Villa Rubein, and Other Stories

“What’s this? You – you’ve had a man in your room?”

Her eyes did not drop.

“Yes,” she said. Dan gave a groan.

“Who?”

“Zachary Pearse,” she answered in a voice like a bell.

He gave her one awful shake, dropped his hands, then raised them as though to strike her. She looked him in the eyes; his hands dropped, and he too groaned. As far as I could see, her face never moved.

“I’m married to him,” she said, “d’ you hear? Married to him. Go out of my room!” She dropped the candle on the floor at his feet, and slammed the door in his face. The old man stood for a minute as though stunned, then groped his way downstairs.

“Dan,” I said, “is it true?”

“Ah!” he answered, “it’s true; didn’t you hear her?”

I was glad I couldn’t see his face.

“That ends it,” he said at last; “there’s the old man to think of.”

“What will he do?”

“Go to the fellow this very night.” He seemed to have no doubt. Trust one man of action to know another.

I muttered something about being an outsider – wondered if there was anything I could do to help.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I don’t know that I’m anything but an outsider now; but I’ll go along with him, if he’ll have me.”

He went downstairs. A few minutes later they rode out from the straw-yard. I watched them past the line of hayricks, into the blacker shadows of the pines, then the tramp of hoofs began to fail in the darkness, and at last died away.

I’ve been sitting here in my bedroom writing to you ever since, till my candle’s almost gone. I keep thinking what the end of it is to be; and reproaching myself for doing nothing. And yet, what could I have done? I’m sorry for her – sorrier than I can say. The night is so quiet – I haven’t heard a sound; is she asleep, awake, crying, triumphant?

It’s four o’clock; I’ve been asleep.

They’re back. Dan is lying on my bed. I’ll try and tell you his story as near as I can, in his own words.

“We rode,” he said, “round the upper way, keeping out of the lanes, and got to Kingswear by half-past eleven. The horse-ferry had stopped running, and we had a job to find any one to put us over. We hired the fellow to wait for us, and took a carriage at the ‘Castle.’ Before we got to Black Mill it was nearly one, pitch-dark. With the breeze from the southeast, I made out he should have been in an hour or more. The old man had never spoken to me once: and before we got there I had begun to hope we shouldn’t find the fellow after all. We made the driver pull up in the road, and walked round and round, trying to find the door. Then some one cried, ‘Who are you?’

“‘John Ford.’

“‘What do you want?’ It was old Pearse.

“‘To see Zachary Pearse.’

“The long window out of the porch where we sat the other day was open, and in we went. There was a door at the end of the room, and a light coming through. John Ford went towards it; I stayed out in the dark.

“‘Who’s that with you?’

“‘Mr. Treffry.’

“‘Let him come in!’ I went in. The old fellow was in bed, quite still on his pillows, a candle by his side; to look at him you’d think nothing of him but his eyes were alive. It was queer being there with those two old men!”

Dan paused, seemed to listen, then went on doggedly.

“‘Sit down, gentleman,’ said old Pearse. ‘What may you want to see my son for?’ John Ford begged his pardon, he had something to say, he said, that wouldn’t wait.

“They were very polite to one another,” muttered Dan …

“‘Will you leave your message with me?’ said Pearse.

“‘What I have to say to your son is private.’

“‘I’m his father.’

“‘I’m my girl’s grandfather; and her only stand-by.’

“‘Ah!’ muttered old Pearse, ‘Rick Voisey’s daughter?’

“‘I mean to see your son.’

“Old Pearse smiled. Queer smile he’s got, sort of sneering sweet.

“‘You can never tell where Zack may be,’ he said. ‘You think I want to shield him. You’re wrong; Zack can take care of himself.’

“‘Your son’s here!’ said John Ford. ‘I know.’ Old Pearse gave us a very queer look.

“‘You come into my house like thieves in the night,’ he said, ‘and give me the lie, do you?’

“‘Your son came to my child’s room like a thief in the night; it’s for that I want to see him,’ and then,” said Dan, “there was a long silence. At last Pearse said:

“‘I don’t understand; has he played the blackguard?’

“John Ford answered, ‘He’s married her, or, before God, I’d kill him.’

“Old Pearse seemed to think this over, never moving on his pillows. ‘You don’t know Zack,’ he said; ‘I’m sorry for you, and I’m sorry for Rick Voisey’s daughter; but you don’t know Zack.’

“‘Sorry!’ groaned out John Ford; ‘he’s stolen my child, and I’ll punish him.’

“‘Punish!’ cried old Pearse, ‘we don’t take punishment, not in my family.’

