Du Maurier, Daphne (31 page)

She lifted her eyes once more to the lady of the house. “I have done a very senseless thing in coming here,” she said hopelessly. “I thought it clever, and I have only succeeded in making a fool of myself and of everyone else. My uncle will discover my room is empty and guess at once that I have betrayed him. He will leave Jamaica Inn before Mr. Bassat arrives.”

The squire’s lady let go of the bell rope now and came towards her.

“You speak sincerely, and you have an honest face,” she said kindly. “I am sorry if I misjudged you at first, but Jamaica Inn has a terrible name, and I believe anyone would have done the same had they been confronted suddenly with the landlord’s niece. You have been placed in a fearful position, and I think you very brave to come here tonight, all those lonely miles, to warn my husband. I should have gone mad with fear. The question is this: what would you have me do now? I am willing to help you in any way you think best.”

“There is nothing we can do,” said Mary, shaking her head. “I must wait here, I suppose, until Mr. Bassat returns. He won’t be overpleased to see me when he hears how I have blundered. God knows I deserve every reproach….”

“I will speak for you,” replied Mrs. Bassat. “You could not possibly know my husband had already been informed, and I will soon smooth him down if he needs it. Be thankful you are here in safety meanwhile.”

“How did the squire learn the truth so suddenly?” asked Mary.

“I have not the slightest idea; he was sent for very suddenly this morning, as I have told you already, and he only gave me the barest details before his horse was saddled and he was gone. Now, won’t you rest yourself, and forget for the time the whole hateful business? You are probably famished for want of food.” Once more she approached the fireplace, and this time she pulled the bell rope three or four times, For all her worry and distress, Mary could not help seeing the irony of the situation. Here was the lady of the house offering hospitality, who a moment ago had threatened her with seizure by the same servants who would now bring her food. She thought also of the scene in the market square when this same lady, in velvet cloak and feathered hat, had paid a high price for her own pony, and she wondered whether the trickery had been discovered. If Mary’s own part in the deception should come to light, Mrs. Bassat would hardly be so lavish with her hospitality.

Meanwhile the servant appeared, his inquisitive nose in the air, and was told by his mistress to bring a tray of supper for Mary, and the dogs, who had followed him into the room, came now to make friends with the stranger, wagging their tails and pushing their soft noses into her hands, accepting her as a member of the household. Her presence in the manor house at North Hill was still without reality, and, though Mary tried, she could not throw aside anxiety and relax. She felt she had no right to be sitting here before a glowing fire, when outside, in the darkness, life and death fought hand to hand before Jamaica Inn. She ate mechanically, forcing herself to swallow the food she needed, aware of the prattle of her hostess at her side, who in the mistaken kindness of her heart believed that incessant conversation about nothing at all was the only method of alleviating worry. The chatter, had she but realised, increased it, and when Mary had finished her supper and sat once more with her hands on her lap, staring at the fire, Mrs. Bassat, searching in her mind for suitable distraction, fetched an album of her own water colours and proceeded to turn the pages for the benefit of her guest.

When the clock on the mantelpiece chimed eight o’clock in piercing tones, Mary could bear it no longer. This dragging inactivity was worse than danger and pursuit. “Forgive me,” she said, rising to her feet; “you have been so kind, and I can never thank you enough; but I am anxious, desperately anxious. I can think of nothing but my poor aunt, who at this moment may be suffering the tortures of hell. I must know what is happening at Jamaica Inn, if I walk back there myself tonight.”

Mrs. Bassat dropped her album in a flutter of distress. “Of course you are anxious. I have seen it all along, and tried to take your mind off it. How terrible it is! I am as concerned as you are, for my husband’s sake. But you cannot possibly walk back there now, alone. Why, it would be after midnight before you arrived, and heaven knows what might not happen to you on the way. I will order the trap, and Richards shall go with you. He is most trustworthy and dependable, and can be armed in case of need. If there is fighting in progress, you would see it from the bottom of the hill, and would not approach until it was over. I would come with you myself, but my health is delicate at the moment and—”

“Of course you will do nothing of the kind,” said Mary swiftly. “I am used to danger and the road by night, and you are not. I shall be putting you to very great trouble in harnessing your horse at this hour and rousing your groom. I assure you I’m no longer tired, and I can walk.”

