Читать книгу Ships in the Bay! - D. K. Broster - Страница 10

Nest Meredith walked home rather fast, followed by a very different Bran from the bounding dog who had set out with her. Both their thoughts were occupied with the same person, yet they could not share them with each other. The immediate question for Nest was, how much she should tell her Papa, and she had not made up her mind upon this point even when she entered his study to see if he were back.

He was, and Mr. Thistleton, too, of course.

“My dear young lady,” said the latter when, a little shyly, she presented him with his sheet of notes, “had I known that you were going in search of what I lost, I should never have mentioned my carelessness!”

“I think that is what Papa felt,” answered Nest, a dimple showing for a moment. “But you see, sir, the distance is not great, and the gratification of recovering your notes would have repaid me for a much longer walk.”

“For a lady, my daughter is really a prodigious walker,” explained the Precentor. “I have known her compass as much as five miles in a morning! And this walk, I am sure, gave her nothing but pleasure—is that not so, Nest?”

His daughter’s hesitation was so fleeting that it would have needed a very acute perception to notice it. “Oh, yes, indeed, Papa; as you know, I love walking!”

“Yet I expected to find you back before us,” went on Dr. Meredith, “instead of the other way about.”

“I did not hasten back,” said Nest, dropping her gaze. “I . . . went into a hayfield on the way home, which delayed me.” That was true; though the delay had not occurred in the hayfield.

Outside in the hall, with its panelled ceiling and old music gallery over the door, she stood rather guiltily reflecting, under the eyes of two prebendaries and a bishop. It was true that she had not yet had the chance of telling her father privately about her encounter, and, owing to Mr. Thistleton’s presence, might not get that chance for a little while, but she was not sure that when it came she intended to take it. Would it not be a little like going to a magistrate with information about the runaway, a thing which she had told this Mark Thompson that she would not do? Besides, Papa might be rather horrified at the episode; might even feel inclined to curtail the freedom which had always been hers, since she grew up, the right of roaming unaccompanied about this countryside where she was so well known and loved. The question of telling Aunt Pennefather she never even debated.

Old Dixon, the English butler, was arranging something in a corner of the hall. Perceiving her standing there, he made an inquiry.

“Have Bran been fighting, miss, this afternoon when he was out with you? Richards say just now that he won’t eat his supper, and have gone into his kennel, all skeery-like. But he didn’t see no marks on him.”

“Oh, poor Bran!” exclaimed his mistress involuntarily. Then she pulled herself up. “No, he has not been fighting, Dixon,” she replied, and passed on up the stairs to her bedroom. She had not told a lie, since “fighting,” in the case of a dog, had surely a strictly technical meaning, which did not cover conflict with a human being.

Thoughtfully she laid upon the bed the parasol which had so unavailingly chastised the culprit, and went and looked out of the window. But the Cathedral seemed to be gazing across at her with sternness—a vast reproof; in purple stone; so she came away again.

At the evening meal the talk veered round at one moment from the archæological questions which had been engaging Dr. Meredith and his guest to the Dutch prize brought into the Sound (of which Mrs. Pennefather now heard for the first time) and surmise was expressed as to whether the vessel were still there; had Nest heard when she went back to Rhosson this afternoon? A little nervous of approaching the subject at all Nest was thereupon constrained to tell them that the prize had sailed; and in the course of further talk was incautious enough to mention its name.

“The Vrijheid—indeed! Is that what she was called?” observed Dr. Meredith. “I presume that signifies ‘freedom’ or something of the sort. But how did you learn the name, Nesta? From Mrs. Lloyd, I suppose?”

Nesta’s napkin slid suddenly from her lap and she stooped after it instead of replying.

“Miss Meredith has doubtless better eyesight than ours,” Mr. Thistleton meanwhile gallantly observed.

“Not so very much, I think,” interposed the Precentor, who prided himself upon his. “I looked very carefully as I stood at Porthstinian this morning, and could not see a sign of a name upon the vessel.”

“You forget, Papa,” said his daughter with a nervous little laugh, “that I had the use of Watkins’s telescope.” And if her colour was rather high as she made this misleading statement it could be assigned to her hasty dive under the table. But she knew that she ought to have bitten her tongue hard to keep back that implicit lie! It was not Watkins’s telescope which had disclosed the name to her . . .

“The telescope,” here remarked Mrs. Pennefather in her remote voice, and with a dreamier look than usual in her dreamy eyes, “the telescope is a contrivance which I have never been able to employ with profit.”

“I did not know, my dear Gwenllian, that you had ever tried,” returned her brother.

“Yes, yes. In younger and happier days I used sometimes to direct my dear husband’s instrument towards the glories of the nocturnal sky—but in vain!”

