At this moment he should have been with her. But he had imagined a last service he could do for her. The notion had come late, when every minute was of value, and he had hurried on his errand, hoping not to be missed. As he approached the two who stood beside the wall, they saw that the man was out of breath, dusty, weary, and, as it seemed, moved. He attempted no preface. “I heard you were here,” he said. And then, his eyes travelling in a last doubt from the one to the other, he hesitated.
“If I can do anything for you?” Wyke said, wondering. The man’s presence at this stage was odd.
“Everything that matters you can,” Bligh replied. He was quite unlike himself. “Miss Bicester, you will care for her, I know? And do for her what you can? I know you will. God bless you for it!”
“You may trust me, Mr. Bligh,” she said warmly, her grievance against him forgotten. “We wish you the best of luck and a quick return!”
“And you?” He turned to Sir Albery. “If the worst comes to the worst she will need a friend; she will need everything — everything, God knows! You will not desert her? You will stand by her?” It seemed to Charlotte an appeal that could be answered in one way only, and she was surprised when Wyke hesitated. He looked from Bligh to her and from her to Bligh, and she could see that he was moved. But there was more than emotion, there was doubt in his tone when he spoke. “I — I am not sure,” he said. “I am not sure that you are wise, Mr. Bligh.” His face was troubled.
But Bligh had no doubt. “Yes,” he said, “I am sure. I know you, and I trust her to you — and my child. You did not fail her before and you will not fail her now.”
“God forbid!” the other replied — and his heart went with the words. “But you don’t know what you ask! There are others to be considered, and—”
Charlotte cut him short. “He will do it!” she said. The tears were running down her face. “He will do it. You may trust him! You may go without fear, Mr. Bligh. And go, go to her now. She will be waiting.”
“God bless you!” he said, his voice unsteady. He wrung her hand.
He turned, and went from them as abruptly as he had come. Until he plunged into the path leading down to the Cove and his figure was lost to sight neither spoke. Then, “I did not know what to say,” Sir Albery muttered. “It — it was a hard thing to promise. I don’t know if it was right.” Charlotte wiped her eyes. “I know very well,” she said. “I did you more justice than you — you wished to do yourself. That was all. And I am glad I did it.”
“I doubt,” be said. “You see, one has to consider what other people will say and — and think.”
“Fiddle-de-dee!” Charlotte cried, impatiently cutting him short. “If you had not promised to do it, you would have done it. You would have had to do it.”
“Why?” he asked. “Why should I?”
“Because you are you — and you love her,” Charlotte said bluntly. And seeing him about to interrupt her afresh, “She’s married? Of course she is married,” she continued flippantly, “but what difference does that make — if he does not come back! Oh, do let us have an end of nonsense,” she added pettishly, seeing that he was still inclined to argue with her. “What we have to do now is to take care of her and not bother about the future, or go into hysterics about something that may never happen. I will give him half an hour and then I will go to her.”
“Poor girl! Poor girl!” he said. Then it was plain that his thoughts travelled from the comforted to the comforter, for “You are braver than I am!” he said. “I would not go on your errand, my dear, for a thousand pounds.”
She turned her shoulder on him that the colour that flooded her face might be hidden. “Yes, you would,” she said, “if it were your business. I know you better than you know yourself.”
They parted on that and did not meet again that day. An hour later Wyke found himself in the Cove. Standing a little apart from the crowd and leaning on his cane he watched with a sombre face the scene of confusion that had for its centre now the thronged and noisy beach, and now the brig that like some stately swan encircled by her fussy young ones lay a half-mile out. Not he alone but many a foreboding eye noticed that the sunshine of a spring morning had given place to clouds, beneath which, as under a canopy, the clear air disclosed, sharp-cut against the offing, every line of gear and curve of hull. Across the leaden, faintly shining sea that, except where a rare breath ruffled it, was as smooth as a steel door, boats sculled by men standing on their feet went heavily to and fro, hailing one another as they passed. The voices of those on deck came faintly to the ear or sank merged in the half-hysterical cheers that sped an adventurer on his way, or the angry shout of some boatswain or petty officer come ashore to shepherd the belated. Beneath these harsher sounds the murmur of the watching crowd, the plash of oars, the monotonous fall of the wavelets as they lapped the shore, furnished an accompaniment in tune with the sullen sky and the suspense that Wyke shared with many who were more nearly concerned.
