by Russell Kirk
Logan took another pawn. “Oh, surely now, Dr. Jackman, you don’t mean to say that my Mary’s a wild girl?”
Jackman reached gently across the board and gave Logan a pat on the shoulder. “It’s best to know these things early, Logan. I do mean just that. When our Mary was scarcely thirteen, there was – well, what I really must call an affair with a farm laborer here in Carnglass, in the summer. The man was dismissed as soon as the thing was discovered; he could have been sent to prison, I suppose. And yet he does not seem to have taken the initiative. Then there was a report from school that the girl was found with an hotel porter. I sha’n’t say more concerning that. There have been two lesser incidents of the same nature – two that we know of. And finally, your case.”
“Dr. Jackman!” Logan had half convinced himself that he really was a decent, ambitious bank-clerk, and threw corresponding indignation and bewilderment into his outcry. “Dr. Jackman! I’d never think of anything – anything not proper with Mary. I mean the girl to be my wife, Dr. Jackman.”
Jackman raised his eyebrows. “Frankly, now: would you care to begin married life with a young woman of these tendencies? Possibly you don’t quite believe what I’ve told you, though I could show you letters. Yet you’d discover the truth after marriage, if you refused to credit it before. So far as your own conduct is concerned, Mr. Logan, I’m satisfied that you have behaved decently. But look at the matter from another point of view. Here is a girl who throws herself at the head of a young man she encounters casually in a bank, because he is bold enough to say he likes her ankles. She invites him to her house without even informing her guardians. She conducts, I suppose, some clandestine correspondence with him. She rushes into his arms after not having seen him for three months. Really, Lady MacAskival ought not to have allowed Mary that Christmas holiday in Edinburgh.”
“Dr. Jackman,” Logan said, “I trust you, and I see you’re an educated man. As for me, I never attended the varsity; it was not my line. But cannot this be all rumor and misunderstanding about Mary?”
“I don’t mean to be harsh upon the girl; after all, she is as much of a daughter as I possess, Logan. Oh, check again, by the way. I am not condemning – only explaining. I doubt if the girl can help herself. I suspect the concupiscence is in the blood. And her loneliness contributes: as I suggested, sexual promiscuity sometimes is more a symptom of a disorder than a disorder itself. I will be entirely blunt, if you will allow me, Mr. Logan: in the legal meaning of the phrase, and in other meanings, Mary MacAskival is not sane. She is not sane where men are concerned, nor in certain other matters. She suffers from a variety of delusions – I give you, my word. She might suddenly tell you, for instance, that I, Edmund Jackman, desire to marry her – an absurdity, because it would be almost as if I were to marry my own granddaughter, of course. At times she has even come to me with – well, shall we say hints and invitations? That was when no younger man was available. It has been necessary to forbid her very strictly ever to be alone even with the servants; Mr. Royall and I take care, one or the other of us, to be in this house whenever she is. I’m sorry, Mr. Logan. But to tell you all this is the best service I can render you.”
“I had no notion, sir,” Logan told him. He took Jackman’s king’s rook. And Logan had no difficulty in looking perplexed. Jackman was a very different sort of being from the charlatan or bully he had thought he might be. Those fine black eyes of Jackman’s looked candidly into Logan’s.
“And I confess I am somewhat surprised, Logan,” Jackman was saying, “that you got yourself engaged to the girl while she is a minor.”
“Oh, surely, Dr. Jackman, Mary’s old enough to choose for herself.”
“I fear she already has chosen quite often, Logan; she began at a tender age, to put it somewhat coarsely. You do know just how old she is, I take it?”
“Not precisely, sir; she would not tell me her birthday. She said I ought not to spend the money for a present. Nineteen, nearing twenty, I suppose?”
“Then I have been unjust to you, Logan. If you had known … Miss Mary MacAskival is barely fifteen. She prevaricates on that topic, as on many others. Of course, as any man with eyes in his head can see, Mary is a well-developed girl. Again, it runs in her family, I am told. Physically mature, yes; but emotionally and morally immature; and always will be.”
