Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  Jim strolled towards the Acton Arms, after making this handsome concession, much puzzled in his mind by the new light which events were shedding on the character of Jones. The discovery that his future brother-in-law had done a little betting did not surprise him. But, in conjunction with the entanglement to which the vicar had owned the day before, it seemed to indicate a character so different from the model of propriety he had hitherto known, that he was staggered. “And he never kills a thing,” Jim thought, turning it over. “You would not think that he knew what sport meant!”

  The village policeman was loitering outside the inn, and Foley, who had a word for every one, invited him to come in and have a glass of ale. The road in front of the Acton Arms is separated from the Chase only by a sunk fence; and Jim, casting a glance behind him as he entered, could see the windows of the great house flashing in the sunlight, and the vicar pounding along the avenue towards them. He went in, the constable at his heels, and turned into the cool fireless taproom, which he took to be empty. His stick had scarcely rung on the oak table, however, before a man who had been sitting on the settle, his head on his hands and his senses lost in a drunken stupor, leapt up and, supporting himself by the table, glared at the two intruders.

  “Ah!” the squire’s son-in-law said drily, “so you are here, Master Jones vice Wilkins, are you? I might have known where to find you!”

  It is probable that the wretched man, recognising him, and seeing the policeman with him, thought that they had come to arrest him. Roused thus abruptly from his slumbers, bemused and drink-sodden, he saw in a flash the hand of the law stretched out to grasp him, and an old and ungovernable terror seized upon his shattered nerves. “Keep off! keep off!” he gasped, clawing at the two with his trembling hands. “You shall not take me! I will not be taken! Don’t you see I am a gentleman?” — this last in a feeble scream.

  “Easy, easy, old fellow,” Jim said, surprised by his violence, “or you will be doing yourself a mischief.”

  But the words only confirmed the poor man in his mistake. “I won’t be taken!” he cried, waving them off. “My son will pay you, I tell you,” he cried, his voice rising in a shriek which rang in the road outside, and startled the house-dog sleeping in the sunshine— “I tell you my son will pay you!” One of his hands as he spoke overturned the empty glass, and it rolled off the table — on such trifles life rests. For the policeman instinctively started forward to catch it, and the old man misunderstood the movement. He fell in a fit on the floor.

  Of course there was a great commotion. The inn was roused from its afternoon slumber, and the policeman was sent for the doctor; with one thing and another half an hour elapsed before Foley left the house and slowly made his way to the Chase. He was thinking a great deal more seriously than was his wont. As hard as nails, some of his friends called him; but there is a soft spot in these men who are as hard as nails, if one can find it. Approaching the house, he caught sight of his sister-in-law, and shrugged his shoulders and shook himself to get rid of unpleasant thoughts. Patty was a favourite with him, and, seeing her loitering round the sweep before the house, he guessed that she was waiting to intercept her betrothed and learn the cause of his conduct. Jim said a naughty word under his breath and went to her, as if he had something to say. But, reaching her, he listened instead — as a man must when a woman has a mind to speak.

  “What is it, Jim?” she broke out. Her eyes were full of trouble and her pale complexion was a shade paler than usual. “What is the matter with Walter? He did not dine here last night, though he meant to do so. And when we went to learn the reason this morning he was out. He was away at luncheon-time, and the school had never been visited. And now, when he appeared at last, he told Robert not to call me, and said he would wait in papa’s study until he came in.”

  She stopped. “He is here now?” Jim asked.

  “Yes; papa has come in, and they are in the bowling-green.”

  “I will go to them,” he said.

  “But, Jim, what is it?” she repeated, speaking with a little quaver in her voice; and laying her hand on his arm, she detained him. “Tell me, is there anything the matter?”

  Jim looked down at her. She was one of those soft plump feminine women who seem made to be protected — whom to hurt seems as wicked as to harm a child. “The matter?” he said. “Nothing that I know of. What should be the matter? I will go and see them.”

