The Truant Spirit

by Sara Seale

  “Sabina—” he said, and the harshness had gone from his voice, “I’ve been foolish with you, I think I let this business go too far, as Bunny pointed out. Tell me. if you had learnt the truth from me today, as I had intended, and not from Jeanne, would you have had this violent reaction?”

  His closeness made it difficult to reply with honesty. “Perhaps not,” she said. “You would have—kept the illusion for me, I think; but she—she took everything away.”

  “And yet you were willing to marry Rene Bergerac to start with—knowing just those same things.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I suppose it is illogical, as Bunny said; but you see, I had never been in love. I didn’t know that—that things would hurt when before—well, I suppose I was just callow and—it’s very hard for me to explain Brock.”

  He looked at her then. She wore a little knitted cap of blue wool pulled down over her ears. Beneath it the pale, soft hair turned outwards in charming disorder like a very young child’s.

  “You don’t have to explain,” he said gently. “It’s I who should do that, for I always understood. I knew from the first that you weren’t the sort to be married off in that highhanded fashion with any success. Do you really think it was the house I was after?”

  Her rounded forehead creased in perplexity. She was very tired.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s difficult to divide you. Rene Bergerac is nothing like I imagined, and he at any rate wanted Penruthan.”

  “But he was an elderly roue, fat and shiny with a weak digestion—remember?”

  She smiled.

  “I suppose it was fun,” she said a little bitterly, “describing yourself in unattractive terms and—and reminding me of M. Bergerac at most awkward moments.”

  “Of course it was fun. Must it all come to an end?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, in England, M. Bergerac can still be a very good joke, and in France—well, we might have some laughs at the expense of that overbearing Mr. Brockman, mightn’t

  we?”

  “Oh, Brock!” She leant her head against his shoulder and knew that she was beaten.

  “You don’t have to marry me, you know,” he said, his voice suddenly harsh. “Whatever the necessity for an English branch of Berger, there is no need to go to that extreme.”

  “I was going to make the house over to you anyway, if it was legally possible,” she said. “If you will take me as well— then, I suppose, as Bunny says, logically things shouldn’t be any different. Willie said you should have it, anyway.”

  “And why should you make such momentous decisions on the strength of the wandering of poor simple Willie Washer?” He spoke flippantly because for him the moment held a sudden poignancy.

  “I don’t know,” she replied quite seriously, “but he’s been in my mind all day, and I can’t get that horrid rhyme the children used to sing at him out of my head. ”

  The old porter appeared at the entrance of the shelter, a hurricane lamp in his hand.

  “Be ’e goin’ to stay here all night, zur?” he said disapprovingly. “You told me you was only fetching the little maid home and you’m been here a quarter hour.”

  “I’m sorry, Smale; we’re going now,” Brock said and got up, extending a hand to Sabina.

  “Won’t be no one for ten o’clock now. Might as well go ’ome,” the porter said. “Powerful big fire somewheres, zur. I doubt me if they’d get ’er under in this wind.”

  He pointed to the sky, which showed a dull glow on the horizon of the moor. Every so often tongues of brightness lit the darkness and died again.

  “Where is it, do you know?” Brock asked, but the old man shook his head.

  “Hard to say. Could be over to Pennytor or the old timber yard beyond the cross-roads. By the time fire brigade gets out from Kairy ’twill all be over, I reckon. Now, missy, here’s your fare back, and I’ll trouble you for that ticket. Don’t get playing they tricks again. Goin’ to Lunnon by the midnight and coming two hours early for the train!”

  He let them out by the little wicket gate, locked it after them and stumped off into the darkness.

  “What happens if someone gets off the ten o’clock?” asked Sabina.

  “No one will. Smale knows the habits and destinations of every passenger on this line.”

  “He told me,” Sabina giggled, “not to have larks on the line. As if I felt like it!”

  “No, your larks take other forms,” he replied a trifle grimly as they found the car. “Get in.”

  “That photograph,” she said inconsequently, “it was... was— misleading, wasn’t it?”

  “Very glamorous,” he replied with a smile, “but I prefer the original.”

  Do you?” asked Sabina dubiously. “Do you really?”

  “Yes, my modest lamb, I do. I can find pictures like that in any of the glossy magazines,” he said.

  “And the cooking you were so good at—should I have known who you were, then?”

  “Not necessarily. In fact you thought I had a job in some scrubby little restaurant, didn’t you? Well, perhaps I have. A good hotelier must know what goes on in his own kitchens.

  I have my stepfather to thank for that Anything else you want to know?”

  “No. None of it matters, really,” she said disconsolately, and he started his engine, his profile in the darkness blurred and unapproachable.

  When they reached the village, Sabina remembered her suitcase.

  “It’s been found,” Brock told her with a certain asperity. “And really, Sabina, you have a most haphazard way of going about things. When you arrive you leave your luggage in the train, and when you leave, you dump it outside a pub.”

  “I couldn’t carry it any further,” she said “I suppose that put you on my trail.”

  “Not a very difficult trail to follow with your marked propensity for running away,” he replied, then gave her a quick sidelong glance. “It did occur to me, you know that you might have picked up another stranger at the pub and

  accepted a lift in your trusting fashion.”

