Drawn by a magnet, the sea hissed away from the strand, and a breaker running high above its fellows flung itself with a crash of thunder upon the lurching ship. Mary saw the black mass that had been a vessel roll slowly upon its side, like a great flat turtle; the masts and spars were threads of cotton, crumpled and fallen. Clinging to the slippery, sloping surface of the turtle were little black dots that would not be thrown; that stuck themselves fast to the splintering wood like limpets; and, when the heaving, shuddering mass beneath them broke monstrously in two, cleaving the air, they fell one by one into the white tongues of the sea, little black dots without life or substance.
A deadly sickness came upon Mary, and she closed her eyes, her face pressed into the shingle. The silence and the stealth were gone; the men who had waited during the cold hours waited no more. They ran like madmen hither and thither upon the beach, yelling and screaming, demented and inhuman. They waded waist-deep into the breakers, careless of danger, all caution spent; snatching at the bobbing, sodden wreckage borne in on the surging tide.
They were animals, fighting and snarling over lengths of splintered wood; they stripped, some of them, and ran naked in the cold December night, the better to fight their way into the sea and plunge their hands among the spoil that the breakers tossed to them. They chattered and squabbled like monkeys, tearing things from one another; and one of them kindled a fire in the corner by the cliff, the flame burning strong and fierce in spite of the mizzling rain. The spoils of the sea were dragged up the beach and heaved beside it. The fire cast a ghastly light upon the beach, throwing a yellow brightness that had been black before, and casting long shadows down the beach where the men ran backwards and forwards, industrious and horrible.
When the first body was washed ashore, mercifully spent and gone, they clustered around it, diving among the remains with questing, groping hands, picking it clean as a bone; and, when they had stripped it bare, tearing even at the smashed fingers in search of rings, they abandoned it again, leaving it to loll upon its back in the scum where the tide had been.
Whatever had been the practice hitherto, there was no method in their work tonight. They robbed haphazard, each man for himself; crazy they were and drunk, mazed with this success they had not planned--dogs snapping at the heel of their master whose venture had proved a triumph, whose power this was, whose glory. They followed him where he ran naked among the breakers, the water streaming from the hair on his body, a giant above them all.
The tide turned, the water receded, and a new chill came upon the air. The light that swung above them on the cliff, still dancing in the wind, like an old mocking man whose joke has long been played, turned pallid now and dim. A gray color came upon the water and was answered by the sky. At first the men did not notice the change; they were delirious still, intent upon their prey. And then Joss Merlyn himself lifted his great head and sniffed the air, turning about him as he stood, watching the clear contour of the cliffs as the darkness slipped away; and he shouted suddenly, calling the men to silence, pointing to the sky that was leaden now, and pale.
They hesitated, glancing once more at the wreckage that surged and fell in the trough of the sea, unclaimed as yet and waiting to be salved; and then they turned with one accord and began to run up the beach towards the entrance of the gully, silent once more, without words or gesture, their faces gray and scared in the broadening light. They had outstayed their time. Success had made them careless. The dawn had broken upon them unawares, and by lingering overlong they had risked the accusation which daylight would bring to them. The world was waking up around them; night, that had been their ally, covered them no more.