Why this disclosure affected Logan so deeply, he hardly could explain to himself. It was as if he actually had turned himself into the fictitious bank-clerk he was impersonating. In this matter, as in related matters, he might have been on the verge of making a great fool of himself. He had begun to fancy himself in the role of Galahad – or of Sigurd Askival – rescuing a beautiful maiden from a wicked enchanter. And it seemed to be turning out that the maiden was no maid, nor right in the head; and that the enchanter was by no means thoroughly wicked. He had listened to a drunken Irish terrorist spreading scandals about an unknown Dr. Jackman. He had not the least proof, indeed, that Jackman had any real connection with J. Dowie, Commission Agent, or with Captain Gare of the frightened eyes; they might be someone else’s agents, perhaps in the pay of those London connections of Lady MacAskival. It remained possible, and even probable, that this Dr. Jackman had aspirations after some of Lady MacAskival’s money; but he doubted very much whether Jackman was a conspirator, or a saboteur, or even a charlatan. Some sort of political radical, likely enough; and a dabbler in odd learned subjects; but a keen and even likeable man. And for what had Logan been paid to come to Carnglass? Not to criticize Dr. Jackman’s character, or to carry off young women – or children – of doubtful morals, but merely to buy a piece of real estate for his principal. He might have made a thoroughgoing fool of himself. Indeed, he had done so already. He had put himself in a ridiculous light with Jackman by accepting the role of suitor which Mary MacAskival, in her madcap childish way, had thrust upon him. He had sent a silly note to the police in Glasgow – though that would do no real harm, since surely Donley had no intention of delivering it. He may have helped a murderer escape from the island – almost surely he had done just that. He was almost an accomplice, what with the Irishman’s gun hidden in a sling under his arm. Yes, he was a damned fool; and he might have to play the fool a while longer, if only to extricate himself from this folly. He moved at hazard on the chessboard; the glaring eyes of a berserker-rook confronted him. One misgiving, however, did come into his head.
“Dr. Jackman,” he said, “I understand there was a factor, a Mr. Lagg. Where is he?”
Jackman seemed taken aback at this non sequitur. “Surely Mary has told you…”
“No, we had only a moment together before you came into the parlor, sir. She had simply mentioned a puzzle of sorts, with Mr. Lagg involved.”
Jackman was solemn and troubled. “I am virtually certain, Mr. Logan, that Lagg has been murdered. We have searched every nook in the island for him, these three days; but not a trace. As I have pieced matters together, Donley drank too much and broke into Lagg’s house in search of money. Lagg was very much of a Scot – if you’ll pardon me, Mr. Logan – and the servants talked of how he hoarded five-pound notes in his kitchen. Perhaps Lagg returned from a visit to the farm while Donley was doing his mischief. From the wreckage inside the New House, we can only conjecture that there was a struggle. Donley, we know to our sorrow, was armed. He may have forced Lagg, at the point of his pistol, to the cliff’s edge. But we cannot find the body. Then, after Lagg had disappeared and we had begun to question Donley, that Irishman broke away and ran into the bracken. In the evening he came down and burnt our boats, to keep us from reaching the police or in an attempt to get a boat for his escape; and we have been after him ever since. Presumably he is short of ammunition by this time. In the fight at the harbor, he threw burning petrol into the boats, and one of our boatmen was terribly burnt, poor fellow, and probably will lose the sight of at least one eye; I must dress his face again tonight. But Lagg? A gone gosling, I am very much afraid. And an efficient factor, for years.”
“But to return to a topic almost equally difficult for me, Logan: I think you will perceive that your marrying Miss MacAskival is wholly out of the question. To begin with, she simply isn’t of age. Besides, the shock of an announcement of that sort might put an end to Lady MacAskival, who is very old and very sick. And for your own sake, Logan – and I rather like your face and your ways – don’t be rash. If you still care for the girl after what I’ve told you, give her time to reach moral womanhood, if ever she can. I don’t say you need to break off the affair altogether. Be gentle with her; go back to Edinburgh; exchange letters now and then, if you like. But marriage, for the next two or three years, would be a catastrophe, I assure you.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Dr. Jackman,” Logan replied, still in his bank-clerk role.
“I usually am right,” Jackman told him, smiling. “And there’s this: it is worth something to Lady MacAskival to have a decent young man treat her ward decently. My recommendations happen to carry considerable weight with Lady MacAskival. Mary does not need a husband or a lover, but she does need a friend. And I can see that you mean to move ahead in the world; and you deserve to, Logan. So if you can contrive to act as I suggest, where our Mary is concerned, I think I can guarantee that Lady MacAskival will give you a cheque for fifteen hundred pounds. I have no intention of bribing you: I know you’re above that. But you deserve some compensation for the disappointment you’ve had, and for my part, I’d not be sorry to give you a leg up in the world. Don’t feel insulted, Logan. I put it to you plainly: will you do us the honor of accepting that cheque?”