Averting his eyes for a moment from the sea, he became aware of the Rector standing not far off and a little apart, watching the scene. With Bligh’s parting words on his mind, Wyke felt no desire for the other’s company, and he made no movement towards him. But, by and by, he found Portnal at his elbow, and he had no choice but to greet him. He was struck by the man’s bearing. He looked disturbed and unlike himself.
The Rector did not reply to his greeting, but asked abruptly if he knew where Budgen was. “I don’t see him,” he added.
“Budgen?” Wyke turned and passed the crowd under review. “No, I don’t see him. He must be on board.”
“I didn’t see him go,” the Rector rejoined with a frown. He seemed to be troubled by the man’s absence — to attach some special importance to it. Wyke’s eyes searched the crowd afresh.
“Do you want him?” he asked.
“No, I don’t want him.”
“Well, he is sure to be here, though I don’t see him. Ten to one he’s on board. He has too much at stake not to be here.”
“I hope he has,” the Rector said, his tone strange. Wyke did not understand. He let the words pass. “You may be sure that he is here — somewhere,” he said. “He will be on board and will come off with the last boat. You are anxious, Rector?” he added, surprised by the other’s moody face, for he judged Portnal to be a man as little likely to feel acutely as to betray his feelings.
The Rector’s answer left no doubt on his mind. “I am,” he said, “very anxious.” And his tone bore him out.
Wyke wondered whether it was the money that he had at stake that troubled the man — or his daughter. He decided that it was the former, and he shrugged his shoulders. “After all, it is only the fortune of war,” he remarked. “And she is well found and well manned and, I think, well commanded. I suppose half a dozen vessels sail every day on her errand, and five out of six come back safely.”
To Wyke’s surprise the Rector shook his head. And “D — n the man,” Wyke thought. “If he is thinking of his daughter he should have thought before! Serve him right! If he feels that way, why doesn’t he make it up!” And he was not sorry when Portnal, his hands clasped behind him, moved restlessly away. He caught a glimpse of his face as he went, and again he was struck by its gloom.
His attention was recalled to what was passing by a cheer, shrill and puny, that seemed to be beaten down by the grey canopy overhead, and to be lost in the vastness of air and sea. The jib and foresails were going up, they were getting the brig’s head to seaward. A stream of tiny figures poured over the side, slid down into the boats, pushed off, and lay by, waving oars. The Lively Peggy, like a sentient thing awaking to life, bowed to the light breeze, forged gently ahead, then, as sail after sail ran up on fore and main until one tall pyramid of canvas showed half-hidden by the other, she began to move gently and majestically towards the point of the bluff. The flag dipped, the Blue Peter dropped, a gun was fired — last salute to the lessening land — the crowd raised a feeble shout, and the crui
se of the Lively Peggy had begun. All eyes followed her and clung to her. Somewhere in the press a woman broke into weeping.
Not all eyes. For as if the report of the gun had wheeled him about Wyke turned and gazed at the tiny green shutters and the thatched roof on the cliff-side above him. What a pang that sound must have inflicted on that tender heart! With what dumb prayers, what anguished eyes must the stricken creature whom the roof sheltered be following the white pyramids, the pigmy hull that grew ever smaller and smaller, that the eastward bluff already threatened to obscure! What a loneliness of desolation must already be closing in, be crushing the heart that beat there! He pictured the two women clasped in one another’s arms, and the “God help her!” that broke from him was followed in a breath by a “God bless her! She is a noble creature!” that had another direction yet was hardly less fervently uttered. The comforted and the comforter! Wyke did not know to which of the two whom that humble roof covered his heart went out more warmly; whether pity or gratitude moved him more deeply.