“‘Captain Jan Pearse, as sure as I stand here, you and your breed will get your punishment of God.’ Old Pearse smiled.

“‘Mr. John Ford, that’s as may be; but sure as I lie here we won’t take it of you. You can’t punish unless you make to feel, and that you can’t du.’”

And that is truth!

Dan went on again:

“‘You won’t tell me where your son is!’ but old Pearse never blinked.

“‘I won’t,’ he said, ‘and now you may get out. I lie here an old man alone, with no use to my legs, night on night, an’ the house open; any rapscallion could get in; d’ ye think I’m afraid of you?’

“We were beat; and walked out without a word. But that old man; I’ve thought of him a lot – ninety-two, and lying there. Whatever he’s been, and they tell you rum things of him, whatever his son may be, he’s a man. It’s not what he said, nor that there was anything to be afraid of just then, but somehow it’s the idea of the old chap lying there. I don’t ever wish to see a better plucked one…”

We sat silent after that; out of doors the light began to stir among the leaves. There were all kinds of rustling sounds, as if the world were turning over in bed.

Suddenly Dan said:

“He’s cheated me. I paid him to clear out and leave her alone. D’ you think she’s asleep?” He’s made no appeal for sympathy, he’d take pity for an insult; but he feels it badly.

“I’m tired as a cat,” he said at last, and went to sleep on my bed.

It’s broad daylight now; I too am tired as a cat…

V

“Saturday, 6th August

… I take up my tale where I left off yesterday… Dan and I started as soon as we could get Mrs. Hopgood to give us coffee. The old lady was more tentative, more undecided, more pouncing, than I had ever seen her. She was manifestly uneasy: Ha-apgood – who “don’t slape” don’t he, if snores are any criterion – had called out in the night, “Hark to th’ ‘arses’ ‘oofs!” Had we heard them? And where might we be going then? ‘Twas very earrly to start, an’ no breakfast. Haapgood had said it was goin’ to shaowerr. Miss Pasiance was not to ‘er violin yet, an’ Mister Ford ‘e kept ‘is room. Was it? – would there be – ? “Well, an’ therr’s an ‘arvest bug; ‘tis some earrly for they!” Wonderful how she pounces on all such creatures, when I can’t even see them. She pressed it absently between finger and thumb, and began manoeuvring round another way. Long before she had reached her point, we had gulped down our coffee, and departed. But as we rode out she came at a run, holding her skirts high with either hand, raised her old eyes bright and anxious in their setting of fine wrinkles, and said:

“‘Tidden sorrow for her?”

A shrug of the shoulders was all the answer she got. We rode by the lanes; through sloping farmyards, all mud and pigs, and dirty straw, and farmers with clean-shaven upper lips and whiskers under the chin; past fields of corn, where larks were singing. Up or down, we didn’t draw rein till we came to Dan’s hotel.

There was the river gleaming before us under a rainbow mist that hallowed every shape. There seemed affinity between the earth and the sky. I’ve never seen that particular soft unity out of Devon. And every ship, however black or modern, on those pale waters, had the look of a dream ship. The tall green woods, the red earth, the white houses, were all melted into one opal haze. It was raining, but the sun was shining behind. Gulls swooped by us – ghosts of the old greedy wanderers of the sea.

We had told our two boatmen to pull us out to the Pied Witch! They started with great resolution, then rested on their oars.

“The Pied Witch, zurr?” asked one politely; “an’ which may her be?”

That’s the West countryman all over! Never say you “nay,” never lose an opportunity, never own he doesn’t know, or can’t do anything – independence, amiability, and an eye to the main chance. We mentioned Pearse’s name.

“Capt’n Zach’ry Pearse!” They exchanged a look half-amused, half-admiring.

“The Zunflaower, yu mane. That’s her. Zunflaower, ahoy!” As we mounted the steamer’s black side I heard one say:

“Pied Witch! A pra-aper name that – a dandy name for her!” They laughed as they made fast.

The mate of the Sunflower, or Pied Witch, or whatever she was called, met us – a tall young fellow in his shirtsleeves, tanned to the roots of his hair, with sinewy, tattooed arms, and grey eyes, charred round the rims from staring at weather.

“The skipper is on board,” he said. “We’re rather busy, as you see. Get on with that, you sea-cooks,” he bawled at two fellows who were doing nothing. All over the ship, men were hauling, splicing, and stowing cargo.

“To-day’s Friday: we’re off on Wednesday with any luck. Will you come this way?” He led us down the companion to a dark hole which he called the saloon. “Names? What! are you Mr. Treffry? Then we’re partners!” A schoolboy’s glee came on his face.

