Читать книгу Ships in the Bay! - D. K. Broster - Страница 12

By next morning, however, Nest (though not inwardly free from tremors) had so far got the better of her cowardice that she was standing, about half-past ten, in the porch of Tan-y-bach farmhouse resolved to do what she should have done yesterday evening. Two black-and-white collies, one old and the other young, half friendly and half suspicious, were vociferating just outside the porch, and at least three other guardians of various sizes had appeared in the yard behind. This canine garrison would have reminded her, had she needed reminding, that it was Bran’s week-old misdeed which had driven her to this step. All yesterday evening she had been haunted by the limping figure in the hayfield, and by her own share, unwilling though it was, in Mark Thompson’s present plight. And if her belief in his truthfulness had been shaken by his unexplained presence in the Bishop’s Palace that night, it was nevertheless quite clear that he had genuinely sought work on a farm, since he had obtained it—only to lose it again—because of Bran.

Wrought upon by these thoughts, and finding her sister deeply occupied this morning with her offspring, Nest had seized the opportunity of slipping away, and in about twenty minutes had found herself at Mr. Griffiths’ farm on the cliffs. There was no sign of the ex-privateersman, nor indeed of any farm hands, so she began to fear that she might not find the owner at home either.

The noise of the dogs soon brought Mrs. Griffiths herself to the door—a stout, handsome woman, pulling down her sleeves over her arms as she came. Great surprise and pleasure were hers on perceiving her visitor, whom she besought to come in and drink a cup of buttermilk.

“No buttermilk, thank you, Mrs. Griffiths,” said Nest; “but I will come in if I may. No, pray let me sit in your kitchen! I suppose Mr. Griffiths is out on the farm?”

“Well, no, miss. He’s gone to Haverfordwest this morning. Was you wishing to see him?”

Nest, disappointed, acknowledged that she was. “But since he is from home, I can talk to you instead, Mrs. Griffiths. ’Tis . . . ’tis about that man I saw working in your hayfield yesterday evening—the man who is so lame.”

“Yes, miss?”

“I was sorry to hear Mr. Griffiths say that he felt he would have to discharge him on account of his lameness. Did the man tell how he . . . I mean, do you know what made him lame?”

“Well, Miss Nest,” said Mrs. Griffiths dubiously, “he did tell us it was a dog-bite, and Griffiths he saw the place—a nasty place whatever, he said—but Thompson ’ouldn’t tell us properly how he came by it.”

“I can tell you that,” said Nest, who had flushed up to the roots of her hair. “It was my dog, Bran, who flew at him, I am sorry to say, and that is why I wanted to see your husband about the man.”

“It was your dog, Miss Nest!” exclaimed Mrs. Griffiths. “Dear, dear! Was Thompson rude to you—did he frighten you, anwyl?”

“No, no, not at all,” said Nest stoutly. “No. I met him . . . in a lane, and he asked me quite civilly if I could put him in the way of some work. But Bran took a dislike to him and, just as he was going off, flew at him and bit him. And the man behaved so well over it that I was wondering whether I could not persuade Mr. Griffiths to keep him on, seeing that his lameness is really my fault?”

“Well, Miss Nesta bach,” replied the farmer’s wife, looking appreciatively at the pretty, appealing face within the shady bonnet, “sure I am that Griffiths would do anything in reason to oblige you, yes, indeed, but besides that the young man was really a danger to himself and everybody else while the hay was cutting—I should think he never did so much as handle a scythe before—’tis too late at all now, for Griffiths did give him his wages and discharge him last night.”

Nest’s face fell. “Oh, I am sorry for that, Mrs. Griffiths! Not of course that I blame your husband. Do you think that the young man will be able to find work elsewhere? Do you know where he has gone?”

“To Llanunwas, I think, miss, on the way to Solva. And if he could not get work there whatever, he thought maybe he could find some in Solva harbour; he did say he was used to boats, and a lame man can row better than he can fork hay. And do not be thinking, Miss Nesta, that we did turn him off last night without shelter or supper, although he is a stranger and an Englishman and we do know nothing about him—no, indeed to goodness, Griffiths ’ould never do that! Thompson had his supper and a bed and some breakfast too this morning before he went off.”

“Oh, you must not think that I am blaming Mr. Griffiths!” protested the visitor. “Of course he could not keep a man who was too lame to work . . . and, yes, I suppose Thompson might find something to do at Solva,” she added reflectively. “I wonder indeed that having been a sailor he did not go to Solva in the first instance.”