What Logan might have done had he truly been the fictitious bank-clerk, he did not know. But as an experienced lawyer, he was disturbed by this offer. It was too much money for no real service. If once he had been inclined to mistake Dr. Jackman for a thorough scoundrel, it would not do now to make a model philanthropist of him. Of course he could not really take the money, being Hugh Logan; yet he could accept the cheque as the fictitious Logan and destroy it later. What he said was, “If you’ll allow me, sir, I’ll sleep on your offer and give you my answer tomorrow.”
“A sound policy.” Jackman lightly tapped his shoulder again. “And I believe I know already what your decision will be, Logan. Ah: checkmate.” Jackman had won the match with the thousand-year-old chessmen, despite his handicap.
Dr. Jackman rose. “We dine at seven, here in my study, Mr. Logan. In the Old House we have neither electricity nor running hot water – Lady MacAskival does not care for modern comfort – but old Agnes will bring hot water and a lamp to your room. I’ll show you there in a moment. But before the sun goes down, shall we enjoy the view from the battlements? I think the mist has lifted a trifle, though you come to us in a clouded month. By the way, Miss MacAskival will be at dinner with us. I ask you to say as little as possible to her about my observations, should you talk with her alone before dinner, or later – for her own interest, you understand, Logan. A personality as unbalanced as hers might be permanently affected by imprudent reproaches. I trust to your Scottish discretion. Just up the stair, now.”
They emerged upon the lead of the roof from under the conical-capped turret. A narrow walk led round the gabled cap of the great tower, between the stone slabs of the gable itself and the machicolations of the battlements. Before them was Askival harbor, the sunken yacht black against the pier; and beyond, across the foggy ocean, the sun was descending in a diffused glory. Despite its climate, Carnglass was a beautiful island. A corncrake flew low above the tower. Far below, in the policies, a jungle of rhododendrons was in bloom. And five armed men were walking up to the gate in the Victorian block of the Old House of Fear.
“Mr. Royall!” Jackman called. The five looked up, and the leader, that “walking cadaver,” formed his thin hands into a trumpet. Even at this distance, his pallid face and protruding teeth were ugly in the extreme: a queer sort of secretary, this skeleton-like man with a rifle slung over his shoulder. “Mr. Royall!” Jackman cried out. “What luck?” The five men below stared in astonishment at Logan, beside Jackman at the battlements. The four hangdog faces behind Royall aroused a vague discomfort at the back of Logan’s mind.
“Rab and Carruthers have strayed, Dr. Jackman,” Royall called back. “Can you see them from the tower?” Though Jackman and Logan looked to north and east, there was not a sign of the other two men.
“Is there no trace of Donley?” Jackman shouted. Gesturing dispiritedly, Royall shouted back, “I’ll explain when I come up.”
“I doubt whether we can give you a decent dinner, Mr. Logan,” Jackman said as they turned back to the turret-stair. “Our cook, you understand, has been out with the searching-party, and we have had to press the butler into service in the kitchen. Have you ever lived in a state of siege? A mad island, this Carnglass.”
“Fish and chips would do nicely, thank you,” Logan told him. “I’ve not had a bite these twenty hours.” He still was the bank-clerk; it might be difficult to abandon this play-acting.
“Really, I scarcely think Miss MacAskival would care for fish and chips week in and week out, Logan.” Dr. Jackman said it drily. The man, after all, was doing no more than his duty in sheltering his friend’s ward from an unpromising suitor. Suppose, Logan thought, I were to tell him what I really am: how would he act then? Yet an impulse cautioned Logan to play this little deception according to its rules until he had talked with Miss Mary MacAskival, the girl of fifteen with the green eyes, the red hair, and the spotted past.
Chapter 8
ON THOSE COLD and dark stairs, Miss Mary MacAskival met them, her quick and rounded little body, her rosy cheeks and lively eyes defying the barbarous spell of the old tower. She sent Logan a darting, inquiring glance, but it was to Jackman she spoke. “I heard the men outside,” she said. “Really, you ought to let me lead the search. I know every bush and cranny of Carnglass, but they’re stupid townfolk.”