It was Joss Merlyn who pulled the sacking away from her mouth and jerked Mary to her feet. Seeing that her weakness had become part of her now, and could not be withstood, for she could neither stand alone nor help herself in any way, he cursed her furiously, glancing behind him at the cliffs that every minute became harder, more distinct; and then he bent down to her, for she had stumbled to the ground again, and threw her over his shoulder as he would a sack. Her head lolled without support, her arms lifeless, and she felt his hands pressing into her scarred side, bruising it once again, rubbing the numb flesh that had lain upon the shingle. He ran with her up the strand to the entrance of the gully; and his companions, caught up already in a mesh of panic, flung the remnants of spoil they had snatched from the beach upon the backs of the three horses tethered there. Their movements were feverish and clumsy, and they worked without direction, as though unhinged, lacking all sense of order; while the landlord, sober now from necessity and strangely ineffectual, cursed and bullied them to no avail. The carriage, stuck in the bank half way up the gully, resisted their efforts to extract it, and this sudden reverse to their fortune increased the panic and stampede. Some of them began to scatter up the lane, forgetting everything in a blind concentration on personal safety. Dawn was their enemy; and more easily withstood alone, in the comparative security of ditch and hedge, than in the company of five or six upon the road. Suspicion would lie in numbers here on the coast, where every face was known, and strangers were remarkable; but a poacher, or tramp, or gypsy could make his way alone, finding his own cover and his own path. These deserters were cursed by those who remained, struggling with the carriage, and now, through stupidity and panic, the vehicle was wrenched from the bank in so rough a manner that it overturned, falling upon one side and smashing a wheel.
This final disaster let loose pandemonium in the gully-way. There was a wild rush to the remaining farm-cart that had been left further up the lane, and to the already over-burdened horses. Someone, still obedient to the leader and with a sense of necessity, put fire to the broken carriage, whose presence in the lane screamed danger to them all, and the riot that followed--fight between man and man for the possession of the farm-cart that might yet carry them away inland--was a hideous scrap of tooth and nail, of teeth smashed by stones, of eyes cut open by broken glass.
Those who carried pistols now had the advantage, and the landlord, with his remaining ally Harry the pedlar by his side, stood with his back to the cart and let fly among the rabble, who, in the sudden terror of pursuit that would follow with the day, looked upon him now as an enemy, a false leader who had brought them to destruction. The first shot went wide, and stubbed the soft bank opposite; but it gave one of the opponents a chance to cut the landlord's eye open with a jagged flint. Joss Merlyn marked his assailant with his second shot, spattering him in mid-stomach, and while the fellow doubled up in the mud among his companions, mortally wounded and screaming like a hare, Harry the pedlar caught another in the throat, the bullet ripping the windpipe, the blood spouting jets like a fountain.
It was the blood that won the cart for the landlord; for the remaining rebels, hysterical and lost at the sight of their dying fellows, turned as one man and scuttled like crabs up the twisting lane, intent only on putting a safe distance between themselves and their late leader. The landlord leaned against the cart with smoking, murderous pistol, the blood running freely from the cut on his eye. Now that they were alone, he and the pedlar wasted little time. What wreckage had been salved and brought to the gully they threw upon the cart beside Mary--miscellaneous odds and ends, useless and unprofitable, the main store still down on the beach and washed by the tide. They dared not risk the fetching of it, for that would be the work of a dozen men, and already the light of day had followed the early dawn, and made clear the countryside. There was not a moment to spare.
The two men who had been shot sprawled in the lane beside the cart. Whether they still breathed or not was not a matter to be discussed; their bodies bore witness, and must be destroyed. It was Harry the pedlar who dragged them to the fire. It burned well; much of the carriage was already consumed, while one red wheel stuck out above the charred and splintered wood.
Joss Merlyn led the remaining horse to the traces, and without a word the two men climbed into the cart and jerked the horse to action
.
Lying on her back in the cart, Mary watched the low clouds pass across the sky. Darkness had gone; the morning was damp and gray. She could still hear the sound of the sea, more distant and less insistent, a sea that had spent its full fury and now let itself be carried by the tide.
The wind had dropped too; the tall stems of grass on the banks above the gully were still, and a silence had come upon the coast. There was a smell in the air of damp earth and turnips, of a mist that had lain overnight upon the land. The clouds became one with the gray sky. Once again a thin mizzle of rain fell upon Mary's face, and upon her upturned hands.
The wheels of the cart crunched the uneven lane; and, turning right, came out upon a smoothed surface of gravel that was a road, running northwards between low hedges. From far away, across many fields and scattered plowlands, came the merry peal of bells, odd and discordant, in the morning air.
She remembered suddenly that it was Christmas Day.