“Oh, he had been a sailor, had he, miss?” inquired Mrs. Griffiths with interest. Nest bit her lip to think that part of the secret which she was keeping even from Papa should have escaped her. However, it was not a very vital part—not, at any rate, in the hands of Mrs. Griffiths now that Thompson had left Tan-y-bach.

“Yes, or so he said,” she answered negligently. “But I really know nothing about him; only, seeing that it was my dog who bit him . . .”

“Yes, yes, indeed, Miss Nest! And I am sorry that Griffiths should have been obliged to dismiss the man. . . . Must you be going now, Miss Nesta? I hope his Reverence do keep his health, and Miss Jane, and the lovely babe, as I do hear it is?”

“I suppose,” said Nest just as she was turning away, “that the man will have gone to Llanunwas by the road, because he might have got a lift that way?”

“No, no, he did go by the cliffs, because he thought he might ask for work at the mill down yonder in Caerbwdy; but I am sure he ’ould not get it, and he will be nearly to Llanunwas by this time.”

But will he? thought Nest when the door was shut. Mrs. Griffiths seems to reckon without his lameness, and as she probably has not stirred off the farm for years, save in her husband’s gig, has forgotten how steep is the path just here down to Caerbwdy and up the other side, and how much steeper and longer is that down to Porth-y-Rhaw. Shall I . . . shall I?

But if she went after him, what could she do? Nothing, absolutely nothing, except to say how sorry she was, and give him what money she had with her.

Besides, what an extraordinary, and, had he been of her own station, an unbefitting thing to do—pursue a young man who must very little desire to see her, along three miles or so of cliff! What would Jane, what would Papa say?

Nest stood hesitating there in the sunshine, while the dogs fawned upon her. Then she deliberately turned her back on the direction of St. David’s, and crossed the remainder of the field towards the descent into the first little valley running down to the sea which had to be traversed. As she went down the winding path between the bracken every foxglove among it nodded at her, but whether in approval or warning it was impossible to say. A bramble caught her thin yellow frock, flounced and flowered, which took a great deal of careful disentangling; it was evident that the blackberry bush at least did not favour the pursuit. And Nest herself thought, What shall I feel like when I come upon him, if I do; and what shall I say? . . . I shall pretend, of course, that I was just taking a walk along the cliffs, and be very much surprised to see him, and ask him what he is doing there . . .

So she planned as she went down into the combe where the small stream tinkled along almost hidden in wild mint, and was so shy that when it reached the shore it burrowed under the pebbles, and met the sea only as half a score of dispersed trickles. Down here stood the little water-mill; should she inquire whether a man from the farm above had asked for work there, or had even been seen passing? But a glance showed that the wheel was idle; the mill for some reason or other was not working to-day. So she continued along the stream until she could most conveniently cross it on the bank of pebbles at its mouth. Mounting again the other side, she was on a long stretch of turfy grass, and could see, away to the right, the sea breaking white round the bases of the humpy, close-pressed islets at the end of Ramsey Island; fifteen miles away, the shape of Grassholm dim in the haze; and in front and on her left hand the whole sickle-sweep of St. Bride’s Bay. Last time she had been here, in June, the grassy bank which accompanied her had been one long nodding line of pink thrift; but now it was clothed in some places with the gold of lady’s bedstraw, in others with the heaven-blue of the smaller scabious; and the ground at its foot was carpeted with the purple of the wild thyme. No wonder that the air was scented!

Nest walked on; the fields receded further from the edge. Still there was no sign of Mark Thompson; yet she had hardly come far enough for that. Soon she began to approach a lesser dip, Ogof-y-Ffôs, where the ancient stone dyke, of purpose unknown, which started miles away on the other coast, came to an end. Here there was no shore, for the stream, a very small affair indeed, did not visibly meet the tide, but fell, or rather trickled, when it reached the edge of the green trough, a good thirty or forty feet into the sea below. And it was here, near this outgoing, with his back to her, that a man was half sitting, half lying on the sloping turf, staring, apparently, at the Cradle, that strange jumble of rocks projecting into the sea about a mile away, between him and the invisible entrance to Solva harbour. He wore a very shabby hat; beside him lay a staff and a bundle tied up in a handkerchief. Nest recognised the clothes; the dirty white waistcoat and the faded blue trousers. It was undoubtedly Mark Thompson.