  He spoke with his usual irony, but for the first time she realised that he had been anxious about her, that under his whole manner had lain a tension she had been too tired to see.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and wanted to say more, but he stopped the car outside the inn, where a knot of villagers had gathered to watch the glow of the fire in the sky, much nearer now and infinitely brighter.

  “Where is it, do you know?” Brock called out of the window and a man detached himself from the others to come and speak to him.

  “They do say ’tes Penruthan, zur,” he said.

  “Penruthan! But it’s empty.”

  “Well, ’tes the right direction and there’s no other big place that way. Best get up there, Mr. Brockman, zur, and see, though there’ll not be much you can do.”

  Brock slammed in the gears and the car leapt forward down the road.

  He drove past the rectory turning and up the hill to the road across the moor.

  “If it really is Penruthan, someone’s been causing mischief,” he observed grimly. “There are no fires or electricity there.” Was this to be the final blow? Sabina wondered wearily. Was she to lose, after all, the inheritance that was to buy her way to his affections?

  “But who would do a thing like that?” she asked reasonably, and suddenly knew he was thinking of Jeanne Jouvez. She began to laugh, and he said sharply:

  “You have an odd sense of humour. Arson isn’t very pretty, and it may happen to be your own property that’s in danger.”

  “It wasn’t that,” she said. “But I couldn’t imagine Madame Jouvez gliding gracefully through the house in her elegant clothes, pouring petrol over everything, however much she was tempted to remove the obstructions to what she wants.”

  He smiled faintly in the darkness. “So you knew what I was thinking?” he said. “Yes, of course you’re right. Jeanne is hardly cast for such dramatic a
ction. Well, it may be some other house. Distance and direction are both deceptive on a dark night.”

  But as the car topped the crest of the hill and the road stretched before them along the highest ridge of the moor it was only too evident that Penruthan was burning, and burning fiercely. Flames were licking strongly from the roof of one wing, and the rows of windows, their shutters already burnt out, were fiery points of light,

  “Good God!” Brock exclaimed. “How on earth can it have happened?”

  That maddening little tune came back to tease Sabina, and suddenly she knew.

  Willie! she said, and when he told her impatiently not to talk nonsense, she persisted with strange certainty: “Bunny said he was working up for a queer spell, I upset him yesterday by bringing him here, and he’s talked ever since about the place being cursed. He saw Madame Jouvez through the windows and thought she was a ghost. I think he thought that if you couldn’t have Penruthan it must be destroyed.” Brock no longer doubted her. He remembered the boy hiding among the graves listening to his conversation with Jeanne, and then making off across the moor with superstitious dread. He knew all about the muddled workings of Willie’s poor confused mind and the single-hearted regard with which he himself was held.

  “The poor, crazy loon!” he exclaimed. “He could get the kerosene, too. His aunt’s little store-room is stacked with it.” He left the car in safety at the edge of the moor and he and Sabina hurried down the short drive, where a few people stood helplessly watching, farmers and labourers and the casual passer-by. They had done what they could, filling buckets from a nearby pond, but it was useless. In this high wind the flames were spreading with terrifying swiftness, and when the fire brigade did arrive it was doubtful if there would be much left to salvage.

  One of the men recognised Brock and explained that a few pieces of furniture had been got out from the ground-floor room, but there was little else anyone could do.

  “The armoire!” said Sabina quickly.

  The man looked blank, but Brock said, quickly:

  “Yes—over there by the box hedge. Have you been into the house?” he asked the man.

  “Yes. Funny thing, too, there was a lot of kerosene about and Bud Coker do swear there be someone in there still,” he said. “Let’s hope not,” Brock said quickly. “Have you checked up with everyone here?”

  “Oh, yes, it bain’t none of us, but Bud seed a face at one of

  they windows. We all shouted to come out quick but no one come.”

  “Willie!” said Sabina, her face going white.

  “Nonsense!” snapped Brock sharply. “I’ll go and shout myself to make sure. One wing still seems fairly intact.” He limped round to the back of the house, and a few of the men followed him. Sabina, who had run ahead, saw for an instant a frightened face at one of the windows with unmistakable tow-coloured hair; then as Brock and the men came into sight it disappeared.

  “He’s there!” Sabina shouted. “He would have come for me, I think, but when he saw the rest of you he went away. Oh, Brock, he’ll die if we don’t get him out.”

  “Let me have a try,” said Brock. “He’s fond of me.” He climbed with difficulty through one of the broken windows and started calling. But wherever Willie was hiding he would not come out, and somewhere in the house there was a crash and a roar of flame ominously close.

  “It’s no good, Brock; he’s frightened of what the men will do to him,” Sabina said.

  She had climbed in through the window after him, and he turned with sudden violence as she spoke.

  “Get out, you little fool!” he shouted. “This wing won’t be safe much longer.”

  She pulled away from him, resisting his attempt to thrust her back to the window.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “There’s only one way to get him out and that’s to make him angry. That tune—it must have been running through my head for a purpose. We must sing it Brock. We must walk as far as we can and sing it.”

