt water and gave Portaway its famous golf course. Presently one of the causes of Mr Craw’s oppression became evident. He had caught a cold. He sneezed repeatedly, and admitted, in reply to Jaikie’s anxious inquiries, that he had a rawness in the back of his throat and a congested feeling in his head.

“This won’t do,” said Jaikie. “I’m going to take you straight home and put you to bed. But first we’ll stop at a chemist’s and get you a dose of ammoniated quinine. That generally cures my colds, if I take it at the start.”

They returned to the foot of the Eastgate, just where it joined the market square, and at the corner found a chemist’s shop. The owner was about to put up his shutters, but the place had still the dazzling brightness which is associated with the sale of drugs. Mr Craw was accommodated with a small beaker of the bitter compound prescribed by Jaikie, and, as he swallowed it with many grimaces, Jaikie saw a face at the street door looking in on him. It was the face of Allins.

Mr Craw saw it, too, in the middle of his gasping, and, being taken unawares, it is probable that an involuntary recognition entered his eyes before Jaikie could distract his attention. At any rate Jaikie saw on Allins’s face, before it disappeared, an unpleasing smile.

He paid for the mixture and hustled Mr Craw out of the shop. Allins did not appear to be in the immediate neighbourhood. “You saw that?” he whispered. “I believe he recognised you. We’ve got to give him the slip. Very likely he’s watching us.”

Mr Craw, nervous and flustered, found himself hurried up the Eastgate, to the right, to the left, to the left again—it was like the erratic course of a bolted rabbit. Twice Jaikie stopped, darted into the middle of the street, and looked behind. The third time he did this he took his companion’s arm and dragged him into a run. “The man’s following us,” he said.

At all costs the pursuit must be baffled, for till they had thrown it off it was impossible to return to their inn. Once again Jaikie stopped to reconnoitre, and once again his report was bad. “I see his grey hat. He’s not above twenty yards behind.”

Suddenly they found that the people were thicker on the pavement. There was some kind of movement towards a close on their left, as if it led to a meeting. Jaikie resolved to take the chance. Allins would never think they would go indoors, he argued, for that would be to enter a trap. He would follow on past the close mouth, and lose their trail.

He drove Mr Craw before him into a narrow passage, which was pretty well crowded. Then they entered a door, and started to climb a long stair. The meeting, whatever it was, was at the top of it. It took them some minutes to get up, and at the top, at the door of the hall, Jaikie looked back… To his disgust he saw the hat of Allins among the throng at the bottom.

It was Jaikie’s rule, when cornered at football or anything else, to play the boldest game, on the theory that it was what his opponent would least expect. The hall was not large, and it was very full, but at the far end was a platform which still held some vacant seats. In the chair was Red Davie, now engaged in making introductory remarks. In an instant Jaikie had come to a decision. It was impossible to prevent Allins in that narrow hall seeing Mr Craw at close quarters. But he must not have speech with him, and he must see him under circumstances utterly foreign to his past life. This latter was the essence of true bluff. So he marched him boldly up the central passage and ascended the platform, where he saw two seats empty behind the chairman. He interrupted Red Davie to shake hands effusively, and to introduce Mr Craw. “My friend, Mr Carlyle,” he said. “He’s one of you. Red hot.”

Red Davie, in his gentle earnest voice and his precise scholarly accents, was delivering a reasoned denunciation of civilised society. He was the chairman, but he was obviously not the principal speaker. Jaikie asked in a whisper of a man behind him who was expected, and was told Alec Stubber, a name to conjure with. “But his train’s late and he’ll no be here for twenty minutes. They’ll be gey sick o’ Antrobus or then.”

Jaikie looked down on the upturned faces. He saw Allins standing at the back of the hall near the door, with his eyes fixed on the platform and a half-smile on his face. Was that smile one of recognition or bewilderment? Happily Mr Craw was well hidden by the chairman… He saw row upon row of faces, shaven and bearded, young and old, but mostly middle-aged. These were the Communists of the Canonry, and very respectable folk they looked. The Scottish Communist is a much misunderstood person. When he is a true Caledonian, and not a Pole or an Irishman, he is simply the lineal descendant of the old Radical. The Scottish Radical was a man who held a set of inviolable principles on which he was entirely unable to compromise. It did not matter what the principles were; the point was that they were like the laws of Sinai, which could not be added to or subtracted from. When the Liberal party began to compromise, he joined Labour; when Labour began to compromise, by a natural transition he became a Communist. Temperamentally he has not changed. He is simply the stuff which in the seventeenth century made the unyielding Covenanter, and in the eighteenth the inflexible Jacobite. He is honesty incarnate, but his mind lacks flexibility.

