The sexton agreed the Captain’s back-sliding was natural and he promised to be silent, and Wyke, parting from him, turned into the Rectory. He found the Rector in the study, seated as he had left him, and he made his report. He thought it wise to say nothing of the Captain’s lapse. It was useless to set the other against him, and it might well be that by morning the old man would have slept off his drink, and no more would be heard of it. Instead, when he had finished his tale, “I think that is all we can do, Rector,” he said. “We have made all as safe as we can.” Then, remembering that the news was known and would probably spread, “There’s one man I think we ought to tell,” he said, “or he may hear it elsewhere and make trouble.”
The Rector had not risen. He sat with his shoulder towards the door, and grateful as he was to the other, and though in very truth he was telling himself that Wyke was such a friend as few had, it was much if he had once glanced at him. He did not turn now, and his tone was dry as he asked: “Who? Who is it we ought to tell? Surely the fewer who know this the better.”
“Well, I thought, Budgen.”
The exclamation that burst from the other’s lips was so violent that it drove Wyke a step back. The Rector rose to his feet and his manner was as wild as his word. “Don’t name that man to me,” he said, “lest I curse him! He is the murderer of my child! He is the murderer of — who shall say? Who shall say? Keep him — keep him from my sight! Or the curse of—”
He broke off. He passed his trembling hand across his brow, and as Wyke, really fearing that the news had turned his brain, stared at him, he came back to himself. He sank into his chair and covered his face. “God forgive me!” he said in a voice that strangely troubled the other. “God forgive us all! I think I am going mad!”
Wyke put his friendly hand on his shoulder. “You must not take it like this,” he said. “You take it too hardly, Rector. We must think of others, and—”
“Others?” The Rector groaned. “Am I not thinking of them — thinking of them always? Thinking of them now! Wyke, I am an unhappy man.”
“Come, come,” Wyke replied, the need to bring the other to a saner mind overcoming his reserve. “This must not be, my friend. The news has been too much for you, and I don’t wonder. But you must not give way. We must make the best of a bad job and hope that the loss has been exaggerated. Most likely it has. Bligh may not be lost. If on the Peggy, he may be one of the survivors, or he may have shifted to the prize. It is quite likely.”
The Rector with his face hidden made a sign of dissent. He muttered something in a low voice, but all that Wyke could catch were the words “the sins of the fathers,” and something about a Nemesis — it sounded like that, but he could not piece the fragments.
Still he was relieved to see that the man’s passion was spent, and “You must cheer up,” he repeated earnestly, “and not resign hope. I must go now — we have done all that we can to make things safe. I am sure that we can depend on Miss Bicester, she is one in a thousand. I will ride in early in the morning, for I may be of use with some of the poor souls in the town, and anything I can do — but for God’s sake take comfort, my friend.”
The Rector put out a hand, and Wyke pressed it and left him. As he mounted his horse, however, and still more as he rode down the winding road from the headland to the town, the sense of tragedy, of something worse than he knew, weighed on him. He considered, at any rate until lately he had considered, the Rector to be a just man, but hard, cold and something selfish. How great, then, must be the suffering that had moved such a man, and wrung from him that bitter cry! To be sure the disaster was grave, and it was natural that they who were responsible for it, who had risked men’s lives for their own gain, should be shocked by the outcome. But after all these ventures were common. No man condemned them. Out of the greater ports, out of Bristol and Liverpool letters of marque sailed by the score; to raid the enemy’s trade was held to be a patriotic as well as a legitimate business, and if ship or men were lost it was but one of the reckoned perils of the war. Wyke weighed this, and wondered the more. Certainly, on his daughter’s account the man might — and it was natural that he should — take the matter to heart; but the extent to which he felt it, the sharp cry that it had wrung from him, these perplexed Wyke as much as they oppressed him.
His mood was not lightened by a thing that befel him as he rode up the dark narrow street, his horse’s hoofs rattling noisily on the stones. He had passed Dunch’s pole, when a woman, a shawl about her head, came out of a doorway and seized his rein. “For God’s sake,” she cried, looking up at him, “tell me if it be true! For mercy’s sake, sir, and you be held a good man to the poor, put us out of our misery and tell us!”
