Miranda of the Balcony: A Story

by A. E. W. Mason

CHAPTER XVII

[SHOWS HOW A TOMBSTONE MAY CONVINCE WHEN ARGUMENTS FAIL]

She showed him the scribbled note which M. Fournier had brought; she told him M. Fournier's story; how that Ralph had run guns and ammunition from England into Morocco on board the Tarifa; how that he had been kidnapped between M. Fournier's villa and the town-gate; how that he was not held to ransom, since no demand for ransom had come to the little Belgian; and finally how that it was impossible to apply for help to the Legation, since Ralph was already guilty of a crime, and would only be rescued that way in order to suffer penal servitude in England.

"What a coil to unravel!" said Charnock. "I know some Arabic. I could go to Morocco. I went there once, but only to Tangier. But Morocco? How shall one search Morocco without a clue?"

He rested his chin upon his hand, and stared gloomily at the wall. Miranda was careful not to interrupt his reflections. If there was a way out, she confidently relied upon this man to find it. Once she shivered, and Charnock looked inquiringly towards her. She was gazing at the soiled note which lay beneath her eyes upon the table, and saw again the picture of Ralph being beaten inland under the sun. She began to recall his acts and words, that she might make the best of them; she fell to considering whether she had not herself been in a measure to blame for the shipwreck of their marriage. And so, thinking of such matters, she absently hummed over a tune, a soft plaintive little melody from an opéra-bouffe. She ended it and hummed it over again; until it came upon her that Charnock had been silent for a long time, and she looked up from the note into his face.

He was not thinking out any plan. He was watching her with a singular intentness, his head thrust forward from his shoulders, his face very strained. It seemed that every fibre of his body listened and was still, so that it might hear the better.

"Who taught you that tune?" he asked in a voice of suspense.

"Ralph," said she, in some surprise at the question; "at least I picked it up from him."

And Charnock fell back in his chair; he huddled himself in it, he let his chin drop upon his breast. He sat staring at her with eyes which seemed suddenly deep-sunk in a face suddenly grown white. And slowly, gradually, it broke in upon Miranda that he held the clue after all, that that tune was the clue, that in a word Charnock knew how Ralph had disappeared.

"You know!" she cried in her elation. "You know! Oh, and I sent you away yesterday! What if you had gone! Only to think of it! You know! That tune has given you the clue? It was Ralph's favourite! You heard it--when? Where? Tell me!"

To her eager, joyous questions Charnock was silent. He did not move. He still sat huddled in his chair, with his chin fallen on his breast, and his eyes fixedly staring at her. Miranda's enthusiasm was chilled by his silence; it was succeeded by fear. She became frightened; she picked up the note and held it out to him and bade it speak for her.

Charnock did not take the note or change his position. But he said:--

"Even on your honeymoon, you see, he left you to stand alone, while he gambled at the tables."

"But you mustn't think of that," she cried. "It's so small a thing."

"But so typical," added Charnock, quietly.

Miranda gave a moan and held her head between her hands. That Charnock might refuse to help her, because with tears in her eyes she had played the sedulous coquette, she had been prepared to acknowledge. But that he would refuse to help, out of a mistaken belief that, by refusing to help, he was helping best--that supposition had not so much as occurred to her.

"Read the note again," she implored him. "Do quickly what you can! And see, it is a week and more since M. Fournier was here. It is a fortnight and more since Ralph was kidnapped in the Sôk. Quickly! And nothing is done, and nothing will be done, unless you do it. Oh, think of him--driven, his hands tied, beaten with sticks, sold for a slave to trudge with loads upon his back, barefooted, through Morocco! You will go," and her voice broke and was very tender as she appealed to him. "Please! You will have pity on me, and on him." And she watched Charnock's face for a sign of assent, her heart throbbing, her foot beating the ground, and every now and then a queer tremulous moan breaking from her dry lips.

Charnock, however, did not soften at the imagined picture of Ralph's misfortunes, and he hardened his heart against the visible picture of her distress.

"When I was at Algeciras, I asked many questions about Ralph Warriner. I listened to many answers," he said curtly.

"Exaggerated answers," she returned, and as Charnock opened his mouth to reply, she hastened to continue: "Listen! Listen! Here's the strange thing! Not that I should need help, not that you should help me, not that I should come to you for help. Those three things--they are most natural. But that coming to you, I should come to the one man who can help, who already knows the way to help. Don't you understand? It is very clear to me. You were meant to help, to help me in this one trouble, so you were shown the means whereby to help." And seeing Charnock still impenetrable, she burst out: "Oh, he will not help! He will not understand!" and she took to considering how it was that he knew, how it was that he recognised the tune.

"You were in Tangier once," she argued. "Yes. You told me that not only to-day, but at Lady Donnisthorpe's. You crossed from Gibraltar?"

"Yes, just before I came to England and met you."