“But surely, Aunt Gwenllian,” objected Nest, glad to escape from the purely marine capabilities of the telescope, “you must have seen something! The moon—it is so large through a glass—or some stars!”

“Alas, they were never revealed to me,” replied Mrs. Pennefather mournfully. “The night was ever starless to my vision.” Here she shut her eyes for a moment and her lips moved; possibly she had realised that this last sentence might be considered to scan and was committing it to memory for future use. And yet there was nothing of the poseuse about Aunt Pennefather; she was a perfectly sincere and warmhearted woman, who contrived to run Dr. Meredith’s house with success in spite of her poetry and her classics. Nest sometimes found her absurd, but she was very fond of her. She thought now, “It is plain that Aunt Gwenllian always shut the eye which she put to the telescope!” But she did not find much amusement in this reflection, for she was pursued by the feeling that this was the point at which to confess, without giving it the air of a confession—rather, indeed, to narrate in a sprightly manner—her meeting with a member of the crew of that Dutch prize, first under a haycock and then in the lane, and its conclusion, with Bran’s attacking and biting him.

But it was just that bite of Bran’s which seemed to make this avowal impossible.

Moreover the convenient opportunity had slid by. Her father and Mr. Thistleton were talking of their recent visit to Mr. Jerome Salt, the antiquarian and historian, which Mr. Thistleton appeared greatly to have appreciated. The Precentor remarked that he was glad that he had been able to read the letter inviting them there, for Salt’s calligraphy was really becoming illegible, as he acknowledged himself. “He says,” added Dr. Meredith, “that with this translation of Giraldus Cambrensis on hand, as well as his historical composition, he will have to think of employing an amanuensis.” Nest asked what an amanuensis might be.

It was later in the evening, when Mrs. Pennefather, still with the air of a not very effective sibyl, had poured out tea for them, that the idea of taking an evening stroll—or hobble, as Mr. Thistleton put it—occurred to the two gentlemen. The soft lucent twilight, which lingers so long in the extreme West, made it seem earlier than the testimony of the clock would allow. And when Nest pleaded to be allowed to accompany them, her father, though he said that young ladies ought by this time to be in bed, and that she would probably catch cold, gave his assent, urged thereto by his guest, who said that Miss Meredith wished no doubt to see the ruins of the Bishop’s Palace by moonlight, which was a most proper and romantic desire.

It was true that the moon was up; she hung just above the Precentory, but her rays had no power against the remaining daylight, did not even strike a gleam from the Alan when the little party crossed it on the tiny bridge, nor did they light up the beautiful arcading along the top of what Nest in a sudden burst of enthusiasm affirmed to be the finest ruin in the whole world. And certainly, even without the aid of moonlight, the Bishop’s Palace looked beautiful enough, even if a trifle spectral, as they went through the ruined entrance gateway and found themselves in the grass-grown quadrangle. Mr. Thistleton, who had been here by daylight, expressed a wish to enter again the Bishop’s Hall on the left, and Dr. Meredith preceded him in thither with the lantern, brought in view of such a desire—for, though roofless, the interior of the Palace was much darker than outside. Nest, however, did not follow their example, but stayed without, looking at the noble entrance doorway to the King’s Hall in front of her, where over the double ogee of the archway still looked down the statues of the third Edward and his queen. In her heart she was perhaps hoping that the moon would by some miracle kindle suddenly to a real romantic brightness; but as this did not happen she finally and slowly ascended the entrance steps. She advanced, however, no further than the inner doorway, because she knew that in the great hall the floor had collapsed in one or two places, and as the whole range of buildings was supported upon vaulting she had no desire to slip in the gloom into one of the cavities.

Behind her she heard her father’s footsteps, and his voice calling out warningly: “Nesta, Nesta, do not go in there without a light!”

She turned to reassure him. It was at that moment that she received the impression of a sudden movement somewhere behind her, and the sound of a thud, as if someone had dropped or sprung down into the vault below. She gave a half-stifled scream.

“Papa!” she called out in sudden alarm, “there is someone in here—I am sure of it!”

“Nonsense, my dear,” said the Precentor, joining her on the steps, to which she had retreated. “You heard a rat, I expect—though to be sure that would alarm you more than a human being. Go and ask Mr. Thistleton for the lantern, then; he is just coming out of the Bishop’s Hall.”

Nest caught her father’s arm. “And leave you alone here with . . . No!”

“Nonsense, child, there’s no one here! Ah, there’s Thistleton; ask him to be so good as to come this way with the light.”