  He escaped from her and, entering the hall, of which both the front and back doors were open, he found that she was right. The young vicar, the dust on his shoes and an unwonted shade of depression darkening his face, was walking up and down the sward with the squire — a little man as choleric as he was kind-hearted, who passed two-thirds of his waking hours in breeches and gaiters. Jim Foley strode towards them, a purpose in his mind. The vicar, just embarked on his confession, found it interrupted and made a thousand times more difficult. “Jones has come to explain matters, I hope, sir,” Jim said.

  The clergyman winced. “He has come to turn my brain, I think,” the squire cried, angry and suspicious. “I cannot make out what he would be at.”

  “I was telling you, sir,” the vicar answered with some impatience— “that my father — —”

  “You had better leave your father alone, I think!” Foley struck in with a manner like the snapping of a trap. “And explain to Mr. Stanton the matter you mentioned to me yesterday.”

  “I was explaining it!” the clergyman rejoined. “I was saying that my father — he was at school with you, sir, you remember?”

  “To be sure,” the squire said, his grey whiskers curling with impatience as he looked from one to the other. “And at college.”

  “He lost money after my mother’s death,” the young man continued, “and went to live in Glasgow.” In his shrinking from the disclosure he had to make his voice took a rambling tone as he added, “I think I told you that, sir.”

  “To be sure! Twice!

  “But I did not tell you,” the clergyman replied, driving his stick into the ground and working it about while his face grew scarlet— “and I take great shame to myself that I did not, Mr. Stanton — that my father was much — —”

  “Good heavens, Jones!” Jim broke out, his patience exhausted. “What on earth has your father to do with it? Yesterday you gave me to understand that you had some entanglement which weighed on your mind. And I thought that you had come here to make a clean breast of it. Instead of which — for Heaven’s sake man, don’t make me think that you are not running straight!”

  The vicar glared at him, while the squire gazed at both. “But that old man,” Jones said at last, almost at choking point by this time, “whom you saw this afternoon was — —”

  Jim struck in again savagely. “We do not want to know anything about him either. As for him, he is — —”

  “My father!”

  “He is dead,” Jim persisted, raising his hand for silence, and determined to keep his man to the point and to have things straightened out. “We do not want to hear anything about him. He is dead. We want — —”

  “Who is dead?”

  The question was the vicar’s. He wheeled round as he put it, his face white, his voice changed. The squire, who, like most listeners, had learned more than the talkers, saw his tremendous agitation, and, grasping some idea of the truth, tried to intercept Foley’s answer. But he was too late. “The old fellow we went to see off,” Jim said, almost lightly. “He is dead. Died in a fit half an hour ago, I tell you.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes, dead. At least the doctor says so.”

  The vicar put his hands to his face, and turned away, his back shaking. The others looked at him. “He was — he was my father!” he murmured — almost under his breath. And even Jim, his eyes as wide as saucers, understood.

  “Fetch some wine, you fool” the squire muttered, giving him a nudge. And he put his arm round the clergyman, and led him to a seat in the shade. There, I think, Walter Jone
s prayed that he might not be thankful. Man is weak. And conventional man very weak.

  Once a gentleman always a gentleman, was the squire’s motto. There was no attempt at concealment. The poor man, whose life had been so unlovely, lay at peace at last in the best room at the vicarage, and was presently, with some tears of pity shed by gentle eyes, laid in a quiet corner of the churchyard. There was talk, of course, but the talk was confined to the village, where the possession of a drunken father was not uncommon, or uncharitably considered. The worst of the dead man was known only to Jim Foley, and he kept it even from his wife; while any Spartan thoughts which the squire might otherwise have entertained, any objections he might have raised to his daughter’s match, were rendered futile and quixotic by the strange mode in which the denouement had been reached in his presence. He consented, and all — after an interval — went well. But the vicar will sometimes, I think, in the days to come, when prosperity laps him round, wander to the churchyard and recall the hot noon when he walked the roads haunted by that strange sense of forlornness and ruin.

  THE OTHER ENGLISHMAN

  “You are English, I take it, sir?”

