Finger of Fate

by Sapper

  “A writing gentleman are you, sir? said the landlord, as he put a full tankard on the table in front of me. “Well, well – it takes all sorts to make a world.”

  I did not dispute such a profound truth, but concentrated on the contents of the tankard. A walking tour in the hilly part of Devonshire is thirsty work, and the beer tasted as good as it looked.

  “Not that I hold much with it,” he went on after a while. “I reckon that it’s better to be up and doing than sitting down and spoiling good paper.”

  Against such an outrageous assault as that I felt I had to defend myself, and I pointed out to him that one had to put in a bit of up and doing oneself before beginning to spoil the paper.

  “Not that I should think there’s much doing beyond sleep in this village,” I added sarcastically.

  “That’s just where you’re wrong,” he remarked triumphantly. “Why in that very chair you’re sitting in a man was shot through the heart. Plugged as clean as a whistle, and rolled off the chair up against that table your beer is standing on, stone dead. And that” – he paused for a moment only to continue even more triumphantly – “is the man that did it.”

  He indicated a grey-haired man who was passing – a fine-looking old man who walked with a pronounced limp and leant heavily on a stick.

  “Good evening, Mr Philimore,” he called.

  “Evening, Sam,” answered the other, pausing and coming over towards the door of the inn outside which we were sitting.

  He stopped for a few moments discussing local affairs, and I studied him covertly. A man of seventy-five I guessed, with the clear eye of one who has lived in the open. His great frame showed strength beyond the average, and even now it struck me that many a younger man would have found him more than a match physically.

  He finished his discussion, and then, with a courteous bow that included me, continued his walk.

  “Sleep, indeed!” snorted the worthy Sam. “Thirty years ago, sir, come next month, this village was more exciting than London.”

  “Look here, Sam,” I said, “it strikes me that you’d better put your nose inside a pint of your excellent ale and tell me all about it.”

  He shouted an order through the door, and lit his pipe.

  “You’ll understand, sir,” he began, when the potboy had brought the beer and he had sampled it, “that when the thing happened I was just flabbergasted. Couldn’t make head nor tail of it, because I didn’t know what it was all about. It was only afterwards when I began making inquiries and talking to this person and that, that the whole thing was clear from the beginning. And that’s the way I’m going to tell you the story.”

  “And quite the right way, too,” I assured him.

  “It starts nigh on fifty-five years ago, when I was a nipper of ten, and John Philimore – him as you’ve just seen – a man of twenty-one. You can talk of good-looking men – and I’ve seen a tidy few in my life – but you can take it from me he came first. The girls were fair crazy about him, and well they might be. Tall, upstanding, strong as a giant – they don’t breed ’em nowadays. There wasn’t a man on the countryside could touch him at any sport, or at swimming. Why, I can remember seeing him swim out with a lifeline to a barque in distress in the October gales of 1868. Bit before your time, I reckon – but there’s been no gales in these parts like ’em since.

  “He lived up at Oastbury Farm, which had been his grandfather’s and his great-grandfather’s before him. Aye – and longer than that. Traced direct back from father to son for nigh on four hundred years was Oastbury with the Philimores. And John – he lived at home with his father, ready to take on when his time came.

  “I’ve told you that all the girls were fair crazy about him, but John had eyes for only one – Mary Trevenna. And a proper match they were, too, in every way. Old Trevenna had Aldstock Farm – the place next to Oastbury – and though he wasn’t as wealthy as the Philimores, he was quite comfortably off. And Mary was his only daughter, just as John was the only son, though he had a sister. Oh! it was a proper match! Just as John had eyes only for Mary, so she never looked at another man. I remember catching ’em one day when they thought no one was about, kissing and cuddling fine. And then John – he caught me, and I couldn’t sit down for a week.

  “Well – I must get on with it. When Mary was twenty, they were to get married. That was the arrangement, and that is what happened. John was twenty-two, and they were going to live in a small farm near Oastbury which his father had given them.

