Читать книгу The Key Above the Door - Maurice Walsh - Страница 5

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THE strip of gravel was empty. From round the curve of the shore came the crunch of departing footsteps. I lay still till that sound died away, and, as I lay, concentrated with all my might on things as they stood and as they might stand. At last I got to my knees, made a secure parcel of shoes and hose, tucked it under my arm, and ducked from under the screen of birch leaves. And, straightening up, I found myself face to face with the lady in white: that lady in white of whom I had caught a glimpse before yet the issue was locked, and who had been ignored and forgotten, characteristically enough, by us males in our little war. She must have moved up the bank as the issue developed, and now she stood amongst the boulders directly behind my hiding-place. She was very cool-looking and unmistakably patrician in her white dress, and I was not cool at all. Probably my mouth gaped as I stared at her.

‘I have been looking at your shoe-heels for quite a time,’ she said almost casually, and at once I noticed the low-pitched timbre of her voice.

I looked down at my old brogues and back at her, and then at the rim of sandstone outside the birch fronds, and below that, and to the right, could be seen the trampled gravel where the issue had been locked. That gave me an opening for speech. ‘And did you enjoy the affair, madam?’ I asked her.

‘It was not a nice affair,’ she gave me back, ‘but a third man might have made it nicer.’

The ever-so-little bleak note of contempt in her voice silenced me, disquieted me, even made me slightly angry.

She was a tall young woman and slim, and her white—or very light-cream—dress had something robe-like about it. She wore an oldish panama-hat, and her black hair peeped below it. There was little or no colour in her face, which was of that type of beauty that, in a travail of expression, we call proud, magnetic, electric, tragic; sombre, I think, is the best word of all, and the quality it attempts to describe is always in beauty of the highest quality: beauty of the calm, lean kind, dark-eyed and serious, proud and self-willed, fateful and unafraid, and made for love and desolation since Troy fell: beauty that fate plays with for its own ends, and that man has been thrall to since passion’s first stir.

It seems to me now that, at my first glance, I could not help thus finally summing up that woman and her beauty. But, of course, all I could have noticed was that she was of aristocratic mould, and dowered with good looks and calmness of bearing. I had time to notice no more.

‘You have the rest of their clothes too,’ she said, and her tone was again casual.

‘So I have,’ I said; ‘and, if you will pardon my abruptness, I will be making shift to return them to their owners.’ I was about to turn away, when a thought came to me. ‘Madam,’ I said, ‘you may want to get back to Reroppe. Your best road is over the bank up there, and to the right of the wooded knoll you will see facing you.’

I suggested that road, hoping that she would choose it instead of the path by the river. Doubtless her friends, expecting to find her somewhere on that path, would at least send back a gillie when they reached their car. I had no hope that she would remain silent. All I wanted was a little extra time, and, given that, was prepared to risk her speech—or aught else.

I lifted my old tweed hat and swung away to scramble up over the sandstone rocks above us. Lest she be watching, I did not spare myself in that climb, and in less than a minute was over the brow on a damp slope grown with dark alders. Without a pause I slanted steadily across this until, breaking through some stunted willows, I came out on the open moor, and there I paused to recover my wind and take my line. Right and left the moors spread and rolled and lifted into limestone-ribbed hills; in front of me rose a tufted knoll, and behind it was the lodge of Reroppe. I chose the left flank of that knoll for my road, because, though rougher, it was the shorter—and, having chosen, set out at a long swinging trot meant to cover a mile of old heather in the very shortest time possible. I was running a race, and the men I sought to beat had before them half a mile on foot and a mile by motor. There was no time to waste; but I was not yet old, and my fibre was tough, and the errand that moved me moved me strongly. At no time did I see myself losing that race.

At the back of Reroppe Lodge is a long belt of dark pines, planted closely to keep off the snell north winds, and one coming in off the moors remains invisible from the lodge or the road approaching it. I got safely into that belt and through to its outer edge, where I threw myself flat behind a juniper bush and panted. The lodge with its outbuildings is shaped like the letter L, and the sheltering pine-belt is parallel to the short arm and less than twenty paces away. Peering from behind the juniper, I looked through an old sagging wire fence directly at the gun-room window, and well to the left of that I gazed slantwise through the open back door of Davy Thomson’s byre. The byre would be empty I knew, for on the moor I had passed Davy’s polled cow. In the doorway an old and broody hen complained crooningly, and I startled her unconsolably as I darted across the open and into the byre. She went between my legs with a fluttering squawk and disappeared round the corner, clamouring outrageously. If any folks heard, I hoped they would impute her alarm to some marauding stoat.

