III
Jabez was waiting for him. They were both in the shadow; beyond them the lawn was scattered with star-dust mist as though sewn with immortal daisies; the stars above were veiled. The world was so still that it seemed to march forward with the rhythm of the sea, that could be heard stamping now like a whole army of marching men.
"They are waiting for you, sir," Jabez whispered. "I was terrible feared you'd be too long in there."
They moved, keeping to the shadows, and reached the path that led to the door in the wall. Here their feet crunched on the gravel, and every step was an agony of anticipated alarm. It seemed to Harkness that the house sprang into life, that lights jumped in the windows, figures passed to and fro, but he dared not look back, and then Jabez's hand was on the door, he was through and out safely in the wide free road.
Then, for an instant, he did look back, and there the house was, dark, motionless, rising out of the trees like part of the rock on which it was built, the high tower climbing pale in the mist above it.
Only an instant's glimpse, because there was the jingle, the pony, Dunbar and the girl. An absurd emotion took possession of him at the sight of them. He had been through a good deal that evening, and the picture of them, safe, honest, sane, after the house and the company that he had left, came with the breeze from the sea reassuring him of normality and youth.
Jabez, too, standing over them like a protective deity. His whole heart warmed to the man, and he vowed that in the morning he would do something for him that would give him security for the rest of his days. There was something in the patient, statuesque simplicity of that giant figure that he was never afterwards to forget.
But he had little time to think of anything. He had climbed into the jingle, and without a word exchanged between any of them they were off, turning at once away from the road to the right over a turfy path that led to the Downs.
Dunbar, who had the reins, spoke at last.
"My God," he said, "I thought you were never coming."
"I had a queer time," Harkness answered, whispering because he was still under the obsession of his escape from the house. "You must remember that I'm not accustomed to such adventures. I've never had such an odd two hours before, and I shouldn't think that I'm ever likely to have such another again."
They all clustered together as though to assure one another of their happiness at their escape. The strong tang now of the sea in their faces, the freshness of the wide open sky, the spring of the turf beneath the jingle's wheels, all spoke to them of their freedom. They were so happy that, had they dared, they would have sung aloud.
But Harkness now was conscious only of one thing, that Hesther Crispin, a black shawl over her head, only the outline of her figure to be seen against the blue night, was pressed close to him. Her hand touched his knee, the strands of her hair, escaping the shawl, blew close to his face, he could feel the beating of her heart. An ecstasy seized him at the sense of her closeness. Whatever was to come of that night, at least this he had—his perfect hour. The elder Crispin and his madness, the younger and his strangeness, the dim faded house, the jewels and the torn "Orvieto," the mad talk, all these vanished into unreality, and, curiously, this ride was joined directly to the dance around the town as though no other events had intervened.
Then he had won his freedom, this sanctified it. Then he had felt his common humanity with all life, now he knew his own passionate share of it.
He wanted nothing for himself but this, that, like Browning's strong peasant, he might serve his duchess, at the last receiving his white rose and watching her vanish into her own magical kingdom. A romantic, idealistic American, as has been already declared in this history; but ten hours ago both romance and idealism were theoretic, now they were pulsing, living things.
"Hesther's the one for my money," Dunbar said, some of his happiness at their safety ringing through his voice. "You should have seen her climb out of that window. She landed on the roof of that tool-house so lightly that not a mouse could have heard her. And then she swung down the pipe like a monkey. Tell me how you managed with friend Crispin."
"It wasn't difficult," Harkness answered. "He went with me to that long room downstairs like a lamb. He told me that he had been wanting to speak with me to tell me that I was bothering his father and must keep away."
"That you were bothering his father?"
"Yes. He—— Wait. Do you hear any one coming?"
They listened. The ramp-ramp of the sea was now very loud. They had come nearly two miles on the soft track across the Downs. They stayed listening, staring into the distance. There was no sound but the sea. Then a bell ringing mournfully, regretfully, through the air.
"That's the Liddon," said Dunbar. "We must be nearly at our cottage. But I don't hear anything. Unless they saw the jingle they never would think of this. Our only danger was the younger Crispin going into Hesther's room after he left you. I believe we're safe."
They stayed there listening. Very strange in that wide expanse, with only the bell for their company. They drove on a little way, and a building loomed up. This was a deserted cottage, simply the four walls standing.
"I'm to tie the pony to this," Dunbar said. "Jabez will fetch it in the morning."
They climbed out of the jingle and waited while the pony was tied. Having done it, Dunbar raised his head sniffing the air.
"I say, don't you think the mist's coming up a bit? It won't do if it gets too thick. We'll have difficulty in finding the Cove."
It was true. The mist was spreading like very thin smoky glass. The pony was etherealised, the cottage a ghostly cottage.
"Well, come on," Dunbar said. "We haven't a great deal of time, but the Cove's only a step of the way. Along here to the right."
He led, the others followed. Hesther had hitherto said nothing. Now she looked up at Harkness. "Thank you for helping us. It was generous of you."
He couldn't see her face. He touched her hand with his for a moment.
