by Hugh Walpole
Tony broke the silence:
“I say, Punch, have you any message for me?”
“Well, sir, not exactly a message, but I’ve found out something. Not from the young lady herself, you understand. She hasn’t been down again — not when I’ve been there. But I’ve found out about her father.”
“Her father?” said Tony excitedly; and Toby also sat up at attention as though he were interested.
“Yes; he’s the little man in brown you spoke of. Well known about here, it seems. They say he’s been here as long as anyone can remember, and always the same. No one knows him — keeps ‘imself to ‘imself; a bit lonely for the girl.”
“That man!” cried Tony. “And he’s asked me to call! Why, it’s fate!”
He grasped Maradick’s arm excitedly.
“He’s her father! her father!” he cried. “And he’s asked us to call! Her father, and we’re to call!”
“You’re to call!” corrected Maradick. “He never said anything about me; he doesn’t want me.”
“Oh, of course you’re to come. ‘Pon my word, Punch, you’re a brick. Is there anything else?”
“Well, yes,” said Punch slowly. “He came and spoke to me yesterday after the show. Said he liked it and was very pleasant. But I don’t like ’im all the same. I agree with that gentleman; there’s something queer there, and everyone says so.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Tony. “Never mind about the man. He’s her father, that’s the point. My word, what luck!”
But Punch shook his head dubiously.
“What do they say against him, then?” said Tony. “What reasons have they?”
“Ah! that’s just it,” said Punch; “they haven’t got no reasons. The man ‘asn’t a ‘istory at all, which is always an un’ealthy sign. Nobody knows where ’e comes from nor what ‘e’s doing ’ere. ’E isn’t Cornish, that’s certain. ‘E’s got sharp lips and pointed ears. I don’t like ’im and Toby doesn’t either, and ‘e’s a knowing dog if ever there was one.”
“Well, I’m not to be daunted,” said Tony; “the thing’s plainly arranged by Providence.”
But Maradick, looking at Punch, thought that he knew more than he confessed to. There was silence again, and they watched a gossamer mist, pearl-grey with the blue of the sea and sky shining through, come stealing towards them. The sky-line was red with the light of the sinking sun, and a very faint rose colour touched with gold skimmed the crests of tiny waves that a little breeze had wakened.
The ripples that ran up the beach broke into white foam as they rose.
“Well, I must be getting on, Mr. Tony,” said Punch, rising. “I am at Mother Shipton’s to-night. Good-bye, sir,” he shook hands with Maradick, “I am pleased to ‘ave met you.”
Tony walked a little way down the beach with him, arm in arm. They stopped, and Punch put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and said something that Maradick did not catch; but he was speaking very seriously. Then, with the dog at his heels, he disappeared over the bend of the rocks.
“We’d better be getting along too,” said Tony. “Let’s go back to the beach. There’ll be a glorious view!”
“He seems a nice fellow,” said Maradick.
“Oh, Punch! He’s simply ripping! He’s one of the people whose simplicity seems so easy until you try it, and then it’s the hardest thing in the world. I met him in town last winter giving a show somewhere round Leicester Square way, and he was pretty upset because Toby the dog was ill. I don’t know what he’d do if that dog were to die. He hasn’t got anyone else properly attached to him. Of course, there are lots of people all over the country who are very fond of him, and babies, simply any amount, and children and dogs — anything young — but they don’t really belong to him.”
But Maradick felt that, honestly, he wasn’t very attracted. The man was a vagabond, after all, and would be much better earning his living at some decent trade; a strong, healthy man like that ought to be keeping a wife and family and doing his country some service instead of wandering about the land with a dog; it was picturesque, but improper. But he didn’t say anything to Tony about his opinions — also he knew that the man didn’t annoy him as he would have done a week ago.
As they turned the bend of the cliffs the tower suddenly rose in front of them like a dark cloud. It stood out sharply, rising to a peak biting into the pale blue sky, and vaguely hinting at buildings and gabled roofs; before it the sand stretched, pale gold.