But Mrs. Bassat had already pulled the bell. “Have word sent to Richards to bring the trap around immediately,” she said to the astonished servant. “I will give him further orders when he arrives. Tell him there must be as little delay as possible.” She then fitted Mary out with a heavy cloak and hood, thick rug and foot warmer, protesting all the while that only her state of health prevented her from making the journey, too, for which Mary was utterly thankful, Mrs. Bassat being hardly the ideal companion for so improvident and dangerous an escapade.

In a quarter of an hour the trap drove up to the door, with Richards in charge, Mary recognising him at once as the servant who had ridden with Mr. Bassat originally to Jamaica Inn. His reluctance at leaving his fireside on a Sunday night was soon overcome when he learnt his mission, and with two large pistols stuck in his belt, and orders to fire at anyone who threatened the trap, he assumed at once an air of truculence and authority hitherto unknown to him. Mary climbed in beside him, the dogs baying a chorus of farewell, and it was only when the drive twisted and the house was out of sight that Mary realised she had set out on what was probably to be a foolhardy and dangerous expedition.

Anything might have happened during the five hours she had been absent from Jamaica Inn, and even with the trap she could scarcely hope to arrive there before half past ten. She could make no plans, and her action depended upon the moment when it came. With the moon now high in the sky and the soft air blowing upon her she felt emboldened to face disaster when it came, and this ride to the scene of action, however dangerous, was better than sitting like a helpless child listening to the prattle of Mrs. Bassat. This man Richards was armed, and she herself would use a gun if necessary. He was burning with curiosity, of course, but she gave short answers to his questions and did not encourage him.

The drive was silent then, for the most part, with no other sound but the steady clopping of the horses’s hoofs upon the road, and now and again an owl hooted from the still trees. The rustle of hedgerow and the creeping country whispers were left behind when the trap came out upon the Bodmin road, and once again the dark moor stretched out on either side, lapping the road like a desert. The ribbon of the highway shone white under the moon. It wound and was lost in the fold of the further hill, bare and untrodden. There were no travellers but themselves upon the road tonight. On Christmas Eve, when Mary had ridden here, the wind had lashed venomously at the carriage wheels, and the rain hammered the windows; now the air was still cold and strangely still, and the moor itself lay placid and silver in the moonlight. The dark tors held their sleeping faces to the sky, the granite features softened and smoothed by the light that bathed them. Theirs was a peaceful mood, and the old gods slept undisturbed.

Briskly the horse and trap covered the weary miles that Mary had walked alone. She recognised each bend in the road now, and how at times the moor encroached upon it, with high tufts of grass or twisted stem of broom.

There, beyond her in the valley, would be the lights of Altarnun, and already the Five Lanes branched out from the road like fingers from a hand.

The wild stretch to Jamaica lay before them. Even when the night was still the wind played here, bare and open as it was to every compass point, and tonight it hummed from Rough Tor in the west, keen as a knife and cold, gathering the marsh smells as it came, over the bitter turf and the running streams. There was still no sign of man or beast upon the road, which rose and dipped again across the moor, and, though Mary strained her eyes and her ears, she could hear nothing. On such a night the slightest sound would be magnified, and the approach of Mr. Bassat’s party, numbering, as they would, a dozen men or so, said Richards, would easily be heard two miles or more away.

“We shall find them there before us, as likely as not,” he told Mary, “and the landlord, with his hands bound, breathing fire at the squire. It will be a good thing for the neighbourhood when he’s put out of harm’s way, and he would have been before now, if the squire could have had his way. It’s a pity we were not here sooner; there’ll have been some sport in taking him, I reckon.”

“Little sport if Mr. Bassat finds that his bird has flown,” said Mary quietly. “Joss Merlyn knows these moors like the back of his hand, and he’ll not linger once he has the start of an hour, or less than that.”

“My master was bred here, same as the landlord,” said Richards; “if it comes to a chase across country, I’d lay odds on the squire every time. He’s hunted here, man and boy, for nearly fifty years, I should say, and where a fox will go the squire will follow. But they’ll catch this one before he starts to run, if I’m not mistaken.” Mary let him continue; his occasional jerky statements did not worry her as the kindly prattle of his mistress had done, and his broad back and honest rugged face gave her some confidence in this night of strain.

