The Watchers: A Novel

by A. E. W. Mason

  CHAPTER II

  DICK PARMITER'S STORY

  I woke up at mid-day, and lay for awhile in my bed anticipatingwearily the eight limping hours to come before the evening fell, andwondering how I might best escape them. From that debate my thoughtsdrifted to the events of the night before, and I recollected with asudden thrill of interest, rare enough to surprise me, the coming ofDick Parmiter, and his treatment at Clutterbuck's hands and hisdeparture. I thought of his long journey to London along strangeroads. I could see him tramping the dusty miles, each step leading himfarther from that small corner of the world with which alone he wasfamiliar. I imagined him now sleeping beneath a hedge, now perhaps, bysome rare fortune, in one of Russell's waggons with the Falmouthmails, which at nightfall he had overtaken, and from which at daybreakhe would descend with a hurried word of thanks to get the quicker onhis way; I pictured him pressing through the towns with a growing fearat his heart, because of their turmoil and their crowds; and I thoughtof him as hungering daily more and more for the sea which he had leftbehind, like a sheep-dog which one has taken from the sheep and shutup within the walls of a city. The boy's spirit appealed to me. It wasnew, it was admirable; and I dressed that day with an uncommonalertness and got me out to Clutterbuck's lodgings.

  I found the lieutenant in bed with a tankard of small ale at hisbedside. He looked me over with astonishment.

  "I wish I could carry my liquor as well as you do," said he, taking apull at the tankard.

  "Has the boy come back?" I asked.

  "What, Dick?" said he. "No, nor will not." And changing the subject,"If you will wait, Steve, I will make a shift to get up."

  I went into his parlour. The room had been put into some sort oforder; but the shattered remnant of the mirror still hung between thewindows, and it too spoke to me of Dick's journey. I imagined himcoming to the great city at the fall of night, and seeking out his waythrough its alleys and streets to Lieutenant Clutterbuck's lodgings. Icould see him on the stairs pausing to listen to the confusion withinthe rooms, and in the passage opening and closing the door as hehesitated whether to go in or no. I became all at once very curious toknow what the errand was which had pushed him so far from his home,and I cudgelled my brains to recollect his story. But I could rememberonly the youth Cullen Mayle, who had sat in the stocks on a Sundaymorning, and the girl Helen, and a negro who slept and slept, and ahouse with a desolate tangled garden by the sea, and men watching thehouse. But what bound these people and the house in a common history,as to that I was entirely in the dark.

  "Steve," said Clutterbuck--I had not remarked his entrance--"you lookglum as a November morning. Is it a sore head? or is it the sight ofyour mischievous handiwork?" and he pointed to the mirror.

  "It's neither one nor the other," said I. "It's just the recollectionof that boy fumbling under the table for his cap, and dragging himselfsilently out of the room, with all England to tramp and despair tosustain him."

  "That boy!" cried Clutterbuck, with great exasperation. "Curse you,Berkeley. That boy's a maggot, and has crept into your brains. We'lltalk no more of him, if you please." He took a pack of cards from acorner cupboard, and, tossing them on the table, "Here, choose yourgame I'll play what you will, and for what stakes you will, so long asyou hold your tongue."

  It was plain that I should learn nothing by pressing my curiosity uponhim. I must go another way to work. But chance and LieutenantClutterbuck served my turn without any provocation from myself.

  I chose the game of picquet, and Clutterbuck shuffled and cut thecards; whereupon I dealt them. Clutterbuck looked at his handfretfully, and then cried out:

  "I have no hand for picquet, but I have very good putt cards."

  I glanced through the cards I held.

  "Make it putt, then," said I. "I will wager what you will my hand isthe better;" and Clutterbuck broke into a laugh and tossed his cardsupon the table.

  "You have two kings and an ace," said he, "I know very well; but Ihave two kings and a deuce, and mine are the better."

  "It is a bite," said I.