I pushed the door to behind me, and, though the front door was also closed, enough light came through the chinks to show where a ladder, nailed perpendicularly against the end partition, gave access to the hay-loft. I scrambled up this ladder into the loft, dropped the trap-door gently, and found myself in darkness. This did not trouble me greatly, for I knew the internal economy of the lodge with some thoroughness. The hay-loft in which I stood ran the whole length of the outbuildings, the ground floor of which consisted of storeroom, byre, and what was once a stable. The stable, to suit the new civilisation, was now converted into a motor garage, and had a big double door broken in at the gable-end.

I moved down the loft until I was above the garage. Here, instead of petrol, I smelled the fragrance of new-mown hay, and shuffled forward until I came to where a small pile of it was heaped at the very end of the loft, near the door in the gable-end through which it had been forked. A chink or two of light came through the fabric of this door and gave me my bearings. Given these, I soon found the old trap-door opening directly over the disused stable manger. It was secured by a slip-through bolt, which I gently drew, only to find that my efforts to lift the trap were fruitless. By prising it at the corners I found that it was not nailed down, but secured below by another bolt. Satisfied on this point, I slipped the top bolt home and went back to the pile of hay, where I seated myself and waited.

‘Now,’ I said to myself, ‘we shall soon see how well or ill I have succeeded in thinking another man’s thoughts.’

There was not long to wait. The purr of a motor came to me as it turned into the drive from the high road, and its movements were easy to follow, as it slowed down, accelerated, reversed, and went through the various manœuvres necessary in backing up to the garage door. Followed many confusing sounds, and then the double doors creaked open and the voice of the big man came through the floor. ‘In there, you young whelps!’ he said sternly. ‘You’ll speak when you are next spoken to—or suffer the consequences.’

There was a pause, and Leng again spoke. ‘Is that trap-door secured from above, Thomson?’

‘There is a guid bolt haudin’ it onywey, Mr Leng,’ came Davy’s voice.

Someone scrambled on the manger, snicked back the lower bolt, and thumped forcefully on the trap-door. It was well that I had slipped the top bolt home.

‘Quite secure,’ said Leng. ‘Come on, Murray, and let’s get a bite of something. Howard’—this to the chauffeur—‘you sit in the car and watch that door. If there’s the least attempt to break out, blow your horn.’

The big double doors clanged, footsteps receded over the cobbled yard, and in a little time there was a complete silence. I was not done congratulating myself on my reasoning, when the silence was broken by the Irishman’s voice. ‘This surely has been a hectic day, Alec,’ he said whimsically.

‘It is time we made a move,’ said Munro, ‘and we are up against it if we do not make it a good one.’

‘I would be feeling twice a better man,’ said Quinn, ‘if I had something on my feet. They are foundered beyond repair, and I’ve lost all delight in the simple life. I wonder what long Tom King of Loch Ruighi did with our togs?’

‘I don’t quite understand that long man of yours,’ said Munro.

‘He is no quitter,’ the Irishman upheld me. ‘At the back of my mind I hang on to a powerful hope in him. ‘Ssh!’

At this juncture I had leant forward and tapped the floor smartly with my knuckles. There was a dead silence below, and I started to crawl across the floor, tapping as I went. When I reached the trap-door I tapped that a little more loudly, eased back the bolt, and listened. The lads understood very quickly. Scarcely had I withdrawn the bolt, when the snick of the lower one reached my ears. The trap-door was pushed up beneath my hands, and the loft was no longer dark. The Irishman was standing on the ledge of the manger and peering up at me.

‘Quick! you long devil,’ I urged, and, catching his outstretched hand, had him in the loft in one clean lift. Munro followed with the agility of a monkey.

‘We are pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr King,’ greeted Quinn. ‘Did you come by aeroplane or broomstick?’

I slipped back to the hay-pile and fumbled for the parcel of shoes and hose. ‘Here!’ I whispered over my shoulder. ‘Kick these on somehow, and hurry for the sake of your immortal souls.’

And they surely hurried. A groan or two as shoes pressed on lacerated feet, a whip-round of tangled laces, a muffled shamble down the loft, and in less than a minute we were down in the byre and at the back door.