“It’s Jael Cruddas, isn’t it?” he said. He knew every creature in the place, and he only put the question to gain time.
“Ay, ay, sir!” the woman replied. “And my man be aboard! Only tell us, sir! Tell us! My George be there, and we parted cross and wi’ hard words — I would not have him go! And we’ll never make it up now! Never! Never!” she cried wildly. “Oh, sir, as you be a kind man, tell me, is there a chance?”
“I think there is, Jael!” he said. “For some at least. Some we know are saved. But how many I don’t know, and no one does know yet! But some are saved for certain, and your George may be one. Half, and God grant it may be more — half may come back, I hope.”
She peered into his face, trying to read it by the light that shone from a neighbouring doorway. “God bless you for that word!” she sobbed. “You do mean it, sir? You are not deceiving me?”
“I do mean it,” Wyke said gravely. “I’ve told you all I know myself. And the moment I know more I will come and tell you. It’s a sad business, but we must keep up our hearts.”
“And the poor young lady?” the woman asked, speaking more quietly, but with a sob in her voice.
“Is it true that her man’s killed, sir? They be saying that.”
“We don’t know,” Wyke answered sorrowfully.
“But I am afraid his chance would not be of the best.”
“God help her, then! Does she know, sir?”
“Not yet. And she must not know.”
“No, sir, no! It’d be a hard heart that’d tell her.”
“You may be sure, Jael,” Wyke said, “that you will not be forgotten. We are all one in this.” He rode on.
But his heart was heavy. He had forgotten his half-eaten dinner. His mind was full of the sorrow that on either hand wept behind closed doors, on cold hearths. And his house when he reached it seemed to him empty and desolate. He sat down to his meal, feeling the lack of a face to welcome him, of a word to greet him, of someone to whom he could tell his tale, who would listen and answer and comfort him. The table looked long and bare and cold; the silence of the house depressed him as it had never depressed him before. He told himself that the disaster had shaken him, that he sorrowed for the young wife, and her loss, for Jael and the rest. But presently he fell into another and a more cheerful train of thought — in which the Cottage and its inmates, or one of them, had still a large share.
CHAPTER XXXII
IN Wyke’s attitude to those about him there survived much of the feudal spirit. He looked on them as his people, and while he would have been shocked if the man on the road had not touched his hat when he passed, or the woman he met failed to curtsey, he owned on the other hand their claim to his support at a pinch and their right to find in him a sharer in their troubles. He did not flatter himself that his presence brought much comfort to a cold hearth, or cheer to a widowed home. But he knew that a word of sympathy from his mouth, and where it was needed a promise of help, would lighten the sense of abandonment, and though the morrow’s task promised to be sad enough, it was a duty that he had no intention of evading. He had business on a distant farm in the forenoon, but that settled — and not without some sharp words about a fence — he turned his horse’s head towards the town.
As he approached the Grange h
is mind strayed from his immediate business. He recalled the morning now nearly a year past when Charlotte Bicester had stopped him at the white gate and broken to him the news of Peggy’s elopement. The scene rose clear before him, the sunshine, the freshness of the morning, the waiting girl, the dull shock deadening all his faculties. Perhaps the memory was the more vivid as on this day also the sun shone, and when he turned his eyes on the gate at the Grange he perceived a figure leaning on it, precisely as Charlotte had leant that morning. But this time it was not Charlotte.
It was her mother. As, perforce, he slackened his pace to greet her she opened the gate and came out to him, and he noticed that the good lady looked unlike herself. Her face was flushed, her toupet was disordered, and knowing her he prepared himself for a scolding. He was going to hear more about her daughter’s obstinacy and undutifulness. But he found that he was mistaken. “This is sad news,” she said, looking up at him, and he was astonished to see that her eyes were moist. “I suppose you have heard it? You are going there, no doubt?”