  "And an ingenious one," he returned. "It was Cullen Mayle who taughtit to us in the mess at Star Castle. For packing the cards or knappingthe dice I never came across his equal. Yet we could never detect him,and in the end not a soul in the garrison would play with him forcrooked pins."

  "Cullen Mayle," said I; "that was Adam's son."

  Clutterbuck had sunk into something of a reverie, and spoke rather tohimself than to me.

  "They were the strangest pair," he continued; "you would never takethem for father and son, and I myself was always amazed to think therewas any relationship between them. I have seen them sitting side byside on the settle in the kitchen of the 'Palace Inn' at Tresco. Adam,an old bulky fellow, with a mulberry face and yellow angry eyes, andhis great hands and feet twisted out of all belief. His stories wereall of wild doings on the Guinea coast. Cullen, on the other hand, wasa stripling with a soft face like a girl's, exquisite in his dress,urbane in his manners. He had a gentle word and an attentive ear foreach newcomer to the fire, and a white protesting hand for the oathswith which Adam salted his speech. Yet they were both of the samevindictive, turbulent spirit, only Cullen was the more dangerous.

  "I have watched the gannets often through an afternoon in Hell Bayover at Brehar. They would circle high up in the air where no fishcould see them, and then slant their wings and drop giddily with thesplash of a stone upon their prey. They always put me in mind ofCullen Mayle. He struck mighty quick and out of the sky. I cannotremember, during all the ten years I lived at the Scillies, that anyman crossed Cullen Mayle, though unwittingly, but some odd accidentcrippled him. He was the more dangerous of the pair. With Adam it wasa word and a blow. With Cullen a word and another and another, and allof them soft, and the blow held over for a secret occasion. But itfell. If ever you come across Cullen Mayle, Berkeley, take care ofyour words and your deeds, for he strikes out of the sky and mightyquick."

  This Clutterbuck said with an extreme earnestness, leaning forward tome as he spoke. And even now I can but put it down to his earnestnessthat a shiver took me at the words; for nothing was more unlikely thanthat I should ever come to grips with Cullen Mayle, and the nextmoment I answered Clutterbuck lightly.

  "Yet he sat in the stocks in the end," said I, with as muchindifference as I could counterfeit; for I was afraid lest any displayof eagerness might close his lips. Lieutenant Clutterbuck, however,was hardly aware that he was being questioned. He laughed with acertain pleasure.

  "Yes. A schooner, with a cargo of brandy, came ashore on Tresco.Cullen and the Tresco men saved the cargo and hid it away, and whenthe collector came over with his men from the Customs House upon St.Mary's, Cullen drove him back to his boats with a broken head. Cullenbroke old Captain Hathaway's patience at the same time. Hathaway tookoff his silver spectacles at last and shut up his _Diodorus Siculus_with a bang; and so Cullen Mayle sat in the stocks before the CustomsHouse on the Sunday morning. He left the islands that night. That wastwo years and a month ago."

  "And what had Dick Parmiter to do with Cullen Mayle?" said I.

  "Dick?" said he. "Oh, Dick was Cullen Mayle's henchman. But it seemsthat Dick has transferred his allegiance to----" And he stoppedabruptly. His face soured as he stopped.

  "To the girl Helen?" said I, quite forgetting my indifference.

  "Yes!" cried Clutterbuck, savagely, "to the girl Helen. He is fifteenyears old is Dick. But at fifteen years a lad is ripe to be one ofCupid's April fools." And after that he would say no more.

  His last words, however, and, more than his words, the tone in whichhe spoke, had given me the first definite clue of the many for whichmy curiosity searched. It was certainly on behalf of the girl, whom Ionly knew as Helen, that Dick had undertaken his arduous errand, andit was no less certain that just for that reason LieutenantClutterbuck had refused to meddle in the matter. I recognised that Ishould get no advanta
ge from persisting, but I kept close to his sidethat day waiting upon opportunity.