Tony put his arm through Maradick’s.
At first they were not sure; it might be imagination. In the misty and uncertain light figures seemed to rise out of the pale yellow sands and to vanish into the dusky blue of the sea. But at the same moment they realised that there was some one there and that he was waiting for them; they recognised the brown jacket, the cloth cap, the square, prosperous figure. The really curious thing was that Maradick had had his eyes fixed on the sand in front of him, but he had seen no one coming. The figure had suddenly materialised, as it were, out of the yellow evening dusk. It was beyond doubt Mr. Andreas Morelli.
He was the same as he had been a week ago. There was no reason why he should have changed, but Maradick felt as though he had been always, from the beginning, the same. It was not strange that he had not changed since last week, but it was strange that he had not changed, as Maradick felt to be the case, since the very beginning of time; he had always been like that.
He greeted Tony now with that beautiful smile that Maradick had noticed before; it had in it something curiously intimate, as though he were referring to things that they both had known and perhaps done. Tony’s greeting was eager and, as usual with him, enthusiastic.
Morelli turned to Maradick and gravely shook hands. “I am very pleased to see you again, sir,” he said. “It is a most wonderful evening to be taking a stroll. It has been a wonderful day.”
“It has been too good to be true,” said Tony; “I don’t think one ought ever to go indoors when the weather is like this. Are you coming back to the town, Mr. Morelli, or were you going farther along the beach?”
“I should be very glad to turn back with you, if I may,” he said. “I promised to be back by half-past seven and it is nearly that now. You have never fulfilled your promise of coming to see me,” he said reproachfully.
“Well,” said Tony, “to tell you the truth I was a little shy; so many people are so kind and invite one to come, but it is rather another thing, taking them at their word and invading their houses, you know.”
“I can assure you I meant it,” said Morelli gravely. “There are various things that would interest you. I have quite a good collection of old armour and a good many odds and ends picked up at different times.” Then he added, “There’s no time like the present; why not come back and have supper with us now? That is if you don’t mind taking pot-luck.”
Tony flushed with pleasure. “I think we should be delighted, shouldn’t we, Maradick? They’re quite used to our not coming back at the hotel.”
“Thank you very much,” said Maradick. “It’s certainly good of you.”
He noticed that what Punch had said was true; the ears were pointed and the lips sharp and thin.
The dusk had swept down on them. The lights of the town rose in glittering lines one above the other in front of them; it was early dusk for an August evening, but the dark came quickly at Treliss.
The sea was a trembling shadow lit now and again with the white gleam of a crested wave. On the horizon there still lingered the last pale rose of the setting sun and across the sky trembling bars of faint gold were swiftly vanishing before the oncoming stars.
Morelli talked delightfully. He had been everywhere, it appeared, and spoke intimately of little obscure places in Germany and Italy that Tony had discovered in earlier years. Maradick was silent; they seemed to have forgotten him.
They entered the town and passed through the market-place. Maradick looked for a moment at the old tower, standing out black and d
esolate and very lonely.
In the hotel the dusk would be creeping into the little room of the minstrels. There would be no lights there, only the dust and the old chairs and the green table; from the open window you would see the last light of the setting sun, and there would be a scent of flowers, roses and pinks, from the garden below.
They had stopped outside the old dark house with the curious carving. Morelli felt for the key.
“I don’t know what my daughter will have prepared,” he said apologetically, “I gave her no warning.”
CHAPTER VI. SUPPER WITH JANET MORELLI
The little hall was lit by a single lamp that glimmered redly in the background. Small though the hall was, its darkness gave it space and depth. It appeared to be hung with many strange and curious objects — weapons of various kinds, stuffed heads of wild animals, coloured silks and cloths of foreign countries and peoples. The walls themselves were of oak, and from this dark background these things gleamed and shone and twisted under the red light of the lamp in an alarming manner. An old grandfather clock tick-tocked solemnly in the darkness.