  It was clear to me that the speaker was. I was travelling alone, and had not fallen in with three Englishmen in as many weeks. I turned to inspect the new-comer with a cordiality his smudged and smutty face could not wholly suppress. “I am,” I answered, “and I am glad to meet a fellow-countryman.”

  “You are a stranger here?” He did not take his eyes from me, but he indicated by a gesture of his thumb the busy wharf below piled high with hundreds and thousands of crates full of oranges. From the upper deck of the San Miguel we looked down upon it, and could see all that came or went in the trim basin about us. The San Miguel, a steamer of the Segovia Quadra and Company’s line, bound for several places on the coast southward, was waiting to clear out of El Grao, the harbour of Valencia, and I was waiting impatiently to clear out with her. “You are a stranger here?” he repeated.

  “Yes; I have been in the town four or five days, but otherwise I am a stranger,” I answered.

  “You are not in the trade?” he continued. He meant the orange trade.

  “No, I am not. I am travelling for pleasure,” I answered readily. “You will understand that, though it is more than a Frenchman or Spaniard can.” I smiled as I spoke, but he was not very responsive.

  “It is a queer place to visit for pleasure,” he said, looking from me to the busy throng about the orange crates.

  “Not at all,” I retorted. “It is a lively town and quaint, and it is warm and sunny. I cannot say as much for Madrid, from which I came two or three weeks back.”

  “Come straight here?” he asked.

  I was growing tired of his curiosity, but I answered, “No. I stayed a short time at Toledo and Aranjuez, and at several other places.”

  “You speak Spanish?”

  “Not much. Muy poco de Castellano,” I laughed, calling to mind the maddening grimace by which the Spanish peasant indicates that he does not understand, and is not going to understand you. He is a good fellow, is Sancho Panza, but having made up his mind that you do not speak Spanish, the purest Castilian is not Spanish for him.

  “You are going some way with us — perhaps to Carthagena?” the inquisitor persisted.

  He laid some stress on the last word, and with it shot a sly glance at me — a glance so unpleasantly suggestive that I did not answer him at once. Instead, I looked at him more closely. He was a wiry young fellow, rather below than above the middle height, to all appearance the chief engineer. Everything about him, not excluding the atmosphere, was greasy and oily, as if he had come straight from the engine-room. The whites of his eyes showed with unlovely prominence. Seeing him thus, I took a dislike for him. “To Carthagena!” I answered brusquely. “I am not going to stay at Carthagena. Why should you suppose so? Unless, indeed,” I added, as another construction of his words occurred to me, “you think I want to see some fighting? No, I fancy the fun might grow too furious.”

  I should say that three days before there had been a mutiny among the troops at Carthagena. An outlying fort had been captured, and the governor of the city killed before the attempt was suppressed. The news was in every one’s mouth, and I fancied that his question referred to it.

  My manner or my words disconcerted him. Without saying more he turned away, not going below at once, but standing on the main deck near the office in the afterpart. There was a good deal of bustle in that quarter. The captain, the second officer, and clerk were there, giving and taking receipts and what not. He did not speak to them, but leaned against the rail close at hand. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he was watching me; and this gave rise to a shrinking from the man, which did not affect me always, but returned from time to time.

  Presently the dinner-bell rang, and simultaneously the San Miguel moved out to sea. We were to spend the next day at Alicante, and the following one at Carthagena.

  Dinner was not a cheerful meal. The officers of the ship did not speak English or French, and were not communicative in any language. Besides myself there were only three first-class passengers. They were ladies, relatives of the newly appointed Governor of Carthagena, and about to join him there. I have no doubt that they were charming and fashionable people, but their partiality for the knife in eating prejudiced them unfairly in English eyes. Consequently, when I came on deck again, and the engineer — he told me his name was Sleigh — sidled up to me, I received him graciously. He proffered the omnipresent cigarette, and I provided him with something to drink. He urged me to go down with him and see the engine-room, and after some hesitation I did so. It was after dinner.