"I guess that was the least any one could do," he said.
"Oh, I'm so glad it's over!" She gave a little shiver. "To be out here free after those weeks, after that house—you don't know, you don't know what that was."
"I can pretty well imagine," Harkness answered grimly, "from the hour or two I spent in your father-in-law's company. But don't let's talk about it just now. Afterwards we'll tell each other all our adventures."
"Isn't it strange," she said simply, "we've only exchanged a word or two, we never knew one another before this evening, and yet we're like old friends? Isn't it pleasant?"
"Very pleasant," he answered. "We must always be friends."
"Yes, always," she said.
They were standing close to the broken wall of the cottage. It had a wonderfully romantic air in the night air. It was so lonely, and so independent as well. The storms that must beat around it on wild nights, the screams of the birds, the battering roar of the waves, and then to sink into that silence with only the voice of the bell for its company. But Dunbar was no poet—a ruined cottage was a ruined cottage to him.
"I don't like this mist," he said. "It's made me a little uncertain of my bearings. I wonder if you'd mind, Hesther, waiting here for five minutes while I go and see——"
"Oh no, we'll all stick together," she interrupted. "Why should we separate? Why, I'm more sure-footed than you are, David. You're trying to mother me again."
"No, I'm not," he answered doggedly; "but I'm really not quite sure of the way down, and if we got in a mess half way it would be much worse your being there. Really these paths can be awfully nasty. I want to be sure of my way before you come—really Hesther——"
She saw that it was important to him. She laughed.
"It's stupid, when I'm a better climber than you are. But if you like it—you're the commander of this expedition."
She seated herself on a stone near the pony. The two men walked off. The sea mist was very faint, blowing in little wisps like tattered lawn, not obscuring anything but rendering the whole scene ethereal and unreal.
Suddenly, however, as though out of friendly interest, the stars, that had been quite obscured, again appeared, twinkling, humorous eyes looking down over the wall of heaven.
"We should be all right," Dunbar said as the two men set off; "we are up to time. The boat is bound to be there. It's lucky the fog hasn't come. That's a contingency I never thought of. The path down to the Cove is off here, to the right of the cottage somewhere. I've studied every inch of the country round here."
The path appeared. "Tell me, did you have a queer time with Crispin—the elder one, I mean?"
"I've never had so strange a conversation with any one," said Harkness. "Madness is a queer thing when you are in actual contact with it, because we have, every one of us, enough madness in ourselves to wonder whether some one else is so mad after all. He talked the most awful nonsense, and dangerous nonsense too, but there was a kind of theory behind it, something that almost held it all together. A sort of pathos too, so that you felt, in spite of yourself, sorry for the man."
But Dunbar was no analyser of human motives. He despised fine shades, and was a man of action. "Sorry for him! Just about as sorry as you are for a spider that is spinning a nest in your clothes cupboard. Sorry! He wants crushing under foot like a white slug, and that he'll get before I've finished with him. Why, man, he's murderous! He loves torture and slow fire like the old Spaniards in the Inquisition. There's so little to catch on to—that's the trouble; but I bet that if he had caught us helping Hesther out of that house to-night there would be something to catch on to! Why, if we were to fall into his hands now! Ugh! it doesn't bear thinking of!"
"Oh yes, of course," Harkness agreed. "He's dangerously mad. He'll be in an asylum before many days are out. If ever I have been justified in any action of my life it has been this, in helping that poor girl out of the hands of those two men. All the same . . . oh! it's sad, Dunbar! There is something so tragic in madness, whether it's dangerous or no—something captive, like a bird in a cage, and something common to us all. . . ."
"Well, if you think that the kind of things that Crispin Senior is after are common to us all you must have a pretty low view of humanity. The beastly swine! Something pathetic? Why, you're a curious fellow, Harkness, to feel pathos in that situation."
"You may hate it and detest it, you must confine it because it's dangerous to the community, but you can pity it all the same. His eyes—that longing to escape."
But Dunbar had found the cleft. They were now right above the sea. Although there was so slight a wind, the waves were breaking noisily on the shore. The stars had gone again, but the edge of the cliff was clear, and far below it a thin line of ragged white leapt to the eye, vanished, and leapt again.
"Here's the path down," said Dunbar. "There isn't much light, but enough, I fancy. We'll both go down so that we can be sure of our way when we come back with Hesther, and we may be both needed to help her. The path's all right, though. It's slippery after wet weather, but there's been no rain for days. Can you make it out clearly enough?"
"Yes," Harkness said, but he felt anything but happy. Of all the things that he had done that evening this was the one that he liked least. He had a very poor head for heights, growing dizzy under any provocation; the angry snarl of the sea bewildered him, and little breaths of vapour curled about him changing from moment to moment the form and shape of the scene. He would have liked to suggest to Dunbar that there was no need for him to go down this first time, but, coward though he might be, he had come down to Treliss to beat that cowardice.