  We dined together at Locket's, by Charing Cross; we walked together tothe "Cocoa Tree" in St. James's Street, and passed an hour or so witha dice-box. Clutterbuck was very silent for the most part. He handledthe dice-box with indifference; and, since he was never the man tokeep his thoughts for any long time to himself, I had no doubt thatsome time that day I should learn more. Indeed, very soon after weleft the "Cocoa Tree" I thought the whole truth was coming out; for hestopped in St. James's Park, close to the Mall, which at that momentwas quiet and deserted. We could hear a light wind rippling throughthe leaves of the poplars, and a faint rumble of carriages lurchingover the stones of Pall Mall.

  "It is very like the sound of the sea on a still morning of summer,"said he, looking at me with a vacant eye, and I wondered whether hewas thinking of a tangled garden raised above a beach of sand,wherein, maybe, he had walked, and not alone on some such day as thistwo years ago.

  We crossed the water to the Spring Gardens at Vauxhall, where wesupped. I was now fallen into as complete a silence and abstraction asClutterbuck himself, for I was clean lost in conjectures, I knewsomething now of Adam Mayle and his son Cullen, but as to Helen I wasin the dark. Was her name Mayle too? Was she wife to Cullen? The sightof Clutterbuck's ill-humour inclined me to that conjecture; but I waswrong, for as the attendants were putting out the lights in the gardenI ventured upon the question. To my surprise, Clutterbuck answered mewith a smile.

  "Sure," said he, "you are the most pertinacious fellow. What's come toyou, who were content to drink your liquor and sit on one side whilethe world went by? No, she was not wife to Cullen Mayle, nor sister.She was a waif of the sea. Adam Mayle picked her up from the rocks along while since. It was the only action that could be counted to hiscredit since he came out of nowhere and leased the granite house ofTresco. A barque--a Venetian vessel, it was thought, from Marseilles,in France, for a great deal of Castile soap, and almonds and oil waswashed ashore afterwards--drove in a northwesterly gale on to theGolden Bar reef. The reef runs out from St. Helen's Island, oppositeAdam Mayle's window. Adam put out his lugger and crossed the sound,but before he could reach St. Helen's the ship went down into fourteenfathoms of water. He landed on St. Helen's, however, and amongst therocks where the reef joins the land he came across a sailor, who layin the posture of death, and yet wailed like a hungry child. Thesailor was dead, but within his jacket, buttoned up on his breast, wasa child of four years or so. Adam took her home. No one ever claimedher, so he kept her, and called her Helen from the island on which shewas wrecked. That was a long time since, for the girl must be twenty."

  "Is she French?" I asked.

  "French, or Venetian, or Spanish, or what you will," he cried. "Itmatters very little what country a woman springs from. I have no doubtthat a Hottentot squaw will play you the same tricks as a woman offashion, and with as demure a countenance. Well, it seems we are to goto bed sober;" and we went each to his lodging.

  For my part, I lay awake for a long time, seeking to weave into somesort of continuous story what I had heard that day from LieutenantClutterbuck and the scraps which I remembered of Parmiter's talk. Butold Adam Mayle, who was dead; Cullen, the gannet who struck from theskies; and even Helen, the waif of the sea--these were at this time nomore to me than a showman's puppets; marionettes of sawdust and wood,that faced this way and that way according as I pulled the strings.The one being who had life was the boy Parmiter, with his jersey andhis red fisherman's bonnet; and I very soon turned to conjecturing howhe fared upon his journey.

  Had he money to help him forward? Had he fallen in with a kindlycarrier? How far had he travelled? I had no doubt that, whether he hadmoney or no, he would reach his journey's end. His spirit was evidentin the resolve to travel to London, in his success, and in theconcealment of any weakness until the favour he asked for had beenrefused.