  “It was a great wedding. The squire came – that’s his present lordship’s father – and everyone from the countryside. And after it was over they went off to Torquay for the honeymoon. Then they came back to the house where they were going to live, and things settled down normal again.

  “Of course, you must remember, sir, that I was only a nipper at the time, helping my father in this very house. Them was the days before these new-fangled schemes of education, when folks held with a boy working and not filling his head with rubbish. But little pitchers have long ears as they say, and I very soon finds out from what folks said that there was a baby on the way.

  “John Philimore came in less and less – not that he was ever a heavy drinker, but after a while he hardly ever came in at all; and when he did it was only for a moment or two, and then he’d hurry off home. Not that things weren’t going well, but a lad is apt to be a bit fazed over his first.

  “A boy it would be – of course: for generations now the eldest child born to the Philimores had been a boy. And a rare fine specimen, too – with such parents. John’s mother looked out the lace christening robe and all the old fal-lals the women like fiddling round with at such times. And at last Mary’s time came, and it was a girl – as fine a child, so I heard tell, as anyone would have wished for. But it was a girl.

  “Well, sir – I don’t profess to account for it; Lord knows there was plenty more time for them to have half a dozen boys, but it seemed to prey on Mary’s mind that she should be the first for so many generations to have a girl as her first-born.

  “I remember old Doctor Taggart coming into the inn here one night, and leaning across the bar for his brandy and water. He and my father were alone, and they paid no attention to me.

  “‘Sam,’ he said – my father was Sam, too – ‘Sam, that girl don’t want to get well. There’s nothing the matter with her; at least nothing serious. She just don’t want to get well. I tell you I could shake her. Just mazed, she is, because it’s a girl, and John near off his head.’

  “And sure enough old Taggart was right. Ten days after the child was born, Mary Philimore died. She died in the afternoon at three o’clock, and with her death something must have snapped in John Philimore’s brain.

  “Never to my dying day shall I forget that evening. There was a bunch of people inside there, and naturally everyone was discussing it, when suddenly the door was flung open and John stood there swaying like a drunken man. He’d got no collar on; his eyes were blazing – and his great fists were clenching and unclenching at his sides. He stood there staring round the room, which had fallen silent at his entrance, and then he let out a great bellow of laughter.

  “‘A murderer!’ he roared. ‘That’s what I am – a murderer. Confound you all! Give me some brandy.’

  “‘Shame on you, John,’ said one of the men. ‘With Mary not yet cold.’

  “And John hit him on the point of the jaw, and as near as makes no matter broke his neck.

  “‘Brandy,’ he shouted, ‘or, by God! I’ll take it!’

  “And take it he did, for there was no stopping him. He tipped half the bottle down his throat, and once again he let out a roar of laughter, as he stood there with his back to the bar. He looked at the men bending over the chap he’d hit, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

  “‘What’s it matter if he’s dead?’ he cried. ‘One or two – what’s it matter? I’ve murdered Mary: what’s Peter Widgeley to her? I tell you I’ve murdered her – my
little Mary. What did it matter if it was a boy or girl? But she thought it did – and she’s dead. And if they hadn’t hidden the brat it would be dead too.’

  “And then suddenly he grew strangely silent, and stared from one man to another. No one spoke: I guess they were all a bit scared. For maybe a minute you could have heard a pin drop in that room, and then John Philimore spoke again. He didn’t shout this time: he spoke quite quiet. And in between his sentences he took great gulps of raw brandy.

  “It’s burnt on my brain, sir, what he said – and there it will remain. For on that night John Philimore cursed his Maker with blasphemy too hideous to think of. He cursed his Maker: he cursed his child: he cursed his father and, above all, he cursed himself. And when he’d finished he laid the empty bottle on a table, strode across the room looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, opened the door and went out into the night. And from that moment no man in this village saw him again for twenty years.”

  Mine host stared thoughtfully across the little harbour at two fishing boats beating in.