‘Do you see that plantation over there?’ I pointed out. ‘That is our first objective. Follow——’

Munro caught my arm. His face was lighted as with a new thought, and he paused to play with it.

‘Don’t be a silly young ass,’ I reproved him testily, but he only gripped all the tighter.

‘Wait you, long man,’ he said. ‘This ploy is not over yet. Will you tell me how the road runs from this place to where we left our motor-bike on your side of the loch?’

‘But, man alive! that is not your road now——’

‘Not your road. Can you not answer me?’ and he shook my arm.

‘To the right beyond the gates here, and in three miles the left fork round the south end of the loch.’

He dropped my arm and caught Quinn’s. ‘Neil,’ he said, ‘we must get away quickly from this country. Out there is a car guarded by one man.... What do you say?’

‘Think of me forgetting that, Alistair lad!’ said Quinn, grinning delightedly. He slapped me on the shoulder. ‘This is no place for you any longer, Tom King. We shall meet again, but now you must take your own road in the heather. This thing we are doing is due to us. Come along, Munro, and let us take a peep.’

It was so clear that any words of reason would be useless that I did not delay any longer in securing my own retreat. I made a slanting dash for the plantation, ducked below the wires, and flattened out. Lifting my head, I could see the high gray bonnet of the car round the end of the garage, and I wormed sidewards behind the stunted junipers until the chauffeur came into the field of vision. He was sitting aside and carelessly on his seat, smoking a contemplative cigarette, one hand thrown over the back-rest and his eyes on the distant hills: an easy-minded, menial man, wholly unaware of the grievous evil creeping up on him. I was the sole observer of the brace of young tigers crawling up by the wall and peering at him from the corner, and the sole spectator of the ruthless charge they made on him. He, poor victim, was startlingly plucked, like a helpless rabbit, through the open door of the car, flapped on his face like a squab of mud, and held flat and helpless under the Irishman’s iron knee.

Munro hopped into the driving-seat and dealt with levers boldly and with faith. There followed the metallic pulse of the self-starter, the purr of the engine taking on, the fierce acceleration, the check and catch of the recklessly-let-in clutch, and the sudden leap forward of the car. And then the Irishman gave his victim one final and reprehensible bump, and hurled himself over the lowered hood into the back seat. I saw his badly-laced shoes disappear as the car rocked and swerved into the drive.

I did not wait for the ensuing clamour; it had no attractions. I crawled down the fence behind the scattered clumps of broom and juniper till, getting well on the blind side of the lodge, I essayed a crouching dash through the spindly firs to the open moor, where I took to my heels in dead earnest, and never cried halt until I reached the shelter of the hollow in which flows the Rhinver Burn. By that singing little water I rested and chuckled with the stream, until I minded, with the least touch of chagrin, that a young woman in white knew more of my movements that day than I should like any woman to know.

‘I wonder,’ said I to the gurgling water, ‘what use she will be making of her knowledge. Will she be for using me as a pawn in some game that women play? But ’tis a poor tough old pawn she will find me, and not amenable, praises be, to the games that women play.’

And with that smug thought I was about to rise to my feet, when a gleam of white caught my eye. I looked up, startled, for I suppose my nerves were still atwitter. The lady whom I had been considering was looking down at me from the head of the few feet of slope at the other side of the stream. A tall, slim lady in white, with the setting sun shining ruddily on her. She carried her old panama in her hand, and, though her black hair curled close to her head and to her white brow, a little wisp here and there was filmed against the pale glow of the evening sky. I noted all that before rising to my feet, and I was not long in doing that.

The half-cynical mood in which I had been philosophising left me self-collected, and the lady’s presence no longer embarrassed me. I lifted my old hat, and: ‘You are taking the long road home, madam,’ I said.

‘I fear I am,’ said the lady easily. She did not smile, nor did she don the dignity and aloofness of the patrician caste. ‘I crossed this brook farther down, and now that I want to cross it again without wet feet it will not let me.’

‘It likes good company—and small blame to it,’ I said; ‘but you are not far from a crossing-place now. Let me show you.’

We went up the burn together, and the water gurgled to itself between us. She was silent, and I wanted to hear her talk.

‘Round this curve here,’ I said, ‘there is a stepping-stone or maybe two, and a path going down between the tussocks to Reroppe. The folks down there will be wondering about you.’

‘I do not think so,’ she told me. ‘One of the men came back to look for me on the riverside, and I told him I was coming across country.’