She stopped. He had not seen her, and owing to his position and the fact that the track which crossed the depression did not follow the verge but cut across the middle of the dip, he might not recognise her even when she got down. She was thus faced with a position of some delicacy, for if she were obliged deliberately to attract his attention she could not very easily feign surprise at seeing him. Fortunately, perhaps, a couple of stones slipped from the path, and the rattle carried to the ex-privateersman’s ears. He turned his head in an uninterested manner; turned still further round, and then scrambled slowly to his feet, removing his hat.

Nest was by this time on much the same level, but a good ten yards lay between them. This distance the young man made no effort to lessen. He simply remained where he was, whether remembering that formerly his close proximity had alarmed Miss Meredith, or conscious that there was no reason for attributing to her any desire for further speech with him. So that Nest, after a moment’s hesitation, was obliged to advance towards her quarry; and somehow all her design of affecting surprise at seeing him went by the board.

“I have just come from Tan-y-bach, Mr. Thompson,” she began, and the trouble in her voice was evident. “I was extremely sorry to learn there that Mr. Griffiths had discharged you on account of . . . on account of your being lame.”

He looked at her with a certain astonishment showing in his long-lashed grey eyes, cast them down, and fumbling with the ragged brim of his hat replied, “ ’Tis very good of you to give the matter a thought, miss—very good indeed!”

“But of course I have given it a thought,” returned Nest with vivacity, “seeing that it is, I fear, my dog’s fault that you are lame. I am . . . I am much concerned about it.”

The ex-haymaker shook his head. “Your dog only did his duty, miss. I don’t wonder at his distrusting . . . a man in these clothes.”

There was a kind of dull yet amused bitterness in his voice. Now that she was nearer to him Nest thought that he looked rather ill. Thin in the face he had been before—she had noticed that in the lane—but not, surely, pale with that curious effect of pallor beneath tan, as now.

“Mr. Thompson,” she said after a moment, “have you had any treatment for that bite?”

“I have washed the place, miss.”

“But that, evidently, is not sufficient. If you are so lame it must be that it is worse—and painful, too, I am afraid?”

“I’ve no doubt, miss, that it will heal in time,” said he.

“Yes, but meanwhile . . . and you have lost your employment on account of it. Mr. Thompson, you must go to a medical man. Dr. Walters——”

“That’s impossible,” he cut in shortly.

Nest coloured. “But, naturally, Dr. Meredith would pay for treatment, since it was my dog which bit you.” Then she remembered that Dr. Meredith was unaware of this fact, and could not be told of it.

The sardonic look which she had seen before appeared for a moment. “If Dr. Meredith was to pay for anything, miss, I reckon ’twould be for to have me clapped by the heels in gaol. But I wouldn’t have you think neither,” went on the runaway in a softer tone, “that I would have used violence on the reverend gentleman that evening, seeing he was your father, if I could ’a helped it!”

“But it was my fault,” asserted Nest impulsively. “It was my fault for so foolishly screaming. If I had not——”

But she broke off in astonishment, for Mark Thompson had suddenly hurled away the disreputable hat, and muttering, “I cannot keep this up any longer!” advanced several steps nearer. “Madam,” he said in quite a different tone, “you do nothing but blame yourself when you have, on the contrary, shown the most extraordinary kindness and courage, both in keeping my secret from the beginning, and in striving so generously to avoid recognising me on that unfortunate occasion. Believe me, it was partly in order to save you from an unpleasant dilemma that I was driven to resort to force. I deeply regretted it; I hope you believe that?”

Speechless, Nest took a step backwards, as there burst upon her the full shock of the discovery which she knew now that she had been more than once on the point of making already. Not so talked any privateersman, runaway or no. That hybrid, intermittent accent and diction were as much thrown aside as the speaker’s lamentable hat; the mask was off with a vengeance. She grew crimson.

“You are not a sailor or a labourer at all!” she exclaimed indignantly.

“But I admitted, madam, at our first meeting, that I was not.”

“Yet you pretended to be . . . you spoke as if . . . and all the time you are a gentleman!”

“Your tone, madam, if I may say so, seems to imply some doubt of it!” returned the masquerader pleasantly.

“If I had known, I should . . . I should not have . . .” Nest turned aside, tears of annoyance in her eyes, and began to poke at the close-growing wild thyme with the point of her shoe.

“You mean,” interpreted the runaway, “that had you known I was . . . an educated man, let us say . . . you would have gone to a magistrate and had me taken back to Liverpool to pay the penalty of my desertion?”

“No, sir, indeed I should not, but——”

“At any rate, it seems that it was because you believed me of inferior station that you were willing to save me from that fate, and very nearly to tell a lie on my behalf to your father—a deed,” he added in a softer tone, “which I shall remember all my life with wonder and gratitude.”

