IX
It was absolutely the town of his vision. He saw, with a strange tightening of his heart as though he were being warned of something, that was so. There was the curving bay with the faint fringe of white pencilling the yellow sand, there the houses rising tier on tier above the beach, there the fringe of dusky wood.
What did it mean? Why had he a clutch of terror as though some one was whispering to him that he must turn tail and run? Nothing could be more lovely than that town basking in the mellow afternoon light, and yet he was afraid at the sight of it—afraid so that his content and happiness of a moment ago were all gone and of a sudden he longed for company.
He was so well accustomed to his own reactions and so deeply despised them that he shrugged his shoulders and walked forward. Never, it seemed, was it possible for him to enjoy anything for more than a moment. Trouble and regret always came. But this was not regret, it was rather a kind of forewarning. He did not know that he had ever before looked on a place for the first time with so odd a mingling of conviction that he had already seen it, of admiration for its beauty, and of some sort of alarmed dismay. Beautiful it was, more Italian than English, with its white walls, its purple sea and warm scented air.
So peaceful and of so happy a tranquillity. He tried to drive his fear from him, but it hung on so that he was often turning back and looking behind him over his shoulder.
He struck the road again. It curved now, white and broad, down the hill toward the town. At the very peak of the hill before the descent began a man was standing watching something.
Harkness walked forward, then also stood still. The man was so deeply absorbed that his absorption held you. He was standing at the edge of the road and Harkness must pass him. At the crunch of Harkness's step on the gravel of the road the man turned and looked at him with startled surprise. Harkness had come across the soft turf of the Down, and his sudden step must have been an alarm. The fellow was broad-shouldered, medium height, clean-shaven, tanned, young, under thirty at least, dressed in a suit of dark blue. He had something of a naval air.
Harkness was passing, when the man said:
"Have you the right time on you, sir?" His voice was fresh, pleasant, well-educated.
Harkness looked at his watch. "Quarter past five," he said. He was moving forward when the man, hesitating, spoke again:
"You don't see any one coming up the road?"
Harkness stared down the white, sun-bleached expanse.
"No," he said after a moment, "I don't."
They looked for a while standing side by side silently.
After all he wasn't more than a boy—not a day more than twenty-five—but with that grave reserved look that so many British boys who were old enough to have been in the war had.
"Sure you don't see anybody?" he asked again, "coming up that farther bend?"
"No," said Harkness, shading his eyes with his hand against the sun; "can't say as I do."
"Damn nuisance," the boy said. "He's half an hour late now."
The boy stood as though to attention, his figure set, his hands at his side.
"Ah, there's some one," said Harkness. But it was only an old man with his cart. He slowly pressed up the hill past them urging his horses with a thick guttural cry, an old man brown as a berry.
"I beg your pardon," the boy turned to Harkness. "You'll think it an awful impertinence—but—are you in a terrible hurry?"
"No," said Harkness, "not terrible. I want to be at the 'Man-at-Arms' by dinner time. That's all."
"Oh, you've got lots of time," the boy said eagerly. "Look here. This is desperately important for me. The man ought to have been here half an hour ago. If he doesn't come in another twenty minutes I don't know what I shall do. It's just occurred to me. There's another way up this hill—a short cut. He may have chosen that. He may not have understood where it was that I wanted him to meet me. Would you mind—would you do me the favour of just standing here while I go over the hill there to see whether he's waiting on the other side? I won't be away more than five minutes; I'd be so awfully grateful."
"Why, of course," said Harkness.
"He's a fisherman with a black beard. You can't mistake him. And if he comes if you'd just ask him to wait for a moment until I'm back."
"Certainly," said Harkness.
"Thanks most awfully. Very decent of you, sir."
The boy touched his cap, climbed the hill and vanished.
Harkness was alone again—not a sound anywhere. The town shimmered below him in the heat. He waited, absorbed by the picture spread in front of him, then apprehensive again and conscious that he was alone. The alarm that he had originally felt at sight of the town had not left him. Suppose the boy did not return? Was he playing some joke on him perhaps? No, whatever else it was, it was not that. The boy had been deeply serious, plunged into some crisis that was of tremendous importance to him.
Harkness decided that he would wait until the shadow of a solitary tree to his right reached him and then go. The shadow crept slowly to his feet. At the same moment a figure turned the bend, a man with a black beard. He was walking quickly up the hill as though he knew that he was late.
Harkness went forward to meet him. The man stopped as though surprised. "I beg your pardon," said Harkness; "were you expecting to meet some one here?"
"I was—yes," said the man.
"He will be back in a moment. He was afraid that you might come up the other way. He went over the hill to see."
"Aye," said the man, standing, his legs apart, quite unconcerned. He was a handsome fellow, broad-shouldered, wearing dark blue trousers and a knitted jersey. "You'll be a friend of Mr. Dunbar's maybe?"
"No, I'm not," Harkness explained. "I was passing and he asked me to wait for a moment and catch you if you came while he was away."
"Aye," said the fisherman, taking out a large wedge of tobacco and filling his pipe, "I'm a bit later than I said I'd be. Wife kept me."
"Fine evening," said Harkness.
"Aye," said the man.
At that moment the boy came over the hill and joined them. "Very good of you, sir," he said. "You're late, Jabez!"
"Good night," said Harkness, and moved down the hill. He could see the two in urgent conversation as he moved forward. The incident occupied his mind. Why had the matter seemed of such importance to the boy? Why a meeting so elaborately appointed out there on the hillside? The fisherman too had seemed surprised that he, a stranger, should be concerned in the matter.
Had he been in America the affair would have been at once explained—boot-legging of course. But here in England. . . .