“Yes,” he said, relieved. “I was at the Rectory yesterday and I heard it there, late in the afternoon. I’m afraid that it is sad news for a good many.”
“Oh, but—” She looked hard at him and hesitated. “But it wasn’t known in the afternoon, was it? It could not have been. Or I haven’t got it right. I understood that it didn’t happen till the evening, or indeed till this morning. My cook told me—” —
“I think the Rector kept it to himself,” he explained, “for a time you know. He did not wish to spread it abroad, Lady Bicester, until it was confirmed. It may not be true, you know. We must hope that it is not true.”
The good woman stared. “But — but there’s some mistake!” she said. “I’m afraid you haven’t heard. Mrs. Bligh—”
He did not need to be told more. He knew the rest, and yet he had to be certain. “What — what of her?” he said. “What do you mean? Tell me, please!”
“Then you haven’t heard. Oh dear, dear, I am afraid it will be a shock to you. It’s bad news, very bad. The old Captain told her what was in the paper — that old man, you know! He wasn’t himself and did not know what he was doing. And her baby was born dead, at three this morning. And she’s dying, I am told! They’ve no hope they tell me.” And her ladyship broke down and actually shed vulgar tears. “Oh dear, dear, it’s sad!” she said. “I declare it’s upset me as never was.”
Wyke did not speak for a long minute. Lady Bicester, recounting it afterwards to her cook, said that he took it very oddly. At last, “At what time did you say it happened?” he asked in a dull tone “What time did he tell her?”
“About six, I hear. Charlotte, silly girl, had stepped out for something and the Captain came in fuddled with drink. And whether he just blurted it out, which I can’t believe, or being in that state couldn’t hide it, I am sure I can’t say. But so it was — drat him! I declare I am glad now that Charlotte went to her and stopped, though it provoked me at the time, and little use it has been! I’ve sent a man in to get news, but if you will stop as you come out, it will be a kindness to me. I am that upset about the poor girl I can’t say!”
“I will,” he said. “I’ll go on now.”
He gave his horse the rein, but his heart was very heavy. So this — this was the end of all their care and all their forethought. Of their plans and their precautions, of Charlotte’s devotion and unselfishness. To die so young and fair, and pass away, life hardly tasted! To lie, another green mound in the churchyard, and presently, quickly to be forgotten, while the sun shone and the meadows bloomed and the lambs frisked, and the seasons moved in their eternal pitiless round! He had great powers of self-control but the tears rose to his eyes as he pictured her. How gaily she had taken her troubles, how unselfishly faced the narrow home, the hardship and discomfort! How bravely confronted, alone as she was, the ordeal before her! How loyal had she been through all to the lot she had chosen, how loving, how uncomplaining. And this was the end.
He stabled his horse, and with his hat drawn over his eyes he made his way over the headland. Some hundred yards short of the Cottage he met the doctor climbing up the steps, and he stopped him. “Is there any hope?” he asked.
“None, I fear,” the other replied, his face worried and downcast. “The news killed her as surely as if the old man had taken a pistol and shot her.”
“It was that?”
“Nothing else, God forgive him. Nothing else at all. She was going on well; famously, considering everything. It’s a sad business.” The man was moved out of his professional calm. He added viciously that the Captain ought to be shot.
“And after all — the news may not be true,” Wyke said. “He may not be dead.”
“The Lieutenant? No, I suppose not. I suppose there’s a chance, though a small one. But it won’t help her now.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I can do no more.”
“She is sinking?”
“Fast, I am afraid.”
“And there is nothing to be done?”
“Nothing, sir — in my experience. Nothing if you had all the faculty here. Unless,” he added dryly, “you can bring her husband back within the next twenty-four hours. The truth is, she has no desire to live. And that’s the very deuce in these cases.”
Sir Albery nodded. But when the doctor had passed on, he halted. He turned about as if he had a mind to call him back. Then he thought better of it, and after a standing minute, lost in gloomy reflection, he went on. Near the Cottage he saw a group of women staring at it in pity or in curiosity, or it might be in morbid interest. But he went by them without speaking, opened the wicket, and knocked softly at the door.