“Look here!” he said; “I can show you something,” and he unlocked the door of a cabin. There appeared to be nothing in it but a huge piece of tarpaulin, which depended, bulging, from the topmost bunk. He pulled it up. The lower bunk had been removed, and in its place was the ugly body of a dismounted Gatling gun.

“Got six of them,” he whispered, with unholy mystery, through which his native frankness gaped out. “Worth their weight in gold out there just now, the skipper says. Got a heap of rifles, too, and lots of ammunition. He’s given me a share. This is better than the P. and O., and playing deck cricket with the passengers. I’d made up my mind already to chuck that, and go in for plantin’ sugar, when I ran across the skipper. Wonderful chap, the skipper! I’ll go and tell him. He’s been out all night; only came aboard at four bells; having a nap now, but he won’t mind that for you.”

Off he went. I wondered what there was in Zachary Pearse to attract a youngster of this sort; one of the customary twelve children of some country parson, no doubt-burning to shoot a few niggers, and for ever frank and youthful.

He came back with his hands full of bottles.

“What’ll you drink? The skipper’ll be here in a jiffy. Excuse my goin’ on deck. We’re so busy.”

And in five minutes Zachary Pearse did come. He made no attempt to shake hands, for which I respected him. His face looked worn, and more defiant than usual.

“Well, gentlemen?” he said.

“We’ve come to ask what you’re going to do?” said Dan.

“I don’t know,” answered Pearse, “that that’s any of your business.”

Dan’s little eyes were like the eyes of an angry pig.

“You’ve got five hundred pounds of mine,” he said; “why do you think I gave it you?”

Zachary bit his fingers.

“That’s no concern of mine,” he said. “I sail on Wednesday. Your money’s safe.”

“Do you know what I think of you?” said Dan.

“No, and you’d better not tell me!” Then, with one of his peculiar changes, he smiled: “As you like, though.”

Dan’s face grew very dark. “Give me a plain answer,” he said: “What are you going to do about her?”

Zachary looked up at him from under his brows.

“Nothing.”

“Are you cur enough to deny that you’ve married her?”

Zachary looked at him coolly. “Not at all,” he said.

“What in God’s name did you do it for?”

“You’ve no monopoly in the post of husband, Mr. Treffry.”

“To put a child in that position! Haven’t you the heart of a man? What d’ ye come sneaking in at night for? By Gad! Don’t you know you’ve done a beastly thing?”

Zachary’s face darkened, he clenched his fists. Then he seemed to shut his anger into himself.

“You wanted me to leave her to you,” he sneered. “I gave her my promise that I’d take her out there, and we’d have gone off on Wednesday quietly enough, if you hadn’t come and nosed the whole thing out with your infernal dog. The fat’s in the fire! There’s no reason why I should take her now. I’ll come back to her a rich man, or not at all.”

“And in the meantime?” I slipped in.

He turned to me, in an ingratiating way.

“I would have taken her to save the fuss – I really would – it’s not my fault the thing’s come out. I’m on a risky job. To have her with me might ruin the whole thing; it would affect my nerve. It isn’t safe for her.”

“And what’s her position to be,” I said, “while you’re away? Do you think she’d have married you if she’d known you were going to leave her like this? You ought to give up this business.

“You stole her. Her life’s in your hands; she’s only a child!”

A quiver passed over his face; it showed that he was suffering.

“Give it up!” I urged.

“My last farthing’s in it,” he sighed; “the chance of a lifetime.”

He looked at me doubtfully, appealingly, as if for the first time in his life he had been given a glimpse of that dilemma of consequences which his nature never recognises. I thought he was going to give in. Suddenly, to my horror, Dan growled, “Play the man!”

Pearse turned his head. “I don’t want your advice anyway,” he said; “I’ll not be dictated to.”

“To your last day,” said Dan, “you shall answer to me for the way you treat her.”

Zachary smiled.

“Do you see that fly?” he said. “Wel – I care for you as little as this,” and he flicked the fly off his white trousers. “Good-morning…!”

The noble mariners who manned our boat pulled lustily for the shore, but we had hardly shoved off’ when a storm of rain burst over the ship, and she seemed to vanish, leaving a picture on my eyes of the mate waving his cap above the rail, with his tanned young face bent down at us, smiling, keen, and friendly.

… We reached the shore drenched, angry with ourselves, and with each other; I started sulkily for home.

As I rode past an orchard, an apple, loosened by the rainstorm, came down with a thud.

“The apples were ripe and ready to fall, Oh! heigh-ho! and ready to fall.”