Certainly the adventures of that night were giving him every opportunity. He went to the edge and looked over. The sea banged up to him, and the grey curved shadow of the Cove seemed to be miles below him. The little path ran on the edge of the cliff between two precipitous slopes, and its downward curve was sharp.
He pulled himself together, thinking of Hesther waiting there by the cottage alone. Dunbar had already started; he followed.
When he had gone a little way his knees began to wobble, his legs taking on a strange life of their own. His imagination had all his days been dangerous for him in any crisis, because he always saw more than was truly there: now the sea breeze blew on either side of him, the path was so narrow that there was not room to plant his two feet at the same time, the dim shadow light confused his eyes and the roar of the sea leapt at him like a wild animal.
However he pressed forward, looking neither to right nor to left, and, with what thankfulness, he felt the wet sand yield beneath him and saw the boat drawn up under an overhanging rock only a few feet away from him!
"There it is," said Dunbar, eyeing the boat with intense satisfaction. "Now I think we're all right. I don't see what's going to stop us. We'll be across there in half an hour and then have a good hour before the train." He held out his hand.
"Harkness, I simply can't tell you what I think of your doing all this for us. Coming down here just to have a holiday, and then taking all these risks for people you'd never seen before. It's fine of you and I'll never forget it."
"It's nothing at all," said Harkness, blushing, as he always did when himself was at all in discussion. "As a matter of fact, I've had what has been, I suppose, the most interesting evening of my life, and I daresay it isn't all over yet."
"There's not much fear of their catching us now," said Dunbar; "but you've been in more real actual danger than you imagine. As I said just now, anything might have happened to us if he had caught us. You don't know how remote that house is. He could do what he pleased without any one being the wiser, and be off in the morning leaving our corpses behind him. The only servants in that house are those two Japs."
"There's Jabez," said Harkness.
"Jabez is outside and is only temporary. He wouldn't have stayed after to-morrow anyway. He hates the man. Fine fellow, Jabez. I don't know how I would have managed this affair without him. He fell in love with Hesther. He'd do anything for her. And then like the rest of the neighbourhood he detested the Japanese.
"They are funny conservative people these Cornishmen. Whatever they may pretend, they've no use for foreigners and especially foreigners like Crispin."
They stood a moment listening to the sea.
"The tide's going out," said Dunbar. "I was a little anxious lest I'd pulled the boat up high enough this afternoon, and then, of course, some one might have come along and taken a fancy to it. However, I was pretty safe. No one ever comes down into this cove. But we've taken a lot of chances to-night and everything's come off. The Lord's on our side—as He well may be considering the kind of characters the Crispins have."
He looked at Harkness. "Hullo, you're shivering. Are you cold?"
"No," said Harkness, "I suddenly got the creeps. Some one walking over my grave, I suppose. I feel as though Crispin had followed us and was listening to every word we were saying. I could swear I could see his horrid red head poking over that rock now. However, to tell you the exact truth, Dunbar, I didn't care overmuch for coming down that bit of rock just now. I'm not much at heights."
"What! that path!" cried Dunbar. "That's nothing. However, there's no need for both of us to go back. You can stay by the boat."
But a sudden determination flamed up in Harkness that it should be he, and none other, that should fetch Hesther Crispin.
"No, I'll go. There's no need for you to come though. We'll be back here in ten minutes. I'll see that she gets down all right."
"Very well," said Dunbar. "But look after her. She's not so good a climber as she thinks she is."
So Harkness started off. He waved his hand to Dunbar who was now busied with the boat, and began his climb. He stumbled over the wet rocks, nearly fell once or twice, and then came to the little path. His thought now was all of Hesther. He played with his imagination, picturing to himself that he was going right out of the world to some unknown heights where she awaited him, having chosen him out of all the world, and there they would live together, alone, happy always in one another's company. . . .
What a fool he was when she was married, and, even if she freed herself from that horrid encumbrance, had that boy down there in the Cove waiting for her. But he could not help his own state. It did no harm. He told no one. It was so new for him, this rich thrilling tingle of emotion at the thought of some other human being, something so different from his love for his sisters and his admiration for his friends. And to-night from first to last there had been all the time this same tingling of experience. From his first getting into the train until now he had seemed to be in direct contact with life, contact with all the wrappers off, with nothing in between him and it!
That he must never lose again. After this night he must never slip back to that old half-life with its dilettante pleasures, its mild disappointments, its vague sense of exile. He could not have Hesther for himself, but, at least, he could live the full life that she and her country had shown to him.
"Ours is a great wild country. . . ." Never back to the level plains again!
Full of these fine brave exulting thoughts he had climbed a very considerable way when—suddenly the path was gone. There was no path, no rocks, no hillside, no Cove, no sea, no stars—nothing. He was standing on air. The fog in one second had crept upon him. Not the thin glassy mist of twenty minutes ago but a thick, dense, blinding fog that hemmed in like walls of wadding on every side. In the sudden panic his legs gave way and he fell on to his knees and hands, clutching both sides of the narrow path, staring desperately before him. He heard the Liddon bell, as it seemed, quite close to his side, ringing down upon him.