Jackman frowned. “I may have to lead them myself, Miss MacAskival: Rab and Carruthers seem to have lost their way. I’ll have a word with Royall. Will you be good enough to take Mr. Logan to see Lady MacAskival for a moment? And then bring him to the study for dinner. Don’t be long.” He sent out a hand as if to touch her lightly on the shoulder, but the girl drew back cleverly, almost as if unintentionally, against the curving stair-wall, and Jackman passed by her, ignoring the repulse. “Don’t forget the advice I gave you, Mr. Logan,” he said softly, disappearing down the spiral of the stair.
At that instant, a most unpleasant recollection came into Logan’s head. An hour earlier, in the painted study, he had given his rucksack to Tompkins to be carried to his room. And in that pack were his passport and other papers. That man Tompkins, by the look of him, would pry into everything, even had he been only butler in a normal country house; and this was no normal place. The moment Jackman talked with Tompkins, Logan’s real identity would be known; and then there would be trouble – though just what sort of trouble, Logan was not quite sure. His dismay showed in his face.
Mary MacAskival was looking at him in concern. “What is it, Hugh?” (So it was “Hugh” even in private now, Logan thought, and on very short acquaintance, which seemed to confirm Dr. Jackman’s account of this odd little girl’s very forward ways with men.) Whatever else she was, she had a quick mind, though; for she added, after a moment’s pause, “Are you thinking of your rucksack? You needn’t. I met Tompkins on the stair and took it from him before he had any chance of a look into it. And I took your papers and put them into a hidie-hole – the Old House is mostly hidie-holes – where only I could possibly find them again. Then I put the rest of your things into your room. Do you mind? I can get t
he papers for you whenever you like, but we mustn’t let Dr. Jackman know you’re from America. You’d not be safe then. You’re not particularly safe even now. I’m sorry.” Those mobile red lips framed the “sorry” with a pathetic beauty. Indeed, it was a pity that Mary MacAskival was what she was.
“Thank you, Miss MacAskival,” Logan said. “Probably I’ll need the papers after dinner. Shall we go down to Lady MacAskival now?” His voice sounded cold even to himself. He needed a little time to think. The girl’s charm – her glamour, literally – was too near to him on this clammy sepulchral stair. How did those rosy little feet of hers endure the damp, attractively bare as they were? But he must get his mind off the girl: she was only fifteen, and bad medicine.
“Hugh!” Mary MacAskival spoke his name reproachfully, and now a little haughtily. “Hugh! It’s not only your papers you’re thinking of. What is it? This is a house of secrets, but you and I mustn’t have secrets from each other. You weren’t sent to me to keep secrets from me. What is it?” Logan hesitated, and the girl’s mind leaped swiftly to the usual conclusion any woman reaches when two men have been talking seriously in her absence. “What is it? Were you and Dr. Jackman talking of me?” In this instance, the woman’s instinct spoke truly.
Logan looked her full in the face. “Yes, we were.”
Over the girl’s delicious heart-shaped face, with its high cheek-bones and rather deep-set green eyes, spread a crimson flush, suffusing all the delicate white skin. It would have been a beautiful thing to watch, Logan thought, if it had not been a mark of guilt. The finely-moulded nose and chin went up. “Then you heard nothing good,” said Mary MacAskival, deliberately. She turned, as if to avert her tell-tale young face, and led the way down the stairs. “Dr. Jackman is the father of lies. But now I will take you to my aunt.”
A doorway in the immense thickness of the medieval tower-wall led into the Renaissance range of the Old House. Here the plaster ceiling of a great book-lined corridor was moulded into baroque shells and swags and Lord knows what fantastic designs. An odor of damp and musty leather came from the shelves; this library could have been used little since Sir Alastair’s time. The little barefoot beauty walked beside him, still a trifle flushed and defiant, but apparently not hopeless of winning him over; Logan thought for a moment she actually meant to take his hand, but if she did have that impulse, she thought better of it. “After dinner,” she murmured, “if we can be alone, there are things that must be told you. Not here: there’s not enough time, and we could be overheard.” She noticed his glance at her exquisitely narrow bare feet, which here trod upon Oriental carpet, in utter silence; she smiled a trifle coquettishly, and said, “I was reared barefoot, and don’t like shoes and stockings in the house. Besides, when I’m this way, I can scamper all over the house, and they don’t know where I am – nor when I’m listening to them. Do you mind? I know it’s not the way to receive foreign guests; but you are our first foreign guest, and I don’t think you stand on ceremony. Here’s my aunt’s bedroom; she never leaves it now. Only Agnes will be with her.” The girl pushed open a heavy carven door, and they entered an immense gloomy room.