Nest darted down the steps on to the dew-wet grass. “Mr. Thistleton, Papa says——” And there she stopped, assailed all at once by a most unwelcome suspicion. What if the person she felt sure was in the ruins were he, the fugitive from the privateer—though why he should be lurking there she could not imagine? But if it were, she had betrayed him, for all her protestations of this afternoon!

“Thistleton, pray bring the lantern here a moment,” called Dr. Meredith, peering meanwhile through the inner gateway. “My daughter thinks there is someone hiding in here. I am not of her opinion, but we might as well make sure.”

Mr. Thistleton limped briskly up, the lantern shedding a circle of light on the weed-invaded steps. Nest did not follow him. Of course it could not be that young man, even if there were anyone there at all.

Suddenly her heart beat harder. Out of the silence and the shadows above her had come her father’s voice, sharp and peremptory:

“What are you doing down there, sirrah? Come out at once and account for yourself!”

And on that there was a sudden scuffling of feet, as suddenly terminated, which suggested that the discovered intruder had not only scrambled up from the lower level of the vault, but was trying to make a bolt altogether. But the operation of clambering up had evidently put him at the mercy of the two gentlemen, and they had seized him before he could get past them. At least that was what Nest, outside, supposed.

“Stand still, stand still now, my man; we will do you no harm! But I demand to know what you are doing in these ruins—in the precincts of the Cathedral!”

“Oh dear, oh dear,” thought the uneasy Nest. “If it is that privateersman, he may be desperate, and ’tis much more likely that he will do Papa an injury!” Bitterly repenting her cry of alarm she tiptoed up the steps and peeped in.

Yes, it was the young seaman, standing defiantly, under the further archway, between her father and Mr. Thistleton, both of whom had hold of him, the Precentor, no weakling, clutching a shoulder with one hand, an arm with the other, while Mr. Thistleton, holding aloft the lantern, gripped the intruder’s other arm with his remaining hand. And even had Nest recognised neither face nor clothes, the fact that the captive had his right trouser leg rolled up above the knee, and the red handkerchief tied round his bare calf, would infallibly have identified him for her. She remained in the outer doorway suffering from a sort of paralysis.

“What are you doing here?” reiterated Dr. Meredith.

“Only taking shelter for the night, sir. I’m sorry if I ha’ done wrong.” The tone was less defiant than the pose. “I thought—seeing that this place was a ruin, like . . .”

“Too much of a ruin to be an honest man’s sleeping-place! Why did you not seek shelter in some more fitting spot, some outhouse or barn?”

“And what is amiss with your leg?” queried Mr. Thistleton, glancing down at it.

The fugitive Mark Thompson answered neither question; he said, even more meekly than before, “I didn’t intend no harm here, I assure you, sir.”

“You are likely to do harm to yourself, then, making a bedchamber of that damp hole,” retorted the Precentor.

“But I was meaning to sleep up on this level, sir, in a corner; then when I heard the young lady coming in, fearing I should frighten her, I slips down into yonder hole, so as she shouldn’t see me.”

“You are a very plausible fellow, whatever else you are,” remarked Dr. Meredith. “But you have not yet told me what you, a stranger, are doing in this neighbourhood?”

“I was hoping to find work at a farm, sir,” replied the young man, even as he had earlier replied to Dr. Meredith’s daughter.

“Then why have you not gone to one?”

“I have, sir, and . . . they set the dog on me.” He gave a glance down at his leg, and Nest drew a long, almost audible breath. “So I thought, sir, that maybe an Englishman like me had not a good chance here, and that I would do better to be pushing on in the morning towards Haverfordwest or Pembroke.”

“Set a dog on you!” exclaimed Dr. Meredith. “I do not believe there is any farmer here who would do such a thing—unless indeed he caught you trying to steal! I expect that is the explanation, if you would only admit it. At what farm did it occur?”

The ex-privateersman looked slightly confused; perhaps he was regretting his accusation. “I can’t get hold of these Welsh names, sir, saving your presence,” he explained. “And I dare say they didn’t like the look of me, though indeed I had no thought of stealing and only wanted to find work.”

“Hold the lantern a little higher, will you, Thistleton,” suddenly said the Precentor. “I cannot help thinking that I have seen this man somewhere before.”

“Just my own impression,” observed Mr. Thistleton, complying. “He reminds me somewhat of those seamen whom we saw landing this morning from the Dutch prize.”

In the outer doorway Nest clasped her hands tightly together. Oh, he was lost, poor man, and through her unwitting fault! She had sent him to a prison, to a flogging, perhaps to keelhauling, which sounded a terrible punishment enough, though she was not sure of its nature . . . and her dog had already bitten him severely!

