She read his thoughts to the letter. “You think I have not suffered!” she cried in a low voice. “You little know; but this is the last straw — the punishment I so richly deserve! Mr. Daintree saved your life. You knew that, of course? But I don’t think you know why he did it: it was because I asked him — it was for my sake!”
“You?” he said hoarsely. “I see now — I see! I might have guessed it long ago!”
“He wanted to do something for me,” she continued in a choking voice; “I let him do that. I deceived him — to save your life. I am here — because I deceived him!”
He thought he had seen everything; he had not, but he was beginning to, now. Good heavens! why was his heart beating so fast? It ought to bleed instead: here was the girl he loved, and upstairs was the man he had reason to love better still; and they were going to marry — like that. He tried to forget, to think only of what Claire had done for him.
“God bless you!” he murmured. “He has saved my life twice over, and much more than my life. And I owe it all to one brave girl who believed in me, and made him believe in me, when all the world—”
“Stop!” she cried. “I never believed in you at all.”
“What?”
“I was — sorry for you.”
“You believed me guilty — even when you tried to save my life?”
“Of manslaughter — yes!”
“Let us split no hairs! You think — I did it — still?”
“I can think nothing else.”
In the dead silence following these words the servant heard his master stamping into evening dress overhead; he felt his own crested buttons glittering in the candlelight that shone upon the table he had set so beautifully for the bride; and, as she tossed back the ringlets that he knew so well, and repeated with unflinching eyes what she had told him in so many candid words, all that had distracted him up to this moment ceased to do so any more. Her coming was nothing to him now. Her errand was nothing; she was welcome to marry the next day. But believe in his innocence she must and should: injustice from her was the last bitterness, the crowning wrong, the one intolerable misery which absorbed all that had gone before.
Something of this he showed her in his bitter, proud, inexorable look; then suddenly he retreated to the open French windows.
“You are going?” she cried. “I might have known; you were always — generous!”
“I am not now. I hear my master on the stairs.”
“You are not going altogether?”
“Certainly not at present.” —
“When, when?” she cried below her breath.
“When you do me common justice.”
Daintree had gone into the wrong room. The girl ran recklessly to the window.
“Tom!”
“Miss Harding?”
“Will you swear — to me — that you are innocent?” But Tom was gone. She heard him treading viciously in the dark verandah. A moment later Daintree found her deeply engrossed before the chart. She wanted to know what the ship meant; he told her in a tender whisper.
“What a beautiful idea!”
“Well, it wasn’t mine.”
“Whose was it?”
“My servant’s; he made her, and he moved her on each day. You would have said he was the lucky fellow himself!”
CHAPTER XXXV
A MEDDLER
THE breeze had freshened: there were white wisps in the blue above, and tiny crests upon the blue below. It was early morning; and Tom, having waited admirably overnight, was setting the breakfast-table when his master came in glowing from the morning dip. As a rule they bathed together; this exception was their first. They had not spoken since the previous evening. But here was Daintree in a glow from more causes than salt water and fresh air; and a glance told the other that he was forgiven.
“Well, Thomas, will you listen to me another time? Neither lady has the slightest idea who you are!”
“I am thankful to hear you say so,” said Tom, laying the knives.
“Lady Starkie never set eyes on you before. I feel certain that Miss Harding doesn’t know you from Adam. Don’t you think it was rather vain of you to imagine that she would?”
“I was afraid of it, sir,” said Tom. “That was all.”
“And very natural too,” said his master kindly. “I quite enter into your embarrassment, and only fear I said more than I meant in the heat of the moment last night. You must forgive me, Thomas; it was unpleasant for you, I admit; but you won’t mind another day of it, will you? One more day will end it — for the present!”
The swarthy countenance was more radiant than ever. Tom was nonplussed.
“Only one more day?”
“For the present,” repeated Daintree; “the ladies return to Sydney this afternoon. They go to the Pulteney. Shall I tell you why — shall I tell you why?”
And now one man was on fire, but the other felt a chill run down him as he nodded his head; he could not speak.
“Because it’s to be at once!” cried Daintree, beside himself with joy. “Because a special licence is to be had by paying for it — so why on earth should we wait for banns? My boy, we shall be married by the end of the week. Only think of it! I can’t believe it myself; it’s weeks sooner than I dared to hope. But women are all alike! The very best of ‘em, Thomas, will take you by surprise if they can. What do you think? I’d tell this to no other living man: when I met her on board no day was too distant, and before we said good-night it couldn’t be too soon!”
The fine eyes glistened, the deep voice shook; there was no doubt about this man’s love. But Tom was thinking of his darker side, and it had never seemed so dark before, for never before had he allowed himself to dwell upon it without shame. Now this was a duty; the point of view was changed; and the regrettable in Tom’s benefactor became the intolerable in Claire’s husband. Could she be happy with so dangerous a combination of the spoilt child and the unscrupulous tyrant? Would she be safe? Tom sweated with the thought; it was horribly entangled with that of his debt to Daintree. Yet for all that was in his heart, the fitting and conventional speech passed his lips, and he found himself shaking the other by the hand.