  “A bad sailor, Bill Dennett. Always keeps too long on that tack. However, sir, as I was saying, John Philimore disappeared. From time to time there came news of him in different corners of the earth – and it wasn’t good news. With a wild set he’d got in, and he was the wildest of the lot. From South Africa, from Australia, from over in America we heard of him at intervals – but only indirectly. He never wrote to his father, or to his sister – and it fair broke his mother’s heart. For John was just the apple of her eye. She kept on hoping against hope that he’d walk in someday, and when the weeks passed, and the months and the years, she just faded out herself – though she was still a young woman.

  “That was seven years after John went, and they buried her along with the rest of the Philimores. And then five years later the old man got thrown from his horse out hunting – and he died too – cursing his son on his deathbed for being the cause of his mother’s death, even as John had cursed his father for being in part the cause of Mary’s. A hard lot the Philimores – and always have been.

  “And so for the first time Oastbury passed into the hands of a woman – John’s sister, Ruth; though, of course, it was John’s whenever he chose to return. If he’d been able to, the old man would have cut him out, and left it away from him – but he couldn’t. But until John did return it was Ruth’s, who went on living there with the innocent cause of all the trouble, who had been called Mary after her mother. She was twelve years old when her grandfather died, and even then gave promise of being as lovely as her mother. Of her father she knew nothing; she’d been told simply that he was abroad and no one could tell when he would return.

  “On the death of the old man Ruth had written a letter to the last address at which her brother had been heard of, and she had caused advertisements to be put in the papers in Australia and South Africa. But after some months the letter came back to her, and there was no reply to the advertisements. In fact, there were a good many of us who began to think John Philimore was dead, and seeing how he had turned out, no bad riddance either.

  “Well, the years went on, and Mary grew from a girl into a woman. And the promise as she’d given as a little ’un became a certainty. She was lovelier even than her mother had been, for there was a touch of the Philimore in her – in the way she stood, and in the way she looked at you. And in addition to her looks Mary stood to be a pretty considerable heiress. Old Trevenna – her grandfather – was ailing, and he had no kith nor kin but her. And if, as most of us thought, John Philimore was dead, then Oastbury became hers on her twenty-first birthday. For Ruth was only just in there as a guardian; Oastbury was John’s till they proved him dead and then it passed to his child.

  “So you’ll see, sir, that Mary was due for Oastbury and Aldstock – and that in the days when farming was farming. It made her the biggest heiress round these parts, and the young fellows weren’t exactly blind to the fact. Not that she weren’t worth having without anything at all except her sweet self; but with them two farms chucked in like, the boys were fairly sitting up.

  “But Mary wasn’t going to be in any hurry. No one could say which way her fancy lay – not even her aunt; though it did seem sometimes as if it was towards young George Turnbury, whose father was a big miller in Barnstaple. Not that they were tokened, but when old Gurnet drew him in the sweepstake he stood drinks all round.

  “A fine boy – young George – big and upstanding, who would come into a pretty penny of his own in time. And absolutely silly over Mary, as well he might be. And we was all beginning to think as things would be settled soon when the trouble began.

  “I was standing at this very door – I’d been landlord then for nigh on two years – when I saw a stranger coming up the street. A great big fellow, he was, with a curious sort of roll in his walk, such as you often see in men who had been a lot at sea. As soon as he seed the sign over the door he made for it like a cat for a plate of fish. And I give you my word, sir, I got a shock when I saw his face. From his left temple, right down his cheek as far as his chin, ran a vivid red scar. It was an old one and quite healed, but it must have been the most fearful wound that caused it. For the rest, his skin was dark brown, his nose was hooked and his eyes a vivid blue.

  “‘Hot work,’ he said as he came up. ‘I guess I’ll have a gargle.’

  “‘Very good, sir,’ I said. ‘And what shall it be?’

  “‘Whisky,’ he answered. ‘And bring the bottle.’

  “And I give you my word again, sir, I got another shock. He tipped out a tumbler and drank it neat, same as I’d take a glass of cider.

  “‘Help yourself,’ he said, and when he saw me take a little and fill up with water, he threw back his head and laughed.

  “‘Why the devil don’t you drink milk?’ he cried.