He looked round, arrested. A laugh, rude and discordant, had jarred upon his thoughts. The crowd was beginning to break away and to stream up the path towards the town, and two or three men had halted near him. They were discussing something that seemed to afford them vast amusement. “I tell you, it is so!” one swore, with a chuckle. “I saw him with my own eyes, man, sneaking in the fo’c’sle! And I’ll swear he never came off! If he did, where is he?”
“I b’lieve you’re right, Elijah,” one of the others agreed. “Bli’ me if I don’t! And if so it be, ‘twill be a pill for the old man, sink me if it won’t! A pill as’ll work him proper! Proper it will!”
“Well, I’d never ha’ thought it of him!” a third exclaimed. “I never give Joe so much spunk as to do it! But I mind when he were that riled that night at the Keppel he said a word like it! I thought ’twas only wind, for he’s a windy soul when in liquor. But seemin’ly he’s been as good as his word. Lord, I’d like to see the old man’s face when he hears it!”
“‘Twill work him fine! But if he’d been there, as ’twas right he should be—”
“Budgen?” There was a new note in the speaker’s tone. “Ay, by gum. Where the devil is he? Where is he, man? I never see him first to last.”
“He warn’t there, and reason good! Ill in his stomach, and in his bed, I’m told. But if you ask me, put out o’ something, God knows what! He’s easy crossed, th’ old skinflint, and maybe his new skipper cut athwart him.”
“But not to see his own boat go out! It’s past believing!” another cried in admiration.
“You’re right, lad. But he’s a hard block is the old man. Hard as his own timber, and cross-grained as never was, take him the wrong way! But Jehoshaphat! I’d stand a pot all round to see his face when ’tis told to him that Joe’s gone!”
“’Twould be worth it, Elijah! I dunno as I wouldn’t give all your score behind the door to see it! And cheap!” — which raised a laugh, and the men moved on.
Wyke, too, moved away, wondering a little.’ It was certainly odd that Budgen had not been there. He began to understand the Rector’s astonishment. Then, partly to avoid the chattering crowd, partly because he had no heart to pass before the green shutters, he cut across the stream of people, and slowly and thoughtfully took the long road back to the town.
CHAPTER XXIII
DR. PORTNAL was not a bad man, but supremacy in a small sphere had hardened his fibres, narrowed his vision, had made of him a petty despot. Still, at bottom and under all, the man had a heart; and in the days that followed the departure of the brig his heart was giving him trouble. Until lately it was in his pride and his self-esteem that he had suffered, and in these only. The scandal that his girl had caused, and the presence of that scandal ever before his eyes, had wounded him to the quick, and he had allowed the wound to rankle and to poison his life. It had made him, he had fancied, as unhappy as a man could be and still hold up his head.
But now that the Lively Peggy was gone, and gone beyond recall, the Rector was discovering that a man might suffer worse things than these. He was discovering that he had not plumbed the depths, nor nearly plumbed the depths; and that beside an uneasy conscience, to say nothing of an anxious heart, wounded vanity was a light evil. An uneasy conscience! It was that, late awakened, that plagued him now, do what he would, and by reviving in some strange way his affection for, and his sense of duty to, his daughter, held up before him a dozen times a day a shadow of judgment to come.
For on the eve of the departure of the Lively Peggy the knowledge that his daughter was expecting a child had for the first time reached him. That the knowledge should touch him, should soften him was natural.
As natural was it that it should bring home to him certain risks, and that he should remember with misgiving her need at such a time of friends, of comfort, of ease, of her husband. A first child! And his daughter! But with pride to help him he could have borne this and the doubts it entailed very well; he could have stood firm against it. Probably he would have told himself that if things went wrong he would be unhappy, a man upon whom circumstances bore hardly. But he would have blamed circumstances rather than himself.