Morelli led them up the stairs, with a pause every now and again to point out things of interest.
“The house is, you know,” he said almost apologetically, “something of a museum. I have collected a good deal one way and another. Everything has its story.”
Maradick thought, as his host said this, that he must know a great many stories, some of them perhaps scarcely creditable ones. The things that he saw had in his eyes a sinister effect. There could be nothing very pleasant about those leering animals and rustling, whispering skins; it gave the house, too, a stuffy, choked-up air, something a little too full, and full, too, of not quite the pleasantest things.
The staircase was charming. A broad window with diamond-shaped panes faced them as they turned the stair and gave a pleasant, cheerful light to the walls and roof. A silver crescent moon with glittering stars attending it shone at the window against an evening sky of the faintest blue; a glow that belonged to the vanished sun, and was so intangible that it had no definite form of colour, hung in the air and passed through the window down the stairs into the dark recesses of the hall. The walls were painted a dark red that had something very cheerful and homely about it.
Suddenly from the landing above them came voices.
“No, Miss Minns, I’m going to wait. I don’t care; father said he’d be back. Oh! I hear him.”
A figure came to the head of the stairs.
“Father, do hurry up; Miss Minns is so impatient at having to wait, and I said I wouldn’t begin till you came, and the potatoes are black, black, black.”
Maradick looked up and saw a girl standing at the head of the stairs. In her hand she held a small silver lamp that flung a pale circle of yellow behind and around her; she held it a little above her head in order that she might see who it was that mounted the stairs.
He thought she was the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen; her face was that of a child, and there was still in it a faint look of wonderment and surprise, as though she had very recently broken from some other golden dream and discovered, with a cry, the world.
Her mouth was small, and curved delicately like the petals of a very young rose that turn and open at the first touch of the sun’s glow. Her eyes were so blue that there seemed no end at all to the depth, and one gazed into them as into a well on a night of stars; there were signs and visions in them of so many things that a man might gaze for a year of days and still find secrets hidden there. Her hair was dark gold and was piled high in a great crown, and not so tightly that a few curls did not escape and toss about her ears and over her eyes. She wore a gown of very pale blue that fell in a single piece from her shoulders to her feet; her arms to the elbow and her neck were bare, and her dress was bound at the waist by a broad piece of old gold embroidered cloth.
Her colouring was so perfect that it might have seemed insipid were it not for the character in her mouth and eyes and brow. She was smiling now, but in a moment her face could change, the mouth would grow stiff, her eyes would flash; there was character in every part of her.
She was tall and very straight, and her head was poised perfectly. There was dignity and pride there, but humour and tenderness in the eyes and mouth; above all, she was very, very young. That look of surprise, and a little perhaps of one on her guard against a world that she did not quite understand, showed that. There was no fear there, but something a little wild and undisciplined, as though she would fight to the very last for her perfect, unfettered liberty: this was Janet Morelli.
She had thought that her father was alone, but now she realised that some one was with him.
She stepped back and blushed.
“I beg your pardon. I didn’t know — —”
“Let me introduce you,” said Morelli. “Janet, this is Mr. Maradick and this Mr. Gale. They have come to have supper with us.”
She put the lamp down on the little round table behind her and shook hands with them. “How do you do?” she said. “I hope you’re not in the least bit hungry, because there’s nothing whatever to eat except black potatoes, and they’re not nice at all.”
She was quite without embarrassment and smiled at Maradick. She put her arm on her father’s shoulder for a moment by way of greeting, and then they walked into the room opposite the staircase. This was in strong contrast to the hall, being wide and spacious, with but little furniture. At one end was a bow-window with old-fashioned lozenge-shaped panes; in this a table laid for three had been placed. The walls were painted a very pale blue, and half-way up, all the way round, ran a narrow oaken shelf on which were ranged large blue and white plates of old china, whereon there ran riot a fantastic multitude of mandarins, curiously twisted castles, and trembling bridges spanning furious torrents. There were no pictures, but an open blue-tiled fireplace, the mantelpiece of which was of dark oak most curiously carved. There were some chairs, two little round tables, and a sofa piled high with blue cushions. There were lamps on the tables, but they were dim and the curtains were not drawn, so that through the misty panes the lights of the town were twinkling in furious rivalry with the lights of the dancing stars.