I made up my mind to pack, and go away. But there’s a strangeness, a sort of haunting fascination in it all. To you, who don’t know the people, it may only seem a piece of rather sordid folly. But it isn’t the good, the obvious, the useful that puts a spell on us in life. It’s the bizarre, the dimly seen, the mysterious for good or evil.

The sun was out again when I rode up to the farm; its yellow thatch shone through the trees as if sheltering a store of gladness and good news. John Ford himself opened the door to me.

He began with an apology, which made me feel more than ever an intruder; then he said:

“I have not spoken to my granddaughter – I waited to see Dan Treffry.”

He was stern and sad-eyed, like a man with a great weight of grief on his shoulders. He looked as if he had not slept; his dress was out of order, he had not taken his clothes off, I think. He isn’t a man whom you can pity. I felt I had taken a liberty in knowing of the matter at all. When I told him where we had been, he said:

“It was good of you to take this trouble. That you should have had to! But since such things have come to pass – ” He made a gesture full of horror. He gave one the impression of a man whose pride was struggling against a mortal hurt. Presently he asked:

“You saw him, you say? He admitted this marriage? Did he give an explanation?”

I tried to make Pearse’s point of view clear. Before this old man, with his inflexible will and sense of duty, I felt as if I held a brief for Zachary, and must try to do him justice.

“Let me understand,” he said at last. “He stole her, you say, to make sure; and deserts her within a fortnight.”

“He says he meant to take her – ”

“Do you believe that?”

Before I could answer, I saw Pasiance standing at the window. How long she had been there I don’t know.

“Is it true that he is going to leave me behind?” she cried out.

I could only nod.

“Did you hear him your own self?”

“Yes.”

She stamped her foot.

“But he promised! He promised!”

John Ford went towards her.

“Don’t touch me, grandfather! I hate every one! Let him do what he likes, I don’t care.”

John Ford’s face turned quite grey.

“Pasiance,” he said, “did you want to leave me so much?”

She looked straight at us, and said sharply:

“What’s the good of telling stories. I can’t help its hurting you.”

“What did you think you would find away from here?”

She laughed.

“Find? I don’t know – nothing; I wouldn’t be stifled anyway. Now I suppose you’ll shut me up because I’m a weak girl, not strong like men!”

“Silence!” said John Ford; “I will make him take you.”

“You shan’t!” she cried; “I won’t let you. He’s free to do as he likes. He’s free – I tell you all, everybody – free!”

She ran through the window, and vanished.

John Ford made a movement as if the bottom had dropped out of his world. I left him there.

I went to the kitchen, where Hopgood was sitting at the table, eating bread and cheese. He got up on seeing me, and very kindly brought me some cold bacon and a pint of ale.

“I thart I shude be seeing yu, zurr,” he said between his bites; “Therr’s no thart to ‘atin’ ‘bout the ‘ouse to-day. The old wumman’s puzzivantin’ over Miss Pasiance. Young girls are skeery critters” – he brushed his sleeve over his broad, hard jaws, and filled a pipe “specially when it’s in the blood of ‘em. Squire Rick Voisey werr a dandy; an’ Mistress Voisey – well, she werr a nice lady tu, but” – rolling the stem of his pipe from corner to corner of his mouth – “she werr a pra-aper vixen.”

Hopgood’s a good fellow, and I believe as soft as he looks hard, but he’s not quite the sort with whom one chooses to talk over a matter like this. I went upstairs, and began to pack, but after a bit dropped it for a book, and somehow or other fell asleep.

I woke, and looked at my watch; it was five o’clock. I had been asleep four hours. A single sunbeam was slanting across from one of my windows to the other, and there was the cool sound of milk dropping into pails; then, all at once, a stir as of alarm, and heavy footsteps.

I opened my door. Hopgood and a coast-guardsman were carrying Pasiance slowly up the stairs. She lay in their arms without moving, her face whiter than her dress, a scratch across the forehead, and two or three drops there of dried blood. Her hands were clasped, and she slowly crooked and stiffened out her fingers. When they turned with her at the stair top, she opened her lips, and gasped, “All right, don’t put me down. I can bear it.” They passed, and, with a half-smile in her eyes, she said something to me that I couldn’t catch; the door was shut, and the excited whispering began again below. I waited for the men to come out, and caught hold of Hopgood. He wiped the sweat off his forehead.

“Poor young thing!” he said. “She fell – down the cliffs – ’tis her back – coastguard saw her ‘twerr they fetched her in. The Lord ‘elp her mebbe she’s not broken up much! An’ Mister Ford don’t know! I’m gwine for the doctor.”