I said nothing to that, but I wondered if that was all she told him. And then I remembered that when I lay in hiding under the birch tree she might easily have given me away and had not done so. That made me wonder all the more; and I so wondering, we arrived where the water shouldered gurglingly round the stepping-stones.

‘Here we are, my lady,’ I told her. ‘Watch your feet, now, and here is a hand if you need it.’

Lightly her white shoes touched the smooth whinstones, and I withdrew my outstretched hand untouched. A little cool, faintly-perfumed breeze brushed by me.

‘Thank you,’ said the lady. She stood within two yards and looked at me. ‘You have got rid of your parcel of shoes,’ she said quietly. ‘I hope your—friends are wearing them.’

‘They had much need of them at any rate. You will be told things down at the lodge, madam, and will be able to draw your own conclusions.’

‘They may be unpleasant ones.’

‘They may, indeed. As a friend of mine said, many a fine day is spoiled at the end of it.’

‘Whose fault will it be?’

‘Mine surely, and I will have to take all the blame that is to come.’

‘You seem to have avoided blame rather carefully.’

Again there was the little bleak note of disapproval, but it no longer touched me hardly.

‘My fate will find me out,’ I said, ‘and more than that no one should expect. It might help you to know that my name is Tom King, and that I live at Loch Ruighi over the hill there.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I will remember—if necessary’; and she looked at me with something new in her expression.

‘I am well known—and more is the pity,’ I went on. ‘Davy Thomson, your head keeper, will tell you things about me which are mostly not true—but he is a decent man all the same. I have a small cottage and a bit croft on the hill of Cairn Rua, and a goat called Suzanne—because of her nimbleness. I have a boat on the loch too—are you interested in fishing, madam?’

‘Not the fishing I saw this afternoon.’

‘You would not be, indeed. That was a nice fish you caught to-day, but Davy’s long-handled gaff would be apt to hurt the poor thing—besides the fly in its mouth.’

Her steady-gazing eyes did not even flicker. I tried her once more.

‘We do strange things here in the North—sometimes. Some things we do or have to do or leave undone are not always understood by civilised people from the South, but in our own way we generally carry things to a fitting conclusion—a very fitting conclusion—as you may find out when you get back to Reroppe.’

‘I shall remember what you say,’ said my lady. ‘Good evening, and thanks.’

And so she left me—still a nameless and somewhat strange young woman. For a few seconds I watched her go, and then turned and stared at the water shouldering round the stepping-stones.

‘That young woman,’ I considered, ‘has me in the hollow of her white hands—as she thinks. She will be a strange young woman if she does not tell that big black young fellow about me and the craven part I played. I hope she did not expect me to plead with her. It would not be safe to shelter behind a woman’s silence—a woman’s silence, indeed! We must just wait on events, my lady, and, if you are the woman I expect you are, we need not lose patience in waiting.’

And so I went homewards up the long slopes of heather. By the time I reached the head of Aitnoch Hill the splendid spread of moors before me was darkening with an infinite gentleness in the half-light, and Loch Ruighi, in its hollow, was shining with a clear silver light of its own. The gray bulk of the Wolf’s Island and the gray-green ash trees among the castle ruins stood out against that shine to the last broken line and the last gnarled twig.

As I rowed across the loch the white moth came out, and the whole expanse of water was ringed with feeding fish. I had three rods in the boat—Quinn’s, Munro’s, and my own—but all desire for fishing had left me. Instead, I pulled steadily to the other shore, and there moored my little craft at the home-made pier. Just opposite was the pathway leading up through the heather to my cottage, and by the open gateway, where the road curves with the shore of the loch, I looked for my friends’ side-car outfit. It was not there, of course, nor was there any trace of the commandeered motor-car.

‘In due course I shall hear,’ I said, and set foot on the path that my own feet had worn.

As I approached the dark and silent little house crouching grayly amongst the gray outcroppings of lime-stone I was greeted by the anxious bleat of my goat, Suzanne—the nimble one—who needed milking very urgently, and urgently did I milk her for the splendid white wine of drink she gave me. And, as I milked, night came down, not in darkness, but rather in a lessening of light: an infinitely still half-light, self-evolved, and unrelated to sun or star: a toneless half-light that brought home to one the desolation, the remoteness, the terrible nothingness of immobility—the underlying immobility that is the final and eternal mood. In that stillness and toneless light I could imagine the world already wheeling dead in dead space but for the occasional little sighing draw of air over far reaches of heather—a sound woefully sad, yet comforting.