“Congratulate me?” cried Daintree “I should think you did! You have only to see her to know how happy she will make me. She is a sweet, true, unselfish girl; she has beauty and goodness and strong common-sense; she can appreciate and admire and understand — she is the poet’s ideal! I have been longing for her all my life. And then her manner! She will be a leader of society when I come to my own. Yes, Thomas, you may well congratulate me: she is going to make me the very happiest of men! I can see her now — friend of the wits — patroness of all the arts — gracious queen of an ideal salon — when the exile returns to his own!”
And doubtless he could also see himself — as Tom could see him — swelling with happiness and pride and satisfaction. Her happiness he appeared to take for granted; it might be unfair to say that he never thought of it at all; but he very seldom spoke of it, even to Claire.
Tom was in and out at breakfast; he contrived to be out as much as possible. Her face tortured him: he saw marks like bruises beneath the lustrous eyes that never looked his way. He noted the nervous effort of her conversation while he was present. But after breakfast, when he must have met her face to face on the verandah, she turned her back upon him in a manner not only pointed but barbed. And for a while his compassion deserted him altogether.
Claire was indeed not herself; her indisposition became more and more transparent, and when she ultimately confessed to a perfectly sleepless night, Daintree put it down to her great happiness, and was the first to insist that she should “run away and rest” till luncheon. Lady Starkie, on the other hand, made herself extremely comfortable, quite doting on the harbour and Bose Bay, while she declared that she had seldom felt better in her life. Nevertheless, when her host began reading her his poems, a faintness overcame the lady before he had got very far. It was quit
e inexplicable, and most disappointing; but she feared that both Claire and herself were still suffering from the effects of the atrocious table on board that horrible ship. So Lady Starkie followed Claire upstairs — with the poems — which she took care to leave there when she came down again.
It was a little hard on Daintree; but he was now much too happy to be readily depressed or vexed. His rampant spirits sought relief in activity, and he galloped off to Sydney to secure rooms at the Pulteney Hotel.
Tom was meantime behind the scenes. So was Peggy O’Brien. And already those keen Irish eyes had seen more than he thought, for hopeless love had fitted them with strong lenses, even as his triumphant suit had blinded her master to every passion but his own. The girl had long divined that some other woman stood between herself and Tom. And there were more reasons than might appear for her instantly pouncing upon Miss Harding as the one.
Peggy was sure that Tom and Daintree must have known each other in England; or why were they more like brothers than master and man? Tom would not tell her, and the Fawcetts could not. So Peggy set them down as two old friends; and what if the friends had loved the same woman? The idea occurred to her when she saw Tom manipulating the cork ship and so zealously preparing for the bride. It was then an idea only; it became a suspicion on the evening of the bride’s arrival; and Claire was not the only young woman who lay awake all that night.
The other had been transported for a comparatively venial offence, and had come through the thick of her ordeal a better woman than most; she is not put forward as an average specimen of her sex and kind in that Colony and at that time. The Irishwomen were almost invariably the best of a deplorable lot, and Peggy was certainly not the worst of the Irishwomen. But there was evil in her, and passion was to bring it out, as it had already brought out the good. A callous man she could bear with and wait for so long as he was callous and cold to all. But to see and hear him sighing for another woman — and that other woman there on the spot — was to lash a patient and single-hearted devotion into tumults of jealousy and bitter rage.
The thing galled her while it was still a suspicion. It maddened her when she knew it for a fact. And that was when, in the same half-minute, she met Claire on the stairs, in tears, and saw Tom in his pantry with his head clasped tight between his hands. Peggy stole away without a word, and there was mischief in every noiseless step she took.
Her first thought was to tell Daintree. It she dismissed on consideration, and tried making friends with the ladies’ maid, in order to acquire information. This young woman, however, could only talk of the fourth officer aboard the Rosamund, and it took Peggy half an hour to discover that she had never even seen Miss Harding before the voyage. So she knew nothing; and half the morning was gone; but Peggy was all the more determined to learn everything before the visitors left.
The master’s departure on horseback at last inspired the way. Tom in the pantry was still listening to the clattering hoofs when Peggy opened the door.
“Oh, Tom, the masther would like ye to clane out the boat for’m when ye can find the time.”
“Did he say so, Peggy?”
“Sure, he tould me not to tell ye, wid all the extra work ye’ve got; but he only wished it could be done.”
“Then I’ll set to work this minute.”
“An’ ye won’t be tellin”m I tould ye?”
“No, I’ll take all the credit if you like,” said Tom, in a voice and with a face which he took no pains to discipline for Peggy’s benefit. Both supported her theory and hardened her in her plot. And as he reached the boat-shed she was knocking at Miss Harding’s door.
“Askin’ yer pardon, miss, I think I know what would be betther for you than lyin’ down up here!”
“What is that?”
“Lyin’ in a hammock by the say.”
“It sounds pleasant. Thank you very much; but I think I’ll stay where I am.”
“Sure, ye’d find one in the boat-shed, an’ it’s all the good the air would do ye!”