  “‘If I was to drink what you’ve just drunk with every customer,’ I said short-like, ‘I’d not be able to carry on my business.’

  “‘Maybe you’re right,’ he answered, staring at me. ‘No offence, anyway. But not having to carry on your business, I guess I’ll have another.’

  “He filled up his glass with neat whisky again, and then lay back in his chair, still staring at me with those blue eyes of his.

  “‘Say, I guess you’ll know,’ he said after a moment. ‘Is there a shack called Oastbury in this district?’

  “Well, at that I pricked up my ears, for I’d placed him already as a man from foreign parts.

  “‘There certainly is,’ I said. ‘If you go round the corner you can see Oastbury Farm upon the hill there.’

  “‘I guess it will stop there,’ says he, without moving. ‘Good farm, is it?’

  “‘It is accounted the best in these parts and one of the best in the whole West Country,’ said I, and he nodded his head as if pleased with the news.

  “‘May I ask, sir,’ I went on, ‘if you have by any chance news of John Philimore? I can see you come from foreign parts, and since you’ve asked about Oastbury, I thought you might know something of him.’

  “‘Then your thoughts are correct,’ he answered.

  “‘For twenty years we’ve had no word of him direct,’ I said, ‘and there are those who say he’s dead.’

  “‘There are, are there?’ he said, and finished his whisky. ‘Well, they’ve backed a winner. John Philimore is dead right enough: he’s been dead a year.’

  “‘Good heavens!’ I cried – for now that the news was confirmed it seemed a terrible thing. ‘And what did he die of, sir?’

  “‘An ounce of lead in a tender spot,’ he answered shortly. ‘Same as a good many other poor fools have died of. Say, now, there’s a daughter of his alive, ain’t there?’

  “‘There is,’ I said. ‘Living at Oastbury Farm now. And if John Philimore is dead, the farm is hers. Leastways, it will be in a year, when she’s twenty-one.’

  “‘And what would happen, mister,’ he said, ‘if John had made a will leaving all he
possessed to me?’

  “‘It wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on,’ I answered shortly. ‘It’s all tied up – see? John Philimore could no more leave Oastbury away from his daughter than he could give away Buckingham Palace.’

  “‘Are you sure o’ that?’ he said with a sort of snarl.

  “‘Of course I’m sure of it,’ I answered. ‘Didn’t John’s father go into the whole question after John ran off to Australia? That’s what he wanted to do – leave Oastbury to his daughter – all tied up and secure. Went to Exeter, he did, to a big lawyer there, to see about it. But it couldn’t be done. From eldest child to eldest child it’s got to go – be it male or female. And so whatever wickedness John Philimore has done, he can’t do his daughter out of Oastbury. It’s hers – and remains hers.’

  “I tell you, sir, I was beginning to dislike this man, and I spoke a bit short.

  “‘And supposing,’ said he, very quiet-like, ‘this daughter of his should die before she’s twenty-one?’

  “‘Then,’ I said, ‘it would go to her aunt – John’s sister. Will you be wanting any more whisky?’

  “‘Yes – leave the bottle, and if I shout you’ll know I want another.’

  “With that I left him and went indoors. And half an hour later he was still sitting at the table staring across the harbour. Then he gives a shout, and out I goes.

  “‘Can you give me a room here?’ he says. ‘I’ll pay what you like, and give no trouble.’

  “Well, business is business; and though I didn’t fancy him as a guest, I said I’d fix him up.

  “‘Good!’ he cried. ‘Then send out another bottle of whisky as a start. Oh! and by the way, is this wench married?’

  “‘She is not,’ I answered. ‘But I expect she soon will be.’

  “‘So do I,’ he said, and laughed in a funny sort of way.

  “She’s all but tokened to young George Turnbury from Barnstaple,’ I told him, but that only made him laugh the more.

  “With that I went in and sent him out the second bottle of whisky. And then, what with one thing and another, and the chaps coming in for their evening drink, and telling them the news of John Philimore’s death, I forgot all about him for a time.