  I bought next morning one of the new maps of the Great West Road andbegan to pick off the stages of his journey. This was the second daysince he had started. He would not travel very fast, having no goodnews to lighten his feet. I reckoned that he would have reached the"Golden Farmer," and I made a mark at that name on the map. Every dayfor a week I kept in this way an imagined tally of his progress,following him from county to county; and at the end of the week,coming out in the evening from my lodging at the corner of St. James'sStreet, I ran plump into the arms of the gentleman I had met atClutterbuck's, and whose name I did not know. But his familiarity wasall gone from him. He bowed to me stiffly, and would have passed on,but I caught him by the arm.

  "Sir," said I, "you will remember a certain night when I had thehonour of your acquaintance."

  "Mr. Berkeley," he returned with a smile, "I remember very much betterthe dreadful morning which followed it."

  "You will not, at all events, have forgotten the boy whom youdiscovered outside the door, and if you can repeat the story which hetold, or some portion of it, I shall be obliged to you."

  He looked at his watch.

  "I have still half an hour to spare," said he; and he led the way tothe "Groom Porters." The night was young, but not so young but whatthe Bassett-table was already full. We sat down together in a darkcorner of the room, and my companion told me what he remembered ofParmiter's story.

  It appeared that Cullen Mayle had quarrelled with his father on thatSunday night after he had sat in the stocks and had left the house. Hehad never returned. A year ago Adam Mayle had died, bequeathing hisfortune, which was considerable, and most of it placed in the AfricanCompany, to his adopted daughter Helen. She, however, declared thatshe had no right to it, that it was not hers, and that she would holdit in trust until such time as Cullen should come back to claim it.

  He did not come back, as has been said; but eight months later DickParmiter, on an occasion when he had crossed in his father's fishingboat to Cornwall, had discovered upon Penzance Quay a small crowd ofloiterers, and on the ground amongst them, with his back proppedagainst a wall, a negro asleep. A paper was being passed from hand tohand among the group, and in the end it came to Dick Parmiter. Uponthe paper was written Adam Mayle's name and the place of hisresidence, Tresco, in the Scilly Islands; and Dick at once recognisedthat the writing was in Cullen Mayle's hand. He pushed to the front ofthe group, and stooping down, shook the negro by the shoulder. Thenegro drowsily opened his eyes.

  "You come from Mr. Cullen Mayle?" said Dick.

  "Yes," said the negro, speaking in English and quite clearly.

  "You have a message from him?"

  "Yes."

  "What is it?" asked Dick; and he put a number of questions eagerly.But in the midst of them, and while still looking at Dick, the negroclosed his eyes deliberately and fell asleep.

  "See," cried a sailor, an oldish white-haired man, with a Frenchaccent; "that is the way with him. He came aboard with us at the portof London as wide awake as you or I. Bound for Penzance he was, andthe drowsiness took him the second day out. At first he would talk alittle; but each day he slept more and more, until now he will say nomore than a 'Yes' or a 'No.' Why, he will fall asleep over hisdinner."

  Dick shook the negro again.

  "Do you wish to cross to Tresco?"

  "Yes," said the negro.

  Dick carried him back to Scilly and brought him to the house onTresco, where Helen Mayle now lived alone. But no news could be gotfrom him. He would answer "Yes" or "No" and eat his meals; but when itcame to a question of his message or Cullen Mayle's whereabouts heclosed his eyes and fell asleep. Helen judged that somewhere Cullenwas in great need and distress, and because she held his money, andcould do nothing to succour him, she was thrown into an extremetrouble. There was some reason why he could not come to Scilly inperson, and here at her hand was the man sent to tell the reason; buthe could not because of his mysterious malady. More than once he triedwith a look of deep sadness in his eyes, as though he was conscious ofhis helplessness, but he never got beyond the fir
st word. His eyelidsclosed while his mouth was still open to speak, and at once he wasasleep. His presence made a great noise amongst the islands; fromBrehar, from St. Mary's, and from St. Martin's the people sailed overto look at him. But Helen, knowing Cullen Mayle and fearing the natureof his misadventure, had bidden Parmiter to let slip no hint that hehad come on Cullen's account.