"Just before! Still you won't understand? You find out somehow--somehow in Tangier you come across a tune, an incident, something. Immediately after you meet a woman, at the first sight of whom you offer her your succour, and the time comes when she needs it, and that one incident you witnessed just before you met her gives you, and you alone in all the world, the opportunity to help her. Don't you remember, when you first were introduced at Lady Donnisthorpe's, what was your first feeling--one of disappointment, because I did not seem to stand in any need? Well, I do stand in need now--and now you turn away. And for my sake too! Was there ever such a tangle! Such a needless irony and tangle, and all because a man cannot put a woman from his thoughts!" And then she laughed bitterly and harshly, and so fell back again upon her guesses.

"You were in Tangier--how long?"

"For a day."

"When? Never mind! I know. I met you in June. You were in Tangier for a day in May. In May!" she repeated, and stopped. Then she uttered a cry. "May, that was the month. M. Fournier said May. You were the man," and leaning forward she laid a clutching hand upon Charnock's arm, which lay quiet on the table. "You were the unknown man who cried 'Look out!' through the closed door of M. Fournier's shop."

Charnock started. He was prepared to deny the challenge, if assent threatened to disclose his clue. But it did not. M. Fournier knew nothing of the blind beggar at the cemetery gate where Charnock had first heard the comic opera tune and registered it in his memory. That was evident, since in all M. Fournier's story, there was no mention anywhere of Hassan Akbar.

"Yes," he admitted. "It was I."

"And you shouted it not as a menace--so M. Fournier thought and was wrong--but as a warning to Ralph, my husband, whom you will not speak a word to save. You spoke a word then, very likely you saved him then. Well, do just as much now. I ask no more of you. Only speak the word! Tell me the clue, I myself will follow it up. Oh, he will not speak!" and in her agitation she rose up and paced the room.

Charnock rose too. Miranda flew to the door and leaned her back against it.

"Just for a moment! Listen to what M. Fournier said! He said that if once we could lay our hands upon the man who shouted through the door, we should lay our hands upon the means to rescue Ralph. Think how truly he spoke, in a truer sense than he intended. You know why he disappeared. You know who captured him. And if you don't speak, I shall have no peace until I die," and she sat herself again at the table.

"Do you still care for him?" asked Charnock, with some gentleness.

Miranda, who was wrought almost to frenzy, drummed upon the table with her clenched fists.

"Must we debate that question while Ralph--" Then she mastered herself. "I know you," she said. "If I were to tell you that I loved him heart and soul, you would go upon this errand, straight as an arrow, for my sake. But I promised there should be nothing but truth between you and me. I do not love him. Now, will you go to Morocco? Or, if you will not go, will you speak?"

"No. Let him stay there! Where he cannot harm you. What if I was meant to keep you from rescuing him?"

"You do not know," she replied. "You can do me no greater service than by rescuing Ralph, by bringing him back to me. Will you believe that?"

"No," said he, calmly, and she rose from her chair.

"But if I proved it to you?"

"You cannot."

"I will."

She looked at the clock.

"It is four o'clock," she said. "Two hours and a quarter before the train leaves for Algeciras. Will you meet me on the platform? I had thought to spare myself--this. But you shall have the proof. I will not tell you of it, but I will show it to you to-morrow at Gibraltar."

She spoke now with great calmness. She had hit upon the means to persuade. She was convinced that she had, and he was afraid that she had.

"Very well," said he. "The 6.15 for Algeciras."

They travelled to Gibraltar that night. Miranda stayed at the Bristol, Charnock at the Albion; they met the next morning, and walked through the long main street. Here and there an officer looked at her with a start of surprise and respectfully raised his hat, and perhaps took a step or two towards her. But she did not stop to speak with anyone. It was two years since she had set foot within the gates of Gibraltar, and no doubt the stones upon which she walked had many memories wherewith to bruise her. Charnock respected her silence, and kept pace with her unobtrusively. They passed into the square with Government House upon the one side and the mess-rooms upon the other. Charnock sketched a picture of her in his fancies, the picture of a young girl newly-come from the brown solitudes of Suffolk into this crowded and picturesque fortress with the wonder of a new world in her eyes, and contrasted it with the woman who walked beside him, and inferred the increasing misery of her years. He was touched to greater depths of sympathy than he had ever felt before even when she had lain with her head upon her arms in an abandonment of distress; so that now the uncomplaining uprightness of her figure made his heart ache, and the sound of her footsteps was a pain. But of the most intolerable of all her memories he had still to learn. She led him into the little cemetery, guided him between the graves, and stopped before a headstone on which Charnock read:--

RUPERT WARRINER,
Aged 2 Years.

and the date of his birth and death.

The headstone was of marble, and had been sculptured with a poetic fancy; a boy, in whose face Charnock could trace a likeness to Miranda, looked out and laughed between the open lattices of a window.