12
The square pane of glass was familiar to her. It was larger than the carriage window, and had a ledge before it, and there was a crack across the pane that she remembered well. She kept her eyes upon it, struggling with memory, and she wondered why she no longer felt the rain on her face and the steady current of wind. There was no movement under her, and her first thought was that the carriage had come to a standstill, thrust against the bank in the gully-way once more, and that circumstance and fate would compel her to react in frightful repetition the things she had already performed. When she climbed through the window she would fall and bruise herself, and, heading yet again up the twisting lane, would come upon Harry the pedlar, squatting in his ditch; but this time she would not have the strength to withstand him. Down on the shingle strand the men waited for the tide, and the great black turtle of a ship rolled flat and monstrous in the trough of the sea. Mary moaned, and turned her head restlessly from side to side; out of the tail of her eyes she saw the brown discolored wall beside her, and the rusty nail-head where a text had once been hung.
She was lying in her bedroom at Jamaica Inn.
The sight of this room she hated, however cold it was and dreary, was at least protection from the wind and the rain, and from the hands of Harry the pedlar. Nor could she hear the sea. The roar of surf would not disturb her again. If death came now, he would be an ally; existence was not a thing she welcomed anymore. Life had been crushed from her anyway, and the body lying on the bed did not belong to her. She had no wish to live. Shock had made a dummy of her, and taken away her strength; tears of self-pity welled into her eyes.
Now there was a face bending down to her, and she shrank back against the pillow, her hands thrust outward and protesting; for the puffy mouth and broken teeth of the pedlar were ever in her mind.
Her hands were held gently, though, and the eyes that peered at her, red-rimmed like her own from weeping, were tremulous and blue.
It was Aunt Patience. They clung to one another, seeking comfort in proximity; and after Mary had wept awhile, easing herself of sorrow and allowing the tide of emotion to carry her to the limit, nature took command of her again and she was strengthened, something of the old courage and force coming back to her again.
"You know what has happened?" she asked, and Aunt Patience held her hands tightly, so that they could not be withdrawn, the blue eyes begging dumbly for forgiveness, like an animal punished through no fault of his own.
"How long have I lain here?" Mary questioned, and she was told that this was the second day. For a moment or two Mary was silent, considering the information, new to her and sudden; two days was a long time to one who but a few moments ago had watched the dawn break on the coast.
Much could happen in the time, and she had been on her bed here, helpless.
"You should have woken me," she said roughly, pushing away the hands that clung to her. "I'm not a child, to be mothered and pampered because of a few bruises. There's work for me to do; you don't understand."
Aunt Patience stroked her, the caress timid and ineffectual.
"You could not move," she whimpered. "Your poor body was bleeding and broken. I bathed you while you were still unconscious; I thought at first they had injured you terribly, but thank the dear God no real harm has come to you. Your bruises will heal, and your long sleep has rested you."
"You know who did it, don't you? You know where they took me?"
Bitterness had made her cruel. She knew that the words acted like a lash, and she could not stop herself. She began to talk about the men on the shore. Now it was the elder woman's turn to whimper, and when Mary saw the thin mouth working, the vapid blue eyes stare back at her in terror, she became sickened of herself and could not continue. She sat up in bed, and swung her legs to the floor, her head swimming with the effort, her temples throbbing.
"What are you going to do?" Aunt Patience pulled at her nervously, but her niece shook her aside and began to drag on her clothes.
"I have business of my own," she said curtly.
"Your uncle is below. He will not let you leave the inn."
"I'm not afraid of him."
"Mary, for your sake, for my sake, do not answer him again. You know what you have suffered already. Ever since he returned with you he has sat below, white and terrible, a gun across his knees; the doors of the inn are barred. I know you have seen and endured horrible, unspeakable things; but, Mary, don't you understand if you go down now he may hurt you again--he may even kill you?... I have never seen him like this. I can't answer for his mood. Don't go down, Mary. I beg you on my knees not to go down."
She began to drag on the floor, clutching at Mary's skirt, clasping at her hands and kissing them. The sight was miserable, unnerving.