  So the negro stayed at Tresco and spread a great gloom throughout thehouse. They watched him day by day as he slept. Cullen's need might beimmediate; it might be a matter of crime; it might be a matter of lifeand death. The gloom deepened into horror, and Helen and her fewservants, and Dick, who was much in the house, fell into so lively anapprehension that the mere creaking of a door would make them start, afoot crunching on the sand outside sent them flying to the window. Sofor a month, until Dick Parmiter, coming over the hill from NewGrimsby harbour at night, had a lantern flashed in his face, and whenclose to the house saw a man spring up from the gorse and watch him ashe passed. From that night the house was continually spied upon, andHelen walked continually from room to room wringing her hands in sheerdistraction at her helplessness. She feared that they were watchingfor Cullen; she feared, too, that Cullen, receiving no answer to hismessage, would come himself and fall into their hands. She daredhardly conjecture for what reason they were watching, since she knewCullen. For a week these men watched, five of them, who kept theirwatches as at sea; and then Dick, taking his courage in his hands, andbethinking him of Lieutenant Clutterbuck, who had been an assiduousvisitor at the house on Tresco, had crossed over to St. Mary's andlearned from old Captain Hathaway where he now lived. He had saidnothing of his purpose to Helen, partly from a certain shyness atspeaking to her upon a topic of some delicacy, and partly lest heshould awaken her hopes and perhaps only disappoint them. But he hadbegged a passage in a ship that was sailing to Cornwall, and, crossingthither secretly, had made his way in six weeks to London.

  This is the story which my acquaintance repeated to me as we sat inthe "Groom Porters."

  "And Clutterbuck refused to meddle in the matter," said I. "Poor lad!"

  I was thinking of Dick, but my companion mistook my meaning, for heglanced thoughtfully at me for a second.

  "I think you are very right to pity him," he said; "although, Mr.Berkeley, if you will pardon me, I am a trifle surprised to hear thatsentiment from you. It is indeed a sodden, pitiful, miserable dog'slife that Clutterbuck leads. To pass the morning over his toilette, toloiter through the afternoon in a boudoir, and to dispose of theevening so that he may be drunk before midnight! He would be muchbetter taking the good air into his lungs and setting his wits tounknot that tangle amongst those islands in the sea. But I haveoverstayed my time. If you can persuade him to that, you will be doinghim no small service;" and politely taking his leave, he went out ofthe room.

  I sat for some while longer in the corner. I could not pretend thathe had spoken anything but truth, but I found his words none the lessbitter on that account. A pitiful dog's life for LieutenantClutterbuck, who was at the most twenty-four years of age! What, then,was it for me, who had seven years the better of LieutenantClutterbuck, or rather, I should say, seven years the worse? I wasthirty-one that very month, and Clutterbuck's sodden, pitiful life hadbeen mine for the last seven years. An utter disgust took hold of meas I repeated over and over to myself my strange friend's words. Ilooked at the green cloth and the yellow candles, and the wolfishfaces about the cloth. The candles had grown soft with the heat of thenight, and were bent out of their shape, so that the grease dropped ingreat blots upon the cloth, and the air was close with an odour ofstale punch. I got up from my corner and went out into the street,and stood by the water in St. James's Park, If only some suchsummons had come to me when I was twenty-four as had now come toClutterbuck!--well, very likely I should have turned a deaf ear toit, even as he had done! And--and, at all events, I was thirty-one andthe summons had not come to me, and there was an end of the matter.To-morrow I should go back to the green cloth and not trouble myhead about the grease blots; but to-night, since Clutterbuck wastwenty-four, I would try to do him that small service of which thestranger spoke, and so setting out at a round pace I made my way toClutterbuck's lodging.