It opened without sound, and he stepped in. Two women were busy about something on the hearth. They turned to look at him, the nearer of the two still holding a kettle in her hand. The room betrayed in its every part these signs of disaster that in sudden calamity so quickly accumulate. The table was littered with pots and plates, a horse hung with linen flanked the hearth, a woman’s bonnet hung on a corner of it, a warming-pan hastily set down, leant against a wall. The woman who had opened to him made a sign to him to make no noise.
“Who is with her?” he asked in a whisper.
“Mrs. Ovens, the nurse, sir, and Miss Bicester — God bless her, she’ve never left her. The Rector’s been and gone, been twice he has, but he couldn’t bear it, poor gentleman. I never thought to see him take on the like,” the woman added, with meaning. “And Miss Portnal — she were with him. She took him home. They could do nothing, poor folk, no more than we.”
“Can you get Miss Bicester down for a minute?” The woman hesitated, but “Tell her I am here,” he urged. “I must see her.”
She gave way. She stepped to the door of the staircase and creaked her way up. In the silence he heard Charlotte move across the floor, he heard her begin to descend. She appeared at the foot of the stairs, her face pale but composed. Silently he made a sign to her to go before him, and he opened the door for her and followed her out. When they had passed through the wicket, he took her hand. “Is there no hope?” he asked.
“None, I fear,” she murmured. “She is weak, oh, so weak!” And then with an appealing look at him, “Don’t upset me!” she said.
“No! No!” he muttered, releasing her hand. “God bless you, Charlotte!” With that he was silent a moment, mastering his feelings. “Can she read?” he asked.
Charlotte winced. It was so incongruous a question to ask, and it was put so abruptly that it was no wonder that it startled her. “Read?” she exclaimed. “Oh, no, no! You don’t understand — how weak she is!” Her voice expressed something of the woman’s contempt for the man, astray and out of his province. “She lies with her eyes shut and — and breathes, that is all.” She had to swallow down the sob that threatened her self-control. Read? Heavens! if he could see her!
“But she can understand? She can understand — what you say?”
“It is much if she does. I do
n’t know. Sometimes I think — with an effort.”
“Is there a paper in the house? A newspaper?”
Charlotte looked at him. What had taken him, sober and sensible as he was! As well might he ask at such a moment if there was a chess-board or a hammer in the house!— “What do you mean?” she ejaculated.
“But is there one? A newspaper?”
“I dare say. Yes, there is. But — but what about it?” She stared at him.
“Can you get it? Can you get it for me?”
“Why?” she objected. Had the shock been too much for him? She could not otherwise explain his ill-timed request.
“Never mind why!” he retorted with an impatience equal to her own. “Get it for me. For God’s sake,” he added, seeing that she hesitated, and was going to speak, “don’t waste time. I am going up to her. I am going to see her.”
“You?”
“Yes! Why not? Oh, for heaven’s sake, let us have no conventions now!” he cried. “I want to try something. They say that there is no hope; then I can do no harm. I shall not make matters worse. But I must see her. Get me the newspaper,” he repeated insistently, “and take me up to her before it is too late. It is a forlorn hope, I know, but it is a hope.”
She caught a glimmering of his purpose, and as she met his eyes the glimmer grew brighter. She stared at him with parted lips. “You — you really mean?” she breathed. “You dare?”
He nodded. “Let me have the newspaper,” he said, his face set hard. “And leave the rest to me. On my head be it. If we can gain a day, or two or three days, who can say what the end may be? But we must be quick! We must be quick!”
She looked at him with dilated eyes, and in that look — but his thoughts were elsewhere — she let much of her feelings appear. “Oh!” she said, “who would have thought of it but you? Who would have — but come! Come then.”
She went back into the house, and he followed. The women, looking over their shoulders, watched them curiously, their wonder aroused. Charlotte opened a drawer, took from it an old journal. She handed it to him. At the foot of the stairs, the women still gazing at them, but now in amazement, Charlotte paused. “Have you thought what you will say?” she whispered, her eyes troubled.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 771