“I did tell a lie,” returned the heroine, almost crying. “At least, it amounted to a lie.”

“For Mark Thompson, who never existed! ’Tis all the more miraculous and kind, then! Will you allow Mar—— the real individual to kiss your hand in sincerest gratitude, and then to go upon his way?” As she did not answer, the ex-haymaker very gently took her hand, lifted it to his lips, and let it drop again passive; Nest had once more turned her head away.

“I fully understand,” went on the agreeable voice, “that while Miss Meredith can without fear of scandal be seen talking to a ragged unfortunate in whom she is good enough to interest herself, she would not wish it to be known that she had spent the same amount of time and charity over a man of her own class, even though the same rags covered him—and his plight was in fact much worse than that of a mere runaway sailor who could not find work!”

This exact penetration of her feelings at once astonished and exasperated Miss Meredith. If he realised that, then he had no business to deceive her as he had done about his social position—and with such ease too! She ought to have recognised sooner—at moments she had almost recognised—that there was something odd about this deserter. Then curiosity and alarm began to battle with outraged feelings. What did the concluding phrase of that short speech signify?

There was not much time left in which to find out, for its maker was obviously preparing to move on, since he was limping back to the spot where he had left his staff and bundle and was stooping to pick them up. What was his real plight then? An awful thought suddenly smote Nest—suppose he had committed forgery and that the gallows loomed in front of him? Forgery was the kind of crime which (she imagined) only an educated man would be able to commit. But surely not a man so young! Dr. Dodd, of whose fate not quite twenty years previously she had heard, had been, she believed, middle-aged . . . No, it could not be that; he must have been involved in some unfortunate “affair of honour” in which he had killed his man. That at least was a more respectable, even romantic, misdeed, though of course one must disapprove of the custom of duelling.

The duellist (or forger) now had his stick and bundle and was going after his discarded hat. Nest followed him.

“Sir,” she said, not without timidity, “I wish that you would tell me what your plight really is. I assure you that I would not divulge it.”

The runaway faced her, his meagre belongings in his hand. “No, madam, I have troubled you too much already. I do not, believe me, wish to burden you still further.” But his tone was not repressive, and he gave her the attractive smile which she had seen once in the lane. No, he couldn’t be a forger!

“But even though you are not . . . what I took you for, perhaps I could help you in some way,” she persisted.

He shook his head, still with the smile. “You have helped me, madam.”

But the more he resisted the more Nest found herself anxious to know the facts.

“It is true that I am only a girl without influence; but my father, if I explained matters to him . . .”

“But—forgive me for saying so, madam, you do not know what there is to explain! If you did, you would realise that neither the Precentor, nor, I imagine, the Bishop himself could procure for me the only thing which would help me now!”

“Oh, sir, you must tell me! What is it that would help you? Do you mean money?”

The shabby young man shook his head. “A sack of money could not buy what I need.” He came a little closer and lowered his voice. “If your prayers have influence with heaven, Miss Meredith, what I need is a Crown pardon.”

But Nest retreated a step. “A Crown pardon!” she gasped. “But that means . . . you mean you . . . Oh, what have you done then, Mr. Thompson?”

“My real name,” said “Mr. Thompson,” looking at her hard, “is Tyrrell, Martin Tyrrell. I think I had better not tell you what I am accused of,” he added, with a slight accent on the “accused,” “for I fancy that you are very patriotic here.”

“Patriotic? Yes, we are patriotic; but what has that to do with it, sir?” she asked. “Why should you be afraid of patriotic people?” (Surely, surely, he had not run away from the Fair Penitent out of disloyalty—the idea was too repellent!)

Mr. Martin Tyrrell, late Thompson, continued to look at her rather defiantly, and a tinge of defiance was audible in his voice also as he said: “After all, I think you at least, madam, have a right to know the truth about my situation. It is this: there has been a warrant for treason out against me since last May—and probably a warrant for murder also!”

This stunning information, so much exceeding anything that Nest had imagined, had the effect of sweeping her legs from under her; at all events she found herself, a moment or two later, sinking into a sitting posture on the slope. Her eyes, wide with horror, were still fixed upon the maker of this shocking avowal; finding voice at last she got out: “Treason . . . treason! . . . Then you are a Jacobin, a revolutionary of some kind!”