He did try, even as things were, to maintain that that was the position. He told himself several times, thrusting another and worse thought from him, that that was all, that his conscience was clear, and that if aught went wrong he was guiltless. He strove hard to believe this, and to be sure of it; and in the main he did believe it. Yet there was always a doubt; at the very best there was a doubt. He could not be sure! Or rather he was sure; sure that in consenting to Budgen’s suggestion that Bligh should take the command, he had not had any evil purpose, any covert hope that if the man went he would not return. And most certainly — of this he was sure — he had not connected Budgen’s statement that he had insured the vessel with the question before him. No! The suspicion that had crossed his mind had been so nebulous, so fleeting, so faint, nay, so monstrous, that it was even more monstrous to imagine that he had let it move him. He had put the absurd thought aside as soon as conceived, and it was preposterous to imagine that he had been affected by it.
For on what had the suspicion, slight and passing as it was, rested? On nothing more than a shade of manner, a turn of the eye, a shifty look! And to suggest that a thing supported by no more than a shadow on a man’s face had moved him to consent to a thing so wicked as the knowingly sending a fellow creature to his death — surely it was a charge out of all reason, the nightmare of a sick mind!
True, he had not then heard of his daughter’s condition. He had not recognized that a shock might kill her, he had not known the circumstances, or he would not have agreed to the appointment — though he told himself that his consent had been of the most innocent. Innocent? Certainly it had been innocent — yet again and for the hundredth time he fell painfully, fearfully to searching his memory; to recalling the minutiae of the interview with Budgen, his words, looks, thoughts — to setting his mind on the rack, to tormenting himself. H he could be sure, quite sure! It all came to that.
And he could not be quite sure. He could not be certain that the thought had not flashed through his mind; that he had not for one brief instant seen the advantage it would be to him if the man went and did not come back! He could not be sure that he had not for a moment entertained the thought that it was the man’s own business if aught happened to him, and Budgen’s crime if there were foul play. He could not, and a dozen times a day he heard the abhorrent whisper accusing him, indicting him, bidding him note that if the worst happened he might have upon his soul the death of his daughter, the daughter whom he now knew that he loved! Again and again he closed his mind to the fancy; but it haunted him. He could not ignore it, he could not shut it out though it was absurd. It came between him and his curate when they talked, it loomed a shadow at his dinner-table, it brought the sweat to his brow as he lay sleepless, it shook his hand when he shaved. It was absurd, ridiculous, monstrou
s — it was baseless. But it persisted. He thrust it from him; it returned to plague him.
Among other effects it inspired him with a dumb hatred of Budgen — the tempter, if temptation there had been. He bad never liked the man. He had used him and despised him. But now he hated him, tracing back to his absence at the moment of the brig’s departure the first conscious pang that had troubled his mind. It was that absence, strange and ominous, that had roused his fears and forced him to question himself, forced him to search his memory, and to recognize that monstrous as was the thing that he had for a brief instant suspected, it was not actually impossible.
For he knew that through the smugglers, who went to and fro by night, communication with the other side was frequent. He knew that Budgen had dealings with them, and that on occasion he had taken up their goods at sea and brought them in. He knew that, given a traitor, the thing was feasible and was done, though very rarely.
A monstrous and incredible crime! But he had heard of such things, the pot-house gossip of the ports whispered of them, and believed in them. True, it was seldom that the crime would pay. The value of a cruising ship and its chances exceeded the sum for which it was insured. But with peace in sight — and peace was probable — a desperate and embarrassed man might be tempted. He might see his way to secure the war-value and prefer a guilty solvency to the risks of a last cruise.
For some days the Rector bore with his thoughts in silence, though the temptation to approach the boat-builder, and try whether the sight of the man at work in his everyday surroundings would not dispel his fancies, was ever with him. He was doubtful of his own temper; possibly too, he feared to put all to the test. Then a certain fact came to his knowledge, and primed with it and grimly minded to use it, he went down to the Cove.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 763