By the table was waiting a little woman in a stiff black dress. There was nothing whatever remarkable about her. There was a little pretentiousness, a little pathos, a little beauty even; it was the figure of some one who had been left a very long time ago, and was at last growing accustomed to the truth of it — there was no longer very much hope or expectation of anything, but simply a kind of fairy-tale wonder as to the possibility of the pumpkin’s being after all a golden coach and the rats some most elegant coachmen.
“Miss Minns,” said Morelli, “let me introduce you. These are two gentlemen who will have supper with us. Mr. Maradick and Mr. Gale.”
“I am very pleased to meet you,” said Miss Minns a little gloomily.
There was a servant of the name of Lucy, who laid two more places clumsily and with some noise. Janet had disappeared into the kitchen and Morelli maintained the conversation.
There was, however, a feeling of constraint. Maradick had never known Tony so silent. He stood by the fireplace, awkwardly shifting from one leg to the other, and looking continually at the door. He was evidently in a state of the greatest excitement, and he seemed to pay no attention to anyone in the room. Miss Minns was perfectly silent, and stood there gravely waiting. Morelli talked courteously and intelligently, but Maradick felt that he himself was being used merely as a background to the rest of the play. His first feeling on seeing Janet had been that Tony was indeed justified in all his enthusiasm; his second, that he himself was in for rather a terrible time.
He had not in the least expected her to be so amazingly young. He had, quite without reason or justification, expected her to be older, a great deal older, than Tony, and that chiefly, perhaps, because he couldn’t, by any stretch of imagination, believe her to be younger. Tony was so young in every w
ay — in his credibility, his enthusiasm, his impatience, his quite startling simplicity. With this in front of him, Maradick had looked to the lady as an accomplice; she would help, he had thought, to teach Tony discretion.
And now, with that vision of her on the stairs, he saw that she was, so to speak, “younger than ever,” as young as anyone possibly could be. That seemed to give the whole business a new turn altogether; it suddenly placed him, James Maradick, a person of unimaginative and sober middle age, in a romantic and difficult position of guardian to a couple of babies, and, moreover, babies charged to the full with excitement and love of hurried adventure. Why, he thought desperately, as he listened politely to Morelli’s conversation, had he been made the centre of all this business? What did he or could he know of young people and their love affairs?
“I am afraid,” he said politely, “I know nothing whatever about swords.”
“Ah,” said Morelli heartily, “I must show you some after supper.”
Janet entered with chops and potatoes, followed by Lucy with the coffee. Tony went forward to help her. “No, thank you,” she said, laughing. “You shan’t carry the potatoes because then you’ll see how black they are. I hope you don’t mind coffee at the beginning like this; and there’s only brown bread.” She placed the things on the table and helped the chops. Tony looked at his plate and was silent.
It was, at first, a difficult meal, and everyone was very subdued; then suddenly the ice was broken. Maradick had said that he lived in London. Miss Minns sat up a little straighter in her chair, smoothed her cuffs nervously, and said with a good deal of excitement —
“I lived a year in London with my brother Charles. We lived in Little Worsted Street, No. 95, near the Aquarium: a little house with green blinds; perhaps, sir, you know it. I believe it is still standing; I loved London. Charles was a curate at St. Michael’s, the grey church at the corner of Merritt Street; Mr. Roper was rector at the time. I remember seeing our late beloved Queen pass in her carriage. I have a distinct recollection of her black bonnet and gracious bow. I was very much moved.”