They both watched the grave silently for a while. Then Miranda said gently, "Now do you understand? When Rupert was born, it seemed to me that here was a blossom on the thorn bush of the world. But you see the blossom never flowered. He died of diphtheria. It was hard when he died;" and Charnock suddenly started at her side.

"Those flowers!" he said hoarsely.

Upon the grave were scattered jonquils, geraniums, roses, pinks, camellias--all the rich reds and yellows of Miranda's garden.

"You were cutting them, packing them, that afternoon when Wilbraham came?"

Mrs. Warriner shrank from looking at Charnock.

"Yes," she confessed in a whisper.

"My God!" he exclaimed. Miranda glanced at him in fear. So it was coming; he was remembering the use to which she had put those flowers. Would he loathe her sufficiently to withdraw his help?

"Do you know what I thought?" he continued. "No, you can't guess. You could not imagine it. I actually believed that you were cutting those flowers so that you might send them to--" and he broke off the sentence. "But it's too odious to tell you."

"But I meant you should believe just that," she cried. "I meant you to believe it. Oh, how utterly hateful! How could I have done it? I wanted to hide that from you, but it was right you should know. I must have been mad," and she convulsively clasped and unclasped her hands.

"I understand why you dropped that bunch from the cliff," said Charnock, "after Wilbraham had picked a flower from it."

"I wanted to bring you here," said Miranda, "so that you might know why I ask this service of you. As I told you, I have no love left for Ralph, but he was that boy's father, and the boy is dead. I cannot leave Ralph in Morocco a slave. He was Rupert's father. Perhaps you remember that after I met you at Lady Donnisthorpe's I came back at once to Ronda. I had half determined not to return at all, and when you first told me Ralph was alive, my first absorbing thought was, where should I hide myself? But it occurred to me that he might be in need, and he was Rupert's father. So I came back, and when Wilbraham blackmailed me, I submitted to the blackmail again because he was Rupert's father; and because he was Rupert's father, when I learned in what sore need he stood, I sent that glove to you."

"I understand," said Charnock, and they turned and walked from the cemetery.

"Now will you speak?" she asked.

"No," he returned, "but I will go myself to Morocco."

"It is your life I am asking you to risk," said Miranda, who now that she had gained her end, began at once to realise the consequences it would entail upon her friend.

"I know that and take the risk," replied Charnock.

They walked out towards Europa Point, and turned into the Alameda.

"There is something else," said Miranda. "Your search will cost money. Every farthing of that I must pay. You will promise me that?"

"Yes."

"I wrote to M. Fournier yesterday. He will supply you. There is one thing more. This search will interrupt your career."

"It will, no doubt," he assented readily, and sitting down upon a seat he spoke to her words which she never forgot. "The quaint thing is that I have always been afraid lest a woman should break my career. I lived as a boy high up on the Yorkshire hills, two miles above a busy town. All day that town whirred in the hollow below. I could see it from my bedroom window, and all night the lights blazed in the factories; and when I went down into its streets there were always grimed men speeding upon their business. There was a certain grandeur about it which impressed me,--the perpetual shuffle of the looms, the loud, clear song of the wheels. That seemed to me the life to live. And I made up my mind that no woman should interfere. A brake on the wheel going up hill, a whip in the driver's hand going down,--that was what I thought of woman until I met you."

"And proved it true," cried Miranda.

"And learned that there are better things than getting on," said Charnock.

Miranda turned to him with shining eyes, and in a voice which left him in no doubt as to the significance of her words, she cried:--

"My dear, we are Love's derelicts, you and I," and so stopped and said no more.

They went back to the hotel and lunched together and came out again to the geraniums and bellas sombras of the Alameda. But they talked no more in this strain. They were just a man and a woman, and the flaming sword kept their lips apart. But they knew it and were not aggrieved, for being a man and a woman they knew not grievances.

The evening came down upon Gibraltar, the riding lanterns glimmered upon the masts in the bay; away to the left the lighthouse on Europa Point shot out its yellow column of light; above, the Spanish sky grew purple and rich with innumerable stars.

"The boat leaves early," said Charnock. "I will say good-bye now."

Miranda caught the hand which he held out to her and held it against her breast.

"But I shall see you again--once--please, once," she said, "when you bring Ralph back to me;" and so they separated in the Alameda.

Charnock walked away and left her standing there, nor looked back. Stray lines and verses of ballads which he had heard sung by women in drawing-rooms here and there about the world came back to him--ballads of knights and cavaliers who had ridden away at their ladies' behests. He had laughed at them then, but they came back to him now, and he felt himself linked through them in a community of feeling with the generations which had gone before. Men had gone out upon such errands as he was now privileged to do, and would do so again when he was dust, with just the same pride which he felt as he walked homewards on this night through the streets of Gibraltar. He realised as he had never realised before, through the fellowship of service, that in bone and muscle and blood he was of the family of men, son of the men who had gone before, father of the men who were to follow. The next morning he crossed the straits to Tangier.