But on the face now so mercilessly illuminated by the lantern beams there dawned a look of bewilderment. “What Dutch prize, sir? Was you thinking as I came off a ship?”

“Nesta,” said Dr. Meredith suddenly over his shoulder, “Nesta, are you there? Come here then, and tell us whether you do not think that this is one of the men who landed at Porthstinian this morning? You were watching them longer than we were.”

Oh, if only she had not stayed within call—if only she could slip away now! But her father had seen her standing there on the threshold. She came forward feeling as though her limbs might have belonged to the stone Queen Philippa above the doorway. Whatever her desire prompted her to do, she could not lie outright to her father!

“What did you say, Papa?” Her voice seemed to stick in her throat.

Dr. Meredith repeated his question, while Nest, half looking, half not looking at the captive, felt the latter’s gaze scorching her like a burning glass.

“The man whom we saw in the boat——” she began, very slowly, dropping her eyes to the ground.

“Well, look at him, my dear!” exhorted her father a trifle impatiently. “There was one younger than the rest, I remember, and I have a strong impression——”

For one fleeting second the eyes of witness and accused met. In Nest’s at any rate there was anguish. Next moment the Precentor was the recipient of a strong impression of another sort, which reached him through the agency of a human fist, in the middle zone of his waistcoat; and though this partook far more of the character of a vigorous shove than of an actual blow, it loosened his hold of its author like magic and sent him staggering back several paces. Simultaneously, or almost so, the lantern was wrenched from Mr. Thistleton’s hold and sent clattering down into the vault; and in the resulting darkness a form rushed past Nest and leapt down the steps. The captured intruder was gone.

The Precentor was too much winded, Mr. Thistleton too lame, both of them too much taken by surprise, to set out in pursuit; indeed the former, more damaged, however, in his dignity than in his bodily frame, was leaning gasping against the doorway with his hands to his diaphragm.

“Papa, Papa!” cried Nest, running to him, “are you hurt? Did he really hit you?”

But the Precentor, though breathless and outraged, was still a truthful Christian gentleman. “He . . . he pushed me . . . exceedingly hard. Young scoundrel . . . certainly up to no good . . . must make sure that all our . . . doors and windows . . . securely fastened!” Having recovered a little, he finished by saying: “Come along, Thistleton; ’tis of no use to pursue him now; we had best get back to the house as soon as possible.”

In the press of this intention the question of the assailant’s identity was, fortunately for the unwilling witness, crowded out. Abandoning all considerations of æsthetics or archæology—though not, indeed, quite unconcerned with ethics—the three hurried back to the Precentory, to find it wrapped in perfect security and calm, and Aunt Pennefather already retired to her bedroom for the night. Nest, conscience-stricken and unhappy, did the same; but she had hardly reached her room before her father came to her door to reassure her.

“You must try not to let that unpleasant little episode keep you awake, my dear child,” he said. “Mr. Thistleton suggests that the vagabond was probably a gipsy, and I recall now that the young sailor from the prize, whom I thought at first that he resembled, was not nearly so dark complexioned. I do not imagine that there is the slightest likelihood now of his trying to break in and steal, so do not dream of robbers, my dear.”

Nest did not dream of robbers, nor of gipsies. But she lay a long time sleepless in her little dimity-draped bed wondering if after all Papa were not right, and whether the young man from the Fair Penitent had not been lurking in the precincts with some ill intent. Why else should he have concealed himself there instead of going to seek work on a farm? For since she had the best of reasons for knowing it to be untrue that a farmer had set a dog at him, it was probably equally untrue that he had been to a farmhouse at all. . . . Yet suppose he had said: “Your daughter’s dog attacked me”? He had not; he had preferred to tell a lie. And he had made his dash for freedom just in time to save her from either betraying his identity or herself telling a deliberate falsehood on his behalf. The look in his eyes, which she still remembered with vividness . . . had it meant that he wished to spare her that difficult alternative? At the moment she had half fancied so.

But for the first time it came to Nest, what if behind his taking the violent step of deserting from the privateer there were something more than just distaste for the hard life there? For he had not looked effeminate—far from it; and he had described the fight with the French brig with undoubted gusto.

In any case speculation was wasted on a man whom she would never see again, for it was very unlikely that Mark Thompson would ask now for employment at any farm in the neighbourhood. And since she did not feel that, after her deceitful silence, she could tell her father anything about him, she only hoped that with time the burden of that deceit would grow lighter, and that she would not, as just now, feel ashamed to receive his good-night kiss. Meanwhile she tried to turn her thoughts on to the impending arrival of sister Jane and her baby, who would be here the day after to-morrow; and picturing this joyful event at last fell asleep.