“Not in the least,” answered Mr. Tyrrell, quite cheerfully this time, presumably because his dread secret was now disclosed; and he too lowered himself on to the turf at a little distance. “No more than the oldest canon of your Cathedral; no more than your dog, Miss Meredith, who so strongly objects to anyone resembling a sans-culotte. I am merely unlucky; more unlucky than I could have imagined any man with honest intentions becoming in so short a space of time. But I realise,” he added quickly, “that you have only my word for this. I do not know whether you can place any more reliance upon it because, like yours, my father is in orders, though he is not a Cathedral dignitary, but merely a poor country parson!”

“How terrible!” murmured Nest, referring of course not to the less exalted position of the Reverend Mr. Tyrrell, but to the whole situation, intensified to her by a half-vision of her own father receiving, for instance, the news of his son William’s pursuit by the law on two capital charges. And somehow it did not occur to her, any more (apparently) than to the fugitive, that this statement about his father’s profession, though he tendered it as a proof of good faith, had exactly the same claim to belief as his previous statement about his ill-luck, no more and no less. “Is your father aware of your misfortunes, sir?”

“I am not certain how much the dear old man knows,” replied Martin Tyrrell with a sigh. “Enough to wreck his peace of mind, at any rate, for I expect the parsonage was searched for me, and though I hope he would not credit the charge of treason, yet appearances could be made to look so black against me on that count, and are so black upon the other . . .” He paused, now wearing a very gloomy look.

“If your father does not know the truth,” said Nest impulsively, “you must, sir, communicate with him in some way! Does he even know where you are?” And as the ex-privateersman shook his head, she went on: “But perhaps you are meaning now to make your way back to him? Forgive me for the question, but—have you money enough for the journey?”

“Again it is not a question of money, madam. I cannot go home in any case. It is there above all that I should be looked for—just as I dared not return in the Vrijheid to Liverpool, where . . . I know they must be waiting for me. I deserted from her rather than risk that. No, until I came ashore here the other day I have had no chance at all of writing to my father, and now I am afraid to do it, lest it should lead to my capture, which would be the worst blow of all to him. His correspondence,” he explained, “is probably watched with that object, and any letter in my handwriting, of which the authorities doubtless have specimens, would be opened.”

“But that is terrible for your father,” said the girl once more. “Something should be done to relieve his anxiety. What if I asked my own father to write to him? No,” she caught herself up, “I am afraid——”

“No, indeed,” agreed the runaway. “I certainly could not expect Dr. Meredith to intervene after the other evening’s doings in the ruin, which alone must have given him a pretty unfavourable impression of my character—again my persistent ill-luck!”

For a moment Nest plucked at the wild thyme in silence. “There would be nothing to prevent my writing to your father,” she said at last in a small voice. “You could instruct me, sir, in what to say.”

Martin Tyrrell’s face lit up, and he leant forward. “You cannot mean that,” he said eagerly; “it is too kind, too . . .” In a sudden gust of emotion he also had recourse to the unfortunate thyme, and tugged out an entire tuft, roots and all. Studying it rather attentively he went on, in a voice which was not quite steady: “The thought of what my poor father must have been suffering all these weeks on my account has been, I think, the bitterest element in my cup. If indeed you could . . . somehow . . . but I ought not to ask it . . .”

“It seems to me, sir, that it is only right that I should do what I can in so distressing a case,” replied Nest firmly. “But I must know what I am to put in my letter, must I not—the tale of your . . . of your misfortunes?”

Mr. Tyrrell wrinkled his forehead. “But if I tell you I shall make you an accessory after the fact. Heavens!” a look of horror suddenly overspread his sunburnt features, “you are that in some measure already!” He made as though to spring up, but subsided again. “I ought not to have told you my name; I have perhaps even by that rendered you liable to punishment as an accomplice!”

“Pray do not be so horrified, sir,” returned the young lady with outward composure and a not unpleasant thrill of excitement. “The law, I am sure, does not regard females—and females under age especially—as accountable for such things in the same degree as men. And to be of service to your father (she did not say “to you”) I ought surely to be in possession of the facts, or as much of them as you are disposed to tell me.” She looked at the ill-starred Mr. Martin Tyrrell, sitting upon the same carpet of thyme—but at a proper distance—the blue waters of St. Bride’s Bay shimmering behind him, with a sympathetic and expectant air.

And after gazing all round the little valley, which was perfectly deserted but for a raven or two, Mr. Tyrrell let himself slide some feet further down the slope, perhaps hoping thus to render himself invisible to any passer-by, while Miss Meredith would appear to be enjoying a solitary prospect of the ocean. Then he began his story, while the stream dripped to the rocks below, and now and again the shadow of a wheeling gull swept over the sunlit turf of Ogof-y-Ffôs.