  He looked at her with eyes that were hard and brilliant. They were both beginning to cough with the smoke.

  “All right, call the men, and then get to hell out of here,” he said tensely.

  There s no time, she replied. “Besides, he knows me.”

  “Not you, Sabina,” he said roughly. “It’s getting too dangerous. I’ll go alone.”

  “No,” she said stubbornly. “You might forget the tune!” He took her hand, holding it firmly, and his eyes were suddenly the far-seeing, dispassionate eyes of the mountaineer who recognises and accepts danger for himself and those in his

  charge.

  “Very well. How does it go?” he said.

  “Willie Washer’s proper mazed ... ” Hand in hand they began pacing the empty rooms, their voices echoing eerily.

  Outside the sound of the wind and the flames mingled indistinguishably, and smoke was starting to seep through the cracks in the walls ... silly Willie, proper dazed ...” they were in a long corridor now, filled with discarded packing-cases; there was the sound of a furtive movement at one end and one of the cases swayed.

  “Silly Willie Wash-er!” Sabina choked and started again, and all at once two packing-cases fell with a crash and Willie came rushing towards them, waving his arms and shouting the angry abuse which used to delight the children who baited him.

  For the first time Brock let go Sabina’s hand, and in a moment had pinioned the boy in a strong relentless grip.

  “Quick, run back! he said. “Tell the men outside to be ready so he doesn’t give us the slip when we get him out. Hurry! This place won’t be safe much longer.”

  She did not question his ability to bring Willie out singlehanded, but did as she was bid. She found anxious faces waiting for her and said quickly:

  “We’ve got him ... don’t be rough with him, will you? He did it for a purpose that was perfectly reasonable to him and he isn’t really responsible.”

  “Laying the ghost, I reckon,” the man called Bud said surprisingly.

  “Yes; how did you know?”

  “Everyone hereabouts knows young Willie Washer’s mazed notions,” he replied with rough kindliness. “Don’t be afeared for ’e, miss, I’ll take ’n ome o me. The missus has a wonderful way with sick animals and children.”

  But Willie, when he stood in safety on the grass below the first terrace, gave no more trouble. He gazed up at the burning house with child-like wonder and delight, and when Bud told him that it was time to go home, the boy went with him without protest.

  The other men went back to the front of the house, where the fire brigade had at last arrived and were working too late on a hopeless task.

  “Do you want to stay and watch?” asked Brock, his eyes resting on her with curious intensity.

  “No,” she said, and without conscious directions began walking from one sloping terrace to another towards the broken door in the wall. She leaned against it, pulling off her cap, and the wind whipped the hair back from her tired face.

  “What will become of Willie?” she asked sadly. “Will

  he go to prison?”

  “No,” Brock answered with gentleness. “To a home, I expect; but that would really be best for him, you know. He’s a lonely creature.”

  “Yes. I always felt a fellow feeling for him. He was trying to help you in his muddled, crazy fashion, you know.”

  “Yes, I know, and perhaps he has.”

  She looked up at him unhappily. The burning house cast a ruddy glow on his face, accentuating the sharp, forbidding lines of his features; the dominant nose and the hard, unyielding mouth. Sabina sighed.

  “Yes, perhaps he has. You don’t have to marry me now,” she said.

  He took her by the shoulders and gave her a sharp shake. “My darling child! Was there ever any woman with such a poor opinion of herself as you?” he exclaimed, and oddly enough he was laughing. “I believe you’re still convinced that the elderly M. Bergerac was only after Penruthan!”

  “Well, you were, weren�
��t you?” she said. “You were here on holiday to look it over, just like me, missing poor Tante by a day. You had made plans for it.”

  “No,” he said a little roughly. “I knew all along the house wasn’t worth the money it would cost to put it to rights. Mine was a sentimental pilgrimage, that’s all.”

  The shouts of the men in the distance came faintly through the roar of wind and flame. Every so often a piece of masonry fell with a muffled crash, and even here in the shelter of the high wall, smuts settled on Sabina’s hair.

  “Then why—” she began, her wide-set eyes suddenly enormous, but he pulled her abruptly into his arms.

  “If you were going to ask anything so idiotic as why did I want to marry you, then my answer is why do you think?” he said. “Sabina, my poor shorn lamb, Bunny says that women should be told the things men imagine they must know for themselves. I’ve been remiss in taking what you had to give me without explaining in so many words that I was a man with as much to give in return. Did you really not know I had fallen in love with you?”

  “No ... no, I didn’t ... ” she said, and at the humorous but somehow anxious tenderness in his face, the tears came. She put up her hands to draw his head down to hers, and although she could not speak, he felt her tears wet and warm on his cheek.

  “You will still,” he said to give her time, “have a husband with a physical infirmity, I’m afraid, though not, as you had imagined, a weak digestion. As to the elderly roue well— there’s no smoke without a fire—which is, perhaps, something of a cliche with one already blazing behind us, but—I’ve had my affaires since my climbing days were over. Shall you mind?”

  She raised her face then, and he traced the charming crescents of her lips and eyelids with a possessive finger.

  “No, I shan’t mind,” she said, “any more than I mind the detraction of Penruthan, for now we are two and two.”