There was an hour or more to wait before he came; a young fellow; almost a boy. He looked very grave, when he came out of her room.

“The old woman there fond of her? nurse her well…? Fond as a dog! – good! Don’t know – can’t tell for certain! Afraid it’s the spine, must have another opinion! What a plucky girl! Tell Mr. Ford to have the best man he can get in Torquay – there’s C – . I’ll be round the first thing in the morning. Keep her dead quiet. I’ve left a sleeping draught; she’ll have fever tonight.”

John Ford came in at last. Poor old man! What it must have cost him not to go to her for fear of the excitement! How many times in the next few hours didn’t I hear him come to the bottom of the stairs; his heavy wheezing, and sighing; and the forlorn tread of his feet going back! About eleven, just as I was going to bed, Mrs. Hopgood came to my door.

“Will yu come, sir,” she said; “she’s asking for yu. Naowt I can zay but what she will see yu; zeems crazy, don’t it?” A tear trickled down the old lady’s cheek. “Du ‘ee come; ‘twill du ‘err ‘arm mebbe, but I dunno – she’ll fret else.”

I slipped into the room. Lying back on her pillows, she was breathing quickly with half-closed eyes. There was nothing to show that she had wanted me, or even knew that I was there. The wick of the candle, set by the bedside, had been snuffed too short, and gave but a faint light; both window and door stood open, still there was no draught, and the feeble little flame burned quite still, casting a faint yellow stain on the ceiling like the refection from a buttercup held beneath a chin. These ceilings are far too low! Across the wide, squat window the apple branches fell in black stripes which never stirred. It was too dark to see things clearly. At the foot of the bed was a chest, and there Mrs. Hopgood had sat down, moving her lips as if in speech. Mingled with the half-musty smell of age; there were other scents, of mignonette, apples, and some sweet-smelling soap. The floor had no carpet, and there was not one single dark object except the violin, hanging from a nail over the bed. A little, round clock ticked solemnly.

“Why won’t you give me that stuff, Mums?” Pasiance said in a faint, sharp voice. “I want to sleep.”

“Have you much pain?” I asked.

“Of course I have; it’s everywhere.”

She turned her face towards me.

“You thought I did it on purpose, but you’re wrong. If I had, I’d have done it better than this. I wouldn’t have this brutal pain.” She put her fingers over her eyes. “It’s horrible to complain! Only it’s so bad! But I won’t again – promise.”

She took the sleeping draught gratefully, making a face, like a child after a powder.

“How long do you think it’ll be before I can play again? Oh! I forgot – there are other things to think about.” She held out her hand to me. “Look at my ring. Married – isn’t it funny? Ha, ha! Nobody will ever understand – that’s funny too! Poor Gran! You see, there wasn’t any reason – only me. That’s the only reason I’m telling you now; Mums is there – but she doesn’t count; why don’t you count, Mums?”

The fever was fighting against the draught; she had tossed the clothes back from her throat, and now and then raised one thin arm a little, as if it eased her; her eyes had grown large, and innocent like a child’s; the candle, too, had flared, and was burning clearly.

“Nobody is to tell him – nobody at all; promise…! If I hadn’t slipped, it would have been different. What would have happened then? You can’t tell; and I can’t – that’s funny! Do you think I loved him? Nobody marries without love, do they? Not quite without love, I mean. But you see I wanted to be free, he said he’d take me; and now he’s left me after all! I won’t be left, I can’t! When I came to the cliff – that bit where the ivy grows right down – there was just the sea there, underneath; so I thought I would throw myself over and it would be all quiet; and I climbed on a ledge, it looked easier from there, but it was so high, I wanted to get back; and then my foot slipped; and now it’s all pain. You can’t think much, when you’re in pain.”

From her eyes I saw that she was dropping off.

“Nobody can take you away from-yourself. He’s not to be told – not even – I don’t – want you – to go away, because – ” But her eyes closed, and she dropped off to sleep.

They don’t seem to know this morning whether she is better or worse…

VI

“Tuesday, 9th August

… It seems more like three weeks than three days since I wrote. The time passes slowly in a sickhouse…! The doctors were here this morning, they give her forty hours. Not a word of complaint has passed her lips since she knew. To see her you would hardly think her ill; her cheeks have not had time to waste or lose their colour. There is not much pain, but a slow, creeping numbness… It was John Ford’s wish that she should be told. She just turned her head to the wall and sighed; then to poor old Mrs. Hopgood, who was crying her heart out: “Don’t cry, Mums, I don’t care.”