“You are very kind,” said Claire wearily; “but who would put the hammock up?”
“Masther’s gone to Sydney,” said Peggy reflectively, “and he won’t have me meddlin’ wid such things. Wait till I tell ye, miss! GO this minute, an’ you’ll find Thomas in the boat-shed clanin’ the boat; he’ll have’t up in a twinkle!”
“Well, I’ll see.”
Claire had coloured.
“Will I tell’m, miss?”
“No! I’ll see. I think I would rather be where I am.”
Peggy withdrew. In three minutes she heard the young lady coming downstairs; in two more she was herself outside the shed, crouching between timber and shrubs and sand and sky.
CHAPTER XXXVI
SIDE-LIGHTS
“You won’t condescend?” said a scornful voice. “Since you have made up your mind, why should I?”
“It is only your word that I ask: your solemn word to me that you are innocent.”
“If you don’t believe in me, what’s the use of giving you my solemn word? I can’t prove it, and never could; the evidence was too strong.”
“It would have been stronger still—”
The voice stopped short.
“Well?”
“If I had told them all you said to me — that very night — that very hour!”
The voice was no longer scornful. Even to Peggy it seemed to falter and to tremble with the pent-up agony of years. But Tom’s tone did not change.
“I know that,” he said bitterly. “I have always known that you had more reason than anybody in the world to think me guilty. Yet I would rather you had thought me innocent and let me die than saved my life to show me what you still think after all these months. My cup has been pretty full, but that’s the bitterest drop!”
“And still you won’t deny it,” persisted the girl. “I am ready to take your word — yet you will not give it.”
“What’s the use?” he asked. “What difference could it make — even supposing you believed me?”
“All the difference to me,” was the quick but low reply; “it would alter everything — everything. Can’t you see that it must?”
“No; it is too late to alter anything at all.”
Yet his voice shook in its turn.
“Too late? Too late?” cried the girl wildly. “Nothing is too late — if you are innocent. Speak, Tom! Why don’t you speak? Oh, Tom, it would alter all our lives... yet you will not speak!”
“Because I cannot!” he cried out. “Because I — I am not an innocent man. I am not — I am not — I am not! And now leave me; leave me, I say, for God’s sake! Never you pity me again!”
Almost from a shout his voice died down to a whisper; the last words were hardly audible outside. But they were followed by a silence so heavy that Peggy O’Brien heard herself breathing, and thought she must be heard within. And then came the sound of light, unsteady steps retreating; and nothing more; not another sound within.
The silence appalled Peggy. At last, when she could no longer bear it, she crept over the soft sand to the mouth of the shed, and peered round the corner. He was standing within as the other woman had left him — he had never stirred. His open hands were still extended in some unfinished gesture. A glimmer of sunshine glanced off the waters and pointed the cruel contrast between the lined face and the yellow hair thrown proudly back from it: the one so aged, the other so boyish. And his eyes — they seemed still to be pouring tenderness and strength upon the other woman — they never saw this one at all.
She stole away, loving him more than ever — but must not the other one too? She had seen the same look — had won it — but his crime made a difference to her. To Peggy it made none: she neither knew nor cared what it was, and there lay her slight advantage. It was too slight. She loved him, but so must the other. Her love lay near to hate; she would see if she could not push the other woman’s nearer yet.
She reached the house, and nobody was in the way. Lad
y Starkie was writing letters in the breakfast-room. Peggy was soon listening at the other woman’s door — listening to her sobs. She compressed her lips and nodded to herself with splendid confidence. At length there fell a silence, in which Peggy knocked and entered.
“I beg pardon, miss, but was Thomas not in the boat-shed? It’s sorry I am if I sent ye on a fool’s errand — savin’ your presence, miss!”
“No; he was there.”
“An’ did he refuse ye?”
“No — I — changed my mind.”
“Glory be to God, miss. ’Tis meself would let’m know’t if he gave any of his sauce to the masther’s lady. I’d have no more to do wid’m at all!”
Claire turned pale.
“You would have no more to do with him?” said she very slowly. “I don’t understand you.”
“Sure, an’ how would you? He wouldn’t be afther tellin’ a lady like you.”
“Telling me what, my good girl?” She was trembling now.
“He came to the factory last week, miss; ye’ll niver guess why — to choose a wife!”
“A wife!”
“An’ it’s me he chose... you ask the masther when he comes back!” —
The master came back in time for lunch. He found Claire on the verandah, with a white face and an angry eye, loudly declaring she felt another being.
Tom heard and saw her, and waited infamously for the first time. He could not understand it at all. She had left the boat-shed with a very different mien. What could she have found out since then? That he had purposely misled her for her own good? That was impossible. Yet he knew so well from her proud, averted face that Claire had discovered something fresh against him. Whatever that discovery might be, however, it was destined not to be her last that day.
They were still at luncheon when Peggy burst into the room.
“Nat Sullivan an’ the thraps!” she gasped. “It’s afther Tom they are, an’ I tould’m he absconded last night. Oh, sir, say that same, for Ginger’s there too, an’ there’s the blood in their eyes!”
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 105