They were approaching the dip in the road and the narrow bridge that spanned the river Fowey; Mary could hear the ripple and play of the stream as it ran swiftly over the stones. The steep hill to Jamaica rose in front of them, white beneath the moon, and as the dark chimneys appeared above the crest, Richards fell silent, fumbling with the pistols in his belt, and he cleared his throat with a nervous jerk of his head. Mary’s heart beat fast now, and she held tight to the side of the trap. The horse bent to the climb, his head low, and it seemed to Mary that the clop of his hoofs rang too loudly on the surface of the road, and she wished they had been more silent.

As they drew near to the summit of the hill, Richards turned and whispered in her ear, “Would it be best for you to wait here, in the trap, by the side of the road, and I go forward and see if they are there?”

Mary shook her head. “Better for me to go,” she said, “and you follow a pace or two behind, or stay here and wait until I call. From the silence, it seems as though the squire and his party are not yet come, after all, and that the landlord has escaped. Should he be there, however—my uncle, I mean—I can risk an encounter with him, when you could not. Give me a pistol; I shall have little to fear from him then.”

“I hardly think it right for you to go alone,” said the man doubtfully. “You may walk right into him, and I hear no sound from you again. It’s strange, as you say, this silence. I’d expected shouting and fighting, and my master’s voice topping it all. It’s almost unnatural, in a way. They must have been detained in Launceston. I half fancy there’d be more wisdom if we turned aside down that track there and waited for them to come.”

“I’ve waited long enough tonight, and gone half mad with it,” said Mary. “I’d rather come upon my uncle face to face than lie here in the ditch, seeing and hearing nothing. It’s my aunt I’m thinking of. She’s as innocent as a child in all this business, and I want to care for her if I can. Give me a pistol and let me go. I can tread like a cat, and I’ll not run my head into a noose, I promise you.” She threw off the heavy cloak and hood that had protected her from the cold night air, and seized hold of the pistol that he handed down to her reluctantly. “Don’t follow me unless I call or give some signal,” she said. “Should you hear a shot fired, then perhaps it would be as well to come after me. But come warily, for all that. There’s no need for both of us to run like fools into danger. For my part, I believe my uncle to have gone.”

She hoped now that he had, and by driving into Devon made an end to the whole business. The country would be rid of him, and in the cheapest possible way. He might, even as he had said, start life again, or, more likely still, dig himself in somewhere five hundred miles from Cornwall and drink himself to death. She had no interest now in his capture; she wanted it finished and thrust aside; she wanted above all to lead her own life and forget him, and to put the world between her and Jamaica Inn. Revenge was an empty thing. To see him bound and helpless, surrounded by the squire and his men, would be of little satisfaction. She had spoken to Richards with confidence, but for all that she dreaded an encounter with her uncle, armed as she was; and the thought of coming upon him suddenly in the passage of the inn, with his hands ready to strike, and his bloodshot eyes staring down upon her, made her pause in her stride, before the yard, and glance back to the dark shadow in the ditch that was Richards and the trap. Then she levelled her pistol, her finger upon the trigger, and looked round the corner of the stone wall to the yard.

It was empty. The stable door was shut. The inn was as dark and silent as when she had left it nearly seven hours before, and the windows and the door were barred. She looked up to her window, and the pane of glass gaped empty and wide, unchanged since she had climbed from it that afternoon.

There were no wheel marks in the yard, no preparations for departure. She crept across to the stable and laid her ear against the door. She waited a moment, and then she heard the pony move restlessly in his stall; she heard his hoofs clink on the cobbles.

Then they had not gone, and her uncle was still at Jamaica Inn.

Her heart sank; and she wondered if she should return to Richards and the trap, and wait, as he had suggested, until Squire Bassat and his men arrived. She glanced once more at the shuttered house. Surely, if her uncle intended to leave, he would have gone before now. The cart alone would take an hour to load, and it must be nearly eleven o’clock. He might have altered his plans and decided to go on foot, but then Aunt Patience could never accompany him. Mary hesitated; the situation had become odd now, and unreal.