It was an audience which respected Red Davie, but could not make much of him, and Red Davie felt it himself. The crowd had come to hear Alec Stubber, and was growing a little restless. The chairman looked repeatedly at his watch, and his remarks became more and more staccato… Allins had moved so that he now had a full view of Mr Craw, and his eyes never left him.

Then Jaikie had an inspiration. He whispered fiercely to his neighbour: “Allins is watching you. There’s only one way to put him off the scent. You’ve got to speak… Denounce the Labour party, as you’ve often done in the papers. Point out that their principles lead logically to Communism… And, for God’s sake, speak as broad as you can. You must. It’s the only way.”

Mr Craw would certainly have refused, but he was given no time. Jaikie plucked the chairman’s elbow. “My friend here,” he whispered, “could carry on for a little. He’d be glad of the chance. He’s from Aberdeen, and a great worker in the cause.”

Red Davie caught at the straw. “Before Comrade Stubber arrives,” he said, “and that must be in a very few minutes, you will have the privilege of hearing a few words from Comrade Carroll, who brings to us the fraternal greetings of our Aberdeen comrades. No man in recent years has worked more assiduously for the triumph of the proletariat in that unpromising quarter of Scotland. I call on Comrade Carroll.”

He turned round, beamed on Mr Craw, and sat down.

It was perhaps the most difficult moment of that great man’s life. Crisis had come upon him red-handed. He knew himself for one of the worst speakers in the world, and he—he who had always had a bodyguard to shield him from rough things—who was the most famous living defender of the status quo—was called upon to urge its abolition, to address as an anarchist a convention of anarchs. His heart fluttered like a bird, he had a dreadful void in the pit of his stomach, his legs seemed to be made of cotton-wool.

Yet Mr Craw got to his feet. Mr Craw opened his mouth and sounds came forth. The audience listened.

More—Mr Craw said the right things. His first sentences were confused and stuttering, and then he picked up some kind of argument. He had often in the View proved with unassailable logic that the principles of Socialism were only halfhearted Communism. He proved it now, but with a difference. For by some strange inspiration he remembered in what company he was, and, whereas in the View he had made it his complaint against Labour that it was on the logical road to an abyss called Communism, his charge now was that Labour had not the courage of its principles to advance the further stage to the Communist paradise… It was not a good speech, for it was delivered in a strange abstracted voice, as if the speaker were drawing up thoughts from a very deep well. But it was not ill received. Indeed, some of its apophthegms were mildly applauded.

Moreover, it was delivered in the right accent. Jaikie’s injunction to “speak broad” was unconsciously followed. For Mr Craw had not lifted up his voice in public for more than thirty years, not since those student days at Edinburgh, when he had been destined for the ministry and had striven to acquire the arts of oratory. Some chord of memory awoke. He spoke broadly, because in public he had never spoken in any other way. Gone were the refinements of his later days, the clipped vowels, the slurred consonants. The voice which was speaking at Jaikie’s ear had the aboriginal plaint of the Kingdom of Fife.

Jaikie, amazed, relieved, delighted, watched Allins, and saw the smile fade from his face. This being who stammered a crude communism in the vernacular was not the man he had suspected. He shrugged his shoulders and jostled his way out of the hall.

As he left, another arrived. Jaikie saw a short square man in a bowler hat and a mackintosh enter and push his way up the middle passage.

An exclamation from the chairman, and the applause of the meeting, told him that the great Stubber had appeared at last. Mr Craw, in deference to a tug from Jaikie, sat down, attended by an ovation which was not meant for his efforts.

The two sat out that meeting to its end, and heard many remarkable things from Comrade Stubber, but Jaikie hurried Mr Craw away before he could be questioned as to the progress of Communism in Aberdeen. He raced him back to the Green Tree, and procured from Mrs Fairweather a tumbler of hot whisky and water, which he forced him to drink. Then he paid his tribute.

“Mr Craw,” he said, “you did one of the bravest things to-night that I ever heard of. It was our only chance, but there’s not one man in a million could have taken it. You’re a great man. I offer you my humble congratulations.”

Mr Craw blushed like a boy. “It was rather a dreadful experience,” he said, “but it seems to have cured my cold.”