"Aunt Patience, I have gone through enough out of loyalty to you. You can't expect me to stand anymore. Whatever Uncle Joss may have been to you once, he is inhuman now. All your tears won't save him from justice; you must realize that. He's a brute, half mad with brandy and blood. Men were murdered by him on the shore; don't you understand? Men were drowned in the sea. I can see nothing else. I shall think of nothing else to my dying day."
Her voice rose, dangerously high; hysteria was not far away. She was still too weak for consecutive thought, and saw herself running out upon the high road, crying loudly for the help that would surely be forthcoming.
Aunt Patience prayed too late for silence; the warning finger was unheeded. The door opened; and the landlord of Jamaica Inn stood on the threshold of the room. He stooped his head under the beam and stared at them. He looked haggard and gray; the cut above his eye was still a vivid scarlet. He was filthy and unwashed, and there were black shadows beneath his eyes.
"I thought I heard voices in the yard," he said. "I went to a chink in the shutters, downstairs in the parlor, but I saw no one. Did you hear anything, from this room?"
Nobody answered. Aunt Patience shook her head, the little nervous smile that she conjured for his presence trailing uneasily across her face without her knowledge. He sat down on the bed, his hands plucking at the clothes, his restless eyes roaming from the window to the door.
"He'll come," he said; "he's bound to come. I've cut my own throat; I've gone against him. He warned me once, and I laughed at him; I didn't listen. I wanted to play the game on my own. We're as good as dead, all three of us sitting here--you, Patience, and Mary, and I.
"We're finished, I tell you; the game is up. Why did you let me drink? Why didn't you break every blasted bottle in the house, and turn the key on me, and let me lie? I'd not have hurt you; I'd not have touched a hair of your heads, either of you. Now it's too late. The end has come."
He looked from one to the other of them, his bloodshot eyes hollow, his massive shoulders humped to his neck. They stared back at him without understanding, dumbfounded and awed at the expression on his face they had not seen before.
"What do you mean?" said Mary at length. "Who are you afraid of? Who warned you?"
He shook his head, and
his hands strayed to his mouth, the fingers restless. "No," he said slowly, "I'm not drunk now, Mary Yellan; my secrets are still my own. But I'll tell you one thing--and there's no escape for you; you're in it now as much as Patience there--we have enemies on either side of us now. We have the law on one hand, and on the other..." He checked himself, the old cunning in his eyes once more as he glanced at Mary.
"You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" he said. "You'd like to sneak out of the house with the name on your lips, and betray me. You'd like to see me hanged. All right, I don't blame you for it; I've hurt you enough to make you remember to the rest of your days, haven't I? But I saved you too, didn't I? Have you thought what that rabble would have done to you had I not been there?" He laughed, and spat on the floor, something of his usual self returning to him. "You can put one good mark against me for that alone," he said. "Nobody touched you last night but myself, and I've not spoilt your pretty face. Cuts and bruises mend, don't they? Why, you poor weak thing, you know as well as I do I could have had you your first week at Jamaica Inn if I'd wanted you. You're a woman after all. Yes, by heaven, and you'd be lying at my feet now, like your Aunt Patience, crushed and contented and clinging, another God-damn bloody fool. Let's get out of here. The room stinks of damp and decay."
He shambled to his feet, dragging her after him into the passage, and, when they came onto the landing, he thrust her against the wall, beneath the candle stuck in the bracket, so that the light fell upon her bruised, cut face. He took her chin in his hands and held her for a moment, smoothing the scratches with delicate light fingers. She stared back at him in loathing and disgust, the gentle, graceful hands reminding her of all she had lost and renounced; and, when he bent his hated face lower, indifferent of Patience, who stood beside him, and his mouth, so like his brother's, hovered an instant on hers, the illusion was horrible and complete; and she shuddered and closed her eyes. He blew out the light; they followed him down the stairs without a word, their footsteps pattering sharply through the empty house.
Jamaica Inn Page 20