  “I have pretty much my own way,” he boasted. “They cannot do without English engineers. They tried once, and lost three boats in six months. In harbour, my time is my own. I have seven stokers under me, all Spaniards. They tried it on with me when I first came aboard! But the first that out with his knife to me I knocked on the head with a shovel. I have had none of their sauce since!”

  “Was he much hurt?” I asked, scanning my companion. He was not big, and he slouched. But there was an air of swaggering dare-devilry about him that gave colour to his story.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “They took him to the hospital, and he never came aboard again. That is all I know.”

  “I suppose your pay is good?” I suggested. To confess the truth, I felt myself at a disadvantage with him down there. The flaring lights and deep shadows, the cranks and pistons whirling at our elbows, the clank and din, and the valves that hissed at unexpected moments, were matters of every hour to him; they imbued me with a desire to propitiate. As my after-dinner easiness abated, I regretted that it had induced me to come down.

  He laughed harshly. “Pretty fair,” he said, “with my opportunities. Do you see that jacket?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is my shore-going jacket,” with a wink. “Here, look at it!”

  I complied. It appeared at first sight to be an ordinary sailor’s pea-coat; but, looking more closely, I found that inside were dozens of tiny pockets. At the mouth of each pocket a small hook was fixed to the lining.

  “They are for watches,” he explained, when he saw that I did not comprehend. “I get five francs over the price for every one I carry ashore to a friend of mine — duty free, you understand.”

  I nodded to show that I did understand. “And which is your port for that?” I asked, desiring to say something as I turned to ascend.

  He touched me on the shoulder, and I found his face close to mine. His eyes glittered in the light of the lamp that hung by the steam-gauge; they had the same expression that had perplexed me before dinner. “At Carthagena!” he whispered, bringing his face still closer to mine. “At Carthagena! Wait a minute, mate, I have told you something,” he went on. “I am not too particular, and, what is more, I am not afraid! Ain’t you going to tell me something?”

  “I have nothing to tell you!
” I answered, staring at him.

  “Ain’t you going to tell me something, mate?” he repeated. His voice was low, but it seemed to me that there was a menace in it.

  “I have not an idea what you mean, my good fellow,” I said, and, turning abruptly, my eye discovered a shovel lying ready to his hand — I ran as nimbly as I could up the steep ladder, and gained the deck. Once there, I looked down. He was still standing by the lamp, staring up at me, chagrin plainly written on his face. Even as I watched him he rounded his lips to an oath; and then seemed to hold it over until he should be better assured of its necessity.

  I thought no worse of him for his revelations. In a country where the head of the custom-house lives like a prince on the salary of a beggar, smuggling is no sin. But I was angry with him, and vexed with myself for the haste with which I had met his advances. I disliked and distrusted him. Whether he was mad, or took me for another smuggler — which seemed the most probable hypothesis — or had conceived some false idea of me, whatever the key to the enigma of his manner might be, I felt that I should do well to avoid him.

  Like should mate with like, and I am not a violent man. I should not feel at home in a duel, though the part were played with the most domestic of fire shovels, much less with a horrible thing out of a stoke-hole.

  About half-past ten the San Miguel began to roll, and I took the hint and went below. The small saloon was empty, the lamp turned down. As I passed the steward’s pantry I looked in and begged a couple of biscuits. I am a tolerable sailor, but when things are bad my policy is comprised in “berth and biscuits.” With this provision against misfortune, I retired to my cabin, happy in the knowledge that it was a four-berth one, and that I was its sole occupant.

  In truth I came near to chuckling as I looked round it. I did not need the experience I had had of a cabin three feet six inches by six feet three, shared with a drunken Spaniard, to lead me to view with contentment my present quarters. A lamp in a glass case lighted at once the cabin and the passage outside, and gave assurance that it would burn all night. On my right hand were an upper and lower berth, and on my left the same, with standing room between. A couch occupied the side facing me. The sliding door was supplemented by a curtain. What joy — to one who had known other things — to arrange this and stow that, and fearlessly to place in the rack sponge and tooth-brush! What wonder if I blessed the firm of Segovia Quadra and Company as I